Professor Wenceslas Tomek (1818-1905), during his long life of study, enriched Bohemian literature with numerous and valuable historical works, and he held up to his death the rank of the most prominent historian of his country. In the last years of his life he published his memoirs, which are somewhat disappointing. The extreme caution which was innate in an Austrian subject of Tomek's generation, and perhaps also the staunchly conservative views which he held after youthful radicalism had left him, induced him to avoid, with perhaps exaggerated caution, all mention of matters that might give offence to the governing powers. Wenceslas Tomek was born at Králové Hradec (Königgrätz) in 1818. His father, as he tells us, was a shoemaker, who had some time previously established himself in that town. Though Tomek for a time studied law, he soon devoted himself entirely to historical work. Even in his younger and more liberal days he appears to have been a fervent adherent of the Church of Rome; but he tells us in his memoirs that he was severely reprimanded by the then formidable "censure"-office for having stated in one of his earliest writings that Socrates--a pagan!--had been an honest man. The greatest work of Tomek, his _Dějepis města Prahy_ ("History of the Town of Prague"), perhaps one of the greatest town-histories of the nineteenth century, which he only began late in life, remained unfinished. It is of priceless value because of the treasures of research that it contains, and is as valuable to those who frequently differ from Professor Tomek's views as to those who are always in sympathy with his opinions. A history of the University of Prague by Tomek also remained unfinished, and it may be considered as having been superseded by Dr. Winter's more recent works. Tomek is also the author of a biography of John Zǐžka, which--as indeed do all Tomek's works--gives evidence of deep and conscientious research. That the author is not in sympathy with the hero of his biography is a fact which, though it does not diminish the historical value of the book, undoubtedly detracts from its artistic worth. Zǐžka's biography remains unwritten, and the strange, totally uncritical, and fantastic _Jean Zǐžka_ of George Sand is perhaps none the less a truer portrait of the great Bohemian hero than Professor Tomek's book. The other works of Tomek on Austrian and Bohemian history are little more than school-books.