blows in the streets. Maximilian was heartily disgusted with the whole proceeding. He saw his hope of union among the Bohemian Protestants annihilated. He felt that he had injured his position with the Catholics by the concessions which he had already made; and he was further irritated that the Assembly should waste its time in these theological discussions, when he was wanting it to consider the acceptance of his son Rudolf as the future king of Bohemia, and to vote money for the Turkish war. He laid the chief blame of these failures upon the Brothers, who had resisted the new Confession, and on the towns, which had always made difficulties about the Turkish vote; and he sent down orders to the governors to suppress the meetings of the Brotherhood, and to forbid the towns to introduce any novelties. He even went so far as to order prosecutions of various Brothers for having attended meetings forbidden by the law; but, before these prosecutions could be carried out, this new policy was suddenly cut short by the death of Maximilian in 1576. Few kings had more thoroughly disappointed the expectations formed of them than Maximilian II. had done; but, in a different way, his son Rudolf was to disappoint the hopes of the Catholics as completely as his father had done those of the Protestants. Brought up in Spain, and believed to be a strict Catholic in convictions, shy and repellent in manner, he seemed exactly the man to revive the reactionary policy of his grandfather. But in Rudolf, as in the majority of men, temperament and taste had a greater influence over his actions than either religious or political convictions. The same feelings which made him so repellent in general intercourse, led him also to shrink from the burdens of public life; and his fondness for art and science led him in the earlier part of his reign to leave politics to men of more active character. The interest, therefore, of this part of Rudolf’s reign, so far as his own influence is concerned, centres rather in the revival of literature and art, than in political or religious controversy. This revival was of a varied character, for it included not only poetry and history, but every kind of art and science. Carving, statuary, and mosaic work were brought to great perfection: while the presence of Tycho Brahe at Court shows the interest which Rudolf always maintained in astronomical science. The preference of the new Emperor for Prague as a place of residence naturally attracted all this brilliant company to the Bohemian Court; and it seemed as if, in this respect, the age of Charles IV. were to return.