Costly as was the bride of Richard II of England, I like to linger on her memory, feeling convinced that we all have benefited by the outlay. It is my firm opinion that we owe our grand old Christmas carol about "Good King Wenceslaus" to Anne of Bohemia directly. I have consulted various living Bohemian authorities on this subject. They had not even heard of our carol: I hummed the tune to them--it told them nothing. They tried to palm me off with St. Wenceslaus, but I declined him; he is not quite suitable as "theme" of a rollicking carol; besides, he gets plenty of attention in his own country. I grant that St. Wenceslaus was full of good works, all of the kind that looks well in frescoes, and in which everybody moves with feet in the first position, it was _de rigueur_. King Wenceslaus IV, also performed acts of kindness among his people, so the reference in the carol to "flesh and wine" suits this merry monarch thoroughly: he would certainly have called for both these forms of sustenance. St. Wenceslaus might have forgotten the wine; King Wenceslaus would have thought of that at once; in fact, he was a firm believer in the French adage, "_l'alcool conserve_." Then we learn from the carol that the page found warmth in the footsteps of the King, and Wenceslaus was certainly "hot stuff," as you will agree when I have told you more about him. Moreover, what is more likely than that Anne should have told her new English friends all about that jolly, popular brother of hers? The tune and its quaint harmonization is surely from some time in the joyous fifteenth century; if it had to deal with St. Wenceslaus it would have to grunt about in Gregorian phrasing. No doubt Anne's ladies who accompanied her from Bohemia would invoke the patron saint from time to time, and English people, hearing a strange and difficult name, and thinking it impossible that several well-known men had borne it, would be likely enough to get saintly prince and jovial monarch thoroughly mixed up. Anyway, I am firmly convinced that the "Good King Wenceslaus" we sing about at Christmas is no other than the brother of Anne, German King, King of Bohemia, fourth of that name, and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Meanwhile the River Vltava continued to reflect indifferently the doings of small and great, and among others those of Wenceslaus. The laudable habit of bathing met with every encouragement from "Good King Wenceslaus," who was generally to be found ready to take part in any popular diversion. It was he who raised those humble but useful citizens, the keepers of bathing establishments, to prominent rank among their fellows. And hereby hangs a tale.