German is, indeed, employed, where Latin may have grown into disrepute; but the Bohemian is a dialect of which the use seems restricted to the very lowest and most despised of the peasantry. It would be idle to conceal that the extreme vigilance of the government in these respects, and, still more, its bigoted hostility to everything which might recall the recollection of Bohemian independence, has given great umbrage to the thinking portion of the people. I have conversed with persons in every rank, and I found none who spoke of it except in bitterness. But it is not by these means alone that the house of Austria endeavours to shield its Bohemian subjects from the infection of liberalized opinions. I had intrusted to me, before leaving London, an English book, which I was to forward or deliver to a gentleman of rank in the country. He would not send for it by the hands of a common messenger. He came in person many miles to receive it, "Because," said he, "one does not know what may happen, and it is best to avoid collision with the police." The book was a very harmless one,--it was only the first volume of Lockhart's _Life of Sir Walter Scott_; but my friend did not consider that it would be prudent to make a parade of its reception. Again, I visited a gentleman in Prague, and found upon his table a number of the _Foreign Quarterly Review_. There was an article in it which bore upon the existing condition of Bohemia,--an able paper, on the whole, though here and there inaccurate. I conversed with him about it; and, having an hour to spare, I accepted his offer to carry it to my hotel, and there read it. "When you send it back," said he, "be so good as wrap it carefully up in paper. We don't know where we are safe, in this country; and your _Foreign Quarterly_ is not one of the favoured publications which we are licensed to import." What a pitiable state of existence is this,--what a perfect bondage of _mind_, for which the utmost security to person and property can never make amends. CHAPTER XI. THE JEWS' TOWN. VISITS TO VARIOUS POINTS WORTH NOTICING. STATE OF PUBLIC FEELING.