HANK.&, WENCESLAUS or WAELIW (1791-1861), a Bahamian philologist, was born at Horeniowes, a hamlet of eastern Bohemia, on June 10, 1791. He attended the village school in winter only, being occupied during the summar on his father's farm. While still young he acquired a knowledge of Polish and Servian from some soldiers billeted in the neighbourhood, and in 1807 he was sent to school at Kiiniggratz, to escape the conscription. Proceeding then to Prague, he engaged in the study of philosophy, and founded a society for the cultivation of the Czech language. At Vienna, where he afterwards studied law, he established a Czech periodical ; and in 1813 he male the acquaintance of Dobrowsky, the emi. neat philologist. On September 16, 1817, Hanka made the discovery of some ancient Bohemian manuscript poems of the 13th and 14th century in the church-tower of the vill age of Kralodwor, or Koniginhof. These were published in 1818, under the title Eralodwors•y Rukopis, with a German translation by Swoboda. Great doubt, however, was felt as to their genuineness ; and Dobrowsky, by pronouncing The Judgment of Libussa, another manuscript found by Hanka, an " obvious fraud," confirmed the suspicion. But some years afterwards Dobrowsky saw fit to modify his decision; and in 1840, after a careful examination of the manuscripts by two eminent antiquaries, Hanka was ultimately vindicated. A translation into English, The Manuscript of the Queen's Court, was made by Wratislaw in 1852. The originals were presented by the discoverer to the Bohemian Museum at Prague, of which he was appointed librarian in 1818. In 1848 Hanka took part in the Slavonic congress and other peaceful national demonstrations, being the founder of the political society Slovanska Lips. He was elected to the imperial diet at Vienna, hut declined to take his seat. In the winter of 1848 he became lecturer and in 1849 professor of Slavonic languages in the university .of Prague, where he died, January 12, 1861.

His chief works and editions are the following: - /lankowy Pjsne, (1818), a volume of poems; Starobyla Skladaaie (1817-1823), in I vole,, - a collection of old Bohemian poems, chiefly from unpublislred manuscripts ; A Short History of the Slavowie Peoples (1818); A Bollemiau Grammar (1822) and A Polish. Grammar (1839), - tMse grammars were composed on a plan suggested by Dobrowsky; Igor (1821), an ancient Russian epic, with a translation into Baemian; a part of the Gospels from the Rheims manuscript in the Clagolitie character (1846) ; the old Bohemian Chronicles of halimil (1848) and Proeop Lnpac (1848); Evangelium Odromis (1853).