THE northern and eastern part of Europe was formerly inhabited by more than one hundred tribes and nations, all of whom were known by the general appellation of Slawianie, and sometimes Slowianie. Both these terms seem to have an equally plausible etymology. Slawianie is derived from their word Slawa, (fame or glory,) which these nations and tribes, often victorious over other people, did not hesitate to bestow on themselves. Slowianie again, might be derived from Slowo, (word) — and these would signify a people that has words, that is, an intelligible speech. The other nations which did not speak their language, did not, in their estimation, have any language at all. On the ground of such absurd notions of ancient times, their nearest neighbors, the Germans, were called Niemcy, which in their vernacular tongue signifies a people that is dumb, or has no speech. The traces of patriarchal government prevailed among those nations longer than in other parts of Europe. The feudal system which in other countries changed men into serfs, but very late introduced servitude among them. The Germans were the first propagators of this humiliating system. Having subdued several small tribes, they changed them into serfs; distorted the name of Slawianie or Slowianie into Slaven or Sclaven, which means in their language slaves; and thus avenged themselves for being called Niemcy, the dumb people. The descendants of the aforesaid people are known to the world at the present day by the general appellation of the Slavonian race, which appellation seems to derive its origin from the Slavonian word slawa, (fame or glory) -the hostile translation of it by the ignorant scribblers of the Slavonian language and its etymology notwithstanding. The language of the Slavonians, which at this day is spoken by more than eighty-five millions of people in Europe, seems to have been originally one and the same throughout Slavonia; at least, more so than it is now. The more ancient the documents are, the more obvious is the similarity of its origin. Although ages have scattered the Slavonians in different directions and over various climates, and introduced changes into their common language, sometimes with an intermixture of words of a foreign stock; still with a little attention, a native can acquire and understand them all, without difficulty. The leading Slavonian dialects are: the Polish, the Russian, the Bohemian and the Moravian. The dawn of the Slavonian literature commences, like that of other nations, with poetical compositions. The aboriginal or traditional poetry is common to all the Slavonians; and its character and genius may be expressed in these few lines: 'Irs smiles appear More mournful far than many a tear; Whose happiest tones still breathe of wo; As in the ancient Scottish airs, Even joy the sound of sorrow wears.' The bards, whom the Slavonians called piewcy, or singers, were very numerous among them. They are recorded to have received from the gods the gift of song, and to have been beloved by them. They were therefore held in great esteem, and their persons sacred and inviolable. They performed religious rites, were mediators among their princes, and judges and instructors among the people. They do not seem to have lived in fixed abodes, but went from tribe to tribe to perform their avocations. They carried along with them a sort of musical harp, which they called gusla. Its sonorous strain rang in the villages and hamlets scattered over the extensive plains of Slavonia, and often reëchoed among the Carpathian mountains, and along the banks of the Vistula. If the authority of Toland's history of the Druids is to be trusted, the Celtic bards borrowed their harps from their Scythian fellow-minstrels ; and according to the historical researches, the Scythians may be identified with the Slavonians. Other duties of these bards were to celebrate their princes and the heroes of their country. They were therefore their companions in their journeys and warlike expeditions, and occupied honorable places at their tables. Often they were employed in embassies to foreign countries: they were then spoken of by foreign writers as coming upon such errands from a peaceful people, who disliked hostilities, and were peculiarly fond of music and poetry. Their skill and amenity in song often gained them a hospitable reception in the train of foreign princes. Atila, the barbarous king of the Huns, and the scourge of the world, after a battle in which he was victorious over the Slavonians, ordered two bards into his presence. They sang to him in the Slavonian tongue the praises of their heroes and feats of war. On hearing their enchanting strains, all the chiefs melted into tears; nor indeed did the iron heart of Atila remain unmoved. With a gloomy sadness in his look, he is said to have taken his son on his knee, and passed his callous hand over the tender cheeks of the infant. Time, which is so continually changing the face of things, at length effected a change in the Slavonian poetry. The abolition of the democratical governments, which once prevailed over all the Slavonian countries; the troubles among their petty princes, and the increase of their autocratic power, combined with other circumstances influencing the state of society, acted injuriously on poetry; for, having reduced man and all his interests to a fluctuating condition, and subjected him to the capricious disposal of arbitrary power, they also oppressed the mind, the sentiments, and the imagination; and thus, as in all other countries, the same causes introducing dread and servility into human existence, spread universal darkness and mental incapacity. An interruption, or rather a dreary blank of mental exertion ensued, which predominated for many centuries in the literary annals of that extensive nation. The zeal of the primitive Christian preachers contributed also to produce the same effect. Apostolic eagerness in those times could tolerate no song, no poetry except a liturgy; the native and free effusions of the human heart were checked and silenced as impure and degrading to the lips of a Christian. Nevertheless, Joy often broke asunder the fetters of Fear, and emboldened the neophytes to give freedom to their thoughts; and then human life again became an ecstacy of poetry and song. Hence in those Slavonian countries where political and spiritual powers were least oppressive, the holy rites of ancient times may even now be seen, and the heathen song, either pure and free, or interspersed with Christian ideas, rings amid the peasantry, thrilling their bosoms with mysterious power. These last phenomena chiefly appear on certain occasions, which in the former existence of the nation it hallowed for its festivals. Thus, in the night, at the Summer solstice, you can see in all the Slavonian countries large fires burning in the fields or on the banks of the rivers: these bonfires are kindled with what is called a pure or holy fire, elicited by rubbing pieces of dry woods. The youth dance around, and leap over its blazing flames, and the village maidens kindle at it wax tapers, which, entwined with floating wreaths of wild flowers, they send down the currents of the streams. From the rapidity or slowness of their progress they predict for themselves the speedier or later fulfilment of their hopes. On such occasions they are in the habit of singing old songs, some of them so antiquated that their meaning has been lost in the lapse of ages; but the very mysteriousness of the words heightens the hopes which they reveal in their anxious bosoms. This custom seems to point to the worship of the sun, common to the Eastern nations, which the ancient Slavonians transmitted to their posterity. A similar custom prevailed also among the Celts. In some Druidical festivals these fires were kindled on the heights: they were esteemed holy fires, and the people used to drive their cattle through their smoke, in order to prevent the effects of ill-luck or witchcraft. Just before the sunset of a fine autumn day, you will often meet a crowd of both sexes, old and young, going to the dwelling of the landlord, (called the white hall,) singing a solemn song of rural music. They are reapers, and celebrate with joy the festival of harvest-home. At the head of the crowd are two maidens, the reigning beauties of the village; each of them crowned with a wreath the one of wheat, the other of rye; both interwoven with a great variety of flowers. In front of the white hall they offer to their landlord and landlady these symbols of the wealth of the fruitful soil, and pronounce a blessing appropriate to the occasion. To this succeed the recitations of stanzas of poetry composed by the peasants themselves, and then a national round dance. The landlord leads the dance with one of the rustic Floras; the guests and the peasants follow him; and thus in mirth and jollity, true to their rural chieftain, heart and hand,' they drink, sing, and dance away the whole night; the starry blue heavens over their heads, the green turf under their feet: 6 A crowd that might, Transferred to canvass, give the world delight.' Sometimes at midnight you may espy the village maidens stealing to the hallowed fountains. There you will perchance hear the plaintive music of ancient song, -like the sweet South That breathes upon a bank of violets,' chanted in a low, whispering, tremulous voice; but yet too loud not to be heard through the elastic air of dewy night. You will hear the fair musicians holding converse with the murmuring waters, sighing to them the secrets of their hearts, asking their counsel; and then returning home, consoled with the thought that thus they have removed the dark veil of futurity. One of these old customs predominates over all others among the Slavonian peasantry. The wedded party go to church and return from it, accompanied with music and song: the songs used on this occasion bear an undeniable stamp of remote antiquity; apostrophizing often the moon and stars, with frequent repetition of Lada, the ancient Slavonian goddess of love. The bride wears on her head a wreath of evergreen, and in songs is praised as a queen. Banners floating in the breeze are carried before her, and amidst shouts of joy, she proceeds with her bride-groom to the White Hall to receive from the landlord the patriarchal blessings and wedding presents. Such solemnities, being always accompanied with a variety of suitable songs, furnish conclusive evidence that there is much traditional poetry circulating among the Slavonian peasantry. This poetry is generally either amorous or heroic; its subjects being love and glory; but the Love and Glory of times that are no more, and over whose graves a mourning spirit strikes his magic string; sometimes bold, sometimes gentle, but generally in a slow and melancholy strain. This joy of grief' is common to all nations, whose deeds as well as existence are of yore;' whose glory is a pleasing dream of the past, and whose active life we only see upon the dead pages of history. The richest and finest collections of this kind of poetry have as yet been made among the Slavonian tribes under the Turkish government. Their easy life in a mild and temperate climate disposes them for poetical pastimes, more than their northern brethren, whose habitations, the nearer they approach to the frozen regions, may be said to be more closely wrapt in silence. Some of the pieces coming from this source are of exquisite beauty, and were valued and thought worthy of being translated by such accomplished men as HERDER and GOETHE. The wife of Assan' may undoubtedly be considered as one of the finest specimens of elegiac traditional poetry. It has been translated into almost all the European languages: 'Libusa' or the Princess' Table,' a Bohemian tale, is another piece well-known to the readers of the Northern Antiquarian.' Lord BYRON also, in making our Mazeppa the hero of one of his poems, has not in the least cramped his imagination. wildness has rather been gratified, by ranging over the boundless plains of Ukrania. Its Touching on the borders of wilder and loftier poetry, chanted in simple and artless songs, we distinguish it rather by the name of popular than traditional; because it has its birth and is fostered in the bosoms of one particular people, and flows more from the human heart than from historical events, which last are the only element of a traditional poetry. The standard for estimating the popularity of any poetry, is however very uncertain; and it may even be affirmed, by surveying all the poetry upon record, that few of those who undertook the difficult task of becoming popular, have been successful; and in general, nations can boast of more national than popular poetry. The cause of it is to be found in the subject matter of the two. Popular poetry deals exclusively with the universal feelings of a particular people. National poetry is not so strictly confined to what is peculiar to one single people; but may at pleasure enlarge its range, and admit subjects of foreign origin, by fashioning them to the ready apprehension of the reading public. It only requires a happy choice. MILTON's 'Paradise Lost,' BUTLER'S 'Hudibras,' WORDSWORTH'S 'Excursion,' in each of which productions a great variety of extraneous knowledge is introduced, are not on that account less excellent monuments of English national poetry. Agreeably to this general principle, the most popular of all Scottish poets is undoubtedly BURNS, and the most national, Sir WALTER SCOTT. Lord BYRON, embodying in his poems the most extraneous elements, may with reason be called a universal poet, who having little that is English, except the language, belongs to all countries and nations; and in consequence of this quality of his works, he is more read and more relished on the continent of Europe than any other modern poet. In directing the reader's attention toward Poland, a nation of the Slavonian race, we find an immense number of original authors in the class of national poets, as KRASICKI, KARPINSKI, WEZYK, WORONICZ, NIEMCEWICZ, etc.; but those of the popular class, such as BURNS and RAMSAY in Scotland, and BLOOMFIELD and CRABBE in England, are comparatively few: the whole amount of the popular Polish poetry might, indeed, be comprised in a few lyrical pieces of |