J827.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



539 



Servian Popular Poetry, ly John Bow- 

 ring ; 1827. This poetry of the people of 

 Servia, traditional for many centuries, has 

 only been embodied in print within a few 

 years. The Quarterly Review gave some 

 account of them recently, with a few tran- 

 slations, evidently heightened by a little of 

 the translator's ornaments. Mr. Bowring's 

 versions are of a simpler kind, and, in the 

 same proportion, of a more valuable cha- 

 racter. If we have them at all, let us have 

 them as they really are. They will scarcely 

 be welcomed as additions to the stock of 

 enchanting or soul-stirring poetry they are 

 calculated neither to strike very forcibly by 

 novelty, nor delight by taste, nor gratify by 

 cultivation ; but they are of infinite value, 

 as giving us another glance of the operation 

 of natural sentiments in remoter times and 

 uncouth manners. 



Mr. Bowring's indefatigable exertions on 

 this and other occasions, in the same line, 

 have fully established the truth one of some 

 interest, and of no mean importance, in a 

 moral and literary view that poetry mounts 

 up to perfection, not by the slow and gra- 

 dual steps, which mark the sister arts ; but 

 that from the earliest songs of every country 

 may be gathered morceaux, quite capable of 

 charming those who breathe in the most 

 cultivated ages. 



Sentiment requires no technical education 

 to foster it ; and the rudest modes of life call 

 it up in every man's bosom, as far as nature 

 has accorded the original capacity. Certain 

 positions, whether relative to ourselves and 

 others, or to outward events, are subjects of 

 deep interest to us, be we actors, or specta- 

 tors only. These positions or rather the 

 interest they excite are rooted in nature ; 

 and it is past the skill of man to augment or 

 vary them. These positions then, these mo- 

 ral attitudes of men, form the poet's stock ; 

 and his materials, in many respects, were as 

 ample in the beginning of the world as they 

 are now. The machinery of poetry, indeed 

 the times, and occasions, and the circum- 

 stances that shall produce or accompany 

 them, must vary with the variations of cus- 

 toms and conventions, and advance perhaps 

 with the advance of cultivation, but will 

 not differ in the degree, in which other arts do 

 at different times ; and for this reason, because 

 poetry will only please by selecting the 

 simplest aspects of things and because it 

 must hover perpetually about those emotions 

 which have most hold of the human heart. 

 The poet is chained down strictly to nature 

 in his pursuit of situations, that shall enable 

 him to sound his loftiest strains ; and, con- 

 sequently, each succeeding bard finds more 

 difficulty than his predecessor did, and him- 

 self bequeaths still greater difficulty nar- 

 rower resources to his successor. 



The effects, however, of the instrument, 

 which the poet uses -language must not 

 be disregarded. Language improves in ca- 

 pacity by the progress of refinement; words 

 multiply ; aud the invisible and intangible 



soul of man, and the changing shades of 

 emotions come thus by degrees to be more 

 nicely discriminated. The modern poet, too, 

 enjoys the advantage of studying those who 

 have gone before him ; he has also the rules 

 of composition ready to his hands the fruits 

 of pains-taking observation not that we are 

 inclined to attach much importance to the 

 efficacy of rules. The eternal principle?, 

 upon which all rules are founded, ought to 

 be the discovery of genius for itself not of 

 an arbitrary law to be obeyed. 



Such being our notions, we are not sur- 

 prised at the deep pathos occasionally eli- 

 cited in these productions of unlettered 

 ages I- 

 How so much, says Mr. Bowring, of beautiful 

 anonymous poetry should have been created in so 

 perfect a form, is a subject well worthy of inquiry. 

 Among a people, who look to music and song as a 

 source of enjoyment, the habit of improvisation 

 grows up imperceptibly, and engages all the fer- 

 tilities of imagination in its exercise. The thought 

 which first finds vent in a poetical form, if worth 

 preservation, is polished and perfected as it passes 

 from lip to lip, till it receives the stamp of popular 

 approval, and becomes as it were a national pos- 

 session. There is no text-book, no authentic re- 

 cord, to which it can be referred, whose authority 

 should interfere with its improvement. The poetry 

 of a people is its common inheritance, which one 

 generation transfers, sanctioned and amended, to 

 another. Political adversity, too, strengthens the 

 attachment of a nation to the records of its an. 

 cient prosperous days. The harps may be hung 

 on the willows for a while, during the storm and 

 the struggle, but when the tumult is over, they 

 will be strung again to repeat the old songs, and 

 recall the time gone by. 



If this be indeed the process of traditionary 

 poetry, it ought to be invaluable. The gem 

 of thought, mixed up necessarily in its first 

 production with human alloy, is yet seen and 

 known to be a gem ; and however deeply 

 imbedded in grossness, its radiations blaze 

 through ; and its purification, too difficult 

 for one, the many instinctively accomplish. 



We must give the reader a little speci- 

 men ; and we will quote the Quarterly's 

 translation of it also, by which the merits of 

 Mr. Bowring's version may be distinctly 

 shewn, and the reader see at a glance that 

 he may be more safely trusted. 



AJKUNA'S MARRIAGE. 



Shefwas lovely nothing e'er was lovelier ; 

 She was tall and slender as the pine-tree ; 

 White her cheeks, but tinged with rosy blushes, 

 As if morning's beam, had shone upon them, 

 Till that beam had reached its high meridian ; 

 Jind her eyes, they were two precious jewels ; 

 And her eye-brows, leeches from the ocean ; 

 And her eye-lids, they were wings of swallows ; 

 Silken tufts the maiden's flaxen ringlets ; 

 And her sweet mouth was a sugar casket ; 

 And her teeth were pearls arrayed in order ; 

 White her bosom, like two snowy dovelets ; 

 And her voice was like the dovelet's cooing ; 

 And her smiles were like the glowing sunshine, &e. 

 3 Z 2 



