Ethnographical Memoir on the Nations of Slavonian Race. 1 1 



Yet althongli this absence of art — this purely natural simplicity, are 

 alone the sources of a thousand beauties, and still more ensure the pre- 

 vention of the ten thousand vires which result from pedantic affectation, 

 it may yet be justly said, on the other hand, that poetry being itself essen- 

 tially an art, must, at the same time that it is preserved from these faults, 

 be likewise deprived of some beauties by the infancy of art ; and we must 

 own that there will be a want of a just selection of the more prominent and 

 interesting features of the subject ; and that in descriptive poetry, more 

 especially, we should look in vain for pictures like those of Virgil, where 

 every word tells: — such as, 



" Turn silvis scena coriiscis 

 Desuper, horrentique atrum nemus imminet umbra." 



Or that inimitable description of the dove's flight — 



" Fertur in arva volans, plausumquc esterrita pennis 

 Dat tecto ingentem ; mox aere lapsa quieto 

 Radit iter liquidum, celeres neqiie commovet alas." 



On the whole, I feel I cannot more justly conclude this imperfect attempt 

 to draw a fair estimate of the merits of this early poetry, than by borrow- 

 ing the words with which Johnson states his impressions with regard to 

 an author, as we have already said, in many respects very similar, Shakes- 

 peare, in that most admirable piece of criticism extant in our language, his 

 preface to his edition of that great dramatist : — "Yet it must be at last 

 confessed, that as we owe every thing to them, they owe something to us ; 

 that if much of their praise is paid by perception and judgment, much is 

 likewise given by custom and veneration." 



ETHNOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 



ON 



THE NATIONS OF SLAVONIAN RACE.— Palt I. 



'J'he Slavonian race, which has furnished a very considerable part of 

 the population of Europe, including the Russians, Poles, Bohemians, and 

 many tribes extensively spread in the countries to the soutluvard of the 

 Baltic from the Gulph of Dantzig to Holstcin, as well as tiie Servians and 

 other Slavonian people between Hungary and Turkey, was less known to 

 the ancients than either tlie Celtic or Teutonic race. The early abodes of 

 the Slavi were far removed from the Roman empire : and owing to this 

 circumstance Christianity and literature were long in penetrating to them. 

 As the Slavonians advanced towards the west and south, occupying the 

 countries which had been abandoned by tlic Goths and other German tribes, 

 and gradually approaching the icgion of mental culture, they became known 

 to civilized nations. The art of writing was unpractised by the ancient Slavi : 

 it was first communicated to most of them by Christian missionaries, at a 



