664 



The Review of Reviews. 

 SKETCHES OF CROWNED HEADS. 



KING NICHOLAS AS A POET. 



The first November number of La Revue con- 

 tains articles on two Sovereign Poets — the 

 Emperor Mutsuhito of Japan and King Nicholas 

 of Montenegro. In our October number we 

 have already spoken of the poetry of the late 

 Japanese Emperor, but an account of King 

 Nicholas as a poet is of special interest now. 



A GREAT LITTLE STATE. 



On one of two previous occasions literal trans- 

 lations into French of some of King Nicholas's 

 poems have appeared in the French reviews, but 

 m the present article the writer, M. A. de 

 Laume, gives us some metrical versions which 

 he once made at the request of the King. Ac- 

 companied by the warlike accents of a Monte- 

 negrin song, the King has seen his ardent 

 soldiers, full of hatred towards the enemy, set 

 out to destroy " the great power of the Mussul- 

 mans." The song dies away "in the distance, 

 but presently the sound of guns proclaiming 

 battle resounds in tragic echoes in the ears of the 

 soldier-King, and he murmurs : " How I should 

 like to die in battle after having vanquished the 

 Mussulmans ! " To appreciate the conduct of 

 the Montenegrins, it is necessary to understand 

 the irreconcilable antagonism of race which 

 separates them from the Turks— hatred of race, 

 hatred of religion, hatred implacable, secular,' 

 hereditary, which smoulders in the hearts of 

 these intrepid and invincible warriors and breaks 

 out suddenly like a volcanic force. Montenegro 

 is, indeed, a great small nation. 



King Nicholas, accustomed to command his 

 own army, must be cursing his old age which 

 condemns him to a less active r6le. Neverthe- 

 less, he has enjoyed a reign of fifty-two years, 

 and has rendered most important services to the 

 State. Before his accession Montenegro had a 

 very rudimentary form of Government, which 

 Prince Danilo had begun to reform. King 

 Nicholas has now completed that reform bv 

 creating ministries, schools, and tribunals; he 

 has reorganised the army, and more recentiv he 

 has endowed the country with a Constitution^. 



THE POEMS OF THE KING. 



But, in addition to being King, a soldier, and 

 a reorganiser of his country, he is a poet of 

 great merit. He has enriched the Servian lan- 

 guage, with a number of works of high poetic 

 inspiration, and the majority of them have been 

 translated into German, Slav, and Scandinavian 

 languages. His best dramatic work is " The 

 Queen of the Balkans," and " Prince Arvanit " 

 is highly thought of. 



The poem, " The Death of Prince Danilo," 

 commemorates the tragic event which called 



Nicholas to the throne in i860. Another, " To 

 My Country," was written in Paris on the occa- 

 sion of a visit to the French capital. A 

 third, entitled " To the Sea," was inspired by 

 the acquisition of the ports of Dulcigno and 

 Antivari after the war of 1877-8. After the 

 cession of Antivari a number of Mussulmans 

 quitted the country so as not to fall under 

 Montenegrin rule. But Selim Bey, one who 

 swore submission, was greatly offended by a 

 Montenegrin notable, who refused to pardon his 

 cruelties to the Christians. Nicholas, desiring 

 to reconcile his two subjects; invited them both 

 to dinner, and in a pleasant and friendly way 

 offered to read them a poem which he had just 

 written. It was none other than " To the 

 Turk," a poem in which he exalts the noble and 

 brave character of the Turk, and asks that his 

 past offences shall be forgotten. " Although 

 you are my enemy, I do not wish to under- 

 estimate you; we must keep for each other the 

 esteem due to valiant hearts." 



KING NICHOLAS OF MONTENEGRO. 



