ctions against
his innovations, even as they were; but as they, at any rate, had to
go to Austria for a literary education, this opposition would probably
not have lasted longer than it will last now. There was some fear,
that, with the Roman alphabet, the Roman chair would try to get
possession of their church; but those were not the times of Rome's
power; and the Turkish patronage seemed to secure them against such
arrogance. One thing is certain. Instead of strengthening for ever the
artificial wall of separation between the two classes of
Illyrico-Servians, it would have undermined that which already
existed; and Vuk, by his strong philosophical-grammatical talent,
would soon have gained influence enough on the Illyrico-Dalmatian
literature to mend the imperfections of their orthography, and to
induce the Croats and Servians to give up their capricious varieties.
The many detached parts of the products of Illyrico-Servian intellect
would have grown into one great whole; and would have become at least
accessible to foreigners; who, puzzled by all these varieties of
letters and forms of writing, lose the courage to penetrate into a
structure where they meet so much confusion at the very door. Indeed,
whether they turn to the eastern or to the western branch of the
Southern Slavi, they find equal individual and provincial anarchy; a
state of things which the latter at least have taken great pains to
amend.

Vuk published at Vienna, in 1824, the Gospel of St. Luke, as a
'Specimen of a translation of the New Testament into Servian.' What
part he had in the version printed at Leipsic by the British and
Foreign Bible Society, and now circulated among the Servians, we are
unable to say.[15] Modern educated Servian poets, upon whose writings
the very general interest which the national popular poetry has
excited, and no doubt also their own consciousness of its power, have
had a favourable influence, are the following: Lucian Mushitzky,
bishop of Karlstadt, a writer in many departments, and the author of
odes and other lyrical pieces, all of them highly esteemed by his
countrymen; Milovan Vidakovitch, Mich. Vitkovitch, J. Popovitch, G.
Kovatzevitch, etc.

More generally known is Simeo Milutinovitch, the author of several
small volumes of poetry, and of a larger epic poem entitled
_Serbianka_, which describes the Servian war of 1812. In 1837 he
published an historical work on Servia during the years 1813-15. Both
these la