re is now almost exclusively limited to works
for religious instruction, catechisms, prayer-books, etc.

But although their language was thus relinquished in a practical point
of view, it remained nevertheless the object of investigation to some
of their profoundest scholars. Thus the Latin works of Prof.
Katancsich, are almost all of them devoted to Slavic philological
inquiries, etc, The translation of the Bible mentioned above, was made
by the same learned individual.[29]

SECTION II.

LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE CROATIANS.

Schaffarik in his history of the Slavic Language and Literature
enumerates, on Dobrovsky's authority, the Croatians or Croats as a
distinct branch of the great Eastern Slavic stem. Later researches
however have identified them, to a certain extent, with the other
Southern Slavi or Illyrico-Servians, with whose language theirs is
essentially the same. The recent political events, and their struggles
against the Hungarians, have made the Croats in our days again the
subject of some interest and curiosity, There is however such a
confusion in the early history of this race; such a change of names,
boundaries, and constitutions; such a contradiction between the
accounts of ancient writers and the experience of modern times; that
it would require a long historical exposition to give to the reader a
clear view of their relation to each other and to their Slavic
brethren. For such an exposition there is no room in these pages.[30]

The subject becomes far simpler if we consider the Croats only in
respect to their language, as it prevails among them at the present
time. Here they do _not_ appear as a distinct race; but still are
divided into two portions. One, in Military Croatia, comprising the
military districts of Carlstadt and Varasdin, and also the Banal
Border, speak the Dalmatian-Servian dialect with very trifling
variations; the other, in Provincial Croatia, i.e. the provincial
counties of Agram, Kreutz, and Varasdin, approach nearer to the
Slovenzi or Vindes, whose language will be the subject of our next
section.[31] The dialect of this latter division of the Croatians
forms indeed, in a certain measure, the transition and connecting link
between the Dalmatian-Servian and the Vindish languages.

We have mentioned above,[32] that the Croatians adopted a system of
writing different from that of the Dalmatians. The earliest documents
of their literature are of the sixteenth century