most bowels, pour out into lays
its warmest heart's blood." [1] We therefore give the specimens of
Slavic popular poetry, which we here present to the reader, not merely
as poems to be admired, but rather as characteristic features of the
mental condition of the respective nations, and of their manner of
thinking and feeling.

This is the age of utilitarianism. The Genius of poetry still lives
indeed, for he is immortal; but the period of his living power is
gone. His present dwelling is the study; the sphere of his operations
the parlour; the scene, where his exhibitions are displayed in a dress
of morocco and gold, is the centre table of the rich and the genteel.
_Popular poetry_,--we do not mean that divine gift, the dowry of a few
blessed individuals; we mean that general productiveness, which
pervades the mass of men as it pervades Nature,--popular poetry, among
all the nations of Europe, is only a dying plant. Here and there a
lonely relic is discovered among the rocks, preserved by the
invigorating powers of the mountain air; or a few sickly plants, half
withered in their birth, grow up in some solitary valley, hidden from
the intrusive genius of modern improvement and civilization, who makes
his appearance with a brush in his hand, sweeping mercilessly away
even the loveliest flowers which may be considered as impediments in
his path. Twenty years hence, and a trace will not be left, except the
dried specimens which the _amateur_ lays between two sheets of paper,
and the copies preserved in cabinets.

Among the nations of the Slavic race alone is the living flower still
to be found, growing in its native luxuriance; but even here, only
among the Servians and Dalmatians in its full blossom and beauty. For
centuries these treasures have been buried from the literary world.
Addison, when he endeavored to vindicate his admiration of the ballad
of "Chevy-Chace," by the similarity of some of its passages with the
epics of Virgil and Homer, had not the remotest idea, that the
immortal blind bard had found his true and most worthy successors
among the likewise blind poets of his next Hyperborean neighbours. The
merit of having lifted at last the curtain from these scenes, belongs
to Germany, chiefly to Herder. But only the few last years have
allowed a more full and satisfactory view of them.

In laying before our readers a sketch of Slavic popular poetry, we
must renounce at once any attempt at chronological order.