t appeared in the German version
of Gerhardt, could not help finding it remarkable, that two nations,
one half-barbarous, the other the most practised of all, (_die
durchgeuebteste_, meaning the French,) should meet together on the step
of frivolous lyric poetry[17]. But these Servian songs are pure in
comparison with many Grub-Street ballads and German _Zotenlieder_. The
spirit of roguery and joviality, which prevails in them all, proves
that they are more the overflowings of wild and unrestrained youth,
than the fruits of dissoluteness of manners. They are often coarse,
but never vulgar; they are indelicate, but they are not impudent. At
any rate, we never meet in them that confounding of virtuous and
vicious feelings, which has so often struck us painfully even in the
best Scotch and German ballads. We refer the reader here to our
previous remarks on the measure of right and wrong, to be applied in
our judgment of nations foreign to us in habits and pursuits. The
heroes of the Servian epics are always represented as virtuous, often
to harshness. Marko Kralyewitch is always ready to punish young women
for any trespass against female modesty, by severing their heads from
their shoulders; and even to his own bride, when he thinks her too
obliging towards himself, he applies the most ignominious names, and
threatens her with the sword.

Love and heroism, the principal subjects of all poetry, are also the
most popular among the Slavi. But one of the peculiarities of their
poetry is, that these two subjects are kept apart more than among
other nations. While in the exploits of the Spanish heroes, which the
popular Romances celebrate, love is so interwoven with heroism, and
heroism with love, that we are not able to separate this two-fold
exaltation of a generous mind, love is almost excluded from the heroic
poems of the Slavi; or, at least, admitted only about in the same
degree as in the epics of the ancients. It is seldom, if ever, the
motive of the hero's actions. We need then add nothing more, to
describe the character of Slavic heroism. It is never animated by
romantic _love_; although sometimes, in the more modern epics of the
Servians, by romantic _honour_. In one of the modern Servian tales,
perhaps about a century old, which describes a duel between a
Dalmatian Servian and a Turk, a scene of the most perfect chivalry
occurs. The young Dalmatian captain, Vuk Jerinitch, having just
reached manhood, inquires of the