ke a wealthy wife,
Then with patience thou must bear,
Thou must bear,
If the breeches she should wear.

Pretty, modest, smart, and neat,
Good and pious she must be;
If thou weddest such a wife,
Such a wife,
Thou'lt not repent it all thy life.

Merry ballads like these are usually sung at wedding feasts, where
several of the old Slavic ceremonies are still preserved; among other
things the bringing home of the bride in solemn procession. Many old
verses, mostly fragments of half forgotten ballads, familiar to their
ancestors, are in like manner occasionally recited. But the poetical
atmosphere, which still weaves around the Russian or Servian maiden a
mystical veil, through which she gazes, as in a dream full of golden
illusions and images, into that condition of new existence feared and
desired by her at once--that atmosphere is destroyed by the lights of
the surrounding civilization, which show the sober reality of things
in full glare. The flowers are withered that were wound around the
chains; but the chains themselves have become lighter. The ancient
wedding songs, full of pagan allusions, have been supplanted by glees
mostly composed by their half German pastors; the only educated men
who still speak their language. Indeed, not a few of their most
popular ballads are written by their curates. How soon these will be
superseded by German songs, no one can say; but it requires no great
stretch of prophetic power to predict, that the time is near at hand.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: _Volks und Meisterlieder_, Frankf. a.M. 1817.]

[Footnote 2: _De Bello Gothico_, lib. iii. c. 14.]

[Footnote 3: Vol. I. p. 69.]

[Footnote 4: _Geschichte der Slavischen Sprache und Literatur_, p.
52.]

[Footnote 5: This song is among the few, which Russian critics think
as ancient as the sixteenth century. See Karamzin's _History of
Russia_, Vol. X, p. 264.]

[Footnote 6: Bowring'a translation.]

[Footnote 7: The piece to which we allude was in the possession of the
Cardinal Albani, at Rome; but has since been carried to England. A
fine copy in plaster is in the Museum at Paris; from which numerous
drawings have been taken, now scattered all over Europe.]

[Footnote 8: _Kunst und Alterthum_, Vol. II. p. 49.]

[Footnote 9 _Narodne Srpske Pjesme skup. i izd. Vuk_ etc. Leipz. 1824.
Vol. I. p. 55. _Volkslieder der Serben, von Talvj_, Halle 1825. Vol.
I. p. 46.]

[Footnote 10: Pronounced _Yelitza_.]