a high tone of poetical feeling among her inhabitants, and much of which had fortunately been rescued from oblivion and collected so early as 1510. In this field, no doubt, the translator could not, as in the case of his Russian and Batavian anthologies, boast of having led the way. He had been preceded by Mr. Lockhart, who had translated, with great vigour, and with a fine vein of chivalrous feeling, many of the best of the historical romances. But Dr. Bowring's work, from its variety, and, in particular, from the numerous and sometimes extremely happy translations it contained of those little fragments and snatches of song, which had been in a great measure overlooked by his predecessor, must be regarded as a valuable supplement to the Ancient Spanish Ballads. Scarcely has this peninsular pageant of chivalry passed by, when the scene is changed to the banks of the Seva and the Danube-to Servia and Hungary. The poetical literature of Servia seems even more singular than that of Spain itself. Much of the Spanish poetry was traditional, till collected in the Cancionero and Romancero General; but that of Servia is entirely so. Bequeathed from mouth to mouth, without the aid of manuscripts or printing, the same songs that celebrated the exploits of Marco, or lamented the fatal battle of Kosova (the Servan Xeres de la Frontera), which delivered over the country to the tyranny of Amurath, are still, with slender variations, the popular poetry of the country. Simple and unpretending, they scarcely appear to the natives deserving of the name of poetry a title which they seem to think can only be claimed by longer and more ambitious effusions. Goëthe, who has devoted considerable attention to the poetry of Servia, observes, that when some Servians, who had visited Vienna, were requested to write down the songs they had sung, they expressed the greatest surprise that such simple poetry and music as theirs should possess any interest for intelligent and cultivated minds. They apprehended, they said, that the artless compositions of their country would be the subject of scorn or ridicule to those whose poetry was so polished and sublime. Simple, however, and unadorned as it is, we have no hesitation in saying, that it appears to us the most interesting and original to which Dr. Bowring has yet directed his attention. The language of Servia, a derivative from the old Church Slavonic, modified by the vicinity of Greece and Italy, seems early to have been softened down into a perfect instrument for poetry and music. From the Turks, too, their ancient foes, and latterly their conquerors, the Servians borrowed many additions to their vocabulary; while even the hostile relations subsisting between the two countries tended strongly to impress upon its literature an Oriental character. In this, in fact, it resembled, to a certain extent, that of Spain, though the intercourse between the two countries was of a far less intimate and kindly nature, and the Turks, with whom they maintained the struggle, a very different race from the polished Moors of Granada. Enough remained to impart an Oriental colouring to many of its pictures, and to vary and extend the field of its allusions. Till within these few years, when a large mass of the national songs and ballads of Servia was collected by Vuck, and committed to paper, either from early recollections, or from the repetition of Servian minstrels, no part of these national compositions had been given to the public. The part which has thus been collected and published, we are informed, forms but a very small portion of the stores which still exist unrecorded among the peasantry. The historical ballads are written in lines of five trochaics, and are always sung to the accompaniment of a simple three-stringed instrument called the guzla, as the Spanish ballads generally were to that of the guitar. At the end of every verse, the singer drops his voice, and mutters a short cadence. The emphatic passages are chanted in a louder tone. “I cannot describe," says Wessely, who has translated, with great fidelity, a selection of their nuptial songs into German, "the pathos with which these songs are sometimes sung. I have witnessed crowds surrounding an old blind singer, and every cheek was wet with tears.' Often, like the Arabian story-tellers, they stop in their ballads at the most interesting point, till they have appealed to the generosity of their audience; wisely thinking that they have quite as much to expect from their curiosity as their compassion. The ballads which form their stock in trade possess some features which distinguish them from those of other countries. They are more condensed and straightforward than the Spanish, telling their story with more rapidity of movement, and less of ornament; while they are almost free of those unmeaning repetitions and lines inserted for the mere purpose of eking out the rhyme, which deform so many of the most pathetic of our own ballads. In one respect, however, they assimilate but too closely with our own: in those savage atrocities, and sometimes almost meaningless cruelties, which they recount with a calm apathy; and in instances of treachery, which reflect no great credit on "the goodly usance of those antique times." The influence of a very peculiar mythology breathes over them all; in which the most remarkable agent is a spirit called the Vila-a beautiful but terrible being, of vast powers, which she employs capriciously or malevolently-who haunts the mountains, caves, and forests, and utters her mandates and denunciations from their recesses. Their most celebrated hero is Marco, a Scythian likeness of the Grecian Hercules; a name, like Conrad's, "linked with one virtue and a thousand crimes," for he murders in cold blood the Moorish maiden who had been his deliverer, for no better reason than that he was frightened at her ebon visage and ivory teeth. This savage warrior, who is represented as endowed with supernatural strength, rides a steed (Sharaz) a century and a half old, and dies himself at the age of three hundred, apparently of nothing at all. These extravagant conceptions, however, afford no fair specimen of the Servian ballads.+ * * On the amatory poems of the Servians, Goëthe has bestowed a strong and merited tribute of admiration. He observes, that, when taken as a whole, they cannot but be deemed of singular beauty: they exhibit the expressions of passionate, overflowing, and contented affection; they are full of shrewdness and spirit: delight and surprise are admirably portrayed, and there is in all a marvellous sagacity in subduing difficulties, and in obtaining an end; a natural, but, at the same time, vigorous and energetic tone; sympathies and sensibilities, without wordy exaggeration, but which, notwithstanding, are decorated with poetical imagery, and imaginative beauty; a correct picture of Servian life and manners: every thing, in short, which gives to passion the force of truth, and to external scenery the character of reality.‡ The reviewer adduces, as an instance of the powers of narrative displayed in the Servian ballads, one entitled "Zelitza and her Brothers," p. 330-331. A very short and simple composition of this character is quoted by the critic, beginning, "O! if I were a mountain streamlet," &c. p. 333. The latest of Dr. Bowring's contributions to his European Anthology is his Poetry of the Magyars. For this volume he seems to think it more necessary, than on any previous occasion, to bespeak the forbearance and candour of his readers; and, perhaps, as compared either with its Servian predecessor, or the Ancient Poetry of Spain, its effect will be felt to be comparatively monotonous; though this result is unquestionably owing to no fault of the translator. On the contrary, his skill in the mechanism of translation has, as might have been expected, increased by practice; the propensity to ornament the original by epithet or antithesis, which is the besetting sin of translators, he seems to have in a great measure weaned himself from, and to have adhered as closely as the analogy of the languages and the difficulties of versification would permit, to the grand principle of exhibiting the author-as he is. But, though Hungary is associated with some interesting historical recollections, and though a certain interest must always be awakened in favour of the literature of a language now almost extinct, and which it seems the wish of its Austrian master to abolish altogether, Dr, Bowring himself seems hardly to claim for them any very exalted station upon his Gradus ad Parnassum. Even before the liberties and energies of Hungary were overthrown by the battle of the White Mountain in 1620, though the Bohemian language appears to have been in a state of high cultivation, and the number of its pure writers considerable, its poets are undeserving of much note; nor do their collections of fugitive and anonymous poetry ever appear to have been either interesting or numerous. With that fatal battle, every thing in literature, politics, or church government, which could give to Hungary an independent national character, was at an end; the charter of its liberties, contained in the famous letter of his majesty, was cancelled, and the best blood of Bohemja poured upon the scaffold. Since the day, says the old cellar-master in the Piccolomini, When Palsgrave Frederick lost his crown and kingdom, 66 Its faith was shorn of chancel and of altar; Its banish'd brethren look'd upon their homes Amidst these scenes of banishment, proscription, and blood, and this prostration of national spirit and independence, the poetical genius of Hungary was little likely to display itself in any lofty or enduring monument of taste and skill, or even in the preservation or adaptation of those brief but energetic and spirit-stirring traditions which form so important an element in the national poetry of Spain. And at last the extinction of the Transylvanian court, and the transference of the elite of society to Vienna, completed that desolation which the early subjugation of Bohemia had begun. The greater part of the Hungarian poetry, therefore, as might be expected, is of an imitative cast. Many of their best poets wrote in Latin; but even in those who still used the neglected Magyar language, the influence of foreign literature is sufficiently obvious. Sweetness and polish, rather than strength, are its characteristics; their verses reflect that fine ear for music and harmony, which seems to be a distinguishing quality in the Bohemian character. Their thoughts, though seldom grand, are generally natural and unexaggerated; their imagery appropriate, though confined in its range. In the elegiac and Anacreontic, many of their poets appear to have been extremely successful; and not a few of them have used the difficult Sapphic stanza with a grace and mastery of which we know scarcely any parallel, except in some of the Rimas of Villegas. In the sonnet, also, they have been no unworthy followers of the classic neatness, compression, and melody, of their Italian prototypes. In short, whatever could be done by care, by polish, by good taste and good feeling, they have done well; though, in the loftier walks of poetry, they have not been very enterprising or successful adventurers. In conclusion, we cannot but congratulate Dr. Bowring upon the accessions which he has made to our information as to the poetical literature of other countries, and acknowledge the pleasure we have derived from many of the specimens which he has introduced to our notice. To himself, we doubt not, the work has been a labour of love. "I have never," says he “left the ark of my country, but with the wish to return to it, bearing fresh olivebranches of peace, and fresh garlands of poetry. I never yet visited the land where I found not much to love, to learn, to imitate, to honour. I never yet saw man utterly despoiled of his humanities. In Europe, at least there are no moral nor intellectual wildernesses." He has done much by his exertions to impress others with the same conviction; to awaken our sympathies for nations who are endeavouring to form to themselves a future poetical literature, or to preserve the wrecks of a past; and to correct those errors or prejudices with which older and more established literatures have been regarded. To one, too, who himself possesses a poetical imagination, there is a gratification of no common kind, in endeavouring to save from forgetfulness the names of so many poets "immeritis mori. When Xerxes reviewed his army from the top of Mount Athos, he is said to have wept at the reflection how few of all that vast multitude would, in the course of a short time, be in existence. A feeling of the same kind must often occur to the minds of those who contemplate from that elevated point of view which Dr. Bowring has occupied, the wide field of European poetry. How small the number of those labourers in the vineyards, who are now seen instinct with activity and gay hope, will survive the lapse of a few years! how many even in their own lifetime, are doomed to follow the funeral of their fame! how very few can even hope to make their way beyond the limited sphere of their own country! But the poet sympathises with the poet; and though his single efforts may not be able to save many from that oblivion which is overtaking them, it will still be to him a proud reflection, if he has succeeded in rescuing from forgetfulness one strain which should have been bequeathed to immortality, or even in reviving to a second short course of posthumous existence, some names over which that dark and silent tide seemed to have closedfor ever. THE LAKE SCHOOL OF POETRY.* Poetry has this much, at least, in common with religion, that its standards were fixed long ago, by certain inspired writers, whose authority it is no longer lawful to call in question; and that many profess to be entirely devoted to it, who have no good works to produce in support of their preten VOL. I. *Southey's Thalaba.-Vol. i. p. 63. October, 1802. 17 sions. The catholic poetical church, too, has worked but few miracles since the first ages of its establishment; and has been more prolific, for long time, of Doctors, than of Saints: it has had its corruptions and reformation also, and has given birth to an infinite variety of heresies and errors, the followers of which have hated and persecuted each other as cordially as other bigots. The author who is now before us belongs to a sect of poets, that has established itself in this country within these ten or twelve years, and is looked upon, we believe, as one of its chief champions and apostles. The peculiar doctrines of this sect, it would not, perhaps, be very easy to explain; but, that they are dissenters from the established systems in poetry and criticism, is admitted, and proved, indeed, by the whole tenor of their compositions. Though they lay claim, we believe, to a creed and a revelation of their own, there can be little doubt that their doctrines are of German origin, and have been derived from some of the great modern reformers in that country. Some of their leading principles, indeed, are probably of an earlier date, and seem to have been borrowed from the great apostle of Geneva. As Mr. Southey is the first author of this persuasion that has yet been brought before us for judgment, we cannot discharge our inquisitorial office conscientiously, without premising a few words upon the nature and tendency of the tenets he has helped to promulgate. The disciples of this school boast much of its originality, and seem to value themselves very highly, for having broken loose from the bondage of ancient authority, and reasserted the independence of genius. Originality, however, we are persuaded, is rarer than mere alteration; and a man may change a good master for a bad one, without finding himself at all nearer to independence. That our new poets have abandoned the old models, may certainly be admitted; but we have not been able to discover that they have yet created any models of their own; and are very much inclined to call in question the worthiness of those to which they have transferred their admiration. The productions of this school, we conceive, are so far from being entitled to the praise of originality, that they cannot be better characterised, than by an enumeration of the sources from which their materials have been derived. The greater part of them, we apprehend, will be found to be composed of the following elements: 1. The antisocial principles and distempered sensibility of Rousseau-his discontent with the present constitution of society-his paradoxical morality, and his perpetual hankerings after some unattainable state of voluptuous virtue and perfection. 2. The simplicity and energy (hurresco referens) of Kotzebue and Schiller. 3. The homeliness and harshness of some of Cowper's language and versification, interchanged occasionally with the innocence of Ambrose Philips, or the quaintness of Quarles and Dr. Donne. From the diligent study of these few originals, we have no doubt that an entire art of poetry may be collected, by the assistance of which the very gentlest of our readers may soon be qualified to compose a poem as correctly versified as Thalaba, and to deal out sentiment and description, with all the sweetness of Lambe, and all the magnificence of Coleridge. The authors of whom we are now speaking have among them, unquestionably, a very considerable portion of poetical talent, and have consequently been enabled to seduce many into an admiration of the false taste (as it appears to us) in which most of their productions are composed. They constitute, at present, the most formidable conspiracy that has lately been |