But for this same reason it has gained
infinitely in solemnity and dignity. Imposing by its very sound,
exciting in the minds of millions sanctifying religious associations,
it seems to have grown almost unfit for any vulgar use, and to have
become exclusively devoted to holy, or at least to serious and
dignified subjects.
There are, as we have mentioned above, many circumstances, which seem
to justify the opinion, that the Slavi were very early in possession
of a degree of cultivation, which would make it indeed difficult to
believe, that they should not have known how to read and write before
the ninth century. Ditmar of Merseburg, the German, speaks of the
inscriptions with which the pagan Obotrites, the Slavic inhabitants of
Mecklenburg, used to cover their idols. The southern Slavi had much
greater advantages. Neighbours of the Greeks, and in constant
intercourse with them; both as a nation, by war and traffic, and
through individuals who lived at the court of Constantinople; it can
hardly be supposed, that no earlier attempt should have been made to
adapt the Greek alphabet to the Slavic language, or to invent a new
one founded on that basis. There was however not a single
_satisfactory_ proof, that this was ever done with any degree of
success before that time; notwithstanding all the grounds by which
some modern writers, zealous and eloquent advocates of this opinion,
endeavoured to support it.
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