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. Slavic
popular poetry has yet no history. Not that a considerable portion of
it is not very ancient. Many mysterious sounds, even from the gray
ages of paganism, reach us, like the chimes of distant bells,
unconnected and half lost in the air; while, of many other songs and
legends, the colouring reminds us strongly of their Asiatic home.
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