common to all of them; but we find here among the Poles no trace of epic poetry. The principal thing in the Polish popular songs is however the tune or melody; thus their celebrated national dances, Mazur, Kossak, and the imcomparable Polonaise, are known and admired all over the world, whilst the words which originally accompanied those melodies, are forgotten even at home. Pensiveness is the fundamental tone of all their songs and melodies. Even the Mazur, originally a child of joy, melts frequently into plaintive strains. "These," says the author of a little collection of Polish songs recently published in Germany, "these are the after-pains of whole generations; these are the sorrows of whole centuries; which in these melodies are blended into one everlasting sigh !104 The original seat of most of these songs is the Ukraine; from whence they penetrated into Podolia and Volhynia. But Poland proper has also its popular songs; some of which are said to be derived from the fifteenth or sixteenth century; but they have changed too much, to afford any evidence of the state of the language at that time, and belong in their present state most certainly to a later period. The songs of Lithuania, where, as we have seen above, the mass of the people are of another race, do not belong here.

The extraordinary mental activity of the Polish nation promises soon to give to the history of their literature a still greater extent. May it be the will of divine Providence, that their noble poets shall ere long exult in the happiness of their country, in a state of independence; and that with theirs shall likewise be joined the voices of those oppressed classes, in whom not only the RIGHTS OF NATIONS have for sixty years been violated, but also for centuries the RIGHTS OF MAN !105

104 Volkslieder der Polen gesammelt und übersetzt von W. P. Leipzig 1833. The only Polish collection of popular poetry we know, is the work Sielanki Polske, Warsaw 1778.

105 The history of Polish literature has been treated at large in several valuable works. In the English language the Letters on Poland, Edinb. 1823, and Bowring's Introduction to his Polish Anthology, are, so far we are informed, the only books which contain literary notices of Poland. Latin works are: Starowolski Scriptor. Polon. Hecatontas, Frankfort 1625. Wengierski Systema hist. chron. eccles. Slavonicar. Utrecht 1652, Amsterd. 1679. Zaluski Bibliotheca poet. Polon. Wars. 1752. Polonia literata, Bresl. 1750. Acta literaria regni Polon. Wars. 1756. Janociana sive claror. Polon. auctorum Memoriae miscellae, Warsaw 1776-79, 2 vols. Vol. 3, 1819. The titles of numerous other Latin works are to be found in Bentkowski's Hist. lit. VOL. IV. No. 15.

67

IV. Languages of the Sorabian-Vendes in Lusatia, and of other Vendish tribes now extinct.

The north-eastern part of Germany, as far west as the Elbe and Saale, was from the fifth to the tenth century almost exclusively inhabited by nations of the Slavic race. Various Teutonic tribes-among them the Burgundians, the Suevi, Heruli, and Hermunduri-had before this taken up their temporary residence along the Baltic, between the Vistula and the Elbe. In the great migration of the Asiatic-European nations, which for nearly two centuries kept in motion all Europe from the Icy Ocean to the Atlantic, and extended even to the north of Africa,

Pol. Vol. I. p. 1-73, and partly in Schaffarik's Geschichte der Slav. Spr. p. 478. German works are: Lengnich's Poln. Bibliothek, Danzig 1718. Janocki Kritische Briefe, Dresden 1745. Nachrichten von raren Poln. Büchern, Dresden 1747. Poln. Büchersaal, Breslau 1756. Mieler de Kolof Warschauer Bibliothek, Wars. 1754. Kausch's Nachrichten über Polen, Gratz 1793. Münnich's Geschichte der Poln. Literatur, 1823. In French: Duclos Essai sur l'histoire de la literature de Pologne, Berl. 1778. Revue Encyclopédique, Oct. 1827. The most popular Polish works are: Chrominski O literaturze Polsk. see Annals of Wilna 1806. Bentkowski Historya literatury Polskiey, Warsaw 1814. Count Ossolinski's Wiadamosci historyczno-krytyczne do dzieżow literat. Polsk. Cracow 1819. Juszynski Dykcyonarz poetow Polskich, Cracow 1820. Szumski Krotki rys hist. literat. Polsk. 1824, etc.—In grammatical and lexical works the Polish language is very rich. The language having considerably changed, we name only the principal of the modern: GRAMMARS, in German, Krumholz Polnische Grammatik, Breslau 1797, 6th edit. Auszug aus Kopczynski's Grammatik, von Polsfuss, Breslau 1794. Mrongovius Poln. Sprachlehre, Königsb. 1794, and in several altered editions under different titles; last edition Danzig 1827. Szumski's Poln. Gramm. Posen 1830. Vater's Grammatik der Poln. Sprache, Halle 1807. Bantkie Poln. Grammatik attached to his Dictionary, Breslau 1808-1824. In French, Kopczynski Essai d'une grammaire Polonaise, Wars. 1807. Trambczynski Grammatique raisonnée de la langue Polonaise, Wars. new edit. 1793. -DICTIONARIES. The most useful are, Mrongovius Handwörterbuch der Poln. Sprache, latest edit. Danz. 1823. Troc Franz-poln.-deutsches Wörterbuch, in several editions from 1742 to 1821. J. V. Bantkie Taschenwörterbuch der poln. Sprache, (German and French,) Breslau and Wars. in several editions from 1805 to 1819.-Standard works for the language are the etymological dictionaries: G. S. Bantkie Slownik dokladny iez. pol. i. niem. Breslau 1806, and Linde's Slownik iez. pol. Wars. 1807-14. For other philological works, see Schaffarik's Geschichte der Slav. Spr. p. 410.

the warlike German nations moved towards the southwest, and Slavic tribes traversing the Danube and Vistula, in immense multitudes, took possession of the countries which they left. Those who came over the northern Vistula, settled along the coasts of the Baltic as far west as to the Elbe and Saale, and as far south as to the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) on the borders of Bohemia.

These Slavic tribes were called by the Germans, Wenden, Lat. Venedi, for which we prefer in English the form Vendes, rather than that of Wends. It appears indeed that this name was formerly applied by the Germans indiscriminately to all the Slavic nations with which they came in contact; for the name Winden, Eng. Vindes, which is still, as we have seen, the German appellation for the Slovenzi, or the Slavic inhabitants of Southern Germany, is evidently the same in a slightly altered form. The name of Wenden, Vendes, became however, in the course of time a specific appellation for the northern German-Slavic tribes, of which, at the present day, only a few meagre remnants are left. They were nevertheless once a powerful nation. Five independent branches must be distinguished among them.

We first name the Obotrites, the former inhabitants of the present duchies of Mecklenburg, and the adjacent country, west, north, and south. They were divided into the Obotrites proper, the Wagrians in Holstein, and the Polabae and Linones on the banks of the Elbe and Leine; but were united under a common chief or king. They and their eastern neighbours the Wiltzi, (Germ. Wilzen, Lat. Veletabae,) with whom they lived in perpetual warfare, were the most warlike and powerful among the Vendish tribes. The Wiltzi or Pomeranians lived interspersed with the Kassubes, a Lekhish tribe, between the Oder and the Vistula, and were subjugated by the Obotrites in A. D. 782. It was however only by the utmost exertions, that these latter could maintain their own independence against their western and southern neighbours, the Germans. Conquered by Charlemagne, they regained their independence under his successors, and centuries passed away in constant and bloody conflicts and alternate fortunes. In the middle of the twelfth century, however, they were completely subjugated by Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria. He laid waste their whole country, destroyed most of the people, and compelled the few remaining inhabitants and their prince, to accept Christianity from his bloody hands. In A. D. 1167 he restored to this latter,

whose name was Pribislaus, a part of his kingdom, and gave his daughter Matilda in marriage to the son of Pribislaus, who a few years later was made a prince of the empire, and was thus gained over to the German cause. His descendants are the present dukes of Mecklenburg; and it is a memorable fact, that these princes are at the present day the only sovereigns in Europe of the Slavic race. German priests and German colonists introduced the German language; although we find that Bruno, the chief missionary among the Obotrites, preached before them in their own language. The Slavic dialect spoken by them expired gradually; and probably without ever having been reduced to writing, except for the sake of curiosity when very near its extinction. The only documents of it which have come down to us, are a few incomplete vocabularies, compiled among the Polabae and Linones, i. e. the inhabitants adjacent to the Elbe, in Slavic Labe, and to the Leine, in Slavic Linac. Long after the whole region was perfectly Germanized, a few towns in the eastern corner of the present kingdom of Hanover, were still almost exclusively inhabited by a people of Slavic race, who in the seventeenth century, and even to the middle of the eighteenth, had preserved in some measure their language and habits. But, since the Germans were strongly prejudiced against the Vendish name-the nations of this race, especially those in the western part of the German territories, being despised as subjugated tribes and inferior in general knowledge and information-they gradually renounced their national peculiarities. Towards the close of the seventeenth century, when Hennings, German pastor at Wustrow, took great pains to collect among them historical notices and a vocabulary of their language, he found the youth already ignorant of the latter, and the old people almost ashamed of knowing it, or at least afraid of being laughed at by their children. They took his inquiries, and those of other intelligent persons, in respect to their ancient language and usages, as intended to ridicule them, and denied at first any knowledge of those matters. We find, however, that preaching in the Vendish language of this region was still continued for some time later. Divine service was held in it for the last time at Wustrow, in the year 1751. According to the vocabularies which Hennings and a few others collected, their dialect, like that spoken in Lower Lusatia, was nearly related to the Polish language, partaking however in some peculiarities of the Bohemian, and not without some of its own.1 106

106 Herder, in his Volkslieder, communicated a popular ballad from

The second great Vendish tribe, the Wiltzi or Pomeranians, (Germ. Wilzen,) also called Veletabae, were, as we said above, subjugated in A. D. 782 by the Obotrites; and the country between the Oder and the Vistula formed for more than a hundred and fifty years a part of the great Vendish kingdom. They regained, however, even before the final dissolution of this latter in A. D. 1026, the partial independence of their own dukes; who attached themselves to Germany, and afterwards, under the name of the dukes of Pomerania, became princes of the empire. In the year 1124 the first Pomeranians were baptized by Otho, bishop of Bamberg; and the place where this act was performed, Ottosbrunnen, (Otho's Well,) which five hundred years ago was encircled by four lime trees, is still shown to the traveller. As they received religion and instruction from Germany, the influence of the German language can easily be accounted for. German colonists aided in spreading it throughout the whole country. The last person who understood the old Pomeranian language, is said to have died in the year 1404. No trace of it remains, excepting only the names of places and persons, the Slavic origin of which can be recognized throughout all northeastern Germany by the terminations in itz, enz, ik, or ow. A. D. 1637 the line of the old Pomeranian dukes expired, and the country fell to Brandenburg, with the exception of that part which Sweden usurped at the peace of Westphalia. The island of Rügen, which till A. D. 1478 had its own native princes, belonged to this latter. It is the principal seat of German-Slavic antiquities. The ancient Rugians and their gods are mentioned by Tacitus, and described by Saxo Grammaticus. The old chronicles and legends, founded on still older traditions, speak of a large and flourishing city named Vineta on the small island Wollin, south-east of Rügen, once the principal seat of the western Slavic commerce, and, as Herder calls it, the Slavic Amsterdam. This city is said by some to have been destroyed by the Danes; by others to have been engulfed in the sea by the sinking of the ground beneath it. Modern inquirers, however, have doubted whether it ever existed; and hard as it is to renounce the many poetical associations attached to such a subject-so similar to those which fill the mind in thinking of Pompeii and Herculaneum-their objections have not yet been satisfactorily refuted.

In

The third separate branch of the Vendish stem were the Ukri

this dialect. See Literatur und Kunst, Vol. VII. p. 126. edit. of 1827 -30.