"Of the amatory poems of the Servians, Göthe justly remarks, that, when viewed all together, 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 poetry of Servia was wholly traditional, until within a very few years. It had never found a pen to record it, but has been preserved by the people, and principally by those of the lower classes, who had been accustomed to listen and to sing these interesting compositions to the sound of a simple three-stringed instrument, called a Gusle; and it is mentioned by Göthe, 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 so sublime. And this feeling must have been ministered to by the employment, even in Servia, of a language no longer spoken; for the productions of literature, though it is certain the natural affections, the every-day thoughts and associations could not find fit expression in the old church dialect:

"The talk

Man holds with week-day man in the hourly walk Of the mind's business, is the undoubted stalk True song' doth grow on."

"The collection of popular songs, Narodne srpske pjesme, from which most of those which occupy this volume are taken, was made by Vuk, and committed to paper either from early recollections, or from the repetition of Servian minstrels. These, he informs us, and his statement is corroborated by every intelligent traveller, form a

very small portion of the treasure of song which exists unrecorded among the peasantry. How so much of beautiful anonymous poetry should have been created in so perfect a form, is a subject well worthy of inquiry. Among a people who look to music and song as a source of enjoyment, the habit of improvisation grows up imperceptibly, and engages all the fertilities of imagination in its exercise. The thought which first finds vent in a poetical form, if worth preservation, is polished and perfected as it passes from lip to lip, till it receives the stamp of popular approval, and becomes as it were a national possession. There is no text-book, no authentic record, to which it can be referred, whose authority should interfere with its improvement. The poetry of a people is a common inheritance, which one generation transfers sanctioned and amended to another. Political adversity, too, strengthens the attachment of a nation to the records of its ancient prosperous days. The harps may be hung on the willows for a while, during the storm and the struggle, but when the tumult is over, they will be strung again to repeat the old songs, and recall the time gone by.

"The historical ballads, which are in lines composed of five trochaics, are always sung with the accompaniment of the Gusle. 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, the pathos with which these songs are sometimes sung. I have witnessed crowds surrounding a blind old singer, and every cheek was wet with tears-it was not the music, it was the words which affected them.' As this simple instrument, the Gusle, is never used but to accompany the poetry of the Servians, and as it is difficult to find a Servian who does not play upon it, the universality of their popular ballads may be well imagined."

While Mr. Bowring pays cheerful homage to a rhyme translation of a Servian ballad, in the Quarterly Review, No. LXIX. p. 71, he adds, that it is greatly embellished, and offers a version, in blank verse, more faithful to the original, and therefore more interesting to the critical inquirer. The following specimen of Mr. Bowring's translation may be compared with the corresponding passage in the Review.

She was lovely-nothing e'er was lovelier;
She was tall and slender as the pine tree;
White her cheeks, but tinged with rosy blushes,
As if morning's beam had shone upon them,

Till that bears had reach'd its high meridian;
And her eyes, they were two precious jewels;
And her eyebrows, leeches from the ocean;
And her eyelids, they were wings of swallows;
Silken tufts the maiden's flaxen ringlets;
And her sweet mouth was a sugar casket;
And her teeth were pearls array'd in order;
White her bosom, like two snowy dovelets;
And her voice was like the dovelet's cooing;
And her smiles were like the glowing sunshine.

On the eyebrows of the bride, described as "leeches from the ocean," it is observable that, with the word leech in Servian poetry, there is no disagreeable association. "It is the name usually employed to describe the beauty of the eyebrows, as swallows' wings are the simile used for eyelashes." A lover inquires

Hast thou wandered near the ocean?
Has thou seen the pijavitza? •

Like it are the maiden's eyebrows."

There is a stronger illustration of the simile in

THE BROTHERLESS SISTERS.

Two solitary sisters, who

A brother's fondness never knew,
Agreed, poor girls, with one another,

That they would make themselves a brother
They cut them silk, as snow-drops white;
And silk, as richest rubies bright;
They carved his body from a bough

Of box-tree from the mountain's brow;
Two jewels dark for eyes they gave;
For eyebrows, from the ocean's wave
They took two leeches; and for teeth
Fix'd pearls above, and pearls beneath;
For food they gave him honey sweet,

And said, "Now live, and speak, and eat."

The tenderness of Servian poetry is prettily exemplified in another of Mr. Bowring's translations.

And thus the other spoke: "My love!
A few short paces backward move,
And to the verdant forest go;
There's a fresh water-fount below;
And in the fount a marble stone,
Which a gold cup reposes on;
And in the cup a ball of snow-
Love! take that ball of snow to rest
Upon thine heart within thy breast,
And as it melts unnoticed there,

So melts my heart in thine, my dear !"

One other poem may suffice for a specimen of the delicacy of feeling in a Servian bosom, influenced by the master-passion.

THE YOUNG SHEPHERDS.

The sheep, beneath old Buda's wall,
Their wonted quiet rest enjoy ;
But ah! rude stony fragments fall,

And many a silk-wool'd sheep destroy;
Two youthful shepherds perish there,
The golden George, and Mark the fair.
For Mark, O many a friend grew sad,
And father, mother wept for him :
George-father, friend, nor mother had,
For him no tender eye grew dim:
Save one-a maiden far away,
She wept and thus I heard her say:

My golden George-and shall a song,
A song of grief be sung for thee-
'Twould go from lip to lip-ere long
By careless lips profaned to be;
Unhallow'd thoughts might soon defame
The purity of woman's name.

"Or shall I take thy picture fair,

And fix that picture in my sleeve?
Ah! time will soon the vestment tear,
And not a shade, nor fragment leave:
I'll not give him I love so well
To what is so corruptible.

"I'll write thy name within a book;
That book will pass from hand to hand,
And many an eager eye will look,

But ah! how few will understand!And who their holiest thoughts can shroud From the cold insults of the crowd?"

GRETNA GREEN.

For the Table Book.

This celebrated scene of matrimonia. mockery is situated in Dumfrieshire, near the mouth of the river Esk, nine miles north-west from Carlisle.

Mr. Pennant, in his journey to Scotland, speaks in the following terms of Gretna, or, as he calls it, Gretna Green. By some persons it is written Graitney

Green, according to the pronunciation of the person from whom they hear it :

"At a short distance from the bridge, stop at the little village of Gretna-the resort of all amorous couples, whose union the prudence of parents or guardians prohibits. Here the young pair may be instantly united by a fisherman, a joiner, or a blacksmith, who marry from two guineas a job, to a dram of whiskey. But the price is generally adjusted by the information of the postilions from Carlisle, who are in pay of one or other of the above worthies; but even the drivers, in case of necessity, have been known to undertake the sacerdotal office. This place is distinguished from afar by a small plantation of firs, the Cyprian grove of the place-a sort of landmark for fugitive lovers. As I had a great desire to see the high-priest, by stratagem I succeeded. He appeared in the form of a fisherman, a stout fellow in a blue coat, rolling round his solemn chaps a quid of tobacco of no common size. One of our party was supposed to come to explore the coast; we questioned him about the price, which, after eying us attentively, he left to our honour. The church of Scotland does what it can to prevent these clandestine matches, but in vain; for these infamous couplers despise the fulmination of the kirk, and excommunication is the only penalty it can inflict."

The "Statistical Account of Scotland" gives the subsequent particulars :-"The persons who follow this illicit practice are mere impostors-priests of their own creation, who have no right whatever either to marry, or exercise any part of the clerical function. There are at present more than one of this description in this place; but the greatest part of the trade is monopolized by a man who was originally a tobacconist, and not a blacksmith, as is generally believed. He is a fellow without education, without principle, without morals, and without manners. His life is a

continued scene of drunkenness: his irregular conduct has rendered him an object of detestation to all the sober and virtuous part of the neighbourhood. Such is the man (and the description is not exaggerated) who has had the honour to join in the sacred bonds of wedlock many people of great rank and fortune from all parts of England. It is forty years and upwards since marriages of this kind began to be celebrated here. At the lowest computation, about sixty are supposed to be solemnized annually in this place."

By the canons and statutes of the church of Scotland, all marriages performed under the circumstances usually attending them at Gretna Green, are clearly illegal; for although it may be performed by a layman, or a person out of orders, yet, as in England, bans or license are necessary, and those who marry parties clandestinely are subject to heavy fine and severe imprisonment. Therefore, though Gretna Green be just out of the limits of the English Marriage Act, that is not sufficient, unless the forms of the Scottish church are complied with.

H. M. LANder.

• Fosbroke's British Monachism.

PIOUS DIRECTION POST.

Under this title, in a west-country paper of the present year, (1827) there is the following statement :

On the highway near Bicton, in Devonshire, the seat of the right hon. lord Rolle, in the centre of four cross roads, is a directing post with the following inscriptions, by an attention to which the traveller learns the condition of the roads over which he has to pass, and at the same time is furnished with food for meditation :

To Woodbury, Topsham, Exeter.-Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.

To Brixton, Ottery, Honiton.-O hold up our goings in thy paths that our footsteps slip not.

To Otterton, Sidmouth, Culliton, A. D. 1743. O that our ways were made to direct that we might keep thy statutes.

To Budleigh.-Make us to go in the paths of thy commandments, for therein is our desire.

MARSEILLES.

The history of Marseilles is full of interest. Its origin borders on romance. Six hundred years before the Christian era, a band of piratical adventurers from Ionia, in Asia Minor, by dint of superior skill in navigation, pushed their discoveries to the mouth of the Rhone. Charmed with the white cliffs, green vales, blue waters, and bright skies, which they here found, they returned to their native country, and persuaded a colony to follow them to the barbarous shores of Gaul, bearing with them their religion, language, manners, and customs. On the very day of their arrival, so says tradition, the daughter of the native chief was to choose a husband, and her affections were placed upon one of the leaders of the polished emigrants. The friendship of the aborigines was conciliated by marriage, and their rude manners were softened by the refinement of their new allies in war, their new associates in peace. In arts and arms the emigrants soon acquired the ascendancy, and the most musical of all the Greek dialects became the prevailing language of the colony."

American paper.

CHANCERY.

Unhappy Chremes, neighbour to a peer,

Kept half his lordship's sheep, and half his deer:
Each day his gates thrown down, his fences broke,
And injur'd still the more, the more he spoke ;

At last resolved his potent foe to awe,
And guard his right by statute and by law-
A suit in Chancery the wretch begun;
Nine happy terms through bill and answer run,
Obtain'd his cause and costs, and was undone.

A DECLARATION IN LAW.

Fee simple and a simple fee,
And all the fees in tail,

Are nothing when compared to thee,
Thou best of fees-fe-male.

LAW AND PHYSIC.

It has been ascertained from the almanacs of the different departments and of Paris, that there are in France no less than seventeen hundred thousand eight hundred and forty-three medical men. There are, according to another calculation, fourteen hundred thousand six hundred and fifty-one patients. Turning to another class of public men, we find that there are nineteen hundred thousand four hundred and three pleaders, and upon the rolls there are only nine hun dred and ninety-eight thousand causes; so that unless the nine hundred and two thousand four hundred and three superfluous lawyers see fit to fall sick of a lack of fees and employment, there must remain three hundred thousand one hundred and ninetytwo doctors, with nothing to do but sit with their arms across.

"THE NAUGHTY PLACE.”

A Scotch pastor recognised one of his female parishioners sitting by the side of the road, a little fuddled. "Will you just help me up with my bundle, gude mon?'' said she, as he stopped.-" Fie, fie, Janet," cried the pastor, "to see the like o' you in sic a plight: do you know where all drunkards go?"-"Ay, sure," said Janet, "they just go whar a drap o'gude drink is to be got."

• Furet.