In vain thy masters sweat-in vain thou spendest all thy gold,
For never on Boïana's side a tower shalt thou behold;

Find Stoian and Stoiana first, and build them in thy wall,
(The brother and the sister,) thy towers may then be tall.'

King Mokaschin spends three years in seeking for Stoian and Stoiana, and at last, finding no trace of them anywhere, recommences the work in the old fashion and with the old success;

For ever, when the morning broke, the tower of yesterday Had felt the Vila's midnight stroke, and all in ruins lay.'

The lady of the wood interferes again after some weeks have been spent in this hopeful manner, and king Mokaschin thus communicates her message to his brothers

"O! brothers dear, a word of fear came to me from the wood,
Spend gold and sweat until ye die, it cannot come to good;
List! ye
be brothers three, and each a fair wife to his bed,
Each day they bring their baskets, when all your men are fed;
Set one of these within your wall, when next she comes at noon,
Build strong and stout all round about, Scadar shall rise full soon.'

An oath of silence is taken by the three brothers; but Mokaschin, the eldest, and Ugleisha, the next in succession, cannot resist the evening blandishments of their respective spouses, and give them fair warning to carry no baskets on the morrow. Goiko, the youngest, on the contrary, proves a man of his word. 'Right early in the morning light the Morlavitzis rose, And each to the Boïana's side, as is the custom, goes; Up also rose their fair young wives, and two out of the three Have much at home that day to do, right careful wives they be: Mokaschin's wife and maids a score are at the washing mead, The linen they had bleached before of bleaching still hath need. Ugleisha's wife is early gone with pitcher to the well,

There friends she meets with many a one, and much to hear and tell. 'One more there is at home doth sit, the youngest of the three, Her boy is but a suckling yet, a monthling babe is he;

To her, when noontide hour was nigh, 'twas thus her mother said,
"Give me the basket, daughter, the workmen must have bread."
"No, mother, watch the cradle here, (young Goiko's wife replied,)
I'll bear the basket to my dear upon Boïana's side;

Was ne'er such shame since sin began, if, when our builders dine,
Each other dame should serve her man, and thou be serving mine."
'The ancient mother staid behind to nurse the little boy,
And Goiko's wife and all her maids went forth in mickle joy;
Soon reached they the Boïana's side, where one did watch for them,
And forth, when he their coming spied, to meet the troop he came ;
Morlatchovitz came swiftly on, he took her by her waist,

And down his cheeks the hot tears ran, as he his wife embraced,

A thousand

A thousand and a thousand times her face did Goiko kiss,

And at the last he spake to her, and a doleful speech was this:

"My wife! 'tis sorrow to my heart that I thy face behold,

Thy days, though young and fair thou art, are numbered, dear, and told.
Why leave the child? say, who shall wash thy babe at home this day?
The cradle rock, and give the breast, when thou art far away?
How could'st thou leave him?"'—&c.

The poor lady is carried to the scene of sacrifice, without entertaining the least suspicion that any harm is meant she, on the contrary, laughs on, although she sees herself surrounded with masonry above the knee.'

'And beams they drew, and stones they drew, and higher, higher stillThe wall above her girdle grew ere once she dreamt of ill:

But when she saw their mind at last, and how the wall did rise,
On Goiko's brothers standing near, she weeps aloud and cries—
"O brothers! for the love of God, if God ye think there be,
O hear my cry, and stand not by this misery to see."
Mokaschin and Ugleisha, when thus they heard her pray,
Made answer none unto her moan, but turned them both away.'

Here is a singular trait of Oriental modesty-the lady's husband

is the last of his house she ventures to apply to.

'Twas then that shame and fear of blame she cast them both aside, And to her husband standing near, before the people, cried—

“O, good my husband and my lord! my years have been but few,

Help, Goiko! stand not idly by, this misery to view—
O God! it is a dreary thing thus, in my youth and prime,
Built up within a wall of stone, to die before my time.
To mine old mother let me go, let me go home once more,
She hath both gold and silver, she'll give ye all her store-
Some slave, or man, or woman, ye with her gold may buy,
And build them in; what is my sin, that I so young must die?"

Goiko makes no answer; and, after a pause, she applies to Master Rad, the chief of the masons, and 'whispered in his ear' "The wall is at my breast-O leave a little window here,

A little space (dear brother), so may thine age be blest,

That when they bring my suckling I may put forth the breast."

'The master, for the love of God, had pity on her case,

And, o'er against her bosom, left a little open space,

That, when they brought her suckling, she there the breast might set Whereon she always nursed him, and give him nurture yet.

'And yet once more she called on him, and whispered in his ear, "The wall is at my face-O leave a little window here,

A little window, for the love of God that sits on high,

That I may see mine own white house until the hour I die;
A little window, brother dear, that I the child may see,

Both when he hither comes and when they bear him home from me."

• And

'And like a brother once again he her petition took,
And left a window that she still upon her home might look,
That she might have the light of God to see her infant still,
Both coming and returning home when he had sucked his fill.'

And this is the lady who had just made the proposal about some slave, or man, or woman!" Alas! for the inconsistencies of poor human nature.

It is added, that the child was nourished in this way for a year, though during the first week only the voice of the mother could be heard through the aperture, and then the ballad closes with'So was it in the days of yore; so is it in our own!

To mothers that of milk are poor, full well the charm is known ;
To kiss that spot the child is brought whom hunger pincheth sore,
And such the grace that haunts the place, his cries are heard no more.'

pp. 50-56.

We have hitherto been quoting metrical romances and historical ballads; but the Servians appear to have an abundant store of poetical compositions, more strictly within the class which we moderns describe by the term lyrical. Of these, the greater part are, of course, amatory; and in the specimens before us we find few traces of that Turkish kind of love, which predominates in the historical ballads of the collection: on the contrary, we find the passion depicted, in all its stages, with a degree of delicacy for which we were by no means prepared: perhaps things have been softened a little in the translating. For example:

'O lovely was the sight I saw

By moonlight o'er the still Danaw,
When heroes lay on tented ground,

And golden wine went round and round.

A beautiful and gentle maid

From hand to hand the cup conveyed,

And ever as she poured the wine

She heard the whispered prayer, "Be mine!"

"Ah, noble lords!" the damsel said,

"Take lowly service, gladly paid;

But know the heart of love is frozen

For all but one, the dear, the chosen."-p. 80.

The following looks more as if it might have been modelled after some Turkish imitator of Hafiz :

'O nightingale, a note more deep,

Or pour

from leafier boughs thy strain;
"Twas I that soothed my love to sleep,
"Tis mine to bid him wake again.

When breaks the morning, forth I'll go,
And pluck a rose-leaf from the tree,

To touch his cheek, and open so
The eyes it is my life to see.'—

The

The song entitled The Lover's Blessing' is a good contrast to

this gentle voluptuousness

The wild hawk sat the dark night long

Beside the window of Melan,

And ever and anon her song

Thus sharp and clear began:

"Rise up, it is a noble feast,

Thine own true-love to-night doth wed;
Rise, taste the cup, or send at least
Thy blessing to the bed."

Melan made answer: "By my word,
To drink her wine I will not go;
But thou shalt bear my blessing, bird,
Since thou wilt have it so:

May for each drop this night she drains
Ten thousand tears hereafter flow!
Be child-birth pains the only pains
That bed shall never know!"'.

-p. 68.

The last of these compositions which we shall quote, will remind the readers of Goethe of the commencement of 'Hassan

Aga:

'Was it a vine, with clusters white,

That clung round Buda's stateliest tower?
O no; it was a lady bright,

That hung upon an armed knight,—

It was their parting hour.

They had been wedded in their youth;
Together they had spent their bloom;
That hearts so long entwined in truth
Asunder should be torn in ruth,
It was a cruel doom.

"Go forth," she said; "pursue thy way;
But some fair garden shouldst thou see,
Alone
the arbours stray,
among
And pluck a rose-leaf from the spray,
The freshest there may be ;
Unclasp thy mail, when none is by,

That leaf upon thy breast to lay,
How soon 't will wither, fade, and die,
Observe-for that poor leaf am I,
From thee, my stem, away."
"And thou, my soul," the soldier said,
"When I am wandering faint and far,
Go thou to our own greenwood shade,
Where I the marble fountain made,

And placed the golden jar.

VOL. XXXV. NO. LXIX.

G

At

At noon I filled my jar with wine,
And dropp'd therein a ball of snow,
Lay that on this warm heart of thine,
And while it melts behold me pine

In solitary woe."'—pp. 82, 83.

We hope the use we have made of this 'Minstrelsy' may lead to its publication, and think a larger appendix of notes and illustrations ought to accompany the verses. Some of the minor songs of the Servians have been very prettily translated in a late number of a contemporary journal,* and from that quarter also we may look for further exertions on a field which is wide enough to employ, and rich enough to reward, many labourers.-A gentleman well qualified for such a task is, we understand, preparing for the press an Irish Minstrelsy; which, by the way, Mr. Moore should have given us long ago. If Messrs. Jamieson and Borrow would combine their strength, we might easily have a very popular Scandinavian one; and were these works added to the English library, we should be in a condition to take a more comprehensive view of the popular poetry (strictly so called) of the various nations of Europe during the middle ages, than has hitherto been attainable.

We have left ourselves little room for the Anglo-Norman part of the collection on our table: the specimens it encloses are chiefly valuable as showing the extent to which our French minstrelsy continued in popular request to even a later period than had been supposed by Ritson. They are for the most part rendered from some recent black-letter quartos printed by the Roxburgh Club, and therefore as much dead letter to the public at large as the original MSS.

Passing over the noble ballad on the battle of Evesham,

'Ore est ocys la flur de pris qe taunt savoit de guere,

Ly Quens Mountfort sa dure mort molt en plorra la terre.' &c. which was long ago translated as well as possible, by Sir Walter Scott, the Anglo-Norman strain with which we have been most amused is the Rhyme of the King of England and the Jongleur of Ely.' Its Epigraph is thus given; and having compared it with the original, we are enabled to bear witness that the version is a facsimile.

The jongleur was no lying wighte, but one that shrewdly spake and righte, The King he wisely did advise, and prudently his faults chastise; Before the throne, below the dais, in castell strong, in riche palace, Liars and backbiters are found, their trade doth

* Westminster Review.

It is hardly right that this fine version of a fine poem should be allowed to lie buried in 'Ritson's Songs.' Why is it not included in the editions of Sir W. Scott's works?