Thou hast made many mothers weep, Thou hast deprived many brides of their homes, So that they weep, Liben, they curse Me, voivode, on account of thee. The grass gave thee a bed, Thou wert covered by the forest leaves, The clear waters gave thee drink, The forest-birds sang to thee. For thee, Liben, they spoke.* Rejoice, young hero, with thy companions, For with thee the forest rejoices, For thee the mountain is glad, For thee the cool stream. But now, Liben, thou biddest adieu to the mountain, Thou dost desire to go home, That thy mother may betroth thee, May betroth thee and marry thee, Surely never were the sympathies between Nature and man more beautifully expressed than in this delightful song, which has all the freshness of its native woods and mountains upon it. If we could only do away with the savage accessories, the cruel stories about widows and orphans, it might be taken as one of Wordsworth's pantheistic pictures. Something of the spirit of the "Excursion" is in it and of that exquisite sonnet of sonnets "The Brook." It reminds us even more forcibly of the fine lines of Emerson, which are not known in this country as much as they ought to be "The falling waters led me, The foodful waters fed me, And brought me to the lowest land, Unerring to the ocean sand. The moss upon the forest bark Was pole-star when the night was dark. The purple berries in the wood Supplied me necessary food; For Nature ever faithful is *Stories of persons who could understand the language of birds and wild beasts are very frequent among Slavonic traditions, especially Servian and Bulgarian. To such as trust her faithfulness. Nor the June flowers scorn to cover The picture of the outlaw's bed of grass and canopy of the blue sky reminds us also of the fine ballad "The Nut-brown Maid," one of the few gems of this species of composition in our language. A variant of the same theme is the modern Greek ballad "The Grave of the Klepht" (ó rápos Toũ kλørn) given in Kind's "Neugriechische Volkslieder," and elsewhere. In one of our selections we have told the story of the fair Draganka murdering the Turks. The share taken by women in these exploits of brigandage does not form a theme for song, as far as we are aware, among the Servian collections of Vuk Stephanovich and others, yet it is frequently introduced into the Bulgarian ballads. M. Dozon mentions ouly four pieces of a similar nature among the modern Greek songs. One of these is the well-known lay beginning Ποιὸς εἶδε ψάρι 'ς τὸ βουνο καὶ θάλασσα σπαρμένη Ποιὸς εἶδε κόρην εὔμορφη 'ς τὰ κλέφτικα 'νδυμένη. Whoever saw fish on a mountain, or the sea sown like a field? A poem entitled "Sirma Voivodka" on a heroine of this kind is given in the collection of Miladinov. Demetrius, one of the brothers, speaks of having known this woman at the age of eighty, at Prilep, and having heard from her own lips the recitals of her adventures. We now turn somewhat reluctantly from the traditional Bulgarian literature to the few works which have been produced by energetic men, anxious to arouse their country from its degradation. These, it is obvious, must not be subjected to a criticism too searching. For a long time the only books the Bulgarians had were of a religious character. We shall not fatigue our readers with an enumeration of these. M. Jirecek, whose work has been previously mentioned, has published a valuable contribution to the history of Modern Bulgarian written literature, and to this the specialist must be sent for exact information. It is entitled "Bibliographie de la Littérature Bulgare Moderne," Woodnotes, p. 74. Emerson's Pocins." Boston, 1860. 1806-1870; Vienna, 1872 (also in the Bulgarian language). One of the first persons to use the modern tongue was Bishop Sofronius (to cite him by his ecclesiastical name) whose lay appellation was Stoiko Vladislavov. For a long time there were no more materials for the study of the language than if it had been an obscure Polynesian idiom, which was to be taken down in a phonetic vocabulary. In 1852 a Grammar was published (in. Latin letters) by the brothers Tzankov (Cankof) at Vienna, one of whom, unless we are mistaken, was a delegate to England at the time of the massacres of Batak. The book was of value to scholars in the general scarcity, but it is much disfigured by the unscientific nature of the orthography. We must deal leniently, however, with these errors in a matter where all was chaos. Since then Grammars have appeared by Gruyov and Momchilov. An indefatigable writer on Bulgarian history was S. Palaoutzov, who died a little while ago in Russia. He treated in his historical publications of the reign of John, Asen I, and of Tzar Simeon, whose period is dwelt upon by the Bulgarians as one of the greatest epochs of their national existence. Many of his works were published in Servia. Rakovski, a violent philoslave, who died a few years ago at Odessa, wrote some monographs on Bulgarian history, but they are of no great value. As no Bulgarian contemporary historians existed, or at all events no works by them have come down to us, we must trust for our knowledge of ancient Bulgaria to the Byzantine chroniclers, who are not likely to err on the side of sympathy and geniality. Some of the etymological views of Rakovski would be absolutely amazing were he not kept in countenance by a goodly number of fanatics of the same type among ourselves. We cannot afford to laugh at the Slavonomaniacs till we have got rid of our Keltomaniacs. Have we not recently seen half the obscure words in Shakspere explained by Gaelic derivations? We have already alluded to the historical work of Kerstovich, which is valueless. A more recent history of Bulgaria by Shishkov, published in 1873, we have not seen. It is from Cedrenus and Zonaras that most of what we know about this people in early times is drawn, and however irksome the Byzantine writers may be from their insufferable bombast and still more insufferable barbarisms, they are mines of antiquarian lore during obscure periods. Nor in speaking of these times must we neglect to pay a due tribute of praise to the stupendous labours of Finlay. A few newspapers and reviews, among which may especially be noticed The Reading-room (Chitalistche) and Liberty (Svoboda) have made their appearance. Many of the articles in these publications are of course translations, but also many original (as far as we have inspected them), and the Bulgarians show good sense in collecting their rich stores of national songs and legends. With them popular poetry is still in full flower; as they are brought more and more under the influence of Western culture these interesting productions will begin to disappear, and their place will be supplied by songs from the latest French operas. At Braila is published The Periodical Report of the Bulgarian Literary Society, many of the contributions to which are of great literary value, especially those of Professor Drinov, previously alluded to. This journal appears to circulate extensively in Bulgaria. And now we must take our leave of the Bulgarians. We have seen them embarked upon a new career, and let us hope that they may be able to vindicate their position in the eyes of Western Europe. Some vices of the slave will no doubt long remain; what else can be expected? When we find them paraded before us, we are reminded of the eloquent words of Tricoupi, the Greek historian, when apologising for the excesses of his countrymen during the war of liberation :-"We must not expect to find among the slaves of the slaves of the Koran the virtues by which those were rendered glorious who were born, were educated, and died under the laws of Lycurgus and Solon. The excesses (тà åÐεμтovрyńμara) of the Greeks were the lessons they had learned in the Turkish school, and the fruits of slavery." Let us hope that the miserable half-policy by which we stunted Greece at the outset of her independence will not be carried out by this great nation in a futile effort to galvanise that mass of corruption which goes by the name of the Turkish Government. Let us resist Russian encroachments: agreed; but let us recognise as soon as possible what our most far-seeing statesmen have recognised, that the future of Eastern Europe lies with these young and rising nationalities. It would be the most generous and at the same time the safest policy to stretch out a hand of genial welcome. Let it not be again said with. truth, as in the address to the Greeks in Byron's fiery lyric "Trust not for freedom to the Franks, But Turkish force and Latin fraud Would break your shield, however broad." ART. IV. THE TROUBADOURS. The Troubadours. By FRANCIS HUEFFER. London: MR. R. HUEFFER has met a literary want by the publication of a book on "The Troubadours." In spite of the considerable importance of the subject to all who study literature from an historical point of view, it has remained hitherto practically untouched in the English language. There is indeed in existence an English abridgment of the valueless book which the Abbé Millot, an indefatigable old book maker, marvellously ignorant of his theme, contrived to make of the valuable materials bequeathed to him by defunct St. Palaye. From the marble hewn for a king's dwelling place he built a roadside inn where the ignorant and illiterate might beguile a half-hour in passing. There is also another work in English, which by its title would seem to have some connexion with the Troubadours, but which scarcely calls for serious consideration, since its author, as if under the impression that Provençal is a Teutonic dialect, speaks of the famous war-loving Troubadour as Bertrand Von Born. Finally, our contributions to the sum of Provençal knowledge must include certain translations by a clever book-maker which appeared from time to time some while ago in the pages of a monthly magazine. The list is certainly not brilliant. An abridgment of a garbled French book, a valueless English work, and a few magazine articles, represent all the trouble we cared to bestow upon a literature to which so much is owed-all that we had to offer in exchange for the names of Raynouard, Diez, St. Palaye, and so many others. Mr. Hueffer has done much to remove this discredit to our critical literature, by giving it its first serious effort to appreciate the poets and poetry whose influence has extended to the literatures of nearly every southern country in Europe. The book, too, comes at a very opportune moment. For many reasons Provence and Provençal literature have been inore talked about of late in England than they ever were before. The Troubadours of Haynes Bayly and the L. E. L. school of poetry had no particular connexion with Provence in the minds. of their authors. A wandering poet was a troubadour much in the same way that a horse was invariably a steed, and a wine-cup a goblet; that was all. But into the many coloured woof of our most recent literature a Provençal thread is twisted. Essayists allude familiarly to the Troubadours, and readily discourse upon Provençal feeling and Provençal song. Poets pretend to Pro |