The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-25 00:00:00

times of chivalry, while, by his self•devotion and
fearless spirit, he has enrolled himself among the
glorious band who rank foremost in every age and
country, the true patriots.
At the conclusion we meet with the following
forcible remarks on the state of affairs :
Were non-intervention enforced in the spring, and
the Italians and Hungarians left to fight it out with
Austria, there would be little doubt of the result ; but
although the instincts of the mass of our countrymen are
on this side, there is a large portion wedded to Austria as
an ancient ally, chiefly as a potent counterbalance to the
restless activity of France. Surely fear of France, for it
amounts to nothing else, cannot justify the diplomatic
support of an abomination little inferior to that which we
condemned in the Two Sicilies, because a constitution is
granted under pressure? The same was done in '4B, but
why should a despotic oath be worth more now than
then ?
As for France, whenever we may have to fight her
again, we have only to be true to ourselves. What on earth
have foreign alliances ever done for us but bequeath debt
and dissatisfaction ? Besides, owing to our recent exer-
tions, we are no longer existing by sufferance. Then why
a policy of dependence ?
Even taking the matter at a commercial valuation, is
it wiser to lean towards an effete and heterogeneous empire
famed for its ingratitude, or cordially to welcome the ad-
vent of two nations, the proudest aspirations of whose
statesmen are to walk in those paths of constitutional free-
dom which have brought our own country to its present
pre-eminent position? In Italy, ere long, a marine will
arise that will equal that of France in the Mediterranean—
the efficiency of the Piedmontese squadron is a guarantee
of its worth ; for it is to be remembered that the Italian,
and not the Frenchman, is the sailor of the Mediterranean;
and, at any rate, that there will be one squadron the more
to destroy before it becomes a French lake.
It is true that the severely criticised despatch of the
27th of October from the Foreign-office reflected the gene-
rous feelings of our countrymen towards Italy, and, what-
ever may be urged against it, was a manly avowal of
sympathy which vibrated through every Italian heart, com-
ing as it did at a moment when they were menaced with a
diplomatic ban by Europe, It is also true that our coun-
trymen wish Italy free from the Alps to the Adriatic • but
that fatuous German miasma which sometimes clouds our
councils may once more become dominant, and commit us,
conversationally, it is true, to the stupendous modern doc-
trine of Venetia being an integral portion of that listless
body the Germanic Confederation. On our maintenance of
this glorious doctrine of non-intervention for the next few
months will depend whether the Italy of the Italians be-
comes our cordial and disinterested ally, or is, however un-
willingly, driven more and more into the arras of France.
Come what may, she accepts the struggle with its conse-
quences, and asks no more than a fair field and non-inter-
vention. Should she be worsted, misfortune will only tend
to consolidate the universal desire for nationality, and,
strengthened by common suffering, she will at once pre-
pare to renew the struggle at the first convenient period.

Serbski Penne ; or National Songs of Servia. By
Owen Meredith. Chapman and Hall.
The poet of " The Wanderer" and " Lucille," not
content with the success of his original works, has
now undertaken the office of interpreter of the
quaint and fragmentary poetry of the Serbs. Na-
tional songs have always a peculiar attraction, for
they show the prevailing sentiments, the tastes,
habits, and ways of thought of a people, more
vividly than any other class of literature. Those
before us are singular and original. They show
little of that love of home and country, that vene•
ration for " the ashes of their fathers and the tem-
ples of their gods," which are usually so perceptible
in national poetry. These songs and legends bear
mournful evidence of the depressed and degraded
condition of those who sing them. As the trans-
lator observes in his introduction :
At this day the results of prolonged oppression are un-
happily to be traced throughout Servia in all that debases
the character, and contracts the self-development of a
people. That universal worship of the lie which is the
creed of the slave, that predisposition to frantic ferocity
which is the reaction from suppressed and impotent hatred
—insincerity and servility, cunning and cruelty—these are
at once the defects of the Servian character, and the results
of the Turkish rule. The demoralization of the people is
sadly to be seen in their poetry. It extols, as a public
virtue, treachery to the public foe, mistakes trickery for
strategy, falsehood for finesse, cruelty for valour, and admits
into the character of a hero every vice save that of physical
cowardice.
In the opening pages of the introduction the writer
gives the following account of them :
In the follosfing poems no attempt has been made at
accurate verbal translation from the original language.
They cannot, indeed, be called translations in the strict
sense of the word. What they are, let the reader decide.
What they are meant to be, is nothing more than a rude
medium through which to convey to other minds something
of the impression made upon my own by the poetry of a
people amongst whom literature is yet unborn ; who in
the nineteenth century retain, with the traditions, many
also of the habits and customs, of a barbarous age ; and
whose social life represents the struggle of centuries to
maintain, under the code of Mehemet, the creed of Christ.
It is indeed this strange intermixture of Mahometan with
Christian associations which gives to the poetry of the
Serbs its most striking characterist. It is the sword of a
Crusader in the scabbard of a Turk. That, however, which
mainly distinguishes this from all other contemporary
poetry with which I am acquainted, is the evidence borne
on the face of it of an origin, rot in the heads of a few, but
in the hearts of all. This is a poetry of which the People
is the Poet. The " People,' not as representing, in
contradistinction to all other constituent parts of a commu-
nity, that class which lies broadly at the basis of a civiliza-
tion culminating through many social ranks and orders in
a high degree of refinement ; but " the People," as expres-
sive of one great nationality, which, however geographi-
cally subdivided, is yet in that rude and elementary social
condition which consists but of a single class, and admits
but one aspect of life, one mode of thought, one series of
sensations, one train of association. And as is the people,
so is the poetry. It is inferior to the poetry orthe Per-
sians, inasmuch as it is less intellectual, has less fancy, less
wisdom, less art. It is destitute of whatever indicates in-
dividual thought or personal observation of life. It has
nothing of the graceful fancy which glitters through the
Gulistan, and never rises to such sweet and noble tones as
those which render harmonious some portions of the Shah
Nameh. Here we shall find no trace of that gracious
chivalry which Ferdausi, perhaps, bequeathed to Ariosto,
and assuredly none of that shrewd and somewhat sad ex-
verience of mankind which followed, among the roses of his
immortal Garden, Sadi, " the wanderer of the world."
But such merits are perhaps incompatible with the poetry
in what, of the Serbs, is most remarkable—l mean that
spontaneity and unity, that evidence of collective inspira-
tion, which has never survived the childhood of a people.
Such flowers as grow here may be merely mountain R eeds,
but the dew of the morning is on them.
The longest poem in the collection is " The Battle
of Kossovo," and refers to the disastrous encounter
between Lazarus, the last Servian Knee, and Sultan
Amurath the First, which sealed the doom of
Servian liberties for many centuries. It is in this
poem that we find the most traces of national spirit
and feeling. The following description of the
assembled Turkish foe gives a vivid picture.
And Ivan Kossantchitch replied :
" Milosch Obilitch, my brother dear,
I have lookt on the Turk in his pride.
He is strong, he is many, he is near,
His tents are on every side.
Were we all of us hewn into morsels, and salted,
Hardly, I think, should we salt him his meat.
Two whole days have I journeyed, nor halted,
Toward the Turk, near the Turk, round him, and never
Could I number his numbers, or measure his end.
From Erable to Sazlia, brother, my feet
Have wander'd ; from Sazlia round by the river,
Where the river comes round to the bridge with a bend;
And over the bridge to the town of Zvetchan;
From Zvetchan to Tchechan, and further, and ever
Further, and over the mountains, wherever
Foot may fall, or eye may scan,
I saw nought but the Mussulman.
"Eastward and westward, and southward and nor' ward,
Scaling the hillside, and scathing the gorse,
Horseman to horseman, and horse against horse ;
Lances like forests when forests are black ;
Standards like clouds flying backward and forward,
White tents like snowdrifts piled up at the back.
The rain may, iu torrents, fall down out of heaven,
But never the earth will it reach :
Nothing but horseman; nothing but horses,
Thick as the sands which the wild river courses
Leave, after tempest, in heaps on the beach,
Murad, for pasture, hath given
To his horsemen the plain of Mazguite.
Lances a-ripple all over the land,
Test like the bearded and billowy wheat
By the winds of the mountain driven
Under the mountain slab.
Murad looks down in command
Over Sitnitsa and Lab."
The result of the battle is thus told by the solitary
and wounded messenger to Militza, the wife of the
Tzar.
Norev rewertill never return again,
‘
‘Tey
Neverh
mureletl 'tyheemshwiallthseine tthheemdeneor,more ;
Nor hold their hands. Their hands are cold,
Their bodies bleach in bloody mould.
They are slain! all of them slain I
Heaps of dead heroes
reonthbattle plain.
shall mourn, and the mothers deplore,
remain,
Where they fell, the
Corpses stiff in their gore.ey
But their gloryshmalilgnhetyvewr grow old.
Fallen, fallen, in
Fallen, fighting about the War,
Fallen, where fell our lord Lazar I
Never more be there voice of cheer
Never more be there song or dance I
Ilufiled be moon and star !
For broken now is the lance,
Shiver'd both shield and spear,
And shatter'd the scimitar.
And cleft is the golden crown,
And the sun of Servia is down,
O'erthrown, o'erthrown, o'erthrown,
The roof an 3 top of our renown,
Dead is the great Lazar I"
The rest of the poems are lyrical, and chiefly love
songs, some of them possessing grace and fancy,
though not of a very high order of intellectual or'
poetical merit.

Photographs of Paris Life. By Chroniqueuse,

Tinsley, Strand. -
The title of this work is sufficiently fascinating
to attract a large circle of fair readers. It proposes
to be " a record of the politics, art, fashion, and
anecdote of Paris during the last eighteen months,"
and as the epoch referred to extends from May,
1859, to November, 1860, the politics and anecdote
include details of the Emperor's Italian expedition.
Such grave matters, however, occupy but little
space in the lively pages of " Chroniqueuse."
Balls, fetes, Court gossip, theatrical successes and
failures, exhibitions, and reviews are the topics
chiefly dwelt ipon, interspersed with a faithful
chronicle
of the vagaries of fashion and descriptions
of aristocratic toilettes, which, of course, occupy a
Prominent place in a work on Parisian society