Three or four poems, of which courtships or weddings are the subjects, begin with a description of the beauty of the girl.  Especially rich and complete is the following: 

  Never since the world had its beginning,
  Never did a lovelier flow’ret blossom,
  Than the flow’ret in our own days blooming;
  Haikuna, the lovely maiden flower.

  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 beam had reached 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;
  And her flaxen braids were silken tassels;
  And her sweet mouth was a sugar casket,
  And her teeth were pearls arrayed 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;
  And her fame, the story of her beauty,
  Spread through Bosnia and through Herz’govina.

We should never end, if we continued thus to extract all the beautiful and striking passages from the Servian popular lyrics; although their chief merit by no means consists in beautiful passages, but, in most cases, in the composition of the whole, and in the distinct, graphic, and plastic mode of representation.  In respect to their style, we add only a single remark.  Slavic popular poetry in general has none of the vulgarisms, which, in many cases, deface the popular ballads of the Teutonic nations.  Yet dignity of style cannot be expected in any popular production.  Those whose feelings, from want of acquaintance with the poetry of nature, are apt to be hurt by certain undignified expressions interspersed unconsciously sometimes in the most beautiful descriptions, will not escape unpleasant impressions in reading the Servian songs.  The pictures are always fresh, tangible, and striking; but, although not seldom the effects of the sublime, and of the deepest tragic pathos, are obtained by a perfect simplicity, nothing could be more foreign to them than the dignified stateliness and scrupulous refinement of the French stage.

The number and variety of the Servian heroic poems is immense.  The oldest legendary cycle is formed by their great Tzar Dushan Nemanyitch and his heroes; by the pious prince Lazar, their last independent chief, who was executed by the Turks after having been made prisoner in battle; and by the death of his faithful knights on the field of Kossovo.  The two battles fought here, in 1389 and 1447, put an end to the existence of the Servian empire.  In immediate connection with these epic songs are those of which Marko Kralyewitch, i.e.  Marko the king’s son, the Servian Hercules, is the hero; at least thirty or forty in number.  The pictures, which these ballads exhibit,