[0g] The Servians possess a translation of the Bible, made in the ninth century, written in the Pannonian dialect, which is now obsolete. This Bible, however, has served, and still serves, as a standard of the Servian language; and its authority has been rather increased than diminished from the circumstance of its phraseology being far removed from what is deemed the vulgar idiom. That the vulgar idiom, however, is amply sufficient for all the common purposes of language, and for the communication even of the most exquisite shades of thought and feelings, is sufficiently exemplified.
[0h] He was born in 1645. He represented the princes of Transylvania at Constantinople, where he served Leopold so faithfully, that the latter determined to unite in his person the Hungarian and the Servian crowns. It was he who, associated with the archbishop of Ipek, led 36,000 Servian families into Lower Hungary, and, as a reward for his exertions, he was made a baron (Freiherr), and afterwards a count; but ere long he became the object of suspicion; he was confined at Vienna, banished as a state prisoner to Eger in Bohemia, where he wrote his History of Servia, and died in 1711.
[0i] He frequently refers to the Servian ballads as historical authorities, though he seems to have formed no correct estimate of their poetical merits.
[0j] Dr. Vuk is at the present hour, I believe, a member of the household of the Hospodar of Servia, and engaged in collecting a farther supply of popular poetry.
Dr. Vuk has also published Narodne Srpske Pripovijetke. A collection of Servian tales. Vienna, 1821.
A Comparison between the Servian and other Slavonic Idioms. Vienna, 1822.
A Specimen of a Translation of the New Testament into Servian. Vienna, 1824.
[0k] Göthe, Ueber Kunst und Alterthum, V. ii. 40–42.
[0l] Among all the Slavonic tribes, many vestiges of idolatry are yet found. The songs with which a wedded pair are accompanied to and from the church contain frequently allusions to Lada (the Slavonian Venus), and the bride wears a wreath of wasilok and ruta (evergreens), and is called a Queen.
[0m] Serbische Hochzeitslieder. Pest. 1826.