THE Publishers, in announcing a change in the Editorship of the FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW, invite attention to some features in the present Number, the object of which has been to realize, more completely than heretofore, advantages originally proposed by the establishment of this Journal.

Very great improvements, which the well-informed reader will not be slow to recognise, have been effected in all its departments. In aid of its general management extensive Correspondences have been opened with Men of Letters on the Continent. The scope of the Review has at the same time been so far enlarged as to admit of the notice of all works, including such as may be issued in our own Country, which come within a circle of relationship to its main purpose and design. Discussion of English Books on matters of Foreign concern, will no longer be excluded from the FOREIGN QUARTERLY; and subjects of Classical Scholarship, important alike to every country, will receive more careful attention.

But the chief endeavour in the new management of the Review will be to give an English interest to its treatment of general Foreign Literature; and, on every possible occasion, to introduce into its pages that popular character, wherein, notwithstanding high literary claims and acknowledged services since the period of its establishment, the FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW has been always felt to be defective.

THE

FOREIGN

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ART. I.-1. Die Serbische Revolution: aus Serbischen Papieren und Mittheilungen von LEOPOLD RANKE. Mit einer Charte von Serbien. (Servian Revolution, from Servian Documents, and Personal Communications by L. RANKE.) Hamburgh.

1829.

2. Servian Popular Poetry. Translated by JOHN BOWRING. London. 1827.

THE saying of Schiller, that the world's history is the world's judgment (die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht), has no other meaning than this, that nations, like individuals, are to be considered as the authors of their own fortune, and should be judged not according to that which they might be, but solely by their actions. The sum total of the actions, or the history of a nation, or of an entire race, alone can show what that nation really is. Now, applying this standard to the races of Asia, the inferiority of these in all ages to those of Europe is fully evident from their inability to raise any durable structure of state; and frequent instances are not wanting amongst them of empires starting up and attaining to their highest pitch of greatness during the short period of a few generations, perhaps even of only one. Their sole manifestation of social energy appears to be a mere wild tempestuous roaring, and their firebrands of war which glare for a while in the horizon vanish in flame and smoke, and leave no trace behind. The cause of this phenomenon is, no doubt, that the spiritual life being confined to the surface of society, in pacific times never fails to shrink within itself, and to become as it were ossified in the vital functions. The effects of man's fall appear nowhere written in such palpable characters as in the region which served as the cradle of his race, and the primeval curse still lies heavy there where its consequences have not yet been annulled by Christianity. That the inferiority of the Asiatic races is owing to this cause, the coldest unbeliever may be convinced, by comparing the two choicest Asiatic nations, the Arabs and the Turks, followers of Islamism, with the European races,

VOL. XXIX. NO. LVII.

B

the Germans and the Slavonians, who, in common with them, divided the ancient empire of the Romans.

The western part of the Roman empire fell to the share of the nations of the German race, the eastern to the Slavonian tribes, whilst all the Roman possessions in Africa and Asia were conquered by the Arabs. At one period certainly the Arabs crossed over to Europe and established their dominions in Spain, Italy, and Sicily, threatening even France with a similar fate. Not only, however, were the Arabs soon driven out of Europe, but the Latins advanced into the heart of Syria, and whilst the former sunk in consequence into a state of comparative nullity, the energies of the Christian nations were proportionally aroused, and the subsequent wonders of civilization were the result. The predominance of the Christians was owing to the absolute superiority of the spiritual principle of their religion over that of Islamism, and it was to this that not only the followers of the latter succumbed, but also the ancient Romans; for in all times, it has ever been the comparative superiority of the spiritual principle which gave to one nation power over another.

The Slavonians attempted, like the Germans in the west, to achieve the same complete revolution in the eastern part of the Roman empire in Europe, but were not so rapid in their progress. Their invasions began in the sixth century; and in the tenth, the greater part of the Byzantine empire, as Epirus, Macedonia, and Hellas, were occupied by them; and we have on record not only the complaints of Constantine Porphyrogenitus that all Peloponnesus was Slavonised, but those also of the commentators upon the ancient geographers that classical names were no longer to be met with. To this circumstance the modern Greek language, which more resembles the Slavonic than its ancient prototype, owes its origin. The Emperor Justinian was a Slavonian by birth, as were also many distinguished generals and statesmen of the Byzantine empire.* That the Slavonians did not effect a complete revolution there, was owing to their inability to conquer the entire country. This inability again arose from the character of their immigration, which was only partial and never at any time general, for the Slavonians constantly attempted to establish peaceable colonies rather than to make extensive conquests. For a considerable time they were either tributary vassals to the Greek emperors, or received in their turn a tribute for the assistance they afforded to them in time of war. Amongst these Slavonians the Servians were the most powerful, and it seemed in the fourteenth century

*This subject has been more extensively treated in the Article on Slavonian Antiquities, to which we must refer our readers.

that they would become masters of Constantinople under their king Stephen Duszan, who called himself king and emperor, and bore in his coat-of-arms a double-headed eagle. His lieutenants ruled Ætolia and Macedonia, and the Byzantine writers used to compare him either to an all-devouring fire, or to a far and wide overflowing torrent-both irresistible powers of nature.* He was preparing in 1396, at the head of eighty thousand armed men, to strike a last blow against the Greeks, when he died suddenly, and thus a different fate was prepared for the Servians. In the same year the Turks acquired their first firm footing in Europe by the capture of Tzympi, from which epoch the Turkish historians date their settlement in Europe, omitting previous conquests. The Servians, divided by domestic factions during the minority of Duszan's successor, were unable to resist the ascending power of the Turks, by whom they were completely defeated at Kossowo, thirty-three years after Duszan's death. The Czarat (empire) passed then, as they say, over to the Turks. The cause of the Slavonians and of Christendom against the Turks was taken up by another Slavonian nation-the Poles-who, after long wars, finally, under their king John Sobieski, inflicted on the Turks a decisive blow, from which these latter never recovered. Lastly, a third Slavonian power-Russia-seems disposed to act in this affair the part of the ass to the dying lion; but Europe wisely interfered, for the Turks of the present day, as will subsequently appear, are mostly Europeans. Setting aside, however, such considerations, we here again witness the triumph of Europe over Asia, and of Christianity over Islamism. This triumph we shall once more behold even in the case of the apparently forlorn Servians, who by their defeat at Kossowo, all fell more or less into a state of barbarism and slavery.

In Bosnia Proper, the nobles, with some few exceptions, embraced Islamism, though ages elapsed before the completion of their apostacy. Still they have preserved their nationality entire, not one of them in a thousand, for instance, speaking the Turkish language. Some distinguished families yet flourish as in the time of their ancient independence, and that of Sokolowitch boasts of having given grand viziers to the three sultans, Soliman I., Selim II., and Murad III., maintaining nevertheless a very independent position. The capital of Bosnia, Seraiewo, is a kind of oligarchical republic.t

In the part of Bosnia called Herzegowina, some of the ancient Boyars, though they remained faithful to the religion of their ancestors, maintained themselves in the possession of their

Nicephorus Gregoras, IV. 1.

† La Bosnie, par Pertusier. Paris. 1822.