_, master, lord; partly in many
obsolete forms of expression, which seem to give to the Malo-Russian a
nearer relationship to the Old Slavic, in which similar idioms are to
be found. The influence of the Poles, who for nearly two centuries
were rulers of this part of the country, is also still perceptible in
the language, This dialect is especially rich in national songs. Many
of them are of peculiar beauty, touching _naivete_; and a poetical
truth which far outshines all artificial decorations. The greater part
of these songs have an elegiac character; as is the case indeed with
most productions of the common people.[2] The dialect itself, however,
is far from being less adapted to the expression of the comic. There
exists in it a travesty of the AEneid, written by J. Kotliarevski, a
Kozak, which has found great favour throughout all Russia, although a
foreigner is less able to appreciate its peculiarities and beauties;
since indeed all poetic excellence of a comic description can be felt
only by those who are familiar not only with the poetic language, but
also with all those minute local and historical circumstances, the
allusions to which contribute so frequently to augment the ludicrous.

Essentially the same with the Malo-Russian is the idiom of the
_Russniaks_ in Red Russia, in the eastern part of Galicia, and the
north-eastern districts of Hungary; and the few variations which occur
in it have not yet been sufficiently investigated. Comparatively
little attention has been paid to this branch of the Slavic race; and
their beautiful national songs, scattered among a widely extended
people, have only recently become the object of curiosity and
examination.

3. The _White-Russian_ is the dialect spoken in Lithuania and a
portion of White Russia, especially Volhynia. The situation of these
provinces sufficiently accounts for its being full of Polisms. All the
historical documents of Lithuania are written in this dialect; and
several Russian writers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
employed it in preference to the Old Slavonic. The first Russian
translation of the Bible was written in it. It is the youngest of the
Russian dialects.

What first strikes us in considering the Russian language as a whole,
is its immense copiousness. The _early_ influence of foreign nations
appears here as a decided advantage. The German, in the highest degree
susceptible for foreign _ideas_ and forms of _thought_, repels
nev