s on the early history of these regions; and if the
judicious criticism of modern philologists has thrown comparatively
some light on this general topic, still, their investigations have
been of little consequence for the history of the language. All that
it concerns us to note here, is, that as early as the seventh century
a part of these nations were already Christians, converted by Romish
priests. Among the remainder, Christianity as taught by Greek
missionaries found a welcome reception in the eighth and ninth
centuries, and soon was fully established. The oriental Servians had
the chief seat of their power in the present Turkish province of
Serf-Vilayeti; and governed by princes called _Shupans_, we see them
in a constant war of resistance against the Greek emperors, and during
several centuries also against the powerful Khans of Bulgaria; now
conquered, subjugated, destroyed almost to annihilation, but
recovering with effort and rising again in power, with such energy as
to enable them under the great Tzar, Stephan Dushan, not only to hold
all their neighbours in awe, but to take a menacing position towards
Byzantium itself, and dictate conditions of peace to the imploring
envoys of that proud imperial court. But this brilliant point of
Servian glory, which even now after five hundred years still lives in
the hearts of the people, and is the subject of a thousand legends and
songs, was only a meteor. It vanished in almost the same moment that
it appeared. Stephan's immediate successors, enfeebled by their
domestic dissensions, sunk under the superior forces of the Turks, who
had broken into Europe thirty-four years earlier. They soon became the
conquerors of the Servians, though not without fierce and bloody
struggles; and they still remain their masters and oppressors.[3]

The western Servians were early divided into small states, some of
which adopted an aristocratic republican form of constitution. Among
these, only the republic of Ragusa requires to be mentioned here, as
the cradle of the Dalmatian branch of Servian literature. The local
situation of these western states made them dependent on Hungary; and
thus Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, sometimes under the title of
kingdoms, and now as dukedoms, became at length mere provinces of that
larger kingdom, and ultimately of the Austrian empire. Bosnia and
Herzegovina, which form the boundary between the Servians of the East
and West, were subject to the influence