a single writer,
Obradovitch, who found no immediate followers, the dialect of the
people was in general despised by the clergy and those who laid claim
to education, as being wholly unfit for books, and (as Vuk
Stephanovitch strongly expresses himself) only proper for "cowherds
and swineherds." How the once flourishing literature of Ragusa could
ever have sunk into oblivion to such a degree, is hardly to be
conceived; as indeed, in general, the division so sharply drawn in
respect to literature between those two branches of the same people,
while they were still bound together by the strong ties of one and the
same language of common life and in part also of the same government,
belongs among the most remarkable facts in literary history.

The most ancient document of the Servian Old Slavic language, is out
of the middle of the thirteenth century, viz. the Hexaemeron of
Basilius, with a preface by John, exarch of Bulgaria. Then follow the
"Acts of the Apostles," written by the hieromonach Damian, A.D. 1324.
Of higher historical importance are some secular writings from the end
of the thirteenth to the middle of the fourteenth century, viz. a
genealogical register of the Servian princes and the events of their
reigns, called _Radoslov_, written by archbishop Daniel; a similar
work called the _Tzarostavnick_; and above all the statutes of Tzar
Dushan the Powerful, A.D. 1336-56. These statutes, dated from the year
6837, or A.D. 1349, not only afford us a good survey of the
constitution of the Servian kingdom, but are a remarkable contribution
to the history of its moral state at that early period, The
philanthropist cannot but perceive, with satisfaction, the rare union
that reigns in these laws of stern justice and true Christian
benevolence, attempting to alleviate those evils which it was not in
the power of an individual to abolish,--thehardships of slavery, the
insecurity of property peculiar to those barbarous times, and those
rash and bloody acts of self-protection, which are preferred by the
powerful all over the world to the slower steps of avenging justice.
It is indeed remarkable to observe, how these statutes not only
counteracted the grosser vices and crimes, (which for the most part is
the only object of laws,) but also favoured the characteristic virtues
of the times, for instance hospitality. One statute ordains, that when
a traveller asked for night-quarters at the dwelling of a landed
proprietor and wa