all of them in euphony.  The Servian has often been called the Italian among the other Slavic idioms.  Comparisons of this sort are always superficial, and tend to give a false view of the character of an object.  Be this as it may, the Servian is decidedly the most melodious of the Slavic languages, rich in vowels, and abounding alike in soft and powerful accents.  The accumulation of consonants, with which the other dialects are so often reproached, is rarely, if ever, to be met with in Servian.  The reader may compare the Servian wetar with wjtr, krilo with krzydlo or skrzydlo, pao with padl, etc.  Those who ascribe this mildness of the Servian language to the Italian neighbourhood of Dalmatia, forget that the eastern Servians are remote from Italy.  It is true that the dialects of these latter are at the same time full of Turcisms; but these are mere excrescences, which may easily be removed without touching the essential structure of the language.  The Turkish words adopted into the Servian, are mostly nouns, and verbs derived from them; and may naturally be explained by their political relation to the Turks during so many centuries.  If we may confide in a remark of the profound philologist J. Grimm, some foreign ingredients are useful and even necessary to languages.  They act as a cement, and fill up gaps; nay, they not seldom serve to give to the expression colouring and pliancy.  The attention of the civilized world, although directed at the beginning of the present century to the Servians and their heroic struggles, has only recently been excited in respect to their language; and this through the efforts of a single individual.  We shall have more to say on this point in the section devoted to the literature of the Servians of the eastern church.

The ancient Illyricum comprised all the countries situated between the Adriatic and the Black Sea, and along the Danube and Save.[2] Towards the middle of the seventh century, we find this vast country mostly occupied by a Slavic people of one and the same race, alternately called Bulgarians, Croatians, and Servians.  We find also six kingdoms gradually established by them:  Bulgaria, Servia, Bosnia (Rama), Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia; some of them powerful and of great influence in their time, but now and long since sunk into ruin, and existing only as Turkish or Austrian provinces.  An impenetrable night rests 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