Of an entirely national character are all the productions of Wladislas Woicicki, who devoted his life principally to the study of the antiquities of his country and its language. In 1838 he published an interesting collection of old Polish proverbs[92]; several historical tales, scattered in Annuals; a greater work, entitled "Domestic Sketches:" and another on Polish Woman;[93] all of them illustrations of Polish life and manners at certain times, and resting on an historical foundation. A rich collection of traditions and popular legends was published by the same scholar in 1839.[94] This important national feature has at last excited some attention among the Polish scholars. In 1838 a collection of the songs of the people in the country adjacent to the Bug was published.[95] Another appeared in the same year, prepared by the poets Siemienski and Bielowski (Prague 1838), with the title _Dumki_, i.e. Elegies,[96] being Polish translations of Malo-Russian popular songs. The great and simple beauty of this poetry of the Kozaks surprised the literary world. But Woicicki and Zegota Pauli were the first who gave their attention to the really Polish Lekhian popular songs, i.e. songs of the peasantry in Masavia and Podlachia, the grand duchy of Posen, the territory of Cracow, etc. of which, until then, the existence was hardly known.[97] It would almost seem as if the Russian government, in placing all the evidences of the mental activity of its Polish subjects under its strictest guardianship, was ready to supply also the supposed want of popular poetry. There was recently published at Warsaw a collection of ballads, sixty-nine in number, devoted to the praise of all the sovereigns of Russia, from Rurik to Alexander. These ballads are in the popular tone, and were sold cheap.[98] What degree of popularity they may have obtained, we are unable to say.[99] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: On the origin of these tribes, which seem to have been kindred nations with the ancient Livonians, Esthonians, and Borussians, many hypotheses have been started, but the truth has not yet been sufficiently ascertained. It seems evident to us, that they are not of Slavic origin; although this has been maintained by many historians, who were misled by local circumstances. Even Schaffarik in his Antiquities regards them as originally a Slavic race. See Parrot's _Versuch einer Entwickelung der Sprache, Abstammung, etc. der Liven, Letten, etc_. The Foreign Quarterly Review contains an interesting essay on Lettish popular poetry, Vol. VIII. p. 61.] [Footnote 2: Kopitar, in his review of Schaffarik's _Geschichte_, declares this etymological derivation to be a mistake; without however giving any other explanation of the name Lekh. _Wiener Jahrbücher_, Vol. XXXVII. 1827. According to Schaffarik in his Slav. Antiquities, _Lekh_, like _Czekh_, means a leader, a high officer.] [Footnote 3: See pp. 36, 43.] [Footnote 4: See Bentkowski's _Hist. literatury Polsk_. Warsaw 1814.]