Davidovitch published from 1814 to 1822 a Servian newspaper in Vienna, not exclusively of a political character, by which he intended to diffuse information on various subjects; the first undertaking of the kind in his language. His influence however is not confined to the language alone; as secretary of Prince Milosh, then at the head of the Servians, his influence on the general cultivation of his countrymen was very decided. Vuk Stephanovitch Karadshitch, born 1786 in Turkish Servia, is the author of the first Oriental-Servian grammar and dictionary; and in the arrangement of the former has manifested the true spirit of a genuine grammarian. Besides these he has written several works of value, a biography of Prince Milosh, a series of annuals, a volume on the Proverbs, and idiomatic phrases of the Servians, etc.[11] But the best proof which he could give of the beauty, richness, and perfectibility of the vulgar Servian dialect, is his Collection of the Servian popular Songs, in four volumes, comprising nevertheless only about the fourth or fifth part of the similar treasures hidden among the mountains of his country. In making this collection, he very judiciously wrote down only those songs which he had himself caught from the lips of the Servian peasantry. There had already been a rumour among the literati of Europe, for more than fifty years, of the beauty and singularity of the Illyrian national songs, founded mostly on the communications of Italian travellers and the citations of Dalmatian dictionaries. Herder, in his valuable Collection of popular Poetry, gave two historical fragments from the work of a Dalmatian clergyman, A. Cacich.[12] Goethe also has a beautiful tale, taken from Abbate Fortis' Travels among the Morlachians. Both translated by means of the French; and although this double translation could not possibly do justice to the originals, they were sufficiently admired. But when Vuk's collection appeared, and a part of its contents was made intelligible to the civilized world by a translation attempted by the author of this work, imperfect and deficient as any translation of popular poetry must necessarily ever be, the public and the critics were nevertheless alike struck with the strong expression of the high and incomparable beauties of nature. All that the other Slavic nations, or the Germans, the Scotch, and the Spaniards, possess of popular poetry, can at the utmost be compared with the lyrical part of the Servian songs, called by them _female_ songs, because they are sung only by females and youths; but the long epic extemporized compositions, by which a peasant bard, sitting in a large circle of other peasants, in unpremeditated but perfectly regular and harmonious verse, celebrates the heroic deeds of their ancestors or cotemporaries, has no parallel in the whole history of literature since the days of Homer.[13]