have translated a considerable part of it, and I am therefore yet more limited in my quotations from the sonnets themselves. Those of the first canto, where the love-motive is still strong and enters into a quaint rivalry with the author's Slav enthusiasm, are the earliest and most valuable fruits of Kollar's muse. Cělakovský[1] was undoubtedly right in stating that the poetic genius of Kollar left him with his younger years. In the twelfth sonnet of the first book Kollar describes his hesitation between the two subjects that inspired him. There is an easily noticeable echo of Anacreon in the song. The poet writes:—
'I wished to sing of the thrones of the Bohemian kings, of the
arrival of the brothers, of Vlasta and Libussa,[2] of Attila, the
Scourge of God, and how he taught his Huns to use the crossbow.
"I wished to sing of the golden Carpathians, the wines of Tokay,
the splendour of the moon; but when I touched the strings of my
lyre, 'Mina,' and again 'Mina,' alone resounded in my ears.
"In simple style I wished to write of fables, flowers, kingdoms,
but my pen, self-willed, traces other characters than those that I
intended.
"My speech also does not obey my will, and what when in company
my heart carefully conceals my rash tongue reveals."
The singular mixture of love and national enthusiasm already noted appears quaintly—it would be severe to say grotesquely—in another sonnet of the first book. Kollar writes:—
"Once when a heavy sleep closed her weary little eyelids, I for
half an hour practised kissing her as a true Slav should.
"My kisses were not such as Roman, Greek, or German describes
—sensual buffooneries. They were pure, proper kisses, such as the
customs of our Russian brothers allow.
