Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/30

 16 LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE The literature of the Javanese is of three dif- ferent descriptions : that which has been borrowed from the Hindus ; that borrowed from the Arabs ; and that which is native or indigenous. The por- tion borrowed from the Arabs is inconsiderable, and will not demand much consideration. All other Javanese literature is, like that of every rude people, metrical ; the plain and simple reason for which seems to be, that all composition being oral before it was written, would naturally be poetry, to assist the memory, — not to say that to amuse the fancy, and awake the passions, of which poetry is the natural language, and not to satisfy the reason, is the main object in such cases with all barba- rians. When the use of letters is first acquired, oral composition is, from habit, committed to writ- ing unaltered, while the circumstances of the so- ciety continuing unchanged, and amusement, not instruction or utility, continuing the chief object of men, the practice is necessarily persevered in. To this day, the songs of the Javanese peasants, who can generally neither read nor write, are in the same peculiar measures, and on the same subjects, which we find described in their literary composi- tions. From this cause it is that poetry with every people precedes prose, and that poets attain cele- brity for ages before prose writers are heard of. Making ample allowance for the generous and manly genius of European nations on the one