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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75227 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HUNGARIAN LITERATURE
+
+
+
+
+                           HUNGARIAN LITERATURE
+
+                    _AN HISTORICAL & CRITICAL SURVEY_
+
+                                    BY
+                                EMIL REICH
+                               DOCTOR JURIS
+          AUTHOR OF “HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION,” “HISTORICAL ATLAS
+                     OF MODERN HISTORY,” “GRÆCO-ROMAN
+                           INSTITUTIONS,” ETC.
+
+                    _WITH AN AUTHENTIC MAP OF HUNGARY_
+
+                                  Boston
+                          L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY
+                              [INCORPORATED]
+                                PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The present book is the first attempt in the English language at a
+connected story of Hungarian literature. The remarkable success achieved
+by a few Magyar novelists in English-speaking countries, together with
+the growing recognition of the international importance of Hungary as a
+state and a nation, seem to justify the assumption, that the Anglo-Saxon
+peoples too, are not unwilling to learn more about the intellectual life
+of the Magyars than can be found in the ordinary books of reference.
+
+The main object of the author, himself a Hungarian, has been to impress
+the reader with a vivid picture of the chief currents and the leading
+personalities of Hungarian literature. Magyar literature is too vast a
+topic to be fully treated within the very limited space of a small essay
+like the present. By introducing the comparative method of historical
+investigation and analysis, by means of which Hungarian works are
+measured, contrasted to, or compared with works of English, French,
+German, Italian or the ancient classical writers, the reader may obtain,
+it is hoped, a more life-like idea of a literature hitherto unknown to
+him.
+
+No nation outside Hungary has facilities of studying Magyar literature
+as great as those offered to the English public in the incomparable
+library of the British Museum. Nearly every Magyar work of any importance
+may be found there, and the catalogues of those works are, in the strict
+sense of the word, correct. This latter circumstance is chiefly owing to
+the labours of an English scholar, whose name no Hungarian can pronounce
+without a feeling of reverential gratitude. Mr. E. D. Butler, of the
+British Museum, the author of the only authentic and comprehensive, if
+small, English work on Hungary (his article “_Hungary_” in the last
+edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_) is, to our knowledge, the only
+English student of Magyar language and literature who has thoroughly
+grasped the philology and spirit of that language and the distinctive
+qualities of Magyar writers. He will, we trust, pardon our patriotism for
+shocking his excessive modesty by this public acknowledgment of his merit.
+
+May this book contribute somewhat to increase the interest of the great
+British nation in a nation much less numerous but in many ways akin.
+
+The map of Hungary accompanying this book is, we venture to say, the
+first map published outside Hungary based on the most careful comparison
+of the original sources. The greatest pains have been taken to ensure
+absolute accuracy of names of places and of county boundaries, according
+to the most recent data.
+
+                                                               EMIL REICH.
+
+    17, TAVISTOCK ROAD, W.
+      _June 15th, 1898_.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: HUNGARY PROPER]
+
+
+
+
+HUNGARIAN LITERATURE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+Of the nations in the south-east of Europe, the Hungarians, or Magyars,
+are probably the most renowned, and at the same time, the least known.
+Although their extensive country has now been in their possession and
+under their rule for over one thousand years, and albeit the historic
+_rôle_ of the Hungarians, rather than that of Hungary, has been and is
+one of no common magnitude, in that, without their secular and successful
+fight against Osman ascendancy, Europe could scarcely have maintained
+its civilization in the countries east of Munich: yet in spite of all
+such claims to attention on the part of western nations, Hungary and the
+Hungarians are still largely unknown in England, France and America.
+
+In English-speaking countries no serious attempts have as yet been made
+either to tell the stirring story of Hungary’s past, or to analyse the
+rich possibilities of her future. Except single and singular features of
+Magyar life or natural products, such as the famous “Hungarian” bands
+of the Tsiganes or gypsies and their “weird” music; Hungarian flour
+and Hungarian wine; and most of all the figure of Hungary’s greatest
+political orator, Louis Kossúth; except these and a few more curiosities
+relating to Hungary, the proud nations of the west of Europe do not, as
+a rule, take notice of all the rest of the life of a nation of eighteen
+million persons.
+
+The festivities of the Hungarian millennium celebrated the year before
+last, came to the western world as a surprise. Few Englishmen were
+prepared to realize the fact that, at a time when their ancestors were
+still under small princes of mixed blood, and, moreover, constantly
+exposed to, and finally nearly absorbed by foreign conquerors, the
+Hungarians had already reared a solid fabric of government on the site
+on which for now over a thousand years they have withstood the armies,
+the diplomacy and the alien immigration of the Turks, the Germans and the
+Slavs. Unconquered by force or disaster, and not denationalized by either
+the Germans or Slavs around them, the Hungarians have maintained almost
+intact the language and music they brought with them from the Steppes of
+Asia; and when in the ripeness of time a Magyar literature was beginning
+to develop, it proceeded on lines neither German nor Slav, but thoroughly
+Hungarian.
+
+This literature is both in extent and quality, one of the most remarkable
+of the lesser literatures of Europe. The number of writers of Magyar
+works is no less than 5,000; and their works cover all the provinces of
+poetry and of philosophic, historic or scientific inquiry into nature or
+man. While accepting the standard of criticism adopted by the recognized
+arbiters of literary greatness, we have no hesitation in saying that
+Hungarian Literature has a number, if a limited one, of stars of the
+first magnitude, and no inconsiderable number of lesser lights. This
+fact acquires still greater importance from the consideration that the
+bulk of Hungarian Literature properly speaking dates back little over a
+hundred years; and that many, far too many Hungarians have, up to recent
+times, left their native country and, writing their works in German
+or French, added to the literature of nations other than their own.
+Comparatively few, exceedingly few, Englishmen have enlisted among the
+writers of nations outside the United Kingdom; very many, exceedingly
+many Hungarians have, under stress of various circumstances, written in
+Latin, German, French or English, and thereby reduced the bulk and often
+the quality of Hungarian Literature proper. The number of works in Magyar
+published from 1531 to 1711 is 1,793. During the same period 2,443
+non-Magyar works were published in Hungary. The preceding two totals
+were given in 1879 and 1885 respectively. Up to April, 1897, 404 more
+works had been discovered, belonging mostly to the class of non-Magyar
+books printed in Hungary down to 1711. When, however, we inquire into
+the number of works written by Hungarians and published outside Hungary,
+down to 1711, we learn that no less than about 5,000 works were written
+and published by Hungarian authors, in 130 non-Hungarian towns, during
+the period ending 1711.[1] At a time when all the western peoples had
+long ceased to use Latin for all literary purposes, the idiom of Cicero
+was still the chief vehicle of thought in Hungary. Nearly all through
+the eighteenth, and during the first quarter of the present century, the
+number of works written by Hungarians in Latin far outnumbered the works
+written by them in Magyar. It was even so with German; and many a famous
+German author was really a Hungarian; such as Ladislaus Pyrker, Nicolaus
+Lenau, Klein (J. L.), the great historian of the drama, Charles Beck, the
+poet, Fessler, the historian, etc.
+
+In comparing Hungarian Literature with the literature of the Germans,
+French or English, we cannot but recognize, for the reasons just
+mentioned, that the splendour and comprehensiveness of the Literature of
+those nations cannot be found in that of the Magyars. At the same time we
+make bold to point out an advantage which Hungarian Literature has over
+the literature of many another nation, if not in the past, certainly in
+the future. This advantage is in the Hungarian language. The Magyars have
+a language of their own. It is not a borrowed language; not one taken
+from another nation, in whose use it had been for centuries.
+
+The Americans, both in North and South America, although they are in
+nearly everything else the counterparts of their European parent-nations,
+have yet preserved the idioms of the latter. In politics, social
+constitution, individual temper, and attitude of mind, the North and
+South Americans are—a long stay in that continent has convinced us of
+that—utterly different from either the English or the Spanish. The
+Americans proper have indeed built up, or developed into a nation
+of their own. For good or for bad, they have a distinct and novel
+national personality. One thing excepted; that one thing, however, is
+a vital element in the intellectual activity of a nation. We mean, of
+course, Language. The Americans have moulded and coloured all the
+old elements of their nationality into organs with a tone and hue of
+their own. Language alone they have, with slight differences, taken
+over and preserved in the very form and woof in which the English and
+Spanish had left it in the old colonies. Hence there is between the
+Americans, as a new nation, and their language, as an old and foreign
+idiom, a discordance and discrepancy that no genius can entirely remove.
+The words of a language are mostly gentry of olden descent. Between
+them there are associations and tacit understandings ill-fitted for
+an environment essentially different from their original cast. This
+discrepancy has, there can be little doubt, exercised a baneful influence
+on the literature of the American nations. It has baulked them of the
+higher achievements, and neither in the literature of North America
+nor in that of South America can we meet with literary masterworks of
+the first rank. Between the poets and writers of those nations and the
+languages they are using there is much of that antagonism which has
+always been found to exist between the cleverest of Neo-Latin poets and
+the language of Rome. Latin is a dead language; and all the intellectual
+atmosphere and soil that nurtured and developed it have long since ceased
+to stimulate. Accordingly, the Politiani and Sadoleti, the Sannazari
+and Buchanani, and all others who in modern times have tried to revive
+Latin literature have entirely failed. As with individuals so it is with
+nations. The Belgians, or the Swiss in Europe are, like the Americans,
+in the false position of having each a distinct nationality of their own
+with languages not their own. This fundamental shortcoming has rendered
+and will probably, in all times, render them incapable of reaching the
+lofty summits of literature. Language is intimately allied to literature;
+language is the mother, and thought the father of literary works. Any
+lack of harmony in the parents must needs show in the offspring.
+
+Now the Hungarians have not only a language of their own, but also
+one the possibilities of which are far from being exhausted. For the
+Hungarians therefore there is no danger of a false position, of an
+initial vice in the growth of their literature; and moreover there
+are immense vistas of literary exploits still in store for future
+generations. The quarries and mines of the Latin and Teutonic languages
+have, it may be apprehended, been worked so intensely as to leave scant
+margins for new shafts. French has changed little in the last three
+generations, and English and German little in the last two; while Italian
+and Spanish have long reached the beautiful but stereotyped plasticity of
+ripeness. Hungarian, on the other hand, is a young language. The number
+of people using and moulding it has been considerably increased in the
+last generation, and most of its gold-fields and diamond-layers have
+not yet been touched by the prospector’s axe. There is thus an immense
+future still open for Hungarian Literature, and this prospective, but
+certain fact ought never to be lost sight of in a fair appreciation of
+the literary efforts of the Hungarians.
+
+Literature being a nation in words, as history is a nation in deeds, it
+would be impossible to grasp the drift, or value the achievements of
+Hungarian Literature without some knowledge of the Magyar nation in the
+past and in the present. It may be therefore advisable to premise a few
+remarks on Hungary and her history before entering on a narrative of
+Hungarian Literature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Hungary, in extent larger than the United Kingdom, is, geographically
+speaking, one large basin, watered by one large river and its affluents,
+and bounded by one imposing range of mountains. The river is called
+the Danube, the mountains are the Carpathian offshoots of the Alps.
+This geographical unity makes Hungary almost predestined to be the seat
+of one nation. The natural unity calls for, it may be presumed, the
+national. Yet the very richness of the soil, diversified as it is by
+the vegetable and mineral wealth of huge mountains, and the cereal and
+animal exuberance of vast plains has, in all times, attracted numerous
+tribes from eastern Europe and western and central Asia to the country
+of the “blue” Danube, and the “blonde” Theiss. Some of these invaders
+succeeded for a time in establishing a kind of dominion over parts of
+Hungary. Thus the Huns in the fifth, the Gepidae in the fifth and sixth,
+the Avars in the seventh and eighth, numerous Slav tribes in the eighth
+and ninth centuries were successively lords of the plains and some
+mountainous parts of Hungary. Not one of these peoples, however, could
+either maintain themselves as rulers, or quite disappear as dwellers.
+Already in the ninth century we find Hungary inhabited by more than
+fifteen different nations or portions of nations, offering then the
+same gorgeous medley of Humanity that is still so characteristic of the
+country. Where the above nations failed, the Magyars signally succeeded.
+They and they alone of all the numerous, if not perhaps innumerable
+nations that had tried to rear a lasting polity on the columns of the
+Carpathians, and behind the moats of the Danube; the Hungarians alone,
+we say, succeeded in establishing themselves as the permanent rulers
+of the Slav and Turanian peoples of Hungary, and as the members of a
+state endowed with abiding forces of order within and power without.
+From 996 to 1301 A.D., they took their dukes and kings from the family
+of the Árpáds, under whom they had entered (some 100,000 men, women,
+and children) the country. Saint Stephen (the first canonized king)
+consolidated their constitution. Without attempting to overrate the value
+of constitutions either grown or made, and, while laying due stress on
+that _geometria situs_, or providential strategy in the location of
+nations which has perhaps wrought the major part of History, it is
+tolerably certain, that the constitution of Hungary, as developed under
+the Árpád dynasty, and as still surviving in some of its essential
+elements, has had a most beneficial influence on the public life of the
+Magyars. Like that of England, it combines the excellency of the Latin
+system of centralization, with the advantages of the Germanic custom of
+local autonomy.
+
+Already in the early middle ages, Hungary was divided into counties
+endowed with selfgovernment. At the same time there was a centre of
+government and legislation in the national assembly or diet, where king
+and subjects met to discuss the affairs affecting the peace or wars of
+the entire state. In 1222, or seven years after Magna Charta was signed
+at Runnymede, the Hungarians forced their King John, whose name was
+Andrew II., to sign the Golden Bull, which, like the English Charter,
+was to be the text of the country’s constitution, all subsequent laws
+being in the nature of commentaries on that text. The elements of the
+Hungarian and English constitution being nearly alike, the domestic
+histories of the two nations bear, up to the sixteenth century, striking
+resemblance to one another. We learn of wars of the “barons” against the
+king, such as those under Henry III. and Henry IV. in England; we read
+of the constant struggles of the “commons” (in Hungary consisting of the
+lower nobility, that is, of knights as distinguished from burgesses),
+for broader recognition of their parliamentary rights; of rebellions,
+like that of Wat the Tyler, of the peasants against their oppressors, the
+landed gentry; and of fierce dynastic struggles, like the Wars of the
+Roses. But while these historic parallels may be found in many another
+country of mediæval Europe with its remarkable homogeneity of structure,
+the distinctive parallelism between England and Hungary is in the
+tenacity with which the ruling people of both countries have carried over
+their autonomous institutions from the times before the Reformation to
+the sixteenth and the following centuries, or to the period of Absolutism
+sweeping over Europe ever since Luther had raised his voice for religious
+liberty.
+
+All nations of Europe had constitutions more or less similar to that
+of England during the Middle Ages; for there was after all a very
+considerable amount of Liberty extant in mediæval institutions. But at
+the threshold of the sixteenth century, when new worlds were discovered
+by the genius and daring of the Portuguese and the Italians, the better
+part of the old world, that is, its Liberty, was completely lost, and
+sovereigns became absolute and peoples slaves. Three nations alone
+amongst the larger states remained unaffected by the plague of absolutism
+then spreading over Europe; they alone preserving intact the great
+principles of local autonomy, central parliaments, and limited power of
+the Crown. These were the English, the Poles and the Hungarians. In these
+three countries alone there was practically no dead past as against a
+presumptuous present. The nation’s past was still living in the shape of
+actual realities, and the growth of the constitution was, in spite of
+all sudden ruptures and breaks, continuous and organic. What the Stuarts
+were to England, the Habsburgs were to Hungary during the seventeenth
+century. Hence in both countries we notice continual rebellions and wars,
+both parliamentary and other. The Stuarts, however, were little aided by
+foreign powers in their attempts at crushing the autonomous rights of the
+English nation. On the contrary, one of the greatest statesmen of modern
+times, William of Orange, came, and with him several great powers of
+Europe, to the rescue of the people of England; and thus the end of the
+seventeenth century was also the termination of Absolutism in England.
+In Hungary it was the grave of Liberty. The Hungarian Stuarts, or the
+then Habsburgs, far from being deserted by the other Great Powers of
+Europe, were most efficiently abetted by them. This happened of course
+in a way apparently quite alien to any desire to destroy the liberties
+of Hungary. Vienna, the capital of the Habsburgs, was, in 1683, besieged
+by the hitherto fairly invincible Turks, and Austria was menaced with
+utter ruin. The war being, on the face of it, a crusade, the Christian
+powers, and, chiefly, fat and gallant John Sobieski, King of Poland,
+came to the succour of Leopold of Austria. The Turk was beaten, and not
+only out of Austria, but also out of Hungary, where he had been holding
+two-thirds of the counties for over one hundred and fifty years. Hungary
+was almost entirely liberated from her Mahometan oppressor, and, such
+is the illogicality of History, for the very same reason nearly lost
+her autonomous existence. For the evil of foreign saviours now told on
+the Magyars. Had they driven back the Turk by their own efforts, the
+result would have been an unprecedented electrization and stimulation
+of all the forces of the nation. The Greeks after Salamis; the Romans
+after Zama; the English after Trafalgar had won not only a victory over
+an enemy, but an immeasurably increased vitality fraught with novel
+energies. The Hungarians after the capture of Buda and the Battle of
+Zenta, both achieved by Austria’s foreign allies and foreign generals,
+had defeated the Turks indeed; but their own ends too. Never was Hungary
+in a lower state of national stagnation than shortly after the peace of
+Carlovitz (1699), which put a formal end to Turkish rule in most of the
+Hungarian counties. Prince Francis Rákóczy II., who started the last
+of the Great Rebellions of the Magyars previous to 1848, and after the
+above peace, found no Holland rich in capital, no Brandenburg ready to
+hand with well-trained regiments, no Austria willing to avert side-blows
+from enemies, to help him in the manner in which the asthmatic Prince
+of Orange was helped against James II. and his powerful abettor. And
+when Rákóczy too had expended his forces in vain, Hungary fell into
+a decrepitude but too natural in a nation whose foreign foe had been
+conquered by its domestic oppressor.
+
+The political bankruptcy of the Hungarians by the beginning of the
+eighteenth century is of such importance for the study of the history of
+their literature, that we cannot but attempt to search for some of the
+reasons and causes of this national disaster. The principal cause was, it
+would seem, the lack of that very class of citizens which had in England
+so potently contributed to the ultimate victory of popular freedom—the
+middle class. Hungary never recognized, nor tolerated the complicated
+maze of semi-public and semi-private institutions collectively called
+Feudalism. Whatever the merits or demerits of that mediæval fabric may or
+may not have been, it is certain that the rise of the _bourgeois_ class
+is owing directly, and still more indirectly to the action and re-action
+of Feudalism. The parallelism between England Poland, and Hungary pointed
+out above, must now be supplemented by the statement, that England alone
+of these three commonwealths had, through the invasion and conquests of
+the French Normans, received a large infusion of feudal institutions,
+and that therefore England alone was to create that powerful class of
+burgesses and yeomen, which was entirely lacking in both Poland and
+Hungary. Without such a class of “mean” citizens no modern nation has
+been able to consolidate its polity; and Hungary in the seventeenth
+century, being totally devoid of such a class, was in the long run bound
+to be wrecked by such a deficiency. We shall see how heavily the absence
+of a middle class told on the growth of Hungarian Literature.
+
+During the eighteenth century and up to 1815, the great and scarcely
+interrupted wars of the Habsburgs enlisted all the powers of Hungary. In
+1741 the Magyars, and they alone, saved Austria from what seemed to be
+inevitable dismemberment. From that date onward to the campaign of 1788
+the History of Hungary is but a chapter in that of Austria. Towards
+that latter date the wave of Nationalism started in France had reached
+Hungary. Like the Belgians and the Czechs (Bohemians), the Hungarians too
+began to revolt from the anti-nationalist and _egalitarian_ autocracy
+of Emperor Joseph II., one of the characteristic geniuses of the last
+century, who was exceedingly enlightened on everything else but his own
+business. The old Magyar institutions, and weightiest amongst them, the
+Magyar language was, by the Hungarian diet, alas! not by the Hungarian
+people, decreed to be the public language of the country. Resistance
+to Joseph’s “reforms” became so serious, as to prevail upon the dying
+monarch to revoke them, 1790; and under his successor, Leopold II.,
+1790-1792, who was of a less aggressive temper, Hungarian nationality
+seemed to approach its revival. This was, however, not to be.
+
+The French Revolution, although essentially a nationalist movement,
+forwarded in Europe outside France, for nearly two generations after
+its rise, none but the cause of the monarchs. The Hungarians, who
+gave Austria many of her best generals, and fought in nearly all the
+battles of the Revolutionary Wars from 1792 to 1815, were in the end
+shorn of all their hopes and expectations by the successful fop who
+directed Austria’s policy from 1809 to 1848. Prince Metternich had not
+the faintest conception of the rights or wants of the Hungarians; and
+having brought to fall, as he thought he did, the French Revolution and
+its personification, Napoleon Buonaparte, he could not but think that
+a small nation, as the Hungarians, would speedily and lastingly yield
+to high-handed police regulations, to gagging the public conscience,
+and to unmanning the press. The year 1848 witnessed the final victory
+of the French Revolution all over Europe. Hungary, foremost amongst
+the countries where oppressed nations were demolishing the bulwarks of
+tyranny, freed herself from the yoke of Austrian ministers. The Austrian
+armies were driven out of Hungary; the Habsburgs were declared to have
+forfeited the crown of St. Stephen; and but for the help of Russia, the
+Austrian monarchs would have been deprived of more than one half of their
+empire. When a now nameless Hungarian general surrendered to the Russians
+at Világos (1849), Hungary was bodily incorporated with the Austrian
+Empire, and Czech and Austrian officials were sent down to germanize
+and denationalize Hungary. In 1860 the reaction set in. The nation,
+offering a passive resistance of a most formidable character, brought the
+Vienna Cabinet to its senses; and when, at Königsgrätz (July, 1866), the
+Prussians had routed the armies of Austria, Hungary’s greatest political
+sage, Francis Deák, aided by the Austrian minister, Count Beust,
+restored the ancient Magyar autonomy and independence. Ever since (1867)
+Hungary’s relation to Austria has been that of confederation for purposes
+of foreign policy, and absolute independence for the work of domestic
+rule. The Emperor of Austria is at the same time the King of Hungary;
+and thus the two halves of the Empire are united by a personal link. Law
+and its administration; Parliament and municipal government; commerce
+and trade; in short, all that goes to form the life of a separate nation
+is, in Hungary, of as independent a character as it is in Austria. A
+Hungarian must, like any other foreigner, be formally naturalized in
+order that he may be considered an Austrian citizen, and _vice versâ_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+The preceding short survey of the history of Hungary may now be followed
+by a brief sketch of the character and temper of the Hungarians. The
+Magyar proper, and all the numerous individuals in Hungary who have
+become completely assimilated to and by the Magyar element, bear in
+character much similarity to the Poles on the one hand, and to the
+Spanish on the other. They are rhapsodic and enthusiastic; excellent
+orators and improvisators; and most sensitive as to their personal
+dignity and social respect. As their music so their character is written
+in passionate rhythms, moving from broad and majestic _largo_ to quick
+and highly accentuated _presto_. Yet Hungarians, unlike Poles and
+Spaniards, do not let their rhapsodic impetus run away with them, and
+they have shown on all great occasions of their history, much coolness
+and firmness of judgment. Nor do they exaggerate their sense of dignity
+into bloated _grandezza_. They are rather humorous than witty; yet in
+a country replete with so many idioms and peoples, there may be found
+curious borderlands of pun, wit, and humour. Passionately fond of music
+and dancing, to both of which the Hungarians have given a peculiar
+artistic development of their own, the Magyars have seldom manifested
+remarkable talent for architecture. Painting and sculpture have found
+many an able devotee in Hungary.
+
+But it is in music that most artists of Hungary have excelled. Hungary
+is saturated with music. No student of Magyar literature can afford to
+neglect the study of Magyar music. The parallelism between the growth
+of Hungarian music and Hungarian Literature is not so complete, as that
+between German music and German literature. Yet nothing will furnish
+us an ampler commentary on Magyar lyrics or epic poetry, than that
+magnificent music which has inspired heroes on the battlefield, lovers
+in their closets, Bach and Beethoven in their studies alike. It is
+intense music of torrential and meteoric beauties, and a bewildering
+bass. Strange to say, Bach’s preludes _à la fantasia_ come nearest in
+character to the original Hungarian music, as played in the wayside inns
+of the immense _puszta_, or Plain of Hungary. In Hungary, all musical
+performances at social gatherings are entrusted to the gypsies, who
+undoubtedly added much outward ornament and characteristic _fioriture_
+to the melodies and harmonies of the Hungarian people; yet the body and
+soul of that music are thoroughly Hungarian. Music in Hungary is the
+vocal and instrumental folk-lore of the people; and no lyrical poet
+of the Magyars could help writing without having in view the musical
+adaptation of his poem. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that
+the continual indulgence in music has had its serious drawbacks. In a
+measure, music is the opium of Hungary. It fosters but too much that
+bent for dreamy idleness, which is the chief failing in the Hungarian
+character. Much has been done in recent times to inspirit the slumbering
+energies of the nation not only in the high walks of public life, but
+also in the lowly avenues of industrial, commercial, and other less
+picturesque activity. Still more remains to be done.
+
+The lack of a middle class, or _bourgeois_ proper, has retarded the
+growth of literature no less than that of political independence. Within
+recent times there were only two classes of Hungarians in Hungary,
+nobles and peasants. The floating and unassimilated portion of the
+population between these two classes remained either quite alien to
+Hungarian aspirations, or it attempted to imitate the nobles, of course
+chiefly in their less commendable qualities. The undeniable indolence
+of the small nobleman, or country-squire; his aversion to town-life;
+his abhorrence of trades and crafts; all these and similar shortcomings
+inherent in a caste of nobles had a baneful influence on their numerous
+imitators. Literature is, as a rule, an urban growth. The urban element
+in Hungary, however—was till the end of the last century of very
+subordinate importance. The frequent social gatherings of the Hungarian
+country gentlemen and their numerous imitators were indeed full of
+spirited talk and engaging conversation. In what might be called the
+_Parlature_ of a nation, or the aggregate of their private discussions,
+dialogues, speeches, etc., the Hungarians are and always have been very
+rich. Many a brilliant essay or novelette has been talked in Hungarian
+drawing-rooms and dining-halls, which in other countries would have
+made the fortune of a writer. In fact, there is little exaggeration in
+advancing the statement that the literature of a nation is the complement
+of its _parlature_; and where the latter is inordinately developed, the
+former is necessarily of a less exuberant growth. This “law,” if so it
+may be called, operated with much force in a country where it is far
+easier to find listeners than readers. It also accounts for much that
+is characteristic of Hungarian prose. Like French literature, Hungarian
+poetry or prose applies more to the ear than to the eye, and accordingly
+suffers very much from translation. That rich _parlature_ in Hungary
+has, however, another and still more serious drawback. Up to 1870, in
+round numbers, there was in many parts of Hungary, more especially in
+the north-west and north, a custom of using, in common conversation, two
+or three idioms, almost at a time. Sentences were commenced in Latin,
+continued in Hungarian, and wound up in German, or Slovak. The constant
+use of several idioms, as it has rendered Hungarians peculiarly apt for
+the acquisition of foreign languages, so it has made them more than apt
+to read and assimilate foreign literatures. This again made many a less
+enterprising mind hesitate, and likewise many a feeble mind but too prone
+to imitate, especially the German writers, both in style and subject. The
+originality of Hungarian authors was thus at times much impaired. In the
+course of the present work we shall meet with several cases. At present
+we must hasten to speak of the most potent of the factors of Hungarian
+Literature; of the Hungarian language.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+The Hungarian language is totally different in vocabulary and grammar
+from the Teutonic, Latin, Slav, or Celtic languages. Between Russian
+and German, or between Russian and English there is much affinity,
+both groups of languages belonging to the Aryan, or Indo-German class
+of idioms. Between Hungarian and German, or Hungarian and Slav, there
+is no affinity whatever. The Hungarians have indeed inserted some
+Slav and German mortar into crevices left open by an occasional decay
+of the Hungarian material; but the structure and functions of the
+Magyar language are totally alien to either Slav or German idioms.
+It is an agglutinative language, the root of words being almost
+invariably formed by their first syllables, unto which all affixes
+and pronouns are soldered according to a fairly regular process of
+word and case-formation. In Aryan languages the root is, as it were,
+subterranean, and frequently hard to lay bare. In Hungarian the root is
+always transparent. The vowels have a distinct musical value, and do not
+resemble the musically indeterminable vowels or diphthongs of English
+or German. Consonants are never unduly accumulated, as in Bohemian;
+and strong accents on one syllable of a word are unknown. Generally,
+the first syllable of the word has a heavier stress on it. Hungarian
+is rich both in its actual vocabulary, especially for outward things
+and phenomena, more especially still for acoustic phenomena; and in its
+prospective word-treasury. In few languages can new words, expressing
+shades and phases of meanings, be coined with greater ease. This facility
+applies to abstract terms as well as to material ones. It is probably
+not too much to say, that for purposes of Metaphysics or Psychology
+few languages offer so ample a repository and laboratory for terms as
+does the Magyar language. Although far from being as adapted for rhyme
+as English or German, yet Hungarian has many and sonorous rhymes. On
+the other hand, it crystallizes with readiness into all the metres of
+Greek or Latin poetry. A peculiarity of Hungarian (and Finnish) are the
+diminutives of endearment and affection.
+
+The origin of the Hungarian language has been, and still is, a matter of
+great discussion between the students of philology. It is certain that
+Hungarian is not an Aryan, but an Ugor (Ugrian) language, belonging to
+a vast group of languages spoken in parts of China, in Siberia, Central
+Asia, Russia, and Turkey. We here adjoin the genealogy of the Hungarian
+language as given by Professor Simonyi, of Budapest, who is considered
+one of the greatest living authorities on the history and grammar of the
+Magyar language. He says that Hungarian, together with Vogul, Ostiak,
+Siryenian, Votiak, Lapp, Finnish, Mordvin, and Cseremiss (spoken in
+the north and north-east of Russia) form the Ugrian language-group.
+This group is closely akin to four other groups, viz., the Samojed; the
+Turkish or Tartar; the Mongolian; and the Tungusian, or Mandchu groups.
+These five large groups are called the Altaic languages, and are all
+derived from an original Altaic idiom. Their mutual relations are shown
+in the following diagram taken from Professor Simonyi’s work:
+
+                             Archaic Altaic
+                                   |
+                 +-----------------+-----------------+
+                 |                                   |
+           Northern Branch                    Southern Branch
+                 |                                   |
+          +------+----------+                +-------+---------+
+          |                 |                |                 |
+ Archaic Samojedic  Archaic Ugrian  Turkish and Mongolian  Tungusian
+                            |
+                 +----------+-----+-------------------+
+                 |                |                   |
+          Southern Ugrian       Lapp           Northern Ugrian
+                 |                                    |
+    +------------+------------+           +-----------+---------+-------+
+    |            |            |           |           |         |       |
+ Finnish    Mordvinian  Cseremissian  Siryenian  _Hungarian_  Vogul  Ostiak
+ Esthonian                             Votiak
+
+It will be seen that Hungarian is in near relation to Finnish and also
+to Lapp, as had been recognized already by the Jesuit John Sajnovics
+(1770), and proved by the great traveller, Anton Reguly. It is,
+however, also related to Turkish; and this explains why the leading
+neo-philologists of Hungary (Budenz, Paul Hunfalvy, and Arminius Vámbéry)
+are, the two former in favour of a Finnish, the latter in favour of a
+Turkish origin and kinship of both the Hungarians and their language.
+Amongst the numerous students of that vexed question, no one has done
+more to excite the admiration of his compatriots and foreigners, and the
+applause of scholars, than Alexander Csoma de Kőrős, who sacrificed his
+life in the monasteries of Thibet in the noble attempt at discovering,
+by the laborious acquisition of Central-Asiatic languages, the origin
+of the Magyars. We confess that we entertain but scant sympathy for the
+belief in races and racial persistency. Wherever the Hungarians may have
+come from, and whether or no every one living Hungarian can trace his
+descent to one of the clans invading Hungary at the close of the ninth
+century is, in our opinion, immaterial. As a matter of fact, very few
+Magyar noblemen can trace their family beyond the year of the battle of
+Mohács (1526). It is quite different with the language of the Hungarians.
+Its origin and character are, on the whole, pretty clear, and from the
+knowledge of its relations to kindred idioms, many a valuable conclusion
+may be drawn regarding the rise and nature of Hungarian Literature in the
+past and in the present. The greatest patriot of Hungary, Count Stephen
+Széchenyi, has tersely expressed the immense influence of language on
+the nation in the words: “Language carries the nation away with it.” Our
+whole view of Hungarian Literature would be different if for instance the
+opinion of erudite Matthew Bél (Belius) as to the Hebrew origin of the
+Hungarian language had proved to be true. It would likewise essentially
+alter our conception of Magyar literary works if the opinion of
+Podhorszky as to the close relation between Hungarian and Chinese would
+not have been found untenable. But the physical origin of the Hungarians
+themselves is, at best, only an idle inquiry into insufficient records of
+the past.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+                                                               896-1520.
+
+The history of Hungarian Literature is divided into four distinct
+periods. The first comprises the time from the advent of the Magyars in
+Hungary to the Reformation (896-1520); the second, from the Reformation
+to the peace of Szathmár, or the termination and failure of Hungary’s
+revolt from Austria (1520-1711); the third, from 1711 to 1772, or the
+period of stagnation; and finally from 1772 to our own days, or the
+period of the full development.
+
+896-1520. The first period is exceedingly poor in written remains of
+literature. In fact, the first and thus the oldest literary relic of
+the Hungarian language is a short “Funeral Sermon” (_Halotti Beszéd_),
+dating from the first third of the thirteenth century; and for 200 years
+after that date, we meet, with the exception of a Hungarian glossary of
+the year 1400, recently discovered at Schlaegl, in Upper Austria, with
+no example of a Hungarian literary work of even slight extent. From the
+middle of the fifteenth century we possess a fragment, called after
+the town where it was discovered, by Dr. Julius Zacher in 1862, the
+“_Königsberg_ (in Prussia) _Fragment_.” Thus, the number of extant, or
+hitherto discovered Hungarian works of even slight literary merit is,
+down to 1450 A.D., an almost negligible quantity. Mr. Szilády in his
+“Collection of Ancient Hungarian Poets” (_Régi Magyar Költők Tára_) has
+indeed communicated six and fifty mediæval Hungarian church-poems and
+other fragments; but of that number scarcely a dozen are original poems,
+the rest being mere translations of the then current church-poetry. The
+philologist may no doubt find much to glean from even this scant harvest
+of Hungarian Literature in the first period. For literature proper, it
+is of no account whatever. Yet it would be unfair to leave this period
+without even a passing mention of its oral literature, or epic and
+legendary stories, of which there must have been no small quantity in
+those agitated times.
+
+The Hungarian naïve epic is lost. A glance at the habits of the Finns
+will, however, suffice to satisfy the inquirer that the Hungarians, like
+their cousins in Russia, must have cultivated the art of recitation and
+oral handing down of the glorious deeds of their ancestors, to no small
+extent. We now know that the immense epic of the Finns, the _Kalevala_,
+has been transmitted from generation to generation by bards who had
+treasured up in their memories the endless _runot_ recording the deeds
+of Lemminkäinen, Väinämöinen, and Jlmarinen. The Hungarians, too, had
+their bards, called _igrigeczek_, or _hegedősök_ (violinists); and at
+the manors of the nobles or the courts of the kings, old heroic songs
+were recited about Attila, King of the Huns; his brother, Bleda; the
+fearful battle on the Catalaunian fields (Chalons-sur-Marne, 451 A.D.);
+the building of the castle of Buda; the siege of Aquileia; and the last
+fatal wedding of the terrible Hun. These Hun epics were widely known and
+recited in mediæval Hungary, as witnessed by the chronicles of those
+times. The people firmly believed themselves to be the successors of
+Attila’s hordes, and this belief, although absolutely discountenanced by
+modern historians, is still lingering in the spinning-halls of Hungarian
+villages, and in lecture halls in England and America.
+
+The circle of those oral epics comprised also the Magyar heroes proper.
+There were stories about Álmos, father of Árpád, the conqueror of
+Hungary; others about the “Seven Magyars” (_Hét Magyar_); the conquest
+of Transylvania by doughty Tuhutum, one of Árpád’s generals; the flight
+of King Zalán, defeated by Árpád; the exploits of valiant Botond, Lehel
+(the Hungarian Roland), Bölscü, and other paladins of Árpád’s times, etc.
+In the fragments from Priscus, the Byzantine rhetorician and historian;
+in the chronicles of Ekkehard, the monk of St. Gallen; and in the
+“Anonymus,” or one of the chief, but hitherto, fatherless chronicles of
+Hungary, the above and some more heroic stories and epical records may be
+found.
+
+In addition to the heroic epic, the Hungarians, like all the rest of the
+Christian nations of the west, had a considerable tradition of legends
+and lives of saints. Fortunately for Hungary, it had become, by the end
+of the tenth century of our era, both the hierarchical and political
+interest of one of the most learned and most statesmanlike of the popes,
+Sylvester II., to detach Hungary completely from the Eastern, or Greek
+Church; and to adopt it, by sending a royal crown to Stephen, duke of the
+Hungarians, into the world of Roman Catholicism. Had Hungary joined the
+Eastern Church, it could never have withstood the ambition and supremacy
+of the German Emperors, aided by the Popes of Rome. Having, however,
+adopted the Roman, or progressive form of Christianity, Hungary was
+endowed with occidental or richer seedlings of civilization. St. Mary
+was made the patroness of Hungary; and all through the Middle Ages, she
+was adored and glorified in legends and songs. Some of these Hungarian
+legends about the Virgin Mary we still possess; likewise, the life of St.
+Margit, the daughter of King Béla IV.; the famous story of Josaphat and
+Barlaam, one of the most popular of mediæval Christian legends, taken
+originally from Indian (Buddhistic) sources; the life of St. Catherine of
+Alexandria, etc. The most characteristically Hungarian of these legends
+is, as to its subject, the life of St. Margit. As to its literary merits,
+it is, alas! a dry chronicle without any charm of form or diction at all.
+Nor did the Hungarians, as far as we know, succeed in throwing one or
+another of their crusading heroes into strong epic relief. The crusaders,
+in spite of their marvellous deeds, lent themselves far more to good
+chronicling than to epics. Their inherent poetic vice of being, or trying
+to be, saints rather than heroes rendered them unfit for real epics.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+                                                               1520-1711.
+
+1520-1711. The Reformation made rapid headway in Hungary. From the very
+beginning, Protestantism in Hungary had a political element, in that its
+rise was coeval with the accession of the Catholic Austrian dynasty so
+unwelcome to many Hungarians. Theological and political opposition thus
+gave a more than ordinary impetus to the study of all the questions and
+problems agitated during the Reformation. The most prominent result of
+that movement was a revival of the national feeling; and coupled with
+that, a regeneration of Hungarian Literature. The vast intellectual
+revolution of the fifteenth century, commonly called the Renascence,
+had, of course, left its traces in Hungary too. One of the most popular
+of Magyar Kings, Matthew Corvinus (1458-1490), invited a number of
+Italian scholars and artists to Hungary, such as Anton Bonfini, of Ascoli
+(1427-1503), Marzio Galeotto, of Narni, in Umbria (1427(?)-1497), Peter
+Ranzanus, of Palermo; Thaddeus Ugoletus, of Parma; Bartholinus Fontius;
+Felix of Ragusa; etc.
+
+These scholars and artists, ably assisted by the Hungarian John Cesinge,
+or Janus Pannonius (1432-1472), and chiefly by the generous and refined
+king himself, brought some new leaven into the stagnant intellectual
+life of Hungary. In addition to the university founded by King Lewis the
+Great, at Pécs (1367), a new university was founded at Pozsony, where
+the Danube enters Hungary; the king’s famous library (the _Corvina_)
+became the delight of scholars; and a printing press was established
+at Buda (1473). The king’s victorious campaigns against the Hussites
+(see Jósika’s novel, “_The Bohemians in Hungary_”), the Turks and the
+Austrians, gave rise to numerous poems and songs composed by unknown
+poets; and his age, called the Age of the Hunyadis, the king being a
+Hunyadi, bade fair to be one of great intellectual brilliancy too.
+However Matthew’s premature death and the ensuing political troubles put
+an end to such prospects. It was left for the passions roused by the
+Reformation to kindle the fire which the torch of the Renascence had been
+unable to light. In all the countries where the deep influence of the
+Renascence preceded that of the Reformation, the intellectual capital of
+the country was not impaired, even when its political was. In Hungary,
+the Renascence left too slender traces to guard the nation from falling
+into lawless writing about the topics of the day, regardless of the
+rules and classical measure so deeply impressed by the Renascence on the
+more fortunate nations of Italy, Spain, France and England. Hence the
+immense mental and emotional stir imparted by the Reformation was not
+sufficient to raise up great writers in Hungary. In fact, Hungary was,
+on a smaller scale, in a mental condition exactly similar to that of
+Germany. There too the Renascence had scarcely begun to do its beneficial
+work, when the Reformation swept everything before it. The consequence
+was the same. Luther himself, although one of the geniuses of language;
+Fischart, a very demon of language; and Hutten, the great champion of
+thought and liberty, together with numerous minor lights, were, in spite
+of efforts without number, debarred from creating a great German national
+literature. It was only much later, when the Renascence had done its work
+in Germany too, that the Germans, following in the wake of the Greeks,
+Romans, French, English, Spanish and Italians, were able to create a
+great national literature of their own. The same remark holds good for
+Hungary too.
+
+Protestantism in Hungary assumed all the aspects it had taken in
+Germany and Switzerland. There were Lutherans proper, and Calvinists;
+Anabaptists and Unitarians. The Geneva of Hungary was the town of the
+“_cives_,” Debreczen, east of the middle Theiss, in a large plain.
+Melius, or Peter Juhász (1536-1572) was the “pope” of the Magyar
+Calvinists; as Matthew Biró de Déva, 1500(?)-1545, was that of the
+Lutherans. Both preached in Hungarian and published a number of doctrinal
+and controversial writings in Hungarian; and both were followed by
+many a writer whose enthusiasm was the better part of his ability. The
+Bible, portions of which had been translated into Hungarian before the
+Reformation, was now published in Magyar in its entirety. This most
+excellent translation, executed chiefly by Caspar Károlyi, was printed at
+Vizsoly, in the county of Abauj.
+
+The number of Hungarian poets writing in Hungarian during the sixteenth
+century is more than one hundred; most of them being Protestants. In the
+first years of the Reformation, their works were mostly of a religious
+character, such as psalms and prayers. Amongst these we may mention the
+religious poems of Andreas Batizi, Matthew Biró, and Gál Huszár. The
+constant wars with the Turks or infidels added a peculiar intensity to
+the religious passions of the time; and accordingly the first Hungarian
+drama, “The Marriage of Priests” (_A papok házassága_), published
+in Cracow (then belonging to Poland) in 1550, and written by Michael
+Sztárai, was in reality an exposition of Protestantism in the form of a
+drama. “Moralities,” and mordant satires against priests and the Catholic
+Church generally, were frequent. Didactic poetry, so closely allied with
+the moralizing spirit of early Protestantism, was ably represented by
+Gabriel Pesti, whose translation of Æsop’s “Fables” appeared in 1536
+(in Vienna); and by Caspar Heltai, who likewise translated fables from
+ancient authors, 1566.
+
+From the second half of the sixteenth century we possess a great number
+of rhymed stories, taken from the Bible, from foreign novels or from
+Hungarian history. One of the most famous of the authors of such stories
+was Sebastian Tinódy, whose “_Chronicle_,” or poetical narrative of
+contemporary events appeared in Kolozsvár, in Transylvania, in 1554.
+As a poetical work it is scarcely of any value, with the exception of
+the music accompanying it. As a faithful picture of the Hungary of that
+time it will continue to be valuable to the patriot and historian. The
+language is heavy; the form is unshapely. In some respects superior to
+Tinódy were Stephen Temesváry and Matthew Nagy de Bánka; the latter
+being the bard of the great John Hunyadi. One, Albert Gergei, of whose
+personal circumstances nothing is known, composed, chiefly from Italian
+sources, the story of a young prince fighting innumerable foes and
+surmounting difficulties of all sorts in search of the fairy whom he,
+in the end, does not fail to win. This story (“_Argirius Királyfi_”)
+has ever since the sixteenth century been the most popular chap-book
+amongst the lower classes in Hungary. Its _naïveté_ and good epic tone
+render it agreeable even to a more cultured taste. Another poet of the
+second half of the sixteenth century, Peter İlosvai, composed, probably
+from the floating folk-poetry of his age, a poetical narrative of the
+life of Nicolas Toldy, one of the most popular heroes of the Magyars,
+who lived in the fourteenth century, under King Lewis the Great, and was
+of Herculean strength. His feats are sung in İlosvai’s poem (published
+at Debreczen in 1574) in an effective, if rough, manner. A number of
+Magyar novels may also be found; but nearly all were translations from
+German or Latin novels of the time. The sixteenth century produced even
+a few Magyar works of historic and philologic character. John Erdősi,
+or Sylvester, wrote the first grammar of the Magyar language (1539);
+Gabriel Pesti gave, in 1538, a short dictionary of the Magyar language;
+John Decsi de Baranya published in 1588 a collection of about 5,000
+Magyar proverbs; Stephen Székely de Bencéd and Caspar Heltai published
+“World-Chronicles,” in 1559 and 1575 respectively. Very many memoirs and
+journals of that time are still unpublished.
+
+We must now mention the greatest of all the Hungarian poets of the
+sixteenth century, whose name we have so far left unnoticed because, by
+one of the strange freaks of life, the manuscripts of his lyrical poems,
+on which rests his great fame among Magyar poets, were first discovered
+only twenty-four years ago (in 1874), and some of them even after that
+date, and were therefore never largely known to the contemporaries of
+their author. This poet is Baron Valentin Balassi (1551-1594). He came
+from a magnate family, and so great were the gifts with which nature
+had endowed him, that men praised him as a model of heroism, and women
+worshipped him as the embodiment of chivalrous charm. In the troubles
+of his time, both political and social, he took more than one part; and
+he may be considered as at once the Knight Errant and the Parsifal of
+Hungary in the latter half of the sixteenth century. Highly cultivated
+and sensitive as he was, he could not but respond to the religious
+impulses of his time, and so became the author of many a religious poem.
+On his wanderings, which took him not only over the whole of his own
+country, but even as far as North Germany and probably also to England,
+he saw all forms and aspects of life. His lyric sentiments he embodied
+in the so-called “Flower Songs” (“_Virág-énekek_”), which are full of
+that _verve_ and sweetness so characteristic of the best lyric poets
+of Hungary. He also introduced a new form of lyric stanza—the Balassi
+Stanza—which consists of nine short lines, the end-rhymes of which are
+the same in the third, sixth, and ninth lines, while the remaining three
+couples, have each their own rhymes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+                                                               1520-1711.
+
+During the seventeenth century Hungary was oppressed by two evils of
+apparently antagonistic character; either of which, however, was to have
+the same fatal effect on Hungarian Literature. On the one hand, nearly
+two-thirds of Hungary proper, as apart from Transylvania, was under
+Turkish rule; on the other, the Habsburgs, then at their apogee, waged a
+relentless war against the liberties and independence of the Hungarians
+both in non-Turkish Hungary and in Transylvania. In the latter country,
+the Bocskays, Bethlens, and Rákóczys had in succession contrived to
+establish a Hungarian principate which, although acknowledging Turkish
+ascendancy, yet retained many of the rights of sovereignty. These two
+sets of circumstances were in themselves hurtful to the development
+of anything relating to Hungarian nationality, and most of all to
+Hungarian Literature. The counties under Turkish rule could not, by the
+very nature of the oppression under which they smarted, produce any
+literary movement at all. The counties under Austrian rule were held in
+bondage both political and intellectual, which stifled all attempts at a
+national literature. The sages have as yet not been able to prove, that
+a republican government must of necessity be beneficial to the material
+and political welfare of a nation. As to the intellectual progress
+of a nation, on the other hand, Liberty is generally taken to be an
+indispensable condition. Literature is possible only where there is at
+least a republic of minds. The Austrian government took good precautions
+to render the rise of such a republic in Hungary an impossibility. All
+the higher and middle schools in Austrian Hungary were, during the
+seventeenth century, in the hands of the Jesuits. The order of Jesus
+has not, as is well known, prevented a very great number of its members
+and pupils from rising to eminence in Theology and in Science. It could
+not, owing to its cosmopolitan and anti-national constitution, further
+movements of national literature. Quite apart from the debatable nature
+of its moral and political teachings, it retarded or stopped all such
+movements by employing in its schools the Latin language as the vehicle
+of instruction. At Nagyszombat (in 1635); at Kassa (in 1657); at Buda (in
+1687), the Jesuits founded, or taught in, universities, where lectures
+on all branches of knowledge were delivered in the mongrel language of
+the mediæval Scholastics, which has always had a baneful influence both
+on knowledge and its students. In the Protestant schools, the number of
+which exceeded seven hundred and fifty, the same radically false system
+was observed. The consequence was, that the vast majority of Hungarians
+had never received a living knowledge of either the history of Man or of
+Nature, and could accordingly turn their dead intellectual capital to no
+account. The only Hungarians whose mental acquirements had sufficient
+vitality to serve as stimulants to literary production of a higher type
+were such as could read Italian or French, that is, works, written in
+one, and thus fertilizing another living language. Such exceptional
+individuals could then be found only amongst the wealthy classes, or
+in other words, amongst the magnates. Thus it happened that all great
+literary work in Hungarian produced during the seventeenth century was
+done by the great noblemen, and by them alone. Hungary may therefore
+afford a fair test for the curious problem, whether from an aristocracy
+of birth can be recruited that aristocracy of genius the work of which
+forms a nation’s great literature. In Hungary, the aristocracy of birth
+proved, on the whole, unequal to such a task. The Hungarian magnates of
+the seventeenth century did much creditable work in _belles-lettres_, and
+some also in graver departments of literature. Yet, they were unable to
+originate more than a temporary and inferior reform; and, moreover, they
+did, as we shall see, serious harm to the literary life of the nation at
+large, in that they were not able to engage its interests in the growth
+of its literature.
+
+Of these magnates, the eloquent Cardinal Primate of Hungary, Peter
+Pázmány (1570-1637), Archbishop of Esztergom, claims our attention
+first. In his thirteenth year he became a convert to Catholicism,
+and later a Jesuit; and so intense was his zeal for the Church of
+Rome, that most of his active life was spent in a propaganda, by
+writings even more than by words, for his church, and with a constant
+literary warfare with the non-Catholics of Hungary. He is said to have
+converted no less than thirty of the noblest families of his country
+to the Catholic persuasion. At his time, perhaps the greatest number
+of Protestants were in Transylvania, whose princes were warm-hearted
+protectors of the Reformation; and since they cultivated the Hungarian
+language in preference to any other, Pázmány thought it wise to use
+the same idiom in his controversial writings. Pázmány’s theological
+armoury is taken chiefly from the controversial works of his French
+colleague and contemporary, the famous Jesuit Bellarmin. In his style,
+however, he shows considerable originality. He prefers the strong, racy
+expressions, proverbs and similes of the common people. His is a direct
+and vigorous, rather than an artistic style. The strange contrast between
+his popular vocabulary and the scholastic fence of his thoughts lends a
+peculiar flavour to his _Hodegus_ or “_Kalauz_” (1613), and his sermons
+(“_Prédikácziók_,” 1636). Among his numerous Protestant opponents were:
+Peter Alvinczi, of Kassa; and George Komáromi Csipkés, of Debreczen;
+the latter translated the whole Bible into Hungarian. As a sad contrast
+to the splendid career of the convert Pázmány, we may mention here the
+life-long sufferings and wanderings of the loyal Protestant Albert Molnár
+de Szencz (1574-1634), who was persecuted wherever he came, in Germany,
+Austria, Hungary or Transylvania; and who, one of the true epigones of
+the Conrad Gesners and Sylburgs, published, in the midst of poverty
+and misery, Hungarian dictionaries; a valuable Hungarian translation
+of the Psalms (1607, after French models), which is in use to the
+present day; a Hungarian Grammar (1610); and a Hungarian translation of
+Calvin’s _Institutio_. Finally, the gorgeous picture of the Cardinal
+cannot be set off to more advantage, than by a slight mention of the
+fanatic and obscure _Sabbatarians_ (“_Szombatosok_”), in the background,
+whose religious poetry is no uninteresting evidence of the Hungarian
+theological literature of that time.
+
+Amongst the numerous _protégés_ and pupils of the victorious archbishop
+we find also Count Michael Zrinyi (1618-1664), a descendant of the famous
+Zrinyi, who, in 1566, defied single-handed the invasion of Sultan Soliman
+the Splendid, by offering him, with a handful of men, unconquerable
+resistance in the Castle of Szigeth, some twenty miles west of Pécs.
+Count Michael was one of the best educated men of his time, and equally
+great as a patriot, poet and general. The sad state of Hungary could
+not but affect deeply a man, whose historic _rôle_ seemed to be clearly
+indicated by the glorious heroism of his ancestor. Having travelled
+abroad, especially in Italy, where Tasso’s religious epic _Gerusalemme
+liberata_ was read then more than ever after, he conceived the idea of
+stirring up a vast crusade against the Turks, by singing the deeds of
+his great-grandfather in an epic at once political and religious. This
+epic is commonly called the “Zrinyiad” (“_Zrinyiász_”), and consists
+of fifteen cantos, written in rugged and rough style. It reveals much
+power of description and religious enthusiasm; but it is lacking in
+form and moderation; nor can the portraits of its heroes be called
+plastic by any means. It is, from the artistic standpoint, spoiled by
+the deficiency above mentioned; the central hero is too perfect to
+be lastingly interesting. Old Zrinyi is capital matter for ballads;
+for an epic he is too faultless. On the other hand, the “Zrinyiad” is
+one of the most effective of patriotic epics. Like the epic works of
+Klopstock in Germany, or “_Ossian_” in England, it had at the time of its
+appearance a great national value, apart from its literary merits. In
+telling the Hungarian nation in tones of sacred anger, that the Turkish
+oppression was due to the depravity of the Magyars, in exhorting them in
+vigorous modes to rally and shake off the yoke of the infidels, Zrinyi
+added an internal lustre to his work which even now, after more than
+two centuries, has not lost much of its splendour. Like the daring and
+glorious deed of his ancestor, his poem is more of a patriotic than an
+historic event. It were only gross exaggeration to count the “Zrinyiad”
+amongst the world’s great epics. The poet might well belie history in
+letting his ancestor personally kill the great Sultan. It would be
+dishonest to add to the glory of the poet by ignoring the truth of the
+literary canon.
+
+As to the other magnates who wrote poetical works in Hungarian during
+the seventeenth century, it will be sufficient to say, that their poems
+were meant chiefly for the gratification of their authors; and although
+some of them were printed in book form, yet the bulk was left in the
+well-deserved obscurity of family archives. The most noteworthy of these
+poets were: John Rimay de Rima (1564-1631), an imitator of Balassi; Peter
+Beniczky de Benicze (1606(?)-1664); Count Stephen Kohári (1649-1731);
+Baroness Catherine Sidonia Petrőczi; Count Peter Zichy; Count Valentin
+Balassi, the second poet of that name (1626(?)-1684); and Baron Ladislas
+Listhy (1630-1660(?)), whose epic, “The Disaster of Mohács” (“_Mohács
+veszedelme_”), betokens a remarkable talent for versification.
+
+So exclusive was the influence of the magnates on the literature of that
+time, that the one remarkable poet of the seventeenth century who was
+no magnate himself, although a nobleman, selected as the subject of his
+epic poem a romantic event from the life of one of the leading magnates.
+Count Francis Wesselényi besieged, in 1644, the Castle of Murány,
+defended by the beautiful widow, Mary Szécsi. In the end he won both
+the heart of the heroic beauty and the castle. This famous event forms
+the burden of one of the most popular of Hungarian poetical narratives,
+briefly called, “The Venus of Murány” (“_Murányi Vénus_”, 1664), written
+by Stephen Gyöngyössi. Its language is musical, and the narrative tone
+very felicitous. The poet has evidently made a close study of Ovid,
+and frequently reaches the light touch and charm of the Roman; he even
+adds an element of romance, which has endeared his work to more than six
+generations of Hungarian readers. The metre is Alexandrine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+                                                               1520-1711.
+
+Amidst the din and excitement of the endless wars in Hungary, both civil
+and foreign, during the seventeenth century, the agitated mind of the
+common people vented itself in numerous ditties, skits and lampoons,
+which, after the name of one of the national parties, have been called
+_Kurucz-poetry_. It consists almost exclusively of largely unprinted
+little poems, mostly political, and depicts the agonies and torments
+of the patriots. Some of them are good and true in tone, and even
+powerful in the expression of hatred and satire. The one ever-memorable
+folk-poem of that time, however, was not written in words. The profound
+passions aroused by the last great revolution under the romantic Francis
+Rákóczy II., towards the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of
+the eighteenth century, were incarnated in inimitable fashion in the
+“_Rákóczy march_,” the most fanaticising of all war-marches. Whoever
+actually composed it (tradition ascribes it to a Hungarian gipsy-woman by
+the name of Panna Czinka), that march spells a whole period of Hungarian
+history, just as Milton’s _Paradise Lost_ spells a whole period of
+English life. The Magyar nation was at the end of the seventeenth century
+far too unpractised in literary architecture to rear its pangs and
+longings into a dome of words. It was, however, then as now sufficiently
+imbued with the power of musical creation, to embody its woes in the
+fiery rhythms of the most heroic of martial songs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+                                                               1520-1711.
+
+During the period in question very little was done for historic and
+scientific studies. John Cséri de Apáca (1625-1660), an enthusiastic
+student and patriot, published a small Hungarian “_Encyclopedia_”
+(1655), in which the elements of knowledge, both philologic, natural and
+mathematical are given in a simple and clear manner. Francis Páriz-Pápai
+published a much used dictionary of the Hungarian and Latin languages
+(1708). The nine books of the chronicle of John Szalárdi, who died 1666
+(“_Siralmas Krónika_”), form the first attempt at historiography in the
+Hungarian language. Some of the leading men of that age left memoirs; and
+grammarians were also not wanting. The great philosophic wave, sweeping
+over Europe in the seventeenth century (Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza,
+Leibniz, Pierre Bayle), left scarcely any traces in Hungarian Literature,
+except in Cséri’s Encyclopedia, where Cartesianism is not quite absent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+                                                               1711-1772.
+
+1711-1772. The period bounded by the years 1711-1772 is one of decline.
+During these years, which comprise the reigns of Emperor Charles VI.,
+and most of that of Austria’s greatest ruler, Maria Theresa (1740-1780),
+there was practically very little Magyar literature; and the little
+was bad. Hungarians of that period wrote, as a rule, in Latin; and the
+subjects they selected were those of laborious erudition; philology;
+descriptive natural science; annalistic history; historic theology. This
+decline in national literature was only another phase of the decline
+of the Magyar idiom. For, both in Transylvania, which was now again,
+as formerly, united with Hungary, and in Hungary proper, the Hungarian
+language ceased to be used in the schools, at the county-sessions,
+in the law-courts, and in polite society. In all these centres of
+intellectual intercourse, Latin, German or French were used instead
+of the sonorous language of Árpád. In Catholic and Protestant schools
+alike instruction was given in bad Latin. At the county-sessions; in
+the national parliament; and in the law-courts, Latin alone was used;
+while the higher classes of society were talking either in German or in
+French. For the latter fact, there is a simple explanation at hand. When,
+in 1711, Hungary was at last “pacified,” it had become evident to the
+most patriotic of the leading families, that further armed resistance
+to the Habsburgs being impossible, the only chances of promotion for
+their children were at the court of Vienna. This involved the adoption
+of Viennese manners, and Viennese mediums of conversation; that is,
+of French and German. No sooner was that done by the aristocratic
+families of Hungary, than the abnormal state of the then national
+literature revealed all its latent barrenness. As has been seen in the
+preceding chapters, all the great Hungarian writers from 1600 to 1711
+were recruited from the class of the magnates. When, now, after 1711,
+the magnates flocked to Vienna, there to undergo a thorough process of
+Germanization, or rather Austrianization, there was no class of writers
+left in Hungary to take their place. Hence the sudden dearth of great
+writers, and the astounding decline of Hungarian Literature. To this
+must be added the fact, that German literature which was naturally
+destined to have a considerable influence on Hungarian writers, both
+from geographical contiguity, and on account of the general knowledge
+of German in the then Hungary; that German literature, we say, was not
+beginning to reach its classical period before the sixties of that
+century, and could therefore stimulate Hungarian Literature but very
+little. It is much more difficult to account for the exclusive use
+of Latin in the schools and in parliamentary debates. Had the use of
+Latin in the schools been accompanied by the study of Greek and Greek
+literature it would probably have wrought very much less mischief.
+
+Unfortunately for Hungarian Literature, the study of Greek was almost
+entirely neglected in the last century. _Graeca non leguntur._ The
+immense power of æsthetic education inherent in Greek classical
+works could thus not benefit the Hungarians. Nay, it may be said in
+strict truth, that for Hungarians, naturally inclined as they are to
+grandiloquence and redundancy, both of words and thought, the study of
+Latin literature, untempered by that of Greek, was in many ways harmful.
+Many Latin poets and prose-writers lack that simplicity and moderation,
+which mark off Hellenic authors from all but the very best writers of
+all ages. The exclusive study of Latin was therefore doubly harmful to
+the Hungarians: first, in that it made them neglect their own language;
+and secondly, in that it supplanted the study of Greek literature.
+The exclusive use of Latin in all the schools and colleges of Hungary
+during the last century was, however, part of that general obscurantism
+weighing on all the educational institutions of the Habsburg empire.
+Both Charles VI. and Maria Theresa left the instruction of youths in
+the hands of monks and priests. Previous to the abolition of the order
+of the Jesuits (1773) that order had no less than thirty “_gymnasia_,”
+or higher colleges in Hungary. After its abolition, these colleges were
+placed in the hands of other orders, such as the Præmonstratencians, the
+Benedictines, Paulists and Franciscans. As in Austria, so in Hungary, the
+regular clergy, more still than the secular, attempted to shut off their
+pupils from the new light rising in France, England and Germany, and for
+that purpose the habitual use of scholastic Latin was one of the most
+efficient means. At the Protestant schools, of which the most famous were
+at Debreczen, at Sárospatak, and at Pozsony, in Hungary proper; and at
+Nagy Enyed, Kolosvár, Marosvásárhely, and at Udvarhely, in Transylvania,
+instruction was likewise given in Latin. Nor can it be seriously
+maintained that the Protestant teachers were more prone to let in the new
+light than were the Catholic.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+                                                               1711-1772.
+
+In poetry proper, it is for the present period customary, but scarcely
+necessary, to mention the Jesuit Francis Faludi (1704-1779), who has
+put some wise saws and moral platitudes into light verse; and Baron
+Ladislas Amadé (1703-1764), whose not unmelodious lyrics were sufficient
+to give the successful courtier a mild reputation as an interesting
+poet. In dramatic poetry there is nothing worth mentioning. The Jesuits
+occasionally had their pupils play a patriotic or religious drama made
+_ad hoc_, and good _pro tunc_. Of prose-writers there is one, and one
+only, whose “Letters” written from Turkey, where he was in exile, have
+abiding literary value. This was Clement Mikes (1690-1761), who was
+brought up by Prince Rákóczy, to whom he proved constant under all
+circumstances, and for this reason Mikes still belongs to the generation
+of Hungarian nobles who cultivated their language with the pride of
+true patriots. The “Letters” are not only full of historic interest,
+especially with regard to the interior condition of the then still
+mighty Turkish empire, but also as specimens of pure, idiomatic and
+well-balanced Hungarian prose.
+
+The remarkable works in History, Theology or Science of that period were,
+as noticed, written in Latin. Of learned works written in Hungarian the
+two best were by men who had spent their youth in the preceding century,
+and were thus less afflicted with the gangrene of the decadence of the
+period from 1711 to 1772; Michael Cserei (1668-1756), and Peter Apor
+(1676-1752), both of very great nobility. Cserei wrote a “_Transylvanian
+History_” (“_Erdélyi Historia_”), in which the events from 1661 to 1711
+are told in a lively, naïve and pleasing style. Apor is the author of a
+remarkable work on the history of the manners, customs, and institutions
+of ancient Transylvania. It is entitled “_Metamorphosis Transylvaniae_,”
+and its object is to show, by contrast, how low the country had sunk
+from its former glory. His satire is not infrequently both scathing and
+well-expressed.
+
+The bent for erudite laboriousness gave rise to several works on the
+history of Hungarian Literature. The still-life of the small town of
+Bártfa in the county of Sáros must have hung heavily on the hands of
+David Czwittinger, one of the lawyers of that town, who published, in
+1711, a dry list of Hungarian writers, in alphabetical order. He was
+distanced by the indefatigable and patriotic Peter Bod (1712-1769), who
+had, like so many Protestants, spent several years at Dutch universities,
+where he amassed much polyhistoric knowledge and a good library. There,
+no doubt, he also acquired the taste for literary history, and in his
+“Hungarian Athenæum” (“_Magyar Athénás_”, 1766) he collected much
+material bearing on the lives and works of no less than six hundred
+Hungarian authors. In Law or Philosophy there appeared, during this
+period, no work in Hungarian claiming our attention.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+                                                               1772-1825.
+
+1772-1825. After a period of decadence, lasting for over sixty years,
+Hungarian Literature was again brought to a state of revival and
+progress, which has gone on almost uninterruptedly to the present day.
+This revival is part of an immense revolution which swept over most
+countries of continental Europe in the second half of the last century.
+The most conspicuous and best known event of this Modern Renascence is
+the series of terrific upheavals and wars commonly called the French
+Revolution. It is, however, quite evident that the French Revolution
+was only the politic aspect of a vast movement, which in many countries
+outside France assumed the garb of intellectual revolutions. Thus the
+mental achievements that, in their totality, are called the “classical
+period” of German literature (1750-1805) are in the domain of Thought
+and Sentiment, a revolution no less colossal and far-reaching than were
+the ever-memorable proceedings of the French _assemblées_, or the bloody
+epics of the Revolutionary campaigns. Both were gigantic onslaughts
+against the _Ancien Régime_ in institutions, manners, thought and
+sentiment. Accordingly, the course of both revolutions was—making due
+allowance for externals—essentially the same. As the French Revolution
+landed in, or rather was brought to its final consummation in the titanic
+and all-embracing personality of Napoleon, so German literature met its
+final trysting-place and culmination in the orchestral mind of Goethe.
+
+The minor nations of Europe were seized by the same Revolution, if in a
+manner considerably less intense. The very aggressiveness of the French
+Revolution, its encroachments on the territories of Italy, Switzerland,
+Germany and Austria, prevented those minor nations from enacting their
+Revolution at once in its intellectual and political aspects. While
+fighting the French, they were all engaged in following them on the lines
+of the Revolution, first (1790-1830) for intellectual freedom; and then,
+after the defeat of the French armies (1830-1848), for the very political
+ideals that the French had been the first to proclaim. For, this was the
+immense advantage of the French over the other nations on the continent:
+they had brought their intellectual revolution through men like Turgot,
+d’Alembert, Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau, etc., to maturity, before they
+started for their crusade of politic liberty; whereas the other nations
+were a generation or two behind-hand, and still in the throes of their
+intellectual renascence.
+
+This is not the place for a laborious inquiry into the causes of that
+immense Revolution which has, towards the end of the last, and in the
+first five decades of the present century, completely altered the face of
+European civilization. It is nevertheless necessary to give some account
+of such causes as were instrumental in ripening the intellectual aspect
+of that Revolution in Hungary. Among the leading causes was a structural
+change in the population of Hungary on the one hand, and the reaction
+against the provocative and anti-national measures of the Habsburgs on
+the other.
+
+Up to the sixties of the last century, the population of Hungary
+consisted practically of (1) a rural population, comprising both
+magnates, noblemen and peasants; and (2) a small urban population,
+comprising largely foreign or Germanized craftsmen and tradespeople.
+Under such circumstances, literature, which is pre-eminently an urban
+growth, could not develop. For, not only was the urban population
+too small and too much immersed in material pursuits, but the only
+intellectual class, viz., the aristocracy, was living in the country,
+that is, in an atmosphere unfavourable to continuous literary efforts. By
+the end of the sixties, however, the structural change, above indicated,
+took place. Owing to a series of measures issued by Maria Theresa and
+Joseph II., the rural population of Hungary was liberated from its most
+odious fetters. Bondage, and a sort of serfdom (_jobbágyság_), with all
+its concomitant evils were almost abolished. Numerous rural families
+left their obscure abodes, repaired to the towns, and urban life, for
+the first time in Hungarian history, was raised above the low level on
+which it had been vegetating for centuries. With the increase of urban
+population came an increase of wealth and comfort; a greater activity
+in commerce, both mercantile and social. Many a gifted Hungarian, who
+would have previously spent his days in the obscurity of his county, now
+willingly lived in one of the rising towns. With an accelerated speed
+of work came a more rapid appreciation of talent, and a greater number
+of authors. The influx of the rural population to the town facilitated
+that mutual action and reaction between Nature and Man, which, in one
+form or other, is the main spring of literature. In England, too, the
+great period of Shakespeare was preceded by a similar structural change
+in the population. The dissolution of the monasteries and the numerous
+enclosures of commons, depriving as they did, hundreds of thousands of
+rural people of their means of livelihood, drove them into the towns,
+which rapidly ozonified that atmosphere of great intellectual stir,
+without which no great writers are possible. In Germany, too, the period
+of Lessing, Schiller, and Goethe was preceded by a new influx of the
+rural population into the towns devastated by the thirty years’ war. Nor
+can it be doubted that Italy, in possession of highly-organized and rich
+towns long before any other mediæval nation, took, for this very reason,
+the lead in all literary matters.
+
+This broad fact of Hungarian history (totally neglected by the historians
+of Hungary, probably because of its very broadness), must therefore be
+considered as the prime mover in the revival of Hungarian Literature.
+It created that mysterious propelling power which in times of progress
+everybody feels and nobody can account for. It was the latent and
+constant stimulus to renewed mental labour, and to keener delight in
+it. Like great rivers it was swelled by smaller affluents of causes.
+Thus that great structural change in nearly all parts of Hungary was
+accompanied by two structural changes in limited layers of Hungarian
+society. Maria Theresa, probably with a view of carrying Austrianization
+into the very hearts of the Hungarian nobles had, in 1760, established
+the famous Hungarian Guard in Vienna. Each county in Hungary was to send
+up a few young noblemen to Vienna, where they were clad in sumptuous
+style, and treated with all the seductive arts of a refined court. Thus
+a considerable number of Hungarian noblemen were given an opportunity
+for that higher education and refinement, which in former times had
+been the privilege of the select few. Vienna was in many ways a centre
+of Franco-German civilization, and the young Magyar noblemen derived,
+from a lengthy stay in the Austrian capital, a benefit similar to that
+for which English gentlemen flocked to Paris in the thirteenth and
+seventeenth century. This then, constituted one of the minor changes in
+the intellectual development of one class of Hungarians. There was also
+another change. Joseph II., in dissolving over a third of the existing
+monasteries, and a great number of monastic orders too, set free a
+number of educated men, who would have otherwise led a sterile life in
+the lonely cells of their monasteries. They now began to devote their
+unexpected leisure to pursuits of a different kind; and some amongst them
+became workers in the field of literature. Thus a new source of literary
+production was opened up.
+
+To these structural changes in the population of Hungary, that is, to the
+home and internal cause of a potential revival, now came the external
+agency of those anti-national measures against Hungarian institutions,
+which Maria Theresa, with fine womanly tact, had used in a tentative
+manner, but which were applied by Joseph II. in the most reckless and
+irritating fashion. Joseph had one ideal: the homogeneous Austrian
+state. Like all ideals it was unrealisable. It was worse than that:
+it was suicidal. The Austrian empire has its very _raison d’être_ in
+the heterogeneity of its constituent parts. To level down the Austrian
+“lands” to one and the same pattern, is to deprive them of all vitality.
+They live by contrast to one another. Unable to be quite independent each
+by itself, they would, if unconnected by some common tie, only serve to
+aggrandize either Prussia, Russia or Italy, and so upset the balance
+of Europe in a fatal manner. United by the dynastic tie, they form an
+imposing, if incongruous whole, the component parts still retaining very
+much of a strong individuality. Any attempt at forcing them into blank
+uniformity must needs be answered by a still stronger attempt on their
+part to rend the dynastic tie asunder. The various provinces have, since
+1648, and with respect to Hungary, since 1711, made no civil war on one
+another. Not one of them had, as had Prussia in Germany since Frederick
+II.’s time, or England since Cromwell’s time, the supremacy over the
+rest. Their sole union and bond was in their common dynasty. To try to
+reduce them to one and the same level, as Joseph II. did, was both the
+worst dynastic and national policy imaginable. The Austrian provinces,
+then or now, if reduced to complete uniformity, will first of all
+abolish the dynasty—as superfluous. In the _egalitarian_ ordinances of
+Joseph II. there was so much that was subversive of the very pillars and
+coping-stones of the whole Austrian edifice, that the Hungarians, as well
+as all the other nationalities under his rule (Belgians, Czechs, Poles,
+etc.), forthwith rose in a body in defence of their privileges, charters,
+rights; in fact, of their existence severally and collectively. The
+Emperor wanted to abolish the Hungarian language, Hungarian institutions,
+Hungarian society. At once the Hungarians, who had then almost entirely
+neglected their language, learned to regard it as the chief palladium
+of their nationality. Hungarian periodicals were started; such as the
+“_Magyar Múzsa_” (since 1787); “_Magyar Múzeum_” (since 1788, in Kassa);
+“_Mindenes Gyűjtemény_” (since 1789); “_Orpheus_” (since 1790, edited
+by Kazinczy); “_Urania_” (since 1794, edited by Kármán), etc. Hungarian
+actors were encouraged; Hungarian literary societies were started, the
+oldest being that founded by John Kis, at Sopron, in 1790. These efforts
+were immeasurably increased in efficiency by the publication of very
+numerous Magyar works in nearly all _genres_ of literature, and in styles
+and “schools” of great divergency. The members of the Guard naturally
+proceeded on French lines, taking the great French writers, and chiefly
+Voltaire, as their model. The foremost members of the new urban element,
+which also included many an unfrocked monk, coming as they did from the
+country where the Magyar language and folk-poetry had never died out, and
+where the national pulse beat strongest, proceeded on national lines.
+The older country-gentry, and numerous released monks, conversant above
+all with Latin literature, proclaimed the classical metres and forms as
+the only safeguard and aim of literature; while another section of the
+new urban element followed in the wake of the Germans, whose classical
+writers were just then at the height of their fame. This great divergence
+of schools was in itself proof of the definite revival of Hungarian
+Literature. In the spiritual republic, no less than in the political,
+parties are of the very essence of vigorous life. By the end of the
+last century there could have no longer been any doubt about the strong
+vitality of Hungarian Literature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+                                                               1772-1825.
+
+The first of these “schools” to publish serious works with the intention
+of reforming the literature of Hungary, were the members of the Hungarian
+Guard at Vienna, and chiefly George Bessenyei (1747-1811).[2] In 1772 he
+published a tragedy, entitled “Agis” (“_Agis tragédiája_”) in which he
+attempted to give, within the strict rules of the Franco-Aristotelean
+tri-unity of time, place and action, a model for his contemporaries. In
+point of language, _Agis_ is not without some merits; as a dramatic work
+it has long been regarded as a failure. Bessenyei was more successful in
+his comedies (“Philosophus,” etc.), in which he even contrived to create
+a type, _Pontyi_, representing the narrow-minded, ultra-conservative
+country-squire of his time. His style is held to be much better
+still in his prose works containing philosophical essays after the
+rationalistic fashion of his epoch. Amongst the numerous colleagues
+and literary followers of Bessenyei were: Abraham Barcsai (1742-1806),
+Alexander Báróczi (1735-1809), who excelled chiefly in translations
+from the French; Ladislas Baranyi, Joseph Naláczi, Bessenyei’s own
+brother, Alexander, who tried his hand at Milton’s “_Paradise Lost_,”
+etc. To the Bessenyei circle (“_Bessenyei György társasága_”) belonged
+also Paul Ányos (1756-1784), in whose mournful and sentimental poems
+there are many traces of genuine poetry. Nor must Joseph Péczeli be
+forgotten (1750-1792), who through his numerous translations from French
+and English works (Edward Young’s “Night Thoughts”) and his “Fables”
+(“_Mesék_”) deserved highly of Hungarian Literature.
+
+The next in time and merit was the school of the Classicists, or more
+properly speaking, Latinists. The first four remarkable members of that
+school were all unfrocked priests. Baróti David Szabó (1739-1819), and
+Joseph Rajnis (Reinisch) were ex-Jesuits; Nicolas Révai (1750-1807)
+was a Piarist, and Benedictus Virág (1752(?)-1830) an ex-Paulist. The
+circumstances of their mental development above indicated led them
+naturally to an imitation of the Latin poets; and Virág in Hungary,
+like Ramler in Germany, or Cowley in England, was held to be one of
+the numerous “Horaces,” in whom the nascent literatures of Europe
+were happily so rich. In ripe mellowness of formal beauty and musical
+ring Virág cannot, we are afraid, be said to have seriously challenged
+the laurels of the friend of Augustus. His _Works_ (_Poétai Munkák_,
+1799) are, on the other hand, inspired by a noble glow of patriotism,
+which might have added some lustre to the poems even of Flaccus. Virág
+translated Horace into Hungarian, as Baróti had done with the _Aeneid_.
+The poetical works of the other two ex-priests were of an inferior kind.
+
+To the above two schools now was added the third; the national or
+genuinely Magyar school. The two former laid special stress on purity and
+perfection of form, both external and internal. In fact, the classicists
+came near sacrificing everything else to correctness of form. In this
+they were partly justified, partly supported by the peculiar adaptability
+of the Hungarian language to the most complicated of classic metres.
+Hexameters or alcaics are just as natural to Hungarian, as they are to
+Greek and Latin; and infinitely more so than to any other Indo-German
+language of Europe. The classicists, and especially the greatest of them,
+Berzsenyi—see below—were able to handle the most national and intimate
+subjects in the most foreign of verse-forms, and with perfect ease too.
+This seemed to go far in convincing many writers, that classical forms
+were the only ones to adopt, and classical models the only ones to
+follow. The prosodic wealth of the Hungarian language is, however, not
+exhausted by its classic metres by far. From time immemorial Hungarian
+poetry was wedded to Hungarian music, and the latter, with its pointed
+rhythms and sudden irruptions of cadences, was quite unfitted for the
+stately calm of antique metres. In German classical music, classical
+metres, such as the hexameter or the alcaic may be, and have been
+employed. In Hungarian music they are out of place altogether. Here,
+then, was the inner justification of the “Magyar” school. Its members
+strongly and rightly felt, that in the cult of antique prosody the
+classicists had overstepped the bounds; that Hungarian poetry needed
+forms and moulds other than those of Virgil or Horace; and that the short
+cross-rhymed stanza was to Hungarian Literature, what the violin and the
+“_czimbalom_” (dulcimer) were to Hungarian music. It is impossible to
+play Hungarian music on the organ.
+
+Of the Magyar school was Ádám Horváth (1760-1820), who in addition
+to an epic called “_Hunnias_” (1787), in which he tried to sing the
+exploits of John Hunyadi after the battle of Varna (1444), published a
+number of simple poems in the style of the folk-poetry of the Hungarian
+peasants. By refining the prosody of that _genre_ he introduced it
+into the literary world. The most successful of the Magyarists was
+Count Joseph Gvadányi (1725-1801), whose “A Village Notary’s Travel to
+Buda” (“_Egy falusi nótárius budai utazása_,” 1790), was a felicitous
+attempt to expose, in the form of a novel in verse, the utter decadence
+and denationalization of the town-people and the gentry of the middle
+of the last century. The “notary” has survived as a type. Gvadányi’s
+other novels are on the same lines, all of them being animated by a
+resolute patriotism. He was followed by Andreas Dugonics (1740-1818),
+an ex-Piarist, whose “_Etelka_” a novel (1788) became very popular,
+chiefly owing to its strongly accentuated patriotism and anti-Austrian
+feeling, and also to the racy, popular language he used. He also compiled
+a valuable collection of Hungarian proverbs and apophthegms (“_Magyar
+példabeszédek és jeles mondások_”). The number of writers belonging to
+the Magyar school in the two last decades of the eighteenth century
+is considerable. They all excel in patriotic verve, and much of the
+anonymous work done at that time for the restoration of Hungarian
+Literature is due to them. We cannot here give more than a list of a
+few names. John Kónyi, Stephán Gáti, Francis Nagy, the first Hungarian
+translator of the Iliad, and Joachim Szekér, who did much for the
+bettering of female education in Hungary. Separate mention must be made
+of a number of Magyarist poet-naturalists whose centre was the city
+of Debreczen, and amongst whom were John Földi (1755-1801), who wrote
+some remarkable works on Hungarian prosody in its relation to music;
+and Michael Fazekas, whose “_Ludas Matyi_,” a chap-book written in the
+interests of the peasants, has long been one of the most popular comic
+stories. Nor were the usual excrescences of the juvenile epoch of a
+new language wanting. A limited class of now obscure writers (Gregory
+Édes, John Varjas, etc.), abused the great flexibility of the Hungarian
+language in verse-forms and metres of the most absurd kind. They were the
+caricaturists of the rapidly growing Magyar idiom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+                                                               1772-1825.
+
+The formation of different schools of literature was of great benefit
+to the growth and advance of Hungarian poetry and prose. Many a
+minor talent could and did, by clinging to and being supported by a
+“school,” steady his work. After the lapse of some time, however, the
+exclusiveness of “schools” would have done great harm to the higher
+development of Hungarian Literature. By 1795 more than schools and
+literary guilds was needed. The nation wanted powerful individualities
+who were, so to speak, schools themselves. Fortunately for the cause
+of the Hungarian intellect, such men did arise in time. The first of
+them was Francis Verseghy (1757-1822). An ex-Piarist, and involved in
+the conspiracy of Martinovics: he had gone through the experiences of
+a priest, a politician and a state-prisoner. His poetical works, which
+are very numerous, manifest a tender, yet strong mind, much ease of
+form, and a power of satire. He translated the _Marseillaise_ into
+Hungarian. He is at his best in short poems. What raises him above most
+of his predecessors is his considerable independence as a poet. He
+clings slavishly to no school, and succeeds in combining some of the
+excellencies of all. In genius he was far excelled by tempestuous John
+Bacsányi (1763-1845), who espoused the cause of the French Revolution,
+did some work for Napoleon, and was in 1814 taken back to Austria, where
+he died an exile. He brought Ossian’s poems to Hungary; and in his fierce
+poems all the fire of the revolutionary fever may be felt. Yet with all
+that he could reduce to fine proportions and to efficiency neither his
+life nor his work. In the melancholy and sweet poems of the ex-priest,
+Gabriel Dayka (1768-1796), the Hungarian Hölty, which have to the present
+day lost nothing of their Wordsworth-like delicacy, we have the first
+instalment of those mournful _largos_, in which Hungarian Literature is
+as rich as is Hungarian music.
+
+These three writers were as the forerunners of literary individualities
+of a much higher type. The first of them was Joseph Kármán (1769-1795).
+He too spent some time in Vienna, where then centred the political and
+social life of a large portion of Europe. Like so many more Hungarians,
+he burst into enthusiasm for his country by staying and living amongst
+a foreign people who, in the nobler traits of character, were decidedly
+inferior to the Magyars, and who yet were considered to be their rulers.
+The people of Austria, and especially the Viennese, are utterly different
+from the Hungarians. Their love of the burlesque, of the grotesquely
+funny, of the clownish, stood out then, as it still largely does, in
+sharp contrast to the dignified gravity of the Magyars. To be considered
+as subject to people so very much less adapted for the functions of
+government than themselves, was at all times galling to the Hungarians;
+and perhaps never more so, than in the nineties of the last century, when
+a mighty wave of opposition to the Habsburgs was sweeping over Hungary.
+Kármán’s was a most sensitive soul. He fully realized that to render
+Hungarian Literature more perfect and independent was first of all a
+great political deed. He keenly felt, that Hungary, unless emancipated
+intellectually, must fall a victim to the then immense ascendancy of
+Austria. Every good poem, every good novel, written by a Hungarian in
+the language of his country, was then of more service to Hungary than
+all the proceedings at the national assemblies. Kármán, despite his
+extreme youth, at once set to work. He proclaimed that Pesth ought to be
+the literary centre of Hungary. He started a quarterly (“_Urania_”),
+and hastened to write his “_Memoirs of Fanny_” (“_Fanni hagyományai_”).
+The latter is a novel in the form of letters and leaves from a diary.
+Fanny, the heroine, loves with all the inconsiderate passion of a
+young girl, a young man, whom she is not allowed to marry. She dies of
+a broken heart in the arms of her lover. The plot of the novel is of
+the simplest. The excessive sentimentality of the heroine, who is, as
+it were, drowned in the floods of her own feelings, is to our present
+taste somewhat overdone. With all these shortcomings, however, Kármán
+has poured over his little story so much of the golden light of fine,
+unaffected style, and has enriched it with so many touches of the most
+effective descriptions of scenery, that “_Fanny_” will always rank among
+the foremost of the literary products of the kind, of which Goethe’s
+“_Werther_” is the most famous.
+
+The second great poet was Michael Vitéz Csokonai (1773-1805). Born at
+Debreczen, a town whose famous fairs brought together annually an immense
+concourse of the agricultural and trading people of Hungary, Csokonai was
+at an early age imbued with the riches of the gallery of types for which
+his country has always been so remarkable. Although at all periods of
+his irregular and vagrant life Csokonai kept in close touch with books,
+Bürger amongst the Germans, Pope amongst the English, and Metastasio
+amongst the Italians, being his favourites; yet the real source of his
+surprising fertility of invention, and surety of draughtsmanship was laid
+in his constant contact with the people itself. His proud and independent
+character, the ruggedness of which was not rendered less objectionable
+by an independent fortune, drove him from post to post. As a roving poet
+he visited most of the counties, making friends everywhere, protectors
+and helpers nowhere; and when he finally returned to his old mother’s
+house, his health was irretrievably shattered by poverty, privations and
+occasional excesses. He is a great poet. His language is full of savour
+and truly Magyar. He has abundant and merciful humour, without lacking
+wit. Frequently he soars to philosophical heights of thought, where, like
+the eagle, he broods alone. In his lyrical poetry there is much of the
+rhapsodic frenzy, which was to make Hungary’s greatest poet, Petőfi, as
+unique in poetry, as Liszt is in music. Csokonai’s most famous poem is
+a comic epic, somewhat in the style of the _Rape of the Lock_, called
+“_Dorottya_,” or the _Triumph of the Ladies at the Carnival_ (“_A dámák
+diadalma a farsangon_”), in four parts. It narrates the warfare of the
+ladies of a small town, under the leadership of an old maid (Dorottya),
+with the men of the same place. The women complain of the shortness of
+the carnival, of the rarity of weddings, etc., and attempt to steal the
+registers of births compromising to many of them. In the end, the women
+fall out amongst themselves, Venus steps in, rejuvenating Dorottya, and
+making peace by marrying the contending parties to each other. The tone
+of that comic epic is throughout one of genuine mirth, and the language
+forms a fit drapery of the fleeting scenes of this charming carnival.
+The types stand out with great plasticity, and in this respect at least,
+Csokonai’s _Dorottya_ need fear no comparison with Pope’s masterpiece.
+The critics of his time did not recognize Csokonai’s greatness; and his
+townsmen, nearly all of them rigid Calvinists, did not think much of a
+poet in whose stanzas wine flowed abundantly, and love was rampant in
+forms at times unrestrained. When, therefore, some years after the poet’s
+death, admirers of his wanted to have his statue erected at Debreczen,
+and the words, “I too lived in Arcadia” engraved upon it, the good
+burghers of Debreczen violently opposed the suggestion. For, as if trying
+to give the departed poet exquisite material for another comic epic, they
+alleged, that by “Arcadia,” was meant, as they had learned, a country
+with good pasture, especially for donkeys; and since they solemnly
+protested against being considered donkeys, etc., etc. From this incident
+followed the so-called Arcadian lawsuit (“_arkádiai pör_”).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+                                                               1772-1825.
+
+In the literature of all civilized nations we meet with certain writers,
+whose great effect on their contemporaries was owing less to the absolute
+excellency of single works of theirs, than to the general tone and power
+of suggestion inherent in all their individuality. Such are, in England,
+Dr. Johnson and Thomas Carlyle; in France, Diderot and Renan; in Germany,
+Hamann and Herder. Without being creative geniuses, they influence their
+time as if they were such. One does so by the brilliancy of his talk,
+like Johnson; the other by pamphlets or essays _de omni re scibili_,
+like Herder; a third by boldly attempting to rear a new intellectual
+world in the place of the fabric of old literature and knowledge, like
+Diderot. The merit of such men is immense, yet relative. They deserve
+more highly of literary men, than of literature. They spread interest in
+or taste for good literature. They are critical, not constructive; and
+so decidedly preparatory and temporary is their work, that in the whole
+range of the world’s literature there has so far been one man, and one
+alone, whose genius shone equally in this preparatory or critical work,
+and in the still more precious work of positive creativeness too. That
+man was Lessing. In him the critical faculty did not seriously impair the
+creative; and he rendered immense services to German literature both by
+what he destroyed, by what he suggested and by what he created.
+
+Hungarian Literature was fortunate enough to find one of those initiators
+and suggestive stimulators during the period of its great revival, in
+the person of Francis Kazinczy (1759-1831). His work has frequently
+been compared to that of Lessing. No greater injustice could be done
+to Kazinczy. To compare him to the author of “_Laokoon_,” “_Emilia
+Galotti_,” and “_Anti-Goetze_,” is to render him much smaller than he
+really was. Without being a Lessing by far, he had a very considerable
+and beneficial influence on Hungarian writers, many of them greater
+than he. He was the son of a well-to-do gentleman of the county of
+Bihar, which has a population of both Magyars and Roumanians, and does
+not therefore belong to the counties where the purely Magyar spirit is
+permeating all the phases of life. To this circumstance, no less than
+to his education, must be ascribed Kazinczy’s little sympathy with the
+strongly Magyar and nationalist aspirations of the Debreczen school.
+His youth he spent chiefly in North Hungary, where the study of German
+literature was then rife in the better circles of society. Having
+acquired a competent knowledge of German, French and English, he poured
+forth, since 1791, numerous, most carefully composed translations from
+Shakespeare (_Hamlet_), Goethe, Molière, Klopstock, Herder, Lessing,
+etc. From 1794 to 1801 he was kept in various state prisons, for having
+been, as was alleged, implicated in the conspiracy of Martinovics.
+This terrible experience left no particular traces either on his mind
+or on his character. Subsequently, as previously, nay during his
+imprisonment, he was busy with the elaboration of essays, critical,
+historical, or novelistic, all of which had two distinct aims: first—to
+reform the Hungarian literary language, by the introduction of new words
+and especially new idioms; secondly, to reform Hungarian Literature
+by modelling it after the standard of Greek masterpieces. Both lines
+of reform were in the right direction. The Hungarian language was in
+Kazinczy’s youth still far from developed. Its vocabulary was limited
+mostly to the designation of things material, and quite fallow for the
+production of terms expressing things abstract or æsthetic. It resembled
+a country in which there is abundant currency in the shape of small
+coin; it lacked gold coins and bank-notes of great value. Yet like
+Hungary itself, its language was replete with gold-mines. In the rich and
+racy vocabulary of the common people there was both overt material and
+abundant hints for material hidden under the surface. Kazinczy, instead
+of taking these hints—instead of coining his new terms and idioms from
+the language of the common people, as he ought to have done, preferred
+to coin them according to standards taken from the western languages of
+Europe. In this he was grievously mistaken. There are unfortunately very
+few, if any, true dialects of the Hungarian language. This, the greatest
+drawback to Magyar writers, as the reverse of this deficiency is the
+greatest advantage to the writers of Germany, France, Italy or England,
+was rendered very much more harmful by Kazinczy, in that he totally
+neglected the few dialectic features together with the common household
+language of the people. In his efforts to enrich the language he thus
+could not but obtain results of an inferior type. His syntactic moves
+have not been followed on the whole; and of his new words few have gained
+general recognition.
+
+He was much more successful in the second of his life-long efforts; in
+the introduction of the æsthetic ideals of the Greeks into Hungary. We
+have seen above, that the neglect of the study of Greek literature in
+Hungary had, in the preceding periods stunted the growth of Hungarian
+Literature. Literature, like sculpture, is born of Greek parents; and
+none but nations trained in the Hellenic world of ideas, can make a
+literature proper. In Germany, Lessing, Wieland, Herder and Goethe
+were so profoundly imbued with Hellenic modes of thought and moulds of
+expression, that many of their best works have, as has been felicitously
+remarked, enriched ancient Greek literature. So deep were in Germany,
+through the works of these men, the furrows of Greek thought, that even
+writers like Schiller, who did not know Greek, were full of the Greek
+spirit of beauty and moderation, and amongst its most ardent propagators.
+It was from these German Hellenes that Kazinczy learned the great and
+invaluable lesson of Greek idealism, that spiritual atmosphere in which
+the human intellect feels as different from its ordinary sensations, as
+does the human body in a river. Kazinczy was the first of the Hungarian
+writers whose soul had undergone the process of Platonization, to use
+this clumsy but expressive word for a process, the chief stages of which
+are an increased familiarity with mental tempers, the greatest exponent
+of which was Plato. In Kazinczy’s wide correspondence with nearly all
+the literary men of his age; in his greater and smaller works; in his
+personal interviews with the leading men of his time; he invariably, and
+with noble persistency, endeavoured to instil Hellenic ideals of form,
+of beauty, of serenity. He had clearly seen how much German literature
+had been benefited by the adoption of those ideals; he sincerely and
+fervently wanted to confer the same boon on the literature of his own
+country. This endeavour constitutes his greatness, as its success does
+his historic importance. His own poems are mediocre; yet he has the
+merit of being the author of the first sonnets in Hungarian; his forte
+lies in his prose works, and there chiefly in his translations from the
+classical writers of Rome, Germany, France and England. It was also
+his indefatigable activity which gave rise to a wholesome literary
+controversy about the nature and limits of a radical reform of the
+Hungarian language as a vehicle of literature. This controversy merits
+special mention.
+
+Omitting the names of some learned precursors, whose works have not much
+advanced the philological study of the Hungarian language, it may be
+stated, that the first to subject that idiom to a careful and systematic
+study based on researches into its historical development, was Nicolas
+Révai. In his _Elaboratior Grammatica Hungarica_ (1806, 2 vols.), he
+summed up his previous essays, and placed Hungarian philology on a
+tolerably sure basis, after the manner subsequently adopted by Jacob
+Grimm for Germanic philology. Although he still hankered after the
+purely imaginary affinity between Magyar and the Semitic languages, he
+yet succeeded in clearing up many a vital point in Hungarian historic
+grammar. With regard to the then wanted reform of the language, he taught
+that that reform ought to proceed on the lines of the laws of language
+as discovered by a close study of the ancient remains of Hungarian
+Literature. He was vehemently opposed by Verseghy (see page 85), who
+taught that the reform ought to be guided, not by the bygone forms of
+Hungarian, but by those actually in force. It is now pretty clear, that
+while the science of language is sure to be enriched by methods of study
+such as that of Révai, the art of language is more likely to gain by the
+advice of Verseghy. Kazinczy, who possessed neither Révai’s philologic
+erudition, nor Verseghy’s powers of philologic analysis, but who adopted
+principles of reform from both, Kazinczy became the centre of the
+passionate warfare that now arose for the golden fleece of “Pure Magyar.”
+The Conservative party, whose headquarters were at Debreczen, Somogy,
+Szeged, and Veszprém, were called orthologues; the adherents of Kazinczy,
+neologues. Satyric writings were published by both; by the orthologues:
+“_Búsongó Amor_,” 1806, and the still more famous “_Mondolat_,” 1813; by
+the neologues: “_Felelet_,” 1816, written by Kölcsey and Szemere; and
+chiefly, the prize-essay of Count Joseph Teleki, in 1817. In the end most
+of the work of the neologues has been accepted by the nation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+                                                               1772-1825.
+
+The great campaigns fought by Austria against the French Revolution and
+Napoleon were in reality the prelude of the subsequent warfare of the
+Conservative and reactionary classes against the rising Liberalism of
+modern times. In literature, that mighty duel of night and light was
+reiterated by the struggle between the romantic and the national schools
+of poetry. The romantic writers, whether Byron in England, Chateaubriand
+in France, or Eichendorff in Germany, were all perfect in form, and
+morbid in subject. They were to poetry what Prince Metternich was to
+politics, a genius of twilight. So natural was this connection between
+the French Revolution on the one hand, and national, or sound literature
+on the other, that they who personally fought in the wars against the
+Convention and the Directory (1792-1799), as later on against Napoleon
+(1799-1815), invariably inclined to the romantic or the reactionary
+school. This will explain the rise of romantic works in Hungary at a
+time when their classical and national school had scarcely begun to
+appear. The first great romantic Hungarian poet is Alexander Kisfaludy
+(1772-1844). He had fought in the Austrian army in Italy and Germany
+against the revolutionary armies of France, and so naturally considered
+the gentry of his country as the true representatives of his nation. In
+1801 he published the first part of a series of lyrical poems called
+“_Himfy Szerelmei_,” through which runs the uniting link of luckless love
+for one and the same maiden. Kisfaludy lived for some time in the country
+of Petrarch, and the influence of the great singer of hopeless love is
+clearly visible in the Magyar poet’s work. It is written in stanzas of
+twelve lines, and is full of that shapeless but sweet sentimentality
+which so characterizes the romantic writers. It is like a landscape in
+which the most attractive part is the fleeting clouds: mountains, rivers,
+houses, and persons being all blurred and vague. It is atmospheric
+poetry, full of sweet words and sounds, as if coming from distant music.
+In 1807 Kisfaludy published another part of his _Himfy_, this time
+singing the joys of requited love, as the first did its sorrows. The
+work was received with great enthusiasm, more especially, of course, by
+the unmarried population of the country; and Kisfaludy was encouraged to
+write novels, dramas and ballads in great number. All these works are
+meant to form an apotheosis of mediæval times in Hungary; just as the
+German and French romantic writers revelled in the charms of chateaux
+and knights and crusades. Some of his ballads are really good, such as
+_Csobáncz_. His dramas are worthless.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+                                                               1772-1825.
+
+The romanticism started by Kisfaludy did not, however, retard the other
+literary movements in Hungary. The Hungarian language is in many ways
+too closely akin to the classic languages, if not in body, at least
+in prosody, to have easily forsaken the classic forms which had long
+been used by writers of this period, for the sake of romanticism. The
+Hungarian language is in that respect like Hungarian music. Although
+apparently nothing can be more remote from the strict moderation and
+stately respectability of classical music than Hungarian music, yet the
+strictest of the forms of classical music, viz., the fugue, has a curious
+internal resemblance to Magyar airs, in that the latter easily yield
+magnificent fugue themes, and preludes to fugues. Likewise the Hungarian
+language lends itself with surprising felicitousness to the expression of
+the highest form of classic metrical poetry: the ode.
+
+Daniel Berzsenyi (1776-1826) was the poet who fully realized the
+riches of the classical veins in the mines of the Hungarian language,
+and who gave his country a number of perfect odes written in the metre
+and in the spirit of the best of antique odes. His patriotic odes, most
+famous of which is the one beginning “Perishing is now the once strong
+Magyar” (“_Romlásnak indult hajdan erős Magyar_” in alcaic metre); his
+religious odes, most perfect of which is “God-seeking” (“_Fohászkodás_”
+in alcaic metre); show the chief quality of classical poetry: perfect
+form wedded to hale and true subjects. He moves on the Alpine roads and
+in the ravines of the antique arduous metres with natural ease; for the
+real subjects of his poetry are akin and similar to Alpine sunsets and
+sunrises, majestic glaciers, and despondent abysses. He is sublime and
+natural; and amongst modern writers of odes in antique metres only the
+German Platen, when at his best, can compare with him. His poems were
+listened to with rapturous attention by the old warriors and politicians
+of the National Assembly, and read with equal enthusiasm and admiration
+by the youth of Hungary. From the height whereon he places himself with
+his lyre, there is no difference of size or age in his listeners. Nor
+has time abated one tittle of the glory of his best poems. Some of the
+best critics of his epoch (amongst them Kölcsey) did not appreciate him
+adequately. At present we cannot sufficiently wonder at their blindness.
+We must console ourselves with the thought that poets, like the sun,
+are, as a rule, not noticed for some time after their appearance on the
+horizon. In the time of Berzsenyi there died at Vienna (in 1820) a young
+Hungarian, probably by his own hand, in utter distress; his name was
+Ladislas Tóth de Ungvárnémet. His mind, living in the regions of the
+Greek ideals (he even wrote Greek poetry), could not endure the sordid
+materialism of his surroundings. He left, in Hungarian, a tragedy after
+the Hellenic model, “_Narcisz_.” Hungary has, by the premature death of
+Tóth, probably lost her chance of having her Shelley.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+                                                               1772-1825.
+
+The enlightened foreigner from France, England or Germany, reading about
+the allegedly great literary works written by Hungarians, Poles, Czechs
+or other nationalities who have so far not succeeded in playing first
+fiddle in the European concert, will probably indulge in a polite doubt
+as to the exceeding excellence of those works, not one of which has ever
+been spoken of in the columns of the leading papers or periodicals of
+London, Paris, Berlin, Rome or Vienna. In the preceding pages we have
+ventured to mention Pope and Shelley, and a few great German poets in
+the same breath with great Magyar writers. This may appear preposterous
+to Englishmen or Germans. Far from reviling them for that, we would
+rather hasten to add, that in a certain sense they are quite right.
+Pope’s genius is in one most essential point decidedly superior to that
+of Csokonai (see page 88). Pope’s best poems are not exclusively English
+in taste, subject-matter or form. They belong to that class of European
+literature, the best products of which may be relished with equal
+delight by Spaniards and Danes alike. They are European in character;
+and so much is this the case with the foremost of those writers, that
+Shakespeare, for instance, is far better known, by the youth at least
+of Germany, Austria and Hungary, than by that of England. In the great
+German writers there is little of that specifically German tone, which
+people other than Germans cannot very well enjoy. In Lessing there is no
+trace of the sentimentality and liquoriciousness of his native province;
+in Schiller there is not a trace of Suabian cunning or lumbersomeness;
+and Goethe might just as well have been born at Syracuse under Gelon,
+or at Athens under Pericles. Is there any trace of Puritanism, this the
+most specifically English feature of his time, in Shakespeare? The major
+part of the better writers of Hungary or Poland, on the other hand, have
+suffered their intense patriotism to make such inroads on the literary
+character of their works, that the latter frequently lose all their point
+to readers outside Hungary and Poland.
+
+These reflections are suggested by a consideration of the works of
+Francis Kölcsey (1790-1838), a really great orator and a good poet. Born
+in the county of Bihar, where he spent the best part of his short life,
+he employed his magnificent powers of oratory chiefly in inculcating
+in the Hungarians of his time the lesson of patriotism. There can be
+no doubt that his speeches, his lofty “_Paraenesis_,” and some of his
+critical work are written in that gorgeously laborious style which has
+made the fame of Bossuet in France and Gibbon in England. His poems
+breathe a mild melancholy that gives them a sombre tint of peculiar
+beauty. Yet, on the whole, he never oversteps the narrow limits of Magyar
+life as then existent; and what appeals to men of all countries and all
+nations found but a feeble rhetorical echo in his writings. No young
+Hungarian can read his works without deep emotion. In maturer years,
+however, he finds that Kölcsey’s works belong to those that one gladly
+remembers to have read once, without desiring to read them again.
+
+The growth of Hungarian Literature from 1772 to 1825 was, compared to
+that of England from 1570 to 1620; of Germany from 1760 to 1805; or of
+France from 1630 to 1675, a slow one. Many of the Hungarian writers of
+that period were endowed with gifts of no common calibre; and some of
+them, such as Kazinczy, Kisfaludy, Csokonai, Berzsenyi, Kölcsey, can
+certainly not be denied the distinction of genius. Yet with all their
+efforts, individual or collective, they did not quicken the step of
+literary progress very considerably. This was owing to the fact, that
+Hungary had as yet no literary centres, such as England possessed in
+London; France in Paris; and Germany in Berlin, Leipsic or Weimar. Nearly
+all the poets and other writers so far mentioned lived in small towns
+scattered over the country, and, from the lack of good communications,
+were practically isolated from one another. Kazinczy lived in the county
+of Zemplén; Kölcsey in the county of Bihar; Kisfaludy, Berzsenyi, Ádám
+Horváth in the cis-Danubian counties. There were, it is true, some
+literary centres in Pesth; such as the house of the able folk-poet
+Vitkovics. But they were few, and Pesth was, as yet, not a great capital.
+Literature needs local concentration of high-strung people. Country life
+gives the aptitude for poetic work; intense urban life alone ripens that
+aptitude into creative talent. Virgil at Mantua, or Cicero at Arpinum
+would have remained sterile provincials. The great mental agitation set
+in motion by the writers in Magyar above mentioned was given additional
+fuel by a very large number of Hungarians writing in Latin and French.
+The ideas of the French and German Rationalism (“_Aufklaerung_”) of that
+time were eagerly seized upon, elaborated and discussed in over five
+hundred works and pamphlets treating of Religion, Politics, Law and
+Philosophy. Hungary was thus during that period (1772-1825), instinct
+with great intellectual powers; and all that was wanting was to focus
+them. As long as the political or _the_ life of Hungary was crippled by
+the autocracy of Metternich, that is, down to 1825-1830, that national
+focus could not be forthcoming. With the revival of the political
+life in and through the national Diet assembled at Pesth in 1825, the
+only remaining condition of a quicker and more energetic pulsation of
+Hungary’s literary life was fulfilled. Henceforth Hungary employed the
+right strategy for the able men of her literary army, and the result
+was a short but brilliant period of literary productions, many of
+which attain to the higher and some to the highest degrees of artistic
+perfection. And inasmuch as the creation of the national focus was the
+most potent cause of the unprecedented revival of Hungary’s literature,
+we must first treat of that glorious man who was chiefly instrumental in
+its realization: Count Stephen Széchenyi.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+                                                               1825-1850.
+
+1825-1850. Count Stephen Széchenyi, “_the greatest Magyar_” as Kossúth
+called him, was one of those rare patriots whose enthusiasm is tempered
+by the most careful respect for facts and practical probabilities, while
+their love of detail and material work is broadened and elevated by the
+noble passion of disinterested patriotism. The maxim of his life was,
+“Hungary has not yet been; she will be” (“_Magyarország nem volt hanem
+lesz_”). A scion of a magnate family he had, like Mirabeau, derived much
+light from the study of foreign countries. As most of his contemporaries,
+he was convinced that Hungary, unless aroused from her political and
+industrial torpor, could not in her then state claim a place amongst
+the civilized nations of Europe. He was by no means of a revolutionary
+disposition against the Habsburgs. On the contrary, he wanted to realize
+all the vast reforms he contemplated in peace with Austria; for being a
+sort of enthusiastic Walpole (—the manes of Sir Robert will pardon us
+that epithet!—) his activity was directed mainly, at times at least, to
+the bettering of the material condition of Hungary.
+
+Széchenyi did not, however, neglect the intellectual needs of his
+country either. When still a young cavalry officer he offered one year’s
+revenue of his estates (£10,000 in value; nominally, £5,000) for the
+establishment of a national Hungarian Academy of Science, the members of
+which were to consider the cultivation and development of the Hungarian
+language as their prime duty. Széchenyi’s magnanimous offer was at once
+responded to by similar offers on the part of three rich magnates (Count
+George Andrássy, Count George Károlyi, and Baron Abraham Vay), and thus a
+serious commencement was made with the founding of an intellectual centre
+in Hungary. The Academy (“_Magyar Tudományos Akadémia_”) was formally
+established in 1830, its first president being Count Joseph Teleki.
+Among the great number of linguistic, historic, and scientific works,
+both original and translations, published by the Academy, we may mention
+the “_Monumenta_,” or historic sources of Hungary; several smaller
+dictionaries for current use, and the great Dictionary of the Hungarian
+Language, edited by Gregory Czuczor and John Fogarasi (1844-1874); the
+translation of the best works of foreign authors on History, Philosophy,
+Law, and Science, including, amongst others, almost all the standard
+works of English literature; and a series of original researches into all
+branches of Science, descriptive, mathematical, physical and chemical.
+Together with numerous writers of that period, Széchenyi also attempted,
+and very felicitously too, an internal reform of the Magyar language, to
+the vocabulary of which he added some needed and now generally accepted
+terms.
+
+Széchenyi’s restless propaganda succeeded in moving even the
+ultra-conservative and indolent country-gentry; and in the thirties many
+a nobleman had a residence of his own built in Pesth. The Country began
+to move into the Town. In 1837, the national Hungarian theatre was opened
+at Pesth. Numerous newspapers and periodicals were published; the number
+of press-organs in Magyar, which was five in 1820, rising to ten in 1830,
+and to twenty-six in 1840. In 1891 there were 645 Magyar newspapers and
+periodicals in Hungary. The work meted out to the “Academy” being rather
+of a technical nature, the “Kisfaludy-Society” (“_Kisfaludy-Társaság_”)
+was formed in 1836, with the view of promoting the interests of
+_belles-lettres_ proper in Hungary. Thanks to the patriotic and
+well-directed activity of that Society, many an unknown but gifted author
+was enabled to bring his work under the notice of the country. Its
+prizes were, and are eagerly competed for, and it has done very much
+for the great progress of good literature in Hungary. Historical and
+archæological societies were formed in many parts of the country; and the
+nation became conscious of the greatness of Hungarian music, which in the
+wizard hands of Francis Liszt (1811-1887), the greatest of all executive,
+and one of the most striking of creative musicians, was fast becoming
+the admiration of Europe. Nor were the schools neglected. Since 1844 the
+language of instruction in schools was mostly Hungarian. The political
+reverses of the Hungarians in 1849 caused the introduction of the German
+language into the schools of Hungary; in 1861, however, the national
+language was again reinstated in its rights, and now the language of
+instruction in all the schools and colleges of Hungary is Magyar.
+
+These are some of the most important intellectual reforms which, from
+1825 to 1848 completely changed the face of the Hungary of olden times.
+While previous to 1825, all attempts at reform were restricted to small
+circles and straggling individuals, and could, therefore, bear no fruit
+for the nation at large, now the efforts for the renascence of the
+material and intellectual life of the country were concentrated by the
+creation of a true capital of social, literary and scientific centres;
+by the co-operation of great numbers of patriotic and able men; and by
+the powerful, nay, in Hungary, all-powerful stimulus imparted to all the
+energies of the nation through the revival of its ancient parliamentary
+life. In Hungary, as well as in England, Parliament is the soul of the
+body-politic. The stagnation of parliamentary life in Hungary from
+1813 to 1825 was almost tantamount to the stagnation of all the other
+intellectual energies of the nation. From 1825 onward, the National
+Assembly met frequently; the Magyar language was again used in the
+debates, and many reforms that had proved unrealizable in the hands of
+private reformers, were carried out by the power of the nation assembled
+in Parliament. The constant opposition offered to all reforms in Hungary,
+at the hands of the Vienna government, only acted as a further stimulus
+to the Hungarians; and within the five-and-twenty years of the present
+period, Hungary advanced by leaps and bounds, both in its politic and
+literary development.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+The _rôle_ of Kazinczy as mentor and model for the younger generation
+of his time was now allotted to a very gifted poet, Charles Kisfaludy,
+brother of Alexander (see page 101). He was born in 1788, and like his
+brother, became a soldier in the Austrian army. His proud father, on
+learning that he had, in 1811, thrown up his military career, disowned
+him; and Charles had to rough it in wild wanderings over Europe amidst
+great privations. Yet his mind, singularly widened by the view and study
+of European civilization, was thereby so strengthened and developed, that
+on his return to his country (1817), he contrived to rise from abject
+poverty to comparative comfort by his own literary exertions. His dramas,
+some of which he wrote in the course of a few days, were at once so
+intensely relished by the public, that Kisfaludy, who produced with equal
+ease poetic works of lyric or epic character, quickly became the centre
+of the literary life of Hungary. The “_Aurora_,” a literary periodical
+founded by him in 1822, was enriched by the contributions of the
+foremost writers, mostly his followers; and he himself was the rallying
+personality for the new literary movement. Alas! his body, less elastic
+than his mind, could never overcome the effects of his wanderings, and he
+died of consumption in 1830.
+
+In Kisfaludy the influence of the literary ideals of the French
+and Germans is easily traceable. Like his models he was steeped in
+romanticism and worship of the distant past. Yet he was saved from the
+sickliness and namby-pambiness of many a German or French romantic poet
+by his strong sense of humour. In his dramas (“_Stibor Vaida_,” “_Irén_,”
+etc.) he frequently manifests strong dramatic vitality. It is in his
+comedies and gay stories, that he excels. His humour is broad, subtle,
+sympathetic and well worded. In his tragedies he did not succeed in
+creating a type, this, one of the safest criteria of a poet’s genius.
+In his comedies (“_Csalódások_” [“Disappointments”]; “_Kérők_” [“The
+Wooers”]; “_Leányőrző_” [“Girl’s Guard”], etc.) on the other hand, he
+has given types of undying vitality; such as “_Mokány_,” the rough,
+humorous and honest young country squire. If we consider the fact here
+so frequently alluded to, that social life in Hungary was up to the
+thirties of this century exclusively life among the county-families in
+the country, or in small towns; if, moreover, we remember that such
+life on a small scale, where each person stands out in bold relief and
+unencumbered by the numerous social mediocrities of large towns, is
+the proper foster-earth of rich personalities: it will be easy to see,
+that social life in Hungary in Kisfaludy’s youth was bristling with
+delightfully original types of men and women. They only waited for the
+hand of the poet to spring into their frames, and form valuable pictures.
+Country-life and small towns in Hungary, to the present day, are full
+of the most delightful types, both men and women; and the reputation
+of a Dickens might have been acquired by him who would have told the
+“adventures” and freaks of, for instance, the quaint, many-tongued sires
+of the county of Sáros. Kisfaludy, with the true poet’s eye _saw_ those
+types, and put them bodily on his canvas. They talk on his pages that
+very language, full of savoury adjectives and verbal somersaults, that
+they used when meeting at the halls of their friends, at the “Casino”
+of the place or at the table in front of the Swiss _Confiserie_, in the
+sleepy streets of their county capital. In his novels, “_Tollagi János_”
+[a proper name]; “_Sulyosdi Simon_” [a proper name], etc., Kisfaludy has
+recorded many a precious feature of the life of these sturdy, amiable,
+enthusiastic, shrewd and simple country-gentry, in the midst of whom
+moved the pathetic and lofty young girl; the coquettish and charming
+young wife (or “little heaven,” “_mennyecske_” as the Hungarian word
+has it); the quaint old maid, and the still quainter old bachelor. Here
+Kisfaludy is at his best; and in showing his fellow-writers some of the
+wealth to be found in their own country, he did Hungarian Literature and
+Hungarian nationality an immense service. In some of his lyrical poems,
+and especially in his truly majestic ode to the memory of the disaster
+of Mohács (1526), written in dystichs, Kisfaludy is frequently more than
+clever; in that ode he soars to the sublime. His “_Eprészleány_” (“Girl
+Gleaning Strawberries”) is a charming idyll.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+The work of Kisfaludy was great. He charmed his readers, and thus
+awakened an interest in Hungarian Literature in circles that had hitherto
+been callous to the intellectual revival of their country. His vocation,
+however, was limited. The Hungarians, by nature grave and given to
+ponderous sentiments, needed, for a full awakening of their literary
+life, more than the perfume of flowers. The rhythmic thunder of the
+war-clarion; the majesty of the organ was needed. And the right man came.
+The man, in whose sublime poems was heard the turmoil of the old glorious
+wars, the symphony of love and patriotism, in tones of unprecedented
+beauty. That man was Michael Vörösmarty (1800-1855). His life was devoted
+entirely to the pursuit of literature, and in his soul there was only
+one grand thought: to become Hungary’s troubadour, to kindle the holy
+light of patriotism on the altar, and with the aid of the muses. In this
+he was successful beyond all his predecessors. His were some of the
+rarest qualities, the union of which goes to make the great poet. In
+beauty and truly Magyar rhythm of language he was and largely still is
+unsurpassed. His diction is, like his country, full of the majesty of
+vast mountains, and the loveliness of flower-clad meadows sloping down to
+melodious rivers. Without being a reckless innovator of words, his works
+read at the first appearance as if written in a new language. As when
+the student of Hellenic antiquity, after years spent with engravings of
+old Greek art, comes for the first time to see one of the still extant
+remains of that art itself: so felt the contemporaries of Vörösmarty
+when the glorious hexameters of his epic, “_Zalán futása_” first struck
+their ears. There was at last, not only this or that instrument of the
+orchestra of Hungarian language; there was heard, not only the wails of
+the ’cello of Kölcsey; the musical cascades of the clarinet of Charles
+Kisfaludy; the wafting chords of the harp of Berzsenyi; or the gossamer
+oboe of Csokonai: there was heard the unison and harmonious struggle
+of all the instruments of the great idiom. Like the composers of the
+immortal symphonies, Vörösmarty wielded the resources of the Magyar
+language, intensifying the effect of each instrument by the parallel or
+counter-quires of the other instruments. In his love-songs you hear
+not only the notes of the melody, but also, as in the songs of his
+Austrian contemporary, Schubert, the undercurrents of the melody in the
+accompaniment. The wealth of poetic figures in Vörösmarty is surprising;
+yet a chaste moderation tempers all undue exuberance. He is powerful,
+not violent; imposing, not fierce. He writes mostly Largos; but there
+are very few _longeurs_ in them. The quick pulsation of the drama does
+not suit him; the epic and ode are his favourite forms. For, in him is
+much of the priest, of the seer of a nation. In the depth of his reticent
+heart he feels the whole life of his nation, and smarts unspeakably from
+its then degradation. Too proud to indulge in constant moanings, he is
+yet in an agony of rage and indignation at the oppression of his people.
+But this holy anger goes forth from him sculptured in songs, swelling
+with abiding life of beauty and power.
+
+Vörösmarty’s poetic vocation was, if not aroused, yet, undoubtedly,
+guided into the right direction by an epic of one Alexander Székely, a
+Unitarian preacher, entitled “The Szekler in Transylvania” (“_A Székelyek
+Erdélyországban_”), in which a not infelicitous attempt was made to work
+into one national song the ancient Magyar legends and mythology. An
+epic is the song of a nation whose critical dangers are not yet over.
+It may be said, without exaggeration, that heroic Wolfe in driving the
+French out of Canada (1759), drove out the last chance of the Americans
+for anything like a great national epic. In gaining their independence
+a few years after Wolfe’s success, the Americans also obtained perfect
+security. There was no serious enemy left to jeopardize their existence.
+The Indians could and did annoy them much; they could not seriously call
+their very existence in question. Hence the Indian tales of Fenimore
+Cooper are the only epics of the Americans. In Hungary matters stood
+quite differently. There the very existence of the nation was doubtful.
+A catastrophe might occur at any time. And in the terrible anguish of
+that “gigantic death” (“_nagyszerü halál_”), of which Vörösmarty sings
+in his “_Szózat_” (national hymn), the people of Hungary needed more
+than a drama or an ode can give. It needed a national poem of large
+dimensions in which the glories of the past were held up to the people
+as an incitement to the conquest of the trophies of the future; in which
+the powers of the Divine were shown to have a personal interest in the
+destinies of the nation; and in which the sacred language of thirty
+generations of patriots glows in all the victorious beauty of perfection.
+When in 1748 Klopstock published his great epic, the “_Messias_,” he too
+desired to do his country a patriotic service. His aim was, however,
+at once larger and smaller than that of Vörösmarty. He meant chiefly
+to weld for the Germans the weapon of a better language. Beyond this
+he meant his epic for any nation whatever, its subject-matter being of
+universal acceptance amongst Christian nations. Not so Vörösmarty. He
+meant to write a Messianic epic, in which the Messiah was the Hungarian
+nation itself. He wanted to raise up a particular nation, his nation,
+to the consciousness of its force, of its vocation. And thus, while the
+intellectual scope of his poem was much more limited than that of either
+Milton or Klopstock, the intensity of its purport far exceeded both.
+
+The name of the epic was, “The Flight of Zalán” (“_Zalán futása_”). It
+appeared in 1825, or in the year when the national Parliament reassembled
+after twelve long years’ adjournment, and when the nation, at any rate,
+many of the best men of the nation, were in feverish expectancy of the
+rise of New Hungary. Its subject is taken from the history of Árpád the
+Conqueror, and centres in the Battle of Alpár, in which Árpád defeats his
+most fearful enemy, Zalán, one of the Bulgarian rulers of the territory
+between the Danube and the Tisza (Theiss) rivers. There are in the poem
+three parallel streams of epic deeds, which, like the three choruses of
+string, reed and brass instruments in an orchestra, join in one powerful
+symphony. Árpád, the great duke and father of his people, fights Zalán,
+and especially his herculean general Viddin. Ete, the young and romantic
+Magyar knight fights Csorna, the diabolic Bulgarian hero; and in the
+heavens “_Hadúr_” (“God of the war,” a name introduced by Székely),
+the national god of the Magyars, fights and conquers “_Ármány_,” the
+arch-fiend. The element of love is represented by Ete, who loves Hajna,
+the beautiful daughter of an old Hungarian hero. She is also courted by
+a divine charmer, whose temptations, however, she rejects, and from whom
+she receives an enchanted horse. A large portion of the epic is taken up
+with the description of single combats between the heroes. In the end,
+the Hungarians are (as in reality they were) victorious, and Zalán flees
+from his country.
+
+There is undoubtedly much Ossianic misty glamour in Vörösmarty’s great
+epic; and the figures of its leading heroes do not stand out with all
+the desirable plasticity from among the multitude of minor heroes and
+mythologic divinities. Yet Ete and Hajna are suffused with all the
+charms of youth, love and heroism; and in Hadúr and Ármány two powerful
+mythological types are placed before us. Árpád himself answers very well
+the chief purpose of the poem, in that he is rather the incarnation of a
+nation strong, noble, God-fearing and conquering, than the representative
+of any special personality. Perhaps the least endowed figure of the poem
+is Zalán, in whom the poet might have represented, in contrast to Árpád,
+the various enemies endangering Hungary’s existence, and of whom he
+only made a proud and despairing prince. Yet, after allowing for these
+shortcomings—very natural in a work written in eleven months—“_Zalán
+futása_” is a truly great epic. The splendour of its language, in regard
+to which it is fully the equal of “Paradise Lost,” fell upon its first
+readers with the spell of the Fata Morgana of the Hungarian _pusztas_
+or prairies, on the lonely traveller. There was one general feeling:
+“such language had not yet risen from any Hungarian lyre!” (“_igy még
+nem zenge magyar lant_!”). A nation whose past could inspire such epic
+music, was a nation of imposing resourcefulness. Only great nations,
+after conquering great dangers, can produce great epics. A great epic is
+not alone a literary event; as such it would redound mostly to the glory
+of the author. It is a national event, and redounds chiefly to the glory
+of the nation. It is the symptom and warrant of national greatness; of
+that noble enthusiasm—without which, numerous factories and railways can
+be built indeed, but no fabric of a national commonwealth holding its own
+amidst roaring seas of danger and adversity. Vörösmarty’s epic poured
+into the Hungarians that Belief and Confidence, that Eternality of Hope,
+which alone steels nations against fate. Széchenyi had connected Buda,
+the capital of the past, with Pesth, the capital of modern Hungary, by
+means of a gigantic suspension bridge. Vörösmarty now connected Hungary’s
+past with her future by the rainbow of his immortal epic.
+
+In addition to “The Flight of Zalán,” Vörösmarty enriched Hungarian
+Literature with several other smaller epics, such as “_Széplak_,”
+“_Cserhalom_,” and the exquisite “The Two Neighbouring Castles” (“_Két
+szomszéd vár_”). After 1831 he ceased writing epics. He had a real
+passion for dramatic poetry, and although in “_Csongor és Tünde_” alone
+he contrived to write a drama of superior finish, yet he continually
+tried his hand at that form of poetry (“_Vérnász_”) (“The Sanguinary
+Wedding”); “Marótbán” (Banus Marót); “_Áldozat_” (The Sacrifice), etc.
+His lyrical poetry, on the other hand, contains priceless gems. Adorning,
+as he did, even the smallest of his lyrical poems with the unrivalled
+splendour of his diction; he reaches in some of them, and first of all
+in the majestic “National Hymn” (“_Szózat_”, 1837), the highest level
+of poetic _élan_. In these select poems, while still singing nothing but
+the hopes and glories of his nation, he becomes so European in tone and
+chaste beauty of form, that his work will lose little of its perfection
+by fair translations into other European languages. In them there is felt
+the breath of that civilization of Greater Hellas, or Europe, which was
+originally that of Hellas proper. Nor does his lyric muse move in grave
+and solemn moods alone. In his famous “Song of Fót” (“_Fóti dal_”), he
+has left the wine-drinking community of the world a model song in praise
+of the noble child of Bacchus. He likewise succeeded in writing poetic
+apotheoses of some of the great Hungarians of his time, such as Liszt,
+the great musician, and in the composition of small narrative poems,
+which prove him to have been endowed with a keen sense of humour (“_Mák
+Bandi_”; “_Laboda_;” “_Petike_;” “_Gábor deák_”). His great activity as a
+creative poet did not prevent him from writing a considerable number of
+articles for literary periodicals, such as the “_Tudományos Gyűjtemény_,”
+“_Kritikai Lapok_” (edited by Bajza), and for the new “_Aurora_,” and the
+“_Athenæum_.” He was also one of the translators of the “Thousand and One
+Nights,” and of some of Shakespeare’s plays.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+The national and literary current of which Vörösmarty was the chief
+exponent brought several other great epic works to the surface. Andreas
+Horvát de Pázmánd (1778-1839) was working for many years at a national
+epic in twelve long cantos, singing the history of Árpád the conqueror.
+In 1831, at last, he published the huge poem which, however, was
+distanced and soon silenced by the masterwork of Vörösmarty. It certainly
+helped both to set off “The Flight of Zalán” still more strongly, and
+also to widen the circle of old Magyar mythology.
+
+An epic poet of far superior merit was Gregory Czuczor (1800-1866). Had
+he not been a monk, and so lost much of the vivifying contact of civil
+life, he might have soared very high. It must be, however, added that his
+conflict both with poverty and with the Austrian Government, did make
+up largely for the lack of experiences of romantic, conjugal and family
+conflicts. His was a vigorous, systematic and finely discerning mind.
+To the epic he felt attracted not only by the general literary tone of
+his time, but by his personal bent for popular or rather folk-poetry. The
+_naïveté_ of the latter, which forms its distinctive feature, is also one
+of the chief elements of the epic. Among Czuczor’s epics, “_Botond_,”
+in four cantos, is the best. It tells part of the life of that famous
+Hungarian hero of the time of the conquest. Botond had brought home from
+his Byzantine campaigns a charming Greek girl, Polydora. One of the
+Magyar heroes, Bödölény, who also loves Polydora, takes her secretly back
+to Constantinople. Now Botond again invades the Greek Empire, and with
+his huge war-club breaks a hole in the gate of the capital. In the end
+he gets back Polydora. This simple plot is enlivened with recitals not
+only of military and heroic exploits, but also of touching love-episodes.
+The contrast between burly, brave Botond and the refined Greek maid, the
+episodes in which Szende, the page occurs, and the beautifully rolling
+hexameters lend a peculiar charm to this epic. Perhaps now, after the
+realization of most of the ardent political hopes of Czuczor’s age,
+his epic will be considered even as much better than at the time of
+its appearance when it had to compete with the more fiery epic muse of
+Vörösmarty. Of Czuczor’s linguistic works we have already made mention
+(see page 112).
+
+A contemporary of Czuczor, John Garay (1812-1853), although not a
+poet of great distinction, must be here mentioned, on account of the
+popularity of his innumerable ballads and similar epic poetry, covering
+almost every one of the memorable events of Hungarian history. Rather a
+rhetor than a poet, he wrote his ballads, of which “_Kont_” (relating to
+the martyr-death of thirty Hungarian patriots at the hands of Emperor
+Sigismund), is the best known, in an easy-flowing popular style. He
+trusted rather to the attractiveness of the story itself than to his own
+poetic genius. When well recited, many of his ballads are still very
+effective.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+Despite the very great advance made in the development of their
+literature up to 1830, the Hungarians were still wanting in one of the
+necessary elements of the growth of truly good works. Honest, just and
+well-informed criticism was wanting. Kazinczy, it is true, had in his
+extensive correspondence paid very careful attention to the critical
+examination of the prosody and language of his friends and pupils.
+Such external criticism, however, did not suffice. In a country, such
+as Hungary, where Greek literature was then known only to exceedingly
+few writers, the canons of criticism were easily neglected. Moreover,
+literature being still considered more as a patriotic than a literary
+function, poets did not, as a rule, tolerate even mild criticism. Yet
+without such criticism, Hungarian Literature was likely to deteriorate.
+Even men of genius are the better for good criticism. Yet they are the
+exception; and to the vast number of writers with talent rather than
+genius, criticism was, and always has been, the mentor whom they could
+not afford to miss. It has been one of the great advantages of French
+literature that its creative writers have nearly always been watched
+by great critical writers. From Boileau and Diderot, to Sainte-Beuve,
+the French have always had men of piercing and tasteful criticism,
+who controlled the works of the purely spontaneous genius. Nor can
+the literature of Germany congratulate itself on a more auspicious
+circumstance than the fact of Lessing’s incomparable activity as a critic
+at the very outset of the classical period. It is with regard to this
+historic value of sound literary criticism, that we must appreciate the
+work of the Hungarian writer forming the subject of the present chapter.
+
+Joseph Bajza (1804-1858) had many of the qualities of a great critic. He
+was courageous, especially in that courage which is perhaps the rarest,
+the courage defying current opinions; he was learned; he possessed a
+very keen sense of linguistic niceties and poetic forms; and, last not
+least, he was no mean poet himself. Already in 1830 he gave signal
+proof not only of his pure patriotism, but also of his penetrating
+knowledge of the true needs of the then Hungarian Literature, by fiercely
+attacking a plan, broached by a Hungarian publisher, to prepare a
+Hungarian Encyclopædia (or “Conversations-Lexicon,” as, in imitation
+of the well-known German publication, it was called) on lines, as Bajza
+proved, unpatriotic, because unsuited to the character and stage of
+Magyar literature of that time. This was the “Conversations-Lexicon
+Quarrel.” In the same year, Bajza started his critical paper (“_Kritikai
+Lapok_”), which was later on (1837) followed by his “_Athenæum_,” and
+its appendix “_Figyelmező_.” In these periodicals he discoursed with
+great verve and knowledge on the theories of various poetic forms;
+and carefully criticised the works of his contemporaries. His chief
+contributors were Vörösmarty and Toldy (then still Schedel), the former
+a great poet, the latter (see p. 254) a great scholar. The authority of
+Bajza made itself felt very soon; and the numerous polemics occasioned
+by his articles only served to aggrandize his position as a critic.
+Already in his essays on the epigram, the novel, the drama, etc., Bajza
+had proved himself a constructive as against a purely negative critic.
+In that capacity probably his chief merit is his elaboration of the
+“theory” of the folk-poem. In Hungary, with her numerous peasantry,
+there is an inexhaustible wealth of poems composed by unknown people,
+exclusively peasants, shepherds, and similar inglorious poets. These
+poems, invariably meant to be adapted to songs, are wafted over the
+country like the mild breezes of spring, and like them, no one knows
+their origin. In previous times, the rococo taste of enlightened pedants
+had contemptuously ignored these blossoms of the wild _puszta_ (prairie).
+Since Csokonai they were held in greater esteem; but it was Bajza who, by
+framing them in the time-honoured formulæ of classical æsthetics, raised
+them to a literary status. Since Bajza, the “_népdal_” or folk-song was
+not only a matter of national delight or pride, but also of serious study.
+
+To Bajza’s circle belonged the poets Alexander Vachott (1818-1861);
+Frederick Kerényi (1822-1852), who died in America; Julius Sárosy
+(1816-1861), the author of several stirring revolutionary poems; Andreas
+Pap; Emeric Nagy; Sigismund Beöthy, etc.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+The rapid growth of Hungarian Literature since 1825, shows chiefly in
+works of poetry proper; that is, in verse. Hungarian prose had in the
+first ten years of this period received no development similar to that
+of Hungarian verse. Yet many a writer had tried his hand at the creation
+of Hungarian literary prose. The reason of this belated advance of
+Hungarian prose was owing mainly to the late introduction of the Magyar
+language into the schools. Not before a language has hewn its way through
+the thickets of philosophy, the subtleties of distinctions in physics
+and chemistry, or the awkward bulkiness of historical facts, will it be
+supple and flexible enough to do efficient service for the innumerable
+needs of prose. Without a prose ready for all the turns and twists of
+serious thought, great historical or philosophical works are almost
+impossible. The difficulty was overcome in Hungary by applying prose
+first to novels, and then to History or Philosophy. Novels and romances,
+taking as they do the place of the epics in olden times, have also a
+national or more than literary importance. And we find that nations
+without great epics are also, as a rule, without great novels of their
+own. The astounding progress made in Hungary in epic literature proper
+bade fair to inaugurate the forthcoming of a novelistic literature.
+Vörösmarty and Czuczor were soon to have their followers in prose—the
+novelists. The frequency of rich types in Hungarian society could not
+but favour that branch of literature. In fact, the greatest difficulty
+for Hungarian novelists then, and to a large extent even now, was not
+to discover and work out a good subject, but to hunt up a sufficient
+number of readers. In the thirties and forties of this century, most of
+the cultivated individuals in Hungary were so familiar with German and
+even with French, that they could and did easily gratify their novelistic
+appetites with the innumerable products from the pens of German and
+French novelists. People will seldom relish or crave for lyric or epic
+poems of nations other than their own. They will ordinarily prefer
+homemade verse. With novels it is quite different. There is scarcely any
+exaggeration in stating that Lord Lytton’s novels have been read more
+extensively in Germany and Austria-Hungary than in England. The same
+applies respectively to George Sand, the French, and Mme. Flygare-Carlén,
+the Swedish novelist. Hungarian novelists had, therefore, to contend
+against formidable competition from abroad. But there was another and
+equally grave difficulty to conquer. The public in all countries has a
+fatal tendency to take up one author as the “standard” author in a given
+department of literature, and to give all other authors in the same
+field the cold shoulder. The less intense the interest which the public
+takes in that department, the more it will be inclined to believe in the
+“standard” man. In Hungary, that evil tendency has wrought great injury
+to novelists. At once a few of them became the “standard” novelists.
+Nobody wanted to hear of any other. By this means the rise of other,
+perhaps greater novelists, was retarded, if not altogether foreclosed;
+and the “standard” man, eagerly seizing on the great favour bestowed upon
+him, poured forth scores of novels, irrespective of the higher demands
+of Art. The consequence was that he deteriorated. For one good novel he
+gave ten bad ones. Having a sort of literary monopoly, he did not heed
+adverse criticism. The public, on the other hand, did not care to learn
+of a new novelist, and, as actually happened in Hungary, almost entirely
+neglected a real genius for no other reason than that mental laziness,
+which in countries with less abundant literature is perhaps one of the
+most baneful of obstacles to the success of a writer.
+
+The preceding remarks appear to be necessary for a right appreciation
+of Hungarian novels. Foreign readers, and perhaps more especially the
+English, are apt to admire in Hungarian novels such qualities as strike
+them as new and “weird,” because German, French, or English novelists
+do not excel in them. Thus foreign readers will easily be impressed,
+and in many cases unduly so, by the great picturesqueness of Hungarian
+novelists. This quality, commendable though it no doubt is, will induce
+many a foreign critic to overrate the value of this or that Hungarian
+novel. In Hungary, picturesque turns of phrases are of the very
+commonest. They do not strike a Hungarian critic as being particularly
+meritorious. Hence the reader of the present work must not be astonished
+at some of the subsequent severe judgments passed on Hungarian novelistic
+celebrities. Far from trying to deter English or French readers from
+the reading of such novels as they will find criticised adversely, we
+would rather advise them to enjoy those novels without further regard to
+the views of the writer. We have in so criticising of necessity placed
+ourselves on a basis rather Magyar than European, and we are fully aware
+of the marked difference in taste to be found in the various nations
+of Europe. If the novelists and poets of one nation were to be judged
+by the taste of another, Thackeray could hardly be regarded as a great
+novelist, and Tennyson scarcely as a great poet. Yet both are in England
+recognized as two of the best writers in English literature.
+
+Of the great novelists of Hungary, four stand out as peculiarly
+excellent. Their names are Nicolas Jósika; Joseph Eötvös; Sigismund
+Kemény; and Maurus Jókai. The first three belong to the class of
+Magnates, being Barons; the last is a commoner by birth. It is rather
+curious, that the Magnates, who have in the present century given no poet
+of the first order to Hungary, should in the field of Hungarian novel
+writing have furnished three writers of the first rank, of whom one,
+Baron Kemény, has done work not unworthy of the greatest novel-writer of
+the century.
+
+The first of the four to attract general attention in Hungary was
+Baron Joseph Jósika. He was born in 1794 at Torda, in Transylvania.
+Having spent many years in the military service of Austria, and in
+travels abroad, he retired in 1818 and withdrew to Transylvania, where
+he pursued historic and literary studies, relating chiefly to his own
+province. Transylvania harbours many of the most glorious traditions
+of Hungarian history. For generations, especially in the seventeenth
+century, it was practically the only home of Magyardom. There is no lack
+of romantic, picturesque, or startling facts in the public or social
+life of that country; and Jósika, whose heart had, through his first
+luckless marriage, learned the depths of sorrow, as through his second
+wife he learned the bliss of true love, Jósika was in a position to do
+full justice to the wealth of picturesque characters and scenery in
+Transylvania’s past. His first novel, “_Abafi_,” was published in 1836,
+and at once received general applause on the part of the critics, and,
+what was still more important, at the hands of the public. Its subject
+is taken from the troubled times of Sigismund Bátori, when Turks,
+Austrians and Magyars, were fighting and intriguing for the possession of
+Transylvania, in the last two decades of the sixteenth century. Bátori’s
+mighty and tainted personality, with all his cruelty, heroism, astuteness
+and audacity, is, together with that of the Turkish conquerors, pashas,
+and court people, the personal background to the hero of the novel,
+Oliver Abafi, who rises from conduct dissipated and lawless, to the
+heights of noble self-sacrifice. The story is told with great power of
+description and impersonation. The reader cannot fail to feel as if quite
+at home in that agitated corner of Europe, where some of the historic
+agencies met in deadly conflict, and where men and women breathed much
+of that grand air of great events, which colours them in tints unknown
+to the people of less eventful times. The novel is intensely interesting
+and will convey a more life-like picture of its period than many a dull
+historic volume.
+
+Equal to, and if possible, even more fascinating, is Jósika’s novel,
+“The Bohemians in Hungary” (“_A csehek Magyarországban_”). This novel
+goes back to older times still. It pictures the state of Hungary in the
+middle of the fifteenth century, when the Bohemian (Czech) Hussites were
+invading Hungary. Of all the innumerable sects and heresies from the end
+of the twelfth century to the rise of Protestantism, the Hussites were no
+doubt the most powerful. From the depths of the forests ranging round the
+river Main, to the mountains encircling Hungary and Transylvania, these
+heroic and fanatic warriors spread the terror of their name. But for
+some grave political mistakes and unforeseen reverses of Vitovt, one of
+the greatest of the historic Slavs (flourished 1380 to 1430), who wanted
+to found a Slav empire, reaching from the western confines of Bohemia,
+to the walls of holy Moscow, the Slavs, on the basis of Hussitism, and
+under leaders like Ziska, and the Procops, might have for ever reduced
+the historic _rôle_ of Germany to that of a small power. Theirs would
+then have been a great empire, strongly unified in language, creed and
+traditions. No Austria would have been possible; and Hungary would have
+probably been submerged in the Slav flood. It is the story of the lives
+of some of these wild and terrible Czechs in the north and north-west
+of Hungary which forms the subject of the powerful novel of Jósika.
+The castles of the Czech leaders were real fortresses of Slavdom, and
+the population of those parts of Hungary being largely Slav to the
+present day, the danger for Hungary was very great. Fortunately for the
+independence of the Magyars, their young king Matthew Corvinus, son of
+John Hunyadi, was a match for the Bohemians. One by one he destroyed
+their castles, liberating thousands of prisoners, and ridding the
+country of the Slav invasion. His illustrious figure shines in Jósika’s
+novel like the youthful emblem of that historic vitality which has kept
+Hungary in a ruling position over Slav and Germanic tribes these last
+thousand years. The picturesqueness of Jósika’s novel is extraordinary.
+Male and female characters of intense fascination move in the castles,
+battlefields, dungeons and mountain-paths described by the novelist.
+Komoróczy, the knight and robber; the glorious king and his romantic
+love; Elemér, the hero, called “the Eagle”; the charming widow, who
+defies with a dimpled smile the most ruthless of amorous men; Jews, at
+once grand in suffering and commonplace in their greed; all these and
+many more scenes and portraits reconstruct that memorable time when the
+Renascence was rising over the dying gloom of the Middle Ages.
+
+It is impossible to tell here, even very briefly, the plots and
+characters of the very numerous novels written by Jósika both in Hungary
+and at Dresden, whither he retired after escaping the Austrians, who
+had sentenced him to death as one of the prominent members of the
+Hungarian “rebels.” All these novels are historic in subject, and even
+quote, sometimes, chapter and verse from the chronicles on which they
+are based. The most famous are “_Esther_;” “_Francis Rákóczy II._,” the
+hero of which is the most popular of all Hungarian princes who ever
+revolted from the Habsburgs; “A Hungarian Family during the Revolution”
+(“_Egy magyar család a forradalom alatt_”); “The Last Báthory” (“_As
+utolsó Báthory_”). Jósika is easily compared to and measured by Walter
+Scott. Yet there is in the very tendencies of their works a marked
+difference. Scott, in writing his novels, was prompted more by his
+literary tastes and proclivities than by any consideration of politic
+aims. Both Scotland and England were during his life-time (1771-1832)
+at the height of their triumphal career. His novels were romantic work
+pure and simple. England being at the head of the powers combating the
+French Revolution, her literary geniuses, too, followed lines opposed to
+modern Liberalism; in other words, they became romantic. Hungary, on the
+other hand, was, during the life-time of Jósika, an oppressed country,
+and after a short period of glory during her war of independence, she
+vegetated for over ten years in a torpor caused by a fiercely reactionary
+government. Into Jósika’s novels, therefore, there necessarily entered
+a political element, which coloured his work with a tint unknown to the
+great Scotchman’s tales. And this, together with the circumstance of
+his becoming rapidly a “standard” novelist, explains Jósika’s literary
+eminence and also his literary failings. In his attempt to use the story
+of Hungary’s past as a means of reviving her present, he naturally
+lost sight of some of the purely literary laws of novel-writing. His
+characters being already given by history, he neglected to elaborate
+their psychology. Events happen rather unto or by them, than through
+them. The inner machinery of motives is sometimes clumsy or too flimsy.
+Being much in demand as a “standard” novelist, he wrote much; too
+much. Yet with all these occasional shortcomings, Jósika is one of the
+most splendid novelists of the picturesque class. Few Hungarian books
+recording Hungary’s past will give the foreign reader a more pleasing
+and, at the same time, instructive picture of the romantic days of that
+great country. The professorial critic, reposing on the tattered laurels
+of his victims, if not on his own, will find much to rebuke in Jósika.
+The youth of Hungary and the unprejudiced foreigner will always read him
+with delight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+The second great novelist in that period was Eötvös. Born in 1813, he
+received a careful education, and after extensive travels in western
+Europe, embraced the judicial career for a time. When still a young
+man, at the age of six-and-twenty, he published his first great novel,
+“The Carthusian” (“_A Karthauzi_,” 1839-40). This remarkable work had
+an immense effect. It was read with equal delight in the palaces of the
+magnates, and in the closets of the middle-class people. It charmed the
+young and moved the old. It seemed to express the very innermost cravings
+and mental propensities of the then Hungarian public. More than that.
+It expressed a state of feeling then almost universal on the continent
+of Europe. Like Goethe’s “_Werther_,” it lent expression to what lay
+dormant and unexpressed in the hearts of millions of Europeans. The
+sultry atmosphere then weighing on continental Europe had engendered a
+morbid melancholy in many a high-strung man and woman. Life seemed to
+be full of unsolved and unsolvable problems; full of forces disruptive
+and disintegrating, causing unease uncertainty and distress. All the
+nobler efforts of men in building up their private or public fortunes
+appeared to be blighted and marred by the demoniac perverseness of the
+political and social powers of the time. A brooding meditativeness
+seized people, and fresh and vigorous deeds being impossible, pale
+and despondent reflections embroiled men in a dumb struggle against
+destiny. Such was the mental temper of a very large class of men and
+women in France, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Italy. Eötvös himself
+had, from early youth, been given to that morbid meditativeness and
+self-destructive sensitiveness of the age; and the sorrowful condition
+of his country only increased his pathetic melancholy. Hungarian young
+men and women, then and now, are naturally very much more pathetic and
+grave than the youth of any other country. They have neither the virile
+alacrity of the British youth so agreeably manifested in the games and
+muscular amusements of young England; nor the precocious polish and
+gaiety of French youths. Theirs is a heavy mood, similar to that of the
+_Largos_ of Hungarian music, but followed by no _Friss_ or _Vivace_.
+To souls tuned in such minor keys, the “_Karthauzi_” came as the very
+revelation of their deepest secrets. Hitherto the epics and novels
+written in Hungary had been retrospective work. They narrated the woes
+and joys, the troubles and glories of past ages. In Eötvös’ novel there
+was, practically for the first time, a work of introspective _actualité_;
+a work appealing to the reader himself, and not only to his historic
+imagination. The queries tormenting the young men and women of that age
+were here subjected to an analysis full of psychological inquisitiveness,
+enveloped in the gloaming of poetic descriptions of Nature. The plot
+of the novel is of the simplest. Gustavus, a French nobleman, in whose
+agitated soul are accumulated all the tempest-laden clouds of his age,
+seeks in vain to find peace and consolation in Love, Pleasure and
+Ambition. Julia, his first love, deserts him for an unworthy “other one;”
+Betti, his second love, he rejects himself. And so, tossed from one rock
+of discord to the other, he finally enters the order of the Carthusians,
+and there, amidst steady work and in firm faith, finds the only solution
+that can await characters like his: Death. Goethe, with the terrible
+serenity of judgment so peculiar to him, once remarked, that there are,
+as he called them, “problematic characters, who can do justice to no
+situation in which they may be placed.” Such a character is Gustavus. But
+such was also the general and typical character of his time; and hence
+the immense effect of the novel. Even the chief and serious deficiency of
+the novel, being as it was, the deficiency of numerous Hungarian minds
+of that time, only helped to increase its popularity. Eötvös could never
+quite overcome the inner contrast between his Franco-German education and
+the Magyar character of his works. Of all the great Hungarian writers,
+his language is the least Magyar in form and savour. The European
+and the Magyar were constantly battling in him and frequently to the
+detriment of the latter. His was not that power of blending European and
+national culture into a new and harmonious composition. That power is
+distinctively the characteristics of the classical writers of nations.
+It belongs only to the highest form of genius. But the reading public of
+the “_Karthauzi_” was largely recruited from amongst people in whom that
+conflict between western and Magyar culture had likewise not been brought
+to a harmonious issue. They thus found in the great novel that very
+failing of their own class, without which, according to Grillparzer’s
+profound remark, success is hardly obtainable in any profession.
+
+In 1845, Eötvös published another great novel: “The Village Notary”
+(“_A falu jegyzője_”). It was meant to be a scathing satire on the
+corruption, backwardness and general administrative misery of public
+county life in Hungary. Eötvös, whose conceptions of the state and its
+organs were formed largely after the models of German, Austrian and
+French organizations, was deeply convinced of the utter insufficiency
+of that local selfgovernment, which in Hungary had nearly always been
+one of greater independence than that even of England. In Hungary all
+the leading and influential officials in the counties were elective, and
+from among the noble class of the county only. Being more than underpaid,
+they frequently abused their power, and contrived to secure a relatively
+large income by means of exactions and terrorizations of all kinds. The
+typical figure of these squires was the _szolgabiró_, or under-sheriff,
+as he may be termed, if with inaccuracy, who presided over nearly all the
+public affairs of one of the districts into which counties are divided.
+His administration was frequently carried on pasha fashion indeed; and
+the poorer classes were much at his mercy. Eötvös, who thought that the
+strongly centralized and systematized organization of French or German
+local governments was undoubtedly much superior to the system obtaining
+in Hungary, published his novel with the intention of bringing about a
+change in public opinion, and so finally a change in the county-system
+itself. To the immense benefits accruing to the Hungarians as a nation
+through the very system of local selfgovernment which Eötvös so cruelly
+exposed, he was insensible. That county-life, in spite of all its crying
+abuses, was the only and indispensable preliminary schooling for the
+functions of government in council or parliament; that these rough
+and uncultured county-gentry in Hungary, as well as their brethren in
+England, were far better fitted for some of the most important tasks of
+government and politics than the most methodic and punctual official
+in French or German local offices, to all that Eötvös paid no serious
+attention. His warm-hearted love of Equality and Right made him boil over
+at the sight of many an injustice—at the hands of men whose inferiority
+in point of knowledge and western culture rendered them easy objects
+of contempt to one who gauged all political greatness by the standard
+of France or Germany. Eötvös, the politician, entertained of course
+the same ideas about the value of the old Hungarian county-system, as
+did Eötvös the novelist. He was a “centralist”; and the number of his
+followers has been very great to the present day. They still maintain
+that even the present remnants of the old county-system in Hungary are
+very injurious to the Magyar state; and that nothing short of a total
+overhauling, or—to talk plainly—abolition of that system, and the
+introduction of French centralization in its lieu can save the kingdom
+of St. Stephen. In more recent times the historic work of Béla Grünwald
+on the social and political condition of Hungary from 1711 to 1825 (“_A
+régi Magyarország_”) has elaborated the ideas of Eötvös with the armoury
+of learned footnotes and systematic chapters. The novel of Eötvös is
+still the text of all the loud centralists in Hungary, to whom the county
+selfgovernment is an absurd anachronism. As a matter of fact, on the
+continent, Hungary is the only country where local selfgovernment is
+still extant. Nor can there be any doubt, that that local selfgovernment
+alone enabled the Magyars to hold their supremacy over the numerically
+stronger nations in their country. Taking the British constitution as the
+model of all representative government, we cannot go astray in claiming
+for such government three absolutely indispensable elements. First, a
+parliament proper, consisting of two Chambers or Houses; secondly, a
+cabinet proper; and thirdly, two or three real and energetic political
+parties, the numerous members of which take an intense interest in every
+one of the political issues of the day. Applying this standard to the
+United States, for instance, we find, that the Americans while having a
+federal, two-chambered parliament and also two or more genuine parties,
+yet have no Cabinet proper; and hence many of the features of political
+corruption that were rampant in England in the times from Charles II.
+to George III., when the Cabinet was still forming, and not yet formed,
+may be noticed in the United States at the present day. In the same way
+France has a Cabinet indeed, and also a two-chambered parliament; but
+genuine political parties, with members intensely interested in politics,
+are wanting. Hence the instability and irregularity of the French
+representative government. In Hungary, and there alone, the student of
+politics will find a perfect replica of the British constitution, in
+that the fine superstructure of Parliament and Cabinet is based on the
+broad pedestal of genuine political parties. The members of these parties
+take a real, passionate and untiring interest in political questions of
+any kind, and hence there is a real public opinion, a real nation. This
+basis of the political life in Hungary, where has it been quarried from
+but in the local selfgovernment of the counties? Interest in the mostly
+arid questions of politics can be acquired only by early and constant
+contact with men who make it almost the chief interest of their lives. It
+is in the county halls, and in the social reunions of the county-gentry,
+that the young Magyars learn the great lesson of dispensing authority,
+commanding respect and discussing public business with tact and prudence.
+It is there that men were formed who could at all times find resources
+to withstand the anti-national policy of the Habsburgs or the occasional
+rebellions of the Slav or Roumanian peasantry. Of the country-gentlemen
+in Hungary indeed may be said, what Macaulay wrote of the English esquire
+of the seventeenth century: that “his ignorance and uncouthness, his low
+tastes and gross phrases, would, in our time, be considered as indicating
+a nature and a breeding thoroughly plebeian. Yet he was essentially a
+patrician, and had, in large measure, both the virtues and vices which
+flourish among men set from their birth in high place, and accustomed to
+authority, to observance and to self-respect.” (_History of England_,
+Ch. III.) It was amongst these rough squires that the two great parties
+of England were formed. It was likewise amongst the much derided
+_táblabirók_ and _szolgabirók_ (squires and justices) of Hungary, that
+the men of 1825 and 1848 were formed; and in our time they have given
+Hungary one of the indispensable elements of representative government:
+real political parties.
+
+It appears necessary to dwell at some length on the great historic and
+political questions underlying the famous novel of Eötvös. No doubt,
+every Hungarian cannot but wish to see that novel in the hands of all who
+take an interest in Hungary. For, “The Village Notary” contains capital
+portraits of many a quaint, wild or pathetic type of inner Hungary.
+The down-trodden notary (Tengelyi); the tyrannical _szolgabiró_ (or
+squire) Paul Nyúzó (meaning: flayer); Viola, the honest peasant, who
+being shamefully wronged betakes himself to the forest and _pusztas_
+(prairies) to lead the life of a robber; Mrs. Réty, the wife of the chief
+magistrate of the county, who is entangled in a fearful domestic tragedy,
+etc., etc. Moreover, the novel contains excellent pieces of irony and
+satire; and being reared on the broad idea of social reform never sinks
+to mere pamphleteering. Yet, with all that, we cannot but protest against
+the misstatement of the political importance of county-life in Hungary
+as advanced in that novel. Fully acknowledging, as we do, its literary
+value, which is diminished only by the heavy and un-Magyar diction, we
+deprecate its judgment on an institution without which Hungary would have
+long been reduced to the level of a mere province of Austria. Eötvös,
+like most idealists bred in the school of German idealism, could not
+endure rough Reality. He forgot, that for the making of history, as for
+that of bread, unclean matter is, at certain stages, an indispensable
+element.
+
+We have two more novels by Eötvös: “Hungary in 1514” (“_Magyarország
+1514 ben_,” 1847), which is a fair picture of the time of the
+peasant-rebellion in Hungary, under George Dózsa; and “The Sisters” (“_A
+nővérek_,” 1857), a feeble story with many ideas on Education.
+
+On Eötvös, as a writer on politics, and the Philosophy of History, see
+page 251. It may here be mentioned that Eötvös, who was President of the
+Academy, was frequently called upon to deliver commemorative discourses
+on the lives and merits of deceased members of the Academy and the
+Kisfaludy Society (see page 113). His speeches are, as a rule, of great
+oratorical power, and illuminated with grand conceptions of Life and
+Literature. He was eminently an orator, not a rhetor; and although he
+seldom reached the magnificence of Kölcsey (see page 107), he is no
+unworthy follower of him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+At the present day most people of culture outside Hungary know the name
+of Jókai, the Hungarian novelist; few, if any, know the name of Sigismund
+Kemény. Yet, of the two, Kemény is probably the greater writer. He is the
+Balzac of Hungary, less Balzac’s fame. For, strange to say, in Hungary
+itself, the novels of Kemény are very little known; and although several
+Magyar critics of the highest authority have declared Kemény to be the
+greatest novelist of the Hungarians, yet the reading public in Hungary
+neither buys nor reads the masterpieces of the Transylvanian baron. This
+lack of general appreciation seems to be somewhat inherent in the very
+kind of genius possessed by men like Balzac and Kemény. The former, it
+is true, has a well-known name, and his works have spread over Europe
+and America. Yet, even in France, the full grandeur of his genius has
+not yet been recognized. Balzac has, as yet, no statue in Paris, which
+city he has described more ingeniously than any other writer. Even in
+his native town of Tours his statue was erected only in quite recent
+times. The _Académie_ has never admitted him within her circle; and the
+French are not yet aware that in Balzac they have their Shakespeare in
+prose. Indeed, nobody short of Shakespeare will stand comparison with the
+gigantic genius of Balzac. Both have created a long series of grand types
+of humanity endowed with an undying life and charm of their own. To both
+the secrets and puzzles of the human soul were transparent; and both had
+the powers of philosophic analysis and poetic synthesis in equal shares.
+Shakespeare, too, had to bide his time; and twenty-eight years after his
+death, John Milton does not even mention his dramas as necessary reading
+for a young gentleman’s education. Considering, then, the fate of Balzac
+in France, with an eager reading public immeasurably more numerous than
+that of Hungary, we need not wonder that Kemény suffered with tenfold
+intensity from the drawbacks peculiar to his Balzacian genius.
+
+We said, Kemény is the Balzac of Hungary. We did not say, he was equal to
+Balzac. In Hungary a full-fledged Balzac can as yet not be expected. No
+amount of native genius will enable a man to overcome obstacles such as
+stand in the way of him who should undertake to do for Hungarian society
+what Balzac did for French. The France of Louis-Philippe was infinitely
+better adapted to the writing of its “_Comédie humaine_,” than the
+Hungary of Kemény’s time.
+
+Hungary is far from being as homogeneous as is France. In the latter
+country, despite much variety in language and social institutions, there
+is one pervading common spirit in all classes and peoples of the state.
+Whether Norman or Gascon, the citizen of France is chiefly a Frenchman,
+with distinctly French ideas and sentiments. France is the country
+of the French. Hungary is not the country of the Hungarians; it is a
+trysting-place of nations rather than the country of one nation. There
+are not only classes and ranks, but each class or rank differs according
+to the nation it belongs to. The Magyar _bourgeois_ is not like the Slav
+_bourgeois_; and both differed, especially in Kemény’s time, from the
+German _bourgeois_. No one, certainly not Kemény, can claim an intimate
+knowledge of all the nations in Hungary; and thus no one has, as yet, so
+profoundly impregnated himself with as immense an array of social facts
+as had Balzac before he wrote his great novels. Balzac knew the entire
+anatomy and physiology of the peasant, the soldier, the clergyman, the
+provincial, the Parisian, the maid, the _concierge_, the _bourgeoise_,
+the _grande dame_, the actress, the scholar, the lawyer, the speculator,
+the _viveur_, the diplomatist—in short, of every shade of character that
+went to form French society. In Hungary, such a knowledge could not be
+acquired. Familiarity with ten to twelve languages is required to know
+the full anatomy and physiology of the peasants in Hungary alone. To
+do, therefore, for Hungarian society what Balzac had done for French;
+to write the Hungarian “_Comédie humaine_” has so far been practically
+impossible; nor did Kemény do it. And yet, within the narrow limits of
+his arena, Kemény worked with the spirit and genius of Balzac. That
+his capacity was essentially akin to that of the great French writer
+there can be no doubt. It was not of the same comprehensiveness. Balzac
+had humour and wit; Kemény had none. Balzac had an exquisite sense
+of proportion, if not always in his style, at least always in the
+architecture of his plot; Kemény had not. Balzac was an encyclopædist of
+the human heart, in that he knew women as well as men; Kemény knew men
+far better than women. Balzac’s range of observation being greater, his
+mind was subtler even than that of Kemény. Yet, with all that, Kemény’s
+genius was essentially akin to that of Balzac. He, too, had that vast
+knowledge of historic events and that interest in scientific researches
+that suggested to Balzac innumerable shades and innuendoes of thought,
+and _aperçus_ on every form and phase of life. Kemény, like Balzac,
+had studied much in books and nature and man; he also had that love
+of realism—that following up of mental or emotional waves into their
+minutest recesses in the face or voice or gestures of persons. The
+outward or material appearance of man: his dress, house, arms, art-work,
+or contrivances were a matter of profound study to Kemény, as they were
+to Balzac. Although intensely analytical, he is equally great at and
+fond of descriptions. He paints nature, more especially that of his
+beloved Transylvania, as one intimate with mountains, rivers and forests.
+He knows their language and physiognomy; his landscapes are like the
+choruses in Greek tragedies. They form part of the scenes; not only of
+the scenery. They are like the contrapuntal bass to the melodies of his
+novels. But in what Kemény resembles Balzac most is his inexorableness.
+There is no other word for it. In nearly all his novels, as in most of
+those of Balzac, man is crushed down pitilessly, remorselessly. Without
+making any deliberate show of pessimism, Kemény is intensely pessimistic.
+As in Balzac the overpowering demon of modern times is money, after
+which all crave, all run and rush, jostling, panting, jading; so in
+Kemény, the bane of man appears under the form of those small mistakes
+and errors which dig the grave of all hopes. The great passions, vices
+and crimes do not, in Kemény’s novels, act as the causes of the final
+downfall of his heroes or heroines. His heroes do not die from strokes
+of lightning, shooting forth from the black clouds of their terrible
+passions or heinous crimes. On the contrary: such lightnings rather
+illumine their road to success. They end, as it were, through a fire
+caused by a carelessly dropped match. The ghastly irony of real life,
+which no unbiassed observer can have failed to notice, is shown in
+his novels in all its terrible working. The melancholy of Eötvös is
+sweet and soothing; the gloom of Kemény is discomforting, distressing,
+just because Kemény never seems to be deliberately pessimistic. While
+reading his novels, the reader is so struck with the beauty of those
+gems of original and profound ideas and remarks, which Kemény strews in
+prodigious abundance over the objects and persons of his novels, that
+the persistent gloom and despair dominating nearly all his works, do not
+become so painful to the reader. It is when we have finished the book;
+when we overlook the whole of the plan; when we have laid our ear on the
+throbbing heart of each of the persons with whom we had been through
+several volumes; it is when the novel in its entirety has entered our
+mind, that we feel deserted by all hopefulness, and embittered by the
+foul destiny reigning over man’s best efforts. There can be but little
+doubt that the indifference, with which Kemény has been so far received
+in Hungary, is largely owing to his pessimism. The Hungarians, like the
+English, have little idiosyncrasy for pessimism. This mood of viewing
+things is the outcome of mental struggles, from which the better minds of
+both countries have been saved by their intense political life. Pessimism
+is eminently the nursling of thought. In Hungary there is, as in England,
+much more acting than thinking. Whatever there may be of pessimism in the
+Hungarians is used up in some of their superbly-despondent folk-songs.
+For Kemény’s pessimism the time has not yet come. Perhaps he would have
+impressed his contemporaries far more deeply had he chosen not to write
+historic novels. Nearly all of his great novels are historic novels.
+As history, they are really incomparable. If we possessed a hundred
+historic novels, describing a hundred important periods of general
+history, in the manner, with the graphic power and true intimacy with the
+past, so peculiar to Kemény, we should know history infinitely better.
+Kemény has something of the erudition of a Gierke or John Selden, with
+the plastic descriptiveness of a great painter. Read his Transylvanian
+novels, and you have a clearer, more vivid and more correct knowledge
+of Transylvanian history in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
+than you could gather from the study of the various chroniclers and
+memoir-writers of that time, such as Reicherstorffer, Schesaeus,
+Sigler, Heltai (see page 47), Verantius, Tinódy (see page 47), Somogyi
+(Ambrosius), Stephen Szamosközy, Nicolas Oláh, Zsámboky, Michael Brutus,
+Francis Forgách, Nicolas Istvánffy, Francis Mikó, Gregory Petthő, Kraus,
+the Bethlens, Haner, etc. Kemény is thus one of the best historians of
+Hungary. Nor can we think much less of him as a novelist. He engages our
+interest in the characters of his tales; they work on our imagination,
+they appeal to our hearts. More particularly to Hungarians, the actors of
+Kemény’s novels appear as individuals full of charm and significance. To
+use one of Ben Jonson’s happy phrases, they are “rammed with life”—life
+national, patriotic, historic. And yet, with all these commanding
+excellencies in his novels, Kemény has, there can be little doubt,
+committed a grave blunder in literary strategy, in investing the output
+of his vast intellectual mines in historic novels. Had he been less of a
+historian, he might have written his historic novels at a smaller loss
+of literary efficiency. His very greatness as a historian debarred him
+from approaching Balzac still more closely. For his faithfulness as a
+historian prevented him from elaborating fully those types of humanity,
+the creation of which is Balzac’s glory. Such types cannot, as a rule, be
+found in history. History, or that part of reality in which human beings
+are the actors, is full of blurred types of mongreldom and bastardy. No
+line in the features of man, as a real phenomenon, is drawn out purely
+and to its legitimate term; good and bad, sublime and vile, sentiments
+and deeds, are lumbering higgledy piggledy across each other. The poet
+or artist, who is truest to reality, is untruest to poetry and art.
+At all times the attempt at realism in art has landed where has the
+attempt at materialism in philosophy—in impotence. Historic novels, if
+very historic, as are these of Kemény, must thus necessarily benumb the
+creative power of the poet. And so they have. Had Kemény, instead of
+the past, embraced the present; had he followed in the wake of Balzac
+in fetching from the depth of Hungarian humanity some of the arch-types
+of European humanity, as was done by the author of “_Père Goriot_” with
+regard to French humanity, Kemény would stand out as one of the greatest
+writers of European literature. As it is, he is only one of the great
+writers of Hungarian Literature. What is perhaps more astonishing still
+in that choice of the historic novel by Kemény, is the fact that he was
+for years engaged in a profession than which very few can attach us more
+intently to actual, present life. Kemény was one of the most influential
+and hardest-worked political journalists of his time. In the columns
+of the “_Pesti Napló_” he poured out, in astounding profusion, leading
+articles about all the great events and persons of his time. In these
+articles he showed profound knowledge of the very pulse and heart of his
+age; and such was his power of exposition, analysis and appreciation of
+the fleeting occurrences of the day, that his political articles have
+been a matter of admiration both to his contemporaries and subsequent
+historians. As a rule, great politicians do not write historic novels.
+They are too much imbued with the spirit of their own age, in the
+direction of which they have had no small share, to be inclined, or even
+able, to familiarise themselves with the spirit of ages bygone. Kemény is
+an exception, and while this certainly testifies to the comprehensiveness
+of his mind, it renders the strategic mistake above mentioned more marked
+still.
+
+We must abstain from giving a detailed account of his novels. Their plots
+are, by themselves, simple, if not purely on the lines of the historic
+events which they relate. Their author, like Balzac, excels chiefly in
+psychology and analysis; and although the dialogue is not neglected, it
+is not made the centre of the tale. In “_Gyulai Pál_” (1846) is shown the
+struggle between a noble and high-minded statesman and his ambition. In
+the attempt at saving his prince, Sigismund Báthori, from the latter’s
+rival, Balthesar Báthori, Gyulai plunges into a series of crimes, and
+mortally wounds the heart of his idol, Eleonore, who finally brings about
+his execution. In “The Widow and Her Daughter” (“_Az özvegy és leánya_,”
+1857) is told, and with greater regard to form and architecture than in
+Kemény’s other novels, the tragedy of the family of Mikes. A subject
+admirably suited to the gloom of Kemény’s mental atmosphere is treated
+in his “The Fanatics” (“_A rajongók_,” 1859), a story of the curious
+sect of the Sabbatarians in Transylvania in the fourth decade of the
+seventeenth century (_cf._ page 55). The Macchiavellian prime minister,
+Kassai, on the one hand, and the rich and mystic Simon Pécsi, the head
+of the Sabbatarians, with his beautiful daughter Deborah, on the other,
+are amongst the leading persons of this terrible novel. No less appalling
+in its way is “Rough Times” (“_Zord idő_,” 1862), in which the capture
+of the Hungarian capital, Buda, by the Turks, is told with magnificent
+power. In the short novels of Kemény, taking up subjects of modern time
+(“Love and Vanity” [“_Szerelem és hiúság_”]; “Husband and Wife” [“_Férj
+és nő_”]; “The Abysses of the Heart” [“_A sziv örvényei_”]); as well
+as in his smaller tales, such as “Virtue and Convention” (“_Erény és
+illem_”); “Two Happy Persons” (“_Két boldog_”); “_Alhi Kmet_” (a proper
+name), etc., Kemény likewise dwells on that _fatalisme raisonné_ as it
+might be called, that does not permit him, or very rarely, to tarry over
+the sunny moments of life. Writers like Kemény, in quite modern times,
+have found means of gently veiling their inner despondency by light
+touches of melancholy, as is done by Maeterlinck; or by fine irony, as
+used by Anatole France. In Kemény there is no mercy, not even that of
+irony. His novels are like the gigantic inundations of the Theiss river
+in Hungary: you see the floods nearing, often noiselessly, but with
+distressing rapidity, and in all directions; there is no escaping them;
+in their inexorable progress they roll onward like a host of innumerable
+serpents, stifling life and levelling down everything to the sameness
+of death. When Kemény died (1875), on his small paternal estate of
+Puszta-Kamarás, in Transylvania, he had himself long been buried by the
+floods of mental derangement. Reality had shown him no pity either.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+The poets and writers of the Magyars, whom we have been studying in the
+preceding chapters, were, in a lesser or higher degree, authors of works
+whose excellence was, to a large extent, of a relative, or national and
+not of an absolute character.
+
+We now approach the study of Alexander Petőfi. His was a genius which,
+perhaps alone amongst Hungarian writers, so completely blended the
+peculiar national excellencies of Magyar poetry with the broader features
+of European literary greatness, as to entitle him to the admiration of
+all who can feel poetic beauty, irrespective of nationality or even
+language. Real poetry, like real music, appeals to all nations, and to
+all times. In Petőfi there is real poetry. Other poets are felicitous
+in expression, and the musical cadence of their diction endears them to
+their compatriots. Others again create one or two poetical types the
+charm of which lends grace and interest to even insignificant verses.
+Many more poets again play on religious, moral, or patriotic sentiments,
+and thus appeal to the hearts or imagination of readers with whom such
+sentiments easily wax overwhelming. In Petőfi there is more than all
+that. His language is rich and beautiful; yet it is not in his language
+that he excels. He never or very seldom borrows effect from appeals to
+morals or religion. He creates poetical phenomena—that is all. Where
+before him nobody ever surmised any poetic phenomena at all, there he
+conjures up a whole fairy-world of poetic conceptions, figures, events,
+or scenes. The true poet discovers the new land by creating it. In Nature
+herself there is no more poetry than in a grocer’s shop. Nor is there a
+trace of any other thought in Nature. There is no philosophy in it and no
+mathematics. Heaven alone knows how Nature is carrying on her business.
+She is the most wasteful of managers, and yet she is never bankrupt. She
+is as heedless as the most thoughtless of business men, and yet traces
+of profound thought appear to be discoverable in her dealings. And so
+the mathematician, or the physicist arrives at neatly limbed formulæ
+expressing so-called laws of Nature. Yet nothing can be more certain
+than that Nature herself is not acting on the lines of laws. To us, to
+human beings, it appears convenient and useful to bracket some of the
+happenings of infinite Nature between logical ideas, thereby giving us
+the satisfaction of “understanding” those happenings. Nature abhors being
+understood, yet by dint of an irrepressible desire of man, thinkers will
+always attempt at construing her by dressing up natural phenomena in the
+jackets of formulæ and in the petticoats of concepts.
+
+It is even so with poetry. There is no poetry whatever in Nature. All
+poetry is invented and created by man, just as all music is. He who
+invents the greatest number of events, scenes, or types that strike
+men as being poetical, is the greatest of poets. It is impossible to
+say how he invents them; nor can he or anybody else say where, that
+is, with relation to what spot, creature, or phenomenon of Nature he
+will invent them. One thing alone is certain, he must _invent_ them.
+For centuries before Petőfi was born, Hungary had had the same mixed
+population; the same mountains; the same mighty rivers and lakes; and
+the same mysterious _puszta_, which to Petőfi suggested an astounding
+number of exquisite poems. He alone “understood their mystic language;”
+that is, he alone invented the poetry to the substratum of Nature; he
+alone wrote the thrilling drama to the dumb flies and staging of Nature
+in Hungary. He sees an old ram-shackle inn in the midst of the _puszta_.
+To the ordinary mortal the inn is suggestive of nothing more than the
+expectation of a poor dinner, of a bad bedstead, of uncanny companions.
+To an ordinary poet it may suggest images of decay or regret, more or
+less poetical. To Petőfi it suggests intensely poetical scenes of life
+exuberant or decadent; the inn (“_csárda_”) is transfigured by him into
+a living being; every one of its corners commences to breathe poetry,
+music, reminiscences and forebodings. So new and individual a creation
+is thus made of that wayside inn, that the painter may find in it new
+subjects for his canvas, and the musician new themes for his lyre.
+Wherever Petőfi is touched by nature or society, he responds by the
+creation of poetic phenomena. The wind blowing over the plains of Hungary
+is, in truth, inarticulate; in wafting through the body and soul of the
+incomparable poet it turns, as if directed through the pipes of an organ
+at the hands of a Bach, to melancholy fugues and majestic oratorios.
+And so with everything. Petőfi sings love in hundreds of poems, yet he
+was scarcely ever loved by woman. For nearer as woman is to Nature, she
+is also more realistic and less charged with poetry than man. What then
+could she do with one who had unloaded into the chests of his youthful
+soul all the treasures of poetry, but none of gold? This, however, far
+from deterring Petőfi or disgusting him, rather stimulated him. He loved
+much; that is, he loved little. Love was for him, like the _puszta_, the
+Theiss river and the Carpathian mountains, an immense suggestiveness;
+an ocean, the crossing of which led to the discovery of new continents
+of poetry. Nearly all the pretty or interesting women whom he met,
+whether the lawless gipsy-girl, the actress, the coy _bourgeoise_,
+the lady, the peasant-girl or the hostelry-maid, he loved them all or
+thought he did. And this was owing not to his extreme youth—he died when
+six-and-twenty—but to his passion for poetic creativeness. Everyone
+of the types of women just mentioned served him as an occasion for
+creating one of those scenes as replete with life poetic as are forests
+or rivers with life natural. In one sense indeed he was right in saying
+that he was “the wild flower of boundless Nature” (“_A korláttalan
+természet-Vadvirága vagyok én_”). His mode of creation was quite on the
+lines of that of Nature. A poem grew out of his mind as does a violet
+out of the ground. In him there is no reflection, no machinery, no
+hesitation. Every line rolls on with the assurance and self-contentedness
+of a rose-leaf budding forth from the stem. He has the meditated
+carelessness of Nature, and also her freshness, her immediateness and
+spontaneity. More particularly, he is like Nature in Hungary. From the
+heights of thought as lofty as the peaks of the Carpathian mountains,
+and as chilling as those snow-clad solitudes (see his superb philosophic
+flashes in the poems written at Szalk Szt Márton, in 1846), he descends
+into the tiny nest of homely sentiments as does a lark into the furrow.
+His indignation, patriotic or otherwise, is as terrible as are the
+inundations of the Theiss; and side by side with poems flaming with
+uncontrollable fire and restlessness are poems full of oriental calm
+and staid repose. Yet, in the poet’s own opinion, he resembled most
+the _puszta_ or immense plain of Hungary. Petőfi, who had tramped over
+nearly every part of his country, gave, in a magnificent poem, the palm
+of beauty to the steppes and pampas of central and southern Hungary.
+The _puszta_ in Hungary is really a series of some three thousand
+_pusztas_, of which the most famous is that of Hortobágy, near Debreczen,
+the praises of which Petőfi has sung in various exquisite poems. These
+_pusztas_ differ very much in physical character; some are covered with
+rich wheat-fields, tobacco plantations, or maize-forests; others again
+are swamps, or natron-ponds, or again waste lands, or heaths. This
+diversity of abundance and penury, ecstasy of nature and dreary desert,
+squares well with the rhapsodic temper of the Magyars in general, and
+that of Petőfi in particular. After miles and miles of deadly silence,
+the traveller enters one of the bustling “market-towns,” full of the
+eccentric and picturesque types of the _puszta_. There is the dignified
+farmer or peasant, with his smart, coquettish, and light-tongued wife,
+or _mennyecske_ (“little heaven”); there are the various shepherds and
+keepers of sheep (“_bojtár_”), oxen (“_gulyás_”), swine (“_kondás_”), or
+horses (“_csikós_”), each in his particular costume and each a different
+type of the Hungarian Bedouin. The “_bojtár_,” tending the immense herds
+of sheep and lambs in the pampas, is mild-tempered, musical and full
+of secret medical lore. The animals under his care are frequently ill,
+and he watches their instinctive ways of picking out the herbs that
+will cure them. So he acquires a knowledge of herbs and an insight into
+nature which makes him appear a wizard. The “_gulyás_” tends the big
+cattle, oxen and bulls, and is naturally a rough fellow, fond of fight
+and of wild rollicking. He frequently wrestles with enraged bulls that
+have fled into the swamps, or with the poachers and robbers roaming
+over the _puszta_. The “_kondás_” is the lowest type of those herdsmen.
+He is sullen, hard of access, and irascible, and easily turns into a
+robber. The most brilliant type is the “_csikós_.” He tends the immense
+herds of horses browsing in the prairies of Hungary. As the violin and
+the _furulya_ (or sort of piccolo) are the national instruments of the
+Magyars, so the horse is their national animal. “The Magyar is created
+for being on horseback” (_lóra termett a magyar_), the Hungarian proverb
+holds. Peasant or nobleman, all are keen horsemen, and so intense is
+their love of the horse that, like Arabs, Hungarian poets treat the horse
+as a poetical character. The _csikós_ is dashing, quick at repartee,
+an excellent dancer and singer or rather improvisatore, and grown to
+his horse. He knows every patch of his _puszta_, and every trick and
+dodge of horse-dealing and—horse-stealing. The girls idolize him. In
+his fluttering, highly-coloured costume, he is the very martial, bold
+and provoking youth whom girls will worship. Amidst these types of the
+_puszta_, none the least fascinating is the “_szegény legény_,” or “poor
+lad.” He is the robber and brigand of the _puszta_, and the romantic
+interest attaching to him grows out of the belief that he took to his
+lawless profession after having been thwarted in life or baffled in
+love. But of all the phenomena of the _puszta_, the Fata Morgana, or
+_mirage_, in Hungarian “_déli báb_,” is the most striking. On a sultry
+afternoon in summer, cities appear in mid-heaven, images of towers
+and castles, immense lakes and forests. They shine sometimes with a
+peculiar, supermundane lustre, and the traveller thinks he is walking in
+fairy-land. Then suddenly they disappear. Such is the _puszta_.
+
+The influence of the _puszta_ on the Magyar poets is undeniable; and
+Petőfi, more than any other Hungarian poet, seems to be the high-priest
+and devotee of the peculiar charms of the great plain. The real relation,
+however, between the poet and his country is that between the traveller
+and the mirage. It is in the eyes of the former that the latter is
+forming, and there alone. Petőfi creates the Fata Morgana, with which he
+fills the vast horizon of his beloved _puszta_. Although professionally
+a lyric poet, his lyrics are of the purely objective kind. Many of his
+best poems might be told in prose, and in any other language, without
+losing much of their charm. There is, in his best works, an abiding
+_fond_ of poetry, quite independent of the music or picturesqueness
+of his words, or the strikingness of his similes. Heine, in his best
+moments, rivals without always equalling him. Petőfi’s poems are mostly
+very short; they, as it were, only state the poetic scene which then
+works on the imagination or heart of the reader quite alone. When Heine
+speaks of the lonely pine-tree standing on the snow-covered heights of
+the north, dreaming of a palm perched in the far east on a rock burning
+with the heat of the sun of the desert, he strikes a chord that will
+vibrate in us long after and beyond the two simple stanzas in which
+he tells the story of the two trees. This is objective poetry. It is
+in this that Petőfi excels. Already in some of his earliest poems he
+writes perfect objective poetry. In “The Stolen Horse” (“_Lopott ló_,”
+1843) we are told of one of those fleeting scenes in puszta-life, in
+which the poet by seizing the pregnant point where present, past and
+future meet, gives us the story of several lives in words so few as to
+seem insufficient for the telling even of a short anecdote. A _csikós_
+dashes on a stolen horse over the vast plain. The rich owner of the
+noble animal, happening to pass by, recognizes his property, and calls
+upon the _csikós_ to stop and surrender the horse. The fellow takes no
+heed, and storms onward. Suddenly he stops, and turning round to the
+owner, he exclaims, “Don’t miss your horse too badly; you have so many
+of them. One heart was in my breast, and alas! your daughter has wrecked
+it;” and disappears in the desert. The story of the poor boy’s love for
+the haughty daughter of the rich man, her cruelty, the father’s pride,
+the boy’s vengeance, his entrance on the wild life of a “poor lad,” or
+robber; all that is pictured and suggested in the few words. In another
+poem, the first line of which is “The wife of the inn-keeper loved
+the vagabond” (“_A csaplárosné a betyárt szerette_,” 1844), the whole
+tragedy of true love thwarted by lawless love is told in a few lines.
+The vagabond (“_betyár_,” really “robber”) loves the maid of the wife
+of an inn-keeper in the _puszta_. The wife loves the robber, and being
+cut by him, drives away the poor girl, who dies of cold in the _puszta_.
+The robber thereupon kills the woman, and dies on the gallows, without
+regret, for “his life was no longer worth to him a pipe of tobacco.”
+Another poem describes the wild rollicking of the boys in the village inn
+at night. A knock is heard at the window, and a harsh voice bids the boys
+to stop lest the quiet of the squire be disturbed. The boys only hold
+forth all the louder. Another knock at the window is heard. In mild tones
+a man asks the fellows to stop yelling, for his poor mother is ill. At
+once all the frolic is at an end, and the boys leave the inn. It is in
+such scenes, all expressed in the simplest and yet idiomatic language,
+that Petőfi’s genius shines forth. Of him indeed it may be said that no
+colour, tint or instrument with which to touch and stir up the human
+heart was alien to him. Considering his extreme youth and the intense
+gravity of his pathos, his exquisite and genuine humour is nothing short
+of marvellous. It is the humour of a mature mind, full of ripe suavity
+and mellow joyousness. Of Petőfi’s humour we could not use Hood’s lines:
+
+    “There’s not a string attuned to mirth
+    But has its chord in melancholy.”
+
+It is playful humour, laughing a broad, sound laugh. He is not as witty
+as Heine or Byron, but neither is he as cutting. In his famous poem
+ridiculing the Magyar _hidalgo_ (“_A magyar nemes_”) there is nothing but
+broad thrusts of a well-handled sword. There is no pricking with needles,
+nor any guffaws of a satyr.
+
+Literary critics in Hungary and elsewhere have, in their anxiety for
+classification and cataloguing, placed Petőfi amongst the so-called
+folk-poets, and nothing is more frequent than a comparison of Petőfi
+with Burns and Béranger, the _chansonniers_ of Scotland and France
+respectively. However, the comparison is untenable. While humour, pathos,
+tenderness and descriptive powers will readily be accorded, and in great
+measure, to the Scotch singer, he can hardly be compared to Petőfi in
+that distinctively creative power, which not only touches sentiment, not
+only finds charming words and images for things external or internal,
+but also and chiefly discovers new poetic continents, so to speak, new
+mines of poetic gold. The very range of subjects covered by the poetry of
+the Hungarian poet is considerably wider than that of the Scotch bard;
+and in the last two years of his life Petőfi was raised, partly by his
+own genius and partly by the events of his time, to the position of a
+nation’s prophet. This very position acted on his poetic gifts with a
+force that Burns never experienced, and accordingly, every comparison of
+the two poets is radically false. The same remark applies to Béranger.
+The entire atmosphere of his famous _chansons_ is so different from that
+of Petőfi’s songs, as to render a comparison of the two impossible.
+Béranger sings the glories of the great Revolution and of Napoleon’s
+time. He is sweet, fresh, graceful, full of _élan_ and smartness. He
+creates a _genre_, a mode of poetry, but a limited one. Petőfi was
+impressed by both poets; he knew Burns and Béranger well, and studied
+them, together with Shelley, Byron, and Heine, pretty carefully. But
+he never imitated them, and for the simple reason that he could not do
+so. He was in the best sense of the word, original, that is, creative.
+He could imitate no one, and no one could imitate him. Petőfi cannot be
+classified; he is a class by himself. He cultivates, it is true, the
+manner and tone of the folk-song (“_népdal_”), and so to superficial
+critics he may appear only as the best folk-song writer of Hungary. He
+is infinitely more than that; in 1846, for instance, he did not write a
+single “_népdal_” (folk-song); he is Hungary’s greatest poet. In him is
+embodied the entire poetical genius of a nation, in whose single members
+we may frequently find the gift of improvisation and poetic invention.
+The rhapsodic vein so conspicuous in the everyday life of Hungary, and
+the exaggerations of which have vitiated many an effort, literary or
+musical, comes out in Petőfi in its full vigour and full beauty. Like
+all great poets, he is intensely truthful. There is no sham whatever in
+him, no affectation and no false note. His passion is terribly real, and
+his mirth, true joy. Nowhere can this absolute truthfulness be noticed
+with greater clearness; nowhere does it shine forth more imposingly
+than in one of Petőfi’s wildest, and apparently most exaggerated poems,
+“The Madman” (“_Az őrült_”). It is a monologue of a mad Titan, whose
+fine intellect has been unhinged by ingratitude of friends, treachery
+of women, and undeserved reverses. We do not hesitate to say that there
+is in the whole range of European literature no other single poem
+representing the demoniac charm of a mind at once vigorous and diseased
+with equal force and truth. Constantly moving on the edges of abysses
+than which the human mind or heart does not know any more appalling, the
+“madman” yet talks with a power and lucidity so overwhelming as to send
+through his hearers the holy shivers of religious prostration. Distorted
+in form, terribly true in substance; such is the character of this unique
+poem, in which all the serpents of scorn and pain seem to wriggle
+beneath the leaves of the beautiful word-foliage.
+
+From Petőfi emanates the very soul of poetry and of all art: enthusiasm,
+inspiration. After having written comic epics, love-poems, and
+genre-pictures with a success never before witnessed, Petőfi, on the
+approach of the revolutionary period, wrote those inflammatory patriotic
+songs, the power of which was officially recognized by the Hungarian
+Government, who had enormous numbers of Petőfi’s patriotic poetry printed
+at their expense and distributed among the soldiers of the revolutionary
+armies. His poems were then a national event, and they may in justice be
+compared to a series of different “_Marseillaises_.”
+
+We began our characterization of Petőfi by saying that he, perhaps alone
+amongst Hungarian writers, completely blended Hungarian with European
+elements. We may now state the reason of this his peculiar excellence.
+Petőfi, like all classical poets, while very great as a master of
+form, owes less to the beauty or ornaments of his language than to the
+objective beauty of his imagery, personifications and poetic scenes.
+For such as largely identify literature with great word-feats, Virgil
+will be greater than Homer (as was commonly believed in the seventeenth
+century); Tennyson greater than Shelley; Platen greater than Heine; and
+Arany (see page 194) greater than Petőfi. This is, however, not the
+judgment of such as gauge poetic greatness by the measure of objective
+beauty contained in a given work. The importance of form in poetry can
+hardly be exaggerated, and the necessity of paying the closest attention
+to the rules of form will be felt by no one more keenly than by the
+student of Hungarian Literature. Yet in attempting to find a measure
+of comparison between great poets, who all more or less excel in form,
+there can be no doubt, that he who is richer in objective beauty is also
+the superior poet. It is this superiority that raises Petőfi head and
+shoulders not only over the rest of the Hungarian poets, but also above
+most other poetic writers of modern Europe. The types of the _puszta_,
+which we have essayed to sketch above, the women, and events of his time;
+all these and many more Magyar subjects were by Petőfi so _objectivated_,
+and given an independent poetic existence of their own, that they cease
+to be familiar to Hungarians only. They grow on the German, French or
+English reader with equal sympathy, and Petőfi thus needs less commentary
+for the foreigner than any other Hungarian poet. His works are like
+the Hungarian Rhapsodies of Liszt, which appeal to Americans with the
+same irresistible force as to Magyars, as the present writer has had
+abundant opportunity of experiencing in the United States. Yet the same
+Magyar melodies and turbulent cadences that Liszt, and Liszt alone,
+succeeded in _objectivating_, utterly fail of effect in countries other
+than Hungary when played by Hungarian gypsies in unadulterated Magyar
+fashion. This, then, is the deepest and truest secret of Petőfi’s immense
+power: while embracing mostly Magyar subjects, he so _objectivates_ them
+as to render them enjoyable and sympathetic to non-Magyar readers too.
+National poets inferior to Petőfi give their nation songs which other
+nations too possess, and the only difference between them is that of
+language. Petőfi gave Hungary and the rest of the civilized world what
+no nation other than the Hungarian possesses. As the Hungarian nation
+itself has an individuality so marked and so different from the other
+nations of Europe, as to entail upon it an historic and social vocation
+_sui generis_, so the poems of Petőfi, as the most felicitous exponent
+of Hungarian nationality, add to the types of poetry produced by other
+nations, a type, a species so individual and so richly personal as to
+endow it with a literary vocation altogether its own. If we are to reduce
+this peculiarly Magyar element to the precincts of a word, we should say
+it is the rhapsodic element. By this we mean a peculiar temper of the
+inspired mind pervading its joyous, humorous, meditative or despondent
+moods alike. As Liszt is the greatest exponent of this rhapsodic
+element in music, so Petőfi is in poetry. Most other rhapsodic poets or
+musicians, Magyar or otherwise, have badly failed, some by degenerating
+into rant or redundancy, others by becoming formless. Petőfi alone
+succeeded in raising rhapsodies to the level of true art.
+
+It was said above that Petőfi’s works are not in need of much commentary,
+even for the foreigner. We may now add that the only commentary needed is
+a knowledge of Petőfi’s life. Petőfi’s short life as a poet was coeval
+with the great awakening of the Magyar nation to the full consciousness
+of its position and its rights. He was born in 1823, in Kis-Körös,
+and was the son of a well-to-do butcher, by the name of Petrovics,
+husband to a Slav woman, called Mary Hruz. For historians who believe
+in the race-theory, there is ample room for speculation, sympathetic or
+malevolent, in the fact that the beloved mother of Hungary’s greatest
+Magyar poet belonged to the “race” of the Slavs, whom all staunch Magyars
+are disinclined to reckon amongst human beings. “_Tót nem ember, kása nem
+étel_” (“The Slav is no human being, and porridge is no meal”), holds
+the Hungarian proverb. Fully convinced as we are that there is no truth
+whatever in the race-theory, we can only see in the fact of Petőfi being
+the child of a Slav mother and a Magyar (or Magyar-speaking) father
+a providential fact creating Hungary’s greatest poet from amongst a
+_milieu_ saturated with both of the main elements of Hungarian society:
+Magyar and Slav. Young Petőfi spent his youth in the large plains between
+the Theiss and the Danube, and the impressions of that picturesque
+portion of Hungary have left their indelible traces on his imagination.
+At the age of fifteen, Petőfi was deprived of the comfort he had so far
+enjoyed, by the financial failure of his father. From that time onward
+he led a life replete with hardships of all kinds. At school he was a
+failure, and even in poetics, as he has told us in one of his humorous
+poems, he was “ploughed.” Being somewhat too fond of the inspiration of
+the wine-cup, or at least being credited with such fondness, he soon
+fell out with his hosts, his teachers and finally with his father. From
+the misery of his position he tried to save himself by volunteering as a
+private in the Austrian army. The very harsh treatment he had to endure
+as a soldier told on his health, and although he had still moral strength
+left to scribble his poems on the planks of the sentry-box in which he
+mounted guard during the bitter winter, he at last was dismissed from
+the service on account of symptoms of consumption. In the following two
+or three years we find him tramping over all Hungary, writing verse,
+and eking out a miserable livelihood by means of acting on provincial
+stages. The great poet long believed in his vocation as an actor, and
+obstinately stuck to a determination that met nowhere with any serious
+encouragement. Meanwhile, however, his verses had made him a well-known
+poet, and soon the idol of the country. In his travels to the north of
+Hungary he was received, more especially at Kassa and Eperjes, with
+honours usually accorded only to royalty. The nation felt that he was the
+living personification of all the political and poetical aspirations of
+the Magyars then struggling for manifestation. In 1846 he made, in the
+county of Szathmár, the acquaintance of that strange and ill-balanced
+girl, who was to become his wife. Juliet Szendrey was her name. She was
+the daughter of a steward on one of the great estates of a Hungarian
+nobleman, and had from early years shown symptoms of that malady which is
+now more widely known under the name of “new womanism,” or “_féminisme_.”
+Accordingly, she was eccentric and aimless, and when Petőfi made love to
+her she was at a loss how to respond to a feeling so simple and natural.
+Having given Petőfi some cruel samples of the waywardness of her temper,
+it occurred to her that she might inflict even more pain on her father by
+marrying the poor poet, and consequently she did so against the wish of
+her parent. The young couple lived in very primitive lodgings in Pest,
+and Madame took her fame as the wife of a great man with very grand
+airs. She so intensely appreciated the happiness of being wedded to a
+young genius and an affectionate husband, that she married, not quite
+a year after Petőfi’s disappearance on the battlefield of Segesvár, a
+man in every way infinitely inferior to Petőfi. Can anything prove the
+Fata Morgana character of poetry and of poets more cruelly than the ever
+infamous conduct of that highly cultivated woman, who, after having been
+idolized and, in verses, immortalized by one of the greatest of poets,
+showed her worthlessness by marrying a mediocrity before a single year
+had elapsed after the glorious death of her husband, whose infant son
+still required all her care? But let us return to the poet. A few months
+after his marriage Petőfi began his political career by announcing to
+the people of Pest the abolition of the censorship, and by reading to
+the enthusiastic crowd his famous poem, “Rise o’ Magyar” (“_Talpra
+magyar!_”), on the Ides of March, 1848. Towards the end of the same
+year he took service in the revolutionary army, and was attached to
+the Polish general, Bem, a hero wounded in untold battles for liberty,
+and then serving the cause of the Magyars in Transylvania. Few letters
+are more touching than the letters written by Petőfi in fair French to
+the old warrior, his “father,” as he calls him. Bem, himself a genius
+of character, at once felt and recognized the genius of Petőfi, and
+with great tact smoothed over difficulties arising from the poet’s wild
+insubordination. Against the advice and in spite of the entreaties of
+numerous friends, who wanted to save the poet for his country, Petőfi
+took actual part in various battles. He was last heard of in the battle
+of Segesvár, in Transylvania, on July 31st, 1849, where he died as he had
+long wished, fighting for his country. “To live for love, and die for
+one’s country”—he had not only sung it....
+
+The works of Petőfi are both lyrical and epical; his novelistic attempts,
+“The Rope of the Hangman” (“_A hóhér kötele_”) are crude, so are his few
+essays in the drama. Amongst his epics, “_Childe John_” (“_János vitéz_”)
+is the best. It is a comic epic, or rather a fairy-story told with
+exquisite humour and exuberance of fancy. Another excellent comic epic of
+his is “_Bolond İstók_.” His lyrical poems are very numerous and cover,
+as has been already indicated, the whole range of human sentiment.
+Perhaps it is not superfluous to remark that there is in all the works
+of Petőfi not a word likely to jar on the ear of the most fastidious
+moralist. Like himself, his works all breathe the purity and health of
+untainted youth.
+
+The reader will now perhaps expect a laborious statement of the
+shortcomings and failings of Petőfi as a poet. And many a Hungarian
+critic has, apart from his professional duty to fall foul of this or
+that feature in the literary physiognomy of poets, pointed out some
+grievous drawbacks in Petőfi’s works. Thus, most critics have, while
+lauding the splendid lyrical subjectivity of Petőfi, pointed out his
+alleged incapacity to write anything else than himself. His chief
+deficiency, it has been asserted, is his lack of objective imagination,
+such as was possessed by the great epic and dramatic writers of European
+literature. To this the answer is, it appears to us, very simple.
+Petőfi never wrote a work intended to be an epic proper; nor were his
+attempts at dramatic composition really serious. He cannot, therefore,
+be legitimately reproached with having failed where he did not intend to
+succeed. He never deliberately worked for such achievements of objective
+imagination as show in the creation of dramatic personalities. Yet most
+of his perfect poems manifest, as we have tried to show above, that
+very objective imagination in the rarest form of strength. Hungarian
+literary criticism is still, we regret to say, in a stage of development
+considerably lower than Hungarian literary composition. Hence such
+judgments on Petőfi. Can we pronounce otherwise on the literary critics
+of Hungary, who have so far produced no single comprehensive study on the
+works of a poet who is at once their greatest and most famous genius?
+Genius has this peculiarity that its works are easy to enjoy but hard
+to criticise. In reality, it takes another genius, a critical one, to
+appreciate it adequately. In this respect, foreign literary criticism has
+been relatively more just to Petőfi. In all the countries of Europe and
+America, Petőfi’s name has been steadily spreading, and numerous attempts
+at translations of his works have been made in both hemispheres. We do
+not think that Petőfi is untranslatable. His very objectiveness renders
+him more fit for free and yet faithful translations than, for instance,
+Arany (see page 194). Another reason is that Petőfi lays less stress on
+form and metre than other poets of an equal rank. He who fully seizes
+the beauty of the poetic subject-matter in Petőfi’s poems can render
+them more or less adequately in any language. More, however, than by
+translation might be achieved by Hungarian artists who by picturing the
+paintable features of Petőfi’s poems, would contribute most potently
+to a general appreciation of his genius. There are hundreds of perfect
+pictures to be taken from his works, provided the painter takes them from
+him in the way in which Petőfi took them from nature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+Outside Hungary, the name of John Arany is seldom heard; and western
+readers will be astonished to hear that Arany is considered by many
+of the best known Magyar critics the greatest of the Hungarian poets.
+Petőfi has never quite pleased the professors of æsthetics and poetry
+in the various universities and “_academies_” of Hungary; and there
+being no Magyar Saint Beuves or August Schlegels, to guide, with tact
+sustained by learning, and learning eased by tact, the tastes and
+literary opinions of the professorial minds in Hungary, it is not rare
+to hear and read of Arany as the greatest poetic genius of the Magyars.
+We hasten to add, that we readily bow to the greatness and charm, and
+still more to the merits of Arany. He is a great poet indeed. Nearly
+every one of his numerous ballads, epics and smaller poems is replete
+with the glamour of true poetry. In point of language he is, no doubt,
+the most idiomatic and richest of all Hungarian writers. Yet, with all
+these gifts and excellencies, he is not equal to Petőfi. Reaching, as he
+did, an age nearly three times as protracted as that of Petőfi, he could
+yet not, through any stretch of time or effort, attain to powers which
+have been bestowed upon very few poets. Petőfi ranks with the world’s
+greatest poets; Arany ranks only with the great poets of Hungary. To the
+strictly Magyar Jingo, as well as to the Magyar professor, Arany may
+appear greater even than Petőfi; we hope to show that his genius is of a
+nature at once different from and smaller than that of the incomparable
+Alexander.
+
+The reader will, we trust, permit us to premise a short remark which,
+especially for English readers, seems indispensable for a right
+appreciation of Arany. In England there has long ceased to be a peasantry
+proper; at any rate, there has for now over 400 years been no such
+peasantry in England, as may still be seen on the continent generally,
+and in Hungary in particular. The type “peasant” is at once the
+arch-type of narrow-mindedness, sordidness, _naïveté_, and spontaneous
+poetry. He is conservative in the extreme and slow, yet frequently the
+source of great upheavals and revolutions. His speech is concrete and
+“_terre-à-terre_,” yet at the same time full of quaint metaphors and
+conceits. His thoughts are all on the line of synthesis; and analysis
+is as strange to him as generalization. He loves Nature; but he is too
+much at one with it, part of it, to feel poetically the gulf between
+Nature and Man. Honour and respect for himself and his ancient customs
+are as the life-atmosphere of his existence; and thus in the social
+architecture of the continental state to him is allotted the staying
+force of the pillars, beams and rafters of the building.[3] This, the
+general picture of the continental peasant, has to be touched up here and
+there when meant to represent the Hungarian peasant proper. For, luckily
+for Hungarian poets, the Magyar peasant, while fully as conservative
+and old-fashioned as his Austrian or German brother, is considerably
+less sordid, more frank, and altogether more “gentlemanly.” Yet he is
+a peasant, a part both of Hungary’s civic and natural complexion. Now
+it is this Hungarian peasant, and his social complement, the rural
+nobleman, who are the centre of Arany’s poetry. We say “complement,” for
+it is at present well understood by all close students of continental
+nobility, that the latter is, in essence and sociological drift, if
+not in appearance, one and the same phenomenon as the peasantry. Both
+classes form the conservative or static forces of continental states,
+and both are necessary conditions for the existence of a _bourgeois_
+proper. Without them, or without one of them, the medium or _bourgeois_
+element is altogether wanting, or, as in England, of a complexion
+totally at variance with the continental middle class. Now in Hungary,
+and more especially still, in the Hungary of Arany’s youth and first
+manhood (1840-1870), there was no numerous _bourgeois_ proper; and Arany,
+singing in tones and images flowing from and meant for the two other
+classes only, is for that very reason _toto coelo_ different from most
+of the German and French and also from English poets. Modern western
+literature, in Austria and Germany exclusively; in France almost, and in
+England largely so, is _bourgeois_ poetry; poetry written by and for the
+middle and central classes of the community; or at any rate expressive
+of sentiments and mental states growing in the atmosphere of _bourgeois_
+life. The poems of Arany, on the other hand, were growing in the fields
+and farms of the peasant, and in the manors of the landed nobility; even
+more in the former than in the latter. Theirs is a spirit charming in
+its rural breeziness and compact humour; fascinating in its _naïveté_
+and coyness; but somewhat out of tune with the modern or _bourgeois_
+sentiment. The more the middle or _bourgeois_ class develops in Hungary,
+the less the fame of Arany will continue unimpaired. His works will be
+unable to satisfy the poetic needs of a class which he did not know, and
+with which he had but scant sympathy. His very _naïveté_, his greatest
+poetic charm, will be found wanting. _Naïveté_, like all other tempers
+of the heart or mind, has its geography, its _locus_. It does not grow
+anywhere or everywhere. It requires a peculiar borderland situated where
+two social classes meet. In that borderland it grows willingly. Such
+lands are of course to be found only where classes do meet socially. In
+England, for instance, classes carefully avoid meeting intimately in a
+social manner; although they do so frequently in a manner political,
+commercial and religious. Hence, _naïveté_ is scarcely to be found,
+either in English life or in English poetry. By a parity of reasoning,
+American poetry, based on a life with practically no classes whatever,
+can boast still fewer of the blossoms of naïve types or naïve style.
+Arany’s world, it is true, is one where the two classes, the nobleman
+and the peasant, do meet intimately, and thus the flowers of _naïveté_
+are plentiful. It is a _naïveté_ shy of display and timid; a _naïveté_
+in deeds more than in words; and finally, a _naïveté_ of men rather
+than of women. It has, when enjoyed in Arany’s own exquisite Magyar, a
+flavour so pure and hearty, so thoroughly true and poetic as to endear
+everything it touches. Yet it is the _naïveté_ of the peasant, not of the
+_bourgeois_. It is poor in types, and restricted in emotions. It does
+not respond to the psychical atmosphere of the ever growing _bourgeois_
+class in Hungary, and accordingly the numerous readers of that class look
+for their reading somewhere else. The peasant and the rural nobleman
+are both captivating types for poets; they do not, however, represent
+more than a minor aspect of that broad humanity which has so far found
+its noblest expression in tales, dramas and poems grafted on events or
+sentiments of individuals outside the clans and septs of peasants and
+noblemen. The Germans, who have the excellent term of “_bürgerliches
+Drama_” (_bourgeois_ drama), have felt that profound change coming over
+western literature very keenly; and the greatness of their literature is
+owing to that circumstance in no small degree. As in Hungary, nearly all
+great writers were, first magnates, and then noblemen (even Petőfi was a
+nobleman, although he set no value on that fact), so in Germany all the
+great writers have been without an exception, “_Bürger_” (_bourgeois_)
+proper. Now it is the peculiar greatness of Petőfi that many of his
+poems appeal to the sentiments and mental attitudes of that specifically
+modern public, the _bourgeois_ readers, with a force and sympathy as
+strong as is the charm of many others to the “common people” or peasants
+of Hungary. It is said of Pico de Mirandola that while he excited the
+awe and admiration of the most learned and thoughtful men at the end of
+the fifteenth century Rome and Florence, the maidens and young men of
+the beautiful city on the Arno were singing with delight his exquisite
+love-songs. Such is Petőfi; such is not Arany. He cannot properly be
+enjoyed except in his own Magyar, and by readers intimately acquainted
+with the two classes he belongs to. Not even when he selects, as he
+sometimes does, foreign subjects, as in his “_The Bards of Wales_,” does
+he become less “clannish.” Of the strongest of all feelings of young
+humanity, of Love, he has none but epic expression; he never wrote a
+love-song proper. The women in his epics are mere phantasms, angels or
+fiends; and his men are peasants or heroes, or both. The point on which
+he excels every other Hungarian poet, and on which will repose his
+lasting fame, is his language. It has the raciness of the peasant’s
+talk with the moderation of refined style. In other countries writers
+introduced new elements of poetic speech by means of using words or
+phrases taken or imitated from one of the dialects of their province or
+county. Even in Shakespeare there are traces of the then Warwickshire
+dialect, and probably still more of Warwickshire folk-lore. German
+writers have legitimated innumerable provincialisms. Hungarian, on the
+other hand, has no dialects, or none to speak of. The writer who wants
+to find new linguistic affluents can turn only to the stock used by the
+peasants in the vast plain of Hungary. Arany, replete as he was with all
+the wealth of the language used by the peasants, knew how to ennoble
+and purify the language of the farmers and shepherds of the _puszta_,
+and to impart to it much of that Greek simplicity and beauty of which,
+as a scholar, he was so competent a student. As the French language is
+not rich in words but in idioms, so Hungarian is not rich in words but
+in word-formations. Especially the verb admits of a variety of forms
+and terminations enveloping every shade of thought or movement with the
+glibness of water. It is in such linguistic feats that Arany shows his
+genius; and since language in Hungary has an importance tenfold more
+significant than in countries composed of less polyglot peoples, it is
+quite natural that in the literary appreciation of Arany at the hands
+of Magyar critics the political element has played a very considerable
+part. This is, as we stated above, his great merit. Language in all
+modern countries has at first been the make of the peasant classes. In
+them there is that mysterious and instinctive power which has produced
+the splendid series of Romance and Teutonic languages which, by literary
+craft, have come to be formed into the diction of Dante, Cervantes,
+Molière, Shakespeare, and Goethe. Arany, in focussing this power with the
+strength of a mind at once _logopoeic_ and richly stored with knowledge,
+did an inestimable service to the cause of Magyar Literature and Magyar
+Nationality. In that respect he occupies in Hungarian Literature a place
+undoubtedly higher than that of any other Magyar writer. In matter, he
+could not fully unite the strictly Magyar with the broader European
+element; in poetic language, on the other hand, he did achieve that
+union; and it is in that achievement of his that we must look for his
+specific genius and merit.
+
+Unlike as was Arany’s personality to that of Petőfi: the former modest
+and retiring, the latter self-assertive and dashing; their careers too
+were equally different from each other. Arany’s life (1817-Oct. 22nd,
+1882), was one of quiet work first as a teacher, and later on (1860),
+as president of the Kisfaludy Society, and since 1864, as Secretary of
+the Academy of Science. The latter part of his life was distressed by
+persistent ill-health. In character Arany belonged to the select few,
+who have never stooped to any baseness whatever and never lost sight
+of the ideals of their youth. He was the intimate friend of Petőfi,
+who at once recognized his greatness, and the tolerant patron of the
+younger generation of writers. The nation mourned his death as a national
+calamity.
+
+Arany is, almost exclusively, a poet of epic songs, epics proper and
+ballads. Of the former his most finished works are the Toldi Trilogy,
+consisting of “_Toldi_” (the name of the hero, published in 1847);
+“_Toldi szerelme_” (“The love of Toldi,” published in 1879); and “_Toldi
+estéje_” (“The eve of Toldi,” published previously in 1854). These three
+epics, written in rhymed six-feet stanzas of eight lines each, tell the
+life-story of an historic Magyar peasant-hero of the fourteenth century,
+in the times of King Lewis, justly called the “Great.” He is of herculean
+strength, of violent temper, but good-hearted, simple, a loving son, and
+a loyal friend and subject. His struggle against his wicked brother; his
+love for Piroska, whom, in a passage at arms, he foolishly wins for
+another wooer; his despair at seeing the idol of his heart the wife of
+another; finally, his declining years when he finds himself out of accord
+with the changed times, and retires home to be put into the grave he had
+dug for himself. Such is, in the main, the contents of the three epics,
+into which the wizard language of Arany has infused the charms of real
+poetry. It would be idle to compare Arany’s art with that of Goethe’s
+“_Hermann und Dorothea_.” Goethe’s hero too is rather a peasant farmer
+than a _bourgeois_. Yet all the other figures of Goethe’s masterpiece are
+endowed with life so intensely _bourgeois_, as to secure admiration for
+the work in all times to come. Arany’s hero; his dear old mother; his
+brother; his love, etc., scarcely leave the boundaries of peasant-world;
+and while his epic will thus for ever charm the youth of Hungary, it may
+in future cease to be an object of lasting admiration on the part of the
+more mature classes of the nation.
+
+The same great qualities of linguistic _verve_ and intense poetic
+sentiment are to be found in the other epical poems of Arany. In the
+“Death of Buda” (_Buda halála_, 1864), he sings the legendary story
+of Attila’s murder of his own brother Buda (Bleda). In this exquisite
+epic Attila (or Etele, as Arany calls him), is pictured as a hero of
+the magnificent type, and nothing could be more removed from the poet’s
+“Etele,” than the conventional or historic Attila. Tragical energy and
+incomparable language render this poem one of intense charm. It was
+intended for one of three great epics narrating the cycle of Hun legends;
+of the other two we have only fragments. The romantic story of Wesselényi
+and Mary Szécsi (see page 58), was made into a charming epic by Arany,
+under the title “The capture of Murány” (“_Murány ostroma_,” 1849). In
+“The Gypsies of Nagy Ida” (“_A nagyidai czigányok_,” 1852), Arany gave
+vent, in form of a satirical burlesque, to his profound sorrow over his
+country’s decadence, after the suppression of the liberal movement in
+1848-1849. His ballads are generally considered to represent the best
+specimens of Magyar ballad-writing. It must certainly be conceded that
+few ballad-writers, whether in or outside Hungary, have so completely
+hit the true ballad-tone, or internal ring of thought and word adapted
+to subjects so utterly out of keeping with our modern sentiment. It
+may be doubted whether Chopin himself in his ballad in F major has so
+felicitously intuned the lay of olden romance as has Arany in his mostly
+sombre ballads, such as “Duel at midnight” (“_Éjféli párbaj_”), “Knight
+Pázmán” (“_Pázmán lovag_”), “Marfeast” (“_Ünneprontók_”). As in the best
+English or German ballads, events are, as a rule, only indicated, not
+described, and hurry on to their fatal termination with terrible speed.
+All is action and fierce movement.
+
+In addition to his activity as a creative poet, Arany also did much
+for the introduction of foreign and classical literature into Hungary
+by way of translations. His most successful work in that line were the
+translations of several dramas of Shakespeare (_Hamlet_, _Midsummer
+Night’s Dream_, _King John_), and more especially still his most
+exquisite (—_pace_ all the German philologists!—) translation of the
+comedies of Aristophanes.
+
+We ought now to devote a considerable space to a poet who, in his time,
+was generally associated with Petőfi and Arany. We mean Michael Tompa
+(1817-1868). While it is now impossible to rank Tompa with either Petőfi
+or Arany, he yet occupies a very conspicuous place in Magyar literature.
+His intense love of nature, his profound religious sentiment, and his
+fine humour entitle him to be considered as foremost amongst the lesser
+lyrical glories of Hungary. We can only regret that we cannot give here
+more than this bare indication of the peculiar individuality of the
+author of the “Flower-fables” (_Virágregék_).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+The dramatic literature of the Hungarians, as may be seen from the
+preceding chapters, was, at the beginning of the twenties of this
+century, in a most backward condition. For reasons that it is very
+difficult to ascertain, some of the most dramatic nations, such as
+the Italians, have rarely or never excelled in drama-writing; while
+the English, who do not claim to be either conspicuously emotional or
+dramatic, have given the world the incomparable dramas of Shakespeare.
+In Italy, the lack of great dramatists may perhaps be ascribed to the
+fact, that female parts were, at least down to the end of the last
+century, played by boys. Yet a glance at the Attic theatre deprives this
+reason of much of its value. Be this as it may, the great influence of
+theatres and acting on dramatists can scarcely be denied. In Hungary,
+at any rate, the very indifferent condition of the theatre in the first
+three decades of the century bulks large amongst the causes producing
+a dearth of good Magyar dramas. This becomes evident when we consider
+that the first really great drama of a Magyar writer, “Banus Bánk”
+(“_Bánk bán_”), by Katona, passed unnoticed for over fourteen years
+(1818-1834), until a great actor, Gabriel Egressy, made it popular. The
+Hungarians are naturally good actors, and very fond of theatre-going.
+It will perhaps scarcely be believed in the enlightened west, where so
+late as November, 1897, one of the leading daily papers of England was
+permitted to speak of English and French literature as the only two
+great literatures of the modern world, that in Hungary there has been,
+and for some time too, a wealth of dramas of an intrinsic value at least
+as great as that of any British drama written within the last hundred
+and fifty years, and played by actors and actresses fully the equals of
+their colleagues at the _Comédie Française_. This remarkable growth of
+dramatic literature in Hungary did not, however, begin before the fourth
+decade of the present century. The epics and ballads of Vörösmarty,
+Garay, Czuczor, etc., seemed to captivate the public to the exclusion
+of all other forms of poetry. The patriotic tune ringing, and expected
+to ring through all popular works previous to the Revolution of 1848,
+threw their authors into the worship of the heroic past and thus into
+Romanticism. It was, accordingly, quite natural that dramatists, in
+order to catch the public ear, indulged rather in heroic ranting and
+tirades, than in dramatic characterization. The heroes of the tragedies
+of Charles Kisfaludy (see page 116), for instance, are rhetoric blown
+into the shape of persons. Everything Magyar is perfect; the Magyars are
+delicately reminded, in pages full of endless adulation, that they are,
+to use an American phrase, “the greatest, the best fed, and the best
+clad nation on the face of the globe.” Their heroes are the greatest;
+their past the most glorious. This sort of jingoism may be tolerated in
+epics and ballads, where other redeeming features may save the literary
+value of the work. In dramas it is fatal. Yet it is in the drama where
+Romanticism may attain to really perfect works. The writer of romantic
+ballads must, in the end, fall into the snares of an exaggerated
+patriotism, and thus vitiate his work, rendering it less acceptable to
+a sober and unchauvinistic posterity. The dramatic writer, on the other
+hand, need not necessarily run the same risk. If he has power to chisel
+out of the given material of a nation’s past one or the other truly
+human character in all its grandeur, and in all its shortcomings, then
+the historic staging and bygone emotional atmosphere of the past will
+serve only to set off the dramatic beauties of the work all the more
+plastically. Arany’s Edward I. in the “Bards of Wales” (see page 200), is
+a ruthless and senseless tyrant that must pall on us in the end. Richard
+III., on the other hand, can never pall on us; for in him we recognize
+many an unavowed demon ravaging our own souls. Arany’s Edward I. is a
+ballad-figure; Shakespeare’s Richard III. is a piece of true humanity. To
+the dramatic poet it is indifferent from what part of the globe he takes
+his material; for humanity is spread all over the planet. So a nation’s
+heroic past too may be quite welcome to him, provided he is a real
+dramatist. Katona was such. He is rough and inharmonious in language,
+but there is real dramatic life in his men and women. For the first time
+in Hungarian Literature the true tone of tragedy was heard. The terrible
+fate of the Banus comes home to hearers, Hungarian or otherwise; it is
+yawning out of the abyss of conflicts to which all of us are liable. He
+is a loyal subject of his king, and yet bursts out in open rebellion; nay
+worse, he kills his queen. He is a great patriot; yet finally makes a
+rebellious plot with a foreign adventurer. He is a perfect nobleman; yet
+ultimately breaks all the laws of true nobility. He is a loving husband;
+yet contemplates assassinating his beautiful wife. And as he is, so are
+the other persons of the drama. In them is pictured the conflicting
+nature of the human heart and character as it really is: rough,
+unbending, false, yet capable of sublime self-abnegation. Or as Petőfi
+says: “Rain from heaven turning mud on earth.” The plot is as follows:
+Bánk, in the absence of King Andrew II. of Hungary justiciar of the
+country, has reason to believe that Gertrude, the haughty and unpopular
+queen, countenances the vile designs of her brother Otto on Bánk’s
+beautiful wife Melinda. A rebellion of the malcontent nobles under Petur
+is breaking out. Bánk, who ought to quell it by virtue of his office, is
+thrown out of his moral equilibrium by the news that Melinda has been
+seduced by Otto. Forgetful of his position, he obeys only the behests of
+his outraged soul and kills Gertrude. The king returns, the rebellion is
+put down, and Bánk perishes. In Katona’s drama there is more power than
+form. It will easily be understood that his chief model was Shakespeare.
+He himself did not live to see the great success of his only masterpiece;
+he died broken-spirited in 1830 at Kecskemét, in the thirty-eighth year
+of his luckless life.
+
+The first remarkable Hungarian dramatist after Katona is Edward
+Szigligeti (his real name was Joseph Szatmáry), 1814-1878. From an early
+date he was in constant contact with the theatre and with actors, and so
+acquired great practical knowledge of stage-lore. He had deeply studied
+the art of stage effect, and all his very numerous dramatic works testify
+to an extraordinary stage-craft. It would, however, be unfair to compare
+him to writers like Kotzebue in Germany, or Labiche in France. His
+routine, no doubt, was pre-eminent in many of his pieces; yet, beside and
+beyond the mere cleverness of the playwright, he had real _vis comica_
+and a profound knowledge of Hungarian society. During his life-time that
+society was slowly but steadily emerging from the semi-civilized state
+of the former patriarchalism to the forms and usages of modern life. In
+such periods of transition there is ample material for anyone gifted
+with a keen sense of humour. The aping of western manners (ridiculed in
+“_Marna_,” 1857; “Female Rule” [“_Nőuralom_” 1862], etc.); the humour
+of the altered family-life (“Three Matrimonial Commands” [“_Házassági
+három parancs_,”] 1850; “Stephen Dalos” [_Dalos Pista_], 1855; etc.);
+odd remnants of the former social state, such as tramping actors, the
+still-life of small towns; all this Szigligeti knew how to dramatize
+with great effect. Like Charles Kisfaludy he drew with great felicity on
+the stores of drastic humour pervading a conservative society composed
+of many a discrepant element and moving onwards on entirely new lines
+of development. He tried his skilful hand at tragedies too, and “The
+Shadows of Light” (“_A fény árnyai_,” 1865,) and “The Pretender” (“_A
+trónkereső_”, 1868,) are said to be meritorious. His rare stage-craft
+and witty dialogue alone, however, could not have raised his name to
+the height on which it rests, and where in all probability it will
+continue to rest. Szigligeti’s name is justly famous for being the real
+founder of what, for lack of a better name in English, must be called
+the Hungarian folk-drama. In England there is no such thing, and no such
+word. Already in our remarks on Arany (see page 195), we essayed to show
+that the continental peasantry is generically different from any class
+of small farmers in England. That peasantry is, in reality, a world of
+its own. It is as much a world of its own, as is the well-known world
+of the “upper ten.” He who has never been in what the knowing call “_le
+monde_,” will easily confound the sentiments and thoughts of his own
+world with those of the “_monde_.” Yet the two worlds are two worlds
+indeed. Their whole tone and rhythm of life is different. They are
+written not only in different scales but also for different instruments.
+It is even so with the world of peasantry in Hungary or in Austria. How
+silly of some painfully enlightened people to ascribe, for instance, the
+mass of prejudice and superstition in the Hungarian or German peasantry
+to a lack of that “_Bildung_” or school-knowledge which is acquired
+through books and bookmen! The current belief in witches, fairies, imps
+and such-like elf-folk, good and bad, grows with the peasantry of those
+countries, out of the same roots that nourish in the “higher classes”
+the craving for and the delight in fairy operas and fantastic novels.
+Each social “world” demands pleasures and distractions of the same kind;
+each satisfying that craving in a different manner. The urban gentleman
+and lady while away tedious winter evenings by visits to theatres, where
+unlikely, demoniac and over-exciting pieces are an everyday occurrence.
+The peasants in Hungary have no such theatres; yet long winter evenings
+hang just as heavily on their hands. They therefore while away their
+leisure-hours by stories fantastic and demoniac, the literal belief
+in which must needs grow in direct proportion to the lack of all
+theatrical stage environment. As with superstitions, so it is with all
+the other great social needs. The Hungarian peasant, when outraged in
+his sentiments, does not, it is true, fight a duel like the gentleman.
+Yet he, too, becomes a duellist, retiring into the woods, and fighting
+society at large as a “_szegény legény_” or brigand. _Plus cela change,
+plus c’est la même chose._
+
+It will now be perhaps somewhat clearer that the Hungarian peasantry,
+_qua_ peasantry, lends itself to dramatization in the same way as
+does any other of the “worlds of men.” The common humanity of men is
+to be found in that peasantry too; but it is modified, coloured, and
+discoloured, “timbred” and attuned in a different mood. It admits of
+tragedies proper; of comedies; and of burlesques. It is Szigligeti’s
+great merit to have discovered this new dramatic ore. Without in the
+least trying to diminish his glory, we cannot but add, that through the
+great revolution coming over Hungary as over the rest of Europe, in the
+period from the third to the seventh decade of this century, a revolution
+social no less than political, the peculiar and distinct character of
+the world of peasants became, by contrast to the rising _bourgeoisie_
+and the changing nobility, much more easily discernible than it had been
+ever before in Hungary. Yet Szigligeti was the first to seize on that
+dramatic _res nullius_; and both for this discovery and the excellent
+specimens of folk-dramas which he wrote, he deserves all credit. His most
+remarkable folk-dramas are: “The Deserter” (“_Szökött Katona_,” 1843);
+“The _Csikós_” (1846); and “The Foundling” (“_Lelencz_,” 1863).
+
+We can here only mention the dramas of Sigismund Czakó, who for some time
+before his voluntary death in 1847, was very popular; of Charles Obernyik
+(1816-1855); and of Ignatius Nagy; the two latter being very popular
+before the Revolution of 1848, owing to their excessively “patriotic”
+dialogues. A far higher place in Hungarian dramatic literature is due
+to the noble Count Ladislas Teleky, who also died by his own hand. His
+“The Favourite” (“_A Kegyencz_,” 1841), the subject of which is taken
+from the time of the Roman Emperor Valentinian III., is credited with
+great force of irony, dramatic truth and power of imagination. In Charles
+Hugo (_recte_ Charles Hugo Bernstein), 1817-1877, the Hungarian drama
+might have gained a dramatic power of rare quality, had the overweening
+self-infatuation of the author, together with his poor knowledge of
+Magyar, not rendered him a victim to his first success. He is one of the
+numerous Titans of the Hungarian capital, who cannot do anything half-way
+creditable unless they fail to gain reputation. No sooner do they become
+“famous,” than they cease to be either interesting or productive. Hugo’s
+“Banker and Baron” (“_Bankár és Báró_”) had not only a great, but an
+extraordinary success. Not only incense was strewn before the poet,
+but, to use Lessing’s phrase, the very censer was hurled at his head.
+The enthusiastic crowd carried the author bodily from the theatre to
+his favourite _Café_. This unhinged poor Hugo’s mental equilibrium. He
+considered himself a second Victor Hugo; and so never wrote any other
+great drama. The merit of “Banker and Baron” is very considerable. It
+is one of the then few attempts at writing a real _bourgeois_ drama, in
+which the common human heritage of virtues and vices, affections and
+passions, is presented with great force and dramatic vivacity.
+
+Of a style and tone quite different from the preceding dramas is the
+“dramatic poem,” as the author calls it, entitled “The Tragedy of Man,”
+by Emericus Madách (1829-1864). In that great poem there is revealed
+all the sombreness of profound melancholy, wailing over the bootless
+struggle of Man since the unlucky moment of his creation. As the reader
+may have noticed in the course of the present work, the Hungarians, as
+a nation, are strongly inclined to pathos; just as the English are to
+satire and the French to irony. In the youthful members of the Magyar
+nation that bent is at times so strong as to dominate all the other modes
+and faculties of the soul. Hence the astounding wealth of grave Largos in
+Hungarian music, and the melancholy and despondent tone in many a great
+work of Hungarian poetry. Few poems can compare in unaffected sadness
+and thus twice saddening effect with Arany’s “_Epilogus_.” Madách’s
+“Tragedy of Man” (“_Az ember tragédiája_”) is, as it were, the funeral
+march of humanity. It would be utterly wrong to compare it to Goethe’s
+“Faust.” Although there is a general similarity in the drift of the two
+works, yet the poem of the luckless and suffering county official of
+an obscure Hungarian province is essentially different from the drama
+of the Jupiter of German literature. Madách’s poem is, reduced to its
+skeleton, a philosophy of History. He takes us from the hour when Adam
+and Eve were innocently walking in the Garden of Eden, to the times of
+the Egyptian Pharaohs; then to the Athens of Miltiades; to sinking
+Rome; to the adventurous period of the Crusaders; into the study of the
+astronomer Kepler in the seventeenth century; thence into the horrors
+of the French Revolution; into greed-eaten and commerce-ridden modern
+London; nay, into the ultra-socialist state of the future, in which there
+will be no family, no nation, and no individuality amongst the countless
+individuals; and where the ideas of the preceding ages, such as Religion,
+Art, Literature, will, by means of scientific formulæ, be shown up in all
+their absurdity; still further, the poet shows the future of the earth,
+when ice will cover the whole of its surface, and Europeans and other
+human beings will be reduced to the state of a degraded brute dragging on
+the misery of existence in some cave. In all these scenes, Adam, Eve and
+the arch-fiend (Lucifer) are the chief and constantly recurring _personæ
+dramatis_. In fact, all these scenes are meant to be prophetic dreams
+of Adam, which Lucifer causes him to have in order to disgust him with
+humanity in advance, and so, by driving him to suicide, to discontinue
+humanity. In paradise, Adam learns and teaches the lesson of man’s
+incapability of enduring bliss; in Egypt, Adam, as Pharaoh, experiences
+the bottomless wretchedness of tyranny, where “millions live for the sake
+of one;” in Athens he is made to shudder at the contemptible fickleness
+of man when part of a crowd; in sinking Rome he stands aghast at the
+corruptibility of mankind, and in the Crusades at their fanaticism; in
+the study of Kepler he comprehends the sickening vanity of all attempts
+at real knowledge, and in Paris he is shown the godless fury of a people
+fighting for the dream called Liberty. So in the end, Adam, despairing
+of his race, wants to commit suicide, when, in the critical moment, Eve
+tells him that she is going to be a mother by him; whereby his intention
+of discontinuing his race by suicide is baffled. Adam then prostrates
+himself before God, who encourages him to hope and trust, making him
+feel that man is part of an infinite and indestructible power, and will
+struggle not quite in vain. Like Goethe’s Faust, the great poem of Madách
+was not meant for the stage; yet, like Faust, it has proved of intense
+effect on the stage too. It is, as may be seen, a philosophic poem
+excelling rather in the beauty and loftiness of the thoughts conveyed
+or suggested than by power of characterization or dramatic vigour. In
+general literature we should like to compare it most to the “_De rerum
+natura_” of Lucretius. The powerful melancholy of the Roman is of a kind
+with the gloom of the Hungarian; and while the former dwells more on the
+material and religious aspect of man, and the latter on social phenomena
+in all their width and breadth, yet both sing the same tempestuous
+_nocturne_ of Man’s sufferings and shortcomings, illuminating the night
+of their despondency by stars of luminous thought. Madách died at too
+early an age to finish more than this one masterpiece. His other poems
+are inferior.
+
+Dramatic literature in Hungary in the last thirty years has been growing
+very rapidly; and both the drama of the “world” _folk_, and that of
+the “world” _monde_ has met with very gifted, nay, in some cases,
+exceedingly gifted writers. During that period, Hungary has completely
+regained its absolute autonomy, and the Hungarian State, from having
+had an annual revenue of not quite sixteen millions in 1867, has now a
+revenue of over forty million pounds a year. Budapest has grown to be a
+town of over six hundred thousand inhabitants; and the general progress
+of Hungary, material as well as intellectual, social and political, has
+been such as, relatively, that of no other country in Europe in the
+same period. In the midst of the dramatic movement of all organs of
+the Hungarian commonwealth, the drama proper could not but make great
+strides too. It is here impossible to do justice to each of the very
+numerous and talented Hungarian dramatists of our day. We should only
+like, in treating of a necessarily small number of modern Hungarian
+writers of dramatic works, to premise a remark in the interest of a
+better understanding of their literary value. The English or American
+public are, as a rule, very much inclined to think little of things
+of which they have “never heard.” We are not blaming them for that.
+Reading as they do great newspapers every day, they naturally come to
+think that, to alter the old legal phrase, “what is not to be found in
+the ‘paper,’ that does not exist.” Hungarian dramas are seldom or never
+translated for the English stage; they are never talked about in the
+press; hence, the general public will tacitly assume that they can be
+worth but little. However, it is with Hungarian dramas as with Hungarian
+fruit. Although Hungary produces exquisite fruit of all kinds, and in
+enormous quantities too, the English consumer of fruit has never heard of
+“Hungarian apples” or “Hungarian grapes,” while he is quite familiar with
+American or Tasmanian apples of an inferior quality. The reason of that
+is simple: the Hungarians are still in the infancy of the great art of
+export. It is even so with the Hungarian drama. It is not being cleverly
+enough exported; it wants active agents and middlemen to bruit it about.
+We venture to say that the western nations are the losers by ignoring
+or overlooking, as they do, the modern Hungarian drama. In taking the
+trouble to make the acquaintance of the dramas of Eugene Rákosi, Edward
+Tóth, Gregory Csiky, Lewis Dóczi, Lewis Dobsa, Joseph Szigeti, John
+Vajda, Árpád Berczik, Stephen Toldy, Anton Várady, Lewis Bartók, etc.,
+etc., they would find that together with the greatest European mines
+for ore proper, Hungary has also many a profound mine of ore dramatic,
+no less than fine specimens of coins minted out of that ore. There is
+now a “tradition” of no inconsiderable duration in the art of acting;
+and several actors of the very first quality, such as Rose Laborfalvy
+(the late Mrs. Jókai), Louise Blaha, Lendvay, Egressy, etc., have set
+examples and models, inspiring both the poet and the actor. The theatres
+at Budapest are magnificently equipped, and being, as they are, part of
+the great national treasure, they partake to a great extent of the nature
+of a temple, and are visited, not as places of sheer distraction, but as
+localities of national rallying and spiritual elevation.
+
+Most of the leading dramatists of the last five-and-twenty years are
+still alive, and it is, therefore, twice difficult to pass a final
+judgment on their works. Mr. Eugene Rákosi, both as a journalist and a
+drama-writer, occupies a very conspicuous place, and if better known in
+the west of Europe, would certainly be read, and his pieces seen, with
+marked interest. Like Mr. Dóczi, who is a high official in the common
+department of Austria-Hungary, he has that subtle and unanalyzable force
+of surrounding his scenes, and also frequently his persons, with the
+splendour of poetic suggestiveness. In his “Endre and Johanna,” “Wars
+of Queens” (“_Királynék harcza_”), “The School of Love” (“_Szerelem
+iskolája_”), he does not make it his chief point to create, entangle,
+still more embroil, and then finally solve a “problem,” although he is
+a master of scene and situation-making. Nor do he and Mr. Dóczi care to
+be “realists.” They are satisfied with being poets. Mr. Dóczi has in his
+“The Kiss” (“_Csók_”) ventured on writing in words what hitherto has only
+been a success in the tones of Mendelssohn: a drama moving in mid-air,
+in midsummer night, with gossamery persons and fairy-ideas, away, far
+away from our time and land. In that he has been signally successful, and
+Mendelssohn’s overture to the “Midsummer Night’s Dream” is not sweeter
+and airier than Mr. Dóczi’s “Kiss.” Like Mr. Rákosi, Mr. Dóczi is a
+master of Hungarian and he wields the German idiom too with the same
+grace and energy.
+
+In our opinion Gregory Csiky (born 1842, died recently) was the strongest
+dramatic talent amongst the modern dramatists in Hungary. He is what
+people are pleased to call a “realist;” that is, his shafts are sunk into
+the dramatic mines of the society in the midst of which he lives. His
+strong satire and broad humour, his finely-chiselled language and the
+bold and true way of his dramatization raise him to the level of the
+best of contemporary dramatists in any country. In his “The Proletarians”
+(“_A Proletárok_”) he has seized on a large class of _déclassés_ in
+Hungary, who by the precipitated legislative reforms after 1867 were
+deprived of their previous means of living, and so turned to parasitic
+methods of eking out an existence. That class is brought to dramatic
+life full of humorous, sad, and striking phenomena. There is not in this
+drama, any more than in Csiky’s other dramas (“Bubbles” [“_Buborékok_”],
+“Two Loves” [“_Két szerelem_”], “The Timid” [“_A szégyenlős_”],
+“Athalia,” etc.) the slightest trace of that morbid psychologism which
+has made the fortune of Ibsen. It is all sound, fresh, penetrating
+and vibrating with true dramatic life. Last, not least, there is much
+beauty of form and construction. Csiky, who has published very valuable
+translations of Sophocles and Plautus, is thoroughly imbued with the
+classic sense of form and with the real vocation of the drama as the
+art-work showing the emotional and mental movements of _social_ types,
+and not of some pathologic excrescence of society. In other words, he
+does not muddle up, as Ibsen does, the novel with the drama.
+
+Amongst the writers of “folk-dramas,” Edward Tóth (1844-1876), occupies
+a very high place. His “The Village Scamp” (“_A falu rossza_”) tells
+the touching story of a young peasant who, disappointed in love, loses
+all moral backbone and is finally saved by the fidelity of a woman. The
+drama is full of scenes taken from Hungarian peasant life, which is far
+more dramatic than peasant life in Germany. The Hungarians have, till
+quite recently, never had a Berthold Auerbach, or a novelist taking
+the subject of his novels from peasant life. They have dramatists of
+peasant life instead; and a short comparison with the peasant dramas
+written by Austrians, such as those of Anzengruber, will show the decided
+superiority of the Hungarians. One strong element in the folk-dramas
+of Tóth and of Francis Csepreghy (1842-1880, author of “The Yellow
+Colt” [“_A sárga csikó_”], “The Red Purse” [“_Piros bugyelláris_”]),
+is the folk-poems and folk-songs, sung and danced. By this incidental
+element of tone and verse, which, as a sort of inarticulate commentary
+on the dramatic scenes does duty for the philosophic reflections of the
+non-peasant drama, the hearer is brought into intimate touch with the
+very innermost pulsation of the life of the “folk.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+
+In now approaching the modern novel in Hungary we are at once met,
+touched, almost overwhelmed by the dazzling light and lustre of one
+commanding genius of the Magyar novel, Maurus Jókai. His name is at
+present well-known all over the world, and his novels are eagerly read
+by Hungarians and non-Hungarians alike. The number of his works is very
+great, and although over fifty years have elapsed since the appearance of
+his first novel (in 1846), he is still enriching Hungarian and European
+literature with ever new works. Nearly everything has changed in Hungary
+during the last forty years; but the love and admiration for the genius
+of Jókai has never suffered diminution. In his checkered life there is
+not a blot, and in his long career there is not a single dark spot.
+Pure, manly, upright as a patriot, faithful and loving as a husband,
+loyal as a subject, kind as a patron, an indefatigable worker, and,
+highest of all, a true friend both to men, fatherland, and literature,
+he has given his nation not only great literary works to gladden and
+enlighten them, but also a sterling example of Magyar virtue and Magyar
+honour. It is, especially in Hungary, no common thing to meet with men of
+Jókai’s immense power and love of work. His journalistic articles alone
+would fill many a folio volume. His political activity in the Hungarian
+Parliament, in the Lower House of which he was up to January, 1897,
+when the king called him to the House of Magnates, was likewise very
+extensive. And in addition to that, he was constantly writing novels,
+turning out volume after volume, until the total exceeded two hundred
+and fifty. In fact, as has been already hinted at, from an historic
+point of view he has, by his unparalleled productiveness, done some harm
+less to himself than to other Hungarian novelists. He himself, although
+not equally at his best in every one of his novels, has in the course
+of fifty-one years of creative authorship scarcely lost anything of the
+distinctly individual greatness of his genius; and even the later and
+sometimes hurried productions of his pen are, to say the least, most
+excellent, because intensely interesting reading. On the other hand,
+his very popularity rendered it almost impossible for any other Magyar
+novelist to publish novels other than small sketches or essays. The
+reading public in Hungary is not numerous enough to demand lengthy novels
+from more than one favourite author. Jókai almost supplanted Jósika (see
+page 140) and all other writers of lengthy novels.
+
+His novels and sketches treat of nearly every aspect of Magyar life,
+in the past and in the present. The heroic deeds of the ancient or
+mediæval Magyars are subjects of his novels as well as the doings and
+thoughts of official and non-official Hungary of the present century.
+It would, however, be quite incorrect to ascribe to him any intention
+of writing the “_Comédie humaine_” of Hungary. No such vast system
+underlies his countless stories. He has no system; in reality, nothing
+is more removed from his mind than any such big structure of ideas and
+facts. He has frequently chosen non-Magyar subjects; and when treating
+of Magyar events or institutions, he has no philosophical aim to pursue,
+and no patriotic theory to uphold. He writes novels out of sheer love of
+telling tales. In the feeblest of his works the reader cannot but notice
+that singular alertness and freshness of an author hugely enamoured
+of his profession—and gaily at work. The narrating is of much the
+greater interest to him; the tale itself does not always claim his full
+attention. Whether or no, the plot is consistently thought out to the
+end; or, whether or no, the persons always proceed on the lines of their
+characters; all that does not too much ruffle Jókai’s joyous composure
+of authorship. For, to put it in one word, he is an improvisatore; in
+fact, the greatest of all known improvisatori. This is the key to all his
+excellencies, as well as to his alleged failings. The Teutonic nations,
+and amongst the Latin ones the French are, as a rule, entirely unfamiliar
+with that most fascinating of talking virtuosi, the _improvisatore_.
+Even in the wild excitement of the French Revolution there was only one
+orator, Danton, who improvised his speeches; the rest, even Mirabeau,
+read them. The vast amount of _parlature_ done in Hungary, to which we
+called attention at the very outset of this work, has given rise both
+to marvellous artists of the living word, and to audiences passionately
+fond of listening to good talk, and on all possible occasions too. The
+good talker in America is a man who _à propos_ of any occurrence, is
+reminded of a story that happened “in Denver, Colorado, or Columbus,
+Ohio.” No such individual would be endured in Hungary. The good talker
+there is an improvisatore proper. He is never “reminded” of an old story;
+he invents on the spot or extracts from the actual topic of conversation
+all the sparks of wit and humour that fall upon the prose of life like
+dew upon dry flowers. The gift and long habit of improvisation thus
+makes some of those mostly unknown artists most charming companions
+and astoundingly clever talkers. He who has not lived amongst them,
+cannot possibly imagine their ease of invention, their humour, their
+power of description and their imagination. They are not, as in Italy,
+professional improvisatori; and perhaps nobody would be more astounded
+than themselves at the application of that term to them. Yet, a
+comparison with the man in France, who is “_bon causeur_,” and with the
+man in London, who has “remarkable conversational powers,” will show any
+unprejudiced observer the truth of the above characterization of the
+Magyar talker. Just as Mark Twain’s humour is only the improved and,
+by print, fixed humour noticeable in many an American, even so Jókai’s
+narrative genius is the highest form of that genius for improvisation
+which in Hungary may be met with frequently in lesser perfection. This
+explains Jókai’s permanent hold on the Hungarian nation. He has carried
+one great gift of his nation to the heights of real greatness. We repeat
+it: he is the greatest of all improvisatori in prose. Nothing can
+approach his miraculous facility in building up a fascinating scene;
+in irradiating the heaviest and most cumbrous subject with light and
+humour; and in wafting over the whole tale the Fata Morganas of an
+exuberant imagination. Young and old; Hungarian, Englishman or German;
+man or woman; they must all stand still and listen to the charmer. That
+Jókai is the best exponent of the Hungarian genius for improvisation
+in words will be readily believed and accepted, when we point out his
+startling similarity, almost identity, with another famous Hungarian,
+who excelled in works of the same quality but written in tones instead
+of in words. We mean Liszt. Jókai is the Liszt of Hungarian Literature;
+we might almost say, of European literature. The marvellous musician,
+who, both as a pianist and as a composer, held the civilized world under
+his spell for far over seventy years—(Liszt was born in 1811 and died in
+1887)—was the king of all musical improvisatori. When he played Beethoven
+or Chopin, Bach or Schumann, he impressed the most cool-headed hearers
+as if he had just improvised the pieces he played; that one circumstance
+being at the same time the secret of his unrivalled powers as a pianist.
+When he composed—and many, very many of his compositions are works of
+lasting merit—the result was almost invariably an improvisation. It
+has that indefinable charm of rapturous glow kindled at the fire of
+the moment, which endows improvisations with a character unique and
+exceptional. It excels in major keys far more than minor moods; it has
+much unity of character and _Stimmung_ rather than unity of form; it
+always borders on the _Fantasia_, and never crystallizes into a sonata
+proper; it cultivates side-issues, such as flourishes and _fioriture_
+with startling skill and vast effect, while the bass, or the underlying
+element of thought, is not laboured nor significant; it appeals to happy
+people rather than to such as bear heavy burdens; and it works for
+brilliancy more than for reticent beauty. Liszt’s E flat major concerto,
+for instance, is an absolutely faithful replica of some of Jókai’s best
+novels. Both authors excel in brilliancy, technical routine, wealth of
+imagination, sparkling rhythms and rapturous descriptiveness. There is
+nothing majestic in them, nothing grave, nothing truly sad or melancholy.
+Jókai disposes of an inexhaustible humour. This, as will be admitted,
+cannot be readily imitated in music. In Liszt, humour becomes irony and
+demoniac scorn. His Polonaise in E major, for example, with its appalling
+irony at Polish excessiveness, is the musical counterpart to Jókai’s
+humour. But where Liszt comes nearest to Jókai is in his Rhapsodies. As
+in Jókai, so in Liszt, there is a constant change of panoramic views;
+an exquisite wealth of tinkling, sparring and glistening rhythms; a
+shower of glittering dewdrops and an iridescence of sheets of coloured
+lights. In a measure, all Jókai’s novels are placed in fairy-land; as all
+Liszt’s music is on the heights of exultation. And, likewise, the final
+secret of Jókai’s irresistible charm is in the improvisatory character
+of his novels. Jókai’s reader does not feel that he is being lectured
+or moralized or instructed. On the contrary, he feels that he himself,
+in inspiring, as it were, the author, is co-operating with him in the
+work, just as the listeners to an improvisatore are doing. The reader is
+accorded part of the exquisite delight of literary creation and so feels
+twice happy.
+
+This peculiar and inimitable feature and excellence of Jókai is but
+another manifestation of the rhapsodic character of the Magyars. Petőfi,
+and he alone, was in his best poems, both rhapsodic and classical.
+He not only expressed Magyar rhapsodism lyrically, as has Jókai
+novelistically and Liszt musically, but he also imparted to it that
+inner form of moderation and harmonious beauty which, if coupled with
+perfect expression and metre, renders poetry classical. It will now be
+easily seen why Jókai must needs have the failings of his virtues. The
+very nature of rhapsodic improvisations works chiefly for effect: it
+is subjective art, not objective. The production of the artist is not
+severed from his personality; it is intimately allied with and dependent
+on it. In Liszt, whose art admits of combining both production and
+presentation of the work at one and the same time, the subjective or
+personal factors became so strong as to render him without any doubt
+the most fascinating artistic individuality of this century. It is,
+therefore, in vain to expect in Jókai that patient and self-denying
+care of the objective artist for the structural beauty of his work.
+It is not the great number of his novels that has prevented him from
+giving them as much objective proportion and consistency as they have
+lustre and charm. Mozart died at five-and-thirty, and left more works
+than Jókai has written; yet nearly every one of the better ones was
+objectively faultless. It is Jókai’s very art that necessitates that
+failing in Art. If he had tried to mend it, he would have stunted some
+of that peerless profusion of fancy which has endeared him to untold
+millions. He may displease a few hundreds; he will always transport
+the millions. Yet one remark cannot be suppressed. Hungary, we are
+convinced, has not yet arrived at the stage of literary development
+when critics and the public look backwards for the best efforts of the
+nation’s intellect. There are still immense possibilities for Hungarian
+Literature; and all the constellations of literary greatness have not
+yet risen above the horizon. It will thus not be surprising when we here
+venture to urge the necessity of viewing even a genius such as Jókai’s
+historically. His merits are as boundless as his charm. The judgment
+of all Europe has confirmed that. For Hungarians, however, it will be
+wise to remember, that Jókai in literature, as Liszt in music, are the
+highest types indeed, but of one phase only of the many-souled national
+genius of the Hungarian people. Their work is great and inimitable; we
+hasten to add: nor should it be imitated. It is the work, not of the
+last, but of one of the early stages in Hungarian Literature. It has,
+when over-estimated, a tendency to do harm to the nation. People, who
+in music are taught to expect the maddening accents of rhapsodies, will
+rarely calm down to the enjoyment of less spiced, if more perfect music.
+It is even so with novels. Who now reads the novels of Kemény (see page
+157); and who ought not to read them? Readers intoxicated with Jókai, we
+readily admit, cannot fairly rally to enjoy Kemény. Yet Hungary is badly
+in need of a more modern Kemény, as she is of a Brahms. Or has it not
+been noticed yet, that while Hungarians are proverbially musical, and
+known to be so in all countries, they have so far—if we for the moment
+disregard Liszt—not produced a single creative musician of European fame
+or considerable magnitude? There can be little doubt that Liszt himself
+is one of the chief causes of the sterilization of musical talent in
+Hungary. Vainly endeavouring to imitate him, the composers failed to
+proceed on different lines. Desiring to hear Hungarian music in no other
+form than in that of Lisztian rhapsodies, the public failed to encourage
+the production of new musical works. And so the vast treasure of
+Hungarian music has not yet been done full justice. The Bohemians, also
+a very musical nation, have had no Liszt; but they have, at least, their
+Smetanas and their Dvořáks. As a reader and patriot, no less than as a
+student of poetry and art, we joyfully recognize the surpassing talent
+of both Jókai and Liszt. As historian of the literature of our nation,
+we cannot but make the remark that it will no longer do for Hungarians
+to leave the historical position of these two great authors entirely out
+of consideration. It is different with countries outside Hungary. They
+may and shall read Jókai unmolested by any such reflections. For them he
+is delight pure and unequalled; and we beg their pardon for not having
+suppressed the above remark. But as to the interests of Hungary we dare
+to assume that Jókai himself, great in modesty as he is in so many other
+ways, will not disavow our idea, but gladly acknowledge that, great as he
+may be, there ought to be room for novelistic greatness of another kind
+in Hungarian Literature, and appreciation of other modes of novelistic
+art in the Hungarian public.
+
+Jókai was born on the nineteenth of February, 1825, at Komárom (Komorn).
+At Pápa, when still a student, he made the acquaintance of Petőfi, whose
+intimate friend he became. He took an active, if moderate part, in the
+revolution, and came near falling into the hands of the victorious
+Austrians, from which fatal predicament, however, he was saved by his
+lovely wife Rose Laborfalvy, one of the greatest of Hungarian actresses.
+From that time onward he has devoted his life partly to parliamentary
+activity, but chiefly to literature and the political press. In the
+latter field he has acted as editor of, and frequent contributor to,
+several of the leading journals of Hungary; and, moreover, as founder and
+editor of the “_Üstökös_,” the Hungarian “_Punch_.” In Hungary, where
+political and parliamentary life has long been in existence, a paper _à
+la_ “_Punch_” was a natural and much needed literary product. Nor do we
+hesitate to assert that several of such papers—for instance, Jókai’s
+“_Üstökös_” (“The Comet”), and the incomparable Porzó’s (Dr. Adolf Ágai)
+“_Borszem Jankó_” (a name) not only equal, but, as a rule, decidedly
+surpass German or French “_Punches_,” and not infrequently the London
+paper too. Wit in Hungary is of a peculiar kind, and Jókai is one of its
+most gifted devotees. It is wit, not only of situations, or humorous
+contrasts, but also of linguistic contortionism, if we may so express
+it; so that none but a master of the language can handle it with real
+success. On the other hand, it is fertile in humorous types, and does not
+indulge—unwillingly at least—in caricature.
+
+Amongst Jókai’s novels, “An Hungarian Nabob” (“_Egy magyar nábob_,”
+1856, translated into English) is one of his earlier masterworks. It
+tells the story of one of those immensely wealthy Hungarian noblemen who,
+in pre-revolutionary times, lived like small potentates on their vast
+estates, surrounded by wassailing companions, women, gamblers, fools,
+gypsies, and an indefinite crowd of hangers-on. The old Kárpáthy, the
+nabob, in spite of habitual excesses of all kinds, is, at bottom, an
+upright and proud man. The intrigues made against him by a profligate
+nephew, hitherto his only heir, and who wants to precipitate his death,
+are baffled by the nabob’s marriage with a young and innocent girl,
+who makes him the father of a boy, Zoltán. Within this apparently very
+simple framework what a wealth of scenes, of types, of humour, and
+descriptive gems! We are taken from the half-savage manor-life of the
+old nabob to brilliant Paris, then again to Pozsony and to Pest. The
+language is winged, winning, and gorgeously varied. The continuation of
+the “Nabob” is given in “_Kárpáthy Zoltán_,” a novel which, both in its
+pathos and in its humour, is one of the most engaging pieces of modern
+narrative literature. Full of historic interest are Jókai’s “The Golden
+Era of Transylvania” (“_Erdély arany kora_,” translated into English by
+Mr. Nisbet Bain); “The Sins of the Heartless Man” (“_A kőszivü ember
+fiai_”); “Political Fashions” (“_Politikai divatok_”); “The Lady with
+the Sea-Eyes” (“_A tengerszemü hölgy_”); and in “The New Landlord” (“_Az
+új földesúr_”) Jókai has, without so much as posing as a political
+moralist, achieved one of the best effects of patriotic moralizing. “The
+New Landlord” is perhaps one of the most finished and architectonically
+perfect of the Hungarian master’s works, although the workmanship of
+“What we are growing old for” (“_Mire megvénűlünk_”) is also remarkable.
+Other novels in which Jókai’s splendour of imagination and narrative
+genius may be enjoyed at their best are: “Love’s Fools” (“_Szerelem
+bolondjai_”); “Black Diamonds” (“_Fekete gyémántok_,” translated into
+English); “There is no Devil” (“_Nincsen ördög_”); “The Son of Rákóczy”
+(“_Rákóczy fia_”); “Twice Two is Four” (“_Kétszer kettő négy_”), etc.
+Besides works of fiction, exceeding two hundred and fifty volumes, Jókai
+has written an interesting History of Hungary; his memoirs; the Hungarian
+part of the late Crown Prince Rudolf’s great work on Austria-Hungary,
+etc. He is still enriching Hungarian Literature with ever new works of
+fiction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+
+In the preceding chapters we have essayed to give some idea of the
+work of the leading poets and writers of Magyar literature. The very
+narrow limits of this sketch of the literary life of the Hungarians have
+prevented us from giving more than mere outlines; and in now approaching
+the activity of modern Hungarian poets and writers of less prominent
+position, although not infrequently of very considerable value, we are
+forced to restrict ourselves to still more limited appreciation.
+
+Amongst the _Novel-writers_ we cannot omit to mention Louis Kúthy
+(1813-1864), Ignatius Nagy (1810-1856), and Gustavus Lauka. The two
+latter excelled in light, humorous novels. In the humoristic sketches and
+tales of Gereben Vas (_nom de plume_ for Joseph Radákovics, 1823-1867)
+there is a continuous and, as to its language, admirable display of the
+fireworks of folk-wit and racy fun. Amongst his best works are “Great
+Times—Great Men” (“_Nagy idők nagy emberek_”); “Law-Students’ Bohemian
+Life” (“_Jurátus élet_”). Albert Pálffy (born in 1823), after a long
+career as an influential politician and journalist, has published, since
+1892, a great number of sound, readable novels. Aloisius Degré (born
+in 1820), of French extraction, has always been a popular writer with
+readers of society-novels. Charles Bérczy (1823-1867) is the founder of
+sport-literature in Hungary; in his novels he follows chiefly English
+models. A peculiar position is occupied by Ladislas Beöthy who, in the
+evil decade of Austrian reaction (1850-1860) amused and consoled his
+despondent countrymen by his eccentric humour and originality. In the
+historic novels of Charles Szathmáry (1830-1891) there is more patriotism
+than literary power. Both as a journalist (as editor of the “_Fővárosi
+Lapok_”) and as an author of elegant and thoughtful novels, Charles
+Vadna (born 1832) has won a conspicuous place for himself. Alexander
+Balázs (1830-1887); Arnold Vértesi (born 1836); Lewis Tolnai (born
+1837); William Győry (1838-1885); Miss Stephania Wohl (1848-1889); Emil
+Kazár (born in 1843); have in numerous novels, many of which would merit
+particular attention, painted the sad or gay aspects of life. Louis
+Abonyi (born in 1833), Alexander Baksay (born in 1832), Ödön Jakab, and
+Bertalan Szalóczy count among the best Hungarian novelists whose subjects
+are taken from the life of the Magyar peasantry. As we have already
+suggested, the number of Hungarian writers venturing on a novelistic
+_poetisation_ of life on a grand scale, is not very great at present.
+Most of the modern novelists just mentioned work on a smaller scale; and
+thus the Hungarian Bret Harte did not fail to make his appearance. His
+name is Coloman Mikszáth (born in 1849). His short and thoroughly poetic
+tales from the folk-life of Hungary are in more than one respect superior
+to those of the American writer. For, to the latter’s sweet conciseness
+of plan and dialogue, Mikszáth adds the charm of _naïveté_. Some of his
+works have been translated into German, French and English; and the
+enthusiasm for his art will no doubt spread from Hungary to all other
+countries where the graces of true simplicity can still be enjoyed.
+
+Amongst the numerous writers of _genre_-sketches and _feuilletons_,
+“Porzó” or Dr. Ágai is _facile princeps_; not only in Hungary, but also,
+we venture to add, in all Europe. He is quite unique.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+
+The number of _lyrical poets_ is very great in modern Hungary. It may
+be stated that, as a rule, a Magyar poet has more chances of attracting
+public attention by a good lyrical poem than by a good novel. Perhaps
+the female portion of Hungary are not as anxious for novel-reading, as
+are their sisters in more western countries; and thus the balance of
+attention to poetic works is spent on the drama and on lyrics. This fact
+is on a line with the predilection of the Hungarian public for songs and
+airs, as against native musical works of a more extensive description.
+The great Hungarian lyrical poets of modern times may properly be divided
+into several groups, of which the first is the school of poets with
+whom the beauty and purity of Form is the principal concern of their
+art. Considering the innate Magyar tendency to rhapsodic and shapeless
+exuberance, the relative value of the works of that group is very great.
+The Hungarian language, just on account of its large share of musical
+elements, has somewhat of that indistinctness and vague emotionality
+which, like that of music, must be strictly kept within the bounds of
+Form. Even in the more advanced poetry of the Teutonic nations, whether
+German or English, the significance of poets cultivating pre-eminently
+the chaste beauty of Form, is still very considerable. Fortunately for
+Hungary, both Paul Gyulai (born in 1826) and Charles Szász (born in
+1829) have, especially the latter, untiringly worked at providing their
+countrymen with works of poetry, original or otherwise, in which the
+law and beauty of Form predominate over emotionalism. Szász has thus
+deserved very highly of Hungarian Literature. His delicate sense of
+metre, rhythm and architectonics, in his original epics and lyrics, as
+well as in his exceedingly numerous translations from the works of great
+western poets, is on a par with the wealth of his linguistic resources;
+and while English poetry may perhaps afford to be less encouraging to the
+adepts of Form, Magyar literature is to be congratulated upon having at
+once recognized and thereby not missed the numerous works of her Richard
+Garnett.
+
+To this group belongs also Joseph Lévay (born in 1825), whose popular
+works move in the sphere of elevated serenity.
+
+Another group of lyrical poets is formed by the nationalists, who vied
+with one another in sounding exclusively the note of Magyar sentiments
+and ideas proper. Local colour seemed to be everything, and in language
+and subject nothing was used outside the purely Magyar elements. The most
+gifted of that class was Coloman Tóth (1831-1881); next to him ranks
+perhaps Andrew Tóth (1824-1885); nor must Coloman Lisznyay (1823-1863),
+Joseph Zalár (born in 1827), and Joseph Székely (born in 1825) be omitted.
+
+Quite by himself stands John Vajda (born in 1827). He is to Hungarian
+poetry proper, what Kemény (see pp. 153, etc.) is to Hungarian novelistic
+literature. His is the gloom and power of pessimism; and in his fight
+with Destiny he conjures up all the furies of scorn, despair, rage and
+hatred: see especially his “_Szerelem átka_” and “_Gina emléke_.”
+
+The lyrical poets of the sixties and seventies of this century tried to
+avoid excessive nationalism, true to the spirit of the time when Hungary
+through the final regulation of her constitution as an autonomous state,
+assumed a European attitude herself. The more prominent names are Béla
+Szász; Victor Dalmady; Joseph Komócsy; Lewis Tolnai; Ladislas Arany,
+Alexander Endrődi, Julius Reviczky, etc. In Joseph Kiss there is much of
+that power of discovering poetic riches in subjects hitherto ignored by
+poets, which goes to make the really great poet. The emotional conflicts
+between orthodox Jews and Christian peasants living in the same village,
+conflicts of love and hatred alike, have been worked into powerful
+ballads by Kiss.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+
+It would be impossible, to write even the shortest sketch of Hungarian
+Literature without dwelling on one of the less conspicuous, yet chief
+sources of suggestion and inspiration of Hungarian poets. We mean the
+_folk-poetry_ of the Hungarian people. Now that we can study that poetry
+in numerous and comprehensive collections, published by John Erdélyi
+(1848), Paul Gyulai and Ladislas Arany, John Kriza (1863), Lewis Kálmány,
+Coloman Thaly (in English, the collection of L. Kropf and W. Jones,
+“Magyar Folk-tales,” 1884), etc., etc., we cannot but acknowledge the
+profound effect that these countless poems, ballads, songs, fables,
+epics, and ditties must have had on the minds of Hungarian poets who
+spent their youth in the midst of people singing, reciting or improvising
+them. In intensity of colour, in fire and varied picturesqueness,
+Hungarian folk-poetry is certainly not inferior to that of the people
+of Italy. In humour and exuberant audacity it is probably its equal.
+But while Italian folk-poetry frequently stoops to the indecent and
+obscene, it may be said without fear of contradiction, that such stains
+are unknown to the folk-poetry of the Magyars. In it lives the whole life
+of that nation, its sorrows and humiliations, as well as its moments of
+triumph and victory. The complete ethnography, historic and present,
+of the Magyars could be gleaned from that poetry. Nay, so intense is
+the poetic feeling of those lowly and obscure peasant-poets, that every
+object of the rich nature of Hungary has been framed and illumined
+by them. The _puszta_, and the two mighty rivers of the country; the
+snow-clad Carpathians, and the immense lake of the Balaton; the abundant
+flora and fauna of their land—all is there, instinct with poetic life
+of its own, and embracing, sympathizing or mourning the life of the
+shepherd, the outlaw (_betyár_), the lover, the priest, the trader, the
+Jew, the constable, the squire, the maiden, the widow, the child. There
+is in that folk-poetry a tinkling, ringing and pealing of all the bells
+and organs of life. Like the music that almost invariably accompanies
+it, it is teeming with intense power, and hurries on over the cascades
+of acute rhythms, and the rapids of gusts of passion. As if every object
+of Nature had revealed to it the last, brief secret of its being, it
+describes scenes and situations in two or three words. Its wit is
+harmless or cruel, just as it chooses; and in its humour the laughing
+tear is not wanting. Chief of all, as the great pundits of Cairo or
+Bagdad, whenever they are at sea about some of the enigmas of the idiom
+of the Koran and the Makamat, send for advice to the roving Bedouins of
+the Arabian deserts: so the Hungarian poets have gathered their best
+knowledge of the recondite lore of the Magyar idiom, in the _pusztas_ of
+the _Alföld_, between the Danube and the Theiss, where the true Magyar
+peasant is living.
+
+Hungarian folk-poetry is not a thing of the past. Almost day by day,
+new and ever new “_nóták_” or songs are rising from the fields and
+forests—nobody knows who composed them—and as if carried by the winds of
+east and west, they quickly find their way into the heart of the whole
+nation. There is thus an inexhaustible fountain of poetry and poetic
+suggestiveness in the very nation of the Magyars. Great as some of the
+Hungarian lyrical poets have been, it is fair to assume, that with such
+an undercurrent of perennial folk-poetry to draw upon, there are, for
+this reason alone, still many more great poets in store for us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+
+In conclusion, a few words on the Hungarian literary productions outside
+_belles-lettres_ proper. From the pre-eminently political character of
+the Magyars, it may be inferred almost _a priori_ that questions bearing
+on legal and constitutional matters have at all times been a favourite
+subject with the writers and statesmen of Hungary. Previous to 1830,
+in round numbers, these questions were treated mostly in Latin works.
+Since then, however, a very considerable number of politico-legal and
+politico-historical writers in Magyar has arisen. The most important
+amongst them, both for the authority they commanded in practical
+politics, and for the weight and power of their arguments, are Count
+Stephen Széchenyi; Baron Nicolas Wesselényi; Count Aurelius Dessewffy;
+Baron Joseph Eötvös (see pp. 142, etc.); the famous Lewis Kossúth,
+probably the greatest political orator of the century; and Francis
+Deák. They were all practical statesmen, and not mere scholars. Yet
+most of their works on the constitution of Hungary, and especially on
+the constitutional relation of Hungary to Austria, are also valuable
+as sources of solid and scholarly information. Thus Deák showed the
+extensiveness of his legal and politico-historical erudition in his
+famous controversy with the Austrian professor Lustkandl, in no lesser
+degree than his tact and wisdom in the conclusion of the final treaty
+between Austria and Hungary in 1867. Eötvös enriched Magyar political
+literature with an elaborate and thoughtful work on “The Influence of
+the Dominant Ideas of the Nineteenth Century on the State” (“_A xix.
+század uralkodó eszméinek befolyása az álladalomra_,” 1851-1854). In
+more recent times a very great number of politico-legal monographs has
+been published in Hungary. The student will find lists of them in the
+works of Stephen Kiss and E. Nagy, both entitled “Constitutional Law of
+Hungary” (“_Magyarország közjoga_,” the former in 1888, the latter, third
+edition, 1896). Of older works on the constitutional law of Hungary,
+the most useful are those of count Cziráky (1851, in Latin), and of
+Professor Virozsil (also in Hungarian and German, 1865). Amongst the
+numerous Magyar writers on _Jurisprudence_, Professor Augustus Pulszky is
+well-known in England through his able work, written in English, on “The
+Theory of Law and Civil Society” (1888).
+
+In the department of _History_, and especially the history of Hungary,
+the activity of the Magyars has been one of astounding intensity. In the
+well-known annual bibliography of history, edited by Jastrow, in Berlin
+(_Jahresberichte_, etc.), the annual report on the historical literature
+published in Hungary, occupies a conspicuous space. The older historians
+of Hungary, such as G. Pray (1774, 3 vols. fol.), Katona (1779-1817,
+42 vols.), who wrote in Latin; and Engel (1814), Fessler (1825, 10
+vols.), count John Majláth (1853, 5 vols.), who wrote in German, can
+now be used only for occasional reference. Of Magyar writers on the
+history of Hungary, Bishop Michael Horváth (1809-1878), and Ladislas
+Szalay (1813-1864), have had the greatest influence on the reading
+public and Magyar historiography up to the end of the seventies. The
+bishop treats history in the style of fine and dignified ecclesiastical
+allocutions. Szalay’s is a talent for the political and legal aspects
+of history rather than for the personal and military element thereof.
+In both historians there is a noble patriotism, and their works, even
+if discarded as wanting in systematic research, will always claim a
+high rank as literary productions. Hungary is still waiting for the
+true historian of the whole of her history; but what other country is
+not? Writers of historic monographs there are many, and they have done
+excellent work. Some of the most prominent are Count Joseph Teleki
+(1790-1855); Francis Salomon (born 1825); Anton Csengery (1822-1880);
+Charles Szabó (1824-1890); Alexander Szilágyi (born 1830), the historian
+of Transylvania; William Fraknói (born 1843, died recently), on Pázmány
+and King Matthew; Julius Pauler (born 1841), whose great work on the
+history of Hungary under the Árpáds (till 1301) is characterised by a
+most careful study of all the original sources; Coloman Thaly (born
+1839), whose “speciality” is the age of Francis Rákóczy II.; Emericus
+Krajner (very valuable works on constitutional history); Lewis Thallóczy
+(on relation to Balkan nations); Ignatius Acsády (on civilization and
+finance of xvi. and xvii. cent.); Henry Marczali (on the age of Emperor
+Joseph II.); Lewis Kropf, whose domicile is in London, and who, in a
+long series of accurate and scholarly monographs has elucidated many
+an important point of Hungarian history; G. Ladányi (constitutional
+history); Sigismond Ormós (institutional history of the Árpádian
+period); K. Lányi (ecclesiastical history); Alex. Nagy (institutional
+history); F. Kubinyi (institutional history); S. Kolosváry and K. Óváry
+(charters); L. Fejérpataky (charters); Árpád Kerékgyártó (history of
+Magyar civilization); F. Balássy (institutional history); Professor
+Julius Lánczy (institutional and Italian history); Baron Béla Radvánszky
+(Magyar civilization); Emericus Hajnik (constitutional history);
+Frederick Pesty (constitutional history); Wertner (most valuable works
+on Hungarian genealogy), etc. Great also is the number of periodicals
+systematically embracing all the aspects of Hungarian history; and
+local societies effectively aid in the marshalling of facts, and in the
+publication of ancient monuments. When the history of Austria, Poland,
+and the Danubian countries has been written in a manner superior to what
+we now possess in that respect, the history of Hungary too, will, we have
+no doubt, find its adequate master among Magyar historians. The progress
+in Magyar historiography has, in late years, been little short of that
+made in any other country.
+
+In the department of _literary history_ we notice the same lack of a
+satisfactory general history of Hungarian Literature, and the same
+abundance of meritorious monographs on single points. Francis Toldy
+(formerly Schedel, 1805-1875), started a comprehensive history of
+Hungarian Literature, which, however, he never completed. In numerous
+essays and minor works he worked hard at various sections of such
+a history, and his relative value as an initiator in that branch
+cannot be disputed. The laborious works of K. M. Kertbény are purely
+bibliographical, and as such, useful. His attempts were quite thrown
+into the shade by the great works on Hungarian bibliography of Charles
+Szabó, G. Petrik, and J. Szinnyei. The handiest and bibliographically
+richest history of Hungarian Literature is that by Zsolt Beöthy (sixth
+edition, 1892). Under Beöthy’s editorship a richly-illustrated history
+of Hungarian Literature was published, in two volumes, in the year and
+in honour of the Hungarian Millennium, 1896. Among the better writers of
+monographs on literary history are Julius Zolnai (philology); J. Szinnyei
+(biography); Sigism Simonyi (philologist); L. Négyessy (prosody); Alex.
+Imre (popular humour and mediæval style); R. Radnai (history of Magyar
+æsthetics); M. Csillagh (on Balassi); Sigism Bodnár (history of Hungarian
+Literature); H. Lenkei (studies in Petőfi); K. Greska (on the epic of
+Zrinyi); T. Szana (history of literature), etc.
+
+The study of æsthetics has always been one of the favourite pursuits
+of Magyar writers during the present century. The most conspicuous of
+Hungarian students of æsthetics are Augustus Greguss and Paul Gyulai,
+whose works have advanced not only Magyar views, but the study of
+æsthetics in general.
+
+The best known students of _Hungarian philology_ are John Fogarasi;
+Joseph Lugossy; the late Sam. Brassai, who in his multifarious studies
+reminds us of the great scholars of the seventeenth century; Paul
+Hunfalvy, Joseph Budenz, Ferdinand Barna (Finnish philology); Gabriel
+Szarvas and Sigismund Simonyi; and the well-known Arminius Vámbéry.
+
+In the departments of _Science proper_ there has been very considerable
+progress in Hungary during the last thirty years. Reports of the
+general results of scientific researches made by Hungarians are also
+published, for the greater convenience of the western nations, in special
+periodicals written in German.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+[1] The above statistics are taken from the _Régi Magyar Könyvtár_.
+
+[2] We may mention, that Bessenyei was, to a certain extent, preceded by
+two amiable and cultivated writers; Baron Lawrence Orczy (1718-1789), and
+Count Gedeon Ráday (1713-1792).
+
+[3] No continental writer has described and analysed the social status
+of the continental peasant with so much charm and truth as has the late
+Wilhelm Riehl, the Justus Möser of our century.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY.
+
+
+For general and accurate information about Hungary:
+
+    “_Pallas_” Encyclopædia (in Hungarian) in sixteen volumes, just
+    (March, 1898) completed.
+
+History of Hungarian Literature:
+
+    See the chapter at the end of the present work. In German there
+    is the able work of Professor J. H. Schwicker (“_Geschichte der
+    ungarischen Litteratur_,” Leipsic, 1889). In Italian we have
+    the short history of G. A. Zigány, “_Letteratura Ungherese_”
+    (Milan, 1892, one of Hoepli’s “Manuals.”)
+
+Selections from Hungarian poets:
+
+    Paul Erdélyi, _A magyar költészet kincsesháza_ (Budapest, 1895).
+
+Complete Catalogues of Hungarian books since the invention of typography:
+
+    Charles Szabó and Árpád Hellebrant “_Régi Magyar Könyvtár_”
+    (1879-1896, 3 vols.), comprising the books printed down to 1711.
+
+    Géza Petrik, _Bibliographia Hungariæ 1712-1860, catalogus
+    librorum in Hungaria, et de rebus patriam nostram attingentibus
+    extra Hungariam editorum_ (Budapest, 1888-1892), with subject
+    and author’s indexes.
+
+Periodical Literature; index to Hungarian:
+
+    Szinnyei József, “_Hazai és külföldi folyóiratok magyar
+    tudományos repertoriuma_,” 3 vols. (1874-1885), two of which
+    give the list of articles, both in Hungarian and foreign
+    periodicals, on Hungarian history, and the third, articles
+    on mathematical and natural sciences. This excellent work
+    comprises even most of the political daily papers.
+
+Periodical devoted to the study of the history of Hungarian Literature:
+
+    “_Irodalomtörténeti közlemények_,” edited first by Aladár
+    Ballagi, and now by Aron Szilády (since 1891; full, well
+    edited, with careful indexes).
+
+Literary biography:
+
+    Joseph Szinnyei, the younger, “_Magyar irók élete és munkái_.”
+    Most exhaustive, with complete bibliographies to each writer
+    and his works, comprising even articles written in daily
+    papers. (Budapest, since 1891, still unfinished).
+
+The Magyar Language:
+
+    The most comprehensive work is by Professor Sigismund Simonyi,
+    “_A magyar nyelv_” (2 vols., Budapest, 1889, 8vo).
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  Abonyi, Louis. (Folk-Novelist), 241
+
+  Academy of Science, founded by Széchenyi and others, 112
+    its publications, 112
+
+  Acsády, Ignatius. (Historian), 253
+
+  Alvinczi, Peter. (Controversialist), 55
+
+  Amadé, Baron Ladislas. (Poet), 67
+
+  America has no epic; the reason of this, 123
+
+  American literature hampered by their language, 14
+    has no _naïveté_, reasons, 198
+
+  Andrássy, Count George, a founder of the Academy, 112
+
+  Andrew II., King of Hungary, 19
+
+  Ányos, Paul. (Poet), 80
+
+  Anzengruber. (Austrian Dramatist), 225
+
+  Apor, Peter. (Historian), 68
+
+  Arany, John—his Hungarian reputation, 194
+    compared with Petőfi, 195
+    reason why his work is not bourgeois poetry, 197
+    a Magyar and a class poet, 200
+    his charm of language, 200, 201
+    his position in Magyar literature, 202
+    his life, 202
+    his work, 204, 209
+
+  Arany, Ladislas. (Poet), 245
+    his collection of folk-poetry, 247
+
+  Árpád Dynasty of Hungary, 18, 124, 126, 129
+    in the epic, 40, 41
+
+  _Athenæum_, Hungarian periodical, 134
+
+  Auerbach, Berthold. (German Folk-Novelist), 225
+
+  _Aurora_, periodical, 116
+
+  Austrian Empire, its heterogeneity, 76
+
+
+  Bacsányi, John. (Poet), 86
+
+  Bajza, Joseph. (Critic and Poet), 133
+
+  Baksay, Alexander. (Folk-Novelist), 241
+
+  Balássy, F. (Historian), 253
+
+  Balassi, Baron Valentin. (Poet) (I.), 49
+    (II.), 58
+
+  Balassi stanza, the, 50
+
+  Balázs, Alexander. (Novelist), 241
+
+  Balzac. His genius not fully recognized, 157
+    Kemény compared to him, 157, 161
+    compared to Shakespeare, 158
+
+  Baranyi, Ladislas. (Poet), 80
+
+  Barcsai, Abraham. (Translator), 80
+
+  Bards, 40
+
+  Barna, Ferdinand. (Philologist), 256
+
+  Báróczi, Alexander. (Translator), 80
+
+  Bartók, Lewis. (Dramatist), 222
+
+  Batizi, Andreas. (Poet), 46
+
+  Beck, Charles. (Poet), 12
+
+  Bél, Matthew. His view of Magyar, 37
+
+  Bellarmin influences Pázmány, 54
+
+  Bem, General, and Petőfi, 190
+
+  Beniczky de Benicze, Peter. (Poet), 58
+
+  Beöthy, Ladislas. (Humorist), 241
+
+  Beöthy, Sigismund. (Poet), 135
+
+  Beöthy, Zsolt. His History of Hungarian Literature, 255
+
+  Béranger compared to Petőfi, 181
+
+  Berczik, Árpád. (Dramatist), 222
+
+  Bérczy, Charles. (Novelist), 241
+
+  Bernstein, Charles Hugo, _see_ Hugo, Charles
+
+  Berzsenyi, Daniel. (Poet), 81, 103, 109, 121
+
+  Bessenyei, Alexander. (Translator), 80
+
+  Bessenyei, George. (Dramatist, &c.), 79
+
+  Bethlens, the, 51, 164
+
+  Bible, the, published in Magyar, 46, 55
+
+  Bibliography, 254, 255, 257
+
+  Biró de Déva, Matthew. (Lutheran “pope”), 46
+
+  Blaha, Louise. (Hungarian Actress), 222
+
+  Bod, Peter. (Literary Historian), 69
+
+  Bodnár, Sigismund. (Literary Historian), 255
+
+  Bohemian Music, 236
+
+  Bonfini, Anton, at work in Hungary, 43
+
+  Brassai, Samuel. (Philologist), 255
+
+  Brutus, Michael. (Historian), 164
+
+  Budenz, Joseph. (Philologist), 36, 255
+
+  Bürger’s influence on Csokonai, 89
+
+  Burns compared to Petőfi, 180
+
+  Butler, E. D., of the British Museum (the foremost amongst British
+        students of Magyar philology and literature), _Preface_
+
+
+  Cesinge, John. (Hungarian Scholar), 44
+
+  Cowley compared to Virág, 80
+
+  Critical genius, its part in literature, 92
+
+  Crusaders, unfit heroes of epics, 42
+
+  Csengery, Anton. (Historian), 253
+
+  Csepreghy, Francis. (Dramatist), 225
+
+  Cséri de Apáca, John. (Author of Encyclopædia), 62
+
+  Cserei, Michael. (Historian), 68
+
+  Csiky, Gregory. (Dramatist), 221, 223
+
+  Csillagh, M. (Historian), 255
+
+  Csipkés, George Komáromi. (Translator of the Bible), 55
+
+  Csokonai, Michael Vitéz. (Poet), 88, 211
+
+  Csoma de Kőrős, Alexander. (Philologist), 36
+
+  Czakó, Sigismund. (Dramatist), 215
+
+  Cziráky, Count. (Authority on Hungarian Constitutional Law), 251
+
+  Czuczor, Gregory. (Poet and Philologist), 112, 129
+
+  Czwittinger, David, his list of Hungarian writers, 68
+
+
+  Dalmady, Victor. (Poet), 245
+
+  Dayka, Gabriel. (Poet), 86
+
+  Deák, Francis. (Statesman and Author), 26, 27, 250, 251
+
+  Debreczen, the Geneva of Hungary, 46
+
+  Decsi de Baranya, John. His collection of proverbs, 48
+
+  Degré, Aloisius. (Novelist), 241
+
+  Dessewffy, Count Aurelius. (Political Writer), 250
+
+  Dialects provide new elements of poetic speech, 201
+
+  Dobsa, Lewis. (Dramatist), 222
+
+  Dóczi, Lewis. (Dramatist), 222, 223
+
+  Drama, the, 46, 67, 116, 117, 127
+    opening of the National Theatre, 113
+    in the nineteenth century, 207
+    want of good actors, 207
+    Hungarian dramas unknown outside Hungary, 221
+
+  Dugonics, Andreas. (Novelist), 83
+
+
+  Édes, Gregory. (Versifier), 84
+
+  Education in Hungary, _see under_ Hungary
+
+  Egressy, Gabriel. (Actor), 208
+
+  Ekkehard’s Chronicles record Magyar epics, 41
+
+  Endrődi, Alexander. (Poet), 245
+
+  Engel. (Historian), 252
+
+  England and Hungary, their histories parallel, 19, 21
+
+  Eötvös, Joseph. (Novelist), 140, 146, 250, 251
+    character of his work, 149
+    his power as an orator, 156
+
+  Epic poetry, its character, 122, 126
+
+  Erdősi, or Sylvester, John. (Grammarian), 48
+
+
+  Faludi, Francis. (Poet), 67
+
+  _Faust_, its points of resemblance with Madách’s “Tragedy of Man”, 219
+
+  Fazekas, Michael. (Author of a chap-book), 84
+
+  Fejérpataky, L. (Historian), 253
+
+  Felix of Ragusa, at work in Hungary, 44
+
+  Fessler. (Historian), 12, 252
+
+  Fiction in the sixteenth century, 47
+    in the eighteenth century, 88
+    in the nineteenth century, 118, 137, 226, 240
+    (_see also_ Novels)
+
+  Fischart, as virtuoso of language, 45
+
+  Flygare-Carlén, Mme, her popularity in Hungary, 137
+
+  Fogarasi, John. (Philologist), 112, 255
+
+  Földi, John. (Writer on Prosody), 84
+
+  Folk-Drama in Hungary, 213, 224
+    compared with the folk-drama in Austria, 225
+
+  Folk-Novels and Tales, 241, 242
+
+  Folk-Poems of Hungary, 134
+    the chief inspiration of Hungarian poets, 247
+    published collections, 247
+
+  Fontius, Bartholinus, at work in Hungary, 44
+
+  Forgách, Francis. (Hungarian Author), 164
+
+  Fraknói, William. (Historian), 253
+
+  France, her constitution, 153
+    her national homogeneity, 159
+
+  France, Anatole, his veiled pessimism, 168
+
+  Fata Morgana of the Pusztas, 176
+
+  French literature compared with Hungarian, 31
+    its influence on Hungarian, 117
+    has enjoyed advantages of criticism, 133
+
+
+  Galeotto, Marzio, at work in Hungary, 43
+
+  Garay, John. (Poet), 131
+
+  Garnett, Richard; the work of Szász resembles his, 244
+
+  Gáti, Stephán. (Eighteenth century writer), 83
+
+  Gergei, Albert. (Poet), 47
+
+  German literature at the Reformation, 45
+    its influence on Hungarian, 78, 94, 117
+    influenced by Greek ideas, 96
+    its _bourgeois_ character, 199
+
+  Goethe’s _Hermann und Dorothea_, 204
+
+  Golden Bull, the—the Hungarian Magna Charta, 19
+
+  Greek not studied in the eighteenth century, 65
+    Kazinczy’s labours to introduce Greek models, 95
+    Literature, born of Greek parents, 96
+    influence on German literature, 96
+      Hungarian Literature, 128
+    Greek literature comparatively unknown in Hungary, 132
+
+  Greguss, Augustus. (Writer on Æsthetics), 255
+
+  Greska, K. (Literary Critic), 255
+
+  Grünwald, Béla. (Political Historian), 152
+
+  Gvadányi, Count Joseph. (Poet and Novelist), 83
+
+  Gyöngyössi, Stephen. (Poet), 58
+
+  Győry, William. (Novelist), 241
+
+  Gyulai, Paul. (Poet), 244
+    his collection of folk-poetry, 247
+    as a writer on Æsthetics, 255
+
+
+  Habsburg Dynasty, their work in Hungary, 21, 24, 43, 51, 52, 64, 66,
+        74, 115
+
+  Hajnik, Emericus. (Historian), 254
+
+  Haner. (Hungarian Author), 164
+
+  Heine compared to Petőfi, 177, 180
+
+  Heltai, Caspar. (Chronicler and Translator), 47, 48, 164
+
+  Hölty, the Hungarian—Dayka, 86
+
+  Horvát de Pázmánd, Andreas. (Poet), 129
+
+  Horváth, Ádám. (Poet), 82, 109
+
+  Horváth, Bishop Michael. (Historian), 252
+
+  Hugo, Charles. (Dramatist), 216
+
+  Hunfalvy, Paul. (Philologist), 36, 256
+
+  Hungarian bards, 40
+    constitution, 19, 21
+    language, its origin, 10, 34
+      its influence on native literature, 13
+      its capabilities, 15
+      made the official language, 25
+      agglutinative, 33
+      its characteristics, 34, 201, 245
+      cultivated by Protestants, 54
+      its decadence in the eighteenth century, 63
+      cultivated as national palladium, 77, 87
+      the labours of Kazinczy, 93
+      schools of philology, 97
+      foundation of the Hungarian Academy, 112
+      the Academy Dictionary, 112
+      Széchenyi’s work, 113
+      the vehicle of instruction, 114, 136
+      used in Parliament, 115
+      in Vörösmarty’s hands, 126
+      has no dialects, 201
+      the influence of Arany, 202
+    Literature of recent growth, 11
+      its extent, 11, 12
+      influenced by want of middle-class, 24, 30
+      its parallel in Hungarian music, 29
+      compared with French, 31
+      its originality impaired, 32
+      its four periods, 38
+      its most ancient products, 38
+      its epics and legends, 39
+      receives an impulse at the Reformation, 43
+      influenced by the Renascence, 43, 45
+      impeding causes at the Reformation, 45
+      controversial literature, 46
+      Magyar Bible published, 46
+      sixteenth century poets, 46, 49
+      the first drama, 46
+      early fiction, 47, 48
+      chronicles, 47
+      obstacles to progress in the seventeenth century, 51
+      produced by the nobles only, then, 53
+      controversial, 54
+      seventeenth century poets, 56
+      Kurucz poetry, 60
+      1711-1772, a period of decline, 63
+      reason of this decline, 64
+      poets, 67
+      historians, 68
+      revival of 1772, 70
+      causes of revival, 72
+      Magyar periodicals, 77, 88
+      the three “schools”, 79, 85
+      awakening individuality, 85
+      a patriotic bulwark against Austria, 87
+      Kazinczy’s work, 94
+      the romantic school, 100, 117
+      loses by patriotism of its exponents, 107
+      of slow growth, 1772-1825, 108
+      effect of want of literary centres, 109
+      hampered by political fetters, 110
+      brilliant revival, 1825-1850, 110
+      foundation of the Academy, 112
+      the “Kisfaludy Society”, 113
+      epics produced, 124
+      ballads, 131
+      want of effective criticism, 132
+      Bajza’s work, 134
+      reasons of late development of prose, 136
+      Petőfi’s pre-eminent work, 169
+      Hungary’s contribution to typical poetry, 185
+      literary criticism still crude, 192
+      rise of the drama in the nineteenth century, 207, 220
+      recent fiction, 226, 240
+      recent poetry, 245
+      folk-poems, 247
+      political works, 250
+      history, 252
+      historical societies, 254
+      history of, 254, 255
+    music, 10, 28, 29, 61, 103, 114, 231, 236
+      its influence on the nation, 30
+    pedigrees, 36, 254
+    wit, 237
+    writers in other languages, 11, 12, 68, 109, 250, 251
+
+  Hungarians establish themselves in Hungary, 18
+    their national character, 28, 147, 217
+      influenced by their music, 30
+
+  Hungary, its natural situation, 17
+    occupied by divers tribes, 17
+    the Hungarians establish themselves there, 18
+    her history resembles English history, 19
+    her constitution, 19, 153
+    preserves her liberties, 21
+    the Turks expelled, 22, 23
+    effect of their dominion, 22, 23
+    her want of a middle-class, 23, 30
+    her history in the eighteenth century, 24
+    rebellion against Austria, 26
+    incorporated with the Austrian Empire, 26
+    national reaction of 1860, 26
+    her present relations with Austria, 27
+    her _Parlature_ as compared with her literature, 31, 229
+    custom of speaking in several languages, 32
+    detached from the Eastern Church, 41
+    the Virgin, her patron saint, 41
+    the Reformation there, 43, 45, 46
+    the Renascence, 43-45
+    Universities in, 44, 52
+    schools, 52, 53, 63, 66
+    literature left to the nobles, 53
+    influence of the revolution, 72
+    character of its population, 72
+    abolition of serfdom and expansion of civic life, 73
+    dissolution of monasteries, 75
+    policy of Joseph II., 76
+    its effect in awaking Hungarian patriotism, 77
+    the national stage, 77
+    lacked literary centres, 109
+    the Academy supplies this want, 112
+    Pesth becomes a centre, 113
+    local learned societies spring up, 114
+    Parliament, the soul of its body-politic, 115
+    diversity of types of character, 118, 137
+    her need of an epic as an incitement, 123
+    character of the youth, 147
+    independence of local government, 150
+    the political training of her people, 153
+    her national heterogeneity, 159
+    the horse, the national animal, 176
+    the rebellion of 1848, 189
+    the Hungarian peasant, 195
+    has no _bourgeoisie_ proper, 197
+    transitional state of society, 1850-1860, 212
+    the national tendency to pathos, 217
+    its political strides since 1870, 220
+    the theatres in Budapest, 222
+    popularity of lyrical poems, 245
+
+  Huszár, Gál. (Poet), 46
+
+  Hutten, as an author, 45
+
+
+  Ibsen’s morbid psychology unknown in Csiky’s plays, 224
+
+  İlosvai, Peter. (Poet), 48
+
+  Improvisation unknown to Teutons and French, 229
+    in Hungarian, 229
+    its dangers in literature, 233
+
+  Imre, Alexander. (Literary Historian), 255
+
+  Istvánffy, Nicolas. (Hungarian Author), 164
+
+
+  Jakab, Ödön. (Folk-Novelist), 241
+
+  Jesuits in Hungary, 52
+    concerned in education, 52, 66
+
+  “Jingoism” in Hungary; its influence on literature, 209
+
+  Jókai, Maurus. (Novelist), 140
+    his reputation, 226
+    his character, 226
+    his power of work, 227
+    character of his work, 228
+    the Liszt of literature, 231
+    his life, 236
+
+  Jones, W. His “Magyar Folk-Tales”, 247
+
+  Joseph II. of Austria, 25, 73, 75, 77
+
+  Jósika, Nicolas. (Novelist), 44, 140, 228
+    character of his work, 144
+
+  Juhász, Peter. (Pope of the Magyar Calvinists), 46
+
+
+  Kalevala, the Finnish epic, 40
+
+  Kálmány, Lewis. His collection of Folk-Poetry, 247
+
+  Kármán, Joseph. (Novelist), 86
+
+  Károlyi, Caspar. (Translator of the Bible), 46
+
+  Károlyi, Count George, a founder of the Academy, 112
+
+  Katona. (Dramatist), 210
+
+  Katona. (Historian), 252
+
+  Kazár, Emil. (Novelist), 241
+
+  Kazinczy, Francis. (Translator and Critic), 93, 109
+    his influence and work, 94, 97
+
+  Kemény, Sigismund. (Novelist), 140, 157, 235
+    his Balzacian genius, 157, 158
+    his pessimism, 161
+    his erudition, 163
+    as an historian, 163, 164
+    his work as a novelist, 164, 166, 168
+    his journalistic work, 165
+
+  Kerékgyártó, Árpád. (Historian), 253
+
+  Kerényi, Frederick. (Poet), 135
+
+  Kertbény, K. M. (Literary Bibliographer), 254
+
+  Kis, John, founds Magyar Literary Society, 77
+
+  Kisfaludy, Alexander. (Poet), 101, 109
+
+  Kisfaludy, Charles. (Poet), 116, 121, 209, 212
+    his dramas, 116, 117
+
+  Kisfaludy Society, the, 113
+
+  Kiss, Joseph. (Poet), 245
+
+  Kiss, Stephen. His “Constitutional Law of Hungary”, 251
+
+  Klein, J. L. (The Historian of the Drama), a Hungarian, 12
+
+  Klopstock’s _Messias_, 123
+
+  Kohári, Count Stephen. (Poet), 58
+
+  Kölcsey, Francis. (Orator and Poet), 98, 104, 107, 121
+
+  Kolosváry, S. (Historian), 253
+
+  Komócsy, Joseph. (Poet), 245
+
+  Königsberg Fragment, the, 39
+
+  Kónyi, John. (Eighteenth Century Writer), 83
+
+  Kossúth, Lewis, 250
+
+  Krajner, Emericus. (Historian), 253
+
+  Kraus. (Hungarian Historian), 164
+
+  Kriza, John. His collection of Folk-Poetry, 247
+
+  Kropf, Lewis. His “Magyar Folk-Tales”, 247
+    (Historian), 253
+
+  Kubinyi, F. (Historian), 253
+
+  Kurucz Poetry, patriotic ditties, 60
+
+  Kúthy, Louis, 240
+
+
+  Laborfalvy, Rose. Hungarian actress, wife of M. Jókai, 222, 237
+
+  Ladányi, G. (Historian), 253
+
+  Lánczy, Julius. (Historian), 253
+
+  Language, its influence on literature, 14, 15, 136
+
+  Lányi, K. (Historian), 253
+
+  Latin used in Hungary, 12, 52, 63, 64, 66, 68, 109, 250
+
+  Lauka, Gustavus. (Novelist), 240
+
+  Lenau, Nicolaus. (Hungarian-German Author), 12
+
+  Lendvay. (Actor), 222
+
+  Lenkei, H. (Literary Critic), 255
+
+  Leopold II. of Austria, 25
+
+  Lessing, a genius both critical and creative, 93, 216
+
+  Lévay, Joseph. (Poet), 244
+
+  Lewis the Great, of Hungary, 44
+
+  Liberty affected by Reformation, 20
+
+  Listhy, Baron Ladislas. (Poet), 58
+
+  Lisznyay, Coloman. (Poet), 245
+
+  Liszt, Francis, 114, 128, 231, 236
+
+  Literature of a nation, as compared with its _parlature_, 31
+    influenced by language, 14
+    can only thrive in a republic of minds, 52
+    an urban growth, 72, 109
+    the influence of critical genius upon, 92
+    born of Greek parents, 96
+    universality of great writers, 107
+
+  Lugossy, Joseph. (Philologist), 255
+
+  Lucretius’ “_De rerum natura_” compared with Madách’s “Tragedy of
+        Man”, 219
+
+  Lustkandl. (Austrian Professor), 251
+
+  Luther, Martin, as an author, 45
+
+  Lytton’s novels, their popularity in Germany and Austria, 137
+
+
+  Madách, Emericus. (Poet), 217
+
+  Maeterlinck, his veiled pessimism, 168
+
+  Magyar, _see_ Hungarian
+
+  Majláth, Count John. (Historian), 252
+
+  Marczali, Henry. (Historian), 253
+
+  Margit, Saint, daughter of Béla IV., 42
+    her life extant, 42
+
+  Maria Theresa, her government of Hungary, 73, 75
+
+  Matthew Corvinus, King of Hungary, 43, 143
+
+  Metastasio’s influence on Csokonai, 89
+
+  Metres used in Hungarian Poetry, 50, 59, 78, 81, 84, 97, 101, 103,
+        104, 119, 130
+
+  Metternich, Prince, his work in Hungary, 25, 100
+
+  Middle Classes, a product of Feudalism, 24
+
+  Mikes, Clement, his “Letters”, 67
+
+  Mikó, Francis. (Hungarian Author), 164
+
+  Mikszáth, Coloman. (The Hungarian Bret Harte), 242
+
+  Mirandola, Pico della, 200
+
+  Molnár de Szencz, Albert. (Grammarian), 55
+
+  “Moralities,” Hungarian, 47
+
+  Music, _see_ Hungarian Music
+
+
+  Nagy, Alexander. (Historian), 253
+
+  Nagy, E., his “Constitutional Law of Hungary”, 251
+
+  Nagy, Emeric. (Poet), 135
+
+  Nagy, Francis. (Translator), 83
+
+  Nagy, Ignatius. (Novelist), 215, 240
+
+  Nagy de Bánka, Matthew. (Poetical Chronicler), 47
+
+  _Naïveté_, its origin and _locus_ in life and literature. None in
+        America, little in England, reasons, _ib._, 198
+
+  Naláczi, Joseph, (Poet), 80
+
+  Nature’s “Laws,” a convenient fiction, 170
+
+  Négyessy, L. (Author on Prosody), 255
+
+  Neo-Latin poets, the reason of their failure, 14
+
+  Novelists of Hungary, 137, 138, 140
+    popularity of foreign in Hungary, 137
+
+  Novels, Hungarian, their peculiarities, 139
+    reviews of individual works. (_See also_ Fiction), 141, 146, 149,
+        166, 237
+
+
+  Obernyik, Charles. (Dramatist), 215
+
+  Oláh, Nicholas. (Hungarian Author), 164
+
+  Orczy, Baron Lawrence. (Eighteenth century writer), 79
+
+  Ormós, Sigismond. (Historian), 253
+
+  Óváry, K. (Historian), 253
+
+
+  Pálffy, Albert. (Journalist and Novelist), 241
+
+  Pannonius, Janus, _see_ Cesinge, John
+
+  Pap, Andreas. (Poet), 135
+
+  Páriz-Pápai, Francis. (Lexicographer), 62
+
+  _Parlature_, as contrasted with Literature, 31, 229
+
+  Parliament, the soul of political life in Hungary and England, 115
+
+  Pathos, the Hungarian tendency to, 217
+
+  Pauler, Julius. (Historian), 253
+
+  Pázmány, Peter. (Cardinal and controversialist), 54
+
+  Peasantry of Hungary, 195, 213, 225
+
+  Pécs University, 44
+
+  Pessimism, the outcome of thought, 163
+
+  Pesth, suspension bridge connecting it with Buda, 127
+
+  Pesty, Frederick. (Historian), 254
+
+  Pesti, Gabriel. (Lexicographer and Translator), 47, 48
+
+  Péczeli, Joseph. (Translator), 80
+
+  Periodical literature in the eighteenth century, 77, 88
+    the periodical press in the nineteenth century, 113, 116, 134, 237
+
+  Petthő, Gregory. (Hungarian History), 164
+
+  Petőfi, Alexander, the greatness of his poetry, 169, 172
+    its spontaneity, 173
+    character of his work, 177, 181, 183, 190, 200, 233
+    his objectivity, 177, 183
+    his humour, 179
+    ill-judged comparisons with Burns and Béranger, 180
+    his patriotic poems distributed by Government, 183
+    appreciated in America, 185, 192
+    his poetry, the exponent of Hungarian nationality, 185
+    sketch of his life, 186
+    his growing European reputation, 192
+    compared with Arany, 195
+
+  Petrarch’s influence on Kisfaludy, 101
+
+  Petrik, Géza. (Bibliographer), 255
+
+  Petrőczi, Baroness Catherine S. (Poetess), 58
+
+  Platen compared to Berzsenyi, as writer of odes, 104
+
+  Podhorszky, his view of Magyar, 37
+
+  Poetry not inherent in Nature, but a human creation, 171
+    its greatness to be gauged by objective beauty, 184
+
+  Poetry and Poets of Hungary, sixteenth century, 47, 49
+    seventeenth century, 56
+    eighteenth century, 67, 79, 80, 84
+    nineteenth century, 116, 127, 129, 135, 169, 245
+
+  Poland, continuity of its liberties, 21
+
+  Pope’s influence on Csokonai, 89
+    European character of his work, 106
+
+  Porzó (Dr. Adolph Ágai), prince of feuilletonists, 237
+
+  Pozsony University, 44
+
+  Pray, G. (Historian), 252
+
+  Printing in Hungary, 44
+
+  Priscus, the Byzantine, records Magyar epics, 41
+
+  Prosody, _see_ Metres
+
+  Pulszky, Augustus. (Hungarian Jurist), 251
+
+  “Punch,” the Hungarian, 237
+
+  Pusztas the, of Hungary, 174
+    types of the dwellers there, 175
+    the Fata Morgana, 176
+
+  Pyrker, Ladislaus. (Hungarian-German Author), 12
+
+
+  Radákovics, Joseph, _see_ Vas, Gereben
+
+  Ráday, Count Gedeon. (Eighteenth century writer), 79
+
+  Radnai, R. (Art-historian), 255
+
+  Radvánszky, Béla. (Historian), 254
+
+  Rajnis, Joseph. (Poet), 80
+
+  _Rákóczy March_, the, 60
+
+  Rákóczy Francis, II., 23, 144
+
+  Rákosi, Eugene. (Dramatist), 221, 223
+
+  Ramler compared to Virág, 80
+
+  Ranzanus, Peter, at work in Hungary, 43
+
+  Realism inimical to art, 165
+
+  Reformation, the, in Hungary, 43, 45, 46
+
+  Reguly, Anton, his views on Magyar, 36
+
+  Reicherstorffer. (Hungarian Author), 164
+
+  Renascence, the, its influence in Hungary, 43, 45
+
+  Révai, Nicolas. (Philologist), 80, 97
+
+  Reviczky, Julius. (Poet), 245
+
+  Revivals in dead languages, a failure, 14
+
+  Revolutionary spirit in Europe, 70
+    Hungary, 72
+
+  Rhapsody in the music and poetry of Hungary, 185
+    its dangers, 233
+
+  Riehl, Wilhelm, his writings on continental peasantry, 196
+
+  Rimay de Rima, John. (Poet), 58
+
+  Romantic School, the, in England, France, and Germany, 100
+
+
+  “Sabbatarians,” their religious poetry, 55
+    in Transylvania, 167
+
+  Sajnovics, John. (Philologist, 1770), 36
+
+  Sárosy, Julius. (Poet), 135
+
+  Salomon, Francis. (Historian), 253
+
+  Sand, George, her popularity in Hungary, 137
+
+  Schesaeus. (Hungarian Historian), 164
+
+  Scott compared to Jósika, 144
+
+  Shakespeare better known in Austria than England, 107
+    his influence on Katona, 211
+
+  Shelley studied by Petőfi, 181
+
+  Simonyi, Sigismund. (Philologist), 35, 255
+
+  Sobieski, John, King of Poland, 22
+
+  Somogyi (Ambrosius). (Hungarian Author), 164
+
+  Sonnets first written by Kazinczy, 97
+
+  Stephen, Saint, King of Hungary, 18, 41
+
+  Sylvester, John, _see_ Erdősi
+
+  Szabó, Baróti David. (Poet), 80, 81
+
+  Szabó, Charles. (Historian), 253, 255
+
+  Szalárdi, John. (Chronicler), 62
+
+  Szalay, Ladislas. (Historian), 252
+
+  Szalóczy, Bertalan. (Folk-Novelist), 241
+
+  Szamosközy, Stephen. (Hungarian Historian), 164
+
+  Szana, T. (Literary Historian), 255
+
+  Szarvas, Gabriel. (Philologist), 256
+
+  Szász, Béla. (Poet), 245
+
+  Szász, Charles. (Poet). (The Hungarian Richard Garnett), _ib._, 244
+
+  Szathmáry, Charles. (Novelist), 241
+
+  Szatmáry, Joseph, _see his assumed name_, Szigligeti, Edward
+
+  Széchenyi, Count Stephen, 37, 250
+    his patriotism and political views, 111
+    a founder of the Academy of Science, 112
+    connects Buda and Pesth with a suspension bridge, 127
+
+  Székely, Alexander. (Preacher and Poet), 122
+
+  Székely, Joseph. (Poet), 245
+
+  Székely de Bencéd, Stephen. (Chronicler), 48
+
+  Szekér, Joachim. (Educationalist), 83
+
+  Szemere. (Joint Author of _Felelet_), 98
+
+  Szendrey, Juliet, wife of Petőfi, 188
+
+  Szigeti, Joseph. (Dramatist), 222
+
+  Szigligeti, Edward. (Dramatist), 211
+
+  Szilády’s Collection of Hungarian Poets, 39
+
+  Szilágyi, Alexander. (Historian), 253
+
+  Szinnyei, József. (Bibliographer), 255
+
+  Sztárai, Michael. (Dramatist), 47
+
+
+  Teleki, Count Joseph. (Historian), 99, 253
+    first President of the Academy, 112
+
+  Teleky, Count Ladislas. (Dramatist), 215
+
+  Temesváry, Stephen. (Poetical Chronicler), 47
+
+  Tennyson, not popular abroad, 139
+
+  Thackeray, not popular abroad, 139
+
+  Thallóczy, Lewis. (Historian), 253
+
+  Thaly, Coloman. (Historian), 253
+    his collection of Folk-poetry, 247
+
+  Tinódy, Sebastian, his “Chronicle”, 47, 164
+
+  Toldy, Francis. (Historian of Literature), 134, 254
+
+  Toldy, Stephen. (Dramatist), 222
+
+  Tolnai, Lewis. (Novelist and Poet), 241, 245
+
+  Tompa, Michael. (Poet), 206
+
+  Tóth, Andrew. (Poet), 245
+
+  Tóth, Coloman. (Poet), 245
+
+  Tóth, Edward. (Dramatist), 221, 224
+
+  Tóth de Ungvárnémet, Ladislas. (Poet), 105
+
+  Town life necessary to develop a literature, 72, 109
+
+  Translations from Magyar, 192, 238, 239, 242, 247
+    into Magyar, 47, 48, 55, 80, 81, 82, 83, 86, 94, 112, 128, 206, 244
+
+  Transylvania, her efforts for independence, 51
+    the home of patriotism, 140
+    her history in Kemény’s novels, 163
+
+  Turks driven out of Hungary, 22, 23, 56
+    effect of their dominion, 22, 23, 51
+
+
+  Ugoletus, Thaddeus, at work in Hungary, 44
+
+  Ugrian group of languages, 35
+
+  United States, its constitution, 152
+
+
+  Vachott, Alexander, 135
+
+  Vadna, Charles. (Novelist), 241
+
+  Vajda, John. (Dramatist and Poet), 222, 245
+
+  Vámbéry, Arminius. (Philologist), 36, 256
+
+  Várady, Anton. (Dramatist), 222
+
+  Varjas, John. (Versifier), 84
+
+  Vas, Gereben (Joseph Radákovics). (Humorist), 240
+
+  Vay, Baron Abraham, a founder of the Academy, 112
+
+  Verantius. (Hungarian Historian), 164
+
+  Verseghy, Francis. (Poet), 85, 98
+
+  Vértesi, Arnold. (Novelist), 241
+
+  Vienna, siege of, 1683, 22
+
+  Viennese, character, 87
+
+  Virág, Benedictus, 80
+
+  Virozsil, Professor. (Authority on Hungarian Constitutional Law), 251
+
+  Vitkovics, (Folk-Poet), 109
+
+  Vörösmarty, Michael, his character as a poet, 120, 127
+    his epic poem, 124
+    his power of language, 126, 127
+    his dramas, 127
+    contributor to the _Athenæum_, 134
+
+
+  Wertner. (Genealogist), 254
+
+  Wesselényi, Baron Nicolas. (Political Writer), 250
+
+  Wit of Hungary, 237
+
+  Wohl, Stephania. (Novelist), 241
+
+
+  Zalár, Joseph. (Poet), 245
+
+  Zichy, Count Peter. (Poet), 58
+
+  Zolnai, Julius. (Philologist), 255
+
+  Zrinyi, Count Michael. (Poet and Patriot), 56
+
+  “Zrinyiad,” the, 56
+    its national influence, 57
+
+  Zsámboky. (Hungarian Author), 164
+
+       _Jarrold and Sons, Printers, Norwich, Yarmouth, and London._
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75227 ***