Page:A history of Hungarian literature.djvu/105

Rh with the intellectual and political progress which marked the early part of the nineteenth century.

By the middle of the century, however, it was felt that the transformation of the language had gone too far, and a salutary reaction set in. Of course, the best poets had always been moderate in their employment of new words. John Arany, the most consummate artist in language, was strongly opposed to exaggeration. But the event which, more than any other, served to establish a reasonable mean, was the appearance of a philological periodical, the Magyar Nyelvőr.

Its editor, Gabriel Szarvas, was not only a most pro­found student of philology, but he was endowed with a kind of sure linguistic instinct, which guided him in his judgment as to what should be excluded and what would really prove of value to the language.

Gabriel Szarvas commenced his activity at the time when the great statesman, Francis Deák, was restoring the ancient Hungarian laws and constitution. What the statesman did for political laws, the philologist endea­voured to do for the laws of his native tongue. For this end he strove in his periodical, which became the chief organ of the reaction.

Francis Kazinczy, on the other hand, was a child of the eighteenth century, which was characterised by grand and bold ideas, but which lacked appreciation of lawful organisation or historical continuity. His ideas con­cerning language reform displayed the spirit of the time, the age of the French Revolution. The conviction that