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 ALEXANDER KISFALUDY 109 once the forrner "dassic " poets seemed cold and lifeless. There was such an · overpoweri ng, s ou thern warmth, the tru e Provenal atmasphere in these son gs. It was not only a small circle of literary men that took an interest in the book. The wh ole population hailed it with enthu­ siasm. The character of the songs, which Kazinczy called "lyri cal epigrams," is shown by the follawing verse : • In the blue horizon 's beaming, Thee, sweet maid l alone I see ; In the silver wavelets streaming, Thee, sweet maiden l only thee. Thee, in day's resplendent noonlig/Jt, Glancing from the sun afar ; Thee, in midnight's softer moonlight ; Thee, in every trembling star. Wheresoe'er I go, I meet thee : Wheresoe'er I stay, I greet thee ; Following always-everywhere : Cruel maiden l O, forbear l The first part of the book was entitled Yea rning Lot•e, the second Blissful Love. The se cond part did not win so m uch appreciation as t he fi rst, nor did it, perhaps, deserve it. Himfy had then married Liza, and as 11 Himfy " is practicany a pseudonym for K isfaludy, it means that th e poet bimself had married, and happy married love was not so moving a subject as the sorrows of th e hopeless lover. In Kisfaludy's time a new tendency man ifested itself in the selection o f Iiterary themes. Voltaire and his con­ temp oraries had regarded the Middle Ages with contempt as a dark age of superstition and intellectual slavery, the very memory of which ought to be blotted out (écrasez l'injtime). And yet, two or three decades after the deat h o f Voltair e, the Middle Ages became almost fashionable.
 * BoWRING, " Poetry of the Magyars."