Page:A history of Hungarian literature.djvu/73

 VI

COUNT NICHOLAS ZRINYI

the year 1626, a young nobleman, at the point of death, was carried into the castle of Archbishop Pázmány, in Pozsony. The dying man was Count George Zrinyi, Commander of the Hungarian army, the King's favourite, the finest soldier of his time, and also the best hunter. It was commonly said of him that he could bring down the game with his lance while riding. He was now brought to his friend Pázmány, who had some years before reconverted him and his family to the Catholic faith. Some said it was the plague that killed him, but certain vague rumours were whispered abroad, that he had been poisoned. Wallenstein, the commander-in-chief of the Imperial army during the Thirty Years War, wished, it was said, to get rid of so formidable a rival, and had the radishes poisoned which he offered to his guest at dinner.

Count George Zrinyi was the bead of the most distinguished family among the aristocracy. His grandfather, the famous Count Nicholas Zrinyi, died a glorious, self-sacrificing death, during the defence of Szigetvár, which he had held with a handful of men against the army of Soliman, innumerable as the sand on the sea-shore. Count George Zrinyi had two little sons, Nicholas and Peter, and the dying