Page:Poetry of the Magyars.djvu/12

vi the claim to a candid, to a forbearing judgment, is stronger than I have ever before had to urge.

The Magyar language stands afar off and alone. The study of other tongues will be found of exceedingly little use towards its right understanding. It is moulded in a form essentially its own, and its construction and composition may be safely referred to an epoch when most of the living tongues of Europe either had no existence, or no influence on the Hungarian region.

Distance, too, has made the mission of books, and even the communication of ideas, tardy, uncertain, and expensive. Many valuable documents have been lost, or have lingered beyond the period when I could employ them usefully. One delay becomes