Page:Poetry of the Magyars.djvu/25



a long period of inertness and almost of oblivion, the language and literature of Hungary seem starting into a new and vigorous existence. A band of distinguished writers have appeared with the present generation, whose privilege it has been at once to will and to effect the regeneration of their native idiom, which had been sinking under the indifference of some and the attacks of others. Its history has been marked by many vicissitudes. Originating in an age too remote to be defined or even discovered, and receiving from time to time infusions from the various tribes and tongues who have visited or been visited by the Magyar race, it has yet retained all its essential peculiarities, and offers to the inquirer some of the most curious topics of research. Space, however, will allow nothing here but a b2