Page:Poetry of the Magyars.djvu/55

Rh for the Greek and Roman measures, seems to have continued unobserved for nearly two centuries longer.

appeared at a period which several nations are disposed to claim as the golden age of their literature. He was born in the year in which Shakspeare and Cervantes died—the proud era of Italy, England, Spain, and Portugal. Zrinyi is, however, the founder of the modern poetry of the Magyars. In 1651, appeared his Zriniad, an epic poem, the produce of those hours which military and civil service left him in his busy existence. His verses, consisting of four lines of twelve syllables, with a common rhyme, have given a name to this peculiar stanza. Little can be said in favor of his language, style, or versification. They are careless and incorrect, and his battle descriptions are tedious indeed. Yet are his conceptions bold and strong. His portraits are well drawn, and his groupings happy. His facility of writing led him astray; yet, withal, he is undoubtedly far above any poet that had preceded him, or any that followed, for a century at least. In some of his shorter poems there is evidence of a playful and busy fancy. He was the representative of a family of great antiquity, and was the son of that Ban of Croatia, who was d