Page:Poetry of the Magyars.djvu/66

xliv the hero, which had a brilliant but a short-enduring fame. His collection of Transdanubian Popular Songs, is interesting and valuable. His Plays are scarcely worth notice. He wrote with wonderful ease, sometimes producing a hundred strophes in a day. But to write fast and to write well are not the same thing; and the offer which he once made to write a drama per week, is a poor credential for his reputation. He was rash in his judgments, though honest in his purposes; condemned the literature of other countries, because he did not understand it; and, like too many critics, imagined that censure and snarling were wisdom and wit. He began an Encyclopedia, which was a great desideratum for his country. Spite of his weaknesses, he was beloved and honored, and died in 1820, having obtained the office of District Judge and Curator of the Reformed Church.

lived at a period when the policy of the Austrian Emperor, in attempting to root out the national tongue of the Magyars, aroused a body of patriotic opposers. His national romances greatly aided the popular feeling―but his higher flights are all failures. He was born in 1740, at Szegedin, and was received ns a priest among the Transylvanian Piarists. Dwelling amidst the