Page:Poetry of the Magyars.djvu/97

Rh entered on dangerous ground when he determined to try his fortune as an epic poet. He had several living rivals; among them Czuczor and Horvát, who had published some specimens of his Árpád. But Vörösmarty was not a man of an every-day stamp. His rich and powerful fancy has always been sufficient to his highest intellectual conceptions. Not that he has formed on all occasions a correct estimate of his own powers. His mind is not fitted for dramatic groupings. He is a master of description, not of action. No fault can be found with the poetry of his dramas; but unless the doings of the stage are as interesting as the sayings, there is no redemption for the work. Vörösmarty's dramas are failures. As an epic poet, however, Vörösmarty is really great. Schedel speaks of the inexhaustible opulence of Vörösmarty's imagination, the infinite versatility of its creations, the marvellously varied shades of thought and feeling for which he has found expression, and especially of the felicitous sketches and personifications of woman which decorate his pages. His Hexameters are beautiful, and truly national. In