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HUNGARY (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE) Ah de risz&ly maradott a" nepek' Mkfin: a" fold Alas, but discord remained the nations' souls-in : the land linMoggA nan tud lennl as fitak alatt happy-made not knows (can) be the curse under. (Vorosmarty.) This language is spoken by more than one third of the population of Hungary in its wider sense, by more than one fourth of that of Transylvania, and in some places of Moldavia, Yv'allachia, and Bukowina. It consists of four tlialects, which do not differ so much as -those of other tongues, viz. : the Gyori, of Raab, or T rans-Danubian, and the Bihari on the Theiss, both represented in books ; the Palocz in the Matra mountains, in the contiguous districts of the counties of Heves, Borsod, Gomor, llont, and Nograd, with more genuine ancient Magyar words than the preceding ; and the SzGkely in Transylvania and the contiguous countries, with many Tartaric words, and of a drawling pronunciation. The language has varied very little in progress of time. HUN- GABIAN LITERATURE is comparatively of late date. The introduction of the religion of Rome under King Stephen I. (997-1038) made the Latin, the language of its priests and teachers, predominant in the court, the higher institutions for education, administration, and justice, and among the higher classes iu gen- eral, who found it the most convenient medium for communication with the representatives of the cultivated West and South in diplomacy, literature, or religion. Of the time of the Arpads and the next following period only Latin chronicles are preserved, of which those of the "Anonymous Secretary of King Bela" (II.) and Simon K6za, the Chronicon Sudense, and the Chronicon Serum Hungaricarum of John Tur6czy (Thurocius), are the most re- markable. The court of Matthias Corvinus (1458-'90) at Buda was adorned by distin- guished native and foreign scholars. Of the latter, Bonflnus wrote an interesting though often legendary history of Hungary in De- cades IV., which was published with a con- tinuation by Sambucus (Basel, 1568). Galeo- tus wrote on Matthias himself, whose libra- rian he was, and Callimachus on Attila and Uladislas I. Among the natives the poet Ja- nus Pannonius holds the foremost rank. The preserved remnants of Hungarian writings of that period are very scanty. The spread of the reformation in the following century, as in most countries of Europe, promoted' the culture of the native tongue. But the simul- taneous disasters of the country, the Turk- ish and civil wars, and chiefly the introduc- tion of the German eleinent with the dynasty of the Hapsburgs, checked the development of a flourishing national literature. Parts of the Scriptures were translated into Hunga- rian during the 16th century by Komjati, Erdosi, Heltai, Szekely, Jnhasz, Karolyi, 'and others. Gal, Juhiisz, Kulcsar, Telegdi, Decsi, and Karolyi distinguished themselves as ora- tors. Tinodi, Valkai, and Tc-mcsvari sang the warlike exploits of their times in light verses, Kakonyi the deeds of Cyrus, Csaktornyi the heroes of the siege of Troy; Balassa, Kirnai, and Erdosi composed lyrical poems of incom- parably higher merit. In the 17th century the Hungarian muse found votaries in Zrinyi, the grandson of the defender of Sziget, who cele- brated in rhymed alexandrines the deeds and death of that hero, in Liszti, Pasko, and Ko- hary, and especially in Gyongyosi, who sang the defence of Murany by Maria Szecsi. Molnar and Kaldi translated the Scriptures; the primate and cardinal Pazman and Kecskem6ti were distinguished as orators ; Csere even published a cyclopedia of sciences and a treatise on logic in Hungarian. This national movement in literature was paralyzed by the growing in- fluence of the German dynasty ; the bloody persecutions of the patriots under Leopold I. (1657-1705) suppressed it almost entirely. The Latin again became predominant, being cultiva- ted in the 18th century by a large number of scholars in every branch, who vied with each other in the purity of their dead idiom, and compared with whom the Magyar writers Fa- ludi and Bessenyei, the founders of a classical and a French school in poetry, Orczy, Count Teleky, Bar6czi, Revay, and others, formed but a feeble minority. A new and fertile pe- riod began about the close of the last century, chiefly in consequence of the Germanizing mea- sures of Joseph II. (1780-'90), which caused a lively and general reaction. Societies for the cultivation of the national tongue were formed, literary, political, and scientific peri- odicals started, national theatres established, and various linguistic theories developed. This movement, being identical with the general regeneration of the nation, triumphed over all foreign elements after the first quarter of the present century, about the beginning of which Francis Kazinczy, the great reformer of the language after Revay, and the popular poet Csokonai, appear as the foremost in liter- ature. The poets Dayka, Verseghy, and Vi- rag, and the novelist Dugonics, were their con- temporaries. The lyrical " Loves of Himfy " (Himfy sierelmei), by Alexander Kisfaludy (1801), were received with general admira- tion, and were followed by his " Tales " (Itec/ek) and other poems. Berzsenyi wrote glowing odes in Roman metre. The poets Andrew Horvath, Dobrentei, Vitkovics, Kis, and Paul Szemere, belong both to the period of regener- ation and to the golden age of Hungarian liter- ature, which embraces the 30 years preceding the revolution of 1848-'9. This period opens with the simultaneous activity of five classical writers, Charles Kisfaludy, the brother of Alex- ander, Kolcsey, Fay, Czuczor, and Vorosmarty, of whom only the last three survived it. Kis- faludy may be regarded as the creator of the Hungarian drama by his tragedies, and still more by his really national comedies, some of which are as yet unsurpassed. Kolcsey's lyri- cal poems, ballads, and prose writings, inclu-