Page:Poetry of the Magyars.djvu/92

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INTRODUCTION.

dies at Eger, in his twenty-sixth year, he was made an Assessor at Borsod. In his early writings he appears to have made Faludi and Ányos his models; but Kázinczy obtained afterwards great influence on his mind. The presence of a number of French officers, prisoners of war, at Eger, induced him to attend particularly to the literature of their country. Szentmiklóssy's writings have not, I believe, been collected into volumes, but are spread through the different periodicals of Hungary.

Kölcsey introduced the Ballad into the Hungarian literature.—His elegiac powers are great. His remarks on his contemporaries have been salutary, though sometimes severe. He was the Editor of Élet és Litteratúra (Life and Literature), a periodical of high reputation. His own writings are warm and vigorous. Born at Szö́ Demeter, in Transylvania, he studied at Debreczen, obtained honor as a classical scholar, and mastered the literature of France and Germany. In his nineteenth year he became a Jurat at Pest, and there formed that intimate alliance with Horvát, Vitkovics, and Szemere, which afterwards exercised so important an influence on Magyar criticism. His first productions appeared in the Dámák' Kalendárioma (Ladies' Calendar), and the