ALEXANDER KISFALUDY 109 once the forrner "dassic " poets seemed cold and lifeless. There was such an · overpoweri ng, s ou thern warmth, the tru e Provenal atmasphere in these son gs . It was not only a small circle of literary men that took an interest in the book. The wh ole population hailed it with enthu siasm. The character of the songs, which Kazinczy called "lyri cal epigrams," is shown by the follawing verse : • In the blue horizon 's beaming, Thee, sweet maid l alone I see ; In the silver wavelets streaming, Thee, sweet maiden l only thee. Thee, in day's resplendent noonlig/Jt, Glancing from the sun afar ; Thee, in midnight's softer moonlight ; Thee, in every trembling star. Wheresoe'er I go, I meet thee : Wheresoe'er I stay, I greet thee ; Following always-everywhere : Cruel maiden l O, forbear l The first part of the book was entitled Yea rning Lot•e, the second Blissful Love. The se cond part did not win so m uch appreciation as t he fi rst, nor did it, perhaps, deserve it. Himfy had then married Liza, and as 11 Himfy " is practicany a pseudonym for K isfaludy, it means that th e poet bimself had married, and happy married love was not so moving a subject as the sorrows of th e hopeless lover. In Kisfaludy's time a new tendency man ifested itself in the selection o f Iiterary themes. Voltaire and his con temp oraries had regarded the Middle Ages with contempt as a dark age of superstition and intellectual slavery, the very memory of which ought to be blotted out (écrasez l'injtime). And yet, two or three decades after the deat h o f Voltair e, the Middle Ages became almost fashionable.
- BoWRING, " Poetry of the Magyars."
