He was Bacsanyi's fellow-labourer in the Magyar Museum. His works were gathered together in 1791, and published under the title of Költeményes Munkáji, (Poetical Works); and on occasion of the coronation of Francis I. appeared his drama in three acts, Mátyás Király vagy a' nép szeretete jámbor fejedelmek' jutalma (King Matthew ― a People's Love the Recompense of a good Prince. Buda, 1792). His lyrics want the polish of critical thought, but contain the germs of fine conceptions.
Dayka was overpraised—as all poets are who die in their youth; sympathy for their early loss is a basis on which biography often builds up a false reputation. Dayka has, however, much merit, though be studied apparently in the artificial school of the French—a school growing out of a poor and unpoetical language, requiring a machinery of frigid rules of construction to elevate it above ordinary prose, from which, in fact, little French poetry is distinguishable, except by the clinquant of the rhyme. Correctness and elegance cannot be denied to Dayka, and his Anacreontic verses are airy and agreeable. He was the son of a laboring tailor, and his talents and good qualities having won the affections of two Cisterian monks of Eger, they gave him a gra-
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