Page:Poetry of the Magyars.djvu/90

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INTRODUCTION.

ligence that this interesting poet has erased to be. He died on the 9th of September, 1829. He was a Servian by birth, and wrote his native and his adopted language with equal purity. His tones are easy, graceful, and airy, and he introduced into Hungary those strains of popular song which are so diffused among the Slavonian nations. Eger (Eylau) was his birth-place, and there was he educated. Having been chastised as a boy for the offence of verse-making, he clung to the art the more closely when he grew to be a man. Professor Pápay gave him the first instructions as to the composition of Magyar poetry. His Address to Horvát, and more especially his Fables and Poems, (Meséji és versei: Pest, 1817,) were welcomed with high praise. His writings are scattered over the fugitive Hungarian papers of the present century.

Fay is a sharp and sparkling writer, from whose pen mirth and laughter are constantly gushing forth. He was born in 1786, at Kohány, and was just that eager and sprightly youth who might be expected to become the lively and witty man. Having studied at Sárospatak and Poson, he became a judge in the Pest district, where he dwells. In 1807 he published a collection of his fables and poems (Bokréta), of which many were