Neath the Hoof of the Tartar; Or, The Scourge of God

'NEATH THE HOOF OF THE TARTAR
BY BARON NICOLAS JÓSIKA
Abridged from the Hungarian by SELINA GAYE WITH PREFACE BY R. NISBET BAIN
And Photogravure Portrait of the Author

Jósika further offended his noble kinsmen by devoting himself to literature. It may seem a paradox to say so, yet it is perfectly true, that in the early part of the present century, with some very few honourable exceptions, the upper classes in Hungary addressed only their servants in Hungarian. Latin was the official language of the Diet, while polite circles conversed in barbarous French. These were the days when, as Jókai has reminded us, the greatest insult you could offer to an Hungarian lady was to address her in her native tongue. It required some courage, therefore, in the young Baron to break away from the feudal traditions of his privileged caste and use the plebeian Magyar dialect as a literary vehicle. His first published book, Abafi (1836), an historical romance written under the direct influence of Sir Walter Scott, whom Jósika notoriously took for his model, made a great stir in the literary world of Hungary. Hats off, gentlemen, was how Szontagh, the editor of the Figyelmezö , the leading Hungarian newspaper of the day, began his review of this noble romance. Jósika was over forty when he first seriously began to write, but the grace and elegance of his style, the maturity of his judgment, the skilfulness of his characterization—all pointed to a long apprenticeship in letters. Absolute originality cannot indeed be claimed for him. Unlike Jókai, he owed very much to his contemporaries. He began as an imitator of Scott, as we have seen, and he was to end as an imitator of Dickens, as we shall see presently. But he was no slavish copyist. He gave nearly as much as he took. Moreover, he was the first to naturalize the historical romance in Hungary, and if, as a novelist, he is inferior to Walter Scott, he is inferior to him alone.
In Hungary, at any rate, his rare merits were instantly recognised and rewarded.