CHAPTER XI.
1711-1772.
In poetry proper, it is for the present period customary, but scarcely necessary, to mention the Jesuit Francis Faludi (1704-1779), who has put some wise saws and moral platitudes into light verse; and Baron Ladislas Amadé (1703-1764), whose not unmelodious lyrics were sufficient to give the successful courtier a mild reputation as an interesting poet. In dramatic poetry there is nothing worth mentioning. The Jesuits occasionally had their pupils play a patriotic or religious drama made ad hoc, and good pro tunc. Of prose-writers there is one, and one only, whose “Letters” written from Turkey, where he was in exile, have abiding literary value. This was Clement Mikes (1690-1761), who was brought up by Prince Rákóczy, to whom he proved constant under all circumstances, and for this reason Mikes still belongs to the generation of Hungarian nobles who cultivated their language with the pride of true patriots. The “Letters” are not only full of historic interest, especially with regard to the interior condition of the then still mighty Turkish empire, but also as specimens of pure, idiomatic and well-balanced Hungarian prose.
The remarkable works in History, Theology or Science of that period were, as noticed, written in Latin. Of learned works written in Hungarian the two best were by men who had spent their youth in the preceding century, and were thus less afflicted with the gangrene of the decadence of the period from 1711 to 1772; Michael Cserei (1668-1756), and Peter Apor (1676-1752), both of very great nobility. Cserei wrote a “Transylvanian History” (“Erdélyi Historia”), in which the events from 1661 to 1711 are told in a lively, naïve and pleasing style. Apor is the author of a remarkable work on the history of the manners, customs, and institutions of ancient Transylvania. It is entitled “Metamorphosis Transylvaniae,” and its object is to show, by contrast, how low the country had sunk from its former glory. His satire is not infrequently both scathing and well-expressed.
The bent for erudite laboriousness gave rise to several works on the history of Hungarian Literature. The still-life of the small town of Bártfa in the county of Sáros must have hung heavily on the hands of David Czwittinger, one of the lawyers of that town, who published, in 1711, a dry list of Hungarian writers, in alphabetical order. He was distanced by the indefatigable and patriotic Peter Bod (1712-1769), who had, like so many Protestants, spent several years at Dutch universities, where he amassed much polyhistoric knowledge and a good library. There, no doubt, he also acquired the taste for literary history, and in his “Hungarian Athenæum” (“Magyar Athénás”, 1766) he collected much material bearing on the lives and works of no less than six hundred Hungarian authors. In Law or Philosophy there appeared, during this period, no work in Hungarian claiming our attention.