He has been reproached with want of nationality; the fact being, that in the circles where he has drawn many of his subjects little nationality exists; the higher ranks in all countries being moulded much in the same form, acted upon by the same impulses, and presenting few distinguishing characteristics to contrast them with others, who, like themselves, are at ease in their possessions." Charles Kisfaludy was born at Tet in 1790. He became a soldier too. In 1819 his Tatárok (the Tartars) was represented, and received with loud enthusiasm. His Ilka was not less fortunate. His productions followed one another very rapidly; Stibor, a drama in four acts, was written in ten days, and several others even in a shorter space of time. He was one of the founders of the "Aurora," which he has enriched with a great variety of compositions.

LIFE AND FANCY.

Dark-vested spirits
Hidden in vapours,
Point out and fashion
Man's gloomy journey;
Thro' his life's myst'ries
Heartless and silent,
Over his path-way
Sharp thorns they scatter,
And with cold
grasp
They fling the poor mortal
In the rough ocean
Of time's vast desert.
Loud-foaming billows,
Stormy winds struggling,
Whelming and whirling
Life's little bark;
Now on the wave-top
Flung in their fury,
Up to the clouds;
Now on abysses
Yawning destruction,
Deep as the grave:
Fearful the struggle-
With furies unbridled,
Wresting and wrestling
In the fierce storm.
Now with swoln bosom
Drives he for land,
Out of the darkness
Dawning-but distant,
Hope with her smiles

Looks from the strand.
Lo! an Aurora,
Promising beauty,

Pours out bright dew-drops
Fluttering with bliss;
Nay! granite mountains,
Spurn back the ocean :
Warm is the contest-
Back with the waves-
And they roll fiercer,
While with strong passion
Stronger and stronger
Strives the poor swimmer;
One drop of water,
Fresh, pure, and sparkling,
One-and one only,
Vainly to reach.

Serpents cling round him,
Laughing like demons
Most when he writhes;
Doubts dreary tempests
Ráttle above him.

Chase the sweet dreamings
Justice and virtue
Waked in the frozen
Shrines of his soul.
Wild he looks round
On the desolate world.
Shadows attend him
Beckoning and trembling,
Mists, glooms, and terrors

Flit o'er the waste.

One ray of lightning
Now and then brightning
O'er his griefs gloom;
When his eyes weeping
In the vast void
Sees hope-directed-
The tomb.

Light is descending,
See from the clouds,
Dovelets attending,
A goddess appears!
Waked by her glances,
Beautiful spirits
Flit in their transports
Through the gay scene;
Dew-drops of heaven
Shine in her eyes,
Seraphs of brightness
Bend from the skies,
And Edens of bliss
Out of deserts arise.
The winds sport together,
In gentleness blending
O'er flower-sprinkled fields
Their cups full of honey,
Their lips of perfume,
They dream of delight;
All nature is laughing,

And e'en the grave's height
Has its bloom.
Man waxes divine,
And is wafted above;
In spring and in beauty,
In brightness and virtue,
He clasps to his bosom
Young nature—in love.
He feels that his lot
Is immortal; the fire
Of the Godhead within him
Is burning-still burning,
And thought ever turning
To prospects eternal,
Eternal desire.

His dust may not waken
Till heavenly breath
Has melted the fetters
Of darkness and death.
He lies on the border,
Faint-helpless-till fancy,
That sweet mate of reason
Hath broken his fetters,
And led him to light.
And still let her flight
Be unbridled-beyond
The precincts of vision,
Her glories still weaving
In beauty and light.

But Vörösmarty has produced the great sensation, and was, from the appearance of his first elaborate poem, recognized as the Epic poet of the Magyars. Other bards had only pointed at the elevation to which he suddenly sprung; where he seems to have established a cheerfully-admitted supremacy. Döbrentei had preceded with his Victory of Kenyérmezei, which is a prose epos in the Ossianic style; and Székely had not been. unsuccessful in one or two similar attempts. But Czuczor's Battle of Augsburg* (the work of a youth of two-and-twenty) though sometimes swelling into that bombast which is the primal sin of boyish genius, yet concurred with the almost contemporaneous appearance of Vörösmarty's works, to give the Hungarians epics of which they might be proud; while the second flight of Czuczor (Arads Diet+) was undoubtedly higher and happier than the first: its characters are drawn truly and powerfully-his imagery is inventive and appropriate. Vörös+ Aradi gyülés.

* Augsburgi ütközet.

marty, however, has greater variety, and a more delicate poetic touch. His orations rise with less effort, and exhibit themselves in greater power. His female characters especially, are beautifully conceived, and correctly developed. Toldy successfully defends him in choosing the hexameter, since the rhymepoverty of the Magyar would have greatly embarrassed him had he chosen the Tasso-stanzas. His whole spirit is national, and in the management of such an instrument as the hexameter he is free and flowing-enabled to put forth all his strength, and to display all the various characteristics of his native tongue. In truth, of all living languages, the Magyar is best fitted for the revival of the Classical Prosody.

Vörösmarty was born in 1800, at Nyék. In his thirteenth year he wrote Latin verses; in his fourteenth he had written Magyar Hexameters. He studied Shakspeare in early youth; but it was only in 1825 that public attention was much awakened to him, by the publication of his Zalán. Since then, his literary career has been a series of triumphs. His ballad of the "Lovely Maid" is much admired; and it is here given, on account of the difficulty of extracting any passage from his Epics which would give a correct idea of the character of his poetry.

Ho, vagy hab, vagy csillag sémlek,

Is't snow, or star, or wavelet,

In the valley's depth that plays?
"Tis neither-but a meteor

That sparkles-that betrays.
Neither snow, nor star, nor wavelet,
Is crown'd with ringlet hair r;
But a maiden crown'd with ringlets,
Bathes in the streamlet there.

With grace beyond expression
She bows her lovely head,
Her hand holds up a flow'ret,
By those sweet waters fed.

The wind is whispering secrets
Into that maiden's ear,

The branches trembling round her,
Seem all attracted near.

How swiftly would I bend me,

Were I but one of these,

How fondly would I kiss her,

Were I a heavenly breeze.

Around her beauteous members,
Delighted fishes play;
The rivulet hush'd to silence,
Long tarries on its way.
Still longer should I tarry,
Were I that silent stream;
But midst those fish to revel,
Would be the bliss supreme.
Ne'er would I leave those waters,
Where tread that maiden's feet,
But kiss and kiss untiring,
And die in bliss so sweet.

But how! my eyes deceive me;
This dream-tho' bright it be-
Is but a mortal likeness,

Of one less fair than she.

As in her beauteous shadow,
All earthly beauties fade;
So fades the maid's fair shadow,
Before the fairer maid.

'Twas but a feeble picture,
"Twas but a shadow rude,
That playing in the wavelets,
In maiden beauty stood.

Far lovelier in her sorrow,

On the ocean strand afar,
She stood of love-and feeling
The more than magic-star.

Of popular poetry, the Hungarians have nothing of a very remote antiquity, except a few fragments, in which some historical traditions have been preserved. But of modern songs of the people, many are given by Toldy, and a large collection has been sent to Dr. Bowring, made with infinite zeal and kindness, by a long list of Hungarian and Transylvanian noblemen. The orientalism of story-telling exists in all its vigour among the Magyars; and as count Mailath reports, "Not, as in other lands at the spinning-wheel, and in the nursery alone, but in the porch of the cottage-by the watch-fire, and in the fieldsin nightly waking and in daily toils, do they relate the tales of old. The hero is usually a student, a soldier, or a king's son ; he has for his friend a magic steed, yclept Tatos, his counsellor and preserver. He has to contend with a many-headed dragon, and passes through manifold and marvellous perils." This is the general outline; but the details are exceedingly various.

ART. IV. The Last of the Plantagenets, an Historical Romance, illustrating some of the public Events, and domestic und ecclesiastical Manners, of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. 8vo. pp. 464. THERE is somewhat embarrassing in the title of this volume. "An Historical Romance" sounds like "a true fiction."It is to be taken as an attempt to blend what once was, with what never was; and this is rather a difficult undertaking. It is a perilous thing for the novelist to venture into remote time. If the hero be a creation of his brain, and the design be unconnected with historical events; if he merely lay the scene in a particular period, and draw on our annals only to fill up the picture in costume and manners, the excellence of the performance will chiefly depend on the merit of the plot, and the interest which may be excited in the reader. But, when the hero is himself a person who really existed, when all with whom he is as-sociated are distinguished as sovereigns, statesmen, or eminent nobles of our country, and when historical facts are interwoven with pure invention, the work must be judged by a very different, and a severer test.

The title would imply, that the facts on which this volume are founded are "Historical," and consequently true; and that the incidents illustrate the events and manners of the times in which those facts are presumed to have occurred. Tried by this criterion it certainly is not what it professes; for notwithstanding many of the individuals who form the dramatis persona undoubtedly existed, and though many of them filled the stations here attributed to them, yet all the circumstances concerning the hero after the death of Richard the Third, are not only gratuitous, but it is highly improbable, if not impossible, that many of them could have occurred to him, or to any other man, in the situation in which he is presumed to have been placed, in the fifteenth or sixteenth century.

Although it would be absurd to insist upon strict historical accuracy even in an Historical Romance, still there are bounds which ought not to be passed: these bounds are, that facts be not grossly violated in the identity and more important events in the career of the hero of the story; that every thing which either he, or the subordinate persons are stated to have done or said, be such as those acquainted with the state of society at the time, can suppose to have taken place; and whatever may be the deviation in trifles, yet that there should be that general verisimilitude which would induce us to forget that we are reading a fictitious narrative. If this be true with respect to every work which pretends to be taken from History, it is indispensa