settled between the Don and the Dneiper. They possessed
from remote antiquity a national heroic poetry, the favourite subject
of which was their migration and conquests under the Seven Leaders.
They laid claim to Attila as being of their nation, and many of their
most warlike songs recounted his deeds and those of the other Gothic
heroes. The Magyars have never taken kindly to foreign influence, and
when, in the fifteenth century, Mathias Corvin tried to bring Italian
influence to bear on them, the result was a decline in literature, and
neglect of the old poems and legends. During the Turkish invasions the
last remnants of the national songs and traditions disappeared; and
under the Austrian rule the Hungarians have become decidedly Germanized.

Within the past century Kisfalud has sought to restore the national
legends of his country, and a new impetus has been given to the
restoration and preservation of the Hungarian language and literature.

GOTHIC.

Gothic poems were sung in the time of Attila; but the Gothic language
and monuments have everywhere perished except in Spain, where the
Spanish Monarchs are anxious to trace their descent from the Gothic
Kings. Attila, Odoascar, Theodoric, and the Amali, with other heroes,
Frankish and Burgundian, all appear in these old poems. The German
songs that Charlemagne had collected and put in writing are undoubtedly
the outcome of these ancient Gothic poems of the first Christian era.
Their substance is found in the Nibelungen-lied and the Heldenbuch.

As in the legends of Troy and Iceland, so also in the Nibelungen-lied,
the story centres on a young hero glowing with beauty and victory, and
possessed of loftiness of character; but who meets with an early and
untimely death. Such is Baldur the Beautiful of Iceland, and such,
also, are Hector and Achilles of Troy. These songs mark the greatness
and the waning of the heroic world In the Nibelungen-lied the final
event is a great calamity that is akin to a half historical event of
the North. Odin descends to the nether world to consult Hela; but she,
like the sphinx of Thebes, will not reply save in an enigma, which
enigma is to entail terrible tragedies, and lead to destruction the
young hero who is the prey of the gods.

In this we can trace a similarity to the life's history and death of
Christ. In the Middle Ages a passionate love of poetry developed in the
Teutonic race, and caused them to embody Christianity in ver