tury had struck terror
into the hearts of the Ottomans, had disappeared; the weak princes
that ruled after them perished among the carnage of battle, to leave
the crown of St. Stephen vacant, and to open a way for the Hapsburgs
to the Hungarian throne. At this juncture, coinciding with the great
religious movement in Germany, which was rapidly spreading to the
banks of the Theiss, the position of Hungary became more desperate
than ever, although the events that followed far surpassed the
gloomiest anticipations. While the majority of the people chose a
native for their king, a part of the aristocracy declared for
Ferdinand of Austria. The rival kings, unable to vanquish each other,
called in to their aid the two most powerful monarchs of Europe. The
former invoked the assistance of Solyman the Great; Ferdinand found a
willing ally in his brother, Charles V. Thus it happened that, till
the beginning of the eighteenth century, Hungary presented the aspect
of a vast camp, exposed to the insolence of foreign mercenaries and
the tyranny of the Hapsburg emperors, and at once protected and laid
waste by its allies the Turks. Unfortunately, the Mussulman military
colonies, which subsisted in Hungary from the time of Solyman to
Achmet III., while adding to the distress of the people continually
menaced by famine even during the years of temporary peace, were more
ignorant than those whom they affected to protect, and therefore
failed to produce on the Hungarians those effects which the Moors, in
circumstances somewhat similar, had wrought upon the Spaniards. Nor is
anything now left to call to mind the presence of the Turks in
Hungary, except a few words that slipped into the Hungarian language.

The state of the country in the eighteenth century, somewhat relieved
by the reign of Maria Theresa, was, after such a long series of
calamities, not much calculated to foster the cultivation of science
and poetry; nor did any fresh symptoms of the national life spring
clearly into view before the beginning of the present century. True,
that even amid the storms of the past generations, there appeared from
time to time writers, whose names survive to the present day. But,
with a few exceptions, chiefly in the department of poetry, all the
works of that time were but insipid imitations which aspired to be
thought original, but were little fitted either to please or to
instruct.

After such a gloomy past as has been here shortly describ