Page:Poetry of the Magyars.djvu/60

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xxxviii
INTRODUCTION.

and the writers who agitated Germany with a literary reformation, reflected back their influence upon the Magyars. And thenceforward, amidst some vicissitudes, a gradual progress may be traced to the present day; it is obvious the language has grown stronger and stronger by exercise, and its literature spread wider and wider by cultivation. Newspapers and literary journals in the Magyar tongue became active agents in its diffusion, and it slowly rose from that depression, that persecution rather, by which it had so long been visited.

Radai, (Pál,) who figures in history as the negociator of the peace of Shemnitz with Leopold the First, and the representative of Prince Rákóczi, who had been nominated by the French Court as the arbitrator between Peter the Great and Charles XII., and who struggled for the liberties of his fellow-Protestants with so much zeal and talent, published a volume of poetry, entitled Lelki Hódolás, (Spiritual Worship,) which has preserved its hold on the affections of the Hungarians.

Amade was Paul Radai's contemporary, and was once deemed the first of Magyar Lyric Poets. His verses were learned by heart, and circulated in MS. over the land. A few have been printed by Kultsár, in his Mulatságok, (Amusements,