Hungarian folk-poetry is not a thing of the past. Almost day by day, new and ever new “_nóták_” or songs are rising from the fields and forests—nobody knows who composed them—and as if carried by the winds of east and west, they quickly find their way into the heart of the whole nation. There is thus an inexhaustible fountain of poetry and poetic suggestiveness in the very nation of the Magyars. Great as some of the Hungarian lyrical poets have been, it is fair to assume, that with such an undercurrent of perennial folk-poetry to draw upon, there are, for this reason alone, still many more great poets in store for us. CHAPTER XXXIV. In conclusion, a few words on the Hungarian literary productions outside _belles-lettres_ proper. From the pre-eminently political character of the Magyars, it may be inferred almost _a priori_ that questions bearing on legal and constitutional matters have at all times been a favourite subject with the writers and statesmen of Hungary. Previous to 1830, in round numbers, these questions were treated mostly in Latin works. Since then, however, a very considerable number of politico-legal and politico-historical writers in Magyar has arisen. The most important amongst them, both for the authority they commanded in practical politics, and for the weight and power of their arguments, are Count Stephen Széchenyi; Baron Nicolas Wesselényi; Count Aurelius Dessewffy; Baron Joseph Eötvös (see pp. 142, etc.); the famous Lewis Kossúth, probably the greatest political orator of the century; and Francis Deák. They were all practical statesmen, and not mere scholars. Yet most of their works on the constitution of Hungary, and especially on the constitutional relation of Hungary to Austria, are also valuable as sources of solid and scholarly information. Thus Deák showed the extensiveness of his legal and politico-historical erudition in his famous controversy with the Austrian professor Lustkandl, in no lesser degree than his tact and wisdom in the conclusion of the final treaty between Austria and Hungary in 1867. Eötvös enriched Magyar political literature with an elaborate and thoughtful work on “The Influence of the Dominant Ideas of the Nineteenth Century on the State” (“_A xix. század uralkodó eszméinek befolyása az álladalomra_,” 1851-1854). In more recent times a very great number of politico-legal monographs has been published in Hungary. The student will find lists of them in the works of Stephen Kiss and E. Nagy, both entitled “Constitutional Law of Hungary” (“_Magyarország közjoga_,” the former in 1888, the latter, third edition, 1896). Of older works on the constitutional law of Hungary, the most useful are those of count Cziráky (1851, in Latin), and of Professor Virozsil (also in Hungarian and German, 1865). Amongst the numerous Magyar writers on _Jurisprudence_, Professor Augustus Pulszky is well-known in England through his able work, written in English, on “The Theory of Law and Civil Society” (1888).