were such as could read Italian or French, that is, works, written in one, and thus fertilizing another living language. Such exceptional individuals could then be found only amongst the wealthy classes, or in other words, amongst the magnates. Thus it happened that all great literary work in Hungarian produced during the seventeenth century was done by the great noblemen, and by them alone. Hungary may therefore afford a fair test for the curious problem, whether from an aristocracy of birth can be recruited that aristocracy of genius the work of which forms a nation’s great literature. In Hungary, the aristocracy of birth proved, on the whole, unequal to such a task. The Hungarian magnates of the seventeenth century did much creditable work in _belles-lettres_, and some also in graver departments of literature. Yet, they were unable to originate more than a temporary and inferior reform; and, moreover, they did, as we shall see, serious harm to the literary life of the nation at large, in that they were not able to engage its interests in the growth of its literature. Of these magnates, the eloquent Cardinal Primate of Hungary, Peter Pázmány (1570-1637), Archbishop of Esztergom, claims our attention first. In his thirteenth year he became a convert to Catholicism, and later a Jesuit; and so intense was his zeal for the Church of Rome, that most of his active life was spent in a propaganda, by writings even more than by words, for his church, and with a constant literary warfare with the non-Catholics of Hungary. He is said to have converted no less than thirty of the noblest families of his country to the Catholic persuasion. At his time, perhaps the greatest number of Protestants were in Transylvania, whose princes were warm-hearted protectors of the Reformation; and since they cultivated the Hungarian language in preference to any other, Pázmány thought it wise to use the same idiom in his controversial writings. Pázmány’s theological armoury is taken chiefly from the controversial works of his French colleague and contemporary, the famous Jesuit Bellarmin. In his style, however, he shows considerable originality. He prefers the strong, racy expressions, proverbs and similes of the common people. His is a direct and vigorous, rather than an artistic style. The strange contrast between his popular vocabulary and the scholastic fence of his thoughts lends a peculiar flavour to his _Hodegus_ or “_Kalauz_” (1613), and his sermons (“_Prédikácziók_,” 1636). Among his numerous Protestant opponents were: Peter Alvinczi, of Kassa; and George Komáromi Csipkés, of Debreczen; the latter translated the whole Bible into Hungarian. As a sad contrast to the splendid career of the convert Pázmány, we may mention here the life-long sufferings and wanderings of the loyal Protestant Albert Molnár de Szencz (1574-1634), who was persecuted wherever he came, in Germany, Austria, Hungary or Transylvania; and who, one of the true epigones of