1711-1772. The period bounded by the years 1711-1772 is one of decline. During these years, which comprise the reigns of Emperor Charles VI., and most of that of Austria’s greatest ruler, Maria Theresa (1740-1780), there was practically very little Magyar literature; and the little was bad. Hungarians of that period wrote, as a rule, in Latin; and the subjects they selected were those of laborious erudition; philology; descriptive natural science; annalistic history; historic theology. This decline in national literature was only another phase of the decline of the Magyar idiom. For, both in Transylvania, which was now again, as formerly, united with Hungary, and in Hungary proper, the Hungarian language ceased to be used in the schools, at the county-sessions, in the law-courts, and in polite society. In all these centres of intellectual intercourse, Latin, German or French were used instead of the sonorous language of Árpád. In Catholic and Protestant schools alike instruction was given in bad Latin. At the county-sessions; in the national parliament; and in the law-courts, Latin alone was used; while the higher classes of society were talking either in German or in French. For the latter fact, there is a simple explanation at hand. When, in 1711, Hungary was at last “pacified,” it had become evident to the most patriotic of the leading families, that further armed resistance to the Habsburgs being impossible, the only chances of promotion for their children were at the court of Vienna. This involved the adoption of Viennese manners, and Viennese mediums of conversation; that is, of French and German. No sooner was that done by the aristocratic families of Hungary, than the abnormal state of the then national literature revealed all its latent barrenness. As has been seen in the preceding chapters, all the great Hungarian writers from 1600 to 1711 were recruited from the class of the magnates. When, now, after 1711, the magnates flocked to Vienna, there to undergo a thorough process of Germanization, or rather Austrianization, there was no class of writers left in Hungary to take their place. Hence the sudden dearth of great writers, and the astounding decline of Hungarian Literature. To this must be added the fact, that German literature which was naturally destined to have a considerable influence on Hungarian writers, both from geographical contiguity, and on account of the general knowledge of German in the then Hungary; that German literature, we say, was not beginning to reach its classical period before the sixties of that century, and could therefore stimulate Hungarian Literature but very little. It is much more difficult to account for the exclusive use of Latin in the schools and in parliamentary debates. Had the use of Latin in the schools been accompanied by the study of Greek and Greek literature it would probably have wrought very much less mischief.