and “schools” of great divergency. The members of the Guard naturally proceeded on French lines, taking the great French writers, and chiefly Voltaire, as their model. The foremost members of the new urban element, which also included many an unfrocked monk, coming as they did from the country where the Magyar language and folk-poetry had never died out, and where the national pulse beat strongest, proceeded on national lines. The older country-gentry, and numerous released monks, conversant above all with Latin literature, proclaimed the classical metres and forms as the only safeguard and aim of literature; while another section of the new urban element followed in the wake of the Germans, whose classical writers were just then at the height of their fame. This great divergence of schools was in itself proof of the definite revival of Hungarian Literature. In the spiritual republic, no less than in the political, parties are of the very essence of vigorous life. By the end of the last century there could have no longer been any doubt about the strong vitality of Hungarian Literature. CHAPTER XIII. 1772-1825. The first of these “schools” to publish serious works with the intention of reforming the literature of Hungary, were the members of the Hungarian Guard at Vienna, and chiefly George Bessenyei (1747-1811).[2] In 1772 he published a tragedy, entitled “Agis” (“_Agis tragédiája_”) in which he attempted to give, within the strict rules of the Franco-Aristotelean tri-unity of time, place and action, a model for his contemporaries. In point of language, _Agis_ is not without some merits; as a dramatic work it has long been regarded as a failure. Bessenyei was more successful in his comedies (“Philosophus,” etc.), in which he even contrived to create a type, _Pontyi_, representing the narrow-minded, ultra-conservative country-squire of his time. His style is held to be much better still in his prose works containing philosophical essays after the rationalistic fashion of his epoch. Amongst the numerous colleagues and literary followers of Bessenyei were: Abraham Barcsai (1742-1806), Alexander Báróczi (1735-1809), who excelled chiefly in translations from the French; Ladislas Baranyi, Joseph Naláczi, Bessenyei’s own brother, Alexander, who tried his hand at Milton’s “_Paradise Lost_,” etc. To the Bessenyei circle (“_Bessenyei György társasága_”) belonged also Paul Ányos (1756-1784), in whose mournful and sentimental poems there are many traces of genuine poetry. Nor must Joseph Péczeli be forgotten (1750-1792), who through his numerous translations from French and English works (Edward Young’s “Night Thoughts”) and his “Fables” (“_Mesék_”) deserved highly of Hungarian Literature.