The second great poet was Michael Vitéz Csokonai (1773-1805). Born at Debreczen, a town whose famous fairs brought together annually an immense concourse of the agricultural and trading people of Hungary, Csokonai was at an early age imbued with the riches of the gallery of types for which his country has always been so remarkable. Although at all periods of his irregular and vagrant life Csokonai kept in close touch with books, Bürger amongst the Germans, Pope amongst the English, and Metastasio amongst the Italians, being his favourites; yet the real source of his surprising fertility of invention, and surety of draughtsmanship was laid in his constant contact with the people itself. His proud and independent character, the ruggedness of which was not rendered less objectionable by an independent fortune, drove him from post to post. As a roving poet he visited most of the counties, making friends everywhere, protectors and helpers nowhere; and when he finally returned to his old mother’s house, his health was irretrievably shattered by poverty, privations and occasional excesses. He is a great poet. His language is full of savour and truly Magyar. He has abundant and merciful humour, without lacking wit. Frequently he soars to philosophical heights of thought, where, like the eagle, he broods alone. In his lyrical poetry there is much of the rhapsodic frenzy, which was to make Hungary’s greatest poet, Petőfi, as unique in poetry, as Liszt is in music. Csokonai’s most famous poem is a comic epic, somewhat in the style of the _Rape of the Lock_, called “_Dorottya_,” or the _Triumph of the Ladies at the Carnival_ (“_A dámák diadalma a farsangon_”), in four parts. It narrates the warfare of the ladies of a small town, under the leadership of an old maid (Dorottya), with the men of the same place. The women complain of the shortness of the carnival, of the rarity of weddings, etc., and attempt to steal the registers of births compromising to many of them. In the end, the women fall out amongst themselves, Venus steps in, rejuvenating Dorottya, and making peace by marrying the contending parties to each other. The tone of that comic epic is throughout one of genuine mirth, and the language forms a fit drapery of the fleeting scenes of this charming carnival. The types stand out with great plasticity, and in this respect at least, Csokonai’s _Dorottya_ need fear no comparison with Pope’s masterpiece. The critics of his time did not recognize Csokonai’s greatness; and his townsmen, nearly all of them rigid Calvinists, did not think much of a poet in whose stanzas wine flowed abundantly, and love was rampant in forms at times unrestrained. When, therefore, some years after the poet’s death, admirers of his wanted to have his statue erected at Debreczen, and the words, “I too lived in Arcadia” engraved upon it, the good burghers of Debreczen violently opposed the suggestion. For, as if trying