The great campaigns fought by Austria against the French Revolution and Napoleon were in reality the prelude of the subsequent warfare of the Conservative and reactionary classes against the rising Liberalism of modern times. In literature, that mighty duel of night and light was reiterated by the struggle between the romantic and the national schools of poetry. The romantic writers, whether Byron in England, Chateaubriand in France, or Eichendorff in Germany, were all perfect in form, and morbid in subject. They were to poetry what Prince Metternich was to politics, a genius of twilight. So natural was this connection between the French Revolution on the one hand, and national, or sound literature on the other, that they who personally fought in the wars against the Convention and the Directory (1792-1799), as later on against Napoleon (1799-1815), invariably inclined to the romantic or the reactionary school. This will explain the rise of romantic works in Hungary at a time when their classical and national school had scarcely begun to appear. The first great romantic Hungarian poet is Alexander Kisfaludy (1772-1844). He had fought in the Austrian army in Italy and Germany against the revolutionary armies of France, and so naturally considered the gentry of his country as the true representatives of his nation. In 1801 he published the first part of a series of lyrical poems called “_Himfy Szerelmei_,” through which runs the uniting link of luckless love for one and the same maiden. Kisfaludy lived for some time in the country of Petrarch, and the influence of the great singer of hopeless love is clearly visible in the Magyar poet’s work. It is written in stanzas of twelve lines, and is full of that shapeless but sweet sentimentality which so characterizes the romantic writers. It is like a landscape in which the most attractive part is the fleeting clouds: mountains, rivers, houses, and persons being all blurred and vague. It is atmospheric poetry, full of sweet words and sounds, as if coming from distant music. In 1807 Kisfaludy published another part of his _Himfy_, this time singing the joys of requited love, as the first did its sorrows. The work was received with great enthusiasm, more especially, of course, by the unmarried population of the country; and Kisfaludy was encouraged to write novels, dramas and ballads in great number. All these works are meant to form an apotheosis of mediæval times in Hungary; just as the German and French romantic writers revelled in the charms of chateaux and knights and crusades. Some of his ballads are really good, such as _Csobáncz_. His dramas are worthless. CHAPTER XVII. 1772-1825.