There is undoubtedly much Ossianic misty glamour in Vörösmarty’s great epic; and the figures of its leading heroes do not stand out with all the desirable plasticity from among the multitude of minor heroes and mythologic divinities. Yet Ete and Hajna are suffused with all the charms of youth, love and heroism; and in Hadúr and Ármány two powerful mythological types are placed before us. Árpád himself answers very well the chief purpose of the poem, in that he is rather the incarnation of a nation strong, noble, God-fearing and conquering, than the representative of any special personality. Perhaps the least endowed figure of the poem is Zalán, in whom the poet might have represented, in contrast to Árpád, the various enemies endangering Hungary’s existence, and of whom he only made a proud and despairing prince. Yet, after allowing for these shortcomings—very natural in a work written in eleven months—“_Zalán futása_” is a truly great epic. The splendour of its language, in regard to which it is fully the equal of “Paradise Lost,” fell upon its first readers with the spell of the Fata Morgana of the Hungarian _pusztas_ or prairies, on the lonely traveller. There was one general feeling: “such language had not yet risen from any Hungarian lyre!” (“_igy még nem zenge magyar lant_!”). A nation whose past could inspire such epic music, was a nation of imposing resourcefulness. Only great nations, after conquering great dangers, can produce great epics. A great epic is not alone a literary event; as such it would redound mostly to the glory of the author. It is a national event, and redounds chiefly to the glory of the nation. It is the symptom and warrant of national greatness; of that noble enthusiasm—without which, numerous factories and railways can be built indeed, but no fabric of a national commonwealth holding its own amidst roaring seas of danger and adversity. Vörösmarty’s epic poured into the Hungarians that Belief and Confidence, that Eternality of Hope, which alone steels nations against fate. Széchenyi had connected Buda, the capital of the past, with Pesth, the capital of modern Hungary, by means of a gigantic suspension bridge. Vörösmarty now connected Hungary’s past with her future by the rainbow of his immortal epic.