Joseph Bajza (1804-1858) had many of the qualities of a great critic. He was courageous, especially in that courage which is perhaps the rarest, the courage defying current opinions; he was learned; he possessed a very keen sense of linguistic niceties and poetic forms; and, last not least, he was no mean poet himself. Already in 1830 he gave signal proof not only of his pure patriotism, but also of his penetrating knowledge of the true needs of the then Hungarian Literature, by fiercely attacking a plan, broached by a Hungarian publisher, to prepare a Hungarian Encyclopædia (or “Conversations-Lexicon,” as, in imitation of the well-known German publication, it was called) on lines, as Bajza proved, unpatriotic, because unsuited to the character and stage of Magyar literature of that time. This was the “Conversations-Lexicon Quarrel.” In the same year, Bajza started his critical paper (“_Kritikai Lapok_”), which was later on (1837) followed by his “_Athenæum_,” and its appendix “_Figyelmező_.” In these periodicals he discoursed with great verve and knowledge on the theories of various poetic forms; and carefully criticised the works of his contemporaries. His chief contributors were Vörösmarty and Toldy (then still Schedel), the former a great poet, the latter (see p. 254) a great scholar. The authority of Bajza made itself felt very soon; and the numerous polemics occasioned by his articles only served to aggrandize his position as a critic. Already in his essays on the epigram, the novel, the drama, etc., Bajza had proved himself a constructive as against a purely negative critic. In that capacity probably his chief merit is his elaboration of the “theory” of the folk-poem. In Hungary, with her numerous peasantry, there is an inexhaustible wealth of poems composed by unknown people, exclusively peasants, shepherds, and similar inglorious poets. These poems, invariably meant to be adapted to songs, are wafted over the country like the mild breezes of spring, and like them, no one knows their origin. In previous times, the rococo taste of enlightened pedants had contemptuously ignored these blossoms of the wild _puszta_ (prairie). Since Csokonai they were held in greater esteem; but it was Bajza who, by framing them in the time-honoured formulæ of classical æsthetics, raised them to a literary status. Since Bajza, the “_népdal_” or folk-song was not only a matter of national delight or pride, but also of serious study. To Bajza’s circle belonged the poets Alexander Vachott (1818-1861); Frederick Kerényi (1822-1852), who died in America; Julius Sárosy (1816-1861), the author of several stirring revolutionary poems; Andreas Pap; Emeric Nagy; Sigismund Beöthy, etc. CHAPTER XXIV.