The robber thereupon kills the woman, and dies on the gallows, without regret, for “his life was no longer worth to him a pipe of tobacco.” Another poem describes the wild rollicking of the boys in the village inn at night. A knock is heard at the window, and a harsh voice bids the boys to stop lest the quiet of the squire be disturbed. The boys only hold forth all the louder. Another knock at the window is heard. In mild tones a man asks the fellows to stop yelling, for his poor mother is ill. At once all the frolic is at an end, and the boys leave the inn. It is in such scenes, all expressed in the simplest and yet idiomatic language, that Petőfi’s genius shines forth. Of him indeed it may be said that no colour, tint or instrument with which to touch and stir up the human heart was alien to him. Considering his extreme youth and the intense gravity of his pathos, his exquisite and genuine humour is nothing short of marvellous. It is the humour of a mature mind, full of ripe suavity and mellow joyousness. Of Petőfi’s humour we could not use Hood’s lines: “There’s not a string attuned to mirth But has its chord in melancholy.” It is playful humour, laughing a broad, sound laugh. He is not as witty as Heine or Byron, but neither is he as cutting. In his famous poem ridiculing the Magyar _hidalgo_ (“_A magyar nemes_”) there is nothing but broad thrusts of a well-handled sword. There is no pricking with needles, nor any guffaws of a satyr. Literary critics in Hungary and elsewhere have, in their anxiety for classification and cataloguing, placed Petőfi amongst the so-called folk-poets, and nothing is more frequent than a comparison of Petőfi with Burns and Béranger, the _chansonniers_ of Scotland and France respectively. However, the comparison is untenable. While humour, pathos, tenderness and descriptive powers will readily be accorded, and in great measure, to the Scotch singer, he can hardly be compared to Petőfi in that distinctively creative power, which not only touches sentiment, not only finds charming words and images for things external or internal, but also and chiefly discovers new poetic continents, so to speak, new mines of poetic gold. The very range of subjects covered by the poetry of the Hungarian poet is considerably wider than that of the Scotch bard; and in the last two years of his life Petőfi was raised, partly by his own genius and partly by the events of his time, to the position of a nation’s prophet. This very position acted on his poetic gifts with a force that Burns never experienced, and accordingly, every comparison of the two poets is radically false. The same remark applies to Béranger. The entire atmosphere of his famous _chansons_ is so different from that of Petőfi’s songs, as to render a comparison of the two impossible. Béranger sings the glories of the great Revolution and of Napoleon’s time. He is sweet, fresh, graceful, full of _élan_ and smartness. He