The dramatic literature of the Hungarians, as may be seen from the preceding chapters, was, at the beginning of the twenties of this century, in a most backward condition. For reasons that it is very difficult to ascertain, some of the most dramatic nations, such as the Italians, have rarely or never excelled in drama-writing; while the English, who do not claim to be either conspicuously emotional or dramatic, have given the world the incomparable dramas of Shakespeare. In Italy, the lack of great dramatists may perhaps be ascribed to the fact, that female parts were, at least down to the end of the last century, played by boys. Yet a glance at the Attic theatre deprives this reason of much of its value. Be this as it may, the great influence of theatres and acting on dramatists can scarcely be denied. In Hungary, at any rate, the very indifferent condition of the theatre in the first three decades of the century bulks large amongst the causes producing a dearth of good Magyar dramas. This becomes evident when we consider that the first really great drama of a Magyar writer, “Banus Bánk” (“_Bánk bán_”), by Katona, passed unnoticed for over fourteen years (1818-1834), until a great actor, Gabriel Egressy, made it popular. The Hungarians are naturally good actors, and very fond of theatre-going. It will perhaps scarcely be believed in the enlightened west, where so late as November, 1897, one of the leading daily papers of England was permitted to speak of English and French literature as the only two great literatures of the modern world, that in Hungary there has been, and for some time too, a wealth of dramas of an intrinsic value at least as great as that of any British drama written within the last hundred and fifty years, and played by actors and actresses fully the equals of their colleagues at the _Comédie Française_. This remarkable growth of dramatic literature in Hungary did not, however, begin before the fourth decade of the present century. The epics and ballads of Vörösmarty, Garay, Czuczor, etc., seemed to captivate the public to the exclusion of all other forms of poetry. The patriotic tune ringing, and expected to ring through all popular works previous to the Revolution of 1848, threw their authors into the worship of the heroic past and thus into Romanticism. It was, accordingly, quite natural that dramatists, in order to catch the public ear, indulged rather in heroic ranting and tirades, than in dramatic characterization. The heroes of the tragedies of Charles Kisfaludy (see page 116), for instance, are rhetoric blown into the shape of persons. Everything Magyar is perfect; the Magyars are delicately reminded, in pages full of endless adulation, that they are, to use an American phrase, “the greatest, the best fed, and the best clad nation on the face of the globe.” Their heroes are the greatest; their past the most glorious. This sort of jingoism may be tolerated in