Such, however, was the mental activity of the present generation, that Hungarian literature, despite the numerous obstacles it had to encounter, made rapid progress, and created in the minds of the people a spirit of inquiry and a desire after intellectual pursuits hitherto unknown. Never before had the cultivated tongues of the West been so much studied, or so many valuable translations made from the German, French, and English literatures. That the influence of the first was originally the strongest, and that several of the leading writers in philosophy and history took for their model the German school, will appear no matter of surprise. The rising writers of a more recent date, however, insensibly turned their attention to the more lively literature of France, and afterwards to that of Britain; and while some read with rapture the fictions of Scott, Bulwer, and Dickens, politicians learned to admire the doctrines of Adam Smith and Jeremy Bentham. Of poets, none were more extensively read and more generally admired than Byron and Moore. Thus did the merely literary progress march on boldly and combine with the new political movement to further a change which had already made itself felt in every grade of society, and which was the more remarkable and satisfactory from having followed a too long period of stagnation. A few words will suffice, and perhaps not be superfluous, to bring to the English reader's mind the deplorable causes of this long neglect. The fifteenth century, which illumined the sky of Italy, and thence reacted on the rest of Europe, brought for Hungary nothing but an endless series of wars, distinguished by dazzling military achievements, against the hosts of the Sultans, and turning out in the end but useless victories, productive of most ruinous effects and general exhaustion. The next age proved still more disastrous. The race of the Hunyadis, who in the preceding century had struck terror into the hearts of the Ottomans, had disappeared; the weak princes that ruled after them perished among the carnage of battle, to leave the crown of St. Stephen vacant, and to open a way for the Hapsburgs to the Hungarian throne. At this juncture, coinciding with the great religious movement in Germany, which was rapidly spreading to the banks of the Theiss, the position of Hungary became more desperate than ever, although the events that followed far surpassed the gloomiest anticipations. While the majority of the people chose a native for their king, a part of the aristocracy declared for Ferdinand of Austria. The rival kings, unable to vanquish each other, called in to their aid the two most powerful monarchs of Europe. The former invoked the assistance of Solyman the Great; Ferdinand found a willing ally in his brother, Charles V. Thus it happened that, till the beginning of the eighteenth century, Hungary presented the aspect of a vast camp, exposed to the insolence of foreign mercenaries and