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FETOFI, SANDOR. 



PKTOFI, SANDOR. 



to convert him to Romanism, in which however that eloquent prelate 

 was wholly unsuccessful. At length LouU permitted him to depart, 

 and leaving hi* wife and children in Paris, he proceeded to his native 

 place, where he wai 1000 after joined by hia family. Arrived now at 

 eighty Teen of age, he waa sought by uch numben of friends and 

 admircn, that he was forced to remove from Geneva, and retire to 

 Vevay, a email town in the canton of Berne, whera he continued to 

 labour till 1691, in which year, whilst painting a portrait of hit wife, 

 he wai suddenly attacked by apoplexy, of which he died. 



Bordier, in conjunction with whom he worked for fifty years, and 

 who painted the hair, backgrounds, and draperies of his pictures, 

 married his wife's sister. In the museum of the Louvre there is a 

 collection of fifty-six portraits by I'etitot ; but his principal work is a 

 magnificent whole-length portrait of Rachel de Kouvigny, countess of 

 Southampton, in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire, painted 

 from (he original in oil by Vandyck, in the possession of the Earl of 

 ilardwivkr. The enamel is nine inches and three-quarters high, by 

 five inches and three-quarters wide a prodigious size for a work of 

 this description, and by for the largest that had been then, aud for a 

 century and a half afterwards, executed : it is dated 1642. This work 

 was some years ago entrusted to the late Mr. Bone, the enamel-painter 

 and royal Academician, to repair, it having been seriously damaged by 

 a fall, by which a large portion of the enamel had been displaced. 

 Different from the practice now adopted, the plate on which this was 

 painted is formed upon a very thick piece of gold, the back having 

 croei-barg attached of the same metal, filled up with enamel, the metal 

 alone weighing more than three ouuc< a. 



In the earlier part of his career Petitot received twenty guineas for 

 portrait, which price he afterwards raised to forty. He generally 

 used plates of gold, but seldom copper, and sometimes, it is said, silver, 

 though this seems improbable, for that metal generally has the effect 

 of tinging the enamel with yellow. Amongst a vast number of his 

 works painted in England, we have never met with one the plate of 

 which was composed of silver. His custom was to have a painter to 

 draw the likeness of his sitter in oil, from which he commenced his 

 enamel, and then finished it from life. He copied those of Louis XIV. 

 from the best portraits of him, but generally obtained one or two 

 sittings for the completion. 



The pictures which Petitot painted in England are executed in a 

 more free style, and have a greater depth and richness of tint than 

 those executed in France, whilst the Utter are remarkable for the 

 extreme delicacy of touch and the exquisitely elaborate finish. He 

 may be called the inventor of enamel-painting; for though subjects of 

 fruit and flowers were long before painted on this material for the 

 purpose* of jewellery, he was the first who made the attempt to 

 execute pictures, aud it was l.e who at onoe brought the art to per- 

 fection. The principal objection to the tone of colour of his works 

 a defect observable in the pictures of all other practitioners in enamel 

 till the present century is a prevalence of purple in the flesh-tints. 



He had a son, Jobn, who followed this art in England, but his 

 pictures, though possessing great merit, are inferior to those of the 



PETOFI, SANDOR or ALEXANDER, an eminent poet, and more 

 especially an eminent song-writer, who may be called the Bums of 

 Hungary, was born at Felegyhaz, in the district of Little Rumania, in 

 the county of Pesth, on the 1st of January 1823. His father, who had 

 migrated from the mountains of the north of Hungary to the plains, 

 bore then and till bis death the name of Petrovics, equivalent to 

 ' Peterson,' which showed that he was of Slavonic descent ; the son 

 changed the name to I'etoQ, which has the same meaning in the 

 Magyar or Hungarian language. The /act is worthy of note, as show- 

 ing, in conjunction with some similar instances, that in a country 

 where the rivalry of different nationalities has been pushed to a disas- 

 trous extreme, the most vehement defenders of one nationality may 

 be recruited from the ranks of another. I'etofi's father was a butcher, 

 who, having succeeded in trade, was anxious to see his son in a pro- 

 fession of some kind, and seems to have been indifferent whether in 

 divinity, law, or medicine. The youth was wild and unruly, aud 

 extravagantly stage-struck, and was expelled from the school at Sel- 

 mcct, to which hi* father had sent him, for engaging in some theatrical 

 performances. Not daring or not wishing to return home, he went to 

 Ptsth, where at the age of fourteen he gained a precarious livelihood 

 by assisting as a scene shifter at the theatre, but spent most of his time 

 in the streets. His father came to Pesth in search of him, 'took him 

 home by force, and kept him as a sort of prisoner for about two 

 yean, after which he again sent him to school at Oedenburg. 



The first thing that Peti.fi did on arriving there was to go to the 

 barracks and enlist as a soldier in an Austrian regiment, which he under- 

 stood waa to be quartered in the Tyrol, when he intended to decert, 

 and enjoy a free life among the mountains. The regiment was sent 

 instead to Croatia, and his disappointment was so great that he fell 

 ill, and continued seriously affected so long that the regimental doctor 

 in 184 1 recommended bis discharge. Being now of the age of eighteen 

 be resumed his studies at the college of Papa, near Raab, and became 

 acquainted with two young men who have since attained to some 

 uce Orlay as a |inUr, and Jokai as a novelist. At that tiu.r 

 Orlay was ambitious of becoming a poet, Jokai a painter, and Pitufi an 

 actor, aud all thne failid in their respective ambitions. I'etufi, who 



soon left college to commence his career as a strolling player, teems 

 never to have met with even the most moderate degree of success, 

 and was soon plunged in the most abject poverty. Ho had long been 

 in the habit of composing songs for his own amusement, and on a visit 

 to Pesth in 1843 he called with tome of them on liajza, the editor of 

 the ' Atheiueum,' a popular periodical, mentioning to him that they 

 were the compoiition of one I'etofi, but not mentioning that I'etoli 

 was himself. The poems awakened the attention of Vorosinorty, at 

 that time the leading poet of Hungary, who predicted that the author 

 would soon stand high, and began to exert himself to bring him into 

 notice. Some other friends procured him literary employment to 

 translate into Hungarian a novel of Q. P. R. James's, entitled, ' Forest 

 Days,' and with the money thus obtained he set off for Debrecxiu, to 

 gratify his theatrical aspirations, by appearing as the Piiuce of Morocco 

 in a translation of the ' Merchant of Venice.' He found his way back 

 to Pesth on foot, aud Vachot, the editor of the ' Divatlap,' or ' Journal 

 of Fashion,' engaged him as a regular contributor of poetry to its pages. 

 At this' period he suddenly burst into fame, aud became in a few weeks 

 the most popular poet in Hungary. Two or three of his short poems 

 appeared every week, and they were at once on the lips of the nation. 

 The ease and fluency of his language recommended him even to the 

 lowest classes, while he counted some of his warmest admirers among 

 the highest. The sudden tide of success seems to have carried him 

 off his feet, and even bis eulogists speak of him as having become 

 perhaps the proudest man in Hungary. His triumphs however were 

 not uniuingled ; a novel which he wrote at the suggestion of Eotvos, 

 entitled ' A' Hoher Kotelo ' (' The Hangman's Rope'), dropped still- 

 born, and when, in 1845, he offered a play to the managing committee 

 of Pesth, it was unhesitatingly rejected. Though in the same year he 

 was allowed to make an appearance on the stage at Pesth, in the 

 character of 'the Deserter,' the result was what is called 'a dead 

 failure,' and he then finally took the hint and withdrew from the 

 stage. For some time afterwards he continued hi the enjoyment of a 

 wide-spread popularity ; a larger poem under the title of ' A' Vitez 

 .lanos ' ('the Hero John'), was received with unbounded applause, :imi 

 he bad a train of imitators, even in the particular of costume in which 

 he was somewhat eccentric. He was at the height of bis fame at the 

 outbreak of the revolution of 184$, which found in him one of its 

 most ardent admirers and supporters. He had always been an uncom- 

 promising advocate of the independence of Hungary, and distinguished 

 for hostility to the aristocracy, as well as by a warm feeling of personal 

 independence. 



On the 15th of March, it was Petb'fi who incited the students of the 

 university to action by reading aloud in the yard of the university his 

 poem of ' Talpra Magyar ' (' Hungarians, up I ') which was received 

 with shouts of applause; the poem was the same day issued in innu- 

 merable copies, being the first poem printed iii Hungary without 

 passing the censorship ; and at the theatre that evening, after the 

 gr< at events of the day, it was sung again and again, the whole 

 audience joining in the chorus. His other poems, ' Most vagy soha ' 

 (' Now or Never '}, and ' Csatadal ' ( ' Battle-Song '), had a great iufl ueuce 

 on the popular mind. He failed however as a candidate for a scat iu 

 the National Assembly for Little Rumania, but seized every oppor- 

 tunity of demonstrating his adhesion to the principles of Kossuth. 

 When on the 21st of August 1348, the two parties of the Moderate 

 and the Extreme Liberals iu the National Assembly came to a conflict 

 on the question, if the words of command to the Hungarian army 

 should be given in Hungarian, or as they had always beeu before, in 

 German, Vorosmarty, who was one of the deputies, gave his vote on 

 the side of the Moderates, who, on that occasion were first brought 

 into a minority by the party of Kossuth. I'etofi, who, only a few 

 months before had dedicated the collected edition of his poems to 

 Vorosmarty, " as a sign of love and esteem," on this occasion wrote a 

 poetical address to him renouncing his friendship, each stanza 

 concluding with the lines, 



" I do not tear the laurel from thy brow, 

 Ti thy own hand hu torn it now ; " 



aud in spite of the remonstrances of mutual friends, gave it to the 

 public in the ' Elctkepck ' (' Pictures of Life '), a periodical he was 

 then publishing iu conjunction with Jokai. Soon after he exchanged 

 the pen for the sword, and joined the division of the army under the 

 command of General Bern, who appointed him his aide-de-camp. A 

 dispute with General Moszaro*, who found fault with the poet's 

 inattention to discipline, induced him to throw up the appointment 

 in May 1849, and quit the service, his enemies remarking that the 

 quarrel was between a butcher (the meaning of Mdszarosin Hungarian) 

 and a butcher's boy. The approach of the Russians led him to take 

 up arms anew ; he again became aide-de-camp to Bern, and he shared 

 the last terrible campaign of that general in Transylvania. After one 

 of the most desperate fights of that j eriod, he was seen no more, and 

 it was universally believed that he was one of the slain. One of his 

 most spirited poems contained an ardent aspiration that he might 

 meet death on the battle-field. His body however was never found, 

 and in 1852 a report wns in circulation among the Hungarian refugees 

 in London and elsewhere, that I'etofi was still alive and in conceal- 

 ment. Five additional years have now elapsed without any tiding* 

 being heard of him ; his wife has been lung re -married, and thu-c 



