GERGELY, or GREGORY, a living Hungarian poet, prose-writer, and lexicographer, considered by his countrymen to stand in the first rank of their men of letters, and remarkable for the singu larity of the incidents of his life, as well as the number and value of his literary productions. He was born on the 17th of December 1800, at Anddd, in the county of Nyitra, of Catholic parents. In his seven teenth year he entered the Benedictine order, and after the usual noviciate and years of preliminary study, in his twenty-fourth year be took holy orders. By his frequent and impressive preaching, and by his attention to his priestly duties during the time of the cholera, ho acquired a high degree of public esteem. At the same time he was securing a name in literature by the of a aeries of epic poems, of which the first, 'Augsburgi etkiizet ' (' The Battle of Augs burg') appeared in 1824 ; the second, Aradi Gyiilds' (' The Meeting at Arad) in 1828 ; and a third, still incomplete, the best of the three, ou the exploits of John Hunyadi, the great Transylvanian hero, was issued in portions in the 'Aurora,' an annual edited by Charles Kis faludy, which was for some years the receptacle of the best productions of Hungarian literature. When the Hungarian Learned Society was established, which now bears the name of the Hungarian Academy, Czuczor was elected a member at its first meeting. This was in 1831; and in 1835, after several contributions on historical subjects to the Transactions' of the Society, he was chosen assistant-secretary, while his friend Schedcl, better known by his assumed name of Toldy, held that of secretary-in-chief. In the next year a collection of Czuczor'a poetical works was published at Buda under the editorship of Schedcl, and from that moment his career, hitherto so brilliant, was troubled and unhappy. The volumes contained some songs and ballads of high poetical merit, at which exception was taken as of an improper charac ter to come from the pen of a priest. The friends of Czuczor defended him against what they stigmatised as a revival of mediaeval prejudice ; but he was involved in a series of unequal cootesta with his ecclesiasti cal superiors. His 'Poetical Works' were prohibited at Vienna, and
he was forbidden to publish anything without submitting it to the previous censure of the Abbot of St. Martin, to whose jurisdiction he belonged. Czuczor had at that time just entered into engagements to contribute to the 'Athenaeum; a periodical established by Schedel at Pesth, on the plan of the English 'Athenaeum; and the only effect of this injunction was that his articles did not appear in his own name but under different signatures, among others of AndOdi, which was sufficiently transparent, as the name of his birthplace was Aud6d. The abbot of St. Martin's revoked the permission which had been given him to reside at Pesth to attend to his secretaryship, and recalled him to his convent.
For some years Czuczor again pursued his course in comparative obscurity as a Benedictine, though he was entrusted with the delivery of lectures, which were attended by numerous audiences, and occupied himself with some literary labours, among others a translation of Sparks's Life of Washington.' The death of some of his ecclesiastical superiors produced a relaxation of the severity with which he had been treated, and which a large party In Hungary regarded as perse cution. lie was permitted to revisit Pesth, and there his reputation stood so high that in 1844, a hen the Academy decided that the great work of compiling a national dictionary which it resolved to under take should be conducted under the superintendence of one individual, the choice unanimously fell on Czuczor. He was allowed to accept the illustrious task, end the advance he made was so rapid that in 1848 he had already reached the letter I. In the revolution of that year Czucxor joined the party of Rossetti), and in December gave utterance to his political feelings in an article in Koseruth's newspaper, entitled 'Made, ('The Tocsin.) The conseqnences to himself were most disastrous. On the 18th of January 1849 when the Austrian. entered Peath, ho was seized and taken before a military tribunal, which condemned him to six years imprisonment in irons.