Chapter M: A. de Gerando has discovered, in the portrait-galleries of the (2)

By unanimous votes of both houses, the diet not only established perfect equality of civil rights and public burdens amongst all classes, denominations, and races in Hungary and its provinces, and perfect toleration for every form of religious worship, but, with a generosity perhaps unparalleled in the history of nations, and which must extort the admiration even of those who may question the wisdom of the measure, the nobles of Hungary abolished their own right to exact either labour or produce in return for the lands held by urbarial tenure, and thus transferred to the peasants the absolute ownership, free and for ever, of nearly half the cultivated land in the kingdom, reserving to the original proprietors of the soil such compensation as the government might award from the public funds of Hungary. More than five hundred thousand peasant families were thus invested with the absolute ownership of from thirty to sixty acres of land each, or about twenty millions of acres amongst them. The elective franchise was extended to every man possessed of capital or property of the value of thirty pounds, or an annual income of ten pounds--to every man who has received a diploma from a university, and to every artisan who employs an apprentice. With the concurrence of both countries, Hungary and Transylvania were united, and their diets, hitherto separate, were incorporated. The number of representatives which Croatia was to send to the diet was increased from three to eighteen, while the internal institutions of that province remained unchanged; and Hungary undertook to compensate the proprietors for the lands surrendered to the peasants, to an extent greatly exceeding the proportion of that burden which would fall on the public funds of the province. The complaints of the Croats, that the Majjars desired to impose their own language upon the Sclavonic population, were considered, and every reasonable ground of complaint removed. Corresponding advantages were extended to the other Sclavonic tribes, and the fundamental laws of the kingdom, except in so far as they were modified by these acts, remained unchanged.

The whole of the acts passed in March 1848 received the royal assent, which, on the 11th of April, the emperor personally confirmed at Presburg in the midst of the diet. These acts then became statutes of the kingdom, in accordance with which the new responsible Hungarian ministry was formed, and commenced the performance of its duties with the full concurrence of the emperor-king and the aid of the Archduke Palatine. The changes that had been effected were received with gratitude by the peasants, and with entire satisfaction, not only by the population of Hungary Proper, but also by that of all the Sclavonic provinces. From Croatia, more especially, the expression of satisfaction was loud, and apparently sincere.

"If," says Prince Ladeslas Teleki, "the concessions of the
emperor-king to the spirit of modern times had been sincerely
made, if his advisers had honestly abandoned all idea of
returning to the past, Hungary would now be in the enjoyment
of the peace she merited. The people who but yesterday held
out the hand of brotherhood, would have proceeded, in peace
and harmony, on the way of advancement which was opened to
them, and civilisation, in its glory and its strength, would
have established itself in the centre of Eastern Europe. But
the reactionary movement commenced at Vienna the very day
liberty was established there. The recognised rights of
Hungary were considered but as forced concessions, which must
be destroyed at any price--even at the price of her blood.
Could there be surer means of attaining that end than
dividing and weakening her by civil war? It was not
understood that honest conduct towards a loyal nation would
more certainly secure her attachment, than attempts to revive
a power that could not be re-established. Neither was it
understood _that the interests of Hungary demanded that she
should seek, in a cordial union with constitutional Austria,
securities for her independence and her liberties_."

A party at the Austrian court, opposed to all concessions, and desirous still to revert to the patriarchal system that had been overturned, saw in the established constitutional freedom of Hungary the greatest impediment to the success of their plans. Seeking everywhere the means of producing a reaction, it found in Croatia a party which had been endeavouring to get up a Sclavonic movement in favour of what they called Illyrian nationality, and which was therefore opposed to Majjar ascendency in Hungary. The peculiar organisation of the military frontier, which extends from the Adriatic to the frontiers of Russia, and which is in fact a military colony in Hungary, under the immediate influence and authority of Austria, and composed almost exclusively of a Sclavonic population, afforded facilities for exciting disturbances in Hungary. But it was necessary to provide leaders for the Sclavonic revolt against the Hungarians. Baron Joseph Jellachich, colonel of a Croat regiment in the army of Italy, was selected by the agitators for reaction as a man fitted by his position, his character, and military talents, as well as by his ambition, to perform this duty in Croatia. He was named Ban of that province, without consulting the Hungarian ministry, whose countersignature was necessary to legalise the nomination. This was the first breach of faith committed by the imperial government; but the Hungarian ministry, desirous to avoid causes of difference, acquiesced in the appointment, and invited the Ban to put himself in communication with them. His first act was to interdict the Croat magistrates from holding any communication with the government of Hungary, of which Croatia is a province, declaring that the Croat revolt was encouraged by the king. On the representation of the Hungarian ministry, the king, in an autograph letter, dated 29th May, reprobated the proceedings of the Ban, and summoned him to Innspruck. On the 10th of June, by a royal ordinance, he was suspended from all his functions, civil and military; but Jellachich retained his position, and declared that he was acting in accordance with the real wishes and instructions of his sovereign, while these public ordinances were extorted by compulsion. At the same time, and by similar means, a revolt of the Serbes on the Lower Danube was organised by Stephen Suplikacs, another colonel of a frontier regiment, aided by the Greek patriarch. Several counties, some of which were principally inhabited by Hungarians, Wallacks, and Germans, were declared to have been formed into a Serbe Vayoodat or government, which was to be in alliance with Croatia. The Serbes, joined by bands from Turkish Servia, attacked the neighbouring Hungarian villages, slaughtered the inhabitants, and plundered the country. But this did not prevent Jellachich, who had been denounced and charged with high treason, or the Greek patriarch Rajaesis, the accomplice of Suplikacs, from being received by the emperor and his brother, the Archduke Francis Charles, at Innspruck. In a letter, dated the 4th of June, addressed to the frontier regiments stationed in Italy, Jellachich declared that the imperial family of Austria encouraged the insurrections against the Hungarians. Meanwhile the Serbes were carrying on a war of extermination, massacring the inhabitants, burning towns and villages, even when they encountered no resistance; and a force was collected on the frontiers of Croatia with the manifest intention of invading Hungary.

"In such a crisis," says Count L. Teleki, "the Hungarian
government experienced the most painful feelings. Condemned
to inaction while entire populations were being exterminated,
it acquired the sad conviction that the Austrian ministry
only kept the national troops out of the country, and
abandoned Hungary to the protection of foreign troops,
through connivance with the enemy."

The revolt continued to be pushed forward in the name of the emperor-king, and the diet was about to be opened. The Hungarian ministers, therefore, entreated his majesty to open the diet in person, in order by his presence to prove the falsehood of the enemies of Hungary; but the invitation had no effect.

The new national assembly of Hungary, returned for the first time by the suffrage of all classes of the nation, was opened at Pesth, when it was found that, with scarcely an exception, all the members of the diet, formerly elected by the nobles, had been again returned--so calmly had the people exercised their newly-acquired privileges. On the 2d of July the Archduke Palatine, who had been unanimously chosen by the diet on the presentation of the king, alluded in his opening speech to a revolt in Croatia, and to the proceedings of armed bands in the counties of the Lower Danube. His Imperial Highness made the following statement:--

"His majesty the king has seen with profound grief, after
having spontaneously sanctioned the laws voted by the last
diet, because they were favourable to the development of the
country, that agitators, especially in Croatia and the Lower
Danube, had excited against each other the inhabitants of
different creeds and races, by false reports and vain alarms,
and had urged them to resist the laws and the legislative
authority, asserting that they were not the free expression
of his majesty's will. Some have gone so far to encourage the
revolt, as to pretend that their resistance is made in the
interest of the royal family, and with the knowledge and
consent of his majesty. For the purpose, therefore, of
tranquillising the inhabitants of those countries, I declare,
in the name of his majesty, their lord and king, that his
majesty is firmly resolved to protect the unity and the
inviolability of the royal crown of Hungary, against all
attack from without or disturbance in the interior of the
kingdom, and to carry out the laws which he has sanctioned.
At the same time that his majesty would not allow any
infraction of the lawful rights of his subjects, he blames,
and in this all the members of the royal family agree with
him, the audacity of those who have dared to pretend that
illegal acts are compatible with the wishes of his majesty,
or were done in the interest of the royal family. His majesty
sanctioned, with the greatest satisfaction, the incorporation
of Transylvania with Hungary, not only because he thus
gratified the ardent desire of his beloved people--both
Hungarians and Transylvanians--but also because the union of
the two countries will give a more firm support to the throne
and to liberty, by the combined development of their power
and their prosperity."

The diet, rejoiced by these assurances, immediately sent a deputation to entreat the king to repair to Pesth, as the only means of disabusing the minds of the Croats and Serbes, who were made to believe that his public acts were the result of coercion. The prayer of the deputation was refused. The Servian insurrection continued to gain ground; the Austrian troops stationed in Hungary, for the defence of the country, refused to obey the government, and at length a communication to the Hungarian ministry, dated the 29th of June, three days prior to the speech of the Archduke Palatine, announced the intention of the Austrian ministry to put an end to the neutrality it had hitherto observed, and to support Croatia openly. All the Hungarians were then convinced that their constitution, and the independence of the country, must be defended by force of arms. But the ministry and the diet would not depart from the constitutional and legal course. A levy of 200,000 men was decreed, as well as an issue of bank-notes to cover the deficits; and the acts were presented for the royal assent by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice: but a long time elapsed before any reply could be obtained. In the mean time the situation of the country every day became worse, and another deputation was sent to the king, headed by the president of the Chamber of Deputies, to obtain the royal assent to the laws already presented; the recall of the Hungarian troops of the line, quartered everywhere except in Hungary; and orders to the foreign troops stationed in that country to discharge their duty faithfully. Finally the king was again entreated to come into his kingdom, to restore to her peace and order. The deputation received an evasive reply. But at the same time, and while the two ministers were at Vienna, the king, without acquainting them, despatched, on the 31st of August, a letter to the Palatine, directing him to send several members of the Hungarian ministry to Vienna, for the purpose of concerting measures with the Austrian ministry, to consolidate and insure the unity of the government and of the monarchy, and to open negotiations with the Croats for the reconciliation of their differences. But the king declared it to be an indispensable condition that the Ban Jellachich--who in the end of May had been denounced as a traitor--should take a part in the conferences; that all preparations for war should cease on both sides; and that the districts of the military frontier, which have always formed part of Hungary, should be provisionally subject to the Austrian ministry. _In this same document_ a communication was made to the Hungarian ministry, of a note of the Austrian government, on the relations to be established between Austria and Hungary. It was stated "that the provisions of the law of 1848, by which the Archduke Palatine had been appointed depository of the royal authority, and chief of the executive power in the absence of the king--and by which a responsible ministry had been conceded to Hungary, detaching from the central government of Vienna the administration of war, finance, and commerce--were contrary to the Pragmatic Sanction, opposed to the legal relations between Austria and Hungary, and detrimental alike to the interests of Hungary and Austria. These concessions were declared illegal and of none effect, under the pretext that they had not been consented to by the responsible Austrian ministry; and although they had been sanctioned by the royal word on the 11th of April, and again formally recognised in the speech from the throne on the 2d July, it was announced that these laws were to be considerably modified, in order that a central power might be established at Vienna."

Never, we venture to say, was a discreditable breach of public faith palliated on pretexts more futile. Hungary is as independent of the Hereditary States as the Hereditary States are of Hungary; and, in matters relating to Hungary, the ministers of Austria, responsible or irresponsible, have no more right to interfere between the King and his Hungarian ministers, or Hungarian diet, than these have to interfere between the Emperor of Austria and his Austrian ministers, in matters relating to the Hereditary States. The pretension to submit the decisions of the Hungarian diet, sanctioned by the King, to the approval or disapproval of the Austrian ministers, is too absurd to have been resorted to in good faith. The truth appears to be, that the successes of the gallant veteran Radetzki, and of the Austrian army in Italy, which has so well sustained its ancient reputation, had emboldened the Austrian government to retrace the steps that had been taken by the emperor. Trusting to the movements hitherto successful in Croatia and the Danubian provinces of Hungary,--to the absence of the Hungarian army, and of all efficient preparation for defence on the part of the Hungarian government, and elated with military success in Italy,--the Austrian ministers resumed their intention to subvert the constitution of Hungary, and to fuse the various parts of the emperor's dominions into one whole. Their avidity to accomplish this object prevented their perceiving the stain they were affixing to the character of the empire, and the honour of the emperor; or the injury they were thereby inflicting on the cause of monarchy all over the world. "Honour and good faith, if driven from every other asylum, ought to find a refuge in the breasts of princes." And the ministers who sully the honour of their confiding prince, do more to injure monarchy, and therefore to endanger the peace and security of society, than the rabble who shout for Socialism.

The Austrian ministry did not halt in their course. They made the emperor-king recall, on the 4th September, the decree which suspended Jellachich from all his dignities, as a person accused of high treason. This was done on the pretext that the accusations against the Ban were false, and that he had exhibited undeviating fidelity to the house of Austria. He was reinstated in all his offices at a moment when he was encamped with his army on the frontiers of Hungary, preparing to invade that kingdom. In consequence of this proceeding, the Hungarian ministry, which had been appointed in March, gave in their resignation. The Palatine, by virtue of his full powers, called upon Count Louis Bathianyi to form a new ministry. All hope of a peaceful adjustment seemed to be at an end; but, as a last resource, a deputation of the Hungarian deputies was sent to propose to the representatives of Austria, that the two countries should mutually guarantee to each other their constitutions and their independence. The deputation was not received.

Count Louis Bathianyi undertook the direction of affairs, upon the condition that Jellachich, whose troops had already invaded Hungary, should be ordered to retire beyond the boundary. The king replied, that this condition could not be accepted before the other ministers were known.

But Jellachich had passed the Drave with an army of Croats and Austrian regiments. His course was marked by plunder and devastation; and so little was Hungary prepared for resistance, that he advanced to the lake of Balaton without firing a shot. The Archduke Palatine took the command of the Hungarian forces, hastily collected to oppose the Ban; but, after an ineffectual attempt at reconciliation, he set off for Vienna, whence he sent the Hungarians his resignation.

The die was now cast, and the diet appealed to the nation. The people rose _en masse_. The Hungarian regiments of the line declared for their country. Count Lemberg had been appointed by the king to the command of all the troops stationed in Hungary; but the diet could no longer leave the country at the mercy of the sovereign who had identified himself with the proceedings of its enemies, and they declared the appointment illegal, on the ground that it was not countersigned, as the laws required, by one of the ministers. They called upon the authorities, the citizens, the army, and Count Lemberg himself, to obey this decree under pain of high treason. Regardless of this proceeding, Count Lemberg hastened to Pesth, and arrived at a moment when the people were flocking from all parts of the country to oppose the army of Jellachich. A cry was raised that the gates of Buda were about to be closed by order of the count, who was at this time recognised by the populace as he passed the bridge towards Buda, and brutally murdered. It was the act of an infuriated mob, for which it is not difficult to account, but which nothing can justify. The diet immediately ordered the murderers to be brought to trial, but they had absconded. This was the only act of popular violence committed in the capital of Hungary.

On the 29th of September, Jellachich was defeated in a battle fought within twelve miles of Pesth. The Ban fled, abandoning to their fate the detached corps of his army; and the Croat rearguard, ten thousand strong, surrendered, with Generals Roth and Philipovits, who commanded it.

In detailing the events subsequent to the 11th of April 1848, we have followed the Hungarian manifesto, published in Paris by Count Ladeslas Teleki, whose character is a sufficient security for the fidelity of his statements; and the English translation of that document by Mr Brown, which is understood to have been executed under the Count's own eye. But we have not relied upon the Count alone, nor even upon the official documents he has printed. We have availed ourselves of other sources of information equally authentic. One of the documents, which had previously been transmitted to us from another quarter, and which, we perceive, has also been printed by the Count, is so remarkable, both because of the persons from whom it emanates, and the statements it contains, that, although somewhat lengthy, we think it right to give it entire.

_The Roman-Catholic Clergy of Hungary to his Apostolic
Majesty, Ferdinand V., King of Hungary._

Representation presented to the Emperor-King, in the name of
the Clergy, by the Archbishop of Gran, Primate of Hungary,
and by the Archbishop of Erlaw.

"Sire! Penetrated with feelings of the most profound sorrow
at the sight of the innumerable calamities and the internal
evils which desolate our unhappy country, we respectfully
address your Majesty, in the hope that you may listen with
favour to the voice of those, who, after having proved their
inviolable fidelity to your Majesty, believe it to be their
duty, as heads of the Hungarian Church, at last to break
silence, and to bear to the foot of the throne their just
complaints, for the interests of the church, of the country,
and of the monarchy.

"Sire!--We refuse to believe that your Majesty is correctly
informed of the present state of Hungary. We are convinced
that your Majesty, in consequence of your being so far away
from our unfortunate country, knows neither the misfortunes
which overwhelm her, nor the evils which immediately threaten
her, and which place the throne itself in danger, unless your
Majesty applies a prompt and efficacious remedy, by attending
to nothing but the dictates of your own good heart.

"Hungary is actually in the saddest and most deplorable
situation. In the south, an entire race, although enjoying
all the civil and political rights recognised in Hungary, has
been in open insurrection for several months, excited and led
astray by a party which seems to have adopted the frightful
mission of exterminating the Majjar and German races, which
have constantly been the strongest and surest support of your
Majesty's throne. Numberless thriving towns and villages have
become a prey to the flames, and have been totally destroyed;
thousands of Majjar and German subjects are wandering about
without food or shelter, or have fallen victims to
indescribable cruelty--for it is revolting to repeat the
frightful atrocities by which the popular rage, let loose by
diabolical excitement, ventures to display itself.

"These horrors were, however, but the prelude to still
greater evils, which were about to fall upon our country. God
forbid that we should afflict your Majesty with the hideous
picture of all our misfortunes! Suffice it to say, that the
different races who inhabit your kingdom of Hungary, stirred
up, excited one against the other by infernal intrigues, only
distinguish themselves by pillage, incendiarism, and murder,
perpetrated with the greatest refinement of atrocity.

"Sire!--The Hungarian nation, heretofore the firmest bulwark
of Christianity and civilisation against the incessant
attacks of barbarism, often experienced rude shocks in that
protracted struggle for life and death; but at no period did
there gather over her head so many and so terrible tempests,
never was she entangled in the meshes of so perfidious an
intrigue, never had she to submit to treatment so cruel, and
at the same time so cowardly--and yet, oh! profound sorrow!
all these horrors are committed in the name, and, as they
assure us, by the order of your Majesty.

"Yes, Sire! it is under your government, and in the name of
your Majesty, that our flourishing towns are bombarded,
sacked, and destroyed. In the name of your Majesty, they
butcher the Majjars and Germans. Yes, sire! all this is done;
and they incessantly repeat it, in the name and by the order
of your Majesty, who nevertheless has proved, in a manner so
authentic and so recent, your benevolent and paternal
intentions towards Hungary. In the name of your Majesty, who
in the last Diet of Presburg, yielding to the wishes of the
Hungarian nation, and to the exigencies of the time,
consented to sanction and confirm by your royal word and
oath, the foundation of a new constitution, established on
the still broader foundation of a perfectly independent
government.

"It is for this reason that the Hungarian nation, deeply
grateful to your Majesty, accustomed also to receive from her
king nothing but proofs of goodness really paternal, when he
listens only to the dictates of his own heart, refuses to
believe, and we her chief pastors also refuse to believe,
that your Majesty either knows, or sees with indifference,
still less approves the infamous manner in which the enemies
of our country, and of our liberties, compromise the kingly
majesty, arming the populations against each other, shaking
the very foundations of the constitution, frustrating legally
established powers, seeking even to destroy in the hearts of
all the love of subjects for their sovereign, by saying that
your Majesty wishes to withdraw from your faithful Hungarians
the concessions solemnly sworn to and sanctioned in the diet;
and, finally, to wrest from the country her character of a
free and independent kingdom.

"Already, Sire! have these new laws and liberties, giving the
surest guarantees for the freedom of the people, struck root
so deeply in the hearts of the nation, that public opinion
makes it our duty to represent to your Majesty, that the
Hungarian people could not but lose that devotion and
veneration, consecrated and proved on so many occasions, up
to the present time, if it was attempted to make them believe
that the violation of the laws, and of the government
sanctioned and established by your majesty, is committed with
the consent of the king.

"But if, on the one hand, we are strongly convinced that your
majesty has taken no part in the intrigues so basely woven
against the Hungarian people, we are not the less persuaded,
that that people, taking arms to defend their liberty, have
stood on legal ground, and that in obeying instinctively the
supreme law of nations, _which demands the safety of all_,
they have at the same time saved the dignity of the throne
and the monarchy, greatly compromised by advisers as
dangerous as they are rash.

"Sire! We, the chief pastors of the greatest part of the
Hungarian people, know better than any others their noble
sentiments; and we venture to assert, in accordance with
history, that there does not exist a people more faithful to
their monarchs than the Hungarians, when they are governed
according to their laws.

"We guarantee to your majesty, that this people, such
faithful observers of order and of the civil laws in the
midst of the present turmoils, desire nothing but the
peaceable enjoyment of the liberties granted and sanctioned
by the throne.

"In this deep conviction, moved also by the sacred interests
of the country and the good of the church, which sees in your
majesty her first and principal defender, we, the bishops of
Hungary, humbly entreat your majesty patiently to look upon
our country now in danger. Let your majesty deign to think a
moment upon the lamentable situation in which this wretched
country is at present, where thousands of your innocent
subjects, who formerly all lived together in peace and
brotherhood on all sides, notwithstanding difference of
races, now find themselves plunged into the most frightful
misery by their civil wars.

"The blood of the people is flowing in torrents--thousands of
your majesty's faithful subjects are, some massacred, others
wandering about without shelter, and reduced to beggary--our
towns, our villages, are nothing but heaps of ashes--the
clash of arms has driven the faithful people from our
temples, which have become deserted--the mourning church
weeps over the fall of religion, and the education of the
people is interrupted and abandoned.

"The frightful spectre of wretchedness increases, and
develops itself every day under a thousand hideous forms. The
morality, and with it the happiness of the people, disappear
in the gulf of civil war.

"But let your majesty also deign to reflect upon the terrible
consequences of these civil wars; not only as regards their
influence on the moral and substantial interests of the
people, but also as regards their influence upon the security
and stability of the monarchy. Let your majesty hasten to
speak one of those powerful words which calm tempests!--the
flood rises, the waves are gathering, and threaten to engulf
the throne!

"Let a barrier be speedily raised against those passions
excited and let loose with infernal art amongst populations
hitherto so peaceable. How is it possible to make people who
have been inspired with the most frightful thirst--that of
blood--return within the limits of order, justice, and
moderation?

"Who will restore to the regal majesty the original purity of
its brilliancy, of its splendour, after having dragged that
majesty in the mire of the most evil passions? Who will
restore faith and confidence in the royal word and oath? Who
will render an account to the tribunal of the living God, of
the thousands of individuals who have fallen, and fall every
day, innocent victims to the fury of civil war?

"Sire! our duty as faithful subjects, the good of the
country, and the honour of our religion, have inspired us to
make these humble but sincere remonstrances, and have bid us
raise our voices! So, let us hope, that your majesty will not
merely receive our sentiments, but that, mindful of the
solemn oath that you took on the day of your coronation, in
the face of heaven, not only to defend the liberties of the
people, but to extend them still further--that, mindful of
this oath, to which you appeal so often and so solemnly, you
will remove from your royal person the terrible
responsibility that these impious and bloody wars heap upon
the throne, and that you will tear off the tissue of vile
falsehoods with which pernicious advisers beset you, by
hastening, with prompt and strong resolution, to recall peace
and order to our country, which was always the firmest prop
of your throne, in order that, with Divine assistance, that
country, so severely tried, may again see prosperous days; in
order that, in the midst of profound peace, she may raise a
monument of eternal gratitude to the justice and paternal
benevolence of her king.

"_Signed at Pesth, the 28th Oct. 1848_,

"THE BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OF HUNGARY."

The Roman Catholic hierarchy of Hungary, it must be kept in mind, have at all times been in close connexion with the Roman Catholic court of Austria, and have almost uniformly supported its views. The Archbishop of Gran, Primate of Hungary, possesses greater wealth and higher privileges than perhaps any magnate in Hungary.

In this unhappy quarrel Hungary has never demanded more than was voluntarily conceded to her by the Emperor-King on the 11th of April 1848. All she has required has been that faith should be kept with her; that the laws passed by her diet, and sanctioned by her king, should be observed. On the other hand, she is required by Austria to renounce the concessions then made to her by her sovereign--to relinquish the independence she has enjoyed for nine centuries, and to exchange the constitution she has cherished, fought for, loved, and defended, during seven hundred years, for the experimental constitution which is to be tried in Austria, and which has already been rejected by several of the provinces. This contest is but another form of the old quarrel--an attempt on the part of Austria to enforce, at any price, uniformity of system; and a determination on the part of Hungary, at any cost, to resist it.

We hope next month to resume the consideration of this subject, to which, in the midst of so many stirring and important events in countries nearer home and better known, it appears to us that too little attention has been directed. We believe that a speedy adjustment of the differences between Austria and Hungary, on terms which shall cordially reunite them, is of the utmost importance to the peace of Europe--and that the complications arising out of those differences will increase the difficulty of arriving at such a solution, the longer it is delayed. We believe that Austria, distracted by a multiplicity of counsels, has committed a great error, which is dangerous to the stability of her position as a first-rate power; and we should consider her descent from that position a calamity to Europe.

FOOTNOTES:

[30] Chiefly by marriage with princesses who were heirs to these kingdoms and principalities. It was thus that Hungary, Bohemia, and the Tyrol were acquired. Hence the lines--

"Bella gerant alii; tu, felix Austria, nube:
Nam quæ Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus."

You, Austria, wed as others wage their wars;
And crowns to Venus owe, as they to Mars.

It was by marriage that the Saxon emperor, Otho the Great, acquired Lombardy for the German empire.

[31] The acts passed by the diet are numbered by articles, as those of our parliament are by chapters. Each of these articles, when it has received the royal assent, becomes a statute of the kingdom, in the same manner as with us, and of course equally binds the sovereign and his subjects.

_Printed by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh._

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious typographical errors were repaired.

Hyphenation and accent variations retained as in original.

Footnotes on p.509, 577 (first footnote), and 590 were unanchored in the original. They have been anchored to the chapter headings on those pages.