sisted what it considered the exaggerated claims of the Presburg Diet, and aimed at giving greater power to the minor Diet which assembled at Agram. A long controversy had been waged about the relations to Croatia and Hungary respectively, of the district between the Save and the Danube, which is usually known as Sclavonia, and about the port of Fiume in the Adriatic. These, and other ancient matters of dispute, were of course called into new life when the Magyars proposed to abolish the use of the Latin, which had for ages been the language of business in Hungary, and to oblige every one who wished the smallest possible public office throughout the whole of Hungary to speak Magyar, thereby confining in practice the use of all other languages to the family circle. It is possible that the reaction in favour of their own nationality among the Croats might not have reached a dangerous height if it had not been for the efforts of Louis Gai, a journalist of great talent, who, after having been brought up at a German university, returned to Croatia, and started a newspaper, with the view of advocating the claims of his countrymen to become the leaders of a great Illyrian movement, which was to embrace not only Dalmatia, Croatia, and Sclavonia, but also a large portion of European Turkey. Increased experience of the world soon showed Gai that his dreams were at least premature, but he roused an enthusiasm which was artfully taken advantage of by men who were looking nearer home, to excite the Croats to resist the encroachments of the Magyar majority in the Presburg Diet. When, therefore, that majority succeeded, in 1844, in getting the Vienna authorities upon their side, and in making Magyar the official language of the whole of Hungary, the irritation of the Croats became very bitter, and they were in consequence a ready instrument in the hands of the Austrian Government, some years later, in opposing the ultra-Magyar party, by force of arms, although there is no evidence to show that, at the moment of which we are speaking, the policy of Vienna was dictated by any views about the use to which the Croats might be put if the worst came to the worst in Hungary. Indeed, the evidence is all the other way. The men of the SYSTEM followed their wonted habit, and thought of nothing but keeping things quiet. 'If the Hungarians were to ask for the moon,' it was truly said at this time, I verily believe that the Austrian Government would not refuse their request, but would only say that the matter required mature consideration.'

While the linguistic controversy was inflaming the passions of the Magyars, and exciting anti-Magyar feelings through all the non-Magyar populations of Hungary, a number of other irritating questions were being discussed in successive Diets, in

the county meetings, and in the press, which last, chiefly through the instrumentality of Kossuth, had suddenly grown into a great power. There was the question of the religious education to be given to the children of mixed marriages,-a most important matter in a country where the Protestants are so numerous. This subject of dispute, after a long struggle with the Ultramontanes, was settled in a liberal sense. There was the ques

tion of the abolition of the immunities of the nobiles in matters of taxation, of the increase of the political power of the urban communities, of the better ordering of the counties, of the criminal law, of improving the material condition of the country, with many others. Discussion gradually opened the eyes of nearly all politicians to the necessity of making vast changes in Hungary, and three parties slowly separated themselves and fell into rank. These were (1.) the Conservatives, led by the Chancellor Apponyi, who wished for a strongly centralized government of the absolutist kind, the driving-wheel of which should be in Vienna; (2.) the Liberals, led by Deak, who wished for a government of the constitutional kind, based on a reform of the old institutions of Hungary, the driving-wheel of which should be the Diet; (3.) a party whose views were as yet indeterminate, but which became, in 1848-49, the revolutionary and democratic party, and which, in the Diet of 1847, was led by Kossuth. Count Stephen Széchenyi became a little before this time identified with the Conservative party, much in the same way in which we have seen M. Michel Chevalier gradually become an out-and-out imperialist, because he thought that through the Conservatives and the Vienna government his plans for the material amelioration of the country would best be carried out.

An important section of the second party was led by Baron Joseph Eötvös, who, possessing a far deeper knowledge of political science than most of his countrymen, and entitled, from his wide and varied knowledge, to take rank among the best of his contemporaries, looked with impatience on the many follies and atrocities of the old Hungarian system, which he has satirized in The Village Notary, and would have desired to govern Hungary on a more centralized system, the driving-wheel of which should be the Diet, amended and made into a parliament after the English manner.

These parties met in the Diet of 1847, and in its discussions were being gradually shaped and moulded. What forms they all, and especially the third, might ultimately have taken if the Revolution had not, in February 1848, broken out in Paris, it is impossible to say, but that event acted in Hungary, as in so many other places, like a torch in a powder magazine. On the 1st of March 1848, Kossuth rose and said, 'There are moments

when the Legislature must not only demand reforms, but also ward off dangers.' With these words the curtain fell upon the old party contests.

The interest which attaches to all that is passing in Hungary at the present moment, has induced us to trace the course of events in that country at far greater length than it will be necessary to do those of the rest of the Empire.

The assemblies of the nobles in the provinces on this side the Leitha, more especially in Bohemia and Lower Austria, began also during this period to show symptoms of discontent. Their efforts were, as was perhaps natural, chiefly directed to obtain greater liberty, and some substantial share of political power for their own class; but their members were by no means unaffected by the liberal aspirations of more advanced countries. Many of them were more or less familiar with French and English literature, or had travelled in Western Europe; and their efforts, if barren of immediate political advantage to themselves, nevertheless cast further discredit upon the SYSTEM, by showing not only its inapplicability to modern exigencies, but, in some cases, its distinct opposition to still unrepealed laws.

The nobility was the only class which could give voice to its complaints, but the professional and commercial classes suffered at least equally. The SYSTEM had succeeded in repressing, but not in crushing, the intelligence of the Empire. There grew up after the year 1815, very slowly and gradually, a race of men to whom the articles of the Court journalists and the verses of the Court poets were wholly intolerable. There was a time when the self-satisfied saying,

's' ist nur a Kaiserstadt s' ist nur a Wien,'

represented the creed of all the German-speaking subjects of the Kaiser; but that delusion had hardly outlived the Emperor Francis, and by the year 1840 had quite vanished away. The censorship was now felt to be an evil which was only endurable because it was so constantly evaded. It had become, indeed, to a great extent inoperative; for so surely as a work was pronounced harmless by the censor, the public refused to buy it, and so surely as a work printed in Leipzig or Hamburg obtained the distinction of a damnatur,' it was sure to be smuggled in scores over all the northern frontiers. Instead of the literature of the Romanticists, some of whom had looked lovingly to Austria, and had even selected it for their habitation, there were now the spirit-stirring verses of Count Auersperg (Anastasius Grün), whose Spaziergänge eines Wiener Poeten attacked the existing state of things in no measured way. The Government itself was obliged to call in the assistance of strictly pro

hibited journals, if it wished to defend itself with effect; for to the statements of the authorized organs no credence at all was attached. The schools were everywhere in an utterly wretched condition; and the few Austrian subjects who could boast of any superior acquirements, had either obtained them abroad, or only after a laborious course of study at home, the first step of which was to blot out from their memories nine-tenths of what they had acquired from their teachers.

The

The last blow was given to the tottering edifice by the events which took place in the Polish provinces in 1846. For some months it had been manifest to all who had eyes to see, that the Poles of the emigration were about to make a new attack upon their enemies. Warsaw was their principal object, but they proposed to begin operations in Posen and Galicia. little independent republic of Cracow, the last remnant of ancient Poland which had not been seized by the spoiler, was the centre of their patriotic but foolish machinations; and the 21st of February 1846 was destined for the outbreak of the insurrection. The Austrian Government, although quite aware of what was intended, took its measures so badly as to allow General Collin, who had marched into Cracow at the request of the representatives of the three partitioning powers, to be overwhelmed and driven out,-the honour of the Austrian flags being only saved by the courage and conduct of Benedek, whose name became then for the first time famous. The same carelessness which the rulers showed in not sufficiently strengthening the hands of Collin, led them to neglect giving specific orders to the officials who were scattered through the Polish provinces. The result of this was, that when the insurrection broke out, and the Ruthenian peasants came to ask what part they should take, they were too often, it is to be feared, directed by men who were in panic fear for their own lives to secure the persons of their disaffected Polish landlords, living or dead.

How far the Vienna authorities were accessories before the fact to the hideous massacres which followed, it is very difficult to decide. Certain it is, that after the insurrection had broken out, rewards were paid by Austrian employés to the men who were engaged in the massacres. And on the heads of those whose culpable negligence permitted such things to happen, must rest an amount of reprobation, but little inferior to what would have been their due, if, as was loudly asserted by the Poles, and very generally believed throughout Europe, they had deliberately planned out for the assassins their bloody and terrible work.

Before the end of the year 1846 Cracow was seized by Austria, in spite of the hostile attitude of France and England,―a pro

ceeding for which there is but one excuse, and that is, that Prince Metternich knew perfectly well that if Austria hesitated to do the deed, Russia was determined not to be so scrupulous. The massacres had excited the people against Austria all through Western Europe. The incorporation of Cracow was not less successful in alienating statesmen. By that act Metternich stultified his whole life, threw ridicule upon the treaty of Vienna, and illustrated once more the true words of the poet'Quam temere in nosmet legem sancimus iniquam,'

by affording an admirable precedent to be followed in the case of Lombardy.

Such were the effects of the occurrences in Austrian Poland upon the foreign relations of the Empire, but they were hardly less momentous in their influence upon its internal condition. The detestation with which the Ruthenian peasants regarded their Polish landlords was the result not only of differences of race and of religion, but of long ages of oppression. It was quite clear that the relations between the owners and cultivators of the soil in those provinces must be materially altered; but no sooner was the idea of an important alteration anywhere introduced, than the leading idea of the SYSTEM was shown to be unsound. From the moment that changes began to be made in the landed tenures of the Polish provinces, partial and ineffective though those changes were, the desire for change seized the one class which had hitherto been on the side of the Government, from Bodenbach to Orsova. The stupid Conservatism of the peasants was at an end, and one more element of confusion was introduced.

Those who were politically or pecuniarily interested in Austria, will not soon forget with what anxiety they watched for the first news of the effect which should be produced in that country by the news of the February revolution in Paris. No one could have visited any part of the Empire, during the course of 1847, without perceiving that everywhere a most dangerous spirit was at work. The question which no stranger who had not enjoyed very exceptional opportunities could answer, was, how far will it be in the power of the Government to put down firmly and finally any troubles that may break out? For as to the certainty of troubles breaking out there really could be no doubt, unless, indeed, in the minds of Prince Metternich and his friends, who seem to have foreseen nothing, and provided against nothing.

The first effects were seen in Presburg, but the echo of the words of Kossuth, to which we have alluded above, died away before they reached our shores, and Englishmen first learned