The reader would certainly laugh, as I have often done since, did I tell him one half of the foolish tales the good Viennese told us of the country we were about to visit―no roads! no inns! no police! We must sleep on the ground, eat where we could, and be ready to defend our purses and our lives at every moment. In full credence of these reports, we provided ourselves most plentifully with arins, which were carefully loaded, and placed ready for immediate use. may, however, ease the reader's mind to know, that no occasion to shoot anything more formidable than a partridge or a hare presented itself, and that we finished our journey with the full conviction that travelling in Hungary was just as safe as travelling in England. It appears to be peculiarly incapable of understand- divided into nine different tribes, the greater part ing a national character different from his own; of which have nothing in common except their this is true even in respect to other Germans; origin. Most of these tribes speak languages or and neither the proximity of the countries, nor the dialects which are mutually unintelligible; and frequent intercourse of their inhabitants, seems to the Sclaves of different tribes are sometimes have enabled him to form any reasonable estimate obliged to use the Majjar tongue as their only of the Hungarian character or institutions. We means of communication. Some belong to the might adduce curious evidence of this ignorance, Roman Catholic Church, some to the Greek; even in persons of distinction; but we shall con- others are Protestants-Lutheran or Calvinist; tent ourselves with quoting Mr. Paget's observa- and, some, while they have submitted to the sce tions on the subject, in June, 1835:of Rome, retain many of their Greek forms and services, adhere to the Greek calendar, and constitute a distinct communion. The Slovacks of Northern Hungary, numbering 1,600,000, are partly Roman Catholics, partly Protestants-and have no intercourse or community of language or feeling with the Sclaves of Southern and Western Hungary, from whom they are separated by the intervention of the Majjar country. The Ruthenes, also in Northern Hungary, are distinct from the Slovacks, occupy a different portion of the slopes and spurs of the Carpathians, and have no connection with the Sclaves on the right bank of the Danube, from whom they are separated by the whole breadth of Hungary and Transylvania at that point-they amount to about 400,000. The Croats, not quite 900,000 in number, are partly Roman Catholics and partly belong to the Greek Church. When religious toleration was established in Hungary, they exercised the power enjoyed by the provincial assembly to exclude Protestants from the country. The Shocks of Sclavonia proper, and the Rasciens of that province and of the Banat, amounting respectively to above 800,000, and nearly half a million, are tribes of the Serbe stock, of whom the greater part adhere to the Greek Church, and whose language is different from that of the Croats, the Slovacks, and the Ruthenes. The Bulgarians, about 12,000, the Montenegrins, about 2000, and the Wends from Styria, about 50,000, are small distinct tribes speaking different languages, and divided by religious differences. But the whole of these Sclavonic tribes have this in common, that they are all animated by a feeling of hatred to the German race; and more than half of the Sclave population of Hungary has joined the Hungarians against Austria. Why, or wherefore, I know not, but nothing can gards both Hungary and its inhabitants. I have sometimes suspected that the bugbear with which a Vienna mother frightens her squaller to sleep must be an Hungarian bugbear; for in no other way can I account for the inbred and absurd fear which they entertain for such near neighbors. It is true, the Hungarians do sometimes talk about liberty, constitutional rights, and other such terrible things, to which no well-disposed ears should be open, and to which the ears of the Viennese are religiously closed. exceed the horror with which a true Austrian re rated. There were, no doubt, elements of discord in Hungary, of which Austria, on former occasions as well as now, took advantage; but their value to her in the present war has been greatly overThe population of the kingdom, like that of the empire, is composed of various races, amongst which there are differences of language, religion, customs, and sentiments. Of the 14,000,000 of people who inhabit Hungary, not more than 5,000,000 are Majjars, about 1,262,000 are Germans, 2,311,000 Wallacks, and of the There was also a belief that the Hungarians remaining 5,400,000, nine tenths or more are had oppressed the Sclaves, and that the whole Sclaves. The Sclaves are therefore as numerous Sclave race would therefore combine to put down as the Majjars; and, although these races had at their oppressors. This was another misapprehenall times combined against foreign enemies, it was sion. Great efforts have been made by some of probable that they would not unite in a domestic their poets and their journalists to persuade the quarrel, as that with Austria might be considered. Sclaves that they were oppressed; and the Croat When a great part of the colonists of the milita- newspapers and pamphlets of M. Gay, and the ry frontier, chiefly Croats and Serbes, took part | Austrian journals, have circulated this belief over against the government of Hungary, and asserted Germany, whence it was disseminated over Eua Sclave nationality as opposed to the Hungarian rope; but there seems to have been no foundation nationality, it was too hastily assumed, by persons for the charge. The Sclaves enjoyed the same imperfectly informed, that the whole Sclavonic rights and privileges as the Hungarians; they population, equalling the Majjars in number, were protected by the same laws; they have would be available to Austria in the war. But shared equally with the Hungarians in all the the Sclaves of Hungary are a disunited race, concessions obtained by the Diet of Hungary, to which the Sclaves sent their own representa- | the agitators for Illyrian nationality would probatives, from the sovereign; they bore less than bly have been put down by their own countrymen. The Slovacks, a people of Bohemian origin, refugees from religious persecution, have joined the Hungarians. A great part of the people of Sclavonia Proper have refused to take part against Hungary. The tribes that have engaged most extensively and violently in hostilities against the Hungarians have been the people of Servian race, and of the Greek Church, in the counties of the lower Danube, and in Croatia. Amongst the Hungarian Sclaves of the Greek Church, it is well known that foreign influence has long been at work, for which the Greek priesthood are ready been turned towards the head of their church, and the sympathies of thirty millions of Eastern Sclaves, who belong to the same church. Though feelings of nationality and of race have been developed in Hungary, as elsewhere, to an extent hitherto unexampled, they have there to contend with the craving for liberty, which has at the same time acquired intensity, and which amongst the Sclaves has been fostered and inflamed by the efforts of those who, for the purpose of exciting them against the Majjars, would persuade them that they were the victims of oppression. The more intelligent and influential are now convinced, that it is to Hungary-to which they owe the liberty they enjoy—and not to anarchy or to Austria, against the attacks of whose government Hungary has so long defended their freedom and her own, that they must look for advancement. their due proportion of the public burdens, and they were left in the enjoyment of their own internal and municipal administration. Croatia, where the movement in favor of what was called Illyrian nationality originated fifteen or sixteen years ago, and where it was fostered, curiously enough, by the patronage of two imperial governments-Croatia does not appear to have any reason to complain of Hungarian oppression. The Croats had their own provincial assembly or diet, which regulated the internal affairs of the province, their own county assemblies, their own Ban or governor, they elected their own county and instruments. The hopes of these tribes have municipal officers; a great part of the province was organized as a part of the military frontier, and was therefore removed from the control of the Hungarian Diet, and brought more directly under the authorities at Vienna. The only specific charge, so far as we have been able to discover, that they brought against the Hungarians was, that the Majjars desired to impose their language upon the Croats. The history of the matter is this-Latin had been the language of public business, of debates, and of the decisions of courts of law in Hungary, till the attempt of Joseph II. to substitute the German excited a strong national movement in favor of the Majjar. From 1790 this movement has been persevered in with the greatest steadiness; and in 1830 an act was passed by the diet, and sanctioned by the king, which decreed that, after the 1st of January, 1844, no one could be named to any public office who did not know the Majjar. This The relative positions of the peasants and the completed the series of measures which substi- nobles, and the antagonism of these classes, entuted that language for the Latin, a language un-abled Austria to exercise great influence and even intelligible to the great body of the people. If a living was to be substituted for a dead language, no other than the Majjar could well be selected. Besides being greatly more numerous than any other tribe speaking one language, the Majjars were the wealthiest, the most intelligent and influential; and their language was spoken not only by their own race, but by a large proportion of the other inhabitants of the country-probably by The elements of discord, although they were six or seven times as many persons as used any such as enabled agitators to raise a part of the other Hungarian dialect. The Croats, whose Sclaves against the Hungarians, when it was relanguage was not that of any other tribe, could not solved to retract the concessions that had been expect it to be chosen; and all that was required made to them, would hardly have been found of them was to employ the Majjar where they had available for that purpose, had not the instigators hitherto employed the Latin language, and no- of the revolt acted in the name of the King of where else. The county of Agram, the most Hungary, and of more than one imperial governimportant and populous of the three counties of ment; nor even then, perhaps, had they not been Croatia, repudiated the notion of a separate Il-enabled to dispose of the resources of the military lyrian nationality, of which, however, the county frontier. Now that the Hungarians have obtown was the centre; and clung to Hungary as tained important successes, it is probable that the the safeguard of its liberty. The truth is that Sclaves will all join them. The movement of the Croats, of whose hostility to the Hungarians these tribes against the Hungarians, which was we have heard so much, are nearly equally divided between Hungary and Austria; and, but for the military organization which places so large a portion of that people at the disposal of Austria-and that the most formidable portion power in Hungary. The peasant population, amounting to three millions or more, now emancipated from their disabilities and exclusive or disproportionate burdens, and raised to the rank and wealth of freeholders and proprietors, by the liberality of the nobles, have an equal interest with them in defending the institutions to which they owe their elevation. caused by other influences in addition to that of Austria, has thus tended to lead the imperial government into hostility with Hungary, without contributing much to its strength. When the Austrian government resolved to sub jugate Hungary, it was presumed that they under- enna, or Crakow, there will remain to Austria to took the conquest of that country relying on their carry on the war only 12,144,000. But, as probown resources. But the success of the enterprise ably two millions of the Sclaves, and other tribes was so doubtful, and a failure so hazardous to the of Hungary, including the military frontier, may empire, that we never could believe it possible have been reckoned as on her side, that number that it had been undertaken without an assurance may be deducted from Hungary and added to of support. It is true that the imperial govern- Austria. There will then remain to Hungary a ment might at that time have expected an adjust- population of 12,000,000, concentrated in their ment of their differences with Sardinia; but Ven- own country for its defence, and to Austria about ice still held out, peace with Sardinia had not 14,000,000, whose military resources must be disbeen concluded, the state of Italy was daily becom-tributed over her whole dominions-from the froning more alarming, and the Austrian cabinet knew that they could maintain their hold of Lombardy, and reduce Venice, only by means of a powerful army. They were aware that the condition of Galicia, and even of Bohemia, was precarious, and that neither could safely be denuded of troops. The state of affairs in Germany was not such as to give them confidence, still less to promise them support; and the attitude they assumed towards the Assembly at Frankfort, though not unworthy of the ancient dignity of Austria, was not calculated to diminish her anxiety. Even in the hereditary states all was not secure. They were aware that old sentiments and feelings had been shaken and disturbed; that, although order had for the time been restored, by the fidelity and courage of the army, men's minds were still unsettled; and that, both in the capital and in the provinces, there were factions whose sympathies were not with the imperial government, and which, in case of disasters, might again become formidable. The capital alone required a garrison of twenty thousand men, to keep it in subjection to preserve its tranquillity. Putting aside, therefore, every consideration as to the jus- Reviewing the whole of these considerations, tice of the war, and looking merely to its probable therefore, we hold it to be quite incredible that consequences, it is obvious that, without such a the Austrian government, having the alternative preponderance of power and resources as would of restoring peace, by permitting the King of not only insure success, but insure it at once-by Hungary to fulfil his engagements to his subjects, one effort—it would have been madness in Aus-could have preferred a war for the subjugation of tria, for the purpose of forcing her constitution upon the Hungarians, to engage in a contest in which she staked her power-her existence-and which could not fail to be dangerous to her if it became protracted. Let us then examine the resources of both parties, and see what was the preponderance on the side of Austria, which would justify her in undertaking so hazardous an enterprise, on the supposition that she relied solely on her own re sources. The Austrian empire contains a population of 36,000,000; of these about 7,000,000 are Germans —about 15,500,000 are Sclaves-nearly 8,000,000 are of Italian and Dacian races, and about 5,600,000 of Asiatic races, including 5,000,000 of Majjars. If from these 36,000,000 we deduct the population of Hungary, 14,000,000, of Lombardy and Venice, 4,876,000—or, together, nearly 19,000,000, hostile to Austria-and the population of Galicia, 4,980,000, which did not contribute to her strength, to say nothing of Bohemia or Vi tiers of Russia to those of Sardinia, from the frontiers of Prussia to the confines of Turkey—to reestablish her authority in Lombardy, to reduce Venice to submission, to hold the Sardinians and the Italian republicans in check, to control and overawe Galicia and Crakow, to garrison Vienna and maintain tranquillity at home, and, finally, to conquer 12,000,000 of Hungarians. It is true she had a noble army, and Hungary then had almost none, except such levies as she had hastily raised, and which were as yet without skilful commanders. But Austria knew by experience the difficulties and hazards of a war in Hungary. Her government must have known the resources of the country, the courage and patriotism of its inhabitants, and the success that had attended their resistance to her forces on more than one former occasion. Surrounded by difficulties at home, in Italy, and in Germany, with full one half of the population of the empire hostile to the government, she was undertaking an enterprise which her forces, in circumstances far more favorable to success, had repeatedly failed to accomplish. Hungary, if she had relied solely on her own resources, and followed only her own impulses and the dictates of her own interest. We cannot doubt that she was assured of foreign aid—that her resolution to make war upon Hungary, rather than keep faith with her, was adopted in concert with the power by which that aid was to be furnished. If this inference be just, we may find in that concert a reason for the extraordinary accumulation of Russian troops in Wallachia and Moldavia, which appeared to threaten the Ottoman Porte, but which also threatened Hungary, where the only corps that has been actively employed found occupation. The feeling of Germany made it unsafe to bring Russian troops into Austria; but the massing of Russian troops in the Danubian principalities of Turkey excited no jealousy in Germany. Austria, too, shrinking instinctively from the perils of Russian intervention, while in reliance on that support she pursued a bold and hazardous policy, with a confidence which otherwise would have been unintelligible and mis placed, hoped perhaps to have escaped the danger of having recourse to the aid on which she relied. will put forth her whole strength, and Hungary Russia comes forward to reestablish by force of arms the authority of a government which has been unable to protect itself against its own sub Having employed all her disposable means in the war, Austria now maintains it at a disadvantage, for her own defence. Her armies have been defeated, her resources exhausted or crippled, her capital is in danger, and she must either concede the demands of the Hungarians, or call in the armies of Russia to protect the government and enforce her policy. What the demands of the Hungarians may now be we know not; but if they have wisdom equal to the courage and energy they have displayed, they will be contented with the restitution of their legal rights, which Austria may grant without dishonor, because in honor and good faith they ought never to have been rejected. If they are wise as they are brave, the Hungarians will seek to restore unity and peace to the empire with which their lot has been cast-whose weakness cannot be their strengthwhose independence is necessary to their own security. That the intervention of Russia would be fatal to the Austrian empire, to its dignity, its power, its capacity to fulfil the conditions of its existence as a great independent state-the guardian of eastern Europe-is, we think, unquestionable. Attributing no interested design to Russia-assuming that she desires nothing so much as the strength and stability of the Austrian empire—we cannot doubt that the reëstablishment and maintenance of the imperial government's authority by the military force of Russia, were it the best government that ever existed, would dese-jects; and, when reëstablished, she will have to crate, in the heart of every German, the throne of maintain it. How long this military protection the Kaiser, and cover it with dust and ashes. In is to endure, after all armed opposition is put down, a contest between the Russians and the Hunga- no man can pretend to foretell. It must depend rians, the sympathy of all Germany, of all west- upon events which are beyond the reach of human ern Europe, would be with the Majjars. Half the foresight. But a government that is dependent Emperor of Austria's own heart would be on the for its authority on a foreign power, must, in every side of the loyal nation to which his house owes sense of the term, cease to be an independent govso large a debt of gratitude; who, he must be ernment. Is it under Russian protection that aware, have been alienated only by the errors and Austria is to preserve Lombardy, or to maintain the injustice of his advisers, and who, if they are her influence in Germany? Would the Sclavonie sacrificed, will not, and cannot be sacrificed to his population of Austria continue to respect a Gerinterests. Hungary was perfectly satisfied with man government protected by a nation of Sclaves her constitution and her government, as estab-—would they not rather feel that the real power lished by the laws of April, 1848. She was loyal was that of their own race? Would the Austo her king, and careful of the honor of Austria, trians forget the humiliation of Russian protecwhich she sent her best troops to defend in tion, or forgive the government that had sacrificed another country; her crimes have been her at- their independence? Dependent upon Russian tachment to established institutions, and the cour-protection, the Austrian government could no age and patriotism with which she has defended them. This is not the spirit which it can ever be the interest of a sovereign to extinguish in his own subjects. The desire to overturn established institutions is the very evil which the Emperors of Austria and Russia profess to combat, and their first efforts are to be directed against the only Christian nation between the frontiers of Belgium and Russia-between Denmark and Malta, which was satisfied with its institutions and government, and determined to maintain them. longer give security to Turkey, or counterbalance the weight with which the power of Russia, whatever may be the moderation of the reigning emperor, must continue to press upon the frontiers of weaker countries. In such a state of things, the relations of Austria to the rest of Europe would be changed-reversed. Instead of being the bulwark of Germany and the safeguard of Turkey against Russia, she would become the advanced post of Russia against both. Is it to bring her to this condition that she has allowed herself to be If Russia engages seriously in the war, she involved in the war with Hungary? Is it to ar rive at this result that she will consent to prolong | of indefinite duration, with those of Russia, would it? give to the great northern power a preponderance, both in Europe and in Asia, such as no hereditary monarchy has possessed in modern times. With 150,000 or 180,000 men in Hungary, Wallachia, and Moldavia, the Russian armies would encircle the frontiers of Turkey, from the shores of the Adriatic to the frontiers of Persia. With a government in Austria dependent upon the support of those armies, the power that has hitherto been the chief security of Turkey against the military superiority of Russia, would be at the command of the court of St. Petersburg. The Sclavonic tribes, which form the chief part of the Turkish population in Europe, seeing themselves enveloped by the armies of Russia, guiding and controlling the power of Austria, in addition to her own, must be thoroughly demoralized, even if Russia should abstain from all attempts to debauch them. They will feel that they have no course left but to court her, to look to her whose force is visibly developed before them, is in contact with them, surrounds them, and appears to be irresistible everywhere. They will find in the unity of race an inducement to adhere to the rising destinies of the great Sclavonic empire-their instincts will teach them to abandon, in time, the fabric that is about to fall. Of the effect, in Germany, of the Russian intervention in Austria, it is almost superfluous to speak. The advance of Russian armies, simultaneously with the dissolution of more than one refractory assembly, has raised in the minds of men, already in a state of furious excitement, a suspicion that these events are not unconnected, and that the Emperor of Austria is not the only German sovereign who is in a league with the czar! The time has arrived when the question must be determined whether order or anarchy is to prevail; and we have no doubt that, in Germany as in France, the friends of order will speedily gain a complete ascendancy-if there be no foreign, and above all, no Russian intervention. But to very many of the patriotic friends of order in Germany, Russian intervention in her affairs, or an appearance of concert between their own government and Russia for the purpose of influencing German interests, and suppressing German feelings, would be intolerable. There is reason to apprehend that a great body of true-hearted Germans, especially in the middle classes-whose power must, after all, decide the contest, and who desire social order and security under a constitutional monarchy-may fancy they see in the advance of Russian forces, at a moment when the sovereigns, supported by their armies are making a stand against popular tyranny, cause to fear that even their constitutional freedom is in danger. We are satisfied that there are no reasonable grounds for such fears-that the other governments of Germany are too wise to follow the example of Austria in her conduct towards Hun-interest would carry her influence, and it may be gary; but that example cannot fail to produce distrust in many minds already disposed to it; and popular movements are more influenced by passion than by reason. Forced to involve herself in all the relations of the government she upholds, Russia will come into immediate contact with the minor German monarchies whose governments may also stand in need of protection. There is no one kingdom in Germany that could then pretend to counterbalance her power, or to resist her policy. The same her arms, into Italy. It will no longer be necessary to negotiate the passage of the Dardanelles by her fleet-the road will be open to her troops, and the passage of her fleet will no longer be opposed. We have not attributed to the Emperor Nicholas, or to Russia, any ambitious ulterior views in affording assistance to Austria—we have supposed him to be influenced only by the most generous feelings towards a brother emperor. But, to suppose that he has no desire to extend his own or his country's influence and power-that he will not take advantage of favorable circumstances to extend them-would be absurd; and were he to set out with the firmest resolution to avoid such a It is impossible not to feel that Russia is about to occupy a new position in Europe, which, if no event occurs to obstruct her in her course must greatly increase her influence and her power for good or for evil. She is to be the protector of Austria, not against foreign enemies, but against one of the nations of which that empire is composed. She is to reestablish and maintain, by military force, a government which has been unable to maintain itself against its internal enemies-a government which a nation of fourteen millions of people has rejected, fought, and beat-result, the course on which he is now said to have A great power cannot interfere in the internal affairs of another state, to the extent of maintaining there by force of arms a government incapable of maintaining itself against the nation. without getting involved in the relations of the government it upholds, to an amount of which it is impossible to fix or to predict the limits, but of which the tendency has ever been, and must ever be, progressively to increase the power of the protecting over the protected government; and the single fact that the interests of Austria were in this manner inseparably bound up, for a time en. entered, if he conducts it to a successful issue, must, in spite of himself, lead to that result. It is no answer, therefore, to say that the Emperor of Russia does not desire to extend his territory; that he has abstained with singular moderation from interfering in the affairs of Europe, while every capital was in tumult. and every country divided against itself. Giving him credit for every quality that can adorn the loftiest throne, the consequences of his present policy, if it be successfully carried out, are equally inevitable. We must remember, on the other hand, that |