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POETRY.-Apostrophe to Patience, 407.-Emigrants, 426.-Man's Love, Woman's Love, 431. SHORT ARTICLES.—Rabbi Chanina; Use of the Marvellous, 419.—Trifling Occupations, 426

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WASHINGTON, 27 DEC., 1845.

Or all the Periodical Journals devoted to literature and science which abound in Europe and in this country, this has appeared to me to be the most useful. It contains indeed the exposition only of the current literature of the English language, but this by its immense extent and comprehension includes a portraiture of the human mind in the utmost expansion of the present age. J. Q. ADAMS.

LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 277.-8 SEPTEMBER, 1849.

From the Edinburgh Review.

Ferdinand I., the first elective prince of that fam1. The Cause of Hungary stated. By Count LA-ily to whom the Hungarian sceptre was confided— DISLAUS TELEKI. Translated from the original French, by WILLIAM BROWNE. London: 2. De l' Intervention Russe. Par le Comte LADISLAUS TELEKI. 1re et 2nde Feuille. Paris:

1849.

1849.

3. De l' Esprit Publique en Hongrie, depuis la Revolution Française. Par A. DEGERANDO. Paris:

1848.

4. A Narrative of Events in Vienna, from Latour to Windischgrätz. By BERTHOLD AUERBACH. Translated by JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR; with an Introduction and Appendix. London : 1849. 5. Ludwig Kossuth; Dictator von Ungarn. Mann

heim 1849.

6. Der Kreig in Ungarn. Dargestellt von OSCAR FÓDÁL. Mannheim: 1849.

THE events of the last ten months have awakened, both in diplomatists and nations, a lively interest in the affairs of Eastern Europe. Since the Turkish columns melted away before Lorraine and Sobieski under the walls of Vienna, no transactions of equal moment with the present war in Hungary have attracted the eyes of the West to those remote provinces of Christendom. While every despatch may give a new aspect to the contest, it would be absurd to speculate with any confidence on its issue, or even to enter largely upon its details. But many of our readers will perhaps thank us for placing briefly before them some of the facts and features of the struggle between the cabinet of Vienna and the Hungarian nation-a struggle which, particularly since the armed assistance of Russia has been invoked, involves new destinies for all the parties engaged in it, and will probably be felt in its consequences throughout the civilized world.

The question now brought to the abitrament of force, is historical, political, and economical. It is of ancient date, of immediate interest, and of great prospective significance. We shall accordingly survey it under each of these aspects-aiming rather to dispose of some current fallacies, than to comprise within our narrow limits the contemporaneous and even daily changes of the scene.

The first and most prevalent error is, that of regarding Hungary as a province of Austria. The crowns, it is true, have been united since the year 1526; but the realms were always distinct. When England took from Hanover a common sovereign, its own national independence was not more completely recognized. In Count Ladislaus Teleki's pamphlet, "the Hungarian Manifesto," will be seen the coronation oath, which has been administered during a period of more than three centuries by the diets at Presburg to fourteen monarchs of the house of Hapsburg. This oath was taken by VOL. XXII. 28

CCLXXVII. LIVING AGE.

when the battle of Mohacs (A. D. 1526) had extinguished the royal line of Jagellon. It was taken by Ferdinand V., the present ex-emperor, on his coronation in 1830, (he was crowned in his father's life-time ;) and it is a touching incident in the history of this unfortunate prince, that, on being urged by his ministers to suppress the Hungarian constitution, his conscience answered: "But my oath!" His reason was clouded; but a moral instinct recalled to him the fact, that his Hungarian dominions were held by virtue of a compact; that an oath to preserve and transmit their immunities had preceded his consecration; and that the crown of St. Stephen was the symbol of an independent nation.

The pedigree of their immunities during the long space of three centuries (1526—1848) continued unimpaired. The coronation oath had been renewed in 1687, when the elective crown was entailed on the house of Hapsburg; it was fully' recognized by the Pragmatic Sanction in 1723, when the right of succession to the Austrian domains was extended to the heirs female of Charles VI.; and because Joseph II., who combined the projects of a Siéyes with the temper of a despot, had attempted to elude or evade it, it was imposed, in 1790, with fresh guarantees, upon his successor, Leopold. In 1816 and 1825 Francis I. fared no better than his predecessors in his endeavors to change the relations between Hungary and Austria.

By Article X. of the enlarged compact, entered into between the Hungarian people and Leopold in 1790, it was declared that " Hungary was a country free and independent in her entire system of legislation and government; that she was not subject to any other people or any other state; but that she should have her own separate existence and her own constitution, and should consequently be governed by kings crowned according to her national laws and customs." This article, a corollary and complement to the statutes of nearly three antecedent centuries, was confirmed once more by the ex-emperor Ferdinand, in his character of King of Hungary, on the 11th of April, 1848; and at the same time there was added the guarantee of an independent ministry, responsible to the diet alone, with the Palatine viceroy. The Hungarians believed in the sanctity of the royal word; but it appears by a letter from the Archduke Stephen to the emperor, dated 24th of March, 1848, that the royal word was not intended by the imperial advisers to be a real security. The Viennese cabinet secretly reserved the liberty of retracting its concessions on the first opportuni

ty; and accordingly the archduke proposes in that utes of that kingdom, old or new-were especialletter three methods of abrogating the Hugarian ly obnoxious. immunities a peasant's war to be excited against Of the more popular ministers none possessed the nobles a commissioner to be armed with mar- oratorical talents, and all played a very insignifitial law-or a temporary compromise with Count cant part in the Constituent Assembly at Vienna, Batthyany, the then head of the Hungarian minis- Latour, however, both from his relations to the try. The proposals of the archduke, however court and his administrative abilities, deserves tempting and consonant with the feelings of the more particular mention, than his nominal colcourt-party, were not then accepted. For the more violent alternative the Austrian cabinet was not ready and a fraud of its own devising was already in preparation.

leagues are entitled to. His activity, in spite of advanced age, in reorganizing the army and commissariat, enabled Radetzky to assume the offensive in Italy, the Ban of Croatia to threaten Hungary, and the Servian rebels to maintain themselves against the Hungarian troops. His violent death in the October revolution created a void in the cabinet which has not yet been supplied; and the late successes of the insurgents are not more owing to their own valor than to the returning decrepitude of the Viennese war-office.

The policy of the Austrian camarilla at this period was to gain time, and to patch up such a ministry as should compromise nothing, yet help to save appearances. The first Viennese revolution had just exploded; Radetzky had not yet retrieved the fortunes of the empire in Italy; the army was partially disorganized and public credit low. In the meanwhile the recent conversion of After what we have already stated, there can the absolute monarchy into a constitutional one be no clearer fact in the history of modern Euhad not been of a kind to discourage the court- rope than the constitutional independence of Hunparty or affect the spirit of the government, least gary. Its present claims neither rest upon doubtof all in its federal relations. The court had ful traditions, nor are buried in obscure and made a few nominal changes in the mechanism of obsolete documents. Hungarian institutions are administration, but had retained the substance of not merely title deeds, as old as the connection of power. The Aulic council of war became the Hungary and Austria; but both in their spirit and ministry of war; the Aulic exchequer the minis- their letter they have been solemnly recognized try of finance; and although Count Sedlnitzky, the and renewed at every election or accession to the obnoxious minister of police, fled for his life, the throne. There have been, indeed, in the interim, veteran Metternich was succeeded in the depart-parties among the magnates as accessible to the ment of foreign affairs by his friend and former baits of the Austrian cabinets, as our own Harassociate, Count Ficquelmont. All the other min- leys and St. Johns were to the pensions of St. isters, the presidents, and the old bureaucracy Germains; and there have been, on the part of the remained in office. Subsequently, indeed, grow- Hungarian people, suffering and self-sacrifice in ing discontent and continual émeutes led in the defence of the Kaisar's throne. But the servility course of the summer to new ministerial combina- of the magnates was the crime or weakness of inditions: Counts Kollowrath and Taafe, Barons viduals or of a class; and the devotion of the Kübeck and Sommaruga retired; and, at length, people, while Prussian or French bayonets bristled the real ruler of Austria, the Archduke Ludwig on the frontier, became strenuous opposition, as himself. They were replaced by Pillersdorf, often as the sovereign, unmindful of his coronation Dobblhof, Schwarzer, Hornbostl, &c.-men who oath and solemn compacts, attempted to convert enjoyed some degree of popularity, but who had his constitutional kingdom into an Austrian deneither the confidence of the court nor direct com- pendency. Five times in the course of a single munication with the emperor. All real business, century, (1606—1711,) did the Hungarian people in the mean time, passed through the hands of rise in defence of their constitution, and, of what Baron Wessenberg; and the only persons really was still dearer to them, their liberty of conin the confidence of the court were Latour, first science. Their long struggles against misgovernminister of war, Krauss, minister of finance, and, ment from Vienna present indeed many features in at a later period, Bach, minister of justice. They common with our own revolutions of 1640 and alone were entrusted with the secret- -that govern- 1688.

On the approach of foreign invasion they

ment was merely lying by for a favorable moment were as devoted to Kaisar as the cavaliers to when the constitution was to be neutralized and Charles Stuart. In asserting their rights, they absolutism restored. Old things had passed away, were as keen, vigilant, and unflinching as Pym, yet nothing had become new. Metternich was an Hampden, and Somers. exile, and his maxims of policy apparently in discredit. Yet the archimage of despotism might still in fact pull the strings: or at all events his policy was pursued by his disciples with formularies as barren, and with a hatred to independent nationalities as active as his own. To such men the concessions, as they were styled, to Hungary -but as they are more correctly termed the stat

The late emperor, unsuited for his position by his imbecility and his scruples, was no sooner displaced, under, what in such cases is, the fiction of a resignation, than the veil was lifted up. His brother, Francis Charles, renounced. The nephew, Francis Joseph, not twenty years of age, was immediately put on the throne, as if a constitutional throne were a mere matter of family arrangement.

The

İn the teeth of statute law and historical warning, annul institutions, and to violate his oath. But at a moment when the pillars of society were the moment he proceeds to confirm or enlarge a loosened, when "within were fears" of anarchy, charter which recognized the ancient immunities and without were the gathering clouds and "grim of one portion of his subjects, and imparted civil repose" of Russian intervention, the councillors and religious freedom to others, he is assumed to of the boy-emperor proposed at once to abolish Hungarian independence. The puppet of Stadion and Windischgrätz, he was instructed by his masters that Austrian unity was imperfect so long as the laws and immunities, which his predecessors had sworn to maintain, were allowed to survive. Their destruction seemed an easy task to men whom experience could not teach and whom principle did not restrain. They tendered to their youthful sovereign the counsel of the ministers of Rehoboam. "To your tents, O Israel!" was the response of the Hungarians; but not until consti- | was illegal—the concession of the crown, without tutional remonstrance had been exhausted, and after they had beheld their lands wasted by fire and sword.

be under the incapacitation of restraint. prospect of an integral union between the privileged and unprivileged classes of Hungary justly alarmed the upholders of Austrian uniformity. It was a heavy blow and great discouragement to a statesman of the divide et impera school. The paternal government dreaded a united family. Therefore the emperor was in duress when he conceded-and a free agent when he recalled his concessions.

One concession, as regards Hungary at least,

the consultation of the diet, to one who is not the direct heir of the house of Hapsburg. The Hungarian constitution expressly declares that "the king cannot be discharged from the duties of sovereignty without the consent of the nation." And the diet, as representing the nation; has the appointment of a regency, in case of the king's incompetence to discharge his functions. But it is no part of his functions to change the order of succession; and it is no proof of incompetence, we fear, whatever it may be of imperiousness, to perform an unconstitutional act. The Claudius resigns; the Agrippina of the day consummates her intrigues by procuring for her son a crown. But Francis Joseph, until his coronation at Presburg, is neither de jure nor de facto King of Hungary. He is at present, in the language of Hungarian law, "a foreigner;" and a mass of statutes enacts that no foreigner can take part in the administration of Hungary. Hereafter it may be advisable to cement the ancient union between Austria and Hungary in the person of a common sovereign; but such reconcilement must be preceded by recognition of the compact which has conveyed to fourteen emperors the crown of Stephen.

It has been pretended that the recent concessions of the ex-emperor were extorted from him at a time when his freedom of action was suspended by revolutionary violence; and with equal falseness the Hungarians are supposed to have prejudiced their cause by fostering or joining in the disturbances at Vienna. In one sense, the extortion may be admitted; but it was to similar extortions, in not very dissimilar periods, that we owe the Great Charter, the Petition of Right, and the Declaration of Right. We can understand the validity of such a plea in the case of Charles I. while a prisoner at Hampton Court. He was excluded from his family, his advisers, his party, and his servants. His correspondence was intercepted, his studies, his recreations, and his very looks were jealously watched. But it has never been pretended that Ferdinand was in durance; or that the members of the Hungarian Diet, who came to Vienna, in March, 1848, had power to coerce or intimidate the sovereign in his own palace. If these "honorable members" possessed any supernatural influence, they must have exerted it in evoking the Kaisar from his palace, as ancient superstition imagined the gods might be evoked from Troy or Veii on the eve of their fall. For not many days after the arrival of these deputies, the emperor-king, accompanied by several members of his family and his court, repaired to Presburg to confirm these extorted laws; and, during his stay there, he received the Hungarian ministry and reviewed the national guards. "The imperial casuists," says Count Teleki, "have out- The twenty-five articles of the “Diploma of stepped the limits of absurdity. They condemn Inauguration" in 1790, after generally affirming violence, and they still consider legal the liberties the independence of the crown, the laws, and the which the Austrians conquered in March, upon privileges of Hungary, proceed to decree, among their barricades; and yet they condemn the other enactments, triennial convocation of the laws of Hungary, voted peaceably by a delibera- diet, exclusion of foreigners—that is, of Austrians tive assembly, and peaceably sanctioned by the-from the government, and the residence of the sovereign." We think the count might have stated emperor-king, during a portion of every year, in the inconsistency in even stronger terms. The his Hungarian dominions. They declare that the ex-emperor is represented as having been free to king can neither make laws nor impose taxes listen to the promptings of reäctionists, free to without the consent of the diet; and that royal

As, however, it is a favorite plea with the Austrian cabinet and its partisans, that the concessions of 1848 were not only extorted from the emperor, but were also at variance with the spirit of the Hungarian constitution, and with the Pragmatic Sanction in particular, we will compare those concessions with the guarantees imposed upon Leopold II. in 1790, and accepted by his successor in 1792; and which, until recently, were the basis of the relations between Austria and Hungary.

proclamations, unless countersigned by one at least of the boards of the Hungarian government, are null and void.

express violation of the nineteenth article of Leopold II.'s "Diploma," and of so many preceding charters, were arrested by the imposing attitude There are many other details; but these alone of the diet in 1825. Francis I., upon this, reare sufficient to show that the demands of the tracted, apologized, and, by three additional arHungarians in 1848 did not, as regards Austria ticles, engaged to observe the fundamental laws of at least, introduce any sudden or violent innova- his Hungarian kingdom, to convoke the diet at tion into the federal relations between the two least triennially, and not to levy subsidies withcountries. It remains to be seen whether, in the out its concurrence. From 1825, the moveinterval of nearly sixty years, (1790-1848,) Aus-ments of the Austrian government were less dartria fulfilled her portion of this compact, or Hungary has protested unreasonably and prematurely against her grievances.

This interval of more than half a century may be divided into two periods-the first comprising the wars which followed the first French revolution, and which ended in 1815; the second beginning from that date, and terminating with the present civil convulsions.

potic innovation, and is now supplying the native Hungarian government with some of its ablest and most experienced members.

ing and more insidious. It tampered with elections, stimulated the hostile prejudices of the races, and augmented the number of its partisans in the chamber or table of the magnates. Its success, however, in these arts was scarcely answerable to its diligence. The municipalities of Hungary, her county elections, and the temper of her country gentlemen opposed, in most cases, an effective barrier to the encroachments of absolutism. The The former of these periods presents an excep- nation needed only a strong impulse to complete tional, the latter a normal, aspect of Hungarian its organization; and from the year 1827 dates affairs. In the one the adage-silent leges inter that regular and active opposition which, under arma—was once more exemplified; and the Hun- the title of the Hungarian party, withstood for garian nation was too much occupied with wars twenty years (1827-1847) the assaults of desand rumors of wars to proceed regularly or zealously with constitutional or social reforms. Nay, the chivalrous nature of the people itself, and their loyalty to the Kaisar's throne, led them to submit to repeated and exorbitant demands for men and money, without exacting a corresponding redress of grievances. Francis I.-when the victories of Napoleon were shattering the unity of Austria-reminded the diet of its response to Maria Theresa at a similar crisis; and, on each appeal, was met with equal devotion, if not with commissariat, and her magazines. During the equal enthusiasm, even after the Hungarians were latter period, Austria has requited Hungary for weary of a war in which they performed the giant's these services and sacrifices with successive and task and received the dwarf's reward. From 1796 to 1811 the diets were convoked to grant supplies, and to be dismissed as soon as they spoke of grievances. For twenty years this unequal contest went on between a generous people and a prince who forgot nothing but his promises.

Such, then, have been the relations of Hungary to Austria during one of the most momentous eras in the annals of the world. Twenty years of nearly incessant war were followed by an even longer interval of almost uninterrupted peace. During the former period, Hungary was Austria's firmest bulwark-furnished her best troops, her

systematic endeavors to abridge or cancel her undeniable immunities; to degrade into a subject province" an old and haughty people, brave in arms;" and, finally, to clog and crush its spirit of enterprise with vexatious imposts and absurd fiscal regulations. The reforms of 1848 may have been imperative in their tone; but the results of sixty years' endurance can scarcely be termed sudden; nor the assertion of rights-sanctioned for centuries, and as often invaded-be justly designated as unseasonable or unconstitutional.

With the restoration of peace in 1815, a new era began for Hungary. In spite of wars, and levies, and bad government, the kingdom had advanced in material prosperity; and it was expected that peace would afford leisure for carrying out the social and constitutional reforms, which the There is another error which Austria has equalcommission of 1790 had recommended. But it ly encouraged-that of regarding the present war was an era of brief promise and protracted disap- as a war of races. Through mistake or interest, pointment. Austria, as a member of the Holy the continental journalists have generally assisted Alliance, was now more than ever determined to in misleading the public on this part of the Hunplace Hungary upon the same footing with the garian question. Almost all French writers, and hereditary states. A court party was sedulously among them the instructive and trustworthy Defostered in the country and the chambers; Aus- gerando, are too prone to derive the Hungarian trian officers were put in command of Hungarian revolution from their own revolution in 1848. The regiments; the bondage of the press was rigorous- movement in Hungary may have received, in comly enforced; new shackles were imposed on trade; mon with the rest of Europe, an impulse from that the currency was depreciated; for twelve years event-since it is scarcely possible that such a no diet was summoned; and nearly every article chord should not vibrate through every fibre of the of the constitution of 1790 was assailed by violence civilized world. But the origin and objects of or evaded by intrigues. The arbitrary measures by which, in 1822 and 1823, the Austrian cabinet attempted to levy taxes and troops in Hungary, in

*We have little confidence in French republicanism, even for France itself;-still less as a source of inspiration for other countries. Mazzini and his followers have

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