by no means tranquil at the time. Notwithstanding Peter's boasting, and his perpetual attempt to get his emissaries quartered on every estate in the country, he was the reverse of popular at home. He had a very handsome house, which he kept full of friars, monks, Jesuits, Dominicans, Carthusians, and Grand Inquisitors, fellows who did little else than eat, drink, sleep, and conspire at the expense of the working population. This had become so intolerable, that Peter, though the most tyrannical despot upon earth, found it necessary to come down a peg or two, and announced his intention of revising the laws of his household, which, to say the truth, needed mending sorely. But he did not stop there. He began to intrigue for a restoration of the whole estates which were formerly in the family of Signor Macaroni, but which latterly had passed into the hands of other proprietors for example, Don Ferdinando; and, at the time I speak of, his village was filled with every description of cut-throat, robber, and murderer that could be gathered from the country round, all of them shouting "Long life to Peter!" and "Hurrah for the independence of Macaroni!" They were in the very midst of this jubilation, which sounded more like an echo of Pandemonium than anything else, when Mat-o'-the-Mint drove into the town; and the moment they heard of his arrival, the very worst of them Massaniello, Massaroni, Corpo di Caio Mario, and Vampyrio degli Assassinacione-congregated under the windows, and whooped and howled, till Mat, in an access of terror, came out upon the balcony, pressed a flag, with a death's-head and cross-bones upon it, to his bosom, and proposed three cheers for the independence of Macaroni! may conceive what a taking the poor fellow must have been in before he ventured to do anything of the sort.

You

Mat, being thus committed to Macaroni, was a mere baby in the hands of Peter. They had an interview to discuss the affairs of the neighbouring Squirearchy, and any other little matters which might occur to either; which Mat felt as an honour, whilst Peter was feeling his pulse. Peter,

like an aged villain as he was, affected to be extremely straightforward and open in his remarks, and quite confidential in his communications; so that, in the course of half an hour, poor Mat was entirely at his mercy. After they had chatted for a short time, and cracked a bottle or so of Lachrymæ together, Peter claps me down a map of the whole country, whereon Squire Bull's farm was marked out with some twelve or thirteen crosses, before Mat, and asked him whether he thought it was all correct?

"Undubitably," quoth Mat-o'-theMint, who regarded the crosses as simply indicative of the villages.

"Then there can be no objections to the publication of a map of this kind upon hierarchical principles ?" continued Peter, ogling his victim at the same time, as a fox makes love to a gander.

"Hier-I beg your pardon"-said Mat-o'-the-Mint, who was not overburdened with lore at any time, and just then was rather confuscated. Hieroglyphical principles, did you

say?"

"No-hierarchical principles," insinuated Peter, with a smile intended to convey the utmost amount of indulgence. "Hiero, you know, was one of our earliest geographers."

"To be sure he was"-replied Mat-o'-the-Mint-" and an intimate friend of Leander's--I've read of him in the Imaginary Conversations There can be no objections, of course. The map's a capital map!"

-

"I'm very glad to hear you say so," said Peter, sounding a little silver whistle which dangled from his button-hole, "it is always matter of satisfaction to me to meet with a plain, intellectual, honourable, enlightened gentleman, who knows what's what, and is above all manner of prejudice.-You may take away that map, Hippopotamus"-he continued, as an individual in purple stockings entered the room. "Mr Matthew is perfectly satisfied as to its correctness, and you may mention that when you write to your friends at home."

Hippopotamus swept up the plan and retired; but long after he closed the door, you might have heard a sniggering in the lobby.

"And now, my very dear friend," quoth Peter, "let's have a fresh bottle of Lachrymæ, and a little conversation about those affairs of Patrick's."

It matters very little what passed upon that score, for the job was already settled; but Peter probably thought it safest to make this appear the principal topic of their conversation. They sate up a long time together; and Mat-o'-the-Mint found it no easy matter to get home to his hotel, or to ring up the porter when he arrived there.

So far Peter thought that he was carrying everything his own way; but he was labouring all the while under a confounded mistake. Massaniello, Massaroni, and the rest, were glad enough to get into the village, and to throw up their caps for Peter and Macaroni, so long as they received free quarters, but not a moment longer. They had now time given them to peer into the churches and shops, and to reckon what might be turned to account; and they had made up their minds that if they could only get rid of Peter, there was plunder enough to be had out of his patrimony to maintain themselves in comfort for the remaining portion of their lives. Once having ascertained this, they lost no time in carrying their plans into execution. They broke out into actual revolt, stabbed one of Peter's servants on the stairs, shut up the old firebrand himself in his drawing-room, and discharged pistols into the windows, until they succeeded in frightening him out of his seven senses, and drove him out of the village in the disguise of an ordinary cabman. Then they began, as a matter of course, to help themselves to every man's property, and to share upon principles of equality. You have no idea what a row all this made. Even Ferdinando was furious, for though he had no great cause to regard Peter, he liked still less the rascally ruffians who had turned him out of house and home, and he proposed straightway to march a posse comitatus against them. But young Nap, now styled Administrator of the Baboonery, was before him. He had more idle fellows on hand than he knew what to do with, so he sent a

whole gang of them off to clear Peter's patrimony of the rioters, and mayhap, if convenient, to bring back the old Jesuit in person. Terrible were the execrations of Massaniello and his friends when they were summoned to surrender by young Nap's people! They said-what was true enoughthat if the others were entitled to eject Philip Baboon, they were entitled to turn Peter about his business; and they protested that the people of each estate should be allowed to manage their own matters without interference. But interference was the order of the day. Everybody was interfering; so Nap's men gave them to understand that they did not intend to be exceptions to the general rule. In short, Massaniello and his friends must evacuate or take the consequences. And, accordingly, evacuate they did, though not without a good deal of burning of gunpowder, levying of subsidies, abduction of church-plate, &c.; and, in due course of time, old Peter was brought back, amidst a discharge of Roman candles, squibs, crackers, and Catherine wheels; and with him returned the whole host of Jesuits, monks, and inquisitors, singing Quare fremuerunt gentes? and ten times more ready for any kind of mischief than before.

And where all this while, you may ask, was Mat-o'-the-Mint? Snug at home. Some of the upper servants in the household of Squire Bull had got an inkling of the business he was after, and put questions, which were neither easy to answer nor agreeable to evade. The Squire himself began to grumble. Protocol could not help perceiving that he had got into a scrape by sending out such an envoy; and even the Juggler did not care to have the matter publicly mentioned, but was willing that it should fall into oblivion. It is, however, easier to open a negotiation with Peter, than to get out of one. The difficulty is not to catch the lobster, but to force him to leave go after he has fastened on you with his claws; and you shall presently hear what took place in Bullockshatch, not long after the time when Peter was reinstated in his patrimony.

THE brief but brilliant struggle which was terminated, on the 13th August 1849, by the surrender of Vilagos, is unquestionably one of the most remarkable episodes in contemporary history; and numerous as are the writers, both in Germany and England, who have applied themselves to exhibit and comment on its circumstances, it yet is not wonderful that the interest of the subject is far from exhausted. A Schlesinger, a Pulsky, and a Klapka, graphic and striking as are their delineations of the singular contest in which they all more or less participated, have still left much for their successors to tell. The volume before us-a German collective translation of tales and sketches by several Hungarian authors -is of a different class from the works of the above-named writers. It does not aspire to the dignity of historical memoirs, nor is the form it affects-namely, the romantic-one that we usually much admire when applied to such recent and important events as those of which Hungary has been the theatre; events, too, of themselves so striking and fascinating as to render fictitious colouring superfluous. Nevertheless, these sketches must be admitted to have considerable merit. They are vivid and characteristic illustrations of a remarkable country, a heroic people, and an extraordinary period; and the amount of fiction interwoven is, in most instances, little more than is necessary to string together historical facts. Some few of them have little to do with the late war, but all throw more or less light upon the state and character of Hungary and its inhabitants. Their success in that country, the German preface assures us, and we can readily believe, has been very great. Some of them read like prose translations of poems; and with the exception of three or four, which are terse and matter-of-fact enough, their style has often a wild and metaphorical vagueness, recalling the semi

oriental character of the country whence they proceed. Those which take for their foundation the cruelties perpetrated by the Serbs upon the Magyars, and the fearful retaliation thereby provoked, are too horriblenot for truth, but to be pleasant reading; others border on the humorous, whilst some combine the tragic with the gay. Of this last class is the opening sketch by Sajó, entitled A Ball. It is a letter from a young lady to a friend, describing her and her mother's terror at the anticipated arrival of a Hungarian division, after English Guyon's glorious victory at Branisko; and relating how the old woman hid herself in cupboards and clock-cases, and urged her daughter to stain her face black, in order to diminish her personal attractions-advice which the daughter, not exactly comprehending its motive, most indignantly rejects. Presently she is astonished by the arrival of a couple of handsome hussar officers, instead of the leather-clad Calmuck-visaged barbarians, seven feet high, and with beards to their waists, which her mamma has predicted; and still more is she surprised when, instead of breaking open doors and ill-treating women, the newcomers organise a ball for that very night-a ball which she attends, and where she is greatly smitten with an elegant captain of Honveds. He has just led her out to dance, when the ball-room windows rattle to the sound of cannon, and a splashed hussar announces an attack upon the outposts. The officers buckle on their sabres and hurry to the fight, begging the ladies to await their return. In little more than an hour they reappear in the ball-room. They have repulsed the enemy, and return flushed and laughing to the dance. But the handsome Honved is not amongst them. The interrupted quadrille is re-formed, but Laura still awaits her partner. A tall dry-mannered major, of valiant reputation, approaches hier. "Fair lady," he says, "your partner

begs a thousand pardons for his absence. With the best will in the world, he cannot have the pleasure of dancing with you, for his leg has been shot away and amputated above the knee." This is the whole of the story-little enough, and owing everything to the manner of telling. The second tale, Claudia, by Szilagyi, is striking and powerful rather than agreeable. We pass on to The Chapel at Tarczal. All who have read Max Schlesinger's admirable narrative of the War in Hungary, will assuredly remember his account of the Hungarian hussar, "the embodiment of Magyarism, born and reared upon the heath," loving his country before all things, and, next to his country, his horse. "There are no soldiers in the Austrian army," says Schlesinger, "who can compare with him in chivalrous daring, dexterity, precision in manoeuvres, strict subordination, cleanliness, and fidelity."* Mr Sajó loves to exalt the virtues, and exemplify the eccentricities, of this fine race of cavalry soldiers. In several of his tales he introduces the heroic hussar, cheerfully suffering and sacrificing himself for Hungary's good and the honour of his corps. The opening scene of The Chapel at Tarczal is an amusing sketch of one of these veterans, thoroughly persuaded of the immeasurable superiority of the Magyar over all other men, and of the hussar over every other soldier.

"The Austrians had won the battle; the Hungarians had lost it. The Austrian general was taking his ease in his quarters, with his staff around him; an officer entered, and reported the capture of a hussar.

"Bring him in," said the General, who was in excellent humour. He himself wore the uniform of the hussar regiment he had formerly commanded, and had unbuckled his sabre and made himself comfortable; whilst his officers stood around buttoned to the chin, and strictly according to regulation.

The hussar entered-a bare-headed veteran with gray mustaches. His face was still black with the smoke of Schwechat's battle; his stiffly-waxed

mustaches stuck out fiercely right and left. He glanced gloomily around him, evidently ill-pleased with his company, until his eye fell upon the General. Then a gleam came over his features, like the sun breaking through a cloud, and he was near shouting for joy. The general laughed, and clapped his hands together. He recognised old Miska, his former orderly, who had served him for five years in Szobossló.

"Do you know me again, old man?" said he good-humouredly.

"At your service, Colonel," replied the hussar, raising his hand to his brow, as though his schako were still on his head.

"General, not Colonel," interposed one of the officers.

Silently and contemptuously the hussar measured the speaker with his eyes, wondering that an infantry-man, captain though he might be, dared intrude upon the conversation of hussars.

"So you have let yourself be taken prisoner, Miska?" said the General, willing to tease his old servant.

"What could I do, Colonel? There were so many against me. I got into a crowd of them."

"You knocked over a few, I dare say."

"I did not count them, but something remained upon the ground."

"Right, Miska. Let them give you a dram, and then go to my grooms; if anybody meddles with you, give him as good as he brings."

The hussar thanked his former colonel, but seemed in small haste to leave the room. The General noticed him no farther, but turned again to his officers and resumed the discussion of his plan of campaign. Suddenly he felt a pull at his pelisse, and turning, beheld Miska, who had stolen quietly behind him. With an unintelligible gesture, and a countenance of extraordinary mystery, the hussar pointed to something.

"Colonel! Colonel!" he whispered, redoubling the eagerness of his gesticulations. The General had no notion of his meaning. "Colonel, reach me yonder sabre from the corner."

"What the devil do you want with it?"

"Only give it here! In two minutes there shall not be a German in the room."

Miska thought his colonel was a prisoner.

The General burst into a hearty laugh, and told his officers of the hussar's kind intentions towards them. The laughter became general. The officers crowded round the old soldier, clapped him on the shoulder, and made much of him.

"Well, Miska, you will take service with us, eh?" said the General, curious to hear his answer.

"There are no hussar regiments here!" replied the old soldier, twisting his mustaches.

"What matter? You shall be a cuirassier. We'll make a serjeant of you."

"Many thanks. Can't stand it. Should have been serjeant long ago, if I could write."

"What do you think of doing then? Eat your ration in idleness?" "Not so-by your honour's favour --but make a run for it."

The honest answer pleased the General. The hussar saw that it did.

"A whole regiment of those gaiterlegged fellows could not keep me," he added.

One of the officers asked him angrily why he wished to go back. Those were mistaken, if any, who expected a rude answer from the hussar.

"Yonder is my regiment," he replied, again twirling his mustache. "A true soldier bides by his colours."

To this nothing could be objected. "Well, Miska, that you may not desert from us, I let you go free."

"Thanks, Colonel." Once more the hand was raised to the schako's place. "You can go."

The hussar lingered, rubbed his nose, and frowned.

"Colonel-you surely do not intend me to pass through the whole camp in hussar uniform, and on foot. I should die of shame. Let them give me back my horse."

"Your horse? That is the Emperor's property, my son."

* War in Hungary, i. 206-7.

"I crave your pardon, Colonel! I reared the horse myself from a colt. I have ridden it for ten years, and it comes at my whistle. By every right it belongs to me. I would rather a bullet hit me than lose the good brute."

66 Well, take it."

Even now the hussar did not seem satisfied.

"Colonel! can I go back to my regiment in this scandalous manner?without my sabre? I shall have to run the gauntlet; they will think I have sold it for drink."

"It shall be restored to you." The General made sign to his orderly; the hussar saluted, and turned to depart. But at the door he once more paused, and gazed pathetically at his former chief.

"Colonel!" he said, in the most insinuating tone he could command. "Well?"

"Colonel-come over to us!"

And with a bound he was out of the room, feeling well enough that he had said something extraordinarily stupid, but which he could not help saying though it had cost him his head.

When horse and sabre were restored to him, one of the General's grooms, a mischievous fellow, trod on the hussar's spur, breaking the rowel, and then sprang aside laughing.

The old hussar shook his clenched fist menacingly.

"Wait a little, Italian!" he cried, "I will find you yet." Then saluting the General's window with his sabre, he galloped away.

It was thought that a tear glistened in the General's eye, as he turned to his staff, and said

"Such soldiers should we have!"

Such were the soldiers with whom Görgey drove before him the best generals of Austria; with whom he triumphed in that brilliant conflict, of fourteen days' duration, which terminated in the capture of Pesth, the relief of Komorn, and the complete retreat of the Imperialists.* These were the men who rode up to the very mouths of the Austrian cannon at Isazeg,† and who followed, in twenty conflicts, the well-known war-cry of the gigantic Serb, Dámjánics. Of this

+ Ibid. ii. 20.