1 1 LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA FROM THE LIBRARY OF F. VON BOSCHAN X. \j V THE GOTH AND THE HUN THE GOTH AND THE HUN; OR, TRANSYLVANIA, DEBRECZIN, PESTH, AND VIENNA, IN 1850. K By A. A. PATON, AUTHOR OF ''THE MAMELUKES." IN TESTE VARIETAS SIT, SCISSURA NON SIT. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, ^ublisrjer m ©rbinatg to p?er fHajcstg. 1851. LONDON : BRADBtTRT AND EVANS, PRINTERS, TTHTTEFRI ARS. PREFACE. This is the fifth work that I offer to the public illustrative of the history, politics, and domestic man- ners of the Austrian and Ottoman empires. In my work on Servia, and in the account I give of Croatia, in The Highlands and Islands of the Adriatic, I had necessarily a great deal to say of two of the most important Slavonic nations of the South of Hungary ; and I now offer to the public the most recent informa- tion on the Magyar, Daco-Roman, German, and Slovack nations of Hungary, embracing subjects of the greatest interest, in consequence of the immense revolution which followed the close of the war — the abolition of the Magyar supremacy, and the recon- stitution of Hungary on the basis of the development of all nationalities. vi PREFACE. The introductory chapters of this work are a recast of a series of letters that appeared in the Times, between October, 1849, and January, 1850, which terminated when I was among the Saxons of Transylvania, having been intended only for the parlia- mentary recess. I nevertheless pursued my tour in a leisurely manner, visited the Szekler land, and re- turned by Northern Transylvania, Grosswardein, and Debreczin to Pesth and Vienna. Since my arrival in this country, persons of various political opinions, who had been interested in the account of the earlier part of my tour, advised me to complete the publication of it in a separate work. Instead, however, of producing a volume of hasty sketches, I retired to Scotland, and thought out in all directions the knotty questions of the nations of Hungary in relation to the future prospects of the Austrian empire. So that, although the narrative is of last year, the historical, political, and geo- graphical observations are the result of four previous visits to Hungary, and of an extensive experience of the Austrian empire, beginning with the year 1836, when as a mere youngster I entered PREFACE. vii Vienna with staff in hand and knapsack on back, having walked thither from Naples ; so that, if my account is not impartial, it is not from want of having seen the Empire of the Danube from a great variety of points of observation. In a Work written so soon after the revolution, there is unavoidably frequent mention of Kossuth. I therefore hope, that what I have to say may be con- sidered as having reference solely to the pernicious delusions perseveringly propagated in this country by his partisans, and none to his present personal position. My sole object is truth ; and I hope that he will soon be in this country, and that he may do his best to show my views to be unsound. In the course of the printing of the work, I hear that Russia has evacuated the Danubian principalities. I confess that I thought that this was not to happen so soon, and am agreeably surprised to find that I was in the wrong in this particular. In conclusion, my objects are practical, and the book is addressed quite as much to Austria, and to viii PREFACE. Hungary, as to my fellow-countrymen ; and, now that the two countries are civilly united, is designed to promote sound constitutional government in this great Danubian Empire. With regard to the Magyars, I have said all that I could to disabuse them of their inordinate national vanity, egotism, and presumption ; but I am the staunch friend of their essential interests, as proprietors of a con- siderable portion of the soil of Hungary, and as a nation brought up in the traditions of municipal government as contrasted with bureaucratic cen- tralisation. This work is, therefore, sure to displease both the party of ultra-Magyarism, and the party of ultra -Centralisation ; but I am much mistaken if my views do not generally accord with those of the partisans of temperate liberty and monarchical Constitutional Government, who comprise the vast majority of the property and intelligence of the Austrian empire. London, May 20, 1851. CONTENTS. CHAPTEE I. PAGE Departure from England — Close of Hungarian War — Arrival at Coniorn — The Hunting Box — Count and Countess Nugent — General Grabbe — Life in the Austrian Camp 1 CHAPTEE II. Russian Review — The Infantry, the Cavalry, and Artillery — The Cossacks — The Fete — Austrian Troops 10 CHAPTEE III. The Danube — Szolnok — The Magyar Character — Bravery and Gene- rosity — Indolence and Barbarism — Retrograde state of Agriculture 21 CHAPTEE IV. A Steam Voyage on the Theiss— The Passengers — Legislation of Land — Defective system of Justice — Csongrad — The Magyars . .28 CHAPTEE V. Szegedin — The Fort — Magyaromania — The Lower Town — The Upper Town — State of Commerce — The Kossuth Party . . . . 36 CHAPTEE VI. The Banat — Its Physical Geography — Mineral Wealth — The Races of the Banat — Greater Civilisation of the Banat . . . .44 CHAPTEE VII. Temesvar — Injury done by Bombardment— History of Temesvar — The Great Square— General Description of Temesvar— The Fortifica- tions—The Suburbs .... . . . 57 b x CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. PAOE The Siege of Temesvar — Commencement of Siege — Water cut off— A Sortie — First Bombardment — Second Bombardment — Horse- flesh Eaten — Fevers— Conflagrations — The Siege Raised . 65 CHAPTER IX. The Voyvodina — Great Historical Landmark — Servia in the Middle Ages — Servian Fundamental Diploma — The Servian Revolution — Re-establishment of Voyvodina . . . . . . . 78 CHAPTER X. Arad — Its Fair— Commerce of Hungary — Description of Arad — The Fortress— The County of Arad 88 CHAPTER XL The Vale of the Maros — Entrance of Transylvania — Zam — The Daco- Romans — Broos — The Saxons — The Political History of Transyl- vania ............ 95 CHAPTER XII. Herrmanstadt — The Inn — Political Chambermaid — The Guests — De- scrij^tion of the Town — General Wohlgemuth — The Emperor Nicholas— Social state of Herrmanstadt . . . . . 104 CHAPTER XIII. Highland Life in Transylvania — The Rothenthurm Pass — Heldau — Primitive Saxon Manners and Customs 124 CHAPTER XIV. A Visit to the Scene of Bern's Principal Operations — Schassburg — Christmas Festivities — Magyars — Saxons — Bern's Habits — Bern's Campaigns • • 135 CHAPTER XV. The Szeklers— Udvarkely— The Szekler Constitution— Keresthur— Unitarians — Szekler National Assembly 158 CHAPTER XVI. Maros- Vasarhely— Appearance of the Town — Teleki Library — Learned Szekler — National Fanaticism— Judicial Conniption . . . . 169 CHAPTER XVII. Clausenburg — Golden River — Description of Clausenburg — The Aristo- cracy — Their Losses — General Urban— English Officer— Political Relations • 179 CONTENTS. xi CHAPTER XVIII. PAGE Clauseiiburg continued — Mr. Paget — Clausenburg Studies — The Lutheran Pastor — The Death of Roth — Concluding Political Reflections— The Future Government of Transylvania . . . 196 CHAPTER XIX. Grosswardein — The Defile of Csucsa — Intense Cold — Description of Grosswardein — Carnival Ball — Liberty and Nationality — Eugene Beothy — The Magyar Arsenal — Colonisation of Hungary . .211 CHAPTER XX. The Huns in Hungary . . 226 CHAPTER XXI. The Asiatic Inundations — Grosswardein in the Turkish Period . . 236 CHAPTER XXII. The Moral of the Goth and the Hun 251 CHAPTER XXIII. Debreezin — Disorderly Peasantry — The Nador — Gipsy Musicians — Description of Debreczin — Social Condition — Sufferings from the War 260 CHAPTER XXIV. Debreeziniana . . . 270 CHAPTER XXV. Journey to Pesth — Ultra-Magyar Lady — Szolnok — Railways in Hun- gary — Description of Pesth — The Danube — Ofen . . . . 286 CHAPTER XXVI. Pesth continued — The Palace — The Crown — Climate of Pesth — Ultra-Germanism — Public Amusements — Impoverishment from Revolution 297 CHAPTER XXVII. General Haynau ........... 307 CHAPTER XXVIII. The Danube again — Description of Comorn — The Fortresses of Hungary considered with Reference to Strategy 325 xii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXIX. PAGE A Description of Presburg 332 CHAPTER XXX. The Slovacks — Their Origin — Their History — Great Moravia — Influence of Bohemia — The Reformation — Joseph II. — Recent History of the Slovacks 339 CHAPTER XXXI. Vienna since the War — Its general Aspect — Paper Money — The Shops — The Imperial Family — Professor Leopold Neumann — Diminu- tion of Incomes — The Tradespeople — Viscount Ponsonby . . 352 CHAPTER XXXII. Prince Schwarzenberg — Prince Windischgratz — The Austrian Aristo- cracy — Their Position and Prospects ...... 363 CHAPTER XXXIII. The Cabinet — Baron Bruck — Commerce — M. Thienfeldt — Agriculture — M. Bach — M. Schmerling — The Departments of Interior and Justice 375 CHAPTER XXXIV. The Emperor and the Army — Marshal Nugent — General Welden — Count Schlick — The Ban of Croatia — Baron Josika and the Hungarian Conservatives 384 CHAPTER XXXV. The New Organisation of Hungary into Provinces according to Nationalities — Centralisation in Hungary — Judicial Changes — Concluding Reflections 394 CHAPTER XXXVI. Musical and Theatrical Politics 403 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. CHAPTER I. DEPARTURE FROM ENGLAND — CLOSE OF HUNGARIAN WAR —ARRIVAL AT COMORN— THE HUNTING BOX — COUNT AND COUNTESS NUGENT — GENERAL GRABBE — LIFE IN THE AUSTRIAN CAMP. It was one morning shortly after the news had arrived in England of the surrender of Georgey at Vilagos, that I disembarked at Ostend on my way to the Danube. On the fifth morning, I found myself in the railway train scouring along the plains of Moravia ; and, as I saw the sun on my left rising behind the range of the Carpathians, that here separate Hungary from Austria, I thought even railway pace scarce quick enough to carry me into that kingdom which had attracted the attention of all Europe to her ensanguined plains. At length the mountains on the south of the Danube, which are the 2 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. last spurs of the Styrian Alps, rose out of the horizon, and as we shot over the historic fields of Wagram, where the bones of furious Frank and fiery Hun have reposed together since 1809, I once more saw the pointed spire of ancient St. Stephen's arising above the dense woods of the Prater ; and traversing a removeable wooden bridge, (denoting the con- tingency of warlike strategy, which with our insular security never enters into the calculations of the British civil engineer,) I saw the wide waters of the Danube rolling to the eastward. Arrived at Vienna, I learned that all active operations in Hungary were considered as concluded ; but Comorn still held out ; and, as it was blockaded by a force of sixty thousand men, I made all speed to the Austrian and Russian camp in order to see in a state of concentration the last large body of troops on active service before their final dispersion. I had frequently seen on former occasions in Italy and elsewhere, very large reviews and concentrations of Austrian troops ; but as the armies of Russia had not seen service beyond the limits of their own empire and Turkey in Europe, in any portion of this continent since 1815, I felt much interested in having at the same time, an opportunity of seeing something of a military school, to the improvement of which a powerful and energetic monarch with vast resources at his command, had devoted so much ENCAMPMENT AT COMOEN. .'} of his time, talents and attention, so as to make it almost the business of his life. It was about noon that a steamer filled with stores for the blockading army, in which I had embarked with my accomplished and amiable fellow- traveller Sir W R , arrived at a wide flat grass plain, between Comorn and the middle of the Raab river on our way to Acs, which was the head quarters of the blockading force under General, now Field Marshal Nugent. On landing, the scene in its general aspect, was something like that of a race- ground ; not a house to be seen, but countless ten£s, waggons, horses piquetted, and booths for the sale of necessaries ; the day was breezy, and white fleecy clouds were flying across the face of a clear sky, so that it was just such a scene as Wouvermans, had he risen from his grave, could have depicted with his felicitous clearness, spirit, and variety of grouping. Every one was so busied with his own affairs, that it may well be believed it was some little time before we could get under weigh ; so, leaving my companion to stand sentry over the luggage, which we heaped together on the grass, I went about to try and negotiate the hire of a waggon, to transport ourselves and chattels to head quarters, which was no easy matter ; for these waggons having been brought together for government purposes, none of the men B 2 4 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. would start without an order from the officer in charge, but on explaining matters, we at length were allowed to get one for a few florins. These waggons are different from an English cart, being very light ; the body narrow and long, like a French fourgon, excepting the number of wheels, for all have four ; and, in fact, they serve indifferently the purpose of cart and postchaise, and are very useful to armies, being either fitted for a heavy load, or, if need be, an officer on service, places his portmanteau in one of them, as a seat, and with four horses can, in dry weather, and a good Jehu, scamper across the pusztas at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour. The roads, or rather the tracks, being firm, in consequence of the dryness, we soon arrived at Acs, the head quarters of Marshal Nugent, which proved to be a petty Hungarian village in front of Comorn. The only decent looking constructions in the place being the church, with its white spire, and the hunting-box of Prince Lichtenstein, which the general occupied, and which was of one story with a few acres of garden or shrubbery behind it, all the rest of the country being open, without either fences or ditches. But air here was very bad ; on our way we were frequently regaled with the odours of imperfectly buried carcasses, for this neighbourhood had been, during the two previous months (June and EECEPT10N AT HEAD QUARTERS. 5 July) the scene of three very severe engagements, in which a great many lives had been lost. Adjoin- ing was a wood called the " Acser Wold" which looked any thing but rural, a pointed peak of it having been stripped and devastated by cannon shot, as well as by those who had lard hands on it to build soldiers' huts. From my respected friends Count and Countess Nugent, we received a kind and cordial reception and an invitation to remain at head quarters, a room having been obligingly assigned us, and on pre- senting ourselves in the drawing-room, we found ^he dinner party to consist of a number of Russian and Austrian generals and other officers, to the amount of thirty to forty daily, and I on one occasion counted at table no less than sixteen generals. To my companion, who was a distinguished cavalry officer, this was no novelty, but these were certainly the most military parties I had ever seen. On entering, I was struck with the very noble appearance of General Grabbe, the Russian commander, whose expression of countenance, intellectual, refined, and dignified, put me a good deal in mind of the Vandyke portrait of Gevartius in the National Gallery. This distinguished officer is, I believe, a Courlander, and commanded for some time in the Caucasus. During the Hungarian campaign he had been entrusted with that corps of the Russian army 6 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. which penetrating from Gallicia, occupied the moun- tainous district in the north-west of Hungary. A large coloured ordnance survey of the country around Comorn lay on the table, a council of war having just terminated ; and on being introduced by General Nugent to the Russian commander, he with the greatest kindness told me that in a few days he intended to review the whole of his corps d'armee, and invited us to go over to his quarters on that occasion, and that on our arrival at the other side of the Danube we should find horses prepared for us. To* this we returned our best thanks, delighted to have an opportunity of seeing a Russian review under the auspices of so polite a commander. Another of the company I felt sure of having met before, and on making enquiry, found that this was a Baron D , first aide-de-camp to General Nugent, whom I had seen for a moment in quarantine at Damascus, at the conclusion of the Syrian campaign ; there was also another aide-de-camp of the general, a fellow-countryman, Captain Dickenson, a young gentleman of intelligence and great activity, who did all in his power to render our stay agreeable. Another of our fellow-countrymen was also at head quarters, whom I saw under circumstances of a much more painful description. When the Russian generals were entering their carriages (for they had PARTY AT COUNTESS NUGENT's. 7 a detour of a great many miles to make on the Austrian lines, so as to get round to the head quarters of General Grabbe), the corridor was alarmed with such loud cries, that I saw the Countess Nugent rush out of the drawing-room to see what it was. A Captain W , an Englishman in the Austrian service, and attached to General Nugent, had just been seized with cholera and was in a frightful state of contortion ; but so accustomed to speak German, that his cry was " Oh ! Rettung, Eettung." " Oh ! deliverance." So the surgeons came immediately, but his case was even then very doubtful. In the evening, at eight o'clock, a small party again assembled in Countess Nugent's rooms ; the general, and all the officers, wearing their grey great-coats ready for war's alarms ; for, although no Hungarian army existed anywhere in the field, the Comorn people would not believe that their armies had been swept away, and had all sorts of strange ideas and reports of a French army descending the Danube towards Linz, and firmly believing that large Magyar armies were still combatting with the Imperialists ; so that, although the campaign was ended, every precaution was taken against any outbreak such as that of the previous month. At about ten o'clock we retired to rest in a com- fortable room, and in the morning in came Count Nugent's English groom, with an offer of horses to ride ; 8 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. but as the rain poured, I declined, and went to see the cholera-stricken Englishman, whose intense pains were past, but death was on his countenance, although his eye brightened as we entered, and he said how pleased he was to see fellow-countrymen — shook us by the hand — and evidently, quite unconscious of his situation, apologised for not having it in his power to show us any civilities. On the second morning he died ; his wife, Lady Louisa W , arrived from Vienna two hours after he had quitted this mortal scene ; but not a tear did she shed, pale as alabaster, reason was for the moment extinct, and she sat like a marble statue, unconscious of the consolations that were proffered her. When the weather cleared up I rode to the out-, posts and saw the Hungarian videttes forming a great ring around the north of the tete-dc-po)tt, opposite Comorn, and visited the various detach- ments, who had constructed their huts very ingeni- ously of leaves, turf, and branches of trees from the neiohbourino; wood ; and wherever I rode or drove I was struck with the fat black soil, a very small portion of which is taken advantage of, much ground being devoted to pasture, which in other countries would bear excellent crops. As to Acs, and the surrounding villages, they are all whitewashed and mostly thatched. Up and down their streets was a constant movement of troops, and pools of mud, CAMP BY MOONLIGHT. 9 almost knee deep, glistened in the sun as a squadron of cuirassiers slapped through them, or a block-up took place of baggage or provision-waggons. All along the sides of the dry ground were the stalls and carts of camp-followers ; here a dame of sixteen or seventeen stone weight, of colossal stature, was serving red Ofen wine, or brandy, from a light cart, and there is a Jew's store, with a display of camp necessaries and luxuries, of which boxes of cigars were, in this swampy climate, very prominent. Nor was the camp by moonlight less picturesque, as in the evening, with Count Albert Nugent, (no longer a naval officer, but now wearing epaulettes of Lieutenant Colonel), we strolled from watch-fire to watch-fire, and every corps, after its arduous campaigns, in- dulged in songs and chorusses, while the branches of the wood crackled and blazed in the pale silver light. One Istrian regiment, instead of huts of branches, had constructed for their officers little cottages of brick, and they were delighted beyond measure when Count Albert Nugent spoke to them both in Illyrian, Istrian, as well as in the Venetian dialect of Italian which is used in that part of the Adriatic, and tasted the supper in preparation for the men. 10 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. CHAPTER II. RUSSIAN REVIEW.— THE INFANTRY, THE CAVALRY, AND ARTILLERY. — THE COSSACKS. — THE FETE. — AUSTRIAN TROOPS. » Next day all were a-foot before dawn in preparation for the visit to the Russian camp, and we made in the course of the morning the detour of the Austrian posts as far as the Danube at Almas, some miles below Comorn, where a steamer was waiting for us, and having crossed it, saw on the bank a body of dark-complexioned Cossacks, who were appointed to escort us ; and, having mounted a strong grey stallion, I started for Marczalhaza, where we arrived in a couple of hours. The lodging of General Grabbe was the country-house of the landed proprietor of the place, and he came out to receive Countess Nugent as fine as finery could make him, as he wore the uniform of his office, which is that of generalissimo of the Cossacks of the Russian empire, in token of which he wore neither cocked hat nor helmet, but a fur calpak and feather, with a diamond toque sheath. Countess Nugent, having descended from her EXCITEMENTS OF WAU. 1 1 carriage and reposed a little, then mounted, en Amazone, and proceeded to the field, which costume it must be admitted she was entitled to wear, having, instead of resigning herself to a life of timidity and ease, courageously accompanied her husband through the whole campaign. It was at Gratz, in Styria, just after having completed my tour on the Adriatic, a few months before the great convulsion, that I made the acquaintance of this courageous lady, and how little did those who lived in this agreeable circle imagine what a dispersion was so speedily to take place. How quiet and comfortable was Gratz then, in spite of the tempest which was beginning to lower in Italy. What a lazy air of content pervaded high and humble. For the Styrians, loyal to the house of Hapsburgh, and having no desire for separation, Austria had every motive to keep them in good humour ; but the winds whistle and the crash comes, and Nugent himself, who seems snugly moored for life, has to ride out the tempest, now in Italy, now in Hungary. Count Thurn, his second in command of the army of Inner Austria, of which Gratz was the head quarters, had to exchange his charming villa in the nook of the hills for the bivouacs of the Po ; and D , a stalwart Englishman, jolly Oxonian, and Austrian cavalry officer, whose acquaintance I had first made within hail of the Pyramids, and subse- quently saw in the bosom of his family, then on 12 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. furlough from his regiment, had soon to start by the alarum of trumpets to die the death of a soldier. Summoned to surrender in the open plain, he de- fended himself to the last, and, pierced with wounds, departed like many other Englishmen in the Austrian service, to the "land of the leal." On referring to the map of Hungary the reader will find that the flat land is divided into two great plains — the greater formed by the level between Pesth and Transylvania,— and extending north and south from Semlin to Tokay. The little plain of Hungary is formed of the space between Presburg and Comorn, extending northwards to the Car- pathians, and southwards in the direction of the Styrian Alps. Just at the eastern extremity of this plain, on the left bank of the Danube, the Russian review took place, on as fine racing-ground as I ever saw, being firm turf, without the slighest undulation. A little way off was the village of Marczalhaza, with a neat white church spire rising out of the broken ground, with vineyards and kitchen-gardens, while beyond it were visible the slopes of the nearer Car- pathians. The sky was clear and cloudless, and considering it was so late in September, one felt that if the weather was warmer it might be uncomfort- able. A central space of about a mile in length, and a quarter of a mile in breadth, was left clear for the spectators, who were almost exclusively the generals CONDITION OF THE ARMY. 13 and staff-officers of the Austrian army ; and it seemed strange to see so large a review without the accustomed crowd of civil pedestrians, equestrians, and carriages ; for, except the peasants of Marczal- haza, in their long boots and broad brimmed hats, there were only two other civilians beside myself. The force reviewed was sixteen battalions of in- fantry, sixteen squadrons of lancers, fifty-six pieces of horse artillery, and a, polk or regiment of Don Cossacks, which were first beautifully manoeuvred by General Grabbe, and then defiled before General Nugent, who had the command of both the Russian and Austrian corps, amounting to between 60,000 and 70,000 men. It certainly was an unexpected sight, that a corps d'armee should look so well after so rough a campaign. I can scarcely imagine a parade in St. Petersburgh more perfect in appear- ance, the infantry marched like a piece of mechanism set in motion by a steam engine, even the men are matched in height to the eighth of an inch, which is easier in a large army than in a small one like ours ; and, although not essential on service, adds consider- ably to the effect in a review, and when the whole mass of foot, after a variety of complicated move- ments, formed a compact parallelogram, — a wide lake of bayonets glistening in the sun, certainly realised the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war. Their manoeuvres reflected the greatest credit on 14 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. their officers, and their defect was perhaps rather over than under discipline. I missed the devil -me-care in- dependence of British troops, which denotes that their power lies within themselves, and is not solely the result of command from without. At the same time, from all that I have heard, the Russian infantry proved, during the recent campaign, uncommonly stead}^ under the severest cannonades. Whether from habit, docility, or nationality, no cannonade made them swerve in a march to the destined point, but in bayonet work, which in a great measure de- pends on physical strength, they are certainly not equal to Hungarian troops. Their dress and equipment I thought adequate to the objects to be compassed, being loose, easy, and warm, while the brass -mounted light helmet is a much better protection to the head, both against spent and oblique balls, and sabre cuts, than our infantry hats. To this the Rifles are an exception, as a shining helmet is quite inconceivable for a corps that seeks to conceal itself in accidents of ground ; and, even in our own 60th Rifles, the shining brass buttons, which are seen so far off, had better be dis- pensed with. At a review the Russian troops do not wear their long great coats, which, on service, are the principal feature of their costume. They are of very strong thick light brown cloth, reach almost to the ancles, and have one row of buttons down the RUSSIAN AND AUSTRIAN CAVALRY. 15 centre of the breast, with a wide over and under cape. A similar warm winter clothing would have been very useful to the Austrian troops, for many men were lost under Schlick during his severe winter campaign in northern Hungary. The cavalry and artillery were mounted quite as well, if not perhaps better, than those arms in the British service, and very much better than those of the Austrian army ; our regulation price (25/.) pro- ducing scarcely so good horses as those of Southern Russia, at their regulation price of 16/. Now, as horses in Austria are dearer than in Southern Russia, and the Austrian regulation price is only 11/., the inferiority of the Austrian horses to the Russian is glaring. In the Russian horses I remarked the same sort of thing as in the infantry ; they work remark- ably well together, but they are over-bitted. In the midst of a charge the line halts with wonderful pre- cision ; but no over-bitted horse can go the pace that a less artificially broken horse can. I think it is in the artillery horses where full pace is not required, and where precision in wheeling and other move- ments within a given space is requisite, that the efficiency of the Russian mounting comes out. Instead of four-wheeled ammunition- waggons, each piece has two carts, with two wheels each, and drawn by three horses a-breast, which is found by experience to be more conducive to rapid movement on the heavy 16 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. roads of the level countries in the east of Europe than four-wheeled carts. I confess that I was best pleased with the Cossacks, for one sees that they are a natural product of the steppes of the Don, and not an importation from the west of Europe. When one looks at the towering chako of the lancer, or the antique helmet of the heavy^ dragoon, they appear rather intended for show at a review than actual service. In the Cossack every part of the equipment is for work. Everything has a meaning, arrived at by local experience, and not adopted for show or from imitation. The very opposite of the cuirassier, he is the light horseman par excellence, and is invaluable in a level country, where the landmarks are so much more difficult of compre- hension to the staff-officers, and where movements are to be masked by a cloud of skirmishers ; and although Georgey, by one of the most brilliant manoeuvres of the war, broke through the net Paskie- witch laid for him to the north of Waitzen, yet the experience of the war has shown that the Cossacks repeatedly saved the Russians from surprises that might have been attended with serious consequences. The general appearance of the Cossack is that of a freeman, dark in complexion, and rather low in stature ; he makes up for the diminutiveness of horse and rider by a very high saddle, which raises him rather above the level of an ordinary horseman. He COSSACK EQUIPMENTS. 17 rides a short stirrup, in the oriental manner ; and perhaps the most remarkable circumstance in his bearing is the noiselessness of the passage of a squadron, so that a large corps of them can pass, on a dark night, without giving much notice. This arises from the nature of the equipment. It is the jingling of the spur against the steel sabre and scab- bard that is the principal cause of the noise of cavalry. The Cossacks wear no spurs ; their scab- bards are of leather, and a pendant whip supplies the place of a spur. The carbine is long ; they are therefore useful as dismounted cavalry ; while the pistol, fastened to a waist-belt, is more handy than in a holster. His principal efficiency is in his lance ; and with the experience of this campaign, it is the unanimous opinion of both the Russian and the Austrian officers, that the lance is by far the best cavalry weapon, and that, in a great majority of instances, the hussar, the cuirassier, or light dragoon, is no match for the lancer, because in war the first chance is always the best ; if the lance-thrust be parried, the hussar has no doubt the advantage in the melee, but experience has shown that a certain number of horses and men of a hussar line are already pierced before it comes to the cut and thrust of the sabre. There were several varieties of Asiatics prominent on the ground, among whom were the Russianised 18 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. Circassian cadets attached to each squadron of cavalry, wearing their native costume. One of the staff-officers of General Grabbe was an Ozet, in his crimson dress, who spoke very good Turkish, and told me he was a Mussulman of the sect of Shafei, in contradistinction to the Turks who are mostly of the sect of Hanife. On our return from the review, we found in the garden, behind the house occupied by General Grabbe, a sumptuous dinner-table, surrounded with parterres and arbours, so that we certainly saw grim-visaged war with his rugged front unusually smooth. Nor was it a mere cosmopolitan entertainment, for it had a local colour of its own. First of all we attacked the vodka tables, where drains of Russian brandy were handed about, with Dutch herrings and preserved oysters as a whet. It is not customary to sit during this portion of the entertainment, which was trans- acted standing, lounging, and chatting easily, in such a way as would break the ice of the most frigid party of reciprocal strangers ; but there was no such necessity on this occasion, for nothing could ex- ceed the civility of the Russian staff-officers, who were evidently a very superior, and, I should say, carefully picked set of men, with qualities com- prising knowledge of their profession, general intelli- gence, and polished manners. Colonel Isaakof had been so obliging as to accompany me during the AUSTRIAN TROOPS. 19 review, and give me information on the various corps. Another officer, with whom I conversed very agree- ably during this vodka business, told me that he had been professor of mathematics in the military academy at St. Petersburg, and, being desirous of turning theory into practice, had come to see a campaign. At dinner, General Grabbe proposed the health of the Emperor of Austria, and General Nugent re- sponded by that of the Emperor of Russia ; and then began a series of national dances, performed by Russian soldiers ; and, when the sun was setting, we took our departure. On arriving at Almas I was so knocked up with such a day of riding, that I would have given a guinea for a bed, but no such luxury was to be procured ; and at half-past two in the morning we arrived at Acs after a very long, very interesting, very instructive, but excessively fatiguing day. The aspect of the Austrian troops in the review that followed is so much more familiar to the English continental tourist, that I only repeat what is well known, in stating that there is no army in Europe composed of more carefully picked privates ; for, although the recruitment is by conscription, the latitude of rejection is considerable. Altogether, they are much larger men than the Russians, and have a freer and less artificial air. The horses were in good condition, considering the campaign they came out c2 20 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. of ; but, as already stated, their breeding is inferior to J,hat of the Russian ; and, according to the Hun- garian accounts I have received, the Austrian artillery is in the gunnery as superior to the Russian, as the Russian to the Austrian in mounting and equipment. As it is, I believe the Austrian army to be one of the best in Europe ; for every officer has been put to the test, every inefficient general superannuated, and every young, active, and intelligent officer rapidly advanced. B-TVEU DANUBE. 21 CHAPTER III. THE DANUBE — SZOLNOK — THE MAGYAR CHARACTER — BRAVERY AND GENEROSITY — INDOLENCE AND BAR- BARISM—RETROGRADE STATE OF AGRICULTURE. Gran Vissegrad, and other places on the Danube between Comorn and Pesth, have been so frequently subjects of the pen and pencil of the tourist, as to render a reproduction of their aspects superfluous ; and the condition of society in Pesth, a subject of the deepest interest and importance, I reserve for my return from Lower Hungary and Transylvania ; for, on my passage through that metropolis in October, 1 849, 1 was in too great a hurry to get over the basin of the Theiss before the weather broke. And yet, although this is my fifth visit to the nations of Hungary, I confess that I never set foot in a Danube steamer without a feeling of pleasure, excitement, and interest ; for this noble river, once the great boundary between the Roman world of a civilisation about to dissolve, and the world of Germanic barbarism so soon to be transformed by the Christian element, — so soon to give to Italy, after 22 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. an interregnum of chaos, her own element of liberty, and to receive from the south of the Danube the venerable fabric of Roman law, — has now become the highway along which the Germanic element identified with civilisation again rolls eastward. Presburg looks like a suburb of Vienna. In the fortifications of Comorn we see the consummate science of the Austrian school of engineering. In Pesth we see the results of a large immigration of German artisans, from the house shell to the cabinet-work that is the last finish of the drawing-room ; and as we descend the stream, Neusatz and Belgrade echo, although more faintly, the vibrations from above. The Theiss, although a tributary of the Danube, presents a complete contrast to the main stream. Here we find the Magyarism without the German dress of material civilisation in which she is enrobed at Pesth ; and yet, beneath this uncouth native undress, the heart beats warmly, and is in the right place. There is ignorance, filth, and barbarism allied to generosity, bravery, and sincerity. Szolnok, a place of 12,000 inhabitants, is situated on the Theiss, the second navigable river of Hungary, and at the terminus that connects Pesth with the Theiss : one might therefore suppose it to have some appearance of a town ; but it looks exactly like a large Turkish village in Bulgaria, minus the bazaar. It has been well remarked, that the German likes SZOLNOK. 23 narrow streets and wide trowsers ; and the Magyar, wide streets and tight breeches ; and one sees it ve- rified the moment one enters Szolnok. The railway station in which we arrive is large and civilised- looking, but the moment we quit it, and look for the town, we see it nowhere, but follow the truck that carries our luggage for about a mile, through wide- scattered cottages and farm-yards, until we arrive at such an inn as almost frightens us back to Pesth again ; the rooms being all on the ground floor, and surrounding a large court-yard, which is a dung- puddle. I found the people good-natured, civil, and honest (always excepting mine host of the " White Horse," who charged everything fifty per cent, above the standard of a good hotel in Vienna or Pesth). They had come out of a bloody war, into which they were deluded by a small junta of ambitious and fanatical men. They fought bravely, and they have been de- feated. I viewed them, not with prejudice, but with compassion. I therefore would have willingly dis- covered the slightest spark of a tendency to civilisa- tion in the mass of the people ; but, after a careful examination of this place, its inhabitants, and agricul- tural system, I saw it not. I am compelled as a writer, anxious, not to put forth the views of this party or that party, but to arrive at the truth, to say there cannot be a greater delusion than to associate 24 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. the Magyar element in Hungary with civilisation. A Count Sechenyi was the exception, and not the rule. The tendency to civilisation visible in Pesth is en- tirely and exclusively from the large influx of German artisans, and from the German education of the su- perior classes. The fine streets and houses are all the product of German architects, builders, smiths, carpenters, and cabinet-makers, assisted to a moderate extent by the Slovacks of the northern counties, who, inhabiting a poorer soil, are far more industrious than the Servians and Croats of the South ; but here in Szolnok, where there are no Germans or Slovacks, you might imagine yourself to be in a village of Central Asia, so unlike is it to Europe, nothing being- visible but filth and barbarism. Here and there a few logs of wood are thrown lengthways in the streets to prevent one getting over the ankles in mud ; and in a town of 12,000 inhabitants, I have seen no house with a first floor, except the convent attached to one of the churches. I find the Magyar character to have a great re- semblance to that of the Turks who followed them out of Central Asia. They are generous to profusion ; they are naturally very courageous ; and, like all foreigners that enjoy a supremacy, through the valour of their forefathers, much more sincere than the Ser- vians or the Wallachians. Their defects are also the Asiatic defects — pride and indolence. The Magyar MAGYAR CHARACTER. 25 is uncivilised because he feels no desire to be better ; he is on perfectly good terms with himself ; he has no internal desire to labour, to improve, to take pains, and to persevere until he arrives at a great future result. Even if the common Magyar go to Pesth, or Vienna, you find him a waiter in a tavern, a barber, or any light sauntering employment, but rarely in a trade that requires severe labour or long apprentice- ship. If he stay at home, and devote himself to agriculture, he is equally remarkable for a spirit of antique, incurable Asiatic indolence. Of the value of manure they have not the least idea, or rather they set too much store by it, for it accumulates in the towns so as to breed a fever from time to time. The agent of the Steam Navigation Company wished a heap of dung to be removed from the vicinity of the landing-place here ; but the peasant answered, that the dung of his father and grandfather had lain there, and he did not understand how he should be called on to remove it for the public con- venience. It never struck him that if he had laid it on his land he should put money in his pocket, so it was removed by the steam-boat agent. The ploughs here are of the rudest description, and are all of wood, except a coarse ploughshare, which turns aside the earth so insufficiently, that all the ploughing is done with six oxen, when, with a modern plough, a pair of stout oxen is quite sufficient for the 26 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. heaviest land. The harrows look as if they had come out of Noah's ark, being entirely of rude branches of trees, pegged together in the most inartistic manner, and do their work so imperfectly, that a considerable part of the seed-corn is blown away. When harvest-time comes, the wheat, instead of being reaped, is mowed down like grass, the mower receiving an eighth of the whole for his trouble in mowing. The corn is heaped up in stacks, and often lies upon the ground until the outside grows green again. There is no threshing, except in the model- farm of a wealthy magnate here and there, and even with them, if a wheel goes wrong, there is nobody in all the country round who can repair it, and a man must be sent for from Pesth or Vienna. The grain is trodden out by horses in the open air, at an im- mense loss, and the substitute for a granary is no doubt the same as between the Lena and the Oxus before the days of Arpad. A hole is dug in the earth, narrow at the top and broad below, and here the corn is deposited. To exclude the damp, the mouth is so narrow, and the cavity so deep, that the man that takes it out is let down by a rope, like Joseph into the pit ; and, after half a year, the corn gets so earthy a flavour, that the bread has an unavoidable gout, which every traveller in the back settlements of Hungary can remember. But for all this I would not touch either the POLITICAL OBSERVATIONS. 27 nationality or the municipal liberty of the Magyar. It is not his use of liberty in his own districts that ought to be kept under, but the abuse of this prin- ciple, — the love of domination of the other nationali- ties. The Kossuth faction sought an amount of franchise incompatible with the integrity of the Austrian empire, and the cure for this would not be a fallacious integrity, incompatible with municipal liberty, but in the perfect co-ordination of imperial and municipal action, — in the legislative union of the two countries, — in the extension of the imperial system of public works over the almost virgin field of Hungary — and in the retention of the management of local affairs by each nation enjoying municipal de- velopment, to the fullest extent compatible with the integrity of the empire. 28 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. CHAPTER IV. A STEAM VOYAGE ON THE THEISS— THE PASSENGERS- LEGISLATION ON LAND— DEFECTIVE SYSTEM OF JUSTICE — CSONGRAD— THE MAGYARS. It was at Szolnok, just after the executions of Pesth and Arad had taken place, that I commenced my steam voyage on the Theiss, which is navigable from Tokay to its confluence with the Danube, but the steamers at this period went only from Szolnok down- wards. They are much smaller than those of the Danube, and on this occasion the little boat, with an engine of forty-two horse power, was crowded with passengers, who went on board at night, and, after sleeping on the benches, I was not displeased to see the sun rising behind the willows that covered the banks of the river, and to find ourselves in motion towards Lower Hungary. In the air and dress of the passengers, everything had a wilder and more easterly appearance than what one sees on the Danube. Bundas and calpaks, as Hungarian sheep-skin cloaks and hats are called, were abundant. Here were no Kickleburys on the LEGISLATION ON LAND. 29 Theiss. Not a single tourist for pleasure was in the boat, and therefore all the more of local colouring:, which I was in search of. The tall, aristocratic- looking man, with white coat trimmed with sky-blue, was a magnate, and one of the largest landed pro- prietors in Hungary, now on his way to see his estates in the Banat, for he had been during all the war, at Pesth and Presburg ; but, like nine-tenths of the large landed proprietors of Hungary, although opposed to anything like a bureaucratic uniformity of Hungary with Austria, yet was opposed to Kossuth and the Repeal faction, being persuaded, in common with a vast majority of the property and intelligence of Hungary, that the attempt to annul the union with Austria, which had been an accomplished fact for so many generations, could only end in confusion. He scouted the idea of the changes proposed by the Kossuth faction being reforms ; and informed me that what was called the abolition of feudalism, — (but which was in reality the transfer of the property of the landlord to the tenant on some vague promise of compensation, a change involving property to the amount of many millions sterling,) — instead of being the result of due deliberation and patient elabora- tion, was carried, like all the other measures of Kossuth, not by a fair majority of the Hungarian parliament, but surreptitiously introduced to the Chamber upon a few hours' notice, and pushed by 30 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. Batthyany through a thin house, aided by the obstreperous and uproarious mob-terrorism of the Kossuth party in the galleries, precisely in the style of the French convention. And this man spoke the truth, as I learned from other sources ; and, had I not been then engaged in my fifth tour through Hungary, I should have enter- tained doubts of what I then heard, if I had had no sources of information but those supplied to the radical press of the metropolis of Great Britain, by a party that has broken down in its attempts to break up the Austrian empire, and who for this purpose have invented a strange and monstrous vocabulary, unknown to history and common sense ; who call social spoliation, " abolition of feudalism ;" who called the disruption of the military and financial resources of a great empire into conflicting elements, "a reform f. and who, after the fall of absolutism in Austria, instead of stretching out the right hand of fellowship to the party of rational liberty and con- stitutional reforms, adulterated the sound principles of reform with the unsound principles of repeal, and thus procured martial law at home ; — and abroad, the Russian occupation of the Danubian principalities ; which I, twelve years ago, proclaimed would be the infallible practical result of the wall which ultra- Magyarism was building up between Hungary and the rest of the empire. DEFECTIVE SYSTEM OF JUSTICE. 31 Another of the passengers was not a Hungarian except by naturalisation. Baron B was a French legitimist, who had bought a property in the Banat, which yielded him, as he told me, an income of between 3000/. and 4000/. sterling per annum, being in that portion of that rich district which had been recently drained and cultivated. He gave me some interesting accounts of his new home in Lower Hungary, and of the impositions to which he had been subjected on his arrival. Having a dispute with his reapers, they sued him at law, and on the night before the trial, the county judge sent a message to him, that on making him a present, he would find justice propitious ; but the baron sent back a message, to say, that he believed, that justice was on his side, but if he were to bribe a judge, he should forthwith suspect that justice was not on his side but on that of his opponents. The consequence was, that the judge laughed at his stupidity, and decided the case against him. When the revolutionary war arrived, he was in great embarrassment what to do, being well aware, that if he sought security, the whole of his establishment, in the erection and furnishing of which, he had expended a large sum, would be exposed to devastation. He therefore remained with his three sons, during all the war, but neither party attacked his place, although as he told me he could sometimes read a newspaper 32 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. at night, by the light of the burning villages around him. The rest of the passengers were trading and agricul- tural people of the middle ranks, natives of Szegedin and the Banat, and each had his tale to tell of suffering and devastation ; and strange to say, that notwithstanding the gloom cast over public feeling by the recent executions, such is the inherent buoyancy of the human mind, that I do not recollect a more brisk and jovial set of fellow-passengers. To this the fine day no doubt contributed,~for the banks of the Theiss are in themselves any thing but picturesque. The course of the Danube, is marked by towering precipices through a considerable portion of its course from Bavaria to Turkey in Europe. The Theiss on the contrary, traverses the great plain of Hungary. The Danube is rapid, and rather angular than tortuous ; while the Theiss is one of the slowest and most winding rivers in Europe, and certainly more worthy of the well-known character- istic of Goldsmith, than either the Po or the Scheldt. Strike a bridge across any part of the Danube, and you traverse it from bank to bank ; but it is first of all a very difficult matter to get to the banks of the Theiss during the rainy season, and when one has got across, it is equally difficult to get to the dry land, so boggy are its banks for miles on either side. It is therefore a fosse of the highest strategical value, DESCRIPTION OF CSONGRAD. l\:\ traversing Hungary from north to south, and as eastwards the Carpathians form a great rampart, including Transylvania and the Banat, the space between it and the river-bog is a strong position for a large army, with its centres at Grosswardein and Debreczin. Halfway between Szolnok and Szegedin is Csongrad, the capital of the purest Magyar county in Hungary ; and here the steamer lay to for half an hour against a high steep bank, so that Csongrad is drier than most of the other places that I saw. It is a town of 12,000 inhabitants, and the houses being built of mud and thatched with straw r , and externally very filthy, the place looked like a conglomeration of Irish cabins ; but there were evident signs of an abundance which Pat would envy, the people being all plump and having the air of being well fed, and indeed food is abundant. But wood is deficient in this part of the country, and yet strange to say, the ferry-skiffs that I saw paddling in the river were canoes formed of large trunks of trees, scooped out in the centre, such as existed on the Theiss since the days of Attila, according to the account transmitted to us by Priscus. The country behind Csongrad bears the name of Little Cumania. Several Asiatic tribes accompanied the Magyars, when in the ninth century they expelled the Bulgarians from the Theiss and settled 34 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. themselves in the plains of central Hungary. These were the Cumanians, the greater part of whom settled on the left bank of the Theiss, between this and Debreczin, and which is called to this day Great Cumania ; and the Jasygians, who settled on the right bank of the Theiss, between this place and the nearer Carpathians ; but these tribes were Magyarised centuries ago. The Magyars are not confined to Hungary and Transylvania. In Moldavia the so- called Csango-Magyars inhabit seventy villages, roughly estimated at from 120,000 to 150,000 souls. In Bosnia there are still several villages of Magyars. In the Bukowina about 7000 Magyars ; and in Russia, there are various little pools of this Asiatic inundation still standing unimbibed since the ninth century. When the steamer had been again in motion for a considerable time down the Theiss, I saw a fresh town make its appearance below Csongrad, and on pointing to the church spire, asked what it was % and was informed that it was still Csongrad : Csongrad qua — Csongrad Id — thought I to myself. This de- ception being brought about by the successive meanders of the river Theiss, which bring the steamer so frequently back to nearly the same spot, and also, from the very scattered method of building the towns in Hungary, in separate farm houses, as in England, with compact villages for the sale of BAD SYSTEM OF FARMING. 35 necessaries ; a town is composed of many hundreds of farm yards, with a kitchen garden attached to each, while the ground may be ten or twenty miles off. This is a bad system, and occasions a most wasteful expenditure of time and horse-power, in going and coming, and in a manner, causes two establishments ; for, from time to time, in travelling in Hungary, one sees many isolated houses, which appear at first to be cottages, but are the so-called szallas or out-lying houses, built on the ground which is to be cultivated, in which the family does not reside, but where agricultural implements are kept, and where the cultivator can pass the night during the period of harvest. D 2 30 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. CHAPTER V. SZEGEDIN— THE FORT— MAGYAROMANIA— THE LOWER TOWN —THE UPPER TOWN— STATE OF COMMERCE— THE KOS- SUTH PARTY. After seventeen hours navigation from Szolnok we arrived at Szegedin, which is anything but an agree- able place after dark, the market-place being twice the size of Lincolns-inn-fields, with a few lights twinkling round its ankle-deep mud ; not a room too was to be had in the town, the sudden resumption of the steam traffic on the river, caused an unusual influx of passengers, added to these brought by the annual fair, which had just terminated. Szegedin was considered by Kossuth to be the most important point in the inte- rior of Hungary, with 50,000 inhabitants, and an ex- cellent situation at the confluence of the Maros and the Theiss. I took as good a look at it as health would permit, for being unfortunately built on a marsh, the damp, noxious, pestilential air, penetrates to the very marrow, so that but for prompt precaution, which confined me for a short time to my room, I was very nearly laid up with a Theiss fever, and the reader DESCRIPTION OF SZEGEDIN. 37 may have an idea of the humidity of the place, when I tell him that wild ducks were shot the week before in the middle of the town. The standing pools in the town never dry up, from September to May, so that with fevers and rheumatisms, Szegedin has a very bad climate, except in spring and during the frosts in winter. Szegedin is nevertheless an interesting place. It has not European civilisation like Presburg or Pesth, nor is it barbarous like the villages of the interior. It is a rough, home-spun, busy, prosperous, money- making place, and, as I should imagine, like a town in the Ohio, a place of mills and boats, grain ware- houses and general stores ; not an ultimate emporium that stands in contact with the luxurious consumer, but the initial market that takes its tone from the laborious producer. The principal part of the town is situated on the right bank of the Theiss, and is called Old Szegedin, while New Szegedin is on the other side of the river. The central part of Old Szegedin is called Palanka, from the planks (German, planken) with which it was pallisaded during Turkish wars, and which have now disappeared, nothing remaining but the fortress which commands the passage of the river, as the ramparts rise from its banks. It is distinguished by no defensive art, being an old Turkish fortress built in a square form, with round towers at the corners, and improved by 38 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. Prince Eugene. It could not stand a regular siege, but could sink any steamer attempting to pass up or down the river, and give the troops of the garrison the benefit of a thick wall in case of a surprise. The best view of Szegedin is from the elevated bastion of this fortress, the most animated part of the scene being the river, a forest of boat-masts being visible in front. On the opposite side of the river, and connected with the town by a bridge of boats, is New Szegedin, a melancholy spectacle, being almost entirely burnt down in consequence of a terrific explosion of a powder magazine that took place during the war, the long line of white gables and blackened window-holes, skirting the river ; while beyond them was again visible to me, after a lapse of several years, the Banat of Temesvar, no longer the peaceful abode of industry and civilisation, but devastated with such wars as have not been expe- rienced since the great struggle of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century, which liberated these lands from Turkish yoke. All round the fort is the civil part of the Palanka, or central town, which is inhabited by the merchants and trades-people, with a great inequality of the architecture. Some of the houses being large, lofty, and modern, in the style of Vienna, and side by side an old Hungarian house of one story, that perhaps stood there when there was a Turkish Pasha in the MAGYAROMANIA. 39 fortress. Most of the shop-signs in the public place of the Palanka have German names, but the desig- nation of the trade and baptismal name is in Magyar. During the mania for Magyarisation, none were so keen to identify themselves with the Magyars as the small German shop-keepers. Most of the highest and wealthiest nobility being Magyars, Magyarism was very naturally more or less associated with the idea of aristocracy and supremacy, and while the Croats and Servians, and the great majority of Slovacks, much to their honour, were rather proud of their nationality than ashamed of it, these German trades- men, anxious to purify themselves from a supposed identity of blood with Schiller, Goethe, and Beethoven, and roused to enthusiam with the greater services Attila and Arpad had rendered to civilisation, were anxious to throw off their own names and adopt Magyar ones. Not one, two, or three, but hundreds of such instances have occurred. For instance a German whose name is, let us say, Johann Hoffman, dubs himself Remeny Janos, because Remen is the Magyar word " to hope," and Janos is the Magyar for " John." The lower town or Also-varos, is mostly inhabited by land cultivators ; and is composed of long streets with the houses considerably apart, each having a kitchen garden, and being mingled with ponds and marshes, is neither town nor country. A portion of the inhabitants 40 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. of the lower town are ship-builders and mill-wrights ; for here the best and cheapest boats in Hungary are built, as well as the best floating-mills. These floating-mills, are a peculiarity of the river, there being no less than three hundred of them on the Theiss ; for small water pow r er being scarce from the flatness of the country, the only power sufficient for turning a mill is on the large streams. The boats are for the most part, built of oak, and come from the " Tissa Hat" or so-called back of the Theiss, being a part of the Theiss which is between Tokay and the Carpathians. These boats are not only employed on this river, but on the Save and Danube, and are remarkable for their strength and neatness. The Felso-varos, or upper town, is not much higher than the lower town ; the position with reference to the flow of the Theiss being the only difference, for the one is as boggy as the other. The houses here are not so good as those of the Palanka, but considerably better than those of the lower town. The principal manufacture of the upper town is soap-boiling ; there being above twenty of these establishments here, in which common laundry-soap is made, much of which is exported to Pesth and Vienna ; the low places in the sandy plains between Ketskemet abounding in soda. For- merly any one could gather this alkali, but since the STATE OF COMMERCE. II trade has become extended these places have become private property. These manufactories are carried on in a very primitive but economical manner. The father of the family acts as traveller, attends the fairs of Pesth and Debreczin, and takes his orders in Vienna and the other large towns ; while the operations of manufacture are performed by his wife, daughters, and servants, there being no workmen at wages in the establishment. The upper town is also the residence of the principal boat-owners, and some of them are so extensively engaged in navigation and transport, as to possess fifty or sixty boats, worth each when new, about 400/. Comorn and Szegedin, are, in pacific times, the two towns in Hungary, which are the seats of the river shipping interest, as well for building as for ownership. The principal freights upwards are corn and rape-seed from the Banat, and tallow brought down the Maros from Transylvania ; which, along with the soda on the spot, enables the soap manufacture to thrive. The returns from above, are the cottons of Bohemia, the cloths of Moravia, and coarse fancy articles from Vienna. Considerable quantities of wood and wine also come from Tokay and the upper Theiss, to the Francis canal, which leads into the Danube, thus saving the considerable detour by the confluence ; it is then dragged up to Raab and Wieselburg, which latter town is the 42 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. great granary of Vienna. I enquired whether the railway from Szolnok to Pesth, affording so much more direct a transit, was not taken advantage of, but found that the trouble of unloading and loading again was an insurmountable obstacle. The Save lying in the direction of the Adriatic, has also a considerable share in the Szegedin boat freights ; but as there are sometimes delays of months for want of water, and as the merchant can never foretel when his produce will arrive in Fiume or Trieste, the traffic by this important artery is kept down far below what it might be. The unanimous wish, therefore, of these provinces, so rich in produce, is two railways ; one up the Valley of the Save, and the other complete to Pesth and Vienna ; i. e., from here to Czegled, and from Waitzen to Presburg. The persons I saw in Szegedin, were General Ramperg, the civil and military governor of the place, and several very intelligent persons of the Kossuth persuasion. General Ramperg distinguished himself in the recent war as commander of a corps d'armee, under General Haynau, and being a Hano- verian that had resided much in London, and had intimate relations with the principal members of our own royal family, I almost looked on him as a fellow- countryman, and his reception of me was cordial and hospitable. I had intended to defer my tour through Transylvania until a later period, but he advised me THE KOSSUTH PARTY. 43 (having been long stationed in that romantic and picturesque country) to proceed thither before the winter set in. To the partisans of the opposite side, I was also indebted for much civility and attention, as well as useful information ; but, as Hungary is still under martial law, I should repay their hospitality very badly by bringing persons and conversations on the tapis. They made great efforts to convert me from the error of my way, and make me understand that the disruption of the military and financial union of Hungary with Austria (which, without comprising legislative unity, yet included the two elements which enable an empire to make such demonstrations as inspire her neighbours with respect), was a reform ; but as I have for a dozen years predicted that the only practical result of such reforms, w r ould be the transfer of the Danubian principalities to Russia, and as that consummation actually was the very first and unavoidable result of the paralysis of the military power of Austria on the Danube, I contented myself with admitting the capacity of Kossuth as a revolu- tionary orator ; but refused to concede that his party were either true patriots or practical statesmen. 44* THE GOTH AND THE HUN. CHAPTER VI. THE BANAT— ITS PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY— MINERAL WEALTH —THE RACES OF THE BANAT— GREATER CIVILISATION OF THE BANAT. The Banat* is the cornucopia, not only of Hungary, but of the whole of the Austrian empire ; — even Lombardy, highly favoured as it is by nature, must yield precedence to the Banat of Temesvar ; and one must go to the Delta of the Nile to find a similar soil. This may be easily understood, when we reflect that the lower parts of rivers, having large alluvial deposits, are necessarily the richest ; and, on referring to the map, it will be seen, that, by a very peculiar geogra- phical configuration, the Banat has the best part of the alluvial washings of the Theiss, the Maros, the Save, and the Danube. As nearly square as geogra- phical forms usually approach to geometrical figures, its eastern boundary is the conclusion of the Carpa- thian chain, with the commencement of which we * ''Ban" is Duke (Dux), and ''Banat" is Duchy. Tbe territory east of the Carpathians is the Banat of Severin, and that of the west, the Banat of Temesvar. BASIN OF THE DANUBE. 45 made some acquaintance at Presburg. Its northern boundary is the Maros, where it flows at right angles into the Theiss, bringing with it the alluvial washings of Transylvania. The Theiss, the western boundary of the Banat, brings with it the humus of Northern Hungary ; and the southern boundary of the Banat being the Danube, just before it is contracted by the natural dams at the iron gates, this part of the Banat is formed of the alluvion from the Save, with all its Bos- niac tributaries, from the very ridges that overlook the Adriatic. In the case of most parts of a Continent, the rivers are centrifugal, but here, by a peculiar combination, they are centripetal, without forming a sea or lake ; the iron gates being deep enough and narrow enough to be a retaining sieve to the basin of the Danube, a dam to precipitate the humus, and a drain to the waters that cover the face of the earth. Intersected by the forty-fifth degree of latitude, and thus midway between the equator and the pole, the Banat is for all these reasons the granary of the Austrian empire, and produces wheat of a quality nowhere else to be found in the imperial states. But the eastern part being hilly, is rather fitted for wine culture, which is of a very pleasant quality, its white sorts resembling Moselle and Rhine wines. The mineral wealth of this part of the Banat is no 46 THE GOTH AND THE HtTN. less remarkable. In the Vale of Mehadia, our talented and ingenious fellow-countryman, General Count Hamilton, a soldier of the school of Prince Eugene, rediscovered in 1736, after an interval of more than a thousand years, those sulphurous springs, renowned through all the Roman empire for their power and efficacy ; and in the extensive coal-mines of Oravicza, near Weisskirchen, the king of Hungary possesses a treasure more valuable than all the gold of Schemnitz and Kremnitz, if it become, as proposed, the terminus of the great railway, which in a few years will stretch over Central Hungary to Temesvar. Behind these hills rise the lofty ridges of the Carpathians ; and here the majestic Gugu raises its peak nearly 8000 feet above the level of the sea ; while even the lowest passes enable a small force to resist the entrance of an army. All, therefore, that I said on a former occasion of the military importance of the great position between the Theiss and the Carpa- thians, is applicable to the Banat, which is, meta- phorically speaking, a citadel on a large scale, the Maros being the fosse within the fosse. The fortress of Temesvar is the keep of this natural citadel, the one hundred and seven day's siege of which is the most memorable and thrilling episode of the whole war ; but this keep its Magyar besiegers never entered, even although two-thirds of the garrison were in the grave or the hospital. HISTORICAL OBSCURITY. 47 If we pass from military and physical to political geography, we find the Banat not less remarkable. Hungary is called by Csaplovics, from its various nationalities, " Europe in miniature." The Banat may equally merit the designation of Hungary in parvo, for in no part of this kingdom are the races more varied. Magyar villages are to be found in the northern parts, Servian in the western, and German colonies in the south and west, and several settlements of Bulgarians and other races ; but the substratum of the population is Wallachian, to distinguish whom from the inhabitants of the Ottoman principalities of the Danube, we shall henceforth adopt the designation of Daco-Romans. As far as the dark obscurity of the history of this country before the Roman conquest allows us to enquire, the Dacians, the aborigines, spoke a language resembling the Thracian ; but here, as well as throughout most of Europe, the Roman conquest and colonisation made a tabula rasa of the original ele- ment. Ancient Dacia, which under Decebalus, its native king, offered so obstinate a resistance to the legions of a Trajan, was gradually forgotten, and its three great divisions received Latin names corres- ponding to its physical geography. The Banat was called Dacia ripensis, from the rivers that so pecu- liarly define it ; Transylvania was called Dacia transalpina ; and Bessarabia, and the present 48 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. principalities adjoining the Black Sea, Dacia medi- terranean. Hence, at this moment, between seven and eight millions of men, inhabiting these provinces, speak a dialect that is susceptible of a grace and elegance little, if at all, inferior to that of their fellow Romans on the banks of the Tiber ; and notwith- standing a certain admixture of Sclavonic words, dating from the eruptions of the seventh century, the Daco-Roman forms usually approach even nearer to the Latin than the Italian does ; but, in conse- quence of their subsequent connexion with the Lower Empire, and the Oriental Church, arising from their easterly position, Cyrillian letters are preferred to Roman in writing the language, notwithstanding the efforts that have been made to restore the original character. Of these populations about three millions inhabit the Austrian Empire, principally in the Banat and Transylvania. Italy has a self-developed civilisation, and needs no art, science, or literature, from Germany • but Austria is certainly fully entitled to the thanks and sympathies of the Daco-Romans of the Danube. From 1718 to 1779 the Banat was an integral part of the Austrian Empire, and in that period the aspect of the duchy, was completely altered from that of a desolate Turkish Pashalic to that of a flourishing and prosperous European province. Millions were ex- pended by the Cabinet of Vienna, in cutting the ARCHITECTURE OF TEMESVAR. 49 great navigable canal that connects Temesvar with the confluence of the Theiss and the Danube, in draining the marshes, settling German colonies on the reclaimed lands, and in rebuilding Temesvar (the capital) in the truly pompous style of Louis Quatorze, then the favourite passion of Charles VI. Owing to this interregnum of an improving European govern- ment between 1718 and 1779, or a period of sixty years, the Banat has not the least resemblance to the interior of Hungary ; and if a stranger were to have his eyes bandaged, he would suppose that he had been carried back towards the centre of Europe, instead of being nearer the Turkish frontier. The results of this period are seen, not alone in the straight streets, Italian portals, and somewhat too ornate mouldings of the facades of Temesvar, but are most striking and palpable in the contrast which the German colonies show to the Asiatic, Sclavonic, and Roman races around them. Keresztur is the last Magyar village I passed through on my way from Szegedin ; there the complete backwardness termi- nates ; and at St. Miklos, a town of 17,000 inhabi- tants, principally German and partly Wallachian, the civilisation re-commences. The houses are well-built, and the public edifices, even with some architectural pretensions ; and, not to be one-sided, I devoted five days to this part of the Banat, including 50 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. a trip to the villages on the Maros, and everywhere I found the same thing — the German part of a village with neat farmyards, clean white-washed walls, green- painted Venetian window-blinds, and in Csanad on the Maros, the gables of the houses covered with ornamental plaster of very curious designs, cornu- copias, wreaths of flowers, and arabesques ; not, to be sure, in the best taste, but denoting industry, order, and easy circumstances. The Servian houses are not so good, and the Daco- Roman the worst of all, their farm yards being in a most filthy and disorderly state. The Daco-Roman is the most lazy of men, and if reproached for his want of industry and economy, answers, " God, who takes care of the sparrows who never go to mass, will surely take care of me w r ho never miss a Sunday at church ! " The patience with w T hich the German labours is only exceeded by the patience with which the Daco-Roman waits on Providence ; but he has a charming natural politeness, quite consistent with his history as the degenerate descendant of the civilised Roman ; and his fine facial contour, dark complexion, and antique sandals, are a complete contrast to the dress and appearance of the fair-haired Suabian peasant, who is the most obstinate and unamiable being imaginable. The German peasants are so litigious that there is a proverb among the landed proprietors, " As many GERMAN INDUSTRY. 51 Suabians. so many processes." But the German colonist, in spite of his unamiable, litigious spirit, which degenerates to avarice, and his independence, which amounts to obstinacy, is morally, plrysically, and intellectually, the superior of the Roman. This is shown not only in dwellings and persons, but by other signs ; for instance, the wheat of the very same soil is in the market of Temesvar, worth 20 per cent, more if grown on a German than on a Daco-Roman farm. Then, many German farmers have Daco- Roman servants ; but there is scarcely to be found in all this country side an instance of a German being a servant in a Daco-Roman farm-yard ; just as in Canada one sees thousands of Irish labourers in the employ of the English and Scotch capitalists — rarely, or never, a Scotchman in the farm of an Irishman. It was on a dull morning that I arrived at Gross St. Miklos, the seat of Count N , who had asked me to spend a couple of days with him on my way to Temesvar. It was a German village, or rather town, of 17,000 inhabitants, exceedingly well- built, and bearing every external sign of comfort and prosperity ; although there were naturally complaints of the sufferings of the war, and at Sorok, a large village I had passed on my way, I could not discover a single house which was not burnt and roofless. Count N was, with the exception of E 2 52 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. the Kis family, the largest landed proprietor in the Banat, but they had taken different sides ; Kis who was an Austrian hussar officer, had remained with the Kossuth and Batthyany party, while Count N had adhered to the Imperialists. Kis rose to the rank of general, and Count N had his estates confiscated by the Debreczin Junta, but now the tables were turned. Kis was shot at Arad along with the other Austrian officers who had become generals in the insurrectionary army ; and Count N , at the conclusion of the war, re-entered into the possession of his estates. Such has been the fate of the two largest landed proprietors in the granary of the Austrian Empire, neither of whose families it may be remarked are Magyars ; Kis belonging to a highly respectable Armenian family, and Count N being of Greek origin ; but both families can speak Magyar with vernacular fluency. A quarter of a century ago German was the universal language, not only of the Banat, but of seven-eighths of the large towns of Hungary ; and on no race has the revival of their language inflicted more injury than on the Magyars themselves. Previous to the mania for the revival of this almost forgotten vernacular dialect, which never has had a literature worth naming, every inhabitant of this noble terri- tory was proud to be called a Hungarian ; but from the moment, that in defiance of the history of the ULTRA-MAGYARISM. 53 sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, the the language of one of the nations of Hungary was substituted for Latin ; all the other nations were necessarily put into a condition of inferiority ; and, as bad luck would have it, this re-imposition of Magyar, after the lapse of centuries, was in the very generation of a most violent reaction, in favour of the resuscitation of Slavonic and Roman nationalities ; for scarcely had the thunders of the French war died away, when Bohemia seemed to re-awake to what her literature and nationality had been before the unhappy thirty years war, and the enthusiasm spread gradually through the Slavonic provinces of Hungary. I convinced myself so far back as 1839, that a reaction, fatal to the Magyar race, must be the inevitable result ; for this ultra-Magyarism, producing the duplex effect of raising up a barrier between Hungary and the rest of the Austrian empire, and of irritating the other nations, instinct rendered Austria and the non-Magyar nations of Hungary natural allies ; so that if the life's blood of Austria on the Croat military frontier, which is the nursery of her infantry, had not been drained off to Lombardy, ultra-Magyarism would have stood no chance in a struggle with Austria ; and, as it is, the Magyars are now in a worse position than they would have been had they simply contented themselves with removing 54 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. the gross abuses which caused Hungary to present so great a contrast to the rest of the empire, and attempted neither a disruption of the union with Austria, nor the abasement of the other nationalities. Of all the extraordinary hallucinations that have possessed the people of England, this ultra-Magyarism is the most extraordinary ; and the cause of the pre- sent prostrate condition of this noble nation is (and I cannot repeat it too often), not the love of liberty, but the love of domination, — not patriotism, or love of country and its numerous nations, but national egotism, or the love of their own nation carried to an excess incompatible either with the self-love of the other nations, or the cohesion of the empire, with which they had a financial and military, although not a legislative connexion, — not the real abolition of feudalism, by equal taxation of noble and ignoble, by the extension of communications across rivers and through the steppes, by the removal of a corrupt magistracy and the elevation of the people, by educa- tion in their own language and in their own religion, — but by the sham abolition of feudalism, by the spo- liation of the landowner's property, by taking from him a considerable portion of the interest of the purchase-money of his estates, with some loose, vague, will-o'-the-wisp assurance of compensation. The tables are turned ; and yet, let Austria beware of turning Hungary into a larger Poland, and DEFICIENCY IN CIVILISATION. 55 remember, that centralisation is quite unsuitecl to the character of the Magyars, who, although small in number, are unquestionably one of the most warlike races in the monarchy ; and that the obligate comple- ment of an imperial legislature, is a free development of municipal liberty among the nations of Hungary. The house at Gross St. Miklos was only one story high ; one side being next the street of the town, and the other opening on the park and pleasure- ground, divided by a branch of the Maros : but the out-houses, appendages, establishment for breeding- horses, with an almost royal stable for a couple of hundred horses, were all new, and bore no resem- blance to the homely establishments on the Theiss. This is one of the true directions that Hungarian patriotism ought to take. Man is certainly born for something besides mere material civilisation. There are nobler instincts which must be followed ; but, as one of the first laws of every corporate system is to preserve a balance, to stimulate what is languid, to give a sedative to what is agitated, it is a thousand pities that the Magyars as a nation, en bloc, are not more sensible of their marked deficiency in civilisa- tion, merely material, and the disproportion between their florid political rhetoric, and their retrograde arts, commerce, and agriculture ; and how much more Hungary stands in need of the fructifying empire of science over matter, than the paltry domination of 56 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. one language over others, which, even although less logical in grammar, less musical in vocabulary, are the broad portals to the science and literature of modern Europe. TEMESVAR. 57 CHAPTER VII. TEMESVAR— INJURY DONE BY BOMBARDMENT— HISTORY OF TEMESVAR— THE GREAT SQUARE— GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF TEMESVAR— THE FORTIFICATIONS— THE SUBURBS. As we approach Temesvar the road becomes maca- damised and passable, even after the heaviest rains ; and at one place I thought myself almost in a town : a gentleman's residence, with the offices and the inn at which we dined forming an octagon, almost embracing the road, and, being symmetrically planted with trees, had a most pleasing effect ; but, as I approached the town itself, I in vain looked for the noble alleys of trees that used to be the delight and ornament of the place ; all had been hewn down by the grim axe of war, the fortifications covered with the marks of cannon-balls, and the roofs of the houses within battered to the bare rafters, or altogether roofless. I went from one inn to another, and at each got the same answer : " Our bed-rooms are all destroyed by the shells ; but if you are a new official, we expect to have some rooms ready before the severity of winter sets in." Cold comfort this for a traveller, who, after roughing it, expected a little convenience on 58 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. arrival at the capital of the duchy. At last the landlord of the "Golden Ox" took compassion on me, and permitted me to sleep in his own room until one was vacant. Temesvar, with a population of 24,000, is the capital of Southern Hungary, and the seat of its civilisation, and owes its existence to the reso- lution to transport a ready-made European city into the heart of the newly conquered province. Most of the other towns of Hungary preserved many of their old houses until well on in the last century ; and even to this day, Szegedin, with its old Turkish fort, its Franciscan Gothic church, where, in 1450, Mathaeus Corvinus held a Diet, its Bulgarian-looking streets, with here and there a new white house of several stories, like a cotton-factory, is a cross breed between the Asiatic and the European — the middle age and the modern ; but Temesvar is quite French. Its situation is much better than Szegedin as regards salubrity ; and a large bird's-eye view of the town, as it was in the time of the Turks, shows it to have been then entirely surrounded by marshes, except to the north. The river Bega, which now forms an ellipse to the south of the town, then flowed through the centre of it, forming numerous islands. And even now fevers abound. If we ascend to the Observatory tower, a wide champaign prospect of cultivated, but far from perfectly-drained, fields and HISTORY OF TEMESVAR. 59 villages is seen all around, and no hills are visible, except on a clear day, to the eastward in the direction of Transylvania, where the last spurs of the Carpathians appear like a cloud on the horizon. The town itself when handed over to Prince Eugene of Savoy on the 13th of October, 1716, consisted of four parts ; the inner town of wooden houses (only the mosques and the powder magazine being of stone) surrounded with a wall and a ditch ; then the castle of the Hunyady family, a middle age fortress, connected with the town by a drawbridge and forming the citadel ; and to the north, east, and west, the so-called great and small Palanka, not walled but pallisaded. The inner town has entirely disappeared ; and a single house in the middle of the town is pointed out as the place of the old Turkish gate, where Eugene made his triumphal entry, which spot is still called the Eugens-thor. The palaces and symmetrical streets of Temesvar are in the style of Louis Quatorze ; for although the reign of Charles VL, was contemporary with that of his great-grandson, Louis Quinze ; and although most of the edifices were built between 1730-40, the mouldings are mostly of the style of Louis Quatorze, whom it was the great ambition of Charles to imitate ; so firmly fixed was the French taste, long after the death of the Grand Monarque himself. 60 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. Even the mosques which were built of stone have disappeared ; two of them immediately after the conquest, reconstructed as churches, were pulled down, and the modern church of the Franciscans and the Bishops' Seminary occupy their place. I felt curious to see in Temesvar, or its environs, something of the Turkish period, but except a tomb- stone embedded in the wall of an edifice, and a small suburb which still bears the Arabic name of " Mahala," memorials of the quondam masters of Hungary are no longer visible. The principal feature of Temesvar is the great square, on which are the Catholic and Greek cathedrals ; the former an extensive edifice, built during the government of our active and ingenious countryman, Count Andrew Hamilton, who was president and commander-in-chief in the Banat between 1734-8, and distinguished himself by great activity in building and other improvements. During the bombardment the crypt of the cathedral offered a secure asylum against the shells ; but the roof being also supposed, from being vaulted, to be shell- proof, the body of the church was at one time occupied by between sixty and seventy persons, when a shell burst through the roof, " with such a thundering noise," said one of its inmates, " that I almost thought the day of judgment had arrived," but strange to say, although many had received DESCRIPTION OP TEMESVAB. 61 contusion, nobody was killed, and popular belief ascribed the immunity to the immediate interposition of the patron saint, Gerard the Martyr. At right angles with the cathedral, is the principal edifice of the town, the palace of the government, which occupies the space between two streets, but so overdone with ornamental consoles, vases, wreaths, and arabesques of the eighteenth century, that it looks like a chateau in the vista of one of Boucher's landscapes ; and every time I pass its portals, with grinning sat} T rs forming the key-stone of the arch, I fancy a fine gentleman with a clouded cane, bloom- coloured coat, satin breeches, and ailes de pigeon, would be more fitting the genius loci, than the Pandours of the imperial commissioner, with their waxed moustachios and frogged hussar jacket. A triple line of fortifications, according to the most approved rules of Yauban, encircles the town : be- yond each curtain is the ravelin ; beyond each bastion the contregarde ; and an envelope of solid masonry forms the third and outer line of defence. The great defect of the fortifications is, that in the lapse of time they have sunk at various places, on account of the marshy land, so that the relative gradation of the outer to the inner works is, in several places, dis- turbed to such an extent, that the former is not sufficiently dominated by the latter. This has been produced by the bastions, curtains, and casemates, 62 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. forming a heavier mass of masonry, to which the heavy artillery in position have contributed. The principal gates, three in number, are named from the directions in which they lead, — Peterwarclein, Transylvania, and Vienna. At the first, my atten- tion was drawm to a hole in it, which had been made by a cannon-ball, which certainly fulfilled its functions. Behind this gate, in the earlier part of the siege, stood eight Uhlan horses ; and the ball, on entering, w T ent right through the gate, and then through one horse after another, lodging itself in the body of the eighth. Without the Peterwardein gate, and beyond the rayon of the fortress, is the Josephstadt suburb, intersected by the Bega canal, cut in 1745-60, to connect Temesvar with the south-western part of the Banat, in connexion with the Theiss, Danube, and Save, which, with its straight lines, and boats in the distance, like black dots, its alleys of trees and brick houses, reminds one of Holland. Here is a crowd of canal craft ; here the large magazines of the Banat wheat, and a constant bustle of loading and un- loading. Returned to the Peterwardein Gate, the traveller continues his tour of the ramparts until he arrives at the old castle of the Hunyady, which is within the fortifications, and is now the armoury. This castle constructed by John Hunyady, Count of Temes, in 1442, was the kernel of Temesvar, and the scene of DESCRIPTION OF TEMESVAR. 63 many remarkable accidents, the detail of which would lead me too far away from the immediate object of my journey. Being built with great solidity it resisted better than most of the houses in the town, but its towers, rising above the bastion, are quite unroofed. It resisted every 30 lb. shell, but all the 60 lb. shells that struck burst through, so that we walked from room to room on temporary planks. Here I saw piled up 11,000 muskets taken from the Hungarians ; the total number of fire-arms taken on the field or delivered up in the arsenals and fortresses being no less than 661,000. This mass of materiel arose from the profusion with which the bank-notes were printed, and the prodigious activity of the officers. " They did nothing on a small scale/' said the officer in charge, " your see those bellows there/' — pointing to an enormous pair for a mortar foundry, — " eighty of them were made to one order, and found by us in Aracl." Passing the infantry barracks — the lower part of which is bomb-proof, and forms a section of the fortification — we got out at the gate of Transylvania, and came upon the principal suburb of Temesvar, called the Fabrik, the newer buildings of which, having in the long peace unfortunately encroached on the rayon of the fortress, are much destroyed. The suburb received the surname of Fabrik from the manufactories of metal, clothes, paper, hats, &c, which 64 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. Count Mercy, the first Governor of the Banat after the conquest, attempted to establish. Count Mercy- was a brave soldier, but no political economist. The idea of transplanting European civilisation to the Banat was a good one ; the symmetrical streets of Temesvar stand as well as the Magyar bombs have allowed them, and the Bega canal which followed was well calculated to call out the resources of the Banat ; but manufactories in a country where capital and labour are scarce, and land so abundant as to make the growing of corn and the rearing of cattle the only profitable speculation, soon showed results that might have been expected : the agricultural colonies flourished and the manufactories died a natural death. SIEGE OF TEMESVAR. 65 CHAPTER VIII. THE SIEGE OF TEMESVAR* — COMMENCEMENT OF SIEGE- WATER CUT OFF — A SORTIE — FIRST BOMBARDMENT- SECOND BOMBARDMENT— HORSEFLESH EATEN— FEVERS- CONFLAGRATIONS— THE SIEGE RAISED. When I saw that there was not a single house in all the town that had not been injured, and that I had not been in a single house in which I did not see several rooms blown to pieces with shells, I had what I never had before — a full and complete conception of the "horrors of war." During my stay in Temesvar, almost every topic of conversation bore directly or indirectly on this wonderful defence — the great event in the modern history of the town, which is not likely to be eclipsed by anything in our generation ; — and as it is one of the most moving episodes of the revolutionary war, I string together whatever I have * The military history of the recent war having been so frequently given to the public, I have avoided as much as possible going over ground already occupied. To this rule I have judged it proper to make two exceptions ; — a portion of a chapter devoted to clear up the strategy of Bern in Transylvania, and this account of a siege which forms an episode of itself, and which I could scarcely pass over in an account of Temesvar ; but both accounts are made up from authentic information derived on the spot, and a careful personal examination of the localities, and therefore are original. 6Q THE GOTH AND- THE HUN. been able to collect on the spot, either in the way of oral or documentary information ; as, on making known my wish, the engineer officer, who, at the conclusion of the defence, was the surviving director of the operations, had the extreme kindness not only to afford me every information in his power, but to accompany me to the localities, and make everything as clear as possible for so scientific cicerone to do to a non-professional man. The first shot of the whole war was fired at Gross Kikinda. The Servian populace having been thrown into a state of fervour by the unjust attempt of Mr. Szentkirary, the Magyar Commissioner, to take the Servian baptismal registers of the church, and substi- tute Magyar ones, the turbulence of the populace being- enhanced by the odious communistic tendency which accompanied the revolution of 1848. A political re- volution, in the name of liberty, that imposed on whole nations baptismal registers, of which nobody understood a word but a handful of Magyarised nobles, was not likely to give general satisfaction ; and when the sensible burghers of Temesvar saw that the splendid financial talents and resources of M.Kossuth consisted in the seizure, by military force, of several millions sterling value of corn, forage, horses, cattle, sheep, and all the necessaries of an army, from saltpetre and charcoal, to sugar and coffee ; and the payment for them, in bubble notes, having no relation OUTBREAK OP THE REVOLUTION. 07 to real property ; they shook their heads, and stood aloof. Between 6,000,000/. and 7,000,000/. sterling of this worthless paper were coined ; and if the Magyar loyalists, the Servian, the Slovack, or the Roman, refused to give the best horse in their stable, in return for this paper, he was liable to be shot. No sooner had Bern taken Herrmanstadt, and annihilated Puchner in Transylvania, than the corps of General Count Leiningen, sent to relieve this brave soldier, but unfortunate general, found its object rendered impossible of accomplishment, and slowly retiring before Bern, re-entered Temesvar. Bern made dispositions with a view to attempt to hem him in, and take prisoner this corps of Leiningen before its arrival at Temesvar, and sent orders to this effect to Count Vecsey, the Hungarian general com- manding the Banat ; but this haughty Magyar, offended at receiving peremptory orders from a man whom he considered a Polish adventurer, disobeyed, and Leiningen re-entered Temesvar. In the north of Hungary, black clouds gradually gathered round the career of Windischgratz as the spring advanced. Kapolna, hotly contested for two days, was claimed as a decided victory by neither party ; and then followed Godollo and Waitzen, blow after blow, with anelectrical effect on the Magyar troops in the south, and, on the 25th of April, their columns closely investing the fortress, the gates were shut. F 2 68 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. The garrison, including the corps of Leiningen, amounted to 8,659 men, of whom 4,494 were re- cruits, under the command of General 'Hukavina, a grey-haired veteran of eighty, who, sixty summers before, stood sentry as a private at the very palace where he subsequently commanded the forces. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak — Lein- ingen and a colonel Stankovich were the soul of the defence. The great deficiency was in engineer officers, artillery, and artillery-men. Instead of ten engineer officers, which is the complement of the fortress, they had, owing to the Hungarian and the Italian wars, only three ; and, instead of 390 cannon, only 213. Of the garrison, no less than 1,500 were Magyars, 600 of them being Szeklers of Transylvania, the most enthusiastic for their na- tionality, and yet during the whole siege they behaved with most unflinching fidelity. The water which supplied the garrison was all brought from without, and raised by a machine in the Fabrik suburb. The first attempt of the Magyars was, therefore, to cut off the water ; but imme- diately all the old wells were cleared out, which pro- duced a tolerably potable water. The Bega makes a circuit to the south of the town, and in the interven- ing meadows was an imperialist fortified camp, covered by the guns of the fortress ; but the river itself was soon turned aside by the Magyars, through PROCLAMATION OF THE REPUBLIC. 09 the instrumentality of sluices made some miles higher up ; so that instead of a river, it became a bog, its banks forming a trench to the besiegers. The garrison being now anxious for intelligence, various plans were- proposed to this effect, and that of a sharpshooter accepted ; who, suggesting that a road through the wood to the north was likely to be passed by the messengers of the Magyars, was allowed to take a few men with him by night, who lying hid in the wood until they saw a person pass whom they believed to be a courier, dashed out upon and seized him, and brought him alive into the fortress with his dispatches, by which they learned for the first time, that the republic had been proclaimed at Debreczin. The brave Rukavina now felt that every nerve must be strained against the enemy, and ac- cordingly a sally was prepared, but of this the camp had full intelligence. Kossuth's partisans in the town, during all the siege, gave signals to the Hun- garians to be on the alert. The smoke of a particular chimney, or a white sheet at a particular garret- window, seen by a good prospect glass, was sufficient to let the Magyars know. At three o'clock on the morning of the 12th of May, a force of 1,700 infantry, and 620 cavalry, with sixteen cannon, under the command of General Leiningen, attacked the Fabrik suburb ; but the. Magyars were all in battle array, and after a hot engagement, in which 70 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. several hundreds were killed, the imperialists re- entered. General Vecsey, who commanded the Magyars, had pitched his tent in the Jagd Wald, or Forest Chase, to the north-east of the ' town, and had a pavilion superbly decorated, in which there was a great deal of feasting and merriment. Formerly a member of the noble Hungarian guard, it was his social position and personal courage, rather than his military capacity, that procured him his command. Instead, therefore, of attempting a breach and storm, which would have saved the houses, he resorted to a simple bombardment, of which Bern, as remarkable for the humanity of his disposition under circumstances of difficulty, as for his skill and bravery as a leader, loudly disapproved, he being during all these bombardments absent in other parts of his command. When the bombardment began the terror of the inhabitants was indescribable ; the houses were abandoned and the cellars and casemates crowded, and at first every shell that was heard to whizz overhead produced a wail in the casemates ; but such is the strange effect of habit, that at last the ladies at night used to look tranquilly at the shells hissing across the heavens, and if they fell near would skip out of their way into the casemates again without the least alarm, and even as if it had been a frolic. BOMBARDMENT OF TEMESVAK. 71 The garrison answered with a constant cannonade, and the fires were almost immediately extinguished by numerous engines and large corps of firemen stationed in all quarters of the town. In the mean- time batteries were extending, and a circumvallation and trench was made nearly all round the town, in one place almost following the lines opened by Eugene in the night between the 1st and 2nd of September, 1716. This bombardment stopped on the ] 6th of June, having no effect in bringing the town to a submission ; but the hospitals were crowded, provisions began to fail, and the officers were tortured with anxiety, being in a state of utter ignorance, as to whether Vienna was still the capital of the Austrian Monarchy or of a social and democratic Republic ; so a spy was sent out who announced himself as a deserter at the Hungarian outposts, and engaging himself as a pioneer, worked in the trenches for some time, and one day, listening to a conversation of the officers, learned the fact of the Russian intervention, and then giving the Magyars the slip, returned to the town and brought the intelligence, which confirmed the garrison in the resolution to hold out. Another part of his intelligence, however, was not so satisfactory — thirty new mortars had arrived in the camp, and the great bombardment was about to commence. Before it began, a short armistice took place, 72 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. and a large number of families were allowed to leave the town. On the night of the 3rd of July the great bombard- ment began, when the whole of the remaining inhabitants fled into cellars and casemates ; some- times thirteen or fourteen shells were seen in the air at one time ; another sortie was therefore made by the garrison, when they spiked seven canons and eleven mortars, but lost in killed and wounded sixty- four men. The heat of the weather had now, in the month of July, grown intense — thirty degrees of Reaumur, or ninety degrees of Fahrenheit. The casemate-outer-windows were all stuffed with wood chips and sand-bags behind them, in case of elliptical cannon shot, for the works in front stood between the besiegers and the casemate windows, so as to guard against horizontal cannon balls ; but those which directed at too great an angle of elevation were soon spent, occasionally entered the apertures. The atmosphere in these casemates was suffocating, from the crowd of human beings and the want of the circulation of air, and several children died of sheer terror in the arms of their parents. " I shall re- member it as long as I live," said one of the citizens to me with a sigh ; and then added, laughing, " Long afterwards I used to dream it was still going on ; and then used to awake with such delight to find it was over." BOMBARDMENT OF TEMESVAR, 73 As for the horses of the Uhlan regiment they were neither " to hold nor to bind," and were at last let loose, and in groups of twenty or thirty used to rush about the streets as if in the wilds of South America, and did no injury as there was nobody in the streets but those connected with the fire-engines. Strange to say those dumb creatures chose a leader, an old grey horse, which they followed, and with such unaccountable tact was this selection made, that all remarked what a knack the old grey had of getting out of the way of the shells. Those that were killed were at once eaten, for although there was abundance of corn in the fortress, and although at this moment the mill is the only construction in Temesvar that is undamaged, yet meat was wanting. At first all ate horseflesh except those soldiers that were of the Daco-Roman nation, who for a long time steadily refused ; at last an officer, one day entering a casemate, reproached some Italian soldiers jocularly for consuming too much, for, said he, these others are too dainty soldiers to eat it. The Daco- Romans immediately answered, " Oh yes, we can eat it ;" and from that date they consumed horseflesh like the others ; and I was told that the Italians made a very eatable salad out of the weeds that grew among the grass of the fortifications. On the 11th of July another sortie was made in night, in which ninety-three Austrians were killed 74 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. and wounded. The houses now began to fall from the incessant bombardment, and the cellars were no longer safe. The governor had at first divided the garrison into three parts : one third on duty, serving the batteries in the walls and the engines in the town ; one third in readiness under the cover of the casemates ; and one third in sleep : but on the 14th this arrangement was given up, all being put on active service, taking sleep as circumstances permitted. The fortified camp of the Bega was at the same time abandoned. The great powder magazine, imme- diately within the ramparts, was repeatedly struck with the shells — and is even now half- untiled, — but they leaped off harmless as foot-balls, the roof having five feet of vaulted masonry above it, three feet of packed earth, and then a foot of masonry above. A curious circumstance occurred here illustrative of the uncertainty of projectiles : a shell carried off the legs of a horse, and the concussion pitched its body right over the powder magazine enclosure wall, which is twenty feet high ; near the same spot, on the para-pet, was a provisional battery magazine with three casks or seven hundred pounds of powder and twenty-five grenades ; a shell tore the cask asunder, exploded several of the grenades, and yet the powder did not ignite. The fever now began to rage in the town, and on the 25th of July a quarter of the garrison had BOMBARDMENT OF TEMESVAR. 75 perished, a quarter was in the hospital, a quarter ailing and unserviceable, and only a quarter all- efficient ; and on that day alone five surgeons died of typhus. The bombardment had a terrible effect on the patients ; even those who were in a fair way of recovery during the slackness of the fire, no sooner heard the bursting of a shell and the fall of some neighbouring roof, than they would leap out of bed in a phrenzy, with fixed eye-balls, creep under the beds for shelter, and a couple of hours' attack of nervous fever usually finished them. In spite of the exertion of the fire-engine corps, one edifice after another fell a prey to the flames. To the conflagra- tion of a large convent of the Merciful Brothers, which served as a temporary hospital, succeeded that, on the night of the 30th July, of the two barracks at Peterwardein gate, when the fire-men exhausted by twelve hours' previous exertions, allowed the whole mass to burn to the ground ; and a loss quite as painful to the besieged under such circumstances, was that of one of the only three engineer officers in the garrison, the brave Colonel Simonich, who while making dispositions to have the fire extinguished, had his breast bones burst in by a shell splinter, which proved fatal. The hospital was not only full, but in such a state that the air was pestilential, the sick and wounded preferring to remain without surgical assistance, to entering the hospital. 7(5 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. The Hungarians now calculating that the garrison was exhausted, and anxious to anticipate the im- perialist forces in an attempt to raise the siege, stormed the pallisades with a view to possess them- selves of the works in front of Peterwardein gate, but were beaten off in spite of the extraordinary bravery and impetuosity, with which the attack was made. A curious ruse on this night produced the retreat of the Magyars : — An imperialist. Captain Metz, going out to the left, with the drummers and a few soldiers, they beat the drums and made loud hurrahs, so that the Magyars supposing that they were taken in flank, retired in confusion. The day after, the cholera broke out in the town with the utmost violence, and increased so rapidly that the garrison began to melt away, some days the number of deaths being as high as one hundred and sixty ; but Haynau was already in Szegedin, unknown to the garrison, who were now in a state of perfect ignorance of the state of the war. " No one of us," said one of the garrison to me, " regarded his life as worth a day's purchase." At length, on the 5th August, being the hundredth of the siege, Count Vecsey offered a capitulation with all the honours of war, in consideration, as he said, of the gallant defence. This was peremptorily rejected, with the announcement that the garrison would defend itself to the last man. Next morning the officers looking BOMBARDMENT OF TEMESVAR. 77 from the tower of observation in the barracks, saw that several batteries were deserted, and the low distant booming of artillery in the west, announced that a large and friendly force was not far off. The gallant Rukavina would fain have ordered a sortie as a diversion, but wounds and death, typhus and cholera, had so reduced the once strong garrison, that 1,233 infantry, and 388 cavalry could alone be mustered, and to risk them was to surrender the garrison. On the 9th, the cannon being louder and louder, they knew that a great battle was fought to the west, the sally was resolved on, and on the same evening, Haynau, after his victory at Kis Becskerek, entered Temesvar ; and thus ended the siege of one hundred and seven days. The hoary Rukavina did not survive ; like the lamp that blazes up in its socket before extinction, the concluding efforts exhausted him, and he died of cholera brought on by fatigue. So the chequers of death and victory marked the close of his long and eventful professional career, but the goal was reached, nor is the soldier to be deplored, who after a life of eighty years, can say in the hour of death : — " My end has been fully attained : " " REQUIESCAT IN PACE ! " 78 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. CHAPTER IX. THE VOYVODINA— GREAT HISTORICAL LANDMARK— SERVIA IN THE MIDDLE AGES— SERVIAN FUNDAMENTAL DIPLOMA — THE SERVIAN REVOLUTION — RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF VOYVODINA. It is certainly a singular spectacle that the south of Hungary and the north of Turkey-in -Europe has presented in the nineteenth century. A great portion of the south Slavonic family, which for numerous generations had been in a state of ser- vitude, bursts up through the superincumbent cake of Asiatic supremacy, and with haughty modesty demands from Europe admission into the list of nations. In the year that Napoleon assumed the imperial crown, Cara George began the emancipation of a portion of the inheritance of King Lasar from the direct rule of the Porte ; and 1849-50, which saw his nephew elevated to the presidency of the French republic, witnessed on the north side of the Danube, the emancipation of the Servians of the Austrian empire from ultra-Magyar coercion, and the re- establishment of the Voyvodina, or Servian duchy, dormant since 1691. HISTORY OF THE SERVIANS. 79 Thus from 1385 to the nineteenth century, this great nation was submerged, and now re-appears on the surface of the political waters of Europe. In my eyes, therefore, it is neither the change of a Bourbon for a Bonaparte, nor the Pope's trip to Mola di Gaeta, and the bootless effusion of blood in the Italian peninsula, that makes the year 1848 one of the greatest landmarks of the history of the world ; it is the transformation of Hungary and the resurrection of her races after centuries of abasement. It was at the fall of the great fabric of Roman Empire, that the Servians, who speak the same language as the Croats, came from the Carpathians and settled in the countries between the Adriatic and the Black Sea ; and, as I have said in my other works, these Slavonic barbarians, conquering with the sword, were themselves subdued by Christianity. The Servian hordes received from Constantinople religion, letters, and arts ; and to this day, the traveller in the backwoods of Servia is surprised to see in the most romantic dells curious marble struc- tures of the Byzantine period. Few kingdoms in the middle ages pla} r ed a more important part than that of Servia, and in the fourteenth century, the rule of Stephen Dushan extended over all Servia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia ; and to this very day, the same language is spoken from the Drave 80 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. and the Maros to the Black Sea, the Adriatic, the plains of Thrace, and the Gulf of Thessalonica ; but in 1385, at the battle of Kossovo, the sceptre of Lasar was shattered, and Servia became a province of the empire of the bold Amurath, a century and half before Hungary shared a similar fate at the hands of the great Soliman. The year 1684 was that of the turning of the tide, and of the receding of the waters, for then the Emperor of Germany with the assistance of the North Slavonic Sobieski, prepared for the resuscitation of the South Slavonic nationality. The Emperor Leopold after having seen Hungary cleared of the Turks, sent to the Servian nation a diploma, inviting them to leave Servia and settle in Hungary, as subjects of Austria : — "Agite igitur " (says Leopold, 29th August, 1690) "pro Deo, pro religione, pro salute, pro libertate, pro securitate vestra restauranda, intrepide ad partes nostras accedite, Lares vestros culturamque agrorum non deserite, socios vestros ad seguenda vestigia vestra invitateJ" Then accordingly took place the immigration of Servians into Hungary, the first of which consisting of 36,000 souls, was under the guidance of their archbishop, Arsenius, and in the spring of the following year was held the congress of Temesvar, in which the future position of the nation was fully discussed under the presidency of Count SERVIAN FUNDAMENTAL DIPLOMA. SI Francis Balassa. They were willing to become subjects of the emperor and the house of Austria? but the recognition of their religion and nationality was an undisputed postulate, and the congress broke up with a warm feeling of gratitude to the house of Austria, but not a single trace of an engagement on the part of the Servians to accept the supremacy of the Magyar nationality. In consequence of this congress the aulic chancery issued that diploma of the 20th of August, 1691, which secures to the Servians their national position, and which forms their fundamental institute. This was granted by the conqueror of Hungary from the Turks with a sword in one hand and a pen in the other ; that is to say by the military chief of the agglomeration of states, now called the Austrian empire, and then denominated the German empire : — Lcopoldus Dei gratia, Romanorum imperator, semper Augustus, ac Germanice, Hungarice, Bohe??iics,re^,Sfc." From 1718 the Banat has been permanently free from Turkish rule. Unfortunately, however, one thing marred most materially the repose of the Servians, and that was the constant efforts of the Jesuits to unite those communicants of the Eastern Church with Rome. Thus, no sooner free from the temporal power of the Sultan, the Servians began to feel the ecclesiastical power of the Pope, for the Vatican has been all along tolerant on the subject of 82 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. the subordinate discipline of the Eastern Churches provided her supremacy be acknowledged along with the cardinal points of her creed. The Servians were increasing and multiplying ; the small band of 36,000 emigrants became a considerable nation. They followed the black-yellow banner from Belgrade to Antwerp, and from Strasburg to the frontiers of Moldavia. The armies of Louis Quinze had seen Trenk's pandours ; and Voltaire thought to compli- ment his friend Frederick at their expense during his Silesian campaign. But the Greek religion met with every opposition at home. Sometimes the Catholics would hew down the crosses put up by the Servian Greeks on the roads, and at other times Greek bishops who had accepted catholic unity were in fear for their lives. One Bishop of Arad dared not enter one of his villages from fear of being mobbed. But with the reign of Joseph, Jesuitism fell into disgrace ; and at length, in the year 1791, the great act of Greek Emancipation took place, and from that date the religion and nationality of the Servians in the Austrian Empire took an entirely new develop- ment. Carlovitz, the seat of the Greek seminary, founded in 1 733, became through charitable bequests and the piety and energy of Archbishop Strati- mirovics, a college of the most important character with reference to the culture of the nation, and its THE SERVIAN REVOLUTION. 83 general literature, although it is only justice to Ragusa to say that the new literature of Servia has produced no author that comes within even an approximate distance of Gondola, the great Ragusan epic poet of the seventeenth century. The Servian revolution now procured for this race a vigorous national development, and it was in the Illyrian schools of Carlovitz, Temesvar, and Neusatz, that the most efficient employes of the new princi- pality of Servia were educated, and from which the new Lyceum of Belgrade, now on the high road to become a university, received its professors. But while, on the south of the Save and Danube, the language and literature went forward in the most cheering manner, on the north of those rivers it only seemed to go backward — I say seemed, for, in reality, the means taken to crush the Servian nationality have produced a reaction that has had quite the opposite effect. Having got quit of Austrian Jesuitism, another plague, visited this fertile Danubian Egypt, the ultra-Magyarism, although Slavonia, is almost utterly devoid of Magyar population ; and as for the Banat of Temesvar, the three counties of which are in the ultra-Magyar ethnographical maps boldly coloured as Magyar, the reader may judge for himself when I tell him that the metropolitan county of Temes has only two Magyar villages ! But, as the last feather breaks the back of the camel, it was at G 2 84 THE GOTH A*P THE HUN. the Magyar commissioner taking the Servian registers out of the church of Gross Kikinda, in the next county, and substituting Magyar ones in flat defiance of the fundamental diploma of the Servian nation, that the first shot of the whole war was fired. But truth compels me to say, that both in the wars against the Turks and against the ultra-Magyars the greatest atrocities were committed by the Servians ; that many defenceless persons were massacred and whole villages burnt down. In fact, both were wars of extermination ; and in Servia Proper all the Turks were extirpated, and are now confined to the few towns described in my work on that country. In my intercourse with the Servians during my tour through the Voyvodina and elsewhere, I never hesitated to express my strong horror of those Avars of extermination, and the answers I got might be condensed thus : " When the oppressions of the French aristocracy were no longer tolerable, this nation, that calls itself the most civilised in the world, sent to the scaffold even the most virtuous Malesherbes ; how then can you wonder at the excesses of our people who are just laying the foundation stone of their new civilisation. The religious emancipation of 1791 saved us from a convulsion, a timely national emancipation would have done the same. As for the convention of Szegedin removing our disabilities when the ultra- RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE VOYVODINA. 85 Magyar faction was at their last gasp, that was bringing water to extinguish the embers after the house was burnt down." The province of the Yoyvoclina as re-established, comprises the Bacs country and the Banat, i.e. Neusatz, Pancsova, Temesvar, &c. During the late revolution they elected their own voyvode, and adopted the ancient royal banner of Servia ; but since the restoration of order, the Emperor is great voyvode, and his substitute General Mayerhofer, formerly Austrian consul-general at Belgrade, now resides in Temesvar the new capital. He speaks Servian fluently, and it has been arranged that for the future, each vice-voyvode shall either be a Servian or able to communicate with the nation in their own tongue ; for the ruling passion of all races in Hungary is neither religion nor politics, but the development and (when possible) the supremacy of language and nationality. The new Voyvodina, however, has by no means an exclusively Servian character, in fact it is a mixed state of Servians, Daco-Romans, Germans, and Magyars. All these languages are on a level as. far as local business is concerned, each village being in immediate relation with the local government through its own language, but the communications with Vienna are in German. This is unavoidable, as one central language is indispensable to every 86 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. empire, and as German is the most extensively spoken in the monarchy, and except the Italian has the most valuable literature, it is in all respects the fittest. What irritated and embittered the nations of Hungary against the Magyars, was not so much the adoption of one central language for the Diet, as the carrying the national fanaticism into the muni- cipal and eclesiastical sphere. The Servian peasant of the Voyvodina, is very far from having the tall stature, strength, vigour, and veracity of the true Servian ; he lives on a plain, gets his food easily, and is somewhat too fond of plum brandy ; and he regards Syrmium with its college of Carlovitz to be the chief seat of his nationality on this side of the Turkish frontier. Pannonia interamnis was the name of the Illyrian Mesopotamia in the time of the Romans, and of this wedge — if I may so term the high wooded region between the Save, the Drave, and the Danube — ■ Syrmium was the point. None of my tours in Hun- gary proved more interesting, than one I took in the summer of 1838 through the so-called Frusca Gora, {mom almus) where I found the mountain air so pure, and the water so deliciously clear, that, coining direct from the Banat, where I had passed a scorching- summer, it seemed a paradise. This district belongs to the kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia, neither of which are now under the new stadtholdership RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE VOYVODINA. b7 (Stattlialterey) of Pesth ; but like the Voyvodina and Transylvania, are immediately under the central government of Vienna, that is to say, are integral portions of the Austrian Empire but not of the new kingdom of Hungary. 88 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. CHAPTER X. ARAD— ITS FAIR— COMMERCE OF HUNGARY— DESCRIPTION OF ARAD— THE FORTRESS— THE COUNTY OF ARAD. One fine clear chilly autumnal morning I started in the diligence for Arad where the fair was then holden. As we approached the Maros, the land gradually undulates, and instead of the tame flat fields of wheat and rape seed, every hillock with a good southern exposure is covered with vines. At length, Arad hove in sight, scattered broad and wide, and by the crimson glow of sunset I again arrived at the left bank of the Maros under the bastions and ravelins of the fortress. Here the wreck of the old bridge formed a picturesque object, while on the other side of the river the opal coloured ruins of the nearer houses and spires of the central part of Arad stood distinctly defined in the ruby horizon. Arad consists of two parts, Old Arad an open town in the county of that name, and New Arad the fortress in the Banat, which includes within its walls no civic population, and being entirely constructed for military THE FAIU. s'.l purposes, commands the town and secures the passage of the Maros, on the high road between Temesvar and Grosswardein, and is therefore one of the most important strategical points in Hungary. The inn was on the great square in the centre of the town, and next morning a characteristic scene presented itself on my looking out at the window. Opposite was a tall church, the tower considerably damaged by cannon shot during the long siege, and all the body of the place covered with booths, the side alleys being choked with horses and carts and their drivers. A kitchen was established in the open street, and a stout dame could scarcely serve quickly enough — fried-bacon and drams of brandy to the carmen and peasants that crowded round her for breakfast. For hours I walked through the tempo- rary wooden streets, examining the articles, their sellers and purchasers. There was the burly Saxon from Transylvania, that land of wool, with his pile of blankets, and thick white peasant's top-coats. These blue-eyed men came seven centuries ago from the Lower Rhine, they were then called by the kings of Hungary, Flandrenses ; and our own English flannel tells whence our ancestors derived their warmest woollens Transylvania is a land of tallow as well as of wool, and there might be seen, the industrious soap-boiler of Szegedin, laying in the provision for his winter's fabrication. There too, in large measures, 90 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. was the paprika, or Hungarian scarlet pepper, like Cayenne, but not so strong. Another home product were the long rows of winter mud-boots worn outside the tight breeches ; those for the females being of scarlet leather, while all the articles of hard and soft ware, were abundant. Metals from Styria, cloths from Moravia, and cottons from Bohemia. It will, no doubt, be some years before Hungary recover herself from the heavy losses sustained during the revolutionary war, but there are two measures which will infallibly give a great impetus to the commercial importance of Arad — the breaking down of the barrier of customs that has hitherto separated Hungary from the rest of the monarchy — and the extension of the line of railway (which will this year be complete, between Vienna and Szolnok) to Arad, whence two lines are to branch off ; one to Temesvar, and another up the Maros to Herrman- stadt. Thanks to the energy of Baron Bruck, the Austrian minister of commerce, the most energetic partisan in the Austrian empire of moderate customs duties, the first of these measures has been accom- plished and the communication between the two countries is now uninterrupted. A complete revisal of the Austrian tariff has taken place, the prohibitive system is abandoned, and although several important articles might be advantageously for the revenue admitted at lower duties, the step has been a most DESCRIPTION OP ARAD. 91 important and beneficial one, considering the obstre- perous clamour of the manufacturers for high protection duties, and whatever objections may be made to the present political tendencies of Austria towards an excessive centralisation in Hungary — her commercial policy is both liberal and enlightened, and reflects the highest credit on the personal ability of Baron Bruck, who has had the good fortune to carry through those reforms which his predecessor in the commercial direction of the Austrian empire, Baron Kubeck, projected, but owing to opposing pre- judices, could never realise. Arad, although not so regularly built as Temesvar, has a much more town-like aspect than Szegedin. That part of it next the Maros is much damaged from having been exposed to the fire of the fortress during the war, and although Arad has no good street, it has many good houses denoting previous prosperity. The population is about 28,000, divided as follows : — 9,000 Germans, 9,000 Daco-Romans, from 3,000 to 4,000 Magyars, 3,000 Jews, and 3,000 Servians, who all dwell on the north side of the Maros ; the burgo-master being during my passage through the town, a German, and Arad having been the last place in possession of the Magyar force, all nations had suffered severely by the Kossuth notes, as the towns-people were kept in profound ignorance of the hopeless condition of the 92 THE GOTH AJND THE HUN. ultra-Magyar cause, previous to the surrender of Georgey, and at the close of the struggle the fortress of Aracl was the receptacle of their military stores and those bank notes which were the sinews of the war. The fortress itself on the other side of the river was constructed in the same style and about the same period as that of Temesvar, the ground being perfectly level, and the works according to the system of Vauban. Arad is said to be the neatest fortification in Hungary, and no sooner had I traversed the draw-bridge and passed the vaulted gate-ways, when I found myself in a sort of park, with alleys of trees. The only edifices inside being those required for strictly military purposes, barracks, magazines, and a church, the spire of which, was much shattered in consequence of the Hungarian besiegers having erroneously supposed it to be the observatory of the besieged. All the rest of the large space within the fortress was park, alley, garden, and parade ground, girt by the ramparts with a great extent of bomb-proof casemates, that were at that time tenanted by between ,300 and 400 political prisoners, either condemned to terms of imprisonment or awaiting their trial ; and on the outside of the fortress, the spot was pointed out to me which was the scene of the execution of the leaders of the army that fought under the tricolored THE COUNTY OF ARAD. 93 banner ; but as I neither approve of the cause for which they fought, nor of the policy which dictated the punishment of death, however legal it might have been in a technical point of view, I reserve this subject to the conclusion of my account of Hungary. For some time after leaving Arad, the land as we ascend the Maros is flat, and we are still in the great plain of Hungary, and in a few miles we are at the foot of the great Carpathian chain that separates it from Transylvania ; and the county of Arad is not less rich than varied in its products, so that if I were asked in what county I had seen best represented, in parvo, the territorial wealth of this noble kingdom, I would answer Arad ; with level wheat-growing plains, not inferior to those of the Banat, it has also vine-clad slopes, and hill pastures that furnish rich fleeces, and above them wood with fuel in abundance. The land instead of gradually ascending, is a dead flat rich plan to the very base of the mountains ; the white village church spires, villas, and cottages, seem to overlook the level land, and the clear morning air reminded me of those pleasant passages of towering- Alp and fertile plain, which one sees in the north of Italy. Here is grown the Menes wine, next to Tokay, the most celebrated of the Bacchanalian products of Hungary ; dark, strong, and sweet, almost to lusciousness, it recals Malaga to recollection 94 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. and the dry Menes has something of the flagrant flavour and strong body of port wine. The peasantry of this part of Hungary are uncom- monly neat in their dress ; and when one sometimes at a pastoral ballet at the opera, sees peasants with garlands round their hats, and parti-coloured stock- ings and ribbons, and feels disposed in the midst of their entrechats to ask in what part of Europe such Colins and Fanchettes are to be found, one might answer in the county of Arad, so well are they dressed, and so tastefully do they dispose of real and artificial flowers round their broad-brimmed black hats. As we advance up the Maros we perceive that the men are taller and more robust than the ordinary Daco-Romans of the Banat ; and the women, with classical features, and fine pale complexions, which come out of the shadow of a doorway, like the female portraits of Giorgione. Plunging into the mountains, where the valley of the Maros preserves a breadth of a mile, or a little more, I found myself among the A/bfo-Daco-Romans, or men of the mountains (Monies), which intervene between the Szeklers of the Upper Maros and the Magyars, dotted on the great plain between Szegedin and Grosswardein — a much more resolute and determined set of shep- herds, vine-dressers and wood-cutters, than the timid ploughmen of the Banat. THE VALE OF THE MAROS. 95 CHAPTER XL THE VALE OF THE MAROS— ENTRANCE OF TRANSYLVANIA— ZAM — THE DACO-ROMANS — BROOS— THE SAXONS— THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF TRANSYLVANIA. Next morning, after a couple of hours drive, pass- ing a little brook that bubbled its way to the Maros, I found myself in Transylvania; and never, in many a league of sea and land travel, did I enter a new country that presented a scene more beautiful and more melancholy. Zam was the name of the threshold of the land, and Zam will not be soon erased from my memory. Let the reader imagine the vale of the Maros, no longer in a narrow valley between mountains, but expanding into a wide amphi- theatre ; jagged pinnacles and wood-crowned preci- pices over all the heights round and round — stretches of park and pasture, slope gently down the rich, flat verdant meadow-land, and an English garden, or park, enclosed with a low stone wall, with turf and tufts of plantations, surrounds a country gentleman's large mansion, which, on a slight eminence, forms the prominent and central part of the picture ; while 9G THE GOTH AND THE HUN. behind it was a pretty hamlet, all new and neat, evidently the care of the lord of the manor. Here was the farm-yard, and the fancy cottage ; there was the snug road-side inn, and the post-house, but all ruined, roofless, and tenantless ; not a soul to be seen at a place, that a year ago had been the delight of the beholder, and the abode not only of rural com- fort, but of taste and luxury, as the Mosaic pavement of the hall showed. Not a soul was to be seen ; not a cock crowed ; not a cow lowed ; and the distant tinkle of the goat- bell on a cliff was the only sound that broke the terrible silence of the desolate scene. This was the dwelling and village of a Wallachian country gentleman, a loyalist, named Nobcsa, whose house had been attacked and plundered by the Szeklers, and the destruction consummated by his own fellow countrymen. Let no one suppose that this was a solitary case, or that these excesses were confined to one party. The war in Transylvania was a war of the cottage against the castle, and of race against race, in which politics, either liberal or con- servative, had little to do. Let not the reader sup- pose that Zam was a rare instance of destruction. From my entrance into Transylvania, until my arrival at Herrmanstadt, a three days' journey, every isolated house, small hamlet, or road-side inn, was destroyed ; and, in a Daco-Roman country, I might literally ap- ply the words of Chateaubriand, in speaking of the THE DACO-ROMANS. 97 journey of his life, and denominate this road, " Une longuc vote Romaine bordee de monumens funebres," so frequently was my attention called to the roofless houses, or the covered pit of human bodies. The moral of all this may be stated in a very few words. The great majority of the inhabitants of Transylvania are Daco-Romans, who have lived for centuries in the most abject helotry, as may be judged of by a short list which I give of the disabilities under which the Daco-Romans lived up to the time of the Emperor Joseph. These laws were made in 1540 ; and however Joseph II. may be hated by the ultra- Magyars, one is constantly stumbling on some proof of his humane intentions. No Daco-Roman was allowed to hold an office. No school could exist without the permission of the landed proprietor. No Daco-Roman could wear boots or shoes, only sandals. No Daco-Roman could wear embroidered or fur dresses, only rough woollen. No Daco-Roman was allowed to wear a hat, only a fur cap. No Daco-Roman's window in the town was allowed to look on the street, only on the court-yard of each house. No Daco-Roman was allowed to have a chimney. In short the Magyars, with all their love of liberty 98 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. for themselves, are very fond of domination for others ; and the Daco-Roman, — in spite of the numbers of his race in Transylvania, the natural acuteness of his intellect, and his muscular, well-pro- portioned frame, — is deficient in the self-respect and energy of a free man. But it was the unwise inter- ference of the ultra-Magyar party, with the national pride and municipal institutions of a very different race — the Saxons of Transylvania, that was the immediate cause of the sanguinary insurrection of the the cottage against castle. It was at Szasvaros or Broos that I first arrived in the territory of this race, whose manners, customs, civilisation, and education are essentially distinct from those of either Magyar or Daco-Roman, and this portion of Transylvania is called the Saxon Land. Szasvaros, a Hungarian word, is literally translated Saxon-town, inhabited two-thirds by Saxons, and one-third by Magyars ; but the place has rather the German than the Magyar type, and reminds one of those old-fashioned country towns in Bavaria or on the Rhine, the houses plastered and painted in various colours, and presenting a green or a crimson gable to the street. They come, as I have already stated, from the Lower Rhine, although called Saxons, and speak a funny dialect, that reminds one of Dutch or broad Scotch, and is quite incomprehensible to the people of Vienna, but, to this day, is well understood by the THE SAXONS. 99 people of Dusselclorf and Nymwegen. Most of the Saxons wear woolly caps, and on the high road are seldom seen on foot, but mounted on the lively little horses of Transylvania. The women are not re- markable for their good looks, and have a peculiar method of wearing the hair, the tresses being plaited into one tail collected at the forehead, and hanging down the right cheek. Siebenbiirgen, or the Seven Boroughs, is the German name of Transylvania, and this Szasvaros, the German name of which is Broos, is one of them ; the order in which they were settled in Transylvania being as follows : — Mediasch, 1142 ; Muhlenbach, 1150 ; Herrmanstadt, the capital, 1160 ; Clausenburg, 1178; Schassburg, 1178 ; Reussmarkt, 1198 ; Broos, 1200. To these seven were subsequently added two others, Bistritz, 1206 ; and Kronstadt, 1208. Their towns have quite a middle-age look, with towers and old walls, like the back-grounds of Callot ; and at Muhlenbach, the next town to Broos, the inn was behind the spirit of the age, and all around my bed-room, instead of the fashionable portraits of Rodolph, Fleur de Marie, and the Maitre d'Ecole, were the adventures and misadventures of the pro- digal son, with a long homily in print at the foot of each. Forethought, order, economy, patience, and indefatigable perseverance, mingled with considerable egotism, obstinacy, and an indisposition towards in- novation, is the character of this people ; and in these H 2 100 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. qualities we see those elements of the extension of the Teutonic race, westwards, until Celt is merged in Frank and Saxon ; eastwards, far beyond the original limits of the Slaavic races ; and southwards, com- prising the military domination of the fairest part of Italy. Brilliant and sympathetic as the Latin and Celtic races are, acute as is the perception of the Slaav, slow and phlegmatic as these German races are, they command a homage (however unwillingly it may be rendered) to the superiority of the results they have achieved ; and readily as one would see Austria exchange Lombardy for a province of Germany, it is certainly the operation of a great law, and not the mere accident of war, that has for centuries sub- jugated a nation of men of genius to a race that they detest, and has placed German families on the thrones of the four greatest monarchies of Europe. The character of the Daco-Roman is, as I have shown, the reverse of all this ; he was in fact a savage in a state of subjugation, and no preparatory scheme of national education paved the way for his being safely entrusted with any franchise. The bond of society among those semi-barbarians was fear, and fear alone ; nothing, therefore, could be expected from the dissolution of this bond but the orgie of a drunken helot. When, therefore, the mis-called " abolition of feudalism " relieved him of a consider- able portion of the rent of his land ; instead of feeling TOLITICAL HISTORY. 101 gratitude for a boon, he judged it, as every barbarian would judge it, — to be an indication of the termination of the regime of the peasant's fear of the landlord, and the commencement of the landlord's fear of the peasant, — as the dissolution of his conception of the bond of society, and of the barriers between meum and tuum. To return to the Saxons, if the bond of barbarous society be fear, the bond of civilised society is respect for the sanctity of law, founded on history and custom, and of equity founded on the sense of the good and the true, implanted in every sound moral nature. Now of all races in the world the most attached to law and custom is the German ; and to this instinct, which stands in close relation to a largely developed conscientiousness, it is no doubt owing, that while in most of the other countries in Europe the large fiefs have been gradually swallowed up by the larger monarchies — Germany remains to this day, with so many small principalities, unabsorbed ; and in Transylvania, the Saxon land preserved up to 1848 its national and municipal separate jurisdiction, with a distinct territory, code of laws and senators, headed by a comes or land- grave, resident in Herrmanstadt ; but when the revolution arrived, it was resolved to Magy arise them. The union of Transylvania with Hungary was, there- fore, carried through the Diet of Clausenburg by 102 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. terrorism, like the other measures of the ultra-Magyar faction — the packed galleries crying out, " Union or death ; " and a member of one the most ancient families of Transylvania told me, that he had no alternative but to vote for the union of Transylvania with Hungary, for the mob cried out to him, " That if his vote for it was not recorded, his dead body and not his live body would descend the stairs!' Such is the liberalism of the Kossuth school — such the new school of parliamentary privilege in favour with ultra-Magyarism. Thus the Saxons of Transylvania were nolentes volentes, involved in the vortex of Hungarian revolu- tion, and in the highly excited state of the terroristic mob at Pesth, not daring to make any strong- demonstration against Batthyany's illegal disruption of the military integrity of the Austrian empire under the mask of the word reform, — they left Pesth and returned home. In this way the civilised Saxon, whose ruling principle is legality, was driven into a close alliance with a semi-barbarous nation, who for centuries had had no other social bond but that of fear. The Austrian military command in Transylvania was in a deplorable state of weakness. General Puchner was a man of personal bravery and humanity ; but he had neither the youthful vigour nor the political and military talents equal to the crisis, for POLITICAL HISTORY. 103 like most Austrian generals of his standing, lie was above seventy years of age. So, by the advice of the principal Saxons, a Daco-Roman patriotic com- mittee was established, who organised a militia under centurions, tribunes, and prefects, who turned out to be perfect brigands, and — instead of submitting to military discipline, holding themselves in readiness to combat the rebels, — moved about in hordes, over whom General Puchner had no control, and sullied a just cause by the most revolting acts of murder and plunder ; and after this tremendous catastrophe the strictly impartial traveller cannot forbear his con- demnation of all parties — of the ultra-Magyars, who did nothing to educate and elevate the people — who sowed the wind of revolutionary violence and reaped the whirlwind ; — of the Austrian General and the Saxons, for not affording a more efficient protection to the innocent families, strangers to political party ; — and of the Daco-Romans, who, by their sickening excesses, have so largely detracted from the interest and sympathy, which their name, their language, their long abasement, and many symptoms of a desire for improvement among their co-nationals in Wal- lachia, Moldavia, and the Banat, would naturally inspire. 104 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. CHAPTER XII. HERRMANSTADT — THE INN — POLITICAL CHAMBERMAID — THE GUESTS— DESCRIPTION OF THE TOWN— GENERAL WOHLGEMUTH— THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS— SOCIAL STATE OF HERRMANSTADT. The principal inn of Herrmanstadt is situated immediately without the wall of the town. Three sides of the court-yard is formed by a building and the ancient rampart, the line of which is broken by high square watch towers of medieval construction, forms the fourth side, and from the open galleries on the first floor of the inn, opening to the bedrooms, is a view of the ancient cathedral spire of the town rising behind this relic of times that have passed away. Deep snow covered all the roofs of the town in sight, and from time to time great lumbering Transylvanian waggons, drawn by six or eight horses, with bells jingling at their throats, crowded the space below. The waggoners wearing white woollen cloths, trimmed with crimson worsted, and the horses' breaths sending up volumes of steam in the hard frost of a clear Transylvanian morning. POLITICAL CHAMBERMAID. 105 The room which I procured had been newly furnished, and I was shown into it by a plump Amazon with red cheeks, who was the most political and military chambermaid that I encountered in the course of my travels, and accustomed to stand a fire of jokes from all and sundry travellers. She not only put me to the question as to my objects in Herrmanstadt, but was equally free with the accounts of her own adventures. I asked her if she was not possessed by fear during the war ? " Oh no," said she ; " there is nothing like the ex- citement of political and military events. Never shall I forget that day on which, at the conclusion of the war, we prepared a large dinner, with horse-shoe tables, in the dining-room down stairs, for Bern's officers, who had taken Herrmanstadt for the last time. There was roast and boiled — fish, flesh, and fowl, as comfortable as could be wished ; and just about the time when the soup ought to have been served and the wine-glasses to jingle, there was a roar of artillery and whizzing of rockets, and tick-tack, tick-tack of musketry, and every officer was at his post, but all of no avail, and the Russians thrashed Bern and his troops out of the town ; and instead of the Hungarians, with their brown surtouts and crimson frogs, a crush of Russian officers, with their dark green coats, dispatched the dinner prepared for their enemies and a prodigious quantity of brandy 106 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. besides — but that belongs to the past, and it is the present that interests me. What do you think, Herr Englander ? Is your queen going to declare war against Russia, about Kossuth and the re- fugees % " But as I could give her no satisfactory information on this important point I adjourned to the dining-room below. Here I found a miscellaneous ^company, consisting of contractors of provisions and necessaries from the principalities, one being a Servian, and several other Wallachians, who wore sheep-skin caps and loose curiously cut clothes of coarse blue cloth of a sort of European fashion, and who were making themselves merry with punch and cigars, the former of which they made from Russian tea and rum, with a travelling apparatus for this purpose. They were now in Hermanstadt, winding up their accounts, and the great event in the Servian's life was a visit he paid to London, and on every peculiarity of which he discoursed with the greatest minuteness, which amused me much. Fixing his attention on many points which had become so identified with my daily habits, he showed me how much there is to observe in a man's own country, which he daily sees, without the exercise of analysis and comparison, and it is not unpleasant, from time to time, in this way to mingle the observation of others with the seeing of ourselves as others see us. THE INN GUESTS. 107 Various military officers were of the company, and I was entertained with the contrasts in their manner. One exceedingly gruff surly-looking man, whom I had first seen giving his servant a volley of threats of condign punishment if he did not pay more atten- tion to some distinctions of ineum and tuum, of which the landlord complained, sat apart without speaking a word, during the hour of evening meal ; and another officer who came in was very voluble on the war, and on what he had done and suggested, and stunned us with his exploits, and when the rest of the company had retired and the gruff officer and I were getting our candles to proceed up stairs to our rooms, he broke the ice in the most friendly manner by stating that he was a captain stationed in a village in the environs of Herrmanstadt ; and without much pre- liminary chat, pressed me to spend a few days with him, promising me good shooting and a hearty welcome : " But," said he, " I will not stun you with my exploits like the gentleman you saw here. Hero indeed!" quoth he, "I made the whole campaign, from Alpha to Omega, and it was no holiday excur- sion. One would think from this gentleman that we did nothing but advance, advance. Donnerwetter ! he told you nothing about what a retreat was when you seemed to be sweating the very soul out of your body. Do not take your idea of the good sense 108 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. and modesty of an Austrian officer from such a braggadoccio." He then renewed his invitation, but as I had a great deal of business on hand I declined it with many thanks, and went to bed. The succeeding days were devoted to seeing Herrmanstadt and its inhabitants, for it is now the capital, of Transylvania, having been formerly only the capital of the Saxon land in Transylvania, so that while house room is abundant in Clausenburg, which was formerly a capital, there is now a deficiency in that respect at Herrmanstadt. The town is, upon the whole, well built, but badly paved, and is situated on an irregular eminence ; the central and highest part of which is occupied by the High Church or ex-Cathedral, an extensive ancient edifice of Gothic architecture, built in Catholic times, in the pointed style ; but, as the Saxons are Lutherans, still bearing traces of the iconoclastic disfigurements of the period of the reformation. This was the centre of the original nucleus town, built in 1161, which was confined to this eminence, but at various times extended ; the so-called lower town was included within the then new, but now ancient walls, which have been in many places broken through, so that Herrmanstadt may be called an open town. These walls, with three high square towers, adding much to the picturesque appearance of the town DESCRIPTION OF HERRMANSTADT. 109 at various points, but very little to its strength. There are very few modern houses in the town, and the whole place has the aspect of ancient riches. On the great square is the catholic Church, the Government House, and the principal private edifice in the town, — the residence of Baron Bruckenthal, a palace in the Italian style of architecture, with exten- sive suites of rooms devoted to a picture gallery, and a cabinet of natural history which pleased me much, rather as indicative of a desire to cultivate the arts, and to give a laudable direction to the employment of a large patrimony, than positively gratifying from the intrinsic value of the pictures themselves ; the great majority of which, although catalogued with the names of the first masters, appeared to me to be mediocre copies ; but the grandiose Italian archi- tecture of the palace itself (although spoiled by a high ridged roof and heavy mansarde) is remarkable in the midst of this old German architecture. Herr- manstadt is quite an old fashioned place, and the inns are ancient hostelries with thick walls, one of which is evidently coeval with the first settlement of the town ; its wall being much broader below than above. But the pavement of the town is the worst feature of the place, being composed of large stones irregularly put together, with the gutter in the middle and at certain intervals high stepping- 110 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. stones to enable the passengers to cross from one to the other over a black muddy brook. I have stated that the Government House was on the Great Square, and, while I was there, formed a point of union for the society ; for, in the domestic circle, the three races, Saxon, Magyar, and Daco- Roman, remain distinct and apart from each other, the animosity being fierce and inextinguishable. The Governor of Transylvania was General Wohlgemuth, who, having commanded with distinction a division under Marshall Radetzky in Italy, was entrusted with the corps cFarmee on the Waag, and received the government of Transylvania at the conclusion of the war, as much from his high personal character and conciliatory manners as from his military capacity. The Ban of Croatia, whose acquaintance my readers have already made among the Highlands that over- hang the Adriatic, was so good as to write to him, requesting his good offices in my favour, and this was responded to, not only by frequent attentions and hospitalities on the part of the amiable Baroness Wohlgemuth, but by a frankness and confidence, a luminous moderation, and an impartiality in the estimate of the difficulties of his own position, which was to me of a high and informing character.'" * While I correct the press, I regret to have to add that this distin- guished officer no longer lives ; intelligence having arrived of his decease. He complained of ill health when I was in Herrnianstadt, from excessive sedentary labour having suddenly followed two years of violent exercise in all weathers. GENERAL WOHLGEMUTH. ] 1 1 He tokl me that he had entirely dissolved the militia organisation of the Daco-Romans, who, under the names of centurions, tribunes and prefects, had sought to preserve an authority which had been deplorably abused. He deeply lamented the gross ignorance and the abasement of the Daco-Roman peasantry, who were not only glaringly deficient in a knowledge of their duties as citizens, but even of the elements of common education. He at the same time commiserated with the unhappy position of the loyalist Magyar landed proprietors who had suffered severely in purse and person, and who besieged him with their clamours ; while, on the other hand, the heads of the Daco-Romans vehe- mently insisted on a preponderance in the direction of local affairs in Transylvania, corresponding to their numerical superiority, not only to any other race in particular, but to all the other races put together. " There are many points," added General Wohl- gemuth in one of my conversations with him, " in which I am full of doubt and embarrassment, so singularly complicated are the politics of Transylvania ; but on one point my mind is made up — one thing I see clearly, and that is the necessity of a thorough and complete system of national education for the Daco-Romans. "We must not attempt to transmogrify them into either Magyars or Germans, — they must remain Romans, and they must be educated in their own 112 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. language, and must alter their nature and not their nation ; in short, they must become civilised men and learn not merely to fear the law, but to honour and respect it. But ' Rome was not built in a day,' and the reconstruction of the Daco-Roman civilisation cannot be done at once ; it must be effected by the patience and perseverance of several generations." Another interesting acquaintance which I made at the Government House, was that of General Zeisberg, who was the quarter-master-general of the Ban during his march from Agram to Hungary, and who dis- tinguished himself at the taking of Vienna under Windischgratz, and now commanded the division of which Herrmanstadt was the head-quarters, and who, as I was subsequently informed, was one of the ablest strategists in the Austrian army, and had strongly advised a movement upon the centre of the Hun- garian position behind the Theiss by way of Szegedin, and who was not deceived by the veil which the manoeuvres of Georgey in the north drew over the strategy that made Debreczin and Grosswardein the centres of the operations of the Magyars. Another of the circle of Government House whose conversation interested me was the Russian Colonel D , who had been sent on a political and financial misssion, to close the accounts of the Russian govern- ment with that of Transylvania. He appeared con- scientiously to regard his Emperor as almost a species THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. 113 of demi-god, and gave me several instances of his immense capacity for labour. I heard from another person, that during all the war of Transylvania and Hungary, the maps of those countries were constantly before His Majesty's eyes, that he followed the movements of even the smallest corps, and was familiar with the names of hundreds of villages in Transylvania, so that when a courier arrived at the palace at St. Petersburg, dusty or bespattered, he was instantaneously introduced into the study of the Emperor, who, before opening the dispatch, invariably requested the courier to tell him in a few words the substance of the news he brought. The Emperor would then put a few questions, and if the answer related to well-known localities he put other questions ; but if reference was made to villages of lesser importance, then immediate reference was made to an edition of Lipsky's large map of Hungary and Transylvania, lying on the table near the window. I found all through my tour in Hungary and Tran- sylvania a considerable amount of information relative to this remarkable Prince, derived through the recent occupation of the country by so large a body of officers, many of them of high rank, and the impres- sion left on my mind is, that this sovereign has a valid substitute for intuitive genius, in the practical ex- perience which he has acquired through an enormous physical capacity for sustained attention to political 114 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. and military detail. This, joined to his stubborn will, and an absence of the secretiveness peculiar to the Russian character, and at the same time a consci- entiousness largely developed, although considerably kept in check by a large destructiveness, constitutes altogether a character much nearer the Germanic, as contrasted with the Slaavic type, than that of his late brother Alexander. In this circle I also made the acquaintance of Mr. Bach, brother of the minister, who now filled the post of political secretary to the government of Transylvania and who spoke Daco-Roman fluently, having been the head of the bureaucracy or Landechef in the Bukovina, that province to the north-east of Transylvania on the other side of the Carpathians, which lies between Gallicia and the principality of Moldavia, and which is almost entirely inhabited by a Daco-Roman population, forming a part of the Austrian empire. This land is the kernel of the Daco-Roman national fanaticism, and the principal newspaper of which has a considerable circulation among this nation in Transylvania, and in opposition to the Kolosvar Lap or Clausenburg Magyar Gazette, preaches with great vehemence the necessity of Daco-Roman ascendancy in Transyl- vania, and I found in the circle I am describing as a matter of course, the two parties full of their grievances. THE BISHOP. 115 The Magyar nobility, then on business at llerr- manstadt, characterised the condition of Clausenburgh as being most melancholy since the withdrawal of the government ; on the other hand, as a necessary consequence of the odious and detestable com- munistic principles, introduced by Kossuth in his so-called abolition of feudalism in Hungary ; the heads of the Daco-Romans, characterised as in- consistent with the spirit of that measure, the just and proper resistance which the landed proprietors were offering to the attempts of the communes to make free with the timber grown in their neigh- bourhood. In spite of all this, there is no violation of the forms of civility, and at a dinner party given by the Daco-Roman Bishop, I noticed that several of the company were Magyars. The bishop, who was a tall, portly, and handsome man, between fifty and sixty years of age, dressed in black satin and wearing his beard. He is one of the very few persons of this nation within the Austrian empire, having respectable attainments in literature and polished manners, and is a strenuous advocate for his nation having a political position in Transylvania, corresponding to their numbers, somewhat forgetting that property and intelligence are all to be looked to, and that he himself is not a fair sample of what the Daco-Romans are — the exception and not the rule. It must be I 2 116 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. admitted that the intelligence of this nation is very scattered ; the few Daco- Roman proprietors in the Banat being either Germanised or Magyarised, while the wealthy Boyars of Bucharest, the capital of Wallachia and of Jassy, are quite French in their tastes. They have French tutors and governesses — French Vaudevilles played in the theatre ; they imitate the fashions of Paris in the minutest particulars, and are much more familiar with the light literature of France than the heavy erudition of Germany. But in Transylvania, the Daco-Romans, who unite talent with superior education may almost be counted on the fingers. If Transylvania is therefore to prosper, the Daco-Romans must be made to respect the property of the Magyar landed proprietor, and the Magyar must give up his proselytising projects and encourage the national education of the Daco-Roman, and the elevation of this dialect to its natural position as the preponderating language in Transylvania ; but I am sorry to say that it will be as difficult to reconcile the Daco- Roman peasant to a respect for the property of the Magyar landed proprietor as it will be to compel the Magyar to respect the nationality of the Daco- Roman. The Saxons of Herrmanstadt who, of course, com- prise the vast majority of the population, are from their industrious and economical habits in good THE LANDGRAVE. 117 pecuniary circumstances, and this capital is the residence of the comes or landgrave, elected by the nation as the municipal head of the Saxon land ; a person of their most ancient and considerable families, with polished manners, but while the Daco- Roman bishop with his southern contour and bushy black beard might have sat as a model for the bust of a Roman emperor ; the landgrave of the Saxons, in a country of dark complexions, preserved in his blue eyes and flaxen-coloured hair the tradition of the type of the nations between the Elbe and the Rhine, that obstinately resisted Roman domination, and still in the highlands of Dacia preserve the distinctive peculiarities of their race. After an entertainment and reciprocal toasts to the prosperity of the Anglo-Saxon, and Daco-Saxon nations, the national banner of the latter was unfurled amid much enthusiasm of the ladies of the party, showing the arms of these Transyl- vanian Teutons, a shamrock and triangle, with the motto Ad rctinendam coronam ; the other insignia of his office being a silver battle-mace (Streit Kolb) to represent the command of the militia, and a sword, representative of justice. The royal diploma was illuminated in the missal style, with a profusion of heraldic devices ; that of the principality of Tran- sylvania being the most prominent representative of the Magyars, the Szeklers (sun and moon) and the 118 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. seven Saxon boroughs (Germanice Siebenbiirgen), represented by seven towers ; but strange to say, that although the Daco-Romans form the vast majority of the people of Transylvania, they have no place in its heraldry ; a clear proof that Daco-Roman chivalry had had no existence in the middle ages, and that the obstinate valour with which Decebalus and his troops had resisted the legions of Trajan, had declined with the Lower Empire and had not been resuscitated. It is also a fact, that up to the year 1848, the esta- blished religions of Transylvania were the Roman Catholic, the Lutheran, the Calvinistic, and the Unitarian churches ; and the Greek church, which is that of the majority of the country, had no legal recognition. All this abasement is a plain and pal- pable proof, that the Daco-Romans of Transylvania are essentially deficient in the spirit of independence, which compels respect on the part of others ; but at the same time confirms my theory — that the Magyar spirit is not the spirit of liberty, as understood in France and England, but the love of the domination of their nationalitv over the other nationalities, even the Germanic, although it was the Germanic element that liberated them from Turkish domi- nation. I maintain, that whoever studies the history of Hungary during the agitations of the last twenty-five years, will arrive at the conviction, that SOCIAL KELATJONS. 119 what we British call the spirit of the reform of abuses, was feeble in comparison with this fanatical enthusiasm for the absorption of the other nation- alities. In proof of which I may mention that the agitations among the Daco -Romans, which led to this awful jacquerie, began with public meetings after the French revolution of February, in order to procure the elevation of the Greek religion, which from the period of the Greek empire, had been the aboriginal faith of Transylvania, to a level with the later creeds ; and the elevation of the Daco -Roman language to an official position, such as that enjoyed by the respec- tive languages of the Saxons — Szeklers and Magyars ; but not a word of appropriating either labour, or money-rents, to which they had no more right by law, custom, equity, or common sense, than the land- lord has to the clothes on the peasant's back, or the movables in his cottage. And it is my firm persua- tion and conviction, that if those just, reasonable, and proper demands of the Daco-Romans had been antici- pated by those who were far fonder of the jargon of liberty, and philanthropy, and reform, than of their practical application, the heart-rending scenes thathave desolated Transylvania, could never have occurred. The modern history of Transylvania is comprised in a few words : the ultra-Magyar faction disre- garded the just, proper, and rational demands of the Daco-Romans, relative to their religion and nation- 120 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. ality. They handed over to the peasant a portion of the property of the landlord, which he never asked for or expected ; and then the savage peasant be- came like the tiger — that, having once tasted human flesh, changes its nature, and will not be satiated. My sympathies in Transylvania are neither with those sanguinary savages, nor with the ultra-Magyar fanatics who precipated the convulsion, and by seeking to swallow up the Saxon nationality and municipal privileges, rendered them the allies of a race with which they have so little in common ; for it is impos- sible to conceive a greater contrast than that which is presented by the industry, economy, probity, and dogged independence of the Saxon, with the igno- rance, improvidence, and alternate pusillanimity and ferocity of the Daco-Roman. But my sympathies are with the large number of persons of moderate and loyal views, who, without contributing to one ex- treme or the other, have suffered acutely in person, purse, and landed property. At the same time, to hold forth on the massacres committed by these people, without giving the key of antecedents, would be as subversive of historic justice as to commence a French history of the tiers etat with the massacres of September, ignoring the dark side of the ancien regime. Franklin says, " that the lazy man is frequently in a hurry ;" and here lies all the philosophy of the SOCIAL RELATIONS. 121 contrast between the nations that take time by the fore-lock, and those who act by fits and starts. The cool, dogged Germanic independence of the Briton is a preventative of any overpowering abuse of superior authority. He is, consequently, in no violent hurry to turn everything upside down, and make a pell- mell redress of abuses. His nature is neither that of the sloth, nor the tiger ; he is neither in a magnetic sleep, nor in a state of phrenzy ; and our glorious constitution is rather the effect of this happy national temperament, than the cause of our comparative free- dom from the extremes exhibited by many foreign nations, as the failure of the introduction of the British principle of government has in many cases evinced. The Magyar prides himself on the Hungarian constitution resembling that of Great Britain ; but the character of an Asiatic water-course, at oue time a torrent, and at another a dry bed, is not more dissimilar from the perennial flow of a British river, than the Anglo-Saxon character with its gradual colonisation and civilisation, is from that of the Magyars — bursting in hordes over the east of Europe, — arriving at the nineteenth century fast asleep in feudal anachron- isms ; — and the Kossuth party then starting up in a fit of diabolical activity and phrensied enthusiasm, not to ameliorate by progressive and gradual reforms the condition of all the races of Hungary, but to break up the military integrity of the Austrian empire, and L22 THE GOTH AND THE HON. transmogrify the Hungarians of every nation into Magyars. Although the population of the town of Herrman- stadt is not over 20,000, there is a great deal of in- telligence in the place, and at the Casino are German and French newspapers. A society of natural sciences is devoted principally to the geology and natural history of Transylvania ; and this land being very mountainous, and rich in minerals, is a field well- suited for such labours. The principal mine worked in Transylvania is that of gold, and Zalatna in the Carpathian chain, which has suffered severely during the revolution, having excited the cupidity of the Daco -Romans, was the scene of one of their most odious massacres. The coal, although good, is not worked, on account of the great abundance of wood, and I was shown three specimens of this inestimable mineral from three points in Transylvania. This society has also devoted itself to barometrical opera- tions, by which it appears that the plain of Herrman- stadt is 1,300 feet above the level of the Mediterranean, and the higher peaks of the Carpathians about 8,000 feet above the same level ; the Vunetura Bufianu being 7,953, and the Negoi, 8,040. And to the naked eye, no sight in this country is grander than that presented from the highest part of the road to the west of Herrmanstadt, with the city stretching out on the plain below, and beyond it the grand line of NATURAL HISTORY. 123 the high Carpathian, separating Wallachia from Transylvania. A wall of ice and snow, glistening in the clear, brilliant sunshine, for a distance of from sixty to seventy English miles, which is split asunder by the celebrated Rothenthurm Pass through which the Aluta flows, and thence crossing to the frontiers of Bulaaria, forms bv its waters the distinction be- tween Great and Little Wallachia. 124 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. CHAPTER XIII. HIGHLAND LIFE IN TRANSYLVANIA— THE ROTHENTHURM PASS — HELDAU — PRIMITIVE SAXON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. During my stay at Herrraanstadt I paid a visit to this remarkable Pass, which is the key of Wal- lachia. It was on a clear frosty morning, intensely cold, that I traversed the plain of Herrmanstadt, the ground being covered with snow ; and the cry of Lupu, lupu ! from some Wallachian waggoner made us look into the next field, where a wolf was prowling about, and the sight of which made the pointer dog of my agreeable and intelligent companion, Baron Reyhetzer, come under the carriage, his hair standing on end with fright. Arrived at the gorge, I at length saw the Aluta rushing clearly along and carrying flakes of ice and snow on its bosom to the Ottoman Empire. The eastern side of the defile rises precipitously from the river, so that no road is passable, and the present road goes along the western side of the gorge in many places with barely width for its passage. THE ROTHENTHURM PASS. 125 Fortifications were soon visible, defending the Pass from an attack on the Wallachian side, and a square red tower {Rothenthurm), dating from the middle ages, stood clearly out from the white-washed modern works and the snow-clad mountains above it. Ascending to the castle and looking through the embrasures we found that the narrow road was completely swept by artillery, and that no force could penetrate into Transylvania, while only rifles or light infantry could pass the heights above. The only soldiers we saw were the militia of the frontier, a sentry being entirely enveloped in a skin cap and hairy cloak, like Robinson Crusoe. Beyond the Rothenthurm the road continues along the right bank of the Aluta, a fine alley of trees having been raised to clear a rayon for the battery ; and as we advance, the gorge becomes wilder and more romantic, the rocks in many places rising from the river, very little out of the perpendicular, then festooned with thousands of icicles glittering in the chill clear sunshine ; and passing to the old original Rothenthurm, now in ruins, the walls of which were twelve feet thick, we came to the frontier quarantine and village, which was full of bustle, the cattle- dealers getting their beasts through from Wallachia to Transylvania ; but as a result of their position the women here were much disfigured by the unsightly goitre. 126 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. The Rothenthurn is the principal pass from Transylvania into Wallachia, and as, although narrow, it is, comparatively speaking, level, an extension of the projected railway up the Maros to Herrmanstadt, across the great plain of Wallachia to the Black Sea, was much talked of when I was in the capital of the Saxons ; as there are no territorial difficulties in passing from the basin of the Maros to that of the Aluta, as they are separated by only a couple of insignificent ridges and an intervening plain. That such a project is anxiously looked forward to on the part of the people at Herrmanstadt, may be easily imagined ; for Herrmanstadt used to be on one of the great high roads between the east and the west, which the introduction of steamers on the Danube has entirely changed, and a considerable source of importance was this cut off from the Saxon land, however advantageous steam on the Danube may have been to the commercial interests of both empires at large. On my journey on the Kokel tributary of the Maros, I came to a town called Elizabethenstadt, very neatly built, and having a pompous church with almost the appearance of a cathedral, inhabited almost entirely by Armenians, who had made, many of them, handsome independencies, from their pro- secution of the carrying trade between Constantinople and Vienna, in which state of affairs the introduction THE ROTHENTHURM PASS. 127 of steam navigation on the Danube, had effected a revolution, which had been severely felt and induced some of them to emigrate to Pesth and elsewhere. It is, therefore, not surprising that, as there is a certainty of the railway being extended to Herrmanstadt, that they should look forward to its prolongation over the rich, level plains of Wallaehia, which may be called the Lombardy of the east of Europe, as regards capacity for production, but the population of which is insignificant, there being little more than two millions in a principality which might nourish ten. In the society of Herrmanstadt I observed nothing- worthy of particular remark. Dinners, soirees, and balls there were, just like dinners, soirees, and balls elsewhere ; but even in the middle classes the extensive use of Russian tea, caviare, Jamaica rum, and other luxuries denote a closer proximity to the Black Sea than one feels sensible of in the interior of Hungary ; and at one dinner party I noticed Dutch herrings and Russian vodka, served as a preliminary whet ; but among the Carpathians we altogether lose sight of the cosmopolitan stereotype. On my return I proceeded to Heldau, a village embosomed in the Carpathians, between the Rothenthurm and Vulcan Pass, where the ancient Saxon manners and customs are preserved in a primitive state to a greater extent than any other part of Transylvania, and which may be considered to stand in the same 128 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. relation to Herrmanstadt and Cronstadt as the village of Brock, in North Holland, to Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Here, equally remote from the outer world and the spirit of the nineteenth century, the Saxons vegetate in a quiet patriarchal way, that would give perfect satisfaction to those who appeal to the " wisdom of our ancestors." The situation of the place is the most picturesque possible ; not in a wild, gloomy, rocky gorge, like the Rothenthurm, but in a pleasant valley at the foot of fair hills, covered with white banks of snow, and mingled with plantations of now leafless oak ; but as the eye rises from height to height until the dazzling summits are seen in the deep azure of this clear, delightful climate, it requires only a moderate effort of imagination to clothe the scene with the tints and trappings of summer ; and I doubt, as well from what I have seen as from what I have heard, if there be in all Transylvania a pleasanter spot. A stranger would be at first somewhat disappointed at seeing very small huts, rather than houses, at the entrance of the village, but the dusky tint and disorderly apparel of the inhabitants show this to be the Zigania, or gipsy hamlet, which is at the outside of many towns in this country ; the change from a nomade to a settled life having become compulsory during the reign of the emperor Joseph. Not only HELD A IT. 1;>9 are gipsies excluded from this village, but no Daco- Romau or other stranger is allowed to have any settlement in the place. As we proceeded up the street we admired the uncommon neatness of the houses, being more like merchants' villas, than the dwellings of peasant manufacturers ; and my com- panion, well acquainted in this quarter, having entered one of the best, with a roomy court-yard, we saw in a corner a large provision of wood for fuel, and symptoms of abundance of all the other necessaries for winter. Inside we found the first apartment to be full of wool-dust, and there in a row sat half-a-dozen maidens spinning wool-yarn for the home-weaving of white cloth, the manufacture which has enriched the village, and which (mostly by the means of commercial houses in Herrmanstadt) is exported to Hungary, to the value in some years of 150,000/. sterling. We then passed into the inner apartment, and my companion presented me to the housewife, a tall friendly dame, with a strong low Dutch dialect ; her hair was turned back, and an embroidered cap tied under her chin formed a round ball at the back of the head, exactly and precisely as the Dutch caps in the cabinet pictures of Teniers, Gerard Dow, and Ostade. The husband himself, a hale, hearty old man of sixty or sixty -five, now made his appearance, his turned-over Vandyke collar being profusely embroidered, and not buttoned but tied 130 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. with a white cord and tassel ; his waistcoat was of white or yellowish leather, such as those worn under cuirasses in the seventeenth century. He wore long hair, parted in the middle and falling down to the shoulders, as in the portraits of Milton ; a moustache covered his upper lip, and only a diminutive peaked beard was wanting to give me a living representation of what mankind was like, when the politics of Europe centred in the Hague. " By the will of God/' said he, " you are the first Englishman I ever spoke to in my life. I have often thought of going to England to see your cloth machines, but of what use % We are all in the old way here — all hand-loom weavers. Before the troubles broke out I intended to introduce machinery, but the people assembled in a mob and told me they would blow me up with gunpowder, so you see wir bleiben bey'm alten!' " That is singular," said I, " I thought the age of hand-loom gone, except in the East. Do they not see the general advantage from the use of machinery V " Niv nutz," said he ; " the people say that if it be introduced, the rich may be richer, but the poor will have nothing ; but come down to the cellar," added he, " and I will now show you the ready-made article." So saying, he went into the court-yard again, where melted snow-water frozen clear again, enamelling the rounded causeway stones, made locomotion rather PRIMITIVE SAXON MANNERS. 131 difficult, until we arrived at a low door, which being- unlocked, we descended the steps into a large vault, one side ranged with a few butts of wine, and on the other, pieces of the strong white cloth, used by the Hungarian peasantry for their top coats, hard as a board, and able to withstand several showers of rain, as if it were a Mackintosh. " The weaving is simple enough/' said my host ; " but what makes the demand so unsteady," added he, rubbing his brow as if friction would brighten his brain, " is always a puzzle to me. Sometimes the cloth will accumulate for a couple of years, in this cellar, and if our ancestors had not taught us some thrift, we should be ruined, and then, Juliey ! all of a sudden comes such a demand, that my wife asks me what people do with so much of it, and I answer, ' Good wife, if it were not all paid for with jingling zwanzi- gers, I should think that it was thrown into the Danube, so sudden and sharp is the demand." After a homely repast upstairs, the notary of the village made his appearance, with a similar finely embroidered Vandyke frill, and a hat with a voluminous brim of the identical cut of Jan Steen's burghers, and as the host poured me out a glass of his best tun, of the year of our Lord 1824, with a taste like that of Barsac, but of a deep, clear, golden tint, he said, " Good is your cloth in England, but can your grapes give a better wine than that % ' K 2 132 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. " I venture to aver not/' said I. " I will yet make the journey to England," said he, " I do think." " So will I," said the notary, who was also a cloth- weaver, " but the sea-sickness — the sea-sickness ! Do many die of that malady 1 " " Very few/' said I ; " I should reckon the drinking of wine of English grapes, the more dangerous experi- ment on the stomach of the two." " But could I not," said he, " by making a round- about get to England by land 1 " A loud roar of laughter suspended the discourse ; our worthy host's long grey locks and ample incorpora- tion shaking with merriment, as he took up an apple and asked the notary " If this apple swims in the middle of a basin of water, how can it touch the sides of the basin 1 " The notary was shocked beyond measure at this homely discomfiture, and drawing himself up with magisterial gravity, turned to me, and in order to establish his reputation for geographical knowledge said, " Can you tell us whether London or Pekin is the larger % " " Alas ! my good friend," said I, " the people of Pekin are like the people of Heldau, very jealous of strangers settling among them, so that I really cannot enlighten you." " As for Heldau," said he, " we have our good PRIMITIVE SAXON MANNERS. 133 reasons for exclusion of residence, for we have no pauperism. No, no," said he, " we will change nothing on that point until we see our way clearly." You may be sure, so far as politics are concerned, in such an old-fashioned place as this, the revolu- tionary mania of the last two years has found little 'pabulum ; accustomed to pursue an industrious occu- pation in this peaceful vale, and enjoy their ancient liberties and franchise, they viewed the ultra-Magyar mania with the utmost apathy, and awaking in the midst of civil broils they were as much abroad as Rip Van Winkle after his long sleep, and to this hour they have the same idea of a Szekler as a Dutchman of the Hudson has of a Cherokee. Taking a walk through the place after dejetlner, we found in every house we visited the same symptoms of steady, labo- rious industry, scrupulous cleanliness, accumulative thrift, and tasteless superfluity of furniture and equip- ments, — with no knowledge of the arts and sciences of civilised Europe ; but on visiting the school, and talking with the schoolmaster, not a single male or female of the Saxon nation was to be found in the place, not carefully instructed in reading, writing, cyphering, singing, mental calculation, and the history of the bible. As we departed, a hymn, to a massive, simple old German tune, was resounding through the school-room, and the ye] low tints on the crests of the Carpathians showing the advance of the day, we got 134 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. into our carriage, and in the night arrived, at Heir- manstadt, the capital of Transylvania. * * I was at first a little puzzled by the two names of Saxons and Flau- drenses, and was in doubt whether these people were Saxons or Flemings, for, as already stated, although called Saxons, their dialect is that of Dusseldorf. I find that a large number of Saxons were transported by Charlemagne into Flanders, then an almost waste country, in the eighth century ; and it appears to have been between this period and the eleventh and twelfth centuries that Flemish industry, of which the cloth manu- facture was the principal part, became developed. It is curious to find, that the manufactures of Yorkshire and Heldau, however different in extent and quality, had a common origin, and that the Saxony cloths of both places derive their names from Flemish Saxons. "Several testi- monies to the flourishing condition of Flemish manufactures occur in the twelfth century, and some might perhaps be found even earlier. A writer of the thirteenth, asserts that all the world was clothed from English wool wrought in Flanders. This, indeed, is an exaggerated vaunt ; but the Flemish stuffs were probably sold wherever the sea or a navigable river permitted them to be carried. Cologne was the chief trading city upon the Rhine, and its merchants, who had been considerable under the Emperor Henry IV., established a factory at London in 1220," (t. e. twelve years after the foundation of Cronstadt.) — Hallam's Middle Ages. SCHASSIiUUG. 135 CHAPTER XIV. A VISIT TO THE SCENE OF BEM'S PRINCIPAL OPERATIONS - SCHASSBURG — CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES — MAGYARS — SAXONS— BEM'S HABITS— BEM'S CAMPAIGNS. I now started for the line of the river Kokel and for Schassburg, which, although a small place, was the scene of the principal operations of Bern, for here Transylvania was gained by him, and here too it was lost. My first day was to Mediasch, which is not a great way on the map, but took four stout horses from four in the morning to six at night, from the thaw of the frost that had taken place. The road leads from the Saxon land, and every hour or two we come to those old-fashioned villages, which left abundant marks of having been hotly contested by both parties. They are mostly built on eminences, and preserve their original walls, towers, and fortified churches, just as in the middle ages, and a newly-built house is a rarity, for, owing to preventive checks and the fear of a more numerous offspring than their land and capital can provide for, the population has remained sta- 136 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. tionary. The Saxon land is therefore a complete contrast to the towns of Hungary, where a fresh stream of German artisans has been the proximate cause of the construction of many streets with a type common to that of the German part of the monarchy. Another cause of those Saxon towns having made so little progress in population, notwithstanding their industry and intelligence, is the absurd strictness of the crafts and incorporations. An artisan, when he gets no work at Prague or Vienna, goes to Pesth, Temesvar, or Arad, just as readily as to Styria, but let him beware of Herrmanstadt or Schassburg, for there are no means of his getting into the incorpo- rations in those places. Schassburg, at which I now arrived, is the most picturesque looking place in Transylvania ; the upper town occupies the peak of a hill, and you might suppose it to be a corner of Nuremberg carried off to the Carpathians. It is entered by a barbican ; a high square curious tower, with portcullis of great beams of wood, the points shod with iron and ready to transfix whoever might seek to enter. The tower itself was constructed so late as the beginning of the seventeenth century, a period when the large towns of Germany were already palladianised ; but not so the Saxon land, for this most curious monument had quite the cut of the German art that followed in the wake of the perfection of pointed architecture in the twelfth SCHASSBURG. 137 century, and continued to the end of the sixteenth. It produced no Raphael, no Palladio and Michael Angelo ; but what a crowd of curious cities, pictures, and edifices ! — Nuremberg and Prague, — Hemling and Memling, — Holbein and Dlirer, and turning and carving of wood, that throws all the rest of Europe into the shade. The majesty of simplicity seems to be a comparative stranger to the Teutonic genius, (for the modern exceptions are the mere mimics of Raphael, and some would even enthrone the hardness of his early Peruginesque manner), — but what quaint- ness, what vitality, what ingenuity and what labour and perseverance in the old original German manner ! The inn was very bad, and was rendered even more uncomfortable by a battalion of infantry being on its march through the town, so that I had a room a few feet square ; as to getting anything in my apartment that was out of the question. The tap- room was crowded with soldiers as I breakfasted, and each time that I required wood for my fire I had to give the Haus-Knecht a small present. I mention this not to complain, for the poor soldier has as good a right to the comforts of humanity as myself, but to remark what an amount of suffering must have attended actual warfare in a country where accom- modation is so deficient and the cold so intense, for it was the depth of winter when Bern's campaign was made. 138 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. Schassburg being in the highland part of Tran- sylvania, and it being Christmas, the cold was very severe, marking sixteen degrees of Reaumur, and next morning the Postmaster told me that the cold in the night had been nineteen degrees, and that the estafette from Keresthur had been lifted helpless oft' his horse, which by custom had rode up to the Post Office, the man being unconscious of even arms or legs, which were immediately put into snow-water, by which he preserved his limbs. But the town itself presented a gay, northern appearance, not unlike the winter scene of the "Prophet"; all were enveloped in furs, the atmosphere was perfectly clear, and the frost made itself not unwelcome, with azure sky and golden sunshine, while the sledges slipped smoothly along with no wheel-sounds, but the ponies' heads jingling with little bells depending from their gay bridles ; and at night, being Christmas eve, there was masking and mumming, guises and guisards, and a good deal of laughter produced by a man dressed up as a bear, with his bear-leader. I enjoyed the festivities of the season at the hos- pitable house of the amiable and accomplished Count and Countess Bethlen Gabor, the principal family in this neighbourhood, who are not Saxons, but Magyars, and belong to the ancient family of the renowned princes of that name, who governed Transylvania with such lustre, and was the bulwark CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES. 139 of the Protestant faith in the earlier part of the seventeenth century. His history is well known. In 1626, he married Catherine of Brandenburg, of the house of Brandenburg, and repeatedly offered to join Ferdinand II. in a common war against the Turks, provided he would allow liberty of conscience to the Protestants, but the unhappy Jesuitical edu- cation of this narrow-minded prince was a barrier to every arrangement. The house of Bethlen is still the wealthiest and most considerable in Transylvania, although, from division of inheritance, several of them are in mediocre pecuniary circumstances. The con- duct of the Saxons during the late crisis to this family was not very chivalric. When the troubles commenced the Countess had been but three days delivered of a child ; they fled from the chateau to the town to avoid being murdered by the Daco- Romans, but on arrival at the gates they found them shut, and the calculating burghers, to avoid having within their walls a man whom they might be asked to deliver up to these hordes of barbarians, offered to admit the Countess and her family, but not her husband. On which this noble and spirited woman said : "If you do not admit my husband, I will not ask you to admit me, but with my infant child will share his fate whatever that might be." Being thus ashamed into a more humane and liberal line of conduct, the gates were opened. Thus we see how 140 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. this unhappy setting of race against race, which was begun by the ultra- Magyar faction, ended in a manner, which has involved in the reaction, the lives and properties of thousands of moderate and loyal Magyars. Whatever may be the political faults of the ultra- Magyar fanatics, there can be no doubt of the superiority of the Magyar aristocracy to every other race in the land in the art of society. There is an ease and cordiality, without familiarity or bluntness, which no other race in all the land possesses in any thing like even a proximate degree. The Slaav has too much innate secretiveness, which in spite of every art oozes through ; the German and Saxon is sensible and sincere, but he is dry, stiff, awkward, and ungainly ; but the females of the Magyar aristo- cracy are certainly charming, and for the sake of my worthy friend Mr. Balfe, I was much pleased to see that the music selected on several occasions, in this delightful circle, was from his operas, and that no modern music of the lighter description was more popular in the recesses of this distant principality. At a Saxon soiree I was struck with the plain good sense of the conversation, and the music was excellent, one amateur violin player being admirable, and while the attainments of the educated Daco- Romans tends to the showy and superficial, those of the Saxon are, more or less, those which demand KOSSUTH. 1 I I perseverance. The passion of dancing and of singing simple airs is universal among the Daco-Romans ; but an advanced cultivation of music or of any other art or science requiring lengthened and patient study, is almost unknown. Schassburg is necessarily full of reminiscences of Bern. Kossuth is now in exile, and his schemes are broken down ; it therefore cannot be supposed that I wish to add to the odium with which he is viewed by those who entertain my opinions. I should prefer seeing him arrived in Great Britain and writing his memoirs, which could not fail to be a curious addition to the library of the revolution. In the course of my tour I heard many anecdotes unfavourable to his private character, but have studiously avoided repeating them, knowing full well how ready party spirit is to torture the most innocent circumstances into evil designs and deeds ; but his public and political career is matter of history, and the more I saw of Hungary and Transylvania, the more the two figures of Bern and Georgey magnified in my estima- tion, and the more Kossuth shrunk to the proportions of those of the unpractical enthusiast and the re- volutionary orator, with an utter lack of judgment in political or military affairs. This is shown in small matters as well as great ; a strain of sentimental balderdash is to be found not merely in his addresses intended to move the masses, but in short business J 42 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. despatches to his own official subordinates, even on matters of pressing importance. There was no rhetorical nonsense about Bern and Georgey. Le style c'est Vhomme. I saw the originals of many of the despatches of Bern, and they were models of luminous conception, of classical brevity and perspicuity of ex- position, and mostly written by himself in French, in a neat, clear hand upon a thin yellowish paper. He lodged at Schassburg at the apartments of the Postmaster ; small rooms fitted up with blue moreen. His history is so well known that I need not repeat a thrice-told tale. He was of the Roman Catholic religion up to his adoption of Islamism, and spoke Polish as a matter of course with vernacular fluency, French very well, but his German was, as the Postmaster told me, very slow and broken, but when he took time he managed to explain himself fulty and intelligibly. His complexion was pale and sickly, and although the extraction of a ball from the bone had given him great relief, yet the wound never healed, and it required a full hour's dressing and bandaging every morning, by two female servants who accompanied him every where, and in conse- quence of this crippled condition he could not mount on horseback, but had to be lifted on by two men, which certainly adds to the marvellous of his mar- vellous campaign. His hairs were grey, his eyes blue, his lips somewhat turned up, and he never BEM S HABITS. I 18 shaved, but kept his beard and mustachios close clipped. His usual breakfast was coffee and a little broiled or roasted turkey ; he then would frequently remain all day in his room writing despatches and sometimes working with his secretary, and did not like announce- ments to be perpetually made to him except they were of decided importance. In manner he was pleasant, but by no means conversational or social. He dined at four o'clock, alone, seldom or never with his staff, who ate in a side apartment, and with whom he had little or no conversation. His measures being entirely adopted after weighing the most important announcements, and ruminating by the hour over the maps. He carried very few papers with him, and usually comprised his archives in a piece of tape and stowed them into his breast-pocket, leaving no papers in his room behind him when he went out ; and his superior officers and staff were often in perfect ignorance of his intentions until the orders for their execution were issued. He told the Postmaster that he had no chance of living beyond the year 1850, and the recent account of his death shows that his prognostic, founded no doubt on the con- sciousness of a shattered frame, has turned out correct. The time has not yet come for a full and complete account of the Transylvanian campaign. Years must 144 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. * elapse before prejudices are subdued, before the ran- cour of party-spirit is cooled, and doubts cleared up, both from the publication of private memoirs on both sides, and the official dispatches of public authorities, military as well as civil ; without therefore crowding a chapter with names and dates, I will give, in a few words, the philosophy of the campaign. The Saxon account, "Kronstadt, 1850," is exceedingly defective, and slides over the military merits of Bern in the most absurd manner. The history of General Czetz is also exceedingly partial in tone. Much of the military information is valuable, but as a political history it is altogether worthless ; and one would think that the other races of Transylvania, were created for no other purpose, but to swell the pride of the ultra-Magyar faction. Bern, after receiving the army destined for the re- duction of Transylvania, made for the defiles leading into that country from Hungary, with a small force of 6,000 men ; his object being in the first instance the reduction of Clausenberg, the capital, which, having a large Magyar population, afforded resources, and a point d' appui, not only so as to give a prepon- derating decision to the Szeklers, but to undertake the more arduous operation of the conquest of the Saxon land in the south, where the Austrian General Puchner had concentrated his forces on the territory of a nation opposed to the designs of the repeal faction. brm's campaigns. 145 General Wardener commanded at Clausenburg, and his reserve under General Jablonowsky was at Dees, a village to the north of Clausenburg. Bern, after some preliminary skirmishes with General Urban at Csucsa, moved rapidly, by cross country roads, not upon Clausenburg, where the main body of his opponent was situated, but upon the reserve, which is just as if an army, attacking London from Reading, should not move upon the metropolis, but cross the country to Hertford, where the reserve is stationed, and not only overpower an inferior force by bringing superior numbers to the point of attack, but paralyse the operations of the main body. Not only did Bern scatter the reserve on which General Wardener counted, but the moral effect of a blow so sudden and unexpected tended considerably to demoralise the Austrian troops ; and, after a short struggle, Bern not only became master of Clausenburg, but General Urban's force, — which had been hemmed in by this sudden manoeuvre, and had escaped in the night by the sagacity of this wily and indefatigable partisan, — was, along with the rest of the imperial troops in this part of Transylvania, driven out into the Bukovina. Thus all northern Transylvania was in the power of Bern — not only the capital where the sympathies of the population were with him, and which presented the resources for equipment, cloth- ing, and artisans, but Bistritz, a Saxon ethnographical 146 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. • island of considerable territorial wealth, and abound- ing in supplies of corn, forage, and horses. After refitting and increasing his army which, after the brilliant success of his first operation, had unbounded confidence in him, he proceeded south- wards to the Kokel, a considerable tributary of the Maros, which in two branches flows from the Szekler- land westwards to its confluence with this river, a little to the north of the Carlsburg. At a little place called Galfalva, Bern first met the Austrian army of the south. Having made his dispositions, the battle took place at the first peep of misty dawn — and victory again declared for Bern. The Austrians re- treated, but not unmolested, as had been foreseen and provided for by Bern, who, by a detour, had sent a battery of horse-artillery, which opened upon them on their retreat ; and as they retired along the valley, hotly pursued by Bern's cavalry and infantry, the artillery continued to move along the parallel ridge, and to pour a destructive fire on the Austrian troops in the valley below. Encouraged by this success, Bern now made a decided movement to attack Herrmanstadt, the head quarters of General Puchner ; but at a place in the vicinity of that town, called Salzburg, was so severely beaten by the Austrian general, that having lost the greater part of his artillery and baggage, he was com- pelled to retreat in the direction of Hungary, taking bem's campaigns. 147 • the high road to Arad and Temesvar, vid Muhlen- bach, his design being if possible to effect a junction with reinforcements which he expected from that quarter. So near was Bern to destruction at this point, that the Austrians looked upon his surrender as a matter of course. Bern might have been hemmed in and taken at Muhlenbach ; but however distin- guished Austrian troops may be in steadiness, disci- pline, stubborn valour, and a patience and constancy in difficulties that is worthy of all praise, the same phenomenon presented itself in the Transylvanian campaign which was so perceptible in the wars with Napoleon, and to which the career of Radetzky forms so striking an exception, — a singular lack of decision and rapidity, even when those qualities could be exercised not only with perfect safety, but with an unequivocal prospect of success, and the lack of which in the critical moment proved the loss of Transylvania. Bern escaped out of Muhlenbach down the Maros to Piski, not far from the frontier of Hungary ; where, aided by Baron Kemeny, he made a gallant stand at the bridge of that place, which I passed on my entrance into Transylvania, and which is at the mouth of the romantic vale of Hatseg, where the ancient capital of the Dacians was situated. On the following morning, before daybreak, Bern re-crossed the river at a place and time that were equally unexpected, and, aided by the reinforcements from Hungary, turned the tables L 2 148 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. on the Austrian general, who now made a disastrous retreat to Herrmanstadt, and lost during its course 1,900 killed and wounded. After this, as many troops as the Russians could spare, occupied Cronstadt and Herrmanstadt, while Puchner with this support, after several operations on the Kokel, renewed the offensive against Bern, who, in order to place himself in com- munication with the Szeklers, had taken up the strong position of Schassburg. And the succeeding events formed the most brilliant episode in the career of Bern. Puchner had received many hints from the people of Herrmanstadt, that they were tired of the incon- venience arising from the town being occupied by so large a force ; and many representations were made of the necessity of his attacking Schassburg, and relieving their fellow Saxons from the presence of Bern : and as a courier had arrived from General Malachowsky, in Gallicia, stating that he was on the march from the Bukovina into Transylvania, and would operate upon Maros-vasarhely, the capital of the Szeklers, situated between Bistritz and Schass- burg, Puchner at length considered that he was justified in resuming the offensive. The first opera- tions on the Kokel were marked by vicissitudes ; and I found it very difficult to make out this part of the campaign, and am, at this moment, in doubt whether the strong position which Bern took at Schassburg was from necessity or from choice ; each party main- bem's campaigns. 149 taining the one opinion and the other. At all events Schassburg being a strong position, Pnchner did not consider himself entitled to attack it in front ; he, therefore, perfectly depending on General Mala- chowsky operating in the rear of Bern, made a fatal detour by the mountains to the right, which proved the loss of Transylvania, and which is commonly called, in that country, Das umgeh&n bci Sand Agatha ; and, probably, this phrase will acquire historic currency with ages yet unborn, in charac- terising this critical movement. Deep snow had covered all Transylvania, in February, 1849 ; but as the spring approached, a thaw took place ; and as even the high road from Herrmanstadt to Schassburg is none of the best, and as Puchner had been entirely deceived as to the practicability of the cross-roads (which, even in dry summer, were unfitted for artillery, and, after a thaw in spring, were all but impassable), it required twelve oxen to drag each gun through the snow, water, and mud, while the troops were discouraged by difficul- ties, unrelieved by the glorious excitement of warfare. Bern, with the instinct of true military genius, at once comprehended that while Puchner was taking the arc, he could take the chord ; and that while the former was adventitiously prolonged by the elements, the latter was relatively shortened by being a high- road, for the most part macadamised after an imper- 150 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. feet fashion. He, therefore, saw that Herrmanstadt lay open to him, in which all the materiel and resources of the Austrian army were concentrated. Knowing well the sloughs that Puchner had to pass, he was in no hurry to start, from fear that Puchner, timely averted, might retrace his steps, and meet him in the valley of the Kokel. He, therefore, gave his troops a good night's rest, an ample allowance of provisions, and, secure of the impossibility of being disturbed by Puchner, pushed on, with nearly all his force, to Herrmanstadt, drove the Russians out of that city, pursued them through the Rothenthurm Pass into Wallachia, and thus wound up the cam- paign by one of the most brilliant operations in modern warfare ; for the Russian allies of Austria marched out to attack Bern, in front of the town, in the full persuasion that Puchner was following close at his heels. When poor Puchner arrived at Schassburg, he found only a couj)le of battalions, as a mask, and then, fully sensible of the posture of affairs, made all speed towards Herrmanstadt, having received the disastrous intelligence that Malachowsky, instead of being in Maros-vasarhely, as he expected, had been, when on his march, recalled by General Hammerstein, as, on account of the state of Gallicia, not a man could be spared from that part of the empire. But the march of the troops back from Schassburg, even although bbm's campaigns. 151 by the high-road, was a tedious operation ; for the valley was flooded with the thawed snow from the mountains, and the troops were over the ankles in mud, and dreadfully dispirited by a long and fruitless march. At a small village between Herrmanstadt and Leschkirch, Puchner, in a carriage, at two o'clock in the morning, met an officer coming from Herrman- stadt, to whom he said : " Here I am with my men. What news from Herrmanstadt ? ' " It was taken at ten o'clock last night," answered the officer ; on which Puchner, who was an old man above seventy, and had risen up from a severe illness to undertake the last operation, suddenly grew faint, and appeared quite overcome with the intelligence, and imme- diately thereafter gave up the command to General Kalliani, and the whole Austrian force retreated into Wallachia. The qualities which Bern showed in this campaign, were matchless daring, and imperturbable coolness and fortitude, when his fortunes were at the worst. Great skill in his dispositions, consummate ability as a director of artillery, and, at the conclusion of the campaign, a moderation, a good sense, and a humanity, which forms a most striking contrast to the ruthless fanaticism of the genuine ultra-Magyar repealer. On the other hand, his fool-hardiness brought him to the brink of destruction at Salzburg. 152 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. He generally expected too much from his men. He was a helter-skelter man of business, and had not the least idea of how the commissariat department of an army ought to be supervised — a most important part of the duty of a general — which exposed his troops to great loss and suffering. It is by this brilliant campaign in which he trampled on seeming impossibilities, that his name is likely to go down to posterity as the Napoleon of Transylvanian guerilla. In the Russian campaign he does not appear in so favourable a light, having committed the great error of scattering his force to such an extent, that in the decisive battle which took place near Schassburg, and in which he was annihi- lated, he brought into action only 4,000 troops of the Transylvanian army, amounting to between 30,000 and 40,000 men. It was, however, merely a question of time, as ultimate defeat was certain, the Russian corps amounting to 60,000 men, under generals such as Luders, Engelhardt, and others of tried ability, and assisted by not less than 120 of the best officers of the army of the Caucasus, who had been transferred to the Carpathians for this purpose, while the troops themselves were peculiarly fitted for this service ; including several polks of Cossacks, which, although like cavalry, natives of steppes, had been trained to go up the highest mountains ; and although the Tomos and Torzburg Passes from Wallachia, bem's campaigns. 153 leading to Kronstadt, were defended with the greatest obstinacy by the brave Szeklers, yet they were found untenable when the peaks of the moun- tain by sun-rise were seen to be occupied by light troops, horse and foot : the Finland riflemen pouring down a well directed fire on the heads of the Szeklers who served the artillery that was intended to mow down the regular troops that advanced with fixed bayonets by the high road. A successful campaign against such overwhelming numbers of an army, trained to mountain warfare, and supported by reserves stretching in columns to Moscow and the Caucasus, might be expected by a statesman of the Kossuth stamp, in whom political phrenzy and poetical fervour occupy the place of a rational estimate of military possibilities, but could not have been counted on by any man in his sound senses. At the same time, a greater concentration of Bem's troops and a sudden outburst upon one of the corps d' armee would certainly have prolonged the contest. Maros-vasarhely was the head quarters of Bern, and General Luders having occupied Schassburg with 12,000 men, Bern advanced along the plain of the Kokel to attack him with a force of only 4,000 men. Luders knowing the force of Bem's Transylvanian army, never supposed for a moment that this was all the troops that were to appear, and he said to his 154 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. officers, " The old fox wall not deceive me in this " way ; " and fully expecting that some other corps was about to make its appearance at the decisive moment, he sent dow r n only 4,000 men into the plain, and, at the same time, sent a small force of light troops to dislodge a similar force that Bern had sent to make a demonstration on the w^ooded heights ; but when it at length appeared that it was a mere fit of desperation in Bern, the Cossacks rushed up to the muzzles of the artillery, wiiere Bern w r as himself stationed, and the general being compelled to retreat, the whole force took to flight. Nine out of his twelve guns being taken by the Russians, and a considerable portion of their force having never quitted the character of a reserve corps, or fired a shot. When I passed the field of battle I w r as shown the spot where the Russian general, Skariatin, was killed on a slight eminence just under a w r ood. The cannon ball said to be pointed by Bern himself, struck the hillock in front of him, and brushed diagonally past his padded breast without striking the body, but the concussion was so great that death ensued. The fall of night saved Bern from being taken ; abandoned by his officers, he stuck fast for two hours in a bog, which w r as shown me, on the w t ay to Keresthur, the crippled condition of his limbs having resisted all his efforts to escape during that period. He passed the night after having been relieved, at the residence of Count bem's campaigns. 155 Matskasy, a conservative Szekler nobleman, to whom I was introduced by Baron Heydte, and in answer to my eager questions during the day that I spent with him, relative to the condition of Bern when in this plight, the family informed me that he arrived at about ten o'clock at night, dreadfully exhausted in body and alternately dejected in mind at the disaster of the day, and irritated with his staff. After a bath and change of clothes he sat down to supper, but only took a little soup and declined all other dishes. His look contrasted with his usual animated and intellectual expression, and when he awoke out of his stupefaction, it was either to complain loudly of his personal staff or to reflect upon the battle, having said three times in the course of the repast, " Quelle honte ! J'ai perdu dlv pieces d'artitterie : " or, " Quelle honte ! Une cinquan- taine de Kosaques m'o?it pris diw pieces d'ar tiller ie." It appeared that the bog was a dead arm of the Kokel, a river in winter and a morass in summer ; having been compelled, by the rapid approach of the pursuing Cossacks, to leap out of his carriage and leave it behind, making the best of his way across an Indian corn-field, until stopped by the bog. At Keresthur, instead of continuing his rout, he undressed and went to bed, saying there was no danger of the Russians coming up with him, and next morning before day-break he left the house. The rest of his career may be described in a few 150 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. words. Collecting 7,000 men from Clausenburg and other places, he attempted to repeat the manoeuvre, which had been successful with Puchner, and marching suddenly to Herrmanstadt, compelled the Russian general, Hassford, then and there in charge of the Russian resources, to retreat with his 800 baggage waggons to the Rothenthurm Pass ; and Bern kept Herrmanstadt until Luders, by rapid marches, brought his 16,000 or 18,000 men to that town. But Bern's back had been broken at Schassburg, and the march to Herrmanstadt, with the certainty of his being driven out by Luders, was like the vivid contortion of an animal, who is struck down and is between life and death. Bern arrived at the head quarters of the army of the Banat a totally defeated fugitive, and nothing but the most contemptibly crass ignorance of the position and prospects of the armies in the plain under Georgey could suggest the possibility of a ray of success for the armies of Hungary with the Tran- sylvanian mountain bastion in entire and complete possession of the Austrian and Russian troops. This short sketch has been suggested by my visit to Schassburgh, in the environs of which were the decisive operations by which Bern first gained, and then lost Transylvania ; but the long siege of Carlsburg, and an account of what passed in the Szekler-land and around Cronstadt, Bistritz and other places, would require volumes instead of a chapter. bem's campaigns. 157 The most distinguished officers on the Magyar side, were Kemeny, Kis, who defended the Carpathian Pass, and for personal courage, Counts Mikes and Gregory Bethlem. Worthy of praise on the other side, is General Luders, who showed himself to be practical and skilful. General Engelhardt distin- guished himself by great personal bravery. With regard to General Hassford's able retreat from Herrmanstadt through the Rothenthurm Pass there is a difference of opinion ; some severely censuring General Luders for leaving him with so small a force and so heavy a baggage train, which but for Hassford's prompt dispositions, incurred the risk of the Russian army losing the greater part of their baggage. However this may be, success has ensured General Luders the prominent place. Of the unfortunate Puchner, who in youth had an active and successful career, I have already spoken, and report was highly favourable to General Clamggallas, who commanded the Austrian troops in the Russian campaign, as well as to Baron Heydte, who during all the war proved himself an excellent partisan leader. Of General Urban, who demands a more especial notice, I shall have something to say at Clausenburg. 158 THE GOTH AND THE HUN, CHAPTER XV. THE SZEKLERS— UDVARHELY— THE SZEKLER CONSTITUTION — KERESTHUR — UNITARIANS — SZEKLER NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. The Szekler is to the Magyar what the Circassian is to the Turk, the Swiss to the German. Brave and hardy in physical constitution, the Szekler is the inhabitant of the mountain region that approximates to the mouths of the Danube, and the streams from which water a considerable portion of the princi- pality of Moldavia ; and as Udvarhely and Maros- vasarhely, are towns of which many readers have never heard, I hope they do not consider me as losing my time on subordinate places, when taking a look at the permanent garrison of the great bastion of forests and precipices that juts out into that part of the Ottoman Empire which adjoins Southern Russia. I had heard many rumours of robbers and dangers when in Herrmanstadt, and was advised to let the Szekler-land alone, but no accident of an adventurous description occurred to me in the course of my tour, and after the war there UDVARHELY. 159 seemed a general disposition for a sleepy tranquil- lity. Much is no doubt owing to the exertions of Baron Heydte, a man of popular and conciliatory manners, who speaks the language fluently, and proved himself a gallant soldier during the war. The origin of the Szekler nation is involved in a dark obscurity ; some writers maintaining, that they are the true descendants of the Huns of Attila, who, after overrunning the Roman Empire, permanently settled in the romantic vales of Dacia Transylvania. If such be their origin, habit has considerably altered their character from that of a nomade race, that encamps on the steppes, or pusztas, as attempts were made during the revolutionary crisis to trans- plant this dense compact population to parts of Hungary, such as the Bacska, where the Magyar population is largely mingled with Servians and Germans ; but the question always was, " Has the Bacska mountains 1 Has the Bacska forests 1 If not, it has no charms for us." Certain it is, that they preceded the Magyars, by probably a century ; and although having a different dialect of the same language, now speak the Magyar in the same manner as the inhabitants of Hungary, but with a slight singing twang. Udvarhely, the ancient capital of the Szeklers is surrounded by hills, and has 800 inhabitants. Most of the houses are built of, or roofed with wood, 160 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. and with the exception of the church, the Calvinistic college, and half-a-dozen other houses, looks just like a Turkish town. The fair was held while I was there, and the streets were crowded with male and female Szeklers, who are certainly a fine race, the women being handsome, and the men compactly built. Nearly all were dressed in home- wove and home-made cloths. The webs of coarse iron-grey cloth piled up in booths, and a large traffic going on in small Transylvanian horses, but there was a great want of those colonials and manufactures which betoken civilisation. For the Szekler dresses himself in his drugget and sheep-skin, or Saxon home-made linen, and instead of coffee and sugar, makes a large consumption of bacon and home-made brandy. On the great square is the Calvinistic college, which was shown me by the professor of mathematics and natural philosophy, a very intelligent man, who had studied in Berlin. It is a quadrangle with a monument to the builder of the edifice in the centre, but no lectures had been given for some time ; the events of the war having dispersed the college, and professors, and all the students, having been enrolled in Bern's army. The subjects taught are theology, mathematics, physics, and law ; and on examining the library, I found very few Magyar books, most of the works being Latin and German ones of the CATHOLIC CHURCH. 16] seventeenth centurv. All the class-room windows and stoves had been knocked to pieces by the barbarous Daco-Roman militia. The Catholic church is situated at the top of the hill on which Udvarhelv is built, and is such a remarkable instance of good taste, as struck me with surprise in the Szekler land, and made me ask myself if accident had produced those pleasing proportions, or if a mute inglorious Wren or Perrault, building a Catholic church at the other end of Tran- sylvania, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, had gone backwards in search of the simpler forms of preceding periods. In Udvarhely it certainly was a wonder, for the modern churches of Hungarian country towns are generally the choicest models of the worst taste imaginable. All the rest of Udvarhely was miserable in the ex- treme ; and the sun having partially thawed the snow, this circumstance, along with the great traffic of the fair, rendered the streets ancle deep with mud ; against which even the fair sex were well provided, as many a young girl, with delicate features and fine com- plexion, was seen trudging helter-skelter through the mud, in her enormous thick soled boots that came up to the knee. There is no middle class in Udvarhely. It has no Casino with newspapers, or any class having intel- ligence, so as to make it worth the traveller's while to M 162 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. remain for a short time and cultivate acquaintance. The Szekler is a soldier-peasant ; persons of education are the rare exception ; the only seat of anything like a middle class is Maros-vasarhely, which was for a long period considered the capital of the Szekler- land ; but Udvarhely in antiquity has the prece- dence. The Szekler has several points of difference from the Magyar, as well in geographical peculiarity as in local and municipal institutions. They had no magnates, that is to say, princes, counts, and barons, in their ancient constitution, and the primarii, primi- pili, and piccidarii, were knights, yeomen, and foot- men or infantry, and the land was not divided into counties, but into six stools, or Sessions of Justice — magnates and serfs being equal strangers to the aboriginal constitution, which was of a more repub- lican cast than that of Hungary, and the traces of which spirit pervaded all their legislation ; for in- stance, in Hungary the king is, as with us, the ultimus haeres when a person dies intestate without lawful heirs ; but in the Szekler-land, when such a contingency occurred, the land was divided among the next neighbours. But there are several Hungarian magnates of Szekler origin and property. The principal family of this description, in the neighbourhood of Udvarhely, are the Counts Matscasy, at whose house I spent a day at Keresthur, which, for a wonder, was not burnt COUNTKY RESIDENCE. 163 down or destroyed ; for, being in the Szekler-land, it was more secure than those residences in the Daco- Roman districts. In order to give an idea of what such mansions are, I may mention, that they are usually, like the French chateaux, close upon the road, and are built no higher than one floor, forming three sides of a large court-yard. A large hall leads from the central door to the back of the house, and is of such extent as to be a ball-room in case of a festival occasion, and leading from it, on the right and left, are dining-room and drawing-room, beyond which are the private apartments of the family, and on the other side of the hall those of the guests. Previous to the revolution it was a common thing for persons of good landed property to keep open house ; but with the spread of better inns, and the greater fre- quency of communication, this custom had for some years been much circumscribed ; and, since the revo- lution, the perpetual visiting that went on among county families, and even the unceremonious recep- tion of all strangers, necessarily gave way, after a large proportion of the incomes of the landed pro- prietors were swept away by the Batthyany-Kossuth legislation. The position of the landed proprietor in this part of the world is any thing but enviable ; he is not like the British landlord, deriving a fixed income from farms let to parties at a stated rent ; he is, in some M 2 164 THE GOTH AND THE HUN". respects, himself a farmer ; and, therefore, compelled to cultivate by the means of persons whom he em- ploys, or his income is made up by payments in kind. All this compels the landed proprietor, either to go through a great deal of drudgery in order to raise his income, or to delegate the management of it to others, who, by collusion or peculation, manage to enrich themselves, while there are endless lawsuits about the proportions due to peasant and landlord ; for the Szekler is very litigious and obstinate, and I heard at this place of a law-suit about one fowl, the expenses of which amounted to 12/. sterling. And I do not believe, from all I have seen in the various customs of Europe, that there is any landed proprietor whose position is equal to those in the lowlands of Scotland and the North of England, who receive their incomes without trouble from a capitalist tenantry, and know almost to a certainty what their income is. As for the landed proprietor in Hungary and Transylvania, the worry and vexation of such a system, and the certainty of being deceived, perhaps ruined, if a dili- gent supervision be relaxed, renders his position the reverse of the easy life of what we associate with the idea of landed proprietory. At Keresthur the day slipped rapidly away in the society of my host and hostess, the lady being ac- quainted with English and French literature, and rather complaining that her lot was cast so far away UNITARIANS OF TRANSYLVANIA. L65 from the brilliant intellectual circles of the capitals of Europe, while I was all curiosity to learn how they had felt during the war. " It was a dreadful time," said the lady. " We escaped as far as life and our homes were con- cerned, but the year of perpetual terror and anxiety has made me at least ten years older in constitu- tion ; and yet, we ought to be thankful for having escaped the fate of so many others. You are a young man, and I will not waste wishes on your being a rich or a great man, but if you are disposed for the best specimen of my good will, that my ex- perience has furnished, God preserve your country from a murderous civil war of race against race, class against class, and religion against religion." In the afternoon Baron G ■ , the son-in-law of this worthy couple, took me out to see the village, in which is a Unitarian college and church, for this is one of the four established religions in Transylvania ; this principality being, as far as I have been able to learn, the only portion of Europe, with the exception of Switzerland, in which this sect has a distinct recog- nition by the state ; and, at first sight, this looks like a more enlarged spirit of toleration than would be congenial even to the feelings of a large portion of the Protestants of Great Britain ; but any scheme of religious equality in Transylvania, which excludes the Greek faith of the Daco-Romans, is like the tragedy 100 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. of Hamlet, with the part of Hamlet omitted. There are thirty-six Unitarian churches in the curule session of Udvarhely ; and in the one which I visited at Keresthur, I found an organ, but no altar ; and in the library, many English books, presented by the London Unitarian Association. The Szekler Protestants are all either Calvinistic or Unitarian, and are, as far as I could learn, without Lutherans ; and as the Saxons are almost all of this confession, Lutheranism is denominated by the Szekler, Szas ivalas, or Saxon religion ; and Luther is to this day regarded by the whole Saxon race in Transylvania with a sympathy, veneration, and affection, which three centuries have scarcely cooled. As we are on the topic of religion I may mention as an instance of the petty fanaticism which politico-reli- gionism engenders to the detriment of the Christianity of Christ, that close crafts or guilds flourish in all their exclusiveness at Udvarhely, and that Catholics and Calvinists are quite agreed in shutting out Lutherans and Unitarians as much as possible from their guilds, and even until within the last twenty years, not even a Calvinist could be a bootmaker in Udvarhely, which is an important trade, as all the men and women here wear these large boots. This was in consequence of a by-law that every bootmaker must have a crucifix in his shop. The obligatory crucifix fell at length into desuetude and Calvinist SZEKLEK ASSEMBLY. 167 bootmakers were admitted, but they were equally ready to join with the Catholics in excluding Lutherans and Unitarians, on various shabby pretexts, such as declaring that the boots are not well made. It is to be hoped that the new organisation will put an end to these abuses. When I was at Udvarhely, Baron Heydte, the new governor, was going on as well as could be wished ; his first step was to improve communica- tions, for the road to Schassburg was an ad libitum track in the plain, almost impassable in bad weather ; but he collected, in the course of the autumn, 1500 labourers, with 300 carts, dug two parallel trenches, and scattering gravel from the neighbouring river in the middle of the road, made a well-drained practicable road, over which I passed in thaw weather, so well as to excite my surprise. On this line of road I saw the celebrated field of Egyagfalva, on which the national assemblies of the ISzeklers are held, and which is a plain, situated between the road and a hill. Here was held, in 1506, the National Assembly, in which, after a revolt caused by the levying of the sixth ox throughout the realm on the birth of an heir to the crown, according to ancient custom, the Szekler nation renewed its fealty to the sovereign. There in 1848, on the 16th of October, 60,000 Szeklers assembled to resist the Daco-Roman insurrection. The meeting in question 168 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. was harangued by Berzentzy, a fiery agitator of great eloquence, and as an instance of the phrenzy of the occasion, I may mention that a platform forty feet high had been erected, and that a man standing on it cried out, " I will throw myself from the platform, and if 1 am killed the Magyar cause is lost, but if I escape alive the Magyars and Szeklers will gain the day." On this he leaped from the scaffold and was not killed, and having been cured of his fractures, is, I believe, still alive. In short all parties seemed to have taken leave of their sober senses, and when the mind seeks for revolutionary parallels to what has passed during the Kossuth orgies of liberty, it goes rather to the spurious sentimentality of the Palais Royal, in the days of Camille Desmoulins, and Barrere, than to the plain unvarnished acts and facts and natural dignity of the English revolutionists of the seventeenth century. MAK03-VASARHELY. [69 CHAPTER XVI. MAROS-VASARHELY— APPEARANCE OF THE TOWN— TELEKI LIBRARY— LEARNED SZEKLER— NATIONAL FANATICISM- JUDICIAL CORRUPTION. I now quitted the vale of the Great Kokel, and crossed over to that of the Little Kokel, and put up at the solitary inn at the passage, the accommodation ps usual being very scanty. The inn-keeper was a Bohemian tailor ; the tap-room was his work-shop, and at the same time the kitchen of the establishment. So that the goose revolving at the spit had a double reposing on the shopboard. There was but one table for the accommodation of the guests, and I had for messmates my own coachman, three drunken Szekler peasants, and a female camp-follower, who had gone through al 1 the campaign, and was a fierce and determined enemy of the house of Hapsburg and of the traitor George} T in particular, whose base surrender had produced considerable havoc in her revenues. As my coachman spoke Magyar, I afterwards asked him why he did not join in conversation with the Szeklers \ But he said, with 170 THE GOTH AND TILE HUN. a surprise something like alarm, " Good God, sir, how could you suppose that I could ever grease myself with them ; for if we begin ever so civily, we end in blows." The Saxon has not the deficiency of manly courage which disfigures the Daco-Roman, but he certainly does not possess the warlike energy of the Szekler, and an officer of the army told me, that if you put a Szekler, a Saxon, and a Daco-Roman into the same prison together, you will find, after the lapse of three days, that the Saxon is the master of the Daco-Roman, but the Szekler is the master of the Saxon. The road then ascends a considerable chain of hills, and, after a similar descent, I found myself once more in the principal basin of the Maros. At the foot of the hill is the spot on which the meetings of the Szeklers of the session of Maros-vasarhely were held, and, at every step, I see reason to believe that the King's name is a " tower of strength " in this country. At a great meeting of Szeklers, held to concert measures to resist the Daco-Romans, the people were not satisfied with the oath to the King of Hungary, but insisted on the name of the Emperor being also added. With a little more timely energy on the part of the Austrian military authorities, the efforts of the emissaries of Kossuth would have failed, for nearly all the wealthy landed proprietors were against the political union with Hungary, and against MAROS-VASAliHELY. 1 7 [ the disruption of the military union with Austria. But, by a strange perversity, the Austrian troops were concentrated at Herrmanstadt, which was well affected, and at Clausenburg, which was the focus of the revolutionary party, the government of the principality, composed of loyalists, was left with an inadequate supply of military. Maros-vasarhely is, at the present time, the prin- cipal seat of the Szekler property and intelligence, and is very superior to Udvarhely, which, is the ancient capital of the Szeklers, and was, up to 1790, the session that had the precedence of the others, and which has also the advantage of a more central position in the Szekler-land ; but Maros-vasarhely is the real capital of the Szeklers, being a place of 20,000 inhabitants, with a large square, in the middle of which is a handsome ornamental fountain, and around it many good modern houses, as in the Magyar towns of Hungary, standing cheek by jowl with old, wooden, Turkish-looking cabins, which look like those eye-sores, called condemned houses, in a half-built new quarter of a town. The principal lion of the place is the library, founded and liberally endowed by Count Samuel Teleki, which the attendant estimated to me at 100,000 volumes ; but I really do not think, from its appearance, that it contains above a third of that number. The internal architecture is uncommonly 172 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. light and elegant, with a double row of round, stilted arches, and symmetrically adorned with busts and pictures, the principal one being a portrait of Prince Bethlen Gabor, his costume being exactly the same as that of Turkish dignitaries of that period. But I could not forbear a smile on seeing a copy of one of the well-known Dutch Cavalier portraits of Rem- brandt, inscribed, with large capitals, " Attila." But this is a small matter ; and the institution is a noble and patriotic monument of the taste and munificence of the founder. There is a very pleasant society at Maros-vasar- hely, composed of a few families of the landed gentry, and the Professors of the College at this place, and Count Toldalagy and his family did the honours in the most charming manner ; but even in the midst of luxury, Surgit amari aliquid: in the lofty and well- proportioned rooms, might be seen a handsome cabinet, imperfectly repaired, after the blows of the barbarous hordes of the Daco-Roman militia, in their search for plunder ; and among the large party that encircled the sumptuous board, might be seen, in sable weeds, the pale widow of one of the massacred of Zalatna. The domestic manners of such a family may be described as follows. In the morning earlier afoot than is usual in capitals. Coffee is taken about eight o'clock, and the landlord spends all his forenoon in DOMESTIC MANNERS. 173 tenantry business. Two o'clock is the dinner hour, and after coffee and pipes the carriage is at the door, and a drive is taken until sunset. At eight o'clock in the evening the circle re-assemble — one end of the table being covered and served with dressed dishes and wines, and the other end provided with tea service, so that the guest has his choice, and in a short time, cigars and punch are introduced for the gentlemen ; which does not drive the ladies awav, but they remain knitting, talking, and making an occasional excursion to the pianoforte, all which is different from our habits ; but — chaque pays chaque usage ; and although those hours would not suit the business of the Englishman, whose forenoon must be much longer, and more undisturbed by a formal en- tertainment, yet I found the evening to slip most pleasantly away, between politics, music, and other sociabilities. The feelings of this class of persons is that of strong loyalty to the reigning house, complete dis- approbation of the violent revolutionary measures of the ultra-Magyar party ; but at the same time a strong pride in their own nationality, a great horror of the prospect of anything like Saxon employes, and of the substitution of centralisation for the municipal principle — in short, feelings akin to those which would be manifested bv the great majority of the persons of property and intelligence in this country. 174 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. Not a word against the reform of real abuses — not a word against the real abolition of feudalism, by the enfranchisement of the serf, and his elevation to the condition of the citizen of a free country — and not a word in favour of the mis-named, new-fangled aboli- tion of feudalism, which, instead of commuting labour into money-rent, according to fair valuation, by de- liberate enactment, turns the farmer into the land- lord by a hop-step-and-a-jump, leaving the free- holder who, perhaps six months before, had purchased a property with hard cash, to the revolutionary chapter of accidents. At Maros-vasarhely I also made the acquaintance of Dr. Dosza, the most learned lawyer of the Szeklers, who belongs to the constitutional liberal party, and is the most erudite of them in the laws and constitu- tion of Hungary and Transylvania. He admitted to me the perfect illegality of the proceedings of the repeal faction in Hungary, but deeply regretted that the Austrian cabinet had not been more early and explicit in their declarations that the vast changes in the military power of the Austrian empire were not regarded by them as a purely Hungarian ques- tion ; and I must say that I perfectly agree with this opinion : for I look upon the legal and historical rights of Austria and Hungary to have been of far greater strength, than perhaps even such persons as the professor would admit, and that an early and NATIONAL FANATICISM. ] 75 forcible appeal, not only to the patriotism of the Austrians, but to the loyalty of the great majority of the Hungarians, would have had the happiest effects. The inn of Maros-vasarhely is large and well-built, but gloomy, from the want of furniture and guests. One evening a man came to me with a mysterious look, glancing round to see that no one listened, and addressing me, said, " As I understand that you are an Englishman, I suppose that you are tri-color ;" but I assured him that I identified myself with no party, but was willing to hear intelligence from all. On which he answered, " That he came to get intel- ligence from me ; for there was a report that Bern, at the head of a Turkish force, had penetrated into the Csik-sereda, and had raised the tri-colored standard ;" but I assured him that it was fudge, and advised him, if he wished to avoid getting into trouble, to give himself no further concern about the tri-colored flag. Maros-vasarhely is celebrated as being the place where, during the Diet of 1571, the celebrated act was passed, when Catholicism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Unitarianism were made state religions, and which would deserve the name of an act of toleration if the faith of the great majority of the people, who, as already said, are Greeks, had not been totally for- gotten. But tranquillity, like the tubs of Tantalus, is as far from tightness as ever ; and the bump of destructiveness, no longer developed in the struggle 170 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. of Pope, Prelate, or Presbyter, takes the direction of language and nationality. Not a word of transubstan- tiation, or predestination, but honi-nyelva, or land- tongue ; mutter-sprache, or mother -tongue, set all parties by the ears. The ultra-Magyars thrust Magyarism into the schools and churches of the other nations, and compelled the burly Saxons to give up their native parliament, and to fashion their uncouth dentals and labials in an Asiatic mould. Then was the fusion, or, as the Saxons called it, the gehassige- verschmelzung ; then the " Transylvanian Messenger," under revolutionary influence, held strange language, unknown to the traditions of Saxon journalism, and said, " All historical right is overthrown ; whoever appeals to it makes himself ridiculous." These were the days when the liberty of the press was to shed its benign influence over Hungary and Transyl- vania ; and when it was illustrated by the only organ of the press in Herrmanstadt, putting forth a class of opinions and principles abhorrent to the whole nation ; and when the gallows or the bullet was the reward of those who like the pastor Roth maintained the doctrine, " That no set of free men would submit to the loss of either their religion or language :" but as Lord Bacon says, in his remarks on Compositio et Mistio, " Therefore we see those bodies which they call imperfecte mista last not, but are speedily dissolved. . . For manners ; a consent in them NATIONAL FANATICISM. 17? is to be sought industriously, but not to be enforced ; for nothing amongst people breedeth so much perti- nay in holding their customs, as sudden and violent offers to remove them." In short, the Saxons said, " We are Transylvanians, and not Magyars," just as the Croats and Slovacks said, "We are Hungarians, and not Magyars." But no sooner are the tables turned, than we find discontent taking another shape. The people of Maros-vasarhely, when I was there, were full of the most violent resentment at several Saxons being employed in the Szekler-land. I asked if there was any objection either to their probity or capacity, but found none assigned ; the truth being that^the Devil, instead of putting on the purple of Pope, or the sober black of Presbyter, has now taken a fancy to change his clerical for the lay costumes of the frogged and furred Magyar, the flanneled Saxon, and the sandaled Daco-Roman ; so that another Diet is much needed at Maros-vasarhely, to bring some accord into the jarring creeds of the religion of nationality. But all will be insecure, and to be done over again, if, like the Diet of 1571, they forget what is due to the most numerous nation in Transylvania. The dispositions of the Szekler nation I look upon as of the greatest importance to Austria. A portion of the land is in the militarv frontier, and therefore has been for many generations under the War-office 178 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. of Vienna, and forms, from the bravery of the in- habitants, a valuable item for or against any govern- ment in Transylvania ; and the discipline and obedi- ence of this force, in a time of emergency, depends very much upon the disposition of the civilian part of the population. The revolution is now crushed ; but unquestionably the employment of any Saxons, how- ever able and meritorious, is a mistake. Nothing could be worse than the standard of probity among the legal functionaries of the Szeklers. For in- stance, there is a law at Udvarhely and elsewhere, that smoking in the street was not permitted, and punishable by fine. Instances have been known of a man smoking under his own archway, being pushed into the street by a person from behind for the sake of recovering the fine ; and justice was most universally polluted by bribery. But with the keen susceptibilities of the Szeklers in matters of national pride, and as the population is less mixed than that of any other ter- ritory in Transylvania, it would appear a wise policy to have only Szeklers as civil functionaries, however corrupt they may be.* * In convex-sing with a Szekler on legal procedure, lie informed me that the number of offences against the person are- proportionally to other countries, much larger than those against property, from the excessively quarrelsome disposition of the nation. But, by a curious regulation, no complaints are allowed on a Monday. So that the resentment arising from injuries inflicted under the influence of wine on Sunday has time to cool ; and thus a great many petty complaints which would otherwise be made do not encumber the roll. CLAUSENBUKG. 179 CHAPTER XVII. CLAUSENBURG— GOLDEN RIVER— DESCRIPTION OF CLAUSEN- BURG— THE ARISTOCRACY — THEIR LOSSES — GENERAL URBAN— ENGLISH OFFICER— POLITICAL RELATIONS. The ethnographical division of Transylvania is not so difficult of comprehension, when we recollect that the southern part of it is Saxon, that is to say, the country round Herrmanstadt and Cronstadt, with Fagaras in the middle, which is almost purely Daco- Roman. On the east of Transylvania, all the country between Maros-vasarhely and the Wallachian frontier is Szekler. In the north-east is a Saxon island, Bistritz, quite separated from the Saxons in the south. All the rest of Transylvania is Daco- Roman in substratum, with a Magyar proprietary, and a sprinkling of Magyars in the towns and villages. After quitting Maros-vasarhely, I descended the Maros, and, leaving the Szekler territory, entered that of the mixed description last-mentioned. The hilly country to the right is called the Mezoszek ; has a scanty population, and is rich and fertile, and N 2 180 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. therefore, very different from the Szekler-land, which is overstocked with population, and has no ground to spare ; so that the Szekler ekes out his subsistence by wood-cutting, not only in his own forests, but also on the Upper Maros, in the north- eastern part of Transylvania, and is altogether much more laborious and industrious than the sauntering Magyar peasant of the plains of Hungary. In Mezo- szek, food is so abundant, and the population so lazy, that Count K assured me positively that he had a fine field of wheat in this district, which rotted in blackness on the ground, because, it being allodial, the peasantry w r ould not cut it down, although he repeatedly offered them a share of the product. Such are the contrasts which a single day's journey offer to the traveller. In one district, every patch of cultivable territory utilised by over- population ; and in the next county separated by a Chinese wall of national antipathy, a deliberate neglect of resources lying at the hand : and I noticed many cottages in this district without even the kitchen garden, which, with the smallest trouble in the world, would have produced a wholesome and agreeable variety of vegetables. I then ascended the Aranyos to Thorda, which river is called " Golden," from its sands abounding in this precious metal. All that group of mountains to the westward of Transylvania, that separates it CLAUSENBURG. 181 from the plains of Hungary and the basins of the Koros, abounds in the precious metals, more particu- larly gold. But although the Aranyos has a large Daco-Roman population, the laborious process of gold-washing is in the hands of the gipsies, who, if industrious, more particularly after the heavy rains of spring and autumn, make a good revenue, the grains being sold at a fixed sum to the Director- General of the Royal Mines at Zalatna, a place which, during the disastrous anarchy of the autumn of 1848, excited the cupidity of the Daco-Roman hordes, and was accompanied by a horrible massacre of those employed in the direction of the gold production. I now arrived at Clausenburg, the ex-capital of Transylvania, and had a most kind reception from the Bethlen, Teleki, Wesseleny, Kemeny, Miko, Nemes, Bornemissa, and other families, and who have all suffered more or less severely ; first, by the so-called abolition of feudalism, and, subsequently, by the devastation of their property during the Daco- Roman anarchy : and who not only showed the utmost willingness to give me every information, but did all that could be done to render my short residence agreeable. The town itself is exceedingly well built ; and, without reckoning Pesth, Presburg, Kashau, and Temesvar (which have a large ma- jority of German population), Clausenburg is better 182 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. constructed than any Magyar place that I know, either in Hungary or Transylvania. It was also one of the original seven boroughs of Transylvania ; but the Saxon element has almost entirely disappeared, and the principal Transylvanian nobility, having resided here, built large and substantial houses, many of them distinguished by considerable elegance, both internal and external. The great square is large, and just looks like that of a German principality, and, therefore, has no resemblance either to the middle-age solidity of the Saxon towns, or to the Turkish-looking collection of houses one sees in the Szekler-land, or on the Theiss. The inn, a large modern edifice, was very good, and conducted with great regularity and cleanli- ness, by an Italian who, having grown rich, had built the establishment, so that the complaints that travellers make of deficient accommodation, every- where out of Pesth, were not applicable here. A curious adventure occurred to me in this house. The Zimmerkellner, or chamber-man, who struck me as being polite and gentlemanly in his manner, came to me one morning, with a long face, saying that he was not a waiter by profession, but had adopted the dress and occupation as a disguise, having been an officer in Bern's army, and, having been recog- nised, he was about to be enrolled in the Austrian army as a private soldier, unless something could be CLAUSENBURG. 183 done to keep him out ; and as lie had seen that I had struck up an acquaintance with the recruiting- captain, in the coffee-room, he begged me to speak to him to see if he could be got off ; but, on pointing- out to him the absurdity of a foreigner thrusting himself into a matter that did not concern him, on the strength of a coffee-house acquaintance, he said, " He saw that there was nothing for it but to shoulder a musket ; " which I told him I thought more like the occupation of a gentleman than the domestic service of an hotel. The recruiting captain in question was one of the oddest and most amusing originals that I met in the course of my tour ; and, with a grave and saturnine countenance, would make such repartees as used to set the table in a roar ; but he was by no means deficient in homely good sense. He told me that he was taken prisoner by the Magyars, and kept at a place called Zillah, where, on his arrival, an ultra- Magyar female fanatic said, " She would stake her " salvation if she could see the captain hung on a " gallows, and Kossuth elevated to supreme power." And it so happened, that, after the war, Zillah was the very place to which the captain was sent as imperial commissioner to apprehend the principal rebels. So one of the first persons he sent for was the fanatical woman, and he said to her, " You said that you would stake your salvation on my elevation 184 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. to the gallows. Somebody will certainly hang from the gallows — but not I." On this the woman grew deadly pale and frightened, and the captain resumed : " As for your salvation, which you proposed to stake, first catch it before you propose to dispose of it : the state punishes high treason — but not stupidity ; so go about your business." While at Zillah, in custody, he told me that he was much pressed to be an officer in the Hungarian army ; and that one insolent person said, " What if we should hang you up to that tree 1 " To which he answered : " If I hang as an Austrian officer, the Austrians may give me an honourable burial ; but if I join you, I may be hanged as a rascal." Clausenburg subsists almost entirely by what is spent- by the resident landed proprietary ; and, therefore, there were many complaints of deficient incomes. The Transylvanian nobility is not so rich as that of Hungary and Bohemia ; but a considerable number of families of several thousands sterling per annum resided at Clausenburg. It may, therefore, easily be conceived what a blow the revolutionary legislation and subsequent anarchy was to them ; and little did the town mob suppose, when they were terrorising the legislature under the influence of the agitators of the Kossuth faction, the extent to which they were quarrelling with their own bread and butter. In the few principal families who receive a THE ARISTOCRACY. 185 well-recommended stranger, no traces are visible of the distress that has been produced ; for several of them have estates in parts of Hungary that have escaped ravage : and I never saw, in any capital of Europe, a more artistic French cuisine than that of Baron B , a well-known bon-vivant ; but this is the rare exception. The great majority of those classes who expended in Clausenburg, the rents of Transylvania, declare themselves ruined ; and every tradesman in the town has suffered by the change. Had they consented, with a free will, to the revolu- tionary intoxication, one could have contemplated their "blue devils" as a retribution, however painful ; but most of the principal families, admitting that great reforms were needed, constantly speak of Sechenyi as the first of Hungarians, and the skilful state physician, who would have effected a cure of the ills of the state ; and almost as unanimously consider Kossuth as an arrant quack doctor, whose eloquence was a drug that produced a pleasant momentary intoxication, but the certain dissolution of society in the sequel. For although the union of Transylvania with Hungary took place during the revolution, all the previous impulse to reform came from Sechenyi, and all the previous impulse to revo- lutionary separation from Kossuth. The condition of the Magyar proprietary in Transylvania is truly deplorable, and since the fall 186 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. of the old French noblesse at the first revolution, I much doubt if there is any proprietary in Europe that have suffered so severe a reverse. " I cannot/' said count B P to me, whose income of 4000/. sterling was reduced to 800/., " approve that a horde of Asiatics should have come into this country and violently dispossessed the aboriginal inhabitants ; but it has been so for a thousand years." And it is im- possible for any traveller who looks upon respect for property as indisputably the highest of all the tests of civilisation, to follow the whole concatenation of the Transylvanian revolution without a feeling of the most poignant description. The Daco-Roman treated as a helot by the Magyar — the Saxon denationalised by the ultra-Magyar faction — the Daco-Roman put in sudden possession of the property of his Magyar landlord by a set of shouting landless ultra-Magyar terrorists — the Daco-Roman, like a beggar on horse- back, riding to the devil with blood-stained hands, and lastly, the unfortunate Magyar proprietor, even of conservative opinions, paying the penalty of the repeal faction having sought to identify the Magyar name with the disruption of the Austrian monarchy, by being viewed with coldness and distrust by the partisans of centralisation, and according to the law of all political reaction, finding a great difficulty in getting the agents of government to give a hearty and effective support to the pecuniary claims of even GENERAL URBAN. 187 the untainted members of a nation so identified with hostility to the empire at large. In spite, however, of all these distresses, dinners, conversaziones, and musical soirees, went on just as usual. General Urban the civil and military governor was, I am sorry to say, at daggers-drawn with the Clausenburgers, and they lived quite apart, as they could never pardon him his active partisan- ship at the head of the Daco-Romans, who, on the other hand adore him, for his daring bravery and an activity, that is perfectly indefatigable ; as no sort of hardship, either hunger, cold, or fatigue, seems to have the slightest effect on his iron constitution ; while he was so terroristic a disciplinarian that these hordes were afraid either to plunder or to massacre the innocent, when under his orders ; but he was so identified with these Daco-Romans in the eyes of the people of Clau- senburg — constantly turning up and appearing during the whole war, when least expected and supposed to be annihilated, — that their antipathy is inextinguishable. I cannot, however, approve of the policy of his having been made governor there ; for his services as a brave and indefatigable partisan leader he was clearly entitled to a handsome military promotion at the hands of the Emperor, but I think that his retention in a civil capacity has produced a large and most unnecessary amount of irritation, and that a stranger to Transylvania, of cool temper, with the 188 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. requisite firmness, would have suited the purpose of the government better on the arrival of the pacific period. I unwillingly make this observation, on the report of many undoubtedly moderate and respectable persons in Clausenburg, and from a genuine desire to see all done that can be done to close the breach between Austria and Hungary, for, as far as my per- sonal knowledge of Urban was concerned, I was struck with his intelligence, decision, and mental activity, which qualities, along with his previous services, clearly entitled him to a high military promotion. The bitter things said of him being constantly repeated to him did not contribute to his favourable disposition, and thus in spite of his merits during the war, he became the conductor of a large amount of odium, superfluous and unnecessary to the govern- ment ; for in every case a reactionary government is unavoidably unpopular in a town which was the focus of revolution. But the irritation that existed even in wealthy and conservative families convinced me that a promotion elsewhere, or a purely military position even in Transylvania, would have served the purpose of the government better. It is unpleasant to make such observations, but my motto being — fearless truth and strict impartiality, I have not shrunk from stating my candid opinion in relation to a distinguished officer, from whom and from whose subordinates I received every possible courtesy and information. MILITARY OFFICERS. 189 The commander of the cavalry force at Clausen- burg was Baron Gablenz, a Saxon by birth, and one of the most distinguished officers in the Austrian army. He had been the quarter-master-general of General Schlick during the whole of his arduous campaign in the north of Hungary, had gained the the cross of Maria Theresa, which is never given except on rare and extraordinary proofs of personal courage in the field of battle ; and having had the whole of the responsibility of the details that pre- ceded the battle of Kaschau, which terminated the career of Meszaros in a manner so unfortunate for that general, it may well be believed that he has a knowledge of the higher branches of his profession. I had made his acquaintance at the head quarters of the Russian army under General Grabbe, to whom he was attached, as the representative of the Austrian army in order to facilitate the local relations of the Russian army, and for which only an officer of high intelligence would be thought of. General Schlick told me afterwards at Vienna, that he did not think that he could have got in all the Austrian army an abler quarter-master-general. Of his military capa- city, an unprofessional man cannot form a certain estimate ; but on all political questions I found his judgment cool and clear, and when I add that he is still a young man of five-and-thirty, and that an almost feminine polish of manners, covers a constitution 190 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. of iron, I anticipate a most brilliant career for this highly distinguished officer : his position, being strictly military, brought him into no sort of collision with the personal interests and prejudices of the various classes of the population. I met at his house natives of all classes of opinion, and as he occupied the palace of Baron Josika, the ex-chancellor of Transylvania, during his absence in Vienna, the apartments of which, have a sort of palatial splendour, — his soirees were among the most brilliant in Clausenburg. One is always happy to see a fellow-countryman in any place where he is a rarity, as in Clausenburg, and I was much pleased to make the acquaintance of one of the officers of light dragoons, in the person of Mr. N , who had been taken prisoner by Bern's army, and who gave me much valuable information, and who, faithful to the government he served, was not blind to the difficulties that beset its path. Like all our fellow-countrymen in the Austrian service, he spoke of the excellent treatment that English officers invariably receive at the hands of their messmates, with whom no freaks of radical journalists eradicate the idea that Great Britain and Austria are natural allies, if the two countries understood their interests, and that it is impossible to imagine two great states that have fewer points of collision with each other, and that if any Englishman is wrong or mistaken on POLITICAL OBSERVATIONS. 191 this point, he has the satisfaction of knowing, if he open the page of history, that his error or prejudice on tins head is shared by those statesmen, whig and tory — tory and whig, who presided at the direction of the affairs of Great Britain, when Marlborough conquered at Blenheim, and when the Sierras of the Peninsula re-echoed the thunders of Trafalgar and Salamanca ; and that the fortunate exchange of active hostilities with France, for an attentive obser- vation of what is passing in the east of Europe, has in no way diminished the value of the Austrian alliance and the importance of a good understanding between the two countries. In the course of my tour I took every opportunity of getting a knowledge of what were the real opinions of our fellow-countrymen, resident or em- ployed in Hungary and in the Austria empire, and I found that they were nearly all the same ; that they looked upon the Repeal emigration in London as not by any means entitled to set itself up as representative of Hungary, whether we take the property and intelligence of the Magyars, or of the great bulk of the common people of all nations. That although Austria was far from being an adequate counterpoise to Russia, yet, that Magyar supremacy in Hungary had still more slender pre- tensions to have any value as an element of steadiness in the balance of power, for, the other nations would 192 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. never submit to the Magyar yoke ; and that there is as much chance of Austria giving up Hungary, as of Queen Victoria giving up Yorkshire or Lancashire. And these opinions derived from impartial persons, certainly tally with my own impressions — for if the very worst came to the very worst, Austria might give up Italy, which has a population that can never assimilate with her own, but would never give up Hungary, which in spite of many antipathies has so many elements of assimilation, and ample room for a large influx of population, not only from the more crowded parts of the rest of the empire, but from the over-populated districts of Wurtemburg and other German kingdoms and principalities. The independence of Hungary being therefore a chimera, the only result of the advocacy of this bubble by the English radical press, is to keep up an alienation of Austria from her natural ally, and to throw her, nolens volens, into an exclusive intimacy with Russia ; which is a consummation most un- favourable to that moderate, rational, and conservative constitutional liberty, which would cement the bonds already existing between the Austrian and British empires ; for, however noble a character the Emperor Nicholas may be in many respects, the principle of his government is not constitutional, but autocratic ; not that of municipal development, but a bureaucratic centralisation ; and it is in vain to expect, that the POLITICAL REFLECTIONS. L98 very great influence which the Emperor Nicholas must possess in consequence of the repeal faction having nipped the constitutional principle in the Austrian empire in the bud, by corroding it with the disruption of the military integrity of the empire, should be exercised in furthering principles diametri- cally opposed to his own : for the true antipodes of autocracy is moderate and conservative consti- tutional government, while repeal and martial-law, democracy and autocracy, are — les extremes qui se touchent. In spite of the personal merits of Prince Metternich, the machine which he guided was absolutism, every crank and wheel of which he kept carefully oiled, so as to make it go as smooth as possible, and he was deterred from altering the essential principles of the machine, because all history shows, that those who commence a great reformation of a radical principle, can never see their way clearly or foretel when it will stop — where it will stop, what it will knock down, and what it will leave standing in its progress. The histories of nations, like the mighty floods of the Nile and the Niagara, are broken by cataracts, and the passage from absolutism to consti- tutional government is like the adventure of a bark over the precipice. But after the sacrifices were made — after the terrific leap was taken, or to leave metaphor — after 194 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. the revolution had taken place, after blood had flown, after absolutism had ceased, and the minister with his cabinet was dispersed, and such men as Stadion, Wessenburg, Bach, Brack, and other enlightened, liberal, yet moderate and prudent men rose to power, it certainly was, in the highest degree provoking, to see the whole thing marred, by the adulteration of the sound principle of constitutional government, with the unsound principle of the dis- ruption of the integrity of the empire. Every true patriot looked with disgust on the words, reform and constitution, being associated with the destruction of the imperial edifice in a manner as repugnant to the nations of Hungary as to nearly all the largest landed proprietors of the Magyar race. And they said, " We may lose Lombardy and still exist, as a man may lose a limb and still live. But the repeal of the military and financial union with Hungary, is a sawing asunder by the waist, after which, existence as a first-rate European power, is impossible." Let the candid Englishman now ask himself, whether the radical press of England has befriended the constitutional party in the Austrian empire. Yea or nay % No, my fellow-countrymen ! Your motto has been, omne ignotum pro magnifico. Clearly seeing that absolute Austria was often in the wrong, you have been far too ready to jump to the conclusion that those who wished to break loose from constitutional POLITICAL REFLECTIONS. i '.).". Austria were in the right. Like navigators un- consciously blown across the equator, you suppose yourselves to be steering for the principles of con- stitutional liberty, misled by a compass that points to the contiguous extremes of democracy and autocracy ! 19G THE GOTH AND THE HUN. CHAPTER XVIII. CLAUSENBURG CONTINUED — MR. PAGET — CLAUSENBURG STUDIES—THE LUTHERAN PASTOR— THE DEATH OF ROTH —CONCLUDING POLITICAL REFLECTIONS— THE FUTURE GOVERNMENT OF TRANSYLVANIA. The female society of Clausenburg is most agree- able, being musical and not unliterary ; while all the principal families being well acquainted with each other, there is a total absence of coldness and for- mality ; but however agreeable my reminiscences may have been, it would be mal-apropos to introduce any of the charming Clausenburgers personally to the public. But in the midst of tableaux or of music, there was always something to carry the mind away from the festivity of the moment, to the tremendous catastrophe of the revolution. One lady was in mourning for a relation that had died on the field of battle ; another, who had escaped poignant grief, was under the wearing anxieties of having a relative in a state of witersuchung, — either under actual inquiry for part taken in the revolution, or out on parole, or under surveillance. One evening telling fortunes and MR. PAGET. 197 reading characters in a family circle, which produced some amusement, I said of a young lady of great beauty, that her timidity and silence prevented me from forming an estimate of her character. On which her father said, " I don't know much about her timidity. When the Roman hordes broke out, she was the very first of the family to provide herself with a pair of pistols, learned their use, and kept them in perfect order until the end of the war." In the course of my residence at Clausenburg I heard many and high estimations of the character and talents of Mr. Paget, the author of " Hungary and Transylvania," who had bought property in this part of the countiy, which had been ravaged by the Daco-Romans, and I can bear my testimony as a fellow-countryman, long and widely travelled in Hun- gary, to the great value of his work, and to the large amount of valuable information on the history, geography, resources and manners of Hungary in general, and of the Magyars in particular. Whoever reads through the present work may easily perceive in what my political opinions differ from his, and will not be surprised at my entertaining the belief, that he has committed a serious error in looking at the different nations of Hungary rather through Magyar spectacles than through a merely neutral medium ; which, under all circumstances, is scarcely to be expected from a foreigner, who, settling in Hungary, 198 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. makes a semi-adoption of one nationality in pre- ference to hearing all nations tell their own story, and collating, contrasting, and analysing them. But Mr. Paget is a conscientious opponent ; and although he does not share my opinions on the best way of furthering the interests of Great Britain on the Danube, in relation to the integrity of the Ottoman empire, yet no work has appeared on Hungary and Transylvania which gives so much valuable and special information on the Magyar nation. My estimate of the warlike qualities of the Magyar race is quite as high as his, nor do I yield to him in sympathy with the superior ease and sincerity of the tone of Magyar society ; and undoubtedly and unquestionably, although he is a Transylvanian landed proprietor, his opinions on the subject of the sanctity of the rights of property cannot be of a more un- swervingly religious character than mine. Nor is he more sensible than I am of the weaknesses and defects of Austria, past and present. But after as large and practical an experience of the Austrian and Ottoman empires in all their internal and external relations as usually falls to the lot of a British subject, I feel persuaded, that Mr. Paget, and those who think with him, underrated the toughness of the Austrian empire as much as they overrated the capability of the Magyar nation to absorb the other elements in Hungary ; for, as Lord Bacon says, CLAUSENBURG STUDIES. 199 " There remaineth only to remember out of* the grounds of nature the two conditions of perfect mixture, whereof the former is time; for the natural philosophers say well, that composiiio is opus hominis, and mistio, opus natures. For it is the duty of man to make a fit application of bodies together ; but the perfect fermentation and incorporation of them must be left to time and nature ; and unnatural hasting thereof doth disturb the work and not dispatch it." My time in Clausenburg was divided by studies of the past and the present, hearing from one party a vindication of the union of Hungary and Transyl- vania on the footing of Magyar supremacy ; from Daco-Romans, Germans, and Austrians, the reverse ; and from conservative Magyar and landed pro- prietors, complaints of the sufferings inflicted by both extremes on the unoffending moderates, who wished to see the domain of property and intelligence neither subjected to imperial martial law, nor invaded by city democracy nor agrarian barbarism. The massacre of Zalatna by the Daco-Roman hordes was most fre- quently brought upon the tapis by the opponents of that nation. I heard from the lips of Baron Kemeny, the lieutenant of the county, the account of this deplorable catastrophe, and one morning he called on me at. the hotel, with a little boy in his hand, who could not be above seven or eight years of age, and taking off his cap he showed me a large 200 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. white mark without hair, where a Daco-Roman lance had been driven into the skull and the boy left for dead, having recovered by mere chance, a part of the skull having been actually knocked out. His father, Johann Nemegya, had been head of the mining administration at Zalatna, and it appears to have been plunder, and plunder alone, that attracted the Daco-Roman hordes, who on the 22nd of October, 1848, surrounded the town, set it on fire, and signalised the sack of the place by a massacre of 640 persons, either there or on the march to Karls- burg. At a place called Praszaka, the people of Zalatna passed the night on a boggy meadow, sur- rounded by the hordes, whom they heard in council as to whether they should be killed or not ; and in the morning, one Juliana Biliary, who had a thousand ducats in her girdle, being searched and the money scattered on the ground ; this served as a signal for the final massacre, in which the administrator, before mentioned, the father of the boy, was shot down and attempted to escape into the wood, with his little son in his hand and his wife grievously wounded. Had every one of these monsters, — who, summoned to combat rebellion, disgraced and degraded the loyalist cause, by the gratification of their individual mercenary appetites, — been consigned to the gallows, no moral stain would have rested on the ultra- Magyar bloody tribunal of Clausenburg ; but its THE LUTHERAN PASTOR. 201 insane national fanaticism — its confounding of in- nocent with guilty must ever remain a black spot in the history of Transylvania. One clay the Saxon pastor called upon me, and we visited the spot where the Reverend Mr. Roth, the Lutheran clergyman of Meschen, in the Saxon land, and who Avas looked up to by the whole nation for his piety and benevolence — met a felon's doom. Clausenburg is picturesquely situated on a plain surrounded by hills, partly wooded, and with villas and plantations scattered all around. It was now the month of January, and therefore the trees were in their wintry skeletons, a white robe of snow covered all the hills around, as well as the roofs of the town, as we slowly ascended a steep acclivity that led up an eminence, crowned by a fort that com- manded the town. It was when we had toiled to the top and taken breath to look all around, that I heard the accounts, which the pastor gave me, of his pious and venerable colleague. He was in no way mixed up either directly or indirectly in the atrocities we have described ; but for years before the revolution he had been by all fair arguments, a champion of the nationality of his own people against the new- fangled efforts to absorb two-thirds of the people of Hungary and Transylvania into the nationality of the third. Kossuth, a born Slovack who renegaded from his own illustrious nationality, is the popular 202 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. hero ill England, although he strangled almost at its . & «*.^Vl, """VUpU "V ^„X^il & l birth the constitutional principle in Austria by the bow-string of Repeal. But, according to my humble opinion, the true moral heroes of Hungary are those noble souls of the Croat, Slovack, Saxon, and other nationalities, who stood forth as the champions of Hungarian nationalities and liberties for a period of a quarter of a century, and who fought the good fight with the weapons of history, of equity, morality, and Christianity. Such were Kollar and Gay ; Schaf- farik, Roth and Stur ; they have neither high-sounding- titles, nor lands broad and wide ; but neither had Luther nor Melancthon, Loyola nor Xavier this ad- ventitious lustre. But they had true souls — they loved their species ; they loved their mother-tongue and their nationality ; they neither sought to make them dominate over other nationalities, nor would they, as citizens of a free country, patiently submit to ex- tinction of nationalities, as high, as noble, and as ancient as the Magyar. Roth had read history ; he knew that it was to the Germanic element, and to the old German empire, that Hungary and Transylvania were indebted for their liberation from the Turkish yoke, and constantly declared that his objection was not to the Magyars having a sympathy for their own liberty and nation- ality, — but to their antipathy to the liberty and nation- ality of the other races. Such was his unswerving course THE LUTHERAN PASTOR. 203 during the struggles of his life, and such his noble and patriotic language in the melancholy glory of martyrdom. For he had been long marked out as an object of hatred by the ultra-Magyar faction ; and on the most frivolous pretexts of which even a Fouquier Tinville would have been ashamed, he was condemned to death ; and, in the few hours allowed him to prepare for another world, he penned the follow- ing lines : — - Dear Children, — I have just been condemned to death, and in three hours the sentence will be ex- ecuted. If anything pains me, it is the thought that you, who are without a mother, will now be without a father ; but powerless in the hands of the force that leads me to the shambles, I yield to my fate, and to the will of God, by whom even my hairs are counted. " Hold fast to Sophia, all of you, and look upon her as your mother. Be obedient to God, and humble with every man. Take counsel on the sub- ject of my fortune, which I leave in the greatest dis- order, in order that you may have the means of completing your education. There are many good men, who, for the sake of your father, will counsel, and help you. " To my kin in Kleinschalken, Mediasch, and Holdvilag, I send thanks in my last moments for all they have done to me, and may yet do for my 204. THE GOTH AND THE HUN. children ; and my housekeeper will do me a favour, if she remain until my household get into some order, and each of my chickens under some wing. " The Hungarian foundling, the education of which I have undertaken, I wish to have continued, unless its parents should appear to claim it. Of the children of my church in Meschen, I think with love. May they be enriched with the fruits of godliness. I have sown but little seed, and done too little for their spiritual culture. May the Almighty make the harvest richer ! I have preached love and virtue : may my death give a greater value to the word I have spoken. " Farewell, dear people ! " I have meant well for my nation, without seeking the evil of other nations. My functions in Elizabeth- stadt and Kokelburg have been performed in obedi- ence to superior will, which has brought me to death. Of any crime I am unconscious ; mistakes I may have made, but no injustice have I done ; and it re- joices me in my last moments, to think that I have protected the property of the landed aristocracy to the best of my power. " In my desk are my programmes of the Educa- tional and Ecclesiastical Journal. " The national body is shattered, and I believe in no future re-composition of its limbs. I therefore so much the more wish for the preservation of the DEATH OF ROTH. 205 Spirit that dwelt in these forms ; and I beg my re- maining brethren to carry out this Journal, in order to maintain purity of manners and honesty of inten- tion in the people. If we are doomed to fall, let it be in such a way that our children will not be ashamed of their fathers. Time presses — I beg par- don of all whom I have offended, and leave the world, praying to God to pardon my enemies." The letter concludes with some minor dispositions, and is signed, " In the name of God, Stephen Ludwig " Roth, Evangelical (i. e. Lutheran) Pastor in Meschen," and is followed by a postscript, which runs thus : — " I must, in conclusion, say, that neither in life nor in death have I been the enemy of the Magyar nation. May they believe this as the words of a dying man, at a moment when hypocrisy is useless." " It was on this very spot/' said the Saxon pastor to me, " that Roth stopped to take breath as I accompanied him, and gave him spiritual consolation in his last moments ; and being the month of May, the foliage had just come out. ' The world is beau- tiful,' said he, as he looked round the valley ; ' but let my humanity stand confessed — how much more beautiful when one sees it for the last time ;• and within a few minutes, Roth was shot on the ramparts/' Let me now bid adieu to Transvlvania, that fair 206 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. and unhappy land, which has my warmest wishes for its prosperity, and collect a few of the ideas which remain after the precipitation of the mud of minor details ; for the question of Hungary is a much clearer one than that of Transylvania, the difficul- ties of which are so great as to puzzle the ablest head ; therefore, the suggestions which I offer for the re-construction of order in this principality, are made with a diffidence in the soundness of my own proposals, which must be felt by every traveller who has gone through this hot-bed of national fanaticism. When martial law is given up, Austria must return to her natural political condition, which, like that of her geographical situation, lies between the absolutism of Russia and the democracy of France. With these masses of semi-barbarous population, unfit for the exercise of the functions of constitutional citizenship, I do not think (however desirable it may be) that it is possible for Transylvania, for genera- tions to come, to enjoy anything like a British system of liberty. But if, on the other hand, Hungary should become a larger Poland, the Austrian monarchy becomes a stifled volcano. Looking, therefore, at things as they are, Austria — dragged towards auto- cracy by Russia, and dragged towards democracy by the West of Europe, — ought to belong to neither, and to preserve a political attitude corresponding to her geographical situation. She ought to cherish the CONCLUDING POLITICAL REFLECTIONS. 207 popular elements, in spite of her Russian alliance of the moment, and to cling more firmly to the monarchical element than suits the prejudices of German and French democrats, and of those philanthropic British radicals who, at the first symptom of either Canada or Ireland attempting to have a domestic Irish or Canadian army and navy, would be the very first to draw the sword, and to erect the gallows ; but who have no objections to see a little fun on the Con- tinent, on the principle, " Do to others as you would that other should not do to you." I begin with the region of the Szeklers, which is tolerably compact, and, therefore, offers less difficul- ties, as this people is less scattered among the others. They have a strong feeling of nationality, but are, although laborious and persevering, less honest and more calculating than the Magyars. Provided, therefore, they get their salt cheap, and be materially comfortable, it will not be so easy to gain them to the cause of the revolution. That the government would profit by a great reduction in the price of salt, is proved by the large sale of that commodity after Bern caused it to be sold at two florins, instead of three florins fifteen x., by which the smuggling ceased wholly. As regards nationality, the Szeklers live in so compact a mass, that there is no possibility of a German colonisation of this territory. The interests 208 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. of government would, therefore, be much better served by the exclusive employment of loyal and well-disposed Magyars and Szeklers, of whom, I maintain, with proper management, there would be no lack in Transylvania. The hands of the Kossuth party having been principally strengthened by the massacres of the Daco- Romans, which drove many well-disposed persons to support the revolutionary government, in spite of their own antipathy to republican tendencies. The Szekler-land would, therefore, be most useful to Austria, by a free deve- lopment of its nationality, and a very light direct taxation, on condition of their furnishing, in return, a large number of recruits, which, with proper disci- pline, make the best troops imaginable, when away from home. The Saxon land offers, also, less difficulties, by a simple adherence to their ancient municipal system, within the ancient limits ; and, if allowed to manage their own affairs in their own way, will, probably, prove far more loyal and pliable subjects of the house of Austria, than if knitted to her by bureau- cratic centralisation. They certainly cannot be more loyal than they were during the late struggle. Their loyalty, under the municipal system, is an undoubted historical fact. The continuance of this feeli ng;, under the system of centralisation, is an experiment of which, if tried, time alone will show the result. THE FUTURE GOVERNMENT OF TRANSYLVANIA. 209 I now come to a far more difficult subject, the relations of Magyars and Daco-Romans, in the central and eastern parts of Transylvania, in which the great questions of protection of property and justice to nationality, have been complicated. The Daco-Romans not only claim the supremacy of their language, grounded -on the supremacy of their num- bers, but are most deeply infected with a desire to retain possession of the allodial lands and forests which afford the principal revenue in many parts of a wooded and mountainous country. An effective protection of the landed proprietor, in his capacity as proprietor, supreme over his land, — but not in his character of Magyar supreme over the Daco-Roman, — is requisite under the new system. He possesses the right to enjoy, to the last kreutzer, the product of such and such land ; but when the Daco-Roman population is so large, it is clear that, after such a revolution, the restoration of the supremacy of the Magyar language and nationality would be neither prudent nor just. Land is the right of a few ; but nationality is the right of the many ; and the official language ought, clearly, to be that of the people, rather than that of the aristocracy. The establishment of this principle, so far from being an infringement of Magyar nation- ality, indirectly assumes the injustice of ruling the Magyar districts of Hungary through any other medium than the Magyar .language. The official 210 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. language, therefore, of the greater part of Transyl- vania ought to be Daco-Roman, which every Magyar landed proprietor speaks fluently, and can also write, if the Roman letters be used instead of Cyrillian, which certainly ought to be the case with a Latin dialect. The solution of this difficult problem seems, there- fore, to me to lie in a distinction of the just claims and unjust pretensions of both parties — in the pro- tection of the Magyars in their lands from Daco- Roman invasion, and in the protection of the Daco- Romans, in their language, from ultra-Magyar invasion. GROSSWARDEIN. > I ] CHAPTER XIX. GROSSWARDEIN— THE DEFILE OF CSUCSA— INTENSE COLD- DESCRIPTION OF GROSSWARDEIN— CARNIVAL BALL- LIBERTY AND NATIONALITY — EUGENE BEOTHY — THE MAGYAR ARSENAL— COLONISATION OF HUNGARY. I now left Transylvania and took the diligence to Grosswardein in Hungary, the nearest large town on the other side of the frontier, and important not only on account of its having been the arsenal of the Magyar army during the late struggle, but from being at the present time the capital of the largest civil and military province in Hungary under the new organisation. The weather was intensely cold, and the diligence, rather a sort of Irish car, protected from the weather by leather curtains, and as the thermometer fell to twenty-four degrees Reaumur, the reader may imagine that a passage through the denies of Csucsa was anything but pleasant. I slept a considerable part of the time almost unconscious of the possession of limbs, and the journey seemed like a dream, presenting a confused recollection of steep hills overhanging a frozen river and endless forests of pines candied with snow, half melted and bound p 2 212 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. with frost again. As we came to a village, an old Magyar fellow-traveller called my attention to it, and to the Daco-Romans, shivering about, even in their sheep-skins, and I again fell asleep, after he had told me a frightful story of the bride to whom he was about to be married having been murdered in this neighbourhood. So, confounding times and places, I seemed, in a dream, to have been invited to the feast, and saw a white pony led up to the door, on which was carried the corpse of the bride. The women began to weep, and the bridegroom to storm, and, drawing his sword, threatened vengeance. Here I awoke, and found the diligence, no longer in the woody defiles, but on a wide, white, snowy, treeless plain ; and the bridegroom, with a hearty laugh, unconscious of whither my thoughts had wandered, with neither drawn sword, nor irate countenance, but jolly good homour, saying, "Bey Gott, you are a sound sleeper, do you see where we are \ " And a slender, tapering spire, rising out of the distant horizon, showed that we were approaching the ancient city of Grosswardein. At length so benumbed as to have escaped being- frozen only by wearing a superabundance of coats and two pair of thick woollen stockings, I alighted at the inn of Grosswardein with a degree of satis- faction I never experienced on entering the most luxurious hotel ; but it was in vain to attempt to INTENSE COLD. 213 keep myself warm in my room, for it opened on one of the unglazecl corridors, and although I kept the stove well filled with faggots, all the bolts of the door were covered with hoar frost, even on the inside, during three days ; and I was informed that this was the coldest winter that had been known in Grosswardein for seventy years, as that period had elapsed since hot springs in the neighbourhood had been frozen as they had been in February 1850. When I entered the dinner hall I was recognised by an officer whose acquaintance I had made at the siege of Comorn, and who was then stationed in Gross- wardein, and after a little miscellaneous conversation, he began artlessly and unconsciously to speak of his family, and to tell me of all his domestic relations. Under ordinary circumstances I should have thought this a bore, but when I reflected on his distance from kith and kin, and the isolation a man whose existence is in his family must feel when stationed in the midst of a population readier with its antipathies than with its sympathies, I felt pleased and interested in details the most frivolous, and encouraged the good man "to dilate his breast," as the Arabs say, to a comparative stranger. Grosswardein was a great city in the middle ages, having had, according to tradition, seventy-two churches, and having been the residence of several kings. This ancient city was for the most part 214 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. destroyed by the Turks, who built the present fortress which adjoins the town, and is on perfectly level ground, as well as the immediate neighbour- hood, for at a very short distance commenced the last undulations of the mountain region of Transylvania, which is a sort of Switzerland to the Carpathians ; but through all Hungary the traces of the Royal Hungarian or pre -Turkish period, have little or nothing that denotes civilisation. Most abundant traces of castellated feudalism ; almost nothing of ecclesiastical art, baronial taste, or civic industry and luxury. In short, the ancient and renowned Gross- wardein must have been a large collection of wooden houses, with a barbaric pomp in costume, armour, horse caparisons, and personal ornaments ; but not of the monuments of a civilised people which remain on the face of the earth and may be defaced by barbaric invasion, but even in ruins attest more or less the material and intellectual condition of a people. The cathedral is modern, and is a large edifice not very remarkable for its good taste, being, as well as the bishop's palace, in the style of Louis Quinze ; but in Grosswardein, where there are no purer specimens of architecture to be seen, they give a sumptuous and town-like air to the place, which although containing about 20,000 souls, half of whom are Magyars and the rest Daco-Romans, with some Slovacks and Jews, is yet a very scattered place, DESCRIPTION OF GROSSWARDEIN. 215 extending on both sides of the river Koros. The most compact portion of the town is that of the principal square on which the Greek Catholic church is built, and which is surrounded by well built modern houses of the Vienna and Pesth pattern. The cause of this dispersion being that so many of the houses have a piece of ground attached to them, but in summer Grosswardein has a pleasant appear- ance from the mingling of town and country. The garden trees overhanging the lanes, and the Koros bordered with vegetation, and pleasant houses mingled with each other. The principal resource is the Casino, where news- papers are taken in, and the Ridotto hall, where the carnival balls were given, but it will not surprise the reader that the people of Grosswardein assured me that this was the most melancholy carnival that had been seen in the town for many a day, for this place was one of the last that was occupied by the Russian troops during the concluding campaign, and conse- quently there were great losses in Kossuth notes, from which the place had not recovered ; for like all other financial bubbles, the sudden expansion of the medium caused a correspondingly great neglect of labour and a correspondingly large consumption of the fruits of labour ; in short, a financial wheel of ruin within the greater wheel of the civil war. Cobbet used to laugh at " Prosperity Robinson " of 216 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. 1825, but the fallacious wealth of Prosperity Kossuth was relatively of much more gigantic proportions and the collapse of the bubble quite independently of politics, has been proportionally more disastrous, even to those who have not directly suffered by the horrors of war or the penalties of treason. I was at one of the balls given by subscription, and although it in no way was a success as a mere ball, yet it presented an opportunity of seeing the people brought together. The hall is very large and not being over full nor over well lighted, was somewhat dreary, especially as the cold continued to be so intense, that those who did not dance stood within the side room wrapped up in cloaks. When I was promenading during the interval after the first dance, up came a tall thin gentleman, who spoke English and told me that he had been settled for a number of years in London, conducting a hydropathic institution, and seemed quite pleased to find somebody who could tell him what London looked like since he left it, and invited me to call on him. The belle of the ball was the Countess Wallmoden, wife of the governor of the district, who is the younger brother of the venerable General "Wallmoden, who so distinguished himself in the campaign of 1813, and who, as most of my readers know, is a Hanoverian, but the great majority of the ladies were native Magyars, many of whom wore native costumes, and in point of CARNIVAL BALL. 217 o-ood looks, would have given any stranger a favourable opinion of the female beauty of that nation. Several people whom I did not know, came up to me and asked me in the course of conversation, if there was any prospect of the old constitution being restored, and seemed very much averse from the idea of a parliament in Vienna, and the deputies having to talk German there. I had already pre- sented my letters to Count and Countess Wallmoden, and made the acquaintance of their hospitable circle ; and at this ball I fell into conversation with General Braunhofer, the commandant of the district, who without farther ceremony, and to save me the trouble of making any approaches to politics, at once plunged into the condition of the country, its state and prospects, with his plans to mitigate the material sufferings of the people after such a war ; so that although the waltzes and quadrilles succeeded each other in rapid succession, it was the most political ball I ever was at, and the grave situation of the country seemed to occupy the people much more than the carnival. I here saw danced in perfection the csardas or national dance of the Hungarians, which is certainly not ungraceful, beginning very slow and gentle, like the gavotte, culminating in spirit as it goes on, and at last ending with quick and brisk motion like a Scotch reel, the music of winch, from beginning to end, has a character quite distinct 218 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. from that of the west of Europe, and closely resem- bling Turkish music ; for I recollect well on my first residence in Hungary, I never could bear their airs, but after my ears had been educated to its modulation by long residence in the Levant, I came to like it. Every step I take I see that the Hungarian question has very little to do with liberty, and is an affair of national hatred, for at Herrman- stadt, when the csardas was attempted at the Casino balls there, it was hissed down by the Saxons. There can be no liberty where there is not an amount of mutual forbearance in matters of personal pride and susceptibility ; for what is liberty but a sober respect for the right of the free action of others, in so far as no wrong be done either to individuals or to the state ; but real liberty during a fierce national warfare, vegetates with difficulty. There was no true liberty in Hungary before the revolution when the national fanaticism of the Magyars refused to allow the great Slovack nation to have a single newspaper in their mother tongue, and in spite of the liberal provisions of the constitution of the 4th of March, the reaction against Magyarism is at present far too violent and vehement to offer any prospect of the introduction of a system of liberty that even approaches our standard. To turn this matter to its moral use at home : would the repeal of the union between Great Britain LIBERTY AND NATIONALITY. 219 and Ireland add to the liberty of the latter country 1 Unquestionably not, — because the mutual forbearance which the large neutral element in Great Britain compels both parties to maintain with each other, would cease to be enforced, and there would ensue either a supremacy of the Celtic majority over the Anglo-Saxon minority, or an iron rule, — a terroristic domination of the superior energy and civilisation of the Anglo minority over the Celtic majority ; in short the repeal of the union would be the end of liberty in Ireland. So in Hungary, there was no true liberty between 1828 and 1848, because there was no respect for the national pride and susceptibilities of the other races of Hungary by the Magyars, and as there seems to be now as little prospect as ever of that mutual forbearance which is the sine qud non of liberty, generations must elapse before true liberty be realised. Much as I scorned before the revolution the fallacy so popular in England that associated ultra-Magyarism with liberty, I must say, that it is impossible to travel through Hungary without having one's commiseration daily taxed for the innocent sufferers of the Magyar nation. One day I was asked to the house of a physician, a friend and co-religionist of the Jew who had been in England, and of whom I had heard from all the town the most eulogistic accounts ; being possessed of a good private fortune, he had with praiseworthy munificence established an hospital 220 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. and dispensary for the poor at his own charges. He was quite Magyarised in appearance, and received me with the honest joy that characterises this race in social moments, tempered by Oriental gravity. His daughter, a young lady in all the bloom and beauty of first youth, received me with the unembarrassed modesty of good society, and spoke French charmingly ; but the mother, who sat in the large chair and smiled languidly as the husband introduced me, was evidently under the leaden pressure of sombre cares or declining health, taking little part in the conversation ; but the secret of her melancholy soon came out. Her only son had been engaged in the revolution, had retired into Turkey along with the refugees, and had turned Moslem. " For my own part," said the worthy old man, who had taken no part in the revolution, " I cannot suppose that I am to be separated from my son for ever, and therefore, although he is my only son, I bear up as well as I can ; but my poor wife,- — you know that womankind has not so robust a nature as we men "And he no sooner said this than, as if to show how weak philosophy was in the battle with nature, the tears began to trickle down his cheeks. " So," continued he, " I am just about to take a journey to Vienna, in order to see if it be possible to get him back to this country, no matter what sacrifice it cost me." I need not say how, in such a scene as this, my REFUGEES IN TURKEY. 223 obdurate fanaticism of impartiality in Hungarian politics at once gave way to a feeling of sympathy for the Magyars in their sufferings, which I scarely ever felt in reading and hearing the accounts of the Magyar reign of terror over the other nations, and how I told these people all that my ingenuity could suggest as to the likeliest way to restore the lost son to the mourning mother. And here I cannot express how much I approve of the efforts that have been made by Viscount Palmerston, through our ambassador, Sir Stratford Canning, than whom I do not believe it is possible to point out an abler or more perfectly accomplished diplomatist in the British service, to procure the liberation of the exiles in Turkey, for those who were carried away by the excitement of the moment are clearly entitled to commiseration. Kossuth, the acute lawyer, well knew the legal and historical rights of Austria in Hungary ; he well knew that the creation of a Magyar military power, of which Pesth was the centre, was the disruption of the integrity of the Austrian empire. He well knew, that, up to the revolution, no Austrian minister dared abolish the Hungarian constitution, without a revolting- dereliction of justice in the face of all Europe, and that the application of club-law by Hungary, to destroy the empire of Austria, was sure to be followed by the application of club-law on the part of Austria to destroy the civilian imperitom in imperio of Hungary. 2-Z-2 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. He, the acute lawyer, knew well, that the extorted consent given by the King of Hungary to the disruption of the Austrian empire, would never be tolerated by the responsible advisers of the constitutional Emperor of Austria ; and he, the experienced lawyer and journalist, knew that the transfer of the power ot sanctioning laws from the Crown to the Palatine, who, although proposed by the Crown, is an officer elected by the Estates, — was the practical extinction of the monarchical principle in the constitution, Hungary not being a distant colony but a contiguous kingdom. He knew that the house of Hapsburg was closely, intitimately, and inseparately identified with the credit of the Bank of Austria, and that to forbid the Austrian notes, founded on subscribed capital, in the very pinch of the Italian difficulties, was a moral and financial declaration of war against the military and financial integrity of the Austrian empire ; and that all this drove Austria to meet club-law by club-law. All this Kossuth knew as a lawyer. But this the great majority of the Magyars did not know, for not one man in ten thousand is a constitutional lawyer, and can tell precisely where legal and deliberate measures end, and where terroristic and illegal mea- sures begin to assume the mask of regular constitutional action. They merely saw the invasion of Jellachich and were transported with indignation, and forgot the chain of antecedents that provoked that measure, and EUGENE BEOTHY. 223 if it be true that Batthyany and Kossuth were the notable aggressors, it is equally true that the Austrian ministers, standing on the strongest legal and historical ground, did not meet the aggression with that full and complete openness, straightforwardness, and candour, which the strong and irrefragable rights of Austria intitled them to use. The lex talionis (for statute law is clearly out of the question) being therefore satisfied in the persons of a few of the ring- leaders, I certainly think that a full and complete amnesty to all the rest would have been both proper and politic. And with the opportunity opened up of a civilian union of the two countries, I think, for reasons which I will afterwards develope, that even the appli- cation of the lex talionis was of doubtful expediency. The deputy Eugene Beothy, whom I recollect at Presburg, one of the nost vigorous speakers in the Diet, is a native of Grosswardein, and was deputy for the place. Being involved in the revolution, he took to flight, and I heard in Grosswardein of his assuming the dress of a peasant, with a greasy bunda and shovel hat, and following the profession of a shepherd on the Carpathians for some time. I have since met this gentleman in London, and he informed me of his having been in Vienna, on his way through without being recognised, although so ken-speckle a personage, as we say in the land of cakes ; which incognito he owed to shaving off his 224 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. bushy white beard, and cutting off his long hairy locks, and by wearing a wig, a smooth chin and dyed eyebrows, his best friend could scarcely recognise him. In short, I doubt if any event in European history since the first French revolution, has so abounded in " hair breadth 'scapes and moving acci- dents of flood and field " as the recent Hungarian war. Grosswardein, during the Magyar movement, was the great arsenal of the army ; and having applied for permission to see the fortress, and the various localities of those extensive operations, I devoted a day to this object. I first went into the fort which still has the old Turkish curtains and bastions, constructed after the feudal system of high walls and towers had passed away, and before the mathe- matical ingenuities of Vauban and Cohorn had completed and complicated the new system of defence. But the centre edifice forming a pentagon was modern. Here during the winter that preceded the Russian campaign, the bank-note press, the percussion-cap manufactory, and other handicrafts of war were in full operation. The first being the most important of all the munitions, and the secret of the procuration of all the rest, and thus times are altered from the period when Crcesus showing his hoards of gold, was informed that iron would command them ; for in Hungary paper commanded iron, not representatively of capital, according to the MAGYAR ARSENAL. 225 British system of banking, but eo ipso in a manner unknown to our canny northern habits. In short, Grosswardein was Brummagem in more ways than one. The cannon were also bored here after being cast in the wood of St. Marton outside the town ; and various buildings were pointed out to me as the seats of various operations, but no signs of those gigantic works were then visible, except a few unused church bells untransformed from their sabbath occupations to the mission of wounds and death. In the immense gun smithy, I saw not a single file, screw, lock or gun-barrel, but a store of grain ; and with the recollection of the extraordinary outburst of warlike energy, of which this great plain of Central Hungary had been the theatre, I could not but think of the highly important and interesting turn the history of Hungary is likely to take, by the large influx of German colonists about to be introduced, and of which all those wide spreading rich waste lands to the south of Grosswardein, between the Theiss and the Carpathians, the Koros and the Maros, are to be the first settlements ; — alternations which, if we pierce through the inci- dentalism of the wars and politics of the day, to the deeper springs of national development, place the Hungarian question in immediate relation with the grand stream of the history of the world, since the fall of the Roman Empire. 22(J THE GOTH AND THE HUN. CHAPTER XX. THE HUNS IN HUNGARY. If we go back to the period of Attila, the most notable of the Asiatics, who first confronted the decrepit civilisation of Europe with the barbarous valour of the Huns ; we find that his head quarters must have been somewhere to the north of Gross- wardein, and the account given by Priscus, of his visit to this part of Hungary at that remote period, is so full and minute, that I reproduce for the general reader the abstract of a document well known to all scholars. The Romans were in the middle of the fifth century no longer the haughty masters of the world ; the division between the eastern and the western empires had taken place. Attila, the King of the Huns, pressed upon both ; and in the intervals of war, received their embassies with the gravity and occasional insolence of a superior. The embassy in question started from Constanti- nople under the reign of the younger Emperor THE HUNS IN HUNGARY. 227 Theodosius, traversed Thrace, and at the modern Nissa entered the dominions of Attila ; in other words, Servia belonged no longer to the Emperor of the Greeks, but to the King of the Huns (a.d. 448.) The object of the embassy being to satisfy Attila on the subject of his demand, that all the deserters of his nation or territory, residing in the Eastern Roman Empire, should be delivered up to him, — a Scythian, called Edecon, accompanying Maximin, the Greek ambassador, into Hungary. They found the city of Naissus ruined, and without inhabitants, except a few sick who had taken refuge in the remains of the temples ; and, near the river, the bones of those who had fallen in the recent war. In Servia, through which they passed on their way to the Danube, we recognise the passage from the wooded and mountainous environs of the Morawa to the marshy plains of the Danube, which they crossed somewhere between Semendria and Passarovitz, in canoes formed of trunks of trees hollowed out, such as I saw on the Theiss and on the lakes of the Switzerland of Croatia.* They then passed into what is now the Banat of Temesvar, where the tents of Attila were pitched near the hills, and consequently in the eastern part of this Duchy, for there are no hills in this part of Hungary except the slopes of the Carpathians, * Highlands and Islands of the Adriatic, vol. ii. Q 2 228 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. between Lugos and Oravitza ; and here the Greek ambassador, with his suite, wished to pitch his tent on the high ground, but was prevented by the Huns, because Attila was on the plain. It appears from the account of Priscus, that one of the Huns of Attila, who had been sent to Constantinople, had been pro- mised by a eunuch of the emperor a large weight of gold and an asylum in the empire if he would assas- sinate Attila, the terror of the Roman world, who, after having murdered his own brother, was now the King of the Huns, at the head of 700,000 fighting men ; and being a man, not only of the most daring bravery, but consummate astuteness, it was supposed that at his death the empire would have an easier position. But Edecon, the Hun in question, had revealed his project to Attila, who was thereupon highly incensed, but nevertheless sent the embassy that night an ox and Danube fish for supper, but refused to see the envoy of the Greek Emperor (Maximin), who was not in the secret of the intended assassination of Attila. " When we were permitted to enter," says Priscus, "and were presented, we saw Attila seated on a wooden chair, and remained at some distance. Maximin (the ambassador) then advanced and saluted the barbarian, handing him the letter of the Emperor, and saying, ' that the Emperor wished him and his, health and prosperity.' ' May the Romans THE HUNS IN HUNGARY. 229 enjoy all they wish me,' answered the barbarian ; and, turning to Vigilins (who was in the secret of the intended assassination), he vented abuse upon him, and asked him how he dared to enter his presence, as he had accompanied a former embassy, at which it was agreed that all the Him deserters should be delivered up ? Vigilius attempted to reply, ' that they had all been delivered up, and that not one remained among the Romans ;' but Attila, getting heated with anger, overwhelmed him with reproaches, and said, 'that, but for Ins respect for the character of an ambassador, he would crucify him, and deliver his body to the vultures.' ' The embassy, after this inauspicious commencement, then proceeded along with Attila to his capital, or rather palace, and head quarters in the north of Hungary ; and in the description of the route we easily recognise the unchanged and unchangeable character of the physical geography of the district : — the wide-spreading plain, the three navigable rivers, — one of winch is the Tiphisas or Theiss, the Drecon, and Tigas ; which are no doubt the Maros, and either the Great or the Little Koros. We learn that maize, or Indian corn, was cultivated instead of wheat, and a barley drink is used, called Kam. It appears that then, as now, marshes were abundant ; and that a storm coming on in the night, the tents were blown down, and, presenting themselves at a village, they 230 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. were received with hospitality, and a fire made of dried reeds. The mistress of this village was one of the widows of Bleda, the murdered brother of Attila, and she sent them, not only provisions, but beautiful females, according to Scythian hospitality ; and the ambassador presented her, in return, with red sheep- skins, Indian pepper, dates, and other dried fruits. After a week's march, they came to a considerable town, in which was the house of Attila, which was much more lofty and beautiful than the others of his empire. It was, however, built of wood, and sur- rounded by an ornamental paling, and adorned with towers. At some distance was the bath, which Onegesis, the wealthiest and most powerful of the Huns, except Attila, had built of stones brought from Pannonia ; " for there are neither," says Priscus, " stones nor lofty trees in this part of Scythia," which seems to me to be conclusive against the supposition that the head quarters of Attila were at Tokay, which is within a convenient distance of both wood and stone ; so that it must have been farther south in the plain, probably not very far from Debreczin. It appears that the builder of this bath was a Roman, made prisoner at Sirmium, who had hoped that liberty would be the prize of his labour ; but Onegesis had made him the scrubber of his bath, which is an art in itself, and thus the Roman remained in durance vile. When Attila arrived in this village, young maidens THE HUNS IN HUNGARY. 231 came to meet him, walking in rank and file, under a canopy of fine white linen, held up on each side by the hands of women. When Attila passed the house of Onegesis, the wife of the latter came out, followed by a crowd of female slaves, who presented him with meats and wine, and, saluting the King, begged him to taste them, which he did, without alighting from horseback, his men holding up to him the silver table on which they were placed. Priscus then relates an anecdote of an encounter with a Greek, naturalised in the capital of Attila. Waiting at day-break to get admission to the house of Onegesis, the gates of which were shut, he saw a man whom he took to be a barbarian of the Scythian army, and who saluted him in Greek, which produced surprise on the part of Priscus, for the barbarians only cultivated the language of the Goths and the Huns, and those who had relations of commerce with the Romans, spoke Latin, but none of them spoke Greek, with the exception of the captives who took refuge in Thrace, or maritime Illyria, but the latter were easily recognisable by their ragged clothes and their rueful countenances. But this man had the look of a prosperous and wealthy Scythian. He was dressed with elegance, and, like other Asiatics, had the head shaved. On Priscus saluting him, and asking him who he was 1 — where he had come from 1 — and why he had adopted the costume of the 232 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. Huns 1 — he answered, that he was Greek, and had established himself at the town of Viminiacuni, on the Danube, where he had married a rich woman ; but, at the capture of the town, he and his wealth had fallen, on the division of the spoil, to the Huns ; but having afterwards valiantly served Attila in war, he had attained his liberty, married a barbarian woman, and preferred his new to his former way of life. On the following day, Priscus went into the interior, or what we may call the hareem of the house of Attila, to carry presents to his wife Creca, by whom he had had three children. In this hareem were many edifices of wood, both carved, and plain polished, and the whole architecture was according to certain propor- tions. Within was the wife of Attila, reclining on a soft divan, the floor covered with a carpet, a multi- tude of slaves forming a circle around her, and oppo- site her, female servants squatted on the ground, working on coloured cloths to ornament the dresses of the Huns. While they were at the palace, Attila himself was seen to come out with an air of gravity, gave judg- ment in disputed cases, and received deputations. Here the Greek ambassador encountered those of the Emperor of the West, who were come on another business, but rather as suppliants than as the repre- sentatives of an equal treating with an equal. " When we were/' said Priscus, " expressing our surprise at THE HUNS IN HUNGARY. 233 the intractable pride of the barbarian, Romulus, a man of experience, who had been charged with several honourable missions, said, ' This pride comes from his good fortune, by which he is so puffed up, that reason has no weight with him, and that he thinks that nothing is right but what has entered into his head/ " After this, Attila invited both the Greek and Roman ambassadors to an entertainment at the ninth hour of the day, or, probably, between two and three in the afternoon, and on entering they were presented with a cup of wine which they drank before being seated. Attila occupied the centre of the apartment, reclin- ing on a couch, behind which were steps that led up to the bed on which he slept, and which was adorned with cloths and carpets of various colours, such as the Romans and Greeks prepared for married couples. Onegesis occupied the first seat to the right of Attila, it having been arranged that the first class of guests should be arranged on the right, and the second on the left. Two of the sons of Attila being opposite Onegesis. Attila then drank wine with the guests all round, according to their rank, to recognise which honour each rose and remained standing until he had re- stored it to the servant. It appears that there were other tables set out in the room for receiving three or four, or more guests, and that a great variety of 234 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. dishes had been prepared and served on silver plate, but Attila himself had only a plate of wood, and he showed in every thing the same Quakerly affectation of simplicity, for while the other guests drank out of cups of gold and silver, his cup was of wood. After the first course, all rose and drank a bumper to the health and prosperity of Attila, and the other dishes were brought in, and towards evening, the tables being cleared, barbaric poetry was recited in praise of the victories of Attila. " Some," says Priscus, " were charmed by the verses, others were kindled by this picture of battles, tears flowed from the eyes of those whose age had extinguished their strength, and who could no longer quench their thirst for glory. After these songs came a buffoon, who produced roars of laughter by his merriment." It appears that a Moor, who had been in favour with the brother and predecessors of Attila, had married a barbarian wife, but on his return back to the Roman Empire, Attila had sent his wife to Aetius, the Roman General, as a present, and taking advan- tage of the festival, the husband came to ask her back. But, it appears, that his manner, his pro- nunciation, and strange mixture of Hun, Latin, and Gothic words, created inextinguishable laughter. Attila being the only one who preserved his gravity, for he said and did nothing that showed the least disposition to cheerfulness, only, when his youngest THE HUNS IN HUNGARY. 235 son was brought to him, he looked pleasurably on him, and familiarly pinched his cheek. In all this we perceive the northern Asiatic char- acter, a lack of arts and letters, but not absolute barbarism, for there are necessaries, and even some of the luxuries of civilised life — wooden houses, carpets, vessels of gold and silver, rude abundant hospitality, gravity in the giver of the feast, and, by contrast, a buffoon for entertainment. The Huns, like the Avars and the Magyars, who came after them, belonged to the race now called Oural-Finnish, who are said to be quite distinct from the Tartar-Turkish race, but their character and history appear to be all cognate, and to present those features which enable us to draw a strong line of distinction and contrast between the Northern Asiatic and the Germanic races. 23<> THE GOTH AND THE HUN. CHAPTER XXI. THE ASIATIC INUNDATIONS— GROSSWARDEIN IN THE TURKISH PERIOD. The division of the old world after the fall of the Roman Empire seems to be the quintessent fact to which the whole of the history of the last 1500 years is reducible. In Europe, during the middle ages, what mostly strikes us is the expansion of the Germanic element, the Frankish invasion of Gaul, the Saxon settlement of Great Britain, and the spread of the Germans into the South of Europe, and eastwards over a great extent of Slavonic territory. If we look eastwards we see the immense conquests of the Ouralian races, Mongul as well as Hunnic. The Turks swallow up all the Greek empire. The Tartars possess the immense empire of China, and India is also a Mongul empire under the descendants of Timour. The Magyars, as the reader knows, were already in possession of Hungary from the ninth century, the great Moravian kingdom having been shattered to pieces by them at the battle of Presburg, in 907. The Turkish invasion of Europe was the THE ASIATIC INUNDATIONS. 237 last great wave of this Asiatic inundation, the highest point it reached being in the conquest of Hungary, in the sixteenth century ; but here it stopped, for having successively submerged the Greek, Servian, and Magyar systems, it found an insurmountable Dutch dyke in the Germanic element. Nothing could be more deplorable than the con- dition of Hungary during the Turkish occupation. The Pashas of Buda and Temesvar were appointed as regularly as those of any other Pashalic in the Turkish Empire. The mode of government was the same as that which always existed until the late Sultan Mahmoud commenced the reform of the empire, that is to say, a criminal code, or any guarantee for the life of any human being could scarcely be said to exist, for while the private thief or murderer met with prompt retribution, the governor, great or small, who chose to play the thief or the murderer in order to enrich himself, could do so with perfect impunity, until the evil wrought its own cure ; that is to say, until either the ill-gotten gains of the Pasha or Bey were sufficiently large to tempt the Divan to make him disgorge, or until public indignation 'knew no bounds, and ended in the governor's being killed in a popular tumult. The annals of Naima give a very curious picture of what Hungary was at this period, and as it cannot be expected that he should make out Moslem 238 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. government to have been worse than what it really was, we are sure that what he says is not exaggerated. Nothing could have exceeded the barbarity with which the war was carried on ; we hear of thousands of prisoners having their heads cut off, and the con- stantly recurring fact of garrisons put to the sword, not only villages but whole tracts of country purposely ravaged by the Tartars of the Crimea who formed the light troops of the Turkish army, and the Khan of which nation was summoned by his liege Sultan at every outbreak of hostility to lead his numerous horsemen into the plains of Hungary. And when we, now-a-days, think of Grosswardein, Szolnok, Pesth, Gran, Comorn, and other places, as associated with " grim-visaged war," what a mere drop in the bucket of blood were the campaigns of 1848-9, when we look into the long wars of the Ottoman and Austrian emperors, of which Hungary was the field, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Every year or two, the Turkish war-trumpet sounds : its echoes are heard on the Caspian sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Adriatic. Roumelia and Anatolia send forth their armies ; the Beglerbegs with their sandjaks — the janissaries of the Tartars ; the Kurds and the Arnaouts throng to Belgrade ; the Danube and the Theiss are covered with boats of provisions and ammunition ("which have no beginning and no end"). Three-fourths of Hungary and THE ASIATIC INUNDATIONS. 239 Transylvania seem always in the Ottoman hands, and this mighty host comes to take the other fourth, and stand at the gates of Vienna. The first burst succeeds — more castles are taken, and sometimes an emperor in person encamps at the foot of the Slovack Carpathians. But again the Austrian trumpet sounds. A note of alarum thrills through all the German Empire ; then there is a mustering of Germans, Bohemians, and Poles ; archdukes and other dukes ; landgraves and margraves ; and the tide is again rolled back from Germany, only to menace again ; when the indignation of Constantinople, after a partial defeat, ends in the bow-string applied to the unsuccessful vizier, and redoubled exertions to make good the lost ground. But often the elements interpose, and instead of sanguinary horrors, we have the miseries of war. To me the Austro-Turkish wars in Hungary are as brimful of the romance of history, as brim can be ; but as I am now at Grosswardein, 1 must here terminate this part of my subject with a short extract from the annals of Naima, descriptive of the Turkish operations before Grosswardein in the month Sefer 1007, of the Hegira, which I presume to be the autumn of 1598, and which I take from the translation of my late highly esteemed and respected friend, Charles Fraser, one of the best Turkish scholars this country has seen. 240 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. " The fortress of Grosswardein, before which the Moslem army took up its position on the 29th, was situate on the boundaries which separate Germany and Transylvania, was very strong, and sur- rounded by suburbs and villages. So very large and extensive a place was Grosswardein, that it could easily contain 20,000 troops. Its gardens reached from the suburbs, and its country houses and other dwellings were no less extensive in number, it is conjectured, than the number which at that time were between Constantinople and the gardens of Davad Pasha, It is impossible to describe accurately the whole of the gardens and orchards, and the multitude of the inhabitants of Grosswardein. Some one or two years before the period we are now speaking of, a German army of several thousands took possession of it, and had it in subjection, when the orthodox army, under the grand Vizir and commander-in-chief Derah Mo- hammed Pasha, appeared before it. The suburbs and villages were inhabited by Hungarians. " When the Tatar troops advanced to attack the suburbs of Grosswardein, the inhabitants came boldly forth, and for a whole day and night fought with courage. But the Tatars no sooner succeeded in setting fire to their dwellings than they retired, put their families into waggons, and tried to escape through their postern gates. The Tatars pursued GROSSWARDEIN IN THE TURKISH PERIOD. 2 !■ I them with vigour, slew the grown up, made the young prisoners, and returned with immense booty. " Immediately after these things, the Khan of the Tatars, and the Sirdar of the Moslems, and other great men in the army, formed themselves into a council of war, and took into consideration whether they should proceed onwards and desolate the country, or stop where they then were, and en- deavour to vanquish the fortress of Grosswardein. The whole council were unanimous in thinking the latter plan the most advisable. So important and so strong a place, and so very near the frontiers of the Ottoman dominions, and which at once formed a key to Germany and Transylvania, they unani- mously considered ought not to be allowed to remain in the hands of the enemy, and they therefore determined at once on reducing: it. " On the first of Rabea II, therefore, the army entered the suburbs, the houses of which were well- built, and handsome ; and, instead of preparing themselves trenches, took possession of them. With the three pieces of ordnance which they had brought along with them, they began battering the fortress ; but they found, when it was too late to rectify their mistake, they had commenced a work far beyond their strength, and one which they had not maturely considered. They discovered their rashness, but not in sufficient time to correct their mistake. The 242 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. object of the expedition into the country, at the com- mencement of their operations, was to lay it waste, and therefore they did not encumber themselves with many cannon, that they might the more conveniently traverse the territories of Transylvania, and thoroughly chastise the inhabitants. They had no more cannon, therefore, than the three now mentioned, neither were they provided with any apparatus for carrying on a siege. This want they now began to feel, when it could not be easily and speedily remedied ; and to subdue a place of such great strength as Gross- wardein possessed, would require, they saw, an im- mense length of time. The Sirdar was most sensibly touched when he discovered his error, and was seriously affected by the mistake he had committed. He now began, though too late, to reflect, that the same fortress, in former days, had withstood for the space of forty -five days, the utmost effort of one of the earlier kings, without being vanquished. Seeing he had no chance of succeeding without a sufficient number of cannon, he wrote to Safi Sinan Pasha, beglerbeg of.,Agria, to join his camp, and to forward without delay, ten pieces of ordnance, and other apparatus from the fortress of Agria. In consequence of remissness or fraud, however, this order was not complied with ; or if complied with, was too late to be of any use to the besiegers. All the powder and balls which could be found in GROSSWARDEIN IN THE TURKISH PERIOD. 24:5 Gula, and in the palankas round about, were expended without making any impression on Gross- wardein. Two mines were also sprung, but without better effect. " The Tatars at this time, requested permission to range the country, and commit what devastation they could, but the Sirdar refused to give his consent ; saying, ' He hoped to God they would take Grosswardein, and they would afterwards proceed together.' It happened also, in the mysterious pro- vidence of God, that for the space of forty days it rained successively, and the rain which thus fell ran in torrents through the plains and valleys. The ground everywhere round Grosswardein became soft, and in several places marshes were formed. The ditches which the janissaries had prepared were all filled with water and clay, and the janissaries themselves were forced to retire to their tents. The whole of the army in these adverse circumstances became completely discouraged, particularly the officers. The stream which issued from the city, swelled to such a degree as to become impassable. In fact, it was at last impracticable to go from one tent to another. The winds also rose so awfully high as to tear away the very poles of the tents out of the ground, and the cattle sunk to their bellies in the mud. The troops also were for several days without meat, but this want was supplied by a great number of sheep which had R 2 244 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. been driven to the plains of Gross wardein. The most of these sheep were sent thither by the peasants of Szolnok, and nearly filled the whole country round Grosswardein. The cursed Prince of Transylvania, they were also informed, had secured himself in inaccessible mountains. " The Moslem army were thus exposed to all the inclemency of the weather, and to every possible hardship, and distressed and annoyed by the water which ran in torrents through their camp. In short, all this accumulation of adverse circumstances com- pletely overcame the spirit of the Moslem troops : they became totally heartless, and could do nothing. In the midst of all these indescribable distresses, they were informed by a messenger from Buda, that no fewer than 80,000 of the enemy, had attacked and destroyed Old Buda, and that, at that very moment, their large cannon were employed in battering Buda itself. They added, that if immediate aid were not afforded, Buda could not fail to fall into the hands of the enemy. They had heard at an earlier period of the same day on which this news was brought them, that a heavy body of the enemy had passed through Ganak and Waj, and had gone to Old Buda. The persons who brought the above intelligence main- tained it was of no use to send one or two thousand men ; it was absolutely necessary, they said, that the Sirdar should go in person with his whole army. GROSSWARDEIN IN THE TURKISH PERIOD. 245 " The sad and unwelcome messengers astonished and confounded the afflicted Sirdar and his suffering army by the intelligence they brought him. But his misfortunes were only increasing. The very adverse circumstances in which the Moslem army were placed, and the advance of the enemy against Buda, afforded a favourable opportunity to the treacherous Michael, of cursed memory, to cross the Danube, to attack the Vizir Hafez in Nicopolis, causing him to seek safety in flight ; and to commit the most dreadful depredations. This information became no sooner public, and its truth confirmed, than it increased, of course, the embarrassments of Saturji Mohammed Pasha, the commander-in-chief. But they had still to increase : Tata, Wesperim, and Papa, also fell into the hands of the hateful infidel enemy. These things were more than sufficient to confound all judgment. They were awful, terrible, and afflicting, beyond expression : nevertheless, the Sirdar, still bore up under all the misfortunes of the campaign. He determined, notwithstanding his perilous condition, to afford what aid he could to the quarter above-mentioned. Yet, in a council afterwards held, and in which the Khan and other magnates of the army were consulted, the difficulty of sending foot soldiers became quite apparent. Not only the distance, but the difficulties which such troops would have to encounter in crossing rivers 246 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. like seas, the Danube, and the Theiss (Tibiscus), was clearly discerned to be beyond the power of any but horsemen to accomplish. It was therefore agreed that a party of some thousands of the Tatar rangers should be dispatched, without any farther delay, as far as Pesth, where they were to spread a report that the Khan and the Sirdar would soon appear with their respective troops, and afford them effective aid. This measure, it was conjectured, would have the effect of strengthening such as had not fallen into the hands of the enemy, and of discouraging, if possible, the latter. The Tatar detachment proceeded. "In the meantime, the commander-in-chief was still looking in vain for the arrival of the cannon from Agria. But alas ! he was disappointed. Safi Sinan Pasha arrived in the camp empty handed. On being interrogated why he did not send the ten pieces of cannon as commanded, he returned for answer the senseless excuse, that no buffaloes could be had to transport them. It can easily be imagined what was the grief and affliction of the Moslem army, but it cannot be described. The whole of the provisions which they had been able to find in the vicinity of Grosswardein, was consumed, and the Tatars were obliged to bring from a great distance from the camp what flour and grain they were able to find. A keil (measure) of barley was sold for from three to five pieces of gold. GROSSWARDEIN IN THE TURKISH PERIOD. 247 " The Sirdar, it must be acknowledged, was the cause of the long delay of the Moslem army before Grosswardein, and of course, at least in some degree, of the evils to which they had been subjected. We have already observed how he refused to allow the Tatars to go on a predatory excursion through the country, saying, he hoped God would give him the victory in a day or two. He was miserably mistaken in his hopes, and accomplished nothing, at least nothing good, as w r e have seen. " The weather now became so very cold, that the men could keep neither feet or hands Avarm. Per- ceiving, therefore, that Grosswardein was not to be subdued by the means which he possessed, and as he had caused it to be reported about Pesth that he had raised the siege and had gone to Szolnok with the view of succouring Buda, the Sirdar began to retreat. In consequence, however, of the rivulets everywhere having swollen into rivers from the late rains, the Pasha of Temesvar, Ismael Pasha, was instructed to advance and erect bridges for the army ; but he did not erect even one ; the army had, therefore, in consequence of this neglect, to do the best they could. They crossed no fewer than twelve rivers, three of which, however, had bridges over them, of the above description, by means of rafts, and underwent immense difficulty and danger ;it every one which they crossed. Numberless poor '218 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. animals perished in these waters, and the troops suffered most severely from cold. The flour which they carried along with them was spoiled, and caused disease among the men, and they were therefore obliged to throw it away. Their three pieces of ordnance they succeeded in getting across these rivers, by means of strong ropes ; and Khaja Murad Pasha, who was beglerbeg of Diarbeker ; Mohammed Pasha, beglerbeg of Haleb ; and Safi Sinan Pasha, in order to encourage the troops, put their own necks into yokes, and helped to drag them onwards. The distance between Gross war dein and Gala was about three days' journey, but required twelve days on this occasion to accomplish it, during the whole of which time they suffered a thousand difficulties. Hundreds of men were left on the road, by reason of cold and hunger, or sunk into the mud. " The army was met by Iskander Beg, who was afterwards created Pasha, and the Ketkhoda of Teryeki, Hasan Pasha, in the plains of Gula, who confirmed the intelligence they formerly had received that Wesperim had fallen into the hands of the enemy, and earnestly requested the Sirdar to send off, as soon as possible, what succours he was able to the aid of those places which had been enabled still to hold out. The Sirdar gave him fine promises and sent him away next morning. (t The army moved from Gula (Julia) to Szolnok. GROSSWARDEIN IN THE TURKISH PERIOD. 249 At both these places they were obliged to pay a piece of gold for a loaf of bread. They expected that at the latter place, where they halted a whole day, boats with provisions would have been waiting for them ; but in this also they were grievously disap- pointed. When the troops saw that no boats with provisions had arrived by the river Theiss (Tibiscus), they were roused into rage, and commenced a tumult. Some of the janissaries rushed upon the Sirdar's tent, and pulled it down about his head ; each of them had taken a piece of wood in his hand with which they so be-laboured the poor commander- in-chief that he lay half murdered. They broke his skull with their bludgeons and his arm with a stone, and afterwards commenced the work of spoliation in his kitchen. It is certain that if some of the other officers had not come to his assistance, they would have cut him to pieces. The tent of the treasurer, Etimekji Zadeh, shared the same fate : it was not only thrown clown but robbed, and he himself only escaped with his life, which was entirely owing to the intervention of some of their superiors. They now abandoned the idea of proceeding to Buda. Towards evening the Sirdar was seen stepping round the tents, and seemed as if afraid and ashamed to enter his own. " In consequence of all these disastrous events and distressing circumstances, the strong fortress of 250 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. Buda was committed to God, and the Moslem army marched towards Segedin. Here they fortunately fell in with a number of boats loaded with provisions on the Tise, when a distribution of provisions im- mediately took place, which refreshed and recruited the much-weakened strength of the army, at least in some degree. " The accounts of the burning and destroying of the city or suburbs of Buda, and all the events which befel its inhabitants, must be reserved to a future chapter. In the meantime, however, the unfortunate Sirdar pressed down and grieved with the misfortunes which had befallen his orthodox army, became quite changed in his constitution. His soul was vexed within him : his body became poor and lean ; and in his broken-down condition he retired to Belgrade. His Royal Highness the Khan of the Crimea went to Sonbur, and his troops went into winter quarters in the Sanjak of Segedin. The beglerbeg of Romeili was sent with the provincials to the Sanjak of Pechevi. The janissaries and other troops, after having been paid their arrears, were also sent into winter quarters. The money necessary for paying these arrears had been borrowed from the rich men and merchants of Belgrade. " These arrangements were no sooner over than a heavy fall of snow fell, and a most intense cold commenced. Thus ended this unfortunate campaign." THE MORAL. 25] CHAPTER XXII. THE MORAL OF THE GOTH AND THE HUN. At length the peace of Westphalia enabled Austria to turn the whole of her strength against the Turks, and step by step from this period up to the year 1718 after the victories of Eugene, Austria conquered, not only all Hungary, but a considerable portion of Servia. Now-a-days it is the fashion of the ultra-Magyar organs, so to concoct their historical accounts, that this grand fact is conveniently ignored, but whoever chooses to take the common- sense interpretation of history, must see that Hungary was relieved from the Turkish yoke, not by the poor disinherited king of Hungary, but by the house of Hapsburg, with the resources of the German empire at its back. All accounts of the last two centuries leave room for the possibility of no other opinion, as they were not concocted with the prospective object of a revival of Magyar supremacy over the other races and the disruption of the military integrity of the Austrian empire. Lord Bacon's account of the 252 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. state of Europe under the article " Emperor," men- tions, that the revenues and subsidies of Hungary do not pass 100,000 florins, while the last emperor solemnly affirmed that the charge of Hungary amounted to one million and a half. The same with the copious contemporary Dutch accounts (" Guerres de la Hongrie. A la Haye, 1686."), and all others down to the record of my own humble tour, in the course of which, looking through a portion of the military archives of the fortress of Temesvar, I stumbled upon a bird's eye view and plan of the siege of that Turkish fortress by Prince Eugene's army, in which it was clearly shown by an unvarnished contemporary scientific and artistical document, how very small a pro- portion the Magyar bear to the other imperialist troops. I say all this, not to impugn the courage of the Magyars — not from antipathy to the Magyar race, whose social qualities are more attractive than those of the Germans, but, in the interests of historical truth, and as a protest against that cooking of the historical accounts of the relations of Austria to Hungary, which characterises the productions of those unreasonable sticklers for those unfair preten- sions of the ultra-Magyar faction, which have plunged the reasonable part of the nation into this abyss of suffering. As I have said in another lucubration, " The root of the tree of liberty in Hungary is the re-conquest of that country from the THE MORAL. 253 Porte, by the armies, generals and resources of the house of Austria. In Dalmatia, there are parties who can show the title-deeds of their landed property in the Bosniac part of the Ottoman empire, regularly signed, sealed, and delivered. The only flaw in them is some centuries of alienation ; the only implement desiderated, possession. What is the value of these title-deeds in the money market 1 Much the same as the value of the Hungarian constitution, when a Turkish pasha was sitting in Buda." And as for material civilisation it was quite impossible, where not even a shadow of security existed for life and property. A complete alteration took place in the appearance of Hungary in the eighteenth century ; the marshes were drained, roads and bridges were made — towns and fortifications reconstructed, in all those portions of the territory, directly under the Austrian rule, and the Banat became superior to the other parts of Hungary, in consequence of its having remained so Ions; unconnected with the civil administration of Hungary and directly under Austria, and in the time of the Emperor Joseph, a large portion of Lower Hungary had become settled with German colonists : and whoever has read the account I have given of Belgrade in my work on Servia, may remember the odd appearance of the Lange Gasse with its highly ornamented architecture of the age of Charles VI., now a new ruin in the midst of the rickety wooden 254 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. Turkish houses of that town, which but for the reconquest of Servia by the Ottoman power would have become the embryo of another Temesvar. Let us now pause for an instant to analyse the pervading character of those two great families, which have divided the empire of the world — which have trampled on so many nations, principalities and powers, — which so often met in the shock of war, from the times of the Roman Empire, even down to our own generation, — which has seen an army officered by Anglo-Saxons, cross the Indus and traversing the defiles of the Himalayan, storm a Tartar race in its own capital, — and which still more recently has seen the plains where an Attila and an Arpad pitched their tents, contested by fiery Frank and furious Hun. The deduction which I make from all I have seen in Hungary and read in general history is, that the Germanic element may be called the empire of intellect and perseverance ; and the Asiatic element, the empire of will and violent physical force. The Hun, the Magyar and the Turk, are distinguished by fiery courage, hospitality, and generosity, — not lore of civilisation, which springs from labour, but of luxury, the result of the labour of others. The bath, which I described the Hun Onegesis, as having enjoyed, was constructed, not by a Hun, but by a Roman, who was a captive through the valour of the Hun. And if w r e pass to the other end of Asia, at a subsequent THE MORAL. 255 period, we find that the great monuments of China, which have been executed under the Tartar monarchs, were not constructed by Tartars but by Chinese. The mosques of India, too, although erected under the Mogul sovereigns, had Arab and Persian architects. If we pass to Cairo and are shown the splendid college of Sultan Hassan, a masterpiece of the simple majestic, we are told that the Sultan was a Turk, and so was his father before him, Mohammed El-Nasr, in whose reign it might almost be said, like that of Augustus, that it began with brick and ended with marble ; so was also his father again, the Great Kalaon, the most warlike of the Turkish Sultans. But when we enquire who constructed these edifices % — what was the style of their architecture \ and who were the learned men who occupied these temples of arts and letters 1 — we again find that we have to do with the Arab element ; and that we have precisely the same phenomenon on the banks of the Nile as on the banks of the Danube and Theiss, where the bridge of Pesth is a monument of the Asiatic taste for conve- nience and ornament, the result of Anglo-Saxon archi- tecture and engineering, Styrian iron-working, Italian masonry and Greek capital — an Asiatic race valiant in war and rich in landed property, in consequence of its valour availing itself of the skill and industry of alien races, acquired by the pacific qualities of mind and body subject to patient application. The pains and 256 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. penalties to which the Asiatic submits as the price of the things that he values are not those of slow accu- mulation and continual intellectual application, but of violent physical effort and fearlessness of danger ; the result has been — empires broad and wide — boldly seized, — long retained, — and never yielded without an obstinate contest. But in all the lands that have bent under this terrific sway, from the blue waters of the Adriatic to the slimy shallows of the Yellow Sea, there is no enduring monument of a distinctive Mongolian-Finnic science and literature. The bath of Onegesis, the bridge of Pesth, and the pentagonal arsenal of Grosswardein, where Austrian Major Lahner cast balls and bored cannon for Magyars to fire off, all belong to the same family and speak volumes. The Magyar aristocracy is no longer barbarous or semi-barbarous, but their taste for luxury, the result of the labour and skill of other races, which their territorial wealth enables them to procure, is not to be confounded with the civilisation that pervades all ranks in the German confederation. As this chapter is ethnological rather than political, I will say nothing of the devices used to absorb the other nationalities, which I have fully treated in my account of Croatia (" Highlands and Islands of the Adriatic," vol. II., commencing page 120), nor of the events of the revolution. The accomplishment of the legislative union of Austria and Hungary opens COLONISATION OF HUNGARY. 257 up an entirely new epoch in the history of the material civilisation of Hungary, from the resumption of the colonisation of the waste lands by the Germans. All those countries to the south of Grosswardein and Szegedin are under-cultivated and under-populated, while, without invasion of private property, the crown lands are so extensive, so valuable, and have been so little utilised, that if Austria can remain for a dozen years at peace, all that country behind the Theiss, which is the strong- hold of the Magyar nationality, will be mingled with a new Germanic element. This will undoubtedly be viewed with the greatest jealousy and aversion by the ultra-Magyar faction, but it will be a great outlet to Wirtemberg and other over-populated parts of Germany, and offer a field of emigration much less expensive than settlement in America ; and if Austria can secure in the question the concurrence and support of the Saxon, Bavarian, and other governments of Germany, all this opens up an entirely new phase in the history of Austria and Hungary. In short, it makes an epoch in civilisation ; and, unquestionably, a pacific conquest of Hungary by Germanic colo- nisation is a far greater blow to the possibility of ultra-Magyar supremacy than the mere material conquest, for armies may be destroyed, but not a widely ramified system of colonisation. Thus the 258 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. engagement of the material interests of the German confederation in the Germanic element of Hungary mingles with politics a knife and fork question, — the extravasation of the redundant population of Germany into the capacious territorial basin of the Theiss and the Maros. Austrian centralisation imposed on the Magyars is like attempting to push a heavy waggon up a steep hill, or attempting to force water upwards, against the opposing principle of gravitation. But the opening of the almost virgin pusztas of the Theiss and the Maros to the German populations pressing on the limits of the means of subsistence, is like the opening of flood-gates to the passage of pent and dammed waters. Thus we see the last efforts of the Germanic and Asiatic elements, in perfect harmony with their ethnological character. The Hungarian war was a most splendid outburst of valour and en- thusiasm, by a people fonder of domination than of liberty ; and if I were to live for a hundred years I should make certain of seeing this spectacle several times renewed to the peril of the existence of the Austrian empire. But if the German colonisation go on, the chances for the predominance of the Asiatic element in Hungary are immeasurably diminished, and the chances for the furtherance of material civilisation immeasurably increased, but as for thorough municipal development as contrasted COLONISATION OF HUNGARY. 259 with centralisation, which I look upon as the most essential part of constitutional liberty, it had as much chance of surviving the poison of denationalisation of the other races and repeal of the union with Austria, as the writer of these observations would have a chance of life after a dose of prussic acid. Such are the invariable results of those so-called reforms of corporate bodies, by changes incompatible with the laws of their organic existence. << -z 260 THE GOTH AND THE HUN CHAPTER XXIII. DEBRECZIN— DISORDERLY PEASANTRY— THE NADOR— GIPSY MUSICIANS— DESCRIPTION OF DEBRECZIN— SOCIAL CON- DITION—SUFFERINGS FROM THE WAR. From Grosswardein I proceeded in an open sledge to Debreczin, for the cold was still severe and sledging the usual mode of conveyance ; I thus easily per- formed the journey in one day with the same horses. At the half-way house we stopped to dine, a very humble road-side inn, and on entering the room cold and hungry, found any thing but comfort, the floor being of earth, several peasants wrangling with each other, one of whom clenched his argument by seizing a large bottle of wine and dashing it on the table, the glass and liquid scattering about in all directions, and the landlady in tears. When I asked whether I could get any thing for dinner, she said " nothing but bread and wine ; for,"' added she, "these drunken men have carried off a stock of meat that I had prepared this morning, and have not only done that, but on my insisting on having money, have broken and dashed to pieces all DISORDERLY PEASANTRY. 261 my pots and pans, and will neither pay nor go away." This she told me in passable German, shedding tears as she spoke. I asked her if there was no law or authority in the place. And she informed me that her husband was gone to the magistrate of the place, and that she was in terror for her life. None of the peasants spoke German, so that we continued our conversation uninterrupted by them ; and however indignant I might have been I did not think it prudent to meddle in the matter, for her account of their habitual conduct tallied with all that I have heard of the condition of the peasantry since the insane measure of the abolition of labour rents without previously determining in each particular case, what money equivalent the peasant became responsible for, from the day that the labour rents ceased, as , was done in our own country, when the vassal became farmer. The commutation of rents in kind and labour into money has been highly beneficial to the British landlord and tenant ; but in Hungary the peasant, so far from having enriched himself, has merely devoted a larger amount of his time and money to the public-house, while the landlord has been nearly ruined. Thus, "ill-gotten gear never thrives," and no man was ever the more prosperous by being freed from the payment of just debts which he could regularly and conveniently liquidate. When the husband came in he brought with him 262 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. another man, who I suppose was a constable, and one of the drunkards went away out, and in a short time returned with money, which he paid over to the people of the house. The landlord himself was a respectable looking countryman, and wore a very showy frogged and braided new surtout. He told me that " his name was Gaspar Kis, and that he was a lieutenant in the Hungarian army, and was one of those that were in Comorn," and pulling out a large greasy pocket-book, showed me his passport under the capitulation, and that he had taken this public- house. " But," added he, " I mean to give it up, for these daily brawls with the drunken peasants weary my life out ; " and his wife said, " I weep all day, Avhen I think what I was as the wife of a lieutenant, spending my time in the pleasant societies, and what I am now. I tell my husband," said she, " that I can hold out no longer, and that we must seek our fortune in some other employment." When the horses were baited I started again, it being very clear sunshine, and by moonlight I arrived at Debreczin. But we passed house after house and went through street after street of scattered houses, so that it was a considerable time before we arrived at the Nador, which is the principal inn of the place. So widely scattered is Debreczin, in consequence of every house, except those of the centre of the town, having a considerable patch of ground attached to it. GIPSY MUSICIANS. 263 At length I arrived at the inn, which I found to be a very good one, and much better than I expected, for even in Pesth I had heard exaggerated accounts of the badness of the accommodation, which were not realised, for my bedroom was nicely papered or stencilled, the bed was clean, the floor matted, and the service very good. In the public rooms I saw a dictinction which I had no where else observed in Hungary. One being inscribed as military and the other as civilian, which I understand was for the purpose of avoiding all irritating discussions between the garrison and the people of the towh. I found a loud hubbub going on in the civilian public room, and at one end of it a large table laid out with a supper, which one of the townsmen was giving to his fellow citizens on his birth day ; and next the window were five or six gipsy musicians, who played Hungarian airs from time to time. They were all well advanced in their cups, and in fact it was an orgie, and it was with the utmost difficulty that I could avoid their constant offers of wine and their endless toasts ; but it was the best gipsy band I had ever heard, and the leader, a man with dark Hindoo features, never spoke a word during the whole evening with his lips, and might have passed for dumb. But with the violin in his hand and with erected bow, his eyes and eyebrows were in perpetual telegraphic communication with the giver of the 264 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. feast, as to when he should begin and when he should stop, so that to this hour of writing, his visage stands before my mind's eye, with such quaint ex- pressive distinctness, that I regret that I am not artist enough to reproduce its living lineaments. The Zriny march was encored with immense enthu- siasm ; a stout old man of between seventy and eighty years of age with long white beard and mustachios, and who was said to be a jeweller in the town, dancing about the room like a madman and snapping his fingers to keep time with the movement of the march, and when " God save the Emperor " was played, shouted aloud, " God save the Emperor, but the Austrian camarilla ought to give an amnesty." As midnight approached, the fun grew fast and furious, but in spite of my being a fanatico per la musica, I felt most inclined for bed, and enjoyed a sound sleep after passing a long day in the keen bracing air of the puszta of Debreczin with the cold, to be sure diminished from what it had been, but still from sixteen to eighteen degrees of Reaumur. Next day was devoted to seeing the internal part of the town and delivering my letters. I was much pleased with the great square of the town, which has really a much more noble and civilised appear- ance than I had been led to expect. In fact there is no medium in the place. When I looked at this public square with its great Calvinistic church — the DESCRIPTION OF DEBRECZIN. 265 massive town-house, and several other remarkably handsome edifices, and then thought of the endless lanes of cottages in which the citizen farmers lived, I recognised the presence of the Asiatic element, and remembered those Turkish provincial capitals, where a mosque or two of magnificent architecture contrasts with streets of extensive unvarying mean- ness. It was market day when I first traversed the square and saw it crowded with people, the females wrapped in fur jackets and cloaks, many of them with crimson coats.. The principal articles of traffic being flitches of bacon, large and fat, the staple pro- duction of the district, of which I saw thousands laid out on the snow, while the centre space was kept clear for sledges sliding and jingling along. Debreczin possesses fourteen square German miles of territory, most of it good pasture land, or land that might be arable ; and this it lets to its own citizens, who cultivate it in the inconvenient manner I have formerly described, and who sell the produce in the town, which causes it to be a place of great trade in wool, hides, bacon, hog's lard, &c. ; so that the popu- lation is not less than 50,000 souls, nearly all of whom are Calvinists, except a few Catholics. Most prominent among the edifices is the Cal- vinistic church, a building of great size, built in the beginning of this century, of a mongrel Italian sort of architecture, which has acquired a historical 26G THE GOTH AND THE HUN. celebrity, by its having been the locality of Kossuth's celebrated declaration of independence. Here is a service of psalms and prayers every morning at the hour of eight. I confess I have never been able to discover much euphony in the spoken language of the Magyars, although the popular notion is that it was the language in which God spoke to Adam ; but nobly did it sound in my ears, when, passing from the snow-covered market-place, where the sun was shining in keen frosty brightness, I entered the temple, and heard these Mag}^ars addressing the Deity, while the tones of the organ resounded through its vaults. There is no altar in Calvinistic churches ; but the communion-table, within a wooden enclosure, was the spot where the declaration of independence was made by Kossuth. This was not the usual place of the meeting of the convention of Debreczin, which was in a small chapel, or oratory, of the Calvinistic college, a large edifice built behind the church ; and, with its wide passages, great staircases, and general arrangement, had the air of an Italian convent. Theology, lite- rature, and some sciences, are taught here, its prin- cipal object being the preparation of Calvinistic pastors. In the library I was shown several incuna- bula, or books printed before the year 1500 ; and the party that accompanied us through the place told me that their endowment has a slight accession SOCIAL CONDITION. 2G7 by an annual payment of 751. sterling, from a religious society in Great Britain ; and for some time after the conclusion of the war, this building had been the principal hospital of the wounded and sick of the Russian army, until their recovery enabled them to undertake a winter journey. The Oratory, in which was held the celebrated secret sitting that preceded the declaration of independence, might contain 300 or 400 persons ; the usual seat ot Kossuth having been pointed out to me in the front row to the right on entering, a small square gallery above having been reserved for ladies. As to what is commonly called society, it cannot be said to exist at Debreczin, and is represented by a few lawyers, merchants, and physicians, with the professors of the college, who might be counted on the fingers ; and what will surprise the reader is, that the citizens of Debreczin themselves are, as a body, by no means revolutionary, but a jolly, simple, good-natured, ignorant people, just like the Turks of some town in the interior of Asia Minor. The element of political agitation w T as the tail that fol- lowed Kossuth and Madarasz from Pesth. The poor citizen of Debreczin, in his sheep-skin cloak and long- boots, attending to his hogs and his horses, has not the least idea of the merits of knotty political ques- tions ; and although the locality of the declaration of independence was Debreczin, the men of the 268 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. declaration were Kossuth and his small but energetic clique. The people of Debreczin, therefore, moved my com- miseration, as much as those who plunged them into these misfortunes excited my indignation. They com- plained most loudly and bitterly of their losses, by the plunder of the Cossacks, and described to me the ingenuity that these wild horsemen exercised in getting at their valuables. Every part of a barn and cellar were poked with their lances, to see if the earth were soft, and if silver spoons or other valuables were hid. They seized every horse in the town they could find in private stables, but were always ready to sell them again for thirty per cent, of their value. Often, however, a proprietor had to buy his horse twice over. Even General , the most polite, friendly man possible, who shook every- body by the hand, kissed acquaintances of two days' standing with the warmth of old friendship, stood cool and unmoved himself under the hottest can- nonade but offered peppermint-drops to those who had caught cold in a draught of air, and was a perfect master of minor courtesies ; made requisitions of wood, and other necessaries, for his corps, which he sold again next day, and the proceeds of which, we may rest assured, did not go into the exchequer of the Autocrat. I must, however, make an honour- able exception of General Prince Bebutoff, who nobly SUFFERINGS FROM THE WAR. 269 spurned at all opportunities of peculation or plunder, and when he left the house in which he was quar- tered, told his landlord to examine the apartments, and see if the smallest article w r as missing. Thousands of families in Debreczin had relations killed or wounded ; and however much the ultra- Magyar aberration was inconsistent with either the universally recognised principles of law, or with a true and just conception of civil liberty, I was perpetually reminded, in the most painful manner, of how small a number of persons could be deliberately considered responsible for their immense sufferings. At a dinner given by the principal lawyer in the town, I met the principal physician in the place, Doctor K . He had two brothers in the Austrian army, who served with distinction in the first campaign under Radetzky. In the following year one brother remains in Italy, the other becomes General K -, in the Hungarian army. The Temple of Janus is shut. The officer in Italy gets his promotion, and General K turns Mussulman. 70 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. CHAPTER XXIV. DEBRECZINIANA. The details of the declaration of independence which has given a historical importance to Debreczin are so curious that I cannot recommence my journey without some notice of them ; gathered, not from publications that have already appeared, but from oral testimony of the most authentic character. The time is past for investing the general story of the revolution and revolutionary war with any novelty ; I shall there- fore, in the earlier part of this chapter, attempt to anticipate a subsequent stage, when the whole is seen from the panopticon of the impartial historian. The reader is aware that twenty years ago Hungary was in possession of a constitution which contained the sound and excellent principles, not only of general but of local or municipal representative government; but the mode of action was of too feudal a character, for the nobility alone were electors, several hundred thousands of whom belonging to the peasant class DEBRECZINIANA. 271 were undistinguished by either property or intelli- gence. Secondly, nearly all ignoble peasants were in a state of serfage or villenage, and thirdly, the nobles being exempt from taxation, which was thrown upon the misera plebs contribuens, and not being amenable to processes founded on laws of credit, the result was that retrograde state of the material civilisation of Hungary, which, to this day, renders it such a contrast to the rest of the Austrian empire. Under these circumstances the course for Hungarian patriotism to pursue lay as straight before it as the Nore lies straight before a vessel coming from the eastward. All that was wanted was the substitution of a fair property qualification in place of a nobiliary one, and the compulsion of nobles as well as ignobles to pay their fair share of taxation ; for after the introduction of a standing army, military service which procured the exemption, was no longer requisite for the state. Lastly, without releasing the vassal from his pecuniary obligation to the freeholder, it was high time to abolish serfdom and to place every man, whether he called himself noble or ignoble, on a perfect level as regarded the privileges of citizenship and liability to public burthens. However distasteful this change may have been to the aristocratic prejudices and ultra-conservative feelings of the privileged class in Hungary itself, no reasonable Austrian ever did or ever could object to 272 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. reforms, the most of which assimilated the principles of Hungarian to those of Austrian law ; for serfdom had been abolished long ago in Austria, and no nobiliary privileges could exempt a man's property from being liable for his just debts, or from contri- butions to the state for the improvement of commu- nications and the development of material resources, while the change from a nobiliary to a property quali- fication in elections neither added to nor subtracted from the dynastic interests of the house of Hapsburg nor the military integrity of the Austrian empire. In short, the path of the Hungarian reformer lay as straight before him as the fair way of a harbour of easy access ; but the rock upon which he split was ultra-Magyarism, — not the improvement of con- stitutional government, — but something altogether foreign to municipal and constitutional government, — that is to say, egotism, not of a class such as that of noble over ignoble, or of democrat against aristocrat ; but of one particular race, language and nationality, over the other languages and nationalities. It was this aberration or deviation from the high road of reform into the quagmire of national egotism that is the most striking 'phenomenon of the modem history of Hungary. That was the unique motive of the other races to ally themselves with Austria, for, as I have previously explained, this unhappy and fatal aberration had the effect not only of rousing DEBRECZINIANA. 273 the other nations against the ultra-Magyar move- ment, and of causing them to look to absolute Austria, in spite of their antipathy to absolutism ; but at the same time it raised up such a Chinese wall between Hungary and Austria as made the latter power cling to the oppressed nationalities in spite of her known antipathy to popular institutions. Sechenyi, with the best intentions, commenced both the bane and the balsam of Hungary ; — the revival of the Magyar language as the exclusive official medium, — and the consequent degradation of the other nation- alities that looked upon the long Turkish occupation and the Austrian conquest of Hungary as having made tabula-rasa of Magyar supremacy. And, at the same time, he was the author of that excellent series of measures which made the serf a free man, which, by improving the laws of credit, infused a con- fidence into the Vienna capitalist which had never previously existed, and which have associated the name of Sechenyi most deservedly with public works, which, so far from tending to political separation from Austria, tended to consummate the happy marriage of the skill and capital of Austria with the virgin resources of Hungary. For this, the name of Sechenyi, will, as long as the Empire of Austria lasts, be surrounded by a halo of respect, while the ultra- Magyarism, which he began, and which has no more to do with the principles of constitutional and 274 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. municipal government in the abstract, or with the liberties of Hungary in particular, than chalk has to do with cheese, will be remembered as an illustration of the saying of Macchiavelli, "That when men begin an organic change in a state, they never can tell where it will stop," for Sechenyi lived to see the tares of his sowing outgrow the fruits, — the serf, not only in the enjoyment of liberty, but of license, at the expense of his landlord's rent-roll, — and his own reform of Hungary succeeded by Kossuth and Batthyany's repeal of the union with Austria. I will not inflict upon the reader the thrice-told tale of the revolution ; suffice it to say, that, after the murder of Latour in Vienna, and the battle of Schwochat, in which the Hungarians were defeated, Kossuth lost his head, and fled in utter confusion to Pesth, and then to Debreczin. It is Georgey who is the great historical character of the Magyar cause. But that is not the popular notion, which elevates Kossuth to the rank of a great practical statesman, and designates Georgey as an intriguer and a traitor. Both of these celebrated men are in a state of depo- sition and exile ; and, while the revolutionary press teems with eulogies of Kossuth, and with condemnation of Georgey, both by newspaper articles and portly tomes, there is nothing notable said by the Vienna press in favour of Georgey ; for in political principles he differs from Kossuth only in not having concurred DEBRECZINIANA. 275 in the declaration of independence ; and in Vienna eyes, while Kossuth is an unpardoned rebel, Georgey is not a man whose principles have been approved, but who is a rebel, pardoned for having had the good sense and the humanity not to prolong a contest that was utterly hopeless. I therefore state my opinion, and take up the case of this almost -universally reprobated man, from a firm persuasion and conviction that he has not met with that British fair play of which we boast as the jewel of our national character. For while Kossuth and several others of his party twice came before the public in vindication of their conduct, Georgey has preserved a perfect silence, which, although I have had no communication with him, direct or indirect, I can easily explain to myself by the fact, that, being under Austrian sur- veillance, he could not put forth his mind fully without some reiteration of his repeal principles. I therefore say a few words on the rivalry of these two men, from a sincere admiration of the military and political genius of Georgey, from my perfect con- viction of his honesty, and my dissatisfaction with the want of fair play that he has had ; and all this notwithstanding my complete disapprobation of his Repeal principles. My opinion then, is, that if we take away Georgey from the Hungarian struggle, and the immense rising T 2 276 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. made by the Magyar nation, it was nothing at all that could have formed an obstacle to the complete reconquest of Hungary. It was the iron discipline of Georgey that created a formidable army out of troops that had nowhere stood their ground after the battle of Schwochat. His manoeuvres in the Carpathians, to withdraw the attention of the Austrians from the regions behind the Theiss, where Lahner and other men of iron organised the resources of the army, are more like the miracles of a Napoleon's first Italian campaign than anything in the military history of Austria since that period, and which, almost from the very beginning, gave such electrical confidence to the troops under his command. It is true that he did not mince matters ; that he expected from his officers something of his own adamantine energy and courage, and shot them by the dozen, so as, by terrible examples, to indurate their courage and discipline ; but he was the creator of the army ; and, in the hour when he had taken his dispositions to aim a decisive blow r at General Schlick, he found himself superseded by Dembinski in the chief com- mand, through Kossuth, to the universal dissatisfaction of the army. The subsequent events are well known to the reader. The army was dissatisfied ; Georgey was once more commander, and forthwith chained victory to his standards. Issaszek was the turning point for DEBRECZINIANA. :2 7 7 the Hungarians. Hitherto the scales had trembled, but here the preponderance of the Magyar army was decided, and Godollo, Waitzen, and Comorn followed each other in rapid succession. In fact, if we except Bern's splendid first campaign in Transylvania, Georgey is the great practical genius of the revolutionary war. He, and he alone, was the man that created that formidable position of Hungary that shook the Austrian power to its centre. All that Kossuth did was to keep the bank-note press going, and to make speeches. While Georgey conquered, Kossuth declaimed, like Barrere in the French convention, so that it seemed as if the successes of Georgey were the results, not of the unique genius of this general, but of his own combinations. In short, if we subtract Georgey from this great insurrection, nothing remains to meet our vision but Kossuth flying in confusion across the Theiss, and troops nowhere standing their ground. The movement to the Carpathians was not only the idea of Georgey, but the lever of the brief military power of the Magyars ; and his victorious return to the Danube was what precipitated Kossuth's declaration of independence. The splendid victories of Georgey had made him the idol of the army, and Kossuth saw himself eclipsed by the practical man. He was indisputably (and I say this deliberately, and after much inquiry) filled with unmeasured envy of the novus homo, and 278 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. he foresaw that a peace with Austria, if concluded by Georgey, would render him the first personage in Hungary ; and there can be no doubt that the declaration of independence which he sought to carry through was intended to make all accommoda- tion impossible, and, as the phrase goes, to prevent return by burning their ships, with the most reckless indifference to ultimate consequences. And here let me remark that there were two sorts of repealers of the military and financial union with Austria ; the royalist repealers, who wished to separate from Austria, but not from the house of Hapsburgh. To this section belonged not only Georgey, but a large majority both of the officers of the army and the Debreczin convention ; and I make this statement after the fullest inquiry, and with the fullest conviction. The Kossuth party may be called the democratic repealers, * who sought not only the dissolution of the union with Austria, but also with the house of Hapsburg. The former party were somewhat like our O'Connellites, who declared their hatred to England, but vowed love and fidelity to the Queen of Ireland ; the latter like our Irish democrats of a subsequent stage, but did not even preserve the appearance of royalism. The whole of this business of the declaration of * I use the word democratic, solely with reference to the ultra-Magyar party, for towards the great majority of the other races and parties in Hungary, the feelings of the ultra-Magyars were despotic, not fraternising. DEBRECZTNIANA. 270 independence, when fully cleared up, and the state- ments I give, elucidated and corroborated, will, in my humble opinion, confirm my other statements, to the effect that Kossuth is one of the greatest revolution- ary orators, but that as a practical statesman, and a great historical character, which his eulogists attempt to make him out to be, his reputation stands on sand, and that the waters of time will find the foundations of his title to anything like judgment or practical ability, or even greatness of purpose without self-glorification, to be of the most soluble materials. Every generation, some insanity takes possession of the people of England. At one time, it is the South Sea scheme ; at another, the Cock Lane ghost ; and now it is the greatness of Kossuth as a historical character and a practical statesman. I have not the vanity to suppose that my work will burst the bubble, but that the bubble will burst I am certain, and that the time will come when the attempt to procure the approbation of royalists for the disruption of an ancient empire ; of aristocrats for a revolutionary legislation, which in the course of three or four hours reduced many landed proprietors to a half, or a third of their former income ; and of democrats for measures which degraded and demoralised the great majority of the people of Hungary — will be looked back upon •280 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. as quite as bold an experiment on public credulity as the South Sea bubble, or the Cock Lane ghost. Royalty, the first estate in the realm of Hungary, was, of course, quite unrepresented in the parliament of Debreczin. The Chamber of Magnates was represented by a president, and so beggarly an account of empty benches as to be a complete nullity pro or contra. While the commons — the third estate of the realm in nominal rank, but I freely admit first in importance, which consisted by law of 300 members, of whom 180 were requisite to pass any measure — was represented at Debreczin by only 130 persons, or fifty short of the number requisite to pass any measure, even when it had the concurrence of the two other estates of the realm. The reader may therefore now judge for himself whether the parliament of Debreczin, was a Diet or a " Convention ; " an assembly whose measures were legal, — or whose measures were null and void in law and equity \ The secret sitting of the Debreczin convention, at which Kossuth propounded his scheme, took place on the 13th April, 1849,. at four o'clock in the afternoon, in the Oratory which I have described. He said, in opening the proceedings, that he had no diplomatic connexions ; that he had no diplomatic promises of support in his declaration of indepen- dence. He said, " that it was the will of the army, DEBEECZINIANA. 281 that the independence should be pronounced," and added, " that if the house of representatives did not proclaim the independence, the army would do so. The liberated populations of Europe will hold a new congress in Verona, and Hungary will not be repre- sented, unless she declare her independence !!! " After this specimen of statesman-like veracity and judgment, Kovacs, who led the opposition of the Royalist Repealers, said, " Here we are in possession of only the half of the kingdom of Hungary, and you are sending a challenge to all the monarchs of Europe ; Ofen, the capital, is still in the hands of the Imperialists ; and by attacking the monarchical principle, you procure for Austria the sympathy of all crowned heads, and peril all that we have already gained." And concluded a brilliant speech, the sense of which was, Qui trop embrasse mat etreint. But Kossuth, by the ascendancy he had already acquired over the most ardent and excitable portion of the assembly, paralysed the more moderate and practical men, for he was unquestionably as popular with the convention as Georgey was with the army ; so Kovacs and Caczinsky, seeing that their own party had not courage to act, withdrew with some others, so that little more than one hundred members were left, or one-third of one of the three estates of the realm, and even they were swept 282 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. along only by the Kossuth ascendancy, for when it came to the signing of the declaration of independence, their signatures could not be procured and they all held back. On the following morning, which was the 14th, the public sitting took place ; the deputies were generally exceedingly depressed in spirits, like navigators who enter an unknown strait without chart or compass ; but Kossuth was decked out in all his finery, wearing a black velvet attila elegantly embroidered. One of the friends of Kossuth, one Dragos, the deputy of Bihar, a Daco-Roman, (who had renegaded from his nationality, and who has since been murdered by his semi-barbarous fellow countrymen in a place called Abrud Banya,) proposed that to give additional solemnity to the declaration, they should adjourn to the Calvinist church. Beze, the deputy of Gran, opposed this. He and the others saw that the result would be a tumultuary meeting, in which the shouting terroristic mob, that had followed Madarasz, the republican police minis- ter, from the streets of Pesth to Debreczin, would play the principal part, but Kossuth cut short the matter, took his hat, and followed by his immediate tail, took their way straight to the church, which was soon so filled by the mob, that the deputies and audience were jostled together, and either voting DEBRECZINIANA. 283 or deliberation out of the question. The whole affair was a matter of the mob oratory of one man, and not even the assent of the convention, which was the shadow of the Diet, but the acclamation of Kossuth's admirers. When the declaration was read and received with acclamation, Kossuth said, "You must now choose a governor/' — and "Eljen-a Kossuth," was shouted by the mob. " And why," said I afterwards to one of the royalist Repealers, " did you not protest against this 1 " " Because," said he, " first of all, no man was such a fool as to expose himself to be murdered by the mob. Besides, in my eyes, the meeting had not a legal character." Such was the famous 14th of April, which I have sometimes heard contemptuously called the " Rump Parliament of Kossuth ;" but, according to my humble opinion, this Kossuth parliament is, in pre- tension to either the reality or appearance of legal constitutional action, as much below the French convention of 1793, as the latter is below the sober dignity and deliberation of the Rump parliament that sent Charles I. to the block, and proclaimed a commonwealth in England. The subsequent proceedings of the convention were in perfect harmony with what preceded. Bartholomew Szemere was appointed by Kossuth the president of hi3 cabinet while he played the king ; 284 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. " and like master like man," this Premier, on the 2nd of May, declared the policy of the new govern- ment. " The ministry," said Szemere, (according to the Kozlony, or official newspaper of Hungary,) "solemnly declares that it will walk in the ways of the democratic republic." So much for Hungary. As for Transylvania, the official organ in that country held the same language. " The intention of the government," said the Transylvtinian Messenger, " is to go hand in hand with events, that is to say, with the legislature in its public march on the territory of revolution, — we mean of the most radical inversion . . . historical right is overthrown, who- ever appeals to it, makes himself ridiculous." No sooner did Greorgey hear of the declaration of independence, and of Kossuth having stated, that it was the wish of the army, than he made arrange- ments for going to Debreczin and giving the state- ment a flat denial, but this intention was defeated by the vacation given to the deputies, until the 1st of June, when the Diet was to be held at Pesth. In my humble opinion, the territory of Repeal royalism is sufficiently remote from the legal and historical rights of Austria, but in justice to Georgey, I confess that nothing seems to me more inconsistent with British fair play than to see a man who cannot defend himself, accused of an unpatriotic hatred and envy of the man who deposed him in the hour of THE REMOTER BACK SETTLEMENTS. 285 victory, — who is called an intriguer because he would not accompany Kossuth from the common territory of royalist Repeal to democratic Repeal, — and, lastly, accused of being a traitor, after every inch of Transylvania had been swept clean of Magyar armies, and all Hungary to boot, except a single corner, and the fortresses of Comorn and Peter- wardein, impregnable to be sure, but for all the purposes of the Magyar campaign useless from their distant isolation. Thus was the Hungarian constitutional engine overthrown by driver Louis Kossuth, and once off the rails, the greater the speed the sooner did it come to destruction. Let its fate be a warning to all nations that love constitutional liberty, to keep the engine in good repair, but not entrust it to a driver, who will bolt off the course and illustrate the proverb — " The more haste the less speed." 286 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. CHAPTER XXV. JOURNEY TO PESTH — ULTRA-MAGYAR LADY — SZOLNOK — RAILWAYS IN HUNGARY— DESCRIPTION OF PESTH— THE DANUBE— OFEN. I now left Debreczin, after having got all the information I could pick up, and proceeded to Szolnok, in order to take the railway on my return to Pesth. We arrived, just before mid-day, at the station, and, awaiting the departure of the train, I went into the inn and sat down to dinner at the table d'hote, and here I found two well-dressed ladies — one of them young and exceedingly handsome, who, seeing me to be a foreigner, politely commenced talking- French with me, and when we were in the midst of a great deal of pleasant discourse, in came a sulky-looking man, with fierce, long mustachios, whom I at once recognised as a person whom I had seen eleven years before in Hungary. I did not feel disposed to commence a political conversation at a table d'hdte, or to ask this person — with some of whose friends I had had some conversations as to the broad distinctions between the path of reform, and ULTRA-MAGYAR LADY. 2^7 the path of ultra-Magyarism, which I have all along endeavoured to draw — but I noticed him saying- something to the lad}' in Magyar, on which she looked as black as a thunder-cloud ; and having afterwards asked the person who sat next me what he had said, was told, that he had informed her that I was the enemy of Hungary. But I was not to be put down in this way, and when she re-entered and re- tained her silence, I asked what she had against me, on which she said with a semi-malicious smile, " I am told that you have a great hatred to my country." But I stiffly maintained that enmity to the repeal pro- jects and other extraordinary measures of the Kossuth faction, which had plunged Hungary into such mis- fortunes, was the best proof that I could adduce of my wish for the welfare of Hungary, just as a disap- proval of the repeal projects of an O'Connell and a Papineau would be the best proof of a wish for the welfare of Canada or Ireland. But as it is said, that it is difficult to convince any man's reason against his will, so this pretty Hungarian lady proved no exception, and at last she said: " I know that we have strong s} T mpathies in England, and I cannot think that you are an English- man of the right sort." To which I answered, " That she was right ; for I was a Scotchman, and that the peculiar quality of the Scottish intellect was analysis rather than synthesis 288 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. — not to adopt political vocabularies invented for the furtherance of party objects ; but to look beyond professions into the real nature of things, and above all, not to be carried away by thoughtless enthusiasm." But as I learned in the course of our trip to Pesth, from a fellow passenger, that the lady was a demo crat of the Kossuth stamp, and that several of her relations were " in durance vile," or exiles, it was scarcely to be expected that any criticism of pure reason should counterpoise deeply-rooted passions, interests, and affections. Szolnok, the terminus of the railway, is, as I have stated at the beginning of this work, a miserable place, but the traffic is nevertheless considerable on the line between it and Pesth, and vice versa ; for it connects the capital with the steam navigation on the Theiss, which continues its downward course from this place to Szegedin, as already described, and then dividing the richest part of the Ban at from the county of Bacs, falls into the Danube a very little above Belgrade. If we pass from this important feeder of the railway to the country behind the Theiss, we find that all the traffic of the line from Herrman- stadt and Arad also abuts at Szolnok ; and the same may be said of the line of diligences from Clausenburg and Grosswardein, which come from the direct eastward, while from the north-east it gets all the very considerable goods and passenger RAILWAYS IN HUNGARY. 2S9 traffic to and from Pesth and Debreczin, and larse quantities of salt brought from the imperial mines at Nemeth Szathmar, in the extreme north-east of Hungary. I know few countries that are better suited for rail- way traffic than Hungary, for the greater part of it is a plain, and therefore not only convenient for con- struction, but involving an altogether nominal expense for purchase of land; nearly every proprietor, being too happy to furnish the land for the sake of the advantage of the way ; and nearly all the principal towns of Hungary are accessible to the capital across plains, or in the basins of rivers. Such is the case with Kaschau, Debreczin, Grosswardein, Arad, Tem- esvar, and other places. Clausenburg could be con- nected with Grosswardein at a moderate expense — worthy of the consideration of the government, although not probably likely to give a return for capital such as would satisfy a private company in a country where the regular rate of interest is much higher than in Great Britain. Of the line by the Maros, from Arad to Herrmanstadt, I have already spoken. The rest of the principal towns in Hungary, such as Szegedin, Presburg, Raab, Essek, and Peterwardein, with Nensatz, are on navigable rivers ; and Agram is so very near Sissek, where the confluence of the Save and the Kulpa make a stream navigable for steamers, that we may fairly say that nature, by the facilities 290 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. she has given Hungary, fairly compensate her for refusing an easily accessible sea-port.""* At Pesth, I put up at the Jagerhorn, which I found to be a very good inn, adjoining the Danube, and overlooking the ruins of the German theatre, which had been destroyed by fire during the bombardment in the summer of 1849 ; and here I completed my Hungarian experiences, and during my stay saw a great deal of all parties — civilians and military — Magyars, and non-Magyars, the old aristo- cracy, the new bureaucracy, and not a few democrats, notwithstanding my antipathy to all extremes in forms of government. Pesth was full of military and empty of society when I was last there, and, the prisons being full of political characters, all classes were more or less in a state of suffering and anxiety ; for the aristocracy having taken to flight, the trades- people were all complaining, and the Kossuth-party were, to use their own words, morally and physically niedergeschlagen. But now that the reign of terror was over, and Haynau making every effort to con- ciliate the people — with very little success, I must admit — Pesth was full of deputations and political partisans from all portions of Hungary, each seeking to indoctrinate him and Baron Gehringer, the civil governor of Hungary, with their conflicting views, * Those who take a deeper interest in this subject may consult my account of Fiume and the Julian Alps in the second volume of the " Highlands and Islands of the Adriatic." PESTH. 291 and seeking the furtherance of their respective interests. My own time was, therefore, passed in an interesting manner. During the forenoon I discussed the state and prospects of Hungary with all those parties, and in the evening wrote my notes, or took social recreation in the political or musical drawing- rooms of the metropolis. But before I commence any account of the society of Pesth, since Hungary was turned upside down, let me take a glance at the ex- ternal features of the place. The great feature of Hungary is the Danube. A capital not situated on the Danube would, therefore, have a primary disqualification, which nothing else could compensate. Almost equidistant from the Styrian frontier on the west, and the Transylvanian frontier on the east, from the Carpathians on the north, and the Drave on the south, which separates it from Croatia, Pesth may be said to be situated very nearly in the centre of Hungary. Pesth itself is situated on the left bank of the Danube, on perfectly level ground, with a noble line of newly-constructed houses, forming a magnificent quay. Across the Danube is Ofen, alias Buda, rising above the water by a bold, steep acclivity, to an elevated table-land, on which is built the Royal Palace and other public offices of the kingdom of Hungary. The view from the terraces of the sister town — as Ofen is called — has been so often painted u 2 292 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. and described, that I need enter into few details, ex- cept to remark that the two component parts of the capital partake also, in a striking degree, of the geographical peculiarities that divide all Hungary into two distinct regions. If, standing on the western terrace, we look to the amphitheatre of vine-covered slopes rising to nooks in the hills, in which neat white villas are situated : or admire the rugged pre- cipices of the Blocksberg, overlooking the Danube, we see the western boundary of the great Alpine region, which stretches from the Rhone to the Danube. Westward, all is hill and dale, lake and forest. The famed Platten, or Balaton-See, the Neusiedler-See, the Bakonyer Wald, and all the romantic sites of Western Hungary, are mere pro- longations of the Styrian Alps. If, on the other side, we cast our eyes downwards from the eastern terrace of the citadel of Ofen, the Danube flows at our feet, and Pesth lies stretched out to our view, with its long quay and countless dark brown tiled houses, broken here and there by a church spire, or a public square, beyond which is seen the commencement of the great plain, steppe, or pustza of Hungary, which stretches eastwards to the regions far beyond the Theiss. The course of the Danube is here rapid, and its depth partakes of the nature of its banks. A few feet from the Pesth shore there is only two feet of THE DANUBE. 203 water, in the middle five, and on the Ofen side a depth of eight fathoms. The connexion between the two cities has been hitherto kept up by a bridge of boats, the lease of which produces to the town the sum of 8000/. per annum, the lessee being bound to keep it floating up to the 6th of December, which shows very nearly how long the river is free from ice. In order to maintain a constant communication all the year round, the chain bridge was built, after the designs, and under the superintendence of Mr. Clark — a noble triumph of British taste and science ; and when I think of the two extremities of the capital, Ofen, with its vine-clad hills and German population, and Pesth with its long Hatvan-street, where the wild Magyar peasant, with swarthy complexion, fiery eyes, and nomad-like sheep-skin dress, has just arrived from the pustza, with his horses reeking with sweat, the genius of Britannia seems even here, in its con- genial element, connecting the ocean-like plains of Asia with the civilisation of Europe. Nothing could be more sublime than the spectacle which the Danube presented on my return to the capital ; the intense and long continued frost had rendered the ice of great thickness, and a thaw having taken place, the whole breadth of the channel from shore to shore, was covered with huge blocks of ice that had been accumulated above Comorn, sweeping past with a loud roaring noise, and it was 294 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. with a feeling of terrific pleasure akin to that with which one approaches a great cataract, and com- pounded of a vague mixture of danger and security, that I stood at the centre of the bridge and looked on the fields of ice rolling downwards, as if they would sweep away the piers of the bridge on which I stood, and then with a loud crashing noise splitting themselves on its immoveable foundations. Whole days elapsed before the immense tracks of ice, stretching from the Black Forest to the quay of Buda was swept away, and the spectacle was equally beautiful, in the silver sunshine, or in the blackness of night, when the masses were neither glittering nor very definable ; but both by day and by night I would stand for a half hour at a time, enjoying a pleasure, which the sober reader may laugh at as childish. The devastation by the siege and bombardment is tremendous. From the windows of the Jagerhorn hotel, in which I lived, I saw the roofless shells of two of the largest houses in Pesth, the hotel of the Queen of England, and the Redouten-saal, in which Kossuth held his convention ; while across the Danube, the huge royal palace that crowned the steeps of Ofen, and in which the Palatine used to hold his court, is a mass of ruin. Crossing the bridge and going round to the back of the fortress, we find a level piece of ground called " the General Wiese," where Major-general Heutzi who defended OFEN. 295 Ofen for the imperialists, pastured the cattle of the garrison, under the guns of the fortress. Ofen offered no point of attack from Pesth, which is low and level, as well as separated from it by the Danube ; but on the other side of the General Wiese is the so-called hill of the Suabians, and here Georgey had his breaching batteries ; while southward, close to the Danube, is the lofty Blocksberg, to which mortars were elevated by the Magyars, so that Ofen although it commanded Pesth, was itself commanded by the Blocksberg. All along the western side of Ofen, overlooking the General Wiese, the bastions and parapets are a mass of ruin, and as the eminence on which they are built, is considerably higher than the terrace side of Windsor Castle, and were taken by storming ladders, you may easily imagine that the loss of life was very great. Of the Wiener-thor, or Vienna- gate, not a trace visible, except large blocks of still compactly-adhering masonry scattered on the ground. I need not prolong the black catalogue of ruins. A narrow lane, close to a public square, is shown, where the brave Heutzi received a shot in the breast, from which he died the same night. This lane leads out on the western terrace, where an alley of limes in summer time still smiles in undisturbed verdure over the desolate scene, and through the branches of which one sees the hill of the Suabians 296 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. — a villa in the midst of a garden, which was the head-quarters of the fearless Georgey, who has now, in the retirement of Klagenfurt, exchanged the large views of the strategist and the details of the tactician for the study of the secrets of nature in the solitude of the chemical laboratory. PESTH. 297 CHAPTER XXVI. PESTH CONTINUED— THE PALACE— THE CROWN— CLIMATE OF PESTH— ULTRA-GERMANISM— PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS- IMPOVERISHMENT FROM REVOLUTION. Up to the period of the construction of the bridge, the principal lion of the place was the royal palace on the height of the fortress in which the royal crown of Hungary and other regalia used to be kept. But the castle presented only crumbling ruins, and no one except a probably very small number of the Kossuth faction can tell where the crown is; in all probability, it is still in Hungary in the vault of some convent nunnery or private dwelling, and I think that any one after the perusal of my reflections at Debreczin will admit, that for the faction to identify itself with the royal principle in constitutional monarchy, is about as absurd as the Emperor Nicholas or Sultan Abd-Ul-Medjid wearing a Phrygian cap of liberty. This necessary bauble is no doubt in reserve for the next European revolution, and will be produced at the right time as a memento of the strict constitutional legality of the votes and pro- 298 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. ceedings of the Debreczin parliament, and I wonder what the people of England would think if a couple of hundred members of the House of Commons were to retire to Manchester, accompanied by half-a-dozen radical peers, representing the House of Lords, and should eke out the three Estates of the realm by the crown carried off from the tower \ As for Hungary, the appropriation of the crown by an assembly incapable of emanating a single legitimate act, is the best tribute that democratic republicans could pay to constitutional monarchy. Ofen used formerly to be a place of considerable official bustle, in consequence not only of the residence of the Palatine, but of the numerous other public officers connected with the crown of Hungary, and in fact, was a large nest of conservative place-men ; but this has been considerably altered since the destruc- tion of the government palace and other edifices, and the transfer of the civil administration to a large hotel on the quay of Pesth, a little above the Casino, and close to the bridge. Bureaucratic Ofen was always dull compared with Pesth, but now it is desolate. Preparations were, however, making to rebuild the palace and retransfer the whole of the establishment across the river again. If Ofen commands Pesth from its towering height, the Blocksberg, on the other hand, commands Ofen ; and it was by infinite pains in getting a battery CLIMATE OF PESTH. 299 mounted on the lofty Blocksberg, that Georgey was enabled to effect the capture of Pesth. In accord- ance, therefore, with experience, a strong fort is about to be erected on the Blocksberg ; and this will render Ofen a position of strategical importance, scarcely inferior to Comorn and Peterwardein. These two hills are the great charm of the situation of Pesth. their bold and rugged outline renders the walk up and down the long quay of Pesth, separated from them by the river, a most picturesque promenade, — the Blocksberg rising abruptly in ribs of rock almost from the water's edge, while, in the opposite direction, at the upper end of the town, where the high ground recedes from the river, we have a beautiful wooded island, with park and garden, the favourite retreat of the Palatines of Hungary, father and son. So that, altogether, Ofen, from its military importance, Pesth, from its favourable situation for trade, and both together from their picturesque position, incline me to think that, notwithstanding their present depression, arising from the misfortunes of the war, they are destined to a steady increase in wealth and population. Pesth has, each year, extremes of heat and cold, unknown to our insular feelings. During the pre- vious frost, the cold had reached 22 degrees of Reaumur ; and in summer the thermometer fre- quently rises to 25 degrees of heat, as it is, on all 300 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. sides, separated by lands, broad and wide, from the equalising influences of the sea. The cooling moun- tains are also distant. This we are sensible of in the wines ; for while those grown in the environs of Vienna are slightly acidulated, the vintage of Ofen, that is to say of the environs, is characterised by its spirituous strength. The worst feature of the climate of Pesth is an east wind, which, in summer, is hot and suffocating, from passing over the parched sandy plain of Central Hungary, and brings with it clouds of dust ; while, in winter, the same wind is exceed- ingly cold, and has a most depressing effect upon the nervous system. But the northerly and westerly winds, in summer, coming from the Carpathians and the Alps, are cooling and delightful, sometimes accom- panied by rain, but more generally by clear weather. While the high street of Ofen, as well as the Wasserstadt, has an old German look, in consequence of its old German colonisation (which took root, for the most part, about the same time as the rise of Temesvar, that is to say, after Hungary was cleared of the Turks,) Pesth, on the other hand, has quite a new look, and, in fact, is, for the most part, a town of this century, and has arisen out of the concurring circumstances of the landed proprietary of Hungary, tending more and more to have town-houses in the capital, and a corresponding large influx of mer- chants, tradespeople, and mechanics, from Vienna, ULTRA-GERMANISM. 301 Prague, and the principal towns of Germany. Very nearly the half of the rural population of the county of Pesth is Slovack, and there is a considerable Slovack and Servian population in the so-called Josephstadt ; but by far the most numerous race in the sister towns of Pesth and Ofen is the German, in conse- quence of which the German is, along with the Magyar, established as the official language of the capital. The great mistake which the ultra -Magyars made was in forcing their language upon the other nations in such a way as to interfere most seriously with individual liberty ; and I am sorry to say that Haynau, shortly after his advent, committed just the same mistake. The Germans being the most numerous nation, all that was wanted to satisfy the national pride of the Germans was to see their lan- guage on an equality with the Magyar in public acts, leaving every man to colour his private acts as he might choose, and, in all that lay within the sphere of his personal liberty, to select what nationality he liked. But out came a decree, on the strength of martial law, that all signs should be henceforth painted in German as well as in Magyar. The con- sequence was, that many persons obeyed the decree only nominally, so that in going along the street I saw side by side with the Magyar signs, a German translation so small, as scarcely to be legible. And we are again reminded of Bacon's words : " For 302 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. manners : a consent in them is to be sought indus- triously, but not to be enforced ; for nothing amongst people breedeth so much pertinacy in holding their customs, as sudden and violent offer to remove them." The public amusements of Pesth were the Magyar opera, and the German opera, that of Ofen the German theatre. There is no really native Magyar dramatic entertainment. The opera in question is simply a representation in the Magyar language of translations of the classical productions of the Italian, German, and French composers, and to a person who does not understand Italian, and has not been accus- tomed to hear Italian operas, it really signifies very little whether an adaptation of Norma or Lucrezia Borgia be heard in Magyar or in German. The prima donna was Madam Holosy, and I certainly think her a most pleasing singer, far more so than any that I heard at the German opera, where the Somnambula was done by a middle-aged Dutch- built Elvino, with so strong a nasal twang, that one might have taken him for a Yankee skipper turning his hand to the musical line. A far superior entertainment to classical music, passed through the strainers of a Pesth translation and adaptation, — and therefore painfully contrasting with the perfection of London, — was the comic vein of the German theatre, in which were played with consider- able effect the three-act farces of the Vienna school THEATRES. 303 of Nestroy, which has not found its due recognition among travellers, from their not fully comprehending the Vienna dialect and understanding the humours of the common people in Vienna and Lower Austria generally, in which is spoken the so-called Niederos- terreische Mundart. This class of farces used to be the delight of the town population of Hungary before the unhappy efforts at the discouragement of every amusement that did not tend to carry through the Magyarisation took such deep and bitter root in this unhappy land. Hungary was the land of the brave and the fair, of gallant men and beautiful women, but its school of literature was quite nominal, and its dramatical school scarcely existed at all. Hence the artificial methods resorted to by giving prizes for farces and tragedies; the result of which forcing work has been the production of not one single dramatist worthy the name, and, in spite of all these efforts, if a Magyar wanted to have a hearty laugh, he was always likeliest to get it from a farce of Nestroy or a comedy of Kotzebue. Kotzebue ! at the sound of whose name modern-refined critics turn up their noses ; but who, although neither poet nor philosopher, possessed the merely dramatic faculty to an extent exceeding that of any other German writer, a faculty which, of all others, the universal public can most certainly judge, and of the possession of which, in a very high degree, the undiminished 304 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. and undiminishing popularity of a great number of pieces of this most prolific writer is an infallible test. In the temple of genius there are many mansions, and although Kotzebue's sense of the good and the true was sometimes at fault, yet the author of the best acting comedies in the language spoken and written by Goethe and Schiller is by no means the contemptible personage that our Anglo-German purists would make him out to be. Incomes are much smaller now in Pesth than what they used to be ; this is the case, not only with the aristocracy who depended on rents from land, which they spent in Pesth, but, as a matter of course, with all other classes who came in for their share of the money that was circulating; and I am quite sure that those who shouted abolition of feudalism and enfran- chisement of the peasant from the labour rents due to the landlords, never took the trouble to ask themselves the question, how the landlord and aristocrat could spend in Pesth what his farmer, instead of giving to the landlord, had guzzled in drink in his village. At three o'clock in the after- noon, A. B. C. believes himself to be worth 5000/. sterling a-year, and at nine o'clock at night, after a few hours of enthusiastic gallery shouting, he learns that fifteen or twenty magnates terrorised by the Kossuth-galleries had allowed Batthyany to pass the abolition of robot or labour rent, and he finds IMPOVERISHMENT FROM REVOLUTION. ~M);) himself passing rich if he has only the half of his former income, and is not — like many of his friends and neighbours, whose incomes were principally made up of robot rents, — reduced to a quarter of the usual income. It is impossible for Jack to spend his half- penny and to keep it too. The reader will, therefore, easily comprehend that it is impossible for the interest of the purchase money of a landed estate in the golden basin of the Theiss to be both withheld from the landlord on the spot, and at the same time spent among the tradespeople and servants of Pesth Hence loud complaints and sparse equipages on the quondam brilliant streets of Pesth. Under any circumstances I should have deplored a change that involved in embarrassment and incon- venience so many persons, a large proportion of whom, whether males of moderate opinions, or females and families, were the involuntary victims of events over which they had no control ; but moreover, many of the principal families of Hungary and Tran- sylvania having at last made the discovery, that a reasonable partisan of a close alliance between Austria and Great Britain for common objects, need not necessarily be a political adventurer, and having received me with an amount of openness, confidence, and kindness, which was a great contrast to my former receptions by this nation — the feeling of commiseration which I should otherwise have felt for 300 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. reverses of political and personal fortunes, was much increased by daily intercourse with persons of ancient historic names avIio (after a due allowance for a strength of national feeling with which a strict sense of impartiality prevented me from coinciding), yet possessed so many noble and attractive qualities, that without allowing my reason to be led captive, I shall, to the end of my life, take the deepest interest in Hungary, which may be truly called, "the land of the brave and the fair." But as Hungary is still under martial law, I think it will be most advisable not to re-produce opinions and individuals in such a way as either to lay myself open to the charge of having violated the sanctity of private confidence, or of givino; umbrage to those circles which avoid publicity. But this does not in any way apply to several noted and notable persons then in Pesth, the chief of whom was General Haynau, of whom I saw a great deal, and who was with me quite as open and unreserved as his opponents ; and as I intend to give a full, and I hope, a perfectly impartial account of the impression produced on my mind by the moral, social, political, and military character of this personage, both from my own personal intercourse with him and hundreds of testimonies — both from those who abhorred him and those who served under and admire him, — I will now close this chapter and dedicate the next to this object. KKNRKAL HAYNAU. 307 CHAPTER XXVII. GENERAL HAYNAU. I made the acquaintance of General Haynau through the obliging civility of Baron Gehringer, an Austrian diplomatist of great ability and experience, then imperial commissioner at Pesth on financial and political business, and who, on the removal of Haynau became, as I understand from the news- papers, governor of Hungary. General Haynau had assigned to him as his residence by the municipality of Pesth, a portion of the large palace of Count Karoly. Our first interview one forenoon was very short, as the antechamber was crowded with deputations and suitors of all sorts. He occupied as his studio a small room looking out on the garden, and appeared to be a man of fully sixty years of age. His stature about the medium, but thin and spare, with a slight stoop. His eyes are grey, his nose aquiline, and the most striking feature of his face, is his bushy white moustachios. Whatever he may be to his political enemies, no x 2 308 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. man can receive a stranger with more ease and frankness. After a few brief observations, he said, " The people here are beginning to have a different idea of me now from what they had at the beginning. The measures indispensable to a just retribution on those who raised this rebellion, struck them like a thunder-clap, and they looked upon me as a phenomenon that shocked them ; but I think they are now beginning to understand me better. I myself have been a colonel of a Hungarian hussar regiment, and I know their character well, and whatever is done in the way of justice, one must never affront their military and national self-respect." I report this as nearly as I can in the translation. The words used being " Bravoure und nationalitdt." But I need scarcely inform the reader, that with a proud, haughty, and susceptible nation, such as the Magyars — a representative of retribution, re-action, and the deposition of the Magyars from their sup- remacy could never, under any circumstances, or after the lapse of ever so long a period, play an after- game of popularity ; truth compels me to say that, even the conservatives (however much they detested Batthyany, whose popularity and political power more than compensated in his eyes any loss of income by his sweeping spoliation of the landed proprietors), were at this time courting Haynau to try and induce him to use his influence with the cabinet of Vienna to get GENERAL HAYNAU. 309 some modification of the new system introduced by Minister Bach ; of dividing Hungary into provinces in a manner calculated to develope all the other nationalities ; for although the conservatives have certainly a warmer attachment to the house of Hapsburg, than any other section of the Magyars, yet to them the development of the other nationa- lities is a most obnoxious measure. But however much they might seek to pay court to General Haynau, it was not in the nature of things that they should do otherwise than feel acutely how unpopular they should make themselves with the rest of the nation ; and it is unquestionably the odium that attached to the retaliatory executions, that have made the conservatives hold back from assistance in the new organisation. " You are a young man," said Haynau, " and I know from what I was at your age, that you must be fond of dancing. The Baroness Haynau gives a dancing soiree the day after to-morrow, and she will be happy to see you, and my only advice to you is, dance most industriously — Nurfleissig tanzen^ And I took my leave of Haynau, asking myself if it was possible that the polite old gentleman who had given me so gallant an advice was actually a " woman- flogger." And as the most brilliant of modern historians says, " that wise men are always rather on their guard in judging of the angels and demons of the 310 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. multitude," I was happy to find in the course of my stay at Pestli, that in no man's case was this more requisite than in that of Haynau, the " woman-flogger." In the course of my tour through Hungary, which lasted many months, I had heard frequent denuncia- tions of him, for having been instrumental in the death of Batthyany, and for not having recommended to mercy the unfortunate Austrian officers who had attained high rank in the Hungarian army, and had been condemned to death at Arad. But during all this period I do not once recollect of its being ever supposed that Haynau had any thing to do with the flogging of Madame Madersbach, which took place a hundred miles from the spot where Haynau was at the time, and who, having an army of 100,000 men to attend to, had the circum- stance first seriously brought before his atten- tion by the English newspapers long afterwards. And from all that I could learn at Pesth, the associa- tion of Haynau with this odious and unmanly manner of treating a female, who merited only contempt for her unfeminine behaviour, appears to be solely and entirely an invention, in order to cast an ad- ditional odium on the man who has proved so ob- noxious to the national pride of the Magyars. For the reasons which I will subsequently state, I have all along disapproved of the executions of these men, but the accusation of having had anything to do GENBKAL HAYNAU. 311 with the flogging of this female, appears to be not only false and calumnious, but without the semblance of a vestige of truth. And the prints got up in London representing this woman tied up to a tree, and Haynau, who was a hundred and more miles distant from the spot, approximated by the artist to a few yards off, is all part and parcel of the organised system of falsification, got up and perse- veringly carried on in order to blind the people of England to the real bearings of the Hungarian question. The suite of rooms in which the dancing party was given was splendid, and being in the modern French style, in which white and gold predominated, lighted up beautifully ; there might be about 150 persons present. The large drawing-room with polished parquet, being devoted to dancing. The ladies wore their best dresses, the generals wore their orders, and the buffets groaned with viands, flowers, and massive silver candelabra, and the band was of the first excellence ; but, nevertheless, politics seemed uppermost with all, except the youngest. The old system had been broken up, and nobody being able to tell what consistence the new system would take, speculation was all afloat, and con- servative magnates and ex-deputies (for I need scarcely inform the reader that none of the Kossuth party were present,) took very little advantage of the band, and in the side rooms, or in the intervals of 312 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. dancing, conversed apart, with shrug of shoulder and abstraction of visage ; but when the csardas or national dance of the Magyars was struck up, all conversation seemed suspended — the side rooms were emptied, and a great circle was formed in the large saloon, and the dance proceeded with great spirit and applause. Neither the kolo nor any dance of the other nations of Hungary was given, and whatever the political organisation of Hungary may be in future, it is pretty clear that what is called the beau monde can never be anything but Magyar. Haynau himself must have been an excellent dancer in youth, and waltzed in perfect time with a hand- some young Baroness , from the neighbour- hood of Szolnok. While a quadrille was proceeding, he came up and reproached me for not dancing often enough, and a sofa being at hand we sat down and began to talk politics again. He emphatically denied that he had been actuated by any sentiment of vengeance in the case of the executions. As to those of Arad, the men were hung not for being Hungarians but for being Austrian officers in a state of mutiny and disobedience, and this by regular military tribunals, and that it was a lesson and a warning for future times, of what every Austrian officer had to expect if he obeyed an illegal parliament. " No doubt/' said Haynau, " that this procured me an immense load of GENERAL HAYNAU. 313 unpopularity ; but as far as my part went I have been brought up in the strictest principles of morality and duty. I am thoroughly acquainted with what is the duty of a soldier and the discipline of an army. This proceeding has the perfect approbation of my own conscience, and I can assure you when that is the case, that I am tolerably indifferent as to what is thought of me, even when it draws with it the disapprobation of my superiors, and the marring of my own personal fortunes. I am not given to luxury as far as my own tastes are concerned. I always study to keep my pecuniary affairs in good order. The consequence has been that I have never needed to have recourse to sycophancy for protection, but whatever success I have had in my profession has been from a fearless sense of duty to my sovereign." At other dinner and evening parties given by Haynau, I had an opportunity of seeing as much of this noted person as I wished, and certainly carried away from Pesth as firm a persuasion as ever of the impolicy of these executions which made such a prodigious noise ; but at the same time learned enough to swell my indignation at the infamous treatment he received, not only at the rude hands of the mob, but at those of that portion of the press, which, adopting the infamous ew parte falsehood of his being a " woman -flogger," attempted the pallia- tion of such treatment. 314 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. Haynau is neither a lawyer nor a statesman, but a soldier, and is in fact the legitimate offspring of Kossuth and his Debreczin parliament. Institutions wear out, they need repair, the reformer is called for, he appears ; but, as Macchiavelli says, " When a change is begun in a state, no man Can tell precisely when or where it will stop." So, after the Reformer, frequently comes the Destroyer. Vires acquirit eundo, — characterises the impulse begun under the best intentions. But the sound part of society is startled at the attitude of those who are resolved to go all lengths. The embryo of reaction com- mences ; it acquires consistence, but is still occult, and to give life to the element that is to destroy the destroyer, nerves of iron are called into requisition. To subdue force major force is required. Society sees all its ordinary laws suspended during those violent efforts ; and the result is the mastery of a class of men whose predominating quality is will, not reason ; and whose sphere is action, not deliberation. To expect anything else, would be as absurd as to expect figs from thistles instead of briars ; and when lawyer Kossuth took to shot and shell, the logical sequence was — a reckless sabreur elevated to the highest honours of political administration and criminal judicature. I believe that Haynau, pitched violently out of the hussar saddle into the judicial bench, acted as GENERAL HAYNAU. 315 conscientiously and as like a strict provost-martial as he possibly could ; but his legal acumen as a consti- tutional lawyer, seems to be of much the same value as the practical statesmanship of lawyer Kossuth, when sound judgment apart from mere oratory was required on any matter, military, political, or financial. The moral guilt of Batthyany in perfidiously attempting, in defiance of legal and historical rights, to procure the disruption of the financial and military integrity of the Austrian empire while she lay prostrate and struggling with the difficulties of the Lombard war, I consider to have been greater than that of Kossuth ; for he acted more from craft and less from fanaticism than Kossuth ; but, at the same time, his execution appears to have been, how- ever consistent with equity, yet clearly contrary to both justice and sound policy. The extorted consent of the King of Hungary to the disruption, in defiance of the constitutional advisers of the Emperor of Austria, was an appeal to physical force, or club law, as we call it, and this appeal was settled against the Repealers ; if, therefore, after the reintegration of the house of Austria in its rights by virtue of the treaties with the Porte, Batthyany had committed high treason against the Emperor of Austria, Hun- gary having become civilly a portion of the Austrian empire, it is clear that he would have been amenable 316 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. to Austrian procedure ; and Austria could, after the tabula-rasa, act through her tribunals. But as it was, Batthyany was amenable, not to the Emperor of Austria, but to the King of Hungary, and solely through Hungarian processes. Hungary having sought to abolish the integrity of the empire of Austria, the emperor could re- conquer Hungary, but the constitutional King of Hungary could not render Hungarian subjects amenable to courts-martial, or act otherwise than through Hun- garian tribunals. He could make a law prospective by the right of the sword, but he could not make a law retrospective without violating a principle reprobated by all lawyers ; for all retrospective criminal procedure against offences leads to retaliatory vengeance, not legal example. Above all, this execution was contrary to sound policy, for the moral strength of the Austrian cause lay in the perfidious violation of those legal and historical rights which date from the zenith of the Ottoman power. This high moral vantage-ground was surrendered by a deliberate descent to the ways of illegality, for no constitutional sovereign can, proprio motn, supersede civil by military tribunals ; and — if we pass from the first civil magistrate of the constitutional kingdom of Hungary to the person of the military chief of the Austrian empire in its integrity defending -his unquestionable rights, and GENERAL HAYNAU. 31? i Halving tabula-rasa thereafter, — retrospective criminal procedure has no effect but to produce confusion in men's minds, and to throw on Austria a large portion of that onus of illegality which previously lay almost wholly on the shoulders of those who were carrying through the despotic revolutionary measures under the mask of reform. In conclusion, the integrity of the Austrian empire was written so clearly on the page of Hungarian history, that he that ran might read. But an ensanguined shroud has intervened — that of a man who, had he lived, would have appeared a perfidious intriguer, but having died by the retrospective application of arbitrary military power, into a period when the operation of the tribunals of a constitutional country was unimpugned — this despot and intriguer has been elevated to the rank of a martyr to the cause of constitutional liberty, — and Austria has played the game of her irreconcilable enemies. When I mentioned in course of conversation my disapproval of the execution of Batthyany, (this, of course, after we had got to talk very fully and unreservedly of these matters,) Ha3 7 nau was not in the least offended, and merely said " that he had acted according to his conscience ;" and, as he is, from all accounts, a fearless, honest man, and without a shade of insincerity, I have no doubt that he spoke the truth. The times had been out of joint, and 318 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. legal acumen along with dispassionate judgment, are certainly not prominent characteristics of those who remain the masters after the dethronement of anarchy. Batthyany and Kossuth called forth the whirlwind and the storm which they hoped to ride and rule. " Historical right is overthrown ; whoever appeals to it makes himself ridiculous," said the ultra- Magyar organs, in the flush of momentary triumph. "Hodie mi hi, eras tibi" answered Austria, and in a few months the ermine of the magistrate was assumed by those who had just thrown off the bloody hussar jacket. As I am now on this subject, I must add my marked disapproval of the executions of the officers at Arad on legal grounds of a different description. But I cannot admit that the case of perfidy is made out against Austria ; for the parties that ruled and represented Austria during the concessions were a set of men of political opinions diametrically opposed to those who led the reaction, in order to prevent the state from going to destruction. For instance, supposing the British constitution, as fixed by 'the Reform Bill, were overthrown by the Chartists, and they were to concede the repeal of the Union ; and if, after an interregnum of some months of anarchy, society were to recover its equilibrium, it would be absurd for an Irishman to inveigh on the perfidy of Great Britain, because Whigs, Tories, and Peelites GENERAL HAYNAU. 319 ignored or reacted against the acts of the illegal government. Equally absurd, therefore, is it to jumble up under one responsibility the acts that took place during the saturnalia of anarchy, when an imbecile and a terrorised legislature were the puppets of the university students and suburban day labourers of Vienna ; and those that took place when the intelligence and property of the empire preferred a temporary military dictatorship to avert the dissolution of society. It was certainly quite competent for Austria to protest against the disruption of her military integrity as a question in which she was essentially concerned, and in which the king or government of Hungary were not alone competent to act ; and with the Lombard war on her shoulders no reasonable man can blame the cabinet of that period for not assuming an attitude of immediate hostility. But a period of doubt did certainly intervene, during which a powerful de facto government in full command of the means of influencing men's minds proclaimed itself as the representative of legality, and during which many men got entangled in the toils of party spirit, from which moral escape was peculiarly difficult, and physical escape not unattended with danger. Many officers who had no feeling of disloyalty to the house of Hapsburg thought that there was a Hungarian party and an Austrian party 320 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. in the empire, and many men who, by the immediate protest of the cabinet of Vienna against the legality of the disruption, would have died on the field of battle for the black-yellow banner, had not the moral courage to face the opprobrium of the Magyar circles in which they had been living, and to relinquish community with their comrades in arms. Hence the indignation of these men at Kossuth's deposition Act of the 1 4th of April ; hence the space that separated the cause of Georgey from the new territory into which Kossuth and the democratic despots brought the question of Hungary. I therefore certainly think that, although Haynau is an honest, brave, and conscientious man, it was a deplorable circumstance that the man who could have saved these officers at Arad was altogether deficient in the sympathetic imagination which would have enabled him to picture to his mind's eye the moral and social net into which they had been allowed to be involved, and that in the awarding of punishment, the context of fatality was not perused along with the literal text of the articles of war. If we turn from the legal and political career of Haynau to his Hungarian campaign, there is much to praise. He was picked out of all the generals under the command of Radetzky, by that most skilful and experienced commander, as the likeliest man for the GENERAL HAYNAU. 321 hard work before Austria in Hungary, and the result, as far as military events are concerned, most fully justified the selection. When the Hungarians, in the summer of 1849, had completed their preparations for resistance, the western army, amounting to 80,000 men, occupied the rivers Waag and Raab. Dembinski watched the Carpathians in the north. Bern held the bastion of Transylvania, and a southern army was opposed to the Ban and General Nugent, the head quarters of which was Szegedin. The joint plan of operations adopted by the Russian and Austrian generals was as follows : — The Russians to debouch by the Dukla, and to send a considerable corps of cavalry and light troops as a demonstration to deceive the Hungarians ; but to push the main body of the army by the high road towards Waitzen and Pesth, while the Austrian army advancing by Raab along the south bank of the Danube, the two armies would meet and enclose the Hungarian army wherever it might be. I understand that Marshal Paskievich had a considerable part in the devising of tins very able plan, and fully comprehended that until Ofen was in the possession of the imperial armies, Waitzen, at the knee of the river, was the true strategical point de mire, and not Pesth. " In Pesth steht man in der luft" said one of the Russian staff to me afterwards. By the battle at Raab and the two severely 322 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. contested days near Acs on the 2nd and 11th of July, the object of the Austrian army was gained, and Georgey was compelled either to shut himself up in Comorn and allow himself to be taken like a mouse in a trap, or to manoeuvre his way to the Theiss through the army of Marshal Paskievich enclosing him on the north-east. This latter he did with masterly skill, and the impression which Marshal Paskievich has left in Hungary is, that his strategy was able ; but that considering the forces at his disposal his tactics were not equally satisfactory, whether in allowing Georgey to slip through his fingers, and when that had taken place, in not pressing with sufficient speed and vigour the operations to the east of the Theiss, so as to have left so large a force in the environs of the Maros to cope with the Austrian forces who, led by the vigorous and energetic Haynau across the sands of Ketskemet, were making for Temesvar. Haynau was certainly in his way a sort of Blucher, and was well entitled to the nick-name " General Forwards ; " for he no sooner was in Pesth than he prepared for that bold and fearless march to Szegedin and Temesvar, the operations of which brought the campaign to a prompt and brilliant conclusion. Next to Haynau, the honour of the day of Temes- var belongs to Prince Francis Lichtenstein, from all accounts one of the most brilliant cavalry officers in the Austrian army, who by bringing up the reserve GENERAL HAYNAU. 823 at the right moment, threw the Hungarians into confusion and compelled them to retreat ; from which time they never seriously rallied again. This distinguished officer was at Pesth at the period of my visit, and as one of my letters was to him, I had much pleasure in making the acquaintance of a most amiable man, who was as popular even among the Magyars from the suavity of his manners and the moderation of his political opinions, as he was esteemed by his brother generals for his professional ability. And when a hard case occurred, he would speak to Haynau when no one else had the courage to do so. This I heard from others, and what I heard from him confirmed me in the opinion that Haynau was, with all his fanatical sense of duty, not inaccessible to humane considerations. One day he told me that a man compromised in the rebellion, who had been enrolled in the Austrian army, had a wife and several children, and on his applying to Haynau to get him struck off the roll, he flatly refused that, but said that he would give him an unlimited leave of absence, and that it would have been well if he had paid more attention to the welfare of his wife and family and thought more of their prospects during the rebellion. A great proportion of the Magyar army were involuntary conscripts, drafted by the county revo- lutionary committee, and therefore strangers to T 2 324 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. politics ; for invalids of this description Haynau established a fund, called the Haynau stiftung, one half of the proceeds to go to Magyar, and one half to disabled imperialists : altogether in no cases is it more requisite to be cautious in summing up cha- racter than in these of " the angels and demons of the multitude." THE DANUBE AGAIN. 325 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE DANUBE AGAIN— DESCRIPTION OF COMORN— THE FOR- TRESSES OF HUNGARY CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO STRATEGY. I had by this time had enough of travelling in Hungary, and the steamers on the Danube being again plying for the season, I took my passage in one of them and once more bade adieu to the discomforts of Hungarian roads, for certainly the tourist who alternately walks the deck, lounges on a sofa and takes his meals at the appointed hours, or reads a book in one of the well-appointed Danubian steamers, can have no conception of what is commonly under- stood by the expression " travelling in Hungary ;" and I was truly glad to make this voyage once more without the alarms of war ; for the last time that I had passed the crumbling ruins of Vissegrad and the lofty cathedral of Gran, the passengers were disem- barked some miles above Comorn, and after a long tour in a diligence through the blockading Austrian posts, re-embarked again some miles below that fortress. 326 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. But although the war was ended, the deadly anti- pathies that it had engendered were not a whit allayed. Several of the passengers were Magyars, one of whom, an acquaintance of my own, was Mr. B , a conservative deputy of considerable eloquence, and there were besides several priests, ex-tribunes and ex-prefects of the Daco-Roman militia, which in German receives the appropriate name of Land- sturm, but not one syllable did the eloquent deputy and the land-stormers exchange with each other during the voyage, which was, perhaps, all the better for the tranquillity of the rest of the passengers. What a curious contrast my late voyage on the Adriatic and my present one on the Danube sug- gested. As I paced the uncovered streets and excavated baths and temples of Salona, I saw the traces of the destruction winch the Avars, a Hunnish race, cognate with the Magyars, had visited upon the monuments of Roman civilisation — where the vast masses of the palace of Diocletian had alone resisted the efforts of time and barbarism, and where the moral wreck of the law, that wall of brass that seemed to surround the whole fabric of Roman empire disap- peared from the astonished gaze of a world, that for centuries had thought that right was might, and awoke as from a trance, to the stern reality that might was right. But thirteen centuries elapse, and the Hun and the Roman exchange places in the basin THE DANUBE AGAIN. 327 of the Danube and in the recesses of the Carpathians. The Hun magistrate and landed proprietor is a civilised man, and the Daco-Roman brutalised by long centuries of oppression, is a ruthless barbarian. It was well on in the afternoon when we arrived at Comorn, where I did not land, having been through it repeatedly. The possession of this celebrated position must always have an important effect upon any military operations in this part of Hungary, for it not only commands the passage of the Danube and the Waag, but the country around being thus divided by water ways, no siege or blockade can be carried on without a very large force ; because it is in the power of the besieged to break suddenly out in three different directions, and choosing the weakest opposing corps, bring a large force to bear upon it before the aiding forces can be brought across the rivers to the support of the attacked besieging force. In order to understand this, we must ask the reader to cast his eye on the map of Hungary, and observe how the greater Danube from Presburg to Comorn runs in an easterly direction with a slight inclination to the south, while the smaller arm of the Danube below Presburg diverting to the left, forms the island of Schiitt. At right angles with the Danube, the Waag comes from the Carpathians, that is to say, from the north to the south, but before its junction with the Great Danube it falls into the Little 328 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. Danube to the north of the island of Schiitt, and both conjointly flow into the Great Danube under the walls of Comorn. The fortress is situated on the eastern tip of the island of Schiitt, on ground which is in the form of the head of a fish when drawn on paper, or an acute angle, one side of which is formed by the Great Danube, another by the united Waag and Little Danube, while the base of the triangle is a very strong line of fortifications carried right across from one river to the other. The only side, therefore, on which Comorn can be entered by storm is from the island of Schiitt, for at the other sides are the rivers. At the very tip or apex of the triangle is the citadel ; further west, where the island of Schiitt is broader, is the town ; while between the town and the outer fortifications are meadows, on which oxen, which the garrison possesses, graze in security. Two bridges then connect the citadel on the north, across the Waag, with the tete-dc-pont on the left bank of that river, and on the south with another tete-de-pont on the right bank of the Danube. These tctes-de- pont are not mere field-works, but are of masonry, with a central fort in each and surrounded by bastions. To open trenches from the island of Schiitt is difficult, on account of the marshy ground in front of the so-called palatinal fortifications ; and even the possession of the tetcs-de-pont still leaves the breadth of the Danube and the Waag between the COMORN". 329 besiegers and the defenders. Even these outworks would be very difficult to take, for outside the one over the Great Danube is a fortified camp on two hills, one called the Sandberg, the other the Schwarzberg, which the imperialists attempted to take from Georgey in July, 1849, not only without success, but with the loss of so many men that in some places the dead had scarcely room to fall without being on the top of each other. This was commonly called the battle of Acs, the bloodiest in the whole war, in con- sequence of the very strong position that Georgey held, with Comorn at his back to retreat to in case of a reverse. The reader may therefore easily understand that Comorn is, beyond all comparison, the strongest fortress of the Austrian monarchy ; for although the defensive capacity of Mantua is equal to it, Comorn, as a centre of offensive operations, is much more formidable ; and although Mantua is so difficult to take, it is also easy to invest. Now in Comorn the investing circle must be considerable, and from these strong tetes-de-pont the force within can at will break out in any direction they choose, as was the case in August, 1849, when Klapka broke out towards Raab, and 700 men were cut down or drowned in the bog behind. Like Mantua, Comorn is one of the most unhealthy towns in Hungary, and those very swamps that render it so difficult of access to a 330 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. besieging force, are terrible allies by the slower process of disease. No doubt, however, can exist that the possession of the two fortresses of Comorn and Peterwardein make an enormous difference in a Hungarian campaign. Jomini lays down as a leading axiom, " Une base appuyee sur un fleuve large ct impetaeuw, dont on tiendrait les rives par de bonnes fortresses a cheval sur ce fleuve, serait sans contredit le plus favorable qiion put desirer." Austria has such a basis in the Danube — from the tete-dc-pont of Presburg to Semlin — in opposing ope- rations from the eastward ; but so far from being a cheval, she was in constant disquietude from Comorn, even when she held Ofen. With regard to the fortresses of the south and east of Hungary, in relation to strategy, all through the last century, the favourite method was that of multi- tiplying them on the plains on the Vauban principle ; but the bold manner in which Napoleon disregarded the strong places threw them into disrepute to a certain extent. The best military policy for Austria to adopt in Hungary seems to be to restrict herself to a small number of natural positions and to fortify them to the utmost perfection. Temesvar, therefore, is evidently quite superfluous, with Arad in its immediate vicinity, which commands the passage of the Maros. But Old Arad gives an enemy resources ; it is clear, therefore, that this point, commanding at the same time the FORTRESSES OP HUNGARY. 331 southern avenue into Transylvania, ought to be fortified on both sides of the river. If there is to be another fortress in the plain of Hungary, the proper point is Szolnok, or somewhere with a dam and tete- de-pont on the Theiss between Szegedin and Tokay, so as at all times to operate from the westward with facility in the direction of Debreczin, Grosswardein, and the defiles of Csucsa that lead into northern Transylvania. 332 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. CHAPTER XXIX. A DESCRIPTION OF PRESBURG. Presburg, to which the steamer next carried me, is no longer the seat of the Magyar Diet, which it had been previous to the revolution, but it has now acquired importance in another way as the capital of the Slovackey, and as the future lever of the Slovack party in elevating the nation to a political rank in Hungary adequate to the high standing of this people in civilisation, who in round numbers are considerably more than 2,000,000 strong, who form the third division of the great Tchech family, one-half of whom are protestants, and who to this day use the bible of John Huss in church and school. This, therefore, opens up an entirely new era for the town of Presburg, which seems likely to rub its Magyar varnish away, for its population is about 45,000 souls, of which 30,000 are Germans, 11,000 or 12,000 Slovacks, 2,000 Magyars, and the rest of other nations ; but several thousands, although not Magyar, have been Magyarised by the frequentation of the PRESBURG. 333 Diet, which, although formerly held at Stuhlweissen- berg, was in modern times held here. This latter circumstance, which caused money to be circulated amongst the tradespeople, was a heavy tax on the householder, for he was obliged to give the third of his dwelling for the accommodation of the members of the Diet. In the old part of the town, I have seen hotels of curious architecture of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century, built in the lower part with great solidity, having massive vaults on the ground floor, and are all entered by a porte-cochere. The windows of all the rooms are double, as although Presburg is in 48° north latitude, the winter is severe. Presburg in short, is not like an Hungarian town, and more like Gratz or Linz, than like Debreczin or Grosswardein ; which arises partly from its vicinity to the Austrian frontier, and partly from its having been, towards the close of the eighteenth century, the seat of Joseph IPs attempt to govern Hungary by a German bureaucracy. In the interior of the town is the so-called promenade, a quadruple of trees something in the style of the Unter den Linden in Berlin, minus, be it well understood, the Brandenburg gate ; which, during the Diet, used to be the resort of the deputies, and where I saw, many a time and oft, men in earnest discussion, who 334 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. are now scattered through Europe or gone to the grave. On the side of the Danube a long bridge of boats connects Presburg with the right bank of the river, which is quite devoid of any suburbs. A thick wood having been turned into a park for the promenade of the citizens, which being intersected by roads, and surrounded by a deep fosse, makes as it were, a field tete-de-pont to the town. Seeing a number of boats in the river laden with wood, I had the curiosity to aj)proach one which was moored nearest to the trees of the park, the men of which were sitting on the turf, and having asked them from whence they came, they informed me that they were from Munich, and that nearly all the wood used in Pesth is not Hungarian, but comes mostly from Tyrol and Passau, being floated down the Inn and the Isar. Towering above the town is the Castle, a magni- ficent, solidly-constructed, residence of the Palffys in the beginning of the last century ; it was presented to Maria Teresa by a prince of the family, whence it became a royal residence. In a large hall of this edifice, took place the famous scene of the Moriamur pro rege, when so many swords started from their scabbards to support a youthful and an injured queen ; and it is impossible for a traveller to look up to the ruins of this locality without deploring the unfortunate divisions that have since taken place — without PKESBURG. 335 remembering that at that time the use of the Latin tongue in diplomatic acts left the national feelings of each race uninjured and unirritated. The Castle, itself an immense construction with four towers, is a mere shell, having been burnt down in 1 8 1 1 (as it is suspected) by some soldiers, to save themselves the labour of carrying wood and water to such a height ; but the terraces overlooking the steep precipitous rocks on which it is built are sufficient to protect it from a coup-de-main, and several new towers had been got up in a hurry, each with four ranges of cannon, one above another, on platforms of wood. The view from the platform seems boundless, no less than forty villages being visible, which is saying a great deal in a thinly populated country like Hungary ; and if one could suppose the Thames half-a-dozen times broader, is very much like the view from Richmond Hill, a river being seen to meander through a wide champaign country con- siderably wooded, while behind are the Carpathians stretching away to the north-east, their nearer eminences covered with vines ; hence the custom that of the various gifts, which each Hungarian town presents to its sovereign, that of Presburg is a large agglomeration of bunches of grapes so as apparently to form one. That of Comorn is wine — and to denote the level plains of the Danube and 336 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. Waag around it, a bushel of corn made into two loaves, which must be neither burnt outside, nor unbaked at the heart ; the art of which extraordinary baking is, or was, preserved in that strong town. These Carpathians enclose northern Hungary in a vast semicircle, and separate it from Gallicia on the north, and the rock overlooking the Danube, on which the Castle of Presburg is built, mav be called the horn of the half moon which encloses Hungary on the north and east, and is the last undulation of the western Carpathians, which here come so close to the Danube that the railway from Vienna is, for want of room, carried through a tunnel behind the town ; five other vine-clad hills in the form of an amphitheatre command the plain, and very nearly enclose the town between them and the river. The enceinte being completed by a line of trenches from the furthest hill to the Danube, thus making Presburg a tolerably secure and formidable position for stores and hospitals, which it was during 1849, and in fact the centre of the operations towards the Waag. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the Turkish wars lasted, Presburg was an impor- tant point, when the imperial armies had their faces always turned to the eastward, but during the French revolutionary wars, Presburg fell into deconsideration, for the armies always looked westward. Every opening to the invader from the Pontebba to the PRESBURG. 3:37 Elbe, every position of defence from the Pass of Linz to the plateau of Peterswald, was familiarised to the strategist of Austria, and when peace came the storms were assumed as likely to set in only from the west. Then arose the cloud-capt towers of Linz. Then Verona became one of the strongest and most extensive fortifications in Europe. But the last two 3 r ears have shown that storms can come from the east as well as the west, and the disregarded Presburg again occupies the serious attention of the engineers of Austria, and without raising it to a fortress of the first rank there can be no doubt that it can be rendered a formidable position by the repair of the castle, and small forts crowning the five hills behind it. The halls of the Diet no longer resound with the eloquence of the Magyar from the banks of the Theiss with furred attila and jingling sabres and spurs ; Presburg is not the council-place of Hungary, but the capital of the Slovackey, and the seat of the Slovack intelligence : of plain black-coated men, who have at heart the interests of those sturdy peasants and mountaineers with broad-brimmed hats that descend to Presburg on a market day. The history of Presburg is, in fact, the history of Hungary, for near this town was fought, in the year 907, the fatal battle in which the kingdom of Great Moravia was shattered to pieces by the Magyar 338 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. maces. But the Almighty has decreed vitality to the Slovack nation. Nearly a thousand years expand their cloudy wings over the fair realm of Rastich, and the oppressed Slavonic nations of Hungary breathe the morning air of a fresh national existence. THE SLOVACKS. M9 CHAPTER XXX. THE SLOVACKS — THEIR ORIGIN — THEIR HISTORY - GREAT MORAVIA — INFLUENCE OF BOHEMIA — THE REFORMATION — JOSEPH II. — RECENT HISTORY OF THE SLOVACKS. The Daco-Roman stained by blood and debased by ignorance and indolence, repels our sympathy, not so the hardy industrious Slovack that inhabits the north-west of Hungary, from Presburg to Kaschau, from Comorn to the hoar ice-bound summits of those Carpathians that overlook the plain of Cracow. If without the fiery indomitable courage of the Magyar, the variety of his employments shows his ingenuity ; he ploughs and harrows the plain, he dresses the vine, he cuts the wood of the forests, his manu- factures kept pace with those of Silesia, until the age of overwhelming machinery and capital arrived. He is the industrial Scot of Hungary, who goes forth with his sobriety, industry, and economy, to all the other parts of the kingdom. Nor can I omit to record that the Slovacks have the glory and the shame of Kossuth, who, endowed z 2 340 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. with an eminent genius for eloquence, forgot his own blood and his own mother tongue, who makes the humble Hussite pastor of the Carpathians say to the stranger : " What might not a man of Kossuth's genius and eloquence have done for the material and intellectual improvement of the nation, had he adopted the popular side?" And equally remarkable is it, that those venerable Magyar magis- trates, who, headed by Baron Josika, are now vainly pleading the cause of the ancient laws and municipal institutions of Hungary at the foot of the throne against the advocates of the bureaucratic centralisa- tion, — are frequently heard to say, " Thank God, the man who has brought our fatherland into this awful crisis is not a Magyar." I have been for a series of years in communication with the heads of this party, and a few words on the subject of the Slovacks may not be uninteresting at the present time, for, long before the Revolution, while their sufferings were weighing upon them, and Austria had neither the power nor the will to seek support in the popular elements of Hungary, the heads of the Slovacks expressed to me their astonish- ment that Great Britain, a land of brave and free men, should have sent forth no traveller having a sympathy with so oppressed a nation, which was struggling forward in the career of intellectual culture in spite of such difficulties. I therefore SLOVACK HISTORY. 311 propose to say a few words on the subject of the Slovack question. Four great families divide the Slaavic world — first of all the Russian, with its varieties of White, Little, and Red ; secondly, the Poles ; thirdly, the South Slaavic nation (Servia, Croatia, &c); fourthly, the Tchechs,who have three principal seats, of which the greatest is Bohemia, the second Moravia, and the third the Slovackey. The Slovack dialect most closely resembles that of the neighbouring Moravia. But from Bohemia came the stimulus to the reformed faith, as well as to the most recent literary development. To this day the Protestant half of the nation uses the Bible of John Huss ; and during the twenty years of ultra- Magyar persecution, neither German- Vienna nor Magyarised- Pesth, but Prague, became the literary capital of the Slovackey. Not fiery and violent, but stubborn, is the Slovack. The more the Jesuits of times gone by wished to mould him into a papist, the more he held out ; and in modern times, the more the ultra- Magyar fanatic tried to denationalise him, the more enthusi- astically he clung to the almost faded memories of the departed kingdom of his affections, and the more he sought to preserve the recollections of a State that could have had at that period very little claim to civilisation. It was in the fifth and seventh centuries that the 342 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. Slaavic nations immigrated from the north-east, and settled themselves in the basin of the Danube, and the Highlands and Islands of the Adriatic. Cyril and Methodius converted the Slovacks to Christi- anity ; and we find in the ninth century this race forming a considerable state called the Kingdom of Great Moravia, of which the present Slovackey was an integral part. We find them agricultural and indus- trious in peace, and in war defending themselves gallantly and successfully against both the Germans on the west, and Magyars on the east, who had by this time come into Europe from nobody-knows-where, not even Csoma Korosy himself. The great sovereign of this period had a name, the bare mention of which is enough to call forth an unpleasant sensation of redoubtable brute force ; and I can easily believe, that it requires no small amount of patriotic ingenuity on the part of the modern bards of the Slovackey, to pack into verse of symetrical proportions, the name of the great SWATOPLUCK ; but I can assure the reader, when a Tchech young lady takes down the guitar, and, accompanying herself with this instru- ment, sings an air, quaintly national, with a hue of old-world simplicity and tenderness, the hearer feels that the land of the Tchech is the land of the song. At length, however, the kingdom of Great Moravia succumbed to the superior vigour and superior numbers of the Magyar hordes ; for the kingdom, SLOVACK HISTORY. 343 instead of having been kept together, had been divided by the separate inheritance of brother princes ; and even after the fatal battle of Presburg, the kingdom of Great Moravia was not strictly ruled by Magyars, but was tributary to the Magyar Suzerains. At this time the Slovack was not a slave, but a freeman ; subsequently, however, feudal legisla- tion was introduced into the Hungarian laws from the German empire. Then came the distinction of noble and villain, but not of Magyar and Slovack, for many of the nobles were Slovacks. At a more advanced period in history we find Bohemia rising to the rank of a European monarchy, distinguished by a liberal encouragement of learning and literature — the University of Prague, founded in 1348, was attended by students from all parts of Germany. A century later, this free development bore its fruits in the Hussite movement against Rome, which all the frowns of a Sigismund could not repress ; and from the time of Luther, until the beginning of the thirty years' war, is often called the golden age of Tchech literature, in which the Slovacks bore an ample part ; for Bohemia, being the most westerly Slaavic projection into Europe, after the Germanisa- tion of the March of Brandenburg, had many advan- tages which were denied to the more easterly brethren, who more immediately exposed to the Magyar and Turkish supremacy, gradually lost their ;344 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. political independence, although in capability not behind the Bohemians. But the moral and intel- lectual connexion was kept up. After the disasters of the thirty years' war, how- ever, haughty Protestant Bohemia was dragooned back to Catholicism, and reduced to be a mere German province. Her national literature, which was rather Polemic-Protestant than Belletristic, was extin- guished, and a blank of more than a century occurs until the revival took place. And what, thinks the reader, revived this almost extinct language — litera- ture and nationality % The uniform itarian measures of the Emperor Joseph, that well-meaning harbinger of the birch-in-hand professors of the liberalism of the ultra-Magyar school, who wished to make people improved and corrected in spite of their necks, by the high hand of despotism. The first thing that strikes the politician in travers- ing the various regions under the sway of the house of Hapsburg, is their heterogeneous population. In the other large monarchies of Europe, one grand ele- ment has swallowed up nearly all the rest. In France, Franks, Celts, and Provencals have been all merged in the modern French. In our own islands we are all Anglo-Saxons, or saxonised Celts and Normans. Parties in a sister island may set up a claim for a separate nationality ; but as there are no Celtic Goldsmiths, Burkes, Sheridans, or Moores, and not a JOSEPH THE SECOND. ,345 single Celtic newspaper flourishing in the capital, we may be regarded as one people, quoad language and literature. In Prussia, the Wends have totally disap- peared from the March of Brandenburg, and Posen excepted, Prussia is nearly all German. In Russia we find a much greater diversity of population, but still in the midst of them a grand nucleus of population of 40,000,000 people speaking the Russian language, and gradually absorbing the other nationalities. The states of the house of Hapsburg on the contrary are of the most varied character, and a catalogue of their crystallised components would be a waste of time. Paris is the national capital of France, and London of Britain ; but Vienna is only the seat of the monarch and government of Austria. The Asiatic Magyar, the Frenchified Pole, the Slaavic Tchech, or Croat, paid court to his sovereign in the Burg, but he was not the fellow-countryman of the jovial citizen of Vienna. To imprint a homogeneous character on these heterogeneous populations was one of the great objects of the reign of the Emperor Joseph II., who was quite dazzled by the Paris of the eighteenth century. Its luxury and fashion imposed its laws on all the polite world of Europe. Its literature and men of letters formed a constellation to which the eyes of all the east of Europe were constantly directed. Catherine patronised Diderot. Voltaire was the friend of Frederick. Joseph himself, 346 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. whose reading was mostly French, was enchanted with the reception he met with at Paris, from all the charming Marmontels and academicians of the period. Joseph resolved to accomplish two great objects — to unfeudalise Austria, and to render Vienna the literary, social, and political capital of the whole empire and dependencies. The unfeudalisation was an immense boon, and was the true commencement of the Austrian revolu- tion (using the word in the re-constructive rather than the destructive sense) ; but the other part of his scheme — the centralisation of all the threads of government in Vienna, including the abolition of the Hungarian constitution, and the introduction of a German bureaucracy into Hungary — was a complete failure, because the analogy with a homogeneous monarchy such as France was untenable ; because the absorption of these other nationalities into one was contrary to nature. Joseph, bent on German- ising and centralising, by the force of his own will, died with his own acts cancelled, because populations that have been for ages heterogeneous must be dealt with by some system built on the solid foundation of history and political geography, and not on some airy abstract notion of things in general, a la Condorcet, plausible and logical in appearance, but detached from all practical antecedents — in short, Hungary required her beloved constitution. The landlords RECENT SLOVACK HISTORY. 347 were relieved from the fear of serf-emancipation. County rates, king's taxes, and the misera plebs con- tribuens were again alone in their glory. The Slovackey connected politically with Hungary, and morally with Bohemia, has closely identified her modern history with both countries, and " Quoniam volens quo nollem perveneram " was what Joseph, like St. Augustine, might have said as truly of Bohemia as of Hungary. He wished to have done with Tchechism by Germanising this country in toto, and up rises Tchechism after a slumber of two centuries with almost matutinal vigour. One would have thought that with the failure of Joseph's experiments and the rise of Tchechism before their own eyes, the ultra- Magyars would have made a proper application of this moral in action, and hesitated to call forth a corresponding feeling in the Slovackey ; but the national egotism was too strong for reason and common sense. Attempts are constantly made to contrast the ultra-Magyar system with the Josephine constitution, which was the antipathy of the Magyars, but the radical vice of both is identical, i.e., the application of a homogeneous despotism to a heterogeneous population. Joseph wished to Germanise the Magyars nolentes volentes, and the ultra-Magyars wished to Magyarise the Croats and Slovacks in spite of their teeth. Joseph wished to drive the Magyars by force into a foreign nationality of an old and high standing 348 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. in civilisation and literature. The ultra-Magyars wished to drive the Croats and Tchechs by force into a foreign nationality of a comparatively speaking new and humble standing in civilisation and literature. The Josephine system and the ultra-Magyar system had both the same radical vice of the application of a homogeneous despotism to heterogeneous populations. I reiterate the word " despotism ' : as applicable to the ultra-Magyar system quite advisedly, for the unjustifiably violent methods used by them are indisputable ; the flogging of peasantry that refused the change of language in public worship, the innumerable cases of forcible interference between parent and child in the matter of education, the refusal of the Magyar censors to allow the Tchechs any newspaper what- ever in their mother tongue however legally con- ducted, are all too incontestable to be effaced from the page of history. It was at the time that Stur, in the name of 2,000,000 of people, was begging for permission to establish a single newspaper, that I made the ac- quaintance of Count Szechenyi, at the Diet of Presburg in 1843, and I must do this distinguished and excellent individual the justice to say that he entirely disapproved of the extreme and violent methods used by the ultra-Magyar faction. His very words were, " I deplore the loss of the Slaavic RECENT SLOVACK HISTORY. 319 sympathies in Hungary, but we are like a ship that has lost her masts, we must get to port as well as we can without them." It would have been pre- sumption in me at that time to seek a laugh at the expense of a statesman of mature age whom I sincerely respected ; but I thought to myself that, considering the extent of the non-Magyar element in Hungary, it would have been nearer the truth to say that the hull was waterlogged and lost to the mast and the rudder. At Prague the Tchechs wisely avoided political conspiracies, secret societies, initiations and purchase of arms. They determined to work out Tchechism harmoniously with the rest of the monarchy by moral force alone, by theatres, amusements, periodicals, newspapers, and particularly reprints of old literature, and the Slovackey having reflected the light of Bohemia in the religious movement of the Reforma- tion, so in the national revival, the halo of the new Aurora, shed a bright and broad beam over the Carpathians — Kollar, Schafarik, and other distin- guished Slovacks bearing an honourable part in the work ; while, on the other hand, the Thuns, Palackys, Czelakowskys, some of whom had aristocratic, some bureaucratic, and some democratic opinions in politics, all took the warmest interest in the Slovack move- ment. Tchechism was in a hopeful position until the 350 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. year 1848, when the democrats of Prague altered the ground from moral and historical right to physical force. Having kicked the constitutional reformers and the party of property and intelligence down stairs, and having rendered the question a simple one of barricades and artillery — artillery carried the day ; and Tchechism, like the moderate and rational Magyarism of the Szechenyis, Josikas, and Esterhazys, may now develope itself as it best may under martial law. I say nothing of the events in the Slovackey during the revolution and revolutionary war, of which the reader must be fully satiated in the numerous pub- lications that have already appeared ; one incident, however, showed pretty clearly that the spirit of John Huss and Jerome of Prague is not extinct. Five young Slovacks were, at the foot of the gallows, told that their lives would be granted them if they renounced their nationality ; but they preferred the rope to dishonour, and, strange to say, martial law, which substituted the honest open and avowed suppression of political liberty for the nominal liberty and practical despotism of the ultra-Magyar reign of terror, actually brought to the Slovack protestants an amount of religious liberty which they had not known of for years. No sooner was Haynau in- stalled in Pesth than a deputation waited on him, representing that a Magyar service being compulsory RECENT SLOVACK HISTORY. 351 every alternate Sunday, the worship of God in an unknown tongue was equivalent to divine service only once a fortnight. Haynau's answer was " Gen- tlemen, there are two things the loss of which no man will put up with, his religion and nationality, you are henceforth at liberty to worship God in your own places of worship, in your own language, every Sunday in the year." I will not say how the moderate and respectable Magyars blushed for their more violent compatriots, when it was in the power of a man whom they bitterly detested to give so stinging an answer. But I dare say that the reader is by this time tired of the animosities of the nations of Hungary, let us now, therefore, take a glance at the capital of the empire, before we return to old England. 352 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. CHAPTER XXXI. VIENNA SINCE THE WAR- ITS GENERAL ASPECT — PAPER MONEY— THE SHOPS— THE IMPERIAL FAMILY— PROFESSOR LEOPOLD NEUMANN— DIMINUTION OF INCOMES — THE TRADESPEOPLE— VISCOUNT PONSONBY. Vienna itself, as far as externals go, does not show any trace of the scenes of civil war and bombardment, of which we have such accounts. I even thought the appearance of the town much improved since my previous visit three years before, with new houses of a much more ornamental and Italianised style of architecture than used to be in fashion, but at the same time none of those grotesque Lombard, By- zantine, and Gothic experiments such as one sees in Munich — the whole of which fashion I consider a complete mistake, for that was the winter of archi- tecture, when the classic autumn was passed and the vernal foliage of the pointed style had not budded. This is at best the age of imitation and not of origi- nality in architecture (the Crystal Palace always excepted), we may therefore at least avoid the imita- tion of the degenerate. VIENNA SINCE THE WAR. :}5:} All entirely new quarter of the town is in course of construction, on the glacis, next the arm of the Danube, for which purpose the bastions and walls have been knocked down for a considerable extent and others are gradually rising in an outer ring, so that there will still be a strong line of distinction between the town itself and the suburbs, in which the working classes live. For there can be no doubt that, unless the government be suddenly paralysed by some unforeseen event, the possession of the Central town is a certain hold upon the suburbs, which are, from all I hear, very much tinctured, not with what we call liberalism, but with the socialism of the French school. At the same time it is not to be denied that the men of the suburbs, during times of political excitement, do not remain in the suburbs but come into the town to do all the mischief they can ; when, therefore, I hear people saying in this country, " I am for Hungarian independence because I despair of Austria," they ought to tell us what Austria they mean, whether the constitutional Austria of property and intelligence, which Hungarian repeal and Vienna mobocracy seized by the throat, or Ultra-montane and Absolute Austria, whom the repeal and demo- cratic impracticables have again restored to such prodigious influence, that even the most moderate members of the present cabinet dare not affront them. If we pass from externals of architecture to the A A 354. THE GOTH AND THE HUN. circumstances of social existence, the stranger feels that some vast upheaving of the social element has taken place. You change a dollar, and instead of the metal currency with the effigy of Kaizer Franz, or his son, you receive a handful of dirty bits of paper about the size of a railway ticket. A florin bank-note is cut into four quarters, and even notes for two-pence farthing are the usual substitute for old six kreutzer pieces, which, with an arabesque woodcut border, are headed " coin-bill," and inform the holder that the imperial and royal mint in Vienna will pay on the receipt of this coin-bill, six kreutzers. Having crumpled up and pocketed your bundle of twopenny consols, your thoughts turn to universal peace, and see that however much desired, it is likely to remain a desideratum ; for there limps an officer on crutches, with his leg cut off near the socket, and had the cannon ball gone half an inch higher he would never have stepped across the Vienna stones again — another passes without an arm and so on. I met an acquaintance from Croatia, and asked him how my old friends the borderers were left by the war, " Ah ! to tell you the truth," said he, "our musters are nearly twenty thousand short of the complement two years ago, and the battalions which had marched out fourteen hundred strong came back with seven hundred." In short, thanks to ultra- Magyar repeal, and impracticable mobocracy, I believe VIENNA SINCE THE WAR. -i 5 5 that Vienna has a more military aspect than St. Peters- burgh ; and there can be no doubt that the bravery of the army, the skill of the generals, and the indomitable civil energy of Prince Schwarzenberg saved society from shipwreck ; but whether the hardy mariner will prove a good sail-mender and a good caulker in port is yet to be seen. The print-shops were full of military scenes and portraits ; there was Radetzky by at least a dozen artists, and I confess— that although a strong friend of conservative constitutional government, and a great foe of ultra-montanism, bureaucratic uni- formity, repeal and democracy,— I never saw his honest face without a glow of veneration for this patriarch of the legions of Goth and Hun, who, at eighty-three years of age, during a severe campaign, is up by the cock-crow, and after a day of blood and sweat never tastes a morsel until he is satisfied that every private soldier in the army has had his supper served out to him. There too was Windischgratz with his finely chiselled aristocratic features. Schlick, with his large black patch. The Iron Haynau with his long mustachios ; and last, not least, Jellachich, in a Croat costume of the national colour, white and red. The scenes and episodes of the bloody and terrible war in Hungary were new and striking, from the mixture of uncouth peasant costumes with those of the military uniforms, and I was struck with A A 2 356 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. one that was a drama in itself. In the twilight of winter, a wounded hussar had fallen from his saddle in deep snow, while the horse with a sort of human intelligence and affection, stretched out its neck on which the bridle hung loose, as if to receive the last sigh of his rider and master. Nor was the droll omitted in laughter-loving Vienna. A broad- shouldered bombardier is taking his walk outside the walls of a town with a blouzy fat-cheeked cook- maid. " There is the roof of our house," said she ; " take care that you direct your shells, in case of a bombardment, considerably to the right or left of it." " Ah ! my dear," answered the son of Vulcan, "if we are to avoid every roof that covers the sweetheart of an artilleryman or bombardier, we might as well let shot and shell alone altogether." The imperial family did every thing to keep up the martial spirit during the long evenings of winter and the long anxious days of summer. Even to almost within sight of the close of the campaign, all frivolous amusements were banished from court ; the palace walls were without echo of harp or piano ; and in their stead the archduchesses would work for hours daily in preparing lint bandages for the wounded soldiery. The actual amount of such Charpie, as it is called, could not be great, but was an example to the whole of the females of a frivolous capital ; and these, along with other traits of LEOPOLD NEUMANN. 357 imperial humanity and considerateness, all assisted in nourishing the steady feeling of loyalty and patriotism, — not only in the breast of the soldier, who knew not what an hour might bring forth, — but even in the sound and healthy part of the middle classes, who certainly needed it all, terrorised as they were by the mob. Many years had elapsed since I first made the acquaintance of Leopold Neumann, a young legal stu- dent then unknown to fame, but endowed with great natural talents, sound judgment, indefatigable perse- verance, and the most agreeable cheerful temper ; he had gradually risen from poverty and obscurity to one of the professorships of the Theresianum ; to be the friend of Stadion ; to be one of the ablest political, statistical, and historical capacities in Vienna ; and although a man of liberal and enlightened views before the revolution, he no sooner saw in power such men as Stadion than he preferred them to mobocracy. During the absolutism of the Metternich rule, he could talk very freely of the slowness of Austria, and the necessity of her getting out of her old jog-trot without the fear of either prison — bar, or rope's-end. But no sooner did the freedom of speech and of the press arrive, than the mob of the suburbs determined to put to school this professsor of political economy, and to teach this teacher what liberty was ; in short, being a constitutional conservative and favourable 358 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. to reform, to property and to intelligence, but neither a demagogue, a mobocrat, nor a socialist, his house was beset, the rope being ready to hang him at the lamp-post ; and when I called upon him, we had scarcely got over the first greetings, when we proceeded to examine the localities and the wall at the back of his house, from whence he had dropped into the pleasure grounds of the Theresianum, with the buzz of the crowd humming in his ears as he stealthily crossed the grass. What most struck me, was, the lack of equipages, in which Vienna used to abound. The kernel Town being so small, it was difficult to point out a capital in which a greater number of carriages might be seen, but a fiacre is now the order of the day for many a fine lady who once enjoyed every luxury she could dream of. Aristocracy, bureaucracy, mer- chants, and trades-people, have all had their turns of suffering. G told me of one family that might be considered an average specimen of the fashionable world, their income was 5000/. a year before the revolution, and now it is 2000/. Nor was the bureaucrat better off, for most of these people looked to saving a little money ; and since the reign of uncertainty, and of the very doubtful prospects of a securely consolidated monarchy, they do not think themselves justified in spending so much of their incomes as formerly. All this re-acts on the RESULTS OF THE REVOLUTION. 35ti merchant and tradesman. The avidity after gold and silver for hoarding against a rainy day, even with total renunciation of interest for capital, con- tinues to throw difficulties in the way of the government, returning from a metal to a paper circulation. I remember that before the revolution 1 never could get a ten florin bank-note for an English sovereign, and now I get twelve or thirteen florins. As for the trades-people, particularly those who dealt in luxuries, they lived by the aristocracy, and, consequently, suffered severely. The shoemaker, the tailor, the baker, and the butcher, managed to rub along in the worst of times, but the producers of luxuries, from the family coach downwards, found that where a dozen men were before needed, half as manv, and even less, were requisite. In short, the suffering has been enormous, and the number of persons of a certain age, and in easy, prosperous circumstances, whom the anxieties of the revolution killed, is extra- ordinary. At various houses where I called I was told that so-and-so had died. " Of what did he die V said I, — of fever, or paralysis, the answer might be ; but, on further inquiry, I generally found that the disease had been the revolutionary terrorism. I give these details because they serve to explain the contentedness or indifference of the Viennese under the present martial law, and when we wonder at the contentedness with which a capital that 360 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. has a liberal constitution on paper submits to such restraints, we must recollect that we happy denizens of the land of John Bull did not feel what preceded, and that, in fact, the restraint of the present period of reaction is like the restraint of an anchorage at Brest, or in the Garonne, after the liberty of a severe gale in the Bay of Bisca}'. The military reaction is therefore violent, but, considering what has gone before, it does not create the least surprise ; in fact it would be rather strange if it were otherwise. It is true that it appears to me that the old bureaucracy do not understand, that every reaction, in order to be of some permanence, must be moderate ; but when was that ever understood ? And I really believe, from the example of the days of the Abbe de Montesquieu, and the chambre ardente of 1815, that a reactionary parliament, if it had sat in Vienna immediately after the conclusion of the war, would, from that law of human nature by which men in a corporate capacity are read} r for acts of coercion which they would shrink from as individuals — have left the present ministry very little behind in anti- pathy to democracy ; but as this period is now past, a hastening of the meeting of the imperial parliament surely cannot be long delayed without the danger of a formidable reaction against the reaction. On all topics of political and general interest I found no one in Vienna better informed than our VISCOUNT PONSONBY. 361 accomplished ambassador, Viscount Ponsonby, who, having passed four-score years in the great world, and advanced I know not how far in his candidate- ship for a ninth decennium, unites, in a most extra- ordinary degree, the corporeal and mental activity of youth with the dignity and wisdom of age. What more instructive to the younger politician than the conversation of a perfectly accomplished man of the world, whose experiences range from the House of Commons of the last century, in which, as he told me, he had voted with Mr. Fox in a minority of sixteen, to the France of the second republic with the red spectre looming in the perspective — from the death of the Emperor Joseph to the accession of a youthful Caesar, and the resuscitation of the dormant nation- alities of the Danube and the Save. Attempts have been made to throw a slur upon the Blue-book, by showing that Viscount Ponsonby was misinformed on military events, and unsound in his military prognostics. But nothing in the world is more easy than for a journalist to sit down a year after the fact, to collate and check opposing state- ments, and then convict of minor inaccuracies those who write as truth the last falsehood concocted at a distance ; designedly coloured with an air of probability, and believed by the whole town. It would be quite absurd to suppose that statements made during the pressure of a war with the courier's 3(52 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. carriage waiting in the court-yard of the embassy, are to have the same absence of inaccuracy and exaggeration as a history after the fact ; and all this does not go one whit to invalidate the perfectly sound view which Lord Ponsonby took of the political merits of the Hungarian question. PRINCE SCHWAUZENBERG. 363 CHAPTER XXXII. PRINCE SCHWARZENBERG — TRINCE WINDISCHGRATZ — THE AUSTRIAN ARISTOCRACY — THEIR POSITION AND PROS- PECTS. On my return to Vienna, I made or renewed acquaintance with the principal personages of the political and fashionable world, but by far the most interesting of those persons to me were those who had taken a conspicuous place in the history of the recent events, and several of whom had been elevated in the short space of a couple of years to power, from positions comparatively humble. The first person in the empire is Prince Schwarzen- berg, the prime minister of his imperial majesty, who has the sole direction of the foreign policy of Austria, He occupies the same apartments on the Bastion as those in which Prince Metternich lived, forming that portion of the chancery of state which looks out on the glacis. I had had the honour of making his acquaintance before my last trip into Hungary, and on my return received from him a most cordial recep- tion, and on various occasions had the opportunity oG4 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. of discussing with him at ample length, the internal and external prospects of the Austrian Empire ; for, although he is an Austrian diplomatist of some standing, I never in the course of my life met any member of that profession, British or Foreign, more perfectly open, unreserved, and straight forward, and more opposite to the Macchiavellian secrecy and perfidy which the opponents of Austria are constantly casting in her teeth. I could see that his principal difficulty was Hungary, that it occupied his thoughts in an especial manner. The first time that I dined with him on my way to Hungary, the statesman was entirely thrown off, and my host was only an agree- able man of the world ; but each time that I had the honour of enjoying his hospitality on my return, no sooner had we returned to the drawing-room, than Hungary came up again, although he had had a hard forenoon's work, and although, on one occasion, the principal members of the cabinet and several foreign ministers were of the party, so that if I had been asked, — Who has happiness'? I should have answered, rather a clerk with a hundred a-year, who can devote his evening to relaxation — than the sumptuous prince premier of one of the greatest monarchies of Europe. Prince Schwarzenberg is a son of the much- respected person who was generalissimo of the allied armies at the battle of Leipzig, and had himself PRINCE SCHWARZENBERG. 365 attained the rank of lietenant-general in the Austrian army ; after several diplomatic missions, he served during the Italian campaign under Radetzky, and was wounded. My respected friend, Marshal Nugent, informed me that from what he saw, both of his personal courage and of the dispositions which he adopted in carrying out what was intrusted to him, that he was persuaded that he was quite capable of making a figure in a separate command. Schwarzen- berg is tall, thin, and wiry in person, between fifty and sixty years of age, with a small head, an aquiline nose, an eye expressive of both intelligence and determination. The hair of his head is grey, and he wears neither beard, mustachios, nor whiskers. His French is fluent and correct. His manners are not refinedly aristocratic, but those of a man of good sense and a man of the world. He rises early, and after breakfasting and reading the newspapers, commences at ten o'clock to receive the heads of departments, and to do the work of the day. He receives foreign ministers at one or two o'clock ; cabinet councils are usually held at three o'clock, after which, if possible, he takes exercise, often on foot. At five or half-past five he dines, receives a few persons at between seven and eight ; and after that his work recommences, and the only occasion on which I saw him at any public or private entertainment out of doors, was on the first 36 G THE GOTH AND THE HUN. night of the production of the Prophet, under the auspices of Meyerbeer himself. What may come of the Austrian revolution I cannot pretend to predict, but there can be no doubt of the amazing vigour, ability, and energy, shown by Prince Schwarzenberg in preserving the empire from disruption, and in his efforts to preserve for Austria her ancient and undoubted historical precedence in Germany. That Prussia should, in consequence of the war of 1815 and the revolution of 1848, acquire a great accession of influence, and that many of the smaller states should have their modicum of moral and political power still farther diminished, is not to be wondered at, and is in fact quite in the nature of things, and no Englishman who understands the interests of his country can view with displeasure the increase of Prussia in population, wealth, and power. But the subordination of Austrian to Prussian influence which the Erfurth scheme involved, and the surrender of a precedence interwoven with the history of Germany, was not for one moment to be expected to be tamely submitted to by any Austrian of spirit. Prince Schwarzenberg, therefore, both from his energetic resistance to the disruption of the military integrity of the monarchy and his resistance to the deposition of Austria to a subordinate place in the Germanic confederation, is a true Austrian patriot, and I am firmly convinced and persuaded, has been PRINCE SCHWARZENBERG. .'567 actuated by no feeling of personal advantage or pre- judice of caste, but by the strongest feelings of patriotism, and I am sure would lay down his life in defence of the unity of the empire. He is indeed the pilot that weathered the storm ; but I am not equally sure that having arrived in port he is taking the right way to refit for future storms, and I have a strong idea that in his mind the unity of the empire is more associated with the bureaucratic uniformity of the empire than is needful. The Magyar character is certainly not suitable for centralisation, and even if accompanied by ultimate constitutional government, I am afraid that centralisation as contrasted with free municipal development, will be difficult to work, and although centripetal in appearance may be centrifugal in its results. But I confess that, although a warm partisan of municipal development as contrasted with centrali- sation, I am not surprised at the indisposition which I found in the official circles of Vienna to give up the latter principle, the former having been so abused by the ultra-Magyar faction as to render the municipal principle in Austrian official eyes closely identified with the tendencies to dig a gulf between Austria and the non-Magyar populations of Hungary. " No doubt," said Prince Schwarzenberg to me, " vou heard a orreat deal of abuse of me, both in 868 THE GOTH AND THE HUN, Hungary and Transylvania; but my part is not an easy one. Rome cannot be built in a day, and all I ask is time : for we have just come out of a most violent attempt to tear the empire asunder on the pretext of reform. I am quite willing that the various populations of the empire should have as much liberty as may be compatible with the unity of the empire ; but I had first of all to think of the unity, and I am not afraid of being interrupted in my course by anything that may happen in Hungary. The last Hungarian rebellion was formidable, because fifty-two fortresses, great and small, were handed over to the anti-Austrian party by perfidy. But there is no chance of that occurring again. My part is not easy ; there is no doubt much discontent in certain classes : but how can I content all parties 1 For instance, the Slovacks, a compact Slavonic popu- lation, with a thin sprinkling of Magyars, demand Slovack employes. How can I refuse them % If we return to the old county system, an agitation for Magyar supremacy would be immediately organised again." Such was the language of Prince Schwarzenberg, and it is quite clear to me that the principle of municipal development, which I look upon as the most essential part of constitutional liberty, so far from having been advanced by its monstrous alliance with ultra- Magyar despotism and imperial disruption, PRINCE WINDISCHGRATZ. 369 has been discountenanced and discredited by the adulterous connection. Through the kindness of Count Albert Nugent I was introduced to Prince Windischgnitz on his return from his estates in Bohemia on the eve of my departure for Berlin, and regretted that having made the final arrangement for the journey, I was unable to avail myself of a hospitable invitation he sent me, and which would have enabled me to see more of an individual, for whose character I entertain the highest respect, not diminished by the circumstance that his last campaign was an exception to the proverb, " that fortune favours the brave." Prince Windischgratz is a handsome man of about sixty years of age, and has, what the French call the grand air, which is by no means common among the princes of the continent. He speaks French admir- ably, but without any affectation of Parisianism, and I think, that that sort of affectation in a foreigner, with the vowels and diphthongs whistling about one's ears, like those of a jeune premier in a vaudeville, is more offensive than even the deficient accent. In his political character he has been a man of firmness and integrity, with a sacred regard for truth and a fine sense of honour, and although his campaign in Hungary was not successful, it can never be forgotten that at Vienna after the fall of Prince Metternich, he was one of the very first of his rank to give in his B B 370 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. adhesion to constitutional" government, and at Prague was the very first to raise his hand against insane democracy — against the destroyer who wished to step into the shoes of the reformer. When all quaked and trembled — when the very fabric of society seemed in danger of dissolution — he stood firm as a rock. " It is a singular age, ours," said he to me ; " formerly one state made war on another ; now that socialism developed in France is spreading over Europe, there is a war of the proletarian substratum of all states against property." Prince Windischgratz, as the descendant and repre- sentative of Wallenstein, has had the title of Duke of Friedland conferred on him in recompense of his services, and the weak part of his character was said to have been his somewhat excessive aristocratic prejudices. But since the events of the war his mind has taken something of a religious cast, and although still looked upon as a sort of head or representative of the aristocratic party, I heard no man's personal character and demeanour spoken of with more general respect. The position of the aristocracy of Austria is essen- tially different from that which aristocracy held before the French revolution, as well as from that which the British aristocracy now occupies. It was the invention of gunpowder that destroyed the power of the castellated barons. The progress of AUSTRIAN ARISTOCRACY. '.\7 | artillery and the creation of standing armies gradually undermined, not only feudalism, but also the consti- tutional liberty of aristocracies and the municipal liberty of civic bodies throughout the continent of Europe. As armies grew in numbers and organisa- tion, provincial parliaments and estates became more and more nominal, and in the middle of the eighteenth century, we find the aristocrat no longer a free baron, but either the officer of the army, subject to the articles of war, or the superior lacquey of the monarch's antechamber. I need not tell my fellow-countrymen how different has been the fate of the British aristocrat — how Great Britain had the good fortune to have a commons, early enfranchised from villenage, and that (however detestable the puritans may have been from their hatred of the arts) — the people of England sent one king to the scaffold, and another into exile, when the reigning dynasty attempted to make the course of the relations of royalty to the people in England, resemble the processes of the principal monarchies of the continent ; and that, moreover, at the critical period, when standing armies had not grown over- whelming, and the feudal principle was not yet extinct, — we had the good fortune to possess an aristocracy that would neither be bullied nor bought by the crown. After the lapse of a few generations more, when democracy was abroad, our aristocracy B B 2 372 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. proved the very best bulwark of the monarchical principle j for as Mr. Macaulay truly and justly remarks, The people of England (I forget his exact words) instead of re-conquering liberty as the conti- nental nations have been lately attempting to do, had the energy and the good sense never to part with theirs. On the continent they did part with their liberty, and we have seen the result. "In 1789," said the ablest and most talented of French democrats to me, "we destroyed aristocracy — in 1830, we destroyed priestly power — in 1848, we destroyed royalty. The last hierarchy or obstacle to equality is that of capital, and we are determined to destroy that too." In Austria, as I have already shown in the " High- lands and Islands of the Adriatic," the Emperor Joseph's reforms prevented any convulsion similar to that of France, and had he put the cope-stone upon them by summoning an imperial parliament, I doubt not but that countless evils would have been avoided. I am sure that had a parliament with a good dead weight of aristocratic ballast in it been sitting in Vienna since the time of the Emperor Joseph, we should have had no ultra-Magyar separation, but Hungary almost Germanised and civilised. The Emperor Joseph, however, had a great dislike of the aristocracy, and the result was, that up to 1848, the aristocracy were mere antechamber men and AUSTRIAN ARISTOCRACY. ,'373 military officers, without political power, except they actually formed a portion of the bureaucratic corps. This huge overgrown bureaucratic cancer of Austria, which — highly useful in making the enfranchisement from villenage a reality, — has at length created a sort of political religion, that what is opposed to the pre- judices of the bureaucracy must necessarily be something opposed to the interests of the empire. In order to clear up the position of the aristocracy in the recent crisis, let me remark, that in Great Britain the ruling power is property and intelligence ; that is to say, that after the prerogative of the Crown comes the influence of the landed aristocracy, — the bankers, and merchants, the eminent lawyers, divines, and other professional men. There was one chance for the people of Austria getting this highest and best form of constitutional government, and that was, if the reformers of Hungary had stretched out the right hand of fellowship to the moderate constitutional party in Austria, so as to keep both extremes at a distance. But that did not take place ; for in Hungary the Destroyer had stepped into the shoes of the Reformer ; the adulteration of con- stitutional government in Austria with Hungarian repeal, threw the property and intelligence of Austria in disgust out of the arena, and after a brief inter- regnum of anarchy, the possibility of this higher form of constitutional liberty in Austria was strangled 374 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. by ultra-Magyar egotism, despotism, and separatism. In order to understand this, let any man ask himself what would have been the fate of the Peel and Wellington Catholic emancipation, or of the Grey and Russell reform, if they had been adulterated by a simultaneous and formidable struggle for the repeal of the union with Ireland 1 The result of the attempt to break loose (not, let us remark, from absolute, but) from constitutional Austria, has been, that the termination of martial law and the working of the very liberal constitution of March is, at the present time, not in the hands of that independent corps, composed of the aristocracies of birth, of wealth, and of intelligence, but of the old bureaucracy, to the interests of which every ministry must be more or less subservient. THE CABINET. 378 CHAPTER XXXIII. THE CABINET— BARON BRUCK— COMMERCE— M. THIENFELDT —AGRICULTURE— M. BACH — M. SCHMERLING— THE DE- PARTMENTS OF INTERIOR AND JUSTICE. In Hungary the most notable and striking result of the revolution is the resurrection of the non-Magyar races, and the administrative division of the country according to nationalities. In Vienna every one must be struck with the great infusion of new vigour and talent into the sphere of public administration. Instead of a chancellor of state, as Prince Metternich was, almost wholly absorbed by foreign affairs, a minister of the finances of the interior, and an aged arch-duke, to represent the emperor, there was, when I was in Vienna, a full and complete cabinet, each department filled by the very best special men that could be picked out in the empire, without reference to original rank or wealth, and at the cabinet councils of which the youthful emperor himself very fre- quently presides ; for, although so young, he takes a great interest in politics, and frequently spends the whole forenoon in examining state papers. ^76 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. Of these new men I had previously made the acquaintance of Baron Bruck, minister of commerce, and of M. Thienfeldt, minister of what is called Landes-cultur, that is to say, crown-lands and mines, agriculture, &c. When I remember my introduction to the former gentleman, as secretary and manager of a commercial navigation company, and saw him after two years in the stately and palatial apartments of his ministry, and an antechamber crowded with persons from all parts of the empire, it looked like a realisation of one of those changes for dramatic effect introduced into a romance or a melodrama. But in reality it was not a mere piece of luck, but a change prepared by a life-time of laborious acqui- sition of commercial and industrial knowledge, for which the change in the empire has made an opening of such fearful splendour. At Trieste I had been struck with his superior ability ; and, when in power, perceived his manner to have nothing of the uneasy embarrassment of the parvenu, but a gravity and stoical dignity, springing from a character that preserves a balance in every state, major adversis par secundis. When in Trieste he possessed great influence ; and probably more than any other man, was identified with the substitution of moderate or prohibitive duties with a view to revenue ; and having been frequently in communication with Count Stadion and Baron BARON BRUCK. .'377 Kubeck, the old finance minister, the Litter had actually got the consent of Prince Metternich to a scheme of moderate customs duties. But the old bureaucracy, headed by a well intentioned, but by no means enlightened archduke, would hear of no change. At length, highly to the honour of the Schwarzenberg ministry in general, and of Baron Bruck in particular, this great reform has been carried through in spite of the opposition of both official prejudices and the out-cry of the industrial monopolists. Not only has Austria abandoned the prohibitive system, but since it has been determined that Hungary is henceforth to bear her proportional share of the direct taxation, which pressed so heavily on the other portions of the empire, the commercial and fiscal barrier that separated the two countries has been broken down, and the productions of each part of the empire are freely interchanged without fiscal barriers. The customs duties of Austria might be lowered with, I believe, still farther advantage to the revenue ; but, from all I have heard, what has taken place is as much as could have been obtained, considering the compact and serried power of the industrial interests. What shape a community of customs union with the rest of the German con- federation may take has, I believe, not yet been determined. M. Thienfeldt received me like an old friend." I care 378 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. nothing for the great world of politics or fashion," said he to me ; " my delight is in the business of my own department, and in the family circle. So come and spend an evening with me in a quiet way:" which I did with much pleasure. M. Thienfeldt, as the most improving landlord and proprietor of mines in Styria, had been particularly known to the Arch- duke John, and to other members of the imperial family. But his political sphere had been confined to the provincial estates of that marquisate, and in fact he was neither a courtier nor a statesman, but an active and influential country gentleman — when, as he told me himself in the course of the evening, Count Stadion (who knew his high special qualifi- cations) asked him to become a member of his cabinet, adding, " I tell you beforehand, that you have just as good a chance of being hanged as of dying in your bed." I perceived that Hungary occupied his thoughts. " I deplore," said he, " the retrograde state of that country. Give us time and you will see all that glorious land covered with a net of railways, and at the same time the drainage and cultivation of waste lands by vigorous and industrious colonists ; but I will by no means interfere with private property : private property shall be respected. The crown lands are amply sufficient for my purpose, and I am determined to implant in them such a civilisation, by colonists M. BACH. B79 acquainted with the improved processes of agriculture, as to give a salutary impulse to the private pro- prietors around. No two countries suit each other better than Austria and Hungary, if they understand their true interests ; and now that this unhappy war is at an end, it is the duty of us civilians to strengthen the bonds of union by commerce, arts, agriculture, and manufactures." M. Bach, the minister of the interior, not only from his official situation, but from his own mental activity, is certainly the most prominent of the new men that have been thrown up by the huge cauldron of the revolution, and remained on the surface after its having cooled down. Bach is of low stature, with a very slight obliquity of vision, and he is altogether without the power of producing an imposing first impression. But this wears away when he begins to converse, and brings large stores of legal and historical knowledge, as well as sound practical sense — and without any effort — to bear upon the subject of discourse ; and, in fact his fluency and brilliancy of conversation is so great, that their alliance, as in his case, with the solid and the practical, make him altogether, the most remark- able of the new men. He has so many audiences to give, that he has not time for exercise ; and therefore on my first con- versation with him, instead of sitting, he invited me 380 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. to take a promenade up and down the room, for the apartments of his official residence are so large, as to be more like halls or galleries than rooms. He talked a great deal of Hungary, and said, " that nothing could be more unjust or untrue than to say that Austria gave the so-called concessions with a free will. Austria never gave her consent — the consent was extorted from the King of Hungary by Batthyany. I told Batthyany," added he, " at our first interview, ' No state can exist with two centres ; mark well my words, either you will fall or we will fall/ These," said Bach, " were my words to Batthyany." We then talked of the abolition of the Hungarian constitution ; of the legislative union, and of the introduction of centralisation into Hungary. I ad- mitted that constitutional monarchy was destroyed in that country, not by Austria, not even by Kossuth's declaration of independence, but from the moment that the Palatine, an officer elected by the Estates, was invested with the prero- gative of the consent to, and veto of laws ; but, I added, that I had great doubts of the propriety of introducing centralisation into the Magyar districts of Hungary, and that I conceived that Austria would commit a great mistake if she persevered in introducing the Austrian code of laws instead of the native Hungarian code ; and I M. BACH. 381 adduced the instance of Scotland and England as a model of a perfect political union, each nation retaining its distinct code of laws, derived from opposite sources, proceeding on the distinctive separate principles of accumulated precedent in the one case, and of Roman and feudal right in the other ; but by the common imperial legislation undergoing a process of insensible fusion. I do not feel at liberty to give in extenso the reasons which M. Bach urged in favour of centralisa- tion, but I could perceive that his antipathy to municipal development as it had existed in Hungary, even in its most improved shape, arose, not from any hostility to this principle in the abstract, but to its having been adulterated with the despotic and revolutionary element of ultra-Magyarism ; despotic and egotistical towards the other races, and revolu- tionary in its results towards the Austrian empire and the house of Austria. M. Bach is born of respectable parents in the middle classes, received a good education, studied the law, and was an advocate when the revolution broke out. He is still a very young man, con- sidering his position in a cabinet composed for the most part of men advanced in life ; he might pass for thirty years of age, and certainly does not look more than four or five and thirty. He entertains sumptuously, as becomes the political head of the 382 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. domestic administration of 37,000,000 of people, but has nothing of the parvenu in the hour of festivity — no playing the great man, — but by his varied literary attainments and general information he knows how to relieve the oppressive formality of a diplomatic sort of dinner, such as I have seen few men do. With such, talent, capacity for labour, and informing experience, at a period of life when even the scions of the most illustrious families seldom attain high power, I think it probable that for many years to come he must play a principal part in the affairs of the Austrian empire, i M. Schmerling, the Minister of Justice, was also like Bach, a man of the people ; he has since quitted the cabinet ; but at the period of my visit to Vienna, was in power. His cabinet was like the boudoir of a lady : a carpet of handsome pattern, which is not usual in official residences, covered the floor, and conservatory flowers were encased at the windows. The manners of M. Schmerling himself are neither vulgar nor aristocratic, but smooth and grave, like those of a physician in good practice, or a Church dignitary. I cannot speak of his capacity for his office, but from what I have heard from others, which is that he is the soundest lawyer in the Austrian empire, and thoroughly acquainted not only with legal practice and juridical erudition, but with far more of the philosophy of legal science than SCHMERLING. :1S.'5 usually falls to the lot of a technical lawyer. What strikes the stranger, is the vein of strong practical sense, which is a security against loose speculation ; and although I object to the principles of extending the Austrian code of laws to Hungary, however more logical the Austrian code may be than that of the latter country, it is yet generally admitted that the new justiciary organisation of Hungary has been very ably devised. 384 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. CHAPTER XXXTV. THE EMPEROR AND THE ARMY — MARSHAL NUGENT - GENERAL WELDEN — COUNT SCHLICK — THE BAN OF CROATIA — BARON JOSIKA AND THE HUNGARIAN CON- SERVATIVES. There is now no minister of war. The Emperor himself doing the duties of commander-in-chief, and the army, instead of being all directly under one central war-office, is divided into four armies, with four provincial war-offices. One forming that portion of the empire which is in the German confederation, with the head quarters at Vienna. Another body of troops is the army of Italy, with the head quarters at Verona. A third army is that of Hungary, with the head quarters at Pesth. And a fourth is the army of Gallicia. So that Austria has now done away with the system of referring every petty matter, whether in war or peace, to the council of Vienna. Each corps d'armee is, therefore, more thrown on its own resources. The commanders have much freer action in details, and consequently greater responsibilities, and they communicate directly with THE EMPEROR. 385 the Emperor through his adjutants in his private chancery. This has the advantage, that if the democratic destroyers get the upper hand at any future time, a ministry may be thrown out and replaced by one of a different colour. But the military machine, with the Emperor as director, remains beyond the sphere of any repeal faction, although it unquestionably has the disadvantage of giving, probably, too military a tinge to the mind of the Emperor, if it be not checked by his native good sense, which I understand he possesses in a high degree, and which experience may assist. I did not consider my position in society to warrant my asking any presentation to his Imperial Majesty, of however informal a character, but I frequently saw him in public places. His appearance indicates health and strength, which he keeps by taking great exercise ; riding, or driving out every day for several hours. He is also fond of hunting and dancing, which both conduce to health and strength. He served in the first Italian campaign under Radetzky, and accompanied the army for the reduction of Hungary in 1849, and there can be no doubt that his presence tended greatly to animate the army in those preliminary operations, which had for their result the retirement of Kossuth from Pesth to Szegedin, and the shutting up of so large a force in Comorn. All the accounts that I hear represent c c 886 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. the present Emperor to be a young man of great personal courage, who will not allow the disruption of the empire without a smart tussle, and if the bureaucracy has the good sense to understand the times in which they live, — not to confound the exhaustion of the revolutionary element with its extinction, — to know that, without the sympathy and approbation of the classes that have property and intelligence, no secure or solid edifice can be built, — Austria has now before her such a fair start as she could not have hoped for, either under the old regime, or during the revolutionary panic. The most eminent man in the Austrian army is, unquestionably, Marshal Radetzky : he was at his command in Italy during the period of my stay in Vienna, but my intercourse with the other notabilities of the army gave me much pleasure. I had an- ticipated during my tour on the Adriatic the baton of Field Marshal for my distinguished friend Count Nugent, and I had much pleasure in finding that, after having been a general of more than forty years standing, he had attained this rank, which is never given, as in the British army, except to one or two individuals out of the reigning family, and is therefore much rarer than in .the French army. Little did I think when I saw him in quiet command of the Southern army on the eve of the February revolution, that the men of Aspern and Wagram were again to THE AGE OF HEROES. 387 take the held, and that our next meeting should be under the walls of Comorn, where 60,000 men lay encamped and watching the last stronghold of the Magyar rebellion. The period of the French Revolutionary war was certainly the age of heroes, and it is scarcely credible that the man who was a general as far back as the year 180,9, should, forty years afterwards, have com- manded at Comorn, with a degree of activity that shamed the youngest. Never to bed, with the business of the day finished, until midnight. And again on horseback, at the outposts, by the first peep of dawn. In Vienna I found him as spirited as ever, busy from morning to night in drawing plans for the repair and reconstruction of the fortresses of the empire, for his mathematical reputation as an officer of engineers was the foundation stone of his fortunes, and my last festive moment with him was a couple of hours before my departure from Vienna. On which occasion I also saw, for the last time, the venerable Count Wallmoden, who so distinguished himself in the momentous campaign of 1813. And who, when I drunk health and longevity to him, shook his head with a patriarchal smile and said, " You forget that the individual in question served in the Rhine campaign of 1792 and the Italian campaign of 1848." Nor must I forget some notice of those born a c c 2 388 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. generation later. I was introduced by M. Bach to General Welden, the governor of Vienna ; but as he was overwhelmed from morning till night by the duties of his office, I did not think it proper to take up his time with a visit. He is a compactly built man, with a countenance expressive of intellectual vigour, and he has the reputation of being one of the ablest generals in the Austrian army, having resigned his command to Haynau from having been attacked by ill health at a critical moment. Of all the eminent military men whom I saw, General Count Schlick has the most remarkable personal appearance, A large black patch covering the socket of one eye, which he had lost when a very young man at the battle of Leipzig ; but although I suppose him to be nearly sixty, his manner is that of a dashing young cavalry officer, full of racy cordiality, but withal, a tone of perfect self-possession and good breeding, so that, apart from his military merits, he is a great favourite in society. At the period of my stay in Vienna lie commanded in Moravia, with Brunn for his head quarters, but used, from the facility afforded by the railway, occasionally to come to Vienna, and had lodgings at the back of St. Stephen's church. "I am an enemy of formality and large parties," said he ; " I think life is short, and we ought to take the best way we can to enjoy it. So meet me to day at five o'clock at the Casino, and THE CASINO. 389 we shall have a tete a tete dinner, and a social chat." And I did proceed to the Casino at the hour appointed, and spent such an evening as seldom falls to my lot ; for it is one thing to know the art of war and the science of politics, and another to be an adept in the art of society. The Casino, in the Herrngasse, is the principal club of Vienna, and in its arrangements resembles those of London. The Casino and service are excellent, but in architecture, furniture, and com- pleteness of comforts, it is a long way behind the great establishments of our British metropolis. Seeing two exceedingly beautiful women seated at a table with a young man wearing the uniform of a general, although he did not appear to be above six or seven and twenty years of age, I was surprised at so unusual a circumstance ; for, in my present tour, I had frequently remarked the number of youthful generals I had seen, as compared with former tow r ns ; that is to say, that instead of seeing men generally above sixty, I sometimes saw men of this rank little above forty. Such was the change that death, sweeping superannuation and sudden promotion, had made during the revolutionary war, but no general so youthful as this had I previously seen. And on inquiry I found that it was the eldest son of the ex-Empress Maria Louisa, by her left-handed marriage 390 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. with Count Neipperg, and that one of these young ladies was his bride. General Schlick, during our tete a tctc dinner, was as curious to hear my adventures as he was ready to relate his own : from Aspern where he gained his spurs, to Leipzig where he lost his eye ; from hunting at Badminton, where, with Prince Francis Lichten- stein, he had indulged in the pleasures of the chase and seen English country life in its perfection and splendour, to the snowy bivouacks of the Carpathians, when he had hunted Georgey without being able to catch that able commander ; — and he mentioned, as a curious circumstance, that his ancestors were Hungarian magnates as well as imperialists, and that the large estates now belonging to the Karoly family formerly belonged to that of Schlick ; that in the famous revolt of Rakoczy, a General Count Schlick penetrated into the north of Hungary over the Carpathians, and fought battles on the same ground that he had contested with the Hungarians. In the course of the evening I said to him ; " You are a soldier and a gentleman, without political finesse, and do not conceal your opinion. Do you think that Georgey was a traitor to the cause he fought for." But Schlick scouted the idea, and said : — " That hemmed in on all sides in a corner of Hungary, not a shadow of a chance of success remained open to THE BAN OF CROATIA. 391 the Magyar army ; and that none but a fool could have supposed it to be otherwise." Another of the military celebrities then in Vienna was my former acquaintance — the Ban. No longer as I knew him, the bold borderer in the Switzer- land of Croatia, but now become a military and political personage of the first rank. He lived in the hotel of the Roman Emperor, as his official residence is in Agram, and when I called to return my thanks for some introductions which he had procured me in Hungary, the man in the antechamber told me that he had given thirty audiences that morning. On entering, I could not help feeling surprised at the alteration in his appearance, so much had he fattened with the fatigues of war, a proof that he has a vigorous physical constitution, as well as a vigorous intellect. His political position at this period was anything but agreeable, for the Croats and all the other nations of Hungary were quite willing to throw off' the offensive ultra-Magyar supremacy ; but when it came to the question of the public burthens of the empire being equalised, and Hungary made liable for an amount of taxation, equivalent in proportion to what was borne by the other provinces, a re-action against Austria was the immediate and inevitable result. For not only the Magyars, but all the other nations 'VJ-2 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. of Hungary having hitherto escaped with a very light taxation, the great proportion of the interest of the debt having hitherto been paid by the hereditary states, including Gallicia and Lombardy, there is now the same outcry in Hungary as there would be in Ireland, if this country were to lay on assessed and income taxes there. The Ban had therefore to fight with the government a political battle for the Croats, who had saved the monarchy, and at the same time, as representative of the government, to fight with the Croats a battle which might enable Austria to face the financial embarrassments into which she has been plunged by the revolutionary war ; for all law suits are expensive processes, whether those of club law, or of statute law. While the Ban had to fight the battle of the Croats, another distinguished Hungarian had a still more difficult part to play. Baron Josika, ex-chancellor of Transylvania, and the head of the conservative Magyar party, was at daggers-drawn with the centralisers. An object more worthy of sympathy than this distinguished statesman can scarcely be imagined, who was marked out by the Kossuth faction as a butt for their hatred in consequence of his attachment to his sovereign, and who confessed to me that he was now without the slightest influence with the cabinet of Vienna and the party of uncom- M. BACH. 393 promising centralisation. I will, therefore, close my political observations with a short account of the new organisation of Hungary, which at the period of my stay was the great bone of contention between the cabinet and Baron Josika and his ex-colleagues of the days of conservative official power. This new organisation is the work of M. Bach, and is usually called by the Hungarian conservatives, Das Bachische system. 39# THE GOTH AND THE HUN. CHAPTER XXXV. THE NEW ORGANISATION OF HUNGARY INTO PROVINCES ACCORDING TO NATIONALITIES — CENTRALISATION IN HUNGARY - JUDICIAL CHANGES— CONCLUDING RE- FLECTIONS. Is the new organisation of Hungary likely to tend to the union of the Austrian empire and to the happiness of the various nations of which Hungary is composed, Magyar as well as non-Magyar ? This is to be or not to be of Austria — this is the question of questions, and I will attempt to answer it with that moderation of tone which befits the criticism of the handiwork of men for whom I have the most sincere and unfeigned personal respect and esteem, who are exercising a military dictatorship with a genius and an energy which completely belies the opinion popular a couple of seasons ago, that Austria was irremediably effete. And if I have misgivings as to the future, it is because I have looked into the past, and because I have some doubts if all this high pressure and tying of the valves is so well calculated for a long voyage as a less stringent system. THE NEW ORGANISATION OF HUNGARY. 395 The Repealers of Hungary having kicked the moderate constitutional party down stairs, tabula rasa has been the first fruit of martial law. And if I offer objections to this new system, it is not because it is conservative, but because it is too revolutionary. Nature is herself conservative, for she abhors every violent and sudden transition. According to the new constitution there is to be one imperial Diet in Vienna. The old Hungarian code of laws has been abolished and an entirely new system introduced, closely resembling that of the Austrian provinces. A still more important change is the abolition of the division of counties and the adoption of large provinces defined as far as possible to suit the different nationalities, while everywhere the autonomic municipal action has been superseded by the French principle of centralisation, by which every officer, from the imperial commissioner to the pettiest functionary, is named by the government. In order to understand the extent of these changes, let the reader now place before himself the ethno- graphical map of Hungary and accompany me in my provincial tour. The Slovackey, forming the north-west of Hungary, has for its capital Presburg, the official language of which is Slovack. In the north-cast of Hungary we find the Ruthenian or Red Russian nation, who speak the same dialect as 396 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. the inhabitants of the eastern half of Gallicia. The capital of this province is Kaschau, a German town ; and as this province also includes all the Germans of the Zips, the official languages are Red Russian and German. Going southwards, the next province that we come to, is that of Grosswardein, which is the largest in Hungary, as it includes Tokay, Debreczin, and all the country to the east of the Theiss ; southwards, as far as Arad and the line of the Maros ; while to the west of the Theiss it includes the large and important town of Szegedin. The official language of this pro- vince is Magyar. Going southwards we come to the Voyvodina, or province of Temesvar, which, having been already described, need not longer detain us. Going westwards we now come to the kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia, the official language of which is Illyrian. Adjoining Styria, and filling up the space between the Drave and the Danube, from its entry into Hungary at Presburg, is the province of Oedenburg, which comprises the Lake of Balaton, Raab, Stuhl- weissenburg, &c. The official language of this province is Magyar. In the very midst of all these provinces described, is that of Pesth, which includes a considerable space between the Danube and the Theiss, but on the west THE NEW ORGANISATION OP HUNGARY. 397 of the Danube, very little beyond Ofen. The official language of this province is Magyar and German, the former to suit the rural districts, the latter to suit the population of the capital. Transylvania is now, as before the revolution, dis- joined from Hungary. The Voyvodina and the kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia are also directly under the minister of the interior in Vienna. The provinces of Pesth, Presburg, Kaschau, Gross- wardein, and Oedenburg, form the present kingdom of Hungary, under the Statthaltery of Pesth. In this new political vegetation let us therefore attempt to discover the rose that springs from the thorn, and, with equal anxiety to be impartial, the thorn that springs from the rose — the desirable legislative union that has proceeded from the attempt to tear the empire assunder, and the undesirable tendency to mar this good by a fallacious centrali- sation that is certainly overshooting the true aim. Let it not be supposed that I have any unreasonable antipathy to that class of men comprised under the term bureaucracy. Their position is not enviable ; they must serve many years of youth without pay ; middle-age finds them overwhelmed with labour and responsibility, and struggling very often with large families and small salaries ; and as for old age, one month's pension of John Company would be a 398 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. magnificent sum for the retired Austrian bureaucrat. With this poverty, their probity presents as great a contrast to that of the corresponding class in the Russian empire, as to the judicial officers of the Hungarian countries before the revolution, a vast majority of whom were accessible to the grossest bribery and corruption. And as to the objection raised against Baron Gehringer, the present Stadt- holder of Hungary, that he is not a Magyar, but a Transylvanian Saxon, that is a most palpable ab- surdity ; for it is impossible in such an ethnographical harlequin's jacket as Hungary is, to find any man who will satisfy all national susceptibilities ; and it would be impossible to pick out of any nation a man of more sober, dispassionate judgment, more humane disposition, and more conciliatory forms. But it is the transfer of the excessively cumbrous and expensive bureaucratic system of German govern- ment into Hungary, that seems to me not only uncalled for, as far as the unity of the empire is concerned, but replete with prospective evils. It is not Austria alone, but all the German governments, that are overrun with this bureaucracy. From all that I have been able to learn, the business of the Austrian provinces might be done with one-third of the present number of functionaries, and without the useless multiplication, not only of protocols, registers, controls, and counterchecks, and, worst of all, the THE NEW ORGANISATION OF HUNGARY. 399 over-governing and constant interference with ten thousand things that are not within the sphere of a government. And if the abuse of this system be lumbering and inconvenient in Austria, I am sure that in the Magyar districts of Hungary it is replete with danger. In the Slovackey, bureaucracy if subordinate to the indispensable objects of government, will work well, because the nobility for the most part having renegaded to Magyarism, the nationality requires an artificial support to keep in check the neophyte fanaticism of the small squirearchy. I am also afraid that in the Voyvodina and Transylvania, where so much blood was shed by the different nations com- mingled and interlaced with each other, — that the introduction of a free municipal system would be followed by discussions so passionate, that blood w^ould infallibly flow, and that the desideratum in these parts is a strong government, and an efficient protection to the landed proprietor against the communistic tendency of the peasantry. And Iioav- ever strong my leaning to the municipal as contrasted with the bureaucratic principle, I must confess, that anything would be better than a Daco-Roman par- liament in Transylvania, wiiose first measure, I am sure, would be a measure of spoliation of the landed proprietor, not a whit less ruinous than that which took place at the first French revolution. 400 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. But, in the great Magyar provinces, I think that a great error has been committed, in not allowing the old Hungarian laws and county institutions to remain. With the obstinate and fanatical Magyar temperament I do not think the principle of bureaucracy is likely to be successful. The Slovack will be happy to have a bureaucrat of his own nation to protect him against the invasion of ultra-Magyarism ; but I am sure that in the Magyar districts bureaucracy will be an irritant. All will go on very well for a few years, but the greater the demonstration of power, the greater the accumulation of exasperation against the coming evil day. If this was a necessity for Austria, I could under- stand its adoption, but I certainly think this necessity does not exist. The unwisdom and injustice of the ultra-Magyar faction attempting to break up the military integrity of the Austrian empire, is no argument against the rational and unoffending Magyars preserving their legal traditions and customs, and the ancient forms of their municipal institutions, with such improvements as the integrity of the empire demands. And nothing appears to me more unwise than for Austria to cast away the chance of utilising the conservative party, which she unques- tionably might do by changes less extreme and less revolutionary. I cannot agree with the conservatives in their opinion as to the restoration of the old THE NEW ORGANISATION OF HUNGARY. 401 constitution. I look upon the political union of the two countries as an immense benefit to both, if carried out by some compromise mid-way between historical tradition and the tabula rasa. In my humble opinion the objects of Austria in Hungary ought to be confined to four cardinal points : — First, the military occupation ; secondly, the unity of the imperial cabinet and the imperial legislature ; thirdly, the payment by Hungary of her exact proportion of the taxation of the empire ; fourthly, the adequate protection of the other nation- alities. This seems to me all that Austria needs or requires, and that if she seek more, — in some future crisis, the embryo of which may be in the womb of time, — she may get less ; and the warmest wish of a writer who sincerely desires the unity, the power, and the prosperity of the Austrian empire, is to see in the Magyar counties and boroughs, the native laws and customs, with neither the feudal abuses of pauper nobility, nor so low a qualification as to place the power in the hands of demagogues, but such an electoral census as will include the property and intelligence of the country, and afford a sphere of utility to the loyal and well-disposed part of the population ; and I entreat M. Bach to remember, that no spirited nation, accustomed to the bold expression of its opinions, will ever submit to the harness of a bureaucratic system, and the Magyar D D 402 THE GOTTI AND THE HUN. nation as little as any that I know. The Hungarian code of laws, and the county autonomy in the Magyar districts, with a raised qualification, will unques- tionably take nothing from the unity and integrity of the empire, and so far from involving the surrender of the pettiest gun-screw of the pettiest fortress, it will prove a safety-valve : — "IN VESTE VARIETAS SIT, SCISSURA NON SIT." MUSIC AND THEATRES. 403 CHAPTER XXXVI. MUSICAL AND THEATRICAL POLITICS. The theatres and places of public amusement were at a very low ebb during the revolution, and in this respect Vienna offered a remarkable contrast to what Paris was in 1792, for at that period the French theatres used to be nightly crowded. The allowance of 8000/. per annum, which the government used to give was reduced, and the lessee having given up the theatre, it was for some time carried on as a joint- stock affair, under the management of Staudig], the consequence of which was, that such a singer as Erl, who had previously 100/. per month, used to receive during this interregnum not above 10/. for his share. The drama during the revolution and long after- wards, was in an equally unprosperous state. Carl, the rich manager, who had the Leopoldstadt theatre and pulled it down to rear the present sumptuous edifice in its place, had for a while his labour for his pains, and the pieces of Nestroy, the best comic author and actor in Germany, who was so long and D D 2 104 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. so constant a favourite of the public in Vienna ceased to attract. The pieces of this celebrated artist are certainly coarse, and afford a complete contrast to the false sentimentality that occasionally disfigures Kotzebue, but they are full of common sense, of broad humour, and many touches of genuine pathos. Nestroy is a man of no literature, but he has looked at nature and nature alone, and his pieces partake of the lower Austrian character, jovial, sensible, robust, and practical, but lacking refinement, and even holding it up to contempt. One of the most amusing of the characters in a play of his school, being a swindling Prussian tailor, who in his peculiar Berlin dialect is constantly complaining that there is no intellectual refinement in Austria. But with the peace and the restoration of order, theatrical stock looked up ; the theatres were again crowded, and in 1850, when Meyerbeer visited Vienna in order to bring out his Prophete on the scene of the greatest triumphs of the greatest masters, politics seemed forgotten, and music revived in all its furore, so that nothing was talked of but the succession of this great artist to the musical crowns of Mozart and Beethoven, and it is scarcely possible to quit Vienna without saying something of this most seductive of the arts. Mr. Laing, one of the most vigorous writers and original, but as it seems MUSIC AND THEATRES. 405 to me, narrow thinkers of the day, in his recent work on the Continent showers contempt on those who devote themselves to the fine in preference to the useful arts. But surely if utility be the base of the pyramid of material civilisation, high art is the apex. Truly our Scottish metaphysical and econo- mical school with all its acuteness, vigour, and independence, is somewhat sectarian and provincial. The Almighty himself has created the rose and the lily as well as the band of ironstone. How willingly then would I see expunged from the works of the respected and accomplished JefFery, (himself more an elegant belletristic artist than a philosophic thinker,) that unhappy passage in which he talks of a musician and a rope-dancer in the same breath. The palm of originality in painting, sculpture or architecture, cannot be assigned to the age in which we live. In all we are imitative, and in architecture the imitators of the imitators, for we re-echo the palla- dian echoes of Greece and Rome. It is as an age of mechanical and musical invention that posterity will regard the latter half of the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries. Art has her seasons that count by hundreds of years, and if we have no Titian and Michael Angelo, many of the race now living have been the contemporaries of a Beethoven, a Rossini, a Weber, a Bellini, and a Meyerbeer. A person now living and indifferent to musical 406 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. production is therefore as much a stranger to the spirit of his age as a contemporary of Raffaelle would have been in whom the pictorial art excited no enthusiasm, and a visit to Vienna without a word on music, would be a dereliction of duty in the tourist. But it seems to be a matter of regret that Vienna, which was at one time foremost of the cities of Europe in musical production, should have become a city, if we except the Strauss and Lanner school, rather of dilletanteism and of the mechanical wonders of the modern pianoforte school, than of the lofty regions of musical art. But the production of Le Prophete showed that although Vienna has no modern Mozart or Beethoven, she yields to no capital in appreciation of works of the highest class. For some weeks the Anabaptists of Minister made people forget the contest of cen- tralisation and federalisation, and John of Leyden was for the moment a more important person than Kossuth. I was present on the first representation of this vast work, upon which occasion the house included the rank and eminence of the empire in all departments. In the royal box of crimson velvet was the youthful Emperor in the uniform of his own regiment, the 4th Lancers (Kaiser Uhlaner), of dark green with scarlet facings, the picture of health and buoyant animal spirits, his father the archduke Francis Charles, his mother the archduchess Sophia, MUSIC AND THEATRES. 407 and his cousin, a son of the late archduke Charles, sharing the royal box with him. The aristocracy was in great force ; I might begin with Prince Esterhazy, junior, and our very hand- some countrywoman, his princess, but where to end would puzzle even Mr. Burke or the Morning Post. Bureaucracy, unrepresented in an Austrian theatre, would never do, and there were various personages of that ilk, from the prime minister himself, with the blood of all the Schwarzenbergs, to citizen Schmerling, and his colleagues. As for the aristocracy of genius, what better representative could we have of it than a little man with a stoop in his shoulders, his hair, jet black, the crown of his head partly bald, and wearing spectacles, who, as the clock struck six, entered the orchestra, and was saluted with such a thunder of applause as split the ears of the ground- lings. No words can describe the enthusiasm of Meyerbeer's reception, and he must indeed have been insatiable if he could have wished for more. The opera as regards singers and decorations was well brought out, but in neither respect equal to what I had heard in London a year before. Mademoiselle La Grange was the Fides, a noble and dignified actress, but not a Viardot, for her lower contralto notes were ineffective. The tenor, Ander, was excellent for a German singer, since after all, whatever Germany may be in musical science, her vocal school renders 408 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. all comparison with that of Italy out of the question ; the only exception to this rule seemed to be Staudigl, whose Count Oberthal left no room for a preference of the London representative; but in the peculiar element of Meyerbeer's strength, the chorus and orchestra, the Karnthner Thor even surpassed its former self, and the performance was in this respect a rare musical treat to those already familiar with the opera, for no one can understand his own concep- tions better than the composer himself, who had brought the rehearsals up to a point satisfactory to so very fastidious an ear as his own. In order to understand the revolution which has been brought about by Meyerbeer in the Lyric Drama, we must call the reader's attention to the distinctive styles of a few of the most eminent composers who are not only classical, but whose works are constantly repro- duced and still enjoyed ; for although Handel, as an operatic composer, Porpora, Scarlatti, Jomelli, Paesiello, and several others, renowned both for their dramatic and sacred styles, are justly accounted classics, they are rather names embalmed in musical histories than composers of music whose works continue to be enjoyed by generation after generation. Music is real, as it adheres to dramatic passion ; ideal as it falls into melting melodies, or soars to grand harmonic combinations ; but in Mozart we find the perfection of the art displayed in the exquisite MUSIC AND THEATRES. 409 balance of both those qualities. No composer ever followed more closely the action of his drama and no composer ever relieved the intentional irregularity of his rhythm with more enchanting melodies, while the ingenious elaborateness of its construction is a barrier to a large proportion of his music being ever hack- neyed in chamber practice. With Mozart as with Raphael, we find ourselves in that wide and lofty region of art where every taste can appropriate something to itself, that of the million the obvious and striking- beauties, and that of the initiated, those mysterious graces and that tranquillity of effect winch we find only in the aristocracy of genius. Rossini is the prince of melodists, and his popularity has been prodigious. At first sight the profusion of ornament seems to interfere with the dramatic passion of his works, but on a closer exami- nation this profusion is mostly to be found in the cavatinas of the principal singers, which comprise a very small part of the whole of an opera, and this very florid vocalisation has preserved even the most popular airs of Rossini from being hackneyed ; take, for instance, any of his commonest songs, such as the serenade Ecco ridente in the Barber of Seville, which not one amateur in a thousand can ever attempt. Unquestionably Rossini has carried the ornate to excess ; but it belongs to his nature, which is that of a fertility, facility, and spontaneity of invention 410 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. altogether unrivalled in musical history, and which in the world of sweet sounds is a miracle which equals, if it does not exceed, what was achieved in romance by the pen of Scott, or in painting by the pencil of Rubens. His comic style is quite in the "Ercles' vein," and in buoyant hilarity he surpasses all musicians that ever lived, not even excepting Mozart himself, who rarely let himself loose in high glee. Donzelli, the greatest tenor of his day, who had played Count Almaviva in the Barber of Seville many hundred times, once assured me that this opera was after a life-glut of music, the most enjoyable of operas to him, and yet it was written literally currente calamo. But as a successful author is said to be in the latter part of his career his own most serious rival, there was for a time (especially after the works of Beethoven and Weber became well known), a re-action against him, and even Coleridge in a spirit of spurious German purism, said to a friend, " The music of Rossini compared with that of Beethoven seems to me like nonsense verses." But this one- sided folly lasted a very short time — Beethoven is more worshipped that ever, and yet Rossini stands on a pedestal of his own that nothing can shake. His immediate Italian successor was Bellini, who also was a melodist and a stranger to the complica- tion of German instrumentation, but in tenderness he is without a rival. His pathos is frequently so MUSIC AND THEATRES. 411 exquisite as even to go to excess, and while a certain vein of dignity lurks under the tenderness of Rossini, that of Bellini is often suggestive of hopeless prostra- tion, such as in the celebrated " Qui m accolse" in Beatrice di Tenda. Bellini was not prolific, but what he did was carefully digested ; in fact, he was some- what the converse of Rossini, for while the profuse ornament of the latter was spontaneous, the simplicity of Bellini was elaborate. His temperament was melancholy, his manners soft and retiring, as those who knew him may well remember, his person slender, a sepulchral gloom hung over his composi- tions, and to make all complete — he died in youth. Rossini on the other hand, according to the last accounts from Italy, is in the fullness of fame, and of personal form, robust, hearty, vigorous, and one of the bon vivants of Bologna la Grassa, for while, from time immemorial, Venice has been surnamed the fair, Bologna has rejoiced in the epithet of the lusty. Next in prominence to Rossini and Bellini on the modern Italian stage, is Donizetti, a most prolific composer, whose works are characterised by great versatility. In his genius there was no lagging and flagging : like the Arab courser he stood more in need of the bridle than of the spur. His Elisir shows that he approaches the nearest of modern writers to the excellence of Rossini in the buffo vein. In Lucrezia Borgia he is equally successful in the treatment of 412 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. the darker and more violent passions ; while in Anna Bolena, and in several other operas, there is a depth of tenderness that frequently reminds one of Bellini. But the great error of this most plastic and versatile genius was diffusion. Had he, instead of writing scores of operas, concentrated his energies on a dozen, his fame would unquestionably have sailed down the stream of time with a heavier freight. As it is, the operas we have named and half-a- dozen others, have become stock-pieces in every Italian theatre. But his mortal career has been closed in a manner even more painful to contemplate than that of Bellini, for he descended to the grave from the lunatic asylum. Meyerbeer's music may be presented as the most striking contrast to that of the Italian melodists we have named. In natural genius he falls far short of Rossini, and yet his numbers will live as long as those of a Mozart or a Beethoven, being written not for an age but for all time ; and no composer can be pointed out who has so husbanded his powers by skilful elaboration and inexhaustible pains and patience. The genius of Meyerbeer is essentially Teutonic. He cares nothing for a quick brilliant success, he looks upon the composition of a butterfly opera, which lives a short season, as a mere waste of time. In like maimer, when somebody asked a friend of Beethoven why he had composed only one MUSIC AND THEATRES. I I § opera, the answer given was, " A lioness only drops one cub." Meyerbeer's work, II Crociato in Egitto, is an illustration that there is no greatness attainable by imitation. He then imitated Rossini, and 11 Crociato is the least effective of his compositions. Not less than six laborious years were spent in the composition of Robert le Diable and of all modern operas it is that which best unites the graceful forms of Italian melody with the massive colouring of German instrumentation. The Huguenots, which followed, is as remarkable as a work of art, but lacks inspiration except in some pieces. It is a difficult matter to unite grace with strength, the one is generally at the expense of the other, and the Huguenots is massive and cyclopean rather than remarkable for ideal beauty of form, and has since been equalled by Le Prophete, Meyerbeer's last pro- duction, which, after fifteen years of silent labour he has given to the public as a work which will send his name down to distant ages and distant nations. Its detached melodies will not stand a comparision with those of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti, and there- fore Le Prophete can never be popular chamber music. Italian melodies are like the pictures of a gallery, complete in themselves, and may be enjoyed even if removed ; while the various parts of Le Prophete are like the columns of a hall, admirable as parts of the structure, but incapable of separation 414 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. without ruin. A work such as Le Prophete must be regarded as a whole, and is a mixture of the grand oratorial style of Handel and the fervid passion of Gluck, with that rich massive orchestral power in which Meyerbeer shows himself as a worthy occupant of the throne of Beethoven. The vaulting ambition of Meyerbeer eschews all subjects of a quiet or partial character. He must have a broad canvas with numerous figures, both light and shade, movement, variety, and complication as a vehicle for a description of lyric drama, not illustrative of an incident, but some great historical epoch abounding in incidents. In Robert le Diabk, the middle ages immediately preceding the period of the Crusades, surrounded with the splendour of chivalry and the terrors of superstition, seem to awake after a slumber of eight centuries. The Huguenots is taken from that part of French history of which the bare chronicle is thrilling romance ; and in Le Prophete we have that most extraordinary of the episodes of the Reformation, in which the Ana- baptists of Munster recognised John of Leyden as prophet, priest, and king. What a wide picture of nature and action expands to our view in this great work ! The early fortunes of the humble Dutchman, and the events which lent each other a hand in precipitating the social and religious revolution of the period— the Anabaptist MtfSIC AND THEATRES. 415 elders, clad in deep black, with stern countenances, appearing to fortify the resolutions of the people, and the chiaroscuro of the musical colouring, how masterly ! — from the melancholy pipe of a peasant sitting on the bridge, as if deploring the excesses of priestly and feudal domination, progressively to the grand climax of the Flail C/wrus, which is the first full outburst of popular frenzy. The revolutionary drama advances. Winter has encrusted the wide plains of Westphalia with nipping frost. The people are conquerors. Priests, barons, and ladies, terror-struck, beg their lives of an in- furiated mob, and we see that the Reformation was so far no mere matter of theological subtleties. Hun- dreds of skaters pass and re-pass on the river below while darkness covers the earth, and a great choral hymn resounds through the camp, while the sun is seen to rise in the east. At length we are hurried to Munster. The prophet's head is encircled with a diadem ; and it is no injustice to Mademoiselle La Grange and the Karnther Thor to say, that nothing could make me forget the electrical effect of this scene at Covent Garden. The grand coronation march with which it is heralded, the pealing organ, the loud anthem, and, with this conjunction of dramatic effect, and inspiring music, the acting and singing of Madame Viardot, who soars to the seventh heaven of tragic declamation — realise that union of the fervour of 416 THE GOTH AND THE HUN. Gluck with the majesty, of Handel, and a harmonic richness unknown to either, which has made Le Prophete an event in musical history. Such was Vienna in 1850. It is unnecessary to relate my journey home, via Berlin and Cologne ; and while the work is going through the press, it is with both interest and admiration that I from time to time view the industry and products of the lands of the Goth and the Hun within an edifice that more than any other that eyes have seen, or books record, realises the conception of the Sublime and Beautiful. THE END. LONDON : UKADBURTj AND EVANS. PRINTERS, WUITEFRIARS. f3? THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. Series 9482 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 161 185 4