Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 65, No. 403, May, 1849

My very doom has less of pain
To feel that, ere from Time's dark river
Thy form or soul could take one stain,
Despair between us came for ever.

IX

And if, as sages still avow,
The rites once paid on hill and grove
To Beings beautiful as thou,
To Dian, Hebe, and to Love,
Were so imperishably wove
Of fancies lovely and elysian,
Their spirit to this hour must rove
The earth a blest abiding vision;[29 - It was the fanciful opinion of Hume that the purer Divinities of pagan worship, and the system of the Homeric Olympus, were so lastingly beautiful, that somewhere or other they must, to this hour, continue to exist.]

X

Then surely round that mountain rude,
And Bridgeton's rill and pathway lone,
In years to come, when thon, the Wooed,
And thy fond Worshipper are gone,
Each suppliant prayer, each ardent tone,
Each vow the heart could once supply,
Whose every pulse was there thine own,
In many an evening breeze will sigh.

AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY

We have been so much accustomed to regard the Austrian empire as one German nation, that we sometimes forget of how many separate kingdoms and principalities it consists, and of how many different and disunited races its population is composed. It may not, therefore, be unnecessary to recall attention to the fact that the Austrian dominions of the last three hundred years – the Austrian empire of our times – consists of three kingdoms and many minor principalities, inhabited by five distinct races, whose native tongues are unintelligible to each other, and who have no common language in which they can communicate; who are divided by religious differences; who preserve their distinctive characteristics, customs, and feelings; whose sentiments are mutually unfriendly, and who are, to this day, unmixed in blood. The Germans, the Italians, the Majjars or Hungarians, the Sclaves, and the Wallacks, are distinct and alien races – without community of origin, of language, of religion, or of sentiments. Except the memory of triumphs and disasters common to them all, their allegiance to one sovereign is now, as it was three centuries ago, the only bond that unites them. Yet, in all the vicissitudes of fortune – some of them disastrous – which this empire has survived, these nations and races have held together. The inference is inevitable – whatever may have been its defects, that form of government could not have been altogether unfit for its purposes, which so many different kingdoms and races united to support and maintain.

It would be a mistake, however, to assume that these various states were under one form of government. There were almost as many forms of government as there were principalities; but they were all monarchical, and one sovereign happened to become the monarch of the whole. The house of Hapsburg, in which the imperial crown of Germany, the regal crowns of Hungary, Bohemia, and Lombardy, and the ducal crowns of Austria, Styria, the Tyrol, and nearly a dozen other principalities, became hereditary, acquired their possessions, not by conquest, but by election, succession, or other legitimate titles[30 - Chiefly by marriage with princesses who were heirs to these kingdoms and principalities. It was thus that Hungary, Bohemia, and the Tyrol were acquired. Hence the lines —"Bella gerant alii; tu, felix Austria, nube:Nam quæ Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus."You, Austria, wed as others wage their wars;And crowns to Venus owe, as they to Mars.It was by marriage that the Saxon emperor, Otho the Great, acquired Lombardy for the German empire.] recognised by the people. The descendants of Rodolph thus became the sovereigns of many separate states, each of which retained, as a matter of right, its own constitution. The sovereign, his chief advisers, and the principal officers of state at his court, were usually Germans by birth, or by education and predilection; but the constitution of each state – the internal administration, and those parts of the machinery of government with which the people came more immediately into contact – were their own. In some we find the monarchy elective, as in Hungary, Bohemia, and Styria; in all we find diets of representatives or delegates, chosen by certain classes of the people, without whose concurrence taxes could not be imposed, troops levied, or legislative measures enacted; and we find municipal institutions founded on a broad basis of representation. In none of them was the form of government originally despotic.

To the unquestionable titles by which they acquired their crowns – titles by which the pride of nation or of race was not wounded – and to the more or less perfect preservation, in each state, of its national institutions and privileges – to the enjoyment by each people of their laws, their language, customs, and prejudices – the princes of the house of Hapsburg owed the allegiance of subjects who had little else in common. There, as elsewhere in continental Europe, the sovereign long continued to encroach upon the rights of his subjects, and at length usurped an authority not recognised by the laws of his different possessions, or consistent with the conditions on which he had received their crowns. These usurpations were frequently resisted, and not unfrequently by force of arms. Belgium asserted her independence, and was permanently separated from Austria. But, in such contests, the sovereign of many separate states had obvious advantages. His subjects, divided by differences of race, language, religion, and sentiment, were incapable of combining against him; and however solicitous each people might be to preserve their own liberties and privileges, they were not prepared to resist encroachments on those of a neighbouring people, for whom they had no friendly feeling. The Austrians and Italians were ready to assert the emperor's authority in Hungary or Bohemia, the Hungarians and Bohemians to put down resistance in Lombardy. Even in the same kingdom the races were not united. In Hungary, the Sclave was sometimes ready to aid the emperor against the Majjar, the German against the Sclave. The disunion which was a source of weakness to the empire was a source of strength to the emperor.

Partly by compulsory changes, effected according to constitutional forms, partly by undisguised usurpations, in which these forms were disregarded, the emperors were thus enabled to extend the prerogative of the crown, to abridge the liberties of their subjects in each of their possessions, and, in some of them, to subvert the national institutions.

In the Hereditary States of Austria, the power of the emperor has long been absolute. The strength of Bohemia was broken, and her spirit subdued, by the confiscations and proscriptions that followed upon the defeat of the Protestants, near Prague, in the religious wars of Frederick II.; and for many years her diet has been subservient. Lombardy, the prize of contending armies – German, Spanish, and French – passing from hand to hand, has been regarded as a conquered country; and, with the forms of a popular representation, has been governed as an Austrian province. Hungary alone has preserved her independence and her constitution. But these usurpations were not always injurious to the great body of the people; on the contrary, they were often beneficial. In most of these states, a great part of the population was subject to a dominant class, or nobles, who alone had a share in the government, or possessed constitutional rights, and who exercised an arbitrary jurisdiction over the peasants. The crown, jealous of the power of the aristocracy, afforded the peasants some protection against the oppressions of their immediate superiors. A large body of the people in each state, therefore, saw with satisfaction, or without resentment, the increasing power of the crown, the abridgment of rights and privileges which armed their masters with the power to oppress them, and the subversion of a constitution from which they derived no advantage. If the usurpations of the crown threatened to alienate the nobles, they promised to conciliate the humbler classes.

On the other hand, every noble was a soldier. The wars in which the emperor was engaged, while they forced him occasionally to cultivate the good-will of the aristocracy, on which he was chiefly dependent for his military resources, fostered military habits of submission, and feelings of feudal allegiance to the sovereign. Military service was the road to distinction – military glory the ruling passion. The crown was the fountain of honour, to which all who sought it repaired. A splendid court had its usual attractions; and the nobles of the different races and nations, rivals for the favour of the prince, sought to outdo each other in proofs of devotion to his person and service. Thus it was, that, notwithstanding the usurpations of the emperor, and the resistance they excited, his foreign enemies generally found all classes of his subjects united to defend the dignity of his crown, and the integrity of his dominions.

Still there was nothing to bind together the various parts of this curious fabric, except the accident of allegiance to one sovereign. This was but a precarious bond of union; and the imperial government has, therefore, been unremitting in its efforts to amalgamate the different parts into one whole. The Germans were but a small minority of the emperor's subjects, but the imperial government, the growth of their soil, reflected their mind; and it does not appear to have entered the Austrian mind to conceive that a more intimate union could be accomplished in any other way than by extending the institutions of the Hereditary States to all parts of the empire, and thus ultimately converting the Italians, the Majjars, and the Sclaves, into Austrian Germans.

This policy has been eminently unsuccessful in Hungary, where it has frequently been resisted by force of arms; but its failure is not to be attributed solely to the freedom of the institutions of that country, or to the love of independence, and the feelings of nationality which have been conspicuous in her history. The imperial government, while it resisted the usurpations of the see of Rome in secular matters, asserted its spiritual supremacy with unscrupulous zeal. Every one is acquainted with the history of the Reformation in Bohemia – its early manifestations, its progress, its unsuccessful contests, and its suppression by military force, by confiscations and proscriptions, extending to half the property and the proprietors in that kingdom; but perhaps it is not so generally known, or remembered, that the Majjars early embraced the Reformed doctrines of the school of Calvin, which, even now, when more than half their numbers have become Roman Catholics, is known in Hungary as "the Majjar faith." The history of religious persecution, everywhere a chronicle of misery and crime, has few pages so revolting as that which tells of the persecutions of the Protestants of Hungary, under her Roman Catholic kings of the house of Austria. It was in the name of persecuted Protestantism that resistance to Austrian autocracy was organised; it was not less in defence of their religion than of their liberties that the nation took up arms. Yet there was a time when the Majjars, at least as tenacious of their nationality as any other people in the empire, might perhaps have been Germanised – had certainly made considerable advances towards a more intimate union with Austria. Maria Theresa, assailed without provocation by Prussia – in violation of justice and of the faith of treaties, by France, Bavaria, Saxony, Sardinia, and Spain, and aided only by England and the United Provinces – was in imminent danger of losing the greater part of her dominions. Guided by the instinct of a woman's heart, and yielding to its impulse, she set at naught the remonstrances of her Austrian counsellors, and relied on the loyalty of the Hungarians. Proceeding to Presburg, she appeared at the meeting of the diet, told the assembled nobles the difficulties and dangers by which she was surrounded, and threw herself, her child, and her cause, upon their generosity. At that appeal every sabre leapt from its scabbard, and the shout, "Moriamur pro rege nostro, Maria Theresâ!" called all Hungary to arms. The tide of invasion was rolled back beyond the Alps and the Rhine, and the empire was saved.

"On avait vu," says Montesquieu, "la maison d'Autriche travailler sans reláche à opprimer la noblesse Hongroise; elle ignorait de quel prix elle lui serait un jour. Elle cherchait chez ces peuples de l'argent, qui n'y était pas; elle ne voyait pas les hommes, qui y étaient. Lorsque tant de princes partagaient entre eux ces états, toutes les pièces de la monarchie, immobiles et sans action, tombaient, pour ainsi dire, les unes sur les autres. Il n'y avait de vie que dans cette noblesse, qui s'indigna, oublia tout pour combattre, et cru qu'il était de sa gloire de périr et de pardonner."

The nobles of Hungary had fallen by thousands; many families had been ruined; all had been impoverished by a war of seven years, which they had prosecuted at their private charge; but their queen had not forgotten how much she owed them. She treated them with a kindness more gratifying than the highest distinction; acquired their confidence by confiding in them; taught them to speak the language of her court; made their residence in her capital agreeable to them; promoted alliances between the noble families of Hungary and Austria; obtained from their devotion concessions which her predecessors had failed to extort by force; and prepared the way for a more intimate union between two nations which had hitherto regarded each other with aversion.

M. A. de Gerando has discovered, in the portrait-galleries of the Hungarian magnates, amusing traces of some of the means by which the clever empress-queen extended Austrian influence and authority into Hungary.

"Il est curieux," (he says,) "de voir, dans les châteaux de Hongrie, les galeries de portraits de famille. Aussi haut que l'on remonte, ce ne sont d'abord que de graves figures orientales. Les hommes out la mine heroïque, comme on se représente ces hardis cavaliers, qui invariablement finissaient par se faire tuer dans quelque action contre les Turcs; les femmes sont austères et tristes ainsi qu'elles devaient l'être en effet. A partir de Marie-Therèse, tout change et la physionomie et l'expression des personnages. On voit bien que ceux-là ont paru à la cour de Vienne, et y ont appris les belles manières. Le contraste est frappant dans le portrait du magnat qui le premier épousa une Allemande. Le Hongrois, seul, occupe un coin de la toile. Il est debout, digne, la main gauche sur la poignée de son sabre recourbée; la droite tient une masse d'armes. De formidables éperons sont cloués à ses bottines jaunes. Il porte un long dolman galonné, et une culotte de hussard brodée d'or. Sur son épaule est attachée une riche pelisse, ou une peau de tigre. Sa moustache noire pend à la turque, et de grands cheveux tombent en boucles sur son cou. Il y a du barbare dans cet homme-là. Sa femme, assise, en robe de cour, est au milieu du tableau. Elle règne et elle domine. Près de son fauteuil se tiennent les enfants, qui ont déjà les yeux bleus et les lèvres Autrichiennes. Les enfants sont à elle, à elle seule. Ils sont poudrés comme elle, lui ressemblent, l'entourent, et lui parlent. Ils parlent l'Allemand, bien entendu." – (Pp. 17-18.)

The son and successor of Maria Theresa, Joseph II., attempted, in his summary way, by arbitrary edicts promising liberty and equality, to subvert the constitution of every country he governed, and to extend to them all one uniform despotic system, founded on that of Austria. To him Hungary is indebted for the first gleam of religious toleration; but his hasty and despotic attempts to suppress national distinctions, national institutions and languages, provoked a fierce and armed resistance in Hungary, and in other portions of his dominions, and more than revived all the old aversion to Austria. His more prudent successor made concessions to the spirit of independence, and the love of national institutions, which Joseph had so deeply wounded. Leopold regained the Hungarians; but Belgium, already alienated in spirit, never again gave her heart to the emperor; and he never lost sight of the uniformity of system that Maria Theresa had done so much to promote, and which Joseph, in his haste to accomplish it, had for the moment made unattainable. From the days of Ferdinand I. until now, the attempt to assimilate the forms and system of government, in every part of their possessions, to the more arbitrary Austrian model, has been steadily pursued throughout the reigns of all the princes of the house of Hapsburg. These persevering efforts to extend the power of the crown by subverting national institutions, and thus to obliterate so many separate nationalities, have aroused for their defence a spirit that promises to perpetuate them.

Feelings of community of race and language, which had slumbered for many generations, have been revived with singular intensity. Italy for the Italians – Germany for the Germans – a new Sclavonic empire for the western Sclaves – the union of all the Sclave nations under the empire of the Czar – are cries which have had power to shake thrones, and may hereafter dismember empires.

The separation between the different members of the Austrian empire, which the havoc of war could not effect in three centuries, a few years of peace and prosperity have threatened to accomplish. The energies that were so long concentrated on war, have now, for more than thirty years, been directed to the development of intellectual and material resources. The ambition that sought its gratification in the field, now seeks to acquire influence in the administration, and power to sway the opinions of men. The love of national independence, that repelled foreign aggression, has become a longing for personal liberty, that refuses to submit to arbitrary power. The road to distinction no longer leads to the court, but to the popular assembly; for the rewards conferred by the voice of the people have become more precious than any honours the sovereign can bestow. The duty of allegiance to the crown has become a question of reciprocal obligations, and has ceased to rest upon divine right. The only bond that held the Austrian empire together has thus been loosened, and the parts are in danger of falling asunder.

Lombardy, which was united to the German empire nine hundred years ago, renounced its allegiance, and refused to be Austrian. Bohemia, a part of the old German empire, inhabited chiefly by a Sclavonic race, has been dreaming of Pansclavism. Carried away by poetical rhapsodies, poured forth in profusion by a Lutheran preacher at Pesth, and calculated, if not designed, to promote foreign influence and ascendency, she has awoke from her dreams to find herself engaged in a sanguinary conflict, which was terminated by the bombardment and submission of her capital. Vienna, after having twice forced her emperor to fly from his capital, has been taken by storm, and is held in subjection by a garrison, whose stragglers are nightly thinned by assassins. Hungary, (to which we propose chiefly to direct our attention,) whose blood has been shed like water in defence of the house of Hapsburg – whose chivalry has more than once saved the empire – whom Napoleon, at the head of a victorious army in Vienna, was unable to scare, or to seduce from her allegiance to her fugitive king – whose population is more sincerely attached to monarchy than perhaps any other people in Europe, except ourselves, is in arms against the emperor of Austria. All the fierce tribes by which the Majjars are encircled have been let loose upon them, and, in the name of the emperor, the atrocities of Gallicia, which chilled Europe with horror, have been renewed in Pannonia. The army of the Emperor of Austria has invaded the territories of the King of Hungary, occupies the capital, ravages the towns and villages, expels and denounces the constituted authorities of the kingdom, abrogates the laws, and boasts of its victories over his faithful subjects, as if they had been anarchists who sought to overturn his throne.

The people of this country have long entertained towards Austria feelings of kindness and respect. We may smile at her proverbial slowness; we may marvel at the desperate efforts she has made to stand still, while every one else was pressing forward; the curiously graduated system of education, by which she metes out to each class the modicum of knowledge which all must accept, and none may exceed – her protective custom-houses, which destroy her commerce – her quarantines against political contagion, which they cannot exclude – her system of passports, with all its complications and vexations, and the tedious formalities of her tardy functionaries, – may sometimes be subjects of ridicule. But, though the young may have looked with scorn, the more thoughtful amongst us have looked with complacency on the social repose and general comfort – on the absence of continual jostling and struggling in all the roads of life – produced by a system, unsuited to our national tastes and tempers, no doubt, but which, till a few months ago, appeared to be in perfect harmony with the character of the Austrian German. We respect her courage, her constancy in adversity. We admire the sturdy obstinacy with which she has so often stood up to fight another round, and has finally triumphed after she appeared to be beaten. We call to mind the services she rendered to Christian civilisation in times past. We remember that her interests have generally concurred with our own – have rarely been opposed to them. We cannot forget the long and arduous struggles, in which England and Austria have stood side by side, in defence of the liberties of nations, or the glorious achievements by which those liberties were preserved. It is because we would retain unimpaired the feelings which these recollections inspire, because we consider the power and the character of Austria essential to the welfare of Europe, that we look with alarm on the course she has pursued towards Hungary.

The time has not yet come when the whole course of the events connected with this unnatural contest can be accurately known. The silence maintained and imposed by Austria may have withheld, or suppressed, explanations that would justify or palliate much of what wears a worse than doubtful aspect. But the authentic, information now accessible to the public cannot fail to cause deep anxiety to all who care for the reputation of the imperial government – to all who desire to see monarchy come pure out of the furnace in which it is now being tried. The desire to enforce its hereditary policy of a uniform patriarchal system would not justify, in the eyes of Englishmen, an alliance with anarchy to put down constitutional monarchy in Hungary, or an attempt to cover, with the blood and dust of civil war, the departure of the imperial government from solemn engagements entered into by the emperor.

The nature of the relations by which Hungary is connected with Austria – the origin and progress of their present quarrel, and the objects for which the Hungarians are contending – appear to have been very generally misunderstood, not in this country only, but in a great part of Europe. Men whom we might expect to find better informed, seem to imagine that Hungary is an Austrian province in rebellion against the emperor, and that the origin and tendency of the movement was republican. The reverse of all this is true. Hungary is not, and never was, a province of Austria; but has been and is, both de jure and de facto, an independent kingdom. The Emperor of Austria is also King of Hungary, but, as Emperor of Austria, has neither sovereign right nor jurisdiction in Hungary. The Hungarians assert, and apparently with truth, that they took up arms to repel unprovoked aggression, and to defend their constitutional monarchy as by law established; that their objects are therefore purely conservative, and their principles monarchical; and that it is false and calumnious to accuse them of having contemplated or desired to found a republic – a form of government foreign to their sentiments, and incompatible with their social condition.

The kingdom of Hungary (Hungarey) founded by the Majjars in the tenth century, had for several generations been distinguished amongst the nations of Europe, when another pagan tribe from the same stock – issuing like them from the Mongolian plains, and turning the Black Sea by the south, as they had done by the north – crossed the Bosphorus, overturned the throne of the Cæsars, and established on its ruins an Asiatic empire, which became the terror of Christendom. The Majjars, converted to Christianity, encountered on the banks of the Danube this cognate race, converted to Islamism, and became the first bulwark of Christian Europe against the Turks. The deserts of Central Asia, which had sent forth the warlike tribe that threatened Eastern Europe with subjugation, had also furnished the prowess that was destined to arrest their progress. The court of Hungary had long been the resort of men of learning and science; the chivalry of Europe had flocked to her camps, where military ardour was never disappointed of a combat, or religious zeal of an opportunity to slaughter infidels. In 1526, Ludovic, King of Hungary and Bohemia, with the flower of the Hungarian chivalry, fell fighting with the Turks at the disastrous battle of Mohacs – the Flodden field of Hungary. The monarchy was then elective, but when the late king left heirs of his body the election was but a matter of form. When the monarch died without leaving an heir of his body, the nation freely exercised its right of election, and on more than one such occasion had chosen their king from amongst the members of princely houses in other parts of Europe. In this manner Charles Robert, of the Neapolitan branch of the house of Anjou and Ladislas, King of Bohemia, son of Casimir King of Poland, and father of Ludovic who fell at Mohacs, had been placed upon the throne. Ludovic died without issue, and he was the last male of his line – it therefore became necessary to choose a king from some other house. Ferdinand, brother of the Emperor Charles V., had married his cousin Anne, daughter of Ladislas, and sister of Ludovic the late King of Hungary and Bohemia. His personal character, his connexion with the royal family of Hungary, and the support he might expect from the emperor in the war against the Turks, prevailed over the national antipathy to Austria, and he was elected to the vacant throne, though not without a contest. He was crowned according to the ancient customs of Hungary, and at his coronation took the oath which had been administered on similar occasions to his predecessors. He thereby bound himself to govern according to the laws, and to maintain and defend the constitution and the territory of Hungary. He was likewise elected King of Bohemia, after subscribing a document, by which he renounced every other claim to the crown than that which he derived from his election. The emperor surrendered to him the crown of Austria, and these three crowns were thus, for the first time, united in a prince of the house of Hapsburg. These states were altogether independent one of another, had their separate laws, institutions, and customs, and had no other bond of connexion than the accidental union of the crowns in one person – a union which might at any time, on the demise of the crown, have been dissolved. It resembled, in this respect, the union of the crowns of Great Britain and Hanover in the persons of our own sovereigns, that it left the kingdoms both de jure and de facto independent of each other. In 1558, Ferdinand was elected Emperor of Germany; but as emperor he could claim no jurisdiction in Hungary, which was not then, and never was, included in the German empire. The monarchy of Hungary continued to be elective, and the nation continued to give a preference to the heirs of the late monarch. The princes of the house of Hapsburg, who succeeded to the throne of Austria, were thus successively elected to that of Hungary; were separately crowned in that kingdom, according to its ancient customs; and at their coronation took the same oath that Ferdinand had taken.

In 1687 the states of Hungary decreed that the throne, which had hitherto been filled by election, should thenceforward be hereditary in the male heirs of the house of Hapsburg; and in 1723, the diet, by agreeing to the Pragmatic sanction of Charles III. of Hungary, (the Emperor Charles VI. of Germany,) extended the right of succession to the female descendants of that prince. These two measures were intended, and calculated, to perpetuate the union of the two crowns in the same person. The order of succession to the crown of Hungary was thus definitively settled by statute, and could not legally be departed from, unless with the concurrence both of the diet and of the sovereign. So long, therefore, as the crown of Austria was transmitted in the same order of succession as that in which the crown of Hungary had been settled, the union would be preserved; but any deviation in Austria from the order fixed by law in Hungary would lead to a separation of the crowns, unless the Hungarian diet could be induced to consent to a new settlement. Thus we have seen the crowns of Great Britain and Hanover united for four generations, and separated in the fifth, because one was settled on heirs male or female, the other on heirs male only.

An attempt has been made, with reference to recent events, to found on the Pragmatic Sanction pretensions that might derogate from the absolute independence of Hungary; but the articles of the Hungarian diet[31 - The acts passed by the diet are numbered by articles, as those of our parliament are by chapters. Each of these articles, when it has received the royal assent, becomes a statute of the kingdom, in the same manner as with us, and of course equally binds the sovereign and his subjects.] of 1790 appear to be fatal to any such pretensions. By Article 10 of that year it is declared, that "Hungary is a country free and independent in her entire system of legislation and of government; that she is not subject to any other people, or any other state, but that she shall have her own separate existence, and her own constitution, and shall consequently be governed by kings crowned according to her national laws and customs." By Article 12 of the same diet it was declared, that the power to enact, to interpret, and to abrogate the laws, was vested conjointly in the king, legitimately crowned, and the diet; and that no attempt should ever be made to govern by edicts or arbitrary acts. By Article 13 it was decreed, that the diet should be called together once every three years at the least. By Article 19 it was declared, that imposts could not be levied at the king's pleasure, but must be freely voted by the two tables (houses) from one diet to another. All these acts received the formal assent of Leopold II., and thus became statutes of the kingdom.

The successors of Leopold – Francis II., and Ferdinand, who has recently abdicated – received the crown of Hungary on the conditions implied in the coronation oath, which was administered to them in the usual manner, and by which they bound themselves to respect and maintain the constitution as by law established, and to govern according to the statutes. The question whether the late emperor should be addressed Ferdinand I. or Ferdinand V. was a subject of debate in the diet while Mr Paget was at Presburg, and he gives the following account of the proceedings: —

"The bill now brought up from the deputies, and to which the degree of importance attached by all parties appeared ridiculous to a stranger, had reference to the appellation of the new king… The matter, however, was not so unimportant as it may appear; the fact is, he is Emperor Ferdinand I. of Austria, and King Ferdinand V. of Hungary; and unless Hungary had ceased to be an independent country, which the greatest courtier would not dare to insinuate, there could be no question as to his proper title. The magnates, however, thought otherwise: it was understood that the court desired that the style of Ferdinand I. should be used, and the magnates were too anxious to please not to desire the same thing. The deputies had now for the fourth time sent up the same bill, insisting on the title of Ferdinand V.; and for the fourth time the magnates were now about to reject it… At the moment when the magnates were as firm as rocks on the wrong side, the court took the wise course of showing its contempt for such supporters, by sending down a proclamation 'We Ferdinand V., by the grace of God, King of Hungary, &c. &c.'"

It must not be supposed that these articles of 1790 conferred upon the diet any new powers, or implied any new concessions on the part of the king. They were declaratory acts, framed for the purpose of exacting from Leopold II. securities against a renewal of the arbitrary proceedings to which Joseph had resorted; and they merely reasserted what the Hungarian constitution had provided long before the election of Ferdinand I. – what had for several generations been the law of the land.

The Hungarians were not satisfied with having obtained from Leopold a formal renunciation of Joseph's illegal pretensions. They felt, and the cabinet admitted, that the ancient institutions of Hungary – which had with difficulty been preserved, and which for some generations had been deteriorating rather than improving under the influence of the Austrian government – were no longer suited to the altered circumstances of the country, to the growing intelligence and advancing civilisation of its inhabitants. But they desired to effect all necessary ameliorations cautiously and deliberately. They were neither enamoured of the republican doctrines of France, nor disposed to engage in destructive reforms for the purpose of framing a new constitution. They desired to improve, not to destroy, that which they possessed. They would probably have preferred to effect the necessary ameliorations in each department successively; but they feared the direction that might be given by the influence of the crown, to any gradual modification of the existing institutions that might be attempted. By the constitution of Hungary, the diet is precluded from discussing any measures that have not been brought before it in the royal propositions, or king's speech – unless cases of particular grievances which may be brought before the diet by individual members. To engage in a course of successive reforms would have exposed the diet to the danger of being arrested in its progress, as soon as it had passed such measures as were acceptable to the cabinet. They therefore named a commission, including the most enlightened and the ablest men in the country, to report on the whole legislation of Hungary in all its branches. This great national commission was formed of seven committees, or sub-commissions, each of which undertook to report on one department. The committees were – 1st, That on the Urbarial code, or the condition of the peasants, and their relations to the proprietors: 2d, On the army, and all that related to it: 3d, On public policy, including the powers and jurisdiction of the diet, and of its different component parts: 4th, On matters ecclesiastical and literary, including education: 5th, On commerce: 6th, On the civil and criminal codes: and 7th, On contributions, including the whole system of taxation, and everything connected with the public revenue. The reports of this national commission, which are known as the "Operata systematica commissionis regnicolaris," recommended comprehensive ameliorations of the laws, and were creditable to the intelligence, science, statesmanship, and good sense of the commissions. The reports upon the commercial and the criminal codes, more especially, attracted the attention and the admiration of some of the ablest men in Germany.

From this time forward, each succeeding diet endeavoured to get the recommendations of the commission introduced into the royal propositions. The cabinet never refused – often promised to comply with this demand, but always deferred the discussion. Probably it was not averse to some of the measures proposed, or at least not unwilling to adopt them in part. The projected reform of the Urbarial code would have tended to increase the revenue, and to facilitate its collection; but it would at the same time have imposed upon the nobles new burdens, and required of them considerable sacrifices – and, before submitting to these, they were desirous to secure a more efficient control over the national expenditure, and ameliorations of the Austrian commercial system, which, by heavy duties, had depreciated the value of the agricultural produce that furnished their incomes. The diet, therefore, desired to get the operata systematica considered as a whole; the cabinet, and the party in Hungary which supported it, sought to restrict the diet to the discussion of such changes only as were calculated to benefit Austria.

When Francis II., who had for some years been Palatine of Hungary, ascended the thrones of that kingdom and of Austria in 1792, there was no question as to the independence of Hungary, which had been so fully recognised by his father. The usual oath was administered to him at his coronation, which was conducted in the usual manner; and in his reply to the address of the Hungarian diet, on his accession, he showed no disposition to invade the constitutional rights of the Hungarians. "I affirm," he said, "with sincerity, that I will not allow myself to be surpassed in the affection we owe to each other. Tell your citizens that, faithful to my character, I shall be the guardian of the constitution: my will shall be no other than that of the law, and my efforts shall have no other guides than honour, good faith, and unalterable confidence in the magnanimous Hungarian nation." To these sentiments the diet responded by voting all the supplies, and the troops, demanded of them by the king.

In 1796, the diet was again called together, to be informed that, "attacked by the impious and iniquitous French nation, the king felt the necessity of consulting his faithful states of Hungary, remembering that, under Maria Theresa, Hungary had saved the monarchy." The diet voted a contingent of 50,000 men, and undertook to provision the Austrian army, amounting to 340,000 soldiers. It urged the government to propose the consideration of the operata systematica; but the cabinet replied that it must consult and reflect; and, in the mean time, the diet was dissolved after only nineteen sittings. These proceedings produced a general feeling of discontent in Hungary, which threatened to become embarrassing; but the success of the French armies aroused the military spirit and loyalty of the Hungarians, and the appointment, at the same time, of the amicable and enlightened Archduke Joseph to the dignity of Palatine of Hungary, in which he retained for fifty years the respect and affection of all parties, tended to preserve their attachment, though it did not silence their complaints.

When the diet met in 1802, the peace of Amiens had been concluded.

"Until now," (said the king in his answer to the address,) "circumstances have not permitted my government to attend to anything but the war, which has afforded you an occasion to show your zeal and your fidelity. With commendable generosity, you have voted the contingents and the subsidies which the situation of the empire demanded; and the remembrance of your devotion shall never be extinguished in my heart, or in the hearts of my family. But, now that peace is concluded, I desire to extend my solicitude to the kingdom of Hungary – to the country which has most effectually aided me in the wars I have had to sustain – which, by its extent, its population, its fertility, the noble character and the valour of its inhabitants, is the chief bulwark of the monarchy. My desire is to arrange with the states of Hungary the means of increasing her prosperity, and to merit the thanks of the nation."

But the peace of Amiens proved to be a hollow truce, and this flattering communication became the prelude to renewed demands for men and money. To hasten the votes on the supplies, the diet was informed that it would be dissolved in two months. In the debate which ensued, one of the members uttered the sentiments of the nation, when he said – "It is plain that the king calls us together only when he wants soldiers and supplies. He knows that, after all, we have too much honour to allow the majesty of the King of Hungary to be insulted by his enemies." The impost was increased, and the contingent raised to 64,000 men; but the consideration of the measures recommended by the great national commission, though promised, was deferred by the king. The diet of 1805 resembled that of 1802 – the same promises ending in similar disappointment.

The diet of 1807 was more remarkable. To the usual demands was added the royal proposition, that the "insurrection," or levée en masse, should be organised, and ready to march at the first signal. The patience of the nation was exhausted. The diet represented to the king, in firm but respectful addresses, the disorder in the finances produced by the amount of paper-money issued in disregard of their remonstrances, and called upon the government to repair the evil. They said that, during many years, the country had done enough to prove its fidelity to the sovereign, whose royal promises had not been fulfilled; and that henceforth the Hungarians could not expend their lives and fortunes in the defence of his hereditary states, unless he seriously took in hand the interests of their native country. They demanded the revision of the commercial system, and liberty freely to export the produce of the country, and freely to import the productions of other countries. They complained of a new depreciation of the currency, demanded a reduction of the duty on salt, (the produce of their own mines,) which had recently been augmented, and denounced "the injustice of paralysing the industry of a people, while requiring of them great sacrifices."

The justice of these representations was admitted, but no satisfactory answer was returned; and the murmurs at Presburg became loud enough to cause alarm at Vienna. The advance of Napoleon to the frontiers of Hungary turned the current of the national feeling. It was now the sacred soil of Hungary that was threatened with desecration, and the diet not only voted all the subsidies and 20,000 recruits, but the whole body of the nobles or freemen spontaneously offered one-sixth of their incomes, and a levée en masse was decreed for three years. Napoleon's attempts to detach the Hungarians from the cause of their king were unavailing, and their devotion to his person was never more conspicuous than when he had lost the power to reward it.

In 1811 the royal propositions, in addition to the usual demands, requested the diet to vote an extraordinary supply of twelve millions of florins, and to guarantee Austrian paper money to the amount of one hundred millions, (about ten millions sterling.) The diet called for the account of the previous expenditure, and were told that the details of the budget were secrets of state. This answer excited the greatest indignation, and they refused to vote any extraordinary supply till the accounts were produced. They complained that the finances of Hungary were administered by Austrians – foreigners, who were excluded by law from a voice in their affairs – and that the cabinet of the emperor had illegally mixed up the finances of Hungary with those of the hereditary states of Austria. Some members of the diet even threatened to impeach the ministers. In their addresses to the throne, the financial administration of the imperial government was roughly handled; and the cabinet, perceiving that the debates at Presburg had inconveniently directed attention, even in the Hereditary States, to financial questions, hastily withdrew their propositions.

The peace of 1815 restored to Europe the repose she had long desired, and to Hungary many of her sons who had long been absent. In the midst of war, her diet had never ceased to attend to the internal administration of the country, to the improvement of her resources, and the advancement of her population in material prosperity and intelligence. All the comprehensive measures prepared with this view had been postponed or neglected by the king, acting by the advice of his Austrian cabinet, and supported by a powerful party of the magnates of Hungary. But though her hopes had been disappointed, Hungary had never failed, in any moment of difficulty or danger, to apply her whole power and resources to the defence of the empire. She never sought, in the embarrassments, the defeat, and misfortunes of Austria, an opportunity to extort from her king the justice he had denied to her prayers. She never for a moment swerved from devoted allegiance to her constitutional monarch. "After all, she had too much honour to allow the majesty of the King of Hungary to be insulted by his enemies." She forgave the frequent delays and refusals, by which the most salutary measures had been frustrated or rejected, because she knew that the thoughts and the energies of her sovereign and his Austrian cabinet had been directed to the defence of the empire, and the preservation of its independence. But now that these were no longer threatened, that the good cause for which she had fought with so much gallantry and devotion had triumphed, she had a right to expect a grateful return for her services – or at least that the promises, on the faith of which she had lavished her blood and her treasure in defence of her king and of his Austrian dominions, would be fulfilled. But the republican outbreak in France had led to long years of war and desolation; the triumph of monarchy and order over anarchy had at length been achieved, and men had not only abjured the doctrines from which so much evil had sprung, but monarchs had learned to look with distrust on every form of government that permitted the expression of public opinion, or acknowledged the right of the people to be heard. Even the mixed government of England, to which order owed its triumph, was regarded as a danger and a snare to other countries. The Holy Alliance was formed, and the Austrian cabinet, which for more than twenty years had flattered the hopes of Hungary when it wanted her assistance, now boldly resolved to govern that kingdom without the aid of its diet. In vain did the county assemblies call for the convocation of the national parliament, which the king was bound, by the laws he had sworn to observe, to summon every three years. Their addresses were not even honoured with an answer. In 1822, an attempt was made to levy imposts and troops by royal edicts. The comitats (county assemblies) refused to enforce them. In 1823, bodies of troops were sent – first to overawe, and then to coerce them. The county officers concealed their archives and official seals, and dispersed. Royal commissioners were appointed to perform their functions, and were almost everywhere resisted. The whole administration of the country, civil and judicial, was in confusion; and, after an unseemly and damaging contest, the cabinet found it necessary, in 1825, to give way, and to summon the diet, after an interval of twelve years. One personal anecdote will convey a more correct impression of the feelings with which the Hungarians, who were most attached to the emperor-king, viewed these proceedings, than any detail we could give. John Nemet, Director Causarum Regalium of Hungary, at a personal interview with the king, denounced the proceedings of the cabinet. "Do you know," said the irritated monarch, "that I am emperor and king; that you may lose your head?" "I know," replied Nemet, "that my life is in your majesty's hands; but the liberty of my country, and the honour of my sovereign, are dearer to me than my life."