tions of Christianity to the tastes and capacities of his hearers, there must be no softening of the authority, and no changing of the terms, of the gospel message. For the preacher to do either is to dishonour his message and stultify himself.

The writer of this article feels persuaded that, from internal evidence, his readers will at once see that it has proceeded from a source independent of the Editor of this journal. The latter, in fact, has exercised his editorial functions in regard to it no further than by fixing the limits to which it is restricted. W. L. A.

ART. X. (1.) Hungary and Transylvania; with Remarks on their Condition, Social, Political, and Economical. By JOHN PAGET, Esq. 2 vols., 8vo. London: Murray. 1839. (2.) The Case of Hungary Stated. Manifesto published in the Name of the Hungarian Government. By COUNT LADISLAS TELEKI, Member of the Hungarian Diet. Translated from the French, with Prefatory Remarks and Notes, by H. F. W. BROWNE, B.A. 8vo. London: E. Wilson. 1849.

(3.) Parallels between the Constitution and Constitutional History of England and Hungary. By J. TOULMIN SMITH, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law. 8vo. London: E. Wilson. 1849. (4.) Austria. By EDWARD P. THOMPSON, Esq., Author of Life in Russia.' 12mo. London: 1849.

WE cannot write the word 'Hungary' without a poignant feeling of indignant mortification and grief. The eastern bulwark of European civilization has been swept away by the overwhelming irruption of the new Huns into the plains of the Theiss and the Danube; and the modern Attila assumes, from his distant camp, to dictate, not only terms to the conquered nation, but also commands to a neighbouring power which point clearly enough to the next victim. A constitution of eight 'centuries, modified according to the exigencies of the time and the wishes of the nation,' has been overthrown by the perfidy of the Austrian Court; and the barbarism of military power has been extended over the last portion of the Continent in which a brave and independent nation retained, under the sanction of royal charters, not merely the form of free institutions, but both the substance and the spirit of liberty. In Austria, Prussia, and France, the bureaucratic system has been tried upon an extended scale, and, for a time, with a semblance of success which deceived the most sagacious monarchs, and the most wily and practised statesmen; but the events of the

last two years have exposed to the world its miserable inefficiency. In undermining the political morality of a people, such a government is but preparing its own overthrow by the first internal convulsion which puts its stability to the test. In countries where authority is law, law, as law, has no authority; and when the actual governing power is subverted, the essential principle of government, which is one of cohesion not of mere pressure, being wanting, anarchy or despotism becomes the only alternative. In Austria, a few years ago, not fewer than 140,000 officials were employed to govern a population of twenty-one millions. In France, the baseless throne of Louis-Philippe was, in like manner, propped up by an administrative system so thoroughly corrupt, and corrupting, that when it fell into ruins at a touch, the aged monarch stood aghast at finding not a solitary hand lifted up in his defence, not a voice raised on his behalf. In Austria, if there was not less of corruption than in France, there was less political hypocrisy. Dr. Southey mentions a saying, that if to the vices of a Spaniard you add hypocrisy, you will make a good Portuguese; and the system of Guizot was chiefly distinguished from that of Metternich, as being less consistent and less sincere. But the Austrian was the more thorough despotism; its power is described as having been 'ubiquitous, but rarely perceptible;' it walked in mystery, but its agency was as much dreaded as though it had been paraded publicly. 'The entire silence on political, and the suppression of local 'information—the severity of the censorship, and the influence 'of the priesthood-the surveillance and interference of the 'police and the fear of innovations, almost amounting to the prohibition of improvements in industry, were the chains by which the people were bound to their yoke.'* Mr. Stewart Rose, in his 'Letters from the North of Italy,' happily characterized the Austrians as the Chinese of Europe.' It is admitted that endurance had reached its highest point, although no change had been deemed possible so long as Prince Metternich held the reins of government; when the vibration of the earthquake, which had extended from Etna to the German Ocean, spreading from Milan to Vienna, overthrew in an instant a ministerial absolutism of forty years' standing. Had not the elements of political combustion been already prepared, it is absurd to suppose that any electric spark transmitted from a distant capital could have produced the explosion. The panic which seized the ruling powers of Europe might be infectious; the

* Thompson's Austria, p. 312.

popular movements were, in their causes, totally distinct. The following account of the state of things in Austria, previously to the first outbreak, is given by Mr. E. P. Thompson, whose general accuracy has not been impeached; although he has not done justice to the Hungarian leaders, and their cause:

'The government of Prince Metternich, which had latterly been entirely influenced by his wife, had become most obnoxious, not only to the middling, but also to the higher classes of society, and even to some of the branches of the Imperial family; the haughty conduct of himself and his creatures to the people and the nobility, and the appointment of numerous foreigners to high offices, had created the greatest discontent. No nobleman, possessing any pretensions to honourable feeling, would submit to bow to the omnipotence of the minister, while many of those who paid him homage, performed the unwilling duty in the patriotic hope of arresting the fatal policy he pursued. Many retired into private life, and refused to meddle with the affairs of the state; while others sought the army, as the only escape from the intriguing and time-serving spirit of the day; and as the political business of the country became consequently entirely unknown to those who, from their position, ought to have understood it, and were capable of rendering important service, the government was carried on by a set of foreigners, and by the needy nobility of the land, who were especially the creatures of the Prince, to the exclusion of men of talent and of liberal minds, whom he regarded as enemies to the State. The lower ranks of the bureaucracy had grown so elated at the dignity of their position and at the power they possessed, that their pride and insolence became insupportable to the middling and lower classes of society, while the great officials and dignitaries of the state were equally hated by the higher orders. The same system of oppression and the same feeling of disgust prevailed through the empire; and the desire for the Prince's death, or removal from office, became more general every day. In spite of his numerous spies, Prince Metternich was not aware of the tone of the public feeling, but founded his opinion of it on the statements and sycophancies of his flatterers. In their desire to throw off the yoke, the people of Austria were far from wishing to become accessory to any violent measures; and it appears evident, that the first steps of the late movement were brought about by the acquiescence of men of standing, as a means of getting the Prince into disgrace, and of shaking him off entirely, by proving to the Emperor, by facts and demonstrations, that the government was unpopular, and that a change was imperative. Professors Endlisher and Hye, both men of great note and of high standing in the literary world, instigated thus by others in the background, were the organs of the first movement; and through their means, the students of the university were prepared for a public demonstration, which, however disastrous in its consequences, was not intended to be more than an exhibition of public feeling.'-Austria, pp. 383-5.

It is strange that so well-informed a writer should afterwards speak of the restless nationalities of the Austrian Empire' as having been set in a ferment by the contagion of the French Revolution.' Even by his own showing, that ferment had begun working long before the Parisian revolution of February. We forget who it was that remarked of the numberless theories and speculations put forth to account for the French Revolution of 1789, that the said Revolution was made out to be the cause of everything, and everything to have been the cause of that Revolution. Some persons appear to labour under a similar hallucination with regard to the events of 1848 and 1849. Was it the French Revolution that inspired the Italians with the idea of a political unity, or that rendered the subjects of the Prince-Pontiff impatient of the galling yoke to which Pio Nono sought to reconcile them by his specious reforms? Did it produce the revolution in Sicily, a month prior to the occurrences which caused the downfal of Louis-Philippe and his infatuated minister; or the feverish excitement which had, for several years, manifested itself by various unequivocal symptoms throughout all classes of society in Germany? No one acquainted with the actual condition of Europe could be ignorant, that there existed throughout the Continent a deep-rooted and well-founded disaffection on the part of the people to their rulers, which rendered a revolutionary movement only a question of time. In Italy, the death of Gregory XVI., in France, that of Louis-Philippe, in Austria, that of Metternich, had been looked forward to, with expectations more or less sanguine, as the signal for some decided change. The accession of Pius IX. awakened hopes which had long been slumbering in the breasts of the people, and kindled the national enthusiasm into a flame of patriotism that has, unhappily, been quenched in darkness, without, as yet, giving birth to the phoenix which may be looked for to spring from the pyre. When the causes of political convulsion are all prepared, and no steps are taken to avert the impending danger, an accident may precipitate, and apparent chance may direct, the actual explosion; which it were nevertheless as absurd to ascribe to such incidental and casual circumstances as the real cause, as to attribute the springing of a mine to the match. The Revolution of July, which, nineteen years ago, took all Europe by surprise, was apparently as accidental as that which inflicted so singular a retribution upon the King of the Barricades; but at the former period, the latent causes of insurrection had long been in operation, not merely in France, but also in Belgium, in Spain, and in Italy. The fall and flight of Charles X. occurring too

suddenly, and too soon, to be turned to advantage by the patriotic friends to constitutional government, were, in the immediate results, unfavourable to the cause of political liberty; while the treachery of the King of the French paralyzed all the efforts of the patriotic party.

There is, indeed, a much closer analogy or correspondence between the events of 1830 and those of 1848, than may be obvious at first sight. Then, as now, to adopt the figurative language of prophecy, there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings,' which preceded the sudden earthquake; and the whole political atmosphere was disturbed. The spirit of reform or revolution which at that time pervaded all Europe, from the Spanish Peninsula to Hungary, and which, in our own country, effected the peaceful revolution of the Reform Act, had long been gathering strength; and the sagacity of the last of our great statesmen had predicted, that the next European conflict would be a war of principles. The arbitrary and selfish policy of the Congress of Vienna in the new partitionment of Europe, the perfidious refusal of the restored monarchs to fulfil their pledges to their subjects, and the violent attempts made to check the progress of liberal opinions, were the primary cause of that former revolutionary manifestation, as of the more recent extended movement, and as, most assuredly, it will be, of no distant catastrophe. If the second convulsion of society has proved more violent and disastrous than the first, and the imbecile policy of re-action and repression is still relied upon by courts and cabinets as the only means of averting the danger, there is every reason to apprehend that the third will be still more terrible-perhaps decisive.

It is remarkable, that the only part of continental Europe which has remained undisturbed during the agitation and conflict of the last two years, is that country in which the arrangements of 1815 were reversed by the separation of Holland from Belgium, and in which the constitutional rulers have kept faith with their subjects. In Hungary, as in our own country, the struggle of the liberal party was for reforms in accordance with the ancient institutions of the kingdom. The favourite objects of this party, whose efforts may be dated from the Diet of 1830, were, after strengthening the nationality of Hungary, 'freedom of commerce, and an improved commercial code; 'the navigation of the Danube, and the improvement of internal 'communication; increased freedom and education of the peasantry; the repeal of laws preventing the free purchase and 'sale of landed property; perfect equality of all religions,