"Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt; vigilemus!—Ecce! minaciter imminet arbiter ille supremus,—Imminet! imminet! ut mala terminet, æqua coronet,Recta remuneret, anxia liberet, æthera donet,Auferat aspera duraque pondera mentis onustæ;Sobria muniat, improba puniat, utraque justè."
"Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt; vigilemus!—Ecce! minaciter imminet arbiter ille supremus,—Imminet! imminet! ut mala terminet, æqua coronet,Recta remuneret, anxia liberet, æthera donet,Auferat aspera duraque pondera mentis onustæ;Sobria muniat, improba puniat, utraque justè."
"Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt; vigilemus!—Ecce! minaciter imminet arbiter ille supremus,—
Imminet! imminet! ut mala terminet, æqua coronet,Recta remuneret, anxia liberet, æthera donet,
Auferat aspera duraque pondera mentis onustæ;Sobria muniat, improba puniat, utraque justè."
Astonishment and delight kept the company silent for a while after he had finished, and then the repressed feelings of the audience burst out with tenfold force. "Oh, Mr Mount Huxtable!" said they all, "youmustattend our Thursday practising in the church. It will be so delightful now, for all we required was a fine man's voice. How beautiful the words are, and how well adapted for singing! And the music, how splendid!—pray whose is the music?"
"I am afraid I must confess myself the culprit in that respect," replied the Curate, very modestly. "I have been an enthusiast in music all my life, and have a peculiar delight in composing melodies to the old Catholic hymns."
After this no more was said of flowers on St Ingulpus's day; and it was very evident that our new ally was carrying the war into the enemy's country, and, in fact, was turning their artillery against themselves.
"If you are pleased with this simple song, I am sure that you will all be enchanted next week with two friends who have promised to visit me—both exquisite musicians, and very clever men."
"Clergymen?" inquired two or three of the ladies.
"Of course. I have very few lay acquaintances. You perhaps have heard their names,—the Reverend Launton Swallowlies, and the Reverend Iscariot Rowdy, both of Oxford."
"No we don't know their names, but shall be delighted to see any friends of yours." And so the party broke up with universal satisfaction. There was a brilliant moon, and Mount Huxtable sent away his phaeton and two beautiful gray ponies, and walked to Hellebore gate with the Blazers. Christina Smiler would rather have had him drive home, and looked a little sad as they went off: but we heard happy voices all the way down the avenue; snatches of psalm-music, even, rose up from the shrubs that line the walk; and it appears that the whole group had stopt short on the little knoll that rises just within the parsonage gate, and sung the Sicilian Mariner's Hymn.
So I think, my dear Charles, you may give up any farther attempts on our good old Church principles; the Doctor is determined not to turn round to the communion-table even at the creed, and I will beat you £20 that the congregation will all come back again, and we shall once more be a happy and united parish.
We look on you now, my dear Charles, as a fallen star; and, between ourselves, I don't think you are missed by a single astronomer in Yawnham, from the sky where you were once enthroned. No, sir: our curate's neckcloth is stiffer than yours, his collar plainer, his tails longer, his knowledge of saints and legends infinitely deeper—and, besides, he sings like an angel, and has a phaeton and pair. And he is so gentlemanly, too. He was at Eton, and is intimate with many lords, and has a power of sneering at low churchmen and dissenters that would be myrrh and incense to the Pope. Now you will observe, my unfortunate young friend, that when gentlemanly manners, good looks and accomplishments—not to mention an intimacy with the Red Book—and fourteen hundred a-year are in one scale, and Charles Fustian and a ton weight of Tractarians are in the other, the young persons who, in our parish, hold the beam will very soon send you and your make-weights half-way through the roof. Therefore, if you wish to retrieve your influence, either with Araminta or the other fair innovators, now or never is your time; come down and visit us. We shall all be delighted to see your elongated visage, and are not without hopes—for you are a good-natured excellent-dispositioned fellow after all—that you will see the error of your ways, and believe that humility and charity are Christian graces as well as faith and coloured windows. It so happens that there is scarcely a house in the place without a visitor. Tom Blazer has come down to Hellebore Park, and has brought Jones and Smith, two of his brother officers of the Rifles, with him;—the two Oxford men are with Mount Huxtable, who has taken Laburnum Place, and our doings are likely to be uncommonly gay. Swallowlies and Rowdy are great friends, though they seem to be the very antipodes of each other.Rowdy won't believe anything, and has doubts about the battle of Waterloo; and Swallowlies believes everything, and thinks the American States will soon pay off my bonds. Rowdy says there is no evidence, satisfactory to him, that there is such a state as Arkansas in the world, as it is not authoritatively stated by church or council; and tries to persuade me that I have lent six thousand pounds of real money to an imaginary republic. In the mean time, the loss of three hundred a-year is by no means an imaginary evil, and I feel a little sore at both these Oxford humourists for laughing at my misfortunes. However, Swallowlies errs on the right side, and is decidedly the favourite with us all.
You may guess, my dear Charles, how the heart of Major M'Turk jumped for joy when Mount Huxtable proposed a pic-nic at the Holywell tree at the other extremity of the parish; and all the young ladies, without a single exception, determined to be of the party. Fasting, my good friend, has come to an end: there were pies enough made to feed an army; baskets by the dozen were packed up, containing plates, and knives and forks; crates filled with cold fowls and hams, and others loaded with fruit and wine. The Rector had out his old coach, which Chipper managed to decapitate for the occasion, and it did duty (like St Denis) with its head off, as an open barouche. He took some of the Puginstones, and two of the Pulsers; and, to make room for Mrs M'Turk, he, or rather Mrs Smiler, asked the Curate to take Christina beside him on the driving-seat of his phaeton. I got out my old four-wheel, which was certainly not so fashionable-looking as Mount Huxtable's drag, but so commodious that it appears made of India-rubber, and stretches to any extent. Tom Blazer is an ostentatious fool and sports a tandem—that is to say, he puts his own horse and Jones' (one before the other) in his father's high gig, and insists on driving Tinderella Swainlove all about the country. On this occasion she also graced his side; and Jones himself, who is as active as one of the Voltigeurs at Astley's, fixed a board on the hind part of the gig and sat with his back to the horse, smoking cigars and calling it a dog-cart. At last we all got there; and, when the company was assembled, it certainly was a goodly sight to see. The little spring that gives its name to the fine old elm—now, alas! a stump that might pass for Arthur's Table Round—comes welling out from a glorious old rock, which rises suddenly, you remember, from the richest pasture field in yeoman Ruffhead's farm. I never saw the scenery to such advantage: the woods of Kindstone Hill closed in the landscape on the west; and before us, to the south, was spread out the long sunny level of Richland meads, at the farther extremity of which rose the time-honoured ivy-covered ruins of Leeches Abbey. While the servants, who had gone over in a couple of carts, were busy in arranging the repast, we fell off into parties, and, by mere accident, I joined the Blazer girls and Captain Smith, who gathered round the Holywell, and told what little legends they knew of it to Swallowlies and Rowdy.
"They thought it was good for epileptic fits," said Araminta, "in the Roman Catholic time. It was blessed by St Toper of Geneva, who was overcome by thirst one morning after spending the night with the monks of Leeches."
"Toper of Geneva?" inquired Captain Smith,—"it's rather a jolly name for a saint; no wonder the old boy felt his coppers hot after a night with the monks."
But the remark was so coldly received that the Captain, who enjoys a great reputation in the Rifles for wit and pleasantry, was for a while struck dumb.
"Who shall tell what may be the efficacy of a good man's blessing," said Mr Swallowlies, dipping his finger reverently in the cow's drinking trough, and touching his forehead. "Do you know, Miss Blazer, if it still retains its virtue?"
"I believe epileptic patients are still brought to the spring," replied Araminta, "and I have heard that the old woman in that little hut on the hill-side has seen several cures."
"I will make her acquaintance this moment," exclaimed Swallowlies. "I think it a privilege to look on a matron who has witnessed so remarkable amanifestation. Will you go with me, Rowdy?"
"No, I have no great faith in the fountain."
"Why not?"
"Because it is a sufficient effort for the human mind to have faith in one or two points of far greater importance."
"But you needn't make any effort at all. Take it on the assurance of the Church," said Swallowlies persuasively. "We have, indeed, cut ourselves off from a declaration of our belief in the power of saints like the holy Toper; but we can surely entertain the belief, though we are debarred from making public profession of it. And, in fact, any one who believes in miracles at all must equally believe that this spring will cure epileptic fits."
"Exactly as I say," responded Rowdy; "all miracles are equally credible."
"Then come to the old woman," said Swallowlies, taking his arm.
"No," said Mr Rowdy, "I have lately had great doubts as to my own identity, and I am going to try some experiments to see whether I am now the same person I was when I signed the articles, and did duty in my parish."
Mr Swallowlies, however, and the rest of us, with the exception of Captain Smith, walked to old Janet Wheedler's cottage, while Rowdy entered on his course of experimental philosophy. We found her nicely dressed, as if in expectation of our coming; and as the spring, with its capabilities for a pic-nic and its ancient associations, was a source of considerable revenue to her, she evidently was greatly pleased with the number of guests whom she saw approaching her door.
"Pax vobiscum!" said Mr Swallowlies, as we entered the cottage. "You reside here in highly favoured ground."
"Yes, indeed, sir," said Janet, "the gentlefolks be very fond of it, and very often come here from all parts about."
"Only the gentlefolks?" inquired her visitor. "I thought I heard that others came to avail themselves of the holy spring."
"Some folks don't believe in it now, sir—more's the pity. It was of great value in the old time."
"Why should it lose its virtue, Mrs Wheedler? If we had still the faith, it would have still the power."
Janet looked towards Mr Swallowlies, to judge whether he was in jest or earnest; but, on catching the face of wonderment with which he gazed at the well, and the unmistakable sincerity with which he spoke, the old woman, who had been a fortune-teller in her youth, involuntarily winked her blear eye, and curled up the corners of her mouth.
"It ain't quite falled away yet, sir. This here cat as ever you sees—here, Tabby dear, get up and show yourself to the gentles—this here cat, sir, a week ago, was took so ill of the palsy that it shook all over like a leaf. I thought it was agoing to die; but at last, thinks I, why shouldn't St Toper cure she, as he cures so many as have fits? And so, sir, I goes and fetches a little water, and flings it on Tabby's face, and the moment she felt the water she stops the shaking, and walks about as well as ever."
"Had she had any breakfast that morning?"
"No, sir, fasting from all but air; I gave her nothing from the night before, when she supped on a mouse."
Mr Swallowlies stooped down and laid his hand on the cat, which was purring and rubbing its fur against his leg.
"A strange instance this," he said, "of the efficacy of the ancient faith."
"Do you believe it, sir?" I inquired.
"Why not, sir? I don't attribute this, of course, to the direct operation of St Toper; but it certainly was endowed with this virtue to be evidence of his holy life. A wonderful animal this, Mrs Wheedler,—you would not probably wish to part with it?"
"I have two or three other cats, sir; but I'm very poor, and a little money is more useful to me than old Tabby."
"I'll speak to you in a little on the subject. Meanwhile, have you any other instances of cure?"
"Not to speak of, sir," replied Janet, delighted with the deference she was treated with. "That therelittle calf as you sees among the cabbage was born with five legs, and without ever a tail."
"Five legs! bless me!" exclaimed Mr Swallowlies—"how very strange!—it has only four now."
"Ah, sir! that's all owing to the well. I takes it to the spring, and sprinkles the fifth leg three times, and immediately it gives a jerk, and up goes the leg into its body, like the winding up of a jack-chain; and so I goes to work again, and flings a bucketful on its back, and, in a minute or two, out comes a tail,—and there it is, and not a single mark left of where the additional leg had disappeared."
"This is most interesting!" exclaimed Mr Swallowlies. "Have you got the bucket you used in aspersing the calf?"
"There it be, sir," said Janet, pointing to a tub of some size, that was placed upright against the wall.
"A blessed instrument, indeed," said the gentleman, bowing most respectfully, as he sounded with his knuckles on the rim. "I must have some minutes' conversation with you, Mrs Wheedler, for I make a point of never taking any stories, which at first sight appear improbable, without sedulous inquiry and anxious proof."
"I hear the dinner-bell," I said at this moment, for I heard Captain Smith performing the "Roast beef of Old England" on a key-bugle, which was the concerted signal for our assembling where the provender had been spread; and I used a little more vigour than usual in drawing the young ladies away.
"What a splendid specimen of Anglo-Catholic faith is Mr Swallowlies!" exclaimed Araminta in a tone of rapture; "and how free from bigotry in his reverence for a Romish saint like the holy Toper!"
"Hold your silly tongue, this moment!" I exclaimed, getting into a passion—"a fellow that believes in paralytic cats and five-footed calves being cured by such trumpery, should leave our church."
"You are so bitter, Mr Buddle, against the Holy Catholic Church, that I wonder you call yourself a Christian at all."
"Where is the Holy Catholic Church, you little simpleton?" I said, softening a little, for Araminta is a nice little girl.
"At Rome, Charles Fustian told me; and we are but a distant branch of it, bearing very little fruit, and owing that little only to the sap furnished to us by the main old trunk. And Mr Mount Huxtable says the same,—only that our branch bears no fruit, as the continuity was cut off at the deplorable Reformation."
"Charles Fustian! Mr Mount Huxtable!" I cried: "they're laughing at you, my little dear: they are both ministers of our church, and have made numberless protestations against the wickedness and errors of Rome. They are laughing at you,—at least I know Mount Huxtable is, for, to tell you a secret, my dear Araminta, he is placed here for no other purpose but to defend our Protestant Establishment against the Tractarian tendencies of the artists and young ladies of the day."
"Charles Fustian, sir, I beg to tell you, knows too well to presume to laugh at me," said Araminta, tossing her head.
"He ought, my dear," I replied, "for he is a remarkably foolish young man, and hasn't half the sense in his whole head which you have in your little finger."
By this time we had reached the spring; and after placing the girls in the best seats still to be found, I called Dr Smiler aside.
"My dear old friend," I said, "have you made proper inquiry about Mount Huxtable's church principles, before you installed him in full power in the parish?"
"No Tractarian need apply, was in the advertisement," replied the Doctor. "He is a stout opponent of the dissenters; and, besides, my dear Buddle, as you are the oldest friend I have in the parish, I may tell you that on the way here he had a long conversation with Christina, who sat beside him in his phaeton, and among other things he asked her if she thought she could be content with the humble condition of a curate's wife? She said yes, of course,—for she has liked him ever since they met; and he told her he would wait on me to-morrow. I now considerhim my son-in-law. He has great expectations, and has already fourteen hundred a-year."
"I don't like what I hear of his churchmanship," I said. "And as to Swallowlies, I think he is a bigoted fool, and a Papist."
"I don't the least see, Mr Buddle, why a man should be either bigoted or a fool who believes as two-thirds of the Christians throughout the world believe."
So saying, the Doctor turned off in a very dignified manner, and presided over the pigeon-pie.
I confess to you, my dear Charles, this acted like a thunderbolt on me. Rejoiced as I was at Christina's good fortune, in attracting the affection of so amiable and wealthy an admirer as Mount Huxtable, I did not feel altogether comfortable at the effect which this discovery had on the logical powers of my friend the Rector of Yawnham. Because a man admires my daughter, and makes her an offer of marriage, am I to kiss the Pope's toe? I made a determination to inquire into matters more deeply than I had hitherto done, and, with a view to pick up all the information I could, I watched the conversation in silence.
Betsy Blazer sat next Captain Smith of the Rifles, and, in one of the pauses which occasionally occur in the noisiest assemblages, her voice was distinctly heard.
"Do you ever chant when you are all together in barracks, Captain Smith?—it must be delightful."
"Well, I can't deny that there is occasionally chanting after mess," replied the soldier, a little amazed.
"Who is the leader?"
"Why, Jones and I both pretend to some renown."
"Are they Gregorian?"
"I should say Stentorian was a better description, for, between ourselves, Jones, in the Nottingham Ale, might be mistaken for an angry bull."
What the denouement of the conversation was I don't know, for Rowdy's voice rose above the din—
"Faith expires"—he said—"hope grows dim—but ceremony, the last refuge of religion, remains. We lose the trustingness that makes us lay the promises of holy writ to our hearts,—the childlike simplicity that lifts us into a world where truth erects her palace on gorgeous clouds, which to us take the semblance and solidity of mountains,—we lose the thrill, the dread, the love,—but we can retain the surplice, the albe, and the stole. The cloud that seemed a mountain has disappeared; the confidence that sustained us has gone,—but we can erect churches according to the strictest rules of architecture, cover the table with cloth of gold,—have daily service, have some fixed, irrevocable, eternal rule, and feel ourselves the slaves of hours and postures;—a slavery befitting those who are left to grope in the darkness of their own souls for a belief, and find nothing to support, to bless, or cheer them."
"Do you advocate the externals of devotion, Mr Rowdy, after the reality of religion has left the heart?" I inquired.
"Certainly, sir," he said. "If you waited for the internal religion you talk of, you would never enter a church. And pray, sir, what is internal, and what is external? Your heart is a piece of flesh, your font is a piece of stone; why shouldn't holiness reside in the one as well as in the other?"
"It strikes me, Mr Rowdy, to be rather hypocritical to go through the forms of religion without the spirit," I urged again.
"And what is life but hypocrisy?—your very clothes make you a hypocrite: without them you would resemble a forked radish, but you disfigure yourself in surtout and pantaloons. Go through the ceremonies, sir—the feeling in time will come; dig your trenches deep, and the rain will pour into them and burn the sacrifice of your altar with fire; kneel when you have no devotion, bend yourself to decrees and ordinances when you have no humility and no faith; and, entering on that course with the scoff of Voltaire, you will emerge from it with the sanctity of Vincent de Paul."
"On the contrary, sir, I maintain," said I, "that, if you persist in these miserable bonds of an outward obedience, in the expectation that they will promote your advance in goodness, you bring on yourself the condemnationof the Pharisee; you may enter them with the faith of your friend Mr Swallowlies, but you will leave them ere long with the sentiments of the infidel and apostate Strauss."
"I call no man an apostate," cried Mr Rowdy, "who traces the operations of his own mind to their legitimate results; I call no man an infidel who believes that he was born, and that he shall die."
"How good! how liberal! how humane!" exclaimed a chorus of sweet voices.
"And what doYOUsay?" I enquired, addressing our new curate.
"For myself," said Mr Mount Huxtable, "I think it sinful in any one to decide on such a subject, unless in the exact words of the church."
"Very good," said the Doctor; "judiciously answered."
"Don't you allow private judgment, sir?" said I.
"No more, sir," he replied, "than I should allow private execution. It is for the church to pass sentence: if any presumptuous individual interferes with her authority, he is as much out of his sphere as if he were to displace Baron Alderson on the bench, go through the mockery of a trial, and condemn an enemy of his own to be hanged."
"Very good, indeed," said the Doctor; "judiciously answered."
"I have often heard your friend, Charles Fustian, say the same," said Araminta.
"Is he a friend of yours, Mount Huxtable?" inquired Dr Smiler, in a very bland tone.
"A most intimate friend, my dear sir," replied Mount Huxtable.
"Dear me!—I thought you told me you didn't know him."
"No, my dear sir, I didn't tell you so: I only gave you to understand that we weren't acquainted."
"That used to be pretty much the same thing," I said, a little chafed with the putting down I had already experienced, "and I suspect you are a great deal more intimate than you were inclined to let us know."
"You have exactly hit upon the reason," he replied. "I was not inclined to let you know; and I have yet to learn that a priest is imperatively required to confess to a layman, however inquisitive or ill-mannered he may be."
"Come, my dear Buddle," said the Doctor, "I think you will see that you ought to apologise."
"For what?" I exclaimed.
"For speaking so irreverently to the pastor of the parish," replied Dr Smiler. "You should consider, sir, that Mr Mount Huxtable is your spiritual guide."
"Certainly," said Araminta; and Christina Smiler grew first red and then pale, and looked at me as if I were a heathen.
I sipped a glass in silence; and the altercation had the unpleasant effect of producing an awkward pause.
When the silence had endured for upwards of a minute, it was suddenly broken by Major M'Turk ejaculating, in his most military manner, "Sharpshooters, to the front!" and mechanically Jones and Smith sprang up, and, advancing a few paces, anxiously looked upward in the direction pointed out by the commander's hand. The sight they saw might have shaken less firm nerves than theirs; for, toiling slowly down the hill, from Janet Wheedler's cottage, we perceived a nondescript figure, yet evidently human, more puzzling than the sea-serpent. Some large round substance enveloped its head, and entirely buried the hat and face, and covered the whole of the neck down to the middle buttons of the coat. Tucked under one arm we beheld a cat, secured by a ribbon tied round its neck; and, with a large kitchen poker in the other hand, the advancing stranger drove before him a great awkward calf. When he got a little nearer, we recognised our friend Mr Swallowlies.
"In heaven's name!" exclaimed the Rector, "what have you got there, Mr Swallowlies?"
"It is in heaven's name, indeed," replied Swallowlies, lifting up the large washing-tub which we had seen in Janet's cottage. "These, sir, are holy relies, which I have luckily induced the venerable matron of the hut to part with—partly by prayers and supplications, and partly by payments in money."
The Rector looked astonished, for he had not been of our party; andSwallowlies, allowing the calf to feed on the grass near the spring, explained his sentiments on the subject of the tub, and related the miraculous history of the animals his companions.
"And how much did you give for the tub, sir?" said Smiler.
"Five pounds procured the inestimable treasure," answered Swallowlies in triumph; "eight pounds procured me the sacred tabby, and twelve guineas the calf. A very few pounds more have obtained for me, if possible, still more precious articles. Look here, sir," he continued, pulling from his coat-pocket an old quarter-boot, with the sole nearly off, and two or three flat-headed nails sticking out from the tattered heel—"this is one of the sandals in which the illustrious Toper used to go his annual pilgrimage to the shrine of St Thomas of Canterbury. This instrument of iron—which, I confess, struck me at first to bear a great resemblance to a poker—was his staff. And this, sir," he said, pulling from his bosom a piece of very old corduroy, mended in several places—"this is the left leg of the pantaloons the saint wore for upwards of forty years, without ever taking them off; for he is recorded never to have changed his raiment but twice, and never to have washed either his face or hands,—such a true Christian soldier was he."
"He was a dirty brute, and no soldier," cried Captain Smith, who was a great martinet in his regiment, "and I would have had him flogged every morning till he learned to be more tidy."
"Sacrilege! horror!" exclaimed Swallowlies, crossing himself in the greatest perturbation, and placing the tub once more on his head, and resuming his labours in driving the calf onward with his poker.
"Won't you have some pie?" said Dr Smiler.
"No, sir; I am fasting to-day, and am anxious to place my treasures in security."
"Such faith is highly edifying," said Mount Huxtable, "and unfortunately too uncommon in the present day. Ah! were all men equally pure, and as highly gifted as Swallowlies, the Reformation would soon be blotted out, and our Mother of Rome receive her repentant children."
"How? What did you say, my dear sir?" inquired the Rector. "Are you not a Protestant?"
"Assuredly not, sir. I detest the cold and barren name. It is a mere negation. I want something positive. It is the part of a Christian to believe—certainly not to deny."
"To be sure, Doctor, we are none of us Protestants; we are Anglo-Catholics," said Araminta, answering for the feminine part of his flock.
"I never viewed it in that light before," said Dr Smiler, looking assuringly at Christina, who seemed greatly alarmed at what her father might do. "Certainly religion is not a mere denial of error; it is far more—an embracing of truth."
"There is no truth omitted in the faith of the Catholic Church," said Mount Huxtable solemnly. "Some are more developed than they were at first; and some, more recently planted, are even now in course of growth, and, before many years elapse, will infallibly spread their branches all over this barren land. But I will call on you to-morrow," he added, with a smile, and a bend of his head towards Christina, which entirely barred up all the arguments that our Protestant champion might have been inclined to advance. And in a short time the pic-nic came to an end, and we all returned to Yawnham in the order we had come—always excepting Mr Swallowlies, whom we overtook in the first half-mile, still under his umbrageous sombrero, and still gesticulating with the poker to guide his erratic calf.
I had not sealed up the letter which I inclose to you herewith, my dear Charles, and fortunately, as it turns out—for I have it now in my power to tell you the conclusion of your machinations in this parish.
Three weeks have elapsed since the expedition to Holywell Tree. My anger, I confess, with Dr Smiler was so hot that I never called at the parsonage; and after the first Sunday I did not even go to church. The communion-tableis now surmounted by a gigantic crucifix—a cover of bright velvet, with a golden star in the centre, hangs down to the ground, while a vase of flowers stands on the middle of the table, flanked at each side by immense candlesticks, with a candle of two or three pounds' weight in each. There is a stone creding table, an eagle at one side of the aisle in bronze, and the old recess in the porch is cleared out, and a basin placed in it; but whether for the reception of holy water or charitable pence I did not stop to inquire. There is daily service at ten in the morning. The girls wear a regular uniform, and call themselves Sisters of the Order of St Cecilia, and have appointed Swallowlies their father confessor; and once or twice a-week, I believe, he, or Rowdy, or Mount Huxtable, attends in the vestry, and takes the young ladies, one by one, to a solitary conversation, with the door locked. And the best of the affair is, that Tom Blazer and his two military friends are as constant in their attendance as the rest. But, with these exceptions, there is not a man to be seen in the church, either on week-days or Sundays; for I am told that even John Simpkins and Peter Bolt have struck for wages, and won't attend prayers under half-a-crown a-week. So we have begun a subscription in the parish for a district chapel; and in the mean time we stream off by the hundred, either to the church or meeting-houses of the nearest parish. Major M'Turk, I am sorry to say, has had many interviews with the Reverend Mr Rowdy, and has become almost an infidel, with a leaning, if anything, to the religion of the Buddhists in India, who fast, he says, fifty times more, and go through a thousand times more painful penances than either Puseyite or Papist.
This morning I was surprised to see Doctor Smiler coming up my garden walk, as he used to do in the days of our friendship. He looked rather downcast as he drew near the window, where I was busy getting my fishing-flies in order, and coughed once or twice, as if to announce his approach. I pretended not to hear him, and continued absorbed in my lines and feathers; and, instead of coming in at the open door as he has done for the last twenty years, he actually rang the bell, and old Thomas had to bustle on his coat, and come out of the back-yard to see who was there,—and I thought the old man's tone was a little sharp when he announced Dr Smiler.
"How do you do, Doctor Smiler?" I said very courteously; "have the kindness to be seated."
The Doctor sat down.
"Are you going to the brook to-day?" he inquired.
"Yes; if the wind holds, I shall try it for an hour or two this evening. I hope Mrs Smiler is well."
"She is not well," he said.
"And Christina—Miss Christina?" I added, correcting myself.
"Dying," said the Doctor.
"Christina dying!" I exclaimed, starting up and taking the Doctor's hand; "my dear Smiler, why didn't you tell us?—why didn't you send for us?"
"I was ashamed, and that's the truth," said the Doctor. "Ah! Buddle, you were wiser than I."
"How?—what? Is it that rascal Mount Huxtable?" I inquired.
"No doubt of it," replied Smiler. "He has ruined the happiness of my daughter, turned away the hearts of my parishioners, and made me a laughing-stock to the whole county."
"Is he not going to marry her, then?—did he not call on you after the pic-nic?"
"No, he didn't call on me; but he consulted Christina's taste in all things—got her to superintend the alterations in the church—the candlesticks and flowers; he even asked her what style of paper she liked for drawing rooms, and the poor girl expected every moment that he would make a formal demand."
"It may come yet," I said, endeavouring to cheer him.
"It can't, my dear friend. I find he is married already."
"The villain!"
"He was an intimate friend of Charles Fustian," continued the Rector, "and by his advice answered my advertisement for an anti-Tractarian curate; by his advice also he concealed the fact of his marriage, and, in the course of less than a month, see what he has done."
"He denied that he knew Charles Fustian."
"I accused him of the duplicity this morning, but he says it was for the good of the flock; and as he is their shepherd for two years, he has a greater interest in them than I."
"And how did he explain his speeches to Christina?"
"General observations," he says; "he wished her opinion on drawing-room papers, and required her assistance in the interior arrangement of his church."
"His church! the puppy! We shall petition the bishop."
"Of no use," said the Rector. "You will perceive, my dear Buddle, that the generality of the bench are either very fond of power, and flattered with Puseyite sycophancy; or anxious to keep pace with the titled aristocracy, and very fond of 'gentility.' Now there is no denying that the Tractarians are more polished men, and, as far as the arts and refinements go, more cultivated men than the labouring clergy generally, and therefore these two things keep them secure from any authoritative condemnation—their truckling to their spiritual superiors, and their standing in society. If Mount Huxtable had been a vulgar fellow, though with the energy and holiness of St Paul,—if he had stood up against his diocesan and vindicated his liberty, either of speech or action, in the slightest degree—we could have hurled him from the parish, probably into gaol, in spite of all the licenses in the world; but I have no hope in this case."
"Then I have," I said, "for, from what you told me of the fellow's hypocrisy, I have no doubt he was the very man who was received, as they call it, into the Romish Church by Bishop Cunningham, three months since."
"It is surely impossible, my dear Buddle; how could he officiate in our church after being a professed papist?"
"Easily, my dear Smiler; it has very often been done, and is frequently done at this moment. Take that account of the ceremony with you, and tax him with it at once."
The Doctor folded up the paper, and went on,—
"But this is not all. How am I to atone to poor Mrs Blazer, and poor Mrs Swainlove, for what has happened?"
"Why?—what has happened to the old ladies?"
"Jones has eloped with Araminta Blazer; and, in the same post-chaise, Smith has carried off Tinderella Swainlove!"
"Why, they were almost professed unbelievers,—at least not at all Tractarian."
"That doesn't matter. They are off, and what we have now to hope for is—that they will go to Gretna Green. Young Pulser also has kicked Mr Rowdy into the mill-pond, where he was nearly drowned, for something or other he said or did to Priscilla Pulser at confession; and, to complete the catalogue of woes, Mr Swallowlies has been arrested for theft; for it appears that the calf which Janet Wheedler sold him was not her own, but belonged to farmer Ruffhead."
What could I say to comfort the poor old rector under such a tremendous cloud of calamity? The solitary glimpse of satisfaction, I confess, which I individually caught from his narrative was, that Araminta had shown the good taste to leave a friend of mine in the lurch. I will add nothing to this letter, for I am hurrying off to assist the Doctor in comforting his household, and recovering possession of his parish. How we succeed in this, and what steps we take to regain the confidence and affection of the flock, I shall not fail to inform you. Meanwhile, reflect on all that has arisen from your introduction of these foreign mummeries and superstitions into this quiet parish, and "how great effects from little causes spring."—
Yours, &c.
T. Buddle.
When Jellachich, on the 9th September 1848, passed the Drave, the boundary of Croatia and of Hungary Proper, the war between Austria and Hungary may be said to have commenced. Up to that time the hostilities directed against Hungary had been confined to the attacks of her revolted Sclavonic subjects in some parts of Croatia, and in the counties on the Lower Danube. These revolts had been instigated, and the attacks conducted, by officers in the Austrian service, who were countenanced and aided by a party at the court, and who asserted that they acted with the authority and in the interests of the Imperial family. Still the emperor, on the demand of the Hungarian ministry, had disavowed their proceedings. In May, he had publicly degraded Jellachich from all his offices, as a rebel against the Hungarian government. In July, he had formally announced to the diet, through his representative the Archduke Palatine, his determination to maintain the integrity of Hungary, and the laws he had sanctioned in April, and repudiated, as a calumny, the assertion of Jellachich and the other leaders of the revolt, that the emperor, or any other member of the Imperial family, countenanced their proceedings. It is true that Jellachich and another of these leaders had subsequently been received by the emperor-king, and by several members of the Imperial family, in a manner hardly consistent with their position as rebels; yet it was possible that his majesty might still listen to other counsels—might still resolve to pursue a constitutional course, and to preserve his own faith inviolate. Even so late as the 9th September—the day on which Jellachich passed the Drave—he solemnly renewed his promise to maintain the integrity of Hungary and the laws of April. But upon the 4th September he had reinstated Jellachich in all his offices, civil and military, knowing that he was then at the head of an army on the frontiers of Hungary, preparing to invade that kingdom, and to force the Hungarians to renounce the concessions made to them in April by their king. It appeared that the Ban had been supplied with money and with arms from Vienna while he was still nominally in disgrace, and he was joined by Austrian regiments, which had marched from Southern Hungary to put themselves under his orders. His advance, therefore, at the head of an army composed of Austrian regiments and Croat forces, was truly an invasion of Hungary by Austria.
The Hungarian forces collected to resist this invasion were still without a commander-in-chief or a staff—without sufficient arms or ammunition, and for the most part without military discipline or organisation. We have already mentioned that, on the restoration of the Ban to his offices and command, the Hungarian ministry resigned; but Mazaros, minister of the war department, Kossuth, minister of finance, and Szemere, minister of the interior, continued provisionally to perform the duties of their offices. Their measures were so energetic, that the Palatine called upon Count Louis Bathyanyi, the head of the late ministry, to form another government. This step was approved at Vienna; and Bathyanyi undertook the duty on the condition that Jellachich should be ordered to retire, and, if he refused, should be proclaimed a traitor. The king required a list of the proposed ministry, which was immediately presented; but a week or more elapsed, during which no answer was received, and during which Jellachich continued to advance towards the capital of Hungary. The Palatine, at the request of the diet, and after the measure had been approved by the king, took command of the Hungarian troops opposed to the Ban, which were then retiring upon Buda. Both parties, the invaders and the invaded, appeared at this time to be countenanced by the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary; and the diet, while preparing for defence, seems not to have relinquished all hope of a peaceful arrangement. The Archduke Stephen,after joining the army, and hastily organising it, opened communications with the Ban, and arranged a meeting in boats on the Lake Balaton: but Jellachich did not keep his appointment; and the Archduke Palatine, summoned to Vienna by the emperor, left the army, passed through Pesth on his way to Vienna, and on his arrival there, as we formerly stated, resigned the office of palatine. Shortly afterwards he retired to his private residence on the Rhine.
Count Louis Bathyanyi, whose conditions had not yet been either accepted or rejected, was thus left alone to carry on the whole government; and the diet, for the purposes both of aiding and controlling the administration of the minister, named a committee of their number, called the "Committee of Defence," to assist in conducting the government.
Jellachich had now established himself at Stuhlweissenberg, four or five marches from Pesth; and the government at Vienna appears to have anticipated that Hungary, left without a government, must fall into confusion. But she preserved her loyal and constitutional attitude; and while she was prepared to repel force by force, gave no pretext for employing it. Count L. Bathyanyi was at length informed that his list of the new ministry was not approved; and by an ordinance dated 25th September, General Count Francis Lamberg was appointed to the command of all the troops in Hungary, with power to restore order and to close the diet. The time had arrived which the Hungarians had been most desirous to avert, when they must either surrender their constitutional rights or resist their king.
The murder of Count Lamberg by a frantic mob threw the diet into a state of consternation. The regiment on which it most relied was the regiment of Lamberg, and the Ban was at the gates of Buda. The diet passed resolutions expressing its profound grief at the unhappy fate of the count, and ordered criminal proceedings to be immediately instituted against his murderers. The patriotism of the soldiers was not shaken by the horrible event that had occurred; and they displayed their wonted gallantry on the 29th, when the Ban was repulsed. Immediately after the murder of General Lamberg, Count Louis Bathyanyi resigned. There was now neither palatine nor minister in the kingdom, and the enemy was about to attack the capital. In this emergency the Committee of Defence, at the head of which was Louis Kossuth, took upon itself the direction of affairs; and since that time it has governed Hungary.
After the defeat of Jellachich, while he was on the frontiers of Austria, followed by the Hungarian army, the king named Count Adam Ricsay prime-minister, and by a new ordinance, countersigned Ricsay, the diet was dissolved, its decrees annulled, and Jellachich appointed commander-in-chief of all the troops in Hungary. The civil authorities were suspended, and the country declared in a state of siege. At the same time Jellachich was named royal commissioner, and invested with executive power over the whole kingdom.
From the moment of Jellachich's nomination to the office of Ban of Croatia, without the consent of the responsible Hungarian ministry, his concert with a party hostile to Hungary at the imperial court had not been doubtful; and that party had now prevailed upon the emperor-king to adopt their views. The influence of the Ban was not shaken by his defeat. The court had previously identified itself with his proceedings, and he had faithfully, though not hitherto successfully, espoused its cause. He had declared against the laws of April and the separate ministry in Hungary, which these laws had established, and in favour of a central government at Vienna for the whole dominions of the emperor, which he proposed to force the Hungarians to accept. He was no longer a Croat chief, asserting the national pretensions of his countrymen, but an Austrian general, assailing the constitution and the independence of Hungary. From the position at Raab, on the road to Vienna, to which he had retreated after his reverse, he applied for reinforcements to enable him again to advance towards Pesth. It was the refusal of these reinforcements to march that led to the second revolution at Vienna, which has been attributed to Hungarian agency. It is probable that the Hungarians wouldemploy all the influence they could command to prevent or impede the march of troops to attack them; but it is remarkable that the prosecutions of persons engaged in that revolution do not appear to have elicited anything that would justify us in attributing the revolt of the Viennese to the Hungarians. Attempts have also been made to implicate the Hungarians in the atrocious murder of Latour, the minister of war, by the insurgents of Vienna, but we have not been able to trace any foundation for such a charge. The Hungarians were formidable enemies, and to them every atrocity was attributed.
The Emperor of Austria was now at war with Hungary, and his enemies, therefore, became her allies. The revolutionary party at Vienna for a time regained the ascendency, and signalised it by the crime to which we have referred. After Windischgratz and Jellachich had invested the city, the Viennese applied to the Hungarians for aid; but their levies and national guards had returned in great numbers to their homes, and their army was not in a condition to make any impression upon that of the emperor. It advanced, and was repulsed. The Austrian government, by allying itself with rebellion and anarchy to subvert the established constitution of Hungary, had driven the Hungarians, in self-defence, into an alliance with the revolutionary party in Vienna against the government.
The error into which it had been led ought now to have been manifest to the Austrian cabinet; and it was not yet too late to remedy the evil. By returning to the course of legality and good faith, the Imperial government might have disarmed and regained Hungary. If there was in that country, as there no doubt was, a party which was disposed to sympathise with the republicans, and even with the worst of the anarchists in Austria, they were without power or influence, and their evil designs would at once have been frustrated, their opinions repudiated, and the loyalty of the nation confirmed; but the court had unfortunately placed itself in a position that left it but the choice of abandoning and breaking faith with the rebels to Hungary, whose eminent services at Vienna it was bound to acknowledge, or of persevering in the breach of faith with Hungary, which his advisers had forced upon the emperor-king. That the Hungarians had been ready to support the cause of monarchy and order, so long as faith had been kept with them, was put beyond all question by the vote of the diet, which, on the motion of the responsible Hungarian ministry formed in April, had placed forty thousand Hungarian troops at the disposal of the emperor, for service in Italy, "to preserve the honour of the Austrian arms," then endangered by the first reverses of Marshal Radetski. The Wessemberg ministry appears to have contemplated restoring the king of Hungary and his subjects to their legal and constitutional relations, for it issued a circular declaring that the king intended to fulfil the engagements he had entered into in April. But the power of the minister was subordinate to that of a party at the court, whose views were opposed to his own; and the acts of the government were not such as to restore confidence in its sincerity, at all times a difficult task for a government that has justly forfeited the confidence of a whole nation. Hungary did not dare to suspend her preparations for resistance; and the second revolution at Vienna, by occupying the troops destined to attack her, gave her time to improve her means of defence.
Had there been at Vienna a government capable of inspiring confidence in its sincerity—a government possessing power or influence enough to carry out conciliatory measures, to fulfil the engagements it might contract—the differences between Austria and Hungary might still have been amicably adjusted, by restoring the constitutional government established in April. All the bloodshed and misery that has ensued, and all the evils that may yet follow from the war, would thus have been averted. But irresponsible advisers had more influence at the court than the ostensible cabinet, and were blindly bent on returning to the irretrievable past. They founded their hopes upon the devotion of that noble army whichhad re-established order in Austria, and which, if employed only to maintain order and the just rights of the monarchy, would have encountered no opposition that it could not overcome. Hungary, cordially reunited to Austria under the same sovereign, would again have become, what the Emperor Francis declared it to be, "the chief bulwark of the monarchy;" and the empire would have resumed its position as the guardian of peace and order in Eastern Europe, and a powerful support to the cause of constitutional monarchy and rational liberty everywhere.
Unhappily for the Austrian empire, for Europe, and for "the good cause," evil counsels prevailed, and Hungary was again invaded. Many of the leading magnates adhered to the court, at which they had spent their lives, and which was in fact their home. But there was hardly a great family of which some wealthy and influential members did not declare for their native country. A great majority of the resident aristocracy—the numerous class of resident country gentlemen, almost without exception—the body of inferior nobles or freeholders—the peasant-proprietors and the labouring population, espoused the cause of Hungary. The Protestant clergy in the Majjar country, to a man, and the Roman Catholic clergy of Hungary in a body, urged their flocks to be patient and orderly, to obey the government charged with the defence of the country, and to be faithful and valiant in defending it.
The attacks of Jellachich, and of that portion of the Croats and Serbes which had declared against Hungary, had failed to bring about the submission of the diet, and had produced an alliance, dangerous to the court, between its enemies in the Hereditary States and the Hungarians, with whom it was now at war. The national assembly or congress that met at Vienna was tainted with republican notions, and divided into factions, influenced for the most part by feelings of race. German unity, Sclave ascendency, and Polish regeneration, were the ultimate objects of many of those who talked of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The discussion of the constitution revealed the discord in their opinions, and they seemed to agree in nothing but the determination to overturn the ancient system of the empire.
Wearied by contentions, in which his character and feelings unfitted him to take a part; distracted by diverse counsels; involved by a series of intrigues, from which he could not escape, in conflicting engagements; dreading the new order of things, and diffident of his own ability to perform the duties it demanded of him, the Emperor Ferdinand abdicated; and by a family arrangement the crown of Austria was transferred, not to the next heir, but to the second in succession. The crown of Hungary, as we formerly stated, had been settled by statute on the heirs of the House of Hapsburg; but no provision had been made for the case which had now arisen. The Hungarians held that their king had no power to abdicate; that so long as he lived he must continue to be their king; that if he became incapable of performing the regal functions, the laws had reserved to the diet the power to provide for their due performance; that the crown of Hungary was settled by statute on the heirs of the House of Hapsburg, and the Emperor Francis Joseph was not the heir. The laws of Hungary required that her king should be legitimately crowned according to the ancient customs of the kingdom, and should take the coronation oath before he could exercise his rights or authority as sovereign. If he claimed the crown of Hungary as his legal right, he was bound to abide by the laws on which that right was founded. But these laws required that he should be crowned according to the customs of Hungary, and that he should bind himself by a solemn oath to maintain the constitution and the laws, including those passed in March, sanctioned and put into operation in April 1848. In short, that he should concede what Hungary was contending for.
The abdication of the Emperor Ferdinand, and the accession to the Imperial throne of his youthful successor, presented another opportunity of which the Austrian government might have gracefully availed itself, to terminate the differences withHungary. The young emperor was fettered by no engagements, involved in none of the intrigues that entangled his unwary predecessor, and entailed so great evils upon the country. He was free to take a constitutional course in Hungary, to confirm the concessions which had been voluntarily made, and which could not now be recalled—to restore to the Imperial government a character for good faith; and thus to have won the hearts of the Hungarians. Supported by their loyal attachment to their king, he might have peacefully worked out the reforms in the government of his empire which the times and the circumstances demanded or justified. But Count Stadion, the real head of the new ministry, though possessed of many eminent qualities as a statesman, was deeply imbued with the old longing after unity in the system of government: he hoped to effect, by means of a constitution devised and framed for that purpose, the amalgamation of the different parts of the empire, which abler men had failed to accomplish under an absolute monarchy, in circumstances more favourable to success. The opposition that was inevitable in Hungary he proposed to overcome by force of arms; and, at a moment when a desire for separate nationality was the predominant feeling in the minds of all the different races in the empire, he had the hardihood to imagine that he could frame a constitution capable of overcoming this desire, and of fusing them all into one. It was considered an advantage that the emperor, unfettered by personal engagements to Hungary, was free to prosecute its subjugation, to subvert its constitution, and to force the Hungarians to accept in its place the constitution of Count Stadion, with seats in the Assembly at Vienna for their representatives, under one central government for the united empire. This may have been a desirable result to obtain; it might, if attainable, have been ultimately conducive to the strength of the empire and the welfare of all classes; but it was not to claim the hereditary succession to a throne secured and guarded by statutes—it was rather to undertake the conquest of a kingdom.
Windischgratz and Jellachich occupied Pesth without opposition, set aside the constituted authorities, and governed the country, as far as their army extended, by martial law. The Committee of Defence retired beyond the Theis to Debreczin, in the heart of the Majjar country, and appealed to the patriotism of the Hungarians. The army was rapidly recruited, and was organised in the field, for the campaign may be said to have endured throughout the whole winter. From time to time it was announced from Vienna that the war was about to be terminated by the advance of the imperial army, and the dispersion or destruction ofKossuth's faction. The flight of Kossuth, and his capture as a fugitive in disguise, were reported and believed. The delay in the advance of the imperial army was attributed to the rigour of the season and the state of the roads; and, when these impediments no longer existed, to the incapacity of Windischgratz, who was roughly handled by the government press of Vienna. The true cause was carefully concealed. The resistance was not that of a faction, but of a nation. That fact has been fully established by the events in this unfortunate, unnecessary, and unnatural war.
The Austrian armies employed in Hungary have probably exceeded one hundred and fifty thousand regular troops, aided by irregular bands of Croats and Serbes, and latterly by a Russian corps of ten thousand men. They established themselves both in Transylvania and in Hungary, and were in possession of the whole of the fertile country from the frontiers of Austria to the Theis, which flows through the centre of the kingdom. From Transylvania, both the Austrian and the Russian forces have been driven into Wallachia. From the line of the Theis the imperial army has been forced across the Danube, on which they were unable to maintain their positions. The sieges of Komorn and Peterwardein, the two great fortresses on the Danube, of which the capture or surrender has so often been announced, have been raised; and the question is no longer whether Debreczin is to be occupied by the Emperor's forces, but whether Viennais safe from the Hungarians. Opposed to the admirable army of Austria, these results could not have been obtained unless the great body of the nation had been cordially united, nor even then, unless by a people of great energy, courage, and intelligence.
Had the government of Austria known how to win the hearts of the Hungarians for their sovereign—had they but preserved the good faith and the sanctity of the monarchy in Hungary, how secure and imposing might the position of the Emperor have now been, in the midst of all the troubles in Germany! Hungary desired no revolution; she had peacefully obtained, by constitutional means, all she desired. Her revolution had been effected centuries ago; and, with indigenous institutions, to which her people were warmly attached, she would have maintained, as she did maintain, her internal tranquillity and her constitutional monarchy, whatever storms might rage around her.
The resources that Hungary has put forth in this contest have surprised Europe, because Europe had not taken the trouble to calculate the strength and the resources of Hungary. With a compact territory, equal in extent to Great Britain and Ireland, or to Prussia, and the most defensible frontier of any kingdom on the continent of Europe; with a population nearly equal to that of England, and not much inferior to that of Prussia;6with a climate equal to that of France, and soil of greater natural fertility than any of these; with a representative government long established, and free indigenous institutions, which the people venerate; with a brave, energetic, and patriotic population, predisposed to military pursuits, jealous of their national independence, and of their personal liberty—ambitious of military renown, proud of their traditionary prowess, and impressed with an idea of their own superiority to the surrounding populations—Hungary, as all who know the country and the people were aware, would be found a formidable antagonist by any power that might attack her. But, paradoxical and incredible as it may appear, we believe it is not the less true, that, little as Hungary was known in most of the countries of Europe, there was hardly a capital, in that quarter of the globe, where more erroneous notions regarding it prevailed than in Vienna. In other places there was ignorance; in the capital of Austria there was the most absurd misapprehension. Though generally a calm, sensible man, possessing a considerable amount of general information, an Austrian, even after he has travelled, appears to be peculiarly incapable of understanding a national character different from his own: this is true even in respect to other Germans; and neither the proximity of the countries, nor the frequent intercourse of their inhabitants, seems to have enabled him to form any reasonable estimate of the Hungarian character or institutions. We might adduce curious evidence of this ignorance, even in persons of distinction; but we shall content ourselves with quoting Mr Paget's observations on the subject, in June 1835:—
"The reader would certainly laugh, as I have often done since, did I tell him one half of the foolish tales the good Viennese told us of the country we were about to visit—no roads! no inns! no police! We must sleep on the ground, eat where we could, and be ready to defend our purses and our lives at every moment. In full credence of these reports, we provided ourselves most plentifully with arms, which were carefully loaded, and placed ready for immediate use.... It may, however, ease the reader's mind to know, that no occasion to shoot anything more formidable than a partridge or a hare presented itself, and that we finished our journey with the full conviction, that travelling in Hungary was just as safe as travelling in England.Why, or wherefore, I know not, but nothing can exceed the horror with which a true Austrian regards both Hungary and its inhabitants. I have sometimes suspected that the bugbear with which a Vienna mother frightens her squaller to sleep must be an Hungarian bugbear;for in no other way can I account for the inbred and absurd fear which they entertain for such near neighbours. It is true, the Hungarians do sometimes talk about liberty, constitutional rights, and other such terrible things, to which no well-disposed ears should be open, and to which the ears of the Viennese are religiously closed."
"The reader would certainly laugh, as I have often done since, did I tell him one half of the foolish tales the good Viennese told us of the country we were about to visit—no roads! no inns! no police! We must sleep on the ground, eat where we could, and be ready to defend our purses and our lives at every moment. In full credence of these reports, we provided ourselves most plentifully with arms, which were carefully loaded, and placed ready for immediate use.... It may, however, ease the reader's mind to know, that no occasion to shoot anything more formidable than a partridge or a hare presented itself, and that we finished our journey with the full conviction, that travelling in Hungary was just as safe as travelling in England.
Why, or wherefore, I know not, but nothing can exceed the horror with which a true Austrian regards both Hungary and its inhabitants. I have sometimes suspected that the bugbear with which a Vienna mother frightens her squaller to sleep must be an Hungarian bugbear;for in no other way can I account for the inbred and absurd fear which they entertain for such near neighbours. It is true, the Hungarians do sometimes talk about liberty, constitutional rights, and other such terrible things, to which no well-disposed ears should be open, and to which the ears of the Viennese are religiously closed."
There were, no doubt, elements of discord in Hungary, of which Austria, on former occasions as well as now, took advantage; but their value to her in the present war has been greatly overrated. The population of the kingdom, like that of the empire, is composed of various races, amongst which there are differences of language, religion, customs, and sentiments. Of the 14,000,000 of people who inhabit Hungary, not more than 5,000,000 are Majjars, about 1,262,000 are Germans, 2,311,000 Wallacks, and, of the remaining 5,400,000, nine-tenths or more are Sclaves. The Sclaves are therefore as numerous as the Majjars; and, although these races had at all times combined against foreign enemies, it was probable that they would not unite in a domestic quarrel, as that with Austria might be considered. When a great part of the colonists of the military frontier, chiefly Croats and Serbes, took part against the government of Hungary, and asserted a Sclave nationality as opposed to the Hungarian nationality, it was too hastily assumed, by persons imperfectly informed, that the whole Sclavonic population, equalling the Majjars in number, would be available to Austria in the war. But the Sclaves of Hungary are a disunited race, divided into nine different tribes, the greater part of which have nothing in common except their origin. Most of these tribes speak languages or dialects which are mutually unintelligible; and the Sclaves of different tribes are sometimes obliged to use the Majjar tongue as their only means of communication. Some belong to the Roman Catholic Church, some to the Greek; others are Protestants—Lutheran or Calvinist: and some, while they have submitted to the see of Rome, retain many of their Greek forms and services, adhere to the Greek calendar, and constitute a distinct communion. The Slovacks of Northern Hungary, numbering 1,600,000, are partly Roman Catholics, partly Protestants—and have no intercourse or community of language or feeling with the Sclaves of Southern and Western Hungary, from whom they are separated by the intervention of the Majjar country. The Ruthenes, also in Northern Hungary, are distinct from the Slovacks, occupy a different portion of the slopes and spurs of the Carpathians, and have no connexion with the Sclaves on the right bank of the Danube, from whom they are separated by the whole breadth of Hungary and Transylvania at that point—they amount to about 400,000. The Croats, not quite 900,000 in number, are partly Roman Catholics and partly belong to the Greek Church. When religious toleration was established in Hungary, they exercised the power enjoyed by the provincial assembly to exclude Protestants from the country. The Shocks of Sclavonia Proper, and the Rasciens of that province and of the Banat, amounting respectively to above 800,000, and nearly half a million, are tribes of the Serbe stock, of whom the greater part adhere to the Greek Church, and whose language is different from that of the Croats, the Slovacks, and the Ruthenes. The Bulgarians, about 12,000, the Montenegrins, about 2000, and the Wends from Styria, about 50,000, are small distinct tribes, speaking different languages, and divided by religious differences. But the whole of these Sclavonic tribes have this in common, that they are all animated by a feeling of hatred to the German race; and more than half of the Sclave population of Hungary has joined the Hungarians against Austria.
There was also a belief that the Hungarians had oppressed the Sclaves, and that the whole Sclave race would therefore combine to put down their oppressors. This was another misapprehension. Great efforts have been made by some of their poets and their journalists to persuade the Sclaves that they were oppressed; and the Croat newspapers and pamphlets of M. Gay, and the Austrian journals, have circulated this belief over Germany,whence it was disseminated over Europe; but there seems to have been no foundation for the charge. The Sclaves enjoyed the same rights and privileges as the Hungarians; they were protected by the same laws; they have shared equally with the Hungarians in all the concessions obtained by the Diet of Hungary, to which the Sclaves sent their own representatives, from the sovereign; they bore less than their due proportion of the public burdens, and they were left in the enjoyment of their own internal and municipal administration. Croatia, where the movement in favour of what was called Illyrian nationality originated fifteen or sixteen years ago, and where it was fostered, curiously enough, by the patronage of two imperial governments—Croatia does not appear to have any reason to complain of Hungarian oppression. The Croats had their own provincial assembly or diet, which regulated the internal affairs of the province, their own county assemblies, their own Ban or governor, they elected their own county and municipal officers; a great part of the province was organised as a part of the military frontier, and was therefore removed from the control of the Hungarian Diet, and brought more directly under the authorities at Vienna. The only specific charge, so far as we have been able to discover, that they brought against the Hungarians was, that the Majjars desired to impose their language upon the Croats. The history of the matter is this,—Latin had been the language of public business, of debates, and of the decisions of courts of law in Hungary, till the attempt of Joseph II. to substitute the German excited a strong national movement in favour of the Majjar. From 1790 this movement has been persevered in with the greatest steadiness; and in 1830 an act was passed by the Diet, and sanctioned by the king, which decreed that, after the 1st of January 1844, no one could be named to any public office who did not know the Majjar. This completed the series of measures which substituted that language for the Latin, a language unintelligible to the great body of the people. If a living was to be substituted for a dead language, no other than the Majjar could well be selected. Besides being greatly more numerous than any other tribe speaking one language, the Majjars were the wealthiest, the most intelligent and influential; and their language was spoken not only by their own race, but by a large proportion of the other inhabitants of the country—probably by six or seven times as many persons as used any other Hungarian dialect. The Croats, whose language was not that of any other tribe, could not expect it to be chosen, and all that was required of them to employ the Majjar where they had hitherto employed the Latin language, and nowhere else. The county of Agram, the most important and populous of the three counties of Croatia, repudiated the notion of a separate Illyrian nationality, of which, however, the county town was the centre; and clung to Hungary as the safeguard of its liberty. The truth is that the Croats, of whose hostility to the Hungarians we have heard so much, are nearly equally divided between Hungary and Austria; and, but for the military organisation which places so large a portion of that people at the disposal of Austria—and that the most formidable portion—the agitators for Illyrian nationality would probably have been put down by their own countrymen. The Slovacks, a people of Bohemian origin, refugees from religious persecution, have joined the Hungarians. A great part of the people of Sclavonia Proper have refused to take part against Hungary. The tribes that have engaged most extensively and violently in hostilities against the Hungarians have been the people of Servian race, and of the Greek church, in the counties of the Lower Danube, and in Croatia. Amongst the Hungarian Sclaves of the Greek church, it is well known that foreign influence has long been at work, for which the Greek priesthood are ready instruments. The hopes of these tribes have been turned towards the head of their church, and the sympathies of thirty millions of Eastern Sclaves who belong to the same church.
Though feelings of nationality and of race have been developed in Hungary, as elsewhere, to an extenthitherto unexampled, they have there to contend with the craving for liberty, which has at the same time acquired intensity, and which amongst the Sclaves has been fostered and inflamed by the efforts of those who, for the purpose of exciting them against the Majjars, would persuade them that they were the victims of oppression. The more intelligent and influential are now convinced, that it is to Hungary—to which they owe the liberty they enjoy—and not to anarchy, or to Austria, against the attacks of whose government Hungary has so long defended their freedom and her own, that they must look for advancement.
The relative positions of the peasants and the nobles, and the antagonism of these classes, enabled Austria to exercise great influence and even power in Hungary. The peasant population, amounting to three millions or more, now emancipated from their disabilities and exclusive or disproportionate burdens, and raised to the rank and wealth of freeholders and proprietors, by the liberality of the nobles, have an equal interest with them in defending the institutions to which they owe their elevation.
The elements of discord, although they were such as enabled agitators to raise a part of the Sclaves against the Hungarians, when it was resolved to retract the concessions that had been made to them, would hardly have been found available for that purpose, had not the instigators of the revolt acted in the name of the King of Hungary, and of more than one imperial government; nor even then, perhaps, had they not been enabled to dispose of the resources of the military frontier. Now that the Hungarians have obtained important successes, it is probable that the Sclaves will all join them. The movement of these tribes against the Hungarians, which was caused by other influences in addition to that of Austria, has thus tended to lead the imperial government into hostility with Hungary, without contributing much to its strength.
When the Austrian government resolved to subjugate Hungary, it was presumed that they undertook the conquest of that country relying on their own resources. But the success of the enterprise was so doubtful, and a failure so hazardous to the empire, that we never could believe it possible that it had been undertaken without an assurance of support. It is true that the imperial government might at that time have expected an adjustment of their differences with Sardinia; but Venice still held out, peace with Sardinia had not been concluded, the state of Italy was daily becoming more alarming, and the Austrian cabinet knew that they could maintain their hold of Lombardy, and reduce Venice, only by means of a powerful army. They were aware that the condition of Galicia, and even of Bohemia, was precarious, and that neither could safely be denuded of troops. The state of affairs in Germany was not such as to give them confidence, still less to promise them support; and the attitude they assumed towards the assembly at Frankfort, though not unworthy of the ancient dignity of Austria, was not calculated to diminish her anxiety. Even in the Hereditary States all was not secure. They were aware that old sentiments and feelings had been shaken and disturbed; that, although order had for the time been restored, by the fidelity and courage of the army, men's minds were still unsettled; and that, both in the capital and in the provinces, there were factions whose sympathies were not with the imperial government, and which, in case of disasters, might again become formidable. The capital alone required a garrison of twenty thousand men, to keep it in subjection—to preserve its tranquillity. Putting aside, therefore, every consideration as to the justice of the war, and looking merely to its probable consequences, it is obvious that, without such a preponderance of power and resources as would not only insure success, but insure it at once—by one effort—it would have been madness in Austria, for the purpose of forcing her constitution upon the Hungarians, to engage in a contest in which she staked her power—her existence—and which could not fail to be dangerous to her if it became protracted.