of Constantinople. In 1526, however, the youthful king of Hungary was totally defeated and slain by the Turks in the fatal battle of Mohacz. The Magyars never retrieved the effects of this disastrous fight; the defeat at Mohacz is still deplored among them as the saddest event in their history, for it was the final wreck of Hungarian independence. Since then, they have found protection from their enemies only by their union with Austria, whose yoke they have often rebelled against, but have never entirely shaken off.

Yet there was little in this union with Austria to wound the national pride except of a very jealous and sensitive people. It was as an ally more than as a subject province, as a sovereign power submitting to certain common restrictions for the purchase of certain common advantages, that Hungary made choice, so long as her monarchy remained elective, of the emperor of Austria to be her king, and finally, in a Diet held at Presburg in 1687, acknowledged the hereditary right of the same family to reign in both countries. After the memorable scene with Maria Theresa, this right was extended, according to the terms of the Pragmatic Sanction, to the female line. It was not, indeed, till after her union with Austria was confirmed, that Hungary was entirely released from the Turks, who had retained possession of full half of the kingdom from the battle of Mohacz till they were defeated and driven out by the heroic John Sobieski in 1683. During this period of national humiliation and distress, the Magyars hesitated whether to throw themselves under the exclusive protection of the Austrians or the Turks, who divided the country between them. Though Ferdinand I. of Austria had become their rightful sovereign after the death of the unhappy Louis II., whose sister he had married, and whose right, of course, was transmitted to her descendants, the Austrian rule was so distasteful to them, that they invoked the aid of the Ottomans against it, and in the final struggle, the noted Tekeli and his partisans fought with the Turks against Sobieski. Fortunately for Christendom, the body of the nation at length preferred to unite itself to Austria, and thus to strengthen the eastern frontier of Europe against the Ottoman power, instead of contributing directly to its advancement. But for this decision, the kingdom would probably have become, what Moldavia and Wal

lachia are now, nominally subject to the Porte, but really dependent upon Russia.

The real cause of dislike of the Austrian alliance was the fear entertained by the nobles lest the abundant privileges of their order, which they had wrested from their native princes, should not be respected by the despotic house of Hapsburg. As in every other feudal kingdom, there had been a long struggle for the mastery between the crown and the barons; and the issue of this contest, owing to the great number of the nobility, was far more unfavorable to the regal power in Hungary, than it was in France and England. King Andreas II. had been drawn into the Crusades, and on his return from Palestine, he found that his subjects had taken the same advantage of him which the people of several other European countries had reaped from the absence of their sovereigns in the east; the royal power had fallen into decay, the nobles had usurped what the crown had lost, and had entered into a conspiracy to protect their usurpations. He was obliged to yield, and to grant to the rebels the celebrated Golden Bull, which is to Hungary what Magna Charta is to England, except that it secures only the nobility in their rights, and leaves the peasants and the subject nations just where they were, a prey to the oppression both of the barons and the crown. This instrument, which is still frequently appealed to as the most important chapter in the constitution, secures to the nobles freedom from arrest except by due course of law, perpetual immunity from all taxation whatever, the right, when their privileges are attacked, of legal resistance without incurring the penalties of treason, and freedom from any obligation to obey the king till after his regular coronation. The Hungarians might well be jealous of the unwillingness of a despotic power like Austria to tolerate privileges so extensive as these; yet so important has the union with Hungary been to the military strength of the empire, and so much caution has been used not to provoke discontent among this warlike people, that these privileges have been respected, and the Magyar noble has retained to this day more power and immunity than he could have enjoyed under the liberal constitution of England.

The truth is, Hungary has always been independent except in name; she has enjoyed her own constitution,

her own legislature, the right of electing her own palatine, and of determining the measure of assistance which she would grant Austria in case of war. The union of the two countries was a union for their common good, to strengthen the hands of both against their common enemies, the Russians and the Turks. Hungary had no greater cause to dread an Austrian sovereign, than England had to fear the accession of James VI. of Scotland. The cases were entirely parallel; the late monarch was styled the emperor Ferdinand I. at Vienna, and king Ferdinand V. at Presburg. Hungary being far the largest and most powerful of the many states which form the conglomerate empire, and having a numerous order of nobility, who enjoyed the most extensive constitutional privileges, were warlike in their habits, and could bring strong bodies of their vassals into the field, an advantage not enjoyed by any other portion of the Austrian dominions, there was more reason that Austria should be jealous of her, than that she should be jealous of Austria. Scotland, not England, had cause to dread the accession of her sovereign to the throne of both kingdoms.

Besides, political reasons of great weight forbade the separation of Hungary from the empire. On account of its geographical position, its absolute independence would cause its isolation; it would be thrown off from the civilization and the politics of western and central Europe into semi-barbarism, surrounded by Russia and Turkey, by the people of Wallachia, Servia, and Bulgaria. Austria, it has been well observed, is now the bridge that connects her with European civilization; it would be ruinous policy to convert that bridge into a barrier. Hungary proper is entirely inland, she has no seaport, no outlet for her commerce; for even the Danube, her only natural highway to the sea, flows in the lower part of its course through the dominions of Turkey, and its mouth is also commanded by Russia. Either of these powers, therefore, might at any time cut off the communication of Hungary with the Black Sea. Croatia has the poor roadstead, rather than seaport, of Fiume on the Adriatic; and the wish to secure even this inconvenient and distant opening to the Mediterranean is doubtless one of the reasons why the Magyars have been so anxious to preserve Croatia as a dependency of Hungary. Separated from Austria, deprived

of Croatia, and cut off by the Russians and the Turks from the navigation of the Danube, Magyar-Hungary would be like an isolated tree planted in a soil where there is no water, the branches and foliage of which would wither in a single

season.

It was only the restless and domineering spirit of the untitled Magyar nobility, aggressive and fiery in temperament, and panting not so much for absolute independence as for entire control of the more patient, industrious, and unambitious races, Sclavonians, Germans, and Wallachians, by whom they are surrounded, which kindled the recent war, and so conducted it as to arm every one of these races against themselves; and thus, in spite of their own matchless bravery and enthusiasm, and the misplaced sympathy of the republican party throughout Europe and America, to bring down upon their heads the united powers of Austria and Russia, and finally to sink in the unequal struggle. Had they begun by the abnegation of the enormous and unjust privileges of their own order and the insolent supremacy of their race; had they offered confederation and equality of political rights to Croat and Slowack, Saxon and Wallachian, their united strength might have dashed in pieces the Austrian empire, and the Russian troops would never have crossed their borders. But they aimed to procure dissimilar and incompatible objects; to retain the economical and political advantages of a union with Austria, without submitting to any control, or tendering any equivalent; to be admitted to all the privileges enjoyed by the Hereditary States, without bearing any portion of their burdens; to vindicate their own independence against the empire, but to crush the Croatians and Wallachians for daring to claim independence of the Magyars; to "hunt out those proscribed traitors in their lair," to stifle "the rebellion in south Hungary," to lay waste with fire and sword the Saxon colonies in Transylvania, and then evoke the indignation of Europe against the interference of Russia, whose troops entered Hermanstadt at the urgent entreaty of these Saxon colonists, in order to save them from utter destruction by the merciless Szeklers and Magyars.

We have said that the immediate cause of the Hungarian Declaration of Independence was the publication, by the

youthful emperor of Austria, of a very liberal constitution for all his subjects on the 4th of March, 1849. So bountiful was this constitution in granting political privileges and securities to all Austrian subjects, without distinction, that the Magyars had no ostensible ground to complain of it, except that which is stated in their declaration; that it divided what they call their territory "into five parts, separating Transylvania, Croatia, Sclavonia, and Fiume from Hungary, and creating at the same time a principality for the Servian rebels," and thus "paralyzed the political existence of the country." The justice even of this complaint is not very obvious; for Transylvania has always had a diet of her own, Croatia and Sclavonia united also have one, and the degree in which these diets depend on, or are subject to the Hungarian Diet, has never been accurately determined. The Croatian Diet protests against any such dependence or subjection whatever, and for very good reasons; for it is permitted to send but three delegates to the Diet at Pesth, which is wholly controlled by the Magyar nobility. What power would these three delegates have to protect the interests of the provinces which they represent, and which have an exclusively Sclavonian population? It is evident that the separation of these four provinces from Hungary, with which, indeed, they have never been properly or rightfully united, was absolutely necessary in order to carry out another article of the new Austrian constitution, which is the real object that the Magyars protest against. This article is the one we have already quoted, which secures an equality of rights to all the different races of the empire, and guarantees to each the privilege of retaining its own nationality and language. Other articles declare, that " for all the races or nations of the empire there is but one general Austrian citizenship;" and that “in no Crown-land shall there be any difference between its natives and those of another Crown-land, neither in the administration of civil or criminal justice, nor in the ways and inanners of justice, nor in the distribution of the public burdens." This is in the true republican spirit of equality of rights and political privileges; and this was the law which Austria decreed, and Magyar-Hungary repudiated. The policy of Austria is evident enough; we grant her no credit but for submitting frankly and without reserve to what had