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The loss of Transylvania, and the recapture of BudaPesth by the Magyars, with other reversals of fortune, humbled the pride of the imperialists, and disposed them to seek that intervention which they had but recently rejected. On the other hand, the emperor Nicholas was anxious to retrieve the credit of his army, which had suffered from the battle with Bem, and the retreat from Hermanstadt. The terms of cooperation being soon adjusted, the ablest marshal of the Russian army entered Hungary at the head of an imposing force, and from that moment the issue of the contest was really decided; the gallantry of the Magyars might protract the struggle, but could give no hope of ultimate success. They had provoked too many enemies; of the half a dozen races which make up the mixed population of the Austrian empire, every one was hostile to them. Their pride and indomitable obstinacy prevented them from making any attempt at conciliation; and Görgey, their last and ablest commander, rather than unite his troops with those of Dembinski, who had made some concessions and promises to the Sclavonians, and thereby partially recruited his ranks from them, preferred to surrender his whole army without conditions to the Russians. The Magyars have fallen, and there are few to lament their fate but the Red Republicans of France and Germany, and the refugee Poles, who were their only foreign allies. They have fallen in an unwise attempt to preserve their ancient feudal institutions, their supremacy as a race, and their national independence against the reforms demanded by the spirit of the age, against the equality of political rights which could no longer be refused to their ancient subjects, and against the union with Austria which is a necessity of their geographical position.

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Austria has sullied her victory, or rather her success, for the battle was really fought and won by the Sclavonians and the Russians, — by her merciless treatment of the vanquished. The blood of Bathiany and of fifty others will cry out against her from the ground upon which she has poured it in her reckless thirst of vengeance for the humiliation that she has suffered. The execution of these men was no less impolitic than cruel; it has changed into gall the last drop of affection for their ancient ally which may have lingered in the hearts of the Hungarians. Henceforward, this race,

whenever an opportunity may offer, will be foremost among the enemies of the house of Hapsburg. The gallantry with which they had fought, whatever were the defects in their cause, was enough, in the eyes of a generous enemy, to entitle them to surrender with all the honors of war. Austria has wrested the sword from them only to plunge it into their bosoms; and a constant sense of insecurity for the future, in relation to this part of her dominions, once her bulwark against all foreign foes, will be the appropriate punishment of her cruelty. England committed the same crime or blunder, we care not which it may be called, after suppressing the Irish rebellion of 1798; and the consequence is, that Ireland has been in a chronic state of rebellion ever since. When will sovereigns learn, that mercy and magnanimity are the highest attributes of human policy as well of divine law?

ART. IV. The Liberty of Rome: a History. With an Historical Account of the Liberty of Ancient Nations. By SAMUEL ELIOT. New York: G. P. Putnam. 1849. 2 vols. 8vo.

MR. ELIOT proposes to write the History of Liberty in a work of which the two volumes already published are but the. beginning. Aside from the execution of his plan, there is something noticeable in the choice of the subject. It indicates of itself views of the progress of humanity so far original and just as to authorize the belief that they belong to no common mind. For the history of liberty must be the central history of mankind. Why, it may be asked, more than the history of civil government, of social or political civilization, of science or art, of philosophy, or, though last yet greatest, of religion? Because all of these are but subservient to the progress of liberty; they are all means to that end; by its value are their value, by its advancement are their progress and efficiency, measured. But in saying this, we use the word liberty in a very high sense.

Freedom in some degree is the gift of God to all men. It is his first gift to them; the condition precedent of all gifts,

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and the means through which all others are given. The first and simplest form in which all men have it is in that personal free agency, against which, in most ages, a false philosophy, and, in some, a false religion, have contended with all the weapons of sophistry; and have always found these weapons powerless before the irresistible and universal consciousness of the human soul. This consciousness does not tell us where our freedom comes from; but it tells us that we possess it, and hold it inalienably. They who believe in God, who truly believe in Him for it is not a true belief in Him which denies to Him His essential attributes-may, by very brief and decisive reasoning, be led to the conclusion, that human life is derivative, given by Him and flowing from Him; and then the next conclusion is as easy, that we should be parts of another, should have no individuality, should not be ourselves, should not be men, if this life did not bear with it from its source, and keep with it as an eternal companion, this profound and unassailable conviction of free agency, of personal being. Nor is this sense a delusion, for then it would not be a gift worthy a God of truth. He makes it true, by giving us free agency in fact. There is never a moment when circumstances do not operate upon us, when various motives do not cause, and various influences do not affect, our conduct. But, at every moment, all these motives and influences are powerless unless they can act upon and through our own choice, our own will; and the result to which they tend is always our own act.

The freedom of no man can be entirely destroyed without destroying him. But it may be checked, thwarted, controlled in its exercise, in a greater or less degree. As it is so, in that proportion are we the less, men. And, on the other hand, we grow into the full stature of humanity as we grow into the fulness and perfection of our freedom.

Thus, all pass through childhood; and the great purpose of childhood is the preparation for manhood. We see of this only the little that is comprehended in what we call education. But within all this a great work of expansion and development is going on, and the result we call manhood. But in the beginning of life we are under perpetual control, and in a condition of perfect dependence. This is then necessary; and the great purpose for which all the influences of childhood and early

life are gathered about it, is, to make this control and dependence unnecessary; to build us up into the capacity of freedom; for this depends necessarily upon our ability to use our freedom aright, because the good providence of God withholds it when it would be only weakness, danger, and ruin. The child longs ardently to be a man, that he may then be his own master; for this is, to him, the ideal of happiness. The man longs as ardently to escape from whatever bondage clings about him; for in his entire independence and freedom, he too sees the promise of all happiness; and thus they both bear testimony to the truth, that freedom is the blessing which includes all others. But the man sees that the child asks for that which he is not ready to receive; and if he be wise and truly kind, he withholds it, or measures it with careful adaptation to the child's ripeness for the gift. God knows that the man asks for that which he is not ready to receive, and because He is wise and kind, He also withholds or measures it. But the man still supposing him to be a wise and good father seeks to promote the maturity of the child; gives him all the freedom which can be given with safety, and gives it with the hope that every gift may become the means of making another and a larger gift safe and possible And our wisest and best Father in the same way deals with us all through life, and through the unending life which begins only on this side of death. For it is forever the one law of human life and human progress, that He who made us seeks to make us free, always more free, and is restrained only by the wisdom which perfectly discerns the measure in which we may, if we will, use this freedom for our own good; and by the love which always regards this limitation.

Nor is this any more true of the individual than of the race. That, too, passes through its infancy and its childhood. And as the individual man grows gradually into greater freedom, and so into the receptivity of always greater gifts, which come when they can be received, so is it with the race. All things are intended and disposed by Providence for the progress of freedom. And this again is given that it may bring to us the greater gifts which progressive freedom shall make possible; increase of knowledge, a better social life, higher art, purer, more instructive, and more influential religion.

For what is freedom, if it be not the unrestrained ability to possess, and to use as our own, and for our happiness, the gifts of God? Life is but the first of these; and the consciousness of individuality and free agency, and the hope and effort to enlarge and perfect these, are next in order and in worth; and on these, as on a broad and deep and eternal foundation, rest all the blessings which can be given to us by infinite love. For this, knowledge comes forth from the bosom of creation, and tells us of Him who in His laws reveals Himself; and with it grows our command over nature, and with it should grow our dominion over self; and with both will grow our liberation from the oppression, the suffering, the bondage which owe their being to ignorance or sin. For this, we are enabled to construct the political and social fabrics, and the myriads of mutual relations which connect it may be, with chains of steel, and it may also be, with threads of golden light—all men with all their fellows. For this comes art, to stimulate and to feed the love of beauty; to awake imagination, and give to it glimpses and suggestions of a perfection too high and too remote for reason yet to grasp and measure, but near enough to kindle aspiration, endeavor, and hope. For art may be only sensuous, and still most beautiful and most seductive; but it is false to its own purpose, or fails to reach it, when it does not make us look upwards, and when it does not urge us forwards. And for this too comes religion; comes to sanctify all; to spread itself like an over-arching, all-embracing heaven, over all; and to convert all into the means of progress, development, and ascent. And when all these have accomplished their work; or rather, in proportion as the work is done, for revolving eternities will find it still beginning, man is Free. He is free to receive life as it flows from the Source of life redundant and unchecked; free to hold all his capacities, and use them and enjoy them as his own; free to recognize as the laws which he obeys the truths of an infinite wisdom; free to acknowledge no master but the goodness of an infinite love. Far, very far, from us and all of us, is this result; and no efforts born of pride, or selfishness, or folly, or sin, will hasten its approach; but these evil things have no absolute dominion, and thitherward are we tending, step by step, led by our Maker's hand. Hith

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