the political and general knowledge of the peasants so low, that although often able to read and write, in two or three different languages, their general knowledge is far less than that of the English peasant, who, not unfrequently cannot read or write his own name.

The costume of the Hungarian peasants is generally very picturesque, and differs much among the different races. The costume of those inhabiting Croatia is shown in an engraving on these pages, which presents a group of Hungarian peasants descending the Drave, on a raft of empty wine barrels ; they are on their way home, after having disposed of their wine at a markettown. Their gaudy costume, with ribbons streaming from their hats, form altogether, a most bacchanalian and picturesque group, singularly contrasted with the wild country around. In the foreground, is represented a Hungarian nobleman, in his court-costume.

As an independent kingdom, Hungary, for more than 150 years, was the bulwark of Christendom, against the Turks. Out of a dozen victories won by the Christians, against the Mussulmen, eight were gained by the Hungarians. In the fatal battle of Mohacz, Louis, King of Hungary, with the flower of his nobility, perished by the sabres of the Turks. As Louis died without male issue, the Hungarians, in 1587, voluntarily elected his brotherin-law, as their king, on the condition of his respecting the rights and privileges of the nation. This new monarch was Ferdinand the First, of Hapsburg, Emperor of Germany.

"The crown of Hungary had, therefore, been conferred by free choice on the Princes of the House of Hapsburg, who stood in the same relation to it as the absolute sovereigns of Hanover to the throne of Constitutional England. These Princes, though Emperors of Germany, and afterward styled Emperors of Austria; were never recognized but as Kings of Hungary."

Thus it will be seen that "the nation was under the Austrian government, yet preserved an independent Constitution. She acknowledged the Austrian emperor as King of Hungary,' but held on to distinct, separate rights, which had come down from her independence. It is as if Mexico should voluntarily unite herself with the United States, still retaining, not only her rights, as one State of the Union, but many other privileges which had belonged to her as an independent power. We could lay our tariff of duties, our commercial laws, over her ports and borders; we could raise militia from her people; her enemies should be our enemies, and her forces must take part against any attack on the Union. But farther than this we were not to go. We must lay no taxes without the consent of her legislature; our postal system, our criminal law, and the jurisdiction of our courts is not to extend over her territory; and any great measure affecting the country, must first be presented to her legislature, before it could be effective; and last of all, our President, to be the legal President of Mexico, must be inaugurated again there. Such a union would be, in its principal features, a copy of the union which has existed for many centuries between Austria and Hungary. Not exactly the union of one State of a confederacy to the whole body; nor, in all respects, the alliance of two equal, independent powers, but a connection of two countries, peculiar and original in itself, leaving each side many rights

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toward the other; and, unfortunately, adapted from its nature, to sow interminable contests and jealousies."

"From the period of this unhappy choice to the present, during nearly three hundred years, the history of Hungary has been one continued series of perfidious attempts on the part of the perjured sovereigns of Austria to ravish or to filch, by force or fraud, the civil and religious liberties of their Hungarian subjects, on whose part is presented, on the other hand, a picture of credulity and forgiveness, which only the spirited nature of their late resistance to oppression and encroachment has redeemed."

Before the election of the House of Hapsburg, Hungary had successfully defended its soil from Turkish invasion; but owing to the misgovernment and intrigues of its Austrian rulers, it remained for nearly a century and a half wholly or chiefly in possession of the Turks.

Previous to 1848, Hungary contained about half a million of nobles, about two-thirds of whom were Magyars. Of these, a few hundred families were magnates, with princely fortunes, and peculiar privileges; the others were but nobles in name, being simply freemen, enjoying political rights. The remaining population were serfs.

The Bauer, or peasant-serfs, if they occupied a farm of the usual sizeabout thirty-one acres-were as a kind of feudal rent to the noble to whom, in law, the estate belonged, obliged to labor personally, 104 days, annually, and if with oxen, half that period. This feudal labor was called Robot. Aside from this, were other burdensome taxes.

"It has ever been the policy of Austria, to uphold the system of serfdom, as a means of security to their rule, by enabling them to play off the interests of the serfs, and serf-landlords, reciprocally against each other. The latter were made the medium through which the government levied men and money on the peasantry with whom their proprietors incurred the chief share of the • odium attendant on the tax. The interests of the proprietors became identified with those of the government, in keeping down the peasantry, and if the proprietors or landlords made any resistance to oppression, they were threatened with a rising of the serfs."

A consciousness of the dangers of their position, had long induced the majority of the Hungarian nobles to desire the emancipation of the peasantry, and the Hungarian Diet, in the sessions of 1832-4, and of 1839, proposed this measure; but were prevented by the Austrian Cabinet, although they could not hinder considerable ameliorations in the condition of that class.

From 1832, the spirit of the country had been progressive, and the efforts of the Austrian Cabinet had been as energetically directed to arrest this tendency. Count Szechenyi, Count Louis Bathyanyi, Baron Wesselenyi, and Kossuth, labored successfully to restore the Magyar language, which the Austrian government, in its efforts to denationalize the Hungarians, had supplanted by the German, and to develop the resources of the country.

"The people of Hungary could exercise but little control over their delegates in the Hungarian Diet, so long as the government prevented their votes and speeches from being recorded, through the censorship, without whose permission nothing could be published. To remedy this inconvenience,

Kossuth, then a journalist, caused reports of the Diet to be lithographed and distributed through the country. When these were prohibited on the ground that they amounted equally to publication, he resorted to the expedient of having written copies made and distributed to each constituency. This attempt the Austrian cabinet resolved to check, threatening if he persisted, to prosecute him for treason with the whole weight of its influence and power. Kossuth, however, "having placed his house in order," devoted himself to do what all wished done, but what no other man would do, and daringly continued to distribute his circulars-was seized by the Austrian government, and condemned to three years' imprisonment. It was in this imprisonment that, from the study of Shakspeare, he learned the English tongue, in which his great crusade against absolutism has been preached.

The public spirit gathered, however, such impetus from this courageous devotion, that two years after, the government was obliged to liberate the captives. Kossuth, emerging from his prison, shattered in constitution, and Wesselyenyi blind. Returned by the most important county to the Diet, Kossuth became at once a party leader, devoting, with untiring perseverance, his energies and talents to the financial condition of his country, to the emancipation of the peasantry, and to the restoration of those political rights which would permit the nation to amend its institutions by the adoption of this and other necessary reforms.

One of the immediate aims of the Hungarian patriots was to obtain a ministry resident in Hungary, as a step indispensable to the recovery of their rights. The Hungarian native ministry, who had formerly always resided in the Magyar capital, as ministers of the Hungarian King, not of the Austrian Emperor, had been removed to Vienna, and transformed into an insignificant department, called the Hungarian Chancery."

On the 2d of March, 1848, intelligence of the French revolution reached Presburg, where the Hungarian Diet was then sitting. Twelve days after, Kossuth, at the head of a deputation of the Diet, arrived in Vienna, and demanded the restoration of a resident Hungarian ministry, consisting of Hungarians, devoting themselves exclusively to the management of Hungarian affairs. The chief states of Austria were then in a state of declared or threatened revolution, and to secure the loyalty of the Hungarians in the disastrous position of affairs, the House of Hapsburg hastened to concede to them their rights. Before the month was ended, a separate ministry was agreed to, appointed, and published; and, on the 11th of the month ensuing, the Emperor Ferdinand, as King of Hungary, accompanied by the present Emperor, voluntarily appeared before the Hungarian Diet, to legalize and sanction, by his approval and acceptance, the new laws that body had passed, and to swear solemnly to support the Hungarian constitution. These new laws equalized all classes before the law, and decreed universal religious toleration, with the exception of permitting the Roman Catholic province of Croatia to retain her old law, which forbids Protestants to settle in that country. By these laws the peasantry were endowed with the same civil and political rights as the nobles. The lands on which they labored as serfs were given to them. These measures, passed by a unanimous vote of the Diet, were

T. J. STAFFORD, PR.

HUNGARIAN PEASANTS AND NOBLEMAN.

A company of Hungarian peasants are descending the Drave on a raft of empty wine barrels, on their way home after having disposed of their wine at a market town. Their gaudy costume with ribbons streaming from their hats, form altogether a most bacchanalian and picturesque group, singularly contrasting with the wild country around. In the foreground is shown a Hungarian Nobleman in his court costume-Page 454.