Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837 Part 9

"If it be as you represent," said I, "how comes it that there never occurs anything like an attempt to wrest by force from the government what it will not concede to reason?"

We were pa.s.sing through a small town, or rather village, at the moment, and my companion bid me look out. I did so, and saw two or three groups of cuira.s.siers lounging about the street.

"These are the emperor's sureties for our good behaviour," observed he, with a smile; "twelve or fourteen thousand men at Prague,--three or four thousand at Koniggratz,--a regiment at Tabor,--and squadrons scattered, as you see, through all the villages. Our poor peasants would hardly think of uttering a complaint in such a presence; and our n.o.bles don't care to argue points with men who wear the sword."

I could only shrug up my shoulders, for I saw that he was, at least, so far in the right, that troops swarmed everywhere; and, without encouraging him to brood over his own misfortunes, whether real or imaginary, I was content to thank heaven that I had myself been born in a land where such grounds of complaint are unknown.

We stopped to dine at Leutomischl, a small, but prettily-situated town, with a schloss, or chateau, of which the style of architecture is exceedingly striking. It occupies the brow of a rising ground, just over the princ.i.p.al street; and with its profusion of minarets, reminded us rather of some Oriental palace, than of the residence of a Bohemian n.o.ble. But we had no time to examine it in detail; for even a German extra post has its appointed season of movement; and our conducteur, though abundantly civil, could not postpone it. Neither did there occur any other incident of which it is worth while to take notice, till, at six on the following morning, Brunn, the capital of Moravia, received us within its walls.

There is not much in this city, independently of the historical a.s.sociations which are connected with it, that is likely to detain the traveller many days, or to draw from him, after he has quitted it, a lengthened description of what he may have seen. It is built along the ascent of a steep hill, of which the summit is crowned by the cathedral, a pile distinguished, like the more antique of the Slavonian churches in general, by the great alt.i.tude of its nave. It is surrounded by a belt of suburbs, at once more regular in their construction, and much more populous than the town itself. To the north lies the hill of Spielberg, surmounted by a modern and unfinished redoubt, which having taken the place of the ancient citadel, is, and for many years back has been, used chiefly as a state prison. It was here that, during the reign of the Emperor Francis I., the unfortunate Silvio Pellico spent his long and dismal season of captivity. Here, too, Trenck, the famous leader of the Pandours, in the war of succession, suffered imprisonment. Here Mack, long suspected of treachery, underwent a severer punishment than his incapacity deserved; and here still linger captives from various provinces, whose offence, for the most part, is, that they pine to be free. This system of shutting men up in prison, without trial, or the pretence of trial, is very shocking. But I was glad to learn from the few who ventured to speak in a whisper, that the tenants of the dungeons of Spielberg are less numerous now than they used to be, and the time is not, in all probability, distant, when the practice of filling them at the caprice of a minister will be discontinued altogether.

Brunn is the seat of some of the most extensive as well as valuable manufactories that anywhere exist in the Austrian dominions. The growth of these, it appears, was much fostered by the late emperor, and his memory is, in consequence, held in high veneration by the inhabitants.

It is to this circ.u.mstance, indeed, more than to the military virtues which he displayed, that the erection of the obelisk on the Franzes Berg is owing; for though the inscription seem commemorative of the triumphs of the army in the later campaigns, the people tell you that Francis is held in honour solely because of the countenance which he gave to the works of peace. The articles produced here are thread, cloths, linen, and gla.s.s; and there is a manufactory of porcelain at a village about a mile distant.

It was market-day when we reached the town, and as the windows of our apartment commanded an excellent view of one of the chief streets, the scene which they opened out to us proved at once novel and interesting.

Crowds of country people were congregated beneath, in all manner of grotesque costumes; while stalls of every description--some supporting clothes, some laden with fruit, some set out with china, or gla.s.s, or articles of cutlery, or shoes,--choked up the thoroughfare, to the manifest inconvenience of the few vehicles which made occasional efforts to pa.s.s. The dresses of the women, too, whose business it seemed to be to superintend the sale of the fruit, were strikingly national. They wore, each of them, a sort of jacket-fashioned boddice, made tight to the shape, a petticoat of yellow serge, which reached barely to the mid-calf, bright scarlet stockings, shoes that came up to the ankles, a handkerchief, which, pa.s.sing over the head, was tied beneath the chin, white buckles, and hips enormously padded. Yet were they, upon the whole, a handsome race, with clear brunette complexions, and dark hazel eyes; and their good nature, as, one after another, they made inroads into our apartment, and pressed upon us their cherries, was something quite unusual. They perfectly succeeded in their object; for we ate many more black-hearts than did either of us any good, and bought a still greater quant.i.ty than we dreamed of consuming, simply because we were unable to resist entreaties that were pressed upon us so good humouredly.

Having amused ourselves thus for a while, and laid in a tolerable breakfast, we sallied forth, under the guidance of a valet-du-place, to perambulate the town. We found it surrounded by fortifications; yet exceedingly clean and neat, and its public gardens, beyond the Prague gate, at once extensive and well-arranged. There is a cemetery in the middle of the new town, which is likewise worth visiting, were it only because of its enormous dimensions. And the barrack, with its seven capacious courts, is of prodigious extent. Of the churches, on the contrary, with the exception of the cathedral, much cannot be said in praise; and even the cathedral is more curious than beautiful. It presents an excellent specimen of the kind of ecclesiastical architecture in which the Slavonians of the middle ages delighted. Moreover the Landhaus, or house of meeting for the estates of Moravia,--till the times of Joseph II. a wealthy Augustinian convent,--may be visited with advantage, as may also the Rath-haus and National Museum. Into the citadel, on the other hand, no stranger can be admitted without an order from the governor; and such order, unless the party applying for it bring strong recommendations, is not easily procured.

The great lounge for the fashionables of Brunn is termed the Franzes Berg. It is a sort of table-land, on the side of that hill which the cathedral and bishop's palace overtop; and is laid out in shady walks, well-ordered terraces, and bowers of most umbrageous shelter. Thither, in the cool of the day, that is, between the hours of six and nine in the evening, the _elite_ of the inhabitants repair, that they may enjoy the pleasures of a crowded promenade, enlivened by the strains of one of the finest military bands to which I have ever listened. As may be supposed, we did not fail to become partakers in the scene, or to relish it greatly; for the music is superb, the view over the valley of the Taia beautiful, and the bearing of the company at once decorous and full of good humour. But having accomplished this, and wandered through the greater number of the streets, having visited the public buildings, and made more than half the circuit of the ramparts, we felt that our business in Brunn was completed. We accordingly returned to our hotel, and being again refused by the police the coveted vise into Hungary, we made up our minds to pursue our journey on the morrow towards Vienna.

I made numerous inquiries as to the condition of Protestantism in this country, and received answers which were very little satisfactory. From the effects of the persecution at the close of the Thirty Years' War, it has never recovered. Toleration is, indeed, granted to Lutherans, Calvinists, and Jews, under one or other of which denominations, all dissenters from popery are cla.s.sed; but of the Moravian brethren, not a trace remains, either in the capital or elsewhere. Had I not previously made myself acquainted with the history of this pious sect, the circ.u.mstance of their total extirpation would have much surprised me; because the error of the name which has somehow been applied to them, reaches also to our conception of their origin and fortunes. But the truth is, that they were never a numerous body in the land after which they are now called. It was but in the natural course of events that branches should have struck out from Mount Tabor in Bohemia, as well into Moravia as into the border districts of Upper Austria, and these, when the parent tree was cast down, soon withered away. I believe that it is only at Hernhut, in Saxony, and in a few places of Poland and Gallicia, that any remnants of them now exist. At all events, I could discover none at Brunn, nor could any of those whom I interrogated on the subject, direct me where to look for them.

CHAPTER XIII.

COUNTRY BETWEEN BRuNN AND VIENNA. VIENNA. JOURNEY TO PRESBURG.

PRESBURG. THE HUNGARIAN CONSt.i.tUTION.

There is not much to praise, there is very little to describe, in the general aspect of the country between Brunn and Vienna. Here and there it is exceedingly barren and sterile, here and there just as much the reverse; that is, if fields which produce the vine and the maize in large quant.i.ties, deserve to be accounted fertile. It is true that if you be a soldier, you will examine, with interest, the ground over which the hostile armies manoeuvred both previous to the battle of Austerlitz and afterwards. If geology be your hobby, in the low but picturesque hills, the far-off roots of n.o.bler mountains, which, in many places, hang over the road, and give to it an exceedingly romantic character, you will find something for the eye to rest upon. Various dilapidated castles, too, that crown these rocks, may possibly arrest the attention of the antiquary; whilst the political economist will find food for reflection in the outward bearing of social life as here it presents itself. For there are no towns of any size or note in all this journey of more than a hundred miles. The villages, moreover, are universally mean, and their inhabitants worthy of the homes which receive them when the day's task is done. On the other hand, some magnificent schlosses present themselves by the way-side, as if in contrast to the squalid hamlets on which they look down; and soldiers swarm everywhere. But as I do not know what could be said of such matters more than will be found in any road-book which has the slightest pretensions to accuracy, I am very little tempted to advert to them at all. Neither can I speak of the aspect of things as it is operated upon by the proximity of Vienna, because night had closed round us long before we became conscious of the heaving of the living vortex. And for the rest, to be delayed at the barrier till our pa.s.sports had been examined, our baggage searched, and a survey of our persons and features taken, these were trifling grievances to which use had reconciled us, and of which we thought nothing. We drove at once to the Schwan, an excellent though expensive house in the Meal Market, and there, for a brief period, established our head-quarters.

What shall I say of Vienna? Nothing, or next to nothing. I lingered within its walls a week, and no more. I ranged its streets, visited its galleries, lounged through its palaces, its public gardens, and its temples. I stood among the coffins in the vault of the chapel of the Capuchins, where rest the ashes of the Imperial family; I gazed long and fondly, in that of the Augustines, on Canova's exquisite monument to Maria Christina of Saxony. I observed, not without a feeling of pardonable pride, that the Armoury, which is arranged with great taste and skill, contains trophies from almost every European nation, England alone excepted. I saw the chain with which the Turks, in 1529, endeavoured to obstruct the navigation of the Danube. I beheld the innumerable curiosities which are contained in the a.r.s.enal, and lived among the knights and heroes of the middle ages, while gazing on the splendid suits of armour which the Ambras Museum contains. There is no public place which I did not visit, from the Volksgarten to the Prater;--no conspicuous building, beneath the roof of which I failed to enter, from the cathedral to the Invaliden Haus;--no palace which I did not inspect, from that of the Schweitzer Hof to Schonbrunn. Yet I will not describe any of them. Why? Because the task has been executed so recently, and so well, that nothing could proceed from me save idle repet.i.tion; and I do not think that to indulge in such would either redound to my own credit, or add to the edification of my readers.

Of the state of society in this great capital, again, I am not competent to form an opinion. I saw but the exterior of things,--the busy marts, the crowded streets, the shops more capacious and better stocked than any, except those of London, and perhaps of Paris. The music of the bands that played in the public gardens was familiar to me, as well as the countenances and bearing of the joyous throng that listened to them. But of the habits of the individuals who composed these throngs, as they showed themselves within the domestic circle, I can say nothing. I was told, indeed, that the ties of moral obligation are not very rigidly regarded in Vienna; that, with much polish, and all the charms of high-breeding about it, society is, in fact, exceedingly corrupt. This may or may not be true; but to me the single aspect which the Austrian capital wore, was of a vast a.s.semblage of people, whose great business it seemed to be to render life agreeable, and its events, in whatever order they might occur, as free from annoyance as possible.

I am equally incompetent to pa.s.s sentence on the state of learning, and the fine arts, in Vienna. I found, indeed, that it was fashionable to pay court to men of acknowledged talent and genius, and that to music and dancing the Viennese are just as much addicted as any other members of the Germanic family. But except from an evening spent at the theatre, I had no opportunity of determining how far they were or were not gifted with a taste more pure than prevails elsewhere. Neither can I tell how the important matters of eating and drinking are conducted, except in hotels and restaurateurs; for the season was unfavourable to making Viennese acquaintances; and had the contrary been the case, the time at my disposal was insufficient. But of cuisine at the Schwan, at the Daums and Kaiserin von Oesterreich, I can give a very favourable report, as well as of the cleanliness and even elegance of their respective eating halls, and the civility of their waiters. What, then, shall I say of Vienna? This, and no more. That to me it presented greater attractions than any other continental capital that I have visited; that I would have willingly spent as many weeks within its walls as I spent days, and that though eager to pa.s.s on to a country, to examine into the condition of which, const.i.tuted one and the princ.i.p.al object of my journey, I did not make up my mind to quit the city without reluctance. I dare say there is enough in and around it, to call forth the regrets of the right-thinking; but these were matters into which I could not pause to inquire. As I have already said, the exterior of things was all that presented itself to me, and with that I was delighted.

There is a custom in Vienna of demanding your pa.s.sport when you first make your appearance at the barrier, and requiring you to show yourself, within four-and-twenty hours afterwards, at the police-office. The object of these arrangements is, that you may satisfy the authorities of your solvency, and receive from them a letter of security for such length of time as you propose, or they be willing that you should remain in the city. We attended to the established regulation, of course, and now, having fixed the hour of our departure, endeavoured to obtain from the Hungarian chancery the license, without which it would have been impossible to pa.s.s the frontier. It was granted without hesitation, though in terms at once vague and rigid. I stated my business; that I went merely as a traveller, curious to become acquainted with the people and the country, and that not knowing the points which I might be induced to visit, or the length of time which might be required to visit them, I was anxious to receive a pa.s.sport, as generally and loosely worded as might be. The gentleman to whom I addressed myself was exceedingly polite; but he did not exactly fall into my views. "There is no necessity," said he, "to deviate in your instance from the common order of such things. A pa.s.sport is required from every traveller at the frontier; but after you are once in Hungary, you may go where you please, and stay as long as you feel disposed, without attracting the slightest notice. I will, therefore, write upon your pa.s.sport, that you are permitted to visit Pesth and its vicinity for a month, and to return." I thought this odd, but could not, of course, object to it, because I concluded that a person in authority must be a much better judge of what was necessary than I; and I have now given the detail at length, because the sequel will show that what was esteemed perfectly regular in Vienna, had well-nigh told against me in one of the remote provinces.

There is constant communication, as everybody knows, between Vienna, and Pesth, and Constantinople, by steamboats which touch, as they proceed, at almost all the most important places that lie along the banks of the Danube. Our original intention was to have availed ourselves of one of these; but we found on inquiry, that the navigation was intricate, and the channel of the river so low, that hardly any view was to be obtained from the ship's deck. We determined, therefore, to proceed by land as far as Presburg, and to regulate our future movements according to the aspect of things there, and the information which by its inhabitants might be communicated to us. About seven o'clock, on a bright July morning, we accordingly took our seats in a hired carriage, and were swept along through what are called the Marxer lines, beyond the outermost suburbs of the capital. The country round was, for a while, uninteresting enough. A huge plain was before us, which the heat of the weather had scorched into the semblance of a desert; and there were few objects upon it, of which I can say that they much relieved its monotony. Several villages came, indeed, in our way, and near one of them, called Semmering, a large turreted building attracted our attention. It had once been a summer residence of the Emperor; it is now a powder-magazine, and stands, as our postilion informed us, on the same spot which, during the siege of Vienna in 1529, was covered by the tent of the Sultan Solyman. But we had pa.s.sed this some time, ere the scenery began to improve. When such improvement did commence, however, it was very complete. The road wound inwards so as to bring us parallel with the river, and to open out a fine view of its waters, which being split up into numerous branches, poured themselves over the plain, and enclosed a countless number of islands within their eddies. Among these, our postilion pointed out that on which Napoleon, by the breaking down of his bridge, was, during the progress of the battle of Asperne, reduced to the utmost extremity,--an extremity out of which nothing but the misplaced confidence of his opponents enabled him to escape. It is an extensive flat, covered along its edges by groves of giant willows; while just beyond it, on the continent, the village spires of Asperne and Essling peer forth from amid screens of thick foliage.

From this period till our arrival at the Hungarian frontier, we never, for any length of time, lost sight of the Danube. Here and there, indeed, the road struck inwards, so as to carry us away, perhaps, an English mile or more, from its banks; but the river, after it reunites, is so broad, and the country rises over it to such a height, that its n.o.ble expanse is seldom concealed from you, and that only for a moment.

Moreover, the monuments of other days,--old castles, dilapidated towers, with here and there a rude pillar, or block of granite,--became, at each post which we gained in advance, more and more numerous. Near Schwachat, for example, about ten English miles out of Vienna, and itself a village of some two thousand inhabitants, stands a stone, which marks the spot where Leopold first greeted the chivalrous Sobiesky,--not with the ardour which might have been expected from one in his situation, but coldly and ceremoniously, as if the king, who came to save, were sufficiently honoured by the notice of the emperor whom he had delivered. Next came we to Fischamend, where the traveller will do well to halt, if it be only that he may delight himself, as we did, with the magnificent scene which wooes his gaze from the summit of the scaur that overhangs the Danube. I do not think that I ever beheld a panorama of the sort which enchanted me more. We were elevated, perhaps, three hundred feet above the bed of the river. Its broad, but not limpid waters, measuring, perhaps, half a mile across, laved the very base of the precipice, and swept along by their current a rude barge or two, the only productions of man's industry and skill that broke in upon their loneliness. Beyond was a wide plain, magnificently wooded, with here and there a village, looking forth from its covering of green boughs; while, up and down, the eye rested, either upon a continuance of the same bold scaur; or, more attractive still, on the advanced guard of those mountains amid which I and my fellow-traveller had resolved to make our way. Then there were tower and castle crowning the far-off rocks; there were rich vineyards, closing in to the very brink on which we stood; and, as if to complete the picture, a herd of dun-coloured cattle, oppressed with the excessive sultriness of the day, descended, through a sort of ravine, in a long line, and stood to cool themselves in the Danube. Altogether it was as fair a landscape as the eye of the painter would desire to behold; and we did not leave it, till a few fruitless efforts had been made to transfer some, at least, of its most attractive features to a blank leaf in my journal book.

After leaving Fischamend we pa.s.sed in succession Regelsbrunn, Deutsch Altenburg, and Hainburg, near the former of which the attention is arrested by what may easily be mistaken for the ruins of a city. It proved, however, on examination, to be the commencement of an ancient wall, which runs from Regelsbrunn all the way to the Neusiedler See; of which the origin is lost in the mists of antiquity, but which is generally supposed to have been thrown up by the Romans. There are still the remains of towers here and there, which give to it, when first beheld, its civic character; and it was, I believe, made use of, so recently as 1683, as a line of defence against the Turks. Moreover Deutsch Altenburg has its objects of interest also;--a tumulus, or mound, sixty feet in alt.i.tude, but of a date to which tradition goes not back; while the church of St. John, which crowns an eminence near, is accounted one of the most perfect Gothic edifices in the Austrian dominions. And, last of all, there is Hainburg, with its old castle, and gateways equally old; both exhibiting manifest traces of war on their exterior defences, even to the cannon-b.a.l.l.s, which, since the last invasion of the Turks, have been left sticking where they fell.

These, meeting you, as it were, one after the other, and forming points of rest to the eye when it has grown weary of ranging over the plain, produce a powerful effect upon your imagination; which is certainly not lessened by the aspect of the living creatures, whether of the human or some inferior species, which begin to gather round you.

I had been prepared by all that fell from those, who, having themselves penetrated into Hungary, were obliging enough, both in Dresden and at Vienna, to give me hints as to my own proceedings, for a state of things, both animate and inanimate, very different from that which had met me in Germany. I knew that the people were much less civilized than the Germans; and that for one, who proposed to wander as I did, alone, and, wherever it might be possible to do so, on foot, arms might be found convenient, perhaps necessary. Yet I did not expect to see a change so complete, in every point of view, as that which became perceptible even before we pa.s.sed the frontier. There began to meet us, a little way in advance of Deutsch Altenburg, troops of those Torpindas, whom, in the ignorance of our hearts, we had, in Bohemia, mistaken for gipseys. There they were, with their hosen and coa.r.s.e cloaks, their broad sombrero hats, and matted locks, trudging along, in bands of twelve or fourteen, and looking up with a glance of half cunning, half curiosity, from beneath their s.h.a.ggy eyebrows. By-and-by came herds of cattle, quite different, both in colour and form, from any which we had previously encountered; and then pigs,--monsters of the first cla.s.s,--whom men, evidently but one degree removed from barbarism, were driving before them. My young companion and I looked first at one another, and then at the pistols and other weapons which hung about our persons; and, as if the thoughts of each had wandered into the same channel, we smiled and said nothing.

We had quitted Vienna early in the morning; it might be about three in the afternoon when we reached the Custom House,--a station in Wolfsthal, remarkable for nothing except the constant bustle that goes on in its street. In order to reach the village we had been again carried away from the river, through a beautiful valley, hemmed in on either side, by well-wooded hills; one of which bears upon its summit what must have been, in its day, a castle of prodigious strength. We were now clear of that pa.s.s, and the process of examination began. In our case it was both brief and simple. We were asked whether our knapsacks contained any prohibited article? We did not even know what was prohibited; but finding that of copper the authorities were chiefly jealous, we answered in the negative, and were permitted to pa.s.s. It was not so with a whole string of wagons which came from the opposite direction. One after another they were compelled to discharge their contents, very much, as it seemed, to the inconvenience of the drivers; and not till a rigid examination of each separate bale and package had taken place, was permission given to load again. I could not help thinking that the policy which drew so broad a line of distinction between one portion of a great empire and another, was, to say the least of it, very singular; and I was not slow in being taught that it is very short-sighted too, because exceedingly distasteful both to the Hungarians, whom it injures, and the Austrians, whom it is designed to favour.

Our pa.s.sports were looked at, of course; stamped with the seal of the official, and returned to us;--after which we pushed on. We crossed the frontier, and became sensible, on the instant, that a new country was before us. To the right, as far as the eye could reach, was one enormous plain. Rich it was, and apparently well cultivated; for, except here and there, where a huge meadow intervened, the whole surface was covered with the most luxuriant corn. Of trees, on the contrary, scarce a sprinkling appeared; there were no groves at all, and even hedge-rows were infrequent. Towards the left, again, there was that sort of character which belongs to a region in which an extensive range of highlands has terminated. Frequent hills and dales were there; gra.s.sy knolls, with little valleys running through them; and such a profusion of wood as held out the a.s.surance that, in that direction at least, the eye would not pine in vain for foliage. By-and-by, from behind these knolls, the Danube made his appearance; not broader, certainly, than he had seemed to be at Fischamend, or even above it, but evidently deeper, I think, more rapid;--and altogether, with a degree of majesty about him which attaches to the one object, that gives its peculiar character to a living landscape. The Danube is, indeed, a magnificent river; albeit the people who inhabit his banks are only just beginning to find out that he may be turned to more accounts than that of mere beauty.

The interval between Hainburg and Presburg is but a single post; from Wolfsthal it is less than half that distance; yet, owing to the delay which occurred at the Custom House, five o'clock had struck ere we obtained our first view of this secondary capital of Hungary. Its situation is fine, close to the Danube, at the base and along the ascent of low hills; the crest of which is surmounted by the remains of what was once a royal residence. This latter, the Alba Regali of the chroniclers, is of very ancient date in its foundation. It was enlarged in 1766 by the Empress Maria Theresa, and in 1809 burned to the ground.

The Hungarians say, that an Italian regiment in the French service set fire to it wantonly, when evacuating the place. But, however this may be, it gives, even in its ruins, an air of aristocracy to the town; which, though neat and clean, and containing a population of thirty or forty thousand souls, would otherwise present no very striking feature to the eye of the stranger. Indeed, Presburg is a great deal too near the frontier, and maintains a communication too frequent and too regular with Vienna, to have retained almost any marks of its Hungarian origin. You might, both from the structure of the buildings, and the dress and manners of the inhabitants, easily fall into the error of supposing that it belonged to Austria.

We approached Presburg by a good macadamized road, which follows the course of the river, on the opposite bank from that along which the city is built. It was very little thronged either with carriages or horses, and gave few indications, in other respects, that a large, and, as we had been a.s.sured, a bustling town, lay but a short way ahead of us. This was the more surprising, that we could discover no evidences of any transfer of the line of commerce from the land to the water; for there was neither barge nor steam-boat to ruffle the bosom of the Danube. But the unfavourable impression created by such an air of stillness was not destined to remain. There is a long bridge of boats, which connects the opposite banks of the river, and affords facilities to the inhabitants of Presburg for pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing. We saw, as we drove on, that it was crowded with people, in their best attire; and the sounds of music, which rose from an inclosure hard by, sufficiently pointed out the nature of the attraction. We had come on a lucky day, for it was a festival, and all the world was abroad, to enjoy the delights of a calm and delicious evening amid the shady walks of the public gardens.

He who goes to Presburg without venturing further, need not flatter himself that he has made any, even the slightest acquaintance with the manners and usages of the Hungarians. The town is not a Hungarian, but a German town; the people are Germans, the language is German, and the style of living is German. It is true, that the historical a.s.sociations connected with the place are all as thoroughly Hungarian as are those which greet you at Ofen or at Graan; but the living men and women seem to have striven, and striven successfully, to lay aside all the peculiarities which could, by possibility, connect them with the tales of other days. So far we profited by the circ.u.mstance that we found at the Sun excellent accommodations; and excellent accommodations are not to be procured at all the hotels in Hungary; yet were we, on the whole, dissatisfied with it. We desired to study human nature under a novel garb, and we found it still clothed as it had been in Austria.

Nevertheless, the visits which we paid to the Old Palace, to the Cathedral, and the Konigsberg, were highly interesting, because of the important page in Hungarian story which they may be regarded as ill.u.s.trating. What that page contains, it may not be amiss if I take the present opportunity of stating.

It is the peculiar boast of the Hungarians, that they live under what they are pleased to term, a free const.i.tution. Subject to the sway of the house of Hapsburg only through the accidental lapse of the crown into the female line, they utterly eschew all dependence upon Austria, and would turn with indignation from him who should insinuate that over them the laws of the empire exercise the slightest authority. They are fellow-subjects with the Austrians and Bohemians only so far that the imperial and the regal crowns happen to be worn by the same individual.

But there is this marked difference in their respective situations, that whereas over Austria and Bohemia, the emperor exercises an absolute sway, in Hungary he has his prerogatives, beyond the limits of which he is not permitted to pa.s.s. He cannot, of his own will and pleasure, enact a new law; he cannot interfere with the privileges of his n.o.bles; he cannot levy a tax, nor impose a new burden upon the nation, till the parliament, or estates, have given him authority to do so. It is because at Presburg the parliament meets, and that there also the ceremony of the coronation is carried through, that I have selected this stage in my narrative for the statement of matters which were not rendered familiar to me till a protracted sojourn in the country gave me opportunities of collecting information, both from its living inhabitants, and from the treasured archives with which its libraries abound.

The tract of territory which, on our maps, we describe as Hungary, is peopled by two distinct races of men;--the Hungarians, who inhabit the great plain of the Danube, of which Cormorn may be regarded as the centre; and the Slavonians, by whom the mountain districts are occupied, as well in Carpatia and Transylvania, as in Croatia and the rugged districts that border upon Styria. Of these, the Hungarians are not considered to amount to more than four millions of souls at the utmost; whereas the numbers of the Slavonians fall not short of six millions.

As is the case elsewhere, however, so has it happened here; the political inst.i.tutions of the few have been imposed with a strong hand on the many; for the laws that prevail, as well as the machinery created to enforce them, are alike Hungarian. Yet the Hungarians are, so to speak, mere strangers in the land, who owe their original settlement there to the edge of the sword, and by the edge of the sword were long compelled to maintain it.

It seems now to be admitted, that the theory which once connected the conquerors of Pannonia with the Huns, is entirely without foundation.

The Hungarians are the descendants of one of those eastern hordes whom the Mongols, in their progress southward, drove from their homes; and who, breaking through Russia, and traversing a large extent of Poland, won a settlement for themselves late in the ninth century, near the sources of the Theiss. Their legends say, that by lineage, they are Magyars, and that they obtained the name which they now bear through an accident. There stood, near the spot where they first permanently encamped, a castle, called in the language of the country, Hung-var, which the strangers won, and converted into a sort of capital. As often as they sallied forth from that castle on predatory or other expeditions, the Slavonians were accustomed to exclaim, "Here come the Hung-varians," and the t.i.tle thus given at first as a term of mere derision or hostility, came, by-and-by, to be accepted as a national distinction.

I am not prepared to avow either my own acceptance, or my own rejection, of this mode of accounting for the origin of the Hungarian name. There is no good reason to be a.s.signed one way or the other; for nations, like individuals, generally owe their designations to some cause equally simple; but that the Magyars, or Myars, brought with them the elements of that const.i.tution under which it is the boast of their descendants that they still live, is just as easily proved as that we owe our most valuable inst.i.tutions to the customs and usages of our Saxon forefathers. The Myars, like the Saxons, appear to have lived, during seasons of peace, in obedience to a whole host of petty and independent chiefs. If war broke out, or a foreign expedition was resolved upon, the heads of clans made choice of one of their order to command the rest;--when the exigencies of the moment ceased to operate, the commander fell back into his proper place among his equals. Seven of these tribes are stated to have taken part in the earliest attack on Pannonia. They were led by one Almus, a brave and successful warrior; and soon spread themselves over the whole of the plain; but not for many generations could they count on a permanent cessation from the hostilities with which the mountaineers, driven back, yet unsubdued, continued to hara.s.s them. The results were precisely such as occurred in Normandy and England, and every where else, where tribes advanced to a similar pitch of civilization, won settlements by the sword. Arpad, the son of Almus, was chosen to succeed his father; and the foundations were laid both of an hereditary monarchy, and of a power able and willing to place limits to that of the crown.

The best historians inform us, that between Arpad and the heads of tribes, a solemn compact was entered into, which, in addition to other and less important stipulations, contained the following. It was agreed that the order of succession to the throne should be hereditary; that the male line should have the preference; the female not being excluded; but that the inalienable right of the people to elect their own sovereign, should never be called in question. Accordingly, in cases where there is no break in the chain, and the son mounts the throne which the father has bequeathed to him, certain forms are enjoined, of which it cannot be said that they are mere idle ceremonies. The king's t.i.tle to govern must be solemnly acknowledged by the states; and oaths are at his accession administered, any refusal to accept which would lead to his rejection. Moreover there is an article in this treaty which, in the event of a failure in the royal line, secures to the nation the right of free and unrestricted choice, and the right in question was exercised, to its fullest extent, so early as the beginning of the twelfth century, when the house of Arpad became extinct, and Charles of Anjou, called to the throne by the free voice of the people, laid the foundations of a new dynasty.

While they thus consented, as a measure of prudence, to the establishment among them of an hereditary throne, Arpad's peers were not willing that it should be filled by an absolute monarch. They claimed for themselves, and for their children after them, the right of counselling the prince in every emergency. They stipulated, that neither their persons nor their property, should be at the prince's disposal. Military service they were, indeed, bound to pay; that is, it was their duty to appear in the field when lawfully summoned, and to defend the country from foreign invasion, or internal revolt. But even military service, in the advancement of schemes of conquest, the king could not exact from them; he had no power to lead them across the border, except with their own consent. Then, again, within the limits of their respective estates, each n.o.ble was independent; while all situations of general trust and authority under the crown, were claimed by them as their birth-right. Hence the establishment of the palatinate in Hungary Proper, of the ban in Croatia and Slavonia, of the Vayvode in Transylvania, and of the great functionaries, by whatever t.i.tle designated, each of whom appears to have enjoyed in his own province, rather the privileges of a feudal sovereign, than the powers of a high officer of state.

Such were the commencements of the Hungarian const.i.tution,--an unbending aristocracy from the outset, into the forms of which time has doubtless introduced many changes,--but of which the spirit and the principle continue to this day, precisely what they were nine centuries ago. The first of these innovations occurred when Stephen ascended the throne; and by the open profession of Christianity, gave a different character to the whole order of society. His predecessors had never worn a t.i.tle more imposing than that of duke; Stephen received from the pope both a royal crown, and the style and dignity connected with it.

Moreover, Stephen, by creating bishoprics, and richly endowing both them and the monasteries, very much widened the circle of the n.o.bility; which by the creation of new offices, and the granting of fiefs both by prelates and princes, received from time to time large accessions to its numbers. Then began distinctions to be claimed and recognised, even in the rights and privileges of the privileged cla.s.ses. The n.o.bles were divided into princes, prelates, barons of the kingdom, and magnates, whose rights, though in some trifling respects different, were yet so much akin as to permit their being treated as political equals. Next to them, yet claiming the essential privileges of n.o.bility, came the king's chief retainers, with the holders of fiefs under the princes and prelates, and the princ.i.p.al retainers of the magnates; and finally, a humbler cla.s.s followed, who, corresponding to our territorial but unt.i.tled aristocracy, are now content to bear the appellation of eidelmen, or gentry. All of these were, in the strictest acceptation of the term, freemen. They owed to the sovereign their right hands in war; and when the exigencies of the state required, such aids in money as they themselves might vote, but without such vote, in solemn comitia granted, there was no authority anywhere to exact from them either a blade of corn, or the most minute coin of the realm.

It was the right of the n.o.bles to a.s.semble and pa.s.s resolutions which, when approved of by the king, obtained the force of law. Up to the commencement of the thirteenth century, they used to meet in the open air; and as each brought to the place of a.s.sembly as large an armed following as he could muster, it was no unusual circ.u.mstance to find as many as eighty thousand men in the field. Such a crowd could effect nothing of its own free will, and was hardly to be managed by any species of influence. At length, in 1235, Bea IV. succeeded in introducing the system of representation which still holds good. By this arrangement, an hereditary seat in the legislature was restricted to the magnates, with whom sat likewise such official personages as prelates and barons of the kingdom. The n.o.bles of inferior rank chose one or more from each county to represent their body, while the clergy were represented by abbots, t.i.tular bishops, and dignitaries of an inferior degree. By-and-by, during the reign of Sigismond, in 1386, free towns and royal cities were authorized, in like manner, to choose deputies, and then the framework of the Hungarian legislature became complete.

The Hungarians are never more gratified than when an opportunity offers of inst.i.tuting a parallel between their houses of parliament and ours; indeed, their taste for comparing is such, that they gravely contend for a perfect similarity of principle between the const.i.tutions of England and of Hungary. It would be as impolitic as unjust, when discussing the question with them, to deny that some such resemblance prevails. Both monarchies are limited monarchies, in which the sovereigns, though invested with absolute power as executors of the law, are just as completely circ.u.mscribed by the law, as the meanest of their subjects. It is curious to observe, likewise, how nearly the prerogatives of the one correspond in all essential points with the prerogatives of the other. The persons of both are sacred. Each is, within his own realm, the fountain of honour and of justice; each commands his own army, though by neither may its numbers be increased without a vote of the legislature. And more remarkable still, the king of Hungary, though a Roman Catholic, is the head of the church in Hungary, in the very same sense which we apply to the term, when we speak of the king of England as the head of the English church. In Hungary, the crown appoints absolutely to all bishoprics, abbacies, and even to canonries. Confirmed the choice must be, in the first of these cases, by the Pope, otherwise the spiritual authority attached to the office would be wanting; but the bishop-elect enters at once upon the possession of his temporalties, of which no exercise of papal influence can dispossess him. Moreover, it is in Hungary as it is in England,--the affairs of state are administered in all departments by the king's authority. The king's taxes, the king's duties, the king's escheats and forfeitures, are levied; the harbours are the king's harbours, the courts are the king's courts, the fortresses are the king's fortresses, and the people are the king's lieges. But here the resemblance between the const.i.tutions of the two countries ends, and all endeavour to trace it further is useless.

Even in reference to the kingly office, we soon begin to find ourselves diverging one from another. The crown in Hungary is elective far more decidedly than in England. We, indeed, in the ceremony of our coronation, retain so much of the spirit which animated our Saxon forefathers, that the question is still put to the people,--"Will ye have this prince to reign over you?" and the prince is bound by solemn oath to govern according to law; but the ceremony of a coronation is not so vital among us, as that it might not be pa.s.sed over with impunity. In Hungary, so tenacious are the magnates on the one hand, and so sensitive the emperor on the other, that he never omits, in his own life-time, to have the heir to the imperial diadem, crowned king in Hungary. The present emperor became king of Hungary three years previous to the death of his father; and now the empress has been crowned at Presburg, so that there may be no link wanting in the chain which holds the several portions of the empire together. Again, the king of Hungary, while he enjoys various privileges, to which the king of England cannot lay claim, is likewise subjected to various restraints, from which the king of England is free. The former, for example, as he appoints arbitrarily to vacant bishoprics, so he inherits the whole of a bishop's professional savings, who may chance to have died intestate. If the bishop possess hereditary property, it goes, of course, at his decease, to his next of kin; but his acc.u.mulations, be they great or small, are taken possession of by the crown. And even the making of a will saves but one-third of them. On the other hand, the king of Hungary is watched and restrained in the exercise of his prerogatives, not only by a parliament, jealous of its privileges, but by officers appointed for that purpose. The palatine is a strange compound of king's lieutenant and guardian of the liberties of the nation. He is chosen for life out of four personages proposed to the states by the sovereign; and as in the king's absence he exercises vice-regal powers, so both then, and at other seasons, he mediates between the crown and the people, taking care that the former shall not trench upon the liberties of the latter, nor the latter make any encroachments on the legal prerogatives of the former.

I might specify many other points in which even the parallel between the kingly offices in Hungary and in England fails; but it is not necessary. We have but to pa.s.s downwards to the cla.s.ses below royalty, and all ground of comparison between the inst.i.tutions of the two countries ceases. The parliament of Hungary is a very different affair from the parliament of England. Its members sit, to be sure, in two chambers, or houses, and enjoy, when a.s.sembled, the most absolute freedom of speech; but they meet very rarely, they transact very little business when they do meet, and both in the principle which brings them together, and in their arrangements when a.s.sembled, they outrage every notion which we are accustomed to cherish of perfection in such matters. The spirit of the Hungarian const.i.tution requires that the estates should a.s.semble at least once in every five years; the practice of the same const.i.tution leaves the king at liberty to call together, and to dissolve the chambers at pleasure. I have already stated, that to the higher order of n.o.bility, the privilege appertains of meeting, in their own persons, to deliberate on questions affecting the public weal. These,--the princes and magnates,--occupy the same chamber with the prelates and barons of the kingdom. The other chamber is given up to the representatives of the lesser n.o.bles, of the free towns, and of the clergy; and, strange to say, to the proxies of such magnates as may find it inconvenient, personally, to attend in their places. But though there are only two chambers, there are four distinct estates, each of which votes within itself in the first instance, and then carries the result of its scrutiny to the common centre. And finally, while the Upper House is presided over by the palatine, the lower is regulated and kept in order by an official personage who bears the somewhat lengthy t.i.tle of Personalis presentiae Regiae in judiciis loc.u.m tenens.

He must be of n.o.ble birth, of course, and is likewise President of the High Court of Justiciary. There are not fewer than 661 members in the first of these houses, whereas the last can count upon 236 only.

The representative members of the Hungarian legislature are all paid by their const.i.tuents, who again consist of the eidelmen of the several counties. Of these very many are, in point of fact, mere peasants, whom the misfortunes or imprudence of their ancestors have reduced to poverty; but all must have n.o.ble blood in their veins,--for it is an honourable descent, and not the possession of lands or houses, which ent.i.tles a man to exercise the elective franchise in Hungary. Such poor n.o.bles are, of course, controlled and managed by their wealthier neighbours, who, when the season of an election comes round, deal with them pretty much as our own candidates and their committees deal with the poor voters in boroughs. There is prodigious feasting at the castle,--there is no end of magnanimous declarations,--no lack of brilliant and spirit-stirring speeches; under the influence of which, and of the wine and strong drinks that accompany them, the pauper eidelman becomes a hero in his own eyes. But, alas! political grat.i.tude is not more enduring in Hungary than elsewhere. The crisis has its course, and the scion of a glorious race,--the representative of a family which followed Almus to the Theiss and gave the coronet to Arpad,--goes back to his hovel, and his daily toil, and his filth, and his wretchedness, there to chew the cud of bitter fancy, till the return of an electioneering season shall call him forth once more to act a part upon the stage of life.

My reader will be good enough to believe that while I thus speak of a country,--very much under-peopled by ten millions of souls,--I am referring to the condition of a minute fraction of that population,--of something less than two hundred thousand persons, in whom alone the existence of rights and privileges is by the law recognised. The people,--properly so called,--the peasants who cultivate the soil, the mechanics who construct the dwellings, the artisans who fabricate your household utensils, your wearing apparel, your carriages, your ships, your machinery; these are precisely in the condition of Gurth and Wamba in Sir Walter Scott's romance of _Ivanhoe_. In the rural districts every man whom you meet, provided he be neither a n.o.ble nor a soldier, belongs to somebody. He has no rights of his own. He is a portion of another man's chattels; he is bought and sold with the land, as if he were a horse or an ox. On him, too, all the common burdens of the state are thrown. If the parliament vote an increase of the taxes, it is from the peasants that these taxes are wrung; for the lord takes care, though he himself pay immediately, that he shall be indemnified by the deduction which he makes from his serfs' allowances. It is the same spirit which provides that the peasantry, who make the roads, and by the labour of their hands keep them in repair, shall be the only cla.s.s of persons of whom toll is anywhere exacted. An eidelman in his chariot pa.s.ses free through every barrier,--a poor peasant's wagon is stopped at each, till the full amount of mout, as it is called, has been settled. But this is not all. Till the year 1835, each landed proprietor possessed over his peasantry an almost unlimited power of punishment, into his manner of exercising which no human being ever took the trouble to inquire. Accordingly, you still find, as an appendage to each mansion, a prison, with its bolts and chains, and other implements of torture; while the rod was as freely applied to the backs of delinquents, real or imaginary, as ever the whip made acquaintance with the persons of our own negroes in a West Indian sugar-field. It is to Count Chechini, (Szechenzi,) in this, and many other respects, the greatest benefactor to his country which modern times has raised up, that Hungary stands indebted for a law, which, for the first time in the annals of the nation, gives to the poor peasant something like protection against the tyranny of a capricious master.

Since the pa.s.sing of that act there have been established in all the counties regular magistrates, before whom delinquents must be brought, and without whose sanction the punishment of the lash is supposed never to be inflicted. I did not find, however, on inquiry, that much regard was paid in practice to this statute. The n.o.bles still flog their serfs, when the humour takes them, and the serfs are too hopeless of finding redress, by an appeal from one n.o.ble to another, ever, except in extreme cases, to think of making it.

Such, in few words, is the Hungarian const.i.tution,--a limited monarchy, doubtless, which secures from the oppression of the sovereign a minute fraction of his subjects, and leaves all the rest to the tender mercies, not of one supreme head, whom motives of policy will render humane, and generally just, but of a band of n.o.bles; who, nursed in the most exaggerated notions of their own importance, look upon all beneath them as mere beasts of burden. To speak of it as akin to the const.i.tution under which we live, is to err entirely. It may, and does, in numerous points, resemble the const.i.tution of England, as it existed under the first of the Tudors; but with that which secures to every Englishman the rights which make him what he is, it has nothing in common. A Hungarian n.o.ble is a very great man. A Hungarian eidelman is inferior to him, only if he be less wealthy. A Hungarian peasant is a serf. There is an excellent preparation made, doubtless, for better things in the future, but in its immediate working, the const.i.tution which so orders matters, is to the people a thousand-fold more oppressive than the most absolute despotism.