baggage and artillery, will meet, therefore, with no ordinary difficulties. Even Austrian officers, whom previous command of Hungarian regiments had in some degree familiarized with the line of march, were baffled, in the late spring campaign, by the natural or accidental impediments they encountered.

"Hungary contains an area of 110,000 English square miles, and a population of at least fourteen millions. This extensive area is not more remarkable for the productiveness of its soil, its favourable climate, and mineral wealth, than for the various and generally promising character of its inhabitants. All the races of Hungary have, indeed, their several capabilities. The Slovacks are intelligent, for the most part, and inclined to commerce; the Croats good soldiers, and in the upper classes able employés; the Servian officers, in the military frontier, are, many of them, expert mathematicians; while the ordinary characteristics of the Wallach are, an aptitude for growth and cultivation; and of the Germans, steadiness and industry. But the Majjar-or Hungarian Proper-who has given his name to the country, is also the most prominent feature in the group of races. The genuine Majjar, like the Roman patrician, is an agriculturist, a fearless, we had almost said a born rider, fond of field sports and pastoral occupations. His figure is tall and well proportioned; his demeanour grave, and almost melancholy; his attachment to his home and to his municipal rights ardent; his disposition peaceful, and even indolent, until he is wronged or oppressed-and then indomitably firm, patient, and enterprising. Since our attention has been turned by recent events to Hungary, we have been impressed by the resemblance between the Hungarian country gentleman and yeoman of the present day, and the English gentleman and yeoman of Clarendon and Lucy Hutchinson, of Walker and Vandyke. But the character of the Hungarian, like the resources of his native land, is not yet fully developed. His occasional indolence or haughtiness have to be purged away by the fiery baptism of war; and his warm affections, his firm principles, his active intellect, and native energy will come out the purer from this ordeal.

The customary avocations of the Hungarians in time of peace have tended to organize and discipline them for a crisis like the present. Their law proceedings-for like all free people they are habitually litigious-their magisterial duties, and their municipal and county elections have given them habits of business, and taught them to act in concert. Their powers of adaptation, decision and arrangement, have not been palsied by bureaucratic maxims and official routine. Hence, while the Austrian cabinet vacillates between violence and concession, and is at a loss when it cannot be formal, Hungary has already produced in the various departments of war, internal administration and finance, such men as Kossuth, and Görgey, Csanyi, Szemere, and Duschek. During the last twenty years, indeed, the kingdom generally has made great progress in internal improvement. Without the aid or even the countenance of government, the Hungarians have constructed roads, and called into a new existence the Danube by means of steamboats, built a suspension-bridge,-the wonder of Europe, from Buda over to Pesth; have opened railways, and, by the embankment of the Theiss and by regulating the streams of the Maros and the Sarviz, acquired millions of acres for pasture or tillage. Within the same

period the productions of agriculture have been greatly multiplied, the culture of tobacco and oleaginous crops (rape, linseed, &c.,) encouraged, the breed of sheep and the quality of wool improved; while the settlements accorded to German and English artisans have introduced into the towns a fresh class of thriving and ingenious citizens. And all these improvements have been accomplished under the discouragements and drawbacks of the Austrian rule, by a people possessing rather the substance than the symbol of wealth. For although raw materials of every kind abound in Hungary, there is a great scarcity of money. An inlet into the commercial world, by a railroad from the Danube to Fiume, would relieve Hungary of its teeming and superfluous produce, supply capital for public works or private enterprise, and open new and eager markets for English manufactures."

It must be admitted that the foregoing extract presents very favourably the people and resources of Hungary, and had their late efforts been successful, it is more than probable that such a people, with such means at command, would have risen high in the scale of nations. Their political history is full of remarkable incidents, from which we only select such particulars as are necessary to carry out the design of this article.

The Magyars, or Majjars, were originally from the Northern part of Asia. They passed the Ural mountains in the seventh centuryin the eighth, they penetrated towards the coast of the Black Sea, and thence migrating westerly, they occupied Pannonia, and permanently settled in Europe, about the year 887. They were called by the Byzantians, Hunigures or Unigures. From them, the country that had been successively inhabited by Gepidi, Bulgarians, Huns, Goths and Lombards, was called Hungary, and the people Hungarians. Their leader, Duke Almus, was the founder of the Arpad dynasty, which governed the nation until the beginning of the fourteenth century.

This prince divided the land among his followers, according to the heads of the tribes, to all who distinguished themselves in battle. They were repeatedly defeated by King Henry I. and Otto, Emperors of Germany, and in 985 were induced to confine themselves within fixed limits and to cultivate their land. Towards the end of the tenth century, Christianity was introduced among them and ten bishopricks established. The pope sent to the then reigning Duke a crown, and this prince acting in unison with the magnates of the land, gave to the people a constitution which is still regarded by the Hungarians as a principal source of law and right. The Magna Charta of the country, however, was not obtained until the year 1222, and was extended by the Congregatio generalis regni (the Assembly of the States General) under King Andrew III., about the year 1300. After the death of this sovereign another race of princes succeeded, some of whom were distinguished for military prowess in their fierce contests with the Turks and Germans, and others, for their efforts in promoting commerce and industry, in establishing seats of learning, and in ameliorating the condition of the peasantry.

A great battle, called the battle of Mohacs or Mohatsch, in 1526 extinguished the royal line of Jagellon, and Ferdinand of Austria was the first of his family to whom the Hungarian sceptre was confided. Notwithstanding the political necessity which made a prince of the house of Hapsburg the ruler of the country, the Hungarians have always contended for their legal rights as an independent people. A note addressed by Count Teleki,* in behalf of the provincial government of Hungary to the French Republic, will show the grounds upon which they put their national independence. The language of Teleki is as follows:

"Hungary has ever been independent of Austria. Ferdinand I., the first Prince of the House of Austria that ever reigned in Hungary, received the crown in 1526, in accordance with an election by the Diet. He swore to maintain the Constitution and independence of Hungary. All his successors took the same oath. The crown of Hungary first became hereditary in the House of Hapsburg, in virtue of the Pragmatic Sanction, passed by the estates of Hungary, in 1687. In 1723, this settlement was extended by the Hungarian Diet to the female line of the House of Hapsburg (second Pragmatic Sanction.) But the independence of Hungary was maintained and guarantied not less by these very acts than by the oaths of all of the kings of the House of Hapsburg-Lorraine, even down to our own days. By article 10, of the year 1790, the Emperor King Leopold II. recognised Hungary as a free and independent State in its whole Legislative and Administrative system. Hence the article 3, of the year 1848, by which a parliamentary government was settled in Hungary, introduced no change in its relations to Austria. This law was no more than a development of all the foregoing laws. It was passed by a unanimous vote of the two Houses in the Hungarian Diet, and was formally sanctioned by the king, Ferdinand V. All that we demanded of the House of Austria, was that our charter should henceforward be a truth; our demands did not go one step beyond what had been guarantied to us in succession by all our kings."

By the 10th article of the compact between Leopold and the people, thus referred to by Teleki, it is expressly declared that "Hungary was a country free and independent in her entire system of legislation and government; that she was not subject to any other people, or any other state, but that she should have her own separate existence, and her own constitution, and should consequently be governed by kings crowned according to her national laws and customs."

This article was confirmed by the late Emperor Ferdinand as king of Hungary, on the 11th of April, 1848, and thus the constitutional independence of Hungary was made as clear as any fact in history, having been repeatedly and solemnly recognised and renewed by the Emperors of Austria. The devotion of the people to their free insti

For the note of Teleki to the French Republic, see documents.

tutions has always manifested itself in a decided opposition to any infringement of their constitutional rights.-A late able writer remarks:

"Five times in the course of a single century (1606-1711) did the Hungarian people rise in defence of their constitution and of what was still dearer to them, their liberty of conscience."

The concessions of Ferdinand in 1848 to the demands of the members of the Hungarian Diet who came to Vienna for the purpose of obtaining a confirmation of charter rights, of civil and religious freedom, of a parliamentary government and a union of classes, were especially obnoxious to his imperial advisers. They alleged that the concessions were extorted at a time when the Emperor's freedom of action was suspended by revolutionary violence.

For an explanation of this part of the subject, viz., the demands on the part of the Hungarians, and the events which immediately led to the recent conflict between the Majjars and the Austrians, we refer the reader to our Historical Register of 1848, at pages 40, 41, &c., of the 2d volume. An account of the contest itself will be found in subsequent pages of the history and chronicle.

In relation to the impression, which has prevailed to some extent, that the recent war was a war of races-that it originated in the hostility of the Majjars to the other people who inhabit Hungary, it may be proper to state some facts for the purpose of correcting any errors that may exist on this point. That there have been disputes and rivalries between the races, and that Austria fomented these difficulties, there can be no doubt, but the Hungarian insurrection was not confined to the Majjars; for Wallachs, Germans, Slovacks, Ruthenes and Jews united in the common cause. They were contending for the ancient independence of their kingdom, and in the late provincial government, two of the most important posts were filled by Vukovich and Duschek, the former a Servian, the latter of Sclavonic blood.

The following statement taken from the table of Haüffler, exhibits the several tribes or races existing in Hungary, and the names of those who united with the Majjars,—

EARLY STATE OF THE CITY-COURTS MEDICAL SCIENCE."

"AFTER the Dutch had got permission of the natives to build a fort on the island of New York, in the year 1623, they made it in the form of a regular square, with four bastions, on a point of land at the entrance of the North and East rivers, where the government house was afterwards built. At different periods this fort was strengthened by making the stone wall thicker, and then another wall outside the first. The Dutch director-general and the commandant, besides the other officers, had houses within the fort; and in 1642, a church was built in the south-east corner. The church and houses were burnt down in 1741.

"In 1765, Governor Colden, who resided in the fort, intending to receive into it and protect the stamp papers expected hourly from England, took into the fort Major James, and, by his directions, had the rampart of the fort prepared for defence or offence against the inhabitants, by forming embrasures of cord-wood and dirt, and mounting

cannon.

"When the house in the fort was burned down, and the troops were removed, the inhabitants dismantled the fort, and pulled down to the ground the north curtain which faced Broadway; and in 1790-91, the fort was entirely demolished, and the stones sold or made use of to build the Government House. The ground was all levelled, so that no trace remains of the old fort, or where it stood. When they were removing the ruins of the old church or chapel, several vaults were dis

* Selected from Valentine's Manual for 1849. The narrative is in homely style, and may not interest all our readers. The facts, however, are important, as exhibiting the infaney of the great commercial metropolis of the Union, and the administration of justice in those early times.