to hold than the Netherlands were, which Austria lost so soon after Gallicia was stolen; and ever since Austria was Austria she has held some possessions in Italy. Geographically speaking, Austria is much more compact than she ever was. How is it, then, that she has held her dependencies so long, and what are the reasons for thinking that the system cannot continue much longer? Our space obliges us to confine ourselves to the history and present aspect of her relations with the greatest of her dependencies, Hungary-but Hungary is so vital a portion of the Empire that to treat of it is virtually to treat of the whole.

The first great cause of the ascendancy of Austria has been the high place she has held as a European Power. However much the dependencies of a great Power may dislike the yoke that presses on them, yet there is a prestige in being connected with what is great which can never attend a union with an equal. It seems in a measure reasonable that an Empire should have dependencies, and this sense of reasonableness calms and satisfies the minds of many who would scarcely allow that they felt its influence. Hungary was united to Austria at the very moment when the House of Austria was only just broken into its Spanish and German branches, and when the vast empire and power of Charles V. recalled and almost justified the pretensions of the successors of Rome to a universal Empire. Since that time up to very recent years Austria has held a great place in Europe. rivalry between the Bourbons and the Hapsburgs long engaged every mind, and even writers of a comparatively modern date always speak of the Court of Vienna as the first Court in Europe. Hungary, too, was placed between Austria and Turkey, and in the long run it was Austria that saved Hungary from being overrun by the Turks. Austrian partisans are fond of speaking of this as if it constituted a claim on the eternal gratitude of the Hungarians. This is going

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much too far. The Austrians could not prevent Turkey from holding a great part of Hungary for a century and a half, and if it is true that at last the victories of Eugene drove the infidels over the Danube, yet it is equally true that Hungary has saved Austria quite as much as Austria has saved Hungary. Twice during the reign of Maria Theresa the Queen had to throw herself on the protection of her Hungarian subjects; and if it cannot be said that the Hungarians saved Austria from Napoleon-for Austria was not saved at all-yet they declined to assist in humiliating her, and rejected the offers of independence which the French Emperor made them. It is useless to reckon up scores of this sort. On the whole, Hungary has found it useful and felt it creditable to be connected with Austria, and this has been a main cause of the continuance of the union.

Austria, however, did more for Hungary than connect it with Europe and save it from the Turks. She saved it from itself. There were no elements of stable government in Hungary at the time when Ferdinand snatched the power from the native prince Zapolya. There was no one to control the nobles or to educate or civilize them. The mass of the population was treated as the mass of the population always is treated when all power lies in the hands of an ignorant nobility. There was no prospect before the country but that of an interminable series of

civil wars. Religious differences also were beginning to make the standing quarrels of party leaders ten times more bitter than before. So far as any one can pretend to pronounce on what would have happened but did not happen, we may be sure that, had it not been for its junction with Austria, Hungary must have shared the fate of Poland-a country so similar in its institutions and in many points of the character of its governing classes. Hungary would have been conquered and divided. It was under the sheltering protection of the strong government

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of Austria that Hungary subsisted and its constitution was preserved.

Austria also kept its hold on Hungary because the Austrians were personally superior to the Hungarians, more refined, more advanced in law, arts, and arms, and able to bring better men to the surface of affairs. Vienna was quite as great an attraction and advantage to a Hungarian magnate as London was to a great Scotch proprietor. Even within the last thirty years, and we should fancy much more recently, there was a rudeness and want of culture in all but the highest nobility of Hungary which quite separated them from the Court circle. The Hungarians had little or no literature, and absolutely no turn for commerce. What little wealth was contributed to the country from manufacturing or trading industry, came almost exclusively from Jews or German settlers. The Austrians were also far more advanced in the arts of government. Bitterly as the Austrian Government was inclined to persecute the Protestants in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, its bigotry and cruelty were eclipsed by the fanatics among the Magyars. It was the Hungarian prelates and the leading Catholic nobles who tried to force the Government into abandoning the slight measure of toleration which, under the wiser emperors, the Court of Vienna was inclined to accord. The German civil law, with all its faults, was at least infinitely superior to the Hungarian. law, which even within the last few years gave practically no civil remedy on a contract against a nobleman. Austria, too, was far ahead in the justice of its views as to the tillers of the soil. Serfage might have lasted for ever, so far as the Hungarian Constitution or the Hungarian proprietors went, but Maria Theresa, by the bold edict which she promulgated on her own authority, put an end to serfage altogether. Lastly, Austria was much more prolific of individuals capable of rising to eminence than Hungary was. Maria Theresa, for example, and her son, were really

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remarkable persons, with a width of thought and a greatness of purpose that may fairly be termed imperial. On the other hand, the great men of the Empire were scarcely ever Hungarians. Every now and then we meet with one of the great historical names of Hungary, such as Palfy, or Forgacs, or Esterhazy, holding a high command in the Austrian army. But that is all. They do not go further. The great generals and statesmen of Austria did not come from Hungary.

It would be very unfair to press all this too far, or to conclude that the Hungarians are really inferior, or ever have been. The Court was

at Vienna, and of course the Court made those in intimate connexion with it more refined than country proprietors who lived always in a narrow circle. If the Court had been at Pesth, the Viennese would have had to go there to learn manners. Hungarians may not have distinguished themselves in the annals of Austria, either because Austria was too jealous and timid to let any Hungarian acquire distinction, or because the feeling of loyalty to Austria was so lukewarm that no Hungarian of merit and ability cared to devote himself to her service. We are not drawing a comparison between the two countries to the disadvantage of Hungary, if all things are considered. We are only looking to facts; and the indisputable fact that for many years Austria had a social, a political, and a personal superiority over Hungary, goes far to explain why Hungary remained so long a dependency of Austria.

In spite, however, of all their advantages, the Austrians never exercised any very great influence over Hungary. It might have been expected that Austria would have attracted Hungary to herself as England has attracted Scotland. Three centuries of a government which has always been strong, and through a long part of its duration not unpopular, ought to have made a permanent impression on a dependency close at its doors. But it has not with the exception of

Bohemia, Austria has not managed to make any of its non-German provinces a part of itself, and even in Bohemia its triumph has been far from complete. The chief reason of this lies in the very small extent of territory and population which makes up the nucleus of Austria. Austria is all limbs and hardly any body. But the alienation of the dependencies of Austria is also in a great measure to be attributed to the system of government which Austrian statesmen have so long adopted. Austria has been the stronghold of that form of Catholicism which seeks to promote the interests of the Church by interference in temporal matters. It was Austria that stopped the Reformation in South Germany and in a large part of Europe. It was in Austria that the Jesuit policy of administration was really carried out.

The government of Austria has been in the true sense of the word Jesuitical. Crimes of deceit and cruelty have been committed freely by the Austrian Government, but that is not what has really made it Jesuitical. It is that the general working of the system, both on its good and its bad side, has been akin to that which the Jesuits organized when they held the keys of power in so many European States. There has been in Austria much of the shrewdness, of the anxiety not to push things too far, of the care for the common people which the Jesuits have displayed. But there has been also the same contempt for liberty, the same seeking to impose an artificial uniformity by every engine of crooked policy, the same reckless disregard of private rights and the wishes of individuals. The consequence has been that Austria has succeeded as the Jesuits have succeeded, and failed as the Jesuits have failed. The energy of leaders, the force of a compact machinery, and the pressure of material power have given an apparent success, but this success has been hollow, because the governing body has never appealed to the enthusiasm or gratified the aspirations of the men whom it undertook to deal

with. There is nothing, and never has been anything, in Austria to awaken a single generous emotion in the soul of its subjects. With a very strong centre and a large nucleus at home of military force, an empire that merely blights and deadens the souls of its subjects may still hold its own. If all Germany had been Austrian, Hungary might have been utterly powerless, and it would not have much mattered, so far as the strength of Austria went, whether Hungary disliked the character of her rule or not. But as Austria Proper was so small, it has been a constant source of weakness to her that in proportion as her dependencies advance in wealth, cultivation, and self-respect, they revolt against the system under the yoke of which they have been held.

Austria has always tried to make use of one of her provinces against another. She has called the troops belonging to the North to act against the South, and has stirred up the East against the West. In this she has only done what every State with different dependencies at her command is sure to do if necessity urges it. But in recent years, this policy of setting jealousy against jealousy, and the hatred of one province against the hatred of another has been carried out in a way and to a degree that is peculiar to Austria. This has been forced upon her by the position in which she found herself at the conclusion of the war with Napoleon, and also by the system of government with which alone her statesmen were familiar. We have so often heard the sentence which Prince Metternich borrowed from Madame de Pompadour, that we almost forget to ask what it was that he meant by saying that after him would come the deluge. The Prince understood all the consequences of the new position Austria had accepted. She had got an empire that was geographically compact, and which for the first time brought her subject races in close proximity to each other. She had no machinery of government to hold them together, but one which was in direct

She

opposition to the strongest tendencies of the times, to the passion for political liberty and knowledge, and the desire for wealth by the interchange of products. What was alien to her and her policy must be removed to the greatest possible distance from her. On two sides especially she was open to the influx of dangerous ideas. Italy threatened Lombardo-Venetia, and Germany threatened Austria herself. Russia and Turkey were as good neighbours for a reactionary power as could be desired. therefore set to work to extend the circle of her influence in the quarters that threatened her. By bullying and cajoling she got all Italy under her power, and she made herself mistress of the German Diet, and threw Prussia completely into the shade. Within her own bounds she tried to make things quiet by setting race against race, and class against class. She used the Slave against the Magyar, the Italian against the Istrian, and the peasant against the noble. It is astonishing how long and how largely she succeeded. But Prince Metternich knew that it was impossible that this kind of success should last for ever. It was absurd to think that for ever independent nations would consent to be Austrianized in order that dangerous ideas might not come near Austria, and that intestine feuds would always stand at a useful and gentle simmering point, and never boil over into civil war.

Modern history has few passages in it more remarkable than that which records the rise and downfall of this new fabric of Austrian government. Perhaps its success was at its greatest height at the time when the present Pope was elected. From the westernmost to the easternmost Alps, from North to the extremest South, Italy was Austrian. Charles Albert was excellently disposed, and the King of Naples had long ago declined the advice of the King of France to introduce the pernicious principle of political liberty. Prussia was completely overshadowed by the dreamy medievalism of its King. The little cloud that was to begin

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the storm rose where no Austrian minister could ever have expected it. The Pope turned Liberal, and set Italy in a ferment. Revolution began, and Prince Metternich bade good-bye to Vienna. The Hungarian and Italian wars followed, and Austria put forth all her strength. She used her Slaves as she had arranged to use them. She got Jellachich to bring up his savage hordes from Croatia, and she overthrew the hopes of Italy at Novara, although Radetzky had under his command at least twenty thousand Hungarians, who were really fighting against their country by being led against the enemies of Austria. In spite of all her efforts, however, Austria had to call in Russia, and then came the triumph of the reaction. All the traditional policy of Austria was displayed in a degree oftenfold intensity during the years that followed, under the ministry of Prince Schwarzenberg. This, again, had its end, and the Austrian system was broken up, and as we may hope, in the interests of Europe and humanity, finally broken up, by the Crimean war. However much we may regret the cost of the Crimean war, we ought never to forget that it gave hope and independence to a large portion of Europe: It humbled to the dust the great champion of reaction. It left Austria unprotected by Russia, and it encouraged Prussia and Germany to raise their meek eyes from the ground. Magenta and Solferino freed Italy; and then Austria, deprived of the sheltering wall of conservatism which Metternich built up along her frontiers, and frightened at having to keep down her dependencies without the strong arm of Russia to support her, determined to anticipate fate, to try a new system instead of the old one that was falling to pieces, and in the October of last year solemnly announced that she had entered the ranks of constitutional governments.

Such has been the history of Austria during the last half century; and meanwhile Hungary has had a very curious history of its own. Each of the dependencies of