Nor must we be misled by the subsequent history of Italy into the theory that there was anything special in the traditions of the kingdom of Sardinia which should lead Liberals to fix their hopes on a ruler of that country. Victor Amadeus of Sardinia had been the foremost of the allies of Austria in the war against the French Republic; and though there were continual causes of irritation between the aggressive House of Austria and the rulers of the little monarchy, these were not of a kind to have attracted the sympathy of any large body of Liberals outside Piedmont. The only movement for the unity of Italy, previous to the movement of 1821, had come from Naples; unless, indeed, Eugène Beauharnais had intended Lombardy to be the centre of a similar attempt.

When we take all these points into consideration we must come to the conclusion that there was something in the personal character of Charles Albert which riveted the attention of Italian Liberals almost in spite of themselves; nor could any appearances to the contrary induce them to doubt that he had at heart a desire for the liberty and unity of Italy such as no previous Italian Prince had entertained.

It was, perhaps, the greatest proof of this strange fascination that Mazzini, Republican as he was, yet thought it well to yield to the strong feeling of the Liberals of Italy, and to give Charles Albert one more chance of playing the part of a leader.

Mazzini, therefore, addressed to the new King a letter in which he called his attention to the enthusiasm with which his accession was greeted. "There is not a heart in Italy whose pulse did not quicken at the news of your accession. There is not an eye in Europe that is not turned to watch your first steps in the career now open to you." He told him that the Italians were ready to believe that his desertion of their cause was the mere result of circumstances; and that, being at last free to act according to his own tendencies, the new King would carry out the promises that he had first made as a Prince. He warned him that a system of terror would only provoke reprisals; and that a system of partial concessions would not only fail to satisfy the wishes of the people, but would have an arbitrary and capricious character which would increase the existing irritation. "The people are no longer to be quieted by a few concessions. They seek the recognition of those rights of humanity which have been withheld from them for ages. They demand laws and liberty, independence and union. Divided, dismembered, and oppressed, they have neither name nor country. They have heard themselves stigmatised by the foreigner as the Helot Nation. They have seen free men visit their country, and declare it the land of the dead. They have drained the cup of slavery to the dregs; but they have sworn never to fill it again." Mazzini then calls on Charles Albert to put himself more definitely at the head of a movement for Italian Independence, and to become the King of a united Italy. The letter concludes with these words: "Sire, I have spoken to you the truth. The men of freedom await your answer in your deeds. Whatever that answer be, rest assured that posterity will either hail your name as the greatest of men, or the last of Italian tyrants. Take your choice."

Before we consider Charles Albert's answer, we must call to mind, once more, his position. He came to the throne in the very crisis of a conspiracy against his predecessor, and had hardly been able to realize what had been the intention of the conspirators towards himself. The Duke of Modena, who had plotted to remove him from the succession (a proposal discussed at some length in the Congress of Laybach), had just recovered his own Dukedom by Austrian help, and was no doubt watching with eager eyes any false step which his rival might make. Charles Albert, with all his liberal sympathies, was proud of being a prince of the House of Savoy; and he was surrounded by the courtiers of Charles Felix, who must have persuaded him that the dignity and independence of that House could only be maintained by opposition to the movement for reform.

There was, too, another influence which must never be forgotten in estimating the difficulties of Charles Albert. He was a strong Roman Catholic, at a time when the connection between reverence for the Pope and reverence for the Church was, perhaps, closer than it had been at most previous periods of the history of the Papacy. The commonplace tyrannies of Leo XII. and Pius VIII. had not wholly dispelled the halo which the heroic attitude of Pius VII.'s early days had shed round the Papacy; and it seems highly probable that the most puzzling act of Charles Albert's life, his share in the French invasion of Spain, had been due, to a large extent, to that strong religious sentiment which gathered in so peculiar a manner round the kings of Spain. A man influenced by such sentiments could not fail to remark that the most vigorous and determined of the insurgents of 1831 had directed their attacks against the Papacy; and it might well seem to him that a letter which called on him to oppose the Austrian restorers of the papal power was the utterance of an enemy to the religion of the country.

But the fact was, as Mazzini afterwards confessed, that any king who was to undertake the work which he had suggested to Charles Albert must possess at once "genius, Napoleonic energy, and the highest virtue. Genius, in order to conceive the idea of the enterprize and the conditions of victory; energy, not to front its dangers—for to a man of genius they would be few and brief—but to dare to break at once with every tie of family or alliance, and the habits and necessities of any existence distinct and removed from that of the people, and to extricate himself both from the web of diplomacy and the counsels of wicked or cowardly advisers; virtue enough voluntarily to renounce a portion at least of his actual power; for it is only by redeeming them from slavery that a people may be roused to battle and to sacrifice."

If such were the qualities required by any prince who undertook this office, what must have been needed from one who had to contend with a Power which had ten years before helped to crush out the aspirations of his people, and which was just then triumphantly ruling in the centre of Italy? A man of genius might have undertaken the task; Charles Albert was only a man who "would and would not." But, if Charles Albert refused to listen to Mazzini's appeal, he had no alternative but to protest against it; and he did so by banishing Mazzini, under pain of imprisonment if he should return to Italy.

Nevertheless, the letter had produced its effect on the nation. The demand for the unity of Italy had been openly and definitely made, and put forward as a boon to be struggled for by Italians, and not to be conferred by a foreign conqueror. The attention of the youth of Italy was at once attracted to the writer of the letter, and none the less that he was an exile. The personal fascination which he exercised even over casual observers may be gathered from the following letter, which seems to refer to this period. It was written by one of his fellow-exiles, describing his first sight of Mazzini in the rifle ground at Marseilles.

"I went into the ground, and, looking round, saw a young man leaning on his rifle, watching the shooters, and waiting for his turn. He was about 5ft. 8in. high, and slightly made; he was dressed in black Genoa velvet, with a large Republican hat; his long curling black hair, which fell upon his shoulders, the extreme freshness of his clear olive complexion, the chiselled delicacy of his regular and beautiful features, aided by his very youthful look, and sweetness and openness of expression, would have made his appearance almost too feminine, if it had not been for his noble forehead, the power of firmness and decision that was mingled with their gaiety and sweetness in the bright flashes of his dark eyes, and in the varying expression of his mouth, together with his small and beautiful moustache and beard. Altogether, he was at that time the most beautiful being, male or female, that I had ever seen, and I have not since seen his equal. I had read what he had published; I had heard of what he had done and suffered, and the moment I saw him I knew it could be no other than Joseph Mazzini."

It was under such auspices that the Society of Young Italy was founded. The general drift of the principles of that Society has already been sufficiently indicated in the account of Mazzini's meditations in the fortress of Savona. It was to make Italy free, united, Republican, recognizing duty to God and man as the basis of national life, rather than the mere assertion of rights. But the great point which distinguished it from all the other societies which had preceded it was that, instead of trusting to the mysterious effect of symbols, and the power of a few leaders to induce the main body of Italians blindly to accept their orders, it openly proclaimed its creed before the world, and even in the articles of association set forth the full arguments on which it grounded the defence of the special objects which it advocated. And the principles were further to be preached in a journal which was to be called, like the Society, "Giovine Italia."

But while he put forward a definitely Republican programme, Mazzini never fell into the French mistake of thinking that a knot of men, monopolizing power to themselves, can, by merely calling themselves Republicans, make the government of a nation a Republic. While he fully hoped, by education, to induce the Italians to accept a Republican Government, he was quite prepared to admit the possibility of failure in that attempt, and to accept the consequence as a consistent democrat. This is distinctly stated in the first plan of Young Italy.

"By inculcating before the hour of action by what steps the Italians must achieve their aim, by raising its flag in the sight of Italy, and calling upon all those who believe it to be the flag of national regeneration to organize themselves beneath its folds—the association does not seek to substitute that flag for the banner of the future nation."

"When once the nation herself shall be free, and able to exercise that right of sovereignty which is hers alone, she will raise her own banner, and make known her revered and unchallenged will as to the principle and the fundamental law of her existence."

Plentiful as was the scorn and misrepresentation showered upon Mazzini and his doctrines, the two years from 1831 to 1833 brought a vast number of supporters to the Society of Young Italy; and the revolutionary movement in other countries gained organization and definiteness of purpose from this model. In the meantime, the Government of Louis Philippe was becoming more and more definitely committed to the cause of reaction; and every kind of slander was being circulated by Frenchmen against the Society of Young Italy. The theory that this Society undertook to exterminate all who disobeyed its orders was supported, by attributing to its action any casual violence which might take place in the streets of Paris; and though Mazzini prosecuted one of these slanderers for defamation a few years later, and compelled him to make a complete retractation in the law courts, the slander was too convenient to be allowed easily to drop.

On the other hand, men of the older type of revolutionist, who had drawn their ideas from the first French Republic, and had afterwards hoped to find their realization in the methods of the Carbonari, objected to Mazzini as "too soft and German" in his ideas.

But nevertheless some who were afterwards known in other ways came forward to contribute to the Journal of Young Italy. Amongst them may be mentioned the historian Sismondi and a future opponent of Mazzini, the Abate Vincenzo Gioberti. By 1833 the Society had established centres in Lombardy, Genoa, Tuscany, and the Papal States, and it was resolved to attempt an invasion of Savoy.

For, in spite of the promises which Charles Albert had held out of reforms in the government, the prosecutions for the conspiracy of 1831 were being carried on with renewed rigour, and the prisons of some of the chief towns of Piedmont were filled with men in many cases arrested on the barest suspicion, and who were threatened with death if they would not reveal the secrets of their fellow-conspirators. Such cruelties were used to extort confessions that Jacopo Ruffini, a young friend of Mazzini's, committed suicide in prison for fear he should be compelled to betray his friends.

The news of these acts quickened the eagerness of the Italians for the invasion of Savoy, and they desired to co-operate with men of other countries. Among these, there were few from whom they expected so much sympathy as the Poles. Unable to organize successful insurrections in their own country, the Poles were scattered over Europe, a revolutionary element in every land in which they were to be found. They, like the Italians, had at first expected sympathy from the July monarchy in France. They, too, had been bitterly disappointed. But this had not prevented them from maintaining a centre at Paris; and many of those who had fought in vain in 1830 for the liberty of Poland came back to Paris to learn there what further was to be done.

Amongst these came a man named Ramorino, a Savoyard by birth, who had acted as a general in the Polish struggle of 1830. The part which he had played in that insurrection was only known very indistinctly to most of the Italians who were organizing the new expedition; but the mere fact that he had been a leader in a war for liberty was enough to make them desire his help. Mazzini had gathered from the Polish exiles the opinion generally held of Ramorino by those who knew the facts of the insurrection of 1830. He found that the reputation which Ramorino had held at that period was very low, both for trustworthiness and military ability; and he opposed his election as leader of the expedition to Savoy. The only result of the opposition was a charge against Mazzini of personal ambition.

The expedition had already been weakened by the opposition of one of those fanatical revolutionists who had before denounced Mazzini as too soft and German in his ideas. This man, who bore the honoured name of Buonarotti, had complained of the members of the expedition for admitting men of noble rank and some wealth to the position of leadership in it, and he had succeeded in detaching from the movement an important section of its supporters. Mazzini, therefore, saw that, under these circumstances, to lose the friends of Ramorino would ruin the chances of the expedition; and, feeling that any further opposition would only excite division, he consented to act with Ramorino.

The new leader soon showed his true character by hindering the expedition as long as possible; but in February, 1834, he yielded to the pressure of Mazzini and began the march. Unfortunately, Mazzini was seized with a fever on the route, and Ramorino, finding this obstacle to his treachery removed, ordered the columns to be dissolved and rode away.

Plenty of scorn was heaped upon the failure of this first expedition of Young Italy. But Metternich, at any rate, judged more truly. In April, 1833, he had written to the chief of his spies in Lombardy to warn him against the growth of a new revolutionary party, and particularly against the advocate Mazzini, one of the most dangerous men of the faction; and he told him to procure copies of the journal called "La Giovine Italia," and two copies also of Mazzini's pamphlet about guerilla warfare. Menz, the spy in question, while believing that the journal of Young Italy was losing ground, yet considered that it was the most dangerous of the newspapers which circulated in Lombardy.

This request of Metternich's was, indeed, made a few months before the actual invasion of Savoy, and Menz, no doubt, began to think that after that failure the power of Mazzini would decline; but it is tolerably clear that Metternich did not share that delusion, and kept his eye steadily on the new leader. Nor did even Menz believe that mere repression would now suffice to win the sympathies of the Lombards to Austria, and he proposed to divert the intellectual zeal of disaffected Lombards into a direction favourable to the State by offering prizes for the solution of questions in different branches of human knowledge. From the winners of these prizes, he thought, might be chosen professors, inspectors, and directors of studies, and encouragement might be given to compositions of poems and paintings, of which "the subject, and even the colour," was to be dictated by Government.[6]

He further proposed that, with this object, an Academy of Poetry should be founded in Lombardy, under the absolute direction of the Austrian Government, who are to see that the nation should take part in an intellectual movement "with a correct view, and that these productions of the imagination, bearing the impress of a tendency profitable to the well-being of society, would, in their turn, act in a very favourable manner on the public spirit."

Further, as "the Circus was in the time of the Romans the secret means of the State for rendering the people submissive to the Government," ... so "the Austrian Government should give a very generous subsidy to the theatre of La Scala (at Milan); but it would be also desirable that it should make some sacrifice for the provincial theatres." A few modifications of the Austrian code, some reduction on customs duties, and lessening of the restrictions on passports, are also suggested in the Report. Such were the means by which the trusted servant of Metternich hoped to counteract the influence of Mazzini and Young Italy.

But in the meantime another form of opposition to the power of Metternich was growing up in a country very different from Italy, both in its circumstances and the character of its people.

While, in all other countries of Europe, Metternich looked upon every approach to self-government with suspicion, and tried to crush it out either by force or diplomacy, both he and Francis recognized that in Hungary there were reasons for maintaining and even encouraging Constitutional feeling.

For here the Constitutional rights did not rest upon any revolutionary basis; at any rate, not upon any revolution of modern times. They were not connected with the sort of national aspirations which made the movements in Italy and Germany so alarming to Metternich. There was, as yet, no desire here to redistribute the country according to popular aspirations; all rights rested on clearly defined laws handed down from a distant past, and in many cases these rights had been the subject of a peaceable contract between the previous rulers of the country and the House of Austria. So much was this felt by Francis that he even appealed on one occasion to the Hungarian Diet for sympathy against the revolutionary methods of Liberal leaders of other countries.

But, indeed, had the liberty of the Hungarians depended, like that of other nations, on the assertion of the power of a central parliament, they might have been crushed as the other peoples had been; for from 1813 to 1825 no Diet met in Hungary. But the full force of Hungarian liberty dwelt in the organization of those county assemblies which the Magyars had probably derived from the conquered Slavs. The Government could not enforce its laws except through the county officers, all of whom, with one exception, were elected by the landholders of the district. That one Government official was bound to call together once a year a meeting of the nobles and clergy of the county. There the wants and grievances of the district were discussed, and orders were sent to the representatives of the county in the Diet at Presburg to introduce bills to remedy those grievances.

These county assemblies could raise taxes and levy soldiers; and they not only possessed, but exercised the right to refuse to obey the orders of the King himself if, after discussion, such orders proved illegal.

In the county elections all freeholders of Hungary had votes; and in the smaller village elections the suffrage was still wider. The electors in the villages chose, not only legislators, but judges of their village concerns. The non-freeholding peasantry were, indeed, often oppressed; the towns were in a backward state as regards self-government; but yet this system of county organization secured a wider diffusion of general interest in political affairs than prevailed in any other country of Europe.

At the same time, there were elements in Hungary which might give Metternich some hopes that he could drain out the forces of Hungarian liberty. The Magyar nobles were drawn more and more to Vienna; and a process of Germanization was going on of so effective a kind that many of the nobles had almost forgotten their own language. Thus, though the Magyar aristocracy had more often acted as champions of independence than the nobles of any other country in Europe, they were gradually being drifted away from the main body of the people, and were becoming absorbed in the ranks of Austrian officialism. But when the Spanish Revolution of 1820 began to stir men's minds, the discussions in the Hungarian county assemblies took a wider range, and representations were made to Francis which he could not long resist. He did not at first, indeed, realize the full force of the opposition, and in 1822 he tried to levy new taxes on the Hungarians without summoning the Diet. But this attempt failed, and in 1825 the Diet at Presburg was once more called together.

It seemed, indeed, to some of those who afterwards played a prominent part in the struggles of 1848 as if little was gained by this Diet; and as if it was even less satisfactory than its predecessor of 1791. But a movement was inaugurated on this occasion which, though it may have contained in it the seeds of future misunderstanding, and even of civil war, was yet in its beginning as noble in its intention as it was necessary to the welfare of Hungary; and, had it been pursued in the spirit of its first leader, might have produced in time all the blessings which have since been secured to Hungary, without any of those terrible divisions and bitternesses that hinder those blessings from producing their full effect.

The leader of this new movement was Count Stephen Szechenyi, a member of one of the great families of Hungary. His father had held office at the Court of Vienna, but had grieved over the process of denationalization which was going on among the nobles of Hungary.

Count Stephen was early trained to sympathize with the desire for the restoration of Hungarian life. He saw that the withdrawal of the great nobles from Hungary to Vienna led to the mismanagement of their estates, the growth of an evil class of money-lenders, and the separation between the aristocracy and the rest of the nation.

The abandonment of the Magyar language was, in his eyes, the great source of all evil; and the Diet of 1825 afforded him the first opportunity of protesting against it. While the Hungarian nobles talked German in private, they used Latin in the management of public affairs; and Szechenyi, as a protest against this practice, spoke in the Magyar language in bringing forward a question in the House of Magnates.

But, before the Diet had risen, he gave a much more solid proof of his zeal for his native tongue. On November 3rd, 1825, he offered, in the House of Magnates, to give a whole year's income, 60,000 gulden, to found a Society for promoting the Study of the Magyar Language. His example was followed, with more or less zeal, by other nobles; and in 1827 a Hungarian Academy was established by Royal Decree.

The movement which Szechenyi had stirred up was in danger of being brought to ridicule by some of its supporters, for Count Dessewfy actually proposed that a law should be passed forbidding the marriage of any Hungarian maiden who did not know her native tongue; but this was resisted as too strong a measure.

But though Szechenyi opposed these wilder schemes of his supporters, he was none the less ready to use all possible attractions for carrying out his chief object, the drawing Hungarian nobles back to their country. As one of these means, he established a horse-race at Pesth, and founded a union for training horses. He promoted, too, the material advantages of Hungary by introducing steamships on the Danube.

The work to which he devoted most attention was the erection of a suspension bridge, to connect Pesth with Buda. Szechenyi's enthusiasm in this matter seemed to many ludicrously disproportionate to the result to be obtained; but the fact was that he intended this work to give the opportunity for the first blow at that great injustice, the exemption of the Hungarian nobles from taxation. If he could induce the Magnates to consent that the burden of so important a national undertaking should fall in part upon them, they might be willing hereafter to accept a more just distribution of the whole burdens of the State.

While, however, Szechenyi was labouring to promote Hungarian national life, and was willing to sacrifice personal comfort, and any unjust privileges of his order, for the sake of that object, he remained essentially the Conservative Magyar Magnate. He not only shrank from any movement for Constitutional reform, but even hoped to accomplish his ends with the sympathy of the Austrian Government.

It was not indeed that he was deficient in courage, or in the tendency to speak his mind plainly in private conversation. He said boldly that "the promises of the King are not kept, that the law is always explained in favour of the King to the disadvantage of the people; and, to speak plainly, affairs just now have the appearance as if the Constitution were being overturned." And in the same conversation he further nettled Metternich by suggesting to that statesman that his high position might prevent him from seeing some things.

Yet it was not merely offended vanity that irritated the ruler of Europe against Szechenyi. Metternich seems always to have had a preference for the thorough-going men among his opponents. He might hate and desire to crush them; but what pleased him was that he understood the logic of their position and, as he supposed, their motives. The moderate and Constitutional Liberals were always a puzzle to him. But when a man like Szechenyi actually thought that he could work with him, while undermining the centralization which was the essence of his schemes, and appealing to that positive form of patriotism which it was the object of Metternich to crush out, so inconsistent a position drove the Prince beyond the bounds of ordinary courtesy.

Taking advantage of his own high position and Szechenyi's youth, he told him that he was a man lost through vanity and ambition, asked him if he could really confess to his friends the kindly feeling to the Austrian Government which he had expressed to Metternich; and, on Szechenyi making some admission of the difficulties of such a course, "Then," said Metternich, "you must be a traitor either to me or to your friends, that is to yourself."

But if Szechenyi's position was unintelligible to Metternich, he found it far easier to understand another nobleman who came forward a little later and played a different, but hardly less important, part. This was Nicolaus Wesselenyi, the descendant of a family of nobles who had constantly held their own against both king and People. The father of Nicolaus had been a fiery, overbearing man, who had indulged in private feuds, and who had fought scornfully for the special privileges of the nobles. His son had all the fire of his family, and the same love of opposition, but directed by the circumstances of the time into healthier channels.

It was not, however, at Presburg that the Wesselenyis had hitherto played their principal part, but at the Diet which met at Klausenburg, in Transylvania. The circumstances and organization of that peculiar province will be more naturally considered in connection with the movements which arose a few years later. For the present, the important point to remember in connection with Wesselenyi's position is, that the Austrian Government tolerated an unusual amount of freedom in the Transylvanian Diet, in the hopes thereby of weakening that larger Hungarian feeling which gathered round the central Diet at Presburg. When both the Hungarian and the Transylvanian Diets were called together in 1830, and a demand was made by the Emperor for new recruits for the army, the House of Magnates in Transylvania showed, under Wesselenyi's leading, a bolder and firmer opposition than the House of Magnates at Presburg. In the central Diet, indeed, the chief opposition to the Emperor came from the Lower House, and the nobles were disposed to yield to the demands of Francis. But Wesselenyi, with his splendid bearing and magnificent voice, stirred up a far more dangerous opposition in Transylvania; and the Government at Vienna began to mark him out as their most dangerous opponent.

But in the meantime new questions were coming to the front in Hungary, and new leaders were being called forth by them. The Polish insurrection of 1830 had roused more sympathy in Hungary than probably in any other country of Europe; and a connection between the two nations was then established which had a not unimportant influence on the subsequent history of Hungary.

The wiser men among the Hungarian leaders saw the great defect which marred all struggles for liberty in Poland. Whatever aspirations may have been entertained by the Polish patriots of 1791, certain it is that, when Poland fell before the intrigues of Russia and Prussia, the new Constitution had not had time to bring about any better feeling between noble and peasant; and the Polish peasantry looked with distrust and suspicion on movements for freedom inaugurated by their oppressors.

The Hungarian reformers saw that, if they were to make the liberties of Hungary a reality, they must extend them to the serf as well as to the noble. In spite of the air of freedom of discussion which the County Assemblies of Hungary spread around them, there were, at this time, out of the thirteen millions of Hungarians, about eleven million serfs. These were not allowed to purchase an acre of the soil which they cultivated; they paid all the tithes to the clergy and most of the taxes to the State, besides various payments in kind to their landlords; their labour might be enforced by the stick; while for redress of their grievances they were obliged, in the first instance, to apply to the Court over which their landlord presided.

The reigns of Maria Theresa and Joseph II., while modifying the evils of the position of the serf, had taught him to look to the Court of Vienna, rather than to the Diet of Presburg, for help in his troubles.

The Edict of Maria Theresa, called the Urbarium, had granted the peasant the right of leaving the land when he pleased, or of remaining if he liked, while he complied with certain conditions; and by this act he was allowed to bequeath the use of his land to his descendants. Further, a right of appeal had been granted from his landlord's decision to the official court at Buda, known as the Statthalterei. By the same law the labour to be performed by the peasantry had been fixed, instead of being left to the will of the lord, as heretofore.

The reforms of Joseph II. had, like most of his attempts, been too vigorous to be lasting; but he had done enough to strengthen in the minds of the oppressed peasantry of Hungary the desire to look to the Emperor as their liberator. Thus the satisfaction of the claims of humanity had tended to weaken Constitutional freedom.

The bitter feeling between noble and peasant was illustrated most painfully in the year 1831, when an outbreak of cholera in Hungary was attributed by the peasantry to the poisoning of the wells by the nobles. Agrarian risings had followed, and more than fifty peasants had been hung without trial.

Such was the state of feeling when the Diet of 1832 met at Presburg. Had the leader of the movement for agrarian reform been a mere champion of Constitutionalism, the work of drawing together the peasant and noble might have been more difficult. But fortunately the work fell into the hands of a man who, though not deficient in powers of oratory, was far less a popular leader than a thoughtful and humane student of affairs. This was Francis Deak, then thirty years of age, trained, like so many leaders of the time, for the bar, and already known as a speaker in the County Assembly of Zala. He was not a man of the delicate, cultured type of Szechenyi; nor did he possess the commanding figure and lion voice of Wesselenyi. He was broad and sturdy in figure, his face was round and humorous, and his eye twinkled with fun. Yet he was not without a deep shade of melancholy. He was a man who inspired in all who came near him a sense of entire trust in his honesty and steadiness of purpose; and this feeling, though unlike the enthusiasm which is roused alike by the highest genius and by merely popular gifts, was yet exactly the form of confidence needed to enable Deak to do the special work which lay before him.

The question of the reform of the Urbarium he at once made his own. Besides the miseries of the peasantry above mentioned, they were continually exposed to all kinds of petty tyrannies. Their horses were liable to be seized by tourists through the country, and soldiers were billeted upon them. Deak demanded the extension to the peasant of the right of buying land, and better security for person and property.

But it soon became evident that, whatever exceptions there might be to the rule, the Magnates of Hungary were not prepared to surrender their privileges. The point which the reformers specially insisted on in the new Urbarium was a clause enabling the peasant to free himself from his feudal dues by a legal arrangement with the landlord. Thirteen times the Lower House of the Diet passed the clause; thirteen times the House of Magnates rejected it; and when at last that House consented to pass it, the Emperor vetoed it.

The reformers were now clearly justified in calling on the people to recognize them as their champions against both nobles and sovereign. But in order to prevent this recognition the Government had forbidden any publication of the debates.

Wesselenyi had met this difficulty in the Transylvanian Diet by introducing a private press of his own, with the help of which he circulated a report of the proceedings. This so alarmed the Government that they dissolved the Transylvanian Diet and established an absolute ruler in that province. Wesselenyi then transferred his eloquence to the House of Magnates in Presburg, where he thundered against the Government for opposing the liberties of the peasantry, denouncing them in the following words: "The Government sucks out the marrow of nine million of men (i.e., the peasantry); it will not allow us nobles to better their condition by legislative means; but, retaining them in their present state, it only waits its own time to exasperate them against us. Then it will come forward to rescue us. But woe to us! From freemen we shall be degraded to the state of slaves."

But the work which Wesselenyi had half done for Transylvania was to be carried out for Hungary more thoroughly by a man who had been gradually rising into note. This was Louis Kossuth, of whom it may be said that, more than any other man in Europe, he was the author of the Revolution of 1848. He was a few years older than Francis Deak, and, like him, was trained as a lawyer. He had been appointed, in the exercise of his profession, arbitrator between several wealthy proprietors and their dependants. In this position he gained the confidence of many of the peasantry, and he was also able to give them help in the time of the cholera.

He possessed a quick and keen sensibility, which was the source of many of his faults and of his virtues. A curious illustration of this quality is shown in his renunciation of field sports, in consequence of reading a passage in a Persian poet on the duty of humanity to all living things. No doubt it was to this sensibility that he owed a large part of that matchless eloquence which was to be so powerful an engine in the revolutionary war. It was connected, too, with the keen statesmanlike instinct which enabled him to see so often the right moment for particular lines of action; and which, had it been united with a wider sympathy, stronger nerves, and a more scrupulous conscience, might have made his career as useful as it was brilliant.

This instinct it was which enabled him to see at this crisis that nothing could be effected for Hungary until the work done in the Diet was better known to the main body of the people. The private press which he now started may have been suggested to him by Wesselenyi's attempt in Transylvania; but its work was carried out with an ingenuity and resourcefulness which were altogether Kossuth's own. The Government became so alarmed at this press that they wished to purchase it from him, but, wherever print was hindered, he circulated written correspondence. Nor did he confine his reporting to the debates in the Diet of Presburg, for he circulated also reports of the county meetings.

The Count Palatine, the chief ruler of Hungary, tried to hinder this work; but the county officials refused to sanction this prohibition, and thus deprived it of legal force.

The Government was now thoroughly roused; and in May, 1837, Kossuth was indicted for treason, arrested, and kept for two years in prison without any trial.

But great as was the indignation excited by this arrest, it was as nothing compared to the storm which was aroused by the prosecution and imprisonment of Wesselenyi. The Government had marked him out during the Transylvanian debates as an enemy who was to be struck on the first opportunity. The printing of the Transylvanian reports would have been followed very speedily by a prosecution, had he not escaped into North Hungary; but his speech against the Government in the Presburg Diet gave a new opportunity for attack.

The enthusiasm which his prominent position, impressive manner, and high rank had caused had been strengthened in Transylvania by the extreme personal kindness which he had shown towards his peasantry; and one of them walked all the way from Wesselenyi's Transylvanian estate to Vienna to petition, on his own behalf and that of one hundred fellow-peasants, that their landlord might be restored to them.

Had Francis been still on the throne, it is possible that Metternich would have offered further resistance to the popular demands. But Francis had died in 1835, the year before the closing of the Diet. His successor, Ferdinand, though, chiefly from physical causes, too weak to hold his own against Metternich, was a kindly, easy-tempered man, not without a sense that even kings ought to obey the law.

But whether Metternich or Ferdinand were to blame in the matter, the concessions of the King were made in a hesitating and grudging manner which took away their grace, and made the defeat more vividly apparent both to victors and spectators.

A more popular Chancellor of Hungary, Anton Mailath, was appointed; another member of the same family was made chief justice; and about the same time the Transylvanian Diet was restored. Hoping that he had now conciliated popular feeling, Metternich, in 1839, called together the Diet of Presburg and demanded four million florins and thirty-eight thousand recruits.

But the members of the Assembly had been instructed by their constituents to oppose any demands of the Government until Wesselenyi, Kossuth, and the members of a club who had been arrested at the same time, were liberated. And while Deak still led the opposition in the Lower House, Count Louis Batthyanyi came forward as the champion of freedom in the House of Magnates. Finally, the Emperor consented, not only to grant an amnesty to Wesselenyi, Kossuth, and others, but to pass that clause about the peasants' dues which he had vetoed in 1836. The Diet then voted the money, and was dissolved.

Thus, while in Italy a new faith was springing up which was to supply a force to the struggles for liberty that they had previously lacked, in Hungary the different, but hardly less effective, power of old traditions of Constitutional freedom was checking Metternich in his full career of tyranny, and forcing him to confess a defeat inflicted, not by foreign diplomatists, but by that very people who had rallied round Maria Theresa in her hour of danger, and who had sternly rejected the advances of Napoleon when he had invited them to separate their cause from that of the House of Austria.

CHAPTER IV.
LANGUAGE AND LEARNING AGAINST DESPOTISM. 1840-1846.

So sang Schiller; and, while in Germany the Muse was ascending to the heights in which Schiller gloried to see her, the opposite process had been producing opposite results under the rule of another German sovereign. Frederick II. of Prussia preferred bad French to the best utterances of his own country; and so the German Muse was free to develope in her own way. Joseph II. of Austria felt his heart warmed with the greatness of German traditions; he looked round on dominions inhabited by men of different races and languages, and, perceiving that these differences led to continual misunderstandings, and hindered any great work of common reform, resolved to extend the blessings of German language and literature to all the races of his dominions. To them, he thought, a change would prove a bond of union; while neither Bohemian, Hungarian, nor Croat could claim for their native tongues, however dear to them, such glorious associations and traditions as were already connected with the language which was to take their place.

The consequence of this nobly intended effort has been that German is, to this day, a badge of tyranny to the majority of the people of the western half of the Austrian Empire; and if it has almost ceased to be so in the eastern half, that is simply because its supremacy has been replaced by the no less crushing tyranny of another language which was offered to the various populations of the Hungarian kingdom by its rulers, as a symbol of national freedom and unity.

The spirit of literary independence in North Germany, and the rivalry of languages in the Austrian Empire, were both forcing themselves on the attention of the public during the period of Metternich's rule. To outward appearance there was no time at which the condition of Germany must have seemed more helpless and hopeless than between 1819 and 1840. The German insurrections of 1831 could not be compared for their historical importance with either the English reform movement of the same period, or with the Italian uprisings; nor for dramatic brilliancy with the Polish insurrection of 1830. Even the Hanoverian Constitution of 1833, which seemed to be firmly established, went down four years later without a sword being drawn in its defence; while the heavy burdens of the Carlsbad decrees of 1819 and the Frankfort decrees of 1832 were made still heavier in 1834 by a new Edict, passed at Vienna, establishing courts of arbitration, elected by members of the Bund, to decide questions at issue between sovereigns and parliaments. If the Assemblies, in defending their rights of taxation, should refuse to appeal to this Court, the sovereign might then proceed to levy, without further delay, the supplies which had been granted by the previous Assembly.

Yet Germany was not dead. Apart from the continual assertions of independence by the South German States, the growth of German literature was keeping alive the sense of union between the different parts of the nation. Stein, after his retirement from political affairs, had devoted himself to the encouragement of German literature, and particularly of German history. For this purpose he brought together historians from different parts of Germany; and Perthes, the bookseller, who had helped to defend Hamburg against the French, exerted himself to promote a book trade which was to unite the North and South of Germany. Occasionally, some prince, like the Duke of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, would show an inclination to play the part of the Duke of Weimar as a patron of literature, but could only call attention thereby to such life as still remained, not evoke any new life. The German Muse was still to thrive by her own labours, and the great proof of the existence of a still independent literary class was given in 1837, when the King of Hanover suppressed the Constitution which his predecessor had established.

On November 17th, 1837, seven professors of Göttingen University drew up against this act of tyranny a protest which so ably connected the feeling of the true literary man and the true teacher with that of the independent citizen that it deserves to be given at length. They said that the whole chance of the success of their work depended not more certainly on the scientific worth of their teaching than on their personal blamelessness. Should they appear before the young students as men who would play carelessly with their oaths, then at once the blessing of their work would be gone; and what importance could the oath of homage possibly have, if the King had received it from men who just before had audaciously violated another oath? This protest was signed by Dahlmann, Albrecht, Gervinus, the brothers Grimm, Weber, and Ewald. They were summarily dismissed from their offices by the King, who declared that he could buy professors anywhere for money, as easily as dancers. At once the greatest enthusiasm broke out in different parts of Germany. In Leipzig and Königsberg subscriptions were opened for the professors, and in twelve hours the Leipzigers had subscribed nearly 1,000 thalers. The subscription of Leipzig was followed by a public reception given to Albrecht and Dahlmann; an address was delivered in which the professors were told that the whole heart of the German people beat with them. The man who delivered this address, and who thus first made his appearance before the public, was the Leipzig bookseller, Robert Blum. In Saxony the Constitution which had been won in 1831 was still nominally in existence, and the Prime Minister was even called a Liberal. The Members of the Parliament hoped to seize this opportunity of putting Saxony forward as the champion of German rights; but the Government shrank from that position, and seemed disposed even to check the independent movement among the people.

Now in spite of the steady courage that had shown itself among the literary men of Germany, the bulk of the nation was still essentially monarchical, and they needed some king at the head of the movement for freedom and unity. However much of Liberalism might occasionally have been shown by some of the smaller princes of Germany, none of them were in a position to take the leading part in any common German movement. The Emperor of Austria, even had his policy tended in that direction, was hindered by his connection with non-German territories from assuming such a leadership. And the memories of 1813 gathered, if not round the King of Prussia, at least round his kingdom. The institution of the Zollverein formed one point of attraction between Prussia and the Liberals of Germany; the position of Prussia as the great Protestant Power strengthened her influence in Northern Germany; and just at the time when the King of Hanover was dismissing the professors of Göttingen, the King of Prussia was supporting at the University of Bonn professors whom the Archbishop of Cologne was trying to suppress. The prohibition of mixed marriages by the same Archbishop further excited Frederick William's opposition; and, unable to secure obedience by other methods, the King seized and imprisoned the Archbishop. An act of tyranny in the interests of liberty seems to commend itself more readily to Continental revolutionists than to those who have been bred up under the principle of mutual forbearance produced by Constitutional life; and there can be little doubt that much of the strongest part of North German feeling was enlisted on the side of the King of Prussia. But Frederick William III. was not a man to take the lead in anything. By the mere accident of his position he had become the figure-head of the rising of 1813; and by the same accident he continued to attract the wishes, one can hardly say the hopes, of those who desired to counteract in Germany the policy of Metternich. He could at no time have done much to help forward the unity of Germany; and he had long since abandoned any wish to work in that direction.

But while the excitement arising from the tyranny of the King of Hanover, and the struggle of the King of Prussia with the Archbishop of Cologne, were still distracting Germany, Frederick William III. died, and was succeeded by Frederick William IV. The new King was a man of somewhat poetical and enthusiastic temperament, with a strong religious bias, desirous in a way of the welfare of his people, and not ill disposed to play a Liberal part within due limits. He restored Arndt to his position at Bonn; he set free not only Jahn, but also the Archbishop of Cologne; he found a post for Dahlmann in the University of Bonn; and he began also to talk Constitutionalism in a way which roused new hopes in Germany. He inspired no confidence in those who looked more closely into matters; but his career began at a time when the Germans were in a state of eager expectation, which had been quickened by a movement already preparing in other parts of Germany. The first utterance of the new reformers was a protest against religious superstition. A Roman Catholic priest, named Ronge, denounced the famous worship of the Holy Coat at Treves. This protest attracted attention, and was followed by an attack on a number of other corruptions of the Roman Catholic Church. The movement spread; a reformed Catholic Church was founded in Posen and Silesia, and Ronge was appointed minister of the first congregation of the new faith.

It was in 1845 that the movement reached Saxony. Two years before, the Liberal Ministry had retired; a complete reaction had set in, and Robert Blum had been subjected to a fine and four weeks' imprisonment for an article in which he had advocated publicity of trial. Nothing daunted by this, Blum threw himself heartily into the new movement, and, although a Roman Catholic himself, denounced the practice of the confessional and the celibacy of the clergy. The Ultramontanes raised a riot in which Blum was personally attacked, and the Saxon Ministry declared their determination to put down "the sects." Such a threat naturally gave new force to the reformers, and they raised the cry, so often to be heard in the coming Liberal movements, of "Down with the Jesuits!" That unfortunate Society, so often the object of hatred both to kings and Peoples, was in this case specially obnoxious to the Liberals from the patronage which was extended to it by the heir to the throne. When the Prince appeared to review the troops at Leipzig he was received in silence, and when he had retired to his hotel the crowd gathered round it with cries of "Long live Ronge!" and "Down with the Jesuits!" accompanied by the singing of "Ein fester Burg ist unser Gott," and followed by songs of a different description. Stones soon began to fly. Then the soldiers were called out, they fired on the crowd, and many were killed.

On the following day the students of Leipzig gathered to hear an address from Robert Blum. He urged them to abstain from violence, but to put into form their demand for legal remedies; and for this purpose a committee was chosen. The following demands were laid before the Town Council—viz., that the preservation of order should be entrusted to the civic guard; that the soldiers should be removed from the town; that inquiries should be made into the circumstances of the riot, and a solemn burial given to those who had been shot. The Town Council yielded, and though the soldiers were soon sent back into Leipzig, a beginning had been made which might lead to a larger reform. Blum then founded a debating society; and, at the end of 1845, he was chosen representative of Leipzig in the Lower House of Saxony.

But while the national feeling of Germany was gathering round the intellectual leaders of that country, the feeling for national peculiarities and national language was producing widely different results in those countries where the unfortunate policy of Joseph II. had made the German language a symbol of division rather than of unity. The movement for substituting the Magyar language for the Latin (which had previously been customary in the Diet at Presburg) was the revival of a struggle which had begun in the very time of Joseph II.; and, had Hungary been a homogeneous country, the movement might have passed as naturally into a struggle for freedom as the enthusiasm for German poetry and German learning had chimed in with the desire for German political unity. But Hungary had never been a country of one race or of common aspirations. Several waves of conquest and colonization had passed over different parts of it, without ending, in any case, in that amalgamation between the different races which alone could secure national unity.

Yet it is just possible that, had the leadership of the Magyars fallen into the hands of a man of wider sympathies and more delicate feeling than Kossuth, an understanding might have been effected between the different peoples of Hungary. During the struggle against Joseph II., the other races seem to have submitted to the leadership of the Magyars, and to a great extent to have adopted the Magyar language, because it was not then thrust on them by force. But when, after the Diet of 1830, Hungary began to reawaken to the desire for liberty, signs of national feeling soon showed themselves among other races than the Magyars.

The first race who felt the new impulse were the Croats. They, more than any of the other peoples who had been annexed to the Kingdom of Hungary, had preserved their separate government and traditions of independence. In 1527 they offered the throne of Croatia to the Hapsburgs, without waiting for any decision by the Magyars; and when Charles VI. was submitting to the Powers of Europe and to the inhabitants of his different dominions the question of the Pragmatic Sanction, Croatia gave her decision quite independently of the Diet at Presburg.

But apart from her actual legal rights to independence, there remained a tradition of the old period when the Kingdom of Croatia had been an important Power in Europe, and had extended over Slavonia and Dalmatia. But these claims were not undisputed. The hold which Venice had gained over Dalmatia and Istria had introduced into those provinces an Italian element; and when, in the sixteenth century, the Serbs were called into Hungary in large numbers, Slavonia had developed a variety of the Slavonic tongue which must have weakened the absolute supremacy of the Croats. The sense, however, of a connection between the dialects of the different Slavonic States was a bond of union between those States which might at any time be drawn closer.

When, then, Szechenyi began to stir up the Magyars to develop their language and literature, it occurred to a Croatian poet to link together the different dialects of the Southern Slavs into one language. The Croatians had been so far in advance of their neighbours the Serbs that they had abandoned the Cyrillic alphabet, which had been introduced at the time of their first conversion to Christianity, and had adopted the ordinary Latin alphabet. But the Croatian dialect, by itself, would not have been accepted by the other Slavs; and the softer language and higher culture of the old Republic of Ragusa supplied a better basis for the development of the new language. Louis Gaj, the Croatian poet, had studied at the University of Leipzig, which seems to have been the centre of a good deal of Slavonic feeling; and he hoped to link together, not merely the three provinces of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia, but several, also, of the south-west provinces of Austria; and, on the other hand, he wished to draw into this bond of sympathy those Slavonic countries which still groaned under the Turkish yoke. It was necessary, however, to find a new name for a language which was a new combination of dialects. To call it the Croatian language would have implied a claim to superiority for Croatia which it was most desirable to avoid; and as none other of the Slavonic provinces could well be treated as the godmother of the new language, Gaj went back to the seventeenth century for a name.

At that period Leopold I. of Austria had granted special privileges to the Illyrian nation, and it was only in the eighteenth century that the Illyrian Chancellery at Vienna had been abolished. Here, then, was a name, recognized by Imperial authority in legal documents, and giving no superiority to any one of the Slavonic provinces over the others. To carry out his purposes, Gaj started a journal in 1835 to which at first he gave the name of the "Gazette of Croatia," but which he soon renamed the "National Gazette of Illyria." This newspaper was written in the new language, and the Hungarian authorities refused to sanction it. Nor were they the only opponents of the new movement. The Turkish Pasha in Bosnia was alarmed at the attempt to draw the subjects of the Sultan into closer alliance with the Slavs in Hungary; and he tried to persuade Francis that Gaj was attempting to shake the Imperial authority and found a separate kingdom. At the same time the Bishop of Agram warned the Pope of the evident tendency of this movement to give the upper hand to the members of the Greek Church, who formed the majority of the Southern Slavs, over the Roman Catholics of Croatia. But these efforts failed. Metternich saw in Gaj's movement an opportunity of weakening the Magyars; Francis sent a ring to Gaj, as a sign of his approval; and Gregory XVI. was so far from being influenced by the Bishop of Agram's appeal that he removed him from his see for having made it.

The fact that Francis had encouraged, and Metternich at all events not disapproved, this movement was enough to alarm the sensibilities of the Magyars; and when Gaj appeared in the Hungarian Diet of 1840, Deak rebuked him for his work. Gaj answered in words which became afterwards only too memorable. "The Magyars," he said, "are an island in the Slavonic ocean. I did not make the ocean, nor did I stir up its waves; but take care that they do not go over your heads and drown you." The words were certainly not conciliatory; but they had been provoked by the evident signs of hostility on the part of the Magyars. If the latter had been content to ignore the movement, it might have remained, for their time at least, a purely literary effort; or, if it had taken a political form, it might have drifted into union with the Bohemian struggle against German supremacy, or even into a crusade against the Turks. It is, however, more than probable that the attempt to found this new language would have been earlier abandoned had it not been for the opposition which it called forth. For Gaj, however zealous as a patriot, and however ingenious as a philologer, seems to have been deficient in the power of producing such a great work of imagination as that which enabled Dante to unite the not less diverse elements of the Italian language.

But the Magyar cry of alarm at the demands of the Slavs was now echoed by a fiercer voice than that of Deak. In 1841, the year after the dissolution of that Presburg Diet by which Metternich had been so signally defeated, Kossuth started a paper called the "Pesti Hirlap" (the Gazette of Pesth), which soon became at once the most determined champion of those liberties which Kossuth desired for his countrymen, and the bitterest opponent of those liberties which he grudged to the other races of Hungary. For it was not merely in provinces marked off from the Magyar world like Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia, that a movement like Gaj's would produce effect. The Slavs were scattered about in nearly all the districts of Hungary, and though they might not all desire separate political organizations like those which the Croats demanded, the question of the preservation of their language concerned even those who had no separate political existence; and they too resented any attempt on the part of the Magyars to substitute for it the language of the ruling race. Kossuth was as indignant at this hindrance to his schemes of national unity as Joseph II. had been at the hindrances which had been thrown in the way of the Germanizing of the Empire. The same year, 1841, which saw the starting of the journal in which Kossuth was to vindicate the liberties of Hungary against Metternich, was also the year in which he dealt his first decided blow against the liberties of the Slavonic races of Hungary. At a general convention of the Hungarian Protestants, he proposed that certain of the schools in which the Slavonic clergy studied physical science, and other branches of knowledge, should be deprived of these teachings, and that mere practice in writing sermons should be substituted. This proposal was defended on the ground that Slavonic gatherings, unless carefully limited, must be a source of danger to the country. Any one who ventured to defend the Slavonic cause at this meeting was howled down, and Kossuth's motion was carried.

Fierce attacks on the Slavs and their language now appeared in the "Pesti Hirlap," and Kossuth refused to insert the answers to these attacks. Count Zay, who had just been appointed chief inspector of the Protestant Congregations and Schools, openly announced in a public circular his determination to Magyarize the Slavs. The Slavonic speech, he said, would prevent the Slavs from being firm in the Protestant faith; and while they used that speech they would not be capable of freedom, and could not even be considered to have a proper share in humanity. The Magyarizing of the Slavs was the holiest duty of every genuine patriot of Hungary, every defender of freedom and intelligence, and every true subject of the Austrian House. Others accused the Slavs of offering sacrifices to their old deity Svatopluk; while that great bugbear, the fear of Russian influence, was pushed forward on every occasion. Slavonic hymns, previously sung in the churches, were prohibited; and Magyar preachers were thrust upon congregations who did not understand a word of the Magyar language.

It was while this bitter feeling was at its height that the elections began for the Diet of 1843 at Presburg, and for the Croatian Assembly at Agram. The Hungarian elections turned, to some extent, on the quarrel with the Slavs; but partly also on the question, which was now coming to the front, of the exemption of the so-called nobles of Hungary from taxation. These "nobles" were not confined to the great families who sat in the House of Magnates, but included all the freeholders of the country; and great injustice had arisen from the fact that the men who laid on the taxes were, in the main, not those who paid them. Szechenyi, as before mentioned, had tried to diminish this injustice; but the fiery methods of Kossuth, and the growing tendency to opposition to the Austrian rule, had alarmed Szechenyi; and he shrank more and more from the leaders of the popular movement. It was not, however, merely the extreme character of their aims, nor their rough-and-ready methods, which alienated him; it was also their growing injustice to the Slavs. Szechenyi, who had been so much the first in reviving an interest in Magyar language and literature, now came forward, as President of the Hungarian Academy, to denounce any step for spreading the Magyar language which could offend the Croats. On the other hand, the peasant nobles of Hungary protested fiercely against the attempt to deprive them of their exemption from taxation, and they gathered at the county meetings in a riotous manner, breaking, in one case, into the Hall of Election, with knives in their hands, and shouting, "Freedom for ever! We will not pay taxes."

This fierce intimidation on the part of the opponents of reform provoked reprisals from the reformers. And, where they were unable to hold their own by intimidation, they resorted to bribery. One protest was made against this defection from the true principles of liberty which was of vital importance to the future history of Hungary. The election of Zala county had ended once more in the return of Francis Deak; and the electors were gathered to hear the announcement of the election, when, to their dismay, Deak came forward and stated that, in consequence of the way in which the election had been conducted, he should refuse to sit as their representative. His friends pressed round him, some entreating him not to desert their cause; some even venturing to reproach him with cowardice in shrinking from the struggle. But he replied that, if he went to the Diet after this election, he should always "see bloodstains on his mandate." Thus, at a crisis when they most needed a man who would combine genuine popular feeling with moderation and justice, the reformers were deprived of the leader in the Lower House who possessed those qualities in the largest degree. As for Deak himself, it must be remembered that he was sacrificing the undoubted position of leader of the reforming party, at the time when its objects were becoming more and more definite, and its leadership was in consequence growing more attractive to a man of courage and patriotism. Though he was still to play a useful part in the coming struggles, it was of necessity a secondary one; and it was not till twenty-three years later that he was to resume the first place in the Hungarian national movement.

In the meantime the Croatian question had become more complicated by an element of internal division. In a district not far from Agram, there was established a complete settlement of Croatian "nobles," of a similar type to those who had been raising the cry against equal taxation in the Hungarian counties. These men claimed the right, much disputed by the other Croats, to attend the county meetings at Agram en masse, instead of returning representatives like other citizens. In this Diet of 1843, Count Jozipoviç, leader of this band of "nobles," asserted their right in a very imperious manner; and a fierce fight followed in the streets of Agram. Thus began a contest which extended, with various degrees of violence, over several years. The Croatian Assembly, however, at first attempted to place their claims in a moderate manner before the Magyars; and instructed Haulik, Bishop of Agram, to assure the Magyars of their desire to live on good terms with them, if they were secured in those rights which had been granted by law, and guaranteed by the oath of the King. They pointed out that many of them were ignorant of the Magyar language, and that the Magyars were in many cases ignorant of theirs. On the former ground they desired to maintain the right of their representatives to speak Latin in the Hungarian Diet. On the latter ground they objected to censors being appointed over the Croatian press, who were ignorant of the Croatian language. The former right was the first to be tested; for no sooner did the Croatian deputies begin, according to old custom, to speak Latin in the Diet of Presburg than they were interrupted by a clattering of sabres from the Magyar members, and a demand that they should speak in the Magyar language. Thereupon Jozipoviç saw an opportunity of making new friends for his cause; and, while he disputed the legality of the election of his opponents, he declared that he and his supporters were "body and soul Hungarian." Kossuth at once assumed the justice of the cause of Jozipoviç; and, while he was eagerly opposing the privileges of the nobles in Hungary, he thus supported in Croatia an aristocratic privilege of doubtful legality, and undoubtedly disorderly and unjust in its effects. The Magyars responded to Kossuth's appeal; and the Lower House of the Hungarian Diet passed a resolution forbidding the use of any language but Magyar in the Diet. The House of Magnates, doubtless under the influence of Szechenyi, were disposed to make concessions to the Croats; but even they were not able to do much to check the storm.

In the meantime the Emperor had been trying to exercise a moderating influence on these conflicts. Finding the bitterness caused in Hungary by Gaj's movement, Ferdinand prohibited the use of the name "Illyrian" in newspapers and in public discussions; but at the same time he promised to encourage the development of the Croatian language, and urged the Magyars to suspend for six years their prohibition of Latin in the Hungarian Diet. While, too, the Magyar language was to be used in Church boards and legal tribunals of Hungary, Hungarian officials were to accept Latin letters from Croatia and the other outlying districts that were united with Hungary. But these proposals, unfortunately, did not satisfy the feeling of the Magyars; and some of them actually ventured on the extraordinary statement that, if the Croat boards could understand letters written in the Magyar language, they must necessarily be able to compose Magyar letters in answer; and they maintained that the Croats ought not to be allowed to elect any members to the Diet who could not then speak the Magyar language.