their money, with their blood. The dominion of such an oligarchy made Hungary of necessity weak. She was obliged to receive Austrian troops to defend her against the Turk. To receive Austrian troops for defence, was to allow Austria to violate every engagement to yield her Hungary as a conquered country. Austria was careful that Hungary should acquire no new strength from within by internal progress. She was not less careful that the Sclavonic races on the one side, or the Turk upon the other, should always be strong enough to keep Hungary dependent on her for protection. None of the former aristocratic revolts-made almost entirely in the interest of a class-could eventually succeed. The nobles betrayed each other. The high-born informer revelled at Vienna in Court favour, and shone with the spoils of other magnates, who had not been speedy enough in securing their own pardon by similar treachery. The debased and imbruted peasantry scarcely knew which master was the worse, the native or the foreign.

But when last the nation rose up, those great reforms had been secured which gave to every class a social position worth defending to the very death. Feudalism had given place to a constitutional system kindred with our own, and abreast with the wants of the time. Equalized taxation, a responsible government, a more adequate representation, a free press,-these were the practical objects for which Kossuth and the liberal party had now contended with success. No Red-Republican theories, no fanatical daydreams these -as the Times (that plausible tool of Austrian despotism) would have persuaded men. The Austrian Cabinet, with characteristic falsehood, assured the Hungarians that it disowned the Sclavonic outbreak under Jellachich, while it was secretly authorizing that chieftain to ravage Hungary with fire and sword. But against the Croat, and against the Austrian, Hungarian patriotism prevailed. Surrounded by foes, yet superior to them all, Hungary succumbed only to the hosts of Russia.

What Napoleon said of the diplomacy of Metternich is true of the Hapsburg system, from first to last:-'Metternich mistakes

intrigue for policy; he forgets that a lie does not deceive twice.' The Hungarians will not a second time believe the solemn promises of Austria. They will not a second time hesitate to attack Vienna. The Sclavonic principalities will not a second time assist to enslave Hungary-to be themselves the next victims. Austria has every reason to fear the future in Italy. She has offended her Russian allies without conciliating her own dependencies. Prussia now

refuses to promise her assistance, should Austria be threatened by a revolt in the southern peninsula. Austria, it seems, retaliates by declaring that she would not succour Prussia, should France assail the Rhenish provinces. But Prussia would be unharmed by Austrian losses in the south; while Austria is scarcely less concerned than Prussia, should France encroach upon the Rhine. Meanwhile the Concordat not only gives to Rome what even a Ferdinand II. would have refused, it justifies all the complaints of Sardinia as to the nature of Austrian occupation in Italy. It is true that since

1848, the returning wave of despotism, both in church and state, has apparently overwhelmed every former sign of promise, and reduced the continent to a subservience more hopeless than before. The demands of the Papacy, after lying in comparative abeyance, till many began to think that enlightenment had reached at last infallibility itself, have now assumed a port of insolence that revives the memory of Gregory VII. and of Innocent III. The Immaculate Conception made absolute as doctrine; England invaded by territorial titles; and Austria yielded up without reserve; these are the movements which show that the old idea of universal supremacy at Rome is active yet, as hateful, as audacious as ever. But it may reasonably be doubted whether the gain is not more apparent than real. If Rome is stronger than ever at Vienna, she is weaker than ever at Turin. From the south of the Alps rises a voice of impeachment against her rule. France and England applaud. Even Russia listens. As Prussia has relapsed toward absolutism, she has relapsed also into insignificance. Sardinia has thrust her aside. Austria is but at the beginning of her troubles. Her exchequer empty, her

protector alienated, her social abuses intensified by the absolutist reaction, well may she tremble as the cloud thickens towards the south. Our brief survey of her policy has shown how vain was the expectation, from such a power, of any honest adherence to either party in the recent struggle. Her obstinacy in the worst selfishness of oppression has rendered her hopelessly feeble. Her feebleness has made her mean. At home, the tree has been cut down, but the fruit has vanished in its fall. Abroad, after attempting to deceive all, she discovers that by all she has been detected. The succession of petty expedients is not an infinite series. It cannot much farther be prolonged. As the last variety of artifice becomes exhausted, it will be more apparent than ever that Austria is equally wanting in the power to persist in wrong, and in the disposition to abandon it.

FRENCH ROMANCES OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.*

IF

F Merlin were to appear to some lover of the old romances, and should offer to show him any proof of his magic art which he might choose to ask, we can suppose our student of the Middle Age to reply somewhat thus:- Have the kindness, then, my good sir, to build me a palace of Romance, with a succession of courts appropriated to the different species, or cycles, of romantic tales. Let there be an Armorican court, a German, a Carlovingian, a Classical, and an Oriental. Let each court be fitted up with pictures and statues of the scenes and personages most conspicuous in its particular province of fiction. But, above all, provide me, in every court, with an enchanted chair of such virtue that whenever I sit down in it and close my eyes, I shall see pass, and mingle, as in a dream, the heroes and the heroines, the giants and the dragons, the fairies and the dwarfs, of Celtic, Norman, or Teutonic romance.'

For the brain of a Merlin nothing is too fantastical: for his power, nothing too arduous. Imagine the palace built, therefore, like Aladdin's, in a single night. Let us also suppose, reader, that we have the privilege of entrance. Indeed, any one will be admitted

* Nouvelles Françoises en Prose du XIIIe Siècle, publiées d'après les manuscrits, avec une Introduction et des Notes. Par MM. L. MOLAND et C. D'HÉRICAULT. A Paris: Chez P. Jannet, Libraire. 1856.

French Prose Romances of the Thirteenth Century, edited from MSS. by MM. L. MOLAND and C. D'HÉRICAULT, with an Introduction and Notes. Jannet. (Bibliothèque Elzevérienne.) Paris. 1856.

who can produce, as token, a feather from the wing of a certain bird of Paradise called Fancy.

We enter the Armorican, or Celtic court, devoted to the legends of Brittany and Wales. There, in the centre, is the famous 'Table Round;' on the wall above hangs, on the one side, King Arthur's sword Excalibur; on the other, a picture of Sir Percival's vision, wherein appeared to him the two ladies riding, one on a lion, the other on a serpent. In yonder corner the lance that struck the dolorous stroke' leans against the wall. The mantle of black, and white, and red, and grey, that was all made of king's beards, hangs over a casque; and, suspended on a dinted breast-plate, you see the huge hunting-horn of ivory which the knight of the Red Lands used to hang upon his oak to be blown by all challengers.

You sit down in the magic chair and dream yourself away into the vanished world of fable and adventure. There are King Arthur and his knights jousting in the meadow by Camelot. Sir Galahad, who has just achieved the adventures of the 'perilous siege,' is breaking spears marvellously, so that all men have wonder of him. Next arises Sir Launcelot's castle of the Garde Joyeuse, whither he welcomes Sir Tristrem and the belle Ysonde with great rejoicings. Presently, it is King Arthur whom you see, on a solitary adventure, watching with amazement 'the questing beast,' in whose belly is heard a crying as of thirty couple of hounds; or it is Sir Beaumains who comes to the land of the black hawthorn and the black banner, and vanquishes the black Knight, the lord thereof; or Sir Percival and Sir Ector, having nearly slain each other, are recovered by the passing by of the Sangreal, with its marvellous sweetness and healing savour. At last, those sad times come when there is ill blood between King Arthur and Sir Launcelot, when the traitor, Sir Mordred, draws away the people of England, when Sir Gawaine is killed in the last great battle of Barren Down, and King Arthur, left alone with Sir Bedivere beside the lake, is carried by the weeping queens to the vale of Avalon. It is time now to awake.

We enter next the German court, and are surrounded by Teutonic