the Hungarian though connected with other tongues is not on that account less interesting. It is harmonious, rich, flexible, and admirably adapted for the natural eloquence of the people who speak it. Several literary and scientific journals are at present published in the country, historians and poets might be enumerated among the Hungarian writers. It is the ordinary language of the diet, the Austrians, it is true, wish to continue the Latin, which was supposed to be better understood by the German and Slavonian inhabitants. BOOK CIII. ment, po The nobles may be divided into two classes, the lords of Governextensive domains and others who cultivate their farms. litical inThe priesthood is composed of archbishops, bishops, abbots, deans and commendataries. The inhabitants of free and royal towns, privileged burghs, and the members of some petty corporations are represented. The body politic, or what is styled in the language of the diet, the Populus Hungaricus, is made up of these classes; they have the right of electing a king if the reigning family become extinct, and possess in common with their sovereign the power of making laws. All the taxes are regulated in the diets, which must be assembled every three years. The rest of the people or the Misera contribuens plebs pay imposts and enjoy aa, id.; aszoni, a woman; asynia, a goddess; alunni, to sleep; lugn, luun, tranquillity, repose; bor, wine; bior, beer; eg, heaven, eyglo, sun, (Iotic,) ey everlasting; elet, life; elem, I live; el, to beget; essa, rain; œse, to rain; elein, an elk, elend in German, els in Danish; estue, evening; sol-est, sunset in Jutlandic, (Normanno-Iotic;) fa, a tree; vallarfax, a forest; fæld, the earth; fold, id.; felse and fell, lofty; fiell, a mountain; feyer, white, fagr in Scandinavian, hence the English word fair; fekete, black; feigr and feikr, (Solarliod, str. 36;) feri, a man; fir, id.; (Edda :) hay, hair; haar, id.; had, war; had, hatred, a feud; hegy, a mountain; hoy, a hill; heves, warm; hver, a warm spring, (Islandic ;) hold, the moon; hvel, a wheel or circle; iol, good; iont, goodly, (Jut. ;) level, a leaf; lov, foliage; magas, high, great, magt, megin, power, &c.; menny, the heavens; manning, the ceiling, (Jut.;) nyak, the neck; nakke, id.; æsz, autumn; hæst, harvest; szarv, a horn; skaur, a peak, and skarp, sharp; ezulum, I speak; thula, a discourse, and thulr, an orator; tel, winter; tæl and tiela, land covered with ice; var, a strong castle; varde, a high and fortified station. Several German words, introduced into the Hungarian at a later period, are collected in the Mithridates of Adelung. 1 BOOK no political privileges. The monarch may make peace or CIII. war, but he must first hear the opinion of the nation; he Hungarian diet. can command the nobles to take up arms on any emergence, but every extraordinary contribution must be granted by the diet.* The king swears to maintain the constitution, and signs the diploma of king Andrew, but protests against the article which renders it lawful for the Hungarians to have recourse to arms, if their privileges be infringed.t The sovereign is obliged to confirm the decisions of the judicial courts, and it is unlawful for him to punish or impose a penalty on any individual, unless he be legally tried. He must defend the kingdom against every hostile invasion, and restore such of its ancient provinces as may be gained by the chance of war; in short Hungary is an independent and mixed monarchy. The Hungarian diet consists of two chambers or tables. The peers and the clergy are the members of the one, the deputies of the 52 counties or varmegyes, and the representatives of the free towns sit in the other. Each county sends two members to the diet, and they are elected by the nobles. The absent peers avail themselves of an ancient abuse, and send substitutes who represent them in the lower house. The diet is divided into four classes or orders, the members vote in the class to which they belong, and all questions are carried or rejected in each order by a majority. The deputies must act conformably to the instructions of their constituents. The different classes in the nation enjoy different privileges. The noble, as citizen of the state, may possess land in any part of the kingdom, but the burgess, as citizen of a town, can only acquire heritable property within the jurisdiction of a burgh. When the heirs male of a domain are extinct, it returns to the crown, but so long as these heirs remain, any of them, like the manorial lords in Nor Diploma granted by Leopold, art. 13. Articles of 1608, art. 2. CIII. way, can buy back the land sold by their ancestors at the BOOK price given for it; thus the improvement of agriculture and the circulation of capital are impeded by an absurd law of the northern states. The nobles cannot be arrested without the warrant of a judge, and then only for capital crimes. They are exempt from every ordinary contribution, and are the only class in the kingdom eligible to every office in the state. adminis The government of the provinces is in a great measure Provincial independent of the crown. Thirteen palatines or ispans tration. possess their dignities by hereditary right, and those who hold the highest offices in the counties, are elected and paid by the provincial congregations or assemblies. The towns have their municipal privileges and supreme courts. Every office must be filled by a native, foreigners can only be naturalized by the diet. of the pea The Hungarian peasants, the descendants of wandering Condition shepherds cultivated the ground and retained their free-sants. dom; they might quit the land of one lord and settle in the domain of another, that privilege was confirmed by many enactments, but personal and perpetual servitude was the punishment inflicted on the revolted peasantry. Frequent opportunities were not wanting of enforcing the law and increasing the number of bondsmen on the estates of the nobles during the rebellions in the reign of Uladislaus. The great majority of the country people remained however in the condition of hired labourers or farmers. Many entered into contracts by which they agreed to till the ground, some for their maintenance, others for a stipulated sum, and it was unlawful for them to leave the land until the advances made by the proprietors had been paid, nor could they be turned out of their farms until they were indemnified for their labour. Thus the dependence was reciprocal, and the peasants in different countries of Europe were exposed to privations unknown to the servants or tenantry of an upright Hungarian landlord. "Jus liberæ emigrationis." Decrees of Sigismond, 1405, Ferdinand the First in 1541 and 1550, Maximilian the First in 1566. Urbarium. But it frequently happened that the contracts were incorCIII. rectly interpreted from the vague manner in which the mutual obligations were specified. The labour, which according to this system supersedes monied rent, is regulated and determined in the Urbarium, a rural code published under the auspices of Mary Theresa in 1764. Personal servitude was abolished by a decree of Joseph the II. in 1795, and the diet re-established under Leopold in the exercise of its privileges, ratified generously all the enactments, of which the object was to protect the peasantry, or to better their condition. It did not sanction the right of acquiring heritable property granted to every Hungarian by Joseph the II., much less did it agree to equalise the imposts on all the lands. "These differences," said the nobles, "constitute our privileges, they may be taken away from any amongst us guilty of a capital crime, but what crime have we committed? The kingdom of Hungary is as independent of Austria, as Hanover is of England. We obey no emperor, Joseph the II. is not our king, he has not taken the oaths, he has not been crowned, he is an usurper."* Such were the respectful remonstrances that the philosophic despot heard on his death-bed, he revoked his decrees, abolished his reforms, and gave up his plan in despair. But the nation, now in the full possession of all its prerogatives, may perhaps consider the evil consequences of a system by which lauded property is exclusively confined to nobles or state-citizens; it may at last learn how much the value of land and its products has been increased in other countries where the husbandmen enjoy civil rights, and have a greater interest in the fields that they labour. The nobles boast of imitating the English, and it can hardly be supposed that the abuses committed by their stewards, the vexatious oppression of village justices, and the arbitrary exactions of tax collectors, are concealed from them. It is certain that the rights and * Schlætzer, Stuats Auzeigen, vol. XIV. p. 121, XV. 336, &c. CIII. privileges which place them so high above all their neigh- BOOK bours, might be rendered more durable, if they were extended to every order of the community. be The Hungarians are in possession of religious liberty, Religious more than a half of the population profess the catholic faith, liberty. and the dignitaries of that church enjoy many valuable political rights; places are assigned to them in the diets, and they are considered in these assemblies the great pillars of the court party. The archbishop of Gran possesses an annual revenue of £30,000; the metropolitan of Kolocza has not more than a seventh part of that sum. The income of the bishop of Erlau is about £20,000, the see of GrossWaradin is worth nearly £8400, and the average annual value of the dioceses is from £4000 to £4200. It may easily believed that the first families in the country canvass for these offices. A king passed a law by which the bishopric of Erlau was set apart for the fourth son of the reigning prince. Many bishops are governors of the provinces in which they reside, and others possess monopolies on wine and salt. But although the catholic clergy have so many advantages, they are not actuated by Christian charity towards the other sects. Enemies of religious freedom, they oppose every privilege claimed by heretics; but it must not be imagined that they are sufficiently powerful to oppress them, or destroy their lawful rights. The Protestants are mostly Calvinists; among those of that persuasion are many noble families, and the doctrines of the Genevese reformer are preached in every part of the kingdom. The Lutheran creed is chiefly confined to the miners and German artisans, and exists in all the rigour of the sixteenth century. The Lutheran ministers cannot conceal their animosity against the Calvinistic preachers. The Catholic party avails itself of their strifes and contentions, and the remonstrances of Protestants to the diet are as numerous and ineffectual as the Catholic petitions that are presented to the British parliament. It is evident from the sermons of the priests, the diocesan charges and the public edicts of |