clamation, I must say resembles to my mind far too much, the few deadly words the mysterious judges of the Heilige Vehme used, in the middle ages, to affix to trees in dark forest-carrefours, announcing the execution of a sentence; or those by which the Spanish bandit of our days informs the traveller that at such a spot, beneath such a wooden cross sleeps a murdered man. It wants the solemnity of justice, the deep mournful gravity by which alone so dread an act as the taking of human life ought to be accompanied. The death of Batthyanyi is fearful as is that of Zichy-all such deaths are horrible, and stand foremost amongst the desolations of civil war; but if ever death was merited for treason (I lay a peculiar stress upon the word if)-it was so in the case of Count Batthyanyi, for the consequences of his treason had been the ruin of a whole nation.* That treason is : * The circumstances put forth in the act of condemnation should not be forgotten the letter of the 17th of September to Pulszky, in Vienna, sending him money "to create sympathies for the Hungarians;" the fact of his (Batthyanyi's) having come from Vienna to Edenburg in the night of the 5th or 6th of October, and having, in the latter place, observed to the witnesses, who deposed upon his trial, that it had cost him considerable trouble to get the Viennese well peppered" (bis Sie aufgepfeffert worden). All this, coupled with the fact of his having, on the 7th of October, announced to a friend the death of Latour in these words: "The rascal, Latour, is already hung; now our affairs are looking up in a crime harshly dealt with even in these countries, which evince the liveliest sympathies for the traitors of other lands, history will amply show,-we in England need look no further than Lord Edward Fitzgerald-but that treason, being a crime calling for the last rigours of the law, Batthyanyi should have been spared, is an impossible assumption. Be it as it may, it is always horrible, and these are the dread necessities which constitute the peculiar awfulness of civil war; but that he who is forced by duty to condemn is much less to be pitied than he who is condemned is what I cannot admit. We should be guarded in denying a duty merely because it is a sterner one than we could ourselves fulfil. Hungary!" should be borne in mind, and treason may scarcely seem to be the worst of Batthyanyi's crimes. CHAPTER XV. ANARCHY AND ABSOLUTISM-THE CZAR AND If there ever was a time in which it was necessary to understand clearly the meaning of each expression, it is the present; such a vast abuse has been made of words, speech has been so misused for the worst ends and vilest purposes that the sense of uncultivated, discourse-stunned populations, has been bewildered and perverted, and they have been made to obey dictates, the meaning of which they did not even comprehend. "Progress," Liberty," "Equality," and a hundred others, are words that have turned to flame; and with the cry of "fraternity," thousands have butchered one another. One of the most renowned of European statesmen related to me the following anecdote: Being one day in company with an English Secretary of State, the latter asked him what his opinion was of Jellacic. "He is a prodigious rascal," was the reply, "a most consummate and dangerous rascal (the interrogator stared as he listened). A Jew, with all the defects of the race; if he is not hung already, he will inevitably be so one day!" "That is your opinion of Jellacic ?" asked the astounded Englishman-" of the Ban ?" "Of whom ?" retorted his interlocutor, with considerable anxiety; and upon the name of the Ban being repeated "The Ban is a hero, and has saved the whole Austrian monarchy," said he. "I had understood Jellinek instead of Jellacic, and thought you wished to receive information upon the score of a man who, as I told you, is an undeniable rascal ;-Le tout est de s'entendre," continued the celebrated statesman, as he related the circumstance; "and if it had not been for a mere chance, Lord * might have remained convinced I had said one thing, when I had said another." Le tout est de s'entendre! it is indeed all. With the word Revolution you may frighten out of their wits any given number of narrow-minded, shortwitted, grave politicians, hommes sérieux, as the French call them, who look upon government as a kind of treadmill, and go on tramp, tramp, and stump, stumping along, as though they were condemned by the hour to this monotonous work. They turn and turn till they grow muzzy, and as with unskilled waltzers, the only resource against giddiness, would be a turn in the contrary sense; but upon this, they will not venture. Now, Revolution in its true sense, is nothing more than this: A turn in the sense contrary to that in which you have hitherto been turning; and it ought always, to have any beneficial effects, to come from the superior and guiding power, which alone is capable of turning without overturning. Our present reading of the word Revolution is an utterly false one; what we decorate with the name is the victory of anarchy, the endeavour to overthrow. This misapprehension of terms would not much signify, and it would be of small consequence whether Proudhon and Co. were delivered over to public execration and contempt under the name of Revolutionists, or under any other, if that false fright of the misinterpreted word Revolution did not lead to such grievous errors on the part of those whose province it is to govern and to guide. The greatest Revolution (in its real sense) of our age is perhaps the Constitution of the 4th of March in Austria. Some of its details may lay it open to discussion, the manner adopted by such and such a particular ministry in executing these points of detail may be thought unadvised, blameable even-but the Constitution itself does not the less, on that account, |