LONGMAN BROWN, GREEN AND LONGMANS,

PATERNOSTER, ROW LONDON,

AND

C. W. FROMENT, BRUSSELS.

1855

203. d. 149.

PREFACE.

As a book of travelling adventure this little work is a sequel to "Servia, the Youngest Member of the European Family," but its politics are a sequel to the order of ideas developed in "The Goth and the Hun" and the "Highlands and Islands of the Adriatic." In short, I regard Austria and Turkey as the two local counterpoises to Russian ambition, and that the rest of the substitutes in vogue with various parties, such as Byzantine Empires, Debreczin Republics, German democracy of the Frankfort school, re-establishment of Poland by the efforts of the Polish emigration, etc., etc., to be bubble schemes, nay more pro-Russian, because they are anti-Turkish and antiAustrian.

This is as clear as day light.

The battle of Navarino led to the Russian invasion of 1828-9. The aggravated weakness of Turkey after this struggle, allowed Mohammed-Ali to send his troops right through Syria and Asia Minor to Kiutahia. The treaty of Unkiar Skelessi was the offspring of this combination of events. The treaties of 1838 and 1844 made things all right, but the Hungarian revolt having paralyzed

Austria as a sentinel on the Lower Danube, and compelled her in spite of the utmost reluctance to seek assistance of her natural rival; the door was again opened to Russian ambition on the Turkish frontier. We all know that the Ultra Magyar party did not mean to serve Russia. The blind mole that burrows its way through the levée of the Mississipi does not intend to submerge millions of

acres.

Austria and Turkey, however differing from each other in degrees of civilization, are realities; while the others are airy projects. If these two Empires had not been built up by the slow hand of centuries, and if they had not tenaciously resisted the efforts to pull them asunder, it would then be high time te seek other combinations. It is true

that Mr. Kossuth tells us that we are more in need of Hungary and of Poland thay they of us, and that we may find ourselves excluded from the guarantee of Continental liberalism against Russian ambition! Considering that Mr. Kossuth is a Slaav by birth, nationality, and even name, (Deer) - that of the Slaavic nations not one is in the enjoyment of constitutional liberty; considering that of the Saxon nations and cognate Scandinavians all are without a single exception in the enjoyment of this form of government, we stand aghast at the brilliant imagination of this original genius.

The great contrast between the Saxon nations of the West and the Slaavic of the East is, that the former developing a third Estate have preserved their independence, although constituting like Belgium, Holland, Denmark, etc., mere handfulls of men; while the national independence

of the larger masses of population in Poland and that polyglot region called Hungary (but really more Slaavic than Hun) has succumbed because they were jobbed by oligarchical cliques with whom the bulk of the people had no sympathy. This was the case with Poland and eminently so with Hungary from 1828 to 1848.

What then are we to think of the unthinking multitude who continue to heap upon the most accurate and conscientious observers of the nature of nations the terms

Advocate of absolutism", "Agent of the Continental Despots," " Enemy of the liberties of Poland," etc., etc.? Lord Aberdeen seems to be the especial butt of these assailants, and in my humble opinion a more thoroughly British Minister than this statesman never sat in our Cabinet. As far as my reading has gone, none of the profound thinkers and eminent writers of the various classic periods of our literature from Bacon to Burke has ever been carried away with the idea that our glorious constitution could be exported to all parts of the continent like an assortment of slop sellers wares; and if his Lordship thinks that our efforts and sympathies are utterly thrown away on nations to whom nature appears to have refused the stubborn perseverance to conquer their liberties or the discriminating moderation to retain them, he only pays the nobler homage to our own peculiar national qualities.

We have neither the rapid intelligence and charming exposition of the Frenchman; nor the recondite astuteness of the Slaav; nor the high sense of beauty of the Italian; our painting is good, but not great; our sculpture and music are null; our architecture is, with rare exceptions,