to time and place, to men and circumstances, bitterly must his true heart have felt and deplored this wound so prepared and so struck. His reception by the emperor, the deep concealment, on every side, of the hostile edict, the friendly advances of the archduke and archduchess, the selection of the Archduke John as the mediator, all these matters taken together showed how little he could in future count on such a government, how little it was intended that their mandates should be respected or obeyed. The Ban was silent, but not so the Croatian Diet. They bore not the wrong with the same meekness or humility. In bold but just phrase, they represented to the emperor their veneration and love for their chief, their grief at the injury which had been perpetrated against him. In his wounds they had been wounded: in his interests their interests had been sacrificed. Their allegiance and union with the empire still remained unshaken, but they asked how was it that while the light of freedom had arisen over every other land in the empire, they alone should be bowed down under the yoke of a foreign dominion. To Hungary and Hungarian intrigue they traced this edict, and in proportion to their attachment to the Ban, was their indignation at such interference." These sentiments were re-echoed by the troops along the frontier. They were the sentiments indeed of the whole nation.

Under these circumstances, the Ban considered himself justified in paying no regard to the Imperial edict. He knew how unreal it was in every respect, and trusted to future events for his justification. He returned at once to Agra, where he was met with unbounded enthusiasm, and so far from retiring into a private capacity, as was intended, he employed to the utmost every means which his official position gave him, redoubled every exertion, took every measure to put the country in a state of defence, to win still more the confidence of his compatriots, to rouse and prepare for the uncompromising maintenance of their nationality. Neither the mandate of the sovereign nor the Austrian and German press (then by no means favourable), nor the fierce denunciations of the Magyar orators and writers, neither private intrigue nor public attack had any effect in diverting him from this purpose. No longer confined to Croatia, he journeyed through all Sclavonia, and everywhere found the same reception, everywhere the same determination to support and defend him in the coming emergency.

Events soon proved how just and wise were these precautions. So far from visiting this contumacy with chastisement, the court of Vienna found itself reduced to try other means for the accomplishment of its purpose. It was thought that by mutual explanations an arrangement might still be devised acceptable to both, and sufficient to tranquillise these angry elements. A conference was proposed to take place at Vienna. Bathyany, the Hungarian minister, was there; Jellachlich was invited to meet him-he acceded ;-his reception in the Imperial capital was encouraging; immense multitudes came out to meet him. He had scarcely reached the Badener Bahnhof, when cries resounded on every side, "Where is Jellachlich ?" During his stay in the city his residence in the Kärnthnerstrass was surrounded by crowds of admirers. The officers of the garrison honoured him on the 29th of July with a serenade and a "Fackelzug." Nor had the slight interruption attempted by the Hungarian party any other effect than to furnish him with an opportu

nity of addressing the Viennese from his window, in a speech terminating with these words :-"My cause is the cause of honour; therefore am I ready to lay before you frankly all my feelings and intentions. I am no foe to the noble Hungarian nation, but to those only who, hurried on by their separation tendencies, for their own selfish ends would rend Hungary from Austria, and thus render both weak. I, my brothers, I wish a great, a strong, a powerful, a free, an undivided Austria. Long live our beautiful fatherland! and long live Germany !"

Notwithstanding these demonstrations, the conference of Vienna produced no peaceful result. It was soon obvious that all compromise was impracticable. Jellachlich did not indeed require the political separation of the Sclavonian Border territories from the Hungarian united kingdom, but he did require a due recognition of the national and local interests of the Sclavonian races, and in that view the suppression of the Hungarian ministries of war and finance, which by establishing an altogether independent action of the Magyar element, left the Sclavonic more or less at its mercy; in a word, he demanded the surrender of that independence which had been set up by Hungary since March, 1848, and a re-entrance into the relations of the other provinces of the Austrian monarchy.

This, as may be easily imagined, was resisted with no less obstinacy by the Hungarian minister. In a country which aimed at total separation, and had accomplished it in part, it was a question of life and death. The negotiations were broken off-the Hungarians, on their side, in greater difficulty than ever, with their position exposed through the apathy of the imperial troops: Jellachlich on his more than ever conscious of his advantages, hastened respectively to make immediate preparations for war. Notwithstanding the two battalions sent from each of the frontier regiments to Italy, he had still left in each district from 4000 to 5000 volunteers. "With God! and be heroes!" was the old cry of departure of the Borderers, whenever the emperor called them to join his standard in war "With God, and be

heroes!" arose from the sick and the sound, the young and old. "With God, and be heroes! -our women and children will guard our borders from the Turks ;" greeted him on every side. Croatia and Sclavonia imposed, and submitted to the heaviest burthens: as by the stroke of a magician's wand, arms, artillery, provisions, magazine stores, sprung up in profusion-none of the munitions of war were wanting. This was attributed at the time to the secret aid of the Austrian minister of war: it may be doubted whether he then contributed any thing beyond sympathy; later, indeed, determination and success may have attracted or compelled such aid. Such indeed was the whole policy of this vacillating cabinet; following events instead of guiding them, determined by temporary expediency instead of eternal justice, to friend and foe equally dissimulative, attempting to keep together the fragments of the empire, and every day infusing new solvents calculated to loosen and divide.

Jellachlich had now completed his arrangements. With the fervent support of his own Croatians, and the warm wishes of many Austrian regiments, and no very determined opposition on the part even of the Hungarians themselves, armed at every point, he stood ready to pass the frontier of Hungary.

Civil war was imminent; a few still looked (they were very few) to the mediation or control of the emperor. In this crisis, on the 4th of September, 1848, appeared in the Agramer Zeitung, an imperial edict in open recantation of all former measures on the subject, restoring the Ban to all his public honours and functions, in recognition "of his wise and patriotic services!" But this, too, was without the signature of an Hungarian minister. It thus looked little less than a formal declaration of war against Hungary. It was so interpreted. The ferment, the consternation it produced is well known. An Hungarian deputation hastened to Schönbrun; it was received, but none but the most evasive answers returned. The court would enter into no explanation, no discussion, until the Kossuth ministry had been dismissed. This was complied with. A Bathyany ministry was formed--but to no purpose; the old Kossuth spirit still breathed through it. Neither the court nor Jellachlich gained by the alteration. New complications succeeded. The Archduke Stephen had at first attempted, in quality of viceroy, to conduct affairs; this he soon found to be impossible; a semi-provisional government, a species of Kossuth and Szemere dictatorship was appointed; it had given way to the Bathyany ministry, and this now had failed. In the meantime the dangers which threatened Hungary every day increased. Jellachlich had already passed the Drave on the morning of the 11th of September, with the main body of his army, and was now advancing towards the capital.

The "Landwehr" was called out, and the very same Diet which had refused the archduke more extensive powers, now called on him to do his duty as Palatine, and to place himself at the head of the insurrection. For a moment he hesitated, and appeared disposed to take the command of the troops, but, on the 17th of September, instead of appearing, as was expected, at their head, he escaped to Vienna, on the plea of making one more effort for conciliation. This last link with the court being broken, Hungary now stood in open revolt. Every exertion was made, but the means and chances were unequal. The national guard, the army of the Drave, were for the most part composed of raw recruits; a feeble force against the 30,000 or 40,000 men of Jellachlich, who now stood at Great Kanisa ready to strike the decisive blow.

But in this moment of suspense, Vienna gave a new direction to events, the flight of the emperor to Olmütz, left little doubt what course it was now intended to pursue. The rural population had never forgotten their traditional attachment to the House of Hapsburg, and the emperor still maintains something in all his weakness of that good natured homeliness, which smoothened down with the peasant so much of the harsher form of absolutism in the time of his predecessors. On the way they crowded out from the villages with song and shout to meet their Kaiser. Woe to the "Studiosus" who on that day dared to show himself with red cap or red handkerchief, albeit of the national guard, amongst them.

At Egginburg the whole neighbourhood gathered round the Imperial carriage. The emperor had way made for them, and addressed them in the old paternal tone of Kaiser Franz-" Children! what I've promised I'll keep. Robott, Tithes, and all those other matters have ceased. I've sanctioned and signed it, and so it shall remain. Your emperor gives you his word for it, and you may believe your emperor. I mean well towards you, but in Vienna there are people who do not mean well towards me, and who wish to seduce you. As I can no longer help myself, I must, un

fortunately, send military amongst them to make them act better," &c., &c.* These words were received with more applause than would have been the most studied oration. The old spoke of the late "blessed" emperor, and the women hung out "schwärz-gelbe" handkerchiefs, the imperial colours. The Austrian peasant is conservative, and looks with something akin to detestation on the unintelligible theories and wild uproar of the towns. So long as he is allowed to reap what he sows, the patriotism of the Aula appears to him incomprehensible. The court saw enough to convince it, that it could rely on the country, in case of any measure against the towns; no aid could come to them from that quarter: no landsturm cry would be obeyed. The movements of Windisch-Grätz and Jellachlich were now safe.

And day after day, closer and closer drew the lines,-move after move, until tower and pawn were shut in by bishop, king, and knight; and the issue of the great game no longer appeared doubtful. Few sieges in modern times have been so fraught with the wild and wayward; with huge and harsh contrasts of men and things. A sovereign with outstretched arm and uplifted sword over his own capital; his Parliament sitting within its walls; his subjects within, as without, protesting allegiance; without, as within, proclaiming freedom;-resisting in despite of their allegiance the still constitutional head of the state; in despite of their protestations in favour of liberty, ready to crush it ;-nationalities of all kinds (even Hungary has several) under new banners, the very opposite to those under which they had at first set out. "Deutschthum" in alliance with "Sclaventhum;" Sclaventhum at variance with itself, witness the letter of the Ban to his Bohemian brethren, and their expostulations in answer from Prague,-surely there were never joined in more tangled web so many and such various views and passions. At night might be heard on the Rother-Thurm bastion the bivouac of the Windisch-Grätz grenadiers chanting, with might and main, in the Leopoldstadt near,"Was ist der Deutschen Vaterland?" whilst the university "Fuchslied," "Was kommt dort von der Höh'," was converted into a "Soldaten-Lied" for the occasion, and every now and then the burthen, -"Vom ledernen Jellachlich," mixed jovially with Sclavonic lay and music, the Aula imitated ludicrously and fantastically by the camp.

The day long certain, though long delayed, at last arrived, and the short pregnant telegraphic despatch, "The Imperial troops are in possession of the City," told all. With them entered Jellachlich-not into a conquered, as many hold, but into a liberated town. It looked as if the capital had drawn in by some singular convulsion the blood from the extremities to the heart. All its far off and heterogeneous elements were that day pressed together, visibly represented, written down in broad and flaring line and colour, in its streets: strange sights, uncouth sounds: the many-handed and party-coloured power, there for the first time selfconscious, actual and acting in one narrow sphere. Jellachlich entered, but not before he had driven back the Hungarians from the frontier,

:

The very words of the emperor, if we are to trust the report:-"Kinder was ich versprochen hab' das halt' ich; Robott, Zehend, und das andere hat aufgehört; ich hab's sanctionirt, unterschrieben und dabei bleibt's eure Kaiser gibt euch sein Wort darauf, und glaubt's dem Kaiser; ich mein's gut mit euch ; aber in Wien gieb's Leut' die's nicht gut mit mir meinen, und die euch auch verführen wollen: und da kann ich mir nicht helfen ich wird leider Militär hinschicken müssen,” u. s. w.

which he had passed in defiance of the people as he had sat at the "Bantafel," at Agram in defiance of the sovereign, in obedience as he held it to a higher order and wiser policy than that of either. At three o'clock on 2nd of November, he entered at the head of a regiment of Cuirassiers preceded by a division of the Sereschener corps-a wild and fierce mass, the famous "Red Mantles." Red caps, red cloaks, with dagger, and pistol, eastern-wise in belt, carbine, or rifle, or sabre in hand; never saw I," says an eye-witness, "a set of more thorough-looking bandits, in the whole course of my life." And in the midst of these, amongst them, but not of them, rode the Ban, in his gray hussar cloak-a noble-looking personage of right gallant and knightly bearing. No sooner had he passed the Burgthor than salutations and vivats greeted him on every side; handkerchiefs waved from fair hands, men joined their shouts ; while with that courtly and joyous grace which has always distinguished him, he returned the compliments with bows to the windows above, and with responding cheers to the crowds below. "Blushes of burning shame," says one, who stood near him, "flushed up my cheek at the sight, familiar as I was with the versatility of the people and taught not then for the first time to despise them."

Yet there was some excuse for all this, both in those who knew the man, and in those who for the first time beheld him irrespective of all cause and purpose for which he came. No harsh deeds of blood, no reckless squandering of human life, no brutal trampling on the rights and fruits of civilisation have been laid to his charge. He seems taken from the bosom of its most favored recesses, not to rouse or urge on barbarous hordes to the destruction of its glories, but to guide and control them as far as he can. He bears even in his externals the indications of this refinement. Jellachlich is scarcely of the middle size, not coarsely, but muscularly built, a man more of moral than physical power. His high and clear forehead, bald nearly of hair; his black, keen, and easily kindled eye, a grave yet friendly expression of countenance, but above all a singularly gentle melancholy about the mouth, mark a man in whom very opposite elements are favourably blended. Those best acquainted with his habitual existence, bear testimony to the accuracy with which these physical characteristics express the moral man. Kindliness and sociability are interwoven in his whole nature, always ready with word and deed, always equal, always accessible, he throws unreservedly his heart and door open to every sorrow, every wrong. Eager for all action, intellectual as well as bodily, distinguished as a statesman, not unknown as a writer, he is a stranger to no department, but his paramount, his true vocation is war. In character and conduct noble, of the most chivalrous valour and honour, generous, liberal, a true son, an ardent lover of his country, a soldier, poet, patriot combined, master not of the arms only but of the inmost hearts of his countrymen, he seems to stand out from the general mass of historic personages of our day, as destined to perform not merely a romantic, but a great part, in the history of a mighty futurity. And to this, not his own will alone may lead him, but the very necessities by which as by Greek fate, or Mahomedan fatalism, he seems to be borne on. "Vienna is in the hands of the Imperial troops," is not the whole of this history: the epoch closes not here. Who will say that the rude expression of the Frankfort orator-" The Austrian empire is a blackyellow lie" (eine schwarzgelbe lüge)-be false or true! Who will say, that it is a heap of fragments, or an incorporation of states? Who will