seven _vayvods_,
or hereditary chiefs; but the experience of discord and weakness
recommended the more simple and vigorous administration of a single
person. The sceptre, which had been declined by the modest Lebedias,
was granted to the birth or merit of Almus and his son Arpad, and the
authority of the supreme khan of the Chazars confirmed the engagement of
the prince and people; of the people to obey his commands, of the prince
to consult their happiness and glory.

With this narrative we might be reasonably content, if the penetration
of modern learning had not opened a new and larger prospect of the
antiquities of nations. The Hungarian language stands alone, and as it
were insulated, among the Sclavonian dialects; but it bears a close
and clear affinity to the idioms of the Fennic race, of an obsolete and
savage race, which formerly occupied the northern regions of Asia and
Europe. The genuine appellation of _Ugri_ or _Igours_ is found on the
western confines of China; their migration to the banks of the Irtish is
attested by Tartar evidence; a similar name and language are detected in
the southern parts of Siberia; and the remains of the Fennic tribes
are widely, though thinly scattered from the sources of the Oby to the
shores of Lapland. The consanguinity of the Hungarians and Laplanders
would display the powerful energy of climate on the children of a
common parent; the lively contrast between the bold adventurers who are
intoxicated with the wines of the Danube, and the wretched fugitives
who are immersed beneath the snows of the polar circle. Arms and freedom
have ever been the ruling, though too often the unsuccessful, passion of
the Hungarians, who are endowed by nature with a vigorous constitution
of soul and body. Extreme cold has diminished the stature and congealed
the faculties of the Laplanders; and the arctic tribes, alone among
the sons of men, are ignorant of war, and unconscious of human blood; a
happy ignorance, if reason and virtue were the guardians of their peace!

Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.--Part II.

It is the observation of the Imperial author of the Tactics, that all
the Scythian hordes resembled each other in their pastoral and military
life, that they all practised the same means of subsistence, and
employed the same instruments of destruction. But he adds, that the two
nations of Bulgarians and Hungarians were superior to their brethren,
and s