language as the first necessity of their position. In his time it meant
breaking down the barrier which separated classes. He was the first in
the Chamber of Magnates who spoke in the tongue understood by the
people; hitherto Latin had been the language of the Chambers. With the
exception of a group of poets--Varosmazty, Petoefy, Kolcsey, and the
brothers Kisfaludy--there were hardly any writers who employed their
native language in literature or science. Count Szechenyi set the
fashion, he wrote his political works in Hungarian, and what was more,
assisted in establishing a national theatre.

There is perhaps no place where Shakespeare is so often given as at the
Hungarian theatre at Buda-Pest, and it is said by competent judges that
their translation of our great poet is unequalled in any language,
German not excepted.

To a foreigner the Hungarian tongue appears very difficult, because of
its isolated character and its striking difference from any other
European language. In Cox's 'Travels in Sweden,' published in the last
century, he mentions that Sainovits, a learned Jesuit, a native of
Hungary, who had gone to Lapland to observe the transit of Venus in
1775, remarked that the Hungarian and Lapland idioms were the same; and
he further stated that many words were identical. As a Turanian
language, Hungarian has also an alliance with the Turkish as well as the
Finnish; but there are only six and a half millions of Magyars who speak
the language, and by no possibility can it be adopted by any other
peoples.

For their men of letters it is an undeniable misfortune to have so
restricted a public; a translated work is never quite the same. The
question of language must also limit the choice of professors in the
higher schools and at the university. But political grievances are mixed
up with the language question, and of those I will not speak now, while
I am still in Saxonland, where they do not love the Magyar or anything
belonging to him.

Returning to the itinerary of my route, I left Herrmannstadt very early
one morning, getting to Fogaras by four o'clock; it was about
forty-seven miles of good road. This little town is celebrated for the
cultivation of tobacco. There is a large inn here, which looked
promising from the outside, but that was all; it had no _inside_ to
speak of--no food, no stable-boy, nothing. After foraging about I got
something to eat with great difficulty, and feeling much disgusted with
my