f Siberia, where he has been kept a prisoner all
these years by the Russians!

The language of the Magyars was heard not in poetry alone, but in the
sternest prose. "Hungary is not, but Hungary shall be," said Count
Szechcnyi. The men who worked out this problem were politicians,
writers, and orators. Foremost among them may be reckoned Baron Eoetvos,
one of the most liberal-minded and enlightened thinkers of the day. His
efforts were specially directed to improving the education of all
classes of the community. With this end and aim he worked unceasingly.
He held the post of Minister of Cultus and Education in the first
independent Hungarian Ministry in 1848, but withdrew in consequence of
political differences with his colleagues. Again in 1867 he held the
same _porte-feuille_ under Count Andrassy, but died in 1870 universally
regretted. His best known literary productions arc two novels, 'The
Carthusian' and 'The Village Notary,' The latter highly-interesting,
indeed dramatic story, may be recommended to any one who desires to know
what really were the sufferings entailed upon the peasantry under the
old system of forced labour. It is one of those fictions which, as old
Walter Savage Landor used to say, "are more true than fact." It was the
'Uncle Tom's Cabin' of that day, and of the cause he had at heart--the
abolition of serfdom. In reading this most thrilling story, one can
understand the evil times that gave birth to the terrible saying of the
peasant, "that a lord is a lord, even in hell."

Yet it was the nobles themselves who abolished at one sweep all the
privileges of their order. It was by their unanimous consent that the
manumission of nearly eight millions of serfs was granted, at the same
time converting the feudal holdings of some 500,000 families into
absolute freeholds.

In Hungary it would appear that public opinion is generously receptive
of new impulses, and in this particular the Hungarians resemble us, as
they claim to do in many things, calling themselves "the English of the
East."

"It is curious," said Baroness B---- to me one day, "that with all our
respect for British institutions, and everything that is English, that
we fail to copy their straight good sense. We have too many talkers, too
few workers. We are not yet a money-making nation; we have no idea of
serious work, and our spirit for business is not yet developed. Almost
all industrial or commercial enterprises are in the hands of