was exhibited by Magyars to appreciative foreigners.
The general tendency of those years after the Italian disaster was
unfavourable to the Slav. In southern Hungary the Serbian duchy was
dissolved, despite their protests, after an existence of eleven years.
But as Francis Joseph was no longer able to bestow caresses on the
recreant Italians he transferred his love to the Dalmatian
autonomists, who now began to call themselves the Italian party. It
is probable that he smiled on these 21/2 per cent. of the province,
not only because of his family traditions, his leaning towards Italian
art and the hope against hope that he would once more some day rule in
Italy, where he had his numerous well-wishers among the clergy and the
rural population--it is possible that he was gracious to the
autonomist Dalmatian party because they were a brake upon the national
sentiments. Until 1866 the whole administration was conducted in the
language of the 21/2 per cent. In that year the Ministers of Justice
and of the Interior decided to ask officials who thenceforward entered
the Dalmatian service to have some sort of knowledge of the Illyrian
language. In 1869 these Ministers permitted the Dalmatian communities
to correspond in their own language with the tribunals and the
administrative authorities; while in 1887 the administrative
authorities and the tribunals were ordered to reply in Serbo-Croat to
the local bodies who used that language. The autonomist party may not
appeal to us and apparently it did not appeal to Nicolo Tommaseo. From
wherever he is he must be looking on with interest at a controversy
between two Italian writers who both published books on Dalmatia in
1915 and who bear witness--Mr. Cippico to the truth that Tommaseo was
an autonomist and Mr. Prezzolini to the truth that he was not. "The
theory of Tommaseo," says Mr. Cippico, "desires an autonomous Dalmatia
between the mountains and the sea." "Go to!" says Mr. Prezzolini.
"Have the kindness to read what the man writes. Here is a passage:
'Whatever one may say about it, it will not be Croatia, a poor
country, lacking in civilization, _but the opulent Slav provinces
subject to Turkey_ and morally less in subjection than Croatia, which,
when they and Dalmatia are united, will make her wealthy and the
mother of civilization and wealth. Destiny therefore lays it down that
Dalmatia in the days to come shall be the friend and not the subject
of Italy.' Tommaseo showed in 1