sonal interest her conduct was grounded. But she was then the only commonwealth in the possession of fixed institutions. Not because, as modern theoretical writers, entirely mistaking the genius and meaning of antiquity, have repeated after Cicero (who had in his eye a supposed analogy between Lacedæmon and Rome), her government was balanced between three powers; but because it was conducted by the bravest, most numerous, and most exclusive oligarchy of the ancient world; which subsisted, therefore, long after other similar bodies had perished, and declined at last by gradual decay. Hence her foreign policy was direct and uniform. The ties of affinity-of superstition-of friendship, or Xenia, were far stronger before the Persian war (as Herodotus shows in almost every page of his earlier books), between commonwealths and rulers, than any community of political principles. Thus tyrants in one state might assist the banished oligarchs of another; democracy might lend its aid to reinstate a foreign tyrant. Sparta had no such external relations; her kings and citizens remained apart, unconnected with the rest of the Grecian world. Had it not been the property of the same constitution, which directed all her energies towards external aggrandizement to arrest them invariably at a certain point in her progress, she might at this epoch have united the continent under her sovereignty.

The developement of the free institutions, which rose on the ruin of the tyrannies, in those states which were destined to play the most important part of Grecian history, will afford a wider and more attractive field of enquiry when Mr Thirlwall has arrived at that point of his labours. Before proceeding thus far, he has, we presume, one more very interesting chapter in those annals to illustrate; the colonization, namely, of Asia Minor, Italy, and Sicily by the Greeks, on which he has as yet touched only incidentally. The notice which we have taken of the first and introductory portion of a work intended to reach five volumes may, perhaps, be thought somewhat premature. But knowing, by every day's disappointing experience, the length of time which we have to wait for the continuation of a valuable book when published in the modern encyclopædic form, we thought it best to hazard a few remarks, while it is yet fresh in the minds of its readers, on this able and philosophical performance.

ART. VI.-A Steam Voyage down the Danube; with Sketches of Hungary, Wallachia, Servia, and Turkey. By MICHAEL J. QUIN, Author of a Visit to Spain.' 2 vols. 8vo. London: 1835.

THI HE patriotic exertions of Count Szechenyi have conferred upon Hungary the great benefit of steam navigation. Nothing was so much wanted by that fertile and extensive country, as an opening for her commerce into the Black Sea, and among the provinces themselves; and although the difficulties of the navigation in the lower part of the Danube present formidable obstacles to the completion of the design, these are yet in the course of being overcome, while the advantages of an easy and expeditious internal communication have been already secured. It is natural for us, therefore, to feel great obligations to Mr Quin, who has given, in the volumes before us, an account of the first tour that has been made in those parts since this important change took place; and although the rapidity with which he performed his voyage-a rapidity necessarily incident to the mode of conveyance-prevented him from collecting all, or nearly all, the information which it would be desirable to possess regarding the countries he passed through, we can yet venture to assure our readers that his book contains a variety of particulars both interesting and amusing; that it presents the picture of an able, well-instructed, and amiable mind; and that even those who may be the most sensible of its deficiencies (none, we believe, are more likely to feel them than the modest author), will bestow their time not unprofitably or unpleasingly in the perusal of it. Mr Quin is already advantageously known as the author of an able work respecting his visit to Spain in 1823. Of this we spoke favourably at the time of its publication; and although he seemed then to labour under some bias of prejudice as to the constitutional cause, we did justice to the fairness which he showed in treating controverted matters, and marked the love of liberty which seemed natural to him. It is very satisfactory to find that ten years' longer acquaintance with mankind has not deadened but animated the same noble sentiments: and we find throughout the present work an ardent sympathy with his fellow-creatures, and zeal for the best interests of mankind, accompanied by the correlative of such dispositions,—a steady hatred of oppression, and a determination fearlessly to speak the truth of the highest that practice it.

Mr Quin embarked at Pesth, the chief city of Hungary, though

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not its seat of government, on the 24th September, 1834. plan is mentioned by him as now in agitation, for erecting a stone bridge over the Danube, to connect this city with the opposite one of Buda; and it is part of the proposal that the toll or pontage shall be levied indiscriminately on all. This is justly represented as an important step towards improving the Hungarian constitution-for the nobles there, as in most countries where the feudal aristocracy continues unreformed, are exempt from all direct taxation, and even from customs and passage dues in the military districts. The government is indeed, in one respect, eminently a free one. The power of the crown is in theory limited more than in any country in Europe, we cannot except England itself; for the viceroy is chosen by the Diet or parliament, jointly with the king; the right of taking arms against him used to be, till the middle of the last century, solemnly acknowledged by the sovereign in his coronation oath, and he is not by law counted as king until he is crowned; although Joseph II. contrived to evade this crowning, as he also illegally removed the regalia to Vienna, and thereby threw the Hungarians into rebellion. But all the restrictions are in favour of the nobility; the inferior classes having little more consideration than they had in our own Magna Charta. It is indeed a singular circumstance, that the two subjects forbidden to be discussed at the Diet, are the hereditary right of the house of Austria, and the exemption of the nobility from all taxation. Against which aristocratic form of government, we must, in fairness, set one important fact, -the vast numbers of the nobles. In fact, every person above the rank of a day-labourer in the country, is noble-and many are of this class who labour for their daily bread. The inhabitants of the towns are those whom the distinctions most oppress, and against whom they cannot but exist. The government, therefore, though in one sense aristocratic, seems practically to be so only in the sense in which our own comes under this description. No man who ever sits in our House of Commons-in fact no man who could aspire to a seat there would in Hungary be other than noble; for the nobility there would comprehend a vast number more, and go a great way lower, than all persons with us who are in respectable circumstances. Indeed, in another respect, our constitution is far more aristocratic than theirs; if by aristocracy be meant the preponderance of a limited number of the higher orders in any country. Aristocratic power with us is confined to four or five hundred families, who really do form an oligarchy, while in Hungary it belongs perhaps to forty or fifty thousand. We are now, moreover, speaking of our government as it is since the change in 1831 and 1832, which put an end to the absolute

supremacy before enjoyed by our nobles. The remarks which we have now made are intended to supply what our author has omitted respecting the Hungarian government. He gives little or no information about it, which is the more to be regretted, as his intimacy with the most distinguished leader of the patriotic party. Count Szechenyi, placed every thing of this description easily within his reach.

Our author has a variable success in his descriptions-for sometimes nothing can be more picturesque, because lively and natural, but occasionally this is far from being their characteras when he recounts how the Stars were shining in the blue ocean of the sky like so many islands of fire, the moon had just ' risen above the margin of the horizon, between two of those 'beauteous worlds, and though divested of half her light, flung 'a long pathway of silver on the surface of the Danube.'-I. 34.

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In the steam-boat he found as his fellow-passengers about a hundred Tyrolese emigrants, under the care of an intelligent physician, proceeding to settle in one of the mining districts of Lower Hungary. He also met a gentleman of figure and talents returning from the Diet, and of him we have the following particulars :—

Finding my companions at supper, I was very glad to join them. They were in the midst of Hungarian politics, two of them being deputies on their way home from the Diet. I have seldom met a more engaging person than the Count Pwho appeared to have taken an active part in the business of the legislature. He was inexhaustible in anecdotes about his fellow-deputies, and the mode in which the national affairs were carried on. Eloquent, cheerful, offhand, and thoroughly conversant with human nature, he often placed the most serious things in a ridiculous point of view, which kept the table in roars of laughter. His features beamed with benevolence, and I was not surprised afterwards to learn that, in his own country of Presburg, where he has ample possessions, he is universally beloved. He had frequently the goodness to explain to me in Latin the political parts of his conversation. He said that the Diet was the mere image of what it ought to be according to the ancient constitution of the country. Many of the deputies were determined on eventually effecting a reform, but from motives of personal respect for the then reigning emperor, they would take no steps during his lifetime. Under a new sovereign, however, they would certainly insist upon the restoration of the Hungarian constitution. I had more than once occasion to remark, that politics were by no means forbidden topics in this country: they are in fact as freely spoken of as in France or England. No notice is ever taken by the authorities of this liberty of speech; I have heard even the authorities themselves discuss public questions without the slightest reserve. The freedom thus generally enjoyed must be founded not only on custom, which cannot be

changed, but upon a sense of inherent strength with which it might be dangerous to tamper.'-Pp. 35, 36, 37.

The account of the Hungarian nobles, which he gives on the authority of an English groom, settled as servant to one of them, we shall not extract, because we are quite confident our author has been grossly deceived by his informant. It is enough to state that this description answers to a country wholly without police, and in which rapine and violence, to property as to person, prevails universally, with as little check from the laws as in the heart of the American woods, or the African deserts. Now, whatever may be said of the Austrian yoke in so many other respects, this, at least, has always been confessed, that in return for its oppressions, and indeed its extinction of all political rights, it does confer upon its subjects the inestimable blessings of a strict though mild, quiet and regular police. Not to mention that we in vain search the narratives of other travellers, for any thing like the account here given by Mr Quin. The most singular, and indeed mysterious personage whom he fell in with in his whole tour is thus described :

He was from Moldavia. He had been in the Russian service during the late war with Turkey, but in what capacity I could never satisfactorily discover. I suspect he was a spy. He spoke German, French, and Italian fluently. He wore a blue frock-coat, which probably had served him during the said war, as it could boast of only a part of one button, and two very unequal skirts, remaining in any thing like decent condition. The rest of the garment was covered with grease. A pair of old black stuff trowsers patched at the knees, in a most unworkmanlike manner, rent and not patched in other parts indescribable, and vilely tattered at the extremities, together with a ghost of a black waistcoat, a cast-off military cap, and wretched boots, offered an apology for a better suit, which he said he had at home. His shirt was also in the list of absentees! He had lost the half of one of his thumbs, the other was wrapped in a bandage. He had not shaved for three weeks-he certainly could not have washed either his hands or his face for three months, and a comb had probably not passed through his hair for three years. To crown his personal peculiarities, he had a very red nose, on the top of which was perched a pair of spectacles.

Nevertheless, with all these strong objections against him-so strong, that I wonder my friend Captain Cozier had not thrown him overboardthere was something about this man which seemed to have actually fascinated a rather genteel youth, who was constantly at his side, and to have already secured him the devotion of a miscellaneous group of Austrian soldiers and their wives, pedlars, and artisans, who occupied mats and sheepskins on deck. With the sailors he was quite a favourite. He whistled well, he sung well, and passed off every thing in a " devil-maycare" kind of way, which gained him admirers. A charlatan at a French fair-a romance reader at the mole of Naples-could not possess more