Ireland. He is ready to bear his testimony to the fidelity of my description of what we saw in our tour. He is ready to declare, I have in no way exaggerated the treatment of the poor, either within or without the workhouse.

"It is now more than ever clear to me, that there is an idea, with some foundation, that the smiles of those in authority are not to be obtained by trying to check the groans of those who are the victims of want, of famine, of tyranny."

CHAPTER VI.

No such sentiment, as that suggested by the Rev. Mr. Osborne can be attributed to the Austrian Government. It is a Government which, beyond all other things, desires to promote the happiness and secure the comforts of the poor and the industrial classes; and, amidst all the convulsions to which it has been exposed, its strength, its stability, and its recuperative power have been found in the affectionate, well-merited loyalty of the poor. The very contrary of

that which we have called and shown to be "the liberal system of government,"is"the Austrian system of government;" for the main object with its most eminent statesmen has been, to exercise the power they hold for the benefit of the industrial classes-to guard them, save them, and protect them, from the exactions and oppressions of their immediate superiors; to take care that neither those who in some countries are called "nobility," and in most countries are recognized as the bourgeoisie, or "middle classes," shall grow rich by spoliating and defrauding the working men ; that the superior classes, whether nobility or bourgeoisie, shall not be permitted to maltreat them, or to live in luxury at their expense.

The Austrian Government has, in no part of its wideextended empire, done that which has been done by the English "liberal party" in Ireland, and in every one of the British colonies, it has no where fomented the formation of an Orange faction. On the contrary, wherever the Aus

* Letter of the Hon. and Rev. S. G. Osborne in the Times, May 15th, 1851.

trian discovers such a faction, he does his utmost to control, to check, to discounteract, and, if possible, to suppress it. Thus acting, the Austrian has incurred the hatred of all such factions, both at home and abroad; and thus acting, he has won the love and secured the affection of the poorer classes. Hence we have seen, when emperors bowed down before the footstool of Napoleon, and kings waited in his ante-chamber, that war was declared against him by-a peasant! The gallant Hofer, impelled by his affection for him who was called "our good Emperor Francis," * laid down his life and testified by his blood the attachment of the Tyrolese peasantry to the house of Hapsburg.

In the course of the last few years, the Austrian empire has had to contend against three rebellions-in Galicia, in Italy, and in Hungary. In all the enemies of the Austrian were the dominant races or class; and in all the allies of the Austrian were the inferior race, or the poorer classes.

The rebels in Galicia were the Polish nobility; and that rebellion was extinguished in their own blood-that blood being shed by their own peasantry: the peasantry being galled by the merciless exactions practised upon them,† and well aware, that their only chance of protection against greater cruelties-cruelties and atrocities such as were enacted against their fathers, when Poland was "free !"-resolved to put to death those who were for consigning them again to the heavy bonds, which Austria could not, at once, unloose, but had done its utmost to lighten. We seek not to justify nor to paliate "the sanguinary events in Galicia ;"

* "Gott erhalte Franz, den Kaiser

Unsern guten Kaiser Franz."

Such was the National Anthem of the Austrians. See SPENCER S Germany and the Germans, vol. ii., p. 161.

"In Moravia," says Mr. Blackwell, writing to Lord Ponsonby, February 29th, 1848, "the commutation" (of the Roboth)" is going on very rapidly, and preliminary measures have been adopted in Bohemia for effecting it. The landlords, since the sanguinary events of Galicia, having become aware of the imminent danger in which they will be placed, should the system be delayed much longer." Correspondence relative to the affairs of Hungary, p. 22. In the same letter, and in the same page, the writer complains of the Hungarian legislators, those who afterwards claimed to themselves the character of patriots, wasting three months before they appointed a committee to devise the means of putting an end to this exaction on the peasantry. See also p. 10, in same correspondence, where the massacres of Galicia are attributed to the fact, that "the peasantry were compelled, by law, to work for their landlords."

but this we mean to affirm from an examination into all the circumstances connected with it, that have come to our knowledge, that never was a man more wronged than Prince Metternich, by the charges circulated against him at the time, of having directly, or indirectly fomented or encouraged the cruel vengeance taken by the peasantry upon the Polish nobility.* It was their own misdeedsand the fear of a renewal of their fathers' crime against the peasant class, that brought the sword and the torch of the peasant to their own homes; for when Poland was "an independent nation," the peasantry remembered what were the privileges of the nobles, and what the degradation of the peasantry.

"The third order of the republic of Poland," (observes a writer in the seventeenth century) "is that of the nobility, who are only capable of possessing all the offices and lands, both of the dutchy and the kingdom. For all the peasantry are slaves, and the burghers of towns and cities are only looked upon as tradesmen, who can possess, at most, but some houses in the cities, and the lands about a league around them.

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A Polish gentleman cannot be arrested for any crime whatever, unless he be first convicted by justice-nisi jure victus.

* *

"Every gentleman in Poland is, by law, the absolute and despotic master of the peasantry that live in his territory, and may put them to death when he pleases. * It happens sometimes, that the gentlemen kill their peasants, either when they are drunk, or irritated by some brutal passion, to which young men are oftentimes subject. As to the wives and daughters of these miserable wretches

But here, we pause. We have stated enough to shew that the apprehension of a successful rebellion of the Galician nobility against Austria, and that rebellion, if successful, casting the peasantry back into the power of a despotic nobility, were motives sufficient to excite the

*The writer feels bound to make this acknowledgment respecting Prince Metternich, having, on a former occasion, written in doubt as to whether this passage, in the administration of his highness, could be explained. See Dublin Review, No. xlix. p. 57.

An account of Poland, by Mons. Hanteville, translated into English, pp. 113, 116, 118. (London, 1698.) "In Poland," says Rousseau, "the nobles are every thing, the burghers nothing, and the peasants less than nothing."

peasantry against those who would rob them of all that man holds dear, even though that spoliation was perpetrated in the name of " Liberty!" and of "National Independence!"

But turning from Polish Galicia, we must cast our eyes for a few moments upon the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom of Austria. This subject is one peculiarly difficult to be treated upon, because it is one, which is like to the treatment of the Roman Catholic religion in every description of English literature—that is, a subject, on which the most astute, ingenious, and accomplished minds have exhausted themselves in the fabrications of perverse falsehoods; and in which there seems to have been a diabolical delight experienced in the distortion of facts, and the concealment of truth; and, strange to say, in which the circulation of the sacred scriptures, even by English fanatics, has been converted into an ally of the foul projects of deists, and the withering efforts of Atheists.* Never was there an observation more just than that which the Quarterly Review has made, when discussing the affairs of Italy, it observes as to the organs of the Italian "Liberals :"

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The best excuse for all that the Italians have done, or have failed to do, is to be found in the deliberate, systematic deceptions of their utterly unprincipled and profli gate newspapers."+

One fact cannot, however, be concealed by the Italian "Liberals;" for the dates stand in the records of time to convict them of baseness and ingratitude, namely, that all which they had previously been asking for from their Austrian rulers was granted to them, before they rose in violent revolt. They were, by two proclamations from the Emperor, issued on the 15th of March, 1848, summoned to Vienna, in common with the other States of the empire, to devise those measures, which might be for the particular advantage of each, and the common weal of all: the per

*See Westminster Review, vol. xliv. pp. 325-357, in which the labours of the Bible Society are identified with the aspirations of the infidels of "Young Italy," even though the temporal power of the Pope is admitted to have been "a power protective of the spirit of the democracy, and of the municipal franchises."-p. 329. The secret machinations for many years of the Infidels against the Roman Pontiff will be found fully traced out in MILEY'S History of the Papal States, vol. iii. pp. 590-655. (London, 1850.)

+ Quarterly Review, vol. lxxxiii. p. 569,

fect freedom of the press was conceded to them: they were allowed to enrol themselves as a national guard ; and they were assured they should have secured to them " a Constitutional government." And what says an eyewitness of the scenes in Vienna that followed upon those proclamations?

"Italians and Hungarians clasped Germans to their hearts."*

Italians and Hungarians clasped Germans to their hearts! and then used the weapons confided to them to ruin the empire of their generous sovereign!!!

The rebellion of the Italians followed fast upon the concessions made to them. Milan and Venice were speedily in the power of the insurgents, and they had to support them, one of the finest armies ever commanded by a native king of Italy. The perfidy of Charles Albert com- . pelled the retreat for a time of the veteran and accomplished marshal of Austria. Why, then, was not the Italian revolt crowned with success? Venice was held by the able soldier Pepe. Lombardy was occupied by the army of the king of Sardinia: the "Liberals" had attained all that they desired; but one thing was wanting to them -the hearts of the people. The peasantry-the workingclasses all the men in the humbler ranks of life, who had been benefitted, and who had prospered under the paternal sway of Austria were, for the moment, in that condition which Portugal has been now for many years-deprived by force of arms of the rulers they loved, and of the system of government they preferred.† In order that we may judge of the feelings of the peasantry and of the industrial classes, let us see what were the complaints made against the Austrian government of Prince Metternich, by the Liberals of Italy. We pray our readers, and especially our

"Die Italiener und Ungarn druckten die Deutschen an's Herz." -Oestreich's Befreiungstage, p. 40. (Vienna, 1848.)

A general of the Piedmontese army, in the invasion of Lombardy gives this testimony as to the feelings of the population in favour of their Austrian rulers: "In questa spedizione ci tocco osservare come quelle popolazioni siano fredde e poco o nulla animate a favore della causa Italiana, inclinando forse piu verso il Tedesco, che sempre per Io addietro cerco possibilmente di favoreggiarle."-BAVA, Relazione delle operazioni militari, nel 1848, p. 56, as quoted in Quarterly Review, vol. lxxxvi. p. 511, see also p. 514.