THE LATE BARONESS VON BECK.

THE following notice of the Baroness Von Beck was written before the tragedy of her life closed, by one of the saddest catastrophes that ever darkened the last hours of an exile. During the last few intervening weeks, in most circles, from that of the absolutism which rules the Austrian thunder of the " Times," to that of the sheep-minded innocence which follows the dictation of the press of the privileged classes, the name of this heart-broken woman has been a byeword for deceit. Without knowing anything more of her than her eloquent little book and the public prints have told, we have throughout believed her true; for, in our humble judgment, the evidence of a genuine soul which breathes from her pages, is the best refutation of the calumnies under the pressure of which she has perished. England owes something more to Hungary than the common debt of a free to an oppressed nation, were it for nothing else than that England has persecuted this brave creature to death. Can we tell the simple incidents of the story without indignant shame?

After months of the life (alas! for that life!) of an exile in London, the Baroness Von Beck, in September of this year, came to Birmingham, seeking subscriptions (what other way for genius, exiled and poor, is there left?) for a forthcoming work of hers. She was there arrested as an impostor, taken to be examined before a police magistrate, and dropped down dead in the police office.

Not for the wealth of worlds would we exchange feelings with those who hunted this poor desolate creature down. Instantly the hue and cry of slander is vomited out over her name; and it was thought that she at least, with all her eloquence and patriotism, was effectually made away with, and extinguished for ever. "The Times," indeed, ceases for a moment to shake its Austrian thunderbolts over her, in order to direct them against other Hungarian patriots, whose literary jealousy is said to be the origin of the slanders against M. Von Beck. Whether coming from the Austrian press of England, or from feminine literary envy, or from the Rev. Mr. Brummagem Dawson, the charge of being an Austrian spy seems about the most absurd and baseless that could by possibility have been brought against our poor authoress. That any considerable portion of our countrymen should have believed it, can only be explained by the circumstance that, under Cardinal Wiseman and the Puseyites, the old Popish dogma, credo, quia impossibile est, has again recovered its influence over Englishmen.

M. Von Beck's book, more than anything that had occurred, until the arrival of Kossuth, had spread far and wide the deepest interest in the Hungarian struggle, and given us a personal knowledge of the actors therein, a knowledge which can never have any other influence over us or them, than that which the best Hungarian patriot could wish.

The book for which she was seeking subscriptions must have been the same in spirit,-one totally irreconcilable with the idea of her aiding the cause of Austria. That so outspoken a person as M. Von Beck might have revealed circumstances and schemes which the actors in the struggle now impending wished to be concealed, is probable enough,

and this alone seems to us to account for the determination to silence her, so ruthlessly resolved on by her foes, and so quietly acquiesced in by the English, who are behind the scenes of the whole tragedy.

The time is now near at hand for her full vindication, it is to be hoped, when she too will receive the common reward which we pay to those who have dared and suffered all for us,-a volley of cheers and a monument from the multitude, and the silent tender sympathy of patriot hearts. Meantime we take leave of her with the words which close her book,-written, one would say now, almost in a spirit prophetic of her end!

"The dead should rest; they have done their work, and gone to their repose; why should they be recalled, even in thought, to mingle once more in this weary scene of pain and sorrow, of struggle and defeat? Their part is accomplished; they have contributed their quota to the resolution of the great problem of man. They, whether they know it or not, have given all the impulse which God allowed them to give, to human progress; and now let their story be read in history, that the impulse may be prolonged, and propagated far down into time."

Counter-currents may cause the atmosphere of liberty in France to stagnate, at present, as much as it does in Austrian dungeons; but to preserve these prison airs at rest over the countries of the Continent of Europe, while the breezy atmosphere of freedom is playing over England and America, is as impossible as to keep still and stagnant the fluid airs of Heaven.

Liberty, to the baffled patriots of Hungary, seems weak as a breaking wave; but the receding waters, even yet beautiful with foam bells, are but retiring that they may sweep forward with vaster volume and redoubled roar, for the tide of freedom is once more rising, and the equinoctial gales are at hand!

Until the gallant struggle of 1849 Hungary was less known to even intelligent Englishmen than Iceland or Kamschatka. There was a confused idea, we recollect, in a very sensible company wherein we first heard the subject spoken of, that Hungary was a plain country; that it turned back the tide of Mahomedan conquest in the old centuries; that it grew a great deal of corn. Lord Stanley's Tamboff, which was to furnish so many millions of quarters of wheat was somewhere in Hungary; "The Danube runs through it; up the Rhine and down the Danube, you know," said one. "And then the battle of Prague," cried an old gentleman. "But that's in Poland," said his daughter, who had been practising that "batle," for some months past, with her musicmaster. "Ah, well! Presburg, Pesth, Prague, or some such place," replied her father. And this very confused idea was the Englishman's notion of Hungary in nine cases out of ten. Nor let the Magyars be astonished at this: only a twentieth part of our population is taught geography and the use of the globes, seeing that the teachers are still disputing by what creed, Calvinist or Arminian, these branches of knowledge are to be taught; and while the geography of the poorer classes is neglected, that of the richer classes remains and will remain not far advanced. But Hungary has now won, from the most phlegmatic of Englishmen, a knowledge of her geography and an honourable recognition of her name. Kossuth, Dembinski, and Bem, have made Englishmen turn up their atlasses and study countries, as unknown to them as

the Britons were to the Romans two thousand years ago, “toto orbe divisos."

How rapidly, as years revolve, human sympathies are extending themselves, and what auguries of good in this for the race? What foreign nation sympathised with Philip Von Artevelde, or with Pym or Sidney, in our war of independence two centuries ago. While Cromwell cried, as the sun rose at Preston Pans, "Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered!" the most sublimely poetic utterance ever made by chief in closing for battle, he had no echo from France, Italy, or Germany, and the forests of America then only resounded to the war-whoop of the savage as he drove his tomahawk into the grey hairs of one of the pilgrim fathers.

There was no echo to the cry of our English Hampdens, Vanes, and Harringtons, as they toiled, laying the foundations for the modern world's freedom. Now, the most minute circumstances of a war of liberty, among a people apparently quite isolated, echoes through every house and heart; France rings with it from the Alps to Calais; it sounds through all the mountains of Switzerland, and the streets of the old Hanse towns, England cheers on the patriots, and America, to the far West, echoes back the cry. These are the countries in whose free atmosphere the voice of Liberty can yet vibrate and resound; but even in the despotic countries themselves, though the cry of Freedom is smothered, it rumbles and smoulders along through all the length and breadth of Austria, Prussia, Italy, Poland, nay, even from the icy recesses of Russia, a response like the sullen wail of an imprisoned demon is heard, and that cry is one of such sympathy as the slave can utter to the free. These reverberations, rolling back from every point of the compass, quicker, louder, more startling, prove that the crisis of the tempest is at hand. As the falcon sweeps in more rapid and sudden circles before she strikes; as the shouts become more quick and fierce as the battle closes; as, in any work of human effort, the cries become more cheery and simultaneous, as the obstacles disappear and the object in view is about to be effected, so the spirit of liberty seems circling to her final elevation; the nations seem approaching the goal towards which they have been toiling for centuries, and which they are now nearing with the rapid strides of the courser at the close of the

race.

Hungary has been another Poland;-the shriek which "Freedom gave when Kosciusko fell," was again heard when the noble Damjanich perished; it rose with a thrill of agony, that pierced every freeman's heart in Europe, from the butchered patriots of Arad, and it lingers yet in a long low wail, that seems to spread itself out over all the Hungarian plains. The next shout will perhaps be one of victory instead of agony;-probably, alas of both.

But let us hasten to give such of our readers as are not already familiar with the stirring and eloquent narrative of our unhappy authoress, a brief specimen of the work. The following is from Vol. I., p. 271.

"When the noble Damjanich was led forth to the gallows; when, after all his gallant deeds and sublime dreams, he was to die the death of a felon, and that gigantic and beautiful form was to mingle with the dust in the very bloom of its strong manhood, his way was lined by Austrian officers, who could not suppress some indications of triumph at seeing those herculean arms, before which their bravest had fallen, bound and pinioned, and that haughty and splendid head bowed

in shame at the infamy of the death to which he was condemned. He noticed these cowardly gestures and smiles, and drawing himself up proudly at the foot of the gallows, turned upon the exulting throng, and said, calmly: Triumph not, gentlemen. You have not yet arrived at the termination of your career: you know not how your own days will end. The house of Hapsburg rewards its servants after a peculiar fashion.' There was a prophetic warning in the words of the dying martyr of liberty.

"I learn here, in distant England, that even Haynau, who doubly dyed himself in guilt to do the will of the tyrant, has failed to secure his favour, and has been dismissed from his posts; nay, it is reported that he has fallen into entire disgrace. How marvellous are the ways of Providence! that this man, who set all laws, both human and Divine, at defiance, should also furnish a striking example of the worthlessness of the object for which he perpetrated all his crimes; like the scape-goat of old, laden with the sins of a nation, he has been driven into the wilderness, yet without purifying those by whom he has been expelled. He must now bear the curse, and meet the execration of men, wherever he may wander. Distorted and deformed in his moral being by the guilt of his life, his remaining years shall furnish a warning to mankind to flee from the contamination of his presence. His days shall be overshadowed with gloom, and his couch haunted by the gory spectres of his victims, upbraiding him with the treachery that brought them to an ignominious death; and when the terrors of his life shall terminate, and the earth shall close upon his mortal frame, men shall point to his grave and say, Here lies the broken intrument of tyranny.'

"For Austria, let her no more dream of peace; the seeds of a thousand wars have been sown within the last two years. Henceforth, the Hungarian people are the enemies of her rule; no offering can expiate her deadly offence against them. The time also may not be far distant when the autocrat will have to set his own house in order; when even the rude tribes over which he rules may grow weary of his irrational sway, and think the time has come to assert their common humanity. Where then will Austria look for help? What friendly hand will be stretched forth to comfort or succour her against her multitudinous foes? Italy is fast advancing to political manhood. The spirit of liberty is steadily rising throughout Germany-imperceptibly, but surely, like the approaches of the spring. The edifice of absolutism is like the icy palace of Catherine; the sun is shining upon it, and penetrating every crevice of the structure, and whilst it looks most brilliant, it is nearest to its fall. To-day it looks strong and massive; to-morrow it shall not be. The silent but genial march of the seasons shall dissolve it, and it shall glide irrecoverably into oblivion.

"But I must pass on in my pathless pilgrimage. I am a plant uprooted from my native soil by the tempest, and cast upon the wild world-ocean to accomplish my destiny, where the winds and currents may impel me. How happy had it been for me had I been laid in my fathers' grave before the sorrows of my country commenced! There this heart might have mingled quietly with kindred dust, unbroken by woe; I should have escaped a thousand sorrows, each more bitter than death itself. But why should I repine? Have I not, in the greatest extremities, had frequent proof that there is an all-wise and all-merciful Being, who never forsakes those who trust in Him? Yes, He who has saved me so often, will still continue to protect me. Haply I shall see my native land again, and see it free; but if it be His purpose that I should lay my weary head in a foreign grave, may He give me strength and resignation to say, Thy will be done." "

Thou weary, noble-hearted one! freed at last from all thy sorrows, and thus! While here, thou didst not faint; nor, with this divine cordial to support them, shall any of the children of sorrow long faint or ever fail. Could this glorious and consoling trust in the directing Providence have been replaced by a foresight of the ignominious death she was to die,-how gladly would the poor exile have exchanged the revolting circumstances of her doom, for the lane of sneering Austrian officers and the gallows of Damjanich.

And throughout England, at this moment, in workshops and garrets, with bodies bowed by unwonted toil, or suffering the still greater wretchedness of hope and vengeance deferred alternating with the gnawings of hunger, there lies concealed many a patriot-with heart as

weary as was that of our unhappy Authoress, before it at last burst in agony and shame.

To such, since no longer to her, we would say, "Faint not, noble hearts! — hold up yet a little while; the dawning of a brighter day for you has begun. Meantime, whatsoever concealment of your noble natures may be, in the outward life, made by circumstance, that unspiritual god and miscreator,'-so long as the story of Hungary shall thrill the hearts of men, so long shall the names of her heroes be ranged with those, in all time reverenced by freedom's sons. Mourn not, one of you, that you were not sleeping beneath the green sod through all that wild and terrible tempest which shook down the patriots of Hungary, as the autumn thunder-storms strip the oaks of her plains. Look back! Would you have missed one night-march, one stormy bivouac, one battle-field? Never. Look forward! Would you yield up possession of one of those honourable scars of the soul, by which you have earned the sympathy and love of freemen everywhere? No, you would not give up one of your sorrows or sacrifices for the fatherland, nor yield up one claim to the sympathy and honour of the coming time. Nay, as your hearts mount and kiudle at these memories, you feel that no wrong so great could be offered you as to deprive you of these cherished treasures, and your only grief now is that your sorrows and sacrifices were not greater, if only this could have saved the perished gallant hearts and national liberties."

Her account of the way in which her narrative of the butcheries by Haynau was received by Counts Esterhazi and Karyoli, from Pesth, and many of the late garrison of Komorn, who had yet received no authentic information of their barbarities, is deeply interesting (p. 317).

"I was obliged, therefore, however unwilling, to narrate to them the bloody and tearful story of Arad, and, in doing so, to tear open my own wounds, and revive all my griefs.

"We were, indeed, a woeful company: strong warriors, who had often braved death in the field of battle, wept aloud, and hands were clenched in agony, as I told the piteous tale. It seemed so inconceivable, so far to surpass the very worst they had apprehended from the rage of Austria, to set all calculation made in accordance with the rules that usually guide the conduct of men so entirely at defiance. What, after surrender under conditions that guaranteed personal safety, to hang and slaughter those who had surrendered! The monstrous iniquity of it overpassed the bounds of human credulity.

"But it was a fact accomplished, and the waters of the Danube could not wash out the dreadful evidence of this great crime. If Austria wished to wring brave and true hearts by these murders, she had her wish, on this occasion at least.

"It is impossible to describe the fierce grief of these men, when the whole history was before them. They called upon their murdered companions and relatives by name. Some walked up and down the saloon, to give vent to their powerful emotions: whilst others sat silently brooding over what they had heard, as if to make a solemn record of it in their souls, and to vow within themselves that the victims of Imperial treachery should not remain unavenged."

We recommend the concluding pages of these eloquent Memoirs to the consideration of the reader. The remarks on the constitution of England, and the comparison between Hungary and England, are just and ingenious; and have been dwelt on much by Kossuth when in England. The similarity in the spirit of the laws, political and social, of the two countries, is very remarkable. These, not less than the energy and courage displayed in the late struggle, show that the Hun