as a leading axiom, "Une base appuyée sur un fleuve large et impetueux, dont on tiendrait les rives par de bonnes. fortresses à cheval sur ce fleuve, serait sans contredit le plus favorable qu'on put desirer." Austria has such a basis in the Danube-from the tête-de-pont of Presburg to Semlin-in opposing operations from the eastward; but so far from being à cheval, she was in constant disquietude from Comorn, even when she held Ofen.

With regard to the fortresses of the south and east of Hungary, in relation to strategy, all through the last century, the favourite method was that of multiplying them on the plains on the Vauban principle; but the bold manner in which Napoleon disregarded the strong places threw them into disrepute to a certain extent. The best military policy for Austria to adopt in Hungary seems to be to restrict herself to a small number of natural positions and to fortify them to the utmost perfection. Temesvar, therefore, is evidently quite superfluous, with Arad in its immediate vicinity, which commands the passage of the Maros. But Old Arad gives an enemy resources; it is clear, therefore, that this point, commanding at the same time the southern avenue into Transylvania, ought to be fortified on both sides of the river. If there is to be another fortress in the plain of Hungary, the proper point is Szolnok, or somewhere with a dam and tête-depont on the Theiss between Szegedin and Tokay, so as at all times to operate from the westward with facility in the direction of Debreczin, Grosswardein, and the defiles of Csucsa that lead into northern Transylvania.

CHAPTER XXVII.

PRESBURG.

Presburg, to which the steamer next carried me, is no longer the seat of the Magyar Diet, which it had been previous to the revolution, but it has now acquired importance in another way as the capital of the Slovackey, and as the future lever of the Slovack party in elevating the nation to a political rank in Hungary adequate to the high standing of this people in civilisation, who in round. numbers are considerably more than 2,000,000 strong, who form the third division of the great Tchech family, onehalf of whom are protestants, and who to this day use the bible of John Huss in church and school. This, therefore, opens up an entirely new era for the town of Presburg, which seems likely to rub its Magyar varnish away, for its population is about 45,000 souls, of which 30,000 are Germans, 11,000 or 12,000 Slovacks, 2,000 Magyars, and the rest of other nations; but several thousands, although not Magyar, have been Magyarised by the frequentation of the Diet, which, although formerly held at Stuhlweissenberg, was in modern times held here. This latter circumstance, which caused money to be circulated amongst the tradespeople, was a heavy tax on the householder, for he was obliged to give the third of his dwelling for the accommodation of the members of the Diet.

In the old part of the town, I have seen hotels of curious architecture of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century, built in the lower part with great solidity, having massive vaults on the ground floor, and are all entered by a porte-cochère. The windows of all the rooms are double, as, although Presburg is in 48° north latitude, the winter is severe. Presburg, in short, is not like an Hungarian town, and more like Gratz or Linz, than like Debreczin or Grosswardein; which arises

partly from its vicinity to the Austrian frontier, and partly from its having been, towards the close of the eighteenth century, the seat of Joseph II's. attempt to govern Hungary by a German bureaucracy. In the interior of the town is the so-called promenade, a quadruple of trees something in the style of the Unter den Linden in Berlin, minus, be it well understood, the Brandenburg gate; which, during the Diet, used to be the resort of the deputies, and where I saw, many a time and oft, men in earnest discussion, who are now scattered through Europe or gone to the grave.

On the side of the Danube a long bridge of boats connects Presburg with the right bank of the river, which is quite devoid of any suburbs. A thick wood having been turned into a park for the promenade of the citizens, which being intersected by roads, and surrounded by a deep fosse, makes as it were, a field tête-de-pont to the town. Seeing a number of boats in the river laden with wood, I had the curiosity to approach one which was moored nearest to the trees of the park, the men of which were sitting on the turf, and having asked them from whence they came, they informed me that they were from Munich, and that nearly all the wood used in Pesth is not Hungarian, but comes mostly from Tyrol and Passau, being floated down the Inn and the Isar.

Towering above the town is the Castle, a magnificent, solidly-constructed, residence of the Palffys in the beginning of the last century; it was presented to Maria Teresa by a prince of the family, whence it became a royal residence. In a large hall of this edifice took place the famous scene of the Moriamur pro rege, when so many swords started from their scabbards to support a youthful and an injured queen; and it is impossible for a traveller to look up to the ruins of this locality without deploring the unfortunate divisions that have since taken placewithout remembering that at that time the use of the Latin tongue in diplomatic acts left the national feelings

PATON. II.

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of each race uninjured and unirritated. The Castle, itself an immense construction with four towers, is a mere shell, having been burnt down in 1811 (as it is suspected) by some soldiers, to save themselves the labour of carrying wood and water to such a height; but the terraces overlooking the steep precipitous rocks on which it is built are sufficient to protect it from a coup-de-main, and several new towers had been got up in a hurry, each with four ranges of cannon, one above another, on platforms of wood.

The view from the platform seems boundless, no less than forty villages being visible, which is saying a great deal in a thinly populated country like Hungary; and if one could suppose the Thames half-a-dozen times broader, is very much like the view from Richmond Hill, a river being seen to meander through a wide champaign country considerably wooded, while behind are the Carpathians stretching away to the north-east, their nearer eminences covered with vines; hence the custom that of the various gifts which each Hungarian town presents to its sovereign, that of Presburg is a large agglomeration of bunches of grapes so as apparently to form one. That of Comorn is wine-and to denote the level plains of the Danube and Waag around it, a bushel of corn made into two loaves, which must be neither burnt outside, nor unbaked at the heart; the art of which extraordinary baking is, or was, preserved in that strong town.

These Carpathians enclose northern Hungary in a vast semicircle, and separate it from Gallicia on the north, and the rock overlooking the Danube, on which the Castle of Presburg is built, may be called the horn of the half moon which encloses Hungary on the north and east, and is the last undulation of the western Carpathians, which here come so close to the Danube that the railway from Vienna is, for want of room, carried through a tunnel behind the town; five other vine-clad hills in the form of an amphitheatre command the plain, and very nearly enclose the

town between them and the river. The enceinte being completed by a line of trenches from the furthest hill to the Danube, thus making Presburg a tolerably secure and formidable position for stores and hospitals, which it was during 1849, and in fact the centre of the operations towards the Waag.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the Turkish wars lasted, Presburg was an important point when the imperial armies had their faces always turned to the eastward, but during the French revolutionary wars Presburg fell into deconsideration, for the armies always looked westward. Every opening to the invader from the Pontebba to the Elbe, every position of defence from the Pass of Linz to the plateau of Peterswald, was familiarised to the strategist of Austria, and when peace came the storms were assumed as likely to set in only from the west. Then arose the cloud-capt towers of Linz. Then Verona became one of the strongest and most extensive fortifications in Europe. But the last two years have shown that storms can come from the east as well as the west, and the disregarded Presburg again occupies the serious attention of the engineers of Austria, and without raising it to a fortress of the first rank there can be no doubt that it can be rendered a formidable position by the repair of the castle, and small forts crowning the five hills behind it.

The halls of the Diet no longer resound with the eloquence of the Magyar from the banks of the Theiss with furred attila and jingling sabres and spurs; Presburg is not the council-place of Hungary, but the capital of the Slovackey, and the seat of the Slovack intelligence: of plain black-coated men, who have at heart the interests of those sturdy peasants and mountaineers with broadbrimmed hats that descend to Presburg on a market day.

The history of Presburg is, in fact, the history of Hungary, for near this town was fought, in the year 907, the fatal battle in which the kingdom of Great Moravia was shattered to pieces by the Magyar maces. But the Al