The Express.
London, England, 1851-11-12 00:00:00

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LONDON, IVEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12.

THE reception given to KOSSUTH in our great cities
and in the district* of England, moat replete with in-
telligence, wealth, and population, gives to the univer-
sal sentiment in his favour the character of a national
adhesion. No man and no cause have awakened the
admiring voices of so many millions. We know not
when Englishmen were so unanimous. They have
been tried of late years on many a domestic
question, on some connected with religion, or with
taxation, with reform, or cheap victual'', yet the
pure and disinterested feelings evoked by the coming
of KOSSUTH are more enthusiastic, more over-
powering than either the political or material in-
terests of the most household questions could pro-
duce in Englishmen.
It is U Idum that contemporaneous history presents
in action, in crests, in cause, and in characters, a
spectacle of such noblu dramatic interest as the Hun-
garian struggle. Sliatesreaax never drew a picture
of greater perfidy, meanness, and tyranny than Aus-
tria displayed, or of more generosity of sentiment
and nobleness ofesturage than Hungary evinced. In
the development we have seen two campaigns, the
injured and menaced country gallantly resisting
and defeating Austria, and then making a noble
fight against Austria and Russia combined, and only
succumbing to an ascendancy, bought even then
more by gold and treachery, than by manly fighting
in the open field.
The great features of this epic, for it is the great
epic of the age, base been placed before the popular
view, with the characters who figure in it all brought
out in the boldest relief. WlNDlsenuearr, the born-
harder of Vienna, the slaughterer of IlLess, driven
ignominiously out of Hungary, and disgraced in con-
sequence by his court—opposed to him the daunt-
less courage and cool defensive policy of KOSSUTH.
IIAYNAU, and his women flogging, Sept WAR/ANDER°
and his edict for the hanging of Louts BATHYANI,
with the tragical circumstances of that execution,
the struggle round Comma, the flight of Goseeee,
and his simulated defence, the heroic battle of Te-
mcsvar fought by the rash but indomitable Best,
and that occasion seized as a pretext by the traitor
Mawr to deliver up his soldiers to the Russian
general, and his officers to the Austrian hangman:
—all these are events that have penetrated into every
English workshop and every English cottage, until,
as we have said, they have become the great popular
epic of our time.
What vain fully is it, what puerile malignity, to
strive against this great, this generous, and honest
expression of national sentiment, by examining, as
some of our journals do, with critical scalpel, into
the exact shade of political opinions professed
by the great chief of the Hungarian struggle, by
Kusseiti himself. What on earth cares the English
public in its devotion, that /Comers! be a little more
or a little leas of a republican ? What care they
whether he has thought with WestilsriroN or with
JP:FYI:IO4IN, with EDWARD HYDE or with ALGERNON
STONY.T ? If in these days the English people
have learned to be profoundly indifferent to
shades of religious difference, they have also learned
to be so in respect of political theory. By a singular
mistake, it is assumed that Englishmen award their
praise and mete out their enthusiastic attachments
according to the political opinions of their hero. And
they are told what a great error they make in wor-
shipping Kossern, and in not worshipping Louts
111.vic, because both have despaired of the re-esta-
blishment of the royal races in their respective
countries.

But the political theories of these men have
nothing to do with the different degrees of popular'
appreciation which they meet in this country. The
*trunks in Hungary, and !he struggles in France,
have both been pourtrnyed before the British public.
It has looked with interest and admiration upon the
one, but turned with disgust and aversion from the
other. Need we say, why ? Nerd we spend words and
employ arguments to show how the broad, common
sense of the English public at once discerns the dif-
ference between the honest struggle for the rightful
and traditinn,a ..laims of Hungary, and the inexpli-
cable and aintlem Paribi3n revolution of 1848 ?

It may however, that our conservatives and
their organs (Instil this enthusiasm for Kosserti, as
likely to ultra-liberalise the English public; and
therefore that it is but prudent to abate the
fever even by the antidote of slander and sophism.
We sec nothing dangerous in this KOSSUTH enthu-
siasm, emeept the fact of the industrious and frankly-
thinking classes all joining it, whilst the idle and
the gentle hold aloof. On this latter group of per-
sons the conservative hens no doubt has effect. It
warns them to beware of Koury!, as a mad dog
that is to infect them with some deadly poison.
It beiweelitse them not to be vulgar, or Jacobin,
or to allow their sutural sentiment to Hungary to
escape their lips, lest Austria might take offence, mid
the affairs of Europe become complicated. What is'
the result of such puerilities as these being listened
to by the upper class of society, whilst all beneath
them indulge in the natural feelings and outpourings
of generous and liberal sentiment? Tho result will
be, that the people of this country will learn to
mistrust the gentry and the upper class as but
false lovers of liberty, hesitating and lukewarm
admirers of patriotism, and as a class too selfishly
alive to their own interests and their own prejudices
to join in the manly and honest enthusiasm of the
great hodj of the people.
We have before signalised these deep divisions be-
tween the classes of society as the worst sym-
bol of that fatal malady which undermines and
destroys France. Should a similar schism take
place and become manifest here, when such muses
of the industrious population are gathered to-
gether as those which thronged round KOSSUTH in
Birmingham and Manchester, we shudder for the
consequences. The greatest enemies of the peace,
prosperity, and greatness of England, are those who
at this moment would make the patrician Mend
aloof from the plebeian in the profession of a
differeut political and social creed, and in that sym-
pathy with all that is absolutist and retrograde in
Jiang's., which was never hitherto the characteristic
even of the British aristocracy, but which we are
sorry has gained ground amongst our wealthy and
wed-burn classes.

A BREVE I is the promotion cis large body of the
officers of the army by seniority. The first instance
on reword of this system was the nomination, in
1734, of ten lieutenant-generals, twenty-four major-
generals, and thirty-nine brigadier-generals, by
GEORGE H. On the 4th March, 1;81, the rank of
general was instituted by GioziaGE M. and con-
ferred on the eight seniorlieuterant-generals, with- ,
out any subjoined distinction of service. Although
within a few years after this the general officers' hst
was excessive in proportion to the number of the
fortes, having in 1783 reached the number of one
hundred and eighty
favour bestowed on
-eight, atit had been
formed more by royal
certain influential individuals, than a systematic
promotion. When the French war brake out in
1793, these large lists not affording men who were
both mentally and bodily capable of tilling impor-
tant commands, a rapid succession of brevets en
maw took place; but as those who were promoted
to general officers merely continued to receive their
former half-pay or full put-, this reckless system met
with no opposition, as it did not further burden the
military expenses of the country. Since the war,
however, it would have been thought that the expe-
rience acquired during those years of turmoil would
have been placed to profit, and that sonic plan would
have been introduced by which, in coo of future
sudden calls, it would not be again necessary to
resort to brevets, more especially as in 1814 there
was a rate of pay specially allotted to unattached
generals, the minimum of which is 4001. a year; but
solar from this, periodical brevets, some of them even
on a very large scale, have taken place. It is true that
the purpose intended, viz., that of clearing the ranks
of the army choked up against the rising generation,
and rewarding men of long service, has been effected.
But could it not be done much more effectually by a