The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-25 00:00:00

this principle in its irresistible course" has left the
complications of Italy far from a settlement ; that
it was the cause of the Hungarian insurrection
in 1848-49 ; and that, "though suppressed by the in-
tervention of 100,000 Russians, whom NICHOLAS I.
sent to the aid of his brother of Austria, the struggle
revives in the movement, so unanimous, so peace-
ful, and yet so firm, of which Hungary for eight or
nine months past has offered the splendid spectacle."
The pamphlet then adverts to the way in which
Hungary first became an object of interest to
Europe in the struggle of 1848 ; to the comparative
forgetfulness of her since that time ; to the re-
awakening of general attention when at the time
of the battle of Solferino she was seen to be ready

to take her part in the struggle for national rights in
Italy; and to the interest with which all Europe has
been watching her firm attitude towards the Empe-
ror of AUSTRIA and his German officials, since the
issue of the delusive patent for the Protestants of

last September. It is remarked with truth thw

" From the very beginning of the great movement
which now agitates the Hungarian nation the press
of Germany, Italy, France, and England sympa-
thised with it. That sympathy has gradually ex-

tended to the public, and in the most important of
all the deliberative assemblies of Europe—in the
English Parliament—the name of Hungary has
been heard. At this moment there, perhaps, is not
a single journal which does not acknowledge the
gravity of the Hungarian manifestations, nor a
statesman who does not take a deep interest in

them."
Most stinging of all to Austria, because specially
appropriate to her, must be the description of her
" iron and clay" composition, and her uselessness
as a barrier against the great power which threatens
Europe from the North. " Diplomacy has long
endeavoured to legitimise on international grounds
the existence of that agglomeration of countries and
nationalities, brought together by chance and re-
tained by force, which is called the Empire of the
Hapsburg ; diplomacy has raised Austria to the rank
of a necessity for the balance ofpower,by proclaiming
it the barrier of Western and Eastern Europe against
the dangers which threaten both from the North.
The events of 1854 and 1855 must have convinced
the least perspicacious of diplomatists that Western
Europe may safely rely on its own strength, and
that, in any case, Europe cannot leave her defence
to Austria, a Power unable to maintain herself.
The famous barrier is visibly crumbling away,
being attacked at the summit by corruption, and
sapped at the base by the implacable hatred of the
peoples, upon which it weighs with all the inert-
ness of a dead body.
The grand question is, Can Austria unlearn her
despotic habits ? Can she give up her bureau-
cracy, her centralisation, her concordat ? We
mean of course, Can Hapsburgs do this ? Are they
not, like the Bourbons, the victims of a blind bigo-
try, both in religion and statesmanship, which
will not permit them to understand progress, facts,
events, and consequences, till they are crushed by
them. Nothing would be easier, we imagine, than
to content the " agglomeration of countries and
nationalities" and to unite them, federally, under
the imperial Crown. But, that would require that
Hapsburgs should govern with andfor these nations,
and not for the exaltation of their own trumpery
German Archduchy, by crushing all the na-
tionalities into one heterogenous mass whereon
to place their German throne. Could a
Hapsburg but feel and evince a sincere pleasure in
developing the energies of all the countries now
almost reduced to the corpses of nations beneath her
fatal sway, in accordance with their constitutions,
laws, and habits, probably they would all soon re-
joice in a supreme head, which could be a means of
healthful, amicable co- operation between them all,
and which could unite them in defence, when re-
quired, against a common foe. Probably this is an
impossibility to the Hapsburg mind.
If it be, we may almost hope with the writer of
the pamphlet, that the hour of Hungary's becom-
ing an independent nation is fast approaching—
that Europe will now regard her with very diffe-
rent sentiments to those of 1848. She was then
seen to be more than a match for Austria. The
latter could not crush her without the aid of the
200,000 Cossack savages of the savage NICHOLAS ;
since then, though so brutally used by theHapsburgs,
she has shown that national life is still vigorous—
in suppressible—i n her. " Hungary, therefore, for
the Hungarians," is the logical sequence of" Italy
for the Italians." The CZAR will not expose
himself to another base piece of ingratitude—
Prussia cannot be blind to her interests in
Germany, and England and France both
sympathise altogether with Hungarian inde-
pendence, except perhaps a few of the traditional
Tories, who, we may hope, will, for the sake of
" the nationalities," not just yet take charge of the
Foreign-office. The writer, whose views we have
been referring to, evidently sees things much in
this light, and in all probability he used the spec-
tacles of a greater author. The very recent con-
cessions of Austria to the Protestants by which
several of the Hungarians have just been induced
to enter the new Imperial Council, can hardly be
regarded as an alteration of policy. They are but
a bribe extorted by necessity for a temporary
object.

Time was when the Thames as the Silent High-
way was to Londoners the grand channel of inter-
communication. Then, indeed, as the old nautical
song goes, " fine City ladies " (remembering that
we are writing of and in Cockneydom, we might
even say—wherry "fine City ladies") could find it
in their hearts to patronise in lieu of our modern
cabby some Jolly Young Waterman. Among those
watermen of the river Thames there was actually,
moreover, once upon a time a poet—a sort of am-
phibious laureate—" TAYLOR the Water-Poet," as
he still lives by name and fame in the annals of
our national literature. Not—(we would remind
any temperance advocate who might be disposed
to regard him as au anticipatory teetotal ballad-
monger)—not a milk-and-water poet, but TAYLOR
the "Water-Poet," the lyric glorifier in verse that
yet lives of Old Father Thames in his cleanlier and
more unsophisticated days, before he had under-
taken all the dirty work devolving upon the great
City Scavenger. Imagine for a moment the
Thames as it is—having any longer a laureate !
When SHELLEY loitered upon its banks, and
floated in his shallop upon its surface while com-
posing the most elaborated and ambitious of all his
poetical works, " The Revolt of Islam"—it was far
away from the reeking smoke and noisome exuda-
tions of London and Westminster, among the rush-
grown margins and the reedy eddies of the river as
it passes Marlow. When WORDSWORTH wrote his
noble sonnet upon Waterloo-bridge, he took care
to do so under the darkness of midnight. When
HOOD drew forth such ineffable pathos from
that same broad current of the Thames—vide " The
Bridge of Sighs"—he did so wo all remember with
a shudder :

" Picture it, think of it,
Dissolute man,
Lave in it, drink of it,
Then if you can."

Apart from this pathos associated with the River
.1 BO many Suicides, there is that other thrill of