The Sun. — 1860-05-25 (London, England)

NICHOLAS I. sent to the aid of his brother of Austria, the struggle revives in the movement, so unanimous, so peaceful, 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 reawakening 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 Emperor 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 sympathised 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 retained 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 inertness of a dead body. The grand question is, Can Austria unlearn her despotic habits ? Can she give up her bureaucracy, her centralisation, her concordat ? We mean of course, Can Hapsburgs do this ? Are they not, like the Bourbons, the victims of a blind bigotry, 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 nationalities 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 rejoice 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 required, 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 becoming an independent nation is fast approaching— that Europe will now regard her with very different 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 independence, 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 spectacles of a greater author. The very recent concessions 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 Highway was to Londoners the grand channel of intercommunication. 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 amphibious 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 balladmonger)—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 undertaken 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 composing the most elaborated and ambitious of all his poetical works, " The Revolt of Islam"—it was far away from the reeking smoke and noisome exudations of London and Westminster, among the rushgrown 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