me); but even the links of this chain are often broken, and the history of the origin of every nation is blended with clumsy fables and fashionable lies. On this occasion the Hungarian language may well claim the superiority over that of any other; it is insulated-it bears no affinity to any one known language on earth. It agrees, undoubtedly, with the Turkish in twenty or thirty words, which may be easily accounted for from the intercourse of the two nations. The Huns, Abares, or Avares, and Hungarians, are one and the same people-Asiatics. In 479, they were divided into two classes, the Asiatic and European Hungarians; the latter were mixed with the Bulgarians; and about the sixth century the name of Huns, or Hungarians, was first known in Europe. As the seeds of war were sown in every man's bosom in those days, it is no wonder if the pages of our history down to the present day, stream with blood; so that you may turn over leaf after leaf, and scarce meet with any thing but plunder, devastation, fire, and famine; one castle reared its head against another, and the son stood in battle array against the father, and the father against the son; and I am sorry to say, that even time, and the precepts of Christianity, written in milk, have little tended to extinguish the sparks of private animosity and public indignation. The Hungarians

garians are gallant soldiers; they delight in the sound of the trumpet and the neighing of the war-horse: what they gained by the sword, they maintain by the sword; and if ever they yield it up, it will be with their breath. Hungary is the richest country in the universe: look at her surface-look at her vine, look at her fruits ;wherever the plough has been introduced, her vallies float in wheat and barley, and all sorts of grain you see the reaper on the heels of the sower; nay, I may venture to say, that her spring is richer than the harvests of other nations. What are all these in comparison to the wealth she has concealed in her bowels: her mines of gold, silver, iron, lead, precious stones, quicksilver, &c.? It would seem that Nature, in some great revolution, had collected her treasures, and deposited them in the womb of this country. When I call precious stones treasures, don't think I intend to place so high a value on them as I do on the fruits and productions of the fields; precious stones may lose their lustre in the eye of beauty, and those that prize them at present; but Agriculture renews her age every moment-she appears in a new garb every day; she may be said to flourish in perpetual youth: content and health, and even arts and sciences, are found in her train: if she crowds the tables of the great with luxury, she fills the humble

board

board with abundance; all those that are willing to enter into her service are rewarded; she fortifies the meanest cottage against the attacks of winter; she smooths the bed of the labouring hind, and amuses his slumbers with light fantastic dreams. Philosophy, however, like Nature, turns every thing to her own account, and to the best advantage: the sound of the anvil was heard long before the days of Pythagoras, but it was reserved for the Samian sage to turn those sounds into music, and to range them in sweet concord under the banners of science. Whilst our magnates are diving into the mine for diamonds, the natural philosopher will yet dive into the same in pursuit of what is more precious than diamonds-truth. It is in the bowels of the earth that we are to search for the works of God; it is there we are to trace the revolutions of nature, as Pliny, the Roman naturalist, very justly observes: Sunt sub terra minus nota nobis jura naturæ, sed non minus certa :-crede infra, quidquid vides supra. Perhaps it is the bowels of the earth that the chronologist will yet look for those years that rolled away: perhaps it is in the bowels of the earth that the divine will yet look for additional proofs of Holy Writ, if any are wanting. Perhaps it is in the bowels of the earth that the physician will yet look for medicines, that may soften the agonies of pain, and expand

3

expand the rose of health on the pallid cheek of youth; nay, even the geographer, who has traversed the surface of the globe, may yet find in the interior of it, the remains of cities swallowed up by earthquakes, or those that have sunk under the silent touches of time. Having now given you a faint outline of the wealth of our native country, you have a right to expect that the inhabitants of it are the happiest of the human race; they ought to be so, but I am sorry to say that they are not. Our nobility are ignorant; they have not yet emerged from barbarism; they pride themselves in the extent of their domains, the antiquity of their families, the number of their horses, and the fleetness, ferocity, and sagacity of their dogs; nay, dogs and horses engross their affection. I do not blame them for their attention to those animals in a certain degree. A horse is one of the most finished animals in the creation: nature, as well as man, seems to be proud of the stately steed Grettla, the Icelandic poet, has sung the praises of a horse, in numbers that will live through all eternity; and the fidelity of the dog is proverbial; yet there are some truly noble amongst our lords. As to the people, the common herd, they are not even considered as drops of water in the bucket, or dust in the balance: you'll find no breast warmed with the love of letters; our mo

nasteries

nasteries are filled with ignorance and superstition; you scarce meet with a book in one of them, or, if you do, it is a book of cookery, As to war, I can't blame my fellow-subjects; the situation of our country is warlike, if I may use the expression; we are encircled by powerful nations on every side, who would swallow us up, if we did not keep the bow always ready; but I look forward to happier days. When the crescent* is in the wane, then the sun of Hungary will shine in milder glory, and the lord and the peasant will rejoice in its beams; but that period is remote. We are at present composed of seven diferent nations, and as many tongues; when their sounds are mixed and lost in one, then our interest will be one; we shall then have the same enemy and the same friends. Our situation as a nation ought to render us happy; we are cut off from the ocean, and of course from foreign commerce; for it is trade that debauches the human heart, and teaches us to place a price on the best affections of the mind in a commercial country. Connubial love is bought and sold; there is a price annexed to it in the national sale catalogue; the very patents of their nobility shine in golden sands. All commercial states have a certain period of duration, as well as those that are founded on extensive conquest.

* The Turks.

The