main_difference between them was, that Protocol cared for nothing but excitement, whereas Peter never for a moment lost sight of the main chance. You may conceive, therefore, with what joy the latter received the intimation that he might expect, in a short while, to receive a private and confidential visit from no less a person than Mat-o'-the Mint. Not that Mat was any great acquisition in himself; but being a near relative of the Juggler, and also an upper servant in Squire Bull's household, nothing could be more consonant with the secret wishes of Peter. So, he ordered three chapels to be illuminated, and a special prayer to be chaunted for the conversion of Bullocks-hatch; at the mention of which name, it is recorded that some images winked their eyes! CHAPTER IV. HOW MAT-O-THE-MINT UNDERTOOK AN EXPEDITION TO THE ESTATES OF SIGNOR MACARONI ; AND WHAT FOLLOWED THEREUPON. Mat-o'-the Mint, then, having got his roving commission signed in due form, and his pocket-book well stuffed with bank-notes, set out upon his tour like an actual walking mystery. It is my opinion, up to the present hour, that the excellent gentleman had no precise idea of what he was expected to do; but that his general notion was that he was bound to give advice at least such advice as he could give to any one who asked him for it. No man can be expected to accomplish impossibilities: he can merely do his best; and that Mat-o'the-Mint was prepared to perform quite conscientiously. It was not his fault, if those who sent him did not make him comprehend their design; indeed Protocol, who was a sly fox, and always left a door of escape open for himself in case of emergency, was not likely to be too specific in his instructions, or to commit himself irretrievably on paper. No sooner was it noised abroad that Mat-o'-the-Mint was on his travels, than there was a considerable stir both among the southern squirearchy and their tenantry, who were then unfortunately at loggerheads. Everybody who had a dispute with anybody else wanted to know what Squire Bull thought of the matter, hoping probably that he would not be disinclined to lend him a helping hand, and mayhap a few pounds; for the fellows in those parts laboured under the delusion that the Squire was made of money. So they were all anxious to get a confidential hearing from Mato'-the-Mint, whom they imagined to be a very great man indeed, and a very wise one; arguing, naturally Privately, "My compliments," quoth he, "to your master, and say to him that I am quite sensible that he has done the proper thing in asking me to the Hall. But you see that I am so situated that I can't very well come. My master, the squire, has heard a good deal of what is going on in these parts; and though, as a matter of course, he has no wish to interfere between the Don and his tenantry, yet the fact is that, under present circumstances, I had better put up at the inn. Say to your master that I shall be glad to see him there, any time he may be passing; at all events, I shall certainly make a point of Now, it so happened that there were a number of lazy-looking fellows, with knives in their belts, loitering around the drosky while Mat-o'-theMint delivered this answer to the ground steward; and these were pree'sely the worst of the whole crew, with whom Don Vesuvius was at feud. Who so rejoiced as they to find that Squire Bull's confidential servant was likely to be on their side? They threw up their hats, and brayed and danced, and cut fandangos, to all which Mat-o'-the-Mint replied by taking off his hat and bowing like a Chinese mandarin. At last, in the exuberance of their joy, the crowd took the horses out of the vehicle, and fairly dragged him to the village inn, leaving the unhappy ground steward as disconsolate as Ariadne on Naxos. No sooner were they arrived at the inn, than Mat asked a number of the men to step up to his sitting-room; and having questioned them regarding their grievances, which you may be sure they took care to magnify to the utmost, he called for pen, ink, and paper, and sate himself down to write a long epistle to Don Vesuvius. I can't give you the particulars of this document, further than that it contained an intimation that in his, Mat-o'-the-Mint's opinion, the gentleman had been very much misled in the management of his own affairs. That for the sake of restoring peace and tranquillity, it appeared to the aforesaid Matthew that Don Vesuvius would do well to surrender one half of his estate to the tenantry, without receiving any consideration for it; and that if this arrangement, which he merely ventured to suggest, should meet with approbation, there could be no difficulty whatever in reducing the rents on the remaining half. As also that the undersigned was with the highest consideration, &c. &c. Having finished this doughty epistle, which he despatched by the boots of the inn, Mat ordered his equipage, and drove away to another estate, as proud as Punch, amidst the shouts of the whole idlers of the village. You may fancy the astonishment of the honest gentleman when he read Mat's letter. It was some time before he could believe the evidence of he said, "is it possible that Squire his spectacles. "Good heavens!" Bull can treat an old friend and fellow-sportsman thus? Haven't I dozens upon dozens of letters under his own hand, guaranteeing me possession of my whole estate, and am I now to be fobbed off in this way, and insulted to boot by an old trencherman of whom nobody ever heard? But I won't believe it! It must be some trick of that rascal, Protocol, who is perpetually writing letters without authority in the name of his master-at all events, I won't submit to be dictated to, in the disposal of my own, by the best Squire living!" portion of the tenantry were fully By this time, however, the riotous possessed with the notion that Squire Bull was ready to back them up to insurrection, fired at the gamekeepers, any extent; so they began a regular beat the watchmen, and barricaded one of the villages, after they had thoroughly plundered it. But they reckoned without their host; for the tenantry on the home farm were to a man true to their master, and having armed themselves, they crossed the canal, (in which, by the way, some of John's barges were lying, it was thought with the connivance of Protocol,) and gave the rascally rabble such a drubbing, that nothing more was heard afterwards about the partition of the property. The rioters, however, believe to this hour that they were deceived by Squire Bull, who, they aver, had promised to support them, and they accordingly hate him like ratsbane; neither, as you may well conceive, is Don Vesuvius, whose property was proposed to be divided, over and above grateful for this impudent interference with his private affairs. of the mischief which was effected by This, however, was a mere segment Mat-o'-the-Mint. Wherever he went he tendered advice; and whenever that advice was given, rioting ensued. In short, he proved such a nuisance, that well-affected people would much rather have submitted to a visit from Peter's patrimony, a place which was the cholera. At last he arrived at by no means tranquil at the time. Notwithstanding Peter's boasting, and his perpetual attempt to get his emissaries quartered on every estate in the country, he was the reverse of popular at home. He had a very handsome house, which he kept full of friars, monks, Jesuits, Dominicans, Carthusians, and Grand Inquisitors, fellows who did little else than eat, drink, sleep, and conspire at the expense of the working population. This had become so intolerable, that Peter, though the most tyrannical despot upon earth, found it necessary to come down a peg or two, and announced his intention of revising the laws of his household, which, to say the truth, needed mending sorely. But he did not stop there. He began to intrigue for a restoration of the whole estates which were formerly in the family of Signor Macaroni, but which latterly had passed into the hands of other proprietors for example, Don Ferdinando; and, at the time I speak of, his village was filled with every description of cut-throat, robber, and murderer that could be gathered from the country round, all of them shouting "Long life to Peter!" and "Hurrah for the independence of Macaroni!" They were in the very midst of this jubilation, which sounded more like an echo of Pandemonium than anything else, when Mat-o'-the-Mint drove into the town; and the moment they heard of his arrival, the very worst of them Massaniello, Massaroni, Corpo di Caio Mario, and Vampyrio degli Assassinacione― congregated under the windows, and whooped and howled, till Mat, in an access of terror, came out upon the balcony, pressed a flag, with a death's-head and cross-bones upon it, to his bosom, and proposed three cheers for the independence of Macaroni! You may conceive what a taking the poor fellow must have been in before he ventured to do anything of the sort. Mat, being thus committed to Macaroni, was a mere baby in the hands of Peter. They had an interview to discuss the affairs of the neighbouring Squirearchy, and any other little matters which might occur to either; which Mat felt as an honour, whilst Peter was feeling his pulse. Peter, like an aged villain as he was, affected to be extremely straightforward and open in his remarks, and quite confidential in his communications; so that, in the course of half an hour, poor Mat was entirely at his mercy. After they had chatted for a short time, and cracked a bottle or so of Lachrymæ together, Peter claps me down a map of the whole country, whereon Squire Bull's farm was marked out with some twelve or thirteen crosses, before Mat, and asked him whether he thought it was all correct? "Undubitably," quoth Mat-o'-theMint, who regarded the crosses as simply indicative of the villages. "Then there can be no objections to the publication of a map of this kind upon hierarchical principles?" continued Peter, ogling his victim at the same time, as a fox makes love to a gander. "Hier-I beg your pardon"-said Mat-o'-the-Mint, who was not overburdened with lore at any time, and just then was rather confuscated. Hieroglyphical principles, did you say?" "No-hierarchical principles," insinuated Peter, with a smile intended to convey the utmost amount of indulgence. "Hiero, you know, was one of our earliest geographers." "To be sure he was "-replied Mat-o'-the-Mint-" and an intimate friend of Leander's-I've read of him in the Imaginary Conversations— There can be no objections, of course. The map's a capital map!" "I'm very glad to hear you say so," said Peter, sounding a little silver whistle which dangled from his button-hole, "it is always matter of. satisfaction to me to meet with a plain, intellectual, honourable, enlightened gentleman, who knows what's what, and is above all manner of prejudice.-You may take away that map, Hippopotamus"-he conti nued, as an individual in purple stockings entered the room. "Mr. Matthew is perfectly satisfied as to its correctness, and you may mention that when you write to your friends at home." Hippopotamus swept up the plan and retired; but long after he closed the door, you might have heard a sniggering in the lobby. "And now, my very dear friend," So far Peter thought that he was whole gang of them off to clear Peter's patrimony of the rioters, and mayhap, if convenient, to bring back the old execrations of Massaniello and his Jesuit in person. Terrible were the friends when they were summoned to surrender by young Nap's people! They said-what was true enoughthat if the others were entitled to eject Philip Baboon, they were entitled to turn Peter about his business; and they protested that the people of each estate should be allowed to manage But interference was the order of the their own matters without interference. day. Everybody was interfering: so Nap's men gave them to understand that they did not intend to be exceptions to the general rule. In short, Massaniello and his friends must evacuate or-take the consequences. And, accordingly, evacuate they did, though not without a good deal of burning of gunpowder, levying of subsidies, abduction of church-plate, &c.; and, in due course of time, old Peter was brought back, amidst a discharge of Roman candles, squibs, crackers, and Catherine wheels; and with him returned the whole host of Jesuits, monks, and inquisitors, singing Quare fremuerunt gentes? and ten times more ready for any kind of mischief than before. ask, was Mat-o'-the-Mint? Snug And where all this while, you may at home. Some of the upper servants in the household of Squire Bull had got an inkling of the business he was after, and put questions, which were neither easy to answer nor agreeable to evade. The Squire himself began to grumble. Protocol could not help perceiving that he had got into a scrape by sending out such an envoy; and even the Juggler did not care to have the matter publicly mentioned, but was willing that it should fall into oblivion. It is, however, easier to open a negotiation with Peter, than to get out of one. The difficulty is not to catch the lobster, but to force him to leave go after he has fastened on you with his claws; and you shall presently hear what took place in Bullockshatch, not long after the time when Peter was reinstated in his patrimony. HUNGARIAN MILITARY SKETCHES. THE brief but brilliant struggle which was terminated, on the 13th August 1849, by the surrender of Vilagos, is unquestionably one of the most remarkable episodes in contemporary history: and numerous as are the writers, both in Germany and England, who have applied themselves to exhibit and comment on its circumstances, it yet is not won derful that the interest of the subject is far from exhausted. A Schlesinger, a Pulsky, and a Klapka, graphic and striking as are their delineations of the singular contest in which they all more or less participated, have still left much for their successors to tell. The volume before us a German collective translation of tales and sketches by several Hungarian authors -is of a different class from the works of the above-named writers. It does not aspire to the dignity of historical memoirs, nor is the form it affects—namely, the romantic-one that we usually much admire when applied to such recent and important events as those of which Hungary has been the theatre; events, too, of themselves 30 striking and fascinating as to render fictitious colouring superfluous. Nevertheless, these sketches must be admitted to have considerable merit. They are vivid and characteristic illustrations of a remarkable country, a heroic people, and an extraordinary period; and the amount of fiction interwoven is, in most instances, little more than is necessary to string together historical facts. Some few of them have little to do with the late war, but all throw more or less light upon the state and character of Hungary and its inhabitants. Their success in that country, the German preface assures us, and we can readily believe, has been very great. Some of them read like prose translations of poems; and with the exception of three or four, which are terse and matter-of-fact enough, their style has often a wild and metaphorieal vagueness, recalling the semi oriental character of the country whence they proceed. Those which take for their foundation the cruelties perpetrated by the Serbs upon the Magyars, and the fearful retaliation thereby provoked, are too horriblenot for truth, but to be pleasant reading; others border on the humorous, whilst some combine the tragic with the gay. Of this last class is the opening sketch by Sajó, entitled A Ball. It is a letter from a young lady to a friend, describing her and her mother's terror at the anticipated arrival of a Hungarian division, after English Guyon's glorious victory at Branisco; and relating how the old woman hid herself in cupboards and clock-cases, and urged her daughter to stain her face black, in order to diminish her personal attractions-advice which the daughter, not exactly comprehending its motive, most indignantly rejects. Presently she is astonished by the arrival of a couple of handsome hussar officers, instead of the leather-clad Calmuck-visaged barbarians, seven feet high, and with beards to their waists, which her mamma has predicted; and still more is she surprised when, instead of breaking open doors and ill-treating women, the newcomers organise a ball for that very night-a ball which she attends, and where she is greatly smitten with an elegant captain of Honveds. He has just led her out to dance, when the ball-room windows rattle to the sound of cannon, and a splashed hussar announces an attack upon the outposts. The officers buckle on their sabres and hurry to the fight, begging the ladies to await their return. In little more than an hour they reappear in the ball-room. They have repulsed the enemy, and return flushed and laughing to the dance. But the handsome Honved is not amongst them. The interrupted quadrille is re-formed, but Laura still awaits her partner. A tall dry-mannered major, of valiant reputation, approaches her. "Fair lady," he says, "your partner Schlachtfelderblüthen aus Ungarn. Novellen nach wahren Kriegs-Scenen. Leipzig und Pesth, 1850. London; Williams and Norgate. |