PITON'S GOTH AND HUN. * THE early part of Mr. Paton's
travels originated in the inspiration of " our own correspondent ". its substance having appeared in the form of a series of letters to the Times. This portion of the book embraced a journey from Comorn to Szolnok on the Theiss ; which river Mr. Paton descended to Szegedin ; whence he made an ex- cursion to Transylvania. Here his travels ceased for the Times ; but the author continued them in a leisurely manner on his own account : he "visited the Szekler land, and returned by Northern Transylvania Grosswardein, and Debreczin, to Pesth and Vienna." In other words, on his outward journey he traversed Middle and Southern Hungary towards its Eastern boundary, and then making a detour returned through the Northern districts. Mr. Paton visited Hungary at a critical period. Georgey had not long since surrendered ; Comorn was still holding out when he presented himself before it; and the effects of a " bellum pluscivam civile " were visible everywhere, in a devastated country, dilapi- dated towns, and families mourning the dead or the living. The ground Mr. Paton travelled over is out of the beaten track ; and he had acquaintances or credentials that took him into the company of magnates, from the commanders of the blockading force be- fore Comorn, to the Minister, Prince Schwarzenberg, at Vienna. But, somehow, the result lags a long way off the author's advan- tages. The original source of the inspiration hangs about the book. Even when the business of the foreign correspondent ceases, the style continues the same ; perhaps seems inferior, be- cause the route is upon the whole less interesting, from the ab- sence of the Austrian and Russian armies, whose pride, pomp, and varying nationalities, give brilliancy to the pictures of Comorn. Mr. Paton at the best of times is not very animated or dra- matic in his manner ; his mind has something of the mecha- nieal cast of the reporter or the official man. But he can at least arrange his materials in a consecutive manner, or allow them to arrange themselves. This not the case in The Goth and the Hun. The narrative is imperfectly done : its progress is in- terfered with by chapters of disquisition upon all kinds of subjects, • The Goth and the Hun ; or Transylvania, Debreezio, Pesth, and Vienna, in IMO. By A. A. Paton, Author of " The Mamelukes." Published by Bentley.
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historical, political, ethnographical, and whatnot. The bias of the author is evidently in favour of the Austrians, though lie does not quite approve of all their doings : but he received civilities from the other side, so he has a good word for Moderate and Conserva- tive Hungarians. This disjointed character in the plan, and an evident leaning to Absolute men if not to Absolute measures, would have been of no great literary consequence had the opinions possessed more acumen and the style more nerve ; but they are commonplace, and haeknied in spirit if not in substance—the unused dilatations of "our correspondent" put into a book. The best things are the anecdotes of the war, the pictures of its effects, and some personal sketches. These facts in connexion with the siege of Temesvar may be added to the curiosities of metaphy- sical and medical experience.
" When the bombardment began, the terror of the inhabitants was in- describable ; the houses were abandoned and the cellars and casemates crowd- ed, and at first every shell that was heard to whiz overhead produced a wail in the casemates : but such is the strange effect of habit, that at last the ladies at night used to look tranquilly at the shells hissing across the hea- vens, and if they fell near would skip out of their way into the casemate& again without the least alarm, and even as if it had been a frolic. * • * "As for the horses of the Milan regiment, they were neither 'to hold nor to bind,' and were at last let loose, and in groups of twenty or thirty used to rush about the streets as if in the wilds of South America, and did no injury, as there was nobody in the streets but those connected with the fire-engines. Strange to say, those dumb creatures chose a leader, an old grey horse, which they followed; and with such unaccountable tact was this selection made, that all remarked what a knack the old grey had of getting out of the way of the shells. Those that were killed were at; once eaten ; for although there was abundance of corn in the fortress, and'although at this moment the mill is the only construction in Temesvar that is undamaged, yet meat was want- ing. At first, all ate horse-flesh except those soldiers that were of the Deca- 1 Roman nation, who for a long time steadily refused : at last an officer, one day entering a casemate, reproached some Italian soldiers jocularly for con- suming too much; for, said he, these others are too dainty soldiers to eat it.
The Daco-Romans immediately answered, yes, we can eat it '• and from that date they consumed horse-flesh like the others : and I was told that the Italians made a very eatable salad out of the weeds that grew among the grass of the fortifications. •
" The fever now began to rage in the town ; and on the 25th of July a quarter of the garrison had perished, a quarter was in the hospital, a quarter ailing and unserviceable, and only a quarter all-efficient ; and on that day alone five surgeons died of typhus. The bombardment had a terrible effect on the patients : even those who were in a fair way of recovery during the slackness of the fire, no sooner heard the bursting of a shell and the fall of some neighbouring roof, than they would leap out of bed in a phrensy, with fixed eyeballs, creep under the beds for shelter, and a couple of hours' at- tack of nervous fever usually finished them."
This is an interesting death remark of Roth, a Lutheran clergy- man, who was shot by the Hungarians.
" It was on this very spot,' said the Saxon pastor to me, that Roth stopped to take breath as I accompanied him, and gave him spiritual consola- tion in his last moments ; and being the month of May, the foliage had just come out. ' The world is beautiful, said he, as he looked round the valley ; 'but let my humanity stand confessed—how much more beautiful when one sees it for the last time' . and within a few minutes, Roth was shot on the ramparts.' "
At Vienna, our author dined with General Count Seblick, awl delicately put a question to him on Georgey's treason.
" In the course of the evening I said to him, ' You are a soldier and ft gentleman, without political finesse and do not conceal your opinion. Do you think that Georgey was a traitor to the cause he fought for?' But Schick scouted the idea, and said, 'that hemmed in on all sides in a corner of Hungary, not a shadow of a chance of success remained open to the Ma- gyar army; and that none but a fool could have supposed it to be otherwise.' "
The following is a picture of a country gentleman's life in Transylvania.
" The domestic manners of such a family may be described as follows. In the morning earlier afoot than is usual in capitals. Coffee is taken about eight o'clock, and the landlord spends all his forenoon in tenantry business. Two o'clock is the dinner-hour ; and after coffee and pipes the carriage is at the door, and a drive is taken until sunset. At eight o'clock in the evening the circle reassemble—one end of the table being covered and served with dressed dishes and wines, and the other end provided with tea service, scp that the guest has his choice ; and in a short time cigars and punch are in- troduced for the gentlemen ; which does not drive the ladies away, but they remain knitting, talking, and making an occasional lxcursion to the piano- forte, all which is different from our habits ; but, 'cheque pays cheque usage ' ; and although those hours would not suit the business of the English- man, whose forenoon must be much longer and more undisturbed by a formal entertainment, yet I found the evening to slip moat pleasantly away between politics, music, and other sociabilities. "The feelings of this class of persons is that of strong loyalty to the reigning house, complete disapprobation of the violent revolutionary mea- sures of the ultra-Magyar party ' • but at the same time a strong pride in their own nationality, a great horror of the prospect of anything. like Saxon employes, and of the substitution of centralization for the mumcipal principle ; in short, feelings akin to those which would be manifested by the great majority of the persons of property and intelligence in this country. Not a word against the reform of real abuses—not a word against the real abolition of feudalism, by the enfranchisement of the serf, and his elevation to the condition of the citizen of a free country—and not a word in favour of the misnamed newfangled abolition of feudalism, which, instead of commuting labour into money-rent, according to fair valuation, by deliberate enactment, turns the farmer into the landlord by a hop-step-and-a-jump, leaving the freeholder who, perhaps six months before, had purchased a pro- perty with hard cash, to the revolutionary chapter of accidents."
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