nation was assigned to the aristocracy. It was a part, however, which
the Hungarian aristocracy was itself by no means disposed to assume.
Among its younger members, indeed, could be found, here and there,
enthusiastic men who were devotedly attached to the person of the lordly
reformer, but the great majority of his class were hostilely arrayed
against Szechenyi's aims, and, obstructing the granting of even the most
inoffensive demands of the nation, supported the Viennese Government;
which was rigidly opposed to political reforms and to any changes in the
public institutions of the country. This attitude of the aristocracy
compelled Szechenyi to avoid as much as possible all questions
concerning constitutionality and liberty, and to confine the work of
reform chiefly to the sphere of internal improvements.

The only way in which he could hope to obtain the support of the court
of Vienna and of the majority of the Upper House for his
politico-economical measures, was to remain as neutral as possible in
politics. The idea which chiefly governed his actions was that the
country should be first strengthened internally, and that afterward it
would be easy for the nation to bring about the triumph of her national
and political aspirations.

After 1840, however, the bulk of the nation, and especially the small
gentry whose preponderating influence was making itself continually
felt, were unwilling to follow Szechenyi in his one-sided policy. The
reformatory work of Szechenyi during the preceding fifteen years had
educated public opinion up to new and great ideas, but the leaders of
that public opinion were now to be found in the House of Representatives
in the persons of Francis Deak and Louis Kossuth. They wished to obtain
for their country both political liberty and material prosperity. They
knew the effect of political institutions upon the material well-being
and civilization of a nation, and they no longer deemed it possible to
attain these objects without a modern constitutional government.

Louis Kossuth, who was born in 1802, was the very incarnation of the
great democratic ideas of his age. He was entirely a man of work and
entered the legal profession, after he had completed his studies with
great distinction, for the purpose of supporting himself by it. Kossuth
was present at the Diet of 1832, when the Government, which conducted
itself most brutally and arbitrarily toward the press, refused to allow
the newspa