t laureate of the nation, lived in Pest, and
there the twin stars of literature, Alexander Petofi and Maurice Jokai,
shone on the national horizon. Jokai, who is still living (1886) and
enjoys a world-wide fame as a novelist, and Petofi, the eminent poet,
who was destined to become the Tyrtaeus of his nation, were then both
young men, full of enthusiasm and intrepid energy, and teeming with
great ideas.

About these two gathered the other writers and youth of the University,
and all of them, helping one another, contrived, on hearing the news of
the sudden revolutions in Paris and Vienna, to enact in Budapest the
bloodless revolution of March 15, 1848, which obtained the liberty of
the press for the nation, and at the same time, in a solemn manifesto,
gave expression to the wishes of the Hungarians in the matter of reform.
The only act of violence these revolutionary heroes were guilty of was
the entering of a printing establishment, whose proprietor, afraid of
the Government, had refused to print the admirable poem of Petofi
entitled _Talpra Magyar_ ("Up, Magyar"), and doing the printing there
themselves. The first stanza of this poem, later the war-song of the
national movement, runs, in a literal translation, thus:

"Arise, O Magyar! thy country calls.
Here is the time, now or never.
Shall we be slaves or free?
That is the question--choose!
We swear by the God of the Magyars,
We swear, to be slaves no longer!"

This soul-stirring poem was improvised by Petofi under the inspiration
of the moment, and at the same establishment where it was first printed
was also printed a proclamation which contained twelve articles setting
forth the wishes of the people.

While the capital was resounding with the rejoicings and triumphant
shouts of her exulting inhabitants, the proper department of the
Government for the carrying through of these movements, the Diet,
assembled at Presburg, lost no time, and set to work with great energy
to reform the institutions of Hungary, constitutionally, and to put into
the form of law the ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The
salutary legislation met now with no opposition, either from the Upper
House or from the court at Vienna, and in a short time the Diet passed
the celebrated acts of 1848, which, having received the royal sanction,
were proclaimed as laws on April 11th, at Presburg, amid the wildest
enthusiasm, in the presence of King Ferdinand V.

By these