e feudal superiors--to prevent this, I repeat,
a general memorial survey with a view to readjustment took place in 1767
by command of Maria Theresa.

"This very important settlement, which came to be known as the
'URBARIAL CONSCRIPTION,' laid down and defined the rights and
services of the peasants, and the amount of land to be held by them. The
nobles henceforth were obliged to find new tenants of the peasant class
in the event of the 'session-lands' becoming vacant. Likewise their
unjust impositions on the serfs were restricted, and the _rights_ of the
latter, in respect to wood-cutting and pasturage on the lord's lands,
were established by law.

"This was all very well as far as it went," said my friend; "but the
inequality of taxation and the forced labour were crying evils not to be
endured in the nineteenth century. Our people who travelled in England
and elsewhere came back imbued with new ideas. We in Transylvania assume
the credit of taking the lead in liberal politics. Baron Wesselenyi was
one of the first to advise a radical reform, and others--Count Bethlen,
Baron Kemeny, and Count Teleki--were all agreed as to the necessity of
bringing about the manumission of the serfs. It is an old story now. I
am speaking of the third and fourth decades of the century, and
political excitement was at white-heat. The extreme views of Wesselenyi
raised a host of opponents among his own class, who regarded the
prospect of reform as nothing short of class suicide. Everything else
might go to the devil as long as they retained their privileges; the
devil, however, is apt to make a clean sweep of the board when he has
got the game in his own hands, but these noble wiseacres could not see
that. In other parts of the country good men and true were working up
the leaven of reform. The great patriot Szechenyi, as long ago as 1830,
when he published his work on 'Credit,' had shown his countrymen their
shortcomings. He had proved to them that their laws and their
institutions were not marching with the spirit of the age; that, in
short, the 'rights of humanity' called for justice. What this truly
great man did for the material improvement of his country could hardly
be told between sunrise and sundown. You practical English were our
teachers and our helpers in those days, when bridges had to be built,
roads to be made, and steam navigation set up in our rivers. English
horses were brought over to improve the breed in Hungary, and E