rmity, was borne down by the impetuosity of
Belle-Isle. Walpole retired from the service of his ungrateful country
to his woods and paintings at Houghton; and his power devolved on the
daring and eccentric Carteret. As were the ministers, so were the
nations. Thirty years during which Europe had, with few interruptions,
enjoyed repose had prepared the public mind for great military efforts.
A new generation had grown up, which could not remember the siege of
Turin or the slaughter of Malplaquet; which knew war by nothing but its
trophies; and which, while it looked with pride on the tapestries at
Blenheim, or the statue in the Place of Victories, little thought by
what privations, by what waste of private fortunes, by how many bitter
tears, conquests must be purchased.

For a time fortune seemed adverse to the Queen of Hungary. Frederic
invaded Moravia. The French and Bavarians penetrated into Bohemia, and
were there joined by the Saxons. Prague was taken. The Elector of
Bavaria was raised by the suffrages of his colleagues to the Imperial
throne,--a throne which the practice of centuries had almost entitled
the House of Austria to regard as a hereditary possession.

Yet was the spirit of the haughty daughter of the Caesars unbroken.
Hungary was still hers by an unquestionable title; and although her
ancestors had found Hungary the most mutinous of all their kingdoms, she
resolved to trust herself to the fidelity of a people, rude indeed,
turbulent, and impatient of oppression, but brave, generous, and
simple-hearted. In the midst of distress and peril she had given birth
to a son, afterwards the Emperor Joseph the Second. Scarcely had she
risen from her couch, when she hastened to Presburg. There, in the sight
of an innumerable multitude, she was crowned with the crown and robed
with the robe of St. Stephen. No spectator could restrain his tears when
the beautiful young mother, still weak from child-bearing, rode, after
the fashion of her fathers, up the Mount of Defiance, unsheathed the
ancient sword of state, shook it towards north and south, east and west,
and, with a glow on her pale face, challenged the four corners of the
world to dispute her rights and those of her boy. At the first sitting
of the Diet she appeared clad in deep mourning for her father, and in
pathetic and dignified words implored her people to support her just
cause. Magnates and deputies sprang up, half drew their sabres, and with
eager voices