pared either to offer or resist attack, and trusting for the accomplishment of his prediction to some secret exertion on the hearts of his enemies of the same high influence by which he professed to have been assured. No such solution of the difficulty, either miraculous or accidental, was fated to befal him. As they approached Mecca, the Coreysh met him by a short and stern mandate prohibiting his further advance; and the disconcerted prophet suddenly found himself not only deceived and the deceiver of others, in respect of what he had so confidently announced, but thrown by his own credulity, with all the moral strength of his party, into the reach of their enemies ;—a species of hostage for his better behaviour if allowed to return unmolested. Nothing could have saved the party and the religion from extermination, but one of those conventional points of rude morality which are sometimes found to prevail among a barbarous people, with a force exactly proportioned to their essential insignificance,—as if by an unconscious instinct of society the blindest deference was to be exacted from the feeling, when least could be commanded from the judgment. Amidst the chaos of anarchy and outrage which the entire peninsula has always presented, four months had been set apart from the earliest periods for the annual season of universal truce. Singularly tenacious were the Arabs of this their last homage to the duties and dignities of civilized life; and the wild rovers of the desert, who knew no other law, amerced themselves for all their excesses, by the undeviating strictness with which they adhered to this. Mahomet then must not be considered to have taken this singular step without something like a shadow of safeguard to his party on definite and demonstrable grounds. Of all the months that were thus held sacred to repose, the most sacred was that in which the pilgrimage was taken; and throughout all the peninsula; in which outrage was then criminal, it was most criminal in the precincts of the city he now approached. But the temptation offered was immense:-the long score of suffering and indignity that might be wiped away-the fair prospect of peace and supremacy that might be secured at a blow, which the unguardedness that provoked would almost seem at the same time to justifythis must have been no light consideration among an impetuous people and to a falling party. That the situation and the opportunity was felt on both sides we know from what followed. A treaty was concluded, in which Mahomet granted peace to his bitterest enemies, on condition of his being allowed to make the pilgrimage in future-the Coreysh being bound to evacuate the city as soon as he approached it. In his eagerness to conclude the agreement, the Prophet waived, in the wording of it, the high pretensions he had so strictly maintained on all other occa

sions. Nay, he was obliged to acquiesce in present disappointment as the only price at which he could obtain the remote and contingent accomplishment of his predictions. In resisting their present entry into Mecca the Coreysh were inflexible, and the moslims were compelled to retreat with only the promise of the promise they had come to fulfil. The next year the treaty was observed on both sides, and the attachment of the moslims to the city of their faith, was augmented by the joy of performing their long-delayed rites. Strengthened by the submission of fresh tribes, they panted for an opportunity of securing it for ever to their feelings and their faith. To persons so disposed, the occasion could not long be wanting. The Coreysh had joined in hostility against a tribe in the alliance of the moslims. Mahomet declared the treaty was infringed, and produced the 9th chapter of the Korann, containing the decisive declaration that after that year no idolater should approach the Caaba. The composition was instantly dispatched to the Coreysh, and Mahomet followed with an army of 10,000 men. The situation of the two parties was here precisely the reverse of what it had been on the previous occasion. The Meccans were taken by surprise, and having themselves in a manner infringed on the law of the sacred truce in their conduct to the tribe whose cause Mahomet espoused, they were justly held by him to have forfeited all claim to benefit by it on the present occasion. Unprepared for resistance, submission was their only resource; and Abu Sufian, the prophet's most determined foe, waited on him with the keys of the city. What follows is the touchstone of Mahomet's character. His bitter insulters, his unrelenting enemies were in his power, and he pardoned them!-those who declined embracing his faith, being left at liberty to go where they pleased. The conquest of Mecca was speedily followed by the submission of the provinces of Yaman and Najd; and Mahomet found himself the political and religious head of his country. With this, the historical part of our article concludes. A few passages of the 48th, 9th, 8th, and 5th chapters there are which were composed in the following year; but the interest of the Korann terminates, together with the opposition it met with, and the difficulties under which it was produced.

A slight consideration will convince us that Mahommedanism is neither to be assailed nor defended by the arguments usually resorted to. Neither the perfect conviction of Mahomet and his contemporaries, nor the rapid and unlimited conquests of his successors, can be admitted as a proof of his real inspiration. Credence equally implicit, and in the beginning equally extended, has been given in various ages of the world to tenets, to all of which it is impossible to subscribe. Invasions, equally extensive and

equally successful, have often been produced by the unpretending impulses of want and ferocity. On the other hand, no considerations drawn from the character of the pretender, or the actual nature of the faith he established, can be insisted on without involving us in serious inconsistencies. In its professed object and primary tendencies the religion he preached was infinitely superior to that he supplanted, and singularly suited to the characters of his countrymen. And if the wisdom of Providence has on other occasions adapted its dispensations to peculiarities of civilization, and given one nation laws that were not fitted for another and precepts in which they could not live, we cannot now reject another system because it contains some and fewer imperfections of a similar kind. Inspiration seems always to have acted within the limits of character and country; and those who admit David to have lived under the guidance and in the favor of God, cannot altogether object to similar claims in another.

On this, as on many other important questions, we must be content for the present to come to a conclusion less certain than we should wish to arrive at; and in the equipoise of more decisive arguments, the reader's judgment will perhaps be satisfied with the following considerations. Mahomet's system was not uniform: it began in peace and humility, and ended in arrogance and havoc. Contradictions so serious as these bespeak the inconsistent emotions of human feeling, rather than the steady guidance of unalterable wisdom; and whatever allowance we may be inclined to make for those necessary tendencies of disposition which cannot be banished without destroying personal identity, we cannot suppose that absolute guilt, or even particular indulgence, should be sanctioned and defended by the word of God. But by the distinct admission of Mahomet and all his followers, the question mainly rests on the inspiration of his scripture, and the whole pile of Moslim faith and Moslim arrogance falls with the authority of the Korann.

But it is impossible to degrade Mahomet as a prophet without exalting him as a man. If superiority to the prejudices of age and country-if perseverance in a sacred cause, despite of persecution and of ignominy-if clemency in the full career of conquest-if unequalled influence over the minds and passions of mankind— give a title to the admiration of posterity, where shall we find, short of Mosaic inspiration, a claim so undeniable as his? The inconsistencies of his conduct a philosopher will readily excuse, as they were the natural results of a system he was compelled to adopt and a Christian will grieve to consider, that if his original intentions could have been carried into effect, the simple purity of the doctrine he taught would have left little for the propagators of the Gospel to overcome.

ART. II.-Geschichte der Magyaren (History of the Magyars), von Johann, Grafen Mailath. 5 vols. 8vo. Wien. 1828

1831.

TIME has been when Hungary constituted a politically important part of Europe; when upon that remote, and now unregarded eastern province, the eyes of the continent were bent, first in terror, afterwards in anxious, trembling hope. At an early period of modern history, when the Carlovingian dynasty was sinking towards final extinction, from Hungary issued the swarms of Magyars who for upwards of half a century overran and desolated those parts of Europe which by geographical position had escaped the predatory incursions of the Danes and Normans. And at a later period, when the Ottoman hosts threatened to overwhelm Christendom, Hungary was the bulwark of civilized Europe, the theatre upon which the wars of the Cross and the Crescent were hourly waged.

Those times are past; and to the rest of the world Hungary is now no more than a province of the Austrian empire; though certainly an important province, with a population superior to that of many modern kingdoms, being in round numbers twelve millions. Its history therefore, which would once have commanded the universal attention of the reading public, can now hope only for such notice as its own independent and intrinsic interest may attract. That this interest is however by no means inconsiderable, needs scarcely be stated; for to what Christian heart can the country be indifferent that so long struggled singlehanded against the all-subduing Turks, and that, when it fell, fell a victim for the general safety.

But this is not the sole interest belonging to the land of the Magyars. It has produced splendid feats of heroism and romantic adventures, and has given birth to men in whom, however tainted with the vices of their age, the proudest country might exult. The aristocratic freedom and privileges of the Magyars themselves offer, even in the present day, a lingering remnant of feudalism; and the generous spirit with which they supported, and effectively supported Maria Theresa, when assailed by the rapacious and perjured sovereigns of Europe, may be termed the last gleam of European chivalry.

Graf (Earl) Mailáth who, in the volumes now before us, has made this land of vicissitudes and this lofty-souled nation known to Germany, is himself a Magyar, of a high family, serving their country officially and with well-merited distinction. Earl Johann has preferred the service of the muses to that of the state; but even in his pursuit of "this idle trade" he has been actuated by

patriotic impulses, and has made the fame of Hungary one of his great literary objects. As a poet he has translated her ancient Magyar poetry into German, as noticed in a former number;* he has collected her early traditions and legends; and he now stands forward in the graver capacity of her historian. In these various branches of literature Count Mailáth has earned the general esteem, as well of his Magyar compatriots as of the Teutonic literati. All his works are popular in Germany; and in the last volume of his history he speaks with gratitude of the favourable verdicts pronounced by the tribunals of criticism upon the preceding volumes, as they separately appeared.

To give in our narrow limits an analysis of these five volumes, unconnected with this country or with the political excitement of the day, is of course out of the question. But we conceive that a rapid survey of the history of Hungary, or rather perhaps of its tenor and character, in proof of our remarks, may be satisfactory to the reader. With such a sketch therefore we shall introduce the extracts that appear most interesting, characteristic, and national.

Count Mailáth commences his history somewhat abruptly, with the irruption of the Magyars into Hungary, taking no notice of their origin or former home. This omission, if omission it be, is amply atoned by the insertion, as an appendix, in three of his volumes, of dissertations translated from the Magyar of the national antiquaries, Georg von Fejér and Stephen Howath, and designed to prove that nation a branch of the Parthians or Turks. This is a topic important to the Magyars and to the investigators of such ethnological questions; but having adverted to it in the article already cited, we shall imitate our historian and begin with the occupation of Hungary.

In the year 889 the Magyars, under their leader Arpad, crossed the Carpathian mountains from Galicia and invaded Hungary, then parcelled out amongst several petty lords and princes. Some strategical skill the Magyars we are told even then displayed; inasmuch as they always detached a part of their army to fall upon the flank or rear of the enemy whom the main body attacked in front: this appears to have remained their favourite manœuvre so long as they had an independent army. It was in the ninth century more than sufficient for the conquest of Hungary, a conquest characterized rather by ravage and devastation than by open fight. From that moment, as stated, the Magyars under Arpad and his posterity overran, plundered, and desolated Germany, France, Italy, and the Greek empire as far as

See vol. iii. p. 66.