Hungary is an hereditary but limited monarchy, the crown of which has been held since 1527 by the house of Austria. The king possesses many important rights and prerogatives, but at the same time the rights and privileges of the Hungarian nobility also are numerous and extensive. The nobility alone are designated in the language of the state by the appellation of the Hungarian people, and they are distinguished in a peculiar manner from the nobles of all other European nations by the circumstance, that the grants of their privileges have suffered least from the changes of time, and that the characteristic features of these rights, now in the nineteenth century, approach nearer than any to those of the nobles in the days of the crusades. This constitution bears a nearer resemblance to our own in its earlier periods, as it regards the king, the magnats or grandees, and the deputies in diet assembled, than that of any of the northern nations: yet it differs widely from it in all that relates to the lower order of the people, whose interests have been completely overlooked, and who are still in nearly the same state of villanage that prevailed in most parts of Europe during the feudal ages. The country in general is parcelled out among the magnats, some of whom possess estates of immense extent. In considering a Hungarian property, says Dr. Bright, we must figure to ourselves a landed proprietor possessing ten, twenty or forty estates, distributed in different parts of the kingdom, reckoning his acres by hundreds of thousands, and the peasants upon his estates by numbers almost as great; we must remember that all this extent of land is cultivated, not by farmers, but by his own stewards and officers, who have not only to attend to the agricultural management of the land, but to direct to a certain extent the administration of justice among the people; we must farther bear in mind, that perhaps one-third of this extensive territory consists of the deepest forests, affording a retreat and shelter not only to beasts of prey, but to many lawless and desperate characters, who often defy for a great length of time the vigilance of the police--we shall then have some faint conception of the situation and duties of a Hungarian magnat.