The son and successor of Maria Theresa, Joseph II., attempted, in his summary way, by arbitrary edicts promising liberty and equality, to subvert the constitution of every country he governed, and to extend to them all one uniform despotic system, founded on that of Austria. To him Hungary is indebted for the first gleam of religious toleration; but his hasty and despotic attempts to suppress national distinctions, national institutions and languages, provoked a fierce and armed resistance in Hungary, and in other portions of his dominions, and more than revived all the old aversion to Austria. His more prudent successor made concessions to the spirit of independence, and the love of national institutions, which Joseph had so deeply wounded. Leopold regained the Hungarians; but Belgium, already alienated in spirit, never again gave her heart to the emperor; and he never lost sight of the uniformity of system that Maria Theresa had done so much to promote, and which Joseph, in his haste to accomplish it, had for the moment made unattainable. From the days of Ferdinand I. until now, the attempt to assimilate the forms and system of government, in every part of their possessions, to the more arbitrary Austrian model, has been steadily pursued throughout the reigns of all the princes of the house of Hapsburg. These persevering efforts to extend the power of the crown by subverting national institutions, and thus to obliterate so many separate nationalities, have aroused for their defence a spirit that promises to perpetuate them. Feelings of community of race and language, which had slumbered for many generations, have been revived with singular intensity. Italy for the Italians--Germany for the Germans--a new Sclavonic empire for the western Sclaves--the union of all the Sclave nations under the empire of the Czar--are cries which have had power to shake thrones, and may hereafter dismember empires.