of the seventeenth century: that “his ignorance and uncouthness, his low tastes and gross phrases, would, in our time, be considered as indicating a nature and a breeding thoroughly plebeian. Yet he was essentially a patrician, and had, in large measure, both the virtues and vices which flourish among men set from their birth in high place, and accustomed to authority, to observance and to self-respect.” (_History of England_, Ch. III.) It was amongst these rough squires that the two great parties of England were formed. It was likewise amongst the much derided _táblabirók_ and _szolgabirók_ (squires and justices) of Hungary, that the men of 1825 and 1848 were formed; and in our time they have given Hungary one of the indispensable elements of representative government: real political parties. It appears necessary to dwell at some length on the great historic and political questions underlying the famous novel of Eötvös. No doubt, every Hungarian cannot but wish to see that novel in the hands of all who take an interest in Hungary. For, “The Village Notary” contains capital portraits of many a quaint, wild or pathetic type of inner Hungary. The down-trodden notary (Tengelyi); the tyrannical _szolgabiró_ (or squire) Paul Nyúzó (meaning: flayer); Viola, the honest peasant, who being shamefully wronged betakes himself to the forest and _pusztas_ (prairies) to lead the life of a robber; Mrs. Réty, the wife of the chief magistrate of the county, who is entangled in a fearful domestic tragedy, etc., etc. Moreover, the novel contains excellent pieces of irony and satire; and being reared on the broad idea of social reform never sinks to mere pamphleteering. Yet, with all that, we cannot but protest against the misstatement of the political importance of county-life in Hungary as advanced in that novel. Fully acknowledging, as we do, its literary value, which is diminished only by the heavy and un-Magyar diction, we deprecate its judgment on an institution without which Hungary would have long been reduced to the level of a mere province of Austria. Eötvös, like most idealists bred in the school of German idealism, could not endure rough Reality. He forgot, that for the making of history, as for that of bread, unclean matter is, at certain stages, an indispensable element. We have two more novels by Eötvös: “Hungary in 1514” (“_Magyarország 1514 ben_,” 1847), which is a fair picture of the time of the peasant-rebellion in Hungary, under George Dózsa; and “The Sisters” (“_A nővérek_,” 1857), a feeble story with many ideas on Education.