disposed to assume. Among its younger members, indeed, could be found, here and there, enthusiastic men who were devotedly attached to the person of the lordly reformer, but the great majority of his class were hostilely arrayed against Széchenyi’s aims, and, obstructing the granting of even the most inoffensive demands of the nation, supported the Viennese government, which was rigidly opposed to political reforms and to any changes in the public institutions of the country. This attitude of the aristocracy compelled Széchenyi to avoid as much as possible all questions concerning constitutionality and liberty, and to confine the work of reform chiefly to the sphere of internal improvements. The only way in which he could hope to obtain the support of the court of Vienna and of the majority of the Upper House for his politico-economical measures, was to remain as neutral as possible in politics. The idea which chiefly governed his actions was that the country should be first strengthened internally, and that afterwards it would be easy for the nation to bring about the triumph of her national and political aspirations. After 1840, however, the bulk of the nation, and especially the small gentry whose preponderating influence was making itself continually felt, were unwilling to follow Széchenyi in his one-sided policy. The reformatory work of Széchenyi during the preceding fifteen years had educated public opinion up to new and great ideas, but the leaders of that public opinion were now to be found in the House of Representatives in the persons of Francis Deák and Louis Kossuth. They wished to obtain for their country both political liberty and material prosperity. They knew the effect of political institutions upon the material well-being and civilization of a nation, and they no longer deemed it possible to attain these objects without a modern constitutional government. Louis Kossuth, who was born in 1802, was the very incarnation of the great democratic ideas of his age. He was entirely a man of work and entered the legal profession, after having completed his studies with great distinction, for the purpose of supporting himself by it. Kossuth was present at the Diet of 1832, when the government, which conducted itself most brutally and arbitrarily towards the press, refused to allow the newspapers to print reports of the deliberations of the Diet in spite of the repeated urgings by the deputies for such an authorization, and it was owing to his ingenuity that this prohibition was evaded. The censorship was exercised on printed matter only and did not extend to manuscripts. Kossuth wrote out the reports of the Diet himself, had numerous copies made of them in writing, and circulated them, for a slight fee, in every part of the country, where they were looked for with feverish expectation, and, owing to the spirit of opposition with which they were colored, were read with the greatest eagerness. This manuscript