Presently the Emperor and Empress came down, and the carriage passed at a foot’s pace through the saluting and pleased crowd. The Empress is the most charming-looking royal personage I have ever seen, and seemed to think it quite right that the people should occupy her house and grounds. Fancy omnibuses driving into the Court-yard of Buckingham Palace, and John Bull proceeding to occupy the private gardens! John himself would decidedly think that the end of the world was come. The Constitution, too, seems to work well from all I heard. The Court party has ceased almost to struggle for power. It revenges itself, however, in social life. Society (so called) is more exclusive in Vienna than anywhere else, and consists of some 400 or 500 persons all told. Even the most distinguished soldiers and statesmen have not the _entrée_. Benedek’s family is not in society, nor Schmerling’s, though I hear his daughter is one of the prettiest and most ladylike girls in Austria. All which is very silly, doubtless, but the chief sufferers are the 400 inhabitants who drive in the Prater, and go to the Leichtenstein and Schwartzenburg parties, and after all, if aristocracies in the foolish sense are inevitable, an aristocracy of birth is preferable to one of money, or, _me judice_, of intellect, seeing that the latter gives itself at least as absurd airs, and is likely to be much more mischievous. On the other hand, my Hungarian sympathies have been somewhat shaken since visiting the country. I suppose the national dress has something to say to it. An Englishman cannot swallow braided coats, and tight coloured pants, and boots all at once, and the carriage and airs of the men are offensive. I say this more on the judgment of several of my country-women on this point than on my own, but from my own observation I can say that Pesth, to a mere passer-by, has all the appearances of the most immoral capital in the world. In the best shops, in the best streets, there are photographs and engravings exhibited which, with us, would speedily call Lord Campbell’s Act into operation. And the Haymarket is in many respects moral in comparison with many parts of Pesth. It is the only place in Europe where I have seen men going about drunk before midday. In short, you will perceive that my inspection inclines me to suspect that there may he more than one has been wont to believe in the assertion, that the Constitution we hear so much of is aristocratic and one which will give back old feudal privileges to a conquering race and enable them to oppress Slaves, Croats, etc., as they did before 1848. There is, everybody admits, a large discontented class in Hungary, composed chiefly of the poor nobility (who have long ago spent their compensation money), and professional men, especially advocates, but it is strenuously maintained that the great mass of the people have been far better off in all ways and more contented since 1849. I don’t pretend