tary code have remained the same since | mals, and it is now kept up only to the days of Maria Theresa, when they furnish stallions and mares of the were framed in the most enlightened finest breeds for the use of the governspirit; but practical abuses frequently ment and the country. One hundred creep in from the aristocratic influence and fifty of these noble animals are pervading the service, which, as is gene- annually sent forth by this establishrally the case in such governments, all ment, and serve to keep up the govern. the efforts of those at the head of affairs ment stallions at the number of two are unable to eradicate. Every regi- thousand, which is deemed necessary ment has its "inhaber" or colonel pro- to the public service. The arrangeprietor, distinct from the colonel com- ment is all military, and the attention mandant, with whom the granting of paid to every department is so extreme, all commissions of the first rank rests; that the whole expense of the estabbut all subsequent promotions are made lishment is defrayed by the price obby the crown. Nobility is not a re- tained for the young horses, which are quisite to obtaining commissions, any sold by auction after those for governmore than in the English army; but ment and the public service have been as the spirit of the nation is essentially selected. The military exchequer pays aristocratic, the officers are generally a hundred and twenty florins (£10) for taken from that class; and the sons of the dragoon horses, and a hundred and the burghers and middle rank seek, in forty florins for those of the cuirassiers; preference, situations in the innumer- and much of the vigour and efficiency able civil offices under government, of the Imperial cavalry is to be ascribwhere they find themselves more com- ed to these noble establishments, in fortable, in contact only with persons which the greatest care has been taken in their own station of life, and often to combine the celerity and hardihood rise by good conduct to the highest of Arab blood with the strength and eminence. bone of the Norman breed. 16. The great breeding establishments kept up by the Emperor for providing horses for the cavalry are peculiar to Austria, and highly characteristic of the provident system of its administration. One of the most remarkable is that of Mezohegyes in Transylvania. An immense plain, fifteen leagues in circumference, containing eighty thousand acres of the finest grass, is there surrounded by a broad belt of wood, fenced in on the outside by a deep ditch. Two thousand acres in the interior are covered with thriving plantations for shelter and warmth to the horses, and the whole remainder of the surface is devoted to the nourishment of the studs or their attendants. Three hundred and sixty ploughs are employed in the interior in raising grain and cultivating the land for the use of the horses. Formerly twenty thousand horses were assembled in this great establishment, which was one of the principal depots for mounting the cavalry; but contagious diseases were found to be prevalent in such an assemblage of ani 17. Taxation in Austria is far from being oppressive; although the revenue of the state, if the value of money is taken into account, is very considerable. The total revenue at this time is 129,746,000 florins, equivalent to 322,000,000 francs, or £12,900,000 sterling. The expenditure, exclusive of the war department, is 87,000,000 florins, or £8,700,000; but the army is understood to cost 60,000,000 florins making the total expenditure nearly 20,000,000 florins (£2,000,000) above the income. The exchequer has always been a matter of great difficulty with the Austrian government, as it is with all powers maintaining a costly military establishment, without the aid of any extensive commerce to enlarge its credit or increase its receipts. In 1808 the revenues were only £9,000,000; and they were in such a state of confusion at the close of the war, that, but for the subsidies of England, which, from the difference in the value of money in the two countries, told with twofold efficacy, its armies never could have been brought into the field to combat for European | tion, is calculated to furnish materials independence.* 18. Foreign commerce has been little cultivated in Austria till of late years, owing to its inland situation, and the restrictions, long almost amounting to a prohibition, which the jealousy of Russia and Turkey imposed on the navigation of the Danube. Yet is there no country which, from its vast internal resources, and the possession of so noble a natural estuary for exporta * In 1834 the income and expenditure of the empire were as follows: Interest of public debt, Florins. Finance department, 14,619,220 £ for a greater foreign traffic, or with which a more extensive and lucrative trade is destined one day to be carried on between the owners of the rude produce of the soil and the manufacturing industry of other states. The silks, oils, and dairy produce of Lombardy and Venice; the fleeces of Hungary and Bohemia; the mineral riches of Austria and Hungary; the inexhaustible agricultural wealth of the whole empire, must ere long find a vent in an immense foreign commerce. The exports in 1834, according to the official value, were 111,092,941 florins, or £11,109,000, and the imports 40,000,000 or 4,000,000 107,781,409 florins, or £10,778,000; 1,462,000 but these numbers are taken from the 180,168 official entries, which are much below 164,350 the real value. If the wise and judi258,000 cious measures now in the course of 270,372 470,874 adoption by the Austrian government, 146,113 to facilitate their foreign exports by the great arteries of the Po and the 877,406 298,793 Danube, and the noble harbour of 258,000 Trieste, are fully carried into execu351,626 35,000 tion, there can be no doubt that their 60,000,000 6,000,000 commerce is destined at no distant 144,217,590 14,421,076 period to exhibit an amount double or The receipts of the Imperial treasury, in triple what is now presented. And nothing can be more certain than that Austria is a country with which, per38,987,954 or 3,898,700 haps beyond any other, it is for the 3,859,178 385,900 interest of Great Britain to cultivate 249,800 130,700 commercial relations, and with which 87,900 treaties on the footing of real reciprocity might be concluded; for her pro4,753,000 ductions are those which Britain wants, Chancery and diplo macy, 1,801,168 Police, 1,643,504 Civil cost of the army, 2,586,306 Public audit, 2,703,723 Justice, The courts, Public works in 7,708,734 1,461,139 Germany, 8,774,066 Lombardy, 2,987,935 Venice, 2,580,169 Lesser charges, factures of Britain are what Austria | the real blessings which Heaven has wants, and can never rival. placed within their reach. Their plea19. One remarkable feature which sures, of which they are so fond, are strikes the most superficial traveller chiefly of the physical kind. They do in every part of Austria Proper, the not feel the ardent desire for elevation Tyrol, and Styria, is the extraordi- which in free communities elevates a nary and general wellbeing of the pea- few to greatness, and consigns many santry. Without many of the luxuries to disappointment; and they must be which habit and a long command of changed indeed before a Burns, a the commerce of the world have ren- Watt, or a Telford arises among them. dered necessaries to the English la- Yet are these physical enjoyments in bourer; clothed in comparatively coarse a great degree divested of the revoltgarments, often without either tea or ing excesses so common in northern coffee, the Austrian peasant enjoys a latitudes. They drink amply of their much greater and more permanent own beer or provincial wine ;* but inshare of the necessaries and comforts toxication is rare, quarrelling almost of life than the great bulk of the work- unknown amongst them: rural games, ing-classes, at least in the manufactur- dancing, and social festivity constitute ing districts, of Great Britain. Con- their great delight; and the kindlitentment and happiness reign in all ness of their disposition renders these their dwellings. Their furniture and rustic assemblages a scene of equal clothing, their carts and horses, their enjoyment to the spectator as to the stables and offices, their well-fed flocks persons engaged in them. The vast and teams, their trim hedges and number of cattle in the monarchyditches, indicate the influence of long-fully double, in proportion to the poestablished wellbeing. In the beauti-pulation, of those which exist in France ful valleys of Upper Austria, the eye of -demonstrates in a decisive manner the traveller is gladdened, as in Swit- the general wellbeing of the rural pozerland and England, by that sure pulation; for a wretched people can mark of general prosperity-the ex- never keep animals of comfort. Nor tension of separate dwellings and well- are more spiritual and ennobling feeldefined properties over the whole sur- ings wanting among them: hardly any face of the country. Small green en- people in Europe are more generally closures, neat fences, hedgerows of and passionately fond of music; the lofty timber, clean and cheerful white graves of the dead are the object cottages, with their little gardens and of universal and touching attachment; trellises of roses, are to be seen on all and in no part of the world is patriotic sides peeping out of the dark band of spirit more strongly felt, or have more the circumjacent forest. Though uni- strenuous and persevering efforts been versally educated, they have no pre-made in the hour of danger in behalf tensions to an intellectual character, of their country.‡ and are far inferior to the peasants of Saxony or Scotland in general information; but, on the other hand, they have escaped the vices which elsewhere have followed the unrestrained tasting of the tree of knowledge. 20. Passionately fond of enjoyment, easy in their circumstances, joyous and good-humoured, not disquieted about the future, having no desires beyond their condition, they lead in general a prosperous and happy life, which many nations might envy, who, by straining after ideal and unattainable objects, lose, like the dog in the fable, *The wine raised in Upper and Lower Aus tria is worth 10,000,000 florins, or £1,000,000 yearly. About a sixth of the whole surface of Lower Austria is devoted to the cultivation of the vine.-RAYMOND and ROTH, Statistique de toute la Monarchie Autrichienne, i. 234. The horned cattle in the Austrian empire are 13,400,000 to a population of 35,000,000 in France they are 6,000,000 among 32,000,000, or just one-half.-HUMBOLDT, Amérique Méridionale, vi. 96, 97; and LICHTENSTEIN, Statistique de l'Autriche, 160, 161. These observations apply to Upper and Lower Austria, Styria, the Tyrol, and Carniola. In Bohemia, Hungary, and Galicia, nobles is more considerable, and the confeudal institutions prevail; the power of the dition of the people much less prosperous. 21. The secret of this remarkable | rected to that object. In every rural wellbeing of the peasantry of Austria, community or parish, and in every disis to be found in the tenure by which trict of the towns, an institution for the land is held, joined to the just and poor, or "Armen Institut," is established equitable principles on which govern- under the direction of the clergyman ment has long been administered. of the parish, and an officer termed the Though the holding of landed pro- "Armen Vater," or "Father of the Poor." perty is exceedingly various, yet gene- The funds for the distributions made rally the Austrian cultivator is not a by these functionaries, which are very tenant in the English sense of the word liberal, are derived from duties on ar—that is, a farmer holding at will, or ticles of import in burghs, and volunin virtue of a lease; he is a feuar in tary contributions in kind or money; the sense of Scotch law-that is, he and the latter source, as in other agrihas his land for ever on paying the cultural communities, is generally suffixed duties to the feudal superior. ficient without any direct assessment The lord of the manor retains several on property. Let not philosophy deconsiderable privileges, particularly spise, in these humble details, the "short those of hunting, fishing, and holding and simple annals of the poor;" in them, certain manorial courts, and he receives more than in the spread of popular also certain fines on succession or power and passions, is the true secret transmission; but the real right of of general prosperity and national atproperty remains with the coloni as tachment to be found. If we desire a long as they discharge their feudal proof, contrast the uniform and steadduties, which are generally commuted fast loyalty amidst every disaster of the on favourable terms into payments in Austrian people, with the turbulent money. Where lands are held by ten- passions and furious hostility of the ants proper, who also are very nume- Irish democracy. rous, the leases are generally for six, eight, or twelve years; and the rules of law in relation to these tenants, or their subtenants, are extremely just towards the cultivator. Though the whole goods brought on the farm are liable to the over-lord or principal tenant, the person of the subtenant is only liable to his immediate superior, and the goods can only be attached by execution after judgment obtained, not by previous sequestration or mesne process, as in the British Islands. 22. Humane and ample provision is made for the relief of the destitute; in nothing have the benevolence and justice of the German character been more strikingly evinced than in this particular. No part of Europe, perhaps, abounds so much in charitable endowments as the southern and richer provinces of the Austrian empire; and since the reduction of the monasteries under Joseph II., between 1782 and 1786, rendered unavoidable a system of poorlaws, as was the case in Great Britain from a similar cause in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the attention of government has been strongly and beneficially di 23. Education, as is now well known, is not merely generally, but almost universally, diffused in the German provinces of Austria. Her government has organised a system, in this important particular, different from that which obtains in any other country. Aiming at the gradual and peaceful amelioration of the internal condition of the people, the equalisation of rights in the eye of the law, and the general wellbeing, combined with the tranquillity of the inhabitants, the Austrian statesmen have viewed education as a mighty engine to mould the public mind, and on the due regulation of which the national safety is dependent. In conformity with this view, two fundamental principles have been adopted, which are at the root of their whole system of instruction. The first is, that all education, in whatever rank or grade, whether public or private, from that of the prince in the university to that of the peasant at the parish school, is to be placed under the guidance of the state, and liable to the direction and control of its functionaries; the second, that all education does not, as it does in some of the provinces of Prussia, embrace all the children capable of receiving tuition.+ On the whole, the system of education in Austria is extensive and judicious, and founded on liberal principles; but it is easy to be wise and liberal in the administration of a despotic state. How long would such a system coexist with a free press, democratic legislation, and popular institutions? It is there, and there only, that the real tendency, for good and for evil, of the fruit of the tree of knowledge is to be perceived. should be blended with, and mainly founded on, religion. Under this condition, however, the most ample latitude is permitted in regard to the religious creed which is taught. It is only provided that every child shall be registered as belonging to some religious persuasion, and that, in his education, the principles of that religion are to form a material part of his instruction: but it is immaterial what that religion is; it may be the faith of the Jew or the Protestant, the Greek or the Romanist. The charge of supervision is committed to the clergy of the dif- 24. The religion of Austria is the ferent persuasions; but they are rigid- Roman Catholic, and the great majority ly compelled to teach those doctrines of the people are of that persuasion :‡ only which have been put forth by but persons of every variety of religious their ruling consistories, and sanction- creed are alike eligible to all offices, in ed by the supreme authority of the the army, law, or civil service; and state. Thus the difficulty so sorely practically there is no distinction made felt in England, and other free coun- between them, either in government tries, as to what creed is to be taught appointments or the Imperial alliances. at schools, is entirely avoided: and, The Archdukes Charles and Joseph like the Roman Pantheon, the Austrian | have both married out of the pale of institutions for education admit within the Romish church: the former having their ample portals all known modifi- espoused a Lutheran princess; the cations of religious belief. Education | is sedulously recommended by government and its subordinate officers, and a complete system maintained at the public expense, or by extensive funds set apart for that purpose, from the humble grammar-school, through the various lyceums and gymnasiums, to the eight universities which form the highest branch of the establishment.* But it is not compulsory as in Prussia; and hence, though the number of scholars in every part of the country is great, and rapidly increasing, yet it * These universities are those of Vienna, Prague, Pavia, Lemberg, Gratz, Olmutz, Innspruck, and Pesth. latter, first a lady of the Greek church, then one of the Lutheran persuasion. Nine-tenths of the ample estates belonging, in former days, to the Romish church, were confiscated by the Emperor Joseph between 1784 and 1789; and the monastic orders now embrace only nine thousand members instead of eighty thousand, who formerly were maintained by their possessions. But there was this vital distinction between the proceedings of this philosophic reformer and those of our Henry VIII.he did not bestow the confiscated lands TURNBULL, ii. 143.-In Transylvania the proportion is still greater: there are 52,698 children at school, out of 64,227 capable of In the whole empire, exclusive of Hun-going to it-a proportion greater than in any gary, Transylvania, and the military fron- equal part of the British empire. tiers, there are Capable of going to school- In the Austrian empire there are, exclusive of the military class, Roman Catholics, 1,307,777 1,221,394 Greek Church, United, Greek, not United, 24,431,440 3,375,840 2,722,083 1,189,817 2,150,721 45,399 613,283 34,528,583 That is, about two-thirds of the children capable of being at school are actually at it. -Census of 1834; and TURNBULL, ii. 11; and |