The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 | Page 5

at least the Saxon race, that, while the extraordinary events of 1848 and 1849, afforded the fairest opportunities for the advent of a great man, the people who were ready for battle against oppression, were all stricken down on account of the incapacity of their leaders--except in one instance. The exception was in the case of Kossuth. And he was no new man, but had been steadily building a great fame from his youth; had labored in the humblest as well as highest offices of patriotism; and as a thinker, a speaker, and a writer, had been before the public eye of all Europe for years. He was born in 1806, at Monok, in Hungary, of parents not rich, yet possessing land, and calling themselves noble. His native district was a Protestant one, and in the pastor of that district he found his first teacher. On their death, while he was still young, more devoted to books than to farming, he was sent to the provincial college, where he remained until eighteen years of age, and earned the reputation of being the most able and promising youth of the district. In 1826, he removed to the University of Pesth, where he came in contact with the political influences and ideas of the time; and these, blending with his own historic studies and youthful hopes, soon produced the ardent, practical patriot, which the world has since seen in him.
According to the Constitution of Hungary, the Comitats or electoral body treated those elected to sit in the Diet more as delegates than as deputies. They gave them precise instructions, and expected the members not only to conform to them, but to send regular accounts of their conduct to their constituents for due sanction, and with a view to fresh instructions. This kind of communication was rather onerous for the Hungarian country gentleman, and hence many of the deputies employed such young men as Kossuth to transact their political business, and conduct their correspondence. Acting in this capacity for many members of the Diet, Kossuth came into intimate relations with the comitats, and acquired skill in public affairs.
He was soon himself made a member, and from the first was distinguished in the Diet as a speaker. Here he felt, and soon pointed out to his colleagues, how idle and powerless were their debates unless these were known to the public in some more efficient manner than by the private correspondence of the deputies. Influenced by his representations, the chief members of the Diet resolved to establish a journal for the publication of their discussions; and Kossuth was selected as one of those who were to preside over it; but the Archduke Palatine objected, of course, because the object was to curtail the reports and garble them. Kossuth, however, was enabled by the more liberal of his colleagues to publish the reports on his own account. He then extended the journal by the insertion of leading articles; and his counsels and criticisms on the instructions of the comitats to the deputies, so stirred the bile and counteracted the views of the Austrian authorities, that they interfered and suspended his newspaper by seizing his presses. But, even this did not stop his pen, nor those of his many amanuenses; until, at last, Metternich, exasperated by his obstinacy, caused him to be seized and condemned to three years' imprisonment in the citadel of Ofen. He was liberated in 1837; and during the years that elapsed between that epoch and 1848 the history of Hungary was that of Kossuth, who, amidst the many men of noble birth, wealth, high character, and singular talents, who surrounded him, still held his ground, and shone pre-eminent. In 1847 he was the acknowledged leader of the constitutional party, and member for the Hungarian capital. It is unnecessary to pursue this narrative. The events of 1848 and 1849 have passed too recently and vividly before us to need relation. The part that Kossuth played in those years was but the logical consequence of his previous life. The struggle was for the rights of Hungary, in all circumstances and against all foes. For these he fought along with the Hungarian aristocracy, as long as they had the courage to resist Austria; and when they wavered, he went on without them, appealing to the comitats and to the smaller landed proprietors in the absence of the greater, and to the squires instead of the nobles.
[Illustration: THE WIFE AND CHILDREN OF KOSSUTH--FROM A RECENT DAGUERREOTYPE.]
The result thus far we all know. The final result perhaps we in America are to decide.

THE ANCIENT MONUMENTS OF GREECE.
[Illustration: THE ACROPOLIS.]
Every one can understand the regret with which we behold the remains of ancient grandeur, and the capitals of buried empires. This feeling, so profound in Jerusalem and Rome,