Hungary and Transylvania: With Remarks on Their Condition, Social, Political and Economical, Volume 1

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J. Murray, 1839 - Hungary - 631 pages

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Page 461 - Should I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest, I am as valiant as Hercules : but beware instinct ; the lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter; I was a coward on instinct. I shall think the better of myself and thee, during my life; I, for a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince.
Page 87 - The peasant women, when young, are sometimes pretty, but hard labour and exposure to the sun soon deprive them of all pretension to comeliness. Altogether I do not think I like the Sclavacks, but I really can scarcely say why; perhaps old Stephan infused a little of his gall into my heart. He hated them cordially, — more particularly, he said, because their King sold the country to the Magyars for a white horse. There is some tradition that Swatopluk, the last of their kings, engaged to deliver...
Page 290 - I never saw ; and in some houses the cellar was not less plentifully supplied, and that too with a very tolerable wine. The cow-house was rarely without one or two tenants ; the stable boasted a pair or sometimes four horses; the pig-sties, it is true, were empty, but only because the pigs had not yet returned from the stubble-fields ; and to these most of the houses added sheep-sheds and poultry-pens, — presenting altogether perhaps as good a picture of a rich and prosperous peasantry as one could...
Page 287 - The kitchen, whitewashed like the rest of the house, was itself small, and almost entirely occupied by a hearth four feet high, on which was blazing a wood fire, with preparations for the evening meal. The room to the left, with the two little peep-holes to the street, was evidently the best room of the cottage, for it was that into which the peasant was most anxious to show us.
Page 161 - Hungary, and that the exportation of gold and silver should be prevented ; that the paper money should be abolished, and a return made to a metallic currency; that the Hungarian language should be used in all official business ; that the fiscal estates — such as have fallen to the Crown on the extinction of the families to whom they were granted — should, as the law directs, be given only as the reward of public services, and not sold, as at present, to the highest bidder ; and lastly, that spies...
Page 257 - Government, and are free from all seigneurial impositions. Let the reader keep this fact in mind ; for it serves to show that it is not the amount of taxation which renders men poor and miserable, but the absence of a knowledge and desire of something better, and of the industry and thousand virtues to which that knowledge gives birth. It is but fair to say that I never saw such houses in any other part of Hungary; though I believe, during the Turkish war, a great part of the country was reduced...
Page 292 - ... generally only of one chamber, where the whole family must live. Attached to the house is a shed for the oxen and pigs ; horses and sheep they have none. I must confess, I cannot speak so minutely of the interior of the cottages here as at Z — ; — , for, in going towards one of them, I stepped up to the knees in a mess of putrefying hemp; which, with the filthy appearance of the children crowding the threshold, effectually cooled my curiosity.
Page 28 - Heavy and dull in appearance, it is not till he warms with his subject that the man of talent stands declared. He spoke in Hungarian, and I was much struck with the sonorous, emphatic, and singularly clear character of the language. From the number of words ending in consonants, particularly in k, every word is distinctly marked even to the ear of one totally unacquainted with the language. I cannot...
Page 206 - Pest about the end of May, and in autumn at Parendorf near Presburg — and are so well attended, that it is evident they suit the taste of the people, and it is highly probable that they will one day form a part of the national amusements.
Page 390 - ... by seizing our castles, lands, possessions, and in any other manner they can, till the grievance is redressed according to their pleasure; saving harmless our own person, and the persons of our queen and children ; and when it is redressed, they shall obey us as before.

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