of the chase had given him a great appetite, made an appeal to her hospitality. Requesting him to wait a few minutes under the lofty oak in front of the cabin, she soon returned with a large bowl of curdled milk which she had prepared for herself. Seated upon the grass, with the bowl in her lap, and wooden spoons, the two partook of their simple repast.

Before the rustic meal was finished Matthias had learned the whole history of the fair entertainer, and she, in turn, had found out from her guest that he was one of the king's hunters, that his name was Nicholas, and that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, although he had seen the queen. He had seen the queen! Theresa was all attention, and even consented to reward the hunter with a kiss for the description he gave her of the first woman in the kingdom. The reward had hardly been paid when the sound of a horn announced the approach of the royal party. Matthias assured his pretty hostess that if discovered he would be severely reprimanded for his idleness, and after exchanging a second kiss for a fine partridge, which he drew from his game-bag, hastily took leave.

When the shepherd, Sandor, came home at nightfall his wife set the savory game before him, accompanying their repast with a long recital about the handsome hunter. The brow of the shepherd darkened as he listened to the naïve story of Theresa, and although he seemed to enjoy the partridge, thought it was costing rather dear.

The visits of the king forthwith became more frequent, and as Theresa always gave her husband an account of what passed in his absence, the ingenuous pair thought it proper to invoke the protection of the queen. As Nicholas was in the royal service they supposed that the intervention of any inferior personage would be of no avail, and at the same time feared to make an appeal to the king in what he might regard a trivial matter.

In their best attire they set out for Buda early one morning; and when it was announced to the queen that the chief shepherd desired an interview he was introduced without delay. But it was not in reference to any danger threatening the royal flocks that Sandor had come to advise her majesty. Recovering somewhat his self-possession, he expressed his regret that it was more difficult to guard a woman

This so

than all her majesty's flocks. amused the queen that she desired him to relate to her, without restraint, his misadventures. Then Theresa, to relieve the embarrassment of her husband, gave the recital of what lay so heavily upon his heart, and her naïve simplicity greatly interested the queen, in the adventure before she had a suspicion of the personage who was playing the principal character. She desired Theresa to describe the appearance of the handsome hunter, when her majesty did not fail to recognize in the description the original of the portrait. She promised to visit their cabin.toward nightfall, at the hour Nicholas had appointed for a stolen interview, when she herself would speak with him. Upon this promise Sandor and his wife returned, full of hope, and greatly admiring the noble Beatrice.

Evening found the queen at the cot of the shepherds, clothed as a young peasant. She desired Theresa to hold herself in readiness with a lamp for the moment when she should call her, but on no account to make her appearance beforehand. A short time had intervened when king Matthias arrived. At the sound of the horse's feet queen Beatrice and Theresa retired to their appointed places. The monarch dismounted, fastened the bridle to a branch of the oak, and proceeded slowly toward the hut. Fortune smiled upon him even more than he had hoped, for on crossing the threshold he found himself tenderly embraced in the arms of a female. He proffered a thousand assurances of love, made a thousand fond caresses; but when at a given signal Theresa's lamp lit up the apartment, Matthias was astonished to find that for a quarter of an hour he had been fondling and caressing his own wife. Beatrice, it is said, took this adventure of king Matthias in good part, and Theresa became famous as a rustic beauty.

The hero of Hungary, with whose name is associated her greatest military exploits, is John Hunyad, the father of Matthias Corvinus. He was instrumental in expelling the Turks from Hungary nearly two centuries before their final expulsion by Charles, Duke of Lorraine, who overcame the turbaned hordes of Soliman Pacha. Hunyad was at the battle of Varna, witnessed the defeat of the Christians at Kossora, and rescued Belgrade from the hands

of the infidels.

of Dardania, Thrace, and Macedonia were enabled to throw off the Byzantine yoke, they were also incorporated into the Bul

We revert to the early history of a neighboring people well known in connection with the Hungarians and their ancestors, the Huns.

The second Hunnic empire was founded by Baïan, who, in the year 582, planted his tent where had formerly stood the rude palace of Attila. The Avars belonged to the great family of the Huns, and exhibited in their customs a remarkable combination of luxury and barbarism. Conquered cities were ransomed only by means of the costliest gifts, and gorgeous costumes delighted the victors more than gold. The haughty Baïan was accustomed to criticise the splendid presents of the Eastern emperors. His Scythian costume was of Roman material, fashioned by the hand of a Roman tailor; and at his barbaric court, between the Danube and the Theiss, he essayed to exhibit trained elephants in the style of Oriental monarchs.

With the Huns of Baïan the Bulgarians were obliged to form, for a time, a humiliating alliance; but long before the destruction of the second Hunnic empire by Charlemagne, new political combinations had taken place. The Bulgarians were drawn southward from their seat on the Volga by an irresistible tendency, and in the year 680 we first find them under their leader Kuber, or Asparchus, in undisputed possession of the country which they now inhabit, and even the recipients of an annual tribute from the Greek emperor.

For want of room we can refer only to the most important events in the almost interminable conflicts between the Greeks and the Bulgarians, in which the ancestors of the Hungarians were at times involved. Invasion was returned by invasion, the conquest of a province was followed by its re-conquest under circumstances of greater cruelty, and each new act of atrocity in this barbarous warfare was avenged by another more atrocious in its nature. The boundaries of Bulgaria were gradually extended beyond the Danube until the kingdom included Wallachia and much of Hungary. When at later date the slaves

Greek emperor not only refused to pay tribute, but also undertook an unsuccessful campaign against the Bulgarians. Having been dethroned, Terbelis, the successor of Asparchus, was powerful enough to reinstate the Byzantine monarch, an act which occurred in the year 707, and elicited the short-lived gratitude of the Greeks. About sixty years later the reigning family of Kubratus was expelled from the land, and Teletzes chosen as the first prince of a new dynasty. The Emperor Constantine carried the war far into Bulgaria, and thinking completely to conquer the land, sent a fleet of two thousand six hundred vessels to the Danube. But a tremendous storm strewed the shores of the Euxine with the wrecks of this powerful armament, and the entire army was employed in alleviating the calamity and burying the dead.

Krumus, the most renowned of Bulgarian warriors, became their leader at the beginning of the ninth century. For some time after his accession he was engaged in a war with the Avars. His seizure of a military chest of the Byzantines, containing eleven hundred pounds of gold, was succeeded by three unsuccessful campaigns against the Bulgarians, in the last of which the Emperor Nicephoras perished. The skull of the monarch was converted into an elaborate drinking-cup, from which, in their barbarous revels, Krumus drank the health of his Slavic and Bulgarian magnates. During the campaign of 813 the Bulgarian army was on one occasion obliged to retreat on account of a severe epidemic, and the superstitious emperor, for this supposed mediation of Tarasios, caused the tomb of that saint to be ornamented with massive plates of silver. An attempt of the Emperor Leo to assassinate Krumus at a conference of the two monarchs before the walls of Constantinople provoked a terrible vengeance on the part of the Bulgarians, and more than fifty thousand prisoners were sent in bondage into Hungary, the greater part of which belonged to the Bulgarians for a considerable period after the fall of the second Hunnic empire. Krumus died two years afterward while on an expedition in Thrace. His successor, Mortogon, at once con

cluded a peace of thirty years with the Byzantine emperor. The terms of this treaty the contending monarchs, Krumus, after the manner of the Christians, and Leo, in the style of the barbarians, swore to maintain, by touching the edge of a sharp sword, cutting a dog in two, and quaffing huge draughts of Bulgarian mead.

Eight years later hostilities broke out between the Bulgarians and the Franks, whose territories bordered upon each other in the present Hungary. The Emperor of Germany became involved in their difficulties, and about this time also the Hungarians first made their appearance on the stage of European history. Upon the ruins of two Hunnic empires they were to establish a third, which existed almost down to the present day.

Boris, the grandson of Mortogon, was the greatest, and, at the same time, the best of the Bulgarian monarchs. In the year 873 he renewed a former treaty of peace with the Greek empress Theodora, as also with the Emperor of Germany a few years later. In time, however, enemies rose up on every hand. The Byzan

tines crossed the Haemus, the Germans invaded Bulgaria at the west, and the Servians, a branch of the Slavic race, already striving for independence, availed themselves of the opportunity to attack their old allies. One of his sons was carried into captivity. To the misfortunes of war were added the greater misfortunes of famine and pestilence. All these circumstances inclined the monarch to the reception of Christianity.

Before narrating the important events connected with the conversion of the Bulgarians we must revert for a moment to the earlier history of their country. When they took possession of Moesia they found their land, so frequently devastated by their barbarous hordes, divided among seven Slavic tribes, the time of whose immigration thither is unknown, but may be referred to the beginning of the seventh century. A few authorities contend for a much earlier date, and even aver, from the analogy of names, that the great Justinian belonged to an ancient Slavic family in Dardania. The Byzantines doubtless settled many of their Slavic prisoners in

representatives of the race had penetrated into Thrace, Macedonia, and the Morea. Their stationary life and contact with the cultivated Greeks had rendered them civilized in comparison with the ancient allies of the Huns and Bulgarians. In Moesia they had acquired partial if not entire independence of the Greeks; but long disused to the hardy life of their ancestors, could not withstand the irruption of the Bulgarians from the banks of the Volga.

And now occurred one of those remarkable social revolutions which have frequently taken place in the history of conquered nations. The northern barbarians overran the Roman world, but in the end Roman civilization subdued the stubborn barbarians. The warlike Bulgarians easily established their authority over the peaceful Slaves, but having soon acquired a taste for the more cultivated manners of their subjects, gradually adopted their language, customs, manner of life, and at last their religion-converting themselves, in fact, into Slaves. The name alone was retained, as if to refer us back to the unquestionable origin of the race. Though differing in language, habits, and national sentiments, the Bulgarians and Slaves became fused into a single people.

The im

At the great council held in Constantinople in the year 869, the Bulgarian embassadors declared that their ancestors had found Greek priests in Moesia at the time of its conquest. The Bulgarians, however, were opposed to Christianity. It is said that Krumus sacrificed men and animals to a demon, and performed mysterious rites upon the shore of the sea. mense number of Byzantine prisoners carried into Bulgaria, including, in many instances, monks and priests, must have kept alive the germs of Christianity. Mortagon, provoked by the Franks and Germans at the West, sought to eradicate the system entirely. Bishop Manuel and a multitude of believers perished during the terrible persecution which characterized the reign of this monarch. The Bulgarians south of the Danube appear to have maintained intercourse with their brethren remaining on the banks of the Volga, and the introduction of Mohammedanism from that quarter may have rendered them more averse to Christianity than they would otherwise have been.

In times of peace the missionary zeal of the Byzantines induced them to labor

for the conversion of their dangerous neighbors. We have already alluded to the misfortunes which inclined Boris to adopt the new religion. One of his sisters, long detained as a prisoner at Constantinople, had been instructed in Christianity by the Empress Theodora, and on her return to Bulgaria became an eloquent advocate of the faith. A Greek monk named Theodore Koupharas, for whom the sister of Boris was exchanged, had, although a prisoner, succeeded in converting a number of Bulgarians. It is related that the prince desired of the Emperor Michael a painting for his new palace, which should strike with terror all who beheld it. Methodius, who, like the monks of that age, made pious pictures, was sent to execute the work. Uniting the skill of an artist and the fervent piety of a missionary, he chose for his subject the awful scene of the last judgment, in which kings, princes, and people were represented as standing in the presence of God, armed with the terrors of his infinite majesty and justice. The barbaric monarch was overwhelmed at the sight, and resolved to win the favor of heaven.

In the year 861 Michael undertook an expedition against Bulgaria. The circumstances of the campaign are not related, but it terminated in the baptism of Boris by Methodius, the emperor himself being sponsor. The country of Zagora, along the range of the Haemus, was given up to the new convert as a baptismal donation, it having been partially ceded to the Bulgarians by Justinian II. Boris himself assumed the name of Michael. The majority of the Bulgarian nobles opposed to the new order of things refused immersion at the command of the prince. They excited the people to rebellion, and besieged Boris in his castle; but having been defeated by the supposed interposition of a miracle, fifty-two of the leaders were put to death, and the rest of the nobles, together with all the Bulgarians, received baptism.

We must here interrupt our narrative to mention those two devoted missionaries who contributed most to the spread of Christianity in Eastern Europe, and whose names are still venerated wherever the Gospel is preached. Cyril and Methodius were born at Thessalonica, of Greek, or as some suppose, of Slave parents. Cyril, the elder of the brothers,