LV. CHAP. themselves in the reproaches of perfidy and sacrilege. They purchased the aid of the Pagan Turks; but Simeon, in a second battle, redeemed the loss of the first, at a time when it was esteemed a victory to elude the arms of that formidable nation. The Servians were overthrown, made captive, and dispersed; and those who visited the country before their restoration could discover no more than fifty vagrants, without women or children, who extorted a precarious subsistence from the chase. On classic ground, on the banks of the Achelous, the Greeks were defeated; their horn was broken by the strength of the barbaric Hercules.' He formed the siege of Constantinople; and, in a personal conference with the emperor, Simeon imposed the conditions of peace. They met with the most jealous precautions: the royal galley was drawn close to an artificial and well-fortified platform; and the majesty of the purple was emulated by the pomp of the Bulgarian. " Are you a Christian?" said the humble Romanus; "it is your duty to abstain from the "blood of your fellow-Christians. Has the thirst of riches "seduced you from the blessings of peace? Sheath your "sword, open your hand, and I will satiate the utmost mea"sure of your desires." The reconciliation was sealed by a domestic alliance; the freedom of trade was granted or restored; the first honours of the court were secured to the friends of Bulgaria, above the ambassadors of enemies or A. D. 950. strangers; 16 and her princes were dignified with the high and inviduous title of Basileus, or emperor. But this friendship was soon disturbed: after the death of Simeon the nations were again in arms; his feeble successors were divided and extinguished; and, in the beginning of the eleventh century, the second Basil, who was born in the purple, deserved the appellation of conqueror of the Bulgarians. His &c. 15 ........Rigidum fera dexterâ cornu Dum tenet infregit, truncâque a fronte revellit. Ovid (Metamorph. ix. 1...100.) has boldly painted the combat of the rivergod and the hero; the native and the stranger. 16 The ambassador of Otho was provoked by the Greek excuses, cum Christophori filium Petrus Bulgarorum Vasileus conjugem duceret, Symphona, idest consonantia, scripto juramento firmata sunt ut omnium gentium Apostolis idest nunciis penes nos Bulgarorum Apostoli præponantur, honorentur, diligentur Liutprand in Legatione, p. 482). See the Ceremoniale of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, tom. i. p. 82. tom. ii. p. 429, 430. 434, 435. 443,444. 446,447. with the annotations of Reiske. LV. avarice was in some measure gratified by a treasure of four CHAP. hundred thousand pounds sterling (ten thousand pounds weight of gold) which he found in the palace of Lychnidus. His cruelty inflicted a cool and exquisite vengeance on fifteen thousand captives who had been guilty of the defence of their country. They were deprived of sight, but to one of each hundred a single eye was left, that he might conduct his blind century to the presence of their king. Their king is said to have expired of grief and horror; the nation was awed by this terrible example; the Bulgarians were swept away from their settlements, and circumscribed within a narrow province; the surviving chiefs bequeathed to their children the advice of patience and the duty of revenge. tion the Turks A. D. 884. II. When the black swarm of Hungarians first hung over Emigra Europe, about nine hundred years after the Christian æra, fonks or they were mistaken by fear and superstition for the Gog and HungaMagog of the scriptures, the signs and forerunners of the rians, end of the world," Since the introduction of letters, they have explored their own antiquities with a strong and laudable impulse of patriotic curiosity.18 Their rational criti cism can no longer be amused with a vain pedigree of Attila and the Huns; but they complain that their primitive records have perished in the Tartar war; that the truth or fiction of their rustic songs is long since forgotten; and that the fragments of a rude chronicle 19 must be painfully reconciled with the contemporary though foreign intelligence of the Imperial geographer, Magiar is the national and Ori 17 A bishop of Wurtzburgh submitted this opinion to a reverend abbot; but he more gravely decided, that Gog and Magog were the spiritual persecutors of the church; since Gog signifies the roof, the pride of the Heresiarchs, and Magog what comes from the roof, the propagation of their sects. Yet these men once commanded the respect of mankind (Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xi. p. 594, &c.). 18 The two national authors, from whom I have derived the most assistance, are George Pray (Dissertationes ad Annales veterum Hungarorum, &c. Vindobonæ, 1775, in folio), and Stephen Katona (Hist. Critica Ducum et Regum Hungariæ stirpis Arpadianæ, Pæstini, 1778...1781, 5 vols. in octavo). The first embraces a large and often conjectural space: the latter, by his learning, judgment, and perspicuity, deserves the name of a critical historian. 19 The author of this Chronicle is styled the notary of king Bela. Katona has assigned him to the xiith century, and defends his character against the hypercriticism of Pray. This rude annalist must have transcribed some historical records, since he could affirm with dignity, rejectis falsis fabulis rusticorum, et garrulo cantû joculatorum. In the xvth century, these fables were collected by Thurotzius, and embellished by the Italian Bonfinius. See the Preliminary Discourse in the Hist. Critica Ducum, p. 7...33. 20 See Constantine de Administrando Imperio, c. 3, 4.13. 38...42. Katona LV. CHAP. ental denomination of the Hungarians; but, among the tribes of Scythia, they are distinguished by the Greeks under the proper and peculiar name of Turks, as the descendants of that mighty people who had conquered and reigned from China to the Volga. The Pannonian colony preserved a correspondence of trade and amity with the eastern Turks on the confines of Persia; and after a separation of three hundred and fifty years, the missionaries of the king of Hungary discovered and visited their ancient country near the banks of the Volga. They were hospitably entertained by a people of Pagans and Savages who still bore the name of Hungarians; conversed in their native tongue, recollected a tradition of their long-lost brethren, and listened with amazement to the marvellous tale of their new kingdom and religion. The zeal of conversion was animated by the interest of consanguinity; and one of the greatest of their princes had formed the generous, though fruitless design, of replenishing the solitude of Pannonia by this domestic colony from the heart of Tartary. From this primitive country they were driven to the West by the tide of war and emigration, by the weight of the more distant tribes, who at the same time were fugitives and conquerors. Reason or fortune directed their course towards the frontiers of the Roman empire; they halted in the usual stations along the banks of the great rivers; and in the territories of Moscow, Kiow, and Moldavia, some vestiges have been discovered of their temporary residence. In this long and various peregrination, they could not always escape the dominion of the stronger; and the purity of their blood was improved or sullied by the mixture of a foreign race; from a motive of compulsion or choice, several tribes of the Chazars were associated to the standard of their ancient vassals; introduced the use of a second language; and obtained by their superior renown the most honourable place in the front of battle. The military force of the Turks and their allies marched in seven equal and artificial divisions; each division was formed of thirty has nicely fixed the composition of this work to the years 949, 950, 951. (p. 4...7). The critical historian (p. 34...107.) endeavours to prove the existence, and to relate the actions, of a first duke Almus, the father of Arpad, who is tacitly rejected by Constantine. 21 Pray (Dissert. p. 37...39, &c.) produces and illustrates the original pas sages of the Hungarian missionaries, Bonfinius and Æneas Silvius. LV. thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven warriors, and the pro- CHAP. portion of women, children, and servants, supposes and requires at least a million of emigrants. Their public counsels were directed by seven vayvods or hereditary chiefs, but the experience of discord and weakness recommended the more simple and vigorous administration of a single person. The sceptre which had been declined by the modest Lebedius, was granted to the birth or merit of Almus and his son Arpad, and the authority of the supreme khan of the Chazars confirmed the engagement of the prince and people; of the people to obey his commands, of the prince to consult their happiness and glory. With this narrative we might be reasonably content, if Their Fennic origin. the penetration of modern learning had not opened a new and larger prospect of the antiquities of nations. The Hungarian language stands alone, and as it were insulated, among the Sclavonian dialects; but it bears a close and clear affinity to the idioms of the Fennic race,22 of an obsolete and savage race, which formerly occupied the northern regions of Asia and Europe. The genuine appellation of Ugri or Igours is found on the western confines of China; 23 their migration to the banks of the Irtish is attested by Tartar evidence;24 a similar name and language are detected in the southern parts of Sibera; 25 and the remains of the Fennic tribes are widely, though thinly, scattered from the sources of the Oby to the shores of Lapland.26 The consanguinity of the Hun 22 Fischer, in the Quæstiones Petropolitanæ, de Origine Ungrorum, and Pray, Dissertat. i, ii, iii, &c. have drawn up several comparative tables of the Hungarian with the Fennic dialects. The affinity is indeed striking, but the lists are short, the words are purposely chosen; and I read in the learned Bayer (Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. x. p. 374), that although the Hungarian has adopted many Fennic words (innumeras voces), it essentially differs toto genio et naturâ. 23 In the region of Turfan, which is clearly and minutely described by the Chinese geographers (Gaubil, Hist. du Grand Gengiscan, p. 13. de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 31, &c.). 24 Hist. Genealogique des Tartars, par Abulghazi Bahadur Khan, partie ii. p. 90...98. 25 In their journey to Pekin, both Isbrand Ives (Harris's Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. ii. p. 920, 921.) and Bell (Travels, vol. i. p. 174.) found the Vogulitz in the neighbourhood of Tobolsky. By the tortures of the etymological art, Ugur and Vogul are reduced to the same name; the circumjacent mountains really bear the appellation of Ugrian; and of all the Fennic dialects, the Vogulian is the nearest to the Hungarian (Fischer, Dissert. i. p. 20...30. Pray, Dissert. ii. p. 31...34). 26 The eight tribes of the Fennic race, are described in the curious work of M. Leveque (Hist. des Peuples soumis à la Domination de la Russie, tom. i. p. 361...561). LV. CHAP. garians and Laplanders would display the powerful energy of climate on the children of a common parent; the lively contrast between the bold adventurers, who are intoxicated with the wines of the Danube, and the wretched fugitives who are immersed beneath the snows of the polar circle. Arms and freedom have ever been the ruling, though too often the unsuccessful, passion of the Hungarians, who are endowed by nature with a vigorous constitution of soul and body.27 Extreme cold has diminished the stature and congealed the faculties of the Laplanders; and the Arctic tribes, alone among the sons of men, are ignorant of war, and unconscious of human blood: an happy ignorance, if reason and virtue were the guardians of their peace!28 Tactics and man ans and Bulgarians, A. D. 900, &c. It is the observation of the Imperial author of the Tacners of the tics,29 that all the Scythian hords resembled each other in Hungari- their pastoral and military life, that they all practised the same means of subsistence, and employed the same instruments of destruction. But he adds, that the two nations of Bulgarians and Hungarians were superior to their brethren, and similar to each other, in the improvements, however rude, of their discipline and government; their visible likeness determines Leo to confound his friends and enemies in one common description; and the picture may be heightened by some strokes from their contemporaries of the tenth century. Except the merit and fame of military prowess, all that is valued by mankind appeared vile and contemptible to these Barbarians, whose native fierceness was stimulated by the consciousness of numbers and freedom. The tents of the Hungarians were of leather, their garments of fur; they 27 This picture of the Hungarians and Bulgarians is chiefly drawn from the Tactics of Leo, p. 796...801. and the Latin Annals which are alleged by Baronius, Pagi, and Muratori, A. D. 889, &c. 28 Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. v. p. 6. in 12mo. Gustavus Adolphus attempted, without success, to form a regiment of Laplanders. Grotius says of these Arctic tribes, arma arcus et pharetra sed adversus feras (Annal. l. iv. p. 236), and attempts, after the manner of Tacitus, to varnish with philosophy their brutal ignorance. 29 Le has observed, that the government of the Turks was monarchical, and that their punishments were rigorous (Tactic. p. 896. TerVEIS NUI BOBglas). Rhegino (in Chron. A. D. 889.) mentions theft as a capital crime, and his jurisprudence is confirmed by the original code of St. Stephen (A. D. 1016). If a slave were guilty, he was chastised, for the first time, with the loss of his nose, or a fine of five heifers; for the second, with the loss of his ears, or a similar fine; for the third, with death; which the freeman did not incur till the fourth offence, as his first penalty was the loss of liberty (Katona, Hist. Regum. Hungar. tom. i. p. 231, 232). |