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The great hall in vrhich the banquet was spread , a noble apartment , was quite full , with the exception , perhaps , of the side galleries , in which there appealed to be some spare room . The entertainment was given , not by the corporation , but by inhabitants of the town associated for the occasion . The hall was appropriately decorated . On the panels of the galleries were emblazoned the names of Count Batthyany , Count Louis Batthyani , Bern , Dembinski , and various eminent Hungarians . Along the front of the principal gallery was inscribed , in larger letters , " Welcome Kossuth . !"
Mr . Scholefield , M . P ., presided . Kossuth was conducted to the table by Mr . Geach , M . P ., and sat down with Mr . Muntz , M . P ., Lord Dudley Stuart , M . P ., Mr . George Dawson , M . Fulzsky , General Vetter , Mr . Massingberd , and other gentlemen . When the cloth was removed , the Chairman read letters of apology from the Mayor of Birmingham , Mr . W . S . Landor , the Recorder of Birmingham , Lord Hatherton , Lord Leigh , Mr . Newdegate , M . P ., Mr . Sidney , M . P ., Mr . Collins , M . P ., Mr . Benbow , M . P ., and Mr . Foley , M . P . Mr . W . S . Landor had sent the following lines , " On Kossuth ' s Voyage to America" : — " Rave over other lands and other seas , Ill-omened blackwinged Breeze ! But spare the friendly sails that waft away Him , who was deemed the prey Of despot dark as thou , one sending forth The torturers of the North , To fix upon his Caucasus once more The demigod who bore To sad humanity Heaven's fire and light , "Whereby should reunite In happier bonds , the nations of the earth ; Whose Jovelike brow gave birth To that high wisdom , whence all blessings flow On mortals here below . " Rack not , O Boreal Breeze , that labouring breast On which , half dead , jet rest The hopes of millions , and rest there alone . Impiously every throne Crushes the credulous ; none else than he Can raise and set them free . Oh bear him on in safety and in health ! Bear on a freight of wealth Such as no vessel ye ^ hath ever borne ; Although with banner torn He urges through tempestuous waves his way ; Yet shall a brighter day Shine on him in his own reconquered field ; Relenting Fate shall yield To constant Virtue . Hungary ! no more Thy saddest loss deplore ; Look to the star-crowned Genius of the West , Sole guardian of the opprest . Oh ! that one only nation dared to save Kossuth , the true and brave ! " The loyal toasts being disposed of with great applause , General Wallbridge , United States , responded to the toast "The Sultan of Turkey and the President of the United States . " He was sure that in the next great war England and America would light shoulder to Bhoulder under the joint banners of the two peoples . Mr . Scholefield , in proposing " Our illustrious guest , Louis Kossuth / ' used some remarkable words . " There was yet a future for Hungary , in which England must take part for good or evil . He hated and detested war ; but he would not be a party to a policy which arrested war to-day only for the purpose of insuring it more certainly for to-morrow . He sought a clear stage and no favour for all nations . They would not interfere themselves , but they should not allow the intervention of others . Had they acted up to this policy , who would have been King of Hungary now ? ( Cheers . ) Where would have been the Pope of Rome ? ( Cheers . ) Had they arrested war by their timorous policy ? He believed there never was a time when it would be more difficult to avert war than now . Give the absolute monarcha of Europe a few months' more swing , and anarchy , the result of tyranny , must burat loose ; and who could say it would not reach our shores ? ( Cheers . )" Kossuth on rising to reply was received as usual by
the most tremendous cheering . His oration was perhaps the beat he has yet delivered in England . The topics were not different from the others ; there was the same warm gush of thankful eloquence at the opening , the same recurrence to the incidents of the Hungarian struggle , the naino happy and hearty descrip tions of the impression ho hud of England ; the same illustration of the advantages of free trade and the necessity for free trade , and the snine kind of peroration , only it roso to prophetic force und solemn warning . Yet wah this not identical with nny other speech delivered by Louis KoHsuth . There was a richer forms of
nameless spirit in it—more grace , expression—grander and moro poetical thoughtsit was * mom fused with the flrent overcoming spirit of the hour—it wns warmer and more affectionate—it was quite as profound as his other speeches , and moro enchanting to the ear than any . Ho seomed to lmvo caught the feelings of the hearty , genial , hut resolute English millions who had greeted him , and to have limed those feelings with Oriental lire . He spoke prose poetry of the psalmist order ; he uttered profound political truth * . He awoke in the breast of his hearers the yearning to help , with arms or voice , with life or death , thu cause of bis native land . He
touched the fountains of tea / 8 by deep pathos of expression ; and beneath the fierce glowing hatred of his powerful antagonists , and below his own glorious aspirations , there ran that profound sentiment of the nothingness of the transitory which characterises all the orations of Kossuth . His opening sentences rose to the highest sublimity , as when he spoke of the relation of the history of England to his life . " I found England not free because mighty , glorious , and great ; but I found her mighty , glorious , and great , because free . ( Cheers . ) So was England to me the book of life , which led me out of the fluctuation of wavering thoughts to unshakeable principles . It was
to me the fire which steeled my feeble strength with that iron perseverance which the adversities of fate can break , but never bend . ( Hear , hear . ) My heart and my soul will , as long as I live , bear on itself the seal of this book of life . ( Hear , hear . ) And so has England , long ago , become the honoured object of my admiration and respect ; and so great was the image of Britannia , which I cherished in my bosom , that lastly , when the strange play of fate led me to your shores , I could scarcely overcome some awe in approaching them , because I remembered that the harmony of great objects wants the perspective of distance , and my breast panted at the idea that the halo of glory with which England was surrounded in my thoughts would perhaps not stand
the touch of reality , the more because I am well aware all that is human in every age will have its own fragilities . I know that every society which is not a new one has , besides its own fragilities , to bear the burden of the sins of the past , and I know that the past throws such a large shadow into the present and upon the future that to dispel it entirely the sun must be mounted very high . But so much I must state with fervent joy , that upon the whole the image which the reality in England -present bears upon it at every step such a seal of greatness , teeming with rich life , and so solid in foundation , that it far exceeds even such expectations as were mine ; and the thing which most strikes-the observer
in the midst of your glorious country is that he meets in moral , material , and political respects , such elements of a continual progress towards perfection ; and these elements display such a mighty , free , and cheerful activity , and thfse activities so lively , pervaded by the public spirit of the people , that however great the triumphs may be which England already has to show to the astonished world ( and great they are to be sure , gigantic they arethings called wonders in past histories shrink to pigmies in comparison with them ) , every man instinctively feels that all these triumphs of progress are but a degreegreat to be sure , but still only a degree—to what it will be the happy and glorious lot of posterity to see in this country . ( Hear , hear . )"
And when he looked round and saw the names on the walls , names which recalled the memory of his down trodden native land , he uttered one of the finest bursts of eloquence , rounded off with as grand a climax as we remember . "The root of his life was not in himself ; his individuality was absorbed in the thought , —freedom , people , fatherland ! What was the key of the boundless confidence which his people bore to him ? They took him for the incarnation of their sentiments , wishes , affections , hopes . ( Hear , hear . ) Was it not , then , natural that the sufferings of his nation should be embodied in him ? Yea , he bore the woe of millions of Magyars in his breast . ( Hearhear . ) The people—that mighty
pyra-, mid of mankind—the people was everywhere honourable , noble , and good . ( Hear , hear . ) Even in view of the greatness of the English nation , he must be allowed to proclaim that he felt proud to be a Magyar . ( Hear , hear . ) Their enemies said they were but an insignificant party , fanaticised by himself . They stirred up to the fury of civil war the Croat , Serb , Slovack , Wallach ; the hou 6 e of Hapsburg brought its power to bear , but still it would not do ; the proud dynasty had to stoop at the feet of the Czar for his legions , and still Hungary would have been a match for him , but for the di p lomacy which contrived to introduce treason . ( Hear , hear . ) Still , it was not a mere party , and it might be judged then how it would be when all these Croats , Wallachians , Serbs ,
Slovacka , should range under one banner of freedom and right . ( Hear , hear . ) And assuredly they would . ( Hear ) Humanity with its child ' s faith might be deluded for a while , but the blindfold soon fell from the eyes . ( Hear , hear . ) So then the scorned ' party ' turned out to lie a nation . ( Hear . ) But it wan said it was ho ( M . Kossuth ) who inspired it . No , it vras not he who inspired the Hungarian people ; it was the Hungarian people who inspired him . ( Hear , hear . ) Whatever he thought and felt was but a feeble pulsation which in the breast of his people beat . ( Hear , hear . ) The glory of battles was ascribed to the leaders in history , and theirs were the
laurels of immortality ; they knew they would forever live on the lips of their people . Very different the light apread on the image of those thousands of the people ' s hoiis who knew that where they fell they would lie , their names unhonoured and unsung , and who still , animated by the love of freedom and fatherland , went on calmly agaiiiHt the batteries whose cross-lire vomited death find dvHtruction on them , they who foil falling with the shout , ' Hurrali for Hungary ! ' ( Hear , hear . ) And bo they died by thousands , the unnamed demigods . ( A burst <>/ cheering . ) Such was the people of Hungary . ( lUnetced cheers . )" Among many fine things he said we quote those-few : " The tongue , of man is powerful enough to render the idens which tlio human intellect conceives , but in the realm of true and deep sentiments it is but u weak interpreter . " " Humanity hns a nobler destiny than , to be the footstool of some families . "
" What could be the weaning of this sympathy ? Was it only a funeral feast offered to the memory of a nr ^ i dead ? God forbid ; the people of England ^ was ^ ? ° J £ a * ] " ^ L »* P * y banged to the living not to the dead . The hurrah which greeted him on these shores , the warm cheering of hundreds of thousands in the streets , he took for the trumpet sound of the annroaph mgr triumph of freedom , justice , and popular rights . " " He had the firm conviction that every state ' s organization was perverted , perverse , and doomed to be turned up , where single individuals or single classes had the pretension to constitute the broad basis of the societv Mankind had but one single aim ; it was -mankind itself ; and that aim had but a single instrument—man , kind again . "
" In the words of one of the Viennese politicians thev were told that Austria * did not expect the Magyars ' to be contented—all they wanted was that they should pay ' Yes . The House of Austria would not be loved , but it would have pay . Well , Hungary would pay them all it owed . " " What is Austria ? The loans , bayonets , the Czar — that is all !" " I confidently affirm that there is not a single question in your internal relations which outweighs in importance your external relations ; nay , more , I am persuaded that all your great internal questions are dependent upon your Foreign-office . Danger can onl y gather over England from abroad . " His last words were these : —
" To be sure , I have not the pretension to play the part of Anacharsis Kloots , before the Convention of France Humble as I am , still I am no Anacharsis Kloots ; but my sufferings and the nameless woes of my native land , as well as the generous reception I enjoy , may , perhaps , entitle me to intreat you , gentlemen , to take the feeble words I raise to you out of the bottom of my own desolation for the cry of oppressed humanity , crying out to you by every stammering tongue , ' People of England , do not forget in thy happiness our sufferings . Mind , in thy freedom , those who are oppressed ; mind , in thy proud security , the indignities we endure . Kemember that with every down-beaten nation onerampsrtof liberty fall-. Remember the fickleness of human fate . Remember that
those wounus out of which one nation bleeds , are so many wounds inflicted on that principle of liberty which makes thy glory and thy happiness . Remember , there is a common tie which binds the destiny of humanity . Be thanked for the tear of compassion thou givest to our mournful past ; but have something more than a tear , have in our future a brother's hand to give us . ' " All the company stood up and cheered for many minutes as Kossuth sat down .
M . Kossuth ' s speech was succeeded by one from Mr . Toulmin Smith , the barrister , upon the Hungarian wrongs . He said , he hoped that all parents present that night Would teach their children next morning that Kossuth was the Alfred of Hungary . He concluded by proposing " The Future of Hungary . " The toast was drunk with great enthusiasm . M . Pulzsky acknowledged the toast , and , in so doing , inveighed against the Times . Mr . Scholefieid , M . P ., proposed " the health of Mr . George Dawson . " ( The proposition was received with loud cheers . ) that what
Mr . Dawson , in returning thanks , said , - ever any person might say to the contrary , Birmingham was the most democratic town in England . ( Loud cheers . ) That would ever be the case to the end of the chapter . ( Cheers . ) They might rely upon it that the proceedings of that day would teach the people to look in the first place to themselves . The proceedings did not terminate until past twelve o ' clock . Altogether a very striking exhibition of the English people . Perhaps , as the old banner ot tne " Political Union " formed part of the procession on Monday , the old spirit of the political union win arise among the people .
ADDUESS FIIOM BRIGHTON . The high constable of Brighton , Mr . Uo !^[ Scott , convened a meeting pursuant to a requisiu signed by 125 inhabitants , on Tuesday evening . " the platform wore Mr . William Coningham , ° ' | Huge , and other gentlemen . Mr . Coning harn move the adoption of the address . He denounced tno w b method of practising nonintervention , and ne p out the fact that America and England were reaoy to combine in defence of violuted liberty- * own personal experience he testified to the o " popularity of Kossuth in Hungary . H » J rneci j was subsequently addressed by Dr . " JH ^^ c * . Mr . Cox , Mr . Allen , and Mr . Good . ^ T which puased unanimously , and which tho mfe , stable and Mr . C . ninghum wore appointed to prca
was worded as follows : — "To Louis Kossuth , Goveknob . of Uunoau . "To you , Sir , as the national ™ J ^' d " r iected ancient constitutional kingdom of « u" «"\ l > htjnied pe <> - govcrnor by the suffrages of it- free and enlig » t « ^ ^ pie ; as th / man who could proudly . Mcrt a . » W h sembled delegate , of the . work ng class . j « o the ^^ metropolis , tT . at 'he l » d lived « lsj « h < c J amUlltB of honest and industrious l ^ our vre , the Jnna M % the Uorough of Brighton , and Hundred ol vv f a , sembl * d ' in public meeting «» » « f J ^ * $£ " ' dealro the presence of our chief Municipal urn ^ » XeSJullT to offer our sincere «>»«™* lfZr Z' » ct > t safoarrW in Britain , and * *>** ' * T " ^ J , J £ . ** % 33 ^ i ^ SVJS £ rS ! A ' ^ indeed of
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1080 © fjr # % t&Htt * [ BkTafmA %
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 15, 1851, page 1080, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1909/page/4/
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