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    stood pondering defeat instead of organizing victory ; he stood meditating treachery instead of thinking how best he could serve Hungary and live , or serve Hungary and die . While Guy on was fighting , Gorgei was asking himself , with a cold-blooded egotism , whether it would not have been better , " although thousands looked up to me with firm confidence that I would not let them be destroyed , " to have forborne that step which had led him so far as to prevent him from returning ; whether it would not have been better to have issued " a pacific summons to a voluntary laying down arms" instead of the " defying proclamations" of Waizen ? And he asked himself this question , not for the first time , at Leutschau ; he had asked it three months before at Presburg ; when also he was speculating on the chances of making himself a dictator . And while he was reckoning with the past , his own officers were holding a soiree dansante ,

    he being too much " racked with incertitude " to join them . When he was at Waizen he believed that " the contest would be a fruitless one "he writes this and italicises the word ; yet he resolves , probably within the range of the dance music , certainly out of the range of the enemy ' s cannon , that " those who looked up to me with firm confidence , that I would not allow them to perish in the desperation of fruitless efforts , did well in trusting me . " The small capitals are his own . And that was the way , and those were the circumstances under which he cried " quits with the past . " General Kmety , who was stationed in position on the river Hernad close by , has a right to his bitter sarcasm , that "the perception of great dangers near at hand , " instead or urging Gorgei , as he says it did , to " the height of intellectual activity , " should have urged him to the height of the Branyiszko pass .

    Guyon ' s victory \ ipset Schlick ' s combinations , forced him to retreat , and enabled Gorgei to effect a junction with Klapka shortly after , at Kaschau , on the 10 th of February , 1849 . Dembinski was soon appointed commander-in-chief ; Gorgei ' s corps d ' armee was absorbed into the main army ; and henceforth he had to share his glories and his power with a Pole—he hated the Poles- ^ an d submit his haughty spirit to the orders of a superior . In , vain . He did not submit ; insisted on having his own corps separately supplied with provisions ; commanded out of his place in the two days ' ' fight at Kapolna ; and when the army under Dembinski retreated on the Thciss , after a series of disasters , Gorgei declined _ to retreat when ordered , and insisted on retreating when ordered to maintain his groiind .

    But there the army had no confidence in Dembinski . He was in a measure deposed by the army—Gorgei declaring beforehand that he had no objection to the appointment of one of his juniors , E , epasy or Klapka ; a clumsy way of hinting a strong desire for the baton of command . Vetter , after much negotiation , was appointed to the coveted post ; but he , unfortunately , fell sick , and the chief command was provisionally transferred to Gorgei . But he who censures and ridicules the plans of others for the continuation of the war , had too much sense to think of forming one of his own . Again , the chief of the general staff of the seventh army corps

    devised a plan by which , executed by the skill of Aulich , the sturdy bravery of Damjanics , the coolness of Klaplca , and the valour of Visoscki , Kmety , and Nagy Sandor , carr ied the Hungarian army to victory four times in eight days—at Hat van , at Tapio 13 ickse , at Isaszeg , at Waizen . Windisch Grata , by the 2 Gth of April , was in full retreat for the Vienna frontier , and Komom relieved . But "here ends Hungarian successes . Gorgei , for once , declined to follow the advice of the chief of his staff , and pursue the Austrians while they were demoralized by five or six victories . He followed his own inclinations , lie wasted time in

    storming the fortress of Ofen , which could never be regained . He kept up his intrigues in the army and at Debreczin , and thought more of humbling Kossuth , dissolving the Diet at the point of the bayonet , and treating with the Austrians , not for independence , but for the constitution of 1848 ; than of his duties as the head of the fighting army of Hungary . The [ Russians were . silently marching through the Dukla Pass , while Gorgei was weighing and balancing the probabilities of making himself a kind of prime minister of Hungary , under the house of Hapsburgh .

    By the declaration of the Diet on the j 4 Ui of April , 1841 ) , Hungary was declared independent of Austria , and the house of JFapsburg was deposed . Oiorgei , a servant of the nation , instead of receiving this news as became an honest man , either by accepting it , or throwing up the command , boasts that he sent back a message to the Diet by the courier who 'brought him the news , that " it was high time they ceased to be cowardly in adversity and insolent in prosperity . " And w liile -heprivately and niaong his creatures entertained these opinions , the , better to mask his designs ho published , on the 2 !) th of April , a stirring address to his army , attacking the Jli'ipslmrgli dynasty , adopting the 1 . 4 th of April , andgiviag the watchword of " forward , comrades , forward ! " Vet in writinir an account of his

    conduct immediately after , he coolly tells us that political motives induced liini to abandon the idea of an uninterrupted offensive ! . Me' was offered I lie 1 V 1 inistry ol'War , and accepted it , for the express purpose of deceiving . Kossuth and the Diet , of purging the latter of those who passed the declaration of independence , and ( he army of those officers not devoted to hiii'i . . He deliberately tells us lit ! " overcame his moral aversion" to do this ; he describes ninny steps in deceit consequent upon it . ; and being once entangled in the meshes of his own Irrnchery , he did not escape from the net until the . Russians carved an outlet for him at Villages . Kroni the capture of Ofen , in June , to thai , fatal surrender in August ,

    Gorgei , and no other , lost tho ea . uue . Mo was plotting when he should have been lighting , engaged in eircinnveiitiii << KossuUi when he should have been serving the nation ; a laggard when he should pursue ; and lighting fierce battles when the chance of benefiting |> y the victory had slipped by . Having made up liis mind to destroy t . lie ( jlovernnient of the 14 lh of April , he deceived Kossuth , deceived Klapkn , deceived everybody . jle led thu army by circuitous routes , purposely between the Russians and AiiHtrii'ins , resolved to surrender to the former , and ( at leji . nl , ho says so ) to light I he UtiU-r to the lanl .. He obtained tho dictatorship from KosKuth 2 it ( in ; last hour , made no terms with the enemy , but surrendered at discretion . The other gcnerald who guvo themselves up wore ahol and hung ; but

    Gorgei was escorted to Klagenfurth , supplied with money from the purse of Paskiewitch . The characteristics of Arthur Gorgei Were not those which form a great man or save a great country . We are almost inclined to accept the sarcastic estimate of General Kmety , who says that Gorgei had the mind of a sergeant , and was amnestied with all the sergeants of the Hungarian , army . He had the pedantry of a bureaucrat in the council , and the valour of a dragoon in the field , but he had not the foresight of a statesman , or the unerring judgment of a great soldier . With the pride of the Magyar he had none of the patriotism of that race ; and having learned in Austria to despise representative institutions , he never regarded with any affection those of his native land . Indeed , he was ignorant of her laws , her customs , her rights—of the genius of her people and of hpr

    glorious past . He did not even know the geography of the country ; and this he naively confesses himself , with the air of a man who is above it . His ambition was as boundless as las ' envy of other men ; his capacity was scarcely above the average ; his self-esteem inordinate . Throughout the whole of the period he spent in the service of his country he sought first his own glory and his own power , and through them bniy the glory and power of Hungary . He was not a vulgar traitor ; he did not , he had not the wit to scheme the betrayal of his country , but , setting himself first and her second , he brought disgrace upon her flag , he carried chains and misery to her children , and he earned , even from his enemies , the crowning distinction of infamy . We write these words in sorrow , not in anger , for to us Arthur Gorgei is as much a thing of the past as the rack and the thumb-screw .

    His one redeeming quality was his impassable valour ; he knew not what fear is . His one hateful defect was envy ; he never revered or loved a superior man . And now at Klagenfurth , his proud heart inwardly bleeding from a wound time cannot stanch—his sense of a mighty failure —a wound which we can scarcely hope that penitence will ever heal ; he lives unpitied , unfriended , unmourned , and Alone .

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    BOOKS ON OUR TABLE . JPreciosa . A Tale . John Chapman Religion and Education in Relation to fhe People . JJy J . A . Langford . John Chapman . Headingfor Travellers . Sfagie ' and Witchcraft . ¦ , ' . Chapman and Hall . Reminiscences of an Emir / rant Milesian . 3 vols . Kichard Bentley , Ah Astronomical Voeabnlarij . ' 'By J . K . Hind . J . W . Parker and Son . Freedom and Independence for tfye Golden . Lands ofAustralia . By J . D . Lang , . Longman , Brown , Green , and Co . JBohn ' s Illustrated Library—Life of the Duke of Wellington . By an Old Soldier . H . Gr . Bonn .

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    We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourages itself . —Goethe .

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    THE HA ¥ TH © i ^ E PAPEHS . No . V . G R A C E F II L N E S S . K ^ kHE doctrine that the term Beauty is our general expression for those Wffl « aspects and properties of things which habitually give us pleasurable Mr feelings , or that our notion of beauty is a result of accumulated plea-4 * & surablc experiences , —a doctrine with which , under a certain expanded form , I wholly agree , —has not , I think , been applied to that quality of form and movement which we term Grace . There can be no doubt that the attribute to which we apply this term is some perfection in the thing possessing it , —that graceful movement is movement having some essential superiority over that which is ungraceful , and that the like is true of form . We do not see this attribute in clowns , cart-horses , tortoises and hippopotami ; but we do see it in antelopes , racehorses , and human beings who have been developed under the most favourable conditions . "What peculiar superiority is it , then , which we see in these more highl y organized beings ? One nig ht whilst watching a dancer , and inwardly ( iOnuVmning her pirouettes and tours da force , as barbarisms which' would be 'hissed , wero not people such cowards : is always to applaud what they think it the fashion to applaud , —whilst , as I say , inwardly condemning these ungainly feats of strength , it occurred to mo that the truly graceful motions which were occasionally introduced , were those performed with (^ imperatively little effort ; and , after watching awhile , and being reminded of sundry confirmatory facts , 1 came to the general conclusion , that , given a certain cllimge of attitude to be gone through—a certain action to be achieved , then it isiiidst gracefully achieved when achieved with the least expenditure ' of force . 1 » other words , grace , as ' applied to motion , ( leseril ) Os motion that is ( . 'fleeted with an economy of muscular power ; grace , as applied to animal forms , describes forms capable of this economy ; grace , as applied to postures , describes postures that may be maintained with this economy ; and gince us applied to inanimate objects , describes such as possess certain analogies to these attitudes and forms . That this generalization , if not the whole truth , contains , at least , a large part of it , will , I think , become obvious , on considering how habitually we couple the words easy and

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    w 1238 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 25, 1852, page 1238, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1966/page/18/