The Village Notary   By: József Eötvös

A ROMANCE OF HUNGARIAN LIFE.

TRANSLATED FROM THE HUNGARIAN OF BARON EÖTVÖS,

BY OTTO WENCKSTERN.

WITH INTRODUCTORY REMARKS BY FRANCIS PULSZKY.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1850.

LONDON: SPOTTISWOODES and SHAW New street Square.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

VOLUME I

PREFACE iii CHAPTER I. 1 CHAPTER II. 37 CHAPTER III. 62 CHAPTER IV. 89 CHAPTER V. 132 CHAPTER VI. 139 CHAPTER VII. 151 CHAPTER VIII. 171 CHAPTER IX. 187 CHAPTER X. 235 CHAPTER XI. 251 CHAPTER XII. 273 NOTES 275

VOLUME II

CHAPTER I. 1 CHAPTER II. 11 CHAPTER III. 29 CHAPTER IV. 61 CHAPTER V. 72 CHAPTER VI. 97 CHAPTER VII. 118 CHAPTER VIII. 147 CHAPTER IX. 171 CHAPTER X. 196 CHAPTER XI. 217 CHAPTER XII. 235 CHAPTER XIII. 267 NOTES 279

VOLUME III

CHAPTER I. 1 CHAPTER II. 42 CHAPTER III. 62 CHAPTER IV. 90 CHAPTER V. 105 CHAPTER VI. 128 CHAPTER VII. 138 CHAPTER VIII. 161 CHAPTER IX. 178 CHAPTER X. 217 CONCLUSION 236 NOTES 242

PREFACE.

When Joseph, Baron Eötvös, wrote his "Village Notary," and when he dedicated that work to me, neither he nor I could anticipate the sudden and unexpected downfall of the political and social institutions which he attempted to portray. It is true that my friend did not, in the present work, make an exclusive use of his poetical faculties. The dregs of opposition were fermenting in his mind, and his ostensible object, to give a sketch of life in a Hungarian province, was mixed up with the desire to make his story act as a lever upon the vis inertiæ of our political condition. In those days, the liberal party in Hungary was divided into three factions. Our great reformer, the Count Széchenyi, was worn out by his long and seemingly resultless struggles against the policy of the Court of Vienna. He made a surrender of the leading ideas of his political life. He had ever since 1829 been the champion of equal taxation and of legal equality. He had advocated the abolition of feudal burdens on the land. But he lived to consider these objects of his former aspirations as matters of secondary import. He became a practical man, and directed his energies to the steam navigation on the Danube, to the damming and dyking of the river Theiss, to railroads, &c.; and for the furtherance of these plans the Count Széchenyi, though still faithful to his principles, had drawn close to the conservative party, and become reconciled to the government at Vienna. He did not, indeed, deprive himself of the pleasure of recounting numberless anecdotes and sketches from life, all of which tended to prove the incapability and the malevolence of that government; but his voice was silent in the debates of the Parliament, and the whole of his energies were devoted to the execution of practical improvements. " Make money, and enrich the country! " such was the advice he gave to us, his younger friends; and he added, " An empty sack will topple over; but if you fill it, it will stand by its own weight. "