KOSSUTH AND THE ANGLO-SAXON "PEOPLES." [From the "Glasgow Citizen," July 31.]

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 696, 15 December 1852, Page 3

KOSSUTH AND THE ANGLO-SAXON "PEOPLES." [From the "Glasgow Citizen," July 31.]

Lours Ivossuth has returned to this country —■ privately —without noise or display —in all probability, an humbler and a wiser man. It seems but a few months ago since he burst upon England like a meteor. The multitude stared in wonderment, and rent the welkin with their huzzas. In strains of burning eloquence he spoke to them of his darling down-trodden Hungary, and, with, vehement vociferations, they vowed that her wrongs would be avenged. Enthusiasm could rise no higher. The work had occupied little time, but it was complete ; England was fairly up ; and he accordingly hastened to America to enlist the younger branch of the great Anglo-Saxon people in his cause. His reception in the United States was tremendous. With the backing of two such nations, what might he not accomplish for the liberation of Hungary? How Austria and the Russian autocrat must havo shaken in their 'military boots ! On both sides of the Atlantic the splendid fires of enthusiasm which the Hungarian patriot thus kindled, blazed for a brief space, crackled, and expired They cannot be said to have ended in smoke, for not even a rag of smoke has been left. Alas for those who confide in the favour of the "peoples!" The smiles of princes are not more proverbially deceptive. Imagine poor Kossuth, a'tsr being evexy where hailed as a demigod, creeping at last out of America, like Louis Phillippe out of France, under the assumed name of " Mr. Smith," and stealing back to England, a " downtrodden" private gentleman, to find himself unnoticed and forgotten! We think it probable that the ex-Governor of Hungary has, long before now, been seized with a shrewd-notion that, he has been very extensively humbugged. In Tennytonian language, he has stretched lame hands of faith, and gathered only dust and chaff. Wind indeed he has had in galore to puff up the hopes of his prostrate Hungary withal; but what is mere mouth-wind to the bullets of an army of Cossacks \ Oh noisy and mocking "peoples !'' call you this backing of your friends! Not such help do tyrants usually lend to tyrants. But let not Louis Kossuth consider too harshly of the conduct, in this instance, of the free and freedom-loving Anglo-Saxons whose tongue —the tongue that Shakspere spoke —he has so creditably mastered. Their sympathy with him and with his country was, at the time abundantly sincere, and what else could {hey offer, under the circumstances, without Quixotism and mischief I Equally sincere, too, were their plaudits of his oratory. Had he snivelled, stuttered, or mangled the Queen's English, how much feebler would have been their cheers for Hungary ! but he spoke manfully and well; ho had played a distinguished part in the European drama ; he exhibited in his person a good deal of tile romance of real life ; and everything contributed to render him the hero of the hour. It was of the very nature of popularity like his that it should die out. Cheering may be extended, on a stretch, to " nine times nine" and " one cheer more," with the finale even of " He's a right good fellow," but time is everlastingly on the jnove, the duration of man's life is limited, and sooner or later there must be a discreet end of all things sublunary and human. The poet, the painter, and the sculptor, —the philosopher, the historian and the fictionist—must generally be content to listen in fancy to the encomiums passed upon their genius. It is different with the orator. Words of eloquence dropped from the living lips command an instantaneous homage. Hence the temptation which many men are under to forsake their sober callings, set themselves up as patriots, and acquire clamorous renown by " wielding at will the fierce democracy." But this path of popularity and mob-worship has its drawbacks. Crowds are notorioxisly inconstant in their loves. The applauded of one day is the hooted and yelled at of the next. By whim, passion, and delusion, the blunt and fearless many-headed are alternately swayed ; and few public men have ever stooped to Hatter them without living to reap their scorn. It was so old in Athens and in Rome ; it is so at this day in Paris and in London. The populace are now idolators — anon they are iconoclasts ; and Kossuth, if he cherishes resentment against the " peoples" vho have flattered and spumed him, is at war with the irreversible laws of nature, and may as well chide the winds of heaven for blowing yesterday a hurricane, flnil to-day a zephyr, front opposite points of the compass.