“I am not acquainted with the language, sir,” I replied.  “German is not to be spoken here—­Hungarian or nothing,” he retorted.  I simply turned on my heel with a gesture of impatience.  It was rather too much for any old fellow, however venerable and patriotic, to condemn me to silence and starvation because I could not speak the national lingo, so in the irritation of the moment I rapped out an English expletive, meant as an aside.  Enough!  No sooner did the testy old gentleman hear the familiar sound, invariably associated with the travelling Britisher in old days, than he turned to me with the utmost urbanity, saying in French, “Pardon a thousand times, I thought you were a German from the fluency of your speech; I had no idea you were an Englishman.  Why did you not tell me at once?  What orders shall I give for you?  How can I help you?” It ended in our dining together and becoming the best friends; in fact he invited me to spend a week with him at his chateau in the neighbourhood.  In the course of conversation I could not help asking him why, as he spoke German himself and the people in the inn also understood it—­in fact I am not sure but what it was their mother-tongue—­why he would not allow the language to be spoken?

“We are Hungarians here,” he replied, going off into testiness again, “and we do not want that cursed German spoken on all sides.  I, for one, will move heaven and earth to get my own language used in my own country.  Ha, ha! the Austrians wanted us to have their officials everywhere on the railway.  We have put a stop to that; now every man-jack of them must speak Hungarian.  It gave an immensity of trouble, and they did not like it at all, I can tell you.”

I did not attempt to argue with the old gentleman, for his views were inextricably mixed up with feelings and patriotism.

As a matter of fact, in the early part of this century the Magyar language was hardly spoken by the upper classes except in communicating with their inferiors; but when the patriotic Count Stephen Szechenyi first roused his fellow-countrymen to nobler impulses and more enlightened views, he held forth the restoration of the national language as the first necessity of their position.  In his time it meant breaking down the barrier which separated classes.  He was the first in the Chamber of Magnates who spoke in the tongue understood by the people; hitherto Latin had been the language of the Chambers.  With the exception of a group of poets—­Varosmazty, Petoefy, Kolcsey, and the brothers Kisfaludy—­there were hardly any writers who employed their native language in literature or science.  Count Szechenyi set the fashion, he wrote his political works in Hungarian, and what was more, assisted in establishing a national theatre.

There is perhaps no place where Shakespeare is so often given as at the Hungarian theatre at Buda-Pest, and it is said by competent judges that their translation of our great poet is unequalled in any language, German not excepted.