often." Mr. Bevan—"Very often, perhaps?"
Witness—"Yes, frequently.'' Mr. Bevan—
"How many times?" Witness—"I can
scarcely recollect." Mr. Bevan— "More than
twelve times, probably?" Witness—"Yes, it
may be twelve times; so I can't recollect,
what was said every time." Mr. Bevan—
"What were your instructions relative to the
sale of arsenic; had you any from Mr.
Daniels!" [The master of the shop.] Witness
—"No, none in particular. Merely to write
the word 'poison' upon the paper."

This case, alone, strongly calls for legislative
restrictions on the sale of poisons.

         THE STORY OF A NATION.

IN TWO CHAPTERS.–CHAPTER THE SECOND.

KING Andreas never recovered his good
temper after the confirmation of the Golden
Bull. He died in 1235, and was succeeded by
his son Bela, who had, as heir-apparent, led
the reform movement, and remained now
faithful to his principles. The magnates
remained faithful to their discontent.

The Mongols, breaking westward under
Batu Khan, drove Kuthen, King of the
Kumans, with forty thousand of his people,
into Hungary. The Kumans were welcomed
by King Bela as a new source of strength.
They accepted Christianity; but, being little
civilised, their habits led them into a good
deal of dissension with the Hungarian natives.
The Mongols, with an army of five hundred
thousand men, threatened next to invade
Europe. Bela sought aid against the common
enemy (whose first step would be on
Hungarian ground) from the German Emperor
and from the Duke of Austria. The Emperor
held back; the Duke went nominally, with a
few Knights, to the rescue; but really to see the
breaking down of power, which it was hoped
would render Hungary thereafter an easy prey.
The Duke's share in the war was to stir up
dissension between the Hungarians and the
Kumans. The Hungarians were overwhelmed
at Mohi; the Mongols were masters of the
country, and the king sought refuge with the
Duke of Austria (Frederic of Babenberg).
This hospitable ally arrested him, and denied
him liberty until he had resigned to Austria
his border counties. For a year and a half
the Mongols devastated Hungary; after
which, affairs at home recalled them into Asia.
King Bela returned to Hungary, rebuilt the
cities; and, by fostering the liberty and
independence of the people, in four years he
caused the prostrate kingdom to stand again
erect. He then recovered by force of arms
the provinces which had been treacherously
wrested from him by Duke Frederic of
Austria. The Mongols, after twenty years,
attempted to invade again, but were forced
back over the Carpathian mountains.

Nothing remarkable occurred during the
rest of the sway of the house of Arpad,
which was extinguished in the person of
Andreas III., in 1301.

After eight years of riot and confusion,
Charles Robert of Anjou, whose grandmother
was daughter to Bela IV., was crowned by
the Hungarian Diet, with a solemn
declaration that he owed his crown to their free
choice exclusively; the great objection to him
having been that he was thrust upon them
by the Pope, whose interference ought not to
be recognised. Charles Robert introduced into
Hungary many details of the feudal system;
and, as the national domains no longer sufficed
to pay the expenses of the country, he levied
a tax, in feudal fashion, only from those who
were not noble. Towns were privileged and
flourished, trade increased, and a gold coinage
became for the first time necessary. Although
the country prospered under him, Charles
Robert was not popular in Hungary, because
he meddled over-much in foreign politics, and
was not himself thoroughly Hungarian.

Louis the Great, his son, succeeded in 1342,
when he was seventeen years old. Educated
in Hungary, he was a popular king, and
was called great, for the usual reason that
he was fond of war, and successful in it. To
avenge the murder of a brother by his queen,
he took Naples twice, and called himself
King of the Two Sicilies; but the Pope having
decreed that the royal murderess had been
bewitched into her crime, that solution of
the difficulty was accepted, and the matter
ended with a gift made by King Louis to the
Hungarian nobles of a ninth part of the
agricultural produce of the peasantry, for
ever, as an indemnity for their sacrifices in the
Neapolitan war. This tax 'For Ever' ended
only in the year 1848. Complications from
foreign interference, which it would not be
entertaining to detail, troubled the Kings of
Hungary, down to the reign of Sigismund.

By this time the Turks under Bajazet
became a formidable power, and excited
alarm throughout Europe. Hungary was the
barrier; and into Hungary came from
Germany or France many brave knights, with
their vassals, for the defence of Christendom.
A brilliant army led by Sigismund against
the Turks, in 1396, was, however, totally
routed at Nicopolis.

Sigismund was greatly addicted to political
intrigue, and his intrigues concerning the
succession, caused the magnates at one time to
imprison him for eighteen weeks, releasing him
then upon a promise not to take too much
upon himself in future, and not to avenge
himself upon their boldness. The last promise was
almost the only one he ever kept. While King
of Hungary, Sigismund became also Emperor
of Germany. In Hungary, a Neapolitan party
had from the first disputed his succession;
and against this party he warred chiefly with
the arms of perfidy. Troubled again by the
Turks, Sigismund was indebted to a Hungarian
leader—John Hunyady—for a defeat of these
Turks, at Belgrade, in 1437.