than that the measures at present before Parliament may bring temporary
relief to the peasantry, and temporary, nay let us hope permanent
pacification, but that the question will be reopened, coupled probably
with that of 'Home Rule,' and that at no distant period.

There are many other circumstances which warrant us in seeking to obtain
a better knowledge of Roumania, but these were the chief considerations
which induced me last year to visit the country and some of its leading
institutions, and to collect the materials which I now venture in the
following pages to lay before my readers.

No one knows so well as I do how imperfectly my task has been performed,
nor the difficulties with which it has been surrounded, and there are
one or two matters of which I should like to unburden myself to the
reader. He will probably enquire why I have put the cart before the
horse, giving a sketch of the present condition of the country before
treating of its past history. The answer is that it was not originally
my intention to deal with the latter at any length; but when I came to
read and study the works which have appeared on the subject in French
and German (of which a tolerably full list is appended to this
treatise), so many topics of interest presented themselves for the
historical student that I determined to publish a connected history of
the country, however imperfect it might be, from the earliest times down
to the present day. And in this I was further encouraged by the fact
that the attempt has not yet been made in English, excepting in a very
perfunctory manner in Consul Wilkinson's work, published by Longmans in
1820, which is now quite out of date. That such a review of Roumanian
history, condensed as it necessarily is, was sure to be considered very
dry by many readers, seemed to be certain; I therefore placed it after
the description of the country as it exists to-day, and for those