The Press.
London, England, 1857-08-15 00:00:00

is the bosom friend of the Baron PROKESCH and Lord STRATFORD.
The truth is the British Government has made an immense mistake
in identifying itself with VOGORIDES. A more able and temperate
man would have kept within bounds, and have done the bidding of
his superior with effect; but the brawling young Phanariot has
broken through all decorum, has insulted the clergy, offended the old
Boyards, and will be found to have ruined his own cause. Had the
British Government acted as Sir H. BULWER desired, by avoiding all
these disreputable intrigues against the Union—had they given the
two parties fair play to fight out the question themselves—England
would have now held a higher and more dignified position. As it is,
we have been degraded before Europe, and every attempt to explain
the matter places us only in a more contemptible light. For this wo
have to thank Lord PAudEasrox, and we have no doubt the Noble
Lord enjoys every gratification such a pleasant position must afford.

It will hardly be credited by our readers that the Indian news
which appeared in the daily papers of yesterday was at the time of its
appearance unknown both in Downing street and at the India-house.
The Bombay Times, the journal from which the intelligence was derived,
is obtained at the cost of a few shillings extra twenty-four hours earlier
by way of Trieste than by way of Marseilles. Private enterprise at
once saw the advantage to be gained, and seized it. But the Govern-
ment, as usual, leaves all to routine, and is in deliberation on these
momentous matters some hours after all the Queen's subjects have
read and digested the news.

The death of the law Right Honourable Jouw WILSON CRoxEa has
come without surprise. For the last few years Mr. CROKER laboured
under a singular complication of bodily infirmities, and it was a wonder
he lived so long. Born at Galway in 1780, Mr. CROKFIR early came
before the public, and in activity of work' he was second to none
amongst the literary men of his generation. About the value of his
writings, and upon the estimate of his character, opinions (even
amongst Conservatives) are various and opposite, and it would be ex-
tremely difficult, in the presence of his unburied remains, to offer a
strict examination of Mr. CROKER'S stormy literary career. To use a
favourite illustration of his own, Mr. CROKER was "the foul weather
Jack" of periodical literature. He was bitter and boisterous in his
galling derision of an adversary; rapid and unceremonious in attack,
if a rejoinder were offered he always showed a determination to have
the last word. He was more of a pamphleteer than of a public censor
—more of a reviewer than of a critic or essayist—and more of a
debater than an orator. There was a certain malign asperity of mind
and fierce propensity to energetic disparagement of individuals in Mr.
GROWER which raised him a swarm of enemies. He left upon numbers
the impression that ho was one of the pamphleteers of the eighteenth
century who came into the world fifty years too late. He had a vast
stock of personal and defamatory gossip, more or less authentic ;
ho had a prodigious command of damaging personal allusions ; he
had an innate propensity to sarcasm, accompanied with literary
finish in forging his truculent discharges ; he had fluent lips, a
mordant tongue, and a front of brass. To " put him down" was out
of the question ; he existed in being attacked ; he liked having a
public quarrel on his hands; and he had justifiable confidence
in his unfailing stock of vituperation, and corrosive virulence of
reply. In literature his best performance was an admirably penned
" Sketch of Ireland—Past and Present—(lBoB)," which was acute
and clear in thinking, and curiously neat in its elaborate imitation
of Tames. But we think his highest and worthiest mental efforts
were in the debate on the Reform Bill in 1831 and 1832, when, after
many years of comparative Parliamentary inactivity, he shone forth a
brilliant debater, eloquent in statement, and ready in reply. It can
be said with truth that neither his political friends nor foes anticipated
the extent of Mr. CROKER 'S Parliamentary resources until he appeared
in Opposition. During his long tenure of the Secretaryship of
the Admiralty he had been looked upon as only one
of the subalterns of the old Tory party, and as not being
well fitted for playing a leading part in the House of Com-
mons. The question on which he had been used to speak in early
years was " Catholic Emancipation," and it was said (we cannot say
with what accuracy) that the Chief of the Tory party did not wish
that Mr. GROWER should put himself forward too much in debate. In
those times etiquette was stricter than now about official subordinates
not often appearing "on their legs." Mr. CROKER was never a
popular man at any time in his connection. He was too habitually
censorious, and he did not comport himself with sufficient respect
towards his rivals, or his allies. His conception of a critic was that of
a literary lictor. Authors of the opposite party, occasionally of the
weaker sex, were tied up by him ; and Mr. CROKER was never happier
than when (figuratively) he broke his bundle of rods on the blistered
backs of his tortured victims. He, himself, seemed callous to ridicule
and reproof. If he was knocked down in argument, he got up again
with the temperament of an Irishman at a fair, who thinks that bumps
and blows aro only compliments to be returned. We fear that
in "criticism " (as the literary pamphleteering of the quarterly
organs was called) Mr. CROKER gave more needless pain to
individuals than any reviewer that could be named. If ho
had the pleasure, he had also the pains of a controversialist.
As a political writer he was surpassed by some of his contem-
poraries. His style had a fatal mannerism, which was happily ridi-
culed in the remark that " his articles seemed drawn up from the
" briefs of an Old Bailey attorney." On the " French Revolution'
Mr. CROKER set up for being especially strong, but his mockery of the
supposition that a Napoleon dynasty could ever stand, or be accepted