The Express.
London, England, 1863-07-13 00:00:00

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and Buclutane , Mr.. A. Wigan and Wm Angst —Mdllk Carlotta
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EASY SHAVINO.—And THE STAN or ANDALUSIA.

P&INC®R6

THIS $7ll/11110, COUSIN TO3l.—And ROMEO AND JULIET.
Messrs. Walter Montgomery. Owns, Vlnlnfi helm,, and
B.Stanton : Mdlle. Was and Mrs. It.

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BRITANNIA.

TIM IMMO, 181 WlttrilifTh GLEN. introducing THE
GREAT GHOST EFFECT. Professor Pepper s adaptation of Mr.
Divots's Spectral illusion.—Singing by Messrs. Plutupton,
Woodniats, and lasodalL- And THE SHIP ON FIRE.

HIGH WATIII. AT LONDON BRIDGI.
11131 DOT Month% Oh. 421.....A11ar50w. Ott MIL
Suanasow—Mcesdag. .Aferso" 10.

LONDON, MONDAY, JULY 13.

MR. RORRUCH stands just now in a position he
much loves, which he has often striven for, and
not unfrequently attained. For the moment he
is the moat prominent man in the kingdom. The
business of the empire waits upon his personal plea.
sure, and will stand still to-night or proceed as he
disposes. In this interval of compulsory inaction
the only thing that is left to us is to contemplate
the central figure of the soon*.
Mr. ROZIWCR, we believe, cannot reckon on a
single follower in the House. He has not the gifts
of a leader, and as a coadjutor he is notoriously
unsafe. Nevertheless be is in an important sense
a representative man. The character in which he
is best known, and in which he for a long time most
loved to appear, is that of a tribune of the people,
and in the eyes of thousands he is accepted es
the example and type of popular liberalism.
Without wishing to assign more importance to
Mr. Rozeuce than belongs to him, we readily
acknowledge that there is very much included in
that wide designation which he most faithfully re-
presents. It needed this American war, which has
applied the touchstone to so many reputations
and so many systems, to bring out the
weaknesses of popular liberalism, to show how
much is rotten beneath its fair exterior, how
destitute it is of principles and aims, how often it
is merely a mass of class jealousies, of hatreds,
denials, and unbelief's, powerful only for obstruc-
tion and demolition, caring for no ends of society
which GOD has ordained or man can approve, sad
held together, when it is held together, only by
the compression of opposing forces. Of this
obsolete and helpless pseudo-liberalism, the dregs
of the controversies of a past generation,
little understood, but so far as understood
deservedly pitied and condemned by all generous
minds, Mr. ROEBUCK is the worthy representative.
Turbulent, iconoclastic, anarchical, he looks back
upon a career as unproductive as it is restless.
Services, indeed, he has rendered to the publjc,
which the public remembers, but they have been
for the most part the services of the public execu-
tioner, very necessary, and fit to be rewarded,
but not of a kind to bring honour to the per-
former. Of occasions when the role of the lowest
minister of justice has almost passed into that
Of the political assassin it is needless to speak,
but they are not forgotten. There are few public
men whom Mr. Roxaccx has not at some time
or other affected formally to dismiss from political
life, and the mortification with which he sees them
occupying the highest places in public esteem he
bag not the self control to conceal.

Many sincere Liberals have been surprised as
well aa grieved at the course which Mr. Rossucc
has taken on the American question. They
thought that without believing in Mr. LINCOLN'S
statesmanship or Mr. SEWARD'S sincerity, or
Hoossa's tactics or BURNSIDE'S constitutional law,
without even approving of the policy of making
war for the restoration of the Union, he might at
least have given his good wishes to a community
which, notwithstanding great errors and short-
comings, has realised some of the most important
ends of society, to a degree never known before
in the history of the world. They have been
scandalised at seeing him become the open
advocate of another community which has deli-
berately committed itself not only to all the bar-
barism which attends inherited slavery, but to the
criminal enterprise of extending that system and
making it • new power in the world. Had they
better observed Mr. ROEBUCK'S career, they
would have been less surprised and shocked.
There was nothing in his political life to guarantee
his friends against an outbreak of • fanatical
reactionary spirit, such as we now see. There is
no pledge of ordered freedom, no principle or pro-
mise of progress in such liberalism as he professes,
and which reduced to its elements is simply a naked
popular absolutism. For him a revolution will
always be a revolution, whether the order of things
which it tends to establish be the divine or the
infernal.

For hi% own sake it would not be worth
while to point the moral of Mr. Roxaccx's career.
Perhaps it is a small matter that with talents that
would have qualified him for statesmanship, and
opportunities of distinction such u have fallen to
the lot of few, he should in his old age be peddling
with public companies, soliciting smallemployments,
and one day rilipending and the next flattering an
Emperor. But his situation is only too true a
figure of that of a large section of the popular
Liberal party. This party likes to be told that its
weak and abject condition is entirely owing to the
unfaithfulness of its aristocratic leaders. It would
do better to look within, and re-examine the
dicta which it has been content to ac ept for prin
ciplea. There must be something wrong in doc-
trines which lead to a political alliance with
men who unblushingly proclaim their mission
to expose the absurdity of free society, and found