The Press.
London, England, 1857-11-28 00:00:00

THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 28,1857.

•
of this nature are of much graver importance than questions arising
out of the revival of Orange societies. Why should the Jesuits obtain
" the spiritual guidance ' of the Dublin police ? The fact is stated
with such circumstantiality that there can be no room for doubting it,
and taken in connection with the tone of Dr. CULLEN'S pastorals it
deserves most attentive consideration.

The race of rising public men is not so numerous that we can
afford to lose Lord STRANOFORD, more known to the world as the accom-
plished GEORGE SYDNEY SstrrHE. Although he did not realise all that
was expected from him, it must be recollected that the politics of the
day were not favourable to the rise of one with his eclectic creed, and
that the mixed character of his tenets interfered with his representa-
tive force. He had great talents for language, and a natural turn for
dwelling on subjects requiring elaborate and finished ornament. His
capacity for construction did not equal his fine powers for arabesque
and fanciful decoration ; and some faculties of a coarse kind were
wanting, in order to give due balance to his airy intellect. His " His-
toric Fancies" contained some charming pieces with feathery grace of
diction, but we have read still better things from his pen. In word-
painting he excelled, though some of his portraits of contemporaries
were rather too panegyrical, and all subjects he was rather prone to
regard through the prismatic hues of a rhetorical fancy. He is one of
the few men of our generation of whom it can be truly said that he
had talents fur writing in both prose and verse ; and he also won dis-
tinction as a speaker. But, like other gifted men, Lord STRANOFORD
scattered his talents, and it would have been better for his fame if his
mind, in JOHNSON'S words, had been " determined in some particular
" direction." Yet, undoubtedly, he was a most accomplished man, and
had a brilliant nature, which aspired to soar with the instincts of his
blood. Four times in the seventeenth century Lord STRANOFORD'S
family had intermarried with the SYDNEYS of Penshurst Castle, and
both the first and second Viscounts STRANOFORD had each married a
SYDNEY; and ROBERT SMYTHE, of Sutton, married no less a personage
than the Sacharissa of WALLER. The Strangford pedigree through the
seventeenth century is environed with poetical and chivalrous associa-
tions, and the father of the late nobleman, when raised to the English
peerage in 1825, took the second title of Baron Penshurst. It is re-
ported that Lord STRANOFORD was engaged in an historical work of
considerable importance, and the fact seems not unlikely, as for
several years his Lordship had taken little active part in public life.

There is one point in the very admirable;speech of Mr. BERESFORD
HOPE at Maidstone, reported in this week's Times, which deserves
special attention. We mean his allusion to the cottage accommoda-
tion of the poor. One great reason why education has not produced
those moral results which twenty years ago were predicted from it, is
that too much was attributed to the influence of mere knowledge.
But a scanty pittance of geography, or arithmetic, or history, doled
out to the poor man's children could never generate sufficient moral
vigour to cope with the physieallimpurities which environed their daily
life. While these last are permitted to continue we shall look in vain
for any tangible result from the spread of national education. The
tree of knowledge must not only be planted and watered—it must
have a free space for growth, far removed from the deadly upas shade
which, in our country villages, as well as in our fetid cities, makes it
wither, rot, and perish. Another reason for exerting ourselves as much
as possible in this particular department of philanthropy is that for-
tunately here there are no differences of opinion and no doubt about
the good effected. Education is a thing about which no two men can
agree, and, while we are wrangling over what is the best species, the
patient languishes for want of even the worst. Some there
are, too, who tell us that education is no sort of good after all—that
it makes men worse instead of better, vicious, discontented, and so
forth. But there can be no doubt in the world that a four-roomed
house is better than a three-roomed one, and that human beings must
be benefited by the introduction of cleanliness and decency to their
dwellings. These are broad palpable truths which the ignorant can
appreciate as well as the learned. Let us, then, while the question of
education is still less advanced than we could wish, devote ourselves
heartily to a branch of social amelioration to which there are no impe-
diments, if only our benevolence and liberality be in earnest. We
shall be doing good service to the cause, and every fresh cottage built
on improved principles will be so much contributed towards lighten-
ing the labours of the schoolmaster. Children brought up in an atmo-
spere of domestic purity will present few of those difficulties to the
patient and kindly instructor which he experiences in the inmates of
those hovels and pigsties, the inmates of which were but one remove
superior to the bullock and the hug. We trust Mr. Hon will give
some portion of his experience and abilities to the promotion of these
desirable objects, and that his well-timed reflection on the responsibi-
lity of landlords will not be without fruit.

We are not quite sure which class of sympathisers is the more
difficult to bear, the worthy folks who make the worst of one's misfor-
tune, or the equally excellent people who make what may be called
the best of it. Our own personal feelings certainly incline us towards
the former ; and of the two principal forms of that terrible infliction,
the consolation of one's friends, we think that on the whole we prefer
the dismal variety. There may be, we all feel that in general there is,
a soul of goodness in things evil, but we like to be permitted to dis-
cover it in our own case without dictation, and to be suffered to draw
the moral of our own misfortunes for ourselves. We fancy we should
be apt to doubt the friendship of the gentleman who would make a
spiritual case of a severe illness, and speedily forget our sufferings in
an improving contemplation of the moral uses to which they might be