The Press.
London, England, 1858-08-28 00:00:00

THE PRESS, AUGUST 28, 1858.

nothing but Parliamentary interference can check
the ardour of British enterprize ; and unless some
wholesome restraint be applied, we may be sure
that great national loss will be the result. Com-
panies will start into existence, claiming Acts of
Parliament, and various kinds of concessions
which cannot with even-handed justice be refused,
until a complication of Acts and concessions have
been granted most destructive to the general
interests of the public. And if such restraint is
not early applied, we may expect even worse
difficulties than those under which we are now

suffering under our railway mismanagement. In
railways, however, there is always something to
show for the investment ; but in the Ocean
Telegraph adventure an entire line, which will
cost an enormous sum, may, for want of proper
management, be irrecoverably lost, not only to
the adventurers, but such loss is absolutely of
great public importance. And that the national
wealth may be preserved, legislation at the outset,
before complications and precedents arise, is
imperatively called for—legislation that will
take a prospective view of which is now morally
certain in some shape or other to take place.
Telegraph lines will intersect, cross, and recross
every ocean. Therefore now is the time to lay
down broad and leading principles under which
the general interest shall be protected and to
which all matters relating to any individual line
shall be subject.
It is now clear to every intelligent mind that
if a general comprehensive Act of Parliament
had been formed, with prospective reference to
railways, immediately on their first development
between Liverpool and Manchester, when it was
obviously only a question of time as to when the
country would be covered with one web of
railways, the vast incomprehensible complication
of railway Acts of Parliament, which have since
essentially forced themselves upon the Legislature,
would, in a great measure, have been unnecessary.
Whilst the promotion of railway accommodation
would have been encouraged, the interests of
adventurers would have been fairly protected by
the general Act, the security of which would have
saved the country from the several railway panics
through which it had to pass ; thousands of
families would have been saved the poverty and
misery to which they were irrecoverably driven.
With such dire results from the neglect of timely
legislation before us we last week suggested a
plan by which the enterprize of the people in
any ocean telegraph adventure would be promoted,
and the aggregate result made profitable to
every interest concerned, whether individual or
national.

SAVAGE LANDOIt AND SAVAGE
SLANDER.

THE case of " Yescombe against Landor " is one
of those literary scandals which occcur from time
to time, and which serve to moderate the exagge-
rated value occasionally given to learning and
talent. The injury inflicted by a libeller is gene-
rally in proportion to the vigour with which he
uses his pen as a stiletto ; and the poisoned verse
of Mr. SAVAGE LANDOR was calculated to do
hideous damage to its victim. Mr. PHINN, the
counsel for the defendant, alluded in extenuation
to the circumstance that Mr. LANDOR was a
writer of the old school, and that he was a con-
temporary of Bvnos and MOORS, both of whom
dealt habitually in personality. What a back-
handed blow was thus dealt at the personal cha-
racters of these distinguished poets, when it was
insinuated that the odious and disgusting verses
of Mr. LANDon belonged to the satirical school
of Moola: and BYRON ! Yet, unfortunately, there
was some truth in the remarks of Mr. Prnxs,
and there can be no doubt but that your high-
flying " Liberal man of letters" always claims
such a degree of licence in commenting on social
incidents as is never permitted in the more sober
and well-bred school of Conservatism. WALCOT
( Peter Pindar) was a most "savage" and malignant
libeller of GEORGE 111. ; the Rolliad (edited by
Dr. FRENCH LAWRENCE) went to extreme lengths
in attacking private frailties ; and when the Anti-
Jacobin wits attempted retaliation, Mr. PITT
interfered, and refused to sanction the poignant
personality of CANNING and GIFFORD. For a
long time the Liberal press actually throve on

819

invective and abuse, and the terrorism by which
the public mind was lashed into a frenzy at the
time of the Reform Bill is now matter of national
history.
Between political lampoons and private libels
there is, however, an immense difference. A
lampooner in public affairs may be coarse and
malignant, but political passion, the excitement
of party contests, and the exasperation of long-
continued strife, will in some cases palliate,
though not justify, an excess in vituperation.
The brutal attacks of Mr. SAVAGE LANDOR were
entirely of another character. They were cruel
and cowardly; they assailed a woman with all
the morbid energy of an imagination revelling
on the eructating imagery which a diseased
brain might delight in ; and the circumstance
that the writer hoped to escape by the anonymous
shield, and by the fact of his advanced age, added
to the disgrace of their composition. It is just
twenty years since Mr. LANDOR published in the
columns of the Examiner a poem on some of the
recollections of his life. The scene was also laid
in Bath, and the subject arose from the casual
meeting with a lady to whom he had fruitlessly
paid his addresses some forty years before. He
painted the youthful charms of the lady of his
early love, and he contrasted the present and
past :

She shines in coronetted pannel,
With husband mummified in flannel,
Amongst the harridans and hacks
That spread their tanneries at Almack's.

That is precisely the same style of "liberal"
composition as was unfolded in the Yescombe
case. When will the Whig aristocracy and the
gentlemen of the "Liberal " connecticn cease to
patronize the writers who deal in Landorian
licence? Yet what an amount of well-acted in-
dignation is professed by " Liberals" at the ex-
cesses of Dean Swill-r, and at the personality of
the John Bull in the days of THEODORE HOOK !
It has been said that " libelling is one of the
main resources of the Liberals," and without
going so far as to echo that assertion, there can
be no doubt that Junius, Cirummu., the writers
of the Rolliud, Byliox, MooRE, and many other
" Liberal" names, are deeply tarnished with the
cruelty of their personal satires. The age of
duelling is gone, and a new standard has come
in by which compositions should be tried, but in
any case vilifying a woman and agonizing her
feelings could never be tolerated. Unqualified
disgust is the only feeling that can rise on the
perusal of Mr. LANDOR'S verses, and it is a pain-
ful spectacle to see a man thus sully his name at
the threshold of the grave.