The Press.
London, England, 1857-10-17 00:00:00

published last year, and already noticed in our
columns—" spring from three great and ori-
" ging sources—namely, the offices of the
" Secretaries of State for the Foreign, Colo.
" nial, and the Home Departments ;" and
these papers are consequently classified and
arranged in three distinct series, as domestic,
foreign, and colonial. The " domestic " series
is the one now in the course of publication ;
and as soon as one series is completed, another
will be taken up and dealt with in the same
manner.

But there is no reason, as far as we can see,
for limiting the term " State Papers " to so
narrow an issue. Surely those documents
emanating from the several other departments
of the State—such as the War-office, tho Admi-
ralty, the Board of Trade, the Board of Con-
trol, the Audit Office, cunt multis aliis—have as
much claim to be styled " State" papers as
those which are produced directly from the
offices of the Secretaries of State. This nar-
rowing of the definition of a " State Paper''
must be borne in mind when perusing theso
" Calendars."

But, whatever our opinion may he as to the
limited definition of a " State Paper," we can
most unhesitatingly affirm that the " selection"
of them in the " Calendar" before us is any-
thing 'out " limited." On the contrary, there
appears to have been no " selection " what.
ever. Any paper, no matter what it referred
to or what was its purport, has been dignified
by the term of, and calendared as, a " State
Paper." That we do not write without cause,
the following extracts, taken haphazard from
Mrs. Green's volume, will clearly demon-
strate :

Page INB.-11105, Jan. 22. Meares&ld. 27.—Mary
Ligon to her sister Mrs. Talbot. Thanks for courtesies in
reference to her marriage. Remembrances to her father
and mother Sherrington.

Mrs. Green is undoubtedly correct in calen-
daring this as a " domestic " document; but
it surely can lay no claim to the dignity of a
" State " paper. Again :
Page 307.-1007, Aug. 13. St. John's, Lichfield. 31.-
1)r. Simon Weston to Salisbury. Understanding that he
is about to take a journey into Lancaiahire, invites him to
his house at Lichfield.
The Earl of Salisbury, son of the famols Lord
Burleigh—who, under the name of Sir Robert
Cecil, Knt., had for the last seven years of her
reign been Secretary of State to Queen Eliza-
beth—on 13th Aug., 1607, he then holding the
same office under James 1., receives an invi-
tation from Dr. Weston to visit him at Lich-
field on his way to Lancashire. A " domestic "
document of course it is ; but what constitutes
it a " State" paper ? Is it merely because it
is found amongst the papers of a Secretary of
State? But this, to say the least, is trifling
with a great question. That an invitation
from one gentleman to another to visit him at
his house en route to his destination, should
be gravely " calendared " as a " State" paper,
is simply ridiculous. Clearly, if no discrimi-
nation be used in the selection of these State
papers, a mass of useless rubbish will be
handed down to posterity. Who knows but
that some literary scavenger, grubbing amongst
the documents in the State Paper Office some
years hence, may not alight upon a document
of this kind?—

D.S.-1857, Sep. 20.—Dear Pan, bother the grouse
Come to town and look after Vernon.—Yours, &c., PAN.
Which little epistle would at any rate have
some pretensions to the title of a " State"
paper, whilst those we have extracted from
Mrs. Green's volume have none whatever. As
a proof of how little discrimination has been
used in determining what is or what is not a
" State " paper, we will in conclusion add the
following :

Page 456 —l6OB, Sep. 15. 17.—Sir Hen. Nevill to
[ Sir Thos. Windebank]. Excuses himself for not return-
ing home to dine with him, having been carried as far as
Cranborne in chase of a deer.

Comment on this is superfluous. We must be
excused if we fail to see that a refusal to
dinner written by one gentleman to another,
merely because it is found amongst some State
papers—for neither of the above-mentioned
gentlemen ever filled the office of Secretary of
State—becomes once and for ever a " State "
paper itself. We presume, also, from the fact
of the name of Sir Thos. Windebank being in
brackets, that it is not quite certain whether