The Express.
London, England, 1846-10-30 00:00:00

Wparregg.

AILS.
The mails for New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land, will be made
up on the 31st October (to-morrow).
The West India mails, including those for Mer. Mia, Honduras, and
Havana, wilt be made up on the morning of the 2nd November.
Tlri overland nails for Gibraltar, Malta, Greece, the lonian Wanda,
Egypt, Aden, Ceyloa, India, Hong-Kong, and China, Ma Soutnamptmt,
will be made up on the morning of the 3rd November.
The mails for British North America, Bermuda, and the United
Staters will be made up on the evening of the 3d November.
The mails for Madeira, Brazils, and Buenos Ayres, will be made up
on the morning of the ith Nov.
The mails for Cerumm, Vigo, Oporto, Lisbon, Madeira, Cadiz, and
Gibraltar, will be made up on the morning of the 7th November.
The overland closed mails, via Marseilles, to the Mediterranean,
Egypt, Aden, Ceylon, India, Hong-Kong, &c., will be made up on the
evening of the 7th November.)

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mon WATER AT LONDON-BRIDGE.
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To-nonnow.-2dotning, 3 min. put 11; Afternoon, 32 min. peat 11.

LONDON, FRIDAY, OCT. 30.

THERE is something affecting, in times like these,
is the public appearances of the "fine old English
gentleman." He speculates on things around him
with a lack-lustre eye. His enthusiasm is with the
past. He clings to the beliefs of his youth. They
have been turned inside out—they have been written
down—exposed—driven out of society—routed in
politics ; they have even outlived the clap•:rap stage,
and can no longer win the applause of the gallery.
Nothing can be conceived more dead than the mottos,
watchwords, maxims, and cries of the later half of
the last century. But the very dreariness of their
decay lends a sort of interest to the poor ghosts
who utter them. They have something of the
glory that hangs round the conception of hlsorus
among the ruins of Carthage. We must, perforce,
respect a belief, though it be in the veriest delusion;
and honour a reverence, if even for the hollowest form
of words that ever led a mob or kept a party together.
The higher instincts of humanity, when they reveal
themselves in ignoble forms, still speak of the god
within us. . .

The Duke of NEWCASTLE is one of our best pre-
served types of a bygone race. It is difficult to over-
rate the value of such specimens, when employed for
their proper purposes and kept in their proper places.
The remains of Pompeii, and the contents of the
/fusee Bort.usico have taught us more of the real life
of later Rome than all the combined scholarship of
Europe. But an English family would find itself'
singularly uncomfortable in the House of Sallust. No
fossil can be more impressive or invaluable to the com-
parative anatomist than the skeleton of the mastodon
or megatherium. But even a NIMROD would find
himself ill at case in the world in which these huge
creatures trampled down the gigantic palms or
wallowed in the diluvial mud. _ _

On similar grounds wo may claim much respectful
attention for the Duke of NEWCASTLE. He is not of
our time any more than Pompeii, or the mammoth.
Bat, like them, he has an illustrative and historical—
what Sir It. MURCHISON would call a " paleonto-
logical" value. We may measure, by the hugeness of
his delusions, the enormous error of his contempo-
raries, and see, in the tenacity with which he clings to
words, how little of reality sufficed for their comfort
and satkfaction.

The Duke has exhibited his fossil opinions at the
meeting of the Rctford Agricultural Society. It is
curious to watch public bodies in their choice of
presidents. Manchester, with its practical industry,
its devouring competition, and earnest struggle for
self-improvement, summons to its Athenteum anni-
versaries, the Archbishop of the nineteenth century ;
the theologian who has postponed dogmatism to
science ; the hierarch whose sympathies and pre-
dilections go with self-government; the Irish Pro-
testant clergyman, who conceived and mainly
carried out, indeed, national education for Catholic
and Protestant in Ireland. With him it invites
to its celebrations the aristocrat who cheers on de-
mocratic efforts; the quondam Whig who combines
love of art and cordial gaiety with due reverence
for economic truths : the true Young Englander,
whose admiration for the past does not bow him to
its bigotries, and whose faith in progress has not
bred irreverence for old truths and ancient glories.

Manchester would symbolise itself in WnAvELEy
and MORPETH. East Retford finds its representative
in the Duke of NEWCASTLE. The son of the soil is
true to his calling and reverences, above all, stability.
Landed property is the most fixed, farming processes
the most slow to change, farmers' beliefs the most
stubborn against experience and repulsive of theory.
There is a harmony between association and Presi-
dent. This is evident when we read that the show
of stock was indifferent. Probably it was what a
show of stock would have been many years ago.
Improved breeds find small favour with these haters
of innovation. A new bull is loooked upon with
something of the same coldness as a new principle.
The Retford men of a past day no doubt held out
against short-horns, as those of the present time
against free-trade. A Duke of NEWCASTLE probably
wept over the big-boned, coarse-fleshed variety of
horned beasts, as they slowly disappeared with other
vestiges of the past.
The Duke spoke to the Association hopefully and
manfully, after his antediluvian fashion. He brought
forward that mysterious belief (sometimes vented by
Lord GEORGE BENvitccx), that the existence of Eng-
land depends on her farmers. We have the fullest
conviction of their valuable qualities, but we have
never been able to discover why or when the palla-
dium of England was entrusted to the keeping of the
gentlemen in gaiters.
The Duke recommended them "to keep together."
"It was the fashion with some people at present to
run down the farmers, and to effect that mischief
which the overthrow of the agriculturist must bring
with it. He hoped, however, that in their usual,
peaceable, legal, and quiet manner, they would keep
well together, and not be deceived by specious pre-
tences of any kind."
The Duke has great faith in this plan of " keeping
well together." It is, we presume, suggested by the
practice of sheep, which are notorious for it. It in-
volves one mischief. To keep together you mast act
as one body, and that in wrong as well as in right.
Thus, the sheep, "keeping well together," will jump
into a pond and drown, through sheer confidence in
their leader. He took fright and so did they. The
agriculturists hare kept well together. They are not
particularly well satisfied with the result, according to
their own notions.

The Duke has very shrewd suspicions of chemistry.
A sharp eye ought to be kept, he thinks, on guano
and other outlandish manures, which come professing
to treble produce and halve expense. A common
bait of swindlers, thinks the Duke, bat not to be rea-

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