The Express.
London, England, 1847-10-02 00:00:00

..der, one of the recent despatch*, of Sir Emmet/
LYONS, who invariably gives this girders, of Greece,
its court and AdMinbittatian. _This. terrible thunder
and denunciation the Times winds up--how? By a
veoommendation that Sir EDMUND LYOIC6 be sacethced
to the dislike which the Greek court has emseeivett
far his sturdy disapproval of it. He is accused at
" affronting the King, and humiliating the nation."
The " overbearing partisanship and indeosrow hosti-
lity" of England, as represented by Sir E. LYONS in
Greece, is reprobated by the nines, although such par-
tisanship and hostility has been all along the tone Of
the ministerial journals, and even of the 7fmes itself
throeghout every preecding sentence of its article.
So that the result of King Oruo's reitatenee to Eng-
land, and contempt of its advice, is, that Sir amulets
LYONS be sacrificed, lest, forsooth, " King 0-rab
should fling himself into the arms of Thais."
We have no doubt the nnes has spoken from
book, and that Sir EDMUND LYONS will be re-
called. il'e can have no objection, having all along
*ensured, and but the other day exposed the folly
of, any personal antagonism to the Greek Xing
or intolerance of his mode of reigning. But
that the minister and the journals who spirited on
Sir EDMUND LYONS in this antagonism, who re-
peated his diatribes and echoed his rancour, should
now torn upon the envoy, and dismiss him for the
very conduct which they ordered and approved, is
certainly remarkable, if not strange.
The French government has at least the merit of
not forgetting, or abandoning, its zealous votaries.
The Journal des Moats of Thursday published the
apotheosis of CoLvrrt. A more daring set of false-
hoods were never put into iambics. We have not
joined our contemporaries in denying to Cottrrrr every
talent and every worth. But to deify at once the
most ignorant and most stupid of politicians
into a hero, divided between the " worship of
poetry and the love of order," is the most grotesque
piece of buffoonery we have yet seen in pnnt. The
ministry of Courrn was, according to French ideas,
devoted to organisation and order. Coterrt dia.
banded the Greek army to favour the rude bands of the
old military chiefs. lie broke up the university, and
dismissed the professors • he turned out every up-
right and independent man from the judg-
ment seat, and introduced the usage of the tor-
ture. He packed the National Assembly by vio-
lence and outrage. He lavished, and let his
followers rob, the public treasure, making up false
amounts, at one time showing a large surplus, at
others as great a deficit, both in the accounts of the
same year. There may have been poetry in all this,
poetry of tke romantic school ; but order, organisa-
tion, set down as the virtues of Coterrt, must surely
be irony, and irony of a very dull, prosaic kind on th'e
part of the PLUTARCH of the Debuts.

IT is a good sign for English husbandry that cer-
tain agricultural societies are becoming extinct. Not
long since, every landed grandee had his little local
association, at which he annually harangued the mis-
cellaneous collection of squires, land-agents, hangers-
on, and dependent farmers, who made up such meet-
ings. The agricultural part of the business, the show
of cattle, and eo forth, was of mighty small import-
ance : but the political business, the egging on of the
farmers to bawl against the league, or to bully PEEL,
was done, after dinner, with much zeal, if not with
great skill or discretion. The accident of owning
land seemed, then, to give its fortunate owner an
intuitive perception of all that the farmer ought to do
to avert free trade, and all that he would suffer
should it be obtained. The wildest alarms were ex-
premed, the most desperate prophecies of evil to agri-
culture were hazarded. All else consisted of fulsome
compliments to landowners, or exaggerated, often un-
deserved, praises of the stock shown or the farmers
showing them. And it was a remarkable and often-
noticed fact, that the worst-farmed districts were
those in which the local agricultural associations were
most prevalent. Wherever the tenant-farmers weremost
depressed or dependent, there the landlords preached
improvement most earnestly. Farmers who couldonly
feel certain of gathering one crop were strenuously
urged to make outlays which could only be repaid
after several successive crops. In a word, these local
associations were so many badges of the subordina-
tion of agriculture to politics. And this was well
enough understood by farmers, the most intelligent of
whom either stood aloof from such meetings, or enders-
soared to turn them to some useful purpose, by point-
ing out the necessity of leases, the damage done
by game, and the like. And even the dependent i
and the free-trade-fearing farmers, who most con-
stantly and most willingly attended, were by no
means satisfied. When Mr. COBDEN told farmers to
beware of the politicians, he touched the weak place
in the system of the protectionist landlords. Their
political zeal was unquestionably as real as it was
rabid; their affection for husbandry and its industri-
-0114 followers was a sham.
There were no counties in which each socie-
ties were more cultivated by the landed magnates
than Sussex and Buckingham. In the former, n
particular, they superabounded. There was the " West
pile Association," the " Arundel," the " Goodwood,"
" West Orinsted," and we know not how
many more local associations, in Sussex, at which
'le Dukes of RICHMOND and NORFOLK, and
others of political note, were accustomed to
preside, and descant on the value of protec-
tion to British agriculture. Now, alas ! at the
advent of free trade these associations, which were to
have raised the art of husbandry in that county to
the highest pitch, have vanished. At the meeting of
the Arundel Association the other day, the president,
the Duke of NORFOLK, was " unwillingly absent,"
and his son, Lord ARUNDEL, performed the obsequies
of the defunct society. There were not more than
forty persons at the dinner, of whom not more than
ten were farmers. Lord ARUNDEL, on his father's
behalf, expressed " his deep regret, but yet his firm
conviction, that it would be quite impossible to carry
on the meeting ;" and he added, " that the gentle-
men and farmers did not continue to take that interest
in the meeting which they did on ita first establish-
ment, and consequently the competition had declined ;"
and afterwards, by way of consolation to the few
attendant mourners, he said, " This association was
not the only one that had declined, for at the West
Grinsted Association only twenty-five persons were
present, and at Goodwood be was told only ten were
present. Ho supposed that that which was agreeable
a few years ago was not so now, and that the novelty
'bad worn off
So the Royal Bucks Agricultural Association ex-
hibited similar signs of decadence. The Duke of
BUCKINGHAM, who bad been the patron and pro-
moter, was naturally absent, from the state of his
affairs; and, absent the duke, all his satellites wen
absent too.
Some of the farmers, who seem to have taken too
literally all the high-flown professions of the send
and clerical agricultural philanthropists, vented many
complaints of their desertion. The local report says:
" There was a total absence of landed gentry and
clergy at the dinner-table—a circumstance which
evidently damped the whole proceedings." And, so
complete was this absence, that there was no lord,
M.P., or 'squire to compliment or be complimented,
and no clergyman to return thanks for the bishop and
deTy of the diocese. Yet this society was, of yore,
mach cried up by its ducal patron as the means of
elevating the agrieultural labourers by petty prized,
coats and buttons," and " framed and glazed testi-
monials," and was much affected by the clergy. One
of the stewards thus bewailed the " bad attendance,"
saying, "If our president had been here it would
have been otherwise. I dare not express myself u I
feel on seeing no one here to respond to the taut of
the bishop and clergy ; but I must say I am sorry to
see that the parsons are not in this room to-day.
Why is our own clergyman away from tie ? And
when we remember how they can crowd around that
nobleman under other circumstances" The re-
mainder of the sentence was lost to the reporter in
the applause of the meeting. Here we see that the
attendance of the gentry and the clergy was dis-
tinctly recognised as a compliment to the Duke of
BUCKINGHAM, the president, and their absence was
resented by his retainers as a withdrawal of homage
from his grace when his insolvency had been de-
clared. This society also has of course expired.
But let not any lover of English husbandry despair;
improvements will go on, notwithstanding prizes for
live stock or turnips are no longer offered by the
landocracy. Indeed, we are not sure that landlords'
and tenants could safely meet together to talk about
the advaanneot of husbandry now the corn law
diversion is isspassibis; kr as soon as the gentry
Zon WIC abet the asesnity of improvement by
eel wimples as the pert of the Armen, the
arm ee woad empty ihat the landlords meat clear the
way by ratios reticsil leeets and giving up their