The Express.
London, England, 1853-01-01 00:00:00

LI )NDON. SATURDAY. JANUARY 1.

" Nlurt.as's your only wear." It is true that "oar
thread of life is a mingled yarn;" wisdom is inter-
twined with folly. But the two strands are by no
means equally twisted. We find here a long strip of
the one, and there of the other. In the defunct,
year the preponderance of folly has been outrageous;
--as we said before—" Motley has been your only
wear." It has followed up the grave, anxious year
that preceded it, like a farce following a tragedy.
The farce has, indeed, trodden upon the very heels of
tragedy ; proving the truth of what was said by a
great warrior, that there is " but one step from the
sublime to the ridiculous"—an apophthegm which
no one will deny who recollects the near relationship
of NAPOLLON I. to NArot.EoN 111. In the year just
the year of grace 1852, it has been as if the
Saturnalia, instead of being confined to new year's
tide, bad been kept up through the whole twelve
months. Fur example—there are two eoeutries who
assume—and not without good reason—to be the
cadres of the world's wisdom and civilisation. The 1
one is situated on the south, the other on the north
of the English Channel. Let us look how these two
nations !lace been conducting themselves during the
year which the bells of St. Bride's have jest rung out.
During the far greater part of 1852 Eagiand has,
beau quietly putting up with the rule of a DEithy-
Disitst.Li Ministry—one of the broadest farces ever
palmed upon a public. No one could keep his gra-
city when first told that the eccentric author and
hero of " Contarini Fleming," and half a &Len more
fantastic tales, had been made Chancellor of the
Exchequer. But the reality of the burlesque far
exceeded expectation. For a while— so long as the
accumulation of unfinished business left or. hand by
the old Ministers, served to keep the new ones
a-going—things went on, if tamely, yet decorously.
But towards the close, the " work and fun grew fast
and furious." The grimaces of rage and eon-
sternatiou of the hems abet, °listed from,
place transcended all that old MArrinws or LISTON
bad ever resented of grotesque absurdity.
Lord DERRY a phillipie,s against but successors in
dike can only be compared to the clamour of a dis-
charged scullion, scolding all the way down stairs.
So outrageous was the passion manifested by Lis Lord-
ship that the ex-Ministers having been appointed to
repair to Windsor to surrender the charges on the
same day that the new ones were summoned to kiss
hands, the police, or the LORD CIIANU`.:IILAIN, found
it n to insist that the former should go and
ref:ll;7m OreatWestern,the latter by the South-
Western railways. But for this precaution it was
feared that Lord DERBY might have made a manual
assault on hit rivals—pulled the nose of Lord ABER-
neate—so intense was his vixenish wrath.

Lord Drusfs lieutenant was otherwise affected.
While the ex-Premier was raving and scolding in
the Howse of Lords, Mr. DISRAELI jauntily entered
the House of Commons, elaborately arrayed—with
a rose in his button-hole—indicative of the silence

into which he wished to consign all past grudges.
Mr. DIrLIF.LI felt that he alone of all his colleagues
bad contrived to show spirit and talent during his
tenure of cake. His vanity was gratified at hearing
himself praised in ar-is unsuspected quarters,
while all his colleagues were consigned to ridicule.
Ho alum forward, therefore, to announce their
resignation with all the becks and wreathed smiles
of a saeseadal actor. He complimented and " soft.
eawdered" his leading antagonists till be compelled
them—Ante enough against the grain it was with
some of them--to reciprocate his amenities. Lord
JOHN Harem responded with good-humoured pare.
thrJANKII OMR %X with more reserve, Sir C. WOOD

with palpable maisifeetatioasof spices. He was, how-
ever, the only one of his party who kept his temper
is their &estrous ejection from the sweets of
The explosion of wrath in the
(relit was tremendous. The inmates of that
citadel of Cosewvatism squabbled among themselves
es
inveterately as it the discordant spirits of the
Jews who witnessed the downfall of Jerusalem bed
bees resiseeitated in the breasts of the Israelites.
Jositeres himself could not have been worse treated
by the zealots of his day than his brother historians
Metros and GLADSTONE by the rabid Dieraelites of
theirs—the pretext in the case of GLADSTONE being
pretty much the same as in that of Joseenve, a sus-
picion that be was about to go over to the Romans.
In England. however, we can congratulate our-
selves that the farcical government has not lasted
eat the year. Begun in the second month, it was
brought to • close in the tenth. French follies would
appear to last longer. The autocracy of M. BONA-
?ANTE, began towards the end of 18.31. has expanded
in Itt32 into a lath end plaster empire, which still
survives. And the burlesque in France is not only
longer spun out, but is every war broader than in
Ragland. The nal orfitraiLe and cannonade with
which the piece opened would have been too
touch fur English nerves or stomachs, which cannot
stand these practical jukes that inflict real suffering
ea others. In the lame way the slavering addresses
e: certain priests and prefects to NAPOLEON 'IL, as
to • prophet or rather divinity, would have been
hissed in England for their profanity. But the idea
ef the huge balloon, with a wicker eagle pendant,
the wings of which were to be waved by machinery
as it Boated over the heed of the new-crowned
Emperor, would have been hugely relished, I
though the idea is nut exactly new. HWARTII has
something like it in his " Chairing of the Mem-
ber." where • goose is introduced dying over the
Lead of the triumphant candidate; mad even this is
said to have been meant as a parody on LE BRUN'S
eagle soaring over ALEXANDER. But the space of this
prsetical joking must not be too in•ich stretched
out. England has shaken off its Lord of Misrule
mod Abbot of threason with all their crew, and
returns in lii;o3 to the reign of cotnmcm sense and
practical business. Hut when is Fresco to !rive
done with the folly of 14.1*2 ?
Every page of humanity's records, howev.T. for
the year Ita2 is not stamped with the brute empty
buffoonery as flint which occupies 10 large a
space in them. To them litture ages will
turn to read of the serene close of one of the most
protracted lives of public men, yet ti.e most filled up
in every part siih hu.inewe—u ith earnest and
honourable business. In them the future historian
will point out the final close of the seruggle in the
English mind, b,ta,en the true fai7h of Frce TrAe
and the heresy of Protection. In 101.4, it will
hereafter be muted, was appointed the that
English Cabinet Minister, who earned him promotion
by unflinching loyalty to a strictly logical develope-

rent, and practical application of the principle
of utility as the pole-star of his political
action. Amid noise and buffoonery in high
places, which might have better beseemed
a masquerade or carnival, manly rational,
principles have been malting steady progress,
and touching and elevating events have on.
curred. It is thus we detect the constant presence
of a benign and wise spirit ruling the universe in
every pause of human folly. Even when men sleep
'or waste their time the great predestined order of
events holds on its majestic way. We may say of
them to sceptics, or despondent bigots, as GALILEO
muttered in the vaults of the Inquisition after his
compulsory recantation or the opinion that the world
moves—" Episo ar muore." And in this faith we enter
upon the new year, confident that it will be more
wise, and hoping that it may not be less merry, than
the last.

FRANCE.

(BY SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH.)

PARIS, SATCHDAT WANING.
Thirty-seven new Senators have been appointed.
Among the number, the Marquis de Pairores and
de la Roctiejacquelein, the Counts Flalntuit and
Persigny.
The Ministers of Portugal, Sweden, and Greece
base given their letters of credence to the Emperor.

1 PARIS, THURSDAY EYRNINO.
One of the many evil consequences of the present
state of the press is the prevalence of false reports,
and the absence of any efficient means of contradict-
ing them. Where the pieta is free, it is impossible
that alarming rumours can circulate many hours
without a full and satistactory explanation being
laid before the public. But in Paris at the present
time, people knowing that disagreeable news of every
kind is always hushed up as long as possible,
hare no confidence in official denials, and the ab-
sence in the independent journals of any allusion to
a given rumour is no proof that it may nit be true,
for perchance they may have been ordered to be
silent. For the last three days mysterious whispers
have floated about Paris that an infernal machine
had been fired at the Emperor at Compiegne. The
story, wholly unfounded as I believe it to be, happened
to reach my ears only last night. I made inquiries
and found the belief that something of the kind had
occurred exceedingly general, especially in quarters
least likely to be well informed. At the Bourse the
thing had teen mentioned merely as an idle tale, and
it excited no attention. But among tradesmen in
remote parts of the town it was really astonishing to
find how devoutly the report was believed. I heard
the same account from three or four people wholly
unconnected with each other. It was said that the
Emperor had been shot at, that Edgar Ney had been
killed, and his body concealed to prevent the matter
from being known, that everybody heard to speak about
the affair would at once be arrested, and that several
hundreds were already in prison. This morning a
contradiction appears in a shape so far from satis-
factory, that people are more than ever inclired to
think that the report cannot have been wholly
destitute of foundation. The Presse says that
several country newspapers publish the following
despatch from the Minister of Police :
Paris, Dec. 27, 9 cm.
A report has been spread in Paris sad in certain tiepirt
wants that, while hunting at Compiegne, the Emperor had
been wounded by an &ma'am, and that several ',emirs of
his suite had been killed or wounded. This report is com-
pletely false.
Now it is certainly very curious that reports said
to have been spread in Paris should have been con•
tratlicted only in the provinces, and that this indirect
I publication of an official denial, made three days ago,
should be the first information given to the readers
of the metropolitan press of the existence of the re-
port itself. The Monitetrr and all the government
journals are wholly silent upon a matter which
was thought of sufficient importance, at 9 o'clock in
the morning of Dec. 27 to be the subject of a despatch
from the Minister of Police to several departmental
journals. It is noticed that the paragraph cited by
the Presse does not in terms deny that an attempt
at assassination was made, hut only that the Emperor
was wounded, and that " several" persons were
killed, neither of which facts wu alleged according
to the story current in Paris.
'flee Alt-nitetir states that the return of the
Emperor to Paris was retarded by indisposition, but
that no serious results followed, as his Majesty was
able to travel without inconvenience on Tuesdu, and
to transact buainess with ministers yesterday morning.
Ido not know whst has become of the Popes'
nuncio and his credentials. It was formally an-
nounced that he was to go in state to the Tuileries to
present them at one o'clock on Tuesday last. The
Emperor did not arrive there till three, and no sort
of explanation for the postponement has been made
public beyond the fact of his Majesty's indisposition
at Compiegne.
Nearly ten columns of the .Vuniteur of this day are
filled with a list of promotions and appointments in
the Legion of Honour, in favour of officers, sub-
officers, and privates of the army. It will be remem-
bered that the existing regulations make appoint
ments of this character a cause of increased burden
to the state treasury. About 6,000/. goes to-day,
and no oneon behalt of the tax payers can say nay.
The iftmiteur informs us that the news of the pro-
clamation of the empire has been splendidly cele-
brated in the Pitteas. It says :
The news of the proclamation of the empire in France
reached *thins, via Trieste, on the Vito inst. A few
minutes after tbis news had been communicated by the
French minister in Greece to the commandant-in-chief of

our naval forces in the Levant, the French vessels of war
anchored at the Pirates were dressed with flags, amidst
crie., seven times repeated, of "Vice l'Empersur !" and a
salute of 101 guns was fired. A Russian corvette and brig
of war, two Greek vessels, and a Neapolitan corvette, the
cep:Atlas of which had only a few 'insane* before been in-
formed by the French admiral of what had taken place,
sat
ttiesssat dthtehseamusl:ltvies o
meut ors fitga,soradeigtepir cannon
by Franc The two Russian commandants showed par-
' nosier eagerness in coming to compliment the commander
of the French sqsadren, and the latter on the following
day ',spends d to their courtesy by celebrating like them
the fete utty of the Emperor of Russia.
The official journal also states that M. Pekoe, the
Minister for Foreign Affairs at Athens, has officially
announced to M. Forth-Rouen, the French minister
there, the lively satisfaction with which the King of
Greece had received the news of the accession of the
Emperor to the throne. New letters of credence
were immediately transmitted to M. Mavrocordato.
Oa New Year's-day there will be a grand reception
at the Tuileries. the members of the diplomatic
corps, the senate, the legislative body, the chiefs of
the army, the judges of the different courts, the
municipality, &c. The receptions will last several
hours, each body arriving in regulated succession.
'I he Munateur publishes a decree of the Emperor,
dated the 29th, appointing a commission to examine
the ascounta of the different ministers as regards the
outlay of the public money and the general expendi-
ture of the State for 1852 This decree is in pur-
suance of the law of 1838, which orders the appoint-
ment of a finance committee annually. The persons
to whom, under present circumstances, this peculiarly
delicate task is confided, are the Marquis d'Audiffret,
senator (president), and MM. Le Roux Louvet,
Leroy de Saint Arnaud, du Berthier, Isfusnier de
Fleignes, Grandet, Esquirol, and Regnard de liar-
twin. The four last named are officers of the Court
lot Amounts, the others are members of the Corps
lagislatif or Councillors of State.
he taking of Laghouat has cost the French the
life of a distinguished general officer, General Bous-
men. Ile was severely, although as it was thought
at the time not dangerously, wounded in the assault.
It became necessary, some days afterwards, to ampu-
tate his leg. and although he bore the operation
well, and it was considered to have been successfully
effected, he fainted and expired half an hour after it
was over. The Cherit Mohammed-ben-Abliallah,
whose preaching raised the rebellion which led to
the war, eluded the vigilance of the French sentinels,
i and escaped from Laglieuat in the night. Ile had
been left tOr dead in a garden, and is desperately
wounded.

The Marquis Sirdinian Minister to the
Cuurt of St. Janice, has arrived in Paris from Lou.
don.
PARIS, FItWAY EVV‘INO..

General Arigki de Cusanova, Duke of P.alua, is
appointed Governor of the lavatides, vice Prince
J• mice lit.aporte, named honorary Govt.
!.1. T. oplong is made President cf the Senate;
M. Iktroille Presidera, rod M. ltouher Vice-Presi-
dent, of the Council of State. Prince Murat has
rt turned from Germany.