The Express.
London, England, 1857-03-21 00:00:00

POLITICAL GOSSIP.

The select 'animate° appointed to inquire into the
Receipt, Issue, and Audit of Public Monist, in the Ex-
chequer, the pay office, and the audit department,
have reported to the Home of CIIIIIMUM that "in the
present circumstances it would not be pomade to give any
proper timo and couaideration to the important matters re-
ferred to them." . .

The Economist does not believe that there is the
least disposition on the part of the present holders of power
to eselnde from a participation in it the nominees and
representatives of the middle classes and the manufacturing
and commercial districts. On the contrary, "we know there
have been times, and that very recently, when ministers
would have been thankful to recruit their ranks by compe-
tent men of this order. And wo are quite certain that if the
right mini are mat up—men whose acknowledged ability is
not renderad useless by wild extramigance, or narrow
or defective education (and the industrial districts abound in
coach)—no government on earth tan prevent them from ob-
taining either parliamentary influence or Qfficial position—
even if it desired to do s." _ _

The Saturday Renew has hod thoughts of pro-
posing Mr. Spurgeon for l'renger. "If thirty thousand men
admire him, he is probably fit for any public trust or poli-
tical situation. Never were there a better set of cries fur an
election : ' Spurgeon, the only Christian Premier ll—
' Spurgeon and Nonconformist Bishops I Spurgeon and
original Sin I Spurgeon, the Patriotic Opponent of the
Enemy of Mankind I' We firmly believe we shall me Mr.
Spurgeon 'receiving' on Saturday evenings, conversing
(through the medium of Sir John Bowing) with tho various
foreign ministers, and standing up in the house, with a white
waistcoat and a rose in his button-hole, to reply to Mr.
Disraeli."

The Preu assures its friends that there is

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denger to be apprehended by any party in the church, front
the ascendancy of Lord Derby. "The ooneervatives, while
eminently a church party, are far from subservience to
any party in the church. They represent the groat clerical
middle air*, and fur his own dislike of extreme views, Lord
Derby has spoken fur Itiniself."
Lord Palmerston having stated that he believed,
"without disparagement to Sir J. M.Neill or Colonel Tel-
loch, that the medical commissioners conferred greater ad-
vantage on the public at home, and upon the army in the
Crimes, than it was possible for them to sccomplialir and
having subsequently given his sanction to an address from
the Commons to her Majesty, praying that soma special
mark of approbation be conferred on Messrs. Talloch end
31'Neill, the Lancet thinka it surely behoves the premier to
sue fur • similar mark of royal approval being conferred on
the medical commissioners, whom he voluntarily and of-
asserted to be, in his opinion, more worthy of such
honour.

Time was (says the Atherkrum) when the Stet
rumour of a general election woad hare driven the mute.

from their haunts end banished letters end art from the
society of men. That time is now past, as our advertising
columns continue, week after week, to bear witness. In the
noon of an elestion ferment, the softer voices are not silenced.
Party passions may riot along the streets, but the wens ming
at home in spite of the hurly-burly, and the literary grsces
►old their sway among the cabs and the cultivated. This
activity of the publishers, in face of war cries and public ex-
citement, is curious evidence how profound is the depth and
how out is the area of intellectual culture in this country.
The Weekly Dispatch thinks the Premier "can-
not shut his ears to the absolute distrust of his future doings,
ringing around him on every aide, proclaimed by /dr. Raikes
Currie and his ardent Radical supporters even more loudly
and emphatically than by thole who are of necessity become
his direct assailants. It would be well now to issue
an addrces to the electors of Tiverton, as Sir

Baron Peel need to de to his constituents at Tam-
ale*, sad mos more tonal the colours of Reform to
thalibmel sail-head, rending down the stained mg of more
then half keyless that now daunt. in its place. Dims& a
tarts chalage this es well as our far more sober disks to
noel • working Mini party to existence. The Premier
may not again meet with so friendly a hint from those who
entirely disspprom of his recent conduct, and who are only
deterndmed to exhaust all jest methods of trial bin they not
merely distrust, but make up their minds fully to treat Lord
Palmerston as the deliberate opponent to program."
It would seem from accounts which reach us (Press)
now, not for the drat time, that the British Legation at Flo-
rence is the hotbed of Amnion Halton:Ms, and most earned in
its 'darts to gain stridence to uphold the King of Naples, sad
to refute the statesman of Kr. Petra. Lord Normanby, if we

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are correctly informed, has repeatedly urged hi. views In
despatches to the forelipt-ollos. Yet our Legation has left
Naples on Mr. Petite' representation, while the Marquis of
Normemby, the devoted friend of the Sicilian governintatt
and the apologist of all its acts, remains at Moreno. es the
sole reptseentative of Southern Italy for communicating with
her Majesty's Government !
The United Streit.* Gazetta mays that the army
estimates have been framed on a scale quite ea low as is com-
patible with the honour and Way of the country—that they
ask for not one more man than is absolutely necessary, and
that " any modintation to which they might usebilly be sub-
jected would have for its result tether an names than a de-
crease of the sum they require parliament to vote."

We read in the Leader j—" Our men of letters are
caumpleuossly absent from the list of candidate at the forth-
coming aketions, and we rejoice in their silence amidst the
snip, din. Macaulay will do more for England and the
world, and for hie own fame, by his self-imposed retreat than
iby the most splendid oratorical exercitations in favour of a
party which he could not elevate, of • policy which ho ought
to condemn, of a casts which would treat him as a proselyte,
and of a ministry which his heed might have to serve while
his heart demised. Carlyle would be as much at home
the Commons se Promethetue. Dkkoan, the most
eminently popular man in the kingdom, might have
represented • large constituency long ago; per-
haps we should way he might have made his
choice of constituencies, had not that strong, calm, practical
good sell PC which preserves the equal balsam of his genius
enabled him to poems his soul in patience as one of the un-
acknowledged legislators of humanity. With his immense
force of will, his rare administrative energy, his long habit

of exact and patient investigation of social wrong, his practi-
cal insight and profound sympathy, who can doubt that he
would even smog that miscellaneous assemblage of gossips,
and jobbers, and place-hunters, leave his mark, and make
true courage and honesty felt and feared ? Beside*, he is
known to be a capital speaker, quite capable of addressing
the house in the sort of language it likes beat—terse, simple,
and direct. Still, not forvotting all these rare qualifica-
tions, who would not rather ho should write immortal books,
and enrich the world with the warmth and light of his
genius, than break his heart in trying to roll the stone of
political and social justice up the Sisypluean bill of prejudice
and obstruction P Another of our great names in literstrut
has been talked of fora seat in parliament, and who can deny
that Thsekeray would adorn the opposition bench, and east
a lustre upon the division list ? But would any position in
the Lotus add lustre to the name of the author of "Vanity
Fair F' No no; let the dead bury their dead. There are
Demos corseted with literature, no doubt, in the house, but
they as either men who have dallied with literature as an
epicurean recreation, or who have justified their capacity for
office by the oompilation of volumes of unreadable erudition