Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-06-25 00:00:00

HUBS DAY, JUNE S, 1857.

prospects of the affair since my recent eonttmuni•
cations regttrding it, I should not advert to these
Spanish newspaper reports but for the possibility
that greater importance might be attached to
them than they deserve. I believe the state of
the ease to be that the Spanish : Govern-
ment, with a view to improve the credit of the
country, and so to ward off impending financial
difficulties, is disposed to do something in favoUr
of the coupon holders, but, aware that a measure
to that effect• would meet with strong opposition,
it hesitates to bring it before the Cortes. There
are persons who think Ministers could carry the
measure, but this is, to say the least, doubt-
ful; and, supposing that they did, by a slender
majority, the victory might still be injurious to
them, owing► to the senseless but strong
popular prejudice against the recognition of
this repudiated portion of the debt, owing also to
the damaging attacks that it would give rise to
in the Chambers and in the press. Another course
open to them—that, namely, of settling the matter
by decree during the recess—would, some think,
be the safest. At present, all that appears to me
certain, is the disposition of the Government
to do tardy justice to the coupon holders ; not,
perhaps, from mere love of justice or out of
consideration to foreign creditors, but because
they feel that not to grant it is to keep down the
funds and injure their own interest. In short,
Senor Bravo Murilo's policy in this matter is recog-
nised to have been a grievous mistake, the effects
of which now make themselves sharply felt. Bravo
Murillo, however, is not disposed to admit that he
erred, and should a measure wholly or partially re-
pealing this be proposed, he is prepared to fight the
bad fight of repudiation with all the force he can
muster. As to the majority of the Spanish press
and public, which set their faces against such a
measure, it is labour lost to reason with them.
They are obstinately blind to the advantages
Spain would derive from re-entering, after a long
aberration, upon the paths of honesty, and persist
incessantly as does the Espana to-day, in one
cuckoo cry, that the coupon question has been
judged and settled without appeal,
I understand that Mr. Stokes, who was in
Madrid some time ago, as representative of the
interests of the coupon holders, is here again on a
similar errand.

A Spanish journal says that, when the French
expedition in Kabylia is over, General Randon is
to send a body of troops against the pirates of the
Riff, and that the English will co-operate by sea to
give a lesson to -those troublesome marauders, by
whom the Spaniards have long suffered their flag
to be insulted and their commerce molested. In a
letter from the Citafarinas Islands, published in
another paper, it is stated that, on the Bth inst.,
the English war steamer Vulture was on that part
of the African coast, and that its boats were pulling
about the shore and performing various movements,
which seemed to have caused some uneasiness to
the correspondent, but which, perhaps, had for its
object to take soundings and examine the coast,
with a view to approaching operations.
'The Royal Council has approved the indemnity
(said to be 2,000,000 reels, or £20,000), demanded
by Count Vistahermosa for the damage done to his
house, furniture, &c., in July, 1854, when the resi-
dences of several Ministers and unpopular person-
ages were more or less gutted and burnt. The other
sufferers on the occasion were Queen Christina,
Sartorius, Domenech, and Callantes (three Cabinet
Ministers), and on Senor Salamanca, whose house
was also entered on that occasion. A Government
journal denies that the amount granted to
Count Vistahormosa exceeds 13,0001, and says
that the sum due to the Queen Mother and the
Ministers is only 50,0001., and that they have not
yet made a claim It is not difficult to make a
high valuation of furniture, pictures, and books
that have been burnt or have disappeared, and
some of the Opposition papers insinuate that a
much larger sum will be demanded than that
above stated.

There is a report that the Government is about
to ask permission of the Cortes to put in forco the
law on the press previously to its discussion. It
is difficult to believe that so arbitrary a measure will
be resorted to. The law is sure to pass, and to dis-
cuss it before instead of after its proclamation would
be a saving but a few days. The ground for the
report, probably, is the scandalous height to which
party polemics have attained among many of the
papers, and the divisions among the Moderado
party to which these give rise. Such a violent and
personal controversy has lately been going on be-
tween the Diario Espanol and the Orbe, that the
Government has interfered to stop 'it; in conse-
quence of which the latter journal has suspended
its publication.

DUELLING IN CURRAN'S TIME.—Lord Clare, afterwards
Lord Chancellor, fought Curran, afterwards Master of the
Rolls. So much for equity; but common law also
sustains its reputation. Clonmel, afterwards Chief Justice,
fought two lords and two commoners—to show his impar-
tiality, no doubt. Medge, ofcerwards, Baron, fought his
own brother-in-law, and two others. Toler, afterwards
Chief justice of the Common Pleas, fought three persons,
one of whom was Fitzgerald, even in Ireland the ' fire
eater' par excellence. Patterson, also afterwards Chief
Justice in the same court, fought three country gentlemen,
one of them with guns, another with swords, and wounded
them all! Corry, Chancellor of the Exchequer, fought
Mr. Grattan. The Provost of Dublin Universi'y, a
privy councillor, fought Mr. Doyle, a Master in Chancery,
and several others. His brother, a collector of Customs,
fought Lord Mountmorris. Harry Deane Grady, counsel
to the revenue, fought several duels ; and " all hits," adds
Barrington, with unction. Carran fought four persons,
one of whom was Egan,.chairman of Lim tinhorn, after-
wards his friend, and with Lord Buckinghamshire. A
duel in these days was often a prelude to intimacy.
Tits REV. MR. Gourram.—The Rev. Mr. Gorham,
whosa death has so recently occurred, is a member of an
ancient family who once owned Gorhambury, near St.
Alban's. He was born in 1787, and educated at Queen's
College, Cambridge, under the Rev. Dr. Milner, who im-
bued him with strong Protestant and Evangelical
sentiments. In 1811, having graduated as a wrangler
with high honours, he was ordained by the Bishop of
Ely, not, however,
_without a remonstrance on his part
against an attempt made by that prelate, to enforce on his
conscience his own peculiar construction of the baptismal
service. He spent some time at Edinburgh and at Cam-
bridge in tuition, and afterwards held the curacies of
Beckenham, in Kent, and of Clapham. In 1846, he was
nominated by Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst to the living of
St. Just, but managed to quarrel with his diocesan, the
Bishop of Exeter, who subjected him to the indignity
of an examination in his catechism, on being nominated
to another living, and finally refused to institute him.
The quarrel eventually came, in 1850, before the Judicial
Committee of the Privy Council, who decided that the
Bishop had no legal right to refuse institution to Mr.
Gorham. The Bishop thereupon " excommunicated"
the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been a party
to the judgment of the Privy Council, and Mr. Gorham
was admitted to his living, a large part of the Trac-
taron body seceding, in consequence, to the Church of
Rome.

SHAKtPERE'S FAMILY.—In a letter to the Times, Mr. J'
0. Halliwell, referring to Mr. W. S. Lendor's proposal of
a subscription in aid of the descendants of Shakspere, says
that the poet's family has long been extinct. "At Shak-
spere's death, in 1616, his family consisted of his wife, his
daughter Susannah, married to Dr. Hall, his daughter
Judith, married to Thomas Quiney, and Elizabeth Hall, a
granddaughter, '
eghter, the only child of Susannah Shakspere.
Judith Qainey had several children, who were all dead as
early as the year 1639, leaving no issue, she herself sur-
viving till 1662. The poet's granddaughter, Elizabeth
Hall, was married in 1626 to Thomas Nash, who died in
1647 without issue ; and secondly in 1649, to John Barnard,
afterwards Sir John Barnard, of Abington, county of
Northampton, by whom she had no family. Lady Barnard
died in 1670, le lying no children, so that will her the
lineal descent from Shakspere expired. .These may, how-
ever, be descendants from the Shakspere family still living,
deriving their genealogy from Joan, the poet's sister, who
married William Hart, of Stratford. .Toan and her sons
are kindly mentioned in the poet's will. The pedigree is
not complete, awl there is oily a descent from the second
son Thomas, to whose sen Thomas. with a remainder to
his brother George, the birth-place and adjoining premises
at Stratford were bequeathed by Lady Barnard in 1669.
These continued in the possession of the family for upwards
of a century. About fifty years age the Harts removed to
Tewkesbury, where, in 1848, resided Thomas Shakspere
Hart, the eighth in descent from the sister of the great
dramatist. One's fa ,cy is apt to aid in deception in such
matters, but I remember to have traced in his features
a remarkable simi;arity to those of the bust of shakspere
at Stratford."