The Sun.
London, England, 1855-07-17 00:00:00

(From the Times of this day.)

We are very much disposed to look at Mr. Bouverie's
explanations of last night in the light of an "allegory
on the banks of the Nile." If we were in the same un-
pleasant predicament as Lord John we should be more
tolerant of Sir Bulwer Lytton's well-poised accusations
or of Mr. Disraeli's studied sarcasms than of the murder-
ous eulogy of Mr. Bouverie. This well-meaning gentle-
man—this good-natured friend, strikes the quarry, strikes
straight, and strikes home, and then makes it an object of
ridicule to the bystanders. It is one of Lord John's
young men who has done this—his peculiar suckling—a
Levite of Cheshare.place—a kind of 17nde7-Secretary,
as it were, whose business it was to hand thin
slices of political bread and butter to the elderly ladies
of the society, and to breathe with rapture the delicate
air impregnated with the esoteric wisdom of Whiggiam-
Mr. Bouverie has " done it "—we ask pardon of our
classical readers for the familiar phrase, but really, there
is none other which so well describes his act. Lord John
lies low, shot by a Whig bolt discharged from a Chesbam
bow—nay, he is almost slain by an intimate partisan of
his own. With Waller he may say—

" That eagle's fate and mine are one,
Who, on the shaft which made him die,
Espied a feather of his own
Wherewith he wont to soar so high."
We might almost write that the Whig Cmsar has received
his death-stab from Mr. Under-Secretary Brutus, but
we fear that if we talk of Brutus and Mr. Bouverie in
the same sentence our readers will laugh at us with well-
nigh as good a will as the House of Commons laughed
last night at Mr. Bouverie. It must have been an awful
moment when doubts as to the excellence of his idol began
to throb through the soul of this placid neophyte. What
if, after all, Lord John were mistaken ? What, if he were
self-willed, opinionated, perverse, and his doctrine a strong
delusion t What, if it were wrong to blow cold at
Vienna and hot in London, to coo like a turtle dove at
one moment, and scream like a kite in search for prey
the next ? Lord John a trimmer 1 Desdemona un-
chaste ! Brookes's in revolt like a mere assemblage of
ordinary men, subject to the like infirmities and passions
as their fellow-creatures, and Mr. Bouvezie standing by
with fiery brain to witness the awful catastrophe ! His,
indeed, was a momentous position, but he girded up his
loins for action. Mr. Bouverie was equal to the occa-
sion ; he sunk the Fire Worshipper in the Member for
Kilmarnock, and blotted out this sun—this dazzling orb
of day—from the o'er-arching firmament.
If it were possible to be serious on such a subject we
would fain ask Mr. Bouverie why could he not let well
be, without marring it by ridiculous speech and super-
fluous action ? It was obvious that any politician, with
a very moderate share of self-respect or taste for consis-
tency, could not follow Lord John through his political
vagaries. When Mr. Bouverie came to the painful con-
clusion that he could not support his patron in all
his marvellous inconsistencies, his decision was that of
a man of sound judgment and right principle. Had he,
believing Lord John to be in grievous error upon so
momentous a question, continued to support him, he
would have violated every public duty, and betrayed
his constituents and his country. What he actually
did we are somewhat at a loss to say, even after the
most attentive consideration of his explanations last
night. He told the house it bad been stated " that,
on the part of a number of his colleagues not in the
Cabinet, he represented to Lord Palmerston that they
were prepared to resign their offices rather than oppose
Sir B. Lytton's motion. So far as he was concerned,
he begged to state most decidedly that that state-
ment was not only not an accurate representation of
facts, but that it was the very reverse of the truth."
Very good. Mr. Bouverie, then, didn't tell Lord
Palmerston that he and his colleagues not of
the Cabinet were . prepared to resign their offices
rather titan oppose Sir B. Lytton's motion. Now, on
reading through his speech and disentangling his Nu.
I tences from the reporter's notes of " laughter," "ironi-
cal cheers," "renewed laughter," we find Mr. Bouverie
admits that not only did he concur in the opinion of his
colleagues that it was useless to resist the motion, but
that, although refusing to threaten resignation in his
own person, he was the actual fugleman of the mu-
tiny—ho and no other conveyed the rebellious
message to Lord Palmerston. " I thought that
in pursuing that course I was acting as a true
friend of the noble lord. I offered to do what was most
painful to me in the discharge of what I thought my
duty towards the noble lord as a friend." Supposing
Lord John, then, had not resigned—supposing he had
done yet again that which he has often done before—
would Mr. Bouverie have stuck to him despite of his
own convictions, despite of his fidelity to his fellows
of the round robin—above al!, despite of his duty
to his constituents and his country ? Men of Kilmar-
nock, look to it ! The representative you have sent us
loves Kilmarnock well, but Lord John Russell more.
What cares he in theory so he retains the good graces
of his patron ? At the same time, he appears to have
cut that patron's throat, and by a rare fendty to have
succeeded, in violating duties apparently of the most
opposite character. It is not, of course, for us to follow
Mr. Bouverie to his home, but Nye can imagine him at
the conclusion of the scene to have rushed back to his
, houao—PM Mr, Winkle did to the 9oorgo owl Vulture