The Sun.
London, England, 1852-07-21 00:00:00

britiny Int

"S 7 --
LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 1852.

Another
proof has just been afforded of the nig-
gardliness with
which the genius of England is
rewarded.
The
appearedcustomary annual-list of pensions
yesterday,
I and from that melancholy cata-
logue, which
will
found elsewhere in our impression
of this evening, it
will
be perceived that the sum
total reaches, as usual,inthe the paltry pittance of twelve
hundred pounds
—when twelve tlaousan(ggregate. Twelve hundred
:ould have been very far
indeed from an extrava
enough, GOD know F—and "e ! The regret is old
• we have ourselves so very
frequently given utterance to it beforea now, without
6
the consolation of witnessin—
better, that we find it impossible to
e for the
. to chap
g to the
matter otherwise than with a profoundtb art-sickness.
,
, as well as
We might say with STruNE upon
b
upon many other occasions, that " they man
things better in France"—in France, where under
these
u
the Monarchy a novelist could be creatednder
a
Viscount, and where under the Republic
the
man of letters can at leest obtain the solace of an
honourable decoration ! But we can go further—we
can say that they manage these things better even in
the United States. There—if the current literature
or the day he stunted, as I.
unirippily is, by the
lamentable and
Pernicious denial of an international
copyright—the merits of intellect are r.!; ..lny rate re-
cognised by the wh °' ,
" mass 01. the free citizens, by the
spontaneous conferete,
- of a multitude of graceful
-11
v' and grateful prerogati e '
There homage is almost
everywhere done to thris
8 V4hO&P mental capacities
have acquired fur them a notable -
degree of celebrity.

The renowned are treated in the majority of instances
in the light of public benefactors—free pass being
yielded to them in places of general resort, or
through the ordinary means of conveyance—pay-
ment being repeatedly refused at their hands
on the steam-boats and on the railroads. Evidences
of respect like this as displayed towards DANIEL
WEBSTER might be regarded as only a matter of
course in America—but we doubt very much if the
most credulous man in Great Britain could believe
that a similar tribute had been offered to THOMAS
MACAULAY, or, believing it, could regard it as a sign
of anything but irremediable insanity. Surely, we
may remark, then, that in one particular, at least,
they manage these things better in the United States.
Better too in one part of Germany—where WILLIAM
HUMBOLDT is a Baron, and in
another where
the same title has been conferred upon Llama
Better in Denmark, where the once poor, and
ignoble, and contemned CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN could
be received as no dishonouring guest in the palace of
his Sovereign. Better in the days of antiquity, and
during the supremacy of paganism, when SOCRATES
was not less revered, although a poor man, than
CICERO himself, surrounded with all the splendours
of one of the wealthiest and proudest of patricians.
How different for ages past until now has
been the treatment of the great men of England,
both by the Monarch and by the multitude ! Here the
literary biographer, in particular, is but too
familiar with the records of calamity as
the surest among the fruits of a high poetic
reputation. It is an old tale now, the death of OTWAT
—strangled by a crust in the last agonies of a pro-
tracted starvation—a tale as old as the demise of Ca-
MOENS, the sweetest among the bards of Portugal. A
narrative more awful, and as well remembered also, is
that of the suicide from hunger in the garret at No. 4,
Brook-street, Holborn (with ten or twelve pounds
still owing to him by the well-to-do and well- condi-
tioned booksellers), of "the marvellous boy that
perished in his pride," the noble-hearted and noble-
minded Cueerreileora We all of us preserve,
moreover, among the catalogue of these numerous
and harrowing recollections the memory of BUDGELL
drowning himself in the Thames,
of SAVAGE dying in
a debtors' prison, of DErDEN beggared in his old age
—that old age glorious with the fame of one of the
truest men, as he was also one of the most re-
splendent geniuses this country has ever possessed
amongst the number of her children. The greatest
critic of his age—as he is himself the finest prose-
writer in the language—has told us in moving words
that the grnatiegs and slohberings of Doctor Jons-
sox over his dinner, even when in the society of
ladies, was the unconscious penalty of that famine
which in his youth had so often driven him to
devour a plate of broken meat behind the screen at
St. John's Gate. In the instance of that great man,
it is true that a tardy recognition of his powers was
among the few noble acts recorded of his late Majesty
King GEORGE 111., and then only when the pension
had been extorted by those herculean labours which
had already in a manner placed the " leviathan of
literature in a position of comparative competence.
Examples, however, of the unalleviated sufferings of
genius ara not by any means restricted to periods so
very recent, any more than the parsimony displayed
by England in doing honour to her illustrious citizens
is restricted to the departments of art or of letters. No
Sovereign since the days of the Second CHARLES has
been found munificent enough to raise even the
humblest monument over the bones of SAMUEL BUT.,
Lan, within arrow shot of where we are now writing,
in the graveyard of St. Paul's Church, Covent-garden,
although that extraordinary wit was the means of
bringing into ridicule the antagonists of royalty by
the "inextinguishable laughter" excited from age to
age by the drollery of his incomparable "Hudibras."
While, upon the opposite hand, the most renowned
among the naval heroes of England, the great sea-
captain who passed away, Etias-like, in a flaming
chariot of victory at Trafalgar, has left a child and
grandchildren unprovided for by the grateful country
for whose glory he reaped so many laurels, and in
whose defence he at last expired. Even
the testimonial raised in commemoration of
his many wonderful achievements, remains
still in the most conspicuous spot in the wealthiest
capital of Europe, a disgrace to the nation that could
accept an alms of 5001. from the Emperor of RUSSIA
to proceed with a columnar tribute which continues
up to this moment uncompleted notwithstanding I
Everywhere, indeed, we may recognise the testimo-
nies of that ignoble economy by which the Anglo-
Saxon race seems to be perpetually challenging the
attention of the world to the knowledge of
its pence-'grudging ingratitude. As the latest
and not the least lamentable testimony of
this disgraceful parsimony, of a nation as
wealthy and otherwise as extravagant as
Great Britain take the civil list dating from
the 20th day of June, 1851, to the 20th day of
June, 1852, granting the peddling sum of 1,200/. in
half-a-dozen paltry pensions ! Why, the amount
—considering the financial resources of the em-
pire—is what one might have expected to have been
the butlers of England, and
bestowed as vales upon
not as tributes of homage to the genius of Great
Britain. If anything be wanting to secure the
greater glory of the land it is surely a modification
of this odious system of false economy—a change in
this particular tending most effectually to wipe a
grievous blot from the national escutcheon.

The Irish elections are proceeding rapidly, and
many important changes have taken place in the re-
presentation of the sister kingdom. Several well-
known faces will be missed from the lobbies of Cie
House on the re-assembling of Parliament, some of
whom will be greatly regretted by their former col-
leagues. With so many changes, of course, there
have been gains and losses on all sides ; but the ba-
lance certainly inclines in favour of
.those professing
extrz7rne opinions, and against the moderate parties.
Mr. JOHN REYNOLDS, whose good-
In the metropolis,
humoured and ready wit rendered him exceedingly
popular, has been replaced by Mr. VANCE, an out-
and-out Tory and Orangeman of the old school. The
loss to the Liberal party was, however, retrieved in
Cork, where Sergeant MURPHY and Mr. FAGAN,
tried and faithful men, who had already served the
constituency with zeal and efficient
at the bead of the poll by a consider able were
maj pl
orityaced,
Colonel Cae.rrawron, one of the former Members,
yielding
his seat to Mr. FAGAN. In Limerick, neither
of the old Members having offered themselves for re-
election, Mr. R. POTTER, a solicitor of considerable
influence in the district,
who had conducted the de-
fence of Mr. Sear
state prisoners ; and Ile. F. 11 ()BRIEN and many of the other
W. RUSSELL, were se-
lected in the places of the tae of ARUNDEL and Mr.
J. O'BRIEN, changes that will
ni
effect on the division lists in ticlt, however, have any
House. In Belfast
the Derbyite banner waved over
the chosen candi-
dates, Messrs. T. DAVISON and II
Joan CHICHESTER having resigned, and ,
TENNENT being defeated after a sharp contest. One
vote has thus been gained by the Government
which
is little more than a set-off for the
very
at Waterford of th
decisive defeat e out..
meleon-coloured Sir HENRY WINSTON BARRON, whose
opinions may
be regarded as a species of political
kaleidescope, the latest views, however, being favour-
able to the powers that be, by Mr. R. KEATINGE,
the Liberal Member for the county. At Dungarvon,
Mr. J. F. MAGUIRE, the proprietor and editor of the
Cork Examiner,
has reaped the reward of his ener-
getic efforts for many successive years, having de-
feated the candidate put forward on the DEVONSHIRE
and BURLINGTON interest. "The Dukes"' nominee
was also defeated at Yougbal
by Mr. ISAAC BUTT,
the well-known Queen's Counsel, and late Member for
Harwich, who now
Occupies the seat held during the
last session of Parliament by Mr. CuisuoLm AtibTzy.
That Hon. Gentleman did not on the present occasion
sue for the most sweet voices of the electors of
Youghal. Ministers have here again gained ono
vote, which is compensated by the return for Newry
of the Liberal KIRK, in place of the late Protectionist
Member, Mr. HALLENVELL. In Drogheda Sir Wu, -
LIAM SOMERVILLE, Secretary for Ireland under
Lord J':EN RUSSELL, has sustained a severe
check at the hands of the Derbyite bat!sa, -
ANN •
while in Dundalk Mr, TORRENS M'CULLAGH'
one of the staunchest opponents of the Eeclesi:
asticai Titles
iish barrister, '
ilhas been replaced by an Bog.
Catholic faith, who
last year end recent convert to the Roman
published an elaborate
defence of the proceedings
of Cardinal I.VisEmArT, and