The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-02 00:00:00

perusal of the despatches before presuming to give
an opinion, the truth is that all the time 'without
reading them the skilled in the savoir Aire of
politics may know that the much-vaunted despatches
are in fault without glancing at them. Had they
been at all in accordance with what ought to have
emanated from a great country like this, so little
need could hardly have been paid to our requests,
intimations, remarks, or whatever polite phraseo-
logy may choose to call the communications that
have taken place. Mr. DISRAELI also alluded to
the noble lord's favourite way of meeting any cen-
sure on his Cabinet, by twitting and taunting his
opponents with blaming them without being capable
of doing better themselves. " I should be 'very sorry
to be in the position in which the noble lord finds
himself," remarked Mr. DISRAELI, but he went on
to say that had he and his friends been upon the
Treasury Bench that calamity would not have oc-
curred. A just reproof was given to the Foreign
Secretary for the remarkable reticence which he
displays in producing the papers that are chiefly
wanted, and when we consider the significaeee
of this remark, itipust be confessed that any
amount of criticism seems justified. It has
twice happened with the present Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs, that at critical periods,
when he has been obliged to furnish Parliament
with voluminous papers, the question has been
decided, not on the papers laid before Parliament
by the Minister, but on papers which, in conse-
quence of their publication, appeared abroad."
When we recollect the very unsatisfactory answer
that was afforded to a question asked some time
back, as to whether all the papers would be pro-
duced or not, it must be confessed that there is more
than suspicion to justify the fears expressed by the
leader of the Opposition. At the same time, it is a
very serious fault in a Minister to confuse the public
mind after this fashion, The means employed are
unworthy, the end gained is comparatively trivial,
and if the stratagem besuccessful and the mat oeuvres
triumph for a time, still the " trick," for it is neither
more nor less than one, discovered. Can anything
be more preposterous than for a member of the legis-
lature to sit down and peruse voluminous despatches,
whose advent has been announced by a great
flourish of trumpets, and yet to feel morally certain
in his own mind that he has not got the information
which he especially needs, and ought particularly
to have. Lord DERBY the other night observed
that papers were laid before Congress which that
House was not allowed to receive. If some very
fundamental change is not made in this re-
spect, the representative assembly of England
will soon become the laughing-stock of Europe,
indeed of the world. it could not have been
a very pleasant discourse for the Treasury Bench
to listen to from the Conservative leader the other
night, and as he reviewed the past, denounced the
present, and dimly foreshadowed the future, many
a member who, at a pinch, would support the Go-
vernment, must have acknowledged to himself that,
after all, the great Liberal Administration had been
rather a failure in its pertinacious struggles for
place and its reckless retention of place. It is at
any rate satisfactory to find that the tortuous policy
and inconvenient mode of procedure adopted by the
Government is stigmatised by one of so high and
influential a position as the leader of the Opposition ;
aril whether or not parties change sides this session,
at all events, he and his friends will gtfin the ap-
proval of the country for the fearless efforts and
bold demeanour which they have exhibited at a
trying time in the position of affairs and a critical
juncture in the history of nations. It is at such a
period that we recognise the use and necessity of
an Opposition. It keeps alive the public attention,
awakens thought, and compels comparison. The
spirit of the people is more represented by the ad-
verse interchange of opinions, no matter whether
the questions be foreign or domestic; and if we find
this advantage in times of tranquillity, we may be
sure that the effect is doubled in epochs of confusion
and disturbance. Whatever shortcomings may
have been witnessed on the part of the Government,
no one can say that their opponents are to be
blamed for lukewarmness. They have displayed a
zeal, a consistency, and a fixed purpose which do
them infinite credit, and if their efforts do not put
off the evil day of their country's dishonour, at all
events they may mitigate the evil, and modify the
extent of the calamity, and they certainly prevent
the uninitiated and the inexperienced from rushing
into dangers with their vision dazzled by the
specious promisee of Ministers.

The Historian Prescott's Library.

As DESCRIBED IN HIS NEWLY-PUBLISHED MEMOIRS
Two sides of the room were lined with books from
floor to ceiling. On the easterly side was a green
screen, which darkened that part of the room
towards which he turned his face as he sat at his
writing-table. On the westerly side was one win-
dow covered by several curtains of light-blue mus-
lin, so arranged that any one of them could be
wholly or partially raised, and thus temper the
light exactly to the ability of his eye to bear it, as
the sky might happen to be bright or cloudy, or his
eye more or less sensitive. In the centre of the
room stood his writingetable, at which he sat in a
rocking-chair with his back towards the curtained
window, and sometimes with a green shade over
his eyes. When we had a fire, he used only coke in
the grate, as giving out no flame, and he frequently
placed a screen between himself and the grate to
keep off the glare of the embers. At the north •
westerly earner of the room
was the only window
not partly or wholly darkened. It was set high up
in the wall, and under it Was my chair. I was thus
brought a short distance from his left side, and
rather behind him—as a sailor would say, on his
quarter. In this position I read aloud to him regu-
larly every day, from
ten o'clock in the forenoon
to two in the afternoon, and from about six in
the evening to eight. He seemed fully con-
scious of the difficult-
y of the task before him, bat
resolutely determined to aecomplish it, if human
patience and perseverance could do so. As I read
any passages which he wished to impress on his
memory, he would say, " Mark that"—that is,
draw parallel lines in the margin with a pencil
against it. He used also to take a note or memo-
randum of anything he wished particularly to
remember, with
a reference to it. His writing
apparatus always lay open before him on the table,
and he usually eat with his ivory style in hand,
ready to make his notes of reference. These notes
I afterwards copied out in a very large round hand
for his future use, and, when he began actually to
write the history, would read them over and verify
the reference by the original authority, if he re-
quired it. I think, however, he did not very often
find it necessary to refer to the book, as he seemed
to have cultivated his memory to a very high
degree, and had besides a habit of reflecting upon
and arranging in his mind, or " digesting," as he
phrased it, the
morning's reading while bitting
alone afterwards in his study. A graphic phrase it
was, too, considering that he took in through his
ears I don't know how many pages at a four hours'
session of steady reading. The wonder was, how
he could find time to e digest" such a load between
the sessions. But thus he fixed the substance of
what had been read to him in his mind, and im-
pressed the results of the forenoon's work on his
memory. When I first began to read 3'.r. Pres-
cott, his eye
Was in e very sensitive state, and he
did not attempt to use it at all. After some months,
however, it got
stronger, and he would sit at the
curtained window, with a volume open upon a
frame on a stand, and read himself, marking pas-
sages as he went along. While so reading, he would
frequently raise or lower, wholly or partially, one
or more of the blue curtains. Bich of them hui