The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-11 00:00:00

ruler—and, certainly, of all tokens it was:the one
most distinctly demonstrative of the reality of that
ruler's popularity. The consternation was that
purely of a profound sympathy for a beloved
Monarch suddenly stricken down by a mortal
disease in the very prime of his manhood.
The late King of Bavaria, MAXIMILIAN 11.,
shines all the more brightly, it must be confessed,
by contrast with his immediate predecessor, the ex-
King Louis, still surviving sixteen years after his
compulsory abdication. The history of the reign
of that ex-King Louis, in effect, yet lives in Euro-
pean remembrance a 3 one of the most grotesque
episodes in the annals of the Continent. The late
incidents in the reign of that Bavarian Louts
especially seem to us still, in the remem-

branco of them, more like scenes from a
serio-comic opera, an opera hestitating mid-
way between melodrama and burlesque. The
heroine of that strange eventful history being
no other than the beautiful and notorious LOLA
MONTES, that ex-ballet-dancer, who had then con-
trived to pirouette herself into a Countess of
LANSFELD. The principal male character in the
piece, affecting half the young lover, half the old
buffoon, being the KING himself, who was
literally led the strangest dance imaginable
by the wild vagaries of the bewitching
danseuse. A beleagured palace and tumul-
tuous streets, riots and emeutes ad ltbitum,
eventuating, as our American cousins would have
it, not unnaturally in the love-crazed monarch's
abdication. The old King, having begun his reign
as a Liberal, ended it thus prematurely as a reac-
tionist. Instead of caring for the interests of his
people,he devoted the latter years of his mistaken and
disturbed tenure of power to the cultivation of the
Fine Arts in the capital of his kingdom, exhausting
the revenues of his State in a lavish adornment of a
Royal Museum, with costly works of art
of all descriptions, these principally of
course being paintings and statuary. While
the character of his son and successor, the
late King MAXIMILIAN 11., was kindred to that of
Louis, inasmuch as it likewise was that of a genuine
saran and of a patron of arts, science, and literature,
the son throughout his reign—a reign ending con-
sequently with his death, and not with his abdi-
cation—evidenced a profound and conscientious
interest in the fortunes, political, social, and
material, of the people entrusted to his charge.
Hence his popularity. Hence the consternation
excited among his people by the tidings of hi r
dangerous illness, and the dismay with which the
fatal termination of that illness has since then been
learnt throughout Bavaria.

The arrival of a new viceregal authority must
always be a matter of interest and importance in
any country removed from the actual seat of the
ruling power. The vast colonial possessions of
England give occssion to many such cases of dele-
gated authority, while the sister kingdom, as we
all know, is under the same form of Government,

although, from her close proximity to Eogland, ehe

is in a different position from countries where many
miles intervene between the central authority

and the viceregal power. In such cases so much is

necessarily left to the discretion of the Governor

General or the Lord-Lieutenant that the question
of individual character becomes of paramount im-

portance. Tact, temper, and experience, the firm
hand, and the courteous manner, are all needed in
an especial degree by a man in such a position.
More especially is it necessary that the rulers
should have qualities and capacities fitted to the
arduous and responsible post of governing their
fellows, if they are not to rule over Englishmen

whose natural steadiness, lovo of order, and sense o

justice, make them, in the words of a great states-
man concerning education, "easy to lead, but
difficult to drive—easy to govern, but impossible to
enslave," In place of thus mixing with their
own countrymen, they have to deal with men of
another race and history, speaking another lan-

guage, worshipping according to another faith, and
following different customs and habits of their own.
We have a striking iastance of this in our vast

radian Empire, where large possessions and an

immense population are to be governed by an
Englishman often new to the country. His

advisers are often too much biassed by old tra

ditions of policy and government, to be safe and
trusty guides ; and however well he may be versed

-
n the mutations of Indian history or the intricacies

of the many languages of the country, he will have
yet much to learn respecting the character of the
natives, and the best mode of dealing with them
which can only be gained by personal intercourse
and experience. It is therefore a matter of great
satisfaction that the Governor-General recently ap-
pointed to the viceregal dignity in the most impor-
tant of our possessions, should be a man to whom
all these difficulties are old familiar friends; who
has already passed through the preliminary stage
of learning how t 3 govern, and who is fit and ready
at once to deal with questions of practical govern-

sent. His long and brilliant career in the P unjaub
which he preserved to us during the terrible year
of the mutiny, was an admirable preparation for
assuming a still higher and more responsible office.
There was no need in this case for Anglo-Indians
and native leaders to speculate anxiously on the
character of the new Governor, or to watch for his
coming with doubtful feelings. The name of LAW-
RENCE is known and honoured throughout his
adopted country, and he has proved in the hour of
desperate trial that he is equal to any emergency,
while his humanity and justice towards the native
tribes may ba securely relied upon. India is happily
no longer shaken by the storms of '57 ; but although
outwardly peaceful and prosperous there is scope
for the active exertions of an able legislator
for many a long year to come. Her great need now
is those measures of internal reform which have
been so long delayed ; the extension of the irriga-
tion works, the reclamation of the waste lands, the
general development of her national resources. The
surprising change effected in her prospects during
the last few years is highly gratifying. Notwith-
standing any temporary embarrassment of the cur-
rency, it is almost difficult to believe that a very
few years back men of experience and ability were
absolutely desponding as to her prospects, and some
even recommended abandoning oar Eastern Empire
in order to avoid the heavy pecuniary loss it was
certain to entail upon 113. Since then the finances
of India have been managed on a different system,
with what good result we all know, and there is
now no reasonable doubt that before long, instead
of an encumbrance, India will be a fertile source of
wealth to her little island ruler. Sir JOHN LAW-
RENCE is the very man for the Post, and we look
confidently for a rapid nrogress in all reforms and
improvements under his auspices. We are not sur-
prised to learn from the mail just arrived, that he
was applying himself as closely to work as any
clerk, in order to dispose of the accumulated arrears
of business. The suppression of the war on the
frontier fortunately leaves him fr ee to devote all his
energies to civic business, and re nders his journey
northwards nu longer immediately necessary. lie
is summoning to his counsels these who formerly
assisted him in the Punjab, and we also learn from
the Times of India that Sir HUGH ROSE has been
invited to Calcutta for a conference on military
matters, and the agent for the Rajpootana States
bee been likewise reauested t.n