The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-02 00:00:00

Banquet at the Royal Academy,

On Saturday afternoon the President and Council
of the Royal Academy gave a sumptuous banquet
to the Ministers and other distinguished guests on
the eve of the opening of the annual exhibition in
the rooms, Trafalgar-square. The company began
to arrive shortly after two o'clock, and spent the
interval till dinner was announced in viewing the
pictures with which the walls of the Academy are
adorned. The President of the Royal Academy
(Sir Charles Eastlake) occupied the chair.
Among the guests were the Home Secretary, the
Foreign Secretary, the Colonial Secretary, the Se-
cretary for War, the Secretary for India, the First
lord of the Admiralty, the Speaker, the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, the President of the Board of
Trade, the Commissioner of Works and Public
Buildings, the Lord Chief Justices of the Queen's
Bench and Common Pleas, the Lord Chief Baron,
the Master of the Rolls, the Attorney-General, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York,
the Bishop of London, the Earl of Derby, the Right
Hon. B. Disraeli, Mr, C. Dickens, the Lord Mayor,
the Bishop of Oxford, Lord Overstone, Lord Stan-
ley, Lord Stratford de Redeliffe, and all the prin-
cipal members of the Royal Academy.
After the usual loyal and patriotic toasts,
The PRESIDENT gave " The health of the nobles
men and gentlemen who this day honour the Aca-
demy with their presence." (Cheers.) On a former
occasion, he said, I ventured to express a hope that
the study of the fine arts:might, to a certain extent,
be introduced in our universities. lam happy to
find that steps are being taken with a view to the
promotion at least of that object ; and should these
efforts be successful, I trust that architecture will
occupy the first place in any scheme that may be
proposed. (Cheers.) Although now extensively
employed—perhaps more so than at any former
period—architecture has not been so much an object
of general interest as have been its more intelligible
rivals: The prosperity of the country is un-
doubtedly the chief cause of the impulse which this
noble art has received; but we are not the less
sensible of the encouragement which is being ex-
tended to it by the Government and by public-
spirited individuals. Societies have also done their
part. I speak not of speculative undertakings,
however useful, but of more disinterested efforts.
The exertions of the Institute of British Architects,
and the establishment a few years since of an Archi-
tectural Museum—an object accomplished with the
zealous and liberal assistance of some enlightened
amateurs now present—have all co-operated in pro-
ducing the results to which I have the satisfaction
to refer. (Cheers.) At such a time the introduc-
tion of the study of architecture into the university
curriculum would probably find public opinion pre-
pared to recognise the advantage of such an addi-
tion. (Cheers.) Viewed only as an academic study
no pursuit connected with the objects of taste can
more fitly recommend itself as an adjunct to a
liberal education. An acquaintance with the archi-
tecture of antiquity, leading to a corresponding
knowledge of Greek sculpture, is closely allied to
classical studies. Mediwval architecture, the
examples of which abound in our own country,
and even in the seats of learning themselves, has
a peculiar interest from its frequent past and
'present application to the service of religion.
It is also to be remembered that much of the
theory of this art, depending as it does on
scientific principles, is communicable by lectures and
illustrations. 'With such aids and the study of
existing edifices, the attainment of correct know-
ledge, the power of appreciating wall-selected
examples, and the gradual formation of a sound
judgment, would be placed within the reach of
many. (Cheers.) I advert to this subject now be-
cause some of those whom I have the honour to
address may possibly have opportunities of assisting
the efforts which are at present being made for pro-
moting the study of the fine arts in the universities.
The Archbishop of CANTERBURY—I shall not, 1
think, misinterpret the feelings of those in whose be-
half I am called upon to address you when I express
to yourself and your fellow Academicians the grate-
ful sense we entertain of the splendid hospitality
-which you have offsred us this evening, and of the
rich treat you have provided for us in the choice works
of art which adorn these walls. These annual gather-
ings are always looked forward to with sanguine
anticipations, and those anticipations are never dis-
appointed. The fruits of this year's exhibition seem
to be especially the subject of congratulation,
from the marked excellence which characterises
the various productions of the pencil—an exhibition
which, by the suffrages of all whose opinion I have
heard expressed, rises decidedly above the ordinary
level. (Cheers.) Much as we have to admire in
-brilliancy of colouring and fineness of touch, we
value far more those inner qualities which are the
soul of art, those moral characteristics which
through the eye touch and improve the heart, while
they inform the intellect, animating and encourag-
ing us to deeds of self-denial and self-sacrifice for
the good of others. This is the noblest province of
art—one in which the Royal Academy ever has,
and I trust ever will, devotedly employ itself. As
to the remarks you have made, Sir Charles, on the
cultivation of the fine arts, and especially of archi-
tecture, in our public schools, and universities, I so
far agree with you that I should be glad to see every
branch of knowledge, and all the accomplish-
ments which may combine to form the complete
English gentleman, pursued therein so far is com-
patible with the maintenance in its real supremacy
of the study of classical literature. (Cheers.)
That has hitherto been the staple of the educa-
tion of the youth of England in our public
schools and universities, and will, I trust,
continue to be so. (Hear, hear.) Returning
however, to the subject on which I rose to address
you, and in grateful recollection of our obligations
to the Royal Academy, I would say for myself that
I always desire to derive profit as well as pleasure
from my visits to these rooms. On the present occa-
sion I have learnt a very wholesome lesson, which
may be usefully studied, not by myself alone, but
by those of my right rev. brethren also that surround
me. I see a little lady there (pointing to Mr. Mile
lais's picture of a child asleep in church, entitled
My Second Strmon,") who, though all unconsci-
ous whom she has been addressing, and of the
homily she has been reading to us during the last
three hours, has in truth by the eloquence of her
silent slumber— (cheers and laughter)—given us a
grave warning of the evil of lengthy sermons and
drowsy discourses. (Loud cheers.) Sorry, indeed,
should I be to disturb that sweet and peaceful slum-
ber, but I beg that when she does awake she may
be informed who they are who have pointed the
moral of her story—(cheers)—have drawn the true
inference from the char o' e that has passed over her
since she heard her first sermon,
thus profit by the lecture she hasand have resolved to
delivered to them.
(Cheers.) Impressed with these feelings of gratitude
for much of pleasure and
much of profit derived
from your hospitable reception of us, your guests,
I have to beg you will all
welcome with the utmost
cordiality the toast I have to propose, Prosperity
to the Royal Academy."
The PRESIDENT returned thanks, and proposed
64 The health of the Right Hon. iam
Glad-
stone."

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER
tosaid—The
toast which you have just been pleased give from
the chair places me in a position of prominence
true
which I am by no means entitled ; for if it be
that I feel a sincere, though au uninstructed inte-
rest in the noble profession with which you are
connected, I feel that interest I balievo in company
with almost the entire body of my educated fellow
countrymen, and I may go much further than the
line thus described, and say in common with the
increasing mass of the community. (Cheers.) I
think I may best reply to the just and almost too
moderate reference yon have made to the peculiar
position of this body with respect to its wants
if I rather consider myself in connection
with the class to which I belong. As re-
gards those wants I trust the time is ap-
proach ing when the collective wisdom of the
nation, represented in Parliament, and for this
purpose especially represented in the House of
Comte 113 g, will be able, after having solved such a
multitude of great p Utica! and social prob'ems
during the ;•zeneration to which
another problem which
e belong, like-
wise to cut its way through

as yet hes defied all its skill and good intentions,
and provide fitting repositories for the treasures of
art belonging to the nation, and likew for the
rich treasures whi3h its artists annu3-T produce.

(Cheers.) I think I may fairly say, of only for
the highly informed company I e now ' the
nonour to address, bat for the thousacds and tens

of thousands who will for months be enjoying the

spectacle offered by the walls of this Academy, that
nothing could replace to us the loss of this exhibi-
tion. (Cheers.) And, Sir C. Eastlake, permit me
so far to discharge a debt as it can be discharged by
acknowledgment. Speaking from my own expe-
rience, I have never had the fortune to encounter
one of the members of your distinguished body
within these walls who was not ready, and even
desirous, to become a voluntary and gratuitous
teacher wherever he could find a willing pupil. This
day brings with it numberless associations of inte■
rest, many pleasant recollections of former years,
litany ardent and fond hopes of the great works we
trusted to see in years to come ; but it brings with
it also scme melancholy and touching reflections.
You have yourself, Sir Charles, alluded to names,
one of which, at least, strikes a chord in my own
breast. You have referred to three names, each an
honour to his profession, Mr. Mulready, Mr.
Cockerell, and Mr. Dyce. I do not venture to
draw any distinction between these eminent men,
but one of them, Mr. Dyce, was my friend, and I
am glad to pay him within these walls, where his
works so often excited admiration, the tribute of
sincere and sorrowing friendship. (Cheers.) If I
may presume to pass kidgment, not on the qualifi-
cations of an artist, but on the general outline of
character which befits those that devote themselves
to this lofty profession, I believe the very ideal of
that profession has rarely been more honourably
exhibited than in the character of Mr. Dyce.
(Cheers.) Mr. Dyce was one of those who, having
great aims, rise entirely above any sordid and mer-
cenary motives. There was no element, no incident
connected with his works that I believe rested on
his mind so little as their price. He perceived the
true idea of beauty, and sought to clothe it in visible
form, and founded the whole practice of his pro-
fession on those true principles which have in all
time led the highest excellence. (Cheers.) Sin.
cerely, you knowwell that Mr Dycc, though a great
painter, was not a painter alone. He was as deeply
versed in the science and practice of music, and in
the science and history of architecture, as in that
particular branch of art in which his hand was a
master. Mr. Dyce was a philosopher. Mr. Dyce
was a theologian of deep attainments. Mr. Dyce

was a man to whom art and knowledge were as
one great spreading tree with many branches, and
the particular pursuit to which he first betook him-
self for a livelihood, and in which he attained suuh
distinction, was but one branch of that tree. It
was this unity of knowledge which prevailed in
his mind which is, I believe, the great preservative
of every particular branch of knowledge, the best
preservative against every tendency to degenerate,
and also the best incentive to pure, great, and
noble deeds. (Cheers.) lam quite sure, however
long and however worthy may be the roll of the
distinguished men who had adorned the academy,
seldom has there been one more conspicuous for his
excellence than that remarkable man to whose name
I have thus ventured to pay a feeble tribute of ad-
miration. (Cheers.) Associated as lam by official
duty and by long experience with the material pur-

suits of my countrymen—bound as I am by every
tie of honour as well as of office to do what in me
lies, end making it the chief object of my life to do
what in me lies to develop the material happiness
and prosperity of England, I do not less warmly,
but more strongly and fixedly, feel how necessary
it is that the wealth which is in such rapid accu-
mulation should be accompanied by the correctives
which, from other sources, are necessary to be sup-
plied—that it should be sanctified by the hallowing
influence of religion—that it should likewise be
followed by all those results that flow from an
onward civilisation. (Cheers.) And, among those
results, I ❑eed not say there are none more radically
associated with the trae development of human ex-
cellence than the successful prosecution of those
fine ants to which the Royal Academy is devoted.
(Loud cheers.)
The PRESIDENT said—Seven days since the Shak-
spere celebration was worthily inaugurated at
Stratford-on-Avon, and it would ill become the
professors and friends of art to overlook tae present
opportunity of doing homage to our great poet's
memory. Painters especially owe to Shaksptre a
large portion of their inspiration, and will continue
to do so as long as poetry and art exist. In Shak-
spere artists may find not only inexhaustible sub-
ects but sound principles. It is he who tells them
,hat

" Nature is made better by no mean,
Bat nature makes that mean ;"
and who, in the instructions to the players, records
his caution against exaggeration and mannerism.
With all his boundless fancy, he instinctively recog-
nizes the limits between description and represen-
tation. In him, as in Homer, the highest idea of
beauty is conveyed without enlarging on definite
visible qualities, and consequently without invading
the province of the formative arts. Although Mi-
randa is " created of every creature's best," the ar-
tist is left free—perhaps hopelessly free—to realise
her image. None can have greater reason than the
students of nature and the disciples of art to vene-
rate the name of Shakspere, and I will only add, in
his own words—

" If he had been forgotten,
It had been ss a gap in our great feast,
And all things unbecoming,"
.Cheers.) The toast is " The Immortal Memory o

Shakspere." (Hear, hear.)
The CHAIRMAN next gave " Prosperity to the City o
Loam and the health of the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor.'

Cheers.)

The LORD MAYOR returned thanks, and in reference to a
remark of the last speaker on what might be done in the
shape of improvements in the City of London, said—lt
appears to me that the City is very much in the position of
the Israelites in Egypt, who were required to make bricks
without straw. (A. laugh.) Wa are deprived in a great
measure of the power of making improvements by the cur-
tailment of our resources. (Hear.) And our power is in-
terfered with in other respects. (Hear, and a laugh.) You
have pointed to France and the magnificent improvements
which have been effected in Paris, but it should be known
that there they have something like £2,000,000 sterling per
annum to carry out these improvements. The City of Lon-
don, on the other hand, is not permitted to hold the means
she has to use them for the improvement of the great metro-
polis.

The PRESIDENT next gave " The Interests of Literature."
Mr. FORSTER, who on rising was received with loud
cheers, returned thanks. After alluding to the disadvan•
tape he felt in interposing before men with higher claims
than himself to represent literature, and better qualified to
speak for it, he continued—l see in this room the ackaow••
lodged representatives of some of its highest departments
I see history appropriated by the Academy herself, who, in
Lord Stanhope, Dean Milman, and Mr. Grote, possesses
the lay element so dear to Lord Elcho—(cheers)—in a
form in which I do not grudge it to her, but to which for
my part I should be well content to find that she continued
to restrict herself. I see poetry in some pleasant forms
known to you all, and especially in that of Mr. Browning,
one of the most original thinkers as well as one of the

first poets of his time. (Cheers.) In fiction, I see not only
the great master of character and humour (Mr. Dickens)

been a more flagitious robbery of the Government
by the mass of the wealthy population than was
ever before experienced in a civilised country. And
if the income and property tax is to produce no more
in the future than it produced last year, and no
other form of taxation is substituted, what is to pre-
vent a repudiation of the debt? And is it not the
fear that this, after all, must be the result if the war
be prolonged, that keeps gold at so high a premium?
The debates on the expulsion of Mr. Long have
been brought to a close after four days waste of
time. Mr. Speaker Colfax, finding public opinion to
be against him, and the Republicans out of the
house to be as much scandalised as the Democrats
both in and out of it were disgusted, withdrew
tardily end ungraciously from the invidious position
into which he had thrust himself, and consented to
substitute a motion of censure for one of expulsion,
which was carried by a majority of 80 against 70.
The only result upon Mr. Colfax is loss of repute,
and upon Mr. Long of an advance from the position
of a follower to that of a leader of the peace party.
The result upon the character of the house itself is
more deplorable than upon that of its Speaker.
The intolerant majority have shown a hatred of free
discussion unworthy of a republic, unworthy of a re-
presentative body, unworthy of American history,
and unworthy of a British ancestry; and proved but
too surely that if they numbered the full two-thirds
of the Assembly which they disgrace they would ex-
pel the other third and usurp the Government. If
under a monarchy, which Americans affect to con-
sider less adapted to liberty than a republic, it was
sever thought of expelling a Chatham, a Burke, or
a Fox for advocating peace with a revolted depend-
ency of the Empire, these degenerate descendants
of British grandfathers might well ask whether they
were themselves worthy of the liberty which they
would deny to others, and whether they are not at
heart despots and tyrants, only to be kept in order
and in their proper place by the still greater despot
whom the war is nursing and training to rule over
them ? Such a despot, if he come, will find every-
thing prepared for him. The men of money are
longing for him, the press will worship him, and the
politicians will lie down in the gutters that he may
tread upon them, provided he will afterwards give
them place or subsidy to reward them for their
baseness.
A curious revelation has just been made by Mr.
Thurlow Weed, which, if correct, shows two things
—first, that Mr. Lincoln's desire for re-election
dates only from the year 1863 ; and second, that
prior to that time he was of opinion that a candidate
nominated by the Democratic party would be elected
in 1864. " Soon after the elections of 1862," says
Mr. Weed in the Albany Evening Journal, "Mr.
Lincoln remarked to me that, as Governor of
the Empire State and representative man of
the Democratic party, Governor Seymour had
the power to render great public service, and that if
he exerted that power against the rebellion for his
country he would be our next President. I thiuk
Mr. Lincoln authorised me to say so from him to Go-
vernor Seymour. At any rate, I did repeat the con-
versation to him. But the gentleman's proclivities
were in the wrong direction. Governor Seymour
made his bed with Vallandigham, thus depriving
his country of the advantages of his high position,
and himself of a golden opportunity." It may appear
to Mr. Weed and other Republican leaders that Mr.
Seymour made a mistake when he refused to join
his political fortunes with theirs, and declined to
abandon his life-long conviction in favour of the
State-rights of New York, and the Constitution of
the United States, for the sake of any chances of
power that he might have obtained by becoming a
renegade ; but it does not so appear to his friends,
or to any one who thinks an honourable opponent
more respectable than a time serving and unprincipled
supportor. Governor Seymour's "proclivities," as
Mr. Weed terms them, arc in the direction of peace,
economy, law, liberty, and a Union to be maintained
by mutual consent, not by force and conquest; and
it is only in so far as he has seemed to turn from
these, and to support the war, which in his heart he
condemns, that he has lost influence. His fault as
a public man, which he shares with fully one-half
of his party, is, not that his principles are wrong,
but that he lacks the courage to act up to them.
It he desires to be President of the United States,
he has certainly not weakened any chance which he
may ever have had of attaining that once easy but
now perilous position by his adherence to the Con-
stitution which Mr. Lincoln and his associates have
temporarily overthrown. Governor Seymour is
astute enough to see that the President's favour
can do nothing towards nominating a successor. It
is his disfavour which gives strength to his rivals
and invests them with importance. He treated
General Fremont with injustice, and one-half of
his own party will aid to put General Fremont in
his place. He behaved to General M'Clellan with
gross ingratitude. and deprived the army of its
best General at a time when there was scarcely
another General in the service fit to be a
corporal, and the consequence was that Gene-
ral M'Clellan became the idol of the Demo-
cratic party, and is the most formidable of all the
candidates now in the field for the Presidency. Mr.
Weed has alike mistaken Mr. Lincoln's influence
and Mr. Seymour's strength. Every day that passes
every
libertyo day
,Aia
rad.
bdsos
yte omt
dominion,
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highest
mensees a :diminution of Mr. Lincoln's popularity,
wrw a while
kl loveeovf e
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beens
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illnotfnst
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rnrvevSeymour,
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If men of his talents, honesty, and principles keep
silent and inactive when they should speak out,
and, if need be, peril their lives and their fortunes
in the public service, the cause of American liberty
is lost, and a nobler inheritance than the Union is
at an end for ever.
The tide of emigration pours into this city like a
flood. One vessel from Liverpool brought upwards
of 950 souls at the commencement of the
week, and
as scarcely a day passes without one or two arrivals
in steam or sailing ships, each as heavily laden with
human life as its decks will carry, it would seem as
if the expected average of 5,000 per week would soon
be overpassed, and that as many as 1,000 persons a
American day would for some time to come be withdrawn from
the European and added to the
popula-
tion. Mr. Seward, however, is not entirely satisfied
with these arrivals. They include too many women
and children, and too many deerepid old men—
" simious and simi-human," as they were once de-
scribed by Mr. John Mitchell—to be quite to his
mind. He wants able-bodied men only, and though
his desire and the motives that prompt it are in
accordance with those of the
majority in both
Houses of Congress, his proposition to pay the cost
of transferring a few extra thousands of Irish to the
hungry shores of this country
has not met with
much favour. It is true that the small sum of
25,000 dols,scarcely more thanX3soo sterling,which
ho proposed that Congress should devote to the pur-
pose, would do little more than bring out one good
shipload, such as arrived in this port on Monday.
Ic is possible, therefore, that the House of Repre-
sentatives may only have
given his draught of a
bill a cold reception, because it proposed to do so
little, and that it will be prepared to do more
favourably hereafter up
if now or hereafter any agents
some larger project. But
agents of the Federal Go-
vernment land in Ireland in search of able-bodied
men, whose passage they offer to pay to America,
it should be understood, once for all, by the British
Government and the
ordinary emigration from
people, that they are wanted
as soldiers only, and not as workmen, and that the
Ireland and Germany
is rapidly filling up the gaps in the ranks of labour
which the war has created. There may be
patriotism in the undertaking, as the Ame-
ricans understand the word, but there is neither
benevolence nor philanthropy. " Food for powder"
is what the Federal Government demands ; and; as
young Americans no longer desire to offer them-
selves as aliment to pamper the greedy maw of the
War Demon, young Irishmen and Germans must be
sought, if craft or cash can procure them. Perhaps,
had Mr. Seward asked for a million dollars he might
have attained them, but 25,000 was palpably too
small a sum to be taken into consideration.
To-day was announced to be the last of voluntary
enlistment in
the Federal army, after which the

draught was to commence. But, as every one ex-
pected, there is to be no draught, at least for the
present. Doubtless, it will be discovered at -Wash-
ington that the quota of New York and every other
city likely to be restive are full, and that patriotism
and 700 dols of bounty money to each recruit may
suffice to Ell the armies of the Union, as far, at
least, as they are concerned, The threat of a con-
scription excites no further terror. The working
classes have heard it so often that they look upon
its enforcement with about the same incredulity as
they regard the predictions of a celebrated divine
that the end of the world is fixed for the year 1866.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

THE "SPECTATOR" ON THE ASSUMPTIONS OF THE
POLICE.—There may be many opinions about the
Shakspere eelebration last Saturday. Some may
think that " an eminent tragedian" planting an
oak at the foot of Primrose-hill is a noble and im-
posing spectacle. Others might contend that any
kind of celebration may teach some persons, who
otherwise would not, to recognize that merit may
exist and glory be won in the closet no less than
in practical life. And others, again, may regard
the whole affair as a harmless tomfoolery. Even
these last, however, would be willing that those
who like tomfoolery should have their fill, and if
the imposing spectacle was too short should eke
out the day's amusement by a supplementary en•
tertainment. When the tree had been planted,
and the watering-pot emptied, and the verses in-
audibly recited by a lady unaccustomed to public
speaking,—things all very beautiful from an
aesthetic point of view, but perhaps just a little
tame,—a body of impassioned orators denouncing
the aristocracy for a crime which they never com-
mitted seemed the very farce that was wanted to
complete the day. Mr. Phelps could not reason-
ably be expected to be as pre-eminently funny as at
Drury-lane, and Mr. Edmond Beales might well
have extorted from the audience the wondering ex-
clamation, " Why this is more excellent fooling
than the other 1" But alas! we shall never know
to which of these two notabilities the palm should
have been awarded, nor fathom those mysterious
plots, by which Mr. Gladstone and Lord Shaftes-
bury had deceived the unsuspecting nature of
Garibaldi, but not the watchful jealousy of the
Working Men's Committee. For Authority was
on the ground in the shape of an inspector and
" large bodies" of police, and beyond arresting a
pickpocket or two had found no occupation for their
energies. To suppose that so important a person
as an inspector of police was to go home without
asserting himself is obviously absurd, and any re-
flections upon a Cabinet Minister would naturally
be irritating to one who, though in a subordinate
position, is still a servant of the Crown. The inspec-
tor determined to assert himself by silencing Mr.
Beales. Fortunately a general order existed forbid-
ding the holding of public meetings in the parks,
and the inspector, followed by " more than a dozen
policemen," approached the learned gentleman.
• Whether he took Mr. Beaks, who was addressing
the populace from the top of a bench, by the ancle,
just as the keeper grasped the insane gentleman
who was making love to Mrs. Nickleby over the
garden wall, we are not informed, but the speaker
felt probably that his position was insecure, and,
like the lunatic alluded to, came down. Up to that
moment there had not been the slightest sign of
disturbance, but of course people now began to hiss.
For a moment it looked as if the consequential fus-
siness of this policeman might lead to a breach of
the peace, and so produce the very evil against
which doubtless he meant to guard. But fortunately
the Working Men's Committee were wiser than
could have been expected, considering the eery
ridiculous opinions they had come there to express.
They exerted themselves to quiet the discontented,
and the crowd dispersed, leaving the inspector in
possession of the field. We can only hope that Sir
Richard Mayne will take some steps to reward the
victors. The issue of a medal to every policeman
who was on Primrose Hill that day is the very least
that will adequately mark what society owes them,
and by way of design we beg to suggest to the
engraver the inspector driving back with his trun-
cheon the horrors of anarchy. Prevention, it is
commonly said, is better than cure, but the maxim,
in politics at least, only applies when the evil is
sure to happen if not prevented. When there is a
reasonable chance that it may be avoided altogether,
we agree with the late Sir George Lewis that cure
is better than prevention. Talk is the surest of
safety valves, and so long as foolish people can meet
and proclaim their fancied wrongs they are not
likely to do anything more. Leave the meetings
alone and they will separate peaceably enough
when the orators are exhausted, or the audience
want their tea, or it begins to rain. Disperse
them by force and you provoke the violence
you desire to prevent. If it be argued that the parks
are not the proper places for meetings, and that they
are only thrown open to the public for purposes of
recreation, we reply that from the first the English
people have been wont to amuse themselves moult
tristement, and that political spouting is one of
their recreations. To say that it prevents other
people from enjoying the parks is absurd. Nobody
need go near the talkers unless he likes, and all the
Sunday preachers that ever gathered in Hyde-park
have still left ample space for a far greater number
of walkers than are ever likely to be there. Be-
sides, it is obvious that when you gather people
round a preacher they occupy much less space than
they would do when scattered over the park. On
this particular occasion at all events it was impos-
sible that any one should be molested. Mr.
Cowper had granted permission to plant the tree.
Everybody who went to Primrose-hill lest Satur-
day knew that he was going into a crowd, and
whether the speakers talked rubbish about Shak-
spere or Garibaldi, about the dead poet or the living
hero, was a matter of no possible importance to any
One.
THE " SATURDAY REVIEW" ON THE EMPEROR
AND M. THIERS.—The course which M. Tillers has
recently adopted, when the financial measures of
the Government have been the subject of discus-
sion, has naturally induced a portion of the French
press to consider what would have been the effect
upon French industry if the old order of things
had endured—if Louis Philippe had never left
the Tuileries for Claremont, and if M. Thiers
were now, as he well might have been, the leader
of a Parliamentary majority and the first Minister
of a Constitutional Sovereign. His critics remark
that M. Thiers is as thorough a Protectionist as
he ever was, that he is all for keeping trade in its
old fetters, and that he relies on those artificial
props which were once supposed to be the firmest
supports of French industry. It is, therefore, a very
good thing that France has got rid of him as a
ruler. If his supremacy had lasted, the wonders of
the last few years would have been unknown. The
French wculd have had few railways, and bad ones ;
they would not have sown Paris built up from its
ruins in half a dozen years; they would have had
no Treaty with England ; and, being condemned to
a perpetual system of protection, they would have
had the hopeless feeling that they and their chil-
dren for ever were fated to eat or pocket those slabs
of sugar which the State, for the benefit of beetroot-
growers,
insists shall have no sugar in them. It is,
however, rather a hasty assumption that, because
M. Thiers was a Protectionist in his old days, and
because he is a hardened Protectionist now, he would
have been a Protectionist if he had been in office, or
that Constitutional Government could never have
given France the benefits of Free Trade. When a
Minister is really is office, he learns by the mere
fact of his being in office what are the wants and
wishes of the country, and free trade must some day
have made its way in France, whatever was the
Government that happened to rule there. The very
greatest merit of Constitutional Government is that
it encourages free discussion, and free discussion
makes people think and talk, until at last new
thoughts become familiar and the opinions of a
nation are changed. With railways, and partly
through the great development of English wealth,
came a new burst of commercial life and energy in
France; and it is not probable that this energy
would have been arrested beeause M. Thiers was in
office, or that M. Thiers, having the choice between
learning new truths and the abandonment of office,
would have disdained to show a docile mind. The
examples of Spain and Italy show that constitutional
assemblies are capable of being convinced that the
mercantile interests of a nation are worth attending
to, and that, if a nation wants to get rich, it must not
stand aloof from the general current of the modern
world. It is true that in every country personal
influence does much, and that some one man is
generally conspicuous in the ordering of great
changes. Sir Robert Peel in England, the Emperor
in France, Marshal O'Donnell in Spain, and Count
Cavour in Italy, have stamped a seal of their own
on the first beginning of a new national activity.
The gain to a nation in time and trouble, when it
ge.ts. a really superior man to conduct it through a
Flares of commercial enterprise, is so great that it is
impossible to estimate how much these countries
have profited by the exertions and the intervention
of the men who have started in them new notions
and green them anew vigour. Bat in a country so
great and so enlightened as France, Free Trade
must have come sooner or later ; and it is far too
strong a criticism to say that, it' Parliamentary Go-
vernment had lasted, M. Thiers and his friends
would be now engaged in keeping France as com-
paratively backward and stagnant as she was twenty
years ago. While, however, it is impossible to sup-
pose that M. Thiers or any one else could have kept
France for ever Protectionist, the personal contrast
between him and the emperor, to whom the rapid

and easy spread of Free Trade in France is mainly
owing, cannot fail to strike every Frenchman who
believes that the new order of things is the right
one. The Emperor is immensely ahead of M.
Thiers in his views on trade and finance, and in
France personal comparisons have a great influence.
All those who are making money at Paris and is
the provinces, who find it twice as easy to be twice
as rich as they were ten years ago, look upon the
Emperor as the conspicuous man of their way of
thinking. When they think about M. Thiers at
all, they naturally regard him as a conspicuous
man of the wrong way of thinking.
and they congratulate themselves that they
live under the Emperor, and not under M. Thiers.
The mercantile community, and all the most
intelligent men who belong to it, adhere,
with more or less of sincerity, to the Em-
pire, because they know that any change
would hit them hard, and also because they think
that the Emperor understands what they want, and
how to give it them. This tends, no doubt, to make
their adhesion to the Empire temporary and tran-
sitory, for an Emperor who was not up to his work
might be distasteful to them. But it adhesion to
the Empire is taken to mean simply a wish that
Louis Napoleon may go on reigning, the adhesion
of the mercantile classes is sincere and profound.
Of course the Emperor has his subordinates—men
who help him, make suggestions to him, and some•
times correct him. There are, for example, M.
Fould and M. Michel Chevalier, who have done
more to keep the finances of France straight, and to
get free trade fairly started, than any two men of
private station. But then they are avowedly
servauts of the Emperor, and occupy the position
towards him that the permanent secretaries of our
Government offices oceupy to their Parliamentary
chiefs. They are not what M. von Schmerling is
to the Emperor of Austria, the originators and
maintainers of a line of policy which their master is
barely able to understand, and wholly incapable of
working out. They are useful servants, and the
Emperor carries out, or manages to make it sup-
posed that he carries out, his views through them.
The whole literature of modern France is pervaded
by the influence of the industrial spirit, as indeed is
the literature of all modern Europe. Sometimes
this takes a bad form, and we have those specimens
of vulgar materialism which have disgraced the era
of the Empire. Bat sometimes also it takes a good
form, and expresses the hopes with which ardent,
enthusiastic lovers of their country and of all that
is best in it regard the future of France. That the
Emperor personally should be at the head of the in-
dustry of France thus allies him with many men who
have no taste for Imperialism in itself, and acts as a
powerful counterpoise to the dislike with which the
restrictions placed on writing and speaking are re-
' garded. Despotism does not appear before the eyes of
Frenchmen in its naked deformity when the despot for
the time being is the representative of what many
men, who command the respectful attention of the
public, regard as in eery way excellent. Nor is
it possible that this feeling should not be
strengthened when they turn their thoughts to M.
Thiers, and find that, brilliant as he is in debate,
and sound as is his philosophy when he contrasts
liberty with a military tyranny, he is still a pro-
tectionist, and thus stands aloot from the wishes and
hopes of all that is most stirring and ambitious and
intelligent in France. The very existence of such a
Government as that of the Emperor forces men to
consider politics under their personal aspects, and
the prominence of M. Thiers in the Opposition
strengthens this natural tendency; and when poli-
ticians, not systems, are compared, it seems obvious
that France, so far as commercial peosperity goes, is
gaining ground under her present leader.
THE "LONDON REVIEW" ON THE CIVIL SEE-
VICE.—The ninth report of her Majesty's Civil Ser-
vice Commission has this week been issued. We
shall not trouble our readers with an array of
figures. It is more important to note certain facts
which the examinations have brought to light.
First we find that out of 813 candidates who com-
peted for 253 superior appointments, such as clerk-
ships, 291 were found to be below the minimum
standard of a pass examination. Nearly all who
failed broke down in •the elements of education.
This fact is more significant when we observe that
out of 2,334 candidates rejected since 1856, all but
183 failed in orthography, hand-writing, or arith-
metic. The vast majority are of course the sons of
gentlemen aged from seventeen and eighteen to
twenty-five. Surely this result is highly discredit-
able to those who have had the charge of their
education. There is nothing in any of these
branches which, to a boy of the most ordinary
capacity, shohld be unattainable. One at
least is purely mechanical ; the others simple
enough. A boy with common application
should grow into them, and no doubt would, if
instructors did their duty. Yet here we have up-
wards of 2,000 young men out of 25,000 candidates,
who have been rejected for deficiencies which would
be disgraceful in a lad who had been brought up by
the parish. If they are unfit for the public service
on these grounds, for what are they fit ? Another
point to be noticed is the carelessness with which
testimonials to character are given. Really, there
is hardly any class of document which deserves to
be regarded with more suspicion than testimonials
of this kind. The commissioners annex to their re.
port a list of cases in which persons of disreputable
character obtained nominations on the strength of
their vouchers. AB, for instance, had, under an-
other name, suffered 18 months' imprisonment for
forgery ; B C had absconded with funds intrusted
to him as adjutant and paymaster of a regiment,
and had been imprisoned for obtaining goods on
false pretences, yet " he produced anutiusualnutwmo-
ber of flattering testimonials from well known gen-
tlemen occupying high positions, including
peers and four majors-general in the army." We
cannot refrain from saying that the conduct of per.
eons who give testimonials without personal know-
ledge of those for whose characters they vouch, or
who, knowing them to be unworthy, conceal the
fact, is most reprehensible. It is an injustice to the
public service—a wrong done to candidates whose
characters are meritorious, but whose testimonials
will henceforth be looked on with suspicion. Natu-
rally enough the commissioners refuse to set any
value on " written testimonials, couched in general
terms, and passing through the hands of the parties
interested." And in truth those who pen these
vouchers offend against morality. But the sin is
common ; and men who would scorn to deviate by
a hair from truth in the statement of a fact con-
cerning themselves, out of a culpable easiness and
good nature set their hands to statements which are
grossly false, to oblige an acquaintance or help some
one they are anxious to serve.
THE " EXAMINER" ON THE CONFERENCE,—The
Conference is laid up with the gout ; gone to sleep,
propped up with Eider-down pillows and wrapped
round with blanket from the Saxon loom. It has
not, as Sir G. Grey explained last night, adjourned
sine (lie, though he was unable to say when it would
meet again. It has taken to its bed, but not for
good. We never expected much from the delibera-
tions of a body whose members have so little in
common, and in which the countervailing force
were obviously so unequal. Assuming that France
and England are agreed in desiring to secure some-
thing like fair terms for Denmark, they are doomed
to encounter at every point a combination of adver-
saries flushed with the perpetration of successful
wrong, and animated, it is to be feared, with far
more of a common spirit end purpose. The Court of
Vienna is said, indeed, to be anxious to see the war
ended in Slesvig before Garibaldi can set out on his
next expedition from Caprera ; and well it may.
But just in proportion as the part played by the
Austrian contingent in the past campaign has been
insignificant and ineffective, it now becomes difficult
for Count D'Apponyi to take a more moderate tone
in council than his Prussian or Saxon associates.
Prussia has got the lead, and means to keep it, if
arrogance and obstinacy can prevail. The darling
dream of the headship of Germany still haunts the
dynastic and bureaucratic minds of Berlin and
Vienna, and beguiles them equally from the path
of wisdom end safety. The Prussian King and his
Minister are in the seventh heaven of exaltation at
having, as they say, by the almost unaided force of
Prussian arms, rescued the Duchies from a foreign
yoke. Less than complete autonomy, Count Berns-
deaf is instructed' not to accept for them; and
Baron von Beust has composed his own instruc-
tions in the like spirit. But what does this im-
ply ? If it were only the independence of
provincial legislatures, in all matters merely,
affecting Slesvig, Holstein, and Lauenburg,
severally considered, the Danes would pro-
bably consent to it, in any reasonable terms which
might be laid down. They have virtually agreed
to do so by the revocation of the patent of March,
1863, and by the steps in concession subsequently
taken by them. But autonomy may be easii,y
Ycon-
structed to mean something more than this,t degiP.eaeseo.f
Prac-
tically, if not theoretically, it implies t
control over the local admininasaterilitteiaooneus: capable of
being used most efficacioguyerans
the whole mechanism of for
workingrpntt ng
gear. Without one common legislature supreme in
all matters of common interest, there could be no
permanent cohesion between States whose antece-
dents are so distinct, and whose feelings are so dif-
ferent. Christian IX. might La recognised by all
Europe as lawfuli.,;in ; ing of Denmark, and Duke of
Slesvig and Holste and, taught by bitter expo_
rience, he might do his best to trim the balance of
interests fairly and substantially, to let his German
subjects govern tbemselvee :n matters of religion,
education, and rautneipal law. But his beet would
avail little. After all that has happened, and in
the face of all the schemes and devices of German
absorption which we know to be afoot, we cannot
disguise from ourselves that the Duchies, if admi-
nistered by natives, would be liable at any moment

to be alienated formally from the Danish monarchy
and if administered by Danes, to be kept in a state
of stifled disaffection hardly less perilous to the
stability of the State, and much more demoralising
to the people. In a word, autonomy means not
only what the late Mr. O'Connell used to ask for
Ireland, under the name of a Repeal of the Union,
but from the very nature of the case something in-
volving much more. In Ireland there was popular
discontent, originating in difference of race, and fos-
tered by hostility of creed ; but the classes possess-
ing property and intelligence were by habits and
sympathies more English than Irish ; no powerful
neighbours, speaking the same language,was within
sight or hearing; and the claims of no Pretender
filled the imagination or diverted the allegiance of
any section of the community. Yet politicians
of every complexion and degree in this country re-
sisted as one man the proposal of Irish autonomy,
upon the one plain and incontrovertible ground that
it would be incompatible with the security and the
greatness of the realm. How, then, can it be ex-
pected that the Danes should agree to a settlement
whichwould virtually settle nothing except the
certain and proximate dismemberment of their
ancient State ?

Capture of a Notorious Burglar,

The police of Bristol have just succeeded in cap-
turing one of the most daring, accomplished, and
successful burglars who in history has ever been
recorded. The prisoner's name is John Goodenough,
who for some time past has been the terror of jewel-
lers, silversmiths, and pawnbrokers in the south of
England. It was Goodenough whose booty was
recently discovered in Windsor Forest, and it proves
to be the same man who, within the last 12 months,
has committed several great robberies at Alton,
Emsworth, Gosport, and other places in the county
of Hampshire. The prisoner has assumed various
aliases from time to time, and when arrested at
Bristol (by the detective police, acting upon infor-
mation received from Superintendent Harvey, of
the Hants county constabulary, stationed at Gos-
port), he was known by the name of " Capt. Smith,"
and the furniture of his house was packed up in
readiness for removal to another part of the coun-
try. Although somewhat below the middle stature,
Goodenough is a powerful and determined fellow,
and three of the officers who succeeded in effecting
his capture were wounded, one receiving a severe
wound on the head, while a piece of the flesh of
another was literally bitten from his hand, and upon
the prisoner's person was found a six-barrelled re-
volver loaded with ball and capped, which there is
no doubt he would have used had he not been
adroitly seized when not aware that he was in the
company of a detective officer. On a previous
occasion, however, when an attempt was
made to capture him in another part of
the country, he held his assailants at
bay by the production of his revolver,
and managed to escape. The prisoner was brought
to Gosport, and has been committed for trial at the
assizes on three separate charges of burglary. Al-
though precautions were taken to prevent his
escape from the lock-up in which he was confined
for some days while under examination, Good,
enough made the attempt to do so. It appears that
some years ago Goodenough was transported for
burglary, and his reappearance created considerable

surprise. We believe, however, that it has not yet
been ascertained whether he obtained a ticket of
leave or made his escape.

COUNTRY MARKETS.

YORK—SATURDAY.
We have to report another week of splendid weather.
There was rather less wheat at market to-day, with only
an improved demand. Barley scarce, and at full prices.
Oats in limited supply. Beans in fair consumptive demand
and prices firm.
Wheat, red 37s to 40s Oat 5....
White do .40s to 45s Beans 36s to 38s
Barley .26s to 30s Peas .•.•—s to —a
Malt, 58s to 62s per qr..; rye, 28s per qr.; flour, 27a
to 29s.per sack.