The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-18 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, SANUARY 18, 1864.

complications and secret passions may be brought
into play, and during which imprudent promisesmay
be whispered into the ears of misery or excitement;

an operation which sets 10 million of electors in mo-
tion in the midst of conflicting passions, the conse-

quences of which might become dangerous. The
passiveness of the Government in such a question

would be tantamount to abdication, and to this we

cannot consent.

The intervention of Government

at elections is justified by common sense and the
nature of things, as well as by tradition; and to
prove this I will merely quote all the declarations

made on this right under the system which was the
cradle of that constitutional monarchy which you
love so much, the Government of July, and also

under the Republic. If these quotations are not
useful to the Chamber, they will be so out of doors.
In 1816 Duke Decazes wrote to the prefects :—"The
confidence of his Majesty in the prefects will not
be deceived. They will leave nothing undone to
keep away from the Chamber about to be elected
both the enemies of the throne and legitimacy who
are desirous of overthrowing one and destroying the
other; and the imprudent friends who have the pre-
tension of serving the King otherwise than he

wishes to be served:' On the 20th of January, 1824,

,he Minister of Justice wrote to the Procureurs-

Generous, " The Government requires the Pro-
cureurs du Roi, the officers of justice, and ministerial
officers to co-operate loyally, actively, and effica-
ciously in the elections. The Government appoints
to public offices in order to be served and seconded."

Oa the 20th of March, 1826, M. de Martignac, in

his report on the bill relating to the permanence o

he lists, declared that " the influence of Governmen

over elections is necessary to counterbalance that
which is exercised against it, and that it could not,
without failing in its first duty, give itself up un-

armed to its adversaries." We come to 1830—a
revolution has occurred, passions are over-excited,
the electoral struggle begins, and M. Casimir Perier
Minister of the Interior writes to the Prefects " that
the Government does not intend remaining neutral
in the elections, and that the Administration must
not remain so either. Between the impartiality
which it must always observe," he adds, " and
neutrality the distance is immense." I would not
quote M. Theirs's opinion. He has described the
ejections of 1834 with great sinceritf; as to his
exactness, M. Glais-Bizoin, who was elected in 1834,
will tell him that he considered those elections to
have been the most detestable and odious operation
possible.

M. Glais-Biz•)in—l think so still.
M. Rouher—Has time filled up the gulph that existed
between you and M. Thiers ? 1 should not be astonished if

it had, for of late I have observed that time has filled up
abysses still deeper than that. (Much applause.) In 1834,
as I was saying, the elections took place in the midst of an
agitation caused by events that had ensanguined the streets
of Lyons and Paris ; and the same principles were prevalent.
In 1846 Count Duchatel wrote, on Sept. 6 :—" There are
certain absolute opinions which pretend that the Adminis-
tration ought to remain impassible and inactive during the
elections. No Cabinet has ever done so; we do not com-
plain of attacks, but what would become of a Government
which, when unremittingly assailed, should abstain from
defending itself ?" The elections took place, and were veri-
fied with extreme ardour. Doubtless, M. Thiers himself
did not find that all properties had been respected, for the
word corruption resounded throughout the whole of France,
The year 1848 arrived. M. Jules Favre has not recoiled
from the task of defending with his great oratorical energy
the acts of that epoch; he has told us that the Government
of those days had no official candidates; that it exercised no
pressure on elections; that it saved France, and that it
found all Frenchmen rallying themselves around it with an
ardour unknown under a monarchy. And can you then
affirm that the Government of 1348 did not intervene at
elections ? I assert that it not only exercised its rights, but
even abused them. A few citations will show this. In the
month of March the Minister of the Interior wrote to the
Commissaries of the Republic, "You must now occupy
yourselves with the elections—your powers are unlimited!;
agents of a revolution, you also are revolutionary ; the
victory of the people has imposed on you the mandate of
consolidating the work in the name of public safety." Pub-
lic safety I A sinister expression which carries us back to
another epoch ! On March 15th the second bulletin told
the Commissioners to boon their guard against the Royalist
party. Vie were the Royalists of those days. " Paris,'
said that bulletin, "is the heart and the brain of France."
Several Voices—That is it.
M. Rouher—l have been asked what I was doing at that
time. I was struggling against the violenoe of the Ultra-
Republicans in my province, and ‘I remember that they
threatened to throw us info "the Seine if we wero elected.
On April 15, 1848, it was written that if the elections did
not ensure the triumph of truth, they would be the ruin of
the Republic; and that then the people who made the bar-
ricades would have but one course for safety, that of mani-
festing their will afresh, and adjourning the decisions of a
false national representation. "Is it possible," it was said,
" that France can desire to force Paris to have recourse to
this extreme and deplorable remedy ? ' (Sensation.)
M. Pelletan—These words have been disavowed-.
M. E. Picard—Did you contest the bulletin when it ap-
peared ?
M. Rouher—To M. Pelletan I reply, Yes, the bulletin
was disavowed, but after the elections had been made.
(Nolo.) It was said that it had been published by mistake
instead of another, but it nevertheless weighed on the mind
of France, and excited general indignation. M. Picard asks
me if I protested.
M. Thiers—But we are not in the question,
M. Rouher—l can understand the interruption of M.
Thiers. His recollections are painful, but we must know
how to accept all solidarities—those of the past as well as
those of the present.
Some Voices —No, no.
M. Picard—Confine yourself to your own parts. (Noise,)
M. Thiers—At the epoch of which you speak I was on
your side. (Renewed noise.)
M, Reuben vindicated the right of the Government to in-
terfere in the elections, alleging the examples of all previous
Governments from 1815 to 1818, in favour of the practice.
He alleged that the Government could not make further
concessions whilst there were hostile parties whose hopes
were still directed to the overthrow of the Government.
Jules Favre could not obtain a hearing, and the amend-
ment, affirming the principle of non-interference of the
Government in the elections, was negatived—but the large-
ness of the minority, 44 votes, is considered as a triumph
for the Opposition.

CURIOUS DISCOVERY OF PICTURES AT GLOM.
CESTER.—The town-house of the wealthy family of
Guise, a mansion of about Queen Anne's period, has lately
been occupied as a school of art; and during the alteration
for this purpose, a projection of panelling in a small
sitting-room, called "Pope's room," was removed, when a
fine portrait of Popo was discovered behind it. On re-
moving the panelling on the opposite side another painting
was revealed, since said to be the "Temptation," by Guido.
A man in a rich dress of the time of Fransois I. is holding
up a string of pearls to a woman, who appears to be resist-
ing his tempting offer. It is described as a remarkably fine
painting. The pictures are now in the possession of Mr.
Baylis, Thames-bank, Fulham.

RAILWAY OPENINGS IN LONDON.—A railway,
with branches, for the Isle of Dogs, 13 new bridges
over the Thames, one new Thames Tunnel, two railways to
go through the existing Thames Tunnel, a railway in the
middle of the river itself, with stations at each of the
bridges, now docks in the Isle of Dogs, nearly as large as
the East and West India Doeks put together, a dock in
South Lambeth, new Courts of Justice, the crossing of Hol-
born "Valley by a viaduct, Pneumatic Despatch tubes, a
new arcade from Regent-street to Bond-street, a railway
diagonally across Hyde Park, another transversely through
Kensington Gardens, two lines down Constitution Hill,
going on through St. James's Park and under, or over, the
Admiralty; the classic land of Alsatia, or Whitefriars,
scored for nine branches or junctions,the single street called
Houndsditch contended for by four competing lines, that
Paradise of Mr. A. Smee's imagination,Finsbury Circus, the
Promised Land of engineers, demanded by three companies,
and—before our breath is gone, let us condemn the last we
can contrive to name—a bridge to connect the thickly po-
pulated and highly salubrious district of Battersea with
Chelsea—a thing fatal to the beauty of Cheyne Walk, the
most picturesque street near ;—these are a few of the sub.
jests upon which the House of Commons will have to de •
side in the approaching session,

No Hour complete without a WILCOX AND Gums'
SEWING-MACHINE. Simple, compact, efficient, durable, and
noiseless. Warranted to fulfil all the requirements of a
perfect family machine. Prospectus free on application at
No. 135, Regent-street, W.—[ADVT.]
[ADVERTISEMENT.]—CODSTIMptiOD, all nervous, bilious
liver, and stomach complaints, in every stage, are only ag-
gravated and accelerated by drugs of every description, but
perfectly curable by Du Barry's health restoring Revalenta
Arabica Food, as proved by thousands of cases which had
been considered hopeless. We quote a few.—Cure No. 62,914.
Miss Lange, 18 years of age, cured after the medical men had
abandoned all hope.; of her recovery from the last stage of
pulmonary consumption, with fearful cough, expectoration,
exhaustion, spitting of blood, perspirations, hollow cheeks,
emaciated to a skeleton. She is now, thank God, a perfectly
healthy, blooming, fleshy girl.—N. Lange, Commissaire de
Police. Cure, No. 41,270. Mr. James Roberts, of Frimley
Surrey, of th..‘ty years' diseased lungs, spitting of blood, liver
derangement, and partial deafness.—Cure, No. 47,121. Miss
Elizabeth Jacobs, of extreme nervousness, indigestion,
gatherings, low spirits, and nervous faneies.—Curet No.
51,616. 'the Rev. James T. Campbell, Fakenham, Norfolk,
of indigestion and torpidity of the liver, which had resisted
all medical reatment. In tine, 11b, 2s 9d; 21b, 4s 6d; 5113,
; 121 b, 225; 24th, 40s. Barry du Barry and Ca., No. 77,
Regent-street, London ; also Fortnum and Mason; and all
grocers and chemists in every town of the United Kingdom.

IRELAND.

DUBLIN, Jan. 16.
At the annual meeting of the Chamber of Commerce in
Belfast yesterday a very interesting report was read upon

the linen trade and the growth of flax. It states that the

past year was one of general prosperity. All the machinery
used in its different branches was in active operation, and
the production of linen yarns and goods has exceeded that
of any former time. Operatives were in constant employ-
ment at good wages, and the general trade of the town was
consequently very favourably affected. The crop of flax in
1863 was unprecedented in extent, no less than 214000

acres having been sown. The yield per acre was also
above the average, and the crop was estimated at 60,000
tons, producing to the cultivators upwards of £5,000,000.

This is an immense amount to receive for a single crop in
one district of the country—but, unprecedentedly large as
the produce was, it found a ready sale at highly remune-
rative prices. Nor has the manufacture of linen been
overdone in Belfast, which is to the linen trade what
Manchester is to the cotton trade. On the con-

Crary, the year closed with stocks of yarns and
linens reduced to the lowest point. It has been

stated that when the American War is brought to a
termination the demand for linen will be much reduced.
The council adduce arguments to prove that this will not
be the case. The supply of flax from all quarters has
hitherto been inadequate to meet the constantly increasing

requirements of the trade, so that in Scotland, where the
coarser descriptions of linen are made, large quantities of
hemp, jute, and other substitutes have been employed. The
United Kingdom imports on an average of years seven-

tenths of its supply of flax, the greater portion of which
comes from Russia, where it is grown of inferior quality

under great disadvantage as regards climate. In Ireland,
on the contrary, there are all disadvantages of soil and cli-
mate, and if it could meet the demand the importations

from Russia would be immensely reduced. The council,

therefore, come to the conclusion that sot only the inte-
rests of Belfast, but the well-being of the agricultural
classes of the whole of Ireland, depend very much on the
extension of flax cultivation. The council report also that
the external trade of Belfast is making such progress that

the existing docks are quite insufficient for the commerce of
the port, and that the Harbour Commissioners have conse-
quently entered into contracts for the construction of a
large floating dock and a large graving dock, the works of
which will be immediately commenced. Shipbuilding
flourishes there also, Last year 80 vessels, all iron, of an
aggregate tonnage of 7:070, were launched, one being a
screw steamer of 2,000 tons, and there are now five ships on
the stocks. The report was unanimously adopted. Mr.
Ewart, president of the Chamber for last year, was
succeeded by Mr. Robert Henderson, who on taking the
chair thanked the meeting for the honour conferred on him.
A vote of thanks was then moved to the late president,

which was passed with acclamation.
The North-East Agricultural Association held its annual
meeting in Belfast yesterday, its founder, the Marquis ol
Downshire, in the chair. Mr. Bingham, the secretary
read the report for the last year, from which it appeared
that the prizes offered in money, medals, and honorary
certificates were increased last year to the sum of £440, in
addition to the challenge cups, value £lB6. The report
notices with regret that there were no entries of farms in
the past year for the prizes offered for improved cultivation.
The committee refer with satisfaction to the attention paid
to their rules for the cultivation of flax, and give expres-
sion to the strong claims of the association on all persons
connected with the linen trade, in consequence of the
great expense incurred by it in promoting the cultivation
of flax. Res dutions were moved and seconded by the
Mayor of Belfast, Mr. W. Longtree, the Rev. Dr. Mont-
gomery, Major Maxwell, and Mr. Getty, M.P.
The industrial exhibition of the 12th Regiment, the
opening of which has been already noticed in The Sun,
was closed last night. The 12th Regiment furnishes occu-
pation and amusement to its literary members by the
publication of a Gazette, and it is interesting to learn from
their own "organ" what they think of this industrial effort,
especially as it furnishes such an excellent example to
every other regiment, showing how the men may be saved
from the temptation and evils of idleness. The editor of
the Gazette says :--
"It is an exhibition of our industry—industry carried
on in hours that heretofore we have wasted in riot and
idleness; industry that has benefitted us in health and
feeling; industry that will prove
_to the world at large
and to our own personal friends that, soldiers though
we be, we have not forgotten the trades and teaching of
our early life, and that we are fit for something more
than mere food for powder.' One of the first and,
we think, the most important features in our exhi-
bition, a feature which was early impressed upon
the men of the regiment, and has been attended with
the greatest success, was that the exhibition was open
to all ranks, from the colonel to the drummer boy, from the
recruit to the veteran of nigh 30 years' service, from the
latest denizen of the cells to the proud owner of five good
conduct stripes—to one and all was our exhibition open.
Character was to be of no account, for, indeed, it was
mainly for the sake of those of indifferent characters, and
whose weakness and:natural infirmities led them into temp •
tation and inevitable punishment and disgrace, that our
present undertaking was attempted. Many there were who
were without funds to purchase the materials for carrying
out their designs, and as it would have been mistaken kind •
sgenunie
giving
eismnr tebosoyrwadffee
whichror
esr donm reaathemselves,dnpecuniaryessip he daprsleuseginsi:ni aif
required
assistance
ther
materiel
ayoi
tts,y,t
erthrough
w h h
thosel
rowere
e
uags whoset worst
enemies
deliveredadopted
to the men in barracks, thereby saving them a long walk,
and keeping the weak from temptation. All have worked
with ready zeal, all have been animated by the desire to up -
hold the credit of their regiment, and it is no small gratifi-
cation to reflect that, limited as our time has been, in no
way has the discipline of the regiment been relaxed, on no
account has ' working for the exhibition' been put forward
as a plea for exemption from military duties."
The oyster fisheries of Ireland are now attracting serious
attention. The dredging. system is fast exhausting our
most celebrated and productive public beds, such as those
of Carlingford, the Foyle, and Swilly. Mr. Barry, Commis-
sioner of Fisheries, has been making .a series of inquiries at
Westport, Newport, and Sligo on the subject of oyster cul-
ture on the Atlantic coast. It is believed that were this pro-
perly attended to the oyster fishery would be far more valu-
able than the salmon fishery. No less a sum than £B,OOO
was paid at Arklow, on the Wicklow coast, for oyster brood,
to be laid down on French and English beds. Each brood
r oe
f
t raose
oyster casts off myriads of young during the spawning sea-
son, each being furnished with a transitory swimming ap-
paratus. They float about on the surface for a while,
and finally drop down to the sea bottom, and attach them-
selves by a natural gum to the pebbles, shells, and other
hard substances. The coasts of Ireland are peculiarly suit-
able for oyster culture in its highest perfection. Clew and
Newport Bays, the subject of the late inquiry by the Fishery
Commissioners, have upwards of 50 miles of sea bottom ad-
mirably fitted for this purpose. That coast is indented with
innumerable well-sheltered creeks and inlets, and an abun-
dance of fresh water flows into them under the most favour-
able conditions. Upon these facts the Freeman's Journal
founds a sensible exhortation to the inhabitants along the
Irish coasts :-
6' Let, then, the fishermen and the proprietors of the fore-
shores cordially combine in taming to profitable account
these great physical advantages. Let them, by benefiting
themselves, save from destruction this abundant source of
food, wealth, and PloYreent
course of culture so advantageously adopted in France and
em . By pursuing the judicious
England the oyster fishery
of Clew Bay alone will, upon the
testimony of most competent authority, surpass that of
Whitstable; extensive and profitable employment will be
secured for thousands of our poor countrymen; and the
fishermen, by cultivating the now neglected mine of wealth
which lies at their own doors, and enriching themselves to
the public advantage, will dismiss from their thought that
besetting desire for emigration, which can only result in tha
ruin of our country."

The following document removes all uncertainty
as to the ultimate destination of the head of the
beautiful Princess de Lamballe, which was cut off, and
carried through the streets of Paris, at the end of a pike,
during the terror in 1793 :—" Section of the 16-20. Per-
manent committee. September 3d. Year IV. of Liberty,
and I. of Equality. Citizen Jacques, Pointel of the Corn-
market, 69, Rue des Petits-Champs, applied to the com-
mittee for permission to inter the head of the ci-devant
Princess de Lamballe, which he had succeeded in obtaining
possession of. As the patriotism and humanity of the said
citizen 'could not but be commended, we immediately pro•
seeded to the cemetery of the Enfans-Trouves, near the
place where our committee met, and within our section,
where we had the said head buried, and we have given the
present act to serve the said citizen as a dischage and
1 authorisation. Dens in the committee, on the above-men-
tioned day and
15-20."--This document was lately disposed of at a sale of
year.—DESEQUELLE, Commissioner of the
autographs in the Rue Drouot.
An Artesian well is at the present moment being
bored in the neighbourhood of La Chapelle, and another at
the top of the Batts-aux-Cailles, near the Gobelins. This
latter, from its great elevation, will supply water to the
highest parts of Paris on the left bank of the Seine.
Upper Egypt started"
i The first steamer for conveying passengers to
well-
good. The cabins .I,st week. Theearrlarangegeamiryentsanardeve
I
, 52 in r.t.libes9-• ,-,an deck, 'and 'holds over
furnished. The dining room lb ' • -ner. The charge
•
60 people. A doctor goes with every stab-
'Pee 20 to 25
is £3O first class, and £2O second, and the trip t 0...
days.
[ADVERTISEMENT.] liolloWay's Ointment.—All va-
rieties of ulcerations, bad legs, sores, wounds, and erup-
tions can be cured by the diligent use of this cooling,
soothing, and healing unguent. Tho old and often failing
fashion kof strapping
the edges of ulcers together with
plaster has entirely given way before the more reasonable
treatment by Holloway's Ointment, which builds up from
the bottom of the wound with sound and healthy granula-
tions; these gradually grow till they reach the lever of the
, surface, then contract. harden, and immediately become
covered with a new and wholesome skin. The proper
application of this Ointment diminishes the inflammation,
causes the unhealthy discharge first to grow thick, then to
cease, when the swelling disappears and the natural shape
is festered.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

SATURDAY REVIEW.—We do not intend to weary
ourselves with recounting all the little squabbles of
the Shakspeare Memorial Committee. The com-
mittee has attracted to itself, somehow or other,
names honourable and dignified ; but the original
promoters have not as yet sold out. The secretaries,
who, we suppose, appointed themselves, as most
secretaries do, have contrived to make the Shak-
speare Memorial a very unpleasant chapter in the
annals of contemporary literature. And now many
of the gentlemen who have been imported into the
committee are doing their best to preserve, if it be
possible, from utter shipwreck the whole Beiaewl
which, merely as a scheme for honouring Shak-
speare's memory, deserves every encouragement.
The past, however, cannot be undone. The ugly
little episode in which an affront was intended, or
at least inflicted, on the late Mr. Thackeray, must
remain as a piece of personal pique and very bad
management, as well as bad taste, exhibited by
somebody. The misunderstandings between Lon-
don and Stratford ought to have been prevented.
Such au unseemly meeting as that of last Monday
ought never to have been necessary. An executive
committee which is so badly administered that its se-
cretaries permit the newspapers to publish a draft
report which had never even been considered in com-
mittee, is evidently unfit for the functions it has
assumed. The gentlemen of this committee have
done the work of " promoters" by getting some good
and honourable names added to their body, but it
is quite plain that they are fit for nothing else. Nor
is this to be wondered at. If such veteran students
in Shakspeare as Messrs. Collier, and Dyce, and
Knight are not entrusted with devising the best
means of honouring Shakspeare, it is no great won-
der that small authors and small artists, editors and
paragraph writers, surveyors and popular journal-
ists fail. If this Shakspeare Memorial is not a
genuine success, it will be a very disreputable na-
tional failure. As was very properly observed on
Monday, " the Committee was compromised in the
face of Europe." The name and fareee of Shakspeare
are too precious and too solemn a trust to be com-
promised by even an approach to those little arts of
jobbery and self-seeking of which we have seen too
much in Albert Memorials and Great Exhibition
Memorials. Certain names and certain influences
recur periodically in these Memorial Committees.
The Society of Arts, according to its wont, has im-
parted its usual spirit of meddlesomeness into an-
other " national" commemoration. We have no
great wish to see a great Shakspeare statue erected
—and of course it is hoped to erect it in that chosen
home of all jobs, the South Kensington site—and
decorated with en inscription as brazen and preten-
tious as their own estimate of their own merits, re-
cording all the Presidents and Vice-Presidents and
Secretaries and Committees who have made capital
out of the name of Shakopeare. We have an anti-
cipatory dread and horror of Mr. Bellew and his
lectures. We see in the threatening distance fancy
fetes and Crystal Palace celebrations to eke out the
funds. The vision of nretty actresses exhibiting
themselves and their admirers under the mighty
name of Shakspeare is not encouraging. The
provincial programme proposed by the Committee
scarcely reassures us. To order a national holiday
for the 23d April is a feat of self-confidence
which savours somewhat more of boldness than pru-
deuce. Te declare that the committee will on that
day lay the first stone of a memorial for which most
inadequate subscriptions are as yet forthcoming,
and for which probably no design is prepared, is ft
little strong, not to say premature. To offer medals
for prize poems on Shakspeare revives horrible re-
miniscences of Mr. Phelps spouting Miss Isa Craig's
dithyrambies in honour of poor Burns at Syden-
ham ; and the Shaksperian Soiree to be held in
Westminster Hall suggests speeches which it is a
nightmare even to speculate upon. It is all very
well to nominate Archbishops and Dukes and Pre-
sidents of Artistic Societies to do this, that, and the
other; but will they come when they are called?
and are the provinces of the Site Committee, and
the Address Committee, and the Dramatic Com-
mittee, and the Finance Committee, and the Execu-
tive Committee adjusted and understood ? The un-
toward circumstances connected with the Aston
Park job, and the use that was made of distin-
guished patronage on that discreditable occasion,
render us, if not suspicious, at least cautious. As
things stand, the managing "parties" have done
little to attract, much to alienate, public confidence.
The national honour is concerned in everything
connected with such an undertaking as a Shaks-
peare Memorial. If good taste, perfect straight.
forwardness, and entire self-renunciation do not
connect themselves with the scheme, let it perish as
an abortive instance of bad management, bed taste,
and bad feeling—characteristics which we regret to
see are not altogether absent from tne proceedings
as they stand. Our national neglect to reader the
honour due to the name of Shakspeare, and the un-
happy absence of a public monument, may still
plead Milton's noble apology :
What needs my Shakspeare, for his honoured bones,
The labour of an age in piled stones ?
Or that his hallowed relives should he hid
i!labr a star-ypointing pyramid ?
Pear Son of Memory, great heir of Fame,
Vtibat need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,
Bast built thyself a live-long monument.
For whilst, to the shame of slow endeavouring art,
Thy easy numbers flow ; and that each heart
Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalued book,
Those Delphiek lines with deep impression Look;
Then, thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,
Post make us marble with too much conceiving;
And, co sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings, for such a tomb, would wish to die.
And we had rather that this disgrace, if such it is,
should continue than that an attempt should be
made to redeem it by anything which even looks
like meanness, bad taste, and a job.
READER.—With all due deference to the Anti-
Corarnemorationists—ind we confess to a sympathy
with Anti ••Commernorationism in general—we sub-
mit that their interpretation and application of
Milton's lines are capable of being disputed. We
do not see that, Milton's though they be, they need
smash Tercentenary. " What needs our Shake-
speare for his honoured bones ?" is Milton's ques-
tion; and if that were the question now,
the answer would still be, as Milton vohin-
teered it, "No visible monument at all, but
only that reading and re-reading of his works
which makes ourselves his marble." But that is
not the question now: Two hundred and thirty-
three years have elapsed since then; and Shak-
speare is not now to us the Warwickshire poet and
player recently dead, and whom we might have
seen many a time in Fleet-street or Blackfriars, but
an olden hero of our nation, whose form and mane
ner as he lived we strive eagerly to fancy through
the mythical mist, and whose name and fame are
identified with our highest intellectual exultations,
and all our notions of the historical greatness of Eng-
land. The question no iv is not" What needs Shak-
speare ?" but " What needs oar feeling for Shak-
speare?" There is a considerable difference. It is not
for Shakspeare's sake, nor because any honour can be
done to him, that the Tercentenary Commemoration
is proposed; it is because the strength of our na-
tional feeling about Shakspeare would vent itself,
according to a natural instinct which has existed
among men since the beginning of the world, in
some suitable form of expression on an occasion so
marked as the three-hundredth anniversary of his
birth. This is the true principle of monuments and
commemorations—it is not that they do attthing
for the dead; it is that the feelings of the-lie ing
require them, or fiad delight in them. The pas-
sion for such public celebrations is, no doubt,
weaker in these recent times than it was in times
of old ; and there is at least a considerable sect who,
as opposed to all such shows and excitements, may
be called Anti-Commemorationist on principle.
But the Commemorationists—those who think
that it is a right and proper thing to have occasional
public celebrations of important anniversaries—are
still in the majority ; and on the present occasion,
it would appear, they are overwhelmingly in the
majority. While a few people here and there are
in ill temper with the whole Tercentenary business
of which they are hearing so much, and keep mum-
bling to themselves Milton's words, "What needs
my Shakspeare ?" as if these words settled the
question, the overwhelmning majority seem to have
made up their minds that, for once, Britain may
try a celebration on a national scale, and that, if
only proper arrangements are made for such a cele-
bration on the next 23d of April, they will go
heartily into it. When it is remembered that our
Poet-Laureate has signified his approval of the in-
tended Commemoration by accepting a Vice-Presi-
dency in connexion with both the London
and the Stratford-on-Avon preparations, it will
be seen that this is a case in which many in
whose nature it would be rather to discourage
public celebrations than to delight in them have
concluded that an exception may fitly be made.
But all depends on the nature of the arrangements
that are made beforehand. The willingness of the
public to join in a national celebration of the Ter-
centenary, if they can be told the proper way, is
nearly all that has yet been avowed ; and the cele-
stion may let be wrecked, or crippled, or dwarfed
by
misLenagement on the part of those who have
organise it. Whether, as far as Lon-
undertaken tt:
irretrievable damage has not
don is eoncernet:
already been done by reient unfortunate occurrences
remains to be seen.
LONDON REVIEW.—Why should Shakspeare
have a statue ? There are no distinct memories of
the greatest poet of the world. In spite of Gervinus
and the Germans he has neither a history nor a
personality. To Englishmen and to mankind at
large he has become a voice. Like Hamer he has
passed out of the region of statues and of portraits
into the realm of mists and shadows. 6.tat4et9 the