The Sun.
London, England, 1852-02-11 00:00:00

ehentrat `nay

LONDON. WEDNESDAY. FEBRUARY 11, 1852.

Satisfactory and even conclusive as the speech of the
PRIME MINISTER, in reference to the Foreign Secre-
tary, is supposed to be by the adherents of the
former statesman, we are, nevertheless, convinced
that it will be the unguis in ulcere to his Govern-
ment. There are admissions in that speech such as
should never have fallen from the lips of the First
Lord of the Treasury—admissions degrading the
Chief Secretaries of State to the position of mere
clerks and under-writers to the SOVEREIGN. The
people of England will never listen again, with other
feelings than those of unmitigated derision, to any
reference that can be made in future to the courage
of Lord JOHN RUSSELL as an administrator.
His reputation for political audacity has gone
by as irrevocably as his popularity. We
should as readily look for its revival, as we should
have expected, at any former period, to have wit-
nessed the actual realization of the celebrated witti-
cism of SIDNEY SMITH—to have seen the PREMIER
building another St. Paul's Cathedral, operating for
the stone, or taking the command of the Channel
fleet. The blundering of the Noble Lord, as the
leader of an Administration, must assuredly have
long since dissipated any notion that might hitherto
have been entertained in regard to the successful
issue of his possible attempts as admiral, as lithoto-
mist, or as architect. Judging from his conduct as
Chief Minister of the Crown, it would not be very
difficult to conjecture the result of his labours in any
one of those eccentric departments. Our flag
might have braved another " thousand years the battle
and the breeze," but its glory could never by any
chance have survived the influence of Lord JOHN
RussaLes tactics. The duplicate of St. Paul's must,
in like manner, have turned out under his hand such an
egregious architectural monstrosity as to have carried
anguish to the ghost of Sir CHRISTOPHER WREN, and to
have endangered the life of Mr. WELBY PUGIN by a
paroxysm of convulsions. As for the surgical expe-
riment—Goh help the unlucky victim of calculus who
should fall under the clutches of any such unskilful
operator ! After the last five or six years' adminis-
tration we must never hear again of Lord JOHN'S
valour as a politician. Valour? The valour of
PAROLEES ! Why, there has been scarcely an act of
his since the period of his entrance upon office which
has not been that of legislative poltroonery,
guided by a cringing subserviency to the popular
clamour of the hour. And then his "Letters
JOHN may be a dull bey, it is true, but then he has
" stuck to his letters" with a tenacity only equalled
by that revealed by himself and his colleagues in ad-
hering to Place. To say nothing of any other
document, it is only necessary to lock to his famous
communication to Lord PALMERSTON, dated the .14th
of last December, to comprehend the only kind of
temerity upon which (on paper) Lord JOHN RUSSELL
has adventured. So entirely has the PRIME MI-
NISTER acted in these matters from pique, from pas.
sion, and from prejudice, so invariably has he set
aside considerations of principle and proceeded only
upon considerations of precipitancy, that he is com•
pelted to stumble into all kinds of contradictory di-
lemmas in the course -of his Parliamentary expla-

nations.
An illustration of the inconsistencies into which
the PRIME MINISTER has been forced by bis avoid-
ance of any uniform policy and his subsequent en-
deavours to clear himself from responsi-
bility, was afforded in a rather remarkable
manner in the course of the discussions of Monday
evening. In answer to an inquiry from the Hon.
Member for Macclesfield, Lord JOHN RUSSELL ad-
mitted that Earl GREY'S very extraordinary dispatch
condemnatory of Sir HARRY SMITH was not sub-
mitted to the QUEEN prior to its being forwarded to its
destination ! Now, how in the name of Heaven can
such an admission as this tally with the principles
laid down by the PRIME MINISTER on the night of
the 3d instant, to the effect that documents of any im-
portance must be transmitted in the first instance to
her MAJESTY, for the purpose of formally receiving
her MAJESTY'S approval ? Can the course pursued
with impunity by Earl GREY in the removal of a
gallant old officer like his Excellency Sir HARRY
SMITH, be viewed as in any way consistent with the
treatment experienced by Viscount PALMERSTON,
upon the trumpery plea of a private conversation
with M. WaLEwstu, the French Ambassador ? The
thing is absurd and preposterous. Here is a distin-
guished soldier, whose conduct during the late dis-
turbance in liafirland has been not only declared
void of all culpability, but has even been com-
mended in the strongest language by his
Grace the Duke of WELLINGTON—(nueIy a much
better judge in such matters than Earl GREY !)
—here is this veteran commander, we say, degraded
from his post as Governor of the Cape Colony, and in-
sulted by terms of reproach, seldom if ever before
addressed to either civil or military representative of
the SOVEREIGN, and the document in which all this
is done, is forwarded by the Colonial Secretary to its
destination without its being previously placed under
the eyes of her Majesty the QUEEN ! Although the
PRIME MINISTER declared, only as recently as the 3d
inst., that dispatches of importance must be laid in the
first instance before the SOVEREIGN! Although Lord
Panalm..ros was actually dismissed in December for
not having consulted her MAJESTY before presuming
to express an opinion in the course of a private con-
versation S Although, we repeat, the late Foreign
Secretary was turned out of office for daring to say
so-and-so, of his own accord, to M. WALEWSEI upon
the occasion of a private interview—the Colonial
Secretary may
at his pleasure, and without previ-
ously submitting the document to his SOVEREIGN, for-
ward to
Sir HARRY SMITH a dispatch couched in
words of such unwarrantable severity that it alone,
if nothing else, would have been sufficient to bring
discredit upon
her MAJESTY' Government. 0
miseras hominurn
'mutes oh ectora caw ! Alas!
for the justice
of Lord JOHN RUSSELL'SP policy when
he blunders, himself, into such very lamentable
displays
of inconsistency
They cannot speedily be
forgotten. They cannot
be forgotten, we believe, so
long —those Noble Lord inscribed upon
the int_ a name remains
annals in which it is
endmeaevolinistedt
Minister of
or
shift E ntr
land, Lord JOHN RUSSELL e
already recorded that, when Prime
responsibilities of the Government from his own head
to that of a woman—a QUEEN, it is true, but still,
remember ! a woman—in
order e
to screen himself
otherwise inevitable on th •
from the odium ot
s.
missal of Lord PALMERSTON.

MADAME CELESTE.—The Cincinnati papers are
loud in the praise of this accomplished artiste, and notwith-
standing the streets ale covered with snow and the thermo-
meter 15 degrees below zero, throngs overflow the theatre
every night. But such has been the case throughout the
Union. An interesting anecdote occurred to this lady at
Cincinnati. Many years ago, a boy of fourteen years of age,
a native of this city, asked her to sit for her full-length por-
trait, in the French Spy, the size of life; she did so, and
from its striking resemblance and her great popularity, it
brought him into considerable notice. That bov is now the
great sculptor, Power, who sculptured the Greek Slave, and
on her entering the theatre the other day, she saw this very
portrait decorating the grand entrance, having been purchased
on Friday evening, and placed there by the proprietors. Another honour has
been conferred on Madame Celeste—the Art Union having
ob. roefquested her to sit for her portrait, to be added, with that
reliefof • Kossuth, to the National Gallery of Cincinnati, where
rained leave to introduce a Bill for the suitors there are
The SouciTon-GsNELeAL,
of a seriesof more than 500 works of art. She appears at New
in the Court of Chancery, the first
onOrleans on the 23d inst., and then revisits the various cities
hie reform, which areher Way home to this country, where she may be expected
sures for legal and equitable to to arrive in the autumngladden the heartsofthe •
i, to. audience
be brought forward during the present session. It of the ever-popu ar Adelphi Theatre.
is founded on the reports of the Committee of the On A
of the ,-1 Tuesday, the 10th instant, a general assembly
House of Commons on the subject of fees, and is in- in Trafalcaac!emicians was held at the Royal Academy of Arts
z
tended to carry out
alarge proportion of their re- was elected anivare, when William Calder Marshall, Esq.,
I. s Academician in the room of William Wyon,
h the cl•, deceased
commendations into practical effect. Althoug Anatomy, in , and Richard Partridge, Esq., Professor of
the roomof
proposition of the Learned Gentleman does not in signed; „d John p Joseph Henry Green, Esq., re-
, Professor of Per • rescott Knight, Esq., was appointed
any degree apply to the jurisdiction or procedure or spective.
DEATH
the Court, although it is restricted to the financial Friday laist,:f3tP:NoM3R-. THOMAS HOLCROET.—Died on
to
part of the subject, relating merelyfees, and Al- of the well-known w;
itNeVrobaunT-place, Thomas riolcroft, sonht
though it does not strike at the root of the evil, we
Paris)naine su whosebs
equweindtolw (daughter ofP
Mercierotlhiteicaelelcebhraartaecdterf,f t
of
willingly acknowkige that it is a step—and a very survives. Mr. Hofcrinoflrrwieud ji.rentil7, the dramatist, and still
i,lip.)rtnnt step—in the Tight direction, and that it it; ; engaged in London journalism. ~!ltlivst thirty years actively,
-rjAires at Paris for the ..1f0,81,d as ''ine Year' t harge I
c; aicUlated to inflict a heav- bli.
J,, w Lind gre.q. diecou- i'..,7. ....1
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~,,,,, , , . '919 literati —a post
~, lathe., it . ioo, nal ne tut nishod iii ' held by
t • lii, /LI.• " le." .V9tio •• , • fi r's . in its columns the first
I.2gf'alent on "Ile 11' . few„
`a --t,', which aas, ac,:.ciunt of .31,,ugul . ...Leaf a balloon. The dect....sed
in but too many instances, converted what should was formerly secretary to the Asiatic Society and recently
editor of an East Indian paper in one f ' , . .
be the temples of justice into so many dens of th-
ieves. and had butjust returned to London. 4) the I residencies,