The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-12 00:00:00

The Rev, Mr. Bellew's " Blount Tempest,"

The following admirable argument in favour of
opening freely to the public on Sundays our
various National Gardens, Museums, Galleries,
and Institutions generally, we transfer to our
columns from Volume I. pp. 286.290 of the
Rev. J. C. M. Bellew's new novel, " Blount
Tempest::" a work—Mr. Bellew's maiden work, we
believe, as a novelist—published only within the
last few hours by the Messrs. Hurst and
Biackett. The particular passage hero selected
for quotation from " Blount Tempest" is
transferred by us to the columns of The
Sun with peculiar satisfaction seeing that
we ourselves have so often, in this journal, during
years past, advanced the eelf-samo argument
in favour of what is distinctly an Anti-Pharisaic
and nut an Anti-R-21igious movement. We would,
moreover, prefix to the extract with especial ear-
nestness as our own Enquiry—

WHY NOT ALSO THE CRYSTAL PALACE ?

And, in putting this query, we would euggest as a
fitting superscription to be placed on all Sundays
over each of the garden entrances to that Palace
of the English People—Pope's recommendation to
us all, in immortal verse, that we should—

"Zook thro' .Nature up to IVature's God."

Mr Bellew writes as follows in the eloquent pas-
sage we are thus desirous of at once extracting from
"Blount Tempest" :

Thank heaven I there is one day in the week which in
England can be called a day of rest. Were the observance
of Sunday nothing more than a political institution, At would
be one of the dearest possessed and enjoyed by _the people.
All estates of men look forward to it as a day of repose, and
specially of domestic comfort and happiness. However
humble may be the enjoyment attainable, there are none so
poor among us but desire to attain some particular indul-
gence and gratification for themselves and their children on
a Sunday, that may make it happy. Puritanism marked
the day with an austere observance, of which the spirit
partially survives ; but time and progress are smoothing
down the edge of such austerity, while the good work that
the Puritans enforcrel remains. Our English Sunday is
not a day of toil. Low would the Roundheads wonder if
they could contrast Sunday at Hampton Court such as they
knew it when " stout Oliver" was there, and a Sunday at
the same place in the reign of Queen Victoria ? No expea
riment of the Government has ever proved more satisfactory
than that of opening the galleries and gardens of Hampton
Court to the public on Sunday afternoon. It would be im-
possible fcr the most acrid and severe sectarian to contem-
plate the crowd of homely, toilsome artizans, with their
wives and children, passing through those galleries—all
orderly and cleanly and good-humoured, and respecting
the yroperty they are allowed to enjoy—without acknow-
ledging that the spectacle is impressive and encouraging.
It is encouraging because it strengthens the hands and
hearts of those who are the tree friends of labour (and not
the ostentatious would-be patrons of the humble and the
lowly),—and it gives them a rov CI TCO in the
urging upon the Government of the country an enlarged
and nationally developed scheme, for granting the sons of
toil in every crowded house of business an opportunity of
refreshing both mind and body upon God's good Sabbath.
The unctuous SabbaLrian no doubt exudes with holy anger
at the thought of any public gallery or national institution
being open on the afternoon of England's day of rest
" Why not open all your places of amusement ?'' saith he,
" With fiddling, feasting, dancing, drinking, masking,
And other things which may be had for asking.'
Why not make ours a continental Sabbath ?"
Oh, well-to-do Pharisaic Gospeller,
" Broadcloth without, and a cold heart within."

—is there no difference between the places which are open
for gain, f r speculation, for trade, and those which yield no
gain except to the visitor, whose feelings and thoughts are
elevated, chastened, or instructed by the beauties of nature
or of art; those which make the mind busy with no
spcodations except such as lead us in wonder and delight to
recognise the affluence and love of our Creator-Father;
those who have no relation with trade, except in reminding
the craftsman that he enjoys a day of blessed rest once a
week; when he can shake off the dust of work, and be the
peer of the noblest in a dearly earned repose ?
Oh I well-to-do Pharisee, in softly cushioned pew, coin-
fat tably partaking the consolations of thy profession at mid-
day, and in still more softly padded chair at a later hour
ruminating and digesting both meats and doctrines together,
lubrioatLd with the choices
.wine—art thou amongst thy
" fine old masters" and thy valued specimens of the modern
school, thy inlaid cabinets, tby SZtvres, and Chelsea, and
Dresden, thy damask draperies and velvet pile, thy shaven
lawns, and shady avenues, and emerald fields—art thou a
righteous judge in Israel, a fair dictator to decide and to
proclaim which limner's art the poor man shall not see be-
cause it is the Sabbath ; which National Gallery or which
British Museum he shall not enter, because it is the Sab-
bath; what gardens, parks, or palaces he shall not visit,
because it is the Sabbath

"He shall live a man forbid," thou sayest, Draco of the
pulpits and the pews
And there once was One who with his disciples walked
through the fields, while they plucked ears of corn upon the
Sabbath day I . _ _

In opening Hampton Court Palace and gardens to the
public on Sunday afternoon, the Government has paid the
tirst instalment of a debt long due to the working classes of
the metropolis. Hampton Court, however, in a pecuniary
sense, is as much beyond the reach of the poor in London
as Ilolyrood, geographically. How much longer a Chris-
tian country will persist in supplanting clauses to the
Fourth Commandment, as far, and so far only, dB that com-
mand can be made to press upon the poor, it is hard and
grievous to speculate.
Is it not a mockery of humble industry to soy to it that
our clubs and parks may be crowded by the upper ton thou-
shall be tree to indulge
thou-
sand on
in a n
every the
Sabbath,gratification
but that the poor man
shall have no resource or gratification save such as the
" public" offer him ?
Dives in Belgravia shall be free to feast his eyes, his
tastes, his senses on the seventh day, but Lazarus at the
Seven Dials, or Clare-market, or Shoreditch, shall not so
much as lift his eyes to contemplate any nobler work of art
than a public park!

We may here add that "Blount Tempest"—so far
ae a perusal of the first of the three volumes can yet
enable us to judge of the merit of the work us a
whole—gives promise, we cannot but already
hbrilliant success as
the ink ,
author'sof
his newly-assumed
capacity as a Novelist. It shall receive our
think,
earliesi: attention, so soon as our examination of it
provfiinragt a
work very
in
as a work of art shall have been completed.