The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-02 00:00:00

ing for the last three years may well excuse
her Majesty in the eyes of foreign countries,as of her
own subjects, from taking any actiive part in scenes
of ceremony or festivity. On these domestic feel-
ings her Majesty's faithful and dutiful subjects have
no wish to intrude their opiniou, or to abridge the
period which a great sorrow may claim as its own.
But the presence of the Sovereign, although the
highest ornament and the most attractive part of
the nation's hospitality, is not absolutely indispen-
sable to its exercise. If the Royal family of Eng.
land are to accept, as it is natural they should, the
hospitality of the Royal families of Europe in suc-
cession, it is surely right that whoever represents
this country should return a full equivalent. Great
as is the amount of comfort, and even of luxury, en-
joyed by the residents of London, there is probably
no capital on the Continent so forbidding in its
aspect and poor in its means of receiving foreigners.
It is the weak side of our national condition. We have
never yet been able successfully to apply to our
hotels those powers of organization and arrange-
ment which have enabled us to do so much in other
departments of industry. On the Continent, where
the palace is often more splendid than convenient,
end the hotel at once magnificent and comfortable,
there is no very deep descent from the abode of a
great King to the resting-place of a humble tra-
veller. In London private life is very well cared
for, and leaves little to be desired, but our hotels
are still a mere refuge for the homeless, and an al.
ternative which necessity compels us to accept.
Such is our estimate of our own hotels, as shown
by the immense cost at which the most fleeting
visitors of the London season are ready to obtain a
house which they might call their own. They would
rather pay any sum within their power than be for a
short month the inmates of an hotel, Yet this is the
inevitable doom of our most exalted foreign visitors.
Prince Christian of Denmark and his family were
invited to England and had to take up their quarters
at the Westminster Palace Hotel ; and when Prince
Humbert of Italy came to England, a little while
ago, it was as the guest of the Italian Minister, in■
stead of bring lodged in one of our Royal Palaces.
Somehow or other in this country it is always the
long vacation, or the short vacation, or the Court is
out of town, or there is some other excellent reason
fur not showing that hearty old English hospitality
to our visitors which used to be the pride of the
nation. No one can truly say that we provide for
the wants of the Crown with a niggard or parsimo-
nious hand. The Civil List of the King of Sweden,
who has just been giving so noble a reception to
the Prince of Wales and his consort, amounts to
about fifty thousand pounds a year. Surely, out
of the abundance of our wealth and our prosperity
wo ought to be able to afford as much as
these hospitable Swedes. When this very King of
Sweden visited England, three years ago, and when
his brother, the enlightened Prince Oscar, came to
us two years ago, they met with a reception very
different from that which they gave to the Prince
of Wales. They are now returning good for evil,
and we confess to a certain feeling of humiliation
when we reflect upon the attentions which we re-
ceive, and how little we have done to deserve them.
Foreign Courts have little vacation, and are seldom
so far from their capital as to be unable to return to
it whenever the duties of their station invite them.
They may not be on such good terms with their sub-
jects and their Parliaments, when they have any,
as the Sovereigns of England, but they certainly
deserve the goodwill of their own class by their
openhearted kindness and boundless hospitality.
Hospitality, we are told, is the virtue of a rude
age and an undeveloped state of society, but
so long as mankind shall gather themselves
together into communities and select by descent or
by election certain persons and families to represent
them in the face of the world, they will look with
interest upon the manner in which these represen-
tative duties are discharged. The noble palaces, the
splendid parks, the vast collections of all that is
beautiful in art or costly in material which our
Sovereigns possess, were not designed simply for
the use of the Royal family or this nation alone.
They were meant to enable the chiefs of the State
to exercise a worthy and becoming hospitality to
those persons who come here with a claim to be
considered the guests of England. In the present
inability of the Head of the State to discharge
in person this portion of the duties of Royalty,
we seem to need some person corresponding to the
office called Prozenos among the ancient Greeks,
whose duty it was to entertain those who
might be considered the guests of the State.
The Prytaneum of Athens was ever open to illus.
trious strangers. Oar Prytaneum seems to be one
of those hotels of which we show our own estimate
by using them as little as we can. The Lord-
Lieutenant of Ireland, and even the Secretary to
the Lord-Lieutenant, are expected, as part of the
duties of their station, to maintain a suitable hos-
pitality, and the same thing is required of the
admirals of our fisets and even the captains of our
ships of war, however little able they may be to
discharge the duty, It really ought not to be said
that England is the only country in Europe in
which it is not the practice to repay the hospitality
which we receive. It is seldom that the individual
Englishman is slow to acknowledge in his house
in England the kindness he has met with in foreign
lands. Ought England in her collective capacity
to be liable to a reproach which her individual citi-
zens would eagerly repudiate? At any rate, it is
fitting that some definite understanding should be
come to on this subject. It has always hitherto
been regarded, whether rightly or wrongly, as the
duty and privilege of the Sovereign to represent
the nation in the entertainment of guests of a rank
corresponding to her own. If this duty is still
admitted, we cannot but think that some plan
should be hit upon for performing it without unduly
trespassing on the retirement or hurting the feelings
of any one,
HERALD.—It is easy to find fault with the mes-
sage which the King of the Greeks has recently
addressed to the National Assembly calling upon it
to complete the constitution within ten days ; and if
the critic knows nothing of the circumstances which
drew forth the message, his indignation, assuming
that fie is justified in offering an opinion upon a
matter which he does not understand, is legitimate
enough. But everybody who knows what has
been the conduct of the Assembly, and the urgent
need of some conclusion to its deliberations, will
be inclined to excuse, if not to applaud, King
George, or rather the experienced statesman who
is his Mentor. For two years Greece has been
without a constitution, and almost without law.
The National Assembly which was elected after
the expulsion of King Otho has passed a number
of decrees, the main purpose of which has been to
strike the enemies of the dominant party, or assure
and prolong the Assembly's own power. Great
excuse may be found for its proceedings anterior to
the arrival of the King. Its that interregnum the
men called at different times to the Government
could hardly venture upon any real attempt to re-
establish order, or to project a constitution for re.
generated Greece. The new King, whoever he might
be, must be consulted as to the character of the cornd
pact by which he was to be bound, and not know-
ing how to frame a definite law for the Assembly,
expecting every week to be in a position to do se,
was in no mood for discussing ulterior laws. But
when the King arrived the Assembly had then no-
thing to do but to frame this constitution ; indeed
it bad no right to do anything else. Its plain duty
was to make the constitution as soon as possible,
and thus give the country an opportunity of elect.
lug a Legislative Chamber according to the terms
of that constitution. But the members of the Na-
tional Assembly have made it their object rather to
prolong their power. They have squabbled over
every article of the constitution in en unseemly man-
ner. They have debated every clause at inordinate
length, and, unable to convince each other by argue
meats, hive had recnnue to blows. Twelve months
have been wasted in this way by men who have
shown themselves thoroughly wanting in real pa-