The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-16 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 16, 1863.

Is Earl RUSSELL'S facetiousness the other day
at Dundee to be accounted for in any respect, we
woncler, by reason of a certain self-complacency at
the successful development by him during the holi-
days of certain extremely odd new phases in his
Foreign Policy ? Scarcely have the Houses of
Parliament been prorogued, scarcely have the mem-
bers—hereditary and representative—been fairly
scattered far and wide throughout the provinces and
upon the continent, as well as upon the wide seas in
their yachts, when Earl RUSSELL effects a change in
the diplomatic arrangements of the Government, such
as he would, for certain, never have ventured upon
while the Legislature was actually sitting. Sir
JAMES HUDSON is coolly turned to the right-about
at Turin. He is compelled to vacate his place there at
t'he British Embassy—in order that another of those
interminable ELLIOTS may slip into it quite com-
fortably and conveniently. The long vacation
enabling the noble Earl to carry out his affectionate
intentions towards thus furthering theinterests of his
kinEanan by this distinguished and most desirable
promotion, the thing is in due course done accord-
ingly. And done so quietly, too—by an announce--
meat in the Gazette ! No vexatious worrying of
either the Foreign Secretary himself in the House
of Lords, no troublesome annoyance inflicted upon
his representative in the House of Commons, the
hon. member for the borough of Southwark, who
sits there during the session upon the Treasury
bench in his responsible character as UndereSecre-
tary for the Foreign Department ; no annoying
questions put either here or there, now to Earl
RUSSELL by one of those sarcastic peers on the
side of the Opposition, now to Mr. LAYAED by one
of those metropolitan members who are always £0
eagerly in quest of knowledge under difficulties !
Sir JAMES HUDSON—about whose removal we, at
any rate, can speak quite dispassionately, having
a supreme indifference as to the sequel of
the diplomatic career of his ex-Excellency—
Sir JAMES HUDSON has only to withdraw
silently from his position at Turin as English
ambassador ! Mr. ELLIOT has only as silently to
step into his empty shoes, and to occupy his vacated
residence in that capital of Piedmont—for we can
hardly yet surely speak of Turin as the capital of
Italy, without running, at least, a very imminent
hazard of wounding the amour propre of every
Lcambard, Tuscan, Neapolitan, even, we might say,
of every 241odenese, Parmese, and so forth, in the
the length, and whatever there is in it of breadth,
of the whole Roman peninsula. All the penalty
Earl RUSSELL has been subjected to, in consequence
of his flsgrant subordination of public interests
of all kicds to the petty individual interests of one
among the large cluster of his own numerous kith
and kia, has been in the way of printed commentary
upon that extraordinary proceeding, extraordinary
even fro—
at him and for an ELLlOT—sarcastic
leaders in the daily and weekly newspapers, and
an occasionei caustic gibe in the shape of a hu-
morous illustration in the pages of our
London Chetivari. The accomplishment of his
amiable design in regard to Mr. ELLIOT, with only
anis slight cost to himself in
elf the shape of ridicule
endured, was, doubtless, in itself a circumstance
calculated to lighten considerably the spirits of the
Foreign Secretary at the "vary commencement of his
autumnal holidays. But,eeee t i
of hilarity attained
hen, t fails to explain
by
the heightthose lightened
spirits of his upon the occasion of
cent public appearance at Dundee,
something very
different, indeed; something for more exhilirating
than the quiet a effecting of this dexterous insinua-
tion of an ELLIOT into the suddenly vaoatedßritish
Embassy at Turin, must have inspired that most
unusual vivacity on the part of the pe
-reign
Secretary one ordinarily rather didactic je
manner, and given to nu undue display of
gravity than to the convulsion of his audience,
whether in Parliament or out of it, into bursts of
irrepressible hilarity.
"Yet it is only necessary to glance eown E trl Rus-
s u.L's speech lately at Dundee, to recognise that
the noble lord was in what is called familiarly and
emphatically tlp-top spirits while he was speak-
ing. But for his name appearing at the head of
his speech to the Dan d •
ewes, we might, from the
character of the interruptions, have been led to
suppose that it was an after dinner
harangue by
Mr. BUCE.STONE, or ,an oration upon some very
!serious question, indeed,
a Church matter of

or a more than usually anxious
great importance,
topic connected with finance, spoken to a
laughing audience by that veteran light comedian
of politics, the First Lord of the Treasury.
Laughter, renewed laughter, once even, intense
langhter—these were the kind of interruptions to
Lord RUSSELL'S speech the other day at Dundee.
Whence, this abounding hilarity on the part of the