The Sun.
London, England, 1852-02-14 00:00:00

t'HE NEW REFORM BILL.
(From the Times.)
The " Parliamentary Representation Bill," as what was
to be the great measure of the session is mildly and judi-
ciously styled, now lies before us, together with the "Corrupt
Practices at Elections Bill," by which the Minister proposes
to saddle on future Parliaments the odious work of disfran-
chisement. The former of these measures is that which most
presses for attention, and the part of it to which all eyes will
turn, and which indeed is the only point now Possessing
any novelty, is Schedule B, being a list of the boroughs to be
enlarged, and the towns to be added to them, with their
boundaries and "temporary contents." At the risk of being
quoted by some watchful contemporary as expressing a
warm opinion in favour of this schedule, we must confess, in
the openness and warmth of our hearts, that we have not
seen for many a day so pretty and suggestive a topographical
catalogue, Under any circumstances one might marvel
how so many places endeared to early associations, and
cherished for any reason rather than their polit,cal
character, have found their way into a Bill before
Parliament. But that marvel becomes utter amaze-
ment when we are told that the sweet rural
localities here reluctantly dragged into light are the destined
refuge and balance of this mighty empire. The Commons
esLhth
Lord John
;In:
re t
stetiruyracwelll ,‘ tackled" the Lords—the subject sug-
gests a rustic phraseology—and having become themselves
too equally divided between the interests of cotton and:of land,
proposesilm,isastcok,
hisses
athti
isoewi upmnps
.ear
iLsn-aimks balancingtemNasu i
n__ca,aanrn: and
sr bitrat-
iag power out of the very bosom of English society in the
rural legislators is to arrive from the breezy dawns and
e
sunny coasts ofleil antsahs
Salisbury-
plain, from the Vale of the White-horse, from streamlet and
tttf
iloeeo tut
fihtaeowbusuopr:oo)
of distress,
sportsman
dant;
dlisdeeuoc
of kings
oepksoit
inetgrtknowneisediman
.hr
islandsao t, rather
or woodland glades, where they tended sheep or watched
cakes on the hearth till their time came and they once more
appeared at the head of their armies. Evidently some such
legendary precedent has sugge: ted the proposed rustication
and the
hundredgestt::oeotfki:
tourisths—tts,feetr loe'n'rtns3,t:,:pillaovpvtietesas
trrhhttenoiaeti Dartmoor and Salisbury
of the British Legislature. The rural virtues, which Gold-
smith despairingly beheld on the strand preparing to take
leave of their country, have now every chanee of being in-
vited back and installed in greater dignity than ever. •
Let us linger awhile on the many pleasing scenes recalled
by this fairest of schedules. A Homer alone could find the
epithets that mark best their peculiar attractions. There is
Wantage, nestled on the slope of the huge downs, the birth-
place of King Alfred and Bishop Butler; there are Newport
Pagnell and Stony Stratford, that we have so often changed
horses at in the days of " the road ;" Maidenhead and Amer..
sham represent the "silver winding" Thames; Penzance
carries us to the Land's End; the fishing port of Brixharn
and the beautiful church of Ottery St. Mary contribute their
placessever we alahttarvacetsioindznsotouththanisdpl ayeorrlgeussce,mßpoangior;,fanordwHarraterinott
gate, with others. of less note; for respectful quietness we
have Blandford and Wimborne Minster, in Dorset; Coggle-
shall, Halsted, and Manningtree, in Essex, and scores of other
places too modest to be named. There is the bold promontory
of Swanage ; there are Fairford and Lechlade, once the
sole seat of Latin literature in this island; the bloody
field of Tewkesbury is now to be invigorated with Upton-
upon-Severn; Basingstoke, with its picturesque little ruin.
and its coach-deserted streets, Stockbridge with its trout
stream, and Whitchurch, which has lost its sole remaining
importance as the place where Oxford students took the
Exeter coaches, are now set down to a rubber with Ando-
ver; the New Forest contributes Ringwood and Lyndhurst,
wa and d
hAal
vt oen
si
ot s : rf
tuerna lhceha
ra rd mo sf
tßhelirieseisY Stit.slviCeso,rssm-haonse abbrliclegye
takenan t
and passing
dosißnrganovernpanlacd sw
eswaeffhhaamve,
t so Oundle
scarcely heard
Chippingof,eare
Norton, to Witney, where they did once make blankets, and
to the venerable names of Bishop's Castle, Church Stratton,
and Cleobury Mortimer. The famous ruins of Glastonbury,
Burton-on-the-Trent, the beautful park of Petworth, Heytes-
bury, under the spurs of the Plain, and Warminster, ap-
proached by the woods of Longleat, are the next most notice-
able, among other, perhaps, more beautiful places; the
quiet village of Amesbury presents itself with Stonehenge
and Vespasian: camp; and after a trip through the less
frequented regions of Yorkshire, we finish with Harrogate,
Pateley-bridge, and Ripley. Such are the most renowned
of the parishes and townships whose delegated wisdom is to
balance the Legislature that balances the world. How
much do we owe, after all, to the early training of our states-
men ! How deep the love of pastoral life even in our hard
old Reformers! Poor Falstaff " babbled o' green fields"
after a life of debauch ; and after thirty years passed between
bebates and office work Lord John still melts with rural re-
collections. But is it a constitution or an eclogue he has
given us? Is it a text for lawyers, or a subject for an illus-
trated volume? Publish the Bill with cuts from drawings
by Turner and Stanfield, and it will infallibly pass. Should
the continent be closed, or should the railways want a sub-
stitute for the Great Exhibition, they cannot do better than
advertise " summer excursions through Schedule B." At
all events we shall have it in a moving diorama. 'So re-
solved is Lord John Russell to omit no means of enriching
the sentiment of his scheme, that he has revived
for its sake a considerable number of the bo-
roughs, now, alas! no more. In the list before
us we once more see the faces of our old friends, Amersham,
Camelford, East Looe, Okehampton, Saltash, Stockbridge,
Whitchurch, Heytesbury, Downton, Aldborough, and
Boroughbridge. After a trance of twenty years they come
again to the light of day, at the spell of the same tsizard
who had consigned them, as we thought, to Parliatnentszy
oblivion.

As the object is to trim the constitution and to preserve
for ever that partieularf adjustment of interest% it is stir
happiness to enjoy at this moment, perhaps it is Scarcely ad-
missible to inquire into the numerical or commercial import-
ance of these places. If a jacket will stop a leak, we do
not quarrel with the comparative slightness or apparent in-
congruity of the instrument to which we owe our lives. A
very slight prop will sometimes save a heavy structure,
though it certainly is found now and then, as at Brigh-
ton Pavillion the other day, that a slight prop may answer
for fair weather but not for foul. The hundred or more
townships and parishes—many of them are not even mar-
ket towns that are to keep our House of Commons in
the existing statu quo, bear about the same proportion to
that giant as the Lilliputians that held Gulliver to the
ground; bat if they answer their purpose, what more need
we require? It is true that we may conceive a few sources
of discontent to those who will nut recognise in the end a
glorification of the means. There are people we fear, who,
us they run their eyes down the third column in this sche-
dule, will ask why Stony Stratford or Little Hampton is to
'be enfranchised, and not some overgrown busy town in the
north, as if we had not the most ancient precedents for giv-
ing political power to the bramble, and leaving the oak, the
olive, and the vine to their own more useful employments.
I 'I here are people who will ask why these sixty-seven bo-
roughs, of which twenty-nine return one Member, and the
rest two, are to be treated by the same rule, and both
classes augmented to the same electoral magnitude.
We already hear it alleged that the stream of
enfranchisement has been directed by some cun-
ning hand which knows well what town to
include in the favoured bound, and what to leave in the
wide waste of the county constituency. As every complaint
that can possibly be made is sure to reach us in time, we
forbear for the present. All we have now to do is to thank
Lord John Russell for taking us a trip of no small interest
thrdugh some of the most lovely portions of the land we live
in. Nothing can exceed the relief it has afforded us after
the vast statistics and the dull utilities with which political
questions are now-a-days so generally incuntered. We
have only one thing to suggest, and we really think the plan
would harmonize wonderfully with the conceptions of this
measure—it is that the Legislature should discuss it in some
of
c
the veoryurstcsehnaevsehbereeenenhuelmdearatted, or others
Winchester,Oldeq sualarulymh,isatnod-
rwe believe, at Wantage ; Councils have been held at Claren-
don, and the fate of empire has been decided in other places
sesuorert.sboluVihdatbemopraesasepdprienprioantee tohfanthtehavtertyheropureen-
_
toefoursotmuamglhlesar which it recals to life?

PM
r(.)
Layardi N rl ' Ili
sl Ea nNa :ft •
of
MR. L A
is a disregard of the formalities and con-
it sets at naught
ventionalities of office;
.1 exclusion and caste
it is a search
.11the proper direction for real
Y'As appointment of olf)
pretensions;
merit: it looks like converting shams into realities ; it indi-
high Lord
courage;
aGr' raagnev;i I
il
te
cates a desire to employ the true workers of life; it exhibits
Lord Granville, not only as superior in intention to many of
his colleagues, but free from their prejudices, and, what
was
scarcely to be anticipated, independent in his own depart-
ment. Lord Granville might, had he been disposed,
have
found many stereotyped excuses for seeking refuge in the
Stanleys or Strang ways of his part ; coud not choose a
member of the Lower House, for alrey heady therel are two under
secretaries in the Commons and the law allows of no more;
what at sin a o namtural, then, as to take a peer, as did Mr. Glad-
stosiilar position? Lord Wodehouse might have
been had. Lord Granville, too, is a young man, himself
inexperienced in the Foreign-office ; how readily might he
have called in some aged Whig talker having the reputation
of experience gteater than even Mr. Adington ? Or, if he
wanted a nonentity, there are hundreds of his well-dressed
acquaintance daily pr acin
have taken the salary and spent it at Newmarket.
But no ; Lord Granville wanted a man of work, of hope,
promise, like himself. lie instinctively looked into the
rank,, and there he found Mr. Layard, the son of a Ceylon
cinnamon : planter, who had distinguished himself, not
merely in making great and interestingdiscoveries, but in
lrab,
arding all that
an
of experience in the
cant might allege of Mr. Layard'slwant
studies,
and such other
the power he had exercised over thedunrdhisyreAg on whom
only he could rely for assistance;
forms of office, of his want of special
the people
Vifl t Sir George Grey has the son of an Earl,
to his aid. 1 i s
old Minister, for their subordi-
nate Lord Grey the son of an .
' Lord Granville, in
appointing Mr. Layard,
idle babble—Lord Granville has called aman of
nate secretaries,
to keep open the door he has
limits. Let it be our duty
turned the handle of. .
has enlarged the field of choice beyond social and political

What the-;;Oild wants is youth, nut age, in office. We
are oppressed by what is called experience, and can hardly
move for the weight of decrepitude
.that bears down ;..11)?2
us. Mr. Maucaulay says that no Minister upwards
is much
ever governed this country long or well ; and there is
_. ',re
truth in the statement. But, at all events, new P
opening on humanity, and what is required are wands or
will meet events cordially and hopefully, not
invalids
boldly
valetudinarians, who shrink from looking the future,i_ per•
in the face by burying themselves and their,fears.inor"' F
occult
Nor is there any such mystery, or diilicnit3,
-ministers of
science in public affairs as it is the fashion n
lofficial experience
all parties to affect. It was not want of. • and responsi-
hasex7who
Lord Derby failed from, but want of ability
Granville sits
bility. Already the inexperienced Lord
very day after his
se-
curely and gracefully in his saddle ; the d a grave ques-
tion into the Foreign-oflice.he arrange
tenure of place he
, sense and in good
tion with the United States
faith ; and within less than nillx-'eeki'
•t"of what the world calls
writes and speaks with the anthill?'
the twaddle that we
need old, experienced, grave, a
a great minister. Away, than,
pointing Mr. Layard ; it is
and reverend seigneurs. Lord
,th,,,..P,ound judgment, that we re-
Granville teaches us better Ind
nation.- Daily .News.
intelligence, i
tgoernc e,
doing activity,the
work zeal,of

and gentry visited
Mr. Wyld's large model of
.the earth during the
Earl Fitzwilliam and family, Lord /..
The following of the nobility
Gro week:—
Mahon, the Duchess of Sutherland, Lady pH irvenor, Lord
Lord Craven, Lord Blantyre, Sir H. De mer and family,
Henry Smith,
, • —Hamilton, Esq., Au, Lacy Evans, it
-, William Colonel Sir
Colebrook, R daughters,
.A., Lady Baring and
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