The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-13 00:00:00

THE SUN, !LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JULY 12, 1864.

for our country to endure the degradation of meet-
ing with scorn on all side and to win regard from
no party. To such a pass has the inconsistency of
our foreign policy brought us, that a despatch from
our Minister for Foreign Affairs can hardly be of
any striking import to other nations, because they
know by this time that its object is to be bound by
no promises.

The visits of the Prince of WALES to time•
honoured institutions are by no means the least
important of the tasks he performs, for the fact of
his thus mingling in the engagements which occupy
and interest a portion of the community, serves to
associate him intimately with their concerns.
The Corporation of Clothworkers is one of the
oldest guilds of the City of London. It was in-
corporated by Royal Charter in 1480, in the reign
of EDWARD the FOURTH. Since that period many
distinguished personages have been enrolled as
members of the Guild. JAMES the FIRST was
admitted to the brotherhood in 1607. His Royal
Highness the Prince of WALES has then illustrious
examples of the past to induce him to become con•
netted with this ancient and wealthy Corporation,
while of late years there have also been many,
and among them his father. The late PRINCE
CONSORT was a member, and therefore this is
another instance among the many in which the
Prince has follewed the example of his illustrious
father, in becoming associated with the institutions
and societies of the land. Of course so auspicious
an occasion was made the opportunity of a festive
gathering to a select circ'e, and the presence of the
Princess imparted an additional charm to
the proceedings. The Master, in address•
ing the Prince, made some appropriate
remarks on the subject of requesting him to accept
the freedom and livery of the Company of Cloth-
workers, and expressed an earnest hope that here.
after, as in past times, there might be a continuous
association between them and the Royal Family of
this kingdom. The Prince, on his part, declared
his satisfaction at the manner in which he had been
received, and assured those present that he took
great pleasure in becoming a member, and also
that he felt proud to follow in the steps of his
ancestors, ;those Kings who had been enrolled
in past days, and in following the example of his
father. There is much to give rise:to satisfaction
in these meetings of the highest in the land with
those who represent our commercial interests. It
is more than the mere interchange of compliments
and the empty expression of fine words and flowing
phrases. The gracious and genial manners of the
young Prince and Princess have won all hearts,
and they can do no wiser and better thing if they
wish to retain their popularity than to concern
themselves in the interests of the community, and
to associate their names with institutions that are
rendered important by the past and contain promise
for the future, and which from their antiquity and
records may claim to some share of the attraction
that appertains to societies of historical interest.

Crimes on Railways,

LATEST INTELLIGENCE. 1

DENMARK.

FLENSBURG, JULY 12.

The passage of the Lymfiord has been success•
fully effected by the Prussian troops nader General
Falkenstein.

The head• quarters will be removed to At trupgaard
today, and in all probability to Fnderickshafen
on Thursday.

NORWAY,
CHRISTIANIA, JuLy 12.

According to a statement in the .lk"orgenbladet of
to-day, the whole of the army inteided for active
service has been disembodied, the nen being sent
away on furlough.

One portion of the fleet has bean recalled, but
the other is still held in reaeincss fir service.

DESPATCH OF THE BOMLAy MAIL,
SOUTHAMPTON, JULY 12.

The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation
Company's ship Massilia, Captain Almond, with
the above mail, sailed hence to-day.
She takes 13 first and 29 second class passengers,
among whom are Lieut. Shaw, Jolonel Williams,
Dr. James, Ensigns Holl and Grove, Major Taylor,
and Assistant-Surgeon Milburne.
The specie shipped by the Msstilia, for Bombay,
consists of 267 boxes, amountinl to £128,788 10s.
sterling, of which £51,900 in her gold, £6,000 in
gold coin, £61,750 in bar silver, £5,100 in silver
coin, and £1,038 103. in gold, thread, watches, &o.

TILE BOMBAY MALL,
The Salsette, with the above mail, arrived at
Suez, at 8 a.m., this day.

WEST INDIA AND PACIFIC MAILS,
SOUTHAMPTON, JULY, 13.

The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company's steam-
ship Tasmanian, with the above mails, passed the
Needles at 12.25 p.m. to-day.

LITERATURE,

Ilard Cash. By Charles Reade. Three Vols.
Second Edition. Sampson Low, Son, and Co.

The marvel to us is not that this should be the
second edition of " Hard Cash," but that it should
not be the twenty-second. The novelist from whose
hand, as yet, we take it to be the masterpiece, as-
sumes high rank, if not the highest rank, among
the greatest word-painters living. He is, accord-
ing to our estimate of his powers—and let us pre-
mise that Charles Reade is known to us alone
through his books—according to our estimate of hie
powers, he is beyond any question at all the
Realistic Romancist, not only of his age but
of our literature. His huge mediaeval fictioe
we put aside altogether from among his works as
a thing apart. it is nothing better in our eyes
than an extravagant hallucination. It has none of
oar sympathy. It is alien to us altogether. But
with regard to his other writings—well, Charles
Reade in his character as a fictionist, like the
ancient mariner in the ballad of Coleridge, " holds
us with his glittering eye," and " bath his will"
with us completely. "Peg Woffington "we could
read any number of times—as, be it said, any num•
ber of times we could sit and watch the unravelment
of its plot in its charming dramatised form as "Masks
and Faces" at the A delphi—partioularly with
that consummate artist Benjamin Webster, com-
manding our tears by every tremulous intonation
of his voice, by every subtle movement of the
nerves of his emotional countenance as Triplet.
" Christie Johnstone," again, is a bit of breezy,
briny sea coast life, as true to the reality as any
radiant picture ever touched to view by the brush
of Mr. Hook, the Royal Academician. " Never
Too Late To Mend," however, the famous
convict story of several years back, and
now again this still more wonderfully elabo-
rated narrative of " Hard Cash"—the the Very
Hard Cash of All the 'ear Round massed together
from its weekly instalments into three handsome
and substantial volumes—reveal the distinguishing
peculiarities of the genius of Charles Reade at their
very best and at their very highest. The root idea, or
innermost set purpose, of each of these two remark-
able works one can't by any possibility but recog-
nise while reading them, and afterwards, no matter
how long afterwards, while looking back at them
in recollection, as not simply full of discomfort, but
us absolutely repellant and repulsive to the utmost
possible degree. Yet, out of these unattractive
materials, in each instance the genius of the writer
conjures up a figment enthralling to the extent of
absolute fascination. It signifies nothing compara-
tively, through all our shuddering disgust—that in
one instance we have to live and breathe and
move, as it were, steeped to the vary lips
in all the horrors of felon-life— that in
the other instance, in this latest instance, we are
pent up, as it were, during an unconscionable period,
in the midst of the yet ghastlier horrors of a very
labyrinth of mad-houses ! We read on—enthrelled !
We remember—when we have done reading the
story as it is here related to us—we remember the
incidents and the people it has been the means of
introducing to our notice, as though these recollece
Lions it has left behind it, were the results of our
own personal experiences. We doubt very much
whether atey writer in our tongue, even Daniel
Defoe, ever more completely blent and amalga-
mated—romance and matter-of-fact. There are
descriptions in " Hard Cash" as fine in their
way as anything that can be named in the whole
range of our imaginative literature. There are sea
chapters as masterly as the very best that could be
adduced from Michael Scott or from Fenimore
Cooper. The acconnt of Captain David Dodd's
working of the Agra, East Indiamate—the descrip-
tion of his bloody conflict with the Pirates—the li
record of the rise and progress, and stupendous de-
velopment, and overwhelming outbreak of the
Storm—the awful limning at last of the
direst incidents of the Wreck—are worthy
of any one, are worthy, in other words,
of Charles Reade at his very best as the great
English Realistic Romancist. As a mere specimen
of his quality as a word painter, however, let us
draw nearer home than the groat deep far away
yonder in those Eastern seas—let us take a more
everyday occurrence as the theme descanted upon
by his pen of glamour and fascination, Perhaps
nothing better in its way as an exemplar of our
novelist's marvellously vivid capacity for descrip-
tion, could be adduced than his word painting as
follows of—