The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-26 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TUE " LONDON REVIEW " ON COMMERCIAL
PANICS.—The moment of a panic, whether in the
field of battle or in the money market, is one of
unreasoning fear, and works such wholesale de-
struction of plan and organisation for the moment,
that skill and courage must stand by and let fear
and confusion have their way. Bat these fearful
moments are produced by well known causes. At
Waterloo the French soldiers were promised the
support of Grouchy, who, they were told, had al-
ready joined the French right, but they found the
Prussians instead. They lost confidence in their
officers and themselves at the moment when victory
was hopeless, and panic converted a defeat into a
rout. So also in the money market people are told
this, that, and the other, which turns out to be
false, they lose all confidence, and a panic is esta-
blished. But in both cases the panic is preceded by
defeat, but by a defeat which, although of a certain
measure and gravity, may be followed by better
fortune next day. A defeat may be retrieved, for
organsation remains, but a panic dissolves the body
corporate, and leaves only disfecta membra to operate
upon at some future time. In a defeat so much money,
or so many men and guns, or such a position is lost,
and the general or the operator retires with a dimi-
❑ished army or less moneyto make new combinations,
to defend what is left, or perhaps to renew the attack
in another quarter with a happier result, and with
reinforcements which courage and energy may have
supplied. Panics in the money-market do not arise
from trading but from speculating. And there is
a pretty close analogy here between war and com-
merce. A panic in the battlefield never arises when
generals fight fairly for "who shall" in a campaign.
The military speculator comes forward and fights
in disregard of all good rules of strategy for some-
thing beyond the ordinary prizes of war. Thus at
Waterloo Napoleon was not defending France from
invasion, but risking all for a crown; and at Bull
Run General M.Dowell fought for no military ne-
cessity, but, to please the newspapers and the pub-
lic, he embarked in a gambling enterprise of which
he knew but little. In either case battle was
joined for other than the pure military reason of
defence from invasion, or the putting down the
Confederacy of the Southern States. Napoleon did
not fight or mat ceavra for the defence of France,
as another general acting under a Government at
Paris would have done, but for a crown—a prize for
which he gambled, and for which a speedy and
brilliant victory was necessary. So also General
M'Dowell attacked the Confederates with an undis •
ciplined army, not because he thought that the road
to success, but because the New York mob and press
imperatively demanded a fight. Any General may
be defeated, but routs and panics only happen to
them when they turn gamblers—just as in the
money market, it is not trade, not even overtrading,
which produces panic, but gambling or speculation.
At this moment some people apprehend a panic in
thecotton market as &probe ble consequence of an early
peace in America. We shall not hazard an opinion
as to the occurrence of such an event further than to
say that as threatened men live long, so a panic well
foretold may, perhaps, fail altogether,or may not stab
out all the life of even the speculators in cotton
But so far as a panic or even a very serious crisis'
is concerned, we do venture to fortell confidently,
that although the trader may be tried it is the
speculator, not the trader, who will be ruined.
The dealer in cotton and the manufacturer of cotton
goods, may so far have speculated as to be found
with a larger stock on hand than the necessities of
his trade may require. He is to that extent a specu-
lator. But the dealer or manufacturer is not likely
to err greatly in this way. He w ill, no doubt, suffer
by the panic, if it comes—he will be a loser, inas-
much as he has been a speculator—but, if he has not
sunk his character as trader or manufacturer in that
of speculator, he will be like the general who is des
felted, and retires from the field, but is able to show
fight next day with reinforcements or in a better
position. They who will be ruined will be the
speculators—those who are holders of cotton for a
rise, and who have besides embarked all their credit
as well as their capital on holding on against ad-
verse prices. These men will, no doubt, by their
fall damage others, perhaps drag them down
with them, But speculators deal with etch
other. " Show me your company, and I'll tell you
what you are," and " Birds of a feather
flock together," are as true as anything short of
Gospel. The speculator does not often ruin the
trader. His co-speculator and the smaller people
who depend on him, and have trusted to his aps
pearance of wealth, are his co.sufferers. It is the
same in other fields of speculation. Tho trader
generally falls on his feet : it is the speculator who
is rained. No bank ever yet came to grief by ree
ceiving deposits and discounting, even too freely,
the commercial bills of its customers. The history
of all banking failures is unique. A bank lends
some one too much money, and when it finds this
out it lends him some more, not for the sake of
using the money, but to bolster up itself and its
customer together. In fact, the bank begins to
speculate in cotton, or in building, or in some.
thin or another out of its own line, in the per.
son of its customer, and they both come to grief
together. If the bank had stopped when it first
took alarm—even if it had not taken the alarm as
soon as it should have done, it might perhaps
have been a loser, but it would have gone on.
-t is a consoling fact for a nation of traders that

people are seldom ruined by trading. The exchange
of commodities is, in the main, profitable. Even
when a panic has affected trade pretty universally,
and the failures of large houses are announced
day by day, subsequent examination has always
shown that the traders were speculaters in disco
guise, and have been unwisely bolstered up for
years by their credit in easy times.
THE " SATURDA.Y REVIEW" ON THE PROSE or POET

CLOSE.—AB the skylark, after proudly soaring heaven•
wards and rapturously pouring forth its soul in song, is
forced to return to the dull earth, and attend to the calls of
its appetite and its domestic duties, so is the poet too often

compelled to desist from scaling the steps of Parnassus, and
to descend to the level of ordinary life and unromantic
avocations, Such has been the hard fate of a minstrel

whom a monarch and a minister have in vain delighted to

honour. In spite of the enlightened patronage of Lord
Palmerston and the King of Bonny, Mr Close has not met
with the success which he expected, and he has therefore

been obliged to doff his singing robes, an I to wander forth
an unwilling exile from the enchanted realms of verse. At
times, indeed, the muse still whispers unbidden in his ear,
and he allows himself a brief relapse into rhyme, but such
an indulgence is rarely conceded. Having won the title of
poet, he now hangs up his lyre on the wall till better times
arrive, and devotes himself in the interval to the composi-
tion and the sale of prose. It is to be hoped that his "Tales
and Legends of Westmoreland," the third volume of which
has lately appeared, will bring hies a more solid recompense
than he could have obtained had he refused to listen to the
voice of prudence, and given himself up to warbling his na-
tive woodnotes wild. The account they contain of the lire
he leads is equally touching and edifying, and may supply
some valuable hints to any future chronicler of the miseries
of authors. Uniting in himself the functions of author and
publisher, Mr Close disposes of the greater part of his works
at the little railway station of Kiraby-Stephen, in West.
moreland. There, clothed in " the squire's new coat," he
informs us that "ho walks the platform like a swell of the
first water." When a train arrives, he offers his books to
the passengers, who are expected to purchase them as local
produce, just as they would invest in cake at Banbury or in
champagne at Epernay. If any one of distinction is among
their number, Mr Close pays him special attention, and de-
scribes him at length in his next work, On all who patro-
nise him he pours a flood of praise, and those who treat him
with disrespect he transfixes with winged shafts of sarcasm.
In general he is content with the treatment he receives, but
he complains that certain persons appear to regard him as
" some curious animal of an unknown species," and that
the directors " allow men to wipe their shoes upon him."
It is probable that he is speaking figuratively in this pas-
sage, as well as in another in which he laments the hard
fate of "a poor poet who has to sell his own books, and to be
spit upon by any rich fool ;" but it is evident that his merits
are nut always acknowledged, and that at times he meets
with unexpected rebuffs, On one occasion, for instance, he
encountered " a gentleman with a slight air of something dis-
tinguished," but who was " too proud to speak,' for he shook
his head when the poet " presented No. 11. of Tales and
Legends to his notice, as ' Poet Close's last work, sir.' "
Well might Mr Close, on hearing that ho had been addressing
the great Sir Roderick Murchison," exclaim "Well, sir,
you may call him great, but ho is a proud little man, let
his genius be what it may, Catch me touching my hat to
him again. • . So much for this Roderick Murchison
who took up Du Chaiilu . . . this Roderick supported
him, but could not open his mouth to a man who would
scorn to shake hands with such an adventurer." Much plea-
santer was the poet's interview with " Earl Filzwilliam, a
fine, tall, placid, mild-looking gentleman, in a light
dress, and yellow sort of hat, with no pomp
or pride about him, who gently put a present in our hand."
The Marquis of Hastings " a little, merry, good-looking
man,with red hair, and with a gold chain across his vest,"
would have taken a book, but a friend who was with him
" prevented his Lordship, who had a fancy foe it." The
Bishop of Carlisle, of whom Mr Close says, " We are afraid
lest the good Bishop be expelled the Bishopric, and lose
his mitre for being too pious," has always behaved with
great civility ; but of the Bishop of Durham we
read the following story :—" August 1. Met a family
in a first-class carriage who were very proud.
The gentleman, to all we said, gave a gruff peremptory,No.
No beoka. no bills, would he look at; and with al proud a
curl of our lips, and not too well pleased shake of the head,
replied ' Very well, sir.' and shut the door. Now thie mild
gentleman was the Bishop of Durham, as we learnt soon
after—and not like the great Apoctle Paul, full 9f charity,