The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-18 00:00:00

THERMOMETER.

This morning
This day at Two o'clock 66
Barometer-30.26.
Wind—Nest; fine.

7
att SITU

LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPT. 18, 1863.

As last year is remembered as the Exhibition
Year, next year is likely enough to be borne in
recollection afterwards as the SFIAKSPEARE Year.
The, arrangements now making betimes for the cele-
bration of the three hundredth anniversary of the
Great Pont's Birth, it is satisfactory already to
knew, are all this while in about the very best
ha ads to which they could well by possibility have
been entrusted. The most active and indefatigable
amongst the energetic promoters of the enter-
pr'ese, are precisely the very men best qualified
to have undertaken the responsibility of its manage-
ment. To recognise this upon the instant it is
only necessary to glance down the names of those
more particularly entrusted with these responsibili-
ties of management. Eventually, it is understood,
the presidency of the committee will be accepted by
his. Royal Highness the Heir to the Throne of these
rea.luns. Already as Vice-Presidents, there have
been collected together, as it were, in the choicest
cluster, the very pick among the representative
men of the age. There is an archbishop of the
English Church Establishment. There is one of
the noblest, as he is also one of the most learned and
accomplished among our great patricians, his Grace
the Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.
There is the one great living Poet. There is the
greatest of all our great English Humourists, hap-
pily also in the land of the living. A more judi
cious selection could hardly have been made, more-
over, than has been made in the choice of those
empowered by the Committee to act as Secretaries
in the three departments into which the otherwise
bewilderingly complicated organisation has been
distributed. One among that cluster of sec-
retaries, the secretary, in fact, among the
secretaries, the principal originator and orga-
niser, we believe, of the whole scheme of (his
noble and affecting demonstration, is suffi-
ciently well known to every educated perso❑
in England as a man of letters of the very highest
attainments, to render his mere name a gua-
rantee that the project will be carried oui
as it ought to be carried out! Will be
a demonstration worthy at once of the Great Poet
whose birth, three hundred years ego, it will com-
memorate, and of the Great Nation by which his
name is borne in such loving remembrance. Now
that the COMMITTEE itself may be regarded as
tolerably complete, we publish, in another part of
our impression of this morning, a full catalogue
of those now numbered up (certainly it will be
allowed numbered to a goodly number indeed) as
comprising it. The representation in this com-
mittee of all the various classes, or sections, or
divisions of the educated community, has been espe-
cially aimed at, it will be observed, in the process
of its composition.

As a period of very little more than seven months
now intervenes between the present moment and
the tricentenary anniversary we are all looking
forward to—namely, the 23d of April, 1864
some curiosity is beginning to be felt, and
even expressed, as to what may be the ge-
neral nature, aspect, and consequences of its
celebration. And as to all this, even now there are
glimmering intimations, here and there, of what
may reasonably be anticipated in respect to the
general character of the demonstration. Through-
out not only all England, or, we will say,
the whole
of the United Kingdom, but far and wide in
every portion of the British Empire, in all quar-
ters of the habitable globe, the happy day is to be
borne in especial remembrance and duly com-
memorated. In this way, let us hope,
that on the
23d of April next, from every village steeple in
the land the bells may be ringing and the sags
fluttering. London, as the capital of the empire,
is to have its grand commemorative monument.
Stratford-upon-Avon will be the scene of a reverent
and affectionate pilgrimage. The Crystal Palace at
Sy denham will be the metropolitan rendezvous for
the celebrants of the anniversary. Medals wil
be struck as suitable memorials of the event.
Many if not all of te arts will vie in doing suit-
ab!e honour to the occasion—sculpture, music, ora-
tory, at least, will do so. And the extent of the
advance of England's intelligence as an educated
community during these last three hundred years
will be signally indicated by the national character
imparted to this unexampled commemoration of a
Poet's birthday.

It has before now been remarked with some show
of truth that the laws of England have been framed
so as rather to frustrate the ends of justice than to
forward them ; and in many instances the adage
proves correct which says that the law is a spider's
web, through which large flies break, while little
ones are caught and hopelessly entangled. Eng-
land, from her high position and from the promi-