The Sun.
London, England, 1863-05-04 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, MAY 4, 1863.

t were hardly anything of an extravagance to
assert that the Ministry have for some time past
existed, that they still exist solely upon the reputation
for bonhommie enjoyed by our gay old Premier Vis-
count PALMERSTON. It were simply absurd, indeed,
to say otherwise. It is their one source of strength.
It is their one claim upon public toleration. And
they certainly are so far conscious of this that they
make the most of it. The Prime Favourite—the
winner of so many political Derbys—they trot out,
or encourage to show us his paces, to prove to us
by occular demonstration tie go there is still in him,
upon every possible opportunity. A timely
interval of a fortnight's rest early in the session
was seized, it may be remembered, as
affording a very golden opportunity of this
kind. Lord PAL3IERSTON is whisked off by rail
way to the opposite extremity of the island, and
there gads about, starring it, for a whole week (of
that fortnight) together. His lordship's audiences
in Scotland are of a very various character—now
the bigwigs of a University—now the working
people of Glasgow—now a gathering of good honest
Cits and Bailies. To all of these audiences the
Youthful Veteran who guides the helm of the State
vessel with such an easy carelessness that he really
seems to occupy the position of The Man at the
Wheel,who may be talked to, by anybody and every.
body, at any hour and under any circumstances—
to all these multifarious Hotel Audiences, as though
he were a stripling Barnacle, a gayyoung Barnacle,
a light-in-hand young Barnacle, a touch-
and-go young Barnacle, instead of being
a Statesman almost of the last gene-
ration but one, as well as the Statesman of the
present—Lord PALMERSTON, showed invariably
that constitutional vivacity which is, in some mea-
sure, the secret of his immerse popularity. His
philosophic discourses before the Professors and
Students, it will not be forgotten, were compounded
of the feeblest scientific and philological platitudes,
and of the most superficial generalities. When
he was at his best, he was unbending the rigidity of
the Scotch mind, for the reception by it of a little of
his own favourite pleasantry. And with such eminent
success, as it happened, by the way, that one is
almost disposed now to think that, for once, SYDNEY
SMITH shot very wide, indeed, of the mark aimed
at by his flying shaft of wit, when he said that it
required a surgical operation to get a joke into the
brain of a Scotchman ! It required nothing of the
kind, as the effect proved, when Lord PALMERSTON
was the joke - master, down at Glasgow
and at Edinburgh. Those jokes of his were caught
and roared . over—upon the instant—by the
hard-headed Scot chnien the noble Viscount
was good-humouredly poking his fun at. Merry
little jests of the feeblest and slightest character
well imaginable, were exulted over, then and there,
as though it were really another YORICK installed

.n office in the person of Viscount PALMERSTON.
No matter what the assembly addressed, or what
,he theme treated upon by the veteran Prime

Minister of England—all is one to him for

He is as inexhaustibly volatile as

Miss MOWCH ER. As GARRICK was thought

bziettheed c oonft emp
Ipaoyrianrgy
aactressr
ot
no
_b
as s cma puasbpl ab
Nle,
ate-
cording to CHARLES LAMB, could understand a leg
of mutton in its quiddity—do Lord PALMERSTON
could just as readily, one might say, make a jest
out of a broomstick, or turn the gravest assembly in
the land into a modern embodiment of HOGARTH'S
Laughing Audience. It was precisely in this way
that Lord PALMERSTON spoke on Siturday
at the Royal Academy dinner, and that the guests
there laughed—laughed, in Homeric phrase, " in-
extinguishably," in Lord FOPPINGTON'S phrase,
" consumedly, stap my vitals!" For the genial,
hearty, fun and frolic of the speech, it might have
fallen from the lips of CHARLES DICKENS. "I don't
know whether we had much Wit among us," the
guests at the Royal Academy table on Saturday
might say now, looking back and echoing thus the
familiar words of the Vicar of Wakefield —"I

don't know whether we had much wit amongst us,

but I am sure we had a great deal of laughter"
All which, of course—not a doubt of it—is
very delightful. But does it not come,

after all, somehow like a very unwelcome