The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-15 00:00:00

SIR GEORGE CORNEWALL LEWIS.

(From the Edinburgh Review for July)
He accep.ed the editorship of this review on the
death of Mr. Empson, at the close of the year 1852,
and conducted it successfully until he became Chan-
celler of the Exchequer in 1855. In 1853 he had
been offered the Government of Bombay, and wrote
thus in relation to it :—" India is an interesting
field, especially at the present moment ; but it
would have cut short a great many threads which I
have begun to spin. I therefore remain constant
to the Edinburgh .Review, and am just about bring-
ing out another number."

The reader will, we are sure, peruse with interest
the followicg extract from another of his private
letters, dated March 18th, 1855, with reference to
his acceptance of the post of Chancellor of the
Exchequer ;_« Events save succeeded one another
so closely with me of late, that I really have had
no time to write to you. Soon after my return to
London after my election, I received quite unex-
pectedly the offer of the office of Chancellor of the
Exchequer in Lord Palmerston's Government. I had
just returned from the country : I had had no time
to look into my private affairs since my father's
death. I had not even proved his will. I had the
Edinbugh _Review for April on my hands, and the
last part of my volumee on the Roman history. I
had been out of Parliament for two years, and I did
not know the present House of Commons. 1 had
to follow Gladstone, whose ability had dazzled the
world, and to produce a war budget with a large
additional taxation in a few weeks. All these cir-
cumstances put together inspired me with the
strongest disinclination to accept the offer. I felt,
however, that in the peculiar position of the Go-
vernment refusal was scarcely honourable, and
would be attributed to cowardice, and I, therefore,
most reluctantly made up my mind to accept. I
remembered the Pope, put in hell by Dante—
' Che feco per viltade it gran rifiuto.'
My re •election passed off without difficulty. I went
down to Harpton for two nights, and made a speech
in the Town Hall at R idnor. Since my return to
London I have been engrossed with the business of
my office, and have hardly had a moment to spare.
There is an awkward question about the newspaper
stamp which I have had to plunge into. There are
also all the preparations to be made for the impend-
ing budget, and measures to be taken for providing
sufficient sums to meet the enormous extraordinary
expenditure which the war in the Crimea is causing.
Gladstone has been very friendly to me, and has
given me all the assistance in his power."
To all who knew Sir George Lewis well the ex-
tracts from these two letters will appear most cha-
racteristic ; they will know that the simplicity with
which he comments on his refusal of the Indian
government, and states his embarrassment at the
offer of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, is of
a piece with the whole tone of his feelings; in any
other man affectation might be suspected, but in
him it was impossible.

The King of Portugal has sent his congratula-
tions to the Emperor on the taking of Mexico.

CITY HAYMAKERS.—Such was the surrounding
of one City churchyard that I saw last summer, on
a volunteering Saturday evening towards eight of the clock,
when with astonishment I beheld an old old man and an
;
old old woman in it, making hay. Yes, of all occupations
in this world, making hay ! It was a very confined patch
of churchyard lying between Gracechurch-street and the
Tower, capable of yielding, say an apronful of hay. By
what means the old old man and woman had got into
it, with an almost toothless haymaking rake, I
could not fathom. No open window was within
view ; no window at all was within view, suf-
ficiently near the ground to have enabled their old
legs to descend from it ; the rusty churchyard-gate was
locked, the mouldy church was locked. Grevely among the
graves, they made hay, all alone by themsf Ives. They
looked like Time and his wife. There was but the one rake
between them, and they both had hold of it in a pastorally-
loving manner, and there was hay on the old woman's black
bonnet, as if the old man had recently been playful. The
old man Was quite an obsolete old man, in knee-breeches
and coarse grey stockings, and the old woman wore
mittens like unto his stockings in texture and in colour,
They took no heed of me as I looked on, unable to
account for them. The old woman was much too bright
for a pew-opener, the old man much too meek for a beadle.
On an old tombstone in he foreground between me
.and
them, were two cherubim; but for those celestial embellish-
ments being represented as having no possible use for knee-
breeches, stockings, or mittens, I should have compared
them with the haymakers, and sought a likeness. I coughed
and awoke the echoes, but the haymakers never looked at
me. They used the rake with a measured action, drawing
the scanty crop towards them; and so I was fain to leave
them under three yards and a half of darkening sky, gravely
making hay among the graves, all alone by themselves.
Perhaps they were spectres, and I wantet a medium ?"
Charles Dickens sn " All the Year Round."