The Sun.
London, England, 1863-02-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

SATURDAY REVIEW.—Lord Derby prohesied
that we should have a humdrum session this year,
and his prophecy is coming true. He is, indeed,
in a position dear to prophets, and can largely assist
in bringing about what he predicts. There never,
probably, since a Reformed Parliament dat at West-
minster, was so complete an absence of important
measures proposed to the consideration of (he two
Houses. The Lords, as usual, can get nothing to
do at the beginning of the session, and what is
worse, they cannot this year learn that anything is
coming for them to do a little later. Lord Derby
made a formal appeal on Monday to the represen-
tative of the Government in the House of Lords,
and asked whether there were any measures which
the Cabinet had to propose this year. The Lords
do not like hard work, but it is dreary for them to
have the prospect of a session lasting some months,
and nothing to do, or think, or talk of in it. Lord
Derby's question was, therefore, a very natural
and a very proper one. The country, as well as
the Lords, is interested in the answer. Lord Gran.
ville was able to assure the Lords and the country
that, although the Government had not many im-
portant measures to propose, still there was one.
The session of the Lords was not to be an absolute
blank. One great scheme had occupied the atten-
tion of the Cabinet, and the House and the country
would be invited to carry out the conclusions to
which, after much anxious deliberation, the Cibi-
net had come. Her Majesty's Ministers were pre-
pared to bring in a bill to put down smells. This
was the one great measure which was to make the
session illustrious. But the width and grandeur of
the subject, as it first loomed in its vastness before
the vision of the Lords, were too overpowering;
and the-Ministry anxiously explained that it was
not all bad smells that were to be dealt with,
but only smells of a peculiarly alkaline charac-
ter. To suppress alkaline smells is the ambition
of the servants of the Crown, and on this one great
effort they have concentrated all their resources.
If they still hold office at the end of the
session, although they have done nothing to improve
the machinery of English justice, or to simplify the
tangled mass of English law, or to lessen the dis-
cordant absurdities which disfigure the jurispru-
dence of the three countries represented in Parlia-
ment, still they will be content. They will go with
light hearts to shoot grouse and partrides, for they
will have worked a great work. England will
smell a little sweeter, and they will be the men:sho
have sweetened it. In the long run, this timidity
defeats its own object, and the country gets ;ired or
a Government that exists merely to exist. It is not
by calculated inaction that great names are made
and great results obtained. We might have expected
much more from many of the members of the pre-
sent Government than they give us. More espe-
cially, the Lord Chancellor is a source of iessonabte
disappointment. Hitherto he has not fulfilled the
sanguine anticipations with which a large portion
of his profession welcomed the accession to the wool-
sack of a man who was far the most accomplished
and weighty advocate of the English bar, who had
often expressed a strong desire to impress a wider
and more philosophic character on English law, and
who had given a considerable impulse to whatever
has been done for the improvement of legal educa-
tion in England. The appointment of near relatives
to every vacant office, and the production of a Bank
ruptcy Bill which requires already the tinkering
which all Bankruptcy Bills appear in succession to
require, are not very splendid results of the change
by which Sir Richard Bethell passed into Lord
Westbury.
SPECTATOR.—Counted head by head, the Tories
and their allies have, probably, if not a majority, at
least a force competent to throw out the Government,
or to sustain a new one in an appeal to the country.
They have, too, as a body, a strong bias against the
course they believe the Government is pursuing, and
some few but distinct ideas of the road on which they
would rather move. Yet they are almost power
less, or powerful only to lock the wheels of the coach
They menace, and talk, and consult, but as to action.
they " wait reinforcements." Their organisation
on points is excellent, so good that they hart
doctored the registers into partisanship, and are
winning at every turn new and contested seats.
They even seat their own men for the closest Go-
vernment boroughs, and Mr. Ferrand was received
in the House with as much enthusiasm as if he htld
been in himself a working majority. Daily the Tory
muster creeps up to the figure which ought to sig-
nify victory, and yet the army grows no stronger,
the chiefs are just as reb ctan c to set t he battle array.
The Liberals are almost as weak. They have in
internal affairs for the moment no scheme of action
whatever, except to defend Lord Palmerston on
account of his foreign policy, which Tories approve
as completely, if not as cordially, as themselves.
Their chief confines himself to abstaining fr..m
offering points of attack. They have therefore no
interest in the game, except when a test vote is
near, and feel besides that if they found one, they
might only heal the disputes which prevent the.
enemy's charge. They have postponed the idea of
Reform, and can rouse no fight on free trade, have no
enemy to contend with on foreign affairs, and do not
affect to care much for administrative or judicial ad-
vance. In other matters a kind of carelessness, pro-
duced chiefly by Tory weakness, has taken posses-
sion of their minds. They fulfil their pledges on
Wednesdays, but even ecclesiastical measures
scarcely excite them to action, and the fifty reforms
really wanted in this department of life obtain only
an approving decree of indefinite postponement.
Like the hands of some men who do no work, they
are still strong but flabby, and advance and recede
as if either were an annoying waste of power. They
know they must be beaten if they break up for action,
and prefer, on the whole, an anxious chaotic quiet.
The consequences of this state of affairs are, on
the whole, disastrous. The Cabinet, though unable
to move, still feels itself safe from attack, and per-
forms the work of the hour in a desultory shiftless
way. It is a garrison all in undress. Lord Rus-
sell makes a blunder in Brazil, and is almost too
indifferent to manufacture a telling defence. Sir
George Grey lets crime go on almost without ap-
pearing to'hear the public cry for protection. Mr.
Layard can hardly be bored to explain why new
trades have not been opened by treaties easily
framed ; and Lord Granville calmly remarks that
as to forthcoming measures—why, the Cabinet in-
tends most seriously to put down all bad smells.
Lord Palmerston does not care to explain why Mr.
Elliot told all the Greeks that they had obtained a
king when the crown had never begin taken, and
Mr. F. Peel thinks himself hardly used because he
cannot sell Epping Forest without a metropolitan
fuss. Even Mr. Gladstone lets his big cat out of the
bag so far, that he is obliged to reduce a duty before
his budget is ready; and Lord Granville seemed in-
clined to swear because asked to deal with endowed
schools. Not that Ministers, or their followers,are
enjoying an unaccustomed repose. The lassitude
does not proceed from sleep or anything else enjoy-
able, but simply from weary feebleness, which yet is
not fatigue. On the other side,the Tories, aware that
they cannot punish, are disposed to let things drift,
mutter about extravagance, and highhanded foreign
policy, and reckless interference in China, but bear
them all,rather than risk the annoyance involved in
a contest. Nobody attacks in earnest, and so nobody
defends, or acts as if he thought he should ever be
called upon for defence. The lassitude for Parlia-
mentary feeling is creeping into executive action,
and all that is not delayed is carelessly performed.
There is an aspect of weakness in all things, a, looa
like that of a convalescent hospital, and while it
lasts nothing will be attempted beyond a criticism
offered by critics who, all the while, want no change.
LAW TIMES.—The Lord Chancellor is settling a
bill for a partial change in the circuits ; so it was
stated in the House of Commons by the Attorney-
General. But the great and really desirable recon-
struction originally planned
has been abandoned
through the difficulties throw'? in the way of the
projected changes by the leading counsel, and the
reform is to be limited to the division of the North-
ern circuit. The Lord Chancellor seems to hays

lost all the courage t'iat has hitherto distingushed
him as a law reformer. Though differing from him
muca in his bankruptcy- scheme, and entirely in his
regis: ration of title scheme, we have always admired
and applauded the unflinching courage, as well as
the consummate ability, with which he has fought
the battle of law reform.
.It is, therefore, with no
small regret that we see Man now apparently halt-
ing in his course, doing nothing and promising
nothing, and permitting ate measures proposed by
others to be clipped and moulded to the conveniences
of private interests, instead of looking only to the
wants of the public. Anti yet there remains abun-
dance of good work to be
the done. A
ansion new law to
law
re-
gulate trusts mid trustees, exp of the
of evidence?, the improvement of the procedure in
magistrates' courts, the airle,adment of the jury sys-
tem, are ail demanded, and were looked for from
him who had done so much at. ready. There is yet
time for the session not to b 4 uite a blank in the
improvement of the law.
LONDON REVIEW.— William Ates.:Bnder King-
lake, at the breaking out of the ern.w
-ai,ondon.n War,
was practising as a chancery barrister in
About twenty years before he had travelled is the
East, and about ten years after his return home I,:e
had published in one small volume an. account of
his travels, which, from the playful and sub-sarcas-
tic style in which sacred topics were therein dealt
with, and the carefully-elaborated sarcasm in which.
the book abounded, obtained a marvellous success.
Since the publication of that work—which Mr.
Kinglake with dubious scholarship had called
Ed hen—he had retired upon his easily-eained
laurels and had remained a silent and apparently an
indolent member of society. Re was of a shy, silent,
studious habit; not addicted either to field sports or
athletic exercises; and remarkably short-sighted.
When war was declared, Mr. Kinglake chanced to
be spencVng his summer vacation abroad, and
directed his steps to the E hat with the view of wit-
nessing the operations of the allied armies. He ac-
companied the expedition to the Crimea, landed at
Old Fort, and on the morning of the battle of the
Alma rode on to the field of action. He was pro-
bably tht first who fell on it. His pony, not being
itself much accustomed to the saddle, en discover-
ing possibly, that its rider was in the same predica-
ment, ran away with him, and deposited him on the
ground almost at the feet of Lord Raglan. The
kind old soldier, on learning the name of the distill-.
guished writer who had thus singularly introduced
himself to his notice, repressed the smiles of his
aides-de-camp, rendered him what assistance he
could in his calamity, allowed him to accompany
his staff throughout the action, and finally invited
him to dinner when the hittle was won. To judge
from Mr. Kinglake's obviously exaggerated account
of the dangers to which he was exposed during the
fight (see pp. 264 to 266, vol. ii.), he cannot be said
to have been in a frame of mind very favourable to
calm observation, even if he had not been physi-
cally disqualified by his detective eye-sight for-
the task. lo saying this we by no means desire
to insinuate anything derogatory to Mr. Kinglake's
personal courage, which we are convinced is of the
very highest order. We wish he was not so ready
to impute cowardice to others. We only mean to
imply that the obvious personal interest which he
appears from his narrative to have taken in the ar-
tillery practice of the Russian gunners was not par-
ticularly calculated to render him a reliable eye-
witness of the general conduct of the battle by
which he was surrounded. He himself points out
the disadvantage which resulted to the Light Divi-
sion from the defective sight of its three leaders;
and accounts for the short-comings of Prince Gorts-
chakoff, by " the concussion of a fall" which that
general hid from his horse, and which, according
to Mr. Kinglake's suggestion, may possibly " have
clouded his judgment,"—without seeing that the
arguments which he uses to account for the errors of
others may with perfect fairness be turned against
his own claims to accuracy.