The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-05 00:00:00

Bulwer's Genial Estimate of This Age.

" Now, our world at this epoch, though I do not desire
to flatter, is certainly not one which would justify Thales
in bidding farewell to it, If we consult history in an un-
prejudiced, unsuperstitious spirit, I do not think we shall
find that the world, regarded as a whole, has ever been
much better then it is now, and in many important respects
it has been much worse. I speak more especially of the
world in ray own country, which at this moment is certainly
a more humane, peaceable, orderly, moral, decorous, and
yet good-natured world than it ever seems to have been,
from the date of the last George up to that of the first Wil-
liam, If I look back to the chronicles of the eighteenth
century—nay, if I look back only as far as the year in
which I left college—l am startled at the visible improve-
ment. Ido not say that these rare individuals who stand
forth as the landmarks of time were net possibly much
greater, and considering the temptations that begirt them,
much better than individuals nowadays. I honour the re-
verence to noble tombs too implicitly to believe that any
living great man can equal a dead great man. A dead great
man is a shrined ideal of excellence; a living great man is
a struggling fellow-mortal. The one is Hercules assoiled
from mortal stain when separated from mortal labour, who
has ascended from the fire-pile to the Nectar'Hall of Olym-
pus; but the other is the Hercules who, if at one time he
is valiantly slaying Hydras, and calmly braving the very
Powers of Orcus, is seen at another tine the effeminate
slave of Ompimle, or the frenzied murderer of Iphitus.
But the progress of society has very fallacious milestones in
the monuments we erect to apotheosised individuals.
Whatever my admiration for Alexander—and, in spite of
Mr. Grote, it is intense—Alexander's march through Asia
affords me no gleam of intelligence as to the advance of his
Macedonian people in the theories of political government
or ethical doctrine,

" What I see in England—comparing this century with
the last—or comparing even the date in which I now write
with the date in which I wrote first—is the advancement of
numbers, the more general culture of intellect, the milder
constructions of law, the greater tenderness to suffering and
erring humanity, the more decent respect to domestic sanc-
tities, the more intellectual—not unreasoning—acquiescence
in truth. And, therefore, looking at the world as reflected
in the microcosm of my own country—through all gradations
of society, from the palace to the cottage—and through all
sections of opinion, from that of a pulpit to that of a club—
it seems to me that a writer of our day and land, aspiring
to fame for knowledge of the world, would view that world
not with the abhorrence of Juvenal,' not with the despair
of venerable Bede, but with as indulgent a charity as that
which makes Shakespeare and Goethe so lov4a.bly mild and
so genially wise. Still the world is the world, and it is not
Utopia. Even in our own England, no doubt, there is
much that is very bad, and wo varnish it over by what in
vernacular vulgarism is called cant,' while out of England
there are many things which revolt our English precon•
ceived opinions."—Mackwood for September.

ANOTHER CRINOLINE VICTIINI,—DEATH FROM
FlRE.—Yesterday Mr. Humphrey, the Middlese.e
coroner, received information respecting the death of Eliza-
beth Cox, aged 35 years, r.-siding at 16, William-street
North, Mile-end Old-town, who died in the London Hos-
pital under the following circumstances :—lt appears that
the deceased was the wife of Police-constable 187 K, and
on Thursday, while in the kitchen washing out the sink,
by the side of the fire-place, a piece of lighted wood fell
from the stove on to the floor, whereby her dress, which
was extended by a crinoline petticoat, became ignited. Her
screams brought the husband to her assistance, when the
flames were extinguished, but not before her body and limbs
were most shockingly blackened and charred by the action
of :the flames. A medical gentleman was called, who ad-
vised her removal to the above-named institution, where
she expired from the mortal effects of the burns, Au input
will be held QI the body to day,