The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-03 00:00:00

THERMOMETER.

-------
This morning.
This day at Two o'clock

Barometer-30.00.
light breeze, and fine weather.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Its DAL: Morning, 2h. 40m.—Afternoon, 3h. sm.
To-moßaow.-Moraing, 312. 30m.—Afternoon, 3h. 55m.

4c,

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 1863.

There are some men who are apparently alway
eager for the opportunity of making themselves
ridiculous, Mr. WHALLEY is one of these, and, as
fate would have it, several years back he found his
opportunity. It is an opportunity, moreover, that,
once seized, comes back to him periodically. Every
successive session it returns within his reach, and he
grasps at it. And every successive session the hon.
gentleman makes himself thereby, if that be really in
any vvaypossible,moreand more ridiculous. What Mr.
WHALLEY'S opportunity was--who is there, having
the slightest knowledge of the House of Commons
as it is, that does not know by this time ? To say
that it arose—this priceless opportunity for the
member for Peterborough—to say that it arose from
the fact of Mr. SPOON ER'S cloak (metaphorically
speaking) having fluttered down upon his shoulders
during the actual lifetime, during the actual con.
tinuance in the House of Commons, of that venerable
and respected gentleman the member for North
Warwickshire—is to say, in this matter,
scarcely anything. And fur this simple and
very matter of fact reason that—there is a difference
in the manner cf wearing a cloak ! For example
we may naturally presume that JULIUS GLESAR,
that man of men, who was endowedwith about the
grandest intellect among all the great Conquerors
of the classic pagan age—we may naturally pre-
sume that CAESAR, when stabbed to death at the
base of POMPEY'S Pillar, must, in falling, have
gathered his raiment about him with an awful
and affecting dignity. SHAKSP ERE in fact
is the one to suggest this, as in the
highest degree probable, where, referring to the
anguish with which the Dictator saw the hand of
BRUTUS raised against him among the group of
assassins, the Poet writes—" Then burst his mighty
heart, and, in his garment muffling up his face,
great C.:ESAR fell." Yet, robe a THERSITES with
that same identical garment—upon any occa-
sion, under any imaginable circumstances—
and it becomes upon the instant some-
thing absolutely ludicrous. We don't suppose
that Mr. ROBERT KEELEY, if he were
to return to the stage of the Haymarket some even-
ing, for this express purpose, could possibly walk
across that stage, swathed about in a toga, without
Provoking roars of laughter. Mr. TooLE, of the
might move the most saturnine to merri-
ka., 'we believe, by the same easy means.
all this •
salt la 111 not because the raiment it-
but Itivvyans: respect intrinsically ridiculous,
stances, Zesuee in either of these in-
gifts and et,4ovna: of it has essentially the
genuine low ceraetiu.ts requisite to constitute the
Those gifts and '4:*
h
member for Peterbo.ev
eoduh
"letentl7
the honourable
a very high degree. oshesses in
ci
a grave and respectable 'leva-" 1118 Shoulders
SPOONER'S metaphorical cloal:Arneut7,:ald 1‘1;
diately becomes ridiculous. The laughter
every session by his manner of g-tet"',om Cired
yet been tcole wearing
for it, xr.
WHALLEY has never
life of him to comprehend. Under thethe
irritation of that laughter, he
becomes
every session more and more goaded into a display
of petulance that tends, by exciting him into
greater activity, to induce him, as one may say, to 1
wrap it tighter about him, in his indignation at
being laughed at, until the comic folds of the mantle
so worn become almost unendurable to look ut it.
JOHN BULL, in regard to Mr. WHALLEY,
the member for Peterborough,is fast ap-
proaching that stage of exhaustion from
laughter, reached—one evening (as the story runs)
in the pit of a theatre when LISTON was acting—
by another stout old gentleman who, while wiping
his eyes, was overheard gasping out in a scarcely
audible voice, "For GOD'S sake take hire away, or
he'll be the death of me." Now that colonel
siTROUP has passed away, now that the
he late 'whimsical member for West Surrey can no