The Sun.
London, England, 1863-05-11 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

SATURDAY REVIEW.—Mr. Gladstone deliberately
commits Parliamentary suicide, by throwing him-
self in the way of majorities that run over him. Sir
George Grey, on the other hand, like a nervous old
lady at a crossing, generally contrives to be run
over from sheer anxiety to get out of everybody's
way. There is something fine in the knight-errant-
like spirit in which Mr. Gladstone seeks out a diffi-
culty. His position as Chancellor of the Exchequer
furnishes him with considerable facilities for aggra-
vation. It is always possible in a budget, even if you
have a serplus,to tread on a great many people's toss.
In fee', the possession of a surplus rather increases
than diminishes a Minister's power of giving offence.
People will submit to he taxed, even according to
very unjust or very ridiculous principles, when it is
absolutely necessary that the money should be raised
somehow. But to be worried or insulted by a small
demand from the tax-gatherer, in order merely to
accommodate the Minieter's sense of symmetry, is
a circumstance of irritation which will try the tem-
per of the most patient tax-payer. Shearing is all
very well when there is some fleece to be got ; but
to have the point of the shears run into his back,
merely for the purpose of trimming one or two dis-
orderly hairs, is a sort of thine which no animal
can be expected to stand. Mr. Gladstone, however,
has proved that he is not dependent on a dexterous
manipulation of his finance for success in provoking
hostility. He has shown that he can still flay the
managers of charities alive, even though he is not
allowed to carry off the skin. No doubt, if his tax
on clubs should fail, he will be able, by descanting
on the wit kedness of which members of clubs have
at all periods been guilty, to offend every member
of a club quite as much as if he had imposed the
tax specially upon him. He shows a similar dex-
terity in frightening numbers of people beyond
those whom it is his intention to tax. The actual
proposal of very dangerous taxes is attended with
difficulties in the Cabinet; but as Mr. Gladstone
has shown, by repeated experiments, it is quite pos-
sible to propose an innocuous tax, or even a remis-
sion of taxation, in language that shall effectually
alarm every capitalist in the country. In a Minister
who was designed to be safe, this might be a dan-
gerous qualification ; but in a Minister whose chief
function it is to be pulled by Lord Palmerston out
of a political ditch, it will deserve eulogy in propor-
tion to the frequency with which he has created
an opportunity for displaying the adroitness of his
chief.

SPECTATOR.—This session the slaughter of the
innocents is beginning early. About the end of
July, when everything looks dusty and hot, and
everybody looks cynical and exhausted, one esteems
it quite a relief when the Minister jauntily mas-
sacres his own legislative offspring, and is disposed
to regard it as rather a clever thing than not. But
May is really too early. If, indeed, the Cabinet
had given birth to such an enormous family of use-
ful and important measures, that the disappearance
of one or two of them could be regarded as only an
ordinary occurrence just as one expects a certain
per centage of a brood of chickens to die of the
croup—it would be more tolerable. But Govern-
ment introduces only two measures into the house
of the least importance—the bill for the amalgama-
tion of the City and Metropolitan police, and the
proposal to deprive property left to so-called chari-
table uses of the exemption from income tax which
it now enjoys ; and although both are measures of
reform essentially just and necessary, we have
scarcely time to scrutinise their fair proportions,
before the one is ruthlessly murdered and the other
disappears. Indeed, the Home Secretary is perfectly
shameless. He hands over his progeny to the Stand-
ing Orders Committee to be quietly put out of sight
just as the bad uncle did the "Babes in the Wood,"
and seems to be quite willing to leave it to chance
to play " Cock Robin," and decently conceal the
corpse. Mr. Gladstone was at all events decorous.
He, indeed, sacrificed his offspring, but, at least,
before the perpetration of the offence, he lifted up
his voice and wept. We do not care to conceal our
opinioa that a Government in circumstances such as
these—a Government which affects to lead the
House of Commons, and clearly does not lead it—
which has not strength enough to force through
bills which strike at local abuses nor prudence
enough to avoid a contest with the classes who pro-
fit by them—presents, even to its own supporters,
a sorry sight. No doubt the late Lady Macbeth con-
demned every such admission against interest as a
foolish Thought, but Lady Macbeth was an accom-
plice, and we are certainly not. The complaint
against the Cabinet is that it does not pass any
measures, but that it introduces what it ought to
have foreseen that it could not pass.
LONDON REVIEW.—The residence at Marl-
boroegh of the newly-married Prince and Pi inJess
seems likely to make the month of May brighter
even than it usually is in the summer-loving metro-
polis. Few prettier sights are to be seen in Europe
than Hyde Park on a declining afternoon ; and dur-
ing the season which has recently begun, the ci owds,
in the eye of a loyal Englishman, will seem
gayer, the trees greener, and the Row more
fashionable than common. If the young
heir to the throne is of a reflective turn of
mind, he cannot but be struck with the reception
accorded by the throngs through which his daily
drive lies, both to himself and to his bride, neither
of whom have long emerged from boyhood and girl-
hood, as the case may be, and whose respective
merits or demerits are almost entirely unknown to
the world. The sight of two happy young people
who are not oppressed either by worldly care or,
in all probability, by the problems of philosophy, is
always enlivening. The young and inexperienced
are generally popular, and when refinement and de-
licacy come in to crown the combination, predilec-
tion very naturally turns into enthusiasm. Senti-
ment has, no doubt, something to do with the cor-
dial welcome given this year to our future King and
Queen. The same kind of feeling with which Mr.
Thackeray looks on youth, gives a zest to the ad-
miration and attention they attract. The older a
man grows the fonder he gets of the dim distances
of childhood and of the light-hearted pleasure which
he has left so far behind him. The words youth
and beauty stir in his mind the old associations of
the past, and call up within him springs of indis-
tinct fondness. He has here before his eyes what
may serve as an embodiment of youth and beauty ;
for there is just that sort of pleasant impersonality
about princes and princesses of whom we know no-
thing, and just that sort of vague uncertainty about
the sphere in which they move, which renders the
transition from abstract and general ideas to these
Royal impersonations easy and impalpable. In
England, says M.Montalembert, Royalty is nothing
more than liberty crowned—la liberte couronnee.
Partly, no doubt, M. Montalembert is right,
but he does not exhaust the idealizing
tendencies of humanity, if he supposes that
the Crown and Court in this country are simply popu-
lar from political reasons. Royalty is not " liberty
crowned" only, though no doubt it is something
" crowned." A few months back it was domestic
happiness and Goodness crowned. Of late it has
been Widowhood and noble grief. To-day and for
our present purpose it is, as we have said, youth and
beauty crowned. We see, or think we see, on a
Royal eminence, the qualities which interest us
most in private life. The distance at which we
stand prevents us from criticising too narrowly the
drawbacksor the blemishes in the tableau. For us the
picture has no dark side ; all is radiant and bright.
Between the royal carriage, as it drives along the
Serpentine, and the gaily-dressed ladies and gentle-
men who look on, there is a sufficient space and in-
terval to enable them all to idealize a little. What
they admire so much is- a creation of their own
hearts, which imagination allows them to transfer
to the inside of the passing equipage. It is not
the Prince and Princess that are seated there ; it is
La Jeunesse Doree—the sunshine of Golden Age—
Youth and Happiness and Beauty ; and we people
the palace with the figures and the attributes that
more properly belong to Cloudland.

THE MlRROR.—Despite his matchless gifts of
rhetoric, which suffice for the hour to make any
proposal appear a good one, and to invest a crotchet
with the air of a self-evident proposition, it is obvi-
ous that there is a want of breadth and balance in
Mr. Gladstone's judgment which ever and anon
leads him into grievous and irritating mistakes.
In a Premier this defect would be fatal; in a sub
ordinate it is merely embarrassing. And yet, but
for the timely intervention of the Jupiter of the
Cabinet, one of these mistakes on the part of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer would on Monday have
subjected the Ministry to a defeat which would
have damaged its prestige if not endangered its ex-
istence. In his Budget speech, Mr. Gladstone corn
menced the practical part of his exposition with an
announcement which seemed to promise that what-
ever may have been his tendency to financial crot-
chets in the past, such crotchets would find favour
with him no more. With frankness and good
humour he represented himself as a second Brutus,
compelled by a sense of duty to sacrifice his off-
spring—to wit, those petty taxes on commercial
transactions which he had imposed two years before,
hut which had proved exceedingly irksome to the
trading community, and had added almost nothing
to the revenue. But no sooner had he cancelled
these mistakes, than with perverse ingenuity he
rushes into others still worse. Revoking his plague
upon commerce, he sought and found other victims
for his petty torture in clubs, charities, and carriers.
But the House of Commons this year has grown
somewhat restive, and declines to put any more
victims on the rack for nothing. Both the carriers
and the charities have already escaped from the
pincers of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the
clubs have now proved equally fortunate.
LAW TIMES.—Mr. Bouverie has withdrawn his
Writs Prohibition Bill, frankly admitting that such

was the opposition it encountered he could not hope
to carry it, While congratulating the profession
on this result of their timely protest, we may per-
naps be permitted to use the privilege of an old and
tried friend, taught by long experience, to suggest
to them the moral of this incident in the history of
the law and the lawyers, and it is, that when the
profession pleases to put forth its power, it car per-
fectly protect itself against unjust or injudicious
legislation. When we first sounded the alarm on
the production of Mr. Bouverie's scheme for confis-
cating debts under £2O, the profession bestirred
itself promptly, iu good earnest, and in the right
manner. Instead of leaving its defence to the slow
action of societies, we counselled the adoption of
individual efforts for self-protection, by personal in-
vocation to representatives to present a petition,
and support its prayer. It was the influence thus
brought to bear upon individual M P.'s. without
reference to party, that sealed the fate of Mr. Bou-
vetie's B 11, and informed him that he would be
beaten on a division, inducing that graceful retreat
to avoid a majority which we record with so much
pleasure to-day. As the solicitors have done on this
occasion, so they might and should do on all future
occasions, whenever their implacable foes forge a
new weapon for their destruction.
ATHENIEUM.—One of the grievances to which
the Royal Academicians have hitherto clung has,
to some extent, been removed. Candidates for
admission as Associates have always been compelled
to attend at the Academy in the month of May, and
inscribe their names in a book kept there. Many a
high-spirited artist has been kept out of the Society
by this regulation, because he considered it such an
indignity that he never would submit to it; or else
he ultimately became disgusted with, and avoided
the annual humiliation imposed upon him of thus-
soliciting to he permitted to compete for the honour
of being elected an Associate of the Royal Academy.
What valid reason is it possible to assign for thus
practically compelling an artist, either annually,
or even once, to solicit the consideration of his pro-
fessional claims by the Royal Academicians ?
Surely the fact of a man sending his works for
exhibition at the Academy might and ought to be
deemed sufficient evidence of his desire to be elected
an Associate. Can it be doubted that the honour
would be enhanced to the recipient from the tact of
its having been conferred without any solicitation
upon his part ? It may be well to remind the
Royal Academicians that the existence of their most
questionable monopoly of the professional honours
,nd powers they enjoy depends exclusively on the
will and pleasure of the Crown. Also, that, in
fact, they are but trustees appointed for promoting
British Art. They well know how galling the
regulation has always been considered, and how
keenly sensitive most artists are. Consequently we
submit that in deference to the feelings of the non-
members of the Academy the whole of the regula-
tion in question ought to be entirely abolished.

THE QUEEN.—Some ill-natured persons are ask-
ing " did the Prince of Wales compose the speech
delivered at the Royal Academy himself ?" We
ask what reason there is to doubt it It is far from
being an elaborate or a pretentious composition. It
is just such a simple utterance of feeling as a well
bred, right-minded young English gentleman would
be likely to speak on the spur of the moment. It
certainly bears no sort of resemblance to the com-
position of General Knollys, the erudite Commis-
sioner of Military Education, who has the credit
for being the Prince's literary father confessor.
Why, then, should not his Royal Highness be the
author of his own very feeling and simply eloquent
little speech ? In the lifetime of his august father
it used sometimes to be doubted whether be wrote
his own speeches, and the credit of their composi-
tion used to be assigned to all manner of persons ;
and yet before he had been a year in the grave, the
world was furnished with the best possible proof
that he had composed them himself, in the form of
an edition of them printed from copies in his own
handwriting, and authenticated by the Queen her
self. The impression which the Prince's speech
made upon the distinguished audience was highly
favourable to him, and no speech, not even that
in which the Premier offered his audience one of
the strongest doses of flattery possible, by telling
them that " there was assembled in these rooms
a greater amount of cultivation of mind, of natural
genius, of everything which constitutes the develop-
ment of human intellect, than perhaps ever is assem-
bled within the same space elsewhere; not even this
wholesale supply of intellectual butter was received
with greater gratification. To be sure, the audience,
like ourselves, may have heard of certain collections
of works of art, and certain creations of art and
science which afford far higher illustrations of
"everything which constitutes the development of
human intellect" than a Royal Academy Exhibi-
tion can possibly do, and held their peace for very
shame.