The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-25 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 25, 1863.

The speeches delivered yesterday before an im-
mense audience of fully three thousand people down
at Rochdale, by Mr. COBDEN and Mr. BRIGHT, are
to us positively refreshing. In the midst of so much
apathy, silence, indifference, of so little being said
that is really worth listening to, of absolutely
nothing whatever being done that notoriously wants
doing, among our leading politicians—it is in sim-
plest truth nothing less than refreshing to hear or
read the outspoken thoughts, the earnest convic-
tions, the avowal of the bold and clearly-defined
principles of two such men as the member for Roch-
dale and the member for Birmingham. Even when
we least coincide with their views, those views of
theirs are propounded with such a manly precision
and distinctness that even their opponents must
needs listen to their enunciation with a profound
interest and even at times it would not be extrava-
gant to assert, with a sort of irritated admiration.
Indeed the unreserved ontepeaking alluded to may
be pronounced at once, in regard to each of them,
to be simply constitutional. It has more than
once been observable in the course of their
etrictly contemporary careers, careers that have
beene running parallel with each other, almost unin-
terruptedly uPtedly during the last quarter of a century, that
eu their opinions have been least in accordance
with those of the People, of the Press, and of Parlia-
rnent,theee 0 • fear-
lessly
expreOpinions have been if possible more fear-
than ever alike on the hustings, on
the public platform,e
the second bench below
and from their favourite seat on
side of the Government,
the gangway, now on the
raent, now on the side of the
Opposition, accordingre to
the Ins and Outs of Party.
However hopeless their position as leaders of public
opinion—as in
the
instance of the Chinese War or
of the war in the ,
eri
question of importance, eo:y how in regard to this
In regard to that—they
have never yet shirked
a difficulty,W nor for that
matter is we believe,ossibilit any
ay
likely that they
could by any
py, under
cearntyi imaginable
circumstances, do so. There is a
of temperament frequently noticeable
fliarßrogance
RIGHT,
it is true, that is not in the least discernable
t'
the
instance of his older and calmer
Colle
*Whereas the genius of Mr. Bien:are is
thi,etue;
an impassioned demagogue, the genius of
COBDEN is far more luminous and philosophic
in its character, is that at once of a logician and a
Statesman. While Mr. BRIGHT, in his happier
moments and among a congenial multitude, bears
his hearers away with him, so to speak, by the
very impetuosity of his declamation, Mr. COBDEN
often carries unwilling conviction home to the
judgment of an alien audience by the cogency of his
arguments, arguments having about them repeatedly
the surprise of wit, no less than the force and clear-
ness of so many epigrammatic syllogisms. Although,
from the peculiar circumstance of the present
political situation, wo might even say of the
rresent political stagnation, neither Mr. BRIGHT
nor Mr. COBDEN, could speak otherwise yesterday
than..e in sarcasm or in remonstrance, they have not
I a very long while been either of them in a
ha •
lelnee vein than they were last evening while
dese •
antmg
Pon that situation, while reprobating
that stagnation. Nothing could well have been
more felicituns in the
way of good-humoured satire
than many of the
telr ng points, the lucky hits
recognisable is the lee
for Rochdale. Instance
address of the mem-
ber"ele this, his allusions to
the ignorance evidenced, y too frequently among
many of those arrogating to
th
country the right to criticise the fluctuations of the
war, or to anticipate the probable issue
North American Republic—an ignora of it, in the
regard to well-ascertained statistics, and
i:r efvennin"
actually to geographical particulars. The scorn-
ful sarcasms of the Member for Birmingham, how.