The Sun.
London, England, 1830-01-13 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

The Letters and Journals of Lord Byron,
with Notices of his ',fie, by Thomas Moore,
has but this moment reached us. As respects
both the subject of this work, and its part editor,
part author, their names are sufficient to explain
the anxiety with which it has been looked for ;
and from even the glance which we have yet been
enabled to bestow upon the first 50 or 60 pages
of the book, we are tempted to pronounce that
this piece of biography is eminently calculated
to attract, engage, and rivet the earnest attention
of minds of all orders and capacities, whether
those whose intellectual pleasures are incomplete
when unaccompanied by a frequent reflection
upon their sources, or those which more humbly
receive the delight prepared for them, and are
content to be gratified without once asking why.
Mr. Moore has undervalued his own share in
these volumes by designating it merely as " no-
tices" of Lord Byron's life. These " notices,"
however, seem to us to constitute one of the most
pleasing and interesting biographical memoirs that
have ever yet been published. No one need be
told of what a range of composition Mr. Moore
is capable, when be gives the reins to his
ambition. Even when the effort is manifest, in
his hands it loses not the power to captivate or
strike. But in his present production he ap-
pears to have essayed a new mode of writing ;
for if there be one quality more predominant than
another in all that we have yet read of his early
history of Lord Byron, it is the unpretending,
easy, and beautiful simplicity, with which he has
constructed his matter and clothed his style.
There is not, as far as we have yet proceeded, a
single paragraph laboured into artificial splen-
dour ; nor is there one deficient in that higher
class of animation which leads the reader in-
voluntarily onwards, and makes it almost impos-
sible to criticize the work until he has first de-
voured it. We cannot yet speak of more than
two or three of Lord Byron's own letters, which
professedly form the chief portion of the book ;
but they begin with his boyhood, and terminate
only (we take for granted) with his life. Further
opportunities will be afforded us of dwelling on
this valuable accession to English literature, of
which we must now take a reluctant leave ; at
present we cannot find room for more than the
dedication and preface.

" TO

" SIR WALTER SCOTT, BARONET,
" THESE VOLUMES

" Dec. 1829.

" ARE INSCRIBED,

" BY BIS AFFECTIONATE FRIEND,
" THOMAS MOORE.

" PREFACE.

" In presenting these volumes to the public, I
should have felt, I own, considerable diffidence,
from a sincere distrust in my own powers of doing
justice to such a task, were I not well convinced
that there is in the subject itself, and in the rich
variety of materials here brought to illustrate it, a
degree of attraction and interest which it would be
difficult, even for hands the most unskilful, to ex-
tinguish. However lamentable were the circum-
stances under which Lord Byron became estranged
from his country, to his long absence from England,
during the most brilliant period of his powers, we
are indebted for all those interesting letters which
compose the greater part of the second volume of
th!s work, and which will be found equal, if not
superior, in point of vigour, variety, and liveliness,
to any that have yet adorned this branch of our
literature.

" What has been said of Petrarch, that his' cor-
respondence and verses together afford the progres-
sive interest of a narrative in which the poet is
always identified with the man,' will be found ap-
plicable, in a far greater degree, to Lord Byroh, in
whom the literary and personal character were so
closely interwoven, that to have left his works
without the instructive commentary which his life and
correspondence afford, would have been equally an
injustice both to himself and to the world."—Times.

The latest accounts from India evince a spirit
in the army deserving of the severest reprehen-
sion. The orders issued to effect reductions, so
far from having been peaceably complied with,
have been resisted in some instances by troops
who have wrought themselves up to a state of
positive mutiny. The question with regard to

the establishment in India is soon stated. The
military and civil servants of the Company in
India have divided among themselves the whole
territorial revenue. Nay, they have even drawn
from the country more than it was able to pay,
for it has been found absolutely necessary to re-
duce the taxation in mercy to the people. 'What
is it that these men would have ? Do they
wish actually to divide the territories among
themselves ? They at present engross the whole
revenues ; and if with this they are dissatisfied,
the next seep must be to proclaim themselves
complete Sovereigns. The present conjuncture
of a peace has been deemed by the East India
Company favourable for the reduction of a por-
tion of their immense army. Can anything be
more reasonable than that a Government, forced
to increase its army to a disproportio►►ate magni-
tude during an expensive war, should attempt
reductions on the conclusion of peace ? Such,
however, is not the way of thinking of this deli-
berating army. Several battalions have wrought
themselves up to the pitch of audacity of actually
resisting the orders to reduce, as if a soldier ought
to have any suffrage in such a case. It may be
very inconvenient to officers to find their battalions
reduced ; but if it is to depend on them whether
their services are or are riot to be dispensed with,
there is at once an end to all military subjection.
Any man who has seen any of the officers of
the Indian army immediately after their return
to this country, must have been struck with the
absurd extravagance of the ideas of their own
consequence they bring back with them. To
hear them, every thing that could possibly be
done for them is far beneath what is due
to their extraordinary merit. They leave
this country boys, find themselves suddenly
elevated to command among a race little
disposed to question their superiority, mix only
with each other, and thus the delusions of self.
love and self-conceit strike deeper and deeper
root, finding no corrective in the wholesome
admonition administered by rival vanities and
rival ambitions. It is obvious, that under such
circumstances, the least encouragement may soon
lead men so little disposed to under-rate their
own consequence as absolutely to forget them-
selves. The first symptoms of disobedience
must, therefore, be attended to, and promptly
and efficaciously repressed. We have no idea
of soldiers constituting themselves a deliberative
body; and if we would not tolerate this any-
where, least of all would we tolerate it in so dis-
tant a region as India. The least concession to
such a spirit would only provoke further de-
mands. If they will proclaim themselves So-
vereigns, the sooner we know what they would
be at the better. Do ►►ot, however, let them run
away with the idea that they are indispensible.
In this country there are at present, unfortu-
nately, but too many youths, whom their parents

are unable to provide for, and nothing so easy as
to supply the places of those who are tired of
serving longer in India.--Morning Chronicle.
We really do not see any thing so very at-
tractive in the situation of Prime .Minister of
this country at the present moment, that we
should attribute to the Duke of Wellington a
disposition to baulk the ambition of any one de-
sirous of supplying his place. There may be in-
dividuals who think that a hard measure is dealt
out to hi,-3 Majesty in reining in so tightly his
desire to spend money in baubles and Palaces,
and who would have the courage to tell Parlia-
ment on its assembling that far too little has been
laid out on Windsor, the Cottage, and Pimlico;
and that his Majesty—God bless him !—should
not, in his age, be allowed to feel too much of
the distresses of his people, by experiencing their
re-action on the indulgence of his own habits.
A nobler occasion could hardly be conceived for
the indulgence of a lofty vein of loyalty than the
present, when, with a falling revenue, one part
of the country gentlemen are calling out for a
reduction of seven millions, and the other part
calling out for an attack on the Fundholders. In
sober seriousness, who would continue to fill the
office of Prime Minister, at the present moment,
on any other principle than that of a belief that
duty prescribes such a sacrifice ? Reforms and
reductions are demanded on all sides. The

Country Gentlemen and Yeomanry are impa-
tient. The Church is assailed from without
and within. He must be a bold man who can
humour his Majesty, gratify Parliament, and
persuade the People that taxation is not too
high, and that there are not too many Bishops
in the Irish Church and too few working Clergy.
His Majesty may find such an extraordinary
man in his wide-spread dominions ; in which
case, we are quite sure the Duke of Wellington,
who, we suspect, is by no means so sanguine as
to his power of working miracles, would willingly
make way for him. Those who believe in such
a possibility are also, no doubt, prepared for the
opening of Parliament with a new Ministry.--
/bid.

We are given to understand that Sir Janie
Burrough resigned his place, as one of
.they
Judges of the Common Pleas, upon the sth
instant—certainly not an hour too soon. We
know not how far our comments upon the man-
ner in which the last vacancy upon the Judicial
Bench was filled up, may have been agreeable
to the present fastidious Supervisor of the Press ;
but sure we are that it is not by animadversions
upon the legal appointments made within the
last ten years, that the journals of this country
have rendered themselves liable to the reproach
of licentiousness which the Whig Attorney-
General made against them. In reference to
this subject, the forbearance of public writers
has, indeed, amounted to something like a de-
reliction of duty, since there is no function of
the executive which, alike from its importance
and its delicacy, demands a more jealous and
vigilant scrutiny, than the selection of those
Magistrates, who are, more peculiarly under
the British system of jurisprudence, the living
oracles of law ; and as regards the commerce
between man and man in the private relations
of life, in a much truer and more extensive
signification of the title, the legislators of the
country, than the Houses of Parliament. In
thus refraining to canvas the merits of judi-
cial appointments, the Press betrays the in-
fluence of that morbid tenderness for per-
sonal character, which, if generally allowed to
prevail towards individuals in public employ-
ments, would paralyse its functions. '1 he fact
is, that sufficient reliance has not been placed
upon the criterion of merit supplied by the pro-
fessional estimation enjoyed by the objects of
legal appointments among their brethren. When
we speak of merit, we must not be supposed so
little acquainted with the present frame of society
as to indulge the Utopian expectation that the
highest degree of absolute merit shall in every
instance meet with preferment ; neither do we
imagine that the advancement of any individual
has been brought about by the base, sordid
means intimated in the silly apothegm of Corpo-
ral Trim; but a well informed person would
have little difficulty in specifying circumstances
concerning most of the men at present on the
Bench, the coincidence of which with great in-
dividual merit is at least one of those facts well
deserving the notice of a philosopher imbued
with Doctor Pangloss's professions in favour of
the arrangement of things in this best of all pos-
sible worlds. Thus it happily fell out that there
was not a member of the profession so well
adapted from his previous occupations, and so
eminently qualified by profound knowledge of
common law to preside in the Court of Ex-
chequer, when Chief Baron Richards died,
as a close intimate friend of the then

Lord Chancellor Eldon ; just as recently, in the
case of Baron Bolland, it was impossible to name
a gentleman so likely to raise the character of
that Court as an individual, in like manner, at-
tached to the present Chancellor, Lord Lynd-
hurst ; nay, to fill a former vacancy in this iden-
tical Court, who so fit as was by general ac-
claim of the Profession, the brother of the King's
favourite physician ? Again, one of the very
best Judges on the Bench is the brother of a
gentleman enjoying considerable influence in the
()Teat commercial town► with which the Minister
(Canning) under whose government his appoint-
ment took place, was closely connected ; and, un-
der a succeeding Administration, was not the
best of all imaginable Vice-Chancellors found in
the parson of the auditor of a Lady, the aunt of
the First Lord of the Treasury ! These are, it
will he admitted, coincidences sufficiently feli-
citous, not " tending (Heaven forefend) to
bring the Government into contempt ;" but to
show, Sir James Scarlett must allow us, how
perfectly compatible with the discharge of a high
public trust, on principles the most pure, lofty,
and patriotic, may be the indulgence of private
predilections and the gratification of private in-
terests. Mr. Serjeant Bosanquet and Mr. Taun-
too are, it is said, the competitors for Sir James
Burrough's vacant seat.—lbld.

We have long dwelt on the necessity of a
Poor-rate in Ireland, both with a view to the
improvement of that country and to the welfare
of this. In Ireland the subject is frequently
agitated. We are glad to see the country gen-
tlemen of England alive to the evils which the
agriculturists of this country suffer from the
anomalous condition of the Sister Kingdom.
We have before us a small but well written pam-
phlet, published by Mr. Ridgway, in the shape
of " A Letter to the Agriculturists of England,
on the Expediency of extending the Poor Law
to Ireland, by a Landowner." The author, in
the body of the pamphlet, describes himself as
a Wiltshire landowner. The English Agricul-
turists suffer at present from a variety of
causes. We fully agree, however, with the
author of this pamphlet, that they suffer more
from the want of a provision for the poor in
Ireland than they are aware of. " not;

it first sight (he Says), strike every one to
what an extent this circumstance affects the
landed interest of England. But a very short
investigation will, I think, make this matter clear
to all.

" The absence in Ireland of the poor-law, to
which, in England, landed property contributes so
largely, affects the holders of that property in two
ways—_

" 1. In the first place the poor of Ireland are,
through want, compelled to migrate to this country
in hordes; and being willing to work for the lowest
pittance rather than starve, their only alternative,
they drive out of employment, in tl►e towns and
manufacturing districts of England, thousands of
native labourers, who fall back upon their parishes
for support, and are maintained by them in idleness,
or something like it, at an enormous expence. It
is evidently the same thingto the English rate-payers
whether they maintain the Irish paupers themselves,
or an equal number of their own par►shioners, turned
into paupers by the immigration of the Irish, ar►d
who, but for this, would find work enough to main-
tain them independent of parochial relief. It is
clear, therefore, that owing to the absence of a poor-
law in Ireland, English property is virtually rated
to maintain a great part of the Irish pauper popu-
lation.

" I do not dwell on the large sums which are paid
out of the county rates directly towards the support
of Irish vagrants. This, though a conside►able
grievance (in the county in which I am writing,
Wilts, it amounts to near 1,000/. per annum), is a
drop in the ocean compared to the burthen cf sup-
port►ng the thousands of English labourers thrown
upon their parishes by the competition of Irish,
who have no other resource, owing to the absence of
a Poor Latv in their own country.
" 2. The second mode in which this anomaly
injures us, results from the ►coequal circumstances
under which the growers of farm produce in each
country bring their goods to the common market.

" The English agriculturist pays a heavy poor-
rate out of the produce of his land (we have even
seen that he pays it in a great part towards the
support of the Irish poor) ; the Irish agriculturist
pays no poor-rate at all ! The English farmer has
to pay his labourers wages, at the- rate of a shilling
to half-a.crown per day. The Irish farmer hires
his labourers at four-pence or five-pence per day, be-
cause, even this cruelly low rate of wages is better
than starving; the only alternative for a labourer
in a country where there is no Poor Law! Is it
clear now in what way the English Landholder is
injured by the want of a poor law in Ireland ?
" No farmer can avoid ruin if he cannot obtain in
the market a remunerating price for the produce of
his farm ; that is, a price which will cover its cost,
and pay him a profit into the bargain. The cost of
production, exclusive of rent, consists in the ex-
pences of cultivation, of which labour forms by far
the largest item, and the public burthens on land—
viz. the tithes, taxes, and rates. Now, how is it
possible for the English fanner to get a price in the
market sufficient to repay all this outlay, when he is
met there by the Irish cultivator, whose expendi-
ture in labour is not one-fourth of his own, arid who
pays no poor rate, generally the very heaviest of all
the public burthens on the English producer ? The
Irishman, under these circumstances, can sell his
corn, his cattle, his hogs, and his butter, with a
profit, at prices which will not keep the English
farmer out of gaol, or English farms in cultivation.
Is this practically the case ? Let those who attend
the markets of London, of Liverpool, of Bristol-
-nay, any of the principal markets of England—
answer if they are not undersold in every quarter,
and in almost every article, by Irish produce; by
produce, I repeat, raised upon land which pays
no poor rate, and by labourers who, having no legal
right to existence, will work upon husks and potatoe
skins rather than starve. Is this fair ? Is it just ?
I say at once, and deny it who can, that it is con.
trary to every sound principle of equity and domestic
policy."
We agree with the author, that the English
agriculturists are injured by the burthen thrown
upon them by their being forced to maintain
a great part of the Irish pauper population ;
but we have a word or two to say to him
with respect to his remaining observation. We
admit that upwards of three millions of quar-
ters of grain were imported into this country
last year from Ireland, and that in Liverpool
and Manchester they can dispense altogether
with animal food raised in England. But we
contend that the effect of imposing a poor
rate in Ireland would be to increase the food
raised, cheapen the rate of raising, and add to
the exports. In fact, so great is the superiority
of Ireland to England in agricultural capability,
that the best judges do not hesitate to say, that
nothing is wanted but a better system of agri-
culture to add enormously to its exports. At
present the soil is cultivated without capital,
without skill, and, consequently, in the most
expensive of all manners. All that is raised,
indeed, is exported, beyond the potatoes, on
which the cultivator himself subsists, because, as
land is the condition of existence, the peasants
compete with each other for their possessions,
till the rent is raised far above what they are
able to pay; but still the cultivation is expensive
when the return from a worn out soil is con-
trasted with what might be obtained from the
soil by a little outlay and more skill. The
first effect of a poor rate would be to aid in an-
nihilating this wretched system of cultivation,
and to encourage the application of capital
to the land. At present the peasant
_clings
to his little possession as the only hold he
has on existence ; and woe to the individual
who takes his place. But if a minimum
e,f subsistence were secured to every man by
Poor Laws, as in England, the conspiracy of the
lower orders would at once be dissolved. The
English agriculturist has a right to be protected
against the incursion of poor manufactured in
Ireland, to swell his own expences of cultivation ;
but protection against the cheapness of the pro-
cess of raising food in Ireland is quite out of the
question. On this principle the English agricultu-
rist ought to be protected against the superiority
of the soil and climate of Ireland. What is it
to the English farmer, whether the, Irish farmer
has his advantage in greater fertility of soil, or
greater cheapness of labour ? If we suppose the
soil of Ireland to become double its present fer-
tility, while that of England retains only its pre-
sent, and security to be as great in the one
country as in the other—and if we suppose also
a limited consumption as at present, it is quite
clear that the occupiers of Ireland will be able to
drive tho English farmers out of their own market.
This is really not much different from the fact.
The improvement of Ireland is going on now at
a rapid rate, and the produce must overflow our
markets from the immense resources of that
island. We shall soon be an exporting country,
of food, to Amsterdam, Antwerp, and other
Continental cities. But in the mean time, till
things find their level, the English agriculturist
must suffer. So sensible are tenants of this, that
the competition regarding farms is all now on
the side of the landlords. Prices are down,
tenants believe they will never become perma-
nently high again, and down rents must come.
The landlords who are unincumbered will do
well enough. Those who are differently cir-
cumstanced must resign themselves with a good
race to their situation, as merchants or manu-
facturers do when the speculations of their pa-
rents or their own turn out ill. There never
will be any want of persons ij England to

receive rent from the farmers—that is one
consolation; for even Captain Basil Hall will
allow that rents must be spent by somebody ;
and the mortgagee of yesterday, if the landlord
of to-day, fills up the blank in the spending
class, that ornament of British society. We
shall always have landowners, no matter whether
descended from Norman conquerors, border
cow-stealers, Lancashire spinners, or Jew
brokers ; and as an aristocracy is founded not
on birth, but on wealth, it matters not, as far as
the strength of the Government is concerned,
who enacts the aristocrat and who the pauper.
The author of this pamphlet tells us, that " if
the soil or the climate of England were so infe-
rior to those of Ireland, that farm produce could
not be grown here, except at double the cost of
raising it there, the landowners of England
would resig❑ themselves to their comparative
poverty, and be content to see the supply of
their markets principally in the hands of Irish
growers. But the superiority which we com-
plain that the agriculturists of Ireland possess in
the market over those of England, is owing to
no superior natural advantages whatever.—
It is purely artificial and factitious. It is
caused by a difference in the public burthens,
imposed on the land of each country by the com-
mon Legislature." We have no doubt that he
is here mistaken—we believe that the difference
is owing to superior natural advantages. The
poor-rates might at first add to the expences of
cultivation ; but it would be more than com-
pensated for in the additional returns obtained
from a more economical and skilful system.—
The cheapness of labour in Ireland is illusory.
Mr. Nimmo, the engineer, who has had great
experience in Ireland, observes that a piece of
work can be executed cheaper in the county of
Middlesex than in any part of Ireland, and
cheaper in the county of Down, where wages
are nominally highest, than in the county of
Kerry, where they are nominally lowest.—/bid.
The public ear has been almost stunned of
late with accounts of the great reductions of rent
which the landowners in various parts of the
country have been pleased to make on their
yearly, or half-yearly, payments ; and there can
be no question that much credit is due to those
who, instead of driving their tenants to the
Gazette, have judiciously consulted both their
own interests and those of justice, in only exact-
ing what the circumstances of the times en-
abled the farmer to pay. But we should like
to know where all this throwing back of
15, 20, and 25 per cent. is to end ? Have
the landowners made up their minds to receive
in future reduced rents from their tenants,
or are the reductions in question to be con-
sidered as merely those of the past year ? The
true answer, we suspect, would be, that a secret
hope is indulged by the landowners that the pre-
sent difficulties of the country are merely of a
temporary nature--that they will pass away in
the course of a few months—that the former
high prices will return, and the present nominal
rentals be again paid in full by the farmer ; but
nothing can be more truly fallacious. The
change in the currency has put an end to high
rents, as well as to high prices of every descrip-
tion ; and unless the landowners have made up
their minds to compel the Government to re-
turn to the paper-money system, which can
alone enable them to draw high rents from
the land, the better plan, both for themselves
and for the farmer, would be to consent at
once to such a settlement of the engagements
subsisting between them, as would enable the
latter to meet them full-handed. The present
low price of agricultural produce must convince
every one of the impossibility of paying rents, at
least twenty-four per cent. higher than when the
currency of the country was part paper and part
gold ; while it must be equally evident, on the
other hand, that if the mind of the farmer be
distracted by a sense of obligations which he is
unable to meet, he neither can or will turn it to
the improvement of the soil. An equitable adjust-
ment between the landowner and the farmer, is,
indeed, imperatively called for by the circum-
stances of the country, and the sooner it takes
place, the better for both parties.—Morning
Advertiser.

A Morning Paper, whose systematic insults
to the Sovereign we had occasion only two days
ago to reprehend, continues to heap outrage and
obloquy upon a Prince who, from his character
and conduct, no less than his exalted station, has
an indubitable claim to the affection and reve-
rence of all classes of his subjects. The pre-
tence for yesterday's renewed attack is the out-
standing debts of his late Royal Highness the
Duke of York, the payment of which by the
King is described as a great moral obligation,
which the readers of the Times are given to un-
derstand his Majesty neglects. Appended to
this charge we find a grossly exaggerated
statement of the funds at the personal dis-
posal of the King, the positive falsehood
that every expence of the Itoyal State, even
charities, are defrayed out of the Civil
List, and the insinuation, as false as it is ma-
lignant, that the Monarch exhausts his resources
in the purchase of jewels and baubles and gold
plate, in utter disregard of " golden opinions:!
With respect to the debts of the Duke of York,
we retain too lively and grateful a sense of the
many inestimable benefits his Royal Highness
conferred upon the country to doubt for a
moment that whatever is due to his memory—
in which description we must include the
satisfaction of all fair and just claims upon
him—ought to be, and will eventually be, fully
and liberally discharged. The claim upon the
King thus urged in the tone of insolent demand,
accompanied by every revolting expression of
menace and insult, is, however, as preposterous
as it is audacious. If the private resources of
the Monarch were even more ample than they
are falsely described, they would still be pre-
cisely such as the Legislature in its wisdom
deemed it proper and necessary to assign him,
not contemplating any such deduction as that
upon which our contemporary lays so much
stress. The argument then ought to be that
Parliament has provided for the personal enjoy-
ments and independence and munificence of
the Monarch with a too bounteous hand.
This would have been untenable we be-
lieve, but it would have been rational and con-
stitutional in comparison with the view our con-
temporary has taken of the subject, the latter
having in truth nothing to recommend it, but
that it afforded an opportunity to stigmatize the
conduct, assail the character, and perhaps wound
the feelings of his Majesty and his immediate
friends. And we now beg leave to ask his Ma-
jesty's Attorney-General--that Attorney-Ge-
neral who so recently reproved the supine-
ness or lenity with which his predecessors
for the last ten years had regarded the
abuses of the Press, if these repeated and
systematic insults to the Sovereign, these un-
wearied endeavours to direct towards him
the contempt and hatred of the public, do

or a° not come within the definition of abuse ? .
Is the King the only authority in the State for
whose protection from outrage and calumny the
law is to be impotent in his hands? Are libels
upon the King to be the only tolerated libels
under the system of new and wholesome seve-
rity which has been promised us ? Are all the
minor currents of slander, and sarcasm, and
vituperation, to be diverted from their natural
and varied channels, to give greater volume
and impetuosity to the torrent which is to over-
power and subdue the King ? These arc
questions which the Attorney-General and the
Government will do well to consider. Upon
the answer they may receive in practice, for of
course other answer there can be none, the cha-
racter of the Government depends to a degree,
of which, probably, its members even have no
adequate conception. The indignation of every
member of his Majesty's Government is, how-
ever, we will not permit ourselves to doubt, suffi-
ciently excited by the repeated libels which have
recently appeared against the King. To question
this would be to impute to them an utter want of
sympathy with a nation which feels itself to be
insulted in the person of its beloved and venerated
Monarch.—Morning Post.