The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-15 00:00:00

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4A''''-u°N, TUESDAY, DEC. 15, 1863.

Hitherto Mr. coyatu
has enjoyed a very large
share of public respect and admiration. He has
had cerkainlYours---Nehatever value he might set
mpon them. It is at this moment
very
a matter to our-
selves, therefore,
Y sincere and unaffected
regret that one whom wehoe
so long learnt thus
to respect and to admire should, by his own extra-
ordinary proceedings, at once and entirely forfeit
all claim to either of those
"ntiments. It can
alone almost be accounted for, this
`l(ltien and most
unseemly explosion of wrath on the part of Mr.
COBDEN, by attributing it to what he himself once
called sarcastically—and not so very many mouths
"back either—a craze. One is nearly teaa„t_,
vct to
believe, witnessing what we all of hi just now have
be-n witnessing within the interval of these last
few days—one is really almost tempted to believe
that there actually are those peculiar dates, to be
picked out or to be avoided, of which ZAD-
BIEL'S fifty thousand purchasers
annually read
in his Prophetic Almanac. And among the
,entries of the redoubtable Tao Sze for 1863,
we might, now, almost look to find a warn-
ing addressed to all persona noted for their
Bound common sense, not to write letters on 'Wed-
nesday, the 9th of December ! For it was on that
day especially that the " craze" we have spoken of
appears to have been very strong indeed upon Mr.
CohDEN. Under date " Midhurst, 9th December,"
we find him writing in the most offensive manner
imaginable, personally, to the Editor ot the Times.
Likewise, under that same, for Mr. COBDEN, fatal
date, vise
fiodhim writing, also in the most offensive
manner, also personally, it should be said very per-
eonally, to
a wholly different recipient of his arro-
gance, to wit, the Marquess of TT --,IRTINGTON. Ad.
dressing the latter personage more after the manner
of /lie late Mr. cottET
T than of what we have been
heretofore accustomed te regard as the manner of Mr.
COBDEN—the member for m-
idhttrat opens his com-
munication to Lord RARTINGToN thus curtly—
ou wi ll e
0, My lord, p rhq), -00
good enough to
take an early opportunity of
correcting publicly
recent—I had almost said reek
you r rece lees—perver-
lzq 8,:c." And u
sion of my remarks, ar-- \ Pon that caste fatal
91,h ilea., Al%
Wednesday, the -"BEN penned
those astoun die wail) g personalities, which
'" found ,
elsewhere in another part of our impression of
our columns in extenso
this evening, transferred to

from: those of our chief morning contemporary.
The grossness of these singular personalities,
addressed as they are by name to the prin-
cipal Editor of the limes, are happily
we believe unparalleled on the part of any public
man of eminence in the whole history of British
journalism. And the effect already produced
throughout the country by Mr. COBDEN'S excep-
tional indulgence in them, is manifestly such that
we may now pretty confidently conjecture no other
public man will be speedily tempted into the enjoy-
ment of any similar luxury, in the way of unmea-
sured vituperation. Anything more outrageous in
the way of vituperation we may
safely assert has
never been witnessed in the instance of
any man elected by his countrymen to the
honour of a seat in the Howe of Commons. Mr.
COBDEN speaks, it will be seen, of the arrogance of
the limes—without the faintest consciousness of
his own i He talks about " what," he says, " I will
call an inordinate display of Times' egotism": and
at the very same moment he is naïvely making such
an exceedingly amusing evidence of Mr. COBDEN'S !
The old fable about the bird of the desert hiding
his head in the sand, is illustrated anew very funnily
in this very instance by the member for Midhurst. He
intimates with overwhelming hauteur that the Times
is denied access to his own house, and he thereupon
argues (ride his
in
his meaning)proof tha t
he thereuponwearehereno
argues not
in
nany way perverting
that the Tinzis has a very limited, almost, es
one might say, obscure circulation. It is quite a
companion incident, this, to the threatened with-
drawal of the young cadet's custom from HCBY, the
bootmaker, a threat suggestive to the latter of the
immediate putting up
of his shutters. More
signally expressive, however, of the darkening in-
fluence exercised by passion over the hitherto clear,
calm, luminous judgment of Mr, COBDEN, more
distinctly indicative of this than the grossly
abusive language iu which this painful letter of his
is couched—ia the false logic of which it is composed
throughout. Mr. COBDEN avows his systematic
and perverse avoidance of the Times, and yet,
while ho acknowledges his ignorance of its con-
tents, an ignorance in which he actually glories,
he coolly presumes to characterize the precise
nature of its contents, and this simply to the
end that he may villify it. Our contempo-
rary has cruelly, only this very morning,
recalled to Mr. COBDEN'S remembrance, his
enthusiastic remark years ago to quite a
worthy effect, namely, that ho preferred a
copy of the limes tc all the books of TITUCYDIDES.
Our contemporary does not remark, however, there-
upon that probably Mr. COBDEN knew about as
much then of TUUCYDIDES as he confesses to know
now of the 7 imes. An ill-mannered sneer has been
directed by Mr. COBDEN at what he vulgarly called
the testimonials to character quoted into the 7 imes
from the columns of its contemporaries. The limes
having probably, we should conjecture, less experi-
ence, perhaps, of anything in the way of honeyed
words than any of the daily journals of Europe. At
the head of whieh,nevertheless, it is no extravagance
to assert--it is simply the plain truth to state—it
stands, as it has stood now for some years, facile
princeps in reputation. Mr. COBDEN used in his
better days to appreciate the value of facts beyond
almost any man of his time. There are a few, now
that we at least may here venture to obtrude
upon his attention with a trifle more grace,
perhaps, than would be possible in the instance
of the limes itself. And these facts, let us say,
we would now thus briefly enumerate in regard to
the Times, purely out of an honest love of fair
play towards our great contemporary. Before Mr.
COBDEN'S favourite organs of nowadays had sprung
into existence, the Times was one of the principal
mediums through which, in spite of itself, his argu-
ments went forth to the world at large, gaining him
his cause and winning him his reputation. His taunts
now, therefore, are tainted with the meanness of in-
gratitude. Again—after the memorable tribute paid
by the late Sir ROBERT PEEL to the " unadorned'
eloquence" of Mr. COBDEN, after the equally
memorable tribute paid by the 7iinss to " the
great fact" of the Anti-Corn Law League, we
should have presumed that alike in both instances
Mr. COBDEN might have abstained from flouting
either the memory of Sir ROBERT or the judgment
of the Tunes with having formerly been foremost
among the advocates of the principles of Protection.
Another of those famous phrases uttered at rare
intervals by Sir ROBERT PEEL, will long be borne
in recollection as applied to the now veteran Prime
Minister of England, Lord PALMERSTON--." We
are all proud of him." And so now may we also
in the name and in the interests of journalism,
apply that very same phrase to the chief among our
contemporaries—" Wa are all proud of it."
Diametrically opposed to its views, we are, no doubt,
repeatedly—yet we bear in none the less vivid
remembrance many noble incidents recorded in its
history. Incidents, for example, like the discovery
of that gigantic Fraud, the timely exposure of
which, through its agency, elicited at the time the
grateful acknowledgment of the whole mercantile
world of England ! Incidents like the breaking
up to its own vast pecuniary loss of that
Railway Bubble, the bursting of which later
on, after a yet wider expansion, might have had
far more disastrous consequences ! Incidents like
the foundation of the Times' Charitable Fund for
our suffering soldiers in the Crimea during
the first disasters of the Great Russian War !
Incidents like these will still be borne in remem-
brance in regard to the limes when Mr. COBDEN'S
vulgar abuse of it has been utterly forgotten. They
will be remembered then as vividly as they are
remembered now : and with them that happy
and in no way extravagant remark once made,
some years back, in the House of Commons,
by Sir EDWARD BULWER LYTTON to the effect
that if he were asked for an illustration of the
IT; Nv e live in, he would adduce as, perhaps, the
12 eEit exemplar of it, a file of the Times newspaper;

The uttest leave th® news from Denmark and Germany
to
disputant 'lrne to be followed by the respective
s ill
considerable doubt. It would seem,
from variousrumours, that the Danish authorities
are shritikin
the conflict, and are anxious to
!. ,
trora
avoid any collision vi...
44 the Fedpeartahaleatatrioops. Accord-
ing to the Parisian Jour a
ttl .La France, it has been
' resolved by the Cabinet
shall
eveeticittteetolipeolalhagen
.that_th.e
Danish troops
El towns in liol-
Nsteeiwnswahlsiochthe German troo
gi
it is
i st oc
uorcrceunpuyy. ii
vernment has
comes from Alton%
dreepteorrmteidnedthenroot
ttohaotptphoeseDraneisdisehriiiikiCie:y
to ,
execntion, and
Powers. A pacia ,
be lnade
that a friendly arrangemen
solution
with the great German
is of course to be greatly
desired,
hdt,ae utnodibt
rwe,akutif be
worth many sacrifices to prevent
__ an
European war; but it is to be hoped that the Danish
Gov,:rnment will not be induced by any fear of con-
sequences to imperil the independence of their coml.
try, or to surrender its recognised
and well-esta-
blished rights. The strong hand of King FREDERICK
no longer guides the helm ; but his successor will
do well to take pattern from his courage and firm-
ness, however advisable it may be to attempt
conciliation before proceeding to extremities. If
the Federal Diet can be induced to abandon their
purpose by any means consistent with reason and
right, the change will be a subject for general con-