The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-07 00:00:00

TIM SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 7, 186,

to this very knowledge, and there is probably a
good deal of truth in his distinction. It is a lesson
which some of our statesmen of the present day
would do well to learn if they would reconcile
power and popularity—independent action with
constitutional government.

The King of PRUSSIA is resolved that be shall
not altogether be forgotten. ;His last decision
dissolutionis a str an g e
oo
fn et,haenrd
Prussian
soigaent hce rh
aumnbc
earl lse
ids f
do r.
ou b
tTh l
eses
intended as a very clever move at this precise junc-
ture, but it is most likely that it will fail in realis-
ing its object. The words of the decree are them-
selves sufficiently explanatory. It is said that by
virtue of an article of the constitution, and on the
proposition of the Ministry of State, the dissolution
takes place. It is dcubtless the secret of the trans-
action. The Ministers have advised the adoption
of the plan, and the KING is shortsighted enough to
sanction their proposal. The Ministry is intrusted
with the execution of the present decree, and they
are sure to carry out the project with zeal, as it is
entirely their own notion, and so fully coincides
with their own views. The Ministerial report
which precedes the decree is sufficiently arrogant
and prejudiced to emanate from such statesmen as
the present Prussian Ministers have shown them-
selves to be. It commences by stating that "there
is no prospect that further negotiations with the
present Chamber of Deputies would lead to any
understanding." This is very likely so far true,
but whose fault is it. Had not the Ministers thrown
every obstacle in the way of all liberal mea-
sures there would nut have been any of those
awkward disagreements between the advisers of
the Crown and the popular representatives.
They also refused to listen to any representation
on the part of those who felt themselves
so cruelly aggrieved. Every opportunity was
seized to take umbrage at the conduct of the depu-
ties, and every advantage was 'taken of circum-
stances to make all things suit the views of des-
potism. The state of things in Prussia, it is said,
" has not offered any ground for a change in the
propositions of the Ministry which his MAJESTY
had approved. So far as public opinion has
been expressed throughout the country, it has
gone direct against the policy of the Government,
indeed, in many instances, addresses were made,
and remonstrances urged against the late vio-
lent measures which were emphatically denounced
as unconstitutional. The next paragraph refers to
the outward condition of affairs. " Tendencies
have manifested themselves within the limits of the
German Federal Constitution, the evident aim of
which is to reduce Prussia from that position as a
great Power in Germany and Europe, which is her
well-earned inheritance from our forefathers, and
which the Prussian people has at all times been
determined not to relinquish." This is hardly a
fair way of putting the question, when it is an
acknowledged fact that no pains have been spared,
and no chances thrown away, to induce King WIL-
LIAM and his Ministers to take part in the debates
of the Congress recently held at Frankfort. It is
of no use to disguise things in that way, because
people will not believe the subterfuge, however in-
geniously it is worded. Whatever motives may have
actuated the Austrian Powers, the Prussian:Minis-
ters could not prove that their object was an inimi-
cal one, when they refused to take part in any of
the discussions, and rejeeted the propositions
in toto, without hearing them. Of course
so good an opportunity of making politi-
cal capital out of the stirring scenes
just enacted was not to be lost sight of, hence we
find an energetic appeal made to the nation to rally
round the Executive at this trying juncture. The
occasion of the approaching elections will furnish
an epoch for a general expression of unity
throughout the country, and the people are urged
rt o makete,d ,n
ino used
Prussia of
s the
eof
t vo oevent.
z. t
caendanger
Thus
opinion
p they
ntihoen i
unitymays
o
fe h
d
iffersei
na
c a
people, and the immovable fidelity with
they are attached to the Royal House." This sounds
very grand; but if the people at all respond to
these patriotic utterances and loyal sentiments, it
will not certainly be owing to the good offices of
those in high places, nor to the consideration of the
Sovereign, but their own inherent spirit of
nationality, and the respect and reverence which
they owe to their fatherland. It may be all for the
best, as regards the future interests of Germany,
that there should have arisen these differences be-
tween Austria and Prussia. United they might
have striven to consolidate their power, and pre-
serve intact their privileges; but, now that they
appear iu direct antagonism, and complete dis-
s e
opi
the
deeply-
rooted o.
ot
that

severance as regards the settlement of the disputed
questions, some new and brighter hope may spring
up, and as a star in the darkness irradiate the
prospect. If these disputauts would commence

their work of adjustment by sacrificing their
cherished schemes of personal ease, or their darling
objects of political ambition, how different would

things become. The Princes who refused to sign the
protocol were unfit to have been members of it at all.
Where is the benefit of convoking a great national

assembly, and then only using the opportunity and
taking up the time of the members in making stric-
tures on the impracticability of this proposition and

that decree, because it is not exactly in accordance

with their views, and runs counter to their doc-
trines of right and wrong. It can hardly be, after

all this excitement, that affairs should relapse into
their old routine. Some impetus mast have been
given and some influence spread abroad relating to
the cause of constitutional government in their
. . _

wisest and truest sense. Some glimpse may have
been caught, though as yet far off and dimly
shadowed in the future, of the spread of popular
principles, and the establishment of great and
lasting States. If any solid good be eventually
achieved, all these excitements, envyings, and
heartburnings will not have been thrown away.
The Prussian people may draw a moral for them-
selves from all this outcry, and resolve to embrace
the opportunity thus fortuitously presented by
expressing their deep-rooted sentiments and firmly-
fixed opinions in a manner that cannot or will not
be mistaken. These elections are not taking place
to suit their interests, but to serve the convenience
of their rulers. This is no reason why the oppor-
tunity should not be taken to stamp upon the occur-

rence the resolution of an entire nation that cannot
be moved unless for good and great purposes.
Respect for tho throne and unity together are

admirable exponents of a nation's faith, but there

are other important attributes in the character of
a people—independence of spirit and a steadfast

resolve to maintain their rights.

whoe
C ahpatsaihnitlleartyne obeeßn: id,
accotrhdeinghuntereofcotuhre
jporuarinriael:
always riding on buffaloes, or falling into quicksands, or
fighting grisly bears, or being lost in deserts, now comes
before us as the author of a treatise on the popular game of
croquet, with full instructions and a complete set of rules
Itltohhee meet every contingency or the play.
ARCHBISHOPMs WHATELY of Dublin is better, but
his foot remains in the same state, and he is more feeble.
ibsen:brtaergcoetLe
erected
fe
a extreme,t ht
statue
a hdeieshtbineaigsnuge north-westsoohmne philosopher,ldpyin
his
77th
year.though
There advanced,was
, no improvement reported in his condition on Saturday'.
completed
corner thaof E claya
East
tp r
inmodelces
-s t r foreet
of the late Professor Wilson, which is to
Gardens, kolinbursh.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

AMERICA.
NEW YORK, AUG. 28, Evening.
(Per the Hibernian.)
Gen. Gilmore officially reports on the 24th inst.
the practical demolition of Fort Sumter after seven
dad s' bombardment. It is a shapeless and harmless
mass of ruins. "A longer fire," he says, " would
make it a greater mass of ruins but scarcely more
powerless for the defence of Charleston harbour.
It is unnecessary to continue to fire on the ruins.
I have established batteries on my left within effec-
tive range of the heart of Charleston, and opened
with them after giving Gen. Beauregard due notice.
My projectiles entered Charleston, and Gen. Beau-
regard designates them the.most destructive missiles
ever used in war."
Unofficial accounts to the evening of the 24th
state that Fort Sumter was entirely destroyed, but
had not surrendered. The fleet was preparing to
move up the harbour.
Great dissatisfaction prevailed at the slowness of
the operations of the fleet.
Fort Moultrie.—Greig and Johnston and the
batteries on Sullivan's Island kept up a steady fire
upon the Federals on Morris Island, doing little
damage.

It is reported the Confederates will not regard
Colonel Streight as a prisoner of war. The Federals
will place Morgan on the same footing.
The New York Board of Supervision has passed
an ordinance appropriating 200,000 dols. to exempt
from the draft uniformed militia, firemen, police,
and heads of families. The Mayor has signed this
ordinance, which it is supposed will settle the diffi-
culty between the Municipality and the Mayor.
NEW YORK, AUG. 29, Morning.
The batteries which destroyed Fort Sumter were
located at distances varying between 3,330 and
and 4,200 yards, and remain as efficient as ever.
The New York Herald says---"
It is rumoured in
Washington that General Butler will command the
South Carolina department after the capture of
Charleston."

There is a considerable Confederate infantry force
at Port Conway, between the Potomac and the Rap-
pahannock, who are enforcing the conscription.
Colonel Kilpatrick had a skirmish with them,
but was compelled to fall back from his recon-
naisance.

Quantrell's guerillas are being hunted through
the woods and mountains of the border counties
of Missouri. Large numbers of them have been
killed, and their horses destroyed.
Despatches from Stevenson, Alabama, state it is
probable that the Confederates are evacuating Chat-
tanooga, and all East Tennessee. Deserters report
they are moving guns and important machinery
from Chattanooga to Atalanta.
Confederate cavalry are concentrating at Rome,
Georgia. The Mobile Tribune says there are ten
vessels and six transports in Pensacola harbour.
The New York Herald asserts that the troops
now in New York will be seat to Vera Cruz.
The 21
reto Fork Times urges the Government to
prepare for a war with France. Such a war, it
says, is not certain, bat it would be dangerous
and foolish to act as if it were impossible.
The New York Times has little doubt that
Napoleon has made a secret treaty
with President
Davis for the cession of Texas as the equivaient fur
recognition and substantial aid.
The draught has been concluded in New York,
and commences in Brooklyn on Monday. General
Dix has published correspondence to prove that he
called on the Federal Government for troops to
enforce the draught in consequence of the delay of
Governor Seymour in replying to his application
for the services of State troops.
The steamer Cronstadt has been captured off
Wilmington.

COMMERCIAL INT,,ELLIGENCE.
NEW YORK, Aug. 28, Evening.
Money easy. Gold, 24 premium. Exchange too
unsettled for quotation.
Stocks dull. New York Centrals, 1351 ; Illinois,
1332 ; Erie, 118; 6 per Cent. United States Bonds,
106.

Cotton declining ; middling upland, 65c.
Flour, wheat, and corn declining. Provisions
dull.

RUSSIA.
WARSAW, SEPT. 7.
The Grand Duke Constantine, accompanied by
his family, is about to proceed to the Crimea.
INDIA. AND CHINA MAILS.

MARSEILLES, SEPT. 7.

T Imperiales' steamer Peluse
arrivedhe
to-day with the above mails,
and 780 bales of silk.
hereie e e
at aer
a.m.ies

LITERATURE.

AINSWORTH'S UNIVERSAL GAZETTEER,
PUBLISHED BY MAXWELL AND CO , 122, FLEET-
STREET.

A splendid volume of more than a thousand
double-columned pages has, within the last few
weeks, under the above title, made its very welcome
appearance. That it is illustrated by a variety of
woodcuts scattered in abundance through the letter.
press, is, to our mind, its least recommendation.
The enterprising publishers apparent'y think other-
wise, it is true—not merely, we say this, by reason
of the fact of this work being illustrated at all, but
more particularly because of that circumstance being
notified prominently upon the title-page. Never-
theless, to our thinking, that this Universal
Gezeteer is an "Illustrated Universal Gazetteer,"
appears to us a matter in itself of really trifling
consideration. In a scientific book of reference, it
would, of course, be quite otherwise. Diagrams
and other drawings of a kindred description in such
works being of the utmost possible utility—say, for
example, that it were in some volume relating to sub-
jects connected with geometry, mechanics, hydrosta-
tics, dynamic, or other departments of natural philo-
sophy. But in a Gazetteer the letter-press is hardly
in any way assisted by the introduction of little
vignette landscapes, in which a few trees in the
foreground, and a spire or two in the distance, are
the principal objects of interest. What, we cannot
but think, would have been infinitely preferable to
this lavish squandering about these pages of pretty
little sketches, like those of Buenos Ayres, of
Chateauroux, of Folkestone, and so forth, would
have been the introduction to the work before
us of a well 'selected series of maps—no
matter how restricted the number of those
maps might have been. Say Mercator's Chart; the
the two hemispheres; the Four Quarters of the
Globe, Europe, Asia, Africa, and America—with
the Irishman's fifth quarter, Sir Archibald Alison's
"fifth hemisphere" (vide" Continuation of the Hist.
of Eur.," 1., 9) in Australia and Oceania ! If to
these were added, each in turn, the principal civi-
lised countries, precisely as they are given in any
tolerable Family Atlas, well and good. And, still
better would it be, were it possible to have the
value of such a series of useful embellishments to
"The Universal Gazetteer" enhanced by an engraved
plan of the world's chief capitals, London, Paris,
Rome, Vienna, &e.; charts of the principal seas,
such as the Mediterranean, the Caspian, the Baltic,
&c. ; together with comparative views of the lengths
of the principal rivers and of the heights of the
principal mountains. Suggestions, these are, which
have been originated purely by the fact of the pub-
lishers of this noble volume having, as it seems to
us, almost extravagantly, distributed through it,
engravings that are nothing lees than superfluities
in the way of decoration. They serve no useful
purpose whatever, these abundant illustrations.
They explain nothing—they simply adorn. If
the " Universal Gazetteer" must needs be illustrated
at all, let the embellishments be marked by their
utility—let them compete with the letterpress by
affording the reader, who consults the work, a mass
of valuable information. Considerably of more in-
terest to us than the mere circumstance of its being
illustrated, however, is the really noteworthy fact
that the whole work has been compiled under
the editorial supervision of so accomplished a
geographer and so experienced a traveller
as Mr. William Francis Ainsworth, F.R G.S.,
F.S.A., Corresponding Member of the Geo-
graphical Society of Paris, of the Oriental
Society cf Germany, of the German National Verein
of the Natural History Society of Moldavia, and we
don't know what all besides—but far better known,
than in all these respects, among literary
classes here in England as a very able contributor
during many consecutive years to the various
magazines edited by his gifted namesake,
William Harrison Ainsworth, the celebrated
Novelist and Historical Romance Writer. Another
peculiarity about the work, quite as remarkable at
a first glance as the one already particularised, and
one to a certain extent of a kindred character, as
evidencing the almost extravagant scale upon
which the getting•up of the volume was planned
originally by its open-handed projectors, we would
now at once direct attention to. Meaning by this,
the far larger scope, seemingly, at first allowed to
the editor in the arrangement of his huge compila-
tion! What is thus referred to, may be, perhaps,
the most readily indicated by remarking that,
whereas the whole Universal Gazetteer is com-

prised in 1,040 quarto pages of doubled columned
letterpress, about half that number of pages in it
have been filled up before the alphabetical arrange-

went of the contents has carried us to the end

of D ! Dzoungaria, a region of Chinese Turk-
istan, appears upon the middle of page 509

E only then and there commencing with
Eagle, a parish of England, in Lincolnshire. Yet
within as nearly as possible the same space that
was apparently found necessary for the adequate
record of places comprehended under the four first
letters of the alphabet—those requiring to be de-
fined under the remaining twenty-two are com-
pressed together. It is as if the four leading sec-
tions of the alphabetical list had been stretched out
to the utmost possible extent upon a procrustian
framework of gigantic proportions : A, B, C, and
D, including thereby under those respective initials
villages, rivulets, and places of comparatively minor
importance. While to the same identical length of
framework, the residue of the twenty-six letters,
have had to be restricted inexorably. By
reason of which modification of the original
scheme of the Gazetteer, very many places of
corresponding insignificance have had to be dropped
out of those t iventy-two twenty-sixths of the compi-
lation. We have hero been particular in thus
specifying, distinctly, at the outset, the two only ex-
ceptions that could in reason be taken by any cap-
tious caviller, upon searching vigilantly through
this noble volume in quest of its salient merits and
demerits. One exception, it will be perceived, ap-
plies simply to what we have already in-
dicated as a mere lavish superfluity of (as it seems
to us) quite unnecessary illustrations. The other and
graver exception relating to a modification of the
original outline of the projectors of the work—a
modification that really and truly appears to 118

little less than a cnnspicuous improvement. For—
supposing the original plan to have been persisted in,
the Gazetteer, instead of being (as it is) completed
in one volume, must inevitably have expanded and
multiplied into three or four, if it failed to reach a
good round half dozen. Upon a reissue of the
work, later on, we world therefore suggest to the
Editors and Publishers, io the event of their ad-
venturing upon any kind of comprehensive revi-
sion of this work by way of improvement--
the substitution of a well-selected series of maps for
the present vignette embellishments now squander-
ing among the letterpress; not folding maps, but
whole page maps, or, in some instances, double.
page maps, giving, we will suppose, the two hemi-
spheres in confronting leaves of the volume. That
as the first possible enhancement of the value of the
work as a book of reference. And as the second—
the elimination of the minor places mentioned in
the first half of the Gazetteer, actually reduc-
ing the bulk of the volume, and thereby
affording room for any really desirable additions
that might be deemed requisite. As it is, how-
ever, even now, we may, with reason, be thankful
for the mass of valuable and instantly accessible
information afforded by Ainsworth's " Universal
Gtizettecr," in reference to almost any place, of any
importance whatever, upon the surface of the habit-
able globe. Considering the immense variety of
statistics included in the mass of this motley infor-
mation, the book is a marvel of accuracy. As a

reliable work of reference, not only statistical and
geographical, but scientific, political, and otherwise,
the volume merits for itself a place upon the library
table alike of merchant and man of letters, of states-

man, of magistrate, and of journalist, as well as
of zany and every active member of the group
of the learned professions. Even in regard to
the mere material peculiarities of the publica-
tion under notice, its handsome and substan-
tial binding, its clear and excellent typography,

;he book (bearing in mind, when we say this, that,

as a took of reference, it ig certain 0 be continually

handled by its possessor) is entitled to the highest
commendation.

Menzoire sur 1 Origine Scytho•Cinznzerienne de la
Langue liomane. I'ar N. le Duc du Rouseillon.

The object of this able and original paper, which
was read last year before the Royal Society of
Literature by the Duke of Roussillon (who is, we
believe, the 36th inheritor of that title, which is
the oldest in France), and is now published in a sepa-
rate form, is to establish the fact that the Romansch
language is not, as is generally supposed, a dialect of
the ancient Latin, but that it is a relic of the Scytho-
Cimw erienne, that is, of the language of a nation
who anciently dwelt on the northern shores of
the Black Sea having, emigrated from the summits
of the Hymalayan mountains. The Duke, in sup-
port of his theory, proceeds elaborately to examine
at very great length the names of a vast number of
places, and certainly arrives at some surprising re-
sults, which will be new to our antiquarians and
arcLaeJlogists, to whose attention we earnestly re-
commend the book. Some of our readers may not
be aware that Romansch is spoken by the peasantry
at Coire, in Switzerland, and that there is a news-
paper published there weekly in that language)
entitled Il Grischum.