The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-01 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, OCTJBER, 1, 1863

from the learned, or sage counsel from the em-
ployer, if he returns to a miserable dwelling that
seems a mockery of the sacred name of home, and
a violation of all the best feelings of humanity.
Eloquent exhortation have not been wanting to
testify to the importance and extent of the advan.
tages ensured to a country when possessed of a
hardy generation of the sons of the soil. In fanciful
allegory one writer has declared that ".'tis from the
r,easant's hardy stock the race of giants are;'' and
the Ayrshire Ploughman has made memorable the
following vindication of his class in these lines :
" Princes and peers may flourish or may fade,
A breath can make them as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed can never be supplied,"

It would seem that liberal principles are rapidly
developing themselves in Denmark, and there is no
reason to hope that the stormy period through
which she has passed will lead in the end to sub-
stantial benefits. Once relieved from the weight of
German authority, and set free from the continental
harass to which he has been subjected, the KING no
doubt has liberal views and tendencies. He and his
Ministers have the sagacity to see that they must
identify themselves with the party of progress and
constitutional government, if they hope to retain
their position in Europe. It is an independent and
constitutional monarch, supported by the love of his
people and anxious for their welfare, that King
CHRISTIAN claims our sympathies, and, although
an excuse might easily be made for deferring the
proposed reforms until a more tranquil time, it iS
certain that the line now taken is the wiser as well
as the bolder one. No time has been lost in fulfil-
ling the expectations of the people. The day after
the assembling of the Rigsraad the President of the
Council laid before it the draught of a new consti-
tution for Denmark and Schleswig, by which all
questions common to the two provinces are to be
regulated. This draught shows, we are told, great
progress in the development of liberal ideas in Pen-
mark, and from what we can learn of it such is cer-
tainly the case. The members of the Lower Hens'
are to be freely elected without any consideration
as to their income or the income of the electors. A
property qualification will only be requisite for the
members of the Upper House. This is certainly an
important step, and it will make the constitution of
the two representatives in some respects similar to
that of our English Houses of Parliament. All
matters concerning Denmark per se will be settled
by the Rigsraad, and those of Schleswig by the
estates of that Duchy. There is, therefore, a fair
opening for a new political career, but unhappily
the Holstein discussion is not at an end. When in-
deed will it ever be ? It has become the chronic
difficulty of European statesmen, and any means of
satisfactory settlement would be accepted gladly
by the political world at large. It may be that
such a settlement is at hand, and that German as-
sumption and obstinacy will push matters to an ex-
tremity that will necessitate the final adjustment of
the long-pending dispute. Supported by the alli-
ance of Sweden, who has come boldly to the rescue,
and strong in the unanimity of her people, Den-
mark presents no contemptible front to the German
invader. Should matters prcceed much further,
moreover, England must infallibly take
that part, notwithstanding the sympathies of our
Foreign Minister, will nog be with the German
Confederation. part, and

At every port the arrival of the Channel
Fleet is
the signal for festivities and rejoicings. hospitable
Ireland has, of course, formed no exception to the
rule, and has rivalled Glasgow, Sunderland, and
Liverpool in the warmth of its reception and the
extent of its interest. The visit to Belfast hes been
succeeded by a trip to the Bay of Dublin, and
although, unfortunately, from the State of
the wea-
ther, their stay was necessarily very limited, there
can be no doubt that it was very beneficial in its
influence, enlisting the quick sympathies of the
Hibernians on behalf of their noble
vessels and
their intelligent and courteous commanders. The
banquet given by the citizens of Dublin to Admiral
DACRES was the occasion for great rejoicings,
although the time for preparation was necessarily
limited, the goodwill of the hosts displayed itself in
the brilliancy of the reception. The addresses were
chiefly remarkable from their heartiness and
unanimity. The Mayor, in proposing the health of
his visitors, remarked that the w
wooden alls" to
which Old England chiefly owed her glory, were
and
now things of the past, but he expressed his con-
viction that as much depended on the men as on the
ships, and certainly, however beneficial may be
changes in the one, we need not seek to improve
upon the other. Admiral DACRES, who will be-
come quite an orator if he has so
many opportuni-
ties for speechmaking, said, as he has
said before in
other words, that the enthusiasm of the people at
every spot they have visited showed the very strong
interest felt in the Navy throughout the country.
The gallant Admiral attached great
importance to
the unity of feeling between the
merchant service
and the Navy, and hinted that valuable allies for
the national cause were to be found, if need existed,
in the merchant service. In the course of the even-
ing a bumper was drunk to the health of Sir LEO-
FOLD WCLINTOCK, a countryman of whom Irish-
men may well be proud, and that officer, in return-
ing thanks, spoke of the liberal praise bestowed on
him and his companions, It was
not surprising
that the successful explorers of the far-famed North-
West Passage should have been warmly greeted by
their countrymen, for not only did they celebrate
the achievement of that task, which seemed well-
nigh an impossibility, but, in honouring them, the
nation paid homage to the brave men who had laid
down their lives in those inhospitable regions. No
guest could have been more fitting at a banquet held
in honour of ships and sailors, and no one could
have been better qualified to appreciate the capa-
bilities of the noble vessels then anchored in the
Bay. Universal admiration of them is expressed,
and a feeling of confidence and security appears to
spring up in the minds of landsmen at the sight of
such capable defenders, A commercial gentleman
of Dublin gave an amusing illustration of this. He
had lately heard some one making inquiries about
a Southern farmer of enormous size and strength.
" Was he a quarrelsome man ?" " Ah, no," was
the reply, " not in the least." " Was he ever seen
to fight ?'' " No, never ; he was a very quiet man
entirely ; he was a most peaceable man ; but (this
was added in a whisper) 1 never saw the man who
had a fancy to fight with him !" Such, it is to be
hoped, will be the ease with that goodly array of
" leviathans afloat" under the command of Admiral
DACRES ; and certainly it must be a satisfaction to
all lovers of peace and safety
that we have such a
" material guarantee" for the undisturbed repose of
oar shores. Thu crnise of this year has unques-
tionably done good in awakening the old naval
enthusiasm of the people, and in showing them
that all the discubsions about national defences have
not ended in empty words, but that England really
possesses a fleet worthy of her name, her position,
and her character.

THE FRENCH EXHIBITION OF THE WORKS OF
LIVING ARTISTS, to be held next year in Paris, will open
on the let of Nay, and Close on the 15th of June. Foreign
as well as French pictures will be admitted. Works for
exhibition are to be sent in between the 10th and 20th of
March next,

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

[REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.]

THE POLISH INSURRECTION.

CRACOW, OCT. 1.

An engagement took place on the 29th ult. at
Nlipzow in the Wojwodschaft of Cracow between
the insurgent chief Otto and the Rassians. Fifty
Cossacks, with their arms and horses were cap-
tured.

Another engagement was fought on the 27th
ult., near Semworno, in the Wojwodschaft of
Kalisch.

Arrests continue to be made in Warsaw.

TURKEY.
CONS FANTINOPLE, SEPT. 30.

It is still affirmed in the best financial circles that
there will 3hcrtly be an issue of 30,000,000 fr. in
Consolides for the payment of the Syrian indem-

nity.

The same announcement has been made by the
Levant Herald, and has not been denied by the

Government.

It is said that the new securities will only be
negotiable in Syria, and will be redeemable in five
years.

MEXICO.

PARIS, OCT. 1.

The Moniteur of to-day publishes a letter from
Mexico describing the rapid progress which has
been made by French intervention.
The same correspondence comparing the present
with the former state of things, says that the num-
ber of victims under the rule of Juarez was 7,305,
of whom 2,065 were assassinated while defending
their liberty, their life, and their property.

FRANCE.

PARIS, OCT. 1.

Letters received from Rome to the 27th Septem-
ber announce that General Montebello had pub-
lished an order of the day, acquainting his soldiers
with the disgraceful act of the Pontifical gendarme
in firing upon the Italian officer on the frontiers,
and with the equally blameable conduct of the
Pontifical Government which protected suck assas-

sins.

The relations between General Montebello and
the Pontifical Government were not friendly.
Every possible difficulty was provoked by Mgr.
Merode, Pontifical Minister of War.

BOURSE, Sept. 30. —The reponse de primes
(option) has been made at 67f 85c for the Threes.
Market quiet, and with but a trifling variation in
quotations, Threes, for the account, being tow at
67f 80c. Mobilier at 1,210 f. Railway Share
Market without animation, and prices generally
well maintained. The market improved towards
the close, and left off as follows :

It per Cents. 95 90
Do. end month....

3 per Cents
Do. end month 6B
Credit Mobilier 1218 75
Do. end month 1220
Bank Shares 3.365
Credit F oncier -
RA IL

Italian Loan 74
Do. end month 74 55
New ditto
Do. end month —
Russian
Austrian .. —
Spanish Threes —
Home Debt .. sli
rAYB.

Cash. Account.
Orleans 1026 25 .. 1028 75
Northern
New ditto
Lyons and Mediterranean 1025 .. 1025
Geneva 497 50 ..
Southern 737 50 .. 740
Western
Eastern ....
Sardinian 426 25 .. 425
Austrian
Lombard
North of Spain
Saragossa..
Ditto to Barcelona

LITERATURE,

Breakfast in Bed ; or, Philosophy Between the
Sheets. By George Augustus Sala. One vol.,
pp. 334. Maxwell and Co.

Foremost in the second rank of our English men-
of-letters now living, stands the author of these, and
of we don't know how many other, delightful pages.
Mr. Sala will not take the phrase here employed by
us (as distinctively expressive of his position) in any
way invidiously. Of that we are certain. He is
himself a critic of too much discernment to be de-
luded in this matter into any such misapprehen-
sion—even by his remembrance of those halcyon
dreams he must, doubtless, at times have in-
dulged in eagerly enough during the earlier days
of his adoption of the intellectual craft of author-
ship—cherished
hopes and wishes in regard to his
assuming his place, sooner or later, in the front rank,
among the most distinguished of his literary con-
temporaries. Farther than to one of the foremost
positions in the second rank of authorship, he must
be himself as conscious as anyone that he has not
advanced. But in that second rank, to our thinking
he has taken his place by this time, not merely
among the foremost, but par excellence as the Fore-
most. While in the first rank, stand the literary
Sauls of cur generation, towering each of them
by far more than a head and shoulders
merely above the average intellectual sta-
ture of their age, men of conspicuous genius
who have already hewn out their own niches,
or built up their enduring pedestals in the
\Valhalla of our National Literature, an incompar-
able Humorist like Dickens, a Crichton of Letters
like Bulwer, a Poet like Tennyson, a Satirist like
Thackeray—others there are, amongst the most in-
dustrious writers of the time,who have signalised in
a variety of ways the possession of gifts securing to
them a great deal of our attention, attracting a
large share of our sympathy, and even fre-
quently winning from us our very cordial admira-
tion. At the head of these we unhesitatingly place
Mr. Sala. Daring the last ten or fifteen years he
has plied his pen with extraordinary assiduity. It
would make a goodly list, we should imagine, by
this time, the mere enumeration of the periodicals to
which he has, in succession, been, all this while, a
contributor—a contributor whose individuality
could not but arrest the observation at once of
readers and reviewers. Whether writing in this
way with an ever flying pen for the wonderful
twopenny double columns of Household Words,
or for the übiquitous penny broadsheet of the
Daily Telegraph, whether foliowing London Life,
7toice Bound the Clock, in companionship with
his whimsical artist friend William M'Connell, or
recounting, in the earlier chapters delightfully, in
the later chapters most disappointingly, the per-
sonal history and the artistic career of the most
original and the most national of our English
painters, "William Hogarth," in the pages of the
Cornhill Magazine—whether editing a shilling
magazine of his own, The Temple Bar to wit, or re-
lating his voyaging in the Baltic, and his journey-
ing onwards to St. Petersburg, whether penning a
romance like that entitled " The Seven Sons of
Mammon," or recounting in' old-fashioned diction
and in old-fashioned ways the " Strange Adven-
tures of Captain Dangerous "—Mr. Sala is always
readable. He is coarse occasionally, but he is
always entertaining. We only remember one of his
more pretentious works that we could feel at ail,
even at rare intervals, to be in any way wearisome
—namely, a work already here particularised, and
that, too, with a hint of disfavour or depreciation,
meaning his biography of Hogarth. Otherwise
than in that one exceptional instance, we have
never yet been tempted to throw aside anything to
which Mr. Sala has put his hand, whether as a writer
of books or as a contributor to the periodicals, out of
a sense of its tediousness. Least of all, perhaps,
among his many vivacious and varied performances,
should we be tempted to do this by the very book
now under notice. And we say this in spite of its
titlepage—to us an unpleasantly affected, and even,
it might be said, a positively unattractive titlepage.
"Breakfast in Bed—or, Philosophy between the
Sheets—a [what is it Mr. Sala calls it 1)] a Series
of Indigestible Discourses !" The last (generic)
designation of the book, besides being intensely
disagreeable of its kind, is, to our mind, beyond
that, nothing less than a flagrant misnomer. In-
digestible these dozen discourses are not—at least
we have not found them so. Devouring them with
a relish, we have found, on the contrary, that from
page 1 to page 334 there was nothing in the whole
collection of this really appetisiug hotch-potch
or gallimaufry of innocent fun and humorous
observation upon men and things, that we could
not, with perfect satisfaction to ourselves,
" read, mark, learn (some of it almost by heart),
and inwardly digest!" Mr. Sala's "Breakfast in
Bed," without having about it any of the sardonic
wit, has much of that perennial vivacity for which
the famous breakfasts of Mr. Rogers in St. James's
were so remarkable, They are, one and all of them,
frolicsome, discursive, and anecdotal. The only
thing especially noticeable in it is that our host has the
whole of the talk to himself. That talk, while it is
throughout conversational in its character, is not by
any means conversational in the sense of the ordinary
give and take of remarks among a cluster of inter-
locutors. It does not even widen into Dialogue.
It is a series of Discourses—strung together like a
succession of Monologues. Upon themes, too,
whimsical enough to draw mirth from an anchorite
—even from a dirty, unclad, unwholesome
anchorite like Mr. Lucas, of the dilapidated farm
down in Hertfordshire. Instance—" On a Remark-
able Dramatic Performance," meaning my Lord
Dundreary, " On a Little Boy going to School,"
" On the Condition of My Poor Feet"—" On a
Remarkable Dog"—" On a Young Lady on a Bal-
cony," and so forth. While the almost distasteful
title of the book is disagreeably suggestive of
notions such for example, as that when Mr. Sala,
was correcting the proof-sheets of his "Breakfast
in Bed," he must have found them unpleasantly
full of crumbs—we, as among his readers (and
reviewers), as one of the guests bidden to this
matutinal banquet of his providing, sitting there
by the aide of the well-spread fourposter, have never
once felt disposed so tar to enforce Poor Richard's
recommendation of early rising, as to administer to
its occupant what might be properly called a sort
of cold pig of criticism, viz., by throwing cold
water upon our Entertainer, or upon these Twelve
very capital " Breakfasts in Bed" pleasantly pro•
vided by him for our entertainment.