The Sun.
London, England, 1837-09-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

The threats held over us are quite awful : we abso-
lutely shake in our shoes at the thought of them. Ac-
cording to the Morning Post the Tories have hitherto
been too mild and gentle with the Whigs, have shown
them too much forbearance and mercy, and in future
they are to be allowed no quarter. A new Durango
decree is to be issued by these friends of- Don Carlos,
and extermination of all the. advocates of reform and
improvement is to be the order of the day. The thun-
der of the Times and the lightning of the Post are to
be fulminated upon the devoted heads of such as ven-
ture to say a syllable in favour of Lord Melbourne and
his Mhostry. The Times and Post are to enact the
parts of 'Thunder and Lig-lib-ling in this new tragical
Rehearsal.
•

"Times. I am the bold Thunder !
" Post. The brisk Lightning I.
" I am the bravest bully of the Press.
" Post. And I another, and will do no less.
" Times. I strike men down !
" Pest. I fire the town!
" Thres. Let the people take heed how they grumble,
For then begin Ito rumble # -
Let the Whigs then look to't,
For Thunder will do't.
" Post. For Lightning will shoot.
" Times. Look to 't look to't!
" Post. We'll do 't ! we'll do 't !
" Roth. For Lightning and Thunder
SHall tear all asunder,
And flu town and country with terror and won-
der!"—Vide Rehearsal, act i., scene I.
This dreadful denunciation is no invention of ours ;
it is but too certain, and we and those who think with
us have now nothing to do but to look out for some
place of security where we may hide our heads front
the pelting of the pitiless storm" to be launched
upon us by the Times and Post. Let any body who
has the curiosity, read our fashionable contemporary of
'Saturday, and then refuse us their compassion, if they
have the heart. Both it and its coadjutor of Printing-
house-square arc about entirely to alter their mode of
warfare upon the Whigs. The Times is to be ne longer
-' tine gentle and genteel"—the refined and polished—
the modest and delicate—the tender and considerate
supporter of " the Conservative cause ;" and the lady's-
maid-delighting Post is completely to change the cha-
racter of its writings, to east away the disguise of its
female habiliments, and, like another Achilles, to rush
to the death-,going arms it has so long neglected.' " War
to the knife"—Cellum interneckunz—is declared, and
•' woe to the inhabitants of earth !" but double woe to

the devoted Whigs I Our particular situation is most
lamentable and pitiable : we are geographically placed
between the two fires, and let who will survive,
we most be sacrificed. Our only chance is that
which saved Angiers—that our two enemies, assailing
us on opposite sides, east and west, will " shoot in
each other's mouth." They did so not very long ago,
when the Times assailed the Duchess of Kent with
its usual good taste, discretion, and refinement, and
when the Post did not scruple t• denounce it as a
traitor. They may adopt this course again, and that
eley may is most devoutly to be prayed, for we have no
other resource. It is our forlorn hope of longer exist-
ence. To the Pistol of Puddledock we can only use
the supplicating remonstrance of that renowned Ancient,
" Be merciful, great Duke, to men of mould I"

And, wish the Morning Post, we may perhaps see
what can be accomplished by the intercession of some
of the discarded waiting-women who have advertised
in our mutual columns. At all events, it is of some
advantage to be made aware of the designs and inten-
tions of our adversaries, and so far, therefore, our
thanks are due to the Morning Post for the fair
notice it has given of the merciless course in future
to be pursued. Though " forewarned is fore-
armed," we have sad misgivings that we have
trot had the intimation until it is too late to
he of asuch service to us. Mr. Bayes, whose
Rehearsal we have already quoted, adapted his
diet to ' his duties ; if he had to write met ely
a sonnet to Artnida, he " made use of stewed
prunes only," but if he had a fearful tragedy in hand,
lie put,his digestive powers to the severest trial. So
with our friend (our friend? our deadly enemy, we
should rather say) the Morning Post. He contem-
plates " the dismal'st tragedy ere yet in act ;" and now
following the advice, as in his writings he has long fol-
lowed the example of Mr. Bayes, he is about to put
himself upon a refectory regimen, and with " raw
beef-steaks and cayenne pepper" to prepare himself
for the completion of the catastrophe. We quote
above his very words, and tremble while we quote.
Type will not show how our hand shakes while we
write, and it would he almost worth while (had we
time to get it engraved) to insert a fac-simile to con
vince the Morning Post, the Times, and the whole
body of " Conservatives" how terror-struck we are by
our impenreng fate. As to the " raw beefsteaks and
cayenne pepper" with which we are threatened, we
refer the reader to the last paragraph of the first
leading article in the Morning Post of Saturday.
Our Contemporary, of course, looks to change
the class of its readers : it must bid " farewell,
a long farewell," to mantuamakers and mil-
liners—to waiting-women and clear-starchers—
footmeu and fribbles—for, as it no longer
intends to adapt its writings to its reader',
it/ must necessarily adapt its readers to its
writings, or entirely disappear from
lation. "My voice is still for war !" exclaims .
editor, frightening all his former friends out of their
seven senses ; and in order to qualify himself to en-
gage in it, he commenced on Saturday with the strong,
stimulatiug diet of " raw be.af-steaks and cayenne
pepper." Of the Times, what shall we say ? Shall
we, like Ajax, defy the thunder ? Shall we brave
the muddy missiles of Puddledock and all the " blud-
geons and brickbats" that have been collected in
Printing-house-square ? No, indeed ; we are not so
fool-hardy. We must look for shelter and retreat
from the bursting storm. if the Times be against us,
who shall be for us ? Who shall dare gainsay the
oracle that speaks in thunder ? Not we, we promise
) ; •ou only we warn our nearer neighbour, the Morn-
ing Post, to take care that in this new joint enterprise
it does not attempt to borrow the thunder of the
Times. This drove the prototype of the Times, John
DiGois, mad ; the Times will be as furious as he, and
when it is furious it is fatal
:
" Mildness and mercy then are blown to air ;
"Nlicsock'a the word, and death to all who dare l"
In tale blindness and wildness of its rage, the Times
no discrimination ; friend and foe are the same
ts, its anti tine whirlwind that sweeps us from the face
of reeaated things may involve time Post also in the
wick cAie of its ruin.—Morning Chronicle.
Even if the times we live in were of an ordinary
character, and no special peril were impending over
time Protestant State and the Protestant Church, still
the return of one-third of the whole repcsentation of
Ireland—that is, 35 Members out of 105—on the
nomination of one man, would be a startling occur-
rence, particularly to a Reformer who had laboured
for and achieved the overthrow of the nomination sys-
tem under the old Constitution ; but that in a crisis so
auementoue as that which we are now approaching, on
the eve of a mortal struggle between the Roman Ca-
tholic Priesthood and the Protestant Church, one -
thirrref all the 105 Members elected for Ireland should
be perssine returned on the nomination of the Roman
Catholic Aa-;tatcr—that four-and-twenty of those no-
minees should themselves be Roman Catholics, and that
this' number of Roman Catholic nominees should equal
the maximum of time Ministerial majority upon the
entire House of Commons—these are circumstances to
make timid men resolute, and brave ones apprehen-
sir e. The O'Connell force. at this moment, with re-
ference to time other parties which enter into the com-
position of the House of Commons, iv precisely in the
poeition taken at some borough elections by a small club
of freemen, who being just numerous enough to turn
the balance either way, demand extravagant terms and
get diem. They allow the independent electors on
each side to poll out, arid then they stand together,
sonic five-anti-thirty men, to decide the return,. and
sack the reward. " The last five-tod-thirty men,"
says- the Afereury or Messenger, a journal cif the town,
"notoriously received 50 sovereigns a- head." • Tla-2
O'Connellites are now the last five-and-thirty men,
with this only difference, that their price is not paid
in sovereigns down, but in the present patronage of the
state, and the promised spoliation of the chaich. If
the peoyle of Great Britain allow the matter to stand