The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-07 00:00:00

ttt

LONDON, TUESDAY, APRIL 7, 1863.

It is rather an odd coincidence that whenever Mr.
GLADSTONE is going to bring on some more than

unusually important Budget, he is sure to be found
labouring under some most inopportune little
bodily ailment. Once, not so long ago—
don't we all very well recollect it P—the Great
Rhetorician was announced to be suffering under
such a loss of voice that the Budget, for

which the night had been duly fixed, had
to be postponed for a week or so, in order

that the larynx, the uvula or some other part of
the Orator's throat might become sufficiently
strengthened. It was like some great tenor—a
MAitio, a TAMBERLIK, or a SIMS REEVES-pre-

paring for some very great performance. The even

ing came on at last, the interesting invhlid duly ap-
peared at footlights—We should have said, at the
table of the House of Commons. The immemorial

orange sucked in the interval of any lengthened
speech in the House of Commons, was inadequate

for once in that notable emergency. Mr. GLAD

STONE appealed visibly to the sympathy
of his audience, by pulling out a wonderful
little bottle containing some mysterious lubricant

for the right hon. gentleman's swallow, to be sipped
occasionally at intervals during his discourse. It was

very generally understood, moreover, that the phy
aician who had for several days been in attendance
upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer was there,
within easy reach of him, under the Speaker's gal-
lery if we recollect rightly, hard by the swinging
glass doors, immediately fronting the chair—that
the physician was there in attendance upon Mr.
GLADSTONE to the last. What this phi sician could
possibly have done for Mr. GLADSTONE under the
circumstances we don't know—supposing, that is to
say, that during the course of the Budget speech there
should have appeared to be any reason at all for ap-
pealing to the M.D. for his instant assistance.
Whether the right hon.gentleman's throat would have
had to be touched up in any way in the presence of a
breathlessly interested and expectant house we can-
not now even conjecture. There was the possibility
however—and there was understood also to be the
physician. The result, a crowded Huse witnessed
(it will be remembered) at the time with a good deal
of surprize, and also it should be said with a good
deal of admiration. Mr. GLADSTONE, the valitu-
dinarian Chancellor of the Exchequer, who affected
to be so squeamishly solicitous about his voice,
spoke, as the 'Yankees would say, four hours "on
end," as SAM SLICK might have phrased it, "one
streak of talk," with the same musical, ringing,
vibrating, reverberant, sonorous voice as the one for
which he has, among other great natural gifts, been
so long remarkable. As well might a boatswain,
while audibly hailing the maintop in a gale of wind,
have pretended to appeal to our Sympathies in
regard to some doubt as to the state of his voice !
And now—with another eagerly looked for
Budget fast coming on—with Ministers well known
to be in a small minority—with the Opposition
well known to "mean mischief," if they can only
find the opportunity—our personal sympathies are
appealed to, in Mr. GLADSTONE'S behalf, by a
pathetic announcement that the right hon. gentle-
men has recently received a slight scratch or
bruise upon his face, "somewhere," as the
gebemouche who pens the touching paragraph
in the Great Government Organ (among other
papers delicately expresses it, " somewhere in
the region of the nose." These odd little coin-
cidences almost give one the notion—we don't
that they do, but we venture to hint that they
almost do--gills one the notion of preconcerted and
elaborately arranged attempts to get up a sort of
Sensation Budget display on the part of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. GLAD-
STONE, under these arrangements—under the
influence of these coincidences, that is to say
—comes forward to deliver his Budget Speech
under so very interesting an aspect personally ! Our
sympathies are appealed to, surely not in vain? Our
favourable consideration is most opportunely pro-
pitieed. Mr. GLADSTONE corms down to the Howe
for his five hours' annual diqolay—now wie:li hi:,