The Sun.
London, England, 1837-10-05 00:00:00

power of King, Lords, and Cclnrnons ? "It is not
and it cannot come to good."—Morning Herald.
When Whigs and Whig-Radicals complain that
the Tories regard too much the institutions of the
country, and too little the object of these institu-
tions—that is to say, the good of the nation—they
seem to forget the value of settled rules, and the un-
certainty of human ability. It is not every year that
men arise capable of altering for the better such insti-
tutions as those which have so long made the domes-
tic peace of Great Britain secure, and her name il-
lustrious throughout the world. And if at all times,
even when men of original and powerful minds have
walked conspicuously upon the public scene—if, when
Locke and Newton, and Harley and Bolingbroke, and
Swift and Addison, and Pope and Steele, were leaders
of the public thought—if, when the immortal Burke
stood forth, the illustrious champion of social virtue
and regulated freedom, throwing around politics the
golden glow of religious philosophy and generous en-
thusiasm--if, in such proud seasons of Great Britain's
history, we clung fast by our institutions, as the best.

anchor of our prosperity, is it the voice of reason or
of preposterous vanity which bids us be less careful
of them now ? We protest that, looking back through
the time which has elapsed since the great political
settlement of 1688, we do not perceive a period at
which it would have been so unreasonably pre-
sumptuous to have abandoned our institutions, and
trusted to the wisdom of living men to make for us
better in their room, as it would be now.
" Great men have been among us; bands that penned
And tongues that uttered wisdom, better none :
The later Sydney, Marvel, Ilarrington,
Young Vane, and others who called Milton friend.
These moralists could act and comprehend
They knew how genuine glory was put on :
Taught us how rightfully a nation shone
In splendour. What strength was, that would not bend
But in magnanimous meekness."
Who is there in the present day among those will-

ing to do the work of revolution that any man
whose heart beats with emotion in the cause of
household good or national glory could for a mo-
ent esteem or trust? We know not of such a man.
Is it among the herd of empty chatterers in the
House of Commons we are to look ? We protest to
Fleaven that we should as soon seek among the
row of caged monkeys in the Zoological Gardens
for a creature capable of being first in the race
that leads to glory's goal as amoni, that wretched
spawn of vanity, conceit, and superficial knowledge,
yclept the " political philosophers" of this present
time. Men who are really enlightened are not apt to
call themselves so. In our day men seem to fancy
that, because they are busy, they are wise ; but me-
chanics' institutes may do very little towards leading
the mind to a right appreciation of political institu-
tions, and railroads have not as yet been laid to the
temple of Minerva. We have fallen upon such evil
clays that there is not eren " a soul of goodness" in
the impudent activity of our bustling and conceited
partisans of chancre. No touch of generous enthusi-
asm ever appears in their plans—no notion of happi-
ness beyond the exercise of small fractions of power,
and the gratification of small emotions of vanity, seems
to cross their minds in speculating upon new laws for
the government of the people. Goodness of nature
seems to be discarded by these political triflers, as
something too simple to deserve their attention. With-
out goodness of nature, says Lord Bacon, " Man is a
mischievous, wretched thing, no better than a
kind of vermin." Such do we verily believe to he a
most just description of those who in the present day
carp and cavil at the institutions of the country.
" Perpetual emptiness ! unceasing change !
No single volume paramount, no code,
No master spirit, no determined road ;
But equally a want of books and men."
These are really and truly the characteristics of the
revolutionary party, and if they find themselves grow-
ing more and more into contempt, as they cer-
tainly are in every quarter where knowledge and free-
dom of thought and discussion most prevail, they
ought to attribute that circumstance to the lamentable
want of heart and mind which is the reproach of
their party. There is no question that the elements
of power are, by the progress of society, and especially
in mechanical science, becoming more and more diffused
among the people ; but political wisdom is not a branch
of mechanics, but of morals, and with that species of
incral teaching which elevates and purifies the minds of
men the modern revolutionists seem utterly incapable

of sympathising. Some will perhaps think that our
quotation should have been given with an exception ;
for, if there be not now, there lately was one Bentham,
who, like Napoleon, is to go down to posterity with his
code in his hand. Alas, poor man ! we fear this will be
but a sorry crutch wherewith to hobble before poste-
rity. Mr. Bentham forms to himself a fanciful notion
of whst.; man is, and frames a code according to this
fancy. To man as he is, Mr. Bentham's philosophy
is about as applicable as were Doctor Arnott s hydro -
tatic beds to the comfort of the hospital patients. Ac-
cording to every rule of science the patient ought to
have been delighted to repose upon so yielding and so
accommodating a couch ; but, somehow or another, he
could not conform his habits to it. however clear the
scientific demonstration that he ought so to do, and he
uniformly besought, after a trial of the novelty, an
unphilosophical bed of feathers. When they who
wish to seem wise tell us that the institutions of
the country are nothing worth in themselves, but only
valuable as they tend to the good of the people, they
tell us merely what everybody knows, and everybody
admits. Everything in the world, from political institu-
tions down to shoes and stockings, are good only in
the effects which they produce. But political institu-
tions are not like many other things in the changing of
which there is no evil belonging merely to the act of
change. If we think one shoe will answer better than
another there can be no harm, beyond the loss of time,
in making the experiment ; but it is not so when rash

men seek to make experiments with the political in-
stitutions of a nation. We then adventure upon that
which we cannot recal, and upon the issue of which
no man can calculate with certainty. There are oc-
casions, however—zreat occasions—in which such
great risks must be run ; and happy it is if on such
occasions there be wise and humane men to lead and
govern the popular force, and to persuade the people
to co►isent to new rules for their government. But

to live in a continual doubt and —suspicion of our
fundamental institutions—to acknowledge nothing as
settled, nothing as permanent—to have no sheet-
anchor, but to be for ever tossed upon the sea of
speculation as to that form of government which would
best suit the people, would be most certainly a state of
national weakness, tutbulence, and misery. That city,
says Thucydides, which is governed by the worse laws
but those firm and stable, is in a safer condition than
the city where the laws arc better and more eligible in
their original institution, but where they are adminis-
tered in a-loose and fluctuating manner. Now if this
be a well-founded opinion, and to us it seems one of
those dicta which carries its own demonstration along
with it, in its harmony with general experience, how
much stronger is the case where not merely the laws
are concerned, but the principles of legislative Go-
vernment out of which laws spring. We, therefore,
hold that, as a general rule, the fundamental institu-
tions of the State ought to be maintained for the sake
of the peace, security, and happiness of the people.—
Morning Post.

One Saturday night, about five weeks ago, a
respectably-dressed individual entered the parlour of a
public-house in the neighbourhood of Drury-lane, and pro-
duc►ng a pocket-book, said he had just picked it up coming
out of the New Strand Theatre, professing at the same
time that he had not yet examined its contents. On open-
ing it there appeared, among other palm's, what seemed to
be a bill of exchange for a considerable amount, some pro-
missory notes, and three country bank-notes of 5/. each.
The persons present congratulated him on his good fortune,
as doubtless, a considerable reward would be offered for the
restoration of the property, when he expressed his regret
that he had to set off on a voyage to China the next day.
After some parley, a person present purchased the chance
of the reward for a couple of sovereigns, and the pocket-
book was deposited in the hands of the landlord, the honest
finder being particularly careful that it should be sealed,
lest any portion of the contents should be abstracted se-
cretly. Week after week the purchaser of the reversion
waited for the expected advertisement in vain. At last lie
went to the parties whose names were on the bill, and was
amazed to find that the whole were forgeries. On further
inquiry, it was discovered that the notes were the issue of a
bank that failed in 1825, and, of course, were wholly
worthless. The pocket-book and its contents were worth
about a shilling,