The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-15 00:00:00

THERMOMETER.

This day at Two o'clock 43

Barometer-30.35.
Wind—S.-W. ; light, and cloudy.

Zti3
I 'A&
4=OUTI •

SDIAY, DEC. 15, 1863.

Hitherto Mr. Coy
share of public res has enjoyed a very large
t :
admiration. He has
certainly had ours whatever
value he might set
upon them- It is at this
moment a matter to our-
selves, therefore, of very
and unaffected
regret that one whom we bav:re
o lung learnt thus
to respect and to admire should,
b
ordinary proceedings,
entirely forfeit
: his own extra-
at one, andall claim to either of those sentiments, It can
alone almost be accounted for, this sadden
and most
wrath on the put
of v
unseemly explosion of
COBDEN, by attributing it to what he himself
once.
,called sarcastically—and not so very many mouths
back either—a craze. Ono is nearly tempted to
believe, witnessing what we all of us just now ba,,,e,
1'2.11 witnessing within the interval of these bast
few days—one is really almost tempted to believe
;that there actually are those peculiar dates, to be
picked out or to be avoided, of which ZAD-
RIEL'S fifty thousand purchasers annually read
is his Prophetic Almanac, And among the
entries of the redoubtable Tao Sze for 1863,
No might, now, almost look to find a warn-
ing addressed to all persona noted for their
sound common sense, not to write letters on Wed-
nesday, the 9th of December! For it was on that
day especially that the " craze" we have spoken of
ay, pears to have been very strong indeiid upon Mr.
EDEN. Under date " Midhurst, 9th December,"
Nve rind him writing -
in the most offensive manner
ablezt, personally,a to the Editor of the Times.
date, ;ye fine
that same, for Mr. COBDEN, fatal
manner, itiliao p m writing, also in the most offensive
to a '9°nallY7 it should be said very per-
sonally,Wit,
thewholly,Tdifferent recipient of his arro-
usnce, to
p:rquess of HARTINGTON. Ad•
dressing the latter
personage more after the manner
of the late Mr. Coen
of what we have beer,
heretofore accustouiedt, regard than
.m.ia:, the manner of Mr.
COBDEN—the member for
;),,oNothus curtly
munication to Lord HmeriNcu,rrst opens his corn-
g
" lord, you will perhaps
opportunity of et,ree°t.(l enough to
take, an early
T had almost said ng publicly
your recent--. reckless
sion of my remarks, &c." And upon that
satnPeerfver.a t 4
9th irst., Mr. COBDEN penned
Wednesday, the
those astounding personalities, which will b 3 found
elsewhere is another pert of our impreseiou
of
this evening, transferred to oar columns in exten3o

from; those of our chief morning contemporary.
The grossness of these singular personalities,
addressed as they are by name to the prin-
cipal Editor of the limes, are happily
we believe unparalleled on the part of any public
man of eminence in the whole history of British
journalism. And the effect already produced
throughout the country by Mr. COBDEN'S excep-
tional indalgence in them, is manifestly such that
we may now pretty confidently conjecture no other
public man will be speedily tempted into the enjoy-
ment of any similar luxury, in the way of unmea-
sured vituperation. Anything more outrageous in
the wav of vituperation we may safely assert has
never been witnessed in the instance of
any man elected by his countrymen to the
honour of a seat in the House of Commons. Mr.
COBDEN speaks, it will be seen, of the arrogance of
the limes—without the faintest consciousness of
his own I He talks about " what," he says, "I will
call an inordinate display of Times' egotism": and
vilieeisncneaoïvfeAlyir7CakoßinDg such
EN'S !
aa
nt theexceedingly ve r same
amusing
evidence
The old fable about the bird of the desert
hiding
his head in the sand, is illustrated anew very funnily
in this very instance by the member for Midhurst. He
intimates with overwhelming hauteur that the Times
is denied access to his own house, and he thereupon
argues (vide his letter, in proof that we are here not
in any way perverting his meaning) he thereupon
; argues that the Times has a very limited, almost, us
one might say, obscure circulation. It is quite a
companion incident, this, to the threatened with-
drawal of the young cadet's custom from HcBY, the
bootmaker, a threat suggestive to the latter of the
immediate putting up of his shutters. More
signally expressive, however, of the darkening in-
fluence exercised by passion over the hitherto clear,
calm, luminous judgment of Mr, COBDEN, more
distinctly indicative of this than the grossly
abusive language in which this painful letter of his
is couched—is the false logic of which it is composed
throughout. Mr. COBDEN avows his systematic
and perverse avoidance of the Times, and yet,
while he acknowledges his ignorance of its con-
tents, an ignorance in which he actually glories,
he coolly presumes to characterize the precise
naturo of its contents, and this simply to the
end that he may villify it. Our contempo-
rary has cruelly, only this very morning,
recalled to Mr. COBDEN'S remembrance, his
enthusiastic remark 3 ears ago to quite a
worthy effect, namely, that he preferred a
copy of the 7inzes tc all the books of TIIUCYDIDES.
Our contemporary does not remark, however, there-
upon that probably Mr. COBDEN knew about as
much then of TUUCYDIDES as he confesses to know
now of the 'limes. An ill-mannered sneer has been
directed by Mr. COBDEN at what he vulgarly called
the testimonials to character quoted into the limes
from the columns of its contemporaries. The limes
having probably, we should conjecture, less experi-
ence, perhaps, of anything in the way of honeyed
words than any of the daily journals of Europe. At
the head of which, nevertheless, it is no extravagance
to assert—it is simply the plain truth to state—it
stands, as it has stood now for some years, facile
vrinceps in reputation. Mr. COBDEN used in his
better days to appreciate the value of facts beyond
almost any man of his time. There are a few, now
that we at lerst may here venture to obtrude
upon his attention with a trifle more grace,
perhaps, than would be possible in the instance
of the 7itrzes itself. And these facts, let us say,
we woald now thus briefly enumerate in regard to
the Times, purely out of an honest love of fair
pley towards our great contemporary. Before Mr.
COBDEN'S favourite organs of nowadays had sprung
into existence, the Times was one of the principal
mediums through which, in spite of itself, his argu-
ments went forth t ) the world at large, gaining him
his cause and winning him his reputation. His taunts
now, therefore, are tainted with the meanness of in-
gratitude. Again—after the memorable tribute paid
by the late Sir ROBERT PEEL to the " unadorned
eloquence" of Mr. COBDEN, after the equally
memorable tribute paid by the limes to " the
great fact" of the Anti-Corn Law League, we
should have presumed that alike in both instances
Mr. COBDEN might have abstained from flouting
either the memory of Sir ROBERT or the judgment
of the Tones with having formerly been foremost
among the advocates of the principles of Protection.
Another of those famous phrases uttered at rare
intervals by Sir ROBERT PEEL, will long be borne
in recollection as applied to the now veteran Prime
Minister of England, Lord PALMERSTON—" We
are all proud of him." And so now may we also
in the name and in the interests of journalism,
apply that very same phrase to the chief among our
contemporaries—" We are all proud of it."
Diametrically opposed to its views, we are, no doubt,
repeatedly—yet we bear in none the less vivid
remembrance many noble incidents recorded in its
history. Incidents, for example, like the discovery
of that gigantic Fraud, the timely exposure of
which, through its agency, elicited at the time the
grateful acknowledgment of the whole mercantile
world of England ! Incidents like the breaking
up to its own vast pecuniary loss of that
Railway Bubble, the bursting of which later
on, after a yet wider expansion, might have had
far more disastrous consequences ! Incidents like
the foundation of the Times' Charitable Fund for
our suffering soldiers in the Crimea during
the first disasters of the Great Russian War !
Incidents like these will still be borne in remem-
brance in regard to the :limes when Mr. COBDEN'S
vulgar abuse of it has been utterly forgotten. They
will be remembered then as vividly as they are
remembered now : and with them that happy
and in no way extravagant remark once made,
"Rue years back, in the House of Commons,
by Sir EDWARD BULWER LYTTON to the effect
that if he were asked for an illustration of the
eg° we live in, he would adduce as, perhaps, the
aPtess e
templar of it, a file of the Tones newspaper.

btteet
news
leave the
course
from Denmark and Germany
e
ren,oli doubt. It would seem,
disputants in
considerable to be followed by the respective
from various
rs
are shrinking frotu
avoid any collision
Accord-
ing to the Parisian
resolved by the Cabinet et '
Danish troops shall evacuate
th, that the Danish authorities
Ittr:ne:lPFstha:giztli
withethonthct, and are anxious to
rtaier: ca.e, it has been
jourtairjederal troops.
to occupy.
thpenhagen that the
towns in Hol-
steinezecutient has
News wahlsi
reported there that the Danish uovetncurrently
ochcotmheesGferrommaAn
determined not to oppose Federal
that a friendly arrangement is likely t, be
nacto,d
with the great German rovers. A pacific solution
is of course to be greatly desired, and it would be
worth many sacrifices to prevent the outbreak of ,n
European war; but it is to be hoped that the Danish
Gov..Tnment will not be induced by any fear of con.
sequences to imperil the independence of their coun-
try, or to surrender its recognised and well-esta-
blished rights. The strong hand of King FREDERICK
no longer guides the helm; but his successor will
do ,yell to take pattern from his courage and firm-
ness, however advisable it may be to attempt
conciliation before proceeding
the Federal Diet can be induced to abandon their

Purpose by any means consistent with reason and
right, the change will be a subj.ct f),- general con-