The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-20 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, MAY 20, 1865.

ter s. Lord PAL3IERSTON had better take
warning by the experience of the past.
(*Once before, in deference to a foreign
:Power, he attempted to go directly in opposition to
-the English feeling. An adverse majority of a
"-hundred or so soon taught him his mistake. The
English people do not desire war with or for
America. If forced upon them they will not shrink
from it, but they are certainly inclined to treat the
Americans with all due courtesy and forbearance.
But they are not blind. They cannot help com-
paring Lord RUSSELL'S circular with Lord PAL3IER-
STON'S reply ; they feel that when such an affront is
put upon justice and humanity as to put the price
of a felon on the head of an able, high-minded, and
enlightended statesman, that if their voice is not
raised against it they will share the disgrace. The
nation spoke out strongly and unanimously to the
people of the Northern States on the murder of
their President. Lord PAL3IERSTON may rest as-
sured there will be a no less vigorous and sponta-
neous expression of feeling respecting the treatment
of JEFFERSON DAVIS.

His Royal Highness the Prince of WALES yester-
day afternoon opened the International Reformatory
Exhibition. His Royal Highness has always shown
great willingness to preside on these occcasions, and
to inaugurate exhibitions. pc., that tend to pro-
mote the culture and further the interests of the
community. A brilliant assemblage appeared to
welcome the Prince and to do honour to the affair,
and the ceremony may be said to have been com-
pleted in the most satisfactory manner. The Earl
of SHAFTESBURY, as President of the Refuge Union,
read an eloquent address to the Prince, in which
was set forth the objects of the Exhibition. A
more interesting theme could scarcely be found to
descant upon than the proofs thus afforded
of the happy influence that is wrought by
the efforts of those who have undertaken the task
of setting these Refuges and Reformatories into
action. As the noble President stated yesterday,
the products were not put forward as a brilliant
display, but " vividly represented the vast and
potent effort of Christian energy to shelter and
cheer the friendless and young, to reclaim the
fallen, and to help, instruct, and elevate the weak,
ignorant, and poor." It is well known that it is
only lately that such efforts have been made and
approved of by the generality. Industrial training
is one of the surest preventives to vice ; and, no
doubt, had these attempts been made at an earlier
period, the present generation would be both wiser
and happier. The Prince of WALES made an ap-
propriate reply, in which he stated that he very
gladly took part in the proceedings, and cordially
concurred with the objects in view, to give " moral
and religious training" to those who had claims on
the consideration of society. The presence of
foreigners was also alluded to by the Prince as a
satisfactory event, and as " promoting the growth
of those Christian and kind feelings towards each
other which we ought to pray should animate the
whole of the nations of the world." From almost
every part of Europe, and from Africa and America,
representatives came to take part in the affair, and
express their sympathy in the common cause. The
presence of the Prince of Wales was doubly
appropriate, because he is the patron of
the Society, which is the centre of three
hundred British Institutions, and, therefore,
it is fitting that he should have appeared.
More than a hundred schools have contributed
works to this collection, and altogether the opening
of this Exhibition may be ranked as a complete
success. It is not deficient in interest to any of
those which have taken place of late ; and it pos-
sesses an additional attraction, inasmuch as it bears
promise for the future that these young beings who
have been providentially snatched from the haunts
of vice and the temptations of idleness may grow up
in the favour of GOD and man to be useful members
of society, and thus afford the best and wisest proof
that the labours of their friends have not been
thrown away.

Mr. DENMAN last night moved that the annual
duty payable upon certificates taken out by attor-
neys, solicitors, and proctors in England and Ire-
land, and by writers to the signet, solicitors, agents,
attorneys, and procurators in Scotland, should be
abolished. The hon. member explained that it was
a war tax imposed by Mr. PITT as far back as 1785,
and he declared that it was unjust, anomalous, and
arbitrary. These were rather strong terms to em-
ploy for the occasion ; and although the motion
was right in the abstract, it certainly does not
assume the importance that the hon. member at-
taches to it. There are many taxes far more
heavy to bear which press upon classes far
less able to endure them. Attorneys are very
well able to take care of themselves ; and if
the Exchequer can spare ninety thousand pounds
we can point out several other things of more con-
sequence, and several taxes which could be remitted
with great advantage. Mr. GLADSTONE spoke very
fairly on the subject, and stated truly that the pro-
per time to have brought this question under the
notice of the House was when the resolutions of the
Budget were introduced. The right hon. gentleman,
confuting the arguments of Mr. DEN3IAN, declared
his conviction that this annual duty paid by attor-
neys was not heavier than that paid by pawnbrokers
and auctioneers. The tax on hawkers may also be
abolished, and with more justice, for, as Mr. GLAD-
STONE said, they are a class not one in a hundred
of whom is worth a hundred pounds a year. An
" invidious selection" of one class cannot but offend
and irritate others, and to choose the most wealthy
or powerful profession would certainly be anomalous
and unjust. It must be admitted that Mr. GLAD-
STONE spoke with more reason than he often does
when he resists the abolition of any taxes, when he
said that at the present time it was inexpedient to
make this change, and he hoped that the House,
" warned by past experience, would refuse to
entangle itself with one of those abstract declara-
tions which were worthless for the present, and
which would only be embarrassing for the future."
The House, however, did not take this advice, and
a majority of three decided in favour of the resolu-
tion. It is always an unwise proceeding to enter
into agreements as regards future taxation, and
there can be no good done by this move of Mr. DEN-
MAN'S to pledge the House to an abstract resolu-
tion without any definite object or immediate
likelihood of its taking effect. Doubtless the majo-
rity of last night would not have been gained if the
elections were not so near, and it had not been
deemed advisable to propitiate constituents in cer-
tain quarters. It is to be regretted that a sort of
precedent has been established for dealing with
what should be general subjects in a particular
manner, and it cannot be said that any cogent
reason was given for the repeal of this duty; and at
the worst it must be borne in mind that any
grievances which this particular class may have to
complain of does not deserve mention in comparison
with the hardships endured by many who are not
possessed of the power to make known their wrongs,
and cannot find advocates to bring forward their
cause from want of interest and influence.

MR. VINCENT WALLACE'S RELAPSE.—We deeply
regret to state that Mr. Vincent Wallace, who was in a
very fair way towards convalescence, has had a relapse of
the singular malady which so long baffled medical skill,
and that he now lies seriously ill at Paris-Passy.—The
&chant.

LITERATURE.

The New Periodical.

The Fortnightly Review. No. I. Edited by George
henry Lewes. Chapman and Hall.

A more brilliant first appearance we do not re-
member ever to have witnessed than the one which
has now so auspiciously inaugurated the career of
our English double of the Revue des Deux Mondes—
THE FORTNIGHTLY. Prospectus and Initial Instal-
ment alike do honour to the good taste and the
sound judgment of the skilled man-of-letters by
whom this new periodical has been undertaken.
They evidence in a remarkable degree his aptitude
for the delicate and responsible duties devolving
upon one who aspires thus directly, frequently, and
persistently to influence and, if possible, to guide
the opinions of the more thoughtful among his
contemporaries. Mr. Lewes took occasion at once
to intimate, frankly enough, through the very first
sentence of his compact yet sufficiently explanatory
Prospectus, that the readers whom he designed to
instruct were essentially the thoughtful and the
cultivated. The contents of No. I.—the very names
of the contributors—attest upon the instant the per-
fect sincerity of this announcement. Associating with
himself, among other distinguished contributors
to this the initial instalment of the Fortnightly Review
the philosopher Sir John Herschel ; the humorist
George Eliot ; the critic, the Hon. Leicester
Warren; and the novelist, Anthony Trollope—Mr.
Lewes has here compacted together a number
worthy of inaugurating a great literary and scientific
periodical. By his own individual contributions to
this first number of the Fortnightly Review, he has
made good his own duplex claim to consideration,
on the one hand as a man of letters, on the other as
a man of science—here, as evidenced the most
signally by his biography of Goethe, to our think-
ing, his undoubted master-piece—there by his ex-
quisitely lucid and succinct exposition of the marvels
of Physiology—an exposition undertaken simply
with a view to the popularising of that most vi-
tally important among the Natural Sciences.
" The Heart and the Brain," a paper written by
the Editor, reads, in truth, like a chapter excerpted
from that famous treatise of his upon Physiology.
His disquisition upon the " Principles of Success in
Literature" being yet worthier of consideration than
his ingenious commentary upon the intimate associa-
tion of Head arm Heart in the animal organisation.
And it is so, for the simple reason that (as we feel
quite sure) it lays bare many of the innermost
thoughts and feelings of the writer upon the
actual condition of his high calling nowadays.
It is the justest estimate we have, for a very
long while pa st, anywhere, encountere illustrative
of the perishableness for the most part of
the majority of literary reputations. The mere
fact that it is thus with this majority of so-called
reputations, affords us, in truth, a clue out of a very
labyrinth of bewilderment. For, otherwise, judging
from the swarms, the shoals, the myriads of books,
big and little, books of more or less pretensions,
light and ponderous, that are perpetually pouring
from the printing-presses of this country—it must
very soon have become matter for despair with even
the most voracious and systematic of readers
to keep pace with the flow of current litera-
ture. The estimate formed of this flood of
books and, more than that, boldly avowed in
regard to it by Mr. Lewes, yields us in this
matter a sense at once of dismay and of con-
solation—dismay at the futile efforts of so many,
and consolation at the new-born conviction that it
is after all quite possible to keep pace with the flow
of what is really worthy of designation as literature.
The voluminous libraries annually teeming from
the press—Mr. Lewes has a very effectual
means of causing to dwindle down in bulk to
an easily appreciable compass. Clouds of books,
the names of which are for him as so much
mere chaff upon the granary floor, he winnows
away in a very twinkling with the inexorable win-
now of his judgment, as—books worthless because
imperfect and insincere. What multitudes of others
vanish upon the instant into so much thin air upon
his apt reminiscence of that pitiless axiom of the
epigrammatic Frenchman " on peut etre honnete
homme et faire mal des vers !" An utterance so
very poignantly illustrative of the frequency of
talents (such as they are) being only too often
sorely misdirected ! And so—by means of an easy
succession of fluent yet destructive sentences—our
caustic reviewer, by way, we presume, of giving
us a taste of his equality at the very outset of
his career as Editor of the Fortnightly Review,
sweeps out of all serious consideration one after
another—a man variously accomplished yet a feeble
poet—a real poet, yet a feeble dramatist—one with
dramatic faculty, yet a feeble novelist—a good
story-teller, yet a shallow thinker and a slipshod
writer to boot ! Not a man of letters, is there,
amongst the crowd, we feel perfectly assured of
this, but would be materially benefited by a
careful perusal of this admirable paper by Mr.
Lewes. It is wholesome and corrective, a genuine
tonic, in its influence. Could anything be more
happily applied—in deprecation of the notion of
any one writing for posterity—than that wise jack-
pudding's query in Faust, as to who is to amuse
the present—" Wer machte denn der Mitwelt
Spass ?" What is eulogised as brilliant writing,
this analyst or definer of the principles of
genuine success in literature, declares to be for the
most part so much mere "literary tinsel." Again,
solid acquirements he in like manner speaks of as
signifying, after all, little more than an acquaint-
ance with the classics. Finally, Mr. Lewes
groups under three heads what he regards as
constituting the laws of literature—these three
simply three forms of
founded, he argues, on our
honeaecisp; inbeeiipnlge,.
was intimates, nare
a tes,
threefold nature—that is intellectual, moral, and
aesthetic

The Intellectual form—the Principle of Vision.
The Moral form—the Principle of Sincerity.
The /Esthetic form—the Principle of Beauty.
To these expressions he undertakes in subsequent
papers to give a very definite significance by means
of explanations and illustrations ! Undertaking, in
effect, thereby to demonstrate " that every work,
no matter what its subject-matter, merely involves
these three principles in varying degrees." And—
" 7 hat its success is always strictly in accordance with
its conformity to the guidance of these principles."
We had almost, here, appended to this italicised
sentence (extracted from p. 95 of the Fortnightly) the
logical significance of the initials Q.E.D. As a tho-
roughly insular, or national, or imperial commence-
ment to this new organ of public opinion, we have
the number led off with the first of a series of papers
by Walter Bagehot on " The English Constitution,"
appropriately prefixed to which is that sound axiom
of Mr. Mill, to the effect that " on all great wib-
jects much remains to be said." The first instal-
ment of this political series fittingly relates to
"The Cabinet." Upon Mr. Anthony Trollope's
new serial story, of which the two first chapters
are here given, a tale entitled " The Belton Estate,"
we should be sorry indeed to pronounce a decided
opinion as yet. For, without any question, it is
the very dullest commencement of a fiction that we
ever remember to have perused. George Eliot's
essay upon " The Influence of Rationalism," comes
to us simply as the reflections suggested to that
thoughtful writer upon a casual examination of
Mr. Lecky's history of the Spirit of Rationalism,
and of its rise and diffusion over Europe. As
for the dispassionate and unprejudiced character
of Moncure Conway's " Personal Recollections of
President Lincoln," we may estimate the value of
all that—upon taking the merest sidelong glance at
the footnote of page 57, where the writer avers, when
speaking of Wilkes Booth, that he (the writer)
had not often seen, " a face into which more
vile passions were distilled"—the notorious fact
being that the face of that wretched young man was
not so much strikingly handsome as exquisitely
beautiful So much for the clear sightedness of a
political malignant—leading him to recognise in the
countenance of an Antinous the features of a
Gorgon. Algernon Charles Swinburne's tragedy
of " Atalanta in Calydon" elicits a most genial
recognition of its merits from the lion. Leicester
Warren, whose auguries of future success for the
young poet, we shall yet hope to see justified by
works no less poetically fresh, and far less artistically

faulty, than " Atalanta in Calydon." Sir John
Herschel contributes to the initial number of the
Fortnightly a wonderfully suggestive, if not very
profound, paper " On Atoms" —a paper in the
form of a dialogue, in which Hermione and Homo-
genes are the interlocutors. There is subsequently
noticeable among the contents an argument by F.
Harrison upon " The Iron Masters' Trade Union,"
an argument so admirably well timed in its way
that it will command no lack of readers. Finally,
bringing this thoroughly well-digested first number
of the new periodical to its conclusion, there is an
excellently well condensed epitome of " Public
Affairs" that have transpired within the last fort-
night prior to the date of its publication. A record
of events followed by several terse, slashing, vigorous
Notices of New Books—George Eliot, F. T. Palgrave,
John Dennis, and the Editor himself, being the
Reviewers. If only the excellence of this first
number be sustained in its successors—The Fort-
nightly will hold its rank, by right, among the very
ablest of its contemporaries—assuming a recog-
nised place among the very pick of the periodicals,
daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly, side by
side with the Times, the Saturday Review, Black-
wood's Magazine, the Edinburgh, and the Quarterly
—yet while assuming this recognisable place among
its contemporaries, holding a position so far excep-
tional and apart that its precise parallel among
serial publications can alone be found in the
world-famous Revue des Deux Blondes, of which
we have here, in truth, a very double in Lewes's
FORTNIGHTLY.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

PRUSSIA AND DENMARK.

BERLIN, MAY 20.

M. de Aquaade, the new Danish Minister Pleni-
potentiary to the Court of Berlin has arrived here,
and was received to-day by Herr von Bismarck.

ARRIVAL OF THE GREAT BRITAIN.
LIVERPOOL, MAY 20.

The steamer Great Britain, from Melbourne, on
the 15th March, arrived here this morning with
£189,000 in specie.

MARSEILLES, MAY 19.

The Messageries Imperiales steamer Mceris left
here this afternoon with 52 passengers, 1,903
packages, and £41,080 for Alexandria, and 62 pas-
sengers, 360 packages, and £29,160 for India and
China.