The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-10 00:00:00

" God's blessing evidently rested upon every step
taken by the King's Government, notwithstanding
the absence of a budget, trade and manufactures,
art, industry, and prosperity increased throughout
the country ; nay, it was even possible to begin and
bring to an end a glorious war without any new
loan or new taxation.

" The reorganisation of the army originated by
the King in person, and, carried into execution by
the present Ministry, has been brilliantly displayed
during the Danish war in a manner surpassing all
expectation.
" The fathers of families under other circumstances
called under arms at a mobilisation were, in by far
the great proportion, and notwithstanding the actual
continuance of war, preserved to their relatives, their
occupation, and to the country. Under the guidance
of our heroic Prince Frederick Charles the army,
notwithstanding a fifty years' peace, proved itself
the worthy descendant of its ancestors. A long
subjected brother race was withdrawn almost in a
moment from the pressure of a foreign yoke, and
the spirit, the strength, the good sense developed by
Prussia infused so high a respect into the rest of the
world, that the opposition of the remaining great
powers at first very vehement to Prussia's proceed-
ings ceased, and Prussia was no longer regarded as
the most inconsiderable among them. An astonish-
ingly rapid peace crowned the glorious work.
" The alliance effected by Prussia with Austria
afforded the first step towards the so ardently desired
but never achieved concord and union in Germany,
and, with this, the true foundation of the position
and security of the great common fatherland.
" During the storms of the war the Ministry had
prepared a number of salutary measures to be laid
before the representatives of the country. This was
done with a candour, perspicacity, and objective-
ness probably impossible to be found in a greater
degree.
we "aAr
are
adtntohwe when,end of
the on,
according
sessi
to all appearances,
what is the result
of the negotiations of the Government with the
representatives of the country ?
" The great conflict between the Government and
part of the representatives upon the question of the
budget, and the reorganisation of the army is un-
solved. It does not exist between the Government
and the country or its entire representatives, for the
Government is at one with the Upper House, and
with a certainly important portion of the represen-
tatives, but strife continues between the Govern-
ment and the major portion of the members—nay,
has now broken out more vehemently than ever.
"By far the great majority of the population of
the country takes no part in this conflict, as is
shown by the want of partisanship and indifference
of at least 60 per cent. of the first electors at elec-
tions in the provinces and even in the large towns.
This great and apparently indifferent portion of the
inhabitants knows its welfare best secured under its
King by the Grace of God, and cares so little about
the constitutional representation of the people that
it feels careless who may be elected, and what may
be resolved by the gentlemen who meet upon the
Donhofsplatz.
"The conflict still continues and obstructs the
quiet but firm progress the Government would so
willingly pursue to truly promote the welfare of the
fatherland.

" The most sagacious bills have been thrown out
for no other reason than on account of this dispute.
We need only cite the military law and the new
bank bill--the former of which has already been
found most efficacious in practice, while the latter
would have afforded an increase in moral strength
and influence to Prussia over the whole of Germany,
and have promoted greater community of all Ger-
man interests.

" These and other opportune bills have been re-
jected, not because the House did not consider
them adequate, but, as has been openly stated in
the House itself, for the sake of opposition to the
Ministry. Even upon the question whether the
Government should be discharged of responsibility,
in accordance with the report of the Accountant-
General, one of the grounds brought forward by
the reporter for voting against the discharge was,
that by such refusal the Government might be put
to the greatest inconvenience. It is hardly credible,

Whoever may be the author of this book, in
his Preface he affects to be Somebody. We
suspect, however, that he is, in point of fact,
next to Nobody. Its contents are amusing,
but they are a mere rechauffe'e. They are purely
fragmentary. Anecdotes for the most part—
myths many of them—the majority of very dubi-
ous authenticity. Remembering what is the subject
of the work and who is the hero of.it, the volume
could hardly by possibility have been rendered tedi-
ous, could scarcely have been otherwise than interest-
ing. But the purport of it, at first doubtful, proves,
when the reader has got well into the book, to be
singularly insidious. It is as discreditable a com-
pilation as a certain notorious chapter in Mr. King-
lake's so-called " History of the Crimean War." It
is, in other words, a stab in the dark, a stab in the
back, a stab aimed deliberately with malice prepense
and afterthought against an eminent reputation.
Beginning with a cluster of pretty little apocryphal
prattling tales about Napoleon lU.'s Childhood—
the writer only very gradually (at first almost im-
perceptibly) reveals his sinister design, which, in point
of fact is nothing less than that of blackening the
character of the public man he has undertaken to
delineate. And to blacken it, moreover, with a
malignity so cruel and dastardly in its way, that
this record, such as it is, of " Napoleon 111. and his
Court" may be said to be writen less with the point of
a pen than with the point of a stilletto. Insinuations
the most infamous are jumbled up among the grace-
fullest little courtly compliments imaginable. It
is for all the world like a mixture of poison and pre-
serves, of oil of vitriol and honey. Its memorabilia
are jotted down alternately in the spirit of an
adulator and of a traducer. The Retired Diplo-
matist bears a resemblance in his way to Thackeray's
description of Sterne : he tumbles in the dust before
us one minute as the sycophantic eulogist of Na-
poleon 111., and the next instant comes sneaking
up to us to whisper a dirty story against the Emn-
peror, on the sly, behind the back of his hand, the
writer's malicious identity concealed all the while be-
hind the mask of the anonymous. He licks the hand
of the imperial hero of his book as it were, but he
does so as with the slavering of a cobra capella.
But, besides all this preposterous inconsistency on
the part of the book and of its writer, the anecdotes
here related are many of them so utterly incredible
in their way, that they are in a manner defiant
of all belief by reason of their flagrant and un-
adulterated extravagance. It is not generally
known—says the author in one place—that Prince
Louis Napoleon, on meeting Sir Hudson Lowe,
soundly horsewhipped him. "It is not generally
known"—when, if it had occurred, could it have
been otherwise than generally known, this delightful
incident—an incident, alas ! only too good to be true.
Why, if such a horsewhipping as that had ever been
administered, the world would have known it full
well by this' time—and we should certainly have
looked upon Napoleon 111. as a much finer fellow
than he appears to us even now. Horsewhipped
Sir Hudson Lowe ! Why it would have taken rank
among the noblest of his achievements ! It is
just a case in point, however—as illustrative of
the imperturbable impertinence with which
this anonymous anecdote-monger issues to the
world—there is really no other phrase for it—
crammer after crammer, now in the way of gross and
slobbering adulation, at other times, and much more
frequently, in the way of most mean and despicable
slandering. The real aim and object of the writer is
evidently to say ditto to M. Victor Hugo,
and to Mr. Alexander Kinglake. Only he lacks the
boldness of either. Instead of plumping his hatred
right out, he insinuates it. He not only " hints a
fault and hesitates dislike"—but he sneers the covert
suggestion of a crime, and, like the practised adept
that he evidently is, in the wielding of the moral
dagger, he introduces an underhand thrust of his
poisoned steel into the heel of the Gallic Achilles
while in the very act of licking the dust off the impe-
rial sandal. Occasionally a really good thing is hit
upon nevertheless in the midst of all this spiteful ma-
lignity, as where some one's witty saying about Louis
Napoleon is quoted, " Quand it parle it ment, quand
it tait it conspire." Well-winnowed and well-sifted
—all the chaff blown off and all the dead weight of
untruth dropped through—the contents of the whole
volume might be judiciously dwindled down to
about a tithe of its present bulk, and that tithe
might, then, after due revision and elision, be ren-
dered acceptable as another contribution to the
already ample stores of Napoleoniana. As it is—like
a sheaf of ill-grown wheat, gathered anyhow, just
as the sickle chanced to go in, tares, and corn, and
poppies, and bluets, all together—the book as a
book makes a goodly appearance enough, arrayed
in the true Napoleon livery of green and gold,
bearing upon its head and front a most attractive
title, and stamped with the effigy of that Imperial
Bee that has long since gathered to itself all the
honey out of the old Bourbon Lily.

Wild Times; a Tale of the Days of Queen Elizabeth.

3 vols. Murray and Co.
It was a felicitous idea that suggested itself to the
author of this work when he selected as a fitting
theme for a romance, in these days of religious
toleration and literary sensation, the " wild" and
happily extinct " times" of religious persecution.
" Persecution on religious grounds," he remarks in
the introduction, "is now so absolutely repudiated
by all parties and opinions, that while the Catholic
has no difficulty in condemning the fires of Smith-
field, the Protestant may well afford, for similar
reasons, to sympathise with the Papistical
sufferers in the reign of Elizabeth." "So
rich," he observes, later on, " is the private
history of the Catholic families of England in all
the materials for a " sensation novel"—in hair-
breadth escapes—in daring rescues—in life-long
imprisonments and heroic deaths, that it is wonder-
ful it should have so long escaped the prying eyes
of the novelist." Such is the theme of the tale before
us, and very happily has the author availed himself
of his interesting materials. The most praiseworthy
feature in the book is, perhaps, the entire absence of
any spirit of controversy. Catholics and Protes-
tants are pretty nearly equally numerous among the