The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-31 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, DEC. 31, 1862.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-TWO closes with
the Civil War in America still raging ; with the Dis-
treFs—consequent upon the Cotton Famine—still
desolating the North-west of England; with the
spirit of political reaction still gathering greater
and greater strength to itself daily throughout the
majority of the States of Christendom.

At home the twelvemonth now upon the eve of
expiring has been one of general mourning, of wide-
spread solicitude, and of systematic postponement.
It opened upon this country while the hearts
of its loyal population were yet wrung with
profound sympathy for the overwhelming
affliction that had fallen upon the most beloved
of our Constitutional Sovereigns. The shadow
of that immense grief has darkened the whole
of 1862, fading off in intensity (though still sombre
to the very last), from the Ist of January to the 31st
of December. Two consolations connected with
this grief are happily left to the people of England,
however, by way of assuagement. First, the recogni-
tion of the truth that visibly and most undeniably
results from its very poignancy, the truth, namely,
that the noble and beautiful Fame of the Dead Prince
has been, if one might venture to say so, perfected,
in its appreciation by the world at large, by the
simple fact of the abruptness of his disappearance.
Snatched away from the midst of us thus suddenly,
and, to human view, prematurely—it was
only when he had, in this startling manner,
vanished from the public observation, that we
were enabled to realise, upon the instant how
pure and majestic were the attributes of that ele-
vated reputation. We only understood to the full
how good he was when he was gone—how worthily
he had acquitted himself of his high and sacred
trust—with what consummate tact and discretion
he had fulfilled, from early youth to middle age,
his many onerous and complicated responsibilities.
That has been, throughout, our foremost, as it
must prove our abiding solace in connection
with the affecting remembrance of his ROYAL
HIGHNESS. Another consolatory reflection we
have referred to, as tending to mitigate the national
sorrow in his regard—and this is obviously the
one simple, inevitable, grateful recollection, that the
sentiments of attachment hitherto subsisting be-
tween the Gracious SOVEREIGN of these realms and
her free and loyal people have been drawn yet
more closely together by the stress of their com-
mon anguish, by the oneness of their profound and
unaffected sympathy. Assuaged though the grief
caused to the QUEEN, and to the Nation at large,
has indisputably been by these and other (diviner)
considerations—the grief itself has been with them
all this while nevertheless—it has overshadowed
unintermittently both the CROWN and the
country during the entire year of grace now
drawing immediately to a close, a year, indeed,
expressly set apart by the SOVEREIGN as a year of
mourning to Herself and Her Royal House.

Even the International Exhibition of 1862 failed
in any appreciable manner to dissipate the gloom
that hung over the metropolis of the empire
throughout the twelvemonth immediately following
the demise of the august Organizer of its memor-
able prototype. London all this year has remained
socially under an eclipse. There has been, for
once during this happy reign, no Court held what-
ever. Even the Imperial Legislature, sympathis-
ing with the royal and loyal effliction, consented
with one accord to postpone for an entire year all ,
that could by possibility be postponed with-
out detriment to the common weal. `Vita Par-
tßev almost in a state of equilibrium —with
conceivable inducement, therefore, to
Party
truce
haseontests within the walls of Parlilment—
a been maintained all this last twelve-
month ets''ten the powerful Coalition Government
and the
If°t67l:ble Conservative Opposition. Poli-
tically, 8
therefore been an annul; non. As
than
record it will appear as
alitstluebjleecsts fbolranivki
an absolute hiatus in the
annals of Parliament .zersthing postponed that
could be—everything
net
until next year,
until this now fast on-coming Sear lear of grace 1863,
which will have to make up so
many deficiencies !
The confronting ranks of the
civintivlelunt and the
Opposition will then, at length, it
have alp „fairly
together. V,eir leaders out
z'ather
—we may rest assured of that—immediately after
the Houses have met in February. As legislative
trophies in 1862, ell that we can look back to
with enythicg like satsfietion, are the passing of
enactments for the regulation of the title and
the f,cilitation of the Transfer of Property
in Land, and for the Emb4nkment of the River
Thames, that grandest of all our metropolitan

improvements.
The obituary of 1862 has embraced within it the
record of an immense loss to philosophical litera-
ture, in the person of THOMAS HENRY BUCKLE,
who died suddenly, aged only forty, while sojourn-
lug (in the midst of an oriental tour) at Damascus.,