The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TlMES.—Another English worthy has been laid
to rest in the Minster which has received the dust
of so many good and true Englishmen that it has
become a national Pantheon as well as a noble
Christian monument. A public funeral in West-
minster Abbey is the seal of the nation's gratitude
for a career which has been closed. Nelson looked
forward to a grave there as his appropriate reward,
should Death snatch him away in the moment of
victory. A long line of Sovereigns, including the
most illustrious of those who ruled England when
the royal office brought with it an infinity of duties
now happily severed from it, lie buried in the Ab-
bey. Statesmen and warriors, poets and painters,
men of science and men of art,are mingled together
beneath its pavement, and as the years go by new
tenants take their places among the illustrious dead.
Within a brief interval we have buried there Clyde,
Macaulay, and Stephenson, men sprung from the
people, but happy in winning glory for themselves
and their country, in arms, in letters, and in arts.
The man we buried yesterday differed from them
in having been born to hereditary rank, but the
accident of birth only gave him earlier opportunities
of doing good service to the nation. Throughout
his long career of usefulness nothing was more
remarkable than his entire sympathy with the pur-
suits and interests of the people, and it was, in
truth, this which first endeared him to his country-
men. The work he did in the State was more slowly
appreciated than the kindliness of his disposition,
and was, perhaps, not fully known till he was
taken from us. When we felt his loss we knew
what he had been, and Prince, Peer, and Com-
moner came to lay Lord Palmerston among an
older generation of statesmen as one whose ser-
vices to his country made him worthy to be their
peer. In expressing a desire that Lord Palmer-
ston should be buried in Westminster Abbey, the
Queen spoke as the voice of the nation. It is
nearly sixty years since Lord Palmerston first
entered the service of the Crown, and the years
which he actually gave his country fell little short
of half a century. In the long retrospect of such a
career many acts may be found the expediency of
which may now appear doubtful, but none which
can impeach the singleness of his policy or the purity
of his motives. His one thought was the honour
and glory of England, and in his zeal for his country
he was careful to remember what was due to the
precious legacy of her past renown. Had a subor-
dinate official served the nation so many years with
such unwavering fidelity, his career would deserve
recognition ; but whenwe speak of the First Minister
of the Crown, a national act of respect to his
memory was almost inevitable. It is, in truth,
many years since the memorable declaration was
made by a party opponent that we were all proud
of Lord Palmerston, and in the unanimity of feeling
manifested when his death was telegraphed through
the country the distinctions of party and differences
of opinion were fairly obliterated. And if the
Queen expressed the wishes of the people in direct-
ing that Lord Palmerston should be honoured with
a public funeral, it may be added that her Majesty
was no less fortunate in choosing the place of his
burial. It was not merely that Lord Palmerston
had won a right to be laid among his great pre-
decessors ; we may go further, and say that
it is only upon such occasions as this funeral
that Westminster Abbey appears to be devoted
to its proper use. To an ordinary visitor
the state of the Abbey is unsatisfactory, if, indeed,
it be not dispiriting. He is shocked by the con-
trast between the noble architecture of its first
builders and the.paltry monuments of later genera-
tions. The difference between the Westminster
Abbey of to-day and that which it was intended to
be is excessively jarring. But yesterday the Present
was strong enough to repel the almost overpowering
influence of the Past. The twelve centuries of
piety which consecrate the site of Westminster
might look down upon the ceremonial, and those
who assisted in it might yet be unashamed. They
had come to bury one who had worked long and
faithfully, and the note of solemn triumph which
sounds throughout the Burial Service of the Eng-
lish Church corresponded exactly to the sentiment
of the occasion. There was no sense of premature
loss to check the feeling of thankfulness for the past
and of trust for the future. Death was no longer
the grim tyrant of mediaeval legend, running athwart
all human activity and baffling human hopes ;
rather was he the servant of the Almighty Will,
doing His good pleasure. The Englishmen of all
ranks, from the heir to the Crown downwards, who
clustered about the open grave of Lord Palmerston,
came to lay all that was mortal of him in it, as not
being unworthy of association with the great states-
men whose remains lie around. The statue of the
great Chatham looked down upon the grave ; the
younger Pitt and his rival Fox lie at the side of it ;
close by rest Grattan, Castlereagh, and Canning,
the younger Canning, and Horner, too early lost to
his country. " The mighty chiefs sleep side by
side," their jealousies over, their divisions ended,
and a grateful nation confesses that the ambition of
each one of them was to serve his country. Such 12
Lord Palmerston's title to honour. He may not
have had the daring genius of Chatham, the govern-
ing ability of his son, the fervour of Fox, or the
polished eloquence of Canning, but lie was as jea-
lous as Chatham of England's greatness. Unlike
the younger Pitt, he was prepared to resign office
rather than sacrifice his independence, and under his
administration the prosperity of the nation advanced
at a rate which none of his predecessors were fortu-
nate enough to witness. He desired for his country
peace and happiness at home, goodwill and respect
abroad, and the country yesterday thankfully ac-
knowledged that in times of no ordinary difficulty
and danger he had been the means of securing these
inestimable blessings. Among the statesmen who
sleep in. Westminster Abbey there may be some
whose intellectual power will be estimated by after
generations above that of Lord Palmerston ; none
of whom it can be said that he was more beloved by
his contemporaries. We may indeed apply to Lord
Palmerston the noble verses, still to be read on a
tombstone in the Abbey, in which Pope lamented
the death of a statesman who was also his friend.
A busy generation may not remember much of the
deeds of that friend, but as long as the English
language remains the generous lines of the great
poet must survive :
"He broke no promise, served no private end;
He gained no title, but he lost no friend."
The unselfishness, fidelity, and generosity which
appeared to Pope the especial merits of the servant
of Queen Anne were the conspicuous virtues of the
Prime Minister of Queen Victoria. The crowds
which gathered in and about the Abbey Church of
Westminster yesterday show that such virtues are
admired and beloved now as they ever were, and
give the surest warrant that they will not be want-
ing in the history of England in the future. There
may be seasons of doubt and perplexity in store for
us, when authority may be uncertain and counsels
may be darkened, but the experience of the past
justifies hopefulness even when the prospect is most
unpromising. We unconsciously imitate that what
we most heartily admire, and the sincerity of the
regrets which attended Lord Palmerston's death
gives us assurance that he will not be without suc-
cessors working in his spirit.

POST.—Yesterday we were all compelled to realise
in our hearts the loss we have sustained, and to
" speak what we feel, not what we ought to say."
But, sad as the obligation was, it was one which a
great country might well be proud to fulfil. The
nation that mournfully follows its veteran leader to
his last earthly resting-place can return to its duty
as soldiers who have buried their chief on the
battle-field pursue the retreating foe. England is
able to stand upright under the weight of her grief,
and no weakness will be betrayed in the tears she
sheds over the grave of Palmerston. "He has run
his course and sleeps in blessings." The ends he
aimed at were his country's, and the means he
used were honest, such as might be avowed in the
face of the world, and be sustained with a clear
conscience and a steady hand. High aspirations
and tender emotions are inspired by the name that
was a tower of strength to the oppressed and a
terror to wrongdoers. There were none whose con-
dition was so forlorn and desperate that they might
not cast a look of hope towards the light that
beamed in his policy ; and to those who made their
wills the scope of justice, he never failed to express
the indignation of the country which, under his
administration, was morally formidable. Chatham
and Pitt splendidly demonstrated the power of
England, but Canning and Palmerston " made
war breed peace, and peace stint war." An official
career commencing in 1806, and finally closing in
1865, is in itself remarkable. Of the generation
that saw Lord Palmerston start in the race only
one or two have lived to witness the end, and for
years he has stood alone, the last of a famous
school, the connecting link between the stirring
events of the past and the tranquil progress of
the present, the one star to which there was no
fellow in the firmament. Wellington and Peel,
and Lyndhurst and Lansdowne had passed away
even before he arrived at the zenith of his popu-
larity, and the borough for which he was first re-
turned to the House of Commons is politically dead.
The Constitution of this country has been reformed,
and the Governments, of other countries have been
overthrown, restored, and overthrown again. Just
before Pitt had rolled up the map of Europe, and
now the Minister of the French Empire places a
garland on his coffin. The treaties of Vienna, that
were made in his manhood, have been torn to pieces
in his old age ; and the public law, which he always
scrupulously obeyed, has fallen into a state of abey-
ance. These are circumstances that suggest them-
selves ; and although the illustrious statesman who
has been called to long peace has gone happy, and