The Sun.
London, England, 1853-01-24 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY EVENING-, .1, ANITARY 24, 1853.

FRENCH PLAYS, ST. JAMES'S
THEATRE.-SEASON 1853.

Mr. MITCHELL respectfully announces that the SEASON of
FRENCH PLAYS will be COMMENCED on MONDAY next,
Jan. 31, by the engagement of Monsieur Ravel (of the Theatre
du Palais Royal —his first appearance since the year 184.). The
first performance will consist of two new and amusing Vaudevilles,
entitled UN MONSIEUR QUI SUIT LES FEMMES, and YORK; ou,
Une Recompense Honette, in both of which Mons. Ravel will ap-
pear. Mr. 'Mitchell has the satisfaction to submit the following
List of Artistes, engaged to appear during the season:—'Monsieur
Ravel, Madame La'nbert (o, the Theatre du Palais Royal), Madlle.
Bertin (of the Theatre Francais), Madlle. Luther (of the Theatre du
Gymnase—her first appearance in England), Monsieur Lafont,
Madlle. Emma Fleury (Eleve du Conservatoire, Paris), Madlle. Page
(of the Theatre des Varietes—her first appearance in England),
Monsieur Adrien Fede, Mons cur Leonard, Madlle. Madeline Brohan
(of the Theatre Frangais -her first appearance in England), and
Monsieur Regnier (of the Theatre Fraligais). The eminent Trage-
dienne, Madlle. Rachel, is also engaged for Twelve Representations,
and will appear in Monsieur Emile Angler's successful Play of
DIANA, at the commencement of her engagement.—During the en-
gagement of Monsieur Ravel, at the beginning of the season, it is
intended to give Four Representations a week—on Monday, Wed-
nesday, Friday, and Saturday Evenings—the Mondays and Fridays
being, as usual,
nounced that, during the Easter week, from Monday, March 28,
Subscription Nights.—lt is also respectfully an-
until Saturday, April 2, M. Robert Houdin will exhibit his extraor-
dinary Entertainment of Soirees Fantasiques, being his last appear-
ance in England. previous to his final retirement from his profession.
—The French Plays will be resumed after Easter, on Monday, April
4. The Subscription will be arranged for Thirty Representations, on
Mondays and Fridays, until the end of May. The favour of an early
application for Season Subscriptions is respectfully solicited at Mr.
Mitchell's Royal Library, 33, Old Bond-street, and at the principal
libraries, as usual.-33, Old Bond-street, Jan. 22.

ONE HUNDRED ANT) TWENTY-THIRD SALE.
CUSTOM•HOTJSE, Loiaan, January, 1853.
F
OR SALE, by Order of the Honourable the
Commissioners of her Majesty's Customs, at the Commercial
Sale Rooms, Mincing-lane, on Monday, 31st January, Tuesday, Ist,
Wednesday, 2d, Thursday, 3d, Friday, 4th, and on Monday, 7th
February, 1853, at Twelve o'Clock at Noon precisely, the following
Goods for Home Consumption, viz. :
Artificial flowers, agate ornaments, baskets, fancy and plain,
brandy, braces, brooches, bronze powder, braid, blankets, black lace,
black-lead pencils, Berlin embroidery, beads of steel, bedsteads,
Bombay work, books, boxes, snuff, match and glove, buttons,
brushes, hair, clothes, tooth, and painters, carpets, drugget', rugs,
&c.; camphor wood chests, carpet bags, cigar cases, &c., coffee pots,
clay figures, cordials: confectionery, crotchet cases, China silk, chess
men, China ware, jars, vases, &c.; cambric embroidered handker-
chiefs, clocks, gilt, brass, marble, bubl. skeleton, inlaid, Ste.; carriage,
Dutch, Cologne water, currants, daguerreotype plate.., frames, &I.:
elastic webbing, earthenware, East India matting; embroidery, viz ,
screen and fancy pieces; furniture, viz., carved cabinets, book cases,
chests, &c.; buhl, bedsteads, tables (worked and carved), fasces, &c ;
globes fur lamps, glove studs, grass clo h, Geneva; gold jewellery,
viz., chains, brooches, &c., hand screens, inkstands, iron safes, ivory
carved ornaments, jewellery, viz., (mock) bracelet slides, glove
bands, brooches and brooch pins, studs, &c., buckles, chains, agate
ornaments, stones, imitation. &c., Berlin, knitting cases, lamps
metal and ornamental, lenses, lametta, lace, pillow, thread,
&c. ; lacquered ware, viz., cabinets, tables, &c., matting, E. I, ;
meerscham, pipes. &c. ; millinery ; microscopes, Stc. ' • musi-
cal instruments, viz.,' trombones, cornopeans, clarions, fintinas,
accordlana, concertinas, &c. ; needlework, viz., jackets. skirts,
Pellerines, sleeves, habits, collars, toilet covers, robes, &c. ; oil;
ornaments, porcelain, bone, ivory, &c. ; opera glasses; pillow lace,
silk and thread ; paper weights ; pencils of slate ; perfumed spirits ; ,
pocket-books ; paper, fancy gilt, Ike. ; porte-monnaies, portfolios,
&c. ; porcelain, coloured, Dreseen, Sevres, &c. ; pomatum ; pipes,
bowls, tubes, stems, &c. ; purses, silk ; prints ; platting for bon-
nets ; raisins ; rum ; segars ; segar cases ; shawls, silk, crape, barege;
soap stone ornaments; straw cords; slate pencils; shawls, wove,
woollen, imprinted, &c. ; spirits, plain and mixed; silk manufac-
tures, viz., hand screens, barege shawls, frogs or ornaments, crape
shawls, purses, waistcoat pieces, braid, &c.; steel fringes, slides,
beads, brooches, bracelets, &c.; stereoscopes ; snuff; sugar; tea ;
tobacco; Turkey carpets and rugs; toys, &c.; veneers, walnut;
watches, gold and silver; watch springs ; watch chains of steel ;
woollen blankets; wool combs; waistcoat pieces; wine; webbing,
elastic ; and various other goods.
For Exportation, or for Home Consumption, en payment of the
duties :—Books, Cologne water, spirits, silk manufactures, sugar,
succades, tamarinds, tea, wood, wine, &c., &c.
For Exportation only:—Watches, books, prints, playing cards,
wine and spirits, &e.
For the benefit of the Crown Sugar, spirits, wine, boat, &c.
The above Goods may be viewed at the Queen's Warehouse,
Custom-house, Thames-street; at the London, East and West India
Docks; and Tobacco Ground, Rotherhithe ; on Thursday, the 27th,
Friday, the 28th, and Saturday, the 29th of January, 1853, from Ten
o'Clock in the Morning until Three o'Clock in the Afternoon, and on
the days of sale, from Ten o'clock in the Morning until Twelve
o'clock at Noon.
Take Notice, that Goods sold at this Sale will not be delivered
until after two clear days of the day on which they are sold, and
that no lots can be paid for at the office of the Receiver of Fines,
after Two o'Clock in the Afternoon, and that on the days of gale
money will not be received by the Receiver of Fines after Eleven
o'Clock in the Forenoon.
. . .

Catalogues may be had at the Queen's Warehouse, Custom-house,
Thames•street, Is. each.

THE YORKSHIRE SCHOOL.

(From the Wakefield Journal.)

The term Manchester school or Lancashire school is
frequently made use of ; but it would seem that there is
a Yorkshire school—Macaulay, Molesworth, and Baines,
are three not unfavourable specimens of the Yorkshire
school—all have been members for Leeds ; then Colonel
Thompson and Mr. Roebuck are of the Yorkshire
school—and even we find that my Lord John Russell
has lately been down to Leeds as a finishing school—
and that Mr. Cobden is still practising in the Yorkshire
school, which would seem to indicate that Yorkshire is
not in the rear of Lancashire.
It is still understood and desired in influential and
well-informed political circles, that Mr. Baines is
to be the Speaker of the House of Commons, when
the vacancy occurs, to the exclusion of the late
Attorney-General, Thesiger, who is the pet man
of the Derbyites. Both Lancashire and Yorkshire
might have been more fully brought out under the
recent appointments but for accidental circumstances.—
Liverpool and Bradford, the, two great commercial and
manufacturing emporiums, have lost the opportunity of
being represented in the new Ministry, owing to the
trickery and dishonesty at the late election, ,by which
the electors were deprived of their real representatives.
This circumstance has not operated to exclude Mr.
Cardwell from office, though it has lost Liverpool the
opportunity of having %Minister as member. A vacancy
appears to have been found for Mr. Cardwell for the City
of Oxford, without waiting for the decision of the Liver-
poollelection petition ; no such alternative, it would seem,
has been offered to Colonel Thompson. The Tories and
Whigs are more alive to these points than the Radicals.
Perhaps, by-and-bye, the Radicals may see it right to
press for a larger representation in the Cabinet, and ac-
quire the tact of putting forward their best man first.
The selection of Sir W. Molesworth is matter for con-
gratulation. At the same time, he is certainly not the
person whom the Radical party would themselves have
selected to be the first put forward as their Ministerial
representative. Not on the ground of any personal ob-
jection to him, but because there are others who are
considered entitled to priority, both on the ground of
seniority, and as having rendered more important ser-
vices to the popular cause. The veteran free trader and
reformer, Colonel Thomson, would have been unques-
tionably entitled to the priority ; so would the honour-
able member for Sheffield, Mr. Roebuck. The ill health
of the latter may have furnished a sufficient reason
for his non-appointment; and the unfortunate temporary
exclusion from Parliamentlof the former may have partly
led to the preference of Sir W. Molesworth, though the
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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOUR.LVALS.

THE FRENCH EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE.
( From the Times. )
The speech delivered by ,Louis Nap( ?lean on
Saturday last to the principal political 1 >odic& of
the Empire, and, in fact,, to the French nation,
for the purpose of announcing I,i-is resolutio a on. the
subject of his marriage, has itther strer g-thelied
than altered the favourable opinion we hay, ?. already
expressed of his choice. Indeed, we had antici-
pated. on Friday several of the arguments b y -which
the Emperor now recommends the selectio a of his
Consort to the favour of the people. It. is true
that a Government such as that which has .arisen
in France, after a long series of revolutions, has
nothing in common with the older monarchies of
Europe ; and several attempts to connect them. with
that country by the frail bonds of a matrimonial
alliance have only ended' in the misery, the exile,
or the death of princesses worthy at least of a more
tranquil fate. It is true that the protracted. solioi-
tations of an unsuccessful suitor are not consistent.
with the dignity of an elected Sovereign, 'or of the
people who have raised him to that position faid,
though the allusion to the marriage of the
Duke of Orleans is not generous in t' ae . lips
of one who has succeeded that family • upon
the throne, it can hardly, be doubted, i n spite
of the personal merits of the Princess H elena of
Mecklenburgh, that this affiance was pre judicial
to the Orleans dynasty. Whatever may 10e Louis
Napoleon's other claims to the position he eccupies;
he is unquestionably the grandson of J•osepliipe ;
and, although the name of that Empress i'a endeared
to the people of France by rcompassion for the un-
merited and cruel treatment she met with from.
Napoleon, as much as by er own qualities, tile
allusion to his ancestress. I-.4s ttife4ll9ll3 gr*efu,lly
from the present Effiperor, inasmuch as, in spits of
all the provisions to the contrary, the Impei ial suc-
cession has reverted to the line of her of fspring.
Nothing, too, can be in better tone and temper than
the phrase in which the Emperor adopts 4the title
and position of a parvenu Sovereign, frankly bear-
ing his origin in view, preserving his indepe) adent
character, and asserting his entire freedom from
the traditions of States in which the foundations of
society have not been subverted or the institi itions
of monarchy overthrown. At the same time, these
arguments and declarations would proceed with
more weight from Louis Napoleon, if it were not
well known that he had been engaged for eight
months or more in the negotiation of divers Royal
alliances which had proved abortive, and if this final
determination had not happened to coincide -with a
very strong personal predilection for a lady -whom
he could only win by the offer of his hand.
Of the future Empress of the French we wish
to speak with the deference due to herself and to
her position, for it is impossible to have remarked
the attractions of her person, the distinction 'of her
manners, and the vivacity of her charac to r—as
many of us must have done in her visits. to this
country, where she is no stranger—without feeling
a more than common interest in her extraordinary
destiny. To France, indeed, she has hitherto owed
little beyond the graces of her education, though she
is, of course, far better acquainted with the cha-
racter of the nation over which she is called to
reign than a Princess summoned from the stiff
nursery of a German principality. But she com-
bines by descent the energy of the Spanish and the
Scottish races, and, if the opinion we have fed-rued
of her be correct, she is, as Louis Napoleon says of
her, fitted not only to adorn the throne,, but
in the day of danger to defend it. Among the
long catalogue of names and titles of this
Castilian maiden, which we publish in a nother
column—including even the churches, re ligious
houses, and colleges, of which she is the patroness
—that of Palafox conspicuously occur s, for
the heroic defender of Saragossa againE3t the
French invaders of Spain was, we belies re, her
grandfather. To go much further back, we are
assured by a high authority on Spanish genealo-
gies, that the true sangre azul of the great. Alonzo
Perez de Guzman, who defended Tarifa in 1292,
flows in her veins ; and undoubtedly the first
Count de Teba was created about 1492 1)y Ferdi-
nand and Isabella for his gallant conduct before
Granada. The Count de Teba, father of the future
Empress, was a man of talent and science, but he
was crippled in his person, and we suspect. the
military exploits which are now attributed to him
in the ranks of the French army are confounded
with those of his brother, the Count de Mon.tijo,
to whose title and largo estates he eventually suc-
ceeded. When the Count de Teba was about to
marry Miss Kirkpatrick, the daughter of a Consul
at Malaga, it was necessary as he was a grandee of
Spain, to obtain the King's consent. The descent
of the Kirkpatricks was rather less illustrious; than
that of the defender of Tarifa, but the Scottish
heralds set to work with such diligence that a
suitable pedigree was produced, and Ferdinand.
exclaimed, " Let the good man marry the daugh-
ter of Fingal." The issue of this marriage was the
lady who now attracts so large a share of the at-
tention of Europe.
In a significant passage of the speech delivered
by Louis Napoleon on this occasion, he takes the
opportunity of declaring his preference for an inde-
pendent position and a prospect of domestic happi-
ness to the prizes of dynastic ambition. The senti-
ment does him the more credit, inasmuch as it is
wholly opposed to the systematic
policy of the Em-
peror, his uncle, which he has made on all other
occasions the model and rule of his conduct. Dy-
nastic ambition was the mania of the Emperor Na-
poleon, and it became the chief cause of his ruin
for, not content with repudiating " the good and
modest wife of General Bonaparte," in order to
marry into the family of the Caesars, it drove him
to place his brothers and relatives on all the thrones
of Western Europe. Probably it is for the benefit
of the world that the present Emperor of the
French lies under the influence of a milder passion.
Yet there are expressions in this very speech the
sting of which will be felt in several of the Courts
of Europe. The House of Austria will not acknow-
ledge that it ever " solicited the alliance of
than one princely family will feel the sneer not
the elected chief of the new Empire ;" and more
undeservedly levelled at their antiquated pre-
tensions. Although Louis'Napoleon lays it down
as a maxim that it is the duty of every wise govern-
ment to endeavour to restore France to her place
within the pale of the elder monarchies, nothing
would seem to be further from his own hopes or
intentions at this very moment ; and it is easy to
trace, even in these guarded expressions, a con-
sciousness of his own power over a new and formi-
dable element in the societies of Europe. The peo-
ple, the army, and the clergy are distinctly alluded
to as the natural and necessary guardians of his
power, without whose assent the solemnity of these
nuptials would be incomplete. But as for the rest
of the world, and even the august bodies to which
this speech is addressed, they are told without
disguise that they will one day appreciate the
Emperor's choice better than they do at present.
We have already observed that the partisans of
cisbalte one ; and the least as likely
ulterior consequences of this marriage will depend
this marriage are not, for the most part, to be
found among the adherents and admirers of the
new Empire. But, in a case like this, where every-
thing is speculative and adventurous a new and
proceedingandunexpectedsucceedmodeof old
in great part on the disposition, the judgment, and
the influence of the lady who is shortly to share
with Louis Napoleon the highest position in France.
We shall rejoice if any approach be made to a more
just, clement, and liberal spirit in the conduct of
public affairs. If the Court gains something
in
respectability and decorum, and if the country
finds in its future Sovereign, not a wayward and
headstrong foreigner, but an enlightened and cou-
rageous mistress, this much is certain, that the
Countess de Teba, on whom this extraordinary lot
has fallen, is likely to play a considerable part in
the coming events of these stirring times.

(From the Morning Herald.)

The character of the proposed marriage of the
Emperor Napoleon 111. seems to
, .
have struck a
.
dormant chord in the imagination or the heart of
the European public. Except at Paris, where
jealousy may recoil and vanity rebel, the fair sex
will, we suspect, upon the whole, range themselves
with considerable energy on the side of the romantic
Monarch who prefers honour and true love to the
maddest, yet most solemn and most accredited
error in the matrimonial policy of courts.
A conventional statesmanship had for centuries
forbidden great potentates to dream of marrying
for affection, or for any motive except " to strengthen
their dynasties." Meantime, it is evident that
dynasties were not always strengthened by the
means thus taken ; and, indeed, it is a question
whether ever, except by accident, those means
effected their end. If in times very unlike those
in which we live, any two monarchs might be ex-
pected to be led by the ties of kindred to promote
each other's policy, it was at best only so long as
their several interests were reconcileable that any
such expectation was even then entertained. To
make that scale in which is placed Royal or Lupe-

consanguinity still lighter, we behold in our
(lay the opposite scale loaded, in addition to the
interests of one mighty family, with the interests
of some great, stirring, and inquiring people.
But, without availing ourselves of the new and
out-of-door considerations which have rendered
family compacts of no avail in the comity of
modern nations without alluding to the enor-
mous changes which have made statesmanship
simple and straightforward, though vast and com-
prehensive, instead of being the reverse of all this,
mysterious and tortuous, yet petty and mean,
and narrow and selfish, cherishing the aggrandise-
ment of the few, and holding the many in disdain
or forgetfulness without adducing arguments
so conclusive and at the same time so obvious as
those which this very altered age affords, it is
quite evident that the old system which excommu-
nicrAted Sovereigns from the pale of natural affec-
ti,in was rotten at the core. It would be easy to
`say what was lost, but hard is the proof and scanty
is the evidence of what was ever gained by placing
the prince's fireside under interdict and the ruler's
best feelings under anathema. However strange it
may appear, "doctrinaires" always mislead their
disciples, and never yet were right themselves. It
has been the same in all times. Let us glance at
the logic of the 'solemn prigs of another age ; let
us examine in a brief manner what their system
was worth. The very basis of the system of mar-
riages of policy between princely houses was this—
that the feeling must always be postponed to in-
terest ; and let us remember that the only possible
fruit expected by politicians from the observance of
this cold-blooded rule Was that they should, on the
contrary, make feeling prevail over interest. We
appear to state a contradiction, and we do state a
contradiction ; but it is not our own ; it is the con-
tradiction of those. who, ever since men lived in
community, have over-reached themselves the
contradiction of reasosers who, luckily, are the
blindest and most illogical, while they are the most
ignoble—the contradiction of those politicians who
would gladly allow a monarch all the debaucheries
that reluctant history may have recorded, or cor-
rupt satire have conceived, in order to save him
from the irredeemable atrocity of honourable love
and the damning disaster of a peaceful home. These
things may be blessings to the subject who aspires
to them ; to the prince they are curses, if he stoops
so low.

But to unfold the logic of which we have spoken,
suppose a prince connected with another prince by
marriage, a marriage of policy, in which feeling has
been duly and scientifically postponed to interest.
Either the interests of the two princes remain
always identical or they do not. If their interests
remain alWays identical the marriage was superflu-
ous ; it can effect, at best, only what was already,
by the very calculations which induced the con-
tract, secured without it ; as well, in that case,
have consulted virtue, love, and nature ; the fine
stroke of state-craft was not needed ; and, if there
was any sacrifice of the heart in it, or of the vow,
why it was a sacrifice wasted and thrown away.
But what in the other alternative ? Suppose that
the interests of the two princes cease to remain
identical or coincident. Then, either the kins-
man-in-law seeks his own advantage in con-
tempt of the tie of affinity, or he foregoes,
for the sake of that tie, his own advantage.
In the former case the political marriage fails to
effect the only purpose for which it was perpetrated
(on this point we need not loiter) ; and, in the other
supposition, if sentiment rather than policy prevail,
there is a stultification of the very principle winch
dictated the contract ; and that rule which was em-
braced as solid, wise, and unfailing, is proved to be
fatuitous, worthless, infructuous, and vain. If the
kinsman-in-law foregoes his own proper advintage
for the sake of the tie of affinity, what is this but
postponing interest to feeling ? And yet the mar-
riage itself was contracted on the principle of post-
poning feeling to interest. In other words the re-
flection of a fire is always hotter than the fire itself.
The husband is not expected or believed to love the
wife, or to prefer her to his interests ; but the hus-
band's relations must of course henceforth despise
their interests for her sake. Or, on the other
hand, the wife is not expected or supposed to
have married her husband for anything but ag-
grandisement. But what she would not do for
a husband, her relatives cannot fail to do for a
connection ; that is, they will sacrifice interest to
feelin, where feeling is naturally weak, while she
wouid not and could not sacrifice interest to feel-
ing where feeling ought certainly to be strong.
What mighty profit did the present Emperor's
uncle derive from his marriage with Marie Louise,
and his consequent connection with the house of
Hapsburgh Lorraine ? It helped to send him to
die a heart-broken captive at St. Helena. Yet his
sacrifice at the shrine of policy was singularly com-
plete ; he was not a bachelor immolating the chances
of domestic felicity, but a husband immolating that
felicity itself.

The salons may " gird at " the nephew ; the
drawing-rooms of Paris may re-echo with the
sallies of inane sarcasm, but he has made his appeal
to the human heart and conscience at large. His
people will not be estranged from him because they
behold a beautiful, a gracious, and a spirited young
Empress at his side, whom he has married for mo-
tives which all men secretly respect. The Haroun-
al-Ra,schid of France has found a suitable bride.

(From the Morning Post. )

Our readers will find, in the letter of our Paris
correspondent, the remarkable speech •of the Em-
peror of the French, communicating to the great
bodies of the State his intended marriage. His
words, like the act which they announce, are frank
and manly, and of deep interest.
We have already said that marriage would, no
doubt, create a new bond between Louis Napoleon
and the French people, and confer additional stability
on his power. Such, we imagine, will be the case
in France. To us, however, its European effect is
of greater importance. We rejoice to recognise in
it the complete independence of France and of her
Emperor. Unshackled by the political ties in-
volved in an alliance with a princess, or even with
a ninety-ninth cousin of Austria, Prussia, or any
other Power—free from from foreign claims in the
hour of prosperity, free from foreign support in a
darker day, we shall see Napoleon 111. stand or
fall, solely and purely, by the will of France.
That is what we wish to see. If there be one
thing more than another proven by modern history,
it is this, that the French people can and do cast
away from them that which suits them not. If
the power of Napoleon be a vicious tyranny, as
some pretend, it cannot last. If, on the other
hand, it is a Government suitable to the French
nation, nothing can overthrow it. This is a ques-
tion simply for the decision of our neighbours. We
may risk a guess as to its probable solution, but it
is no matter of ours, beyond the interest and the
desire we have to see established on the other side
of the Channel a lasting form of Government.
The union which the Emperor now contracts " is
not," he says, " in accordance with the traditions
of ancient policy, and that is its peculiar advan-
tage." This statement he fully supports in his cha-
racteristic speech, wherein he fully appreciates " the
false security" arising from royal alliances, " which
frequently substitute family interests for those of
the nation." Such deceptive vanities he puts aside,
and, boldly professing as his object " to bring back
France within the pae of the old monarchies," he
firmly expresses his belief that the surest way to
effect that is to pursue a straightforward and honest
policy.
The determination always to remember his ori-
gin, and to preserve his true character, " by frankly
assuming in the face of Europe the position of
Parvenu, the most glorious of titles, when attained
by the suffrages of a free people," is one of those
true and happy expressions which show that power
has not turned the head of the ruler of France, and
that he is capable of appreciating his own position
and the feelings of the French people towards him
with singular sagacity and temperate calculation.

Therecan be n- o doubt but that had Louis Napo-
leon chosen to wait, he might have had his choice
of German princesses, and we in England, who so
much appreciate the privacy and sacredness of
family ties, cannot but admire the sincerity and the
generosity which places " independence, the qua-
lities of the heart, and domestic happiness, above
dynastic prejudices, and the calculations of ambi-
tion."

The tribute to Josephine, the "modest and good
wife of General Bonaparte," is affecting from its evi-
dent heartfelt sincerity, and it is certainly in ac-
cordance with universal feeling that he mentions
her virtues with so much respect. Few women
have met with larger sympathy from all nations
than the Empress Josephine, whose divorce was
justly regarded as a blot equally on the heart and
the career of Napoleon.
Describing his future consort in terms equally
affectionate and modest, Louis Napoleon expresses
as his fondest hope with regard to her, that she
May " revive the virtues of the Empress Jo-
sephine."
We are heartily glad, then, of this marriage.
If the power of Napoleon 111. stand, it cannot but
add to its respectability, independence, and influ-

[PRICt SD.

ence.. Were it to fall, his matrimonial alliance
would involve no other State in struggles or in-
trigues. To Europe this union cannot but be emi-
nently satisfactory ; and we hope with Louis Na-
poleon that he may have been inspired by that
Providence which raises men from the dust to the
throne, and chooses its own instruments to guide
the destinies of empires. S ach a position as that
of the great Napoleon, or that of his nephew, is
attainable by no mortal prowess or wisdom ; and a
man raised to such awful responsibilities must be
regarded as a means to some great end. We pray
it may be a good and happy one.

(Front the Weekly News and Chronicle.)

The news of all news is the marriage of the Em-
peror of the French with a Spanish countess ; the
civil ceremony having been secured without delay,
the religious one•to follow in due time—a consum-
mation of both to be devoutly wished, or the con-
trary, as the French people may be disposed to
feel in the affair. The prestige of France is power
—power with its right hand clenched very near
your face ; and the impersonation of this power can
do as he chooses, and ' who shall say him nay ?"
Whilst ominous whisperings, loud enough to be
understood or suspected, were passing between
royal houses, repudiative of upstart pretensions to
the hands of their daughters, to ! their royal con-
ventionalities are broken through—their traditions
on the tenderest point are set at defiance ! The
Marquis of Oaklands marries the pride of the vil-
lage, or Stiggins, the stockbroker, the flower of
service-maids, and the ladies of their respective
circles stand by their orders with a vengeance,
talking of the mes-alliance most deplorably, whilst
the men shrug their shOulders, not knowing for
the moment what to make of it ; but the Marquis
and his party are in power, Stiggin's purse is
plethoric, and before many month are over Super=
ciliousness gives way to obsequiousness ' • there are
receptions in Mayfair and Belgravia, banquets in
Tyburnia, and blow-outs beyond description in
Baker-street. Louis Napoleon's wife, whoso she
may be, a dame de la _Halle, a child of? the people,
a hidalga of the sangre azul, lineally descended
from Pelayo or the Cid, a daughter of the nobility
in the golden book of a thousand years, or the
pinchbeck roll of yesterday, is an empress, a real
live empress—and, if all go well with her husband
and herself for twelve months longer, if he do not
turn out a black-leg or a Bluebeard, she will be an
empress with all the honours the world over, 'even
in the pettiest royal precincts where inward pride
is in an inverse ratio with outward consideration.
Then will the heart of humanity be consoled, and
the pride of philosophy be gratified, at the blind-
folded boy Cupid jumping through the most dust-
honoured prescriptions, and kicking the most
august prejudices of ages about like bladders on the
most elevated platform of life, as harlequin tumbles
through the paper windows and flourishes his meta-
morphosing wand in the pantomime of our mimic
stage :

" Hymen, 0 Hymen !"

The quondani British Consul, at Malaga, "an
alien in blood and language," as Lord Lyndhurst
described the Irish in respect to the less westerly
subjects of our Crown, but not " alien in religion"
to the Spanish dwellers by the Mediterranean in
36 deg. 45 min. north latitude, and 4 deg. 30 min.
west longitude, managed, two generations ago, to
win and wed a native lady-of noble rank, of the
first degree, and become naturalised to the country
and its institutions. The fruit of all this good
fortune was a beautiful daughter, who, in her turn,
became the mother of the loveliest maiden that
ever walked an alemeda, with mantilla put on as
no other daughter of beauty can wear it, casting
her death-looks from all sides of her magic fan.
Our beautiful Iberian Celt went recently with all
the world to Paris, to see the new order of things
and the man of the epoch. She saw him ; he saw
her • they saw each other. At the Opera, at
Court, in the royal—now the imperial—gardens,
the deadliest eye from the North. to the South Pole
met the lightning flashes of the pride of Grenada,
and was awakene from its visions of red-haired
Princesses, and paler dames of the north. At Com-
peigne too, they met, amongst the beautiful forest
scenery, mingled in the exciting pleasures of the
chase, there the great hunter of the stag himself
enveloped in the toils of the little hunter of hearts,
thought, with his favourite English poet, of another
Spanish maid—for he reads Byron for his Napo-
leonic sympathies.

"Her glance how wildly beautiful ! how much
Hath Phcebus woo'd in vain to spoil her cheek,
Which glows yet smoother from his amorous clutch !"
And there Love accomplished his coup d'etat
which raises Eugenie Fitzpatrick, Countess of
T6ba, to the imperial throne of France, and
mingles the proud blood of Ossory with the new
line of the Caesars.

THE IRISH BRIGADE.
(From the Weekly Dispatch.)
"In Servia," observes Lamartine, " the priest-
hood have no influence over the people, except in
the concerns of religion." We believe it will be
found that a very exact measure of the amount of '
liberty enjoyed in any country may be meted by
the degree of social power commanded by. the
clergy. Wherever sacerdotal ascendancy pene-
trates into the politics of society, there we may be
certain there is neither freedom of opinion and
action, nor anything like common sense or intelli-. ,
gence in the management of state affairs. The •
rule of cardinals was the curse of France, and is
the nightmare of Italy. In Spain, Portugal, :
Naples, the Brazils, Mexico, Peru, the church sits
like an incubus upon the chest of mankind, weighs
down its inspirations, and crushes the free play of
its breathings. There is a snivelling slavishness
about our own Methodists which smacks of the
Conference, and always renders them so equivocal
at elections, that it is the habit of both parties to
enter them in the " doubtfuls" of their canvas-
sing books. Your very high Churchmen are inva-
riably the enemies of enfranchisement, and the ad-
vocates of despotism. Even the Congregationalists
and Baptists are only really independents and libe-
rals in spirit, when they keep their pulpiteers to
their proper place, and ignore all their pretensions
preferred from any other position than the reading
desk—recognising their authority even there only
so far as it approves itself to their understanding
The fact is, that, in the great affairs of secular life,
parsons of all denominations, are, as a general rule,
consummate fools, or obfuscated blockheads. They
are as destitute of business views as women—as
jealous, vain, and irascible as scolds. Sagacious
politicians dread the encumbrance of their help al-
most as much as they fear the momentum of their
opposition. At the period of the Anti-Slavery
movement, their " public appearances" were very
alarming to the wise friends of emancipation.
Their platform apparitions during the Anti-Corn-
law League movement, were often such as to
keep the clear-headed lay members nervous
and quaking during the whole currency of
their respective effusions ; and with good reason,
because it was generally out of clerical violence and
execrable bad taste that the Post, _Herald, and
Standard culled their choicest texts for frightening
the old women of Belgravia at the revolutionary
tendencies of the free trade movement. To go no
further back than the events of the present week,
look at the contest for the University of Oxford.
Who but a wasp's nest of shovel-hats would ever
have encountered the scrutiny of public opinion
with an exhibition so deplorable of pointless imbe-
cility and impotent and wanton waywardness, as
that which has equally made the " judicious grieve"
and " the. unskilful laugh," over the bigotry of
Bennett, and the capricious folly of Denison.
These churchmen manage their business like no-
body else. They cannot be made to believe that
there is " reason in the roasting of eggs." They
cast down their idol, Mr. Gladstone, without any
defined excuse—scarcely with the motive even
which induced the celebrated objection to the great
unknown " Dr. Fell"—because those who vote
against the new Chancellor of the Exchequer are
still profuse in their professions of personal attach-
ment to him. They are rash enough and blind
enough to attempt the degradation of the chief of
the few men who have either the ability or the in-
clination to maintain anything like a reasonable
defence of the Church ; and that, too, on the ground
of his acting under the only Minister who endea-
vours to reconcile the progress of society and en-
larged views of legislation and government, with a
steady and consistent advocacy of the claims of the
established ecclesiastical institutions. • The poll is
wantonly kept open for weeks too, solely appa-
rently to show the impotence of the opposition
who demand it, and the paltry ill-humour of the
faction who perpetuate this stupid etourderie. Lay-
men cannot understand this envious, spiteful, piti-
ful spirit. Men who would so disturb a borough
or a county—forcing expense without any end but
annoyance, would be sent to Coventry by all par-
ties. The Church seems quite unconscious of the
danger of her position. She provokes continualcritic-
ism. Like the Israelites at the siege of Jerusalem,
her factions wrangle when the enemy of both is storm-
ing their very gates ; and when she reaches that fall
to which she is hastening headlong, the inquest