The Sun.
London, England, 1865-04-10 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

THE " LONDON REVIEW " ON DEATH IN THE
SENATE.—A gloom overspread the House of Com-
mons at the hour of meeting on Monday. A " great
man in Israel" had fallen, and there was a large at-
tendance drawn together, partly, perhaps, by a na-
tural desire to see the vacant place of a statesman
so suddenly snatched away, and still more to hear
words of generous sympathy from friends and foes
befitting the dignity of the house, the eminent ser-
vices of the deceased, and the public sorrow for his
loss. Mr. Cobden's personal friends thought and
said to each other that the compliment of an ad-
journment which had been paid to Lord Campbell
and Sir G. C. Lewis ought not to have been with-
held from one who left a stronger and deeper mark
upon his age and time than either. It was whis-
pered, however, that the Prime Minister alleged,
with some reason, the state of public business as his
justification for not moving the adjournment of the
house. Monday is a Government night ; the Easter
holidays had almost arrived ; and the Treasury were
driven to ask for votes " on account" of the Civil
Service Estimates. The Navy Estimates had only
progressed as far as the second vote, and altogether
Supply might be said to be a month later than
usual. There was some force and truth in these
suggestions ; yet they were not quite satisfactory, it
was said, to the members accustomed to sit with
Mr. Cobden on the benches below the gangway on
the Ministerial side. Mr. Bright sat in the place
which he usually ceded to his deceased friend when
present, and occupied when he was absent. Around
him were Mr. W. E. Forster, Mr. Latham, Mr.
Bazley, Mr. White, &c., with sadness on their faces,
not unmixed with a shade of disappointment. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Milner Gibson,
Mr. Villiers, and Sir George Grey took their seats
on the Treasury bench at the usual hour, but the
Prime Minister did not enter the house until the
preliminary business was over. The hum of con-
versation was arrested, and the house became
hushed with solemn expectancy. The Clerk read
the order of the day, a few members cried " Pal-
merston," and the noble viscount rose, and delivered
a noble tribute to the memory and services of the
deceased. Remembering that Mr. Cobden was not
a personal friend of the Premier's, and that it is not
the habit of thc stout old statesman to manifest
much emotion on public occasions, it was sufficient
that Lord Palmerston's sympathy was hearty and
unaffected, that he spoke with emphasis, and that
many passages were marked with pathos.
The earnest attention and gathering feel-
ing of the house broke out in cheers,
often renewed, at the close of each sen-
tence. But Mr. Disraeli's speech appeared
to give even greater satisfacton to Mr. Bright and
his friends below the gangway than that of the
Prime Minister. The Opposition leader has often
spoken more effectively and with less hesitation ;
but his appreciation of a politician from whom he
differed so widely was so generous and so catholic,
his eulogy was so discriminating, and there was such
a cadence in his musical and eloquent sentences,
that the plaudits of his hearers were as continuous
as their gratification was unrestrained. The house
cheered loudly, but the warmest cheers came from
below the gangway. All eyes were turned with
sympathy to Mr. Bright, who rose to utter a few
broken words of sorrow. The tones of his voice he
mastered, but there were pauses in which a sob was
audible, and then the hand was raised to the brow,
the speaker became overpowered by his recollections,
and the strong man sat down and wept like a child.
It would have been well if the house had passed to
no other business, and had adjourned to another
day. But it had been otherwise determined, and it
was like a note " jangled and out of tune" to hear
one of Mr. Cobden's friends and admirers compelled
to discuss the constitution of the Board of Admiralty.
The reaction was too much. The house rapidly
thinned, and general regrets were heard that the
opportunity had been lost of paying a just compli-
ment to one of the most distinguished members of
the Senate. Mr. Disraeli alluded to the mournful
obituary annals of the present Parliament. " When
we remember how many of our most eminent and
valuable public men we have lost," he said, " I
cannot refer to the history of any Parliament which
will bear to posterity so fatal a record." This is
certainly true. In 1859, after the new Parliament
met, we lost the great engineer, Robert Stephenson,
The year 1860 was saddened by the loss of Lord
Macaulay ; the Earl of Aberdeen, K.G., the late
Prime Minister; the Marquis of Dalliousie, one of
the ablest Governor-Generals that India ever had ;
Admiral Sir C. Napier; the learned and most Rev.
Dr. Musgrove, Archbishop of York ; the veteran
diplomatist Lord Heytesbury ; the pious and charit-
able Duke of Norfolk ; the gallant Field Marshal
Earl of Strafford ; Lord Elphinstone, late Governor
of Bombay ; the Right Hon. M. T. Baines, M.P.
for Leeds, late President of the Poor-law Board ;
the somewhat eccentric but intellectual and accom-
plished Henry Drummond, M.P. for West Surrey;
Mr. Wilson, Finance Minister of India ; Mr. H.
Ingram, M.P. for Boston; Mr. Joseph Locke, M.P.,
the civil engineer, &c. Death was more than
usually busy in 1860 in the ranks of politicians. In
1861 the Queen and the nation suffered a sudden
and terrible blow in the death of the Prince Con-
sort, nor have we yet fully appreciated the magni-
tude of the loss we sustained. In the same year
Lord Chancellor Campbell passed suddenly away in
the morning, after attending a Cabinet Council the
previous day, and entertaining a dinner party at
eight. In Lord Herbert we lost one whom nature
had intended for a Prime Minister ; and in Sir
James Graham, one who stood in the first rank of
our politicians and orators. That year was also
fatal to the Duke of Bedford (brother to Earl Rus-
sell), the Duke of Sutherland, Lord Abiuger, the
Duke of Buckingham, the Right Rev. Dr. Villiers,
Bishop of Durham ; Earl Fortescue, the popular
Earl of Eglinton, ex-Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ;
Major Sibthorp, bI.P. for Lincoln : Mr. Tom Dun-
combe, M.P. for Finsbury ; Mr. J. H. Foley, M.P.
for East Worcestershire; Dr. Noble, M.P. for Lei-
cester; Mr. G. G. Harcourt, M.P. for Oxfordshire;
Lord Braybrooke, &c. In 1862, Sir Charles Bur-
rell, father of the House of Commons, began the
list of conspicuous deaths, which was by comparison
unusually scanty. Lord Canning fell a victim to
the Indian climate shortly after his return to Eng-
land ; the Most Rev. Dr. Bird Sumner, the good'
Archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord J. G. Beres-
ford, the princely and apostolic Primate of Ireland,
were gathered to their rest that year. The benevo-
lentM.P. for Shrewsbury, met his
accident at the opening of the Great
death Mr.by
an Sla ney,
Exhibition. Mr. J. L. Ricardo, M.P. for Stokes,
Mr. Deedes, M.P. for East Kent, Mr. Cayley, M.P.
for North Riding, Mr. H. B. Coles, M.P., Mr. J.
Boyd, M.P., Colonel Wynne, M.P., Mr. Wilcox,
M.P., the Earl of Gifford, M.P., and the Earl of
Yarborough, were among the losses of 1862. In
1863 the Marquis of Lansdowne, one of the rapidly
lessening links which connected the statesmanship
of the last century with that of the present, was
taken from the House of Lords. Sir George Corm-
wall Lewis, the Minister of War, died suddenly at
his family seat in Herefordshire, and the House
transacted no public business on the day the sad
news arrived. Lord Clyde, whose military achieve-
ments spanned half a century, and whose last
services shed a new lustre over her Majesty's
arms and consolidated her Indian empire, slept
in peace by the side of Lord Canning and Sir James ,