The Sun.
London, England, 1854-05-01 00:00:00

, -
I
err

. .. ,• - ' •• • - / - : 7/-.--r---:-
. ~.",71."1". , -
' / • : 4-- - . --, . ' .
//Z 7 (*'( < • -
.•, / •
`,.. ', .',l', * •
~ ''''' ------'
'',,• - ' i •>- 1 - _ . ''
' •.----•-•:". :•''. .......
I.'
'''N.- : >`•;t'' '''W -...-

[PRICE SD.

' and that the English was riding in the Baltic, he
mourned and prayed a good deal over the mis-
understandings of friends, set his minister, Bud-
berg, to be very affectionate to the English Am-
bassador, and whisper in his ear that the treaty of
Tilsit could not last, and that Russia, Austria, and.
England were, in the eye of heaven, the predes-
tined allies wdo should save the world ; and, in
another month, as soon as the British fleet was
down
the horizon, declared war against England.
These historical facts should be enough to put
the two nations on their guard against being set
by the ears by Russia, even if both were still what
they were in 1807. But both countries have ad-
vanced and improved : and Denmark especially so,
in political freedom. She will not again be what
she was six centuries ago, when she was a leading
power, with a proportionate territory ; but, on the
other hand, neither can she (if duly on her guardi
against Russia) ever again sink so low as v'
two centuries, she found no refuge fromt'lieetßywraltninof her aristocracy but in begging for a despotism.
The true old spirit began to revive long ago ; and
the yoar 1835 was rendered memorable in the na-
tional annals by the first institution of a popular
representation—imperfect and weak, but still
enough like the true thing to frighten our Duke of
Cumberland exceedingly, considering how near the
Danes were to Hanover. Through various troubles,
and a little war of succession, the political liberties
of Denmark have continued to expand as the popu-
lar element rises with every change, and the broad
extension of popular education justifies and sub-
stantiates the blessing. Our free trade developer
their agriculture and their commerce. Since the
admission of live stock into our ports, the marshes
of Holstein and the grazing lands of Jutland have
become a anine of wealth to their possessors. We are
organising a transit through Denmark to Norway
aud Sweden. We are becoming more and more the
friendly and familiar neighbours that nature intended
us to be. And therefore is it plain to us that,
whenever neutrality becomes impossible to the Bal-
tic powers, the side that Denmark declares for will
not be Russia. If the strong hand be put out too
soon for that bespoken crown, it must simply have
a sound rap on the knuckles. If the Czar wants to
make Denmark the gate-lodge of his ill-gotten
estate, the residents will simply tell him that they are
independent, and have no wish to go to service.
And then, if he tries to make slaves of them, they
have only to ring their alarm bell, and England and
France will be on the spot immediately, to help to
send the tyrant home. That, in our opinion, will
be the way, and the right way, if he so bullies the
neighbourhood as to force people to declare for or
against him.—Daily News.

THE LATE MARQUIS OF ANGLESEY.

The death of the Marquis of Anglesey is an event
which, in the course of nature, might have been
looked for long before it really occurred, but it is
one which cannot be received otherwise than with
general regret, now that the blow has fallen at last.
He was born on the 17th of May, 1768, and died
on the morning of Saturday last, the 29th of April,
1854. Few men have enjoyed so long a term of
existence. Nor was this long life obscured by any
period of struggle—of subservience to the will of
others—of poverty. He had not, indeed, tho
wealth of the Marquis of Westminster, nor the po-
litical influence of the Duke of Bedford, but ho
was so fortunately placed that he could well dis-
pense with them, and remain honoured among all
most worthy of honour. The possession of a greater
or smaller fortune would have mattered little to him.
The first would not have added, nor would tho
second have detracted one jot from !the considera-
tion in which he was held. Providence is just to
all his creatures ; to some, money is given ; to
others, money's worth ; to few, both. Lord Angle-
sey had for his share rather the value than the
token, and remained to the last, although no
wealthy man, ono of the most honoured members
of English society. Passing on to other and more
considerable matters, it can scarcely be denied that
his civil abilities were such as distinguished him
among several successive generations of patrician
legislators. To the qualifications or position of a
statesman we believe that he never throughout his
long career made any pretension. The field of battle
was a more appropriate scene for his exertions, and
for the display of his peculiar energies. He was
no great tactician ; hut, since the soldier's drawn
sword first glittered in the sunshine, never did a
more fearless or more chivalrous officer support the
honour of his country than the brave old man to
whose memory we are now endeavouring to offer a
tribute of respect.
It is not, however, merely as a successful soldier
that Lard Anglesey will recur to the imagination
of the present race of Englishmen. Ho was one of
the few links between the present and the past. It
requires almost as violent a mental jerk for a man
who is now in the prime of life to realize to himself
the society of the Prince Regent, as it would be to
form a just appreciation of that period of French
history in which Louis XV. gave himself up to the
sway of Madame de Pompadour. If we want to
know anything of the period in which Edmund
Burke perorated to empty benches, and wrote
for immortality—when Sheridan burnished up
witticisms, and forgot to pay his debts—we
must painfully fag our way through histories
and contemporary memoirs, and collections of'
letters, and gossip. Even then, it is probable that
a reader will only dress up the impressions of his
own time in the outward costume of another,
without regard to their essexce and reality. That
is all we could hope to do with the period when
George, Prince of Wales, first broke away from
his pedagogues, and burst upon the town. Lord
Anglesey- was a youth then—the contemporary of
that very dissolute Prince whom we buried at
Windsor a quarter of a century ago—a jaded vo-
luptuary, exhausted with well-nigh seventy years
of luxury and self-indulgence. Let those who are
not in the habit of recurring to dates reflect that
George 111. came to the throne in the year 1760—
rejoicing, as he said—poor man !—in the name of
Briton ; that George, Prince of Wales, was born
in 1762, and the Marquis of Anglesey in 1768.
He was thus a year older than Napoleon Bona-
parte, and Napoleon died on the sth of May, 1821
—that is to say, 33 years ago—at the age of 52.
A mere juxtaposition of such dates should be
more eloquent to those who have followed the
records of history, or mixed in English society
during the present century, than any com-
ments of ours. To most of us the Diaries of Lord
Byron offer much agreeable information as to the
condition of London society when he was a young
man, just returned from the Levant. He tells us
of the dandies and exquisites of that time, and to
us they are historical figures. Nov, these men
were to Lord Anglesey mere boys. He had rounded
Cape Forty before they devised their waistcoats,
or established their impertinent canons of bad taste.
He had been a dandy when they wore learning to
walk, or, more probable still, lay puling in the arms
of their nurses. He had become a man, and put away
childish things. He had won reputation with the
Duke of York in Flanders. He had married his
first wife ; children had been born to him ; and his
marriage had been dissolved. He had courtedt_ death
by the
at the cannon's mouth—at the lance'sp
sabre's edge, in order to shake off Iseyn,ce which
did man
he thought insupportable, andnever, sp
an
exuirosetl
IJ. on this point
give greater proofs of sincerity...
for certainly the
of his history we will not enlarge,
moment is ill chosen for reflecting upon failings
and weaknesses which occurred half a century back,
and were redeemed by half a century of devation.
For ourselves, we confess we take pleasure in the
man's f 1,
i
was
recollection of the old
to be seen among
st us, the verystately model orm
—as it s ex-
pressed by the hackneyed phrase—" of an officer
and a gentleman. He was not only this. He
elonged to a race of nobles who have passed
away from among us ; he was the last of the race,
and we shall know them no more. Your modern
English peer is a sharp land agent or convey-
ancer, or a jocular, hair-splitting, law lord, or,
if he be of a younger generation, lie is a painful
devourer of blue-books---a man ready to talk
.
for three hours upon the condition of Central
Asia, or the statistics of dandelions in the
county of Salop ; but a nobleman he is not
in the sense in Lord Anglesey was one.
Society may possibly have gained by the change—
we simplify notify the fact that a genus is extinct
of which Lord Anglesey was a brilliant example.
He was a man pre-eminently fearless and brave, but
ever courteous and of high-bred manner. It is
very true that nature had given him great advan-
tages of form and bearing, and the consciousness
of his own rank and position might have helped
him somewhat in the same direction ; but, inde-
pendently of all this, there was about him the
dignity of a kind heart, and of a man who
respects others because he respects himself.
There is not much more to be said. We lament
over the untimely fate of a young born child,
because, had its life been spared, the little creature
which lies before us so waxen and inanimate might
and won
have &Me -so much upon the stage of life,
ft4:,Melf honour and a great-name. In the pre-
heat case we toad ourselves expiesoiaga o"."'w