The Sun.
London, England, 1838-08-22 00:00:00

the exorbitant price of coal has been maintained. In both
these respects the by-laws, of which an analysis will be
seen in our report, are a subject of congratulation to the
public. The obstructipn given by colliers—frequently
through wanton perversity—to the passage of other vessels
in the river has long been a subject of complaint. The
nuisance had, in fact, attained to such an extent as not only
to cause much inconvenience and loss, but frequently to be
attended 'kith a sacrifice of human life. Scarcely an accident
occurred in the river to which a collier had not by some chance
been directly or indirectly an accessary. These by-laws, how-
ever, by compelling them on entering the river to proceed
at once to their station or berth, and not leave it without
permission—by limiting the time of their stay—and pre-
venting their remaining after being discharged—must exer-
cise a most salutary influence, and tend much to facilitate
the navigation of the river, and prevent the recurrence of
accidents. Not less important and desirable may the influ-
ence of these regulations be expected to be in reducing the
price of coals, or at least preventing the exactions of mo-
nopoly. Colliers, by being compelled to unload within a
specific time, cannot, as heretofore, remain in the River
with their cargoes, to be doled out to the public at what-
ever price the monopolists may think proper to impose.
This regulation, it is to be hoped, will contribute much to
the comfort of the poor of the metropolis, and nothing
- tends more to the diminution of crime than the increase of
the legitimate comforts of the- poor. When we consider
how many are driven by the want of a comfortable fireside
to wander about the streets, ready in their desperat:on for
the commission of any act promising to allay their suffer-
ings, we consider a cheap and abundant supply of fuel to be
one of the great essentials to preserve the morality of the
metropolis. For these reasons we have, in the adoption of
the new by-laws, abundant reason to compliment the
Common Council, and congratulate the public.—Morning
Advertiser.

It may be expect :-d by our readers that we should say
something on the controversy now raging in reference to
the refusal of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster to
allow the statue of Lord Byron by Thorwaldsen to be
erected in Westminster Abbey. It matters not to the
real merits of the question, we presume, by whom the sta-
tue was executed. To us it is, indeed, no recommenda-
tion that it was the work of a foreigner, even though that
foreigner is an artist of deserved celebrity. Talent quite
equal to the task of pourtraying even Lord Byron's per-
son in marble was to be found in his native land, and the
admirers of the poet,. who were anxious to render to his
memory such honours as sculpture can bestow, would have
bad no difficulty in -availing themselves of the services of
native genius in this way, if a ray of patriotism had shone
upon their path of liberality. We had lately to remark upon
upon the proposal of some pseudo patrons of art to have the
statue of Nelson executed by a foreigner. Though, as we have
said, the circumstance of the statue of Byron being of fo-
reign workmanship has nothing to do with the question of
its non-admission into the Abbey Church of Westminster,
yet we have not failed to observe that the name of Thor-
waldsen has been ostentatiously put forward with the view
of aggravating the alleged offence of the ecclesiastical body
who have declined to place the statue of the author of
" Don Juan" within the holy precincts of a Christian
temple. The " illiberality" charged upon the Dean and
Chapter of Westminster by their accusers in this matter is
an offence which makes " liberalism" naturally enough in-
dignant ; but that the Christian portion of the British com-
munity share in that indignation is quite another question.
They to whom all religions are a matter of indifference may
indulge their liberality without a compromise of their prin-
ciples ; but their lofty contempt of considerations binding
on the consciences of Christian men is only a result of
their " emancipation" from all religious obligation. The
political faction that shout for the pulling down the
Church one day are consistently anxious for the defile-
ment of that holy temple which they have used their
utmost endeavours to subvert. They care little what
becomes of Byron's statue, but they make the thing
a handle to assail the Church, and vilify its ministers.
Genuine democrats have no great veneration for the me-
mory of Lord Byron. He was an aristocrat, who, though
he occasionally degraded a splendid genius to the vulgar
drudgery of scoffing at religion and morals, and allowed
his fine imagination and sparkling wit to stoop to the
grovelling service of an infidel philosophy, yet was hated
and vilified by liberals of some literary pretension because
he wore the assumed mantle of levelling principles but
loosely, and every now and then, neglectful of the grace of
democratic regeneration, was apt to take pride in the
original sin of a noble birth, and relapse into the lord. Be-
sides, the poet in hii better moments indulged in senti-
ments and aspirations too lofty and noble for the selfishness
and cold-blooded utilitarian doctrines of modern " liber-
alism." In his - sublime celebration of the patriotic
virtues of the vindicators and martyrs of liberty in classic
ages he soared a flight of generous inspiration,
which flag vulgar and sordid democratic " philosophy"
of the present day could net appreciate or understand.
It is therefore the Globe regards him as a very inferior
poet, and probably ranks the author of "Don Carlos, a
tragedy," far above him. But the Ministerial Journal
thought the opportunity ought not to be lost of drawing its
leaden shaft behind Lord Byron's statue to assail the guar-
dians of the Church. That Journal certainly has taken up
a very strange ground of accusation against the present
Dean and Chapter of Westminster—viz., that former
Deans and Chapters admitted the statues of some cele-
brated men, whose writings or characters were no less
objectionable in a religious point of view than that of
Lord Byron. Let this be conceded, and what does it
amount to ? Is it because the interests of religion or
the sanctity of its temples have, in some former in-
stances, not been vigilantly protected, that therefore the
right and duty of exercising a vigilant protection over
holy things and holy places by the Guardians of the Chris-
tian Establishment at the present day should be aban-
doned ? The argument is, in fact, too absurd for serious
comment. We have a higher opinion of the poetic genius
of Lord Byron than the Ministerial Journal appears to
entertain, though we consider his most popular poem to re-
flect something very different from glory upon the memory
of its author. Whenever a national Pantheon is erected
to the memory of England's great men in arts, in literature,
and arms, we should like to see the statue of Byron placed
there in those of the first of England's poets ; but a Chris-
tian temple is not the place wherein to erect the statue of
sceptic poet or infidel philosopher. He whose living ener-
gies smote at the immortal hopes, by which Religion opens
a communication between Heaven itself and the wilderness
of this life, ought not to have his memory consecrated in her
sanctuary, or receive his apotheosis in her temples.—
Morning Herald.
The cool scorn of our present paltry Government which
has been displayed by the House of Lords, has filled the
servile adherents of the Ministry with rage and anguish.
The worst of it is, that spurned and buffeted as Ministers
and Ministerial measures have been by the permanent legis-
lators of the country, they still find it impossible to rouse
one spark of sympathy in their favour. The day has gone
by for threatening that the House of Lords must be abo-
lished as an impediment to good and popular government.
The servile Ministerialist who should now write a pamphlet
demanding of the supposed popular indignation " what
should be done with' the Lords ?" would only get laughed
at for his pains. The House of Lords, which openly re-
cords its contempt of the Ministry, and all that is
Ministerial, is at this moment far more popular in
Great Britain than the " Reformed" House of Com-
mons, which gives slender majorities to Ministers by
means of the trading politicians of England and Scot-
land, combined with the deputies of the Irish priests.
The people of England, however, do not forget that
the majority of their representatives are with the House
of Lords, in supporting -the national dignity of Old Eng-
land, and in treating with scornful contempt the miserable
manmuvres of a mean and shuffling administration. Find-
ing it impossible to appeal to anything English against the
late determined conduct of the House of Lords, the ser-
vile Chronicle—that cracked utensil of a crumbling ad-
ministration—is fain to manufacture a seeming French ma-
nifesto in favour of its patrons, and agalinst their con-
temptuous opponents in the Upper House. A miserable
tirade is given to the public in yesterday's number of the
utensil, which purports to have been furnished by a Paris
correspondent, and which extols the French life-renters of
legislative authority at the expense of our House of Peers,
which is alleged to differ very exceedingly from that
highly honourable assembly which does the business of
King Louis Philippe in Paris, under the style and t.;.'
of the Chamber of Peers. The very great difference we are
to admit, nay more, the very marked contrast
perfectly ready
between the French and the English House of Peers ; but
deeply indeed must he be b
.plun,red in the lowest grossness
of Ministeridi servility, who would prefer the former, not-
withstanding' its superior con,
convenience as an instrument of
the Executive Government. The French Upper Chamber
is little better than a Cour Royal, where the Judges are
appointed by the King, on account of their known readiness
to do his will. To treat of such a Chamber,
as an inde-
pendent legislative body is evidence of the merest ignorance,
if it be done in simplicity, and of the most preposterous im-
pudence, if it be intended as a diversion in favour of the
Peer-bescourged administration of Lord Melbourne.
There are, no doubt, many respectable people in the French
Upper Chamber, who look upon the exercise of their legis•
lative functions as a mere affair of course, the real niture
of which, as an instrument of the Royal power, is well un-
derstood. They are satisfied to take the dignity and pri-
vileges, such as they are, attached to the situation ; but
as to any independence—anything like a substantial exer-
cise of legislative power—they would themselves be the
_first to laugh at the supposition that they possessed any
1, such thing: .Yet this is the assembly which the servile
-:iestrumentsof an administration pretending to " liberality,
0 ;anda.love of free;dom, would prefer to our House of Peers.
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- ! d4llitat is the-character—what the present position of
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our Upper House—whose contempt of the present Go-
vernment has inflicted upon it so much anguish and hu-
miliation ? Let us answer the qin•stion from an orgen of
ultra-Radicalism, which would overthrow the Hottse of
Lords it it could, but which has too tritteh self-respect to
imitate the cringing falsehoods of the Government and its
dependents.
" With the political and personal abasement of the Ministry
the augetented ascendancy cf the hereditary House is con-
nected. The most striking feature in the Parliamentary his-
tory of the year is the growing power of the Lords. They
not only dictate the measures of Government, with the full
admission of a Russell, leading the Commons of England,
1 that it were in vain for Ministers and the Commons to con-
tend against them, but they actually maintain a better position
in the country than the House of Commons itself. They are
more respected. They have kept the position they took up
after the passing of the Reform Act, rendering it s'ronger
every Session. They have not bragged, and then crouched;
they have not bullied, and then sneaked. They have exe-
cuted their threats, and vindicated their assumption of superi-
ority over the Commons by deeds of resolution. With an
excess of stupidity or impudence almost inconceivable, some
Nlinisterialists have recommended that a cry of Peerage Re-
form should be got up by the people against the Lords, in re-
venge for the demolition of the Durham ordinances—as a
punishment for their interference to prevent the violation of
legal forms, and the estaldishment of arbitrary precedents,
where persons accused of State offences arc to be dealt with l
Why the Lords—Tories as the majority are—in th's instance
have discharged what was once the honoured function of a
Whig opposition. There is mu .h encouragement in the
present state of public feeling, is there not, to moot the Re-
form of the Lords ?"
Very probably this Radical testimor.y was the moving
cause of the quasi foreign display which the stupid and
servile Ministerial Journal of yesterday morning attempted.
A. more bungling attempt was never made. The public
cannot be got to sympathise wittl tliepreference for French
formalities of Legislative Governident They will not, how-
ever, be surprise—knowing what they now do of the sin-
cerity of Whig professions in favour of free and popu-
lar Government —that our Ministers should prefer such an
Upper Chamber as that of France, to which the Court
might dictate, before such an Upper Chamber as that of
Great Britain, which treats the Court with respect, yet
spurns all attempts at dictation, from any quarter, with
contempt. To such Ministers as the Whigs, who have so
exceedingly little legitimate influence, and who are destitute
of talents or spirit to acquire more, an Upper Chamber like
that of Paris would indeed be a great convenience. But as
it is the fashion in England, with respect to political mat-
ters, to consider rather the welfare of the public than the
convenience of the Government, there will not be found
much disinterested sympathy with the preference of the
Whigs for a set of Royal dependents, rather than for an in-
dependent Aristocracy. The poor paltry nature of the
political mind which dictated the Paris correspondence of
the Ministerial Journal, may be judged of from some
remarks which he is pleased to impart concerning the power
of lawyers in the British House of Peers, and their want
of power in the French Chambers, both of Peers and of
Deputies. As to the British House, we deny that there
is any overweening power of lawyers ; but we confess with
pride that the law is held in great deference by our heredi-
tary legislators, and that any infraction of the character of
the people's liberties—to wit, the law of the land—is held
by them in steady aversion, and certainly of all the Par-
liamentary doctrine that ever was attempted to be held by
any set of men pretending to the name of Englishmen,
that is the most loathsome which teaches that if a Gover-
nor do overstreteh the law a little, it should be allowed
to pass sub silentio—that is, that legality or illegality mat-
ters nothing ! But then we are informed that in France
the statesmen who are not lawyers have been " success-
ful," while those who are lawyers have been " unsuc-
cessful," and then this success, or non-success, which merely
means being in place, or not being in place, is assumed as
a positive and certain test of merit. This is excellent well
for a thoroughly servile Whig-Radical hack, but we con-
fess that we do not look upon the circumstance of having
received wages for acting as a Minister under King Louis
Philippe to be a very conclusive or satisfactory test either
of high spirit or of great ability. It is true that Dupin,
Berryer, Mauguin, and Barrot, have not been " successful"
in the sense of the word which Whig-Radicals seem best
to understand—that is, in getting hired, and well paid—but
in everything which a man of high honour would regard as
success, we regard these men as among the first men in
France, and enjoying a position far more to be envied than
that of a feeble, submissive Minister, however large his
pecuniary compensation may be.—Morning Post.