The Sun.
London, England, 1836-01-18 00:00:00

Pepys and Mr. Bickersteth. There are, if we mistake
not, witnesses among the gravest and most learned per-
sonages in the kingdom who can attest the fact of the
learned Gentleman having announced to them his
self-dismissal from office, as an event which had actually
taken place, and moreover, that something was said
on the occasion, touching the slighted dignity of the
Attorney-Generalship, and the honour of the profes-
sion, requiring and justifying such a manly sacrifice.
Strange then to say, our next aceount of the matter is,
that the resignation of the husband's effective place
has been revoked, and that the wife is promoted to the
empty sinecure of a peerage. By what name shall we
designate a transaction such as this ? For what end
was the prerogative of creating Peers bestowed ?
To obtain for the country the services of Legisla-
tors
in the Upper House of Parliament, chosen
from among the independent Aristocracy, or from
among persons eminent for ability and character in
professional or public life. Which of these condi-
tions is complied with here ? Does Lady Campbell
(amiable though she be, and none can respect her
more than we do) represent any one of the above
classes ? Can her Ladyship be quoted as an example
of political merit rewarded—or of judicial or states-
manlike talent secured to the public service ? Was
the creation of peerages ever vested ill the Crown as an
engine whereby a Minister on his official death bed
might sop the irritation of a dissatisfied adherent ?
This too on the part of men whose talk is of holding
jobbery in contempt, and of excluding all motive to
co-operation but that of common principles from the
science and system of their policy. With regard to
the learned Attorney-General, we, who know his
powers as a lawyer and an advocate, and have had
the good fortue to profit by them more than once, can
imagine how forcibly he would himself state the case
against an individual who had accepted a compliment
to his person or family as adequate reparation for
a professional or public wrong. Having already
disclaimed all wish to impugn the competency
of Sir Christopher Pepys or Mr. Bickersteth for the
discharge of the duties now devolving upon them,
we repeat that those appointments are satisfactory
enough, quoad the persons ; but in every other re-
spect they are not less disgraceful to their authors, nor
less provoking to the temper of the country, than any
former among the shameful manoeuvres by which the
Whig-O'Connell dynasty has been branded since its
accession to office. If these be good appointments
now, in January, 1836, were they not equally so in
April, 1835 ? Why, Sir C. Pepys and Mr. Bicker-
steth being then, as fully as they now are, in pos-
session of their faculties and of their legal reputation,
were they not promoted when Lord Melbourne first
resumed his seat in Downing-street ? Why was the
Great Seal put into commission, and the equity admi-
nistration of the kingdom so obstructed that it will
now be impossible for any Chancellor, were he ever so
highlygifted (and Sir C. Pepys is certainly no more than
" par negotiis"), to carry on the current business of his
Court, and at the same time to wipe off a nine months'
arrear—an arrear which has been suffered wantonly, or
rather corruptly, to accumulate—because certain of the
quack firm about Downing-street were at their wits end
how to get rid of Lord Brougham, between the dread
of his open attacks if left out, and of his more peril-
ous hostility as a within-doors intriguer ? A Cabinet
that has neither pluck, nor skill, nor influence, with
the bar, to provide a Lord Chancellor for the country,
is a Cabinet which ought never to have been endured
for one hoUr in office. Here was my Lord Melbourne
conscious that the price of his becoming First Lord of
the Treasury would be on one side a total stoppage of
the great equity jurisdiction throughout Great Britain,
and on the other a subjection of the whole political
Government to an Irish desperado, who laughed at
while he trampled on the wretched Viscount and his
colleagues, vet never once daring to look round
but seizing the whip without the reins, and in pure
selfish spite, or party delirium, dashing headlong down
the precipice of revolution. That Lord Melbourne
had numberless embarrassments to contend with, and
was therefore perp!exed- how to settle his law appoint-
ments, is no excuse in the eyes of King or country.
It might be a good reason for his declining to be
Minister, but none for his making a 'scapegoat of the
nation. So the shameful neglect of Sir W. Horne's
claims upon the Melbourne Government, the necessity
of bribing the Attorney-General by a Peerage to his
wife, which, with the learned Gentleman's recorded
sentiments about the House of Lords, ought by him
to have been scornfully rejected, and was in fact a
grosser insult to Sir J. Campbell than if the Cabi-
net had clubbed a month's pay a-piece to buy a
diamond necklace for her Ladyship, in expiation of
their professional affront to her husband,—th is abo-

minable prostitution, we repeat, of the highest ho-
nour in the gift of the Crown may prove the despe-
rate condition in which Lord Melbourne finds him-
self ; but is it not monstrous that the monarchy should
thus pour out its heart's blood to relieve him ? Then
see what a further vista of execrable soppery still
threatens us as a supplement to what we have already
noticed. Lord Denman (says well-supported rumour)

,
is to be removed from the Court of King's Bench,
not even for the pardonable object of preventing
a further removal of its proper business from that
Court, but as a completion of the patch work by which
Sir John Campbell's soreness is to be healed, and the
hemorrhage of his wounded " magnanimity" put a stop
to. Lord Denman, it is presumed, if not quite a
Lord Mansfield on the bench, may prove no unworthy
successor of Lord Brougham, as Speaker of the House
of Lords, upon the woolsack ; and after a service of
some three years or so as Lord Chief justice, is, at a
cost of perhaps 10,0001. more per annum, to be made
Chief Judge of a newly-erected Court of Appeal.
Poor Lord Denman is to be advanced from a Court,
of whose business he is not accused of knowing at all
too much, to a Court of whose proceedings or whose
principles he can know absolutely nothing Such is
Whiggery, from which, wishing for our readers and
ourselves a deliverance as speedy and as effectual as is
still on the cards, we take our leave, for the present at
least, of this unsavoury subject.—Times.
Much curiosity exists as to the peculiar position
which the new Lord Chancellor will assume. If he

takes this high office, as it is generally supposed that
he does, upon an understanding that it is to be dis-
robed of its Parliamentary and political character as
soon as an Act of Parliament can be obtained for that

purpose, then it becomes a matter of serious doubt
and perplexity what his Lordship's ad interim cha-
racter is to be. At present the new Chancellor must
be considered, in fact, to hold the same office, with all
its attributes that his predecessors have done. Will
he then be called like them, to Council ?—or upon
what plea will he be excluded? Will he, for instance,
attend the King on the first day of the approaching
Session, in the same high capacity as his predeceSsors
have always done ?—or by what authority, and upon
what principle will his official attendance be dispensed
with ? It will be a novel and singular spectacle to
see the first law officer of the Crown conforming, in
his own person, by anticipation, to an embryo project,
which, for aught he knows, may never become a law.
On the other hand, to assume high functions, such
as keeper of the King's conscience, the head of his
Council, the first Peer of the realm, the distributor of
law and church patronage, only to lay them all aside
as soon as entered upon, will be, at least, a specimen
of self-denial, if not of proficiency in " the art of sink-
ing," of which the world has, we believe, no similar
instance upon record.--Morning Herald.
It was stated, though we doubt not, on misinforma-

tion, in the columns of our contemporary the Morn •
ing Chronicle, on Saturday last, that there was no
foundation for the report which appeared in this jour-
nal that Lord Melbourne and some of his colleagues
would dine at Kennington on the 21st instant, after
laying the Foundation Stone of the Licensed Vic-
tuallers' School, and that his Lordship had merely un-
dertaken to lay the first stone of the building. Such
is not the fact. Lord Melbourne, so far back as nearly
two months ago, not only accepted his Majesty's no-
mination as his representative to lay the foundation-
stone' of the new building, but also very kindly conde-
scended to accept an invitation to dine with the sub-
scribers to that noble and unrivalled institution. Letters
were ;also subsequently received from several of his
Lordship's colleagues, including Lord Glenelg, Lord
Palmerston, Mr. S. Rice, and Mr. P. Thomson,
to the same effect. We regret that his Lordship is at