The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-29 00:00:00

THE EXHIBITION OF ARTS AND

MANUFACTURES.

It is not one of the least Cogent objections which the
advocates of the Republican theory of Government
urge against. Monarchical institutions, that under
these latter the peace and stability of society depend
too much upon the personal character of the Sovereign.
If the intelligent and influential agree on system to
regard a single fallible human being with artificial
reverence and theatrical respect ; if those upon whom
the direction of the spirit of public opinion rests,
train the ignorant and vulgar to look upon one parti-
cular personage of a whole nation as illustrious and
entitled to command universal homage, it is above all
things necessary to the success of such a pageant,
that the chief actor should play up to his part, if he
would save himself from being hissed; if he would
keep down the cry of Off! off!" from the shilling
gallery ; if he would prevent the whole play from
being damned beyond the practicability of repetition.
In this age of Boy Joneses, penny-a-liners, gallery
reporters of speeches and public meetings, and able
editors of daily papers cudgelling their brains for a
subject for a leading article, a spade is sure to be
called a spade by somebody. Nothing can make a
man great except his being great. It is of no use
that the showman writes below his picture " this is
a lion," unless it bes a lion. Bowing and scraping to
a fool or a knave will not make the world believe
either that he is wise or honest. It is no longer true
of the tribunal of the world, that
" Plate sin in gold,
And the strong lanei of justice hurtless breaks."
On the contrary, the inky pennon runs right through
it, cuirass and stuffed doublet, notwithstanding. A
man elected by the people is the people's property.
By the defeated faction he is hissed all through the
piece. His friends do not seek to magnify his per-
sonality beyond the necessities of his office, since no
man is a hero to his valet de charabre. If the electors
have made a mistake, their star is stripped of his pro-
perties, and he is-paid off on the Saturday night, as
one who has failed to draw houses. But an hereditary
monarch, who must be swallowed without chewing,
who must be taken like a wife, for better for worse,
who is not chosen by, but imposed upon a nation, and
who, on that very account, to be accepted at all,
must be fenced round and propped up with artificial
decorations, and simulated forms of greatness, must,
in this age of bulls'-eyes and gas, be able to bear
inspection at the foot- lights, and to do without paint,
else he will stand a poor chance of "bringing down
the house." Hired claqucurs and a pit full of orders
he may command, and these will help him won-
derfully if he have talent enough to make the
people who have paid at the doors join in the
"reception." But if he be but a " perriwig-pated
fellow, that tears a passion to tatters," the reviewers will
at least be too many for him, and a tearing up of the
benches, with an ultimate gutting of the house, is but
the too probable catastrophe. Tne charlatan of the
Tuilleries would have been safe, could the theory of
his constitution have allowed of his being obscure.
Nay, it might have been permitted to him to have
wielded all the power he assumed, had he used it
wisely, and borne his blushing honours meekly. A
President may be hated, and the Republic may still
stand ; but when a Monarch becomes detected, revo-
lution must be the end. It is not the nature of the
Constitution, but the character of the Sovereign,
which has annihilated the empire of Austria, shaken
Naples, dethroned the Pope. The fate of Russia
hangs upon the personal conduct of the Autocrat ; and
the mad freaks of that crazy miscreant are doing
more to crush despotic power than all the propa-
gandists and carbonariin Europe. The concentric
solidity of our own monarchy has the same drawbacks.
If Ministers are embarrassed by a wrong-headed or a
depraved master, it is in vain to talk of the strength of
our institutions; and as our first Magistrate, like our
nobility, is the accident of an accident of hereditary de-
scent, our statesmen may live to seethe day when it will
bs proved to them that
that element in our system
which they regard as giving it extraordinary strength,
may be actually the source of its most obvious weak-
ness. George 111. lost us our American colonies,
made Ireland rebel, and called into power the
"friends of the people." The Queen's trial, and the scan-
dalous life of George IV., carried us to the very verge
of revolution-; and had he been on the throne at the
time of the fell of Louis Philippe, it is nearly certain
that England, like France, would have become a Re-
public. It was a wise foresight which sluiced off the
public excitement
.of the days of July into the
struggle and final triumph of the Reform Bill. It
was a still more prophetic spirit which suggested the
repeal of the Corn-laws. But it is not too much to
admit that to the personal character of the Queen is
to be attributed our immunity from_the convulsions
which have shaken continental Europe to the founda-
tion of its social fabric. Prominent in the public eye,
subjected to a rigidity of scrutiny from which private
persons are wholly exempt, it would be uncan lid to
deny that the Queen has sustained that trying ordeal
with entraordinary success. Nay, it would be un-
generous and unjust not to admit that to her blame-
less private life, and her prudent public conduct,
society stands indebted for much of the
peace and good order we enjoy, and for
an example which has unquestionably been materially
instrumental in elevating the standard of ostensible
national morals, awl of social propriety and decorum.
In a critical and difficult position it may be fairly
admitted that Prince Albert has acquitted himself
with great general judgment. It his honourable to
his understanding and character that his life is
without scandal—that amid many temptations to
frivolity and sybarite indulgence, he escapes criticism
without being futile—that without drawing on him-
self notoriety he has never sunk to the state of a
cypher—that he avoids intrigues without nihility, and
can be useful without being factious. Our agricul-
ture is indebted to him for many valuable experiments
—it he has not al ways been an entirely judicious, he
has been at least a uniformly zealous patron of art.
As a parent he executes the solemn trust of framing
the mind and character of the heir to the throne with
good sense, and in the conviction that the best sore-
reign is only to be fashioned out of an intelligent, a
sensible, and a good man; and as a citizen and a
subject, the country is indebted to him for the origi-
nation and practical promotion of an object of the
highest importance and the greatest value. In the
centre of the world, in the metropolis of commerce, in
the earth's capital of practical science and useful art,
we are to enjoy the advantage of an institution
worthy of the age and the nation. In the royal park
is to be collected the practical result of the mind,
skill, invention, enterprise, and industry of every
race of mankind. The manifold works of God
also are to be there, that his creatures may see that in
wisdom he has made them all. It is wise in the

Queen's Consort to abstain from mingling in the
intrigues of party, or the troubled waters of politics.
Yet it would be both unmanly and impolitic, as the
father to the heir of the Crown, and as an exalted sub•
ject, that he should be what Napoleon called Abbe
Sieyes' Chief Consul, a mere pig to be fattened out of
the public trough. His high ,station gives him power,
his relation to the Sovereign affords him opportunities
of being useful to mankind; and it must afford every
subject satisfaction to see that he is in the line of his
duty, and that he has resolved to be no mere cumber-
some futility. He has originated and assisted in the
practical execution of a noble scheme of true patriotism
and genuine philanthropy. The productions of nature
Irons every quarter of the world, and of which God
alone is the all-wise and omnipotent manufacturer,
will be brought together in Hyde-park to instruct
and enlarge the mind of the nation, leading it
from nature up to nature's artificer, and teaching
all how much stranger truth and fact are than the
strangest fiction. The silk worms of Italy, of China,
of Spain, of Tennessee, of Australia, will here compete
for praise of their wondrous manufacture. The cotton-
trees of Egypt, of Natal, of America, of India, will
yield their tribute, and show how vegetation provides
for the elegance of human life. Thibet and Anda-
lusia, Cashmere and the Cape, Australia and York-
shire, will send the tribute of their sheep and goats to
show how Providence has supplied the wants of first
necessity, and the useful ornaments of human grace.
The Arctic circle will contribute evidence of how
the winter's cold may be fenced by the furs and other
peltries of Hudson's Bay, of Russia, of Iceland. The
ivory of Africa and Asia, the leather of Morocco—
the gold of India, of Muscovy and California—the
silver of Mexico and Cornwall—the iron of Wales,
Staffordshire, Scotland, and Sweden—the copper of
Australia, and America and England—coal from
Pennsylvania, Northumberland, New Zealand, and
Sarawak—the clays of Canton, Putney, and Truro—
the olive, the vine, the fig, corn, wine, and oil, spices,
the hop, herb, fruit, seed, root, fish, bird, beast, creep-
ing thing—wherever reason can perceive a use, or
skill a material, science a lesson, or enterprise a source
of production, there will these nature's ministers
to man's intelligence, civilization, or happiness, be
brought together, reduced to order, and classi-
fied, to teach us at once the need we have
of each other, the blessings we may all impart and
exchange, the wise order of creation which every
where calls into being varied gifts and diverse advan-
tages, which human intelligence may render as tri-
bute to the general sum of knowledge and felicity.
There, too, the mind, not of England alone, but of
'man, will show how it has availed itself of these
Iwonderful treasures of nature. The raw material
will re appear in thread, in cloth, in the graceful vase,