The Sun.
London, England, 1836-08-19 00:00:00

wanting in Wit ! The discovery is worthy of 'Runny-
mede.

But we have still another description of O'Connell
addressed to the House of Peers. It was very con-
siderate of Runnymede to enlighten their Lordships
respecting the character of a man whom they are never
tired of vilifying. Runnymede supplies them with a
cargo of fresh vituperation :
" Let it not be said that we truckled to one, the unparalleled
and unconstitutional scope of whose power is only equalled by
the sordid meaness of his repacious soul. Let it not be said
that the English Constitution sank before a rebel without
dignity, and a demagogue without courage. This grand pen-
sionary of .bigotry and sedition presumes to stir up the people
of England against your high estate. Will the Peers of
England quail to this brawling mercenary—this man who has
even degraded crime—who has deprived treason of its gran-
deur, and sedition of its sentiment—who is paid for his pa-
triotism, and whose philanthropy is hired by the joh—nuda-
eions, yet a poltroon—agitating a people, yet picking their
pockets—in mind a Cataline, in action a Cleon?
~ This disturber is in himself nothing. He has neither
learning, wit, eloquence, nor refined taste. nor elevated feel-
ing. nor a passionate and creative soul. What ragged ribaldry
are his public addresses, whether they emanate from his brazen.
Mouth or from his leaden pen ! His pathos might shame the
maudlin Romeo of a barn ; his invective is the reckless alien-
egnment of the fish-market. Were he a man of genius, he
Woolf! be unsuited to the career for which he is engaged ; for,
after 11..14 he is but a slave."
familiarity with Master Ben has not im-
provedLyndeslrst s•, s
)soun,,e, Hopetut s respect tor the Peerage.
that
Mark the sys tr , uckled in the first sentence of the
ed the Peers were hail-fellow-well-met.
above, as if Ben al.-
This is " going the with •
•
„Lou:: hog"a veneeence But
let us see the end of the ...Nighty Dragon" as set forth
in Runn
ymede's dedication to Sir Robert Peel :
When, Sir, you quitted Drayton in February, the vaga-
bond delegate of a foreign priesthood was stirring up rebellion
against the Peers of England, with the implied, if not the
definite, sanction of his Majesty's Ministers. Where is that
hired disturber now ? Like base coin detected by the very con-
sequences of its currency, and finally nailed against the counter
it has deceived—so this bad politician, like a bud shilling, has
worn off his edge by his very restlessness."
Runnymede is a master of rhetoric. The nailing a
Crocodile to a counter, after the Monster has worn off'
its edge, is a fine figure of speech.
In taking leave of Mr. O'Connell, we are half in-
clined to take leave of our Park-lane acquaintance,
Runnymede. We cannot, however, close this notice
without making a few more brilliant extracts. We
shall recommence with a fine specimen of D'lstaelian
eloquence, which we earnestly recommend to the study
of the admirers of style
When I recal to my bewildered memory the perplexing
circumstance that William Lamb is Prime Minister of Eng-
land, it seems to me that I recollect with labour the crowning
incident of solve grotesque dream, or that in some pastime of
the season you ha"e drawn for the amusement of a nation a
temporary character', ludicrously appropriate only from tho
total want of connexion and fitness between the festive part
and the individual by whom it is sustained.
" Our taste for evil does not seem to be on the wane, since
it has permitted this great empire to be governed by the
Whigs, and has induced even those Whigs to be governed by
an Irish rebel."
This scrap ought to find a place in every Lady's
Album. The " bewildered memory," the "perplexing,
-circumstance," the " crowning incident," the " gro-
tesque dream," and the " ludicrously appropriate," are
like so many blown birds' eggs tar on a thread—striking
evidences of the abuse of time as well as words. But
proceed we to Runnymede's description of the conduct
and character of Lord John Russell :
" You have already banished your great leader; you have
struck down the solemn idol which you yourself assisted in
setting up for the worship of a deluded people; you have
exiled from the Cabinet, by your dark and dishonourable in-
trigues, every man of talent who could have held you in
check ; and placing in the seat of nominal leadership an indo-
lent epicurean, you rule this country by a coalition with an
Irish rebel, and with a council of colleagues in which you have
united the most inefficient members o your own party with
the Palmerstons. and Grants, the Swiss statesmen, the con-
. tlottieri of the political world, the British Legion' of pub-
lic life. A miniature Mokanna, you are now exhaling upon
the constitution of your country, which you once eulogized,
and its great fortunes, of which you once were proud, all that
long-hoarded venom and all those distempered humours that
have for years accumulated in your petty heart, and tainted
the current of your mortified life. Your aim is to reduce
every thing to your own mean level—to degrade every thing
to your malignant standard."
This is all mighty fine and mighty eloquent ; and the
finer and more eloquent because a fiction. Runny-
mede has a *arm imagination ; he can wake a fiend,
make a dragon, and dress out a crocodile, with any
author of them all. He disdains the strait-laced guid-
ance of truth. In Dante's Inferno, one of the damned
carries his head about with him in his hands, always
using it as a lantern. Runnymede beats him hollow;
for he sometimes does without a head at all. Take as
an example the young gentleman's very prudent advice
to the Lords with respect to the pacification of Ireland:—
" Justice to Ireland will best be secured by doing justice to
England. The people of England created the empire. At
the time when we were enraged in that great strife which
will rank in the estimation of posterity with the Punic wars
and the struggles of the Greeks against Asia, the very men
who are now menacing your illustrious order, and stirring up
war against our national institutions, were in communication
with our most inveterate foe, and soliciting invasion. My
Lords, you will not forget this ; you will not forget to distin-
guish their pretext from their cause. These men cannot be
conciliated. They are your foes, because they are the foes of
England. They hate our free and fertile isle. They hate
our order, our civilization, our enterprising industry, our sus-
tained courage, our decorous liberty, our pure religioin This
wild, reckless, indolent. uncertain, and superstitious race :Ave
no sympathy with the English character. Their fair ideal of
human felicity is an alternation of clannish broils and coarse I
idolatry."
What Irish Catholic would refuse to pay tithes to a
Protestant parson, were he convinced that the writer of
these letters was other than a foul-mouthed calumniator
of the people of England ? Of course no one. The
people of Ireland would feel too proud of the amiable
estimate thus taken of the national character, not to lick
the feet of their dominant, enlightened oppressors.
Hitherto we have confined our observations to Rii-
nyinetle's genius, his eloquence, his veracity, and his dis-
cretion. We shall now introduce him as a prophet
:
And do you really flatter yourself, because an eccentric
course of circumstances has metamorphosed an Irish adven-
turer into the Chancellor of the English Exchequer, that the
spirited people of this island will allow you to proceed with
impunity in your projected machhiations ? Rest assured, Sir,
your career draws rapidly to a close. Providence, that for
our sins and the arrojance of our flush prosperity has visited
this once great and glorious empire with five years of Whig
government, is not implacable. Our God is a God of mercy
as well as justice. We may have erred, but we have been
chastened. And Athens, when ruled by a Disdar Aga, who
was the depots of the chief of the eunuchs at Constantinople,
'as not so contemptible as England governed by a Limerick
lawyer—the deputy of an Irish rebel !"
It is then not O'Connell and the Whigs, hut Provi-
dence that is to be blamed for keeping; the Tories out
of office! Si), after all, the exclusion of Peel and Wel-
lington from i Downner-street was a visitation of God
What then are wetoqhink of those who opposed this
five em; se •
• visitation But Providence, it seems,
is again reconciled with the Tories. What blasphemers
these Tory r, •
, ros►
es are ! Two extracts more, and we
have done with Master ....eni •
They (the supporter- of Ministers) assure us, with solemn
or AI ith sparkling counten.sance', that they did not reckon upon
a- moiety of such a majority. And do they indeed think that
the people of England c jot whether there be ten or
twenty traitors more or iesr.e. i oi.e the Route of Commons ?"
Not a bit of it—whe. rsforc shou!d 2 they What is
It to the people of England, who sit in they
House of
Commons ? No person but a Whig could fall into
such an error a the Constitution s to sunpose that
not
be
just
as
safe,
time
laws
as well
administered,
would
ninistered, and
the people as indifferent if there were none but traitors
• in the House of Commons. Ben says it, and lien is a
Constitutional authority upon such matters.
We shall conclude with a Runnytnedian compli-
ment to the Peers :
"To justice to Ireland, Mr. Rice of course was e
plecb, d
and most determined to obtain it ; but his Bills have heendis'
honoured nevertheless. And the settlement of the Irish Tithe,
- and the Reform of tie Irish Corporations, ai e about as much ad-
vanced by this great Whig Government, as the Relief of the
Dissenters and the Reform of the Court of Chancery. What
have they done then ? What pledge have they redeemed ?"
" Thank God we have PeeN" Master Benjamin ;
otherwise the Whigs would have left you a very different
talc' to tell. But you who know di :invincible courage
of the Hereditaries ought not to be too severe on the
Whigs for allowin themselves to be defeated. They
did all they andthey • 1
could, triec. to do much more ; but
the Peers were too strollg for them. But as the struggle
may be shortly renewed%gain, it is just as prudent not
to taunt them prematurely' with a final defeat.
We have thus endeavoured to rescue one great name
from oblivion. Van Artevelde in addressingb his lover
assures her that=--s
" The world knows nothing of it's greatest
men !"
A proposition which this very notice of Benjamin
D'lrsra:eli the' younger's Letters will go a great way to
explode, „One gre.at.man, at least, will be thus intro-
duced .to' the admiration of thirty millions of people.
••.•••
s Isss.•• '`•

•*Sid,