The Sun.
London, England, 1822-03-30 00:00:00

SUN.

beginning of the next, altogether depended
upon the moral certainty or uncertainty of
immediately carrying it. The Right Hon-
ourable Gentleman seemed thus to hesitate en-
I tirely from a consideration of the influence which
the decision of Parliament must in his opinion
have upon Ireland in its present unsettled state.
—either at once tranquillizing or disturbing that
country. His own inclination we understood to
be towards postponement, but he was still, to
use his own words, " tremulously anxious" on
the subject, and should shortly signify the result.
--The Miscellaneous Estimates were brought
forward by Mr. Arbuthnot. On these, as in
all the other estimates, a considerable reduc-
tion has been effected. Mr. Hume did not
make any blunder of importance in the whole
evening. He offered but feeble opposition ;
and, with the exception of an attack on the
Vaccine Establishment, which has conferred
such immense benefits on the nation, which at-
tack brought upon him a severe reproof from one
of his political friends, Mr. Ellice, he performed
no exploit worthy of notice. In the House of
Peers a Bill was passed through, all its stages
(the Standing Orders being suspended for that
purpose), the object of which is to reduce the
number of Lords of the Admiralty necessary to
make a Quorum from three to two, in conse-
quence of the abolition of the two Junior Lords.
Viscount Melville assured the House, on this oc-
casion, that the abolition of those Offices would
not only impede the public business, but would
be productive of additional expense. The same
Bill afterwards passed the Commons.

[BRITISH PRESS.]
The proceedings in the houseof Commons
last night presented matter of deep and general
interest. A point has, been established from
which we trust will emanate results as conducive
to the general welfare of the Empire as the mea-
sure proposed is conciliatory in principle to a
numerous and important class of our fellow-sub-
jects. It will be seen that Mr. Canning gave
notice that he would, on the 30th of April, move
for leaNe to bring in a Bill to repeal so much of
the Act of the 30th of Charles 11. as imposes
penalties upon Roman Catholic Peers for sitting
and voting in the House of Lords. We cannot
doubt the success of this measure. There is not,
we believe, a man in the Empire who could
conscientiously say that the slightest or most
distant danger could be apprehended from
permitting such men as the Duke of Nor-
folk, the Earl of Shrewsbury, the Earl of
Fingal, and the other Catholic Peers of the
United Kingdom, to sit in the House of Lords.
This point, indeed, seemed at all times, and in
every discussion upon the claims of the Roman
Catholics, to have been conceded even by the
most energetic of their opponents ; and when
we consider the ease with which a few years
since Mr. Croker's Bill for throwing open the
army and navy to the Catholics, without any li-
mitation or condition, was passed through both
Houses and received the Royal sanction, we feel
the more confident in anticipating a favourable
result to Mr. Canning's present project.

[THE TIMES.
The English public knows pretty well the his-
tory of the Beacon Scotch newspaper, and all the
circumstances connected with that libellous print.
Sir Walter Scott, the poet,—Rae, the Lord Ad-
vocate,—the bond,—the dismay of the people
implicated in that criminal obligation,—the flight
of Nimmo, are circumstances which will be re-
called to people's minds by the slightest word.
We have now, however, to make known another
stage of these transactions, which it is painful to
relate, and which we hope will be a warning to
those who might otherwise adopt the trade of pri-
vate libellers. The parties to the bond, it will
be recollected, were known : but the contri-
butors or writers of the libellous matter were
kept secret. But Nimrno, it appears, the fu-
gitive Nimmo, being dissatisfied in his ab-
sence with the conduct of his quondam allies,
returned suddenly to Edinburgh; and, know-
ing the place where the manuscript articles
of the Beacon were preserved, made himself
master of them. Mr. Stuart, a gentleman of
the utmost respectability, and above others most
grossly libelled in the Beacon, learned from a
survey of those manuscripts that the chief of the
libellous articles against himself were in the hand-
writing of Sir Alexander Boswell—a son, we
apprehend, of the biographer of Dr. Johnson.
Sir Alexander sat for some short time in Par-
liament, and is well known •to the people who
frequent Carlton-house : he was one of the last
batch of Baronets. In consequence of this dis-
covery, Boswell was waited on, and satisfaction
demanded. He acknowledged his authorship,
but in consequence of having certain affairs of a
deceased brother to settle, he wished to put off
the meeting till May, and proposed Brussels
as the place. to this Mr. Stuart, the injured
man, demurred, and at last obtained consent to a
more early meeting at home. This matter being
arranged, Mr. Stuart left Edinburgh on business
for a couple of days, but was somewhat surprised
on his return to find his house guarded by two
Sheriff's officers, by whom he was arrested and
taken before a magistrate. Here the other party
appears, and both are bound over to keep the
peace. Bloodshed thus seemed for the present
prevented : but on a subsequent examination
of the nature of the recognizance, it was
discovered that the obligation to keep the
peace extended only to the county of Edin-
burgh. Mr. Stuart immediately pressed his
antagonist to cross the ferry and fight in
Fifeshire. The meeting took place in the

PRICE SEVE'N'PENCE

grounds of Sir R. Fergusson : and Lord
Rosslyn, we believe, was second to Mr. Stuart
we -do not know who attended Sir A. Boswell to
the field ; but it is certain that this latter gentle-
man fell, and, as it is thought, was mortally,
wounded, though we could not learn that he was
dead when the news of this unpleasant encounter
left Edinburgh.--We placed our moral before
our tale ; but we must again express our hope
that the issue of this affair will put an end to the
practice of private libelling in periodical works,
which ought to be consigned exclusively to men
or things belonging to the public. We must add
also the expression of our hope, that persona
connected with the administration of justice will
abstain from mingling in party politics. Sir Wm.
Rae, one of the bondsmen of the Beacon, is Lord
Advocate, and in that character would have to
direct the legal proceedings against Mr. Stuart,
should such unhappily be rendered necessary by
the issue of Sir Alexander Boswell's wound,

[MORNING HERALD.]
We yesterday gave some hasty extracts from
Tuesday's Paris papers, received by express.
It only remains to notice what passed in the
preceding day in the Chamber of Deputies.
The subject was still the Budget. In the course
of discussing the estimates of expenditure for
various public buildings, the following state-
ment was made relative to that splendid reposi-
tory of literature, which is opened to all the
world in Paris, without qualification or ques-
tion—the Royal Library. " The increase of the
Royal Library, in volumes, from 1791 to 182,
has been about 300,000; and in portfolios, filled
with engravings, the accumulation has been from
2,700 in 1783, to 5,700 at the present hour. The
annual acquisitions are estimated by M. l3ourienne
at 6,000 volumes in French, and half that num-
ber in foreign literature." The next subject was
the new Church of St. Genevieve, which drew
some curious observations from M. de Girardin,
relative to Rousseau—the history of this Church
—its consecration and desecration, from a Church
to a Pantheon—and from a Pantheon back to a
Church. In 1791 it was destined for the recep-
tion of the great men of France then living—and
to be yet born—with a reservation that the Con-
stituent Assembly might confer the honour of
reposing there on the remains of some great
exceptions to the general character of the age
before the Revolution. The first son of the Re-
volution whose mortal relics obtained the virgin
h9nours of the Pantheon was Mirabeau—and the
two associates adopted from he preceding age
were Voltaire and Rousseau. It appears that
upon the recent occupation of this Church by the
Missionaries the ashes of the two philosophers of
Ferney and Geneva, reposing under the same
roof in St. Genevieve, with a tranquillity and con-
cord very different from what they mutually ob-
served in their lives, were disturbed in the tomb,
and either scattered to the winds—or bid, no
one knew where. Now M. de Girardin declared
that he could not note the estimate, until the
Minister of the Interior " told France and
Europe" what he had done with Rousseau
and Voltaire. He particularly claimed satisfac-
tion respecting the remains of Rousseau. The Mi-
nisters and the right side answered only with a
loud laugh—which was returned wi,th a burst of
indignation from the left. M. de Girardin claim-
ed a particular interest in the matter as the son
of the gentleman of that name, who was the friend
and pupil of Rousseau—who built a monument
to him on his estate of Ermenonville, which
Rousseau ultimately chose for his tomb, and from
which his relics were removed to the Pantheon.