The Sun.
London, England, 1836-12-13 00:00:00

ties overlay " the generous emotions of his Irish heart."
Shade of the benevolent Sadler, how art thou avenged
for the calumnies which this man and his faction
poured upon thy memory ! Some of the Ministerial
papers wonder much, in their simplicity, that Conser-
vative Journals should write so much about Mr.
O'Connell as they do, and make him of so much con-
sequence. Certainly, in point either of character or of
talent, except for mischief, is the agitator of sufficient
importance per se, to justify much public notice of him
in any respectable quarter, in or out of the press ; but
his connection wth the Ministry attaches a consequence
to what he says and does, which no sayings or doings
of his could otherwise possess. As the irresponsible
dictator of the Cabinet, the Master of the political ex-
istence of Ministers, his speeches and his actions be-
come of importance, because his word is a law, and
his conduct is a directing example to the self-abased
Statesmen who, having once dared to denounce him as
an enemy of his country, in a speech from the Throne,
expiate, by the most crawling servility, the heinousness
of their offence. The following picture of the condi-
tion of the Irish poor, and the conduct of the Irish
Protector of the Minister, is taken from the Dublin

Standard :
" Accounts have been received from the counties of
Roscommon, Leitrim, and Donegal, stating that not one-
third of the corn crop has been saved, and that what has
been brought into the haggards and barns of the farmers is
more or less damaged by the almost incessant rains. While
famine already gives notice of its approach, those who by
their condition in life must be the principal sufferers, arc
plundered, in every part of Ireland, by those heartless
boors, the political titulars and priests ; and the pence and
shillings thus extracted from the wretched people, who have
neither coats on their backs nor meat in their bellies, are
remitted weekly to the monster of imposture and his satel-
lites, while he himself is almost every second day going into
one or other of the Law Courts to make a deceptive
show by introducing motions about tithe martyrs, and
then receiving enormous professional fees, for making these
motions, out of that very fund which is now so unscru-
pulously plundered by every description of law harpies con-
, netted with the Priests' Association."

It is true, as the Paper adds from which this ex
tract is taken, that the Irish poor are so infatuated as
to have confidence in this pseudo-patriot—this trading
hawker of popular grievances for his own benefit.
But when famine lays a heavier hand than ordinary
upon these wretched people, it is to English and to
heretic generosity their cry for succour and relief will
be raised—and that dreadful affliction, it appears, is
coming fast upon them.—Morning Herald.
The letters patent constituting the University of
London have at length been issued. The University
is to consist of a Chancellor, appointed for life by the
Crown ; of a Vice-Chancellor, appointed in the first
instance by the Crown for one year, and subsequently
by the annual election of the Senate ; and of a body of
Fellows or Members of the Senate, of such number as
the Crown shall determine from time to time. The
number of Fellows now appointed is thirty-five. These
and their successors are constituted a body politic and
corporate, with the usual grant of a common seal,
the right of suing and being sued, Sec., under their
corporate name, and that of holding personal pro-
perty to any extent, and real property not exceeding
the value of 10,0001. per annum. This body politic
and corporate is empowered to confer, after examina-
tion, the several degrees of Bachelor of Arts, Master
of Arts, Bachelor of Laws, Doctor of Laws, Ba-
chelor of Medicine, Doctor of Medicine, and to
examine for medical degrees in the four branches
of medicine, surgery, midwifery, and pharmacy, charg-
ing reasonable fees for these several degrees. Persons
presenting themselves for examination to produce cer-
tificates of their having gone through the proper
course of study, from the London University College,
King's College, or such other institutions, in any part
of the King's dominions, as his Majesty by his sign
manual may hereafter authorise to grant such certifi-
I cates. In the case of candidates for medical degrees,
the certificates of such of the medical schools of Great
Britain, or even of foreign countries, as the Senate of
the University may recommend to his Majesty for that
purpose, are to be accepted. The Crown reserves
to itself to be the Visitor of the University, with
the usual powers appertaining to that office. We re-
fer our readers to the official document, which ap-
pears elsewhere, for a list of the persons who
arc to constitute the Senate of this new institu-
tion, and we do not think we hazard much when we
predict that degrees conferred by them will scarcely be
regarded by the world at large as distinctions of any
considerable value. Had it been the intention of Lord
John Russell to constitute a club of Whigs, capable
of mingling science with Liberalism in their conver-
saziones, the list, as it seems to us, would have been un-
objectionable. But, aiming at the formation of a per-
manent and influential national institution, he has cer-
tainly selected the Senate of his new University upon
a principle much too narrow and exclusive to
afford to the establishment the least chance of
immediate success. This defect may be, and no
doubt will be, remedied by some future Minister,
who better understands the proper objects of such
an institution, or is more sincerely desirous of pro-
moting them. Then, but not until then, a fair chance
will be afforded to the new experiment, in its own
nature sufficiently doubtful, of distributing the honours
of literature and science by the hands of men of hete-
roffenous habits and pursuits, and linked together by
no other tie than the piece of parchment on which their
names are strung together. Having now said all that
we think necessary upon the contents of the Royal
letters patent, we cannot forbear a word or two upon
the very singular epistle which Lord John Russell has
had the good taste and good sense to send in company
with that important public document to the noble Chan-
cellor of the new University. Lord John assures the
noble Earl that he " shall esteem it an honourto co-ope-
rate in the advancement of an institution destined to
confer the distinctions justly due to proficiency in litera-
ture, science, or art, without imposing a test of religious
opinions, or binding by the fetters of the seventeenth
century the talent and merit of the present en-
lightened age." This passage we own puzzles us ex-
ceedingly. Had the comparison it institutes between
" the talent and the merit of the present enlightened
age, and the fetters of the seventeenth century," pro-
ceeded from the pen of such a man as Lord Brougham,
we should at once have concluded that he meant to
sneer, and the sneer would not have been ineffective, at
his colleagues of the new senatus acadeinicus, the elite
of Whig talent and Whig merit in " the present en-
lightened age." But we do not suspect Lord John of
any such malicious intention, and must therefore, we
suppose, charge his most unfortunate comparison to
the account of sheer unadulterated silliness. " The
merit and talent of the present enlightened age "
may be very great, and no doubt they are, since
they have permitted and enabled Lord John Russell,
and men of similar dimensions, to govern nations and
found Universities ; but while the present generation
were exulting in their superiority, in merit and talent
to the fettered men of former days, it was, to say the
least, very unwise or very unkind in the author of
" Don Carlos" to remind us of the age in which Eng-
land possessed a Beaumont, a Fletcher, a Johnson, and
a Shakspeare. " Don Carlos, it may be said, is un-
fairly mentioned, since the worst poet of one period
should not be compared with the best poets of an-
other. But, if the present be an enlightened age,
the talent and merit of which transcend those of
the fettered and benighted period to which the
Noble Lord has so opportunely referred us, surely
the superiority must be most conspicuous in the list
of men selected by the State to judge of the various
degrees of " proficiency in literature, science, and
art," and confer -corresponding honours upon the pro-
ficients. We will not repeat here Lord John Rus-
sell's list of persons best qualified in our day to be
the channels and the fountain of academic honours.
We shall only say that, in our humble judgment, not-
withstanding the rapid and never-ending march of in-
tellect of which we hear so much, a list very nearly
if not quite as good might by diligent inquiry
have been formed in the seventeenth century, fet-
tered and comparatively unenlightened as the men
of that period had the misfortune to be. Dr.
Barrow, or Dr. Tillotson, for example, were not, per-
haps, so much inferior as Lord John Russell seems
to imagine to the present Bishops of Durham and
Chichester. Lord Bacon, as a philosopher, and both
Bacon and Coke, as lawyers---and Spelman, and Sel-
den, and Clarendon, and Cudworth, as politicians and as
reasoners upon the character and conduct of mankind