The Sun.
London, England, 1849-06-29 00:00:00

whose political horn-book the letter P stands
indifferently for Perfidy and Peel. And when—if
our readers will pardon us the use of so bold a trope—
the principal personage stepped out of the canvass and
became himself the painter, his rapid yet delicate sketches-
of those who had shared his power and his fall derived
their greatest charm from the touch of feeling which
gave them warmth and softness of colour, and from the
frequent and affectionate reference to the personal tie
which had connected the originals with himself. He
saw around him the men who had fought by his side
through the brief combat of 18457-who had composed
the strength of the Government formed in 1841—and
who with him had sacrificed place and power, and
that popularity which is more precious than either,
to their honest conviction of their duty to their
country. It was not in the nature of man to remain
proof against the emotions suggested by -such a
scene ; Sir Robert felt its influence, and we admire
far less the felicitous diction which reminds us
of his happiest oratorical efforts, than the sim-
ple, hearty, and genuine feeling which glows
through and animates the whole. But the most remark-
able characteristic, as it strikes us, of Sir R. Peel's
speech, is its calm and retrospective ton©. Standing
once more amongst his old associates, in the halt which
he had entered again and again as the organ of a power-
ful Government and as the leader of a not less powerful
Opposition, the speaker falls not unnaturally,
and certainly not ungracefully, into the contem-
plative strain of the retired statesman. He : re-
traces the busy past, but casts not a single glance into
the busy future. The interests of party and the objects
of personal ambition, once familiar to his mind, occupy
it now no longer. Father Anchises, enjoying the plea-
sures of memory in the myrtle groves of the Elysian fields,
is not more serenely reflected than he. As he bestows a
word or two of remembrance upon each of his old friends,
it is impossible not to feel as if they were dead and bu-
ried, and he himself, ;as dead to the turmoil of life as
they, moralising over their graves or pointing to their
pictures on the wall. There they are, the ghosts of a
departed Administration, called up one by one to receive
each his tribute of friendly and affectionate panegyric.
There is Sir James Graham—" the Minister with whom
I was in daily communication respecting the internal
affairs of the Empire, and who brought to the perform-
ance of that duty the greatest talents, the greatest assi-
duity, the greatest skill in that department." There is
Goulburn—" my earliest political friend, with whom I
shared every vicissitude of fortune, who, by his financial
knowledge and by his judgment, conciliated the respect
of this great city, in whose integrity the most un-
bounded confidence was placed, and whose ad-
ministration of the finances of his country was as
eminently successful as those of any preceding
Chancellor." There again, to the right, is 1. ,rd
Aberdeen —" my noble friend, who was charged in
critical times with the administration of the foreign
affairs of the empire, who gained the confidence and
goodwill of every foreign Minister with whom he had
to act, who gained for the court of his Sovereign an
influence that was wholly due to his personal character,
and who made the influence which he had obtained
subservient to the great end of his political lite—the
removal of obstacles which prevented a good under-
standing between foreign powers, and the maintenance
of universal peace, so far as that was consistent with a
scrupulous and undeviating regard to the interests and
the honour of our own country." And, lastly, there
is "the Duke," who was in the full meredian of
his fame when he, Sir Robert, made his entrance into
public life, forty years ago. Forty years ago! A states-
man who can look back through forty years of uninter-
rupted toil may well speak as one who has borne the bur-
den and heat of the day, and is ready to welcome the cool
and passionless eventide of life. But although it may be
quite natural and becoming for Sir Robert Peel to dis-
course about his old friends and political adherents in
this meditative mood, we are much mistaken if the public
does not regard them in a very different light. The
circle by which he was surrounded was not, after all,
the spectral company to whom we have likened them—
but a party of live gentlemen, sipping their port, hale
and hearty, and retaining in unimpaired vigour all those
rare qualifications for high and responsible office which
they exhibited a very short time ago. The ablest
administrator who ever held the seals of the Home
Office is not in his coffin, and has no intention of
dying for these thirty years to come. The success-
ful Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had the
knack of always turning a deficit into a surplus,
and was never behind-hand with his Budget, is
alive and well, and in full possession of his sound arith-
metical mind, memory, andu nderstanding. And yet all
these respectable personages, though not dead and
buried, are at present as completely lost to the nation as
if they were. They are neither useful as a Government
nor as an Opposition--and, to all appearance, they con-
sider this a perfectly proper and satisfactory state of
things. Involuntarily we catch ourselves comparing the
men who sat at the Lord Mayor's table on Wednesday,
with those who were guests at the same board a few
weeks back. Sir George Grey enjoys the high and
well-merited respect of his opponents as well as of his
political friends—but is he as good a Home Secretary as
Sir J. Graham? Does anybody possessed of ten pounds
of his own in the whole circuit of the United Kingdom,
think Sir C. Wood as able a financier as Mr. Goulburn?
If' Lord Grey were to-morrow to surrender his place to
Mr. Gladstone, can any ono doubt that the colonists
would be gainers by the change? Is Lord Palmerston
—but the parallel is growing ridiculous—and we can
only ask, is this to last for ever? Is the country to be
for ever deprived of the talents and industry of her best
official servants and her most intelligent men of busi-
ness, and condemned to the sterile incompetence of a
makeshift Administration, which cannot govern well,
and which is not restrained from governing ill by the
check of a powerful and united Opposition. We say that
this is not as it should be, when these men are ciphers in
the political world—and, much as we lament that disor•
ganizition of parties which everybody talks about, and
nobody helps to repair, we must tell them plainly that
the largest share of the blame rests with themselves.

IRELAND AND THE CORPORA

TION OF LONDON.

Yesterday the members of the Corporation who wore
cllled together on Thursday last, at the Mansion-house,
by the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor, for the purpose of
taking into consideration the great object of benefiting
Ireland by the purchase of land in that country, assem-
bled in one of the large rooms of the building.
The LORD Maxon, upon taking the chair, informed
the meeting that since he had had the honour of presid-
ing upon the occasion on which he had convened the
Aldermen and Common Councilmen, to consider a matter
of such deep consequence, in every point of view, to Ire-
land, and as a matter of course to the United Kingdom,
it had been his good fortune to receive encouragement
from most influential parties, to persevere in the grand
object then submitted for the consideration of the friends
of that unfortunate country. It was with the highest
feeling of gratification, he had to announce, that in
consequence of a letter which he bad received from
an individual in the most elevated rank in Ireland,
resulting from the late meeting, to which he alluded,
he had waited upon Lord John Russell and Sir
George Grey, and received from those Ministers the
strongest assurances of support and assistance, in carry-
ing out any plan suggested for the advantage of Ireland
by the Corporation of London. He was not at liberty at
present to make public the important contents of the
written communication to which he referred, but he
wished to impress upon the meeting the fact that nothing
could exceed the admiration with which the personage
from whom it had issued contemplated the proceedings
of the gentlemen who had, in the discussion which took
place on Thursday, so wisely and benevolently expressed
their feelings and wishes with regard to the future condi-
tion of Ireland. He would leave it to the meeting to de-
termine what course it would, under the extraordinary
circumstances in which he considered the Corporation of
London to be placed with regard to Ireland, the public
cknowledgment of the benefit rendered to
Ireland by the instrumentality of the Irish Society,
and the probabilities of remuneration, be most
proper to select for adoption. In his opinion the
most eligible mode would be to assemble a Court of
Common Council, to take the question into their most
serious consideration; but he was ready to be guided by
the counsel of his friends around, all of whom he knew
to be the friends of Ireland.
The Lord Mayor's observations upon a subject of
such vital importance to the interests of the empire were
received with the most marked respect and approbation;
and it was unanimously agreed that a requisition should
be signed, calling upon his Lordship to convene a Court
to consider the propriety of appointing a committee to
inquire into the subject of purchasing land in Ireland,
and thus extending the benefits of civilization and the
encouragement of the adequate reward of labour in that
country.
Several gentlemen, amongst whom were Mr. R. L.
Jones, Mr. Pewtress, Sir Peter Laurie, Alderman and
Sheriff Finnis, Mr. Milard, Mr. Dakin, Mr. Holt, Mr.
Wire, Mr. J. Dixon, Mr. H. L. Taylor, Mr. Bennoch,
Mr. Harrison, in fact, the mass of the antagonist politi-
cians of the Corporation, expressed opinions in direct
accordance with those to which the Lord Mayor had
given utterance; and the requisition was at once drawn
up, and presented to his Lordship, who stated that he
received it with much gratification, and would appoint
as early a day as would best suit the convenience of the
members of the Corporation for the discussion of the
question.

FIRE AT THE ARMY AND NAVY CLIIII•IIOUSE.--
Last night, between nine and ten o'clock, considerable
alarm was caused in St. James's
-square
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reo at nbd
d thattate
Mes-
sengers were immediately dispatched in various direc-
tions.ahfouase wpa sr o n irntegs. irEaaiseed-
for the assistance of the firemen, and forthwith the
Brigade and West of England engines attended,
when
the firemen found that the flames were raging amongst
the joistings under the first•floor back; and, had it not
been for the opportune discovery, there is no doubt that
the whole of the premises would have been destroyed.
From the examination made after the fire was put out,
there is no doubt that the outbreak was occasioned from
one of the timbers running into the kitchen chimney,
and, the soot becoming ignited at an early hour of the
evening, had fired the timber. The premises were fully
insured in various offices.
THE QUEEN DowAGER.—Her Majesty the Queen
Dowager, attended by Lord and Lady Howe and Lady
Gore, left Tunbridge-wells at 11.15 A.M., yesterday, by
special train for Croydon. The Hon. James Byng, one
of the directors of the South-Eastern Railway, received
the Queen at the Tonbridge-wells station, and accom-
panied her Majesty to Croydon, where, on the arrival
of the train, Mr. Browne, also one of the directors of
the South-Eastern Railway, was present to receive her
Majesty. The arrangements were conducted (much to
the satisfaction of her Majesty) under the direction of
Mr. Finnigan, superintendent of the line, who travelled
in charge of the train. We are glad to find that her
Majesty's health is much improved by her short Way at
1 this delightful watering place.