The Sun.
London, England, 1847-06-14 00:00:00

chairman. Nothing could have tended more to con-
firm the million in a determination to testify in some
brilliant way their appreciation of the wonderful
good entailed upon posterity by WILLIAM CAXTON
than the impassioned and eloquent utterances of Lord
MORTET7I, and of the American Minister Mr. BAN-
CROFT. In the expressions enunciated by both those
graceful and earnest orators there was the glow
of benevolence, the colouring of rhetoric, and
the fervour of a sympathising and poetical tempera-
ment. We are gratified that upon an occasion in-
augurative of a demonstration so noble and beautiful
ae the one which is now being made of the world's
gratitude to CAXTON, there were present men like
Lord MORPETH and Mr. BANCROFT, men who, from
their official position as well as from their mental en-
dowments, were peculiarly calculated to impart a
graceful and yet a vigorous character to such a
movement as the one proposed. In acknowledging
our obligation, however, at the very outset to the
Rev. 11. MILMAN for having been instrumental in
rousing the torpid memories of his countrymen to
that eventful morning when a wayfarer knocked at
the gate of 'Westminster Abbey and begged a shelter
for the new-born discovery, we must protest against
the monopoly of credit in the notion of a
monument to CAXTON instituted on behalf of

Mr. MIL3fAN by the supporters of tha
Reverend Gentleman. Let it not be forgotten
that the man who originally started the idea of such
a testimonial of honour to the name and fame of
WILLIAM CAXTON was CHARLES KNIGHT. If the
Rev. H. MILarAN were to maintain a precedence on
the part of his proposition, we should at once impeach
him of plagiarism ; but it cannot for an instant be
imagined that the Rev. Gentleman has, in defiance
of dates and printed sentences, any intention
of monopolizing the credit of the suggestion, or of
filching from not the least distinguished of the spi-
ritual sons of CArroN—CHARLES KNIGHT—the ho-
nour of propounding the propriety of some public
token of our admiration to the most venerable, and
perhaps, the most indefatigable of our native printers
Born in the fertile wealds of Kent, bred among
the " broad and rude English of his day," WIL-
LIAM CAXTON imbibed, as Lord Mourrru beautifully
observed, " much of the racy and hearty spirit of the
soil." A rude, nervous, industrious, enlightened,
generous-hearted Englishman was this WILLIAM
CAXTON, to whose exertions, to whose individual exer-
tions are traceable all the countless and inestimable
blessings which have streamed in a copious,
and fructifying, and inexhaustible current
from the printing-press. As was appro-
priately observed on Saturday, the glorious song
of CHAUCER was given to the wide world
first by that press of CAXTON, which he constructed
and worked under the sheltering roof of Westminster
Abbey—to that press is owing the verse of CHAUcER
and of LIDGATE—tO the example afforded by that
press are attributable the extension and diffusion,
amongst the populous nations of the earth, of the
works of our immortal ancestors, of our poets,
of our philosophers, of our moralists, of our
biographers, of our ethical scholars, and of oratorical
and didactic writers. Through the medium of WIL•
LIAM CAXTON, as it were, our most illustrious and
wonderful countrymen, our Shaksperes, our billions,
our Bacons, our Lockes, our Boyles, our Spen-
cers, our Newtcns, our Raleighs, have shone
forth with a perpetual and undiminishable
glory, scattering the ignorance of centuries by
their wisdom, breathing through the discords
of vulgar life the melodies of their matchless numbers,
or speaking sensibly to the hearts of generations in
the diction of demigods and with the truthfulness of
oracles. Never was national benefactor so entitled to
the reverence of his posterity as WILLIAM CAXTON
is to ours. Not for us, therefore, shall it be to evi-
dence our admiration for his greatness by the erection
of some abortive squirt or attenuated lamp-
post. A monument let there be to WILLIAM
C AXTON—and one especially at the western
front of Westminster Abbey, " that spot where the
sun as he descends in the evening casts his last look
on the most venerable building in our island ;" but let
us not, in the name of common decency, erect to his
memory a paltry syringe like the fountains near the
unfinished Nelson Column, or a bungling gas-
light like that which smoked the windows and peri-
odically cracked the panes of glass at the extremity of
Charing-cross. A colossal statue, modelled by
THORWALDSEN, now attests in Alayence the love of
the fatherland for the fame of GUTTENBURG. Let the
ruddy light of the sunset, as it envelopes the ancient
fane of Westminster with the glories of each de-
parting day, shine, too, on some colossal statue or
symbolic structure erected before the portals of the
evening to the memory of WILLIAM CAXTON. Let
the shadow of the votive granite fall upon the walls
and mingle with the glooms of the old Abbey, in
whose cloisters toiled, in the days bygone, the first
and greatest of our English printers. Not for him a
fountain or a gas-pipe, but a memento worthy in
some measure of his immortality.

The deepest interest ia still manifested as to the
state of Ireland and the prospects of the approaching
harvest. Much controversy exists as to the appear-

ance :of the potato crop, and the probability of its
escaping the fatal taint that has already shown itself,
beyond the possibility of doubt, in some districts.
The fearful consequences of that mysterious visita-
tion to those who fell more immediately within its in-

fluence, the frightful destitution and suffering to
which so many of our Irish brethren were exposed,
the number of victims who prematurely perished
from the combined effects of famine and pestilence,
must excite the anxious desire of every man possessed
of the common feelings of humanity for the adoption
of any system by which the chances of a recurrence
of such heart-rending scenes might be materially
lessened, or rendered wholly impossible ; while the
increased prices of every sort of provisions, the de-
ranged state of the money market, and the consequent
difficulties by which every branch of trade and manu-
facture is affected, the people thrown out of employ-
ment, and their comforts abridged, not only in Ire-
land, but in this country also, must awaken the appre-
hensions of even the most callous and insensible,
who from merely selfish motives will be
actuated by similar impulses. There is one
class, however, to whom the question is of the
most vital importance, whose very existence is de-
pendent on the speedy and safe solution of the pro-
blem. The proprietors of the soil in our sister island
are indeed placed in the vanguard. They will have
to sustain the first brunt of the encounter, and on the
manner in which they meet the difficulty, the extent
and efficiency of their preparation, their own safety
must depend. By the new Poor-law for Ireland the
great principle is recognised that the property of the
country must sustnin its poverty ; that the necessities
of all oust be provided for, before any portion can
be made applicable to the luxuries or the superfluities
of the few. They must see, then, that the means of use-
ful and profitable employment is placed within the
reach of all, so that those who would otherwise un-
productively consume the national resources may be
enabled to earn their own livelihood by the exercise
of their own honest industry. Throughout almost
the entire kingdom the potato has hitherto formed
the chief, if not the only, article of food for the agri-
cultural population, and the cerial products of the
land have been chiefly devoted to the payment of the
landlords' rent. This cannot now be the case to any-
thing like the extent of former years. The greater
portion must be applied to the maintenance of the
people, and the claim for rent must be provided for
from other sources.

Is there, then, any description of crop easily ac-
cessible to the farmers and occupiers of land, that
will realise all these advantages—that will at the
same time afford the small landholders a means of
paying their rent, of obtaining a fair money return for
their produce, which will open a wide field for the pro-
fitable occupation of the people, which will retain in
Ireland large sums of money annually sent to other
lands in exchange for that which might be produced
at home,
which will, if judiciously and extensively
cultivated, lead to the accumulation of national and
individual wealth, and bring into the country the
tes
capital she so urgently requires—her chief
cwane unhesitatingly
answer bssy'anatlittlelfearaell and he
attention—and objects
answer in the affirmative—is it not absolute
insanity to neglect so great a blessing, to
abstain from seizing the benefits that are actually
I within their grasp ? With what face can the Irish
landlord appeal to the sympathies, or hope for the its..