The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-05 00:00:00

FINE ARTS.

LINCOLN.
Th e following extracts from a spirited sperch made by
Sir E. L. Buiwer at the election will be read with inte-
rest :—" Mr. Swann considers my support of the pre-
sent Administration as disqualifying me from being your
representative ; but he only looks at my speeches and niy
votes in behalf of the Government, he does not make
any account of those given against them. Ile reminds
me of the Sultan who had only one eye, and who would
have his portrait taken ; the artist was in a dilemma,
for it would have been _high treason to have represented
the Sovereign with only one eye, whilst, if he had drawn
him with two, the faithful would not have known
him ; he at length hit upon the expedient of draw-
ing the Sultan in profile. Now, Mr. Swann has been
looking at my votes in profile ; with the one eye he sees
my support of the Ministers, but with the other he is per-
fectly blind.—Xheers.) I allow that I have supported the
GOvernment in all their great measures for the advance-
ment of human liberty. I have voted with them for
carrying out the principles of Parliamentary Reform,
and also the Municipal Reform, but I have opposed-them
on questions on which Colonel Sibthorp himself has
supported them. I opposed them when Colonel. Sib-
thorp voted with them respecting the great question of
immediate emancipation to the negroes. We carried it
by a small majority, and thoSe who were present as de-
legates from anti-slavery societies have been pleased to
say that it was in a great measure owing to the speech
with which I closed the debate that the majority was
gained.—(Cheers.) I voted against the Government on
the question of ballot, when they were also supported
by Colonel Sibthorp.—(Continued cheers.) In the late
Session I voted for an inquiry into the conduct of Lord
Cardigan—(Hear)—and was opposed to the Government
and Col. Sibthorp. Again I was opposed to them on the
question of some mitigation to the imprisoned Chart-
ists, for although I disagree as much as any man with
the sentiments they have expressed, heaven forbid that I
should wish the man who differs from me in political
opinions to be treated as a felon. I therefore say that
my votes and my `speeches have not been fairly exam.
fined, and that they have been entirely overlooked where
they were opposed to the Government. I was glad to
hear Colonel Sibthorp just now disclaim the new-fangled
name of Conservative, and call himself a Tory ; I was
always surprised that they should be giving up their old
names to be sneaking under an alias ; it is only bad ser-
vants who change their names, when they have been dis-
missed for delinqueney.—(Cheers and laughter.) To
resist change when everything else is altering ; when
machinery has made such rapid progress, that human
labour is risen almost to a science ; when, if our ancestors
could arise, and walk down the streets of Lincoln, they
would suppose all that they beheld to be the effects of
magic ; in politics, and in politics alone, there is to be
no progress, Now the railway will convey us from
Nottingham to London in six hours and a half, instead
of the old slow and sure coach which perford the
journey in four days and three nights, " God wme illing."
We are stiff to adhere. to the old Constitution, under
which witnesses were put upon the rack, and old women
were burnt as witches.—(Loud cheers.) My principles
are totally the reverse. Ido not advocate change for its
own sake, but that our institutions shall advance with
the progress of society instead of standing still. What
does Sir Robert Peel offer except this stand-still, do-
nothing principle, should he come into office ? Does
he hold out any hope, any expectation of political
amelioration ? He throws to the winds the hypocri-
tical argument about the horrors of slavery ; and
though it is inconvenient now to alter, he does not
say what he would do hereafter on the subject of the
sugar duties. Then, in regard to the Corn-laws—
it has been said that my address was ambiguous—what
does Sir Robert Peel say ? He asks you to make him
prime minister, and then he will tell you what he will
propose fairly and candidly. , He says he is in favour of
a sliding scale, but whether that is to be up to 30s. or
405., or down to 2s. 6d., he does not tell you—all is ambi-
guous. Talleyrand once said that speech was given to
man to enable him to disguise his sentiments ; he cer-
tainly roust have had Sir Robert Peel in his eye when he
said that.—(Cheers.) Amidst so vast a variety of topics
as have been introduced, two subjects I shall touch upon
briefly; they are the Poor-law and Prince Alberts's an-
nuity. I have always said that the law is capable of much
mitigation, a.ld I would greatly extend the principle
of out-door reLief to persons above a certain age, and
I am against the separation .of
aged
mitigatiopiesn t
proper distinction to industry
is compatible with a
over indolence. Whatever has been the effect elsewhere,
here there has been no unholy alliance between Tor'
and Chartists—no entrapping men. as supporters of se
dition, who, in the days of Mr. Pitt, would have been
hung up by dozens, and in those of Sidmouth and Cas-
tlereagh, would have beep trampled down by hundreds
on the plains of Preston and Peterl?o.
It is
sadit saioh t M
he
r.
Wilkes, that, on one occasion, being.charg
profligacy of his public life on the hustings at Middlesex,
he dexterously evaded the matter by solemnly asking
the accuser " who murdered his washerwoman last
Monday," and who on this imputation himself
scarcely escaped being murdered. So do these peo-
ple bring their cases. against the Poor-law,
founded
on some manufactured report in Mr. Walter's Tunes,
" who starved such a man in the b astilewhn
o
murdered his. washerwoman ? "—(Loud cheers.) 'O
the subject of the annuity to Prince Albert, the ques-
tion having been fairly put, it is right that I should
enter on my defence regarding that vote : but let us
look at the circumstances_ A short time previously, Sir
Robert Peel was called to office, and demanded the right
to nominate all the female attendants upon the Queen.
That demand was unaonstitutional, and her Majesty
acted as the free Sovereign of a free people in refusing

POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTION.—THE
DISSOLVING VIEWS.
We were favoured, on Saturday, with a sight
of several new Dissolving Views, which were
privately exhibited at this institution. The sud-
den and startling changes that take place in
these views by the simple agency of light and
shade, might almost induce one to believe that
they were brought about by the wand of a necro-
mancer, or by the caprices of one of those genii
of whose marvellous doings we have all read in
the delightful pages of the " Arabian Nights."
At one moment the spectator is gazing on the
Palace of the Dove of Venice; , the next, a
dim mist slowly and stealthily creeps over the
scene ; a mountain starts up, where but a second
before there stood a solid pile of architecture ;
the paved square becomes a'lake, low down on
whose rock-bound shore appears the Castle of
immortelized by the peaof Byron. Be.foa
the eye hastheeane fully familiarized with this
wild, Alpine landscape—lo, another change !
Lake, rock, and mountain have disappeared, and
you see the interior of the gloomy fortress, with
two captives chained to pillars in the dungeon !
The colouring, and more particularly the per-
spective, of this picture are the most perfect illu-
sions we ever witnessed. The dull, discoloured
brickwork of the:columns, arising from continual
damps; the dirty, mouldering floor, half earth,
half stone; the forlorn aspects and crouching
attitudes of the pining and sickly prisoners, who
seem almost choked with the heavy, mephitic
air of such a charnel-house;—these various ob-
jects are pourtrayed with a truth 'of effect
that seems little short of miraculous. While
we gaze with an eye of pity en these
captives—memory carrying us back to the
days of Bonnivard, who wore away twelve long
years in this very thrtress—their figures fade and
become extinct, the gloomy cell, too, disappears,
and we see, instead, the caves of Ellora, so often
spoken of, in terms of astonishment and admira-
tion, by Oriental travellers. An instant, and
these, also, have vanished, and we behold a
noble steam-ship sailing over the broad bosom of
the Atlantic. There are several other Dissolving
Views, but the above are the most remarkable,
and the most cleverly executed. On the whole,
the exhibition is the most interesting one at
which we ever attended. It is like the realizing
of one's most vivid and wildest dreams, and
forcibly recals Shakspeare's noble lines,
" The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
1
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherits shall dissolve,
And like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a wreck behind."

A PARLIAMENTARY FREE
TRADE PARTY.

(From the Spectator.)
Mr. Villiers showed that he understood the capabili,
des and exigencies of the time and circumstances, when
he told, in the House of Commons, that the result of
this election could only be to send some Members to Par-
liament, who would prepare public opinion to influence
the next election in a proper way. Mr. Cobden, too,
seems, from the postscript of his Dundee letter, to en-
tertain just notions of the present condition of affairs—
" We want a few good commercial men, to form a Free-
trade party in the next Parliament." There can be now
little doubt as to which party will have the majority in
the new Parliament. But even a majority in favour of
the authors of =the Budget, would not alter the case.
Free-trade and Financial Reform, are mere words in the
mouths of the leaders of both parties. Any House of
Commons we can have at present—with the present con-
stituency, in the present temper of that constituency—
will be found utterly worthless for great legislative pur-
poses. The'only use it can be put to, is to make it the
arena of discussions regarding national policy, which
will be sure to boread by all—to make it the channel for
circulating sound lessons of political economy, finance,
and national policy, throughout the country—to speak
in Parliament, and through Parliament to the people,
with the weight. which attaches to the character of a
member of the Legisture. If Mr. Cobden bring to the
aid of Mr. Villiers, in what is to him the yet untried
field of the House of Commons, the same intelligence,
energy, and uncompromising character, which have made
him out of doors the acknowledged leader of the Anti-
Corn-law movement, he may be instrumental in gather-
ing around them a "Free-trade party" which will he
powerfully efficient in the political education of the
community. But, to enable him and his coadjutors to
effect this desirable end, they must not confine their
Parliamentary labours to that especial question. They
must, by their regular attendance in their places, by the
evidence they give that no part of the public businegs
escapes their notice, and by efforts to attain that mastery
over Parliamentary forms which makes even a minority
powerful in the House, gain the confidence of the reso-
lute and judicious few who out of doors really form.the
public feeling that is expressed by the many. Above
all, they must throw themselves without reserve upon
the popular sympathy, and identify themselves in every
• thing, as in Free Trade, with the people at large.
Ties

EXTENT OF THE BREAD-TAX.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN. •
SIR,—You have well noticed the appeal of a London'
tradesman on the Corn-laws in your paper of 30th June,
hut one calculation seems to have escaped your noticof the quartern 3d. per loaf, and you
b.
people twenty-seven millions
Rep
u tduicneto'
yearly. ' Say' the population of England is 24 millions.
th,tehperii)cocek.,
ets, of the
Eight persons shall form a family, who eat at least two
quarterns a-day,,ancl probably more.
This would gale 6d, a-day profit to 3 millions of families.
' •

• 18 millions of pence
per day, which, multiplied by 365 days, gives 27 millions,
instead of three, six, or nine millions, put only once a-
year into the pockets of the landholders, for one, two,
or three million quarters of corn that they might grow.
I beg you to observe the great injury done to the
people by the present Corn-laws, by thus cramping the
m rculation.—l am, Sir, respectfully,
Dirmingham, July 1, 1840.

E. T.