The Sun.
London, England, 1847-11-17 00:00:00

trtitins 2int

LONDON, WEDNESDAY. NOVEMBER 17, 1847.

To-morrow will be a day chronicled ,in our na-
tional history—being the occasion of the assembling of
a new Parliament. Of old the incidents recorded by
the historian were of cities captured, of territories
conquered, of
.diadems usurped, of political constitu-
tions crumbling away under the pressure of the
mailed heel of an adventurer. Now-a-days the story
is very different. The heroism of modern history is
rather moral than physical. If we preserve any one
of our antique recollections with pleasure, it is the re-
collection of the intermittent convocation of the Wit-
tinagemot. We associate the modern assemblages of
the Legislature, moreover, with the aggregatecoun-
oils of the Heptarchy. We may, by a succession of
analogies, trace down to the middle of the nineteeth
century the development of those principles of po-
pular government which have afforded the different
classes of the population a direct participation in the
affairs of the State; which first manifested themselves
in the remote epoch already mentioned; and which
have gradually resolved themselves into the triple
form of thelßritish Legislature.
The commemorative voice of the journalist has not
more entirely replaced the improvisations of the bard,
than breve the sounds of Parliamentary discussion
superseded those of more warlike encounters. We
are not among those who lament the picturesque
doings of our ancestors. We leave those lamenta-
tions to the prurient sympathies of the gentlemen in
white waistcoats. We resign the devotion to the
Romance of History to Mrs. PERCY SINNETT, as
entirely as we do the narrative of the History of
Romance to the literary antiquary and the encyclo-
paedist. Our interests are more peculiarly aroused
by a division night at Westminster than by the re-
vival of a tournay at Eglintoun; and we are satisfied
that a similar preference would be awarded by the
majority of our sober, sedate, and sensible fellow-
countrymen. We are satisfied that to every one but
nurserymaids, and the more sentimental subscribers
to circulating libraries, the appearance of Mr. Speaker
in the lobbies would be a more attractive sight than
that of a pursuivant in his glittering tabard. Even
the least educated are beginning to discriminate be-
tween the utile and the dulee, between mere spectacle
and those shows which are fraught with advantage
to the multitude. With ourselves the assembling
of a new Parliament has become one of the principal
of historic facts, for it is
noo l
longer in the field of war,
but on the floor of the u
battle of the people is fought,
of
Commons, that the
How much good or how much evil
accom-
plished by thetyarliament which willc7 be
ac_
its
sittings to-morrow will be variously conjectured,
cording as the spirit of partizanship may influence
the imaginations of the observers. The followers
the Stable Statesman will, doubtless, anticipate butof a
melancholy conclusion to a session which opens with
such a majority to a Liberal Government. The
supporters of the Cabinet will look onward to the
future with those mingled sensations of curiosity
and solicitude which proceed from a consciousness of
the casualties of debate, and an appreciation of the
difficulties of Legislation. The allies of the Right
-Honourable Baronet, the Member for
Tamworth,
:will, on the contrary, bide their time with that
exquisite and almost sublime self possession wh. h
is
inseparable from the encouragement afforded by an
agreeable retrospection.
Meanwhile it cannot be matter of indifference to
note down the more striking contrasts afforded by
the remembrances of the late, and the anticipations
of the new Parliament. The contrasts afforded by
the comoarlion are remarkable. Of the late Parlia-