The Sun.
London, England, 1848-05-04 00:00:00

ebiVning,

LONDON, THURSDAY, MAY :4, 1848.

Austria has obtained a Liberal Constitution, a
constitution modelled upon that inimitable combina-
tion of interests which was first compacted into a
durable Government in England, by a series of re-
forms spreading over many centuries. One after
another the obsolete and bungling systems of legisla-
tion which have weighed like nightmares on the
nations of the Continent are being destroyed—one
after another, those nations are adapting to their
political and social institutions the great
truths of jurisprudence which were origi-
nally discovered and adopted by ourselves.
This is only in accordance with the divine
and catholic community of ideas. In philosophy,
principles are common to all, to those of mediocre
ability as well as to those of abstruse intellect, no
matter how tedious may have been the processes by
which the founder of the new system may have ap-
proached the result of his deductions. In astronomy,
the same beneficent fact is recognisable ; as was strik-
ingly illustrated in 1846, by the profound calcula-
tions of that immortal youth, la hose mind could
travel, by the analogy of numbers, to the orbit of
an unknown planet; and whose supple knees could
band before the throne of a Sovereign unworthy to
loose the buckle of the shoes of LE VERRIER. In
chemistry, in mechanics, in navigation, in archeology,
in all the branches of the tree of knowledge,.ln all the
channels which intersect the field of research, the
same benign: law is ever in operation—ubiquitous in
aspect and omnipotent in principle. In consequence
of this ennobling and humanising law, the merest
artizan could grapple the idea of a new world so soon
as COLUMBUS had returned from his voyage to the
Bahamas, the poorest pedlar in Florence could ap-
preciate the revolutions of the celestial bodies .-o soon as
GALLILEO had recognised and recorded the movements
of the satellites of Jupiter, the lowliest pedagogue in
the meanest hedgeschool in Ireland could corn.
prehend the application of the differential
calculus so soon as the illustrious competition for its
discovery arose between LIEBNITZ and NEWTON.
We thank 6oD that such is the generous necessity
of a social communion—that thoughts cannot be
patented—that a caveat cannot be taken out for a
constitution 1

So far from regarding the transference of our poli-
tical institutions to
theforeign seats of Government
with any degree of
experience other than jealousy,thelsseroistt isp impossiblerofoun d
gra
tiforfi cua
tsi
ot
no
blessings,
from which our po
pulation has derived its •
at the diffusion of those b
happiness,i our commerce its
prosperity, our conquests
tVhat though England
itself toiled to the acquisition this constitution over
mountains of disaster, and
a f leorglory, and our na-
tionality its permanence.
wildernesses of delay, what
though the boon of its present greatness
earned by its transit through has been
vicissitudes of experience—it is a glorious and
allthe
solatary reflection that the people of Europe
con-
are capable of bounding in a single day to the
pos-
session of this rational and majestic constitution, that
they are reaping harvests from the seeds sown by our
British ancestors. Let England rest contented with
the prestz;ge of that fame which can never be torn
from the pages of liar history, that fame which she
has obtained by the patience, the toil, the genius, and
the blood of her children, the fame of being the
founder of the great system of representative legisla-
tion, the organizer of a monarchical democracy, the
originator of the union of the three powers of the
State, the King, the Lords, and the Commons. King-
doms are involuntarily offering up to her the
insence of their imitation, empires are paying her
,
the homage of mockery. On the 3d of February,
118.47, Prussia received the shadow of a Free Con-
stitution
tution. The
25th
hodelled upon the Constitution of England.
On the 2
of April, 1848, Austria received more,
we trust, than a mere semblance of a Free Consti-
latter
concession wasextraordinary document in which the
proclaimed to Christendom by
FERDINAND, the a Emperor of Austria, is among the
most memorable
wanhdin the compass of those
ere.lt is comprised
significant of the imperial
ordniances
eifne aitrticless,eage.
of the age'
We publish a trans-
liantitoinfty
-nfifty-nine articles, such ad
the 36,950, 511 subjects
of
are guaranteed. to
follow-
ing :-..A representative _ thee KAISER as the L gislature—a responsible