The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-30 00:00:00

LONDON, 711URSDAT, JUNE 30, 1870.

THERE would be a touch of the pathetic about the
farewell Proclamation of Queen ISABELLA to the
Spaniards, only that her misfortunes have been of
her own making—and that, it might be said, in
more than one sense, out of very wanton-
ness. At the moment when the bauble sceptre
slipped from her grasp—meaning, not now at the
date of her abdication, but a year ago, when she
hurriedly crossed the northern frontier of her do-
minions into France—her reign had been the
longest among all the reigns of contempo-
rary sovereigns. Immediately afterwards in
duration came the reign of Queen VIC.
TORIA. But whereas her Majesty succeeded
to the throne of England on the 20th of
June, 1837, upon the death of her uncle King
WILLIAM IV., Queen ISABELLA succeeded her father,
FERDINAND VII., in 1833, on the 29th of September.
So that the " long reign " referred to by that
unfortunate monarch in the very opening phrase
of this, her manifesto at once of adieu and
of abdication, is one of such exceptional duration
that it actually extends over what statisticians speak
of as the lifetime of a whole generation. During a
period of from thirty-four to thirty-five years,
altogether ISABELLA 11. nominally ieigned at Madrid.
The destinies of her "dear country" she at
any rate claims to have swayed during that
interval. Doubtless, all the while she has been
in a great measure that purely supposititious head of
so many modern monarchical forms of government,
a so-called Constitutional S overeign. But, at the
least, it has been within her power, ever since the
time when she emerged from her minority or non-
age, to give a character of her own to
the nominal authority with which she had
been invested in the midst of all her rapidly-alter-
nating vicissitudes. The horrors of war doubtless
surrounded her cradle, when, as she now touchingly
reminds the world, in hyperbolical language, her
name as a child was proclaimed by thousands of
heroes I During the perilous interval of her
childhood, when Spain was yet, in her
name, under the government of a Regency,
one of those heroes, the purest and best among them
all, afforded her for a while, and that not long before
the attainment of her majority, the opportunity of
extricating herself at last from the pernicious influence
of her mother, Queen CHRISTINA. That opportu-
nity—and other opportunities that arose fitfully
and most of them fleetingly from time to time after-
wards—the Queen allowed to slip by unheeded or
disdained. Deluded eventually, by a shameful
intrigue, into a most detestable marriage, she has
since then, since the date of that most lament-
able marriage, (in 1847)—failed notoriously
before all the world —it is matter of
history ! to bear that " white blossom of
a stainless life," our English Laureate has sung of so
exquisitely, "in that fierce light " which, as he
finely expresses it, "beats upon a throne, and
blackens every blot !" The prosperity of Spain, poor
ISABELLA 11. now tells the Spaniards from her
place of exile—having been so long cherished
as the chief subject of her solicitude—she
has failed to secure. And.why, should it be asked, has
it failed ? Because her most earnest wishes for it
have, according to her been thwarted by acts inde-
pendent of her will ! History will not so interpret
the melancholy records of her agitated and more
than simply barren reign. For the degradation to
the very dust of the Spanish sovereignty entrusted
to her keeping, she at least, we may be sure, will be
held by posterity to have been in part responsible.

IT is yet early to consider the filling-up of
the vacancy which the lamented FOREIGN
SECRETARY has left in the Cabinet, but
as Lord CLARENDON would not, said Earl
GRANVILLE, have wished that the business of
the House of Lords should be adjourned on
his account, so a statesman of such 'thorough
public sympathy would have desired that the
fullest attention should have been given to a matter
of the first importance, which appears to be involved
in some doubt. Everybody agrees that Earl GRAN-
VILLE will take the Foreign Office, and. various
Cabinet Ministers are spoken of for the
Colonial Secretaryship. These redistributions,
however, will still leave a vacancy in
the Cabinet, and if the original number is to be kept
up, a recruit must be added. There can be little
doubt as to the choice which would be most welcomed
by the nation. Mr. FORSTER has deserved well
of his country, and the importance of the
office which he fills ought, for the future,
to give possessor a place in the Cabinet. It would
be invidious to compare e Vice-President of the
Council with some of his more favoured colleagues;
but it is not too much to say that only
one or two of the foremost men of the party
have a higher place in public esteem. Moreover,
the Edudation Department has too long occupied a