The Sun.
London, England, 1848-09-05 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1848,

Parliament has :to-day received the signal of its
prorogation, and if the rapture of the popular repre-
sentatives be not as boisterous as that of the unfortu-
nate urchins of Do-the-boy's Hall on the occasion of
their celebrated "breaking up" for the holidays, it must
at the least have been accompanied by a sensation of
almost as profound pleasure. liartsard can scarcely
afford us a parallel of a session so prolonged and so labo-
rious ; and certainly the hereditary skill of the official
stenographers, the GURNEYS, can scarcely ever have
been taxed more severely by the volubility of the
different discussions. Of these peccadilloes on
the part of our Senators, we have already
heard more than enough, from the cutting
personalities of Mr. DISRAELI down to the
austere and uncompromising criticisms of Blackwood.
We have been reminded by the former that the in-
putation of garrulity which has been levelled against
the miscellaneous Members in the House of Com-
mons is so far erroneous, inasmuch as no one pro-
voked debates upon the question of the financial crisis
in November, and inasmuch as every reasonable op-
portunity was afforded to the Government for the
production of its four successive financial statements.
Granted so much to the leaders and subordinates of
the Opposition ; granted that in regard to the
Budget and the monetary panic those poli-
ticians evinced a rational and laudable leniency.
Yet—not a syllable is whispered either by
the Hon. Gentleman the Knight Representative
of Buckinghamshire or by the distinguished maga-
zine whose genius is racy with the inspirations of old
CHRISTOPHER NORTH, about the " missing dispatch"
disoussion, about the preposterous attempt at the im-
peachment of Lord PALMERSTON, about the quibbling
efforts at procrastination made by the Noble Lord the
Member for King's Lynn, or about any other of those
desultory attacks by which the progress of the Go-
vernment measures were impeded by the factious.
So visible in almost every stage of the public busi-
ness have been those interruptions and interpolations,
so spiteful have been the insinuations of Mr. UR-
QUHART, so impertinent and reiterated the calumnies
of Mr. ANSTEY, so peevish and blundering the statis-
tical quips and cranks of Lord GEORGE BENTINCK,
that the Opposition has assumed the invidious aspect
of a political Proteus—a fluctuating annoyance—
presenting its poisoned prickles at every angle
like a burr, a thistle, or a hedge-hog—
squirting the darts of its invectives at the
Cabinet with the adroitness of a porcupine—
assaulting the Cabinet under as many colours as the
chamelion, and fighting with as many weapons both
offensive and defensive as the terrible bands of the
Rohillas. So conspicuous has all this been that we
might with some truth address the Opposition in the
language of VIRGIL.—
" Quomodo teneam mutantem Protea vultum?"
How is it possible to distinguish the ever-variable
countenance of the rancorous and Protean assailants
of the Administration ?
Apart from all these discourteous and ungene-
rous obstacles thrown in the way of a Olabinet,
already embarrassed by the unparalleled disasters of
the epoch—the political perturbation of Ireland, the
distracted condition of England, the repetition of a
calamitous scarcity, the prevalence of a dangerous
epidemic, the absence of employment in the manu-
facturing districts, and the extraordinary duration
and severity of the commercial crisis throughout the
whole of the United Kingdom—it must not in fair,

ness be forgotten that a profound responsibility
pressed upon the conscience of our ruling statesmen_
the responsibility of maintaining the dignity ofßritish
influence in the midst of twelve or thirteen gigantic
revolutions, and that, too, without embroiling the
country in a war with one or other, if not with all,
of the nations cf the European continent indiscrimi-
nately.
Much Las been spoken and
short-aomings of the written about the
present Government. Little
actually accomplished.
or nothing has been
said about the things they have
really among the Let us see now what are
most prominent of their recent
achievements. They have maintained
one of the principal
of England in almost ever the character
y
Courts of the two hemispheres, without exception.
preserved peace with the
whole world—
They have
with Republican France and with despotic Russia--
with the sanguinary and tyrannical monster who di:-
graces the throne of the Neapolitans, as well as with
the licentious and eccentric roué who abdicated the
crown of Bavaria—with the affrighted sovereigns
of the German Confederation, and with the
popular princes of Italy. Beyond this, they
have effected the commencement of a salutary