The Sun.
London, England, 1870-03-12 00:00:00

LIER MAJESTY.

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, March 11.
The Queen, accompanied by her Royal High-
ness Princess Louise, drove out this morning.
Her Majesty walked in tho grounds this after-
noon, accompanied by Princess Beatrice.

The Princess of Wales drove out yesterday.

• r
16 'FEST EA TEL L LCLA-Nub
1.1

FRANCE.

PARIS, March 12.

At the request of M. Olivier, the public sitting
of the Corps Legislatif has been prorogued for

eight days.
BOURSE, March 11.—Three o'clock—The market
closed as follows :

per Cent.
3 per Cents 74 40 Itt,Tan vives • 55 00
End of month 74 47 Austrian Fives
Credit Mobilier 252 5U Ottoman Loan ... 330
Transatlantic 212 50 Do. Debt 46 80
Credit Foncier _l3OO Spanish Threes
Paris Gas 1781 Home Debt
Suez Canal 330 Deferred .
RAILWA'

Cash
Orleans
Western
Northern .... 1362
Strasburg
Lyons and Mediterranean
Southern..... 625"
Sardinian

Austrian 7B6f
Lombard 5OO
North of Spain
Saragossa
Roman 5l

ITALY.

FLORENCE, March 11, Evening.

In to-day's sitting of the Chamber of Deputies
Signor Sella, the Minister of Finance, continued
his statement upon the budget. Ile said that
the modifications referred to would be sufficient
to cover 110 millions of the deficit. The amount
required by the Government until April, 1871,
amounted to 200 milliods of lire, and in reference
to this sum the Minister proposed that a conven-
tion should be concluded with the Bank for
the supply of 122 millions of lire, of
which 72 millions will be in notes, and the rest in
gold.
The Minister also proposed the issue of 5 per
cent. consolidated stook to the amount of 80 mil-
lions. The Bank will be allowed to increase its
issue of notes from 750 to 800 millions. It will
receive as guarantees bonds on the Church pro-
perty. By the sale of these bonds the State debt
to the BAnk would be reduced to a point which
would admit of the abolition of the forced cur-

TOWN TALK.

(From the Western Mail of this Morning.)

FCIDAY EVENING.
The discussion on the second reading of the Irish
Land Bill is the political event of the week—fore-

gone though the conclusion was known to be from

its very commencement. The appearance of the
House of Commons on Monday evening was some-
thing remarkable. The Strangers' Gallery was
full, but the House itself comparatively empty—
that is, almost to the very moment when the second
reading was moved by the First Lord of the Trea-

sury. Then, from the lobby, and the library, and
the refreshment bar members dropped in quietly,
until a tolerably good attendance upon both sides
became apparent. Irish members formed the ma-
jority of those taking part in the discussion. Two
of them led off, one (Mr. George. Leopold Bryan,
111. P. for Kilkenny County) as mover, the other
(Captain the Hon. Charles William White, M.P.
for Tipperary) as seconder, of the bold but hope-
less amendment that the Bill be read a second time
on that day six months. The former was nervous
and hesitating in the manner of his delivery. The
latter, on the contrary, was as cool as a cucumber
It was almost a relief when Mr. Bryan finished.
It was almost a matter of regrtt when Captain
White had said his say—the which he said most
gallantly. Speaking, as the two hon. members did,
as Liberals ; speaking, as they did, from the second
bench behind that allotted by usage to the leading
members of the Government, the proposer and
seconder of the amendment pursued a course which
partook, in no way whatever, even osten-
sibly, of the character of a vexatious,
much more of a factious opposition. It was clearly
conscientious. Both gentlemen spoke from their
own entire convictions. Directly afterwards the
member for the county of Louth, Mr. O'Reilly
Dease, bearded like the pard, with a brogue stropped
on the Blarney stone, smiling blandly at his own
blunders, and chuckling over his own bulls, rose
from the second bench immediately below the
gangway, to the evident delight of the House, who
enjoyed his light-in-hand comments on men and
things in general (on the "individual" at the head
of the Government, and the "unclean thing" that
had to be looked in the face), to the uttermost, to
the very echo—now with a ripple of laughter, now
with a roar. Here, at any rate, was broad
farce for the relief of the dullness settling down
upon the House since the commencement of the
session.
While the vast majority of the Conservative Op-
position, at any rate, are resolved not to oppose the
second reading of the Irish Land Bill, the antago-
gonism, out of doors, to the educational measure of
Mr. -W. E. Forster, is gaining strength rapidly.
The denominational banner will be the most for-
midable unfurled against the Government upon this
great and vital question. The terror of it is that it
is a rallying point for so many ; extremes there
meet, and are there in a position to wolk together
harmoniously. Wonderfully ingenious though
the arrangement of the whol Government scheme

is, its weak point is definable by one word (" that
word of fear, unpleasing to a Briton's ear")—
the subjection of the entire organisation to the
influence of (oh, ye powers of Bumbledom !) the
vestry. That, and the purely secular character of
the education to be insured, constitute the two
damning blots on Mr. Forster's escutcheon. At the
same time it is only fair to the Vice-President of
the Comarittee of Council on Education to direct
atteeeion to the extraordinary application to him-
self of those really prophetic utterances, fifteen
years ago, of Thomas Carlyle, who then remarked,
in 1855, upon the imperative need in the first in-
stance of a "fit official person" to insist on carry-
ing out some well-schemed plan by which all Eng-
lish citizens shall be taught the rudiments of edu-
cation. Three lustres after that grand desideratum
was first defined, that fit official person we all re-
cognise as having at last been discovered in the
right honourable member for Biadford.
A misapprehension may just possibly arise in
some quarters as to the closing announcement of the
Court Circular of Wednesday, the 9th of March,
which intimated that Mr. Charles Dickens and Mr.
Arthur Helps had that evening the honour of a
private audience with the Queen, at Buckingham
Palace ; the fact being that this interview took
place at the particular desire, most graciously ex-
presed by her Majesty herself, that the great
novelist and the Sovereign should, a t last, be brought
into personal communication. The clerk of the
Council was present as the introducer. On Tues-
day last the penultimate reading at the St. James's
Hall took place, and was a scene of extraordinary
enthusiasm. Fully two thousand four hundred per-
sons were crammed together in the great auditory,
hundreds being unable to obtain admittance.
Upon next Tuesday evening, Mr. Dickens will give
his very last reading anywhere, and at the close of
it will address the pubhc in farewell. A week after-
wards his new serial story of " The Mystery of
Edwin Drood" will begin—ND. 1 appearing on the
Stst inst. Altogether, April promises rather plea-
santly in regard to the current popular literature.
Its dawn will have brougbt us that first green num-
ber from Mr. Charles Dickens illustrated by Mr.
Fildes, of the Graphic. It will have brought to us,
also, in Macmillan, a now poem of 800 lines, by
George Eliot, meaning Miss Mary Ann Evans, or to
be still more precise, Mrs. George Henry Lewes.
it will have seen commenced, in the April
number of Belgravia, the new serial tale of " Fen-
ton's Quest," by Miss Braddon—one, let us hope,
worthy of the writer of " Aurora Floyd " and
" Lady Audley's Secret." That last-named work,
the first of all her books to reward Miss Braddon
with a reputation, was, you maybe interested to hear,
originally called by her, I can't help thinking, very
absurdly, " Seen Him Once"—a title which is not
even grammatical ! It was rechristened by its now
famous name of " Lady Audley's Secret," by Dr.
Charles Mackay, then the editor of a little pub-
lication, long since dead, called Robin Goodfellow,
in the pages of which " Lady Audley's Secret" first
appeared in successive instalments.

Revivals are certainly the order of the day in the
theatrical world. The revival actually of Shak-
spere, at Astley's, where, in a better sense than
Hamlet's, Phelps and the Berman Vezius " tickle
the ears of the groundlings " with their render-
ings of the Immortal Bard. At the tlay-
market, no less wonderful to tell, there is—positively
en permanence—Lord Dundreary Redivivus. As a
stop-gap, Mr. Sothern was announced in his one
great impersonation for just a dozen nights ; but,
again, to the whole Cockney world, it has proved
so unmistakably " an' it," that the "American
Cousin" will be repeated nightly, until further
notice, according to Mr. Buckstone's playbills.
Another revival, as all London knows now for some
weeks past, is that of the legitimate drama at the
Queen's in the shape of Mr. Tom Taylor's histori-
cal play, in blank verse, of "The Axe and the
Crown ;" the literary merits of that production
being aided and abetted, as good luck would have
it, by the charmingly piquante beauty of the new
young actress Mrs. Rousby. As yet another stage
revival, surely I may mention that of Goldsmith
and of Sheridan at the St. James's. Rather ridi-
culously, by the way, the brilliant effect of the for-
mer was indicated by the announcement on the St.
James's playbills of "The highly successful comedy
of ' She stoops to Conquer,' " as though it were
only just out for the first time ! Expectation is on
tip-toe as to the coming caste of "The school for
scandal." ,Sir Peter teazle by Mr. William Far-
reu reads well ; but, remembering that it is " the
wrorg Mr. William Farren" who is meant, one
looks forward to it with mingled terror and
curiosity. While the new theatre that is to be in
the Strand, almost cheek-by-jowl with the Adelphi,
Mr. Montague's venture of "The Vaudeville," is
now fast approaching its completion, another new
theatre of a suburban character is upon the eve of
opening in Sloane-square—very conveniently
contiguous to the Sloane-square station of the
Metropolitan Railway, so that playgoers from all
parts of town may frequent it with the utmost
facility.

For the last time this season, we are to have
two opera houses running their careers harmo_
niously together under the joint direction of Mr.

Gye and Mr. Mapleson. Iler Majesty's Theatre,
newly constructed upon a magnificent scale, will
be ready for inauguration by the flooding into town
of the fashionable& As for Covent Garden, that
superb house will be employed this year for the last
time, it is said, as the home of the Lyrical Drama/
or of any drama at all. The Government Tele-
graphs, so says Rumour, will immediately after-
wards be therein concentrated, t'other side of
way, in Saint Martin's-le-Grand, DOW cleared
for a supplementary post-office structure, being
inadequate, it is considered, for more than the ex-
pansion of the postal arrangements—putting alto-
gether on one side the new stroke of business ac-
corded to that department in the way cf universal
telegraphing. the

While I can, happily, announce the advancing
convalescence of Mr. Shirley Brooks, the popular
novelist, and the most important of all the Dwell
contributors, I grieve to add, in the same breath,
tha'; the great commercial manager of the Times'
Mr. Mowbray Morris, is very seriously invalided.
A new weekly paper, with the curious title of
Charles's Wain, for which Charles Sw,,in would bo
surely the most appropriate Editor, will, on Tues-
day week, the 22d instant, make its first appear-
ance. It emanates from 21, Noralumberland-
street, Strand, from whence came only the other,
day the charming idyllic drama of the far east, and
of a remote antiquity—echoed on, from Hindn°
stanee into purest English, by Sir William Jones--
" Sacontala."

There is a talk of the Queen opening the new
University of London buildings in May. Arebi"
tecturally—not as Joe Gregory in " Great Expects'
tions" would say, " architectooralloorally," like Et/
many of our building exploits in London—arebi-
tccturally, the new structure is one of the must
splendid modern additions to the metropolis. But
—for there is always a but in these cascs--tbe,
whole effect of the edifice is marred by its absurd
situation. It is poked away, there, in Burlingteu
Gardens, looking northward from the back of Picea-
dilly, dos-a-dos to the Royal Academy, on the site
of old Burlington House. The sculpturesque adorn-
ments of the University Buildings are superb—ex"
ternally, that is, on the hid-away facade I am allud-
ing to. Conspicuously absent from among the
great men whose effigies aro there is —Shakspere'
Why Milton should be there and not Shakspere is
incomprehensible to we, unless ou the principle
which excluded the bust of Brutus from the itnalu"
morial Procession. It rather curiously happens that
whenever we have a really good work of art in the
midst of the sculptured hobgoblins of London or
Westminster, we must needs show ourselves, solve'
how or other, quite ashamed of it, by biding it
away as much as possible, placing the hobgoblins'
on the other hand, whenever we can, most cow.
spicuously. Don't we still some of us (I do for cue)
bear in almost remorseful recollection (as if cue
were an accomplice by the mere fact of having
gazed upon it) that journeyman mason's statue
of King William IV., that used to straddle ill
the middle of the highway at King's Cross ? C5ll
we, even yet, any of us, get reconciled to
that portentous bronze nightmare of Chantry's, '3ll
which the effigy of the grtat Duke, with oat'
stretched baton, and policeman's cape, is telling
all posterity to "Move on" from the triumphal
arch at Hyde-park Corner ? Was it not 00116
year or two since Marochetti's abominable bro
caricature of Sir Robert Peel was placed in the
corner of Palace Yard, only to be carted al
directly afterwards ? Meanwhile, for a couple °
centuries, there has been carefully concealed frotn
view, in a back-yard, behind Whitehall, on
pedestal fronting exactly the wrong way, ono °
the very finest memorial statues in all London—the
bronze statue of King James H.—in so inanr
words, be it said, " Grinling Gibbons' master"
piece."

There is again hope that Mr. Hepworth Dix°°'
relieved by the Russian memorials, and seceded long
since from the editorial chair of the Athenxunt 13
favour of his friend, the young member for Chelsea'
will shine on us all with his long-promised period':
cal yclept Light. For it, whenever it appears,L
would suggest as about the happiest possible motto
the dying words of Goethe, "More Light!" -I.°
apter motto than that c iuld be found anywhere
inscribed upon the head and front of any one
among our periodicals—saying and excepting (but
that always) the inimitably happy motto to Notes
and Queries—to wit, or iu other words most WI%
tily, " when found, make note of"—the diction 0,1
the immortal Captain Cuttle, in " DombeY au
Son."

Just now, the massive and ornate bronze laulPi
pillars—of great variety-, and some of then.' °,l
exquisite design—are being rapidly placed 3jt
along the noble granite esplanade of that fines
improvement in all Loudon, the Thames ernbaok-
ment.