The Sun.
London, England, 1848-12-06 00:00:00

Vent
AT

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER a, 11143.

The reaclionaires, and, conspicuous amongst them,
our Tory Contemporaries, affect a very pretty, lady-
like horror of what they are pleased to call Demo-
cratic Terrorism. They shudder at it, as the waiting
woman in " Tom Jones " shuddered at the pattering
of a mouse in the wainscot. They are of that class of
political exquisites whom HAZLITT scorned so mag-
nificently in his great prose epic of " Napoleon "
men who hate " the look of the people, the touch of
the people, the smell of the people, the dress of the
people." LYDIA LANGUISH was not near so lacka-
daisical as these petit-n aitree of Absolutism. They
shrink from the invigorating influences of liberty, and
find comfort only in the compulsory quietude, the
mediocrities, the stagnation, and the torpor which
are the results produced by a despotic Government.

In those beautiful revelations of patriotism which
constitute the principal portion of the autobiography
of General GUGLIELMO PEPE, it is observed by the
Neapolitan memorialist that the mass of a population
accustomed to tyranny prefers the certain severities of
an armed force and a rigorous administration to an
insurgent rabble. No matter how magnanimous the
conduct of that rabble, the terrors caused by the
fitful character of its movements are less endurable
to this degraded class of citizens than the sternest
atrocities committed by the soldiers of a despot. This
fact was proved in 1820 at Palermo, and in 1848
at Naples. It conveys a truth of such eternal exist-
ence, that it might be reduced to an aphorism. And
the reason of its existence is simply this—that people
whose souls cannot rise above the dead level of
L. S. D.—men whose intellects are incapable of
appreciating the blessedness of freedom—men whose
hearts have never been thrilled with the aspirations of
civism, of knowledge, or of civilization—look more to
the balancing of their ledgers, and the scoring up of
fresh orders upon their day-books than to the attain-
ment of their liberties or the acquisition of a
constitution. Had these been the sentiments of
ur forefathers the great Revolution of 106
had never tasked the eloquence of BABINGTON
MACAULAY. Thanks be to heaven ! it is otherwise
with the majority, and nations will still continue to
struggle for their emancipation, notwithstanding that
in so doing they are liable to create a momentary
panic in the markets, to frighten a few old women (of
both stases) into hysterics, and to fill the streets with
ttretoct-acmasiulotn o
and_ a disorder which are inevitable upon
popular victory.
It is rather unfortunate,by the way, that in proof
of the horrors of this
same
e "
Democratic Terrorism,',
our Contemporaries should
abhorrence at Berlin and Vienna, ve pointed the finger of
because, with the exception of It is unfortunate,
(perpetrated in the distraction of an
assassination
the conduct of the Berliners and Van moment
intervals in which they held undispntedloaduring the
of
those two capitals was beyond all euloginrini°n
re-
gard to its probity, its generosity, its gentleness, and'its magnanimous forgetfulness of vengeance. Con-
trasted with the fiendish brutalities of the Imperial
troops, the behaviour of the mob throughout the time
of their triumph was sublime for its lenity and self-
possession. And the recollection of the death of LA-
TOUR was effaced by the murder of BLust, by the
sacrifice of MESSENHAUSER, and by the wholesale
massacre of students, and poets, and journalists,
and civilians, who expiated in a premature
and ignominious grave the crime of having dreamed
the holy dream of Freedom. Even according to the
acknowledgments made by the counter-revolutionists,
the order preserved at Vienna after the expulsion of
the EMrEaoa and before the arrival of the Croats, is
described as having been something marvellous. At
a time when the dregs of society were shaken to the
surface, trinkets could lie about in the kennels with-
out being stolen—as is proved by an anecdote men-
tioned in one of the contributions to the current num-
ber of Bentley's Miscellany. On the return, however,
of the Imperial forces under Prince WINDISCH•
GRATZ, aided by Baron JELLACIIICB, the spectacle
presented was, as the whole world knows, very dif-
ferent. Atrocities as gigantic as any ever committed
under the sinister orders of FOUQUIER TINVILLE
were reiterated in the capital of Austria with the
sanction, if not at the immediate instigation, of the
Imperial Commander-in-Chief. And yet after all
these experiences we are told of the beneficence of

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