The Sun.
London, England, 1848-03-21 00:00:00

inning 2itile

LONDON, TUESDAY. MARCH 21, 1848.

While the representative Legislators in the British
Parliament are discussing the propriety of voting any
large expenditure upon our naval armaments, the
population of Germany are removing the probabilities
of warfare. One after another the principalities of
that vast confederation which stretches westwards to
the frontiers of Flanders, eastwards to the dominions
of the AUTOCRAT, southwards to the Carpathian
Alps, and northwards to the extremities of Vometinia,
are shaking off the bonds of that absolute authority
which has shackled their energies during many sue.

cessive generations. There is an uninterrupted flow
of ideas throughout the cities of Allemanie, and the
inhabitants have risen up with a simultaneous enthu-
siasm to welcome the revival of political independence
in France. The Revolution of February has excited
those sympathies which incited the people of the Conti-
nent to fraternize : it has touched that electric current of
thought which secretly connects the various nation-
alities of Europe. The liberative outburst at Paris
has aroused a corresponding excitement in Germany,
and that excitation of the popular mind has already
proved beneficial in Bavaria, in Wurtemburg, in
Baden, in Hesse Cassel, in Hesse Darmstadt, in
Nassau, in Weimar, in Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, in Ho-
henzollern, and, if the most recent rumours can be
regarded as authentic, in the very capital of Dt n-
mark. Hanover has already experienced the pres-
sure of recent events. Prussia has demanded in
peremptory terms the immediate concession of a
series of radical reforms in her constitution. Even
Austria—the chief stronghold of despotism—the last
refuge of irresponsible sovereignty, the ever impreg-
nable citadel of tyranny, whenever the champions of
absolution have been at bay with the nations—even
Austria has been driven into the current of progress—
even the Viennese have shed their blood in the battle
of freedom and knowledge—even METTERNICH has
succumbed before the wrath of the multitude.

Of the wonderful occurrences which have just
transpired in Berlin and Vienna it is as yet scarcely
possible to estimate the full importance. In the lat-
ter city especially the popular outbreak has been so
sudden, so triumphant, and so entirely unexpected,
that the mind cannot accurately grasp its consequences
until the newly installed Government of GESTIETIEZ
has been afforded time for the development of its
policy and intentions. At any other period the
resignation of the Prince DE METTERNICII would
have created astonishment and provoked speculation.
At this moment it is viewed as a subordinate incident
in the grander movements of this marvellous and
eventful epoch. The venerable and austere form of
the courtier- statesman is forgotten almost immediately
after its departure from the scene of his prolonged
supremacy. " Let us forget the past rather than the
present or the future," is one of the most favourite
aphorisms of M. DE LAMARTINE. And in accordance
with the ennobling principle embodied in that
aphorism the population of Christendom regards with
comparative indifference the disappearance of
the last representative of :a bygone and
absolute system of diplomacy. The multi-
tude have a nobler theme for contemplation
than the reminiscence of the career of the President
of the Congress of 1815-e-a career of craftiness and
cowardice, of guile and repression, of hypocrisy and
egotism. What to us are the multiplicity of honours
and emoluments showered upon the head of the
downfallen Minister during the forty years in which
his prosperity has been continuous and his personal
domination paramount ? What to us at this instant
of universal liberation and brotherhood are those
exploded theories by which Prince METTERNICII en-
deavoured to thwart the patriotism of Prince
HAEDENBERG and to realise the aspirations
of Councillor GEuTz ? What to us are the
recollections of his malign operations in Lom-
bardy. in Carlsbad, in Laybach, and in Trop-
pau, at an epoch when the world is beholding the
resurrection of so many separate and important
nationalities ? Our attention is rather directed to the
triumphant democrats than to the debased instru-
ments of despotism—rather to the victorious students
of Lower Austria and the heroic ouvriers of Paris,
than to the once formidable but now powerless admi-
nistrators of the Tuileries and Schoenbrunn.
GUIZOT and METTERNICH may sink into that,
obscurity which is more congenial to their
consciences than compatible with their un-
questionable genius the one as the servile
creature of his Sovereign's duplicity—the other as
the consistent upholder of a policy which he had in-
herited from the ignorance of the Past. When we
hear of popular commotions such as the one which the
other day convulsed the independent state of Cassel
—when the ELECTOR was caught in an attempt to
escape from the vengeance of the mob, and carried
back through the garden of his palace in the arms
of a blacksmith, and locked in a drawing-room, like
a naughty boy, until he had been compelled, through
fear, to affix his signature to a Liberal Proclamation
—when such commotions as these are affording
each day new evidences of the irresistible
sway of demecracy, it is surely anything but profit-
able to devote more than a merely momentary glance
to the dwindling spectres of a decrepid and powerless
Age—an Age which is expiring in the very birth of
its gigantic and beneficent successor. Shall one
man breathe a sigh for the overthrow of such Grand
Viziers, and shall not we look with sanguine and
wi,h loving hope upon the futurity which already
dawns upon the Czeches and the Magyars, as well as
upon the people of Poland, and Venetian Lom-
bardy ? Before the Hungarian constitution has
been in any essential respect reformed a new
light is thrown upon its capabilities of improvement,
a light that flickers like an oriflame above the battle-
ments of the metropolis of Lower Austria. That
light has been kindled by the Parisians, and has been
fanned into a quenchless flame by the sympathies of
England May it spread beyond the northern
suburbs of Copenhagen, and beyond the eastern forti-
fications of Warsaw !

The festival of the Patron. Saint of Ireland has
been celebrated by the Irish in the most peaceable
and satisfactory manner possible. The incendiary
proclamations of the malcontents have been treated
with becoming disregard, and St. Patrick's Day was
spent by the good citizens of Dublin, and, indeed, by
the inhabitants of all Ireland, in the tranquil perform-
ance of their religious and civil duties, the wearing of
the shamrock being the only peculiarity which marked
the festival. It was considered advisable that addresses
should not be presented to the Lord Lieutenant. An
address, however, had been prepared before the
arrangements became known. That address was
presented by the Royal College of Surgeons, de-
claring their opinion that the present circumstances
of the kingdom were such as to requira from all well-
disposed persons an expression of their desire to
maintain public order and tranquillity. " Acquainted
as we are"—such were the words of the address—
" acquainted as we are (through the experience of
4,000 Fellows and Licentiates associated in our body)
with the sufferings of our fellow-countrymen, we
entertain the deepest abhorrence of any atttempt, by
inflammatory words or ill-considered acts, to excite an
agitation that could not, under any circumstances,
pass away without increasing, to a frightful extent,
and most grievously among the humbler classes, the
famine and pestilence with which the will of PRO-
VIDENCE has afflicted us." Heartily do we coincide
with these assertions. Great indeed is the abhorrence
with which all true patriots and philanthropists must
regard any attempts to kindle sedition among a
suffering and unfortunately, in too many instances,
a starving people. _

Among a people whose sorrows and sufferings
render them easily excited to feelings of rage and
even to acts of revenge, all unconsciously, the very
sorrows and sufferings which instigate their actions
would be materially augmented by the very means
which their pretended friends assure them would be
most effectual in alleviating that wretchedness.
Great, however, as may have been the afflictions of the
Irish people, their magnanimity and fortitude in
enduring them have been still greater. Before we
condemn their occasional
murmurings, let
u
if we can, their silence. Be-
fore
s estimate,
we
judge them harshly for what they
,e
have done, let us think, if possible, on what
they
have forborne. Let us calculate, if we can, their
brave endurance of long-continued trouble, their un-
tiring patience under almost hopeless evils, and their
confiding trust and affecting submission even when
abandoned to the desolation of despair. If we think
upon all these things, of which the records of the last
three years may furnish abundant evidence, we must
acknowledge that, however great may have been the
afflictions of Ireland (and have they not been great ?),
the virtues of the Irish people have been yet greater.
Believing this, as we do, and rejoicing in such abe-
lief, extreme indeed would be our grief and disappoint-
ment if now—now, when we would fain imagine that
the worst is past—now, when a long-enduring pa-
tience is about to receive its due reward, and Ireland,
We hope and trust, is approaching bettePdays—extreme
indeed would be our grief and disappointment, if now,
in the last hour of trial, the words of a few discon-