The Sun.
London, England, 1848-03-16 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 16,'

ner into a compulsory obedience, the Count DM
NEUILLY might at this moment have been re-
creating himself in the pleasure-gardens of
Saint Cloud. Geographically, however, Paris
was sheltered from that obstruction, and not
only geographically, but moral and physically.
The aegis of French liberty was—first, the moral
puissance of the nation, and, secondly, its physical
position and dimensions. Those were the grand and
insurmountable obstacles to our interference with the
internal administration of the late monarchy. It is
preposterous to say that under all circumstances
England would have refrained from meddling with
the legislation of that country. Had France con-
tained, like Portugal, only just 40,000 square miles,
peopled by very little beyond 3,000,000 inha-
bitants, we question whether our diplomatic relations
with the Provisional Government installed by an in-
surgent populace would have been characterised by so
much cordiality as that recently evinced by our Am-
bassador towards the Republican Ministers at the Hotel
de Ville. Especially should we regard this friendly
bearing as questionable had our dynastic ties with
LOUIS PHILIPPE been (under those statistical circum-
stances) as intimate as they are with MARIA DA
GLouia. In short, there were two inducements to
our maritime interference with the political affairs of
Portugal, namely, the impotence of the mili-
tary and naval forces of that unfortunate
kingdom when contrasted with our own, and above
all, the regal accident of a relationship between the
reigning families—one of those malign accidents
which have so very frequently embroiled the most
amicable races of Christendom.

We have already observed that Portugal will
speedily have an opportunity of redeeming its abused
constitution. We repeat that assertion. England
can no longer spare so many ships and so many
seamen for the bolstering up of a rotten cause
at Lisbon. England can no longer afford to
7ommit an injustice upon the Tagus The
embarrassments of her revenue compel her
to retrench her expenditure as much as possible ;
and, beyond this, the extraordinary events at this pe-
riod transpiring throughout the continent, together
with the insufficiency of our insular defences, enforce
upon England the necessity of drawing homewards
the splendid squadron which has been shamefully
upholding Queen MARIA DA GLORIA. Al-
ready that squadron is preparing for its departure for
our shores ; already the note of preparation has
sounded on board the Comet, the St. Vincent,
the Howe, the Queen, the Canopus, the
Amphion, the Dragon, and the Scourge. SIR
CHARLES NAPIER will soon be relieved from
his rather questionable responsibility —as the
maritime crutch of the CABRALS. Then it is that
Portugal will have its opportunity. Then it is that
the people may relieve themselves from the incubus
of a corrupt and demoralising Government, as well as
from a perfidious and unprincipled SOVEREIGN. If the
Portuguese only act with the resolution and the
unanimity recently displayed 1;y the Parisians, they
may emerge from the conquest of their freedom un-
sullied by a crime. They may drive forth the CABRALS
as Guizor was driven forth from the Hotel des
Affaires Etrangeres in the disguise of a lacquey—
they may rid themselves as easily of a monarch upon
whom no reliance can henceforth be placed as the
French democrats relieved themselves from the Mo-
narch of the Barricades.

Because the insurgents of Portugal were unsuc-
cessful, they were stigmatised as rebels, and because
those of Paris were triumphant, they have been eulo-
gised as patriots. DAs ANTAS and SA DA BANDEIRA
failed in their prolonged and valorous exertions, and
they were treated as criminals worthy of imprison-
ment and expatriation. LAMARTINE and LEDRU-ROL-
LIN, on the contrary, realised their dreams in a single
afternoon, and they have been justly applauded as the
political saviours of their country. The long struggle
of 1846 dwindled down into the insignificance of a
revolt in the estimation of those who prevented its
accomplishment ; whereas the brief struggle of the
three days in the February of 1848 has expanded
into the grandeur of a revolution. Let us not deceive
ourselves by these appearances. There is as much
cause for a catastrophe in Lisbon as there ever was
in Paris—only the Portuguese are compelled to tarry
for the opportunity.

It was the Honourable Member for Canterbury, if
we mistake not—himself one of the most promising
of our young authors—who some time back insti-
tuted a comparison between the position of literary
men in England and in other nations. Ile remarked,
more especially, the number of official posts that in
foreign countries were occupied by men eminent in
literature ; for example, in calling over the list of
foreign Ambassadors, and inquiring as to ?rho was
each individual representative, the answer was almost
invariably " a man who had risen by his pen." The
position occupied just now by literary men in France
is certainly a very brilliant and a very honourable
one. Almost every important post in the new
Government is filled by " a man who has
risen by his pen." Not that we mean to
I insinuate that it is to the pen alone that any one of
those individuals is indebted for his present pre-emi-
nence. It is not the sublime imaginings of the poet,
it is not the graceful eloquence of the historian, it is
not the earnest vehemence of the essayist, that have
invested LAMARTINB and his confreres with their
present influence in the councils of the world. That
influence is alone attributable to the high principles
by which their genius was at once animated and in-
spired. Nevertheless, admitting this, we must also
acknowledge that in :their persons, as well as
in many other instances, literature and literary
men are highly honoured in foreign nations. And every
new attestation of this fact increases our anxiety that
England also—England, so justly celebrated for the
genius of her children should become in like
manner remarkable in honouring and reverencing
those who have " risen by the pen." Happily in this
respect, as a nation, we are improving. Although
during the last few years we have had occasion to
lament the death of many gifted men, and not only,
and not so much, their death itself, but that death
being accompanied by most distressing circumstances
—poverty and misery to themselves in their last
moments, and utter destitution to those whom they
left behind; although we have had too often
occasion to lament such sad casualties, we
have also been repeatedly rejoiced by some
immediate and adequate relief, either by Government
donation or public subscription, being bestowed upon
their unhappy survivors. We, will not pause to in-
quire why such assistance should be so absolutely
required—why, if the labourer be worthy of his hire,
and if a fair day's wages be the meed of a fair day's
work, the man of letters, whose labour is of the most
arduous and unremitting kind, and whose produc-
tions are, in many instances, invaluable, delighting

his countrymen in his own day, and enriching his
country ever after—we will not now pause to inquire
why he, of all others, should reap least benefit from
his exertions, and why he should be enabled to leave
his children nothing but the heritage of his name.
If it must be so, society does well—society who
inherits the treasures the man of genius has created
—society does well in constituting itself the guardian
and protector of his orphans. The children of HOOD,
the children of HAYDON, and many others similarly
unfortunate, were indebted for their entire subsistenc
to the charity, or may we not rather say the j ustice,
of the public. Another group of orphans now claim
the same care. In another column will be found

a letter from GEORGE GlLFlLLlN—himself very
honourably known in the literary world—announcing
the death of the Weaver Poet, WILLIAM Tnom,
of Inverury, and telling how his widow and
young children are left in utter destitution.
The history of WILLIAM TuoM has been for
some time familiar with the public. Ti"
consti-
tutes one of the most interesting, but, at the same
time, most melancholy chapters in the momentous
history of the struggles of genius and the trials of
poverty. Thom's troubles, however, were greater
than those usually experienced by poets, but then he
was not only a poet, be it remembered, but a weaver
—a hand-loom weaver at a period when the use of
machinery had rendered such an employment a
most unprofitable one. llis life was an alterna-
tion of most laborious exertion and most abject
penury. What time or what inclination could he
have to cultivate the Muse? She visited and con
soled him in his troubles nevertheless. The faint
sparks of the "celestial fire" cheered the gloom of
his desolation, his labours at the loom were animated