The Sun.
London, England, 1834-09-12 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Lord Melbourne is too honest a man to have un-
dertaken the administration of the country with col-
leagues in whom he could not confide, and towards
whom he did not intend to act with the most perfect
good faith. It is not necessary to tell those who know
the character of the Premier, that he is the yray last
man to countenance any attempts to
coun-
try with suspicions of the good f-jit irrJeress the
ti of a colleague, in
order to lower him in publ;ee estimation, and thereb:;'„,
pave the way for gett;,ig rid of him the first favourable
opportunity. Nrve do not believe that Lord Melbourne
would have consented to become Premier on the resigna
tion of LOrd Grey, had he not been thoroughly convinced
that the composition of the Administration of which he
was to be the Chief would enable him to conduct public
affairs with advantage to he country and honour to him-
sell'. The obvious aim of the Times, for some time
past, has been to Create an impression that Lord Mel-
bourne and some of his colleagues, and more e,parti-
cularly the Chancellor, do not co-operate cordially ;
that Lord Melbourne suspects the Chancellor of wish-
ing to become Premier himself, and that he would
get rid of him, if he could ; while the Chancellor,
again, will never be easy till he has broken up the
present Cabinet, and joined a Tory Administration.
As the Times is at present in a difficult position, not
yet daring openly to advocate Tory principles, while
it would fain remove the obstacles to a Tory Ministry,
it is obliged to go indirectly to work ; but it does not
require much penetration to understand the game it is
playing. The Tory journals are in a sort of conspi-
racy with it. Thus, for instance, the Standard hav-
ingits cue, praises Lord Brougham's speech at rnver-
iness, and affects to consider his Lordship as
being in a fair way of becoming a good Con-
servative. Our Evening contemporary is suffi-
ciently crafty to be aware of the use which
would be made of this in Printing-house-square.
The Times lay in wait for its prey, and inqantly
pounced on it : " The supposition (exclaims the
Times of yesterday), that Lord Brougham may be
laying himself out for the Tories, and he has already
succeeded to some extent, as we showed yesterday by
extracts from two organs of the party (the Standard
and Albion), may be met by the remark, that he cau.
not contemplate anything so wild as the stability of a
Tory Ministry ; but those who have marked time late
wildness of the learned Lord, will see no force in
that argument, for his views may easily bo supposed
as wild as his language and his conduct. His wish
is to be Premier—he is disatisfied, and not without
reason, with his judicial office—and his wishes fa-
shioning his judgment, he would, never mistrust any
ground that presented the darling object of his ambi-
tion." To this the Standard reioins :—" We certainly
should not be sorry to see LOid Brougham a member
of the Conservative party ; his w,lrm-heartedness—
his pertinacity in cetain fundamental principles,
though the principles are wrong—his candour to poli-
tical opponents, wl'.ere temper does not interfere—his
contempt of sordid gain—and his private kindliness of
nature, are all good Conservative instincts. We should
not, therefore, be sorry to see Lord Brougham a mem-
ber of the Conservative party, to which, but for acci-
dent—a ,bad education (we mean his education of
middle lee in the school of the Edinburgh Review)—
the noble and learned Lord would certainly belong. We
will go further with the Times, and say, that we should
not regret to see Lord Brougham a member of a Con-
servative Cabinet. Neither do we think the one or
the other is very improbable." Our evening contem-
porary was but a few days ago on another tack in the
case of Lord Brougham, vituperating his Lordship at
a good round tate ; but, like a skilful mariner, he
shifts his course according to the wind. The Times
will, no doubt, this day acknowledge this handsome
admission of Lord Brougham's Conservative tenden-
cies; and the two journals will chuckle at the supposed
cleverness of their attempts to hoodwink the public.
Surely no person with a grain of understanding
will believe that Lord Melbourne can view with any
satisfaction the game the Timet and the Conservative
journals are now playing. Under the colour of sup-
porting Lord Melbourne against the machinations of
Lord Brougham, the Times is doing all that it can to
injure both. Neither Lord Melbourne, nor any one
under his influence, can possibly encourage this disin-
genuous warfare. We can see, however, that the
Times wishes to have it thought that it is counte-
nanced either by Lord Melbourne or some one who
enjoys his Lordship's confidence. How deep the in-
terest it takes in Lord Melbourne l—how anxious that
his reputation should stand high with the country !
As if any sensible person could for a moment sup-
pose that disuniting the Cabinet would benefit
Lord Melbourne or give stability to a liberal Whig
Administration. " To what purpose (asks our Print-
mg-house-Square contemporary) can this ill-omened
declaration of the Chancellor have been made, that
too much rather than too little has been done,' and that
if little was done in thelast session, less is to be expect-.
ed in the next ?' To what purpose, we ask, can
this declaration have been made, unless to damage the
Ministry of Lord Melbourne in public opinion ? And
it is to be observed, that if Lord Brougham can in-
jure Lord Melbourne's Ministry by assigning to it a
Conservative character, and preaching despair to the
people, lie can do this safely to himself, for the Tory
language by which he discredits Lord Melbourne's Go-
vernment accredits him with the party that would rush
into power upon the ruin of the present Ministry.
If Lord Brougham can sink the bark by the odium of
Conservatism, he will not sink with its crew, but swim
with the Tories. The doctrines which operate to the
damage of his present colleagues recommend him to
their successors. W7hile he makes the Whig Govern-
ment appear too Conservative for the support of the
Reformers, he may make himself appear sufficiently
Tory for a cordial coalition with the rival power.
In the appropriate language of the turf for such
jockeyship, his conduct bears a strong appearance
of hedging, and he seems to be laying his stake on the
horse opposed to that on which he is riding. It looks
like a Newmarket-trick, or a trick for a new market.
.The Chancellor may be honester than lie seems ; but
it will be well for Lord Melbourne to look to his
escapades." The Times cannot here be mistaken. It
tries to damage the Ministry in two ways ; first by
endeavouring to twist Lord Brougham's language into
a meaning which it does not fairly bear, in order that
Suspicion may be entertained by the public of his sin-
cerity, and they may, in consequence, despair of an.q
good while he is in power ; and, secondly, by erea'arig
a persuasion that, as the Ministry suspect each ether
—and Lord Brougham is indispensable to their exist-
ence—they will not hold together long. There is not
the slightest ground for their insinuation, that Lord
Melbourne and Lord Brougham are dissatisßed with and
plotting against each other ; but this is. the last thing
the Times cares about. In attri;crating to Lord
Brougham the intention of fighting the Tory battles
under Whig colours, the Tim2s is describing with
tolerable accuracy its own coarse. It cannot yet join
openly the Standard, and Albion, and John Bull;
but under the mask of lltberalism it is clearing the way
for a fresh attack on 'ate "Whigs. The article is per-
haps ready in which the Whigs are once more held up
to the scorn of the country as demagogues in opposi-
tion, and , haughty aristocrats in power ; and the
country told that the Tories alone can save them
from anarchy and civil strife. But the Times in its
cunning over-shoots the mark. The public know its
motives, and treat them with contempt. It .would be
strange, indeed, if Lord Melbourne and the Lord
Chancellor were to form their estimate of each other
from the Times ; and still more strange if they were
to be at a loss to account for the warm sympathy
manifested in Printing-house-square for the one, and
the indignation so loudly expressed in the same quarter
against the other.—Morntng Chronicle.
The Irish repeal agitator raises his tone of insolent
menace and intimidation in proportion to the subser-
viency of the Whig Ministers. He has always swag-
gered or wheedled, bullied or cajoled, as he thought
best suited his purpose, according to the spirit and
temper of those whom he addressed. But in his letter
to Lord Duncannon, recording the " crimes and fol-
lies" of Lord Grey's Government, he does not think
it necessary to disguise his contempt for his new Whig
allies, or in the slightest degree to conceal his sense
of their disgraceful versatility and moral cowardice,
and their readiness to sacrifice any principle to a base

and dishonourable expediency. As to Lord Duncan-
iloll-the Home Secretary of the Melbourne Cabinet
—he palpably plays him off for the amusement of the
" repeal boys" and the intimidation of his Whig col-
leagues, as a showman plays a wooden Polichinello,
jerking it with strings and wires into any grotesque at-
titude he pleases, and making his own mastery
in the fantastic motions of his s-----
-
- ' ,
~_,..pyarent
a cruel thing of Mr. rs'
Tappet. —lt is Indeed
terly sarca
. ~ connell, and shows how bit-
-.a: he can be Aim his best friends—
oven in the moments of kindliest intercourse—to de-
scribe kW Duncannon as a great Statesman, on
whose conduct the destinies of the empire depend,
while he exhibits him as the principal automaton of his
Wing and Repeal puppet-show, and sets him up in
burlesque dignity for the purpose of knocking down
the political character of Lord Grey, and making the ,
late Premier, while yet smarting with the treacherous 1
acts and Judas kisses of his late colleagues, a sport to
the " seven millions," who shout at the heels of the
Repeal juggler, while the hat goes round for the pence,
and Papal priestcraft fondly anticipates the utter root-
ing out of the Protestant faith and the dismemberment
of the British empire. The following passage in Mr.
O'Connell's first letter to Lord Duncannon exhibits
his combined powers of sarcasm, cajolery, and swag-
gering insolence in an eminent degree ;—" I call
em-
phatically on you (Lord Duncannon), in the name of
your country, either to procure redress and a change
of system for Ireland, or at once to resign, and not to
allow your hitherto unstained character to be tinged
with the duplicity and abandonment of principle on
the part of the leading Whigs of which the Irish peo-
ple have been hitherto the victims. Prompt, imme-
diate redress is what I demand on the part of the
people of Ireland. Do not talk to us of waiting
awhile—that has been the cant used in this country
by the hirelings of the Whigs until it has actually
sickened public indignation. We will not, I tell
you, wait. We ought not-to-wait longer. You cannot
safely postpone us. You will lose the popular sup-
port of Ireland if you attempt to procrastinate relief.
We will not be baffled. We cannot be deluded. All
we a,-,k is that you should put out of qffice our enemies
azid yours." Every body must see that in the above
passage the repeal-agitator addresses the simple Lord
Duncannon as if he regarded him not only as a States-
man, but as the Statesman whose conduct must deter-
mine the future destinies of both countries. Having thus
carved and painted the political idol, ex quovis ligno,
and placed it on a pedestal for adoration, he instantly
treats it as some Indians do their wooden gods—he
prays to it, and then threatens it with his displea-
sure if it does not comply with his wishes. " I will
not wait," he says. He might as well say, " I have
exalted you as an idol, and will coerce you as a
slave. Grant what I demand, immediately, which is
nothing more than to place myself and my ' tail' in all
places of political trust and emolument, to the extru-
sion of all the Protestant friends and supporters of
British connection, or I shall no longer supplicate you
as an idol, or even condescend to dance you a puppet
—but you shall be politically broken up by the same
hands that faehioned you into the image of a states-
man, and be thrown into the lumber-room, or among
the faggots with which repealers light their fires." " I
only ask," says the Whig repeal demagogue, " that
you should put out of office our enemies and yours"—
which, being interpreted, means, " Give me and my
creatures—all the O'Connells—all the tail—all the
stanch and stedfast slaves and sycophants of my demo-
cratic despotism—all the enemies of British connection
—all the friends of Papal domination—all the ad-
mirers of that brazen patriotism that carries the thun-
ders of reckless agitation in one hand, and the beg-
ging-box of sturdy mendicancy in the other—give to
me and to all,these the political government of Ire-
land. Let us lord it over, and trample upon the Pro-
testant people and the Protestant Constitution." Such
are Mr. 0 Connell's modest demands—such are the
terms on which he promises not to annihilate his Whig
allies.—Morning Herald:
A statement appeared, the ether day, in a paper
called the Hull Advertiser, and like every other which
has a tendency to lower the character of the. Lord
Chancellor, was greedily copied into the Times. Of
this article we have some right to complain, on more
' than one ground. Speaking of Lord Brougham it says—
" Among the whole of the London press, the championship
of his Lordship against his vigorous opponent has been under-
taken, and that with little apparent heartiness, by only two
journals--the Morning Chronicle ane The Sun. These,
with the Companion to the Newspaper, which is published
:under his own patronage and direction, form, we believe, the
total of the Learned Lord's metropolitan corps of defence.
The Chronicle and The Sun, be it remarked, are thorough-
paced Ministerial supporters ; their testimony, therefore, to
the merits of a high officer of the Government is about as
valuable as the lofty asseverations of a lawyer on behalf of a
• client whose purse outweighs his reputation. These pro-
Brougham papers, in order to make a show of strength for
their rickety cause, have collected the stupid sycophancy of
• the Ministerial tag-rag-and-bob-tail, thinly scattered over the
provincial press, and, with affected exultation at the beggarly
display, exclaim, ' Behold the reverence of the enlightened
for the patriot prodigy of the woolsack !'
Now this statement is false on the one hand, and
unjust on the other. It is false that among the whole
of the London press the Chronicle and Sun are the
only journals which have espoused the cause, and de-
fended the character, of the Lord Chancellor against
the malignant aspersions of his enemies ; and it is a
manifest injustice towards the Noble Lord to represent
him as receiving no support from any other quarters
but those pointed out by the Hull Advertiser, and
condemned by it on account of their ministerial lean-
ings. If our recollection fail us rlot, we think that the
Noble Lord has enjoyed the advocacy of the Globe, as
well as of The Sun and Chronicle; and, if we mis-
take not, also, more than ore article has. appeared in
the Morning Advertiser denouncing the base incon-
sistency and total relinquishment of honest principle,
by which it has been P.Ctempted to sacrifice him, and ex-
hibiting with no spring hand the great and numerous
claims which he has upon the respect and gratitude of 1,2,s
countrymen. That we have not been more lavish (21; com-
mendation, is because the Noble Lord ste:nds in no
need of it at our hands—that we have notbeen more
w persevering in exposing the calumes which have been
daily poured forth upon him, has been because we
knew, o';t the one hand, that they must ultimately
prove more fatal to their authors than to their ob-
ject ; und that, on the other, the good sense of the
cortntry would ultimately repel with merited indigna-
var.' and scorn the base attempt of an unprincipled
coalition of Conservatives, Radicals, and nondescripts,
P to bear down the character and to decry the talents of a
man whose services in behalf of the people have been
as numberless as they have been great, and whose
acquirements in almost every branch of knowledge bid
defiance at once to rivalry and comparison. Bear
down the character of the Lord Chancellor of
England indeed ! Destroy first the records of
the past—make the English public forget the his-
tory of the last twenty-five years—throw a veil of
oblivion over the advance which the present age
has made in all that tends to raise the intellectual
and moral character of a country—and the name of
Lord Brougham, and the services which he has ren-
dered to the State, and the country, may also be num-
bered among the " things that were not ;"—but
while such things are remembered as the repeal of
those Orders in Council, which went well-nigh to de-
stroy one of the most important branches of our in-
ternational commerce—while the inquiry into the
management of the great and greatly-abused charities
which exist in England and Wales—while the abolition
of the traffic in slaves and the destruction of slavery
throughout the British dominions—while Reform in
Parliament—reform in our corporate system—reform
in the law, and in the mode of administering it—
in all of which great and important acts Lord
Brougham may well declare quorum pars magni fui
—we say, while - these, things are remembered and
form part and parcel of the political, intellectual,
and moral history of the country, his Lordship may
laugh to scorn the malignity of his enemies, and bid
defiance to every attempt to lower him in the estima-
tion of his countrymen. .As for the motives which
have been, and are influencing the Tory press of the
country to decry him, they are as obvious as they are
in some measure excusable. Their opposition to him,
however wrongful, is an honest opposition—an oppo-
sition to his principles, which are diametrically opposed
t 6 theirs, and which is not liable, in consequence, to
the suspicion either of corrupt motive, personal disap-
pointment, or personal malignity ; but the opposition
which " oometh like a thief in the night," after fifteen

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1834.

years of admiration, of praise, and of boasted support,
" through good report and through evil report," is
liable to every foul suspicion, and, while urr---1-•
may fairly enough be attribw-3
than a pure sP--- _ 'any other motive
orinstice, or a patfictie desire to
~itiote the public peck Sikh pretences may be,
and have been put forth ; but they have deceived no
one: The thin, though specious veil, has been seen
through—the ugly and distorted forms of petty malig-
nity, and personal disappointment, have been clearly
descried behind it—though the voice has been the
voice of Jacob, the hand has been proved to be the
hand of Esau ; and the authors of the base malevo-
lence and deception have accordingly met with their
due, though unexpected, reward, in the disappointment
of their wishes, and the frustration of their malignant
ends. The character of Lord Brougham has been
raised, if it possibly could have been raised, instead
of being lowered, by'the attacks which have been
made upon him—his merits been made more widely
known, as well as more distinctly recognized—and his
honours multiplied by the acclaim of every city and
town through which he has recently passed in the
course of his northern journey. With such testi-
monies in his behalf, what need he care for the calum-
nies with which a few unknown libellers have dared
to assail him ?—Morning Advertiser.

The Reformers of Edinburgh are not the men we
conceive them to be if they give more than a civil re-
ception to the Conservative burgess of Inverness.
They will say to him in the words of Scott's Highland
heroine, " What are you that have the tongue and the
" habit of the hound, and yet seek to lie down with
the deer ?" The mere courtesies of hospitality they
cannot be expected to withhold even from an unee•
sired guest, but anything more will be a sanction of
the backward policy avowed at Inverness, and treason
to the cause of justice and improvement. Lord
Brougham will appear before the Edinburgh Reformers
branded with his declaration, that too much rather than
too little has been done, and that less than the
little of the last steril session is to be expected
.in the next. Why what parsimony of justice can
he propose ? What scheme can he have in view
for making the little less ? To what pauper al-
lowance does he design subjecting the mighty mil-
lions of the United Kingdoms, craving the redress
of grievances and the correction of abuses ? Has
he a plan like that of the wiseacre in the old Greek
story, who diminished his horse's meal from day to
dly, in the hope of teaching him to live without food,
which rational expectation was disappointed by the
death of the starved beast ? But the Chancellor
makes a worse beginning than the above experimen-
talist ; for, commencing with granting nothing, he
promises to do less. The Poor Law, the Old Bailey
Extension, and the Beer Bill, are the three graces of
the past session I With these we had our halcyon
days it seems. Fining away from these proportions,
" small by degrees and beautifully less," to what are
the Ministerial boons of Lord Brougham to come ?
Reform, like Echo in Ovid, is to be attenuated till
it disappears. It is to be put on pauper allowance,
and made to feel the irksomeness of: the support
it receives at the hands of such Ministers as the
Chancellor. This, forsooth, is a cheering prospect,
and the people of Edinburgh will know what gra-
titude is due to the worthy who opens it to them.
We are not without hopes that they will invite
their guest to explain both how he proposes to do
less than the little in the last session for the public
contentment (as hair-splitting "must have its limits),
and also in what sense lie asserted that too much had
been done. Has too much been done to relieve the
Dissenters from their grievances in respect of registra-
tion and church-rates? Has too much been done for
the reform of the church ? Has too much been done
for the abolition of impressment and the scourge ? Has
too much been done for the purification of the Pension
L'st ? Has too much been done for the repeal of the
Septennial Act, and the prevention of corrupt practices
in election's ? Has too much been done for the aboli-
tion of the injurious corn monopoly ? Surely the friends
of Lord Brougham at Edinburgh should ask him whe-
ther his words have not been misreported, and whe-
ther, instead of " we have done too much," the public
should not read " I have done too much." The ques-
tion may be the more easily answered at a dinner, at
which Earl Grey will be present, for the ex-Premier is
a ready example of the excess of the Chancellor's
meddling. If Lord Grey be candid, we are certain
that he will plainly declare that Lord Brougham has
" done too much," and that by " doing too much," he
has procured for him (Earl Grey) the retirement from
political life which his friends deplore. At public
dinners a song after toasts is customary, and should the
name of Lord Brougham be proposed, we would sug-
gest after it the little nursery sang,

"Who killed Cock Robin."

The parody will not be difficult—for example, it may
run thus :

" Who killed Earl Grey?
" I, said Lord Brougham.
" To be Chief in his room,
"I killed Lord Grey."
We admire the modesty of Lord Althorp in keeping
away from the Grey entertainment ; and there is some-
thing very appropriate in his preferring to it the turf
society of Doncaster, in which the jockeyship is doubt-
less learnt of which he has given so very dexterous an
example. The scene at Edinburgh will be curious
enough without the presence of Lord Althorp, and
the eyes of all the Reformers of great Britain and Ire-
land will be (upon their brethren of the northern me-
tropolis. They will not forget their princinles for the
smiles of. a' man -.high in station, al-„it bolding the
temptations of patronage.—Tires.—Tires.