The Sun.
London, England, 1856-03-26 00:00:00

BY GEORGE (RUIKSHANK.

Han-century's outpouring of fun and . frolic ,
—so far 'from blunting it—seems only to have
whetted (so to speak) the edge of our great humor-
ist's exquisite sense of the droll and the ridiculous.
Ecce Sigauns this latest of his glorious and delight-
ful provocatives of laughter—" The Disturbed
Cengregation." The original painting we remem-
ber three or four seasons back adorning the walls
(if we are not very much mistaken) of the British
Institution. It was a new evidence at the time of
the wonderfully ready adaptation of George
Cruikshank's skill to what, in his instance, had been
until a very brief while previously, a hitherto
unentered field for its manifestation. His
pencil had given abundant employment to the
tools of the wood-engraver ever since the memor-
able evening when as a stripling he had chanced to
c 'itch sight—(glancing at it, as he passed by, outside)
over the top of some waggish publican's window
blind—of Shakspere's bust above the mantelpiece
with the clay pipe stuck inits mouth. The serene,
godlike face with its anomalous and most unmis-
takable duclheen—startling the young artist, as with
a sun-stroke of merriment, into—facile prin-
ceps—the first of English caricaturists. Very
soon after
,that George was at it—if not tooth
and nail, certainly' crayon and etching needle I .
Tumbling down all sorts. of abuses and absurdities
with his matchless.revelation in them of what was
utterly and-irredeemably ludicrous. Sweeping al-
most out of recollection by contrast with-his keen
and subtle satire, the coarseness and vulgarity, nay,
even be it said now, the brutalities and obscenities
of those great guns of caricature among our fore-
fathers of the last century, still 'recollected here
and there in association with their gaudily-
coloured eXtravagancies—Gilray and Rowland-
son. Droll fellows, no doubt, in their way,
and in their day,- but not, by any means, either of
them, a George . Cruikshank. . Whichever of them
you like, say for example Gilray, was Eclipse Who
distanced the field—but George at once, while yet
a mere youth, distanced Eclipse ! And he has'.
kept his plaCe; at an easy canter, ever since in the
great race of ridicule, that grand struggle which
has variously for its goal—political reform and
social improvement. Hew much he has done since
then, not only in the way of making us happier by
the innocent laughter he has provoked, but actually,
we do believe, by helping to make us all
very much better by the noble truths, the gene-
rous sentiments, the elevating and purifying ntora7
lit*? hise.ncil has, time and again, so wondrously
enforced. Has he not ? Recollect that his was the
hand that, gave poignancy to the political satires of
Hone—?pis the- brush that coloured into life the
humorous sarcasms of Egan. Remember in "proof
of this, and put a grave face on the matter if you
can while remembering, the high-shouldered
elegance of Derry-Down Triangle, and the
bewigged
,pomp of the ever famous Dandy
of Fifty, to say nothing at all about
the astonishing escapades of those three emie
nently ridiculous persons, the fast men of the
" old-fogified times," in the Consulship of Plancus
—Corinthian , Tom, Bob Logic, and Jerry Haw-
thorn ! The memory of all which and of all whom
seems to come back upon us from a far away per-
speetive, as of the fun and frolic of some long past
generation. And yet, at this very day, George
Cruikshank is but now in the fullness of his ma-
turity, s) early bad he begun to wield the pencil,
which he haS ever since plied with such a
maser baud, and with such inexhaustible
faceti eusness l• Honour to the 'kindly humorist who
has all the while been
,labouring at once so deftly
and so earnestlywith so wholesome a regard (al-
ways) for the taste of the people, and so genial an
eye to their harmle,s amusement. As an illustrator
of our home-literature generally has he not lent a
charm of his own to the original letterpress of many
of our most.delightful and most cherished master-
pieces ? Scatteeirig with a prolific fancy- the most
apt and felicitous of embellishments among, the
classic pages of such writers of fiction as
II•• nry Fielding and Tobias Smollett, and
illuminating with his -pictorial mirth such comic
rhymes as, for example, William Cowper's Ballad-
of John Gilpin! re,nnellishments in this way net.
unworthy of being -classed
.the same category
with Hogarth's series of etchings illustrative of,
Iludibras ! And as an original humoriSt of the
rarest drollery imaginable—has he not given us.
such tid-bits of -fan as 'My Lord Baterncin ?
"loving ballad" adorned with the trousers :and
nose of Sephia, and the bouquet and the legs (those
superb legs !) of .- the Proud Young Porterl
As, an historical draughtsman, has be not.
pencilled with' a. very luMinous peucil,-by
victory after victory—the marvellous careen
of that marvellous man, whose life has been well
called the Fairy Tale of Modern Europe, Napoleon
Bonaparte ? As a noble, earnest, gifted, generous,.
heroic, moralist-satirist, has he not done good sere.
vice in the cause of virtue, and in the interests
of religion, and in the name *and on behalf of
humanity, by his very powerful, tragical, and
pathetic series of pictures called The Bottle;'
followed by its' scarcely less powerful,'' tragical,
and pathetic sequel, The Drunlzard's. Children ?
And now, after . htving, during all, -these busy
-years, thus marvellously, and industriously,:and variously, drawn on wood, and etched-On Cope
'per, and handled, Oven Once 'upon a time, if we
Mistake not, the needle of the glyphographer, after
having employed So often in each individual instauce
so adroitly almost every implement coming within
the grasp of au artist's hand, George Cruikshank
has latterly taken very kindly to the brusli'and
the palette, and appeared in ;the galleries of
London, season after season, as an oil painter..
Appearing, we may add, as such in every:
instance to very general adtatiration Already,-
if we recollect rightly, be has produced,:
among those later oil paintings, two Of remark=
able ability illustrative' of the elrriteh 'stapes",
of Burns's -" Tain o'Shauter." Here—before us
—is an engraving of rather considerable dimen-
sions taken from another, riot suggested by any
poet's pliantasies.e but "all out of the artist's,
own head," to wit, this droll, delightful
picture of his, " The Disturbed Congregation !"
Passing through the streets during the last few-
days, we have been amused more than* once by.
watching the faces of the casual foot-passengers
pausing for an instant opposite the windows of
some print-shop, in which George Ceuikshauk's
" last" has happened to be displayed somewhat
conspicuously. Looking at their faces, it has been
something like looking at Hogarth's "Laughing
Audience !" And no wonder ! Such a Beadle as
there is in the very centre of this picture—from
the hand that drew of old the purpling features and
the portly form of Bumble ! It is the very head
Beadle of Bead.ledom —glowering over the upper.
rirusof his spectacles at that preposterous urchin who
has just, by some strangely unaccountable ill luck,
clattered his peg-top down upon the pavement of
the aisle—everybody else looking up or turuiug
round at the commotion. The immorous
absurdity of the whole scene is a thing to be seen
and not merely described. And seen—we warrant
it, it will only be,visible through eyes half closed
with laughter. And so, with a kindly wave of
the hand at parting, say we An revoir ! to George
Cruikshank.

The director of the Bank of Athens is about to found
a branch establishtuwat at Constantinople.
We regret to announce the death of Sir Hyde Parker,
who died on the 21st inst., at Government-house, De-
vonport, shortly after his arrival from Lisbon in H.M.S.
St. George. Sir Hyde, who was born in 1785, was
brother of the late Sir Wm. Parker, whom he succeeded
in 1830, and grandson of the Admiral Sir Hyde Parker
who defeated the Dutch at Doggerbank, in 1781, and
who being shortly afterwards appointed to command
naval forces in the East Indies, sailed in the Cato, and
was never heard of after leaving Rio Janeiro, where he
put in for water. The baronetcy, we believe, is inhe-
rited by Colonel Richard Parker, who commands the Ist
L►te. Guards, cousin to the late baronet, and eldest sur-
viving son of the late Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, who
distinguished himself during the American war.

THE- EAST- INDIA COMPiNY'S SERVICE.—'labs follow-
ing officers of the East India Company's army have been
allowed to retire from the service :—Major J. W. Ben-
nett, Bengal let Fusiliers; Brevet-MajorJohn Grimes,
Madras Bth Native Infantry ; Surgeon Samuel Cox,
M.D., Madras Medical 'Establishment ; Brevet-Major
Edward Skipper, Bombay 7th Native Infantry ; Lieut.
F. E. Hunter, Bombay 4th Native Infantry ; Lieut.
H. R. Ellin, Indian Navy, Bombay Establishment ;
Mr. Joseph Wells, branch pilot, Indian nary. The fol-
lowing appointments as assistant chaplains have been
made :—The Rev. Henry Daniel James, ILA. of Mag-
dalen Hall, Oxford, to Bengal Ecclesiastical Establish-
ment ; the Rev. Alexander Dunbar Nicholson, M.A.,
of St. Peter's College, Cambridge, to Bengal Ecclesias-
tical Establishment. Mr. Gerard Henry Dodd has been
admitted a volunteer for the Indian Navy. Mr. Samuel
Augustus Glidden has been appointed a captain's clerk
for tnelndian Navy.—Sntilh. and Elder's Overland Mail
JOURNAL OF ADVENTURES WITH THE BRITISH ARMY
FROM THE COMMENCEMENT. OF THE WAR TO THE FALL
OF SEBASTOPOL, by George Cavendish Taylor, late 95th
Regiment, 2 Vols.—At the present moment this work
will be read with unusual interest. "Mr. Taylor's
Journal of Adventures with the British Army," says
the Examiner, " has the merit of being a journal by one
who participated ia nearly the whole series of events. I,
is valuable for its genuineness, and for the extent of ex-
perience embraced in it;' "There was scarcely an oc-
currence of importance, says the United Service Gazette,
" that Mr. Taylor was not an eye-witness of—Balaklava,
Inkerman, Kertch, the operations in the Sea of Azoff,
Anapa, the unsuccessful and also the second and glorious
storming of the Malakhoff and Redan, and the taking
possession of Sebastopol—each event is detailed iu that
concise but clear professional style which we have not
met with before."

LATEST NEWS.

MARSEILLES, MARcs 25.
Intelligence has been received here from Con-
stantinople to the 17th inst.

A rumour was current that the Porte would
refuse to embody iu a general Treaty of Peace the
reforms enacted by the late decree of the Sultan.
The Ottoman Government, moreover, was
anxious that the deliberations on some important
questions should talk place at Constantinople.
General La Marmora had left Constantinople
on the 14th for the Crimea.

KIEL, MARCH 24.

The English frigate Amphion and the corvette
Sampson have just quitted this roadstead to join
the English squadron in the Baltic. The Cesar
and Majestic, ships of the line, have just arrived
here to reinforce, the English squadron.

BERLIN, MARCH 24.

An imperial ukase removes from their functions
of governors of provinces Generals Kokoschkine
and Prince Ouroussof, and calls them to the
Senate. The posts which they held have been

suppressed.
Letters' from Poland state that, by order of the
Russian Government, the levy of recruits in
Poland, which was to have taken place on the
17th inst., is postponed.

THE PEACE CONGRESS.
(,From Second Edition of the Times of this day. )
The following is the letter of our Paris corre-
spondent,. dated yesterday, 6 p.m. :
Yesterday'the Congress held its twelfth meeting,
at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The particular
business that was gone through lam unable to say,
What was:not done, however, may be guessed from
the fact that no conclusion has been arrived at yet,
meaning, of course, by "conclusion" the signingof
the Treaty of Peace. I fear we are not yet arrived
at that poknt, though it is hoped we may do so in the
course, or rather at the close of, the week. The
difficulty still in the wly is the one alluded
to in my' letter of Sunday ; it turns on the terms
upon which` Prnssia will be admitted to sign the
treaty. I do not think there is any other difficulty
of a serious kind, as the more important points
have been already settled. I have no particular
reason for saying so, but I am inclined to think'
that the chief opposition to admitting Prussia on a
footing of ;equality with the allies comes from
England. It is evident that Russia would be much
'pleased to hive Prussia in the Congress on the
same footing as the other Powers, as she hopes
that if it were brought about by her influence
she would recover her prestige in Germany, and
attach Prussia to her mere firmly than ever. Be-
sides, she considers she owes a debt of gratitude to
Prussia for fidelity to her throughout. I am aware
that here the point is not considered as one of im-
'portance—certainly not important enough to re-
tard the great work of peace, or compel us to re-
tain our immense force in the Crimea. The diffi-
culty may be viewed in another light elsewhere,
but whatever be the importance it really deserves,
it suffices to retard the solution all so earnestly
desire. The term of the armistice is rapidly ap-
proaching, and somethinc, must be known in the
Course of tho present week.

FRANCE.

PARIS, TUESDAY EVENING.

There has been, a sitting of the Congress to-day.
A protestohnilar to that from Moldavia, is on
its way to the Congress of Paris from Wallachia.
The Wallachian protest confines-itself more to a
desire for the maintenance of the state quo.
: Representations have been allressedto the Con-
gress from persons of great influence, urginc, the
necessity of European interference to rowed.), the
administrative evils afflicting large portions of
. _ _

It is rumoured that a very powerful expedition
to Madagascar is meditated by the Emperor, to
punish a massacre lately committed there on Fiench
colonists.

The Moniteur continues to publish the text of
addresses of congratulation to the Emperor received
from different towns of France, and from the offi-
cers and crews of the naval division of the. Baltic.

The- Moniteur contains a decree extending the
amnesty, already granted, to persons who have
infringed the laws relative to sporting, to indirect,
taxes, and customs, and to persons guilty of con-
traventions of the laws relating to the mint stamps
on gold and silver.
We read in the Moniteur

"The Times, in its number of the 22J, and on the
faith of its Paris correspondent, represents our army in
the Crimea as being in want of everything, provisions
and clothing, and as abandoned by the Government of
the Emperor, which no longer feels any solicitude for
those brave troops. The Times goes so far as to say
that our soldiers were compelled for their subsistence to
go and pick up the damaged biscuit and the refuse pro-
visions which the English soldiers threw away. With
regard to the last assertion, we will say that if a
scarcity had been felt in our camp, our allies
would eagerly have shared their resources with
as we have ourselves done with them, and that.
t` e generoUS offer which they lately made at Con-
stantinople; to place all our medical stores at our
disposal sufficiently answers for what they would'
have done in the Crimea, if .tve had been in want of pro-
visions. The TiMeq will, we doubt not, regret that it
had not la-en better infor ice 3, when it learns that the
French army is supplied in such a maener as to receive
newly-baked bread every day ; that it has in store suffi-
cient flour 'for the consumption of three months ; and
that the greatest part of our troops have fresh vegetables
served out t ► them, which are sent in large quaetitics
from Constantinople. As to clothing, it may be affir.ned
that never at any Period have the wants of the army
been so abundantly supplied. Each soldier in the
Crimea has received, in addition to his regulation cloth-
ing, a complete winter suit, composed of a thick worsted
cap, a great coat wi'.h a hood, a pair of thick warm
gaiters, a flannel or worsted waist belt, a pair of worsted
stockings, a pair of sabots, and-a pair of warm gloves.
It is tree that our army, notwithstanding the care of which
it has been constantly the object, has been fir some
time past suffering from sickness, which appears to have
spared our more fortunate allies: If. however, it be collat.;
derecl that our troops at e encempedaxound Sebastopol, oe
the very theatre of the struggle, that is to say,on the ground
which, having served as tho burying-place for se many
victims, is far frem offering the c inditions of salubrity
which the English army finds at Balaklava, it will be
comprehended that the present inferiority of our sanitary
condition may be the consequence of these inevitable cir-
cumstances, and that it cannot be attributed to a want
of solicitude. We may add that this state of things has
already been much ameliorated, and that doubtless it
will in a short time ba completely removed. This happy
result may be hoped for from the return of fine weather,
and from the measures taken to oppose the disease, par-
ticularly from the removal of a considerable number of
the sick to Constantinople, and the establishment at the
latter place of new, spacious, and well-aired ambu-
lances.'
The Debats is of opinion that the treaty of peace
will be signed before the 31st of this month.

•
BOURSE, March 25.—The following were the last
quotations : .
Cash. fr. c End of Month.
li per Cents. 94 —f. —c.
3 per Cents 72 45 72 70
New Loan 73 10
Bank Shares 3,500 Roman
Creditlglobilier 1,575 Austrian
Belgian Fives ..... ... 97.} Spanish Threes 44?
rielmontese (5). ..... 91 25 Home Debt ......