The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-18 00:00:00

THE SUNs LONDON, FRIDAY
_EVENI,N(I, APRIL 18, 1856,

Everything considered, indeed, in regard to
the very curious Letter penned by Mr. Moore,
and printed in our columns last evening—it
must be accepted, we conceive (this remarkable

and eccentric communication), as partly 'valuable
and partly worthless. Its pith, or marrow, or
gist, or gravamen, or whatever you may like to
call it, being altogether incontrovertible. Its
Sound and Fury—signifying Nothing !

" What a horrid House of Commons this is ! "
was the exclamation of a lady on reading there
was a " count-out" last night—an expression of
opinion in the justice of which Sir JOSHUA. WALMS-
LEY will not be indisposed to concur, for his
motion for the extension of the franchise and the
amendment of the representation in England and
Wales was apparently shelved thereby for the
remainder of the session.
A "horrid House of Commons" indeed—a House
that, like a roue gambler on his last 16gs, is only
anxious to procrastinate the period of its dissolu-
tion, knowing, as its members do, they may go
further and fare worse. A House ePte, incap-
able of doing any good for the country, and
haunted by the reflection that it has done
none, and merits nothing at the hands of the con-
stituencies but rejection. A House that will be
for ever more memorable as the not unworthy
oeuraerpart of that distinguished assembly of
which " Praise GOD BAREBONES" was so illustrious
an ornament. A House that more than tolerated
the st'nilities, if not worse, of an ABERDEEN, and
drive lied like a dotard over the pukish twaddle
and. recondite nonsense of a GLADSTONE.
A :House that, in its desire to make things
pleas wait, buried manliness and honesty under the
desi ;nation of political rivalry in a napkin, and
having suffered the country to drift into war
with out remonstrance, and to have its energies
west 3d without complaint, waited with dumb
acquiescence for a Peace patched
,up in the inte-
rest of its enemies. A House impatient of deli-
bens; ;ion, dubious of integrity, incapable of patri-

otic resolution, and alike blind and indifferent tty
the z tecessities of the times. A House whose god
is self, and whose High Priest is a German, whose
divinity was brightened at college with an ever-
last ig half-crown in his breeches' pocket, entrusted
to his keeping as pocket money, and who has
not &lug English in his composition, save the bone,
mu mole, and sinew that come of English provender.
- frouse that fears an incensed mob, yet dares to

lg. ao: re the welfare of an entire people—that can
P rate of an impeachment, but would shiver in its

shoe: ►if called upon to affirm n" just sentence On
prestamptuous imbecility and Germanic treason•

or rather, we should say, with sheer abuse, arti-
culated in a succession of violent expletives, that
the strength of the argument degenerates into
positive weakness. Besides all which, iu regard to
the mere style of the composition—the sentences
are so plenteously freckled with inverted commas,
the phraseology employed is so industrously un-
derlined into italics—that, beyond all manner of
doubt, its writer ought henceforth to be num-
bered amongst those who were, once upon a time,
happily designated the Forcible Feebles by the
Right Honourable Gentleman the Member for
Buckinghamshire.
A hurried glance down this remarkable commu-
nication will illustrate plainly and readily enough
what we have said in regard to its extravagance
in the way of vituperation. According to Mr.
Moon; the House of Commons is—"obsequious,"
"servile," and " profligate." According to him
many of the questions he was required to answer
in 1853 before the Committee were—" invidious,"
"disgraceful,"and devoid of "decency." According
to him the honourable gentleman the representative
of Perthshire made an attack characterised by the
following string of epithets—" unfair," " disin-
genuous," "unwarrantable," "ignoble," and
" underhand." According to Mr. Moon; the
Prime Minister of England is charged with "in-
sincerity, vulgarity, and insolence," with speaking
what is "false," with uttering what is a " gross
slander," with having neither " the spirit of a
man," nor " the feelings of a gentleman." Now
really this does appear to us—just by the merest
trifle, of course,—overdone. It seems something
more even than a waste of power. It has a sort
of a resemblance in its way to that vaulting
ambition which overleaps itself, and which we
take to be the moat poetic of all extant definitions
of a summersault. It appears to us, in fact, for
all the world precisely what the Rev. CHARLES
KINGSLEY somewhere horridly calls (in the lan-
guage of the most pedantic of pedagogues) ne-
iniety or over-muchness !
The worst of it all being that, apart from his
adjectives, apart from his expletives, apart from
his personalities and vituperations—Mr. MORRIS
MOORE is decidedly in the right, having the full
swing, the entire monopoly, the unlimited com-
mand of the best side of the argument ! Instead of
simply availing himself of which, he damages
a good cause by writing as we have indicated, as
our readers may have already seen for themselves.
In point of fact there is a description, in the cur-
rent number of the Edinburgh Review, of Mr.
RUSKIN'S first appearance as a fine arts' critic (in
the character of an Oxford Graduate idolising
TURNER) that in one or two particulars, to our
thinking, fits this recent apparition of Mr. MOORE
to a nicety. The Edinburgh Reviewer hav-
ing observed incidentally that Mr. RUSKIN
" branded as idiots, ruffians, and liars, the
VANDERVELDES, SA LVATORS, and CLAUDES,"
continues—" And the preacher snatching up
Truth and Nature as his watchword, but forget-
ting that these also imply Love, Charity, arid
Reverence, rushed into the Arena—Malay fashion
—thrusting here, smiting there, foaming at the
mouth, to establish Lis professional sanctity."
Edin. Review, April, 1856, p. 538. Mr. MORRIS
MOORE—to a T ! Truth, in his hand,
as a watchword—Reverence, Charity, Love, for-
gotten—" thrusting here, smiting there, foaming
at the mouth, to establish his professional
sanctity !" Doing all this, and yet having all the
while within his grasp—Truth ! The rights of the
case as to the squabble between himself and Mr.
STIRLING, the Member for Perthshire, are best
known of course to themselves individually. But it
does appear to us, nevertheless, as hardly fair on
the part of the former, when he repeats what w. 4,
said to him by the latter three years ago pri-
vately, or at least, we may presume, sotto voce—
"As for UWINS, he's an Ass"—the said CrwrNs
being Mr. Uwriss, the Royal Academician. Nei-
ther does it seem to us exactly above board, when
Mr. MOORE, repelling what Mr. STIRLING has re-
cently said in the House of Commons, observes of it,
it is substantially " a direct contradiction to the
sentiments which he once expressed to me in my
own room, and which he has repeated elsewhere."
"In my own room" being, in reality we take
it, synonymous with the sub rosa regarded as
so sacred among the Romans of antiquity.
Whence—be sure of that !—we cannot but con-
jecture that, from this time forth, the historian
of the " Cloister Life of the Emperor CHARLES
V." will emulate rather more sedulously than he
has evidently done heretofore the reserve and
silence of the royal recluse, whose declining years
he has admirably celebrated in a masterly contr
bution to our biographical literature.

A House whose most graceful act was obscurely to
insinuate at the outset of the War that it meant to

do nothing but vote the supplies and keep the
Ministry in power. A House anti-Sabbatic, yet at
the beck and nod of the Sabbatarians, pro-
fuse in profession as unprincipled in action, and
that to all appearance would not merely shut the
labouring population on a Sunday out of the Bri-
tish Museum and other public institutions belong-
ing to them, where their minds and hearts might
be quickened to livelier apprehensions of the
CREATOR'S wisdom and goodness, but would shut
them up in a penfold on that day if it were safe,
and it would insure at the hands of the " Maw-
worm" section of its constituents its re-elec-
tion. A House whose " count-out last night is
satisfactory proof that before a measure of Parlia-
mentary Reform can be introduced it must be
dissolved into its ignoble elements. A " horrid
House of Commons," indeed !

LATEST NEWS.

THE TREATY OF PEACE.

VIENNA, THURSDAY, APRIL 17, Now

One of the most important conditions in the
treaty of peace is that the forts on the Circassian
coast of the Black Sea are not to be rebuilt.

In short, the status quo on the coasts of the

Black Sea is to be maintained.
This is authentic.

MARSEILLES, THURSDAY.
The Indus has arrived. She brings the follow.

ing important intelligence :

" CRIMEA, APRIL 5

"The news of the signature of peace has ar.

rived here.

" The Presse d' Orient announces that the eva,cu
ation of the Russian territory by the Allies wil
begin with the fortress of Kinbourn, and that

LITERATURE.

Irish Quarterly Review. Simpkin, Marshall, and
Co.
This Review admirably maintains its sterling
and liberal principles. The current number con-
tains ten distinct articles on important and interest-
ing subjects, the first being a most ably-written
digest of the Poems lately given to the world by
Longfellow, Bailey, and Browning. The writer
expresses the same wonder which is elicited in every
intelligent and impartially-critical mind, viz., how
authors who can create such natural beauties can
perpetrate such literary atrocities ; and regrets that
the love of mystification and inane scribbling should
invest the sunny slopes of Parnassus with the at-
moSphere of Bedlam. We do earnestly hope that
the obscure and meaningless poetic productions so
awfully predominant at present will come under the
severe denunciation of all honest critics, until the
mistaken authors are convinced that " divine in-
spiration" is by no means synonymous with dis-
cordant nonsense or turgid bombast. It is high
time some of our modern bards discovered that the
People's taste and judgment will not accept spas-
modic syllables as immortal breathings, and not all
that toadying cliqueism can effect, will transmute
erratic quicksilver, or heavy lead, into Apollonian
gold.

There is a charming continuation of the bio-
graphy of the Irish novelist, John Banim, replete
with curious and interesting matter ; and there is
a lengthy paper headed " War and Peace," which
claims especial eulogy, and cannot be too widely
read. It deals sternly, but discretionally, with the
unfortunate systems of management and series of
incidents which have inflicted no small share of
discredit—to use the gentlest word—on our na-
tional glory. The naval, military, and general
financial statistics in this article are copious and
explicit beyond the average of such statements,
and deserve attention. We conclude our notice of
this healthy periodical with the following extract
from the last-mentioned paper :
" We bad hoped ere concluding this article to have
been able to announce and comment upon the final terms
of peace. But up to this moment nothing further is
known, at least by the general public, than was known
three or four weeks ago. It is still left to conjecture
whether there is, or is not, more sincerity in the Russian
acceptation of bases' this year than when they excited
and disappointed our hopes this time twelve months.
We know not what concession or surrender of ill-
acquired territory Russia is prepared to make, or what
guarantee will be exacted from her against future ag-
gressions. Judging from the past, she will, unless ef-
fectively bound down and restrained by some permanent
and well-guaranteed arrangements, only bide her time,
and wait for some period of European distractions to
resume ber course of rapine and unjust acquisition.
"She took advantage of the beginnings of the Ameri•
can Revolution to secure a lion's share in the first parti-
tion of unhappy Poland, and subsequently advanced her
southern armies till they occupied the northern shores of
the Sea of Azof, and secured the course of the Dnieper.
When England and France were alike nearly exhausted
by war in 1783, she annexed the territory of the Don
Cossacks to the shores of the Caspian, and entered the
Crimea. In 1792, in the first wild throes of the French
Revolution, she seized the country between the Dniester
and the Bong and completed the second partition of Po:
land. In 1795, the war of the French Revolution being
then hot in Europe and all attention engaged by it, she
effected the third and final partition of Poland. In 1802
she seized upon Mingrelia. In 1803 she invaded
Georgia. In 1805 she seized the territories of Karabagh
and Mongatchon, and in 1806 Shamaki, on the Caspian
Sea. In 1807, and the subsequent years till the conclu-
sion of the war, Russia continued her advances in the
East, taking advantage of the distractions of Europe,
and marking each successive year with a fresh achieve-
ment of rapine. These her unjust acquisitions received
a tacit sanction from the Holy Alliance' in 1815, and
an active addition to them in permitting her to absorb
the Duchy of Warsaw, and finally shut Sweden out from
her plundered province of Finland.
"Reluctantly she now found herself compelled to hold
her hand, the other powers of Europe having at length
time to look around them, and beginning to manifest no
little wonder and anxiety at what she had been doing
while their attention was engaged in their own struggle
for existence. And it was not till 1829 that her states-
men ventured to move forward again, when suspicion
had been lulled to sleep, and France and England, for
purposes of their own, were courting Russia, and had
but a year or two before, in conjunction with Russia,
annihilated for the time the naval power of Turkey, anti
dismembered her territory. The treaty of Adrianople
and of Unkiar-Skelesi attest that Russia, and R issia
alone, profited in the end by the alliance.
"It is to be hoped that in the Conference now about
to meet at Paris, if it be judged impossible to insist upon
a giving up of many of these ill•gotten acquisitions and
advantages, adequate guarantees will at any rate be in-
sisted upon as to desisting from future aggression, and
such arrangements made for the Danubian provinces and
Asiatic Turkey as will make those countries bulwarks,
as it were, against Russia, should she attempt hereafter
to violate her engagements,"

Putnam's Monthly Magazine. Sampson Low,
Son, and Co.
The numbAr for tbia month contains Dovoral
fresh and vigorous papers. The opening article
is a very temperate and sensible one on " Religious
Freedom in America." There is a " fast and
furious" tendency to theological disputations in
the young country, but vindictive argument and
declamatory assertion are no very edifying substi-
tutes for Christian toleration and truth, and the
following remark is worthy of consideration in its
most universal acceptation :
" A sectional spirit in politics is bad enough, but the
attempt to carry it into literature and history—and that.,
too, under cover of sentimental liberality and a special
regard for justice—deserves to be at once exposed and
rebuked."

The paper headed " Have Animals Souls " will
repay the perusal. It mincles fact and speculation
in a very suggestive tone, and has much of novelty
to recommend it. The " Poetry of Robert Brown
ing" is fully discussed, and we as fully subscribe
to the accuracy of the opening sentence, "Robert
Browning's poetry is very hard reading." In " A
Talk about Popular Songs " the writer says "As to Moore's songs, 'the Irish in general do not
sing them. The people of the cities and towns, in their
singing moments, usually choose others of a more racy
order, and many which express the old airs in words dif-
ferent from Moore's. There, and everywhere else,
' Rory O'More,' the ' Bold Soldier Boy,' Widow Mach-
ree,' and the 'Low-backed Car,' are heard twice as often
as Go where glory waits thee,' the 'Meeting of the
Waters,' or the Harp of Tara.' The marble halls of
the English aristocracy were bad places fur anything
like Irish inspiration, apparently ; and Moore seems to
have taken his old airs to make melodies for Anglo-
Saxondom, as others took the stones of the old castles to
make elegant modern houses—thinking they put them
to a very good use, too. His songs have too much re-
finement, and too little pathos and simple heartiness, to
be popularly cherished among his countrymen. The
Irish-speaking portion of them do not know his songs, of
course. Some time ago an attempt was made to turn
these into the Irish ; but the experiment, with his pointed
and figurative stanzas, was a failure.
The "Political " articles are broad and gene-
rous in spirit, and the "carving
" of "new works,"
both Transatlantic and European, is done in a
competent and just style.

A Month at Malvern. By R. J. Lane, A.E.R.A.
Spirits and Water. By R. J. L.
Mitchell, Old Bond-street.

The first of these works was published some ten
years since, giving a pleasant diary of a few weeks
spent by Mr. LlllO and his son at Dr. Wilson's
Water-cure Establishment, Great Malvern. The
book has run through several editions, and may be
pronounced pleasing and interesting. It gives a
minute account of "Packing," " Doucheing,"
Sitzing, and exercising—interspersing the detail
of the daily duties of Flydropathy with episodes of
pic-nics to Camp Hill, sketches of eccentric patients,
practical cheats put upon the Doctor, and gossip-
ing anecdotes of various kinds, calculated to allure
any tolerably well-to-do invalids to undergo the
process of being washed clean from their physical
evils. Mr. Lane derived such immense benefit
from the treatment that he would indeed be a most
ungrateful patient not to speak as enthusiastically
as he does of it. We only hope that every sufferer
who tries the same system may be equally fortu.
nate in the results arising from it.
Spirits and Water is a cheerful little book, not
mixing alcoholic fire with the pure element, but
infusing instead, a strong dash of that mental exhi-
laration which is derived from the original vintage
of Health and Strength. It yields the particulars
of two walking tours through South Wales and the
Isle of Wight ; telling us, among innumerable
points of information, the most useful fittings for
a travelling knapsack and the medical appliance for
a blistered toe. Altogether, the volume is very
readable, and concludes with some specimens of
poetry, which, though reminding us of Words-
worth and Hood, cannot be considered, in our
candid criticism, as likely to extinguish either.

Border Lands of France and Spain. 1 vol.
Chapman and Hall.

It is such an agreeable variety to meet with a
book of travels not relating to either Turkey or
Russia, that the author's apology for publishing
the record of a visit to the mountains of South-
western Europe at the present epoch is rendered
unnecessary. In explaining his reasons for issuing
a work on the Peninsula, at a time when he sup-
poses the sympathies of the public to be wholly
•
directed to the frontiers of Asia, he tells us that it
was commenced with no other view than that of
occupying some idle time, but that it gives a
faithful picture of what he saw in his expedition,
and portrays the social peculiarities of a district
unvisited by most travellers. In the first part of
his work he gives a view of the Basque provinces, i
and the narrative of a visit to the romantic district
of Bear; a spot associated with the memory of the