The Sun.
London, England, 1856-02-08 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1856.

After a very brilliant debate, in which •very
one of the Law Lord.; took part, Lord LYND-
BURST'S motion was last night carried by a ma-
jority of 33—that is to say, of 26 Peers who
were in attendance and heard the arguments, and
7 proxies. It is, therefore, decided that "the
letters patent purporting to create Sir JAMES
PARKE a Baron of the United Kingdom for life
he referred to the Committee for Privileges, with
61irections to examine and consider the same, and
report thereon to the House." This may be
considered almost tantamount to a refusal of the
House to concur in the coup d'etat which has
been attempted. The majority of the House,
who would be entitled to vote on any purely
legal question, have already given expression to
their views in opposition to the attempt so hastily
and recklessly made, and on which it appears that
the Law Officers of the Crown have not even been
consulted.

In opposition to the grant wore arrayed the
names of LYNDHURST, ST. LEONA RDS, CAMPBELL,
and BROUGHAM. Of these the three first clearly
considered the grant illegal, while Lord BROUGHAM
expressed considerable doubt on the law point de-
claring that, "as to the legality of such creations,
ho himself, if at that moment called upon to de-
cide the question, would be inclined to say that
they were legal." He, however, strongly advo-
cated a stringent and searching
.investigation, in
which the House would have the assistance of
able and learned counsel, and the whole of the
judges of the land.

On the other side the Loid Chancellor seemed
perfectly satisfied on the legal question, and
cautioned the House against infringing on the
prerogative of the Crown. His Lordshis wished
to postpone the evil day, by waiting until the
heir of the new Peer should put forward his claim
to a seat in that House, when the entire matter
would properly be taken into consideration. This
is to a certain extent in accordance with the view
expressed in our leading columns of yesterday, to
the effect that it was by no means improbable that
the Patent to Lord WENSLEYDALE might, notwith-
standing the limitation for the term of his natural
life, convey hereditary rank to the heirs general
of his body." It is, however, the more constitu-
tional and dignified
course to meet the danger at
its very inception, so that the SOVEREIGN may be
made fully aware of the possible consequences of
the act.

That there is a difficulty is manifest. We have
already pointed out its nature and extent. But
the remedy should proceed from parliament
itself from the united action of the three
estates of the realm, rather than from What
may possibly turn out to be the unconsti-
tutional exercise of a supposed prerogative
on the part of one branch only of the body. There

can be no reasons why a reform bill for th© House

of Peers should not be introduced as well as for

the Muse of Commous. The Crown may con-
sent to the limitation Of Ita unquestionable pre-

There is but on( ► other remedy for the acknow-
ledged evil of the I rant of Law Lords, which must
become far more glaring when those who now
confer honour an( I distinction on the House shall
be removed in the course of nature to an-
other world. Thai House must consent either to a
large and comproliensive measure of reform, or to
abandon its appellate jurisdiction as the Supreme
Tribunal of the Empire by which it has hitherto
so pertinaciously abided. This, as we have stated,
is the sole alternative ! It is one that legislative
wisdom must decide on. With the most affec-
tionate and loyal devotion to our present most
gracious and well-beloved SOVEREIGN, we feel
it an act of imperative duty towards the existing
and all future generations to resist until after
duo inquiry any extension of the Royal Preroga-
tive, which may possibly prove unconstitutional,
and would unquestionably form a very dangerous
precedent for the future.

The House of Commons last night refused, by
a majority of 91, to accede to the motion of the
Honourable and Gallant Member for Bath for
- granting a Select Committee to inquire into the
Naval Administration, Patronage, Promotions,
and Retirements, and the efficiency of the Service
in all its grades. We deeply regret this decision,
which is certainly opposed to the public
opinion strongly in favour of a stringent investi-
gation into a matter wherein the abuses have be-
come painfully notorious. The only tangible
ground en which the system of promotion by
purchase in the Army can be defended is, that it
is even less objectionable than the gross instances
of partiality and favouritism displayed in the
Navy. There the object is not to get " the right
man in the right place," or to give honour and
rank to 'the most meritorious candidates, but to
those who have the highestamount of Parliamentary
influence. We have witnessed the melancholy con-
sequences. 'While our sailors and junior officers
have displayed the utmost gallantry, and proved
themselves the worthy successors of those who
fought under NELSON and COLLINGWOOD, there is
certainly a lack of enterprise on the part of the
leaders. GOD forbid that we should for a mo-
ment disparage aristocratic sailors, who have so
frequently proved themselves true-hearted Eng-
lishmen ; but they do not in these respects differ
from others, and it is indeed a cruel anomaly
that while the average time of promotion from
the rank of Lieutenant to Post-Captain in the
fast or aristocratic list should be but 31 years,
that of their no less worthy competitors should be
ar more than quadruple the time.
The country are now deeply interested on the
all-important subject of naval and military pro-
motions. It is not satisfied with the existing
system, and it will enforce decided reforms despite
the red-tapist objections of the political Jack-of-
all-trades—Sir CHARLES WOOD—who now fills
the post of First Lord, without any qualifications
to fit him for the arduous and important duties
incidental to that truly national position.

Every one who enjoys the privileged memory
of an old playgoer—every one who can call to
mind the palmy days of the acted drama, "under
the consulship of PLaNcus," as Mr. TILACKERAY
bath it—when Lim); could wink a whole pitfull
into convulsions—when RICHARD JONES glittered
behind the footlights as the very paragon of
coxcombical elegance—when ROBERT WILLIAM
ELLISTON was at once the glory and the despair
of Light Comedians ! Every one who remembers,
as a thing of yesterday, the flushed and sparkling
features of CHARLES KENIBLE as Young Mirable
—the tragic rusticity of EMERY as Bob Tike—
the red wig of Little KNIGHT, and the girlish
laughter of Mrs. JORDAN, and MATHEWS the
Elder, with his Asmodean limp, and his grotesque
splutter, and his laughter-moving shrug of the
shoulders ! Every one who recollects the stage as
it was in the glorious old days—when, for Panto-
mime, GRIMALDI was Clown, and BARNES was Pan-
taloon, and ELLA?. was Harlequin—and for Farce,
there was Jaex REE'SES just stepped freshly upon
the boards literally to astonish the natives—and
for comedy, there was ABBOTT even for the minor
part of the walking gentleman—and for the loftiest
phases of the histrionic art, for the historical, the
tragical, the SIIAKSPERIAN, there was the won-
drous genius of EDMUND KEAN, with his single
name lighting up the elramatic hemisphere as
with a flaming meteor, or a galaxy, or a constel-
lation ! Every one who can individually call
to mind that memorable epoch, .when the fortunes
of the English stage were at their highest--
remembers, vividly and, as a matter of course,
remembers, MorrnEN, the inimitable MUNDEN, as
Old Dozey ! Remembers his drab overcoat
of innumerable capes and his lanthorn of
opaquest horn, remembers his purpl e nose
and his hiccup, his reeling boots and his drooping
eyelids, his snuzzling voice and his acquiescent
tautology ! How the sleeping, boozing Old CHAR-
LEY had nothing else to do all through the piece
but agree to everything ! Accuse him of being
this—" So he was ! So he was !" Charge him
with doing that—" So he did ! So he did !" It
was all one to him! Tax him with such aid such rascals
having made off after bribing him--"So they
had ! So they had !" The fellow was incorri-
gible—snoozing and snuffling—consistently ridi-
culous from first to last in his drowsyhead, his
goad humour, his dullness, and his monotony.
Altogether a knave as Dogberry describes one—
" Very tolerable and not to be endured." Well—

precisely what JOSEPH MUNDEN was as Old
Dozey in " Past Twelve o'Clock, " JOSEPH
BROTHERTON is as M.P. for Salford during the
happy reign of VICTORIA, upon the great political
stage on which the national drama is, at certain
seasons, nightly enacted at Westminster. We are
all familiar with the pars as performed by
Mr. BROTHERTON, session after session, to
empty benches—the Old Dozey of the House of
Commons ! It is the same thing all over again.
We know every syllable by heart. So that,
through repetition upon repetition, the thing has
at length become tedious to the very last degree
of tediousness. The latest representation of the

old farce of " Past Twelve 016 lock" being as re-
cently as Tuesday, the sth inst., when Old Dozey
was enacted once more in the old, old style by
Mrs. BROTHERTON—We beg pardon, by Mr. BRo-

TllERTON—before the usual " beggarly display of
empty benches," and amidst-the customary peals of

laughter. Mr. EwARr good-naturedly undertaking
tho subordinate part of supporter to the veteran
c"letlian. In which capacity, by the way, the lat-
ter gentleman not inaptly parodied (in allusion to
she Speaker, the Mon-bars, and the Clerks of the

rogative of creal ing any number of Peers at any
time whatsoever ; and a privilege of their Lord-
ships and if thei r successors might also be sur-
rendered in obed ienco to the will of the entire
Legislature. Th 13 Treaties of the Union of Scot-
land and Ireland constitute unexceptionable pre-
cedents on bot,) i points. The matter should,
therefore, form the foundation for a Peer-
age Reform Eh 1, which might be adopted
with no less benefit than the similar
measure relating to the representative branch
of the Legislature, :nearly a quarter of a century
ago.

House of Commons) those lines from the introduc-
tory book of COWPER'S "Task :"
" Sweet sleep enjoys the curate in his desk,
The tedious rector drawling o'er his head ;
And sweet the clerk below."
But the Member for Dumfries might have con-
tinued his quotation yet a little further ; changing
not onesyllable of the poet's reference to the sleep—
" Of lazy nurse who snores the sick man dead !"
in its application, for the nonce, to the House as
the " sick man," and to the " lazy nurse" as re-
presented by Mrs.—again we beg pardon—Mr.
BROTHERTON. Whereat, doubtless (supposing
him to have any sense whatever of the felicitous
in quotation), we can imagine the member for
Salford to have lisped in the words of the Sir
Fwedewick Blount of BULWER LYTTON'S "Money"
—" That fellow COWPER says vewy odd things !"
(adding in an under tone, and with an aside-scowl at
his seconder) " Humph !—it is beneath me to
quawwell." Finally, however, be it here observed
in reference to the old farce of Tuesday evening--
the old, old farce of " Past Twelve o'Clock," that
our comic Premier revived, in reference to the
OM Dozey of the House of Commons, the favou-
rite pastime of the Nobs in the grand old
fogified times under the Consulship of PLANCUS
—namely, that of—boxing a Charley ! The
member for Salford, in short, was again fairly
"shut up" by the agile jocularity of that very
nimble joke-master (uncle, through the mother's
side we suspect, that is to say, through the san-
guinous endowment, of the ancient family of the
Stiltstalkings to the " light-in-hand young Bar-
nacle," the " bright young Barnacle," the " touch-
and-go young Barnacle "of " Little Dorrit ") the
gay and perennial PALMERSTON !