The Sun.
London, England, 1834-11-08 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

It is probable that if an entire change of the persons
composing the English Ministry were to take place
to-morrow, the sensation produced by it would be
much less than at any period before the passing of the
Reform Bill ; because there is, in the relative position
of Government and people, a pretty secure guarantee
that the substitution of any one given number of
names for another would effect no material alteration in
the general policy of the State. Were even a Tory
Cabinet to be formed, with the least hope of remain-
ing for six months in office, it would not carry, nor
would it dare to attempt, any measures but such as
were approved by public opinion, which, if it has
been sometimes disappointed at the incompleteness of
those measures, whether introduced or accomplished
by the Reform Ministers, has seldom if ever been in-
sulted by Ministerial acts, directly and outrageously
in the teeth of it. In the same manner, though from
an opposite cause, a change of Ministry in France has
not for two years past been looked upon as an event
of any grave importance. The series of Cabinets
since Louis Philippe began to reign, has in number—
if we are not mistaken—exceeded that of any other
equal period since the restoration. There has been an
almost incessant shifting of seats and succession of per-
sons. Yet the tendency and principle of the Govern-
ment have never sensibly swerved. The march towards
military monarchy through civil tools and machinations
has experienced little, if any, interruption, because
with place there has not been a transfer of real power.
As with us, the more intelligent part of the nation is
essentially its own Minister. So in France the reign-
ing Monarch is his own Minister. The puppets may
have been new named and dressed, but it is the same
hand which has always pulled them. In neither coun-
try, without a remodelling of the present institutions—
of the English, by violence being done to liberty—or
of those of France, by violence coming in aid of liberty
—can a new list of names in the Gazette work any
substantial, much less any elementary, revolution in
the policy of the kingdom. Whether therefore Marshal
Soult; or Count Mole, or Marshal Gerard, be the new
Prime Minister, or let who will be in his tail, the whole
affair will, for the present, be little better or worse than
the transposition of personages in a pageant of gilded
pasteboard. The prompter and manager is the same.
As for Marshal Gerard, there is little to be said of
him, but that he has always been a brave and liberal
soldier, whose humanity needed not his late consistent
recommendation of an amnesty for its sponsor. Other-
wise, that is, in point of intellect, he never in his best
days was much above mediocrity, and at the siege of
Antwerp he was held to be already worn out. Among
the other members of the late Cabinet, Guizot is a
man of talent and learning ; and Thiers, a voluble
and ready debater ; but Guizot was a weak politician,
and it required a good deal more of talent than the lat-
ter of these gentlemen had credit for, to redeem him from
the species of reputation which his other qualities had
procured him. The people considered the whole set
individually (save only Gerard) with equal indif-
ference, though it is likely that unless the amnesty
which formed the key of the old Marshal's conduct be
made a present of by Louis Philippe to his successor,
the forthcoming Administration will be even more
unpopular than the one whose exit from office may
have been presumed to originate in the refusal of a
merciful and wholesome measure. Our correspondent
expatiates on the " apathy" of France at large to all
political occurrences. Is that apathy a fact beyond
dispute? We can hardly credit it. Brooding dis-
content will put on the semblance of apathy, and so
will desperation, when each but " bides its time."
Certainly there is no proof of public apathy in the
temper of the press, or in the reckless and inexorable
persecution of that great moral power by the Govern-
ment—a crusade against mind, as senseless as those
against the Saracens, and as barbarous as any freaks of
th Inquisition. Where no genuine indifference to the
proceedings or policy of a Goveaninent can be sup-
posed to exist amongst a spirited and restless people,
we hold that the semblance of it is far from a satifac-
tory phenomenon, but one which ought naturally to
inspire less confidence than fear. Perhaps a little time
may bring some solution of these debated questions.—
Times.

The erection of the new Houses of Parliament goes
on very rapidly, and will be roofed in a week. We
are glad to find that those in the direction of the work
have not to any extent laid the new work upon the
new foundations, of the stability of which there is no
doubt they were apprehensive. Those bases of the
Painted Chamber and the late House of Lords were
allowed to remain as when they supported the Palace
of the Confessor ; and it is the opinion of one of the
most competent men in the architectural profession, we
mean Mr. Adam Lee, that those parts are sound, and
fit to have a superstructure raised upon them. We
are glad to record this gentleman's opinion, because,
having been clerk of the works for twenty-five years,
it became a principal part of his duty to inspect every
portion of the structures under his care ; and with his
well-known capacity for such an office, joined to his
love of exploring the hidden treasures of that splendid
era which may be called the age of sound prin-
ciple, solid and beautiful architecture in England,
we rest satisfied that his opinion is a just one.
We have been thus careful in following up our
sources of information upon this very momentous
point, to gratify the wishes of several Members of
Parliament, and their families and friends, who are
naturally anxious to be truly informed as to the real
condition and chance of stability which the new camp
erections may possess, and because a great degree of
alarm exists in the public mind, arising from a total
want of confidence in the contrivances now on foot to
run up two Houses of Parliament, and therefore we
have instituted those inquiries that justice may be done
to every one concerned. This alarm, which so com-
pletely pervades all classes, must arise from the in-
stinctive but rational perceptions of the human mind,
one of the most useful properties with which man is
endowed, as by its instinctive power he is enabled to
foresee and avoid great dangers, without waiting for a
mathematical demonstration, which would probably
come too late to save his life ; but whether this great
apprehension of danger be fully justified, or only so in
a minor degree, we do say that a wise man would not
treat it lightly and whether it is decent or just to
persevere in the expenditure of the public money
upon contrivances which the public are of opinion
may become the tombs of both the legislative bo-
dies, " at one fell swoop," requires very serious con-
sideration. It is true that the danger may be overrated
in the public mind, but there it is fixed, and we doubt
much that it can be removed by what is now going on
upon the premises, and it must be allowed that in
all similar cases too much alarm cannot be injurious,
but too much confidence has often very deplorable re-
sults. The terror that exists upon this subject arises,
we believe, from the bad impression made by the reck-
less haste and manner in which those vampings have
been commenced upon the yet ignited ruins of the late
structures, and the indecent precipitation with which
this has been set about has quite destroyed all
confidence in the capacity and judgment of those en-
gaged in this hopeful project ; therefore, to persevere,
in the face of reason and conviction, to set up places
in which the Members that might attend would always
go " equipped for a start," seems to our finite judg-
ment sufficiently preposterous. With a profound ig-
norance of the worthy necromancers who intend, by a
golden shower, to raise suspected man-traps, we are
also quite at a loss in what quarter to direct the general
admiration to the Prospero, whose wand " can give to
airy nothings a local habitation and a name," but we
must find out this modest retiring Hamadryad, and
draw him from his sylvan retreats to feaq the longing
eyes of an admiring and grateful nation. But in the mean
while, we wish to call the particular attention of all the
persons. of taste and right feeling,whether in or out of Par-
'lament, to the state in which those splendid remains of
genius, science, and exquisite taste, are now left quite
neglected—to the fury of the elements—we mean St.
Stephen's Chapel, the Chapter House, and its beau-
teous Oratory, as well as the matchless cloisters which
surround the quadrangle between the Right Hon. the ,
S'peaker's: house and the late House of Commons.
When the ponderous and furiously ignited mass form-
ing the roof of St. Stephen's Chapel came thundering
down upon the ancient vaulted crypt, which is the roof
of -the Speaker's public dining room, an awful sound
WAS heard like what has keen described as issuing

from the caverns of Etna, and the earth around shook
to a considerable distance ; all feared that the crypt
was gone, but it was not so ; this massive, but elegant
structure, was built by men who understood the true
principles of mathematical and mechanical science,
and also of that other most important branch of archi-
tectural knowledge called " construction." In this
sense it may truly be said " there were giants in those
days ;" but in these days there are pigmies in archi-
tecture, with colossal conceit of their own dear
abilities, and the consequences are experienced an-
nually in wasteful expenditure and the tumbling down
of our modern public edifices ; and what is worse
even than that, is the indifference or malignant
feeling with which some, who are styled architects
par excellence, regard those transcendent monuments
of the golden age of architecture in England. We
hope such is not the feeling of any of the Court
architects now engaged in the vamping contrivances.
Yet why have not temporary roofs been placed over
those valuable buildings, and the rubbish with which
they are loaded cleared away ? " Oh, no," says one
of those learned Thebans, " it's the weight of the rub-
bish that keeps the ancient work from falling in."
By the same rule the heavier you load a horse the less
danger there is of breaking his back ! Having heard
Sir Oracle pronounce this paradox, we give it ; and
others can prove with us. After such a sample, what
shall we say of the quality of some public men's
brains ? The man, no doubt, was ignorant of the
principles upon which these beautiful and permanent
structures were formed ; and possibly might feel some
uneasiness at seeing them frowning with majestic
grandeur at the lath-and-plaster and pasteboard palaces
of modern days. We hope some Members of either
House, who have good taste and affection for those
beautiful objects, will use their influence and authority
to secure, for the present at least, those matchless
works of early British genius.—Morning Herald.

The Standard presumes very much on the ignorance
of its readers, when, in order to frighten us with the
immense display of force at the Down meeting, it
persists in making the numbers present 80,000. " The
Globe's correspondent (says the Standard) has the
front to assert that the Presbyterians of Ulster concur
with all the measures of the Irish government, except
, the education plan—that the Irish Presbyterians are in
fact Whigs, such as Whigs now are—and this in the
face of the Downshire meeting, at which, as the
Times knows, at least 40 or 50,000 persons, and
as we believe, nearly 80,000 persons, attended from
one county, to remonstrate against the measures
of the Whig government ! which 40 or 50,000
or 80,000, as the case way be, must have con-
tained a fair proportion of Presbyterians." We
have already demonstrated the absurdity of the
Standard's estimate. The county of Down, in 1831,
contained 352,571 inhabitants. Mr. Rickman's table
makes the proportion of male population, in 10
millions, between 15 and 60, just 2,681,000, or
26 per cent. of the whole—say one-fourth. The
whole male population of the county of Down between
infancy and decrepitude, amount only to 88,000—
about the Standard's estimate of the numbers present
at the Hillsborough meeting. Were all the tradesmen
that day at Hillsborough—all the masons, carpenters,
shoemakers, tailors, butchers, weavers, ploughmen,
publicans, shopkeepers, &c. &c. ? But we are told
the men were all as formidable as the heroes who
fought under Wellington at Waterloo. We will allow
nature to work wonders for the sake of the cause of
Protestantism in Ulster ; every man born shall be
brave, robust, fit to handle a broad-sword or charge
effectively with a musket and bayonet. However, age
circumscribes heroism ; and if we take the men be-
tween twenty and forty, they amount, out of ten mil-
lions, to 1,348,000 ; and that would give, for the
county of Down population, just 47,000 heroes. If we
take all between twenty and fifty, we shall only have
64,000 Protestant heroes. Really the Standard
ought to use its privilege of exaggerating with a little
more discretion. By making too much of the thing,
he only lowers what after all is, no doubt, a very formi-
dable body. The Dublin Evening. Post, alluding to
this subject, observes—" The Mail—but our contem-
porary is in these cases a most notorious bouncer—
says 75,000, be the same more or less—that is to say,
about ten thousand more than all the men of the county.
Saunders, another Orange authority, says 28,000.
The Northern Whig admits there was a great crowd,
but calculates the number at 10 or 12,000. This
agrees with our Hillsborough correspondent's account.
After all, it is matter of little consequence—a thousand
or two here or there—the matter is only mentioned for
the purpose of showing the brazen and silly exaggera-
tions of the faction." If 15,000 were present, that
was a great assemblage ; and we are sure that more
than 20,000 men could not in any case be brought to-
gether in the county. Down without drawing from the
neighbouring counties. The Standard says, and
says truly, that the Catholic system " erects within
society a human authority higher than the social
sovereignty." It is certainly true that the Church
of Rome lays claim to some of the attributes of tem-
poral sovereignty ; and we know that during the
French revolution, and the revolutions of the Penin-
sula, the influence of the Court of Rome was fre-
quently directed to excite opposition to measures to-
tally unconnected with religion itself—namely, mea-
sures of a purely temporal nature ; such as regulating
the share of public money which ought to be paid to
the clergy. So sensible are most Governments of the
difficulty of determining the exact boundaries of the
spiritual authority, that they have deemed it advisable
to enter into concordats with the Court of Rome. In
advocating the indispensable necessity of placing the
Catholics and Protestants on the same footing, and call-
ing out for a more equitable distribution of the ecclesi-
astical property of Ireland, we by no means wish to say
that we do think it would be advantageous to have all
the Irish Protestants. But Protestants they are not ;
without the interposition of a miracle, Protestants they
never will be. Besides, though it is natural that
a Protestant should be convinced that his religion is
better in a political sense than the Catholic religion,
that forms no valid reason for depriving the Catholic,
who thinks otherwise, of his right to equal justice.
The Catholic, it is clear, will only submit to the as-
cendancy, because he cannot successfully resist it.
And it becomes a question with the Protestant,
whether he would assert a superiority over his Catholic
fellow-citizen, which must be a constant cause of
animosity, merely because the claims of the Pope are
not in strict accordance with the rights of temporal
sovereignty, and there is a possibility that the Pope
may sometime or other use his influence against the
Government of this country. But, besides, the as-
cendancy claimed places the Catholic population in
precisely the situation in which the Court of Rome
has the greatest poWer over them. Were the most
perfect equality to prevail, and the State to make no
distinction in treatment between Catholic and Protes-
tant—to consider the ecclesiastical property a fund for
the payment of the clergy of both religions, accord-
ing to the extent of service rendered, the Catholic
clergy would have a powerful motive for support-
ing so just and equitable a Government. Who ever
heard of disaffection being strengthened by just and
equitable treatment ? It has been urged by the
Standard, which knows well the use that may be made
of abstractions, that no inference can be drawn in fa-
vour of the good conduct of the Catholics here from
their good conduct on the continent. " The Globe,"
it says "asks How does it happen that throughout
Germany, from Prussia down to Baden, Catholics can-
not be distinguished from Protestants in any func-
tion of citizens or subjects ?' Very strange, if they
could be distinguished in any function of citizens,
where all are stripped of every right of citizenship by an
overbearing despotism. No less strange if they could
be distinguished in any function of subjects, where all
subjects have but one, and that the lowest function—
implicit submission to an absolute prince. How does
it happen, again, that there is such harmony between
Protestant and Catholic Christians ? ' asks the Globe.
We reply by another question—How does it hap-
pen that galley slaves keep the stroke of the oar
so regularly, and pull so loyally together at the
commander's whistle ? The principle of harmony is
the same in both cases ; the same co-operative prin-
ciple,
which, in the shape of a good stout iron chain,
used, if it does not still, to combine and harmonize the
exertions of many good Roman Catholics, no doubt,
and some so-so Protestants and middling Jews,
.4

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1834

in the yards of Woolwich, Portsmouth, and Plymouth.
Under favour, we never wrote such nonsense as that
men, who are not masters of their conduct in the
smallest matter, contrary to the will of the Sovereign,
could be made, by the Roman Catholic superstition,
or any other superstition, to act against either their
Sovereign or their fellow-subjects. During the
greater part of the last century, the Roman Catholics
of Ireland were good friends, good neighbours, good
subjects, and good men—for exactly the same reason
that renders the Roman Catholics of Germany such at
present. Their hands were tied up from doing mischief
—their priests had, therefore, no motive for inspiring
them with evil dispositions." What is Despotism ?
Destutt de Tracy observes, " that the word despotic
designates an abuse, a vice which is more or less in all
Governments, because ail human institutions are im-
perfect, like their authors ; but it is not the name of
a particular form of society, of a particular kind of
Government. Wherever the established law is
without force, and yields to the will of one
man or of several, then we have despotism, op-
pression, abuse of authority." The late boroughmon-
gering oligarchy was not a despotism, because it go-
verned according to a law. The laws, indeed, were
made in its interest. The King of Prussia governs as
strictly according to law as the boroughmongers did;
the law is made for the interest of all. But he may
act otherwise—so might every government. In Prus-
sia, arms are in the hands of every man, and the people
obey the Government and are attached to it, because
they are satisfied that it is just and wise, liberal
and enlightened. A Representative Government,
like ours, would be better, such as ours will be
when we have settled accounts with the Lords,
because it provides better against possible abuses.
But it is an abuse of language to call a Govern-
ment despotic which strictly enforces the law, and
places arms in the hands of every subject. This
our boroughmongers durst not have done. Once
only they did it, for a short time, during the terror of
a foreign invasion. It is quite clear that Protestants
and Catholics live together peaceably in Germany, not
because the Government constrains both, but because
both are satisfied that it is for their advantage to be
on good terms with each other. There are, in the
case of Ireland, old hatreds from difference of race,
and the feeling of the one that they have profited by
wrong, and the other that they have suffered from
wrong ; and this gives fierceness to the religious dif-
ferences. But religious ascendancy will not dispose
the Catholics and Protestants to entertain more kindly
feelings towards each other. Force is the argument
of the Orangemen ; and that force unfortunately is to
be maintained at the expense of England.—Morning
Chronicle.

COURT OF CHANCERY, Nov. 7.

SHERRAT V. BENTLEY.

Mr. WRIGHT was heard in this case on tha part of the
heir-at-law, contending that the bequests were void from
uncertainty, and that the whole of the property must go as
if no will had been made.

dum on the back of the title deed, which he (Mr. Wilcox)
thought might be considered as implying in itself a declara-
tion of trust, or. as a contract to execute a deed, in terms
analogous to the memorandum itself. The Learned Gentle-
man then proceeded to refer to the evidence filed in support
of the plaintiff's case.
Mr. PEMBERTON, on behalf of the defendants, said, the
real question came to this :—First, whether it was estab-
lished to the satisfaction of the Court whether money
belonging to the plaintiff had been laid out in the purchase
of the George and Dragon ; and, secondly, whether the
plaintiff had a security upon the estate of the testator for
the amount of the money so laid out, giving to the creditors
the benefit of the improvements the testator had made. As
regarded the question of costs, he submitted that the de-
fendants had been brought here, and that they could not have
properly or conscientiously administered the trusts of the
will if they had paid the plaintiff her claim without first
taking the directions of the Court, consequently he hoped
that the costs of all parties would be paid out of the
general fund.
Judgment postponed.

COURT OF KING'•S BENCH, Nov. 7.

The LORD CHANCELLOR then gave judgment. The
question to be decided was whether a testator who had
given the whole of his property to his wife and her heirs
for ever in the first part of his will, and in a subsequent
part divided it among certain legatees at his wife's decease,
intended to give his wife the property absolutely, or only a
life estate. His Lordship, after taking an elaborate review
of the cases which bore on the point of contradictory be-
quests, was of opinion that the judgment of the Master of
the Rolls was right, and that the testator intended to give
his wife only a life estate. No doubt the will was drawn up
by a person who was worse than ignorant, for he knew how
to make use of the words " heirs, executors, and assigns,"
and the word " lapse," but he did not know how to use
them in their proper place ; and he had, therefore, done
much mischief and created great expense. If a man made
such foolish wills, his estate must pay for it ; and the costs
must, therefore, come out of the residue, and be as between
solicitor and client.

Mr. TINNEY having suggested that this latter part of the
order was somewhat contrary to the practice of the Court,
His LORDSHIP thought the costs should be, in common
justice, as between solicitor and client ; but he would see
the Vice-Chancellor about it before he decided the matter
finally.