The Sun.
London, England, 1834-11-19 00:00:00

quired. In that character he has hitherto been on all
occasions as much behind the spirit of the age, as on
the field of battle he has ever been in advance of all
foes and competitors. While we admire and partake
of the Duke's attachment to the institutions of the
country, in mistaking salutary and timely reform for re-
volution, he has uniformly postponed the one till he
brought the country in danger of the other. Since the
Duke of Wellington last presided at the helm of public
affairs, he has had more both to learn and to unlearn
than any man who ever reached so high an eminence.
We are not without hope that the interval may have
been passed by his Grace in so drilling and disciplining
his mind, as to enable him to become as eminent in
council as in the field. Should such be the case—
should the Duke be found willing and prepared to
carry out the necessary results of the Reform Bill in
its true spirit, the country will hail his return to office
with alacrity and confidence—with a confidence not a
little enhanced by the conviction that in his hands
the ancient landmarks and buttresses of the Constitu-
tion will be safe from wanton innovation. In no other
spirit, in no other tone, can the Duke of Welling-
ton's Administration stand. As an earnest then of
what that spirit will be, the country will, in the first
instance, naturally look with anxiety to the persons of
whom his Grace's Cabinet is to be composed. Perhaps
it is fortunate both for the Duke and for the country
that, owing to peculiar circumstances, those arrange-
ments cannot be made in haste, but must await the re-
turn from abroad of more than one of the persons to be
either consulted or included in them. Ihis will give
the new Premier breathing time. It will give him time
to take counsel not only from his own mind, but from
the state of public opinion, in the teeth of which no
man can long hope to govern in this country. In the
mean time much may be done to propitiate and to in-
fluence that opinion. Let the Duke of Wellington,
for instance, lose not a moment in disclaiming and dis-
carding the errors of his predecessors—let him begin
in Ireland, that fatal scene of Whig and Tory misrule.
We hear that Lord Resslyn is destined to replace the
Marquis of Wellesley, and Sir Charles Wetherell,
Lord Plunket. We give these merely as among the
rumours of the day. But this we know, that no part
of the kingdom presents such a field for a Statesman
to distinguish himself upon as Ireland—none where
‘, golden opinions" may be so readily gathered, and
where an earnest of good Government can have a
wider influence on the confidence of the whole com-
munity.—Morning Herald.

An evening paper of yesterday inserted a list of
supposed appointments under the Duke of Wellington,
for which there was, we take upon ourselves to state
positively, but without meaning the slightest disrespect
to our contemporary, no shadow of foundation. We
have the strongest reason to believe that not one ap-
pointment has been made the Duke, either to Cabi-
net or other office, and that none will be made or intimated
until Sir Robert Peel's return. It is even possible that
the Right Honourable Baronet may supersede the
Duke of Wellington as First Lord of the Treasury,
the latter accepting some inferior post. No doubt
it is possible, and even probable, that some of the
persons distinguished by the Courier may within
a fcrtnight have places in the new Ministry. All we
mean to contend for is, that with the exception of the
Duke himself, the whole is at this moment a carte
blanche, without a single name inscribed upon it. It
may be hoped, moreover, that in arranging the Cabi-
net it will not be so crammed to suffocation as it has
been during the greater portion of the last thirty years.
Fourteen or fifteen members are too many by half for
the business of close, deep, and difficult consultation.
A Cabinet so crowded degenerates into a debating
club, and calm decision becomes no less impracticable
than the necessary secrecy. Seven, eight, or at most nine
members, ought to be the limit of such a Council. For
it is not with the combination of brains, as of bankers,
—numbers in the former class of partnerships (.10
not always add to the safety of the firm. Mr. Pitt's
Cabinet for many years did not, if we remember
right, contain more than seven members ; so that the
Right Honourable Gentleman's objection to " count-
ing noses" was not caused by the labour of the pro-
cess. But a. party so completely organised and disci-
plined as that which the Duke of Wellington com-
mands, presents fewer embarrassments than other
Ministers have had to deal with in the formation of a
Cabinet. There is less confusion of ranks, less con-
flict of aspiring and unweighed pretensions, less divi-
sion of interests, less untried comparison of persons.
Waving all reference to political principles good or bad,
the party mechanism of the Conservatives is far more
workman-like than that of their reformist rivals. It
may, we apprehend, be said of each respectively, that
their four years' possession of office must have im-
proved the administrative talents of the Whigs, while
the exclusion of the Wellingtons during the same pe-
riod has probably tended to enlarge their views, and
familiarised them more with the value of general prin-
ciples towards directing the affairs of nations.—Times.

The Lord Mayor, it will be seen, has refused to
accede to the requisition of Messrs. Taylor, Galloway,
and Co., for the assembling of a Common Council.
The first reason he assigned for his refusal was de-
cidedly bad. The second may, for aught we know,
be good ; but as we are unlearned in the mysteries of
civic etiquette, we are not competent to form an opinion
on the subject. We regret, however, exceedingly,
that the " general alarmists" should be delayed a single
hour in demonstrating to the country that the farce
they have in rehearsal will not succeed. By the way,
who was it that first pulled these puppets ? Can it be
true that on Saturday or Sunday last Lord Brougham
sent to Mr. Galloway and urged him, by every means
in his power, to get together political unions, meetings
of the Common Council, and of other bodies of men,
which would be likely to worry the Duke's adminis-
tration ? We ask merely for information. Such a report
is very rife in the city, and it has, we are told, received
much encouragement from two other circumstances
besides the requisition of a Guildhall rump. The
first is the attempt to revive a Political Union at the
Crown and Anchor, where, it appears, the proceedings
will not bear the light, and therefore reporters are ex-
cluded. The second is the rather inexplicable con-
duct of Lord Brougham, who continues to hear new
cases in spite of the indignation he expressed at the
bare supposition that he would condescend to hold
the seal one moment longer than was necessary. lll-
natured people have supposed that his Lordship wants
to gain time for the operations of his friends the " ge-
neral alarmists," and we have even heard the lines of
Prior applied to him—
" He fitted the halter, and travers'd the cart,

And often took leave, yet seemed loth to depart."
In truth they are not inapplicable, for there is as
little option in Lord Brougham's case as there was in
the other's ; and in sober seriousness, is it not self-de-
gradation of the lowest and the most pitiful character
in the ex-Chancellor, to pretend that he would be suf-
fered to hold the Great Seal for more than a few short
days to come, even if he were to beg for it on his
bended knees ?—Times.

The income for the past year of the Wesleyan Mis-
sionary Society was 54,767/. 9s. 7d. ; of the London Society,
45,175/. 4s. Sd.—Sheifield Mercury.

Sunday night, the bottle containing the various
coins of the realm, and other things, deposited about four
months ago in the foundation-stone of the public offices now
being built at Hamilton, as a bonne bouche for the antiquaries
of future years, was carried away. The bottle was laid in the
base or foundation of one of the columns of the building, and
was covered with a heavy stone and firmly battened down with
iron.—Scotch Paper. [The abstraction of matters thus depo-
sited is probably less uncommon than the depositors imagine.]
ACOUSTIC CHAIR.—This invention is of the size
of a large library chair, with a high back, to which are affixed
two barrels for sound, and at the extremity of each is a perfo-
rated plate, that collects sound, into a paraboloid vase, from
every part of the room, and impresses it more sensibly on the
ea-, by giving it only a small quantity of air. The converse
end of the vase serves to reflect the voice, and to render it
more distinct. By means of sufficient tubes, this chair might
be made to convey intelligence from St. James's to the Houses
of Lords and Commons, and even from London to the King at
Windsor. Marvellous as this may seem, the idea is not a no-
velty ; it is but another confirmation of the saying of Solo-
mon, that there is nothing new under the sun. M. Itard, in
his excellent work on the ear, tells us that Aristotle (who was
physician to Alexander the Great) invented a trumpet for his
master which was capable of conveying orders to his generals
at the distance of 100 stadia, equal to rather more than twelve
miles. And I may remark, bearing in mind, too, that both
Alcmeon and Hippocrates are said to have invented ear.
trumpets, that the ancients do not seem to have been so igno-
rant of acoustics as some in our day have represented them.—
Curtia on Hearing.