The Sun.
London, England, 1834-09-18 00:00:00

tion had floated onwards. We reprint the passage
with the introductory rebuke to the fanatics of faction,
the fire-brands of Conservatism :
" We have lived in extraordinary times, we have accom-
plished that which will secure the just rights of the people,
but in the accomplishment of that great work strong passions
were on all sides excited, which could not be expected all at once
to subside. On the one hand the impatience of abuse inspired
many with too heedless a desire to efreet greater and more ex-
tensive changes than necessity required, and perhaps to push
even salutary reform with a dangerous precipitation. On the
other hand, there were those with whom power long possessed,
now lost or curtailed, had left feelings of bitterness behind,
producing opposition to the most generally expressed wishes
of the people. I trust that the passions which have been
excited on both sides will speedily subside, and I rejoice in
the hope to see those feelings, succeeded on the one hand by
the good sense of the people, controlling excesses or violence,
and on the other hand, a necessary, though perhaps a late, con-
viction as to the necessity of inquiring into, and ultimately as
to the necessity of correcting, such abuses as the wants of the
age, and the increased intelligence of the times, require to be
removed. That is a hope that I will cherish, notwithstanding
many things that have passed of late—notwithstanding the
frantic declarations that we have recently heard made, not
only on the other side of the Irish Channel, but even in this
country, from men who would drive us to a destructive and
fatal conflict--from men `who know not what they do,'—
from men who do not see that even a temporary success
on their part (a thing that would be utterly impossible)
would not fail to entail consequences ultimately fatal both
to themselves and to the Constitution. On what hope is
this desperate courage, if courage it can be called, founded?
lam told that a reaction has taken place. It is pretended by
those persons that a change is at hand ; and indeed many of
them will tell you that such a change has already taken
place in the public opinion, that those who had engaged in the
cause of Reform see reason now to repent their error, that
they have renounced their former opinions, and that they are
ready to regret those reforms which have already occurred.
Reaction !' Vain and deluded men ! In what, let me ask, is
it that they see symptoms of such a state of things? Is it in
the approbation which has followed me, and which has been
so generally extended to me by my countrymen since my re-
tirement from office ? Is it to be found in those expressions of
regard and attachment which I have met with in every step on
my way to this place ? Is it to be found, lastly, in the meet-
ing of this day, which, whatever the vain imaginations of
some men may suggest to them as to a pretended re-action
in the public mind, would never have taken place if it
was not the result of a general feeling in favour of re-
form ? No, gentlemen, of the good sense and modera-
tion of the people of England and of Scotland—of their
attachment to a King who so well deserves all their love
--of their sincere conviction of the wholesomeness of that
form of government, the , work of a thousand years, by
which a larger share of liberty is now secured to them than
was ever known by any other nation in the world—of a peace-
able and orderly disposition amongst the people—of all these
things we may find symptoms enough every where evident to
all, except to those persons to whom I have been alluding, and
who are not, or will not be, convinced of any thing that runs
counter to their prejudices ;_ but of a reaction' of the advent of
that millennium so ardently desired by them—of the restoration
of that happy state of things when corruption flourished, and
when liberty was oppressed—of a reaction of that nature lam
sure that if those persons will look at any part of the country,
and take any meeting, great or small, as a sample, they will
find no symptoms that any rational man would regard as a proof
of a reaction in the public mind."
The'Chancellor s speech, in acknowledgment of a
toast in which he was prudently lumped with the other
Ministers, began with that formula which, mouthed as
it is upon every occasion, looks like loyalty burlesqued.
He would almost seem to be aiming at the ludicrous
effect of that eternal story of, " His Most Gracious
Majesty," told by the Lady Margaret Bellenden of
Tillytudlem, in Scott's romance. Like bad farce-
writers, the Chancellor raises a laugh by the mere
repetition of the same phrases. Lord Grey not
having touched on the causes of his resignation,
and Lord Brougham's presence must have sealed
his lips, the Chancellor had nothing to say on
that subject ; but in his catalogue of the things
he had not done, running thus, " I have deserted no
friend, I have abandoned no principle, I have done no
job, &c.,” is not included the assertion, I have ousted
no colleague. The rest of his speech was the mixture
as before, with the exception of the prussic acid for
us, and some abatement of the warmth. It is clear

that the learned Lord was under check, and felt that
the antics which could be played before the burgesses
of Inverness, and the good folks of Aberdeen and
Dundee, would have another reception in the company
assembled at Edinbuigh in honour of Earl Grey. Thus
we can report better behaviour. There was, however,
the boast as before, of what had been done, and the
apology, as before, for what had not been done ; and
the elaborate illustration of the undenied truism, that
folks " can't eat their cake and have their cake to eat ;"
and the lecture about deliberation, as if any human
being had charged the miscarriages of the Ministry to
deliberation. The various changes in the Irish Tithes
Bill, ending, after various mutations, with the thump-
ing boon to the landlords, were not imputed to delibera-
tions. Mr. Littleton's communication with O'Connell
was not condemned as an act of deliberation. The Dis-
senters' Marriage Bill was not supposed to be a fault
of deliberation. The Church Rates' Bill was not
spurned as a result of deliberation. Deliberation is
not idling for eleven hours, and making a blunder of
haste in the twelfth. Delay is not deliberation. The
Chancellor has made the notable discovery that delay
is good in appeal cases ; but we suppose he does, not
give it the name of deliberation, or, if he does, Magna
Charta does not, for it expressly provides against the
delay of justice. The last thing to be traced, indeed,
in the measures of the past session is deliberation.
Everything except the Poor Bill, which was anxiously
hatched by those whom it was to victual, had the ap-
pearance of having been thrust off to the last hour,
and then huddled together and bundled into the House
in any shape that could be given to it. If there was
deliberation in the Cabinet, it was the deliberation of
the profound sages of Laputa. Lord Durham excel-
lently , remarked on that part of Lord Brougham's
speech which is a convenient apology for trimming, or
for doing the smallest possible good in the greatest
possible time. We think that the Chancellor must

have looked rather foolish under the able and spirited
reply :
" My Noble and Learned Friend. (Lord Brougham) has
been pleased to give some advice, which I have no doubt he
deems very sound, to some classes of persons—l know none
such—who evince too strong a desire to get rid of ancient
abuses, and fretful impatience in awaiting the remedies of
then'. Now I frankly confess that lam one of those persons
who see with regret every hour which passes over the exist-
ence of recognized and unreformed abuses. I am, however,
perfectly willing to accept the correction of them as delibe-
rately as our rulers, and my Noble Friend among them can
wish, but on one condition, and on one condition alone—that
every measure should be proposed in conformity with those
principles for which we all contend. I object to the compro-
mise of opinions, not to the deliberation of what they should
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advantage, by pointing out the inconsistencies of which
you are guilty in abandoning your friends and your prin-
ciples, and attribute the discontent felt on this score to the
decay or dearth of liberal principles. Against such policy, I,
for one, enter my protest, as pregnant with mischief—as creat-
ing discontent where enthusiasm would otherwise exist—as
exciting vague hopes in the bosoms of our adversaries which
can never be realized, and as placing weapons in the hands of
those who use them to the destruction of our best interests.
With this candid explanation, with this free exposition of my
principles, which I have never concealed in any position in
which I have been placed, I am ready to grant the utmost
extent of deliberation to my noble and learned friend which he
has called for this night, and which, when given under such
conditions, will calm the discontent which has recently pre-
vailed."
We must not omit to observe that there was one
thing besides those we have instanced which the
Chancellor took care not to repeat in the presence of
Lord Grey and his son-in-law, and that is the opinion
that too much rather than too little had been done in
the last two sessions.—Times.