The Sun.
London, England, 1856-05-15 00:00:00

cations respecting matters finally arranged that
may %e vouchsafed `may itre GoVernment. The
position of France in the Roman States materi-
ally enhances the difficulty. To give weight to
her remonstrances, she should "come into court
with clean hands." She should " take her own
foot out of the boot" before she can consistently
require Austria to abandon her occupations,
which are intended to render her " the absolute
mistress of almost the whole of Italy, and to over-
throw the equilibrium established by the Treat 3
of Vienna." Piedmont at present offers " the
only counterpoise to her invading influence."
VICTOR EMSIANUEL is the champion of Italian
freedom. He has nobly stood forward at the
hour of trial, and for him there is no possibilit3
of retracing his footsteps. But he is also the
champion of order—the " impassable barrier to
the revolutionary spirit." Should the hope tha,
rests on his noble and disinterested efforts be
withdrawn, it is impossible to calculate the result:,
that might follow the democratic torrent, that
might overturn all the existing landmarks.
At present Sardinia is waiting for France and
for England. It is their imperative duty to take
the initiative, and to sustain the efforts of the
pioneer of Italian liberty. As yet there has been no
movement against any points except those in which
the chief aggressor is concerned. While the fatal
consequences of the occupation of the Legation
are so clearly depicted, nothing is said respecting
the no less inequitable occupation of Rome
itself. While the condition of States gar-
risoned by Austrian troops is expatiated on,
nothing has been ventilated altinst the abuses
prevailing in Naples. The benefits arising
from the Code Napoleon, and the policy of the
great Emperor in Italy are lauded, there are also
baits thrown out to Russia by the rejoicings at
" the re-establishment of the old intimate friend-
ship between the House of Savoy and the House
of Romanoff." These are significant points that
cannot be disregarded. It is manifest that the
Cabinet of Turin first seeks the assistance to which
it is so eminently entitled from the Western
Powers? but, if they fail, she has "another string
to her bow," to which she may resort in time of
need. As we have already stated, we have few
expectations of any real benefits 100 arise from the
spontaneous movements of the Governments of
France or England. Dynastic and Germanic in-
fluences are too potent for the time being. The
object is rather to crush than to extend freedom.
Nothing bub a well-organised and powerful pres-
, sure from without can establish the policy calcu-
lated to advance the honour of both countries,
and the welfare and prosperity of Europe.

them as for ono of her own Governments.
ALEXANDER and NICHOLAS were alike in one
thing, in perfect contempt of Prussia—we must
add in contempt of common honesty and veracity
also.

Perhaps this latter fact is the most important
of all to bear in mind just now. Count ORLOFF
has been blandly promising anything and every-
thing. Just a little resistance to be sure, and
even that might have been easily overcome about
Nicolaieff and the Circassian ports ; some resist-
mice was requisite lest the " conciliation and
frankness" of Russia might have been too trans-
parently mere verbal and parchment conciliation ;
hut in these Prussian Treaties, as in a hundred
others, we have the clear warning what
we are to expect. There probably never was a
nation, savage or civilised, so utterly destitute of
the sense of honour, so coldly unconcerned about
treaties or engagements as Russia. Her whole
history since she became a conquering—we cannot
say a civilised, power—has been of a piece in this
respect. Turks, Poles, Tartars, Persians—every
nation whom she has wronged, has shown some,
or even great regard to their word or bond.
Russia has shown none. We must conclude now,
as we did the whole War through, that a peace is
worthless which does not rest on the disabling of
Russia for further aggression. The power which
could unblushingly cancel four Commercial Treaties
even with Prussia, her accomplice in the Polish
robbery, and whose KING was the kinsman of her
CZAR—such a power will certainly throw the
Treaty of Paris in the fire as soon as it serves her
purpose.

But turning again to Prussia—is it to this
pitiable, helpless, nondescript power that we are
to be united by a royal marriage, and pay some
70,0001. a-year for the privilege ? A power which
France and Russia, whenever they like to unite,
can disintegrate by their opposite pressure in a
single year. A power botched together of frag-
ments with no cohesion but that of a common
censorship of the Press, a common surveillance,
and a common monarch with a standing army.
A power which begs leave to be of every great
power around her. We detest the Royal Mar-
riage Act, and if the two young people really wish
to marry by all means let them ; but if our
Royal marriages are to be Matters, as they are but
too likely to be, of political arrangement, there is
nothing to recommend Prussia. To a petty Ger-
man State it is, after all, no great degradation to
yield to conspicuously greater force, but for a
kingdom of the magnitude of Prussia to submit
to such treatment as we have described is a humi-
liation which places her in the lowest rank of
nations.

If we have wronged Prussia we must ask her
forgiveness. We confess that we had not inquired
very closely into the details of her connection
with Russia for the last forty years, or we might
have spoken with more commiseration than
anger. The leading facts of her commercial rela-
tions since the Treaty of Vienna, with her over-
bearing and faithless neighbour, have, however,
been just brought to light, and they present such
a picture of political helplessness as cannot well
be surpassed. No -petty state or Germany has
been more at the mercy of one of the two greater
States—none treated with more utter indifference
and contempt than Prussia by Russia. The
former has been the meek, uncomplaining JAcoe
in the hands of an insolent and fraudulent
LABAN, solemn commercial treaties having been,
not less than four times, changed or broken
without a word of notice. The Prussian
JACOB has not, however, had the good
luck and the cunning to steal off with a good
compensation from the tricking of the Russian
LABAN. Prussia still remains cheated out of
almost everything for which she has served
Russia by day and by night. Treaties are dry
things, and we will not go into details, but it is
worth the reader's while to see how utterly faith-
less Russia could be to Prussia, and how igno
miniously humble Prussia could be to Russia, and
that through forty years.
First in order was the Treaty of Vienna:
Russia at that time agreed to a Supplementary
Treaty with Prussia and Austria too, arranging
for liberal fiscal regulations between the whole of
what had ever been Poland and the two neigh-
bouring powers. This was in 1815. How long
does the reader suppose Russia kept that Treaty ?
Not a single year. In 1816 she issued a rigor-
ously prohibited tariff for the entire empire. The
old Polish provinces formed part of that empire ;
they were, therefore, withdrawn from the Treaty,
and Russia, in fact, refused to ratify the Treaty
which her Plenipotentiaries had agreed to.
Poor Prussia set to again to negotiate with true
German zeal, and by 1820 obtained the assent of
Russia to a passable Commercial Treaty and Tariff
for the two countries—it will hardly be beliqved
that this Treaty which came into force on the first
of January, 1820, was in less than two years and
a quarter entirely abrogated by a Russian ukase,
and a new prohibitive tariff enacted for the whole
of Russia and Poland.

A Bull led to the Sacrifice ! We all know per-
fectly well what that meant in the old classic days.
We know that it meant a grand, public, national,
politico-religious procession, with the victim con-
ducted in state to its doom by a chain of flowers,
fragrant and beautiful. Its hooves lacquered over
with gilding—its horns tipped with the same—
its head festooned with blossoms woven into gar-
lands and c3ronals—its carcase " larded o'er with
sweet flowers"—its tail, for aught we know,
tailed off yet more lengthily at the tip of it, with
a trailing train of clustering honours like the
tail of the schoolboy's kite, knots of cowslips and
pansies, bunches of roses and buttercups, posies
of violets and lilies, with, may be, an appropriate
tassle at the end of all, in the shape of a flower-
ing clump of rue. These odorous glories and
adornments closing, of course, with the inevitable
altar, the unavoidable knife, the pitiless high-
priest, the inexorable spectators, the blood and
the flames of the crowning immolation.

Well—precisely after the old mythologic fashion
—another BELL, whose Christian name is JOHN,
may be announced as nowadays pretty much in
the same plight. A BULL formally led to the
s:4crifice, under an aspect, however, a vast deal
more ridiculous. Thursday, the 29th instant, is
the day definitively fixed for the national festivi-
ties. Already, however, the sacrifice in the pre-
sent instance has been accomplished for the most
part beforehand. Already the " knife" has been
brandished to some effect in a two years' war to
it ! Already the blood has been spilt abun-
dantly, both actually and figuratively, with the
connivance on the one hand of the Secretary for
War, and on the other of the Chancellor of
the Exchequer. Thursday, the 29th, is simply
fixed as the day for a crowning spectacle of com-
memoration. JOHN BELL—as he has been so long
and so meekly—is then once more to be led forth
publicly by the nose "in the presence of Europe,"
as the tailors of Tooley-street might say, there to
be revealed to anybody's gaze who lists to look
upon a sight so verylamentable, under an aspect the
most supremely pitiable and ridiculous. Thinned
rather--poor fellow, after nourishing himself
for the last two or three years as he best could
upon food at war prices ! His purse lightened of
about 120,000,0001. over and above his ordina-
rily enormous expenditure ! His breeches pockets
for the time being fairly rifled, and afterwards
turned coolly inside out ! His coat of honest
broadcloth, showing its parti-coloured lining,
from having somehow or other been similarly
reversed ! His hat—formerly sleek as Friend
ST URGE'S, and broad-brimmed as his namesake
BRIGHT'S —lamentably touzled in the late scuffle
yonder in the Crimea : in other words, what is
called—"shocking bad !" A melancholy spec-
tacle altogether—this modern version of "A BULL
led to the sacrifice !" Festooned, not as in the
Pagan times, however, with flowers and ever-
greens—appropriate though the latter would
have been beyond all qUestionbut hung about,
poor knave, with brown paper squibs and crackers
plump with explosive bowels of gunpowder ! A
sight for the Gods—Yes, for the threepenny Gods
of the \Victoria Gallery ! For no more reputable
spectators surely—unless, indeed, with the bold-
est satiric effrontery, Her MAJESTY'S Minis-
ters point the moral of the War, and adorn
the tale of the Peace, by a grand tableau repre-
sentation (as we have here described it) of " A
Bull Led to the Sacrifice," in Green Park, in
Hyde Park, in Dublin, in Edinburgh, in each case
in the shape of a big Vauxhall transparency.
Then, but not otherwise,' there may be some grain
of sense in these preposterous fireworks, with their
accompanying charivari of flags, guns, bell-ring-
ings, and illuminations.

PREPARATION FOR THE
ENTOMBMENT.

A third time the ignored and insulted kingdom
ventures to expostulate. A nine years' Treaty of
very hard terms for Prussia was concluded in
1825. The gilding of the pill was a stipulation
that at the end of the nine years of commercial
servitude the libsral commercial principles to
which Russia's Plenipotentiaries had agreed in
1815, but which Russia so unceremoniously set
aside, should actually come into force. It is the
plain het that 1834 came, but with it nothing
for Prussia. She had ground in the mill in vain.
The Vienna,.arrangements were never permitted to
come into force ; and for the third time, the CZAR
taught the KING that treaties between Czars and
Kings were meant to bind the latter only, not the
former.

The SISYPHUS of Berlin, however—such was
his sentence—resumed his task. The stone this
time seemed to be making more hopeful progress.
Certain definite concessions were vouchs tfed by
Russia to Prussia by two ukases in 1842. They
were not yet fully in force, but appeared likely to
be carried out, when in 1851 PJlanil was fiscally
united with Russia, and the prohibitive system of
the Empire rigidly carried out. Since then no-
thing has been done. This fourth paternal act of
NICHOLAS seems to have put even Prussia out of
heart. It became evident that engagements with
her weighed not a feather in the scale. She was
hardly treated with so much consideration as would
have been
given to an acknowledged province of
the Russian Enipire.
These facts* be it be remembered, are not fur-
nished us by an enemy of Russia, but by a Com-
mittee of the Prussian Chambers ; in this Com-
mittee the Philo-Russians, though the stronger
party, could not refuse to state the simple his-
toric facts as they stood ; and the result is such a
narrative of 'shameless breaches of faith by Russia,
and of such timid submission on the part of Prus-
sia, as is no t easily to be paralleled in the history
of countries. pretending to anything like indepen-
dence. In no single case did it appear a matter
of the smallest concern to Russia that she had
come under written obligations to Prussia. Her
ukases were issued just as if Prussia were no more
to her than the Sandwich Islands ; or rather as if
ziw lad a 344 t,) 112,Q1.-W eaactiamati t,4 caucci

The Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lady Theresa
Lewis entertained, at dinner, at their residence, Kent
House, Knightsbridge, last evening, the Duke and
Duchess of Argyll, the Countess Dowager of Morley,
Viscount and Viscountess Godericb, Viscount Valletort,
Lady Harry Vane, Admiral Sir Edmund Lyons,
the Right. Hon. Robert Vernon Smith, M.P., and Mrs.
Smith, Mr. Panizzi, and the Right Hon. T. B. Macaulay.
Her Loyal Highness the Duchess of Kent visited the
Duchess of Gloucester, yesterday, at Gloucester House.
The Marquis of Dalhousie arrived at Claridge's Hotel,
yesterday afternoon, from Portsmouth, where his lord-
ship had landed on the previous day. The noble mar-
quis was accompanied by his daughter the Lady Susan
Ramsay.
The Marquis and Marchioness of Townsbend enter-
tained the Elrl and Countess Spencer, and a select circle,
at dinner, at their mansion, in Grosvenor•square.
Mrs. Manners Sutton's ball is fixed for Monday,
June 2.

Mr. and ISTrp. S. M. Boulderson have left Edwards'
Hotel, for 13
SZIZIO Flaw. righter.. Ir. Nel:oa has also left for the

THE stusi, LONDON THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 15, 1856.

his matured powers—he had reached the culmi-
nating point of his reputation. He had painted
his grand fresco of the " Last Supper." Carlo
Amoretti, in his Ilfeinorie Storiche sic la vita di
Lionardo, relates that in 1506, Da Vinci visited
France, a statement adopted by Mr. John Brown,
Leonardo's English biographer. Considerable
doubt, by the way, has been thrown upon the
reported visit of the great Florentine to Rome
in 1514—but, very little, indeed, upon this visit
of his to France in 1506, a visit, as we said,
mentioned by Amoretti, and accepted as a fact
by the English biographer. Whereas in regard
to the Roman journey of Leonardo in 1514, while
it is spoken of by Vasari, by Fabroni, by Ma-
riette, by Du Fresnoy, and by Amoretti, it is
not mentioned at all by Roscoe, by Sereno, by
Borghini, or by Baldassare ! Added to all which,
are incontrovertible proofs of a reciprocation of
kindly feeling between Louis XII. and Leonardo.
Louis bestowed a pension upon Leonardo, and
besides this, gave the latter certain rights in the
canals of Martesana—public works the artist him-
self had aided so largely in improving. Leonardo,
on the other hand, soon after Louis XII. had
taken forcible possession of the Duchy of Milan,
and had incarcerated Ludovico it Moro in the
Chateau de Loches, in Touraine, had gratified the
French monarch by presenting to him the por-
traits of two virgins, painted as then Da Vinci
alone could paint them—and, besides this, had
flattered the King most memorably by the fabri-
cation of his celebrated lion automaton ! Nothing
could be more_ consonant, therefore, with all this,
than that Leonardo should in 1506 (the date of
his first visit to France) have yet further grati-
fied Louis XII., by introducing that monarch's
portrait in the benevolent features of Joseph of
Arimathea, as well as the likeness of his Queen
Anne, of Brittany, in the beautiful countenance
of Mary Magdalene, humbly portraying himself
at the feet of the Lord in the kneeling form of
Nicodemus. Henceforth, therefore—coupling
these discovered portraits with the detected data,
initials, and monogram—we cannot but regard as
an undoubtedly authentic Leonardo da
this remarkable painting of the " Preparation for
the Entombment."

THE TRUE STORY OF THE SILENCING

OF THE BANDS.

All the world knows the story of Sir Walter Raleigh,
how, finding himself unable to get at the rights of a row
beneath his prison window, he began to moralise on the
presumption of men's pretending to write the history of
distant ages. The moral of this anecdote is, that every
one ought to exert himself to let the exact truth be
known regarding important incidents in contemporary
history. Under this impression we beg to offer a con-
tribution to the veritable history of the great contro-
versy about the Sunday bands in the Parks. Lord
Shaftesbury, with more regard to easthetical propriety
than exact truthfulness, has attributed to the Archbishop
of Canterbury the honour of converting Lord Palmerston
from the error of his ways. Now, in the eyes of Lord
Shaftesbury and his friends, this appears, no doubt, to
redound exclusively to the honour and glory of the
Archbishop. But when society is nearly equally divided
in opinion, such apotheoses have their inconveniences.
Malcontents are muttering satirical scoffs at the penitent
prostration of Henry IX. before the successor of Thomas
a'BecKett. Now, Lord Palinerston's reply some time
ago to the Presbytery of Edinburgh shows that he is
not the man to submit tamely to clerical dictation ;
and all who know the Archbishop of Canterbury
are aware that he is not likely to presume over-much
upon his sacerdotal authority. It may somewhat
sp sil the romance of the story, but truth compels us to
state that the mild and gentlemanly appeal to the Pre-
mier which importunities extorted from the Primate had
comparatively little to do with the ultimate decision of
the former respecting the bands. A much more power-
ful engine was brought into play. It is matter of noto-
riety that in the present nearly balanced state of parties
in the House of Commons, the votes of the friendly Scotch
members are indispensable to Lord Palmerston. And it
so happens that in the beginning of the week an irrup-
tion of the aggregate Scotch representation into the pre-
sence of the badgered and baited Premier was headed
by that most solemn of the Free Kirk leaders, the Lord
Advocate. From the solemnity of these legislative sages
it was obvious that, for a moment, the souls of Knox
and Cameron were burning within them ; that they
were a resuscitated " Westminster assembly of diviues."
Lord Palmerston, it seems, was bluntly told that um-
ivm, he immediately commanded Sir Benjamin Hall to
silence his bands, he could no longer count on a single
Scotch vote. The Premier might have defied the Arch-
bishop as he did the Presbytery, but to be left in a mi-
eor.ty in the House of Commons was a much more serious
matter than clerical censures, and he yielded with as
good a grace as be could. We put this fact upon record
simply from an abstract love of truth. We doubt whether
Londoners will be reconciled to the loss of their music by
learning that it has been suppressed at the dictate of a
class of theologians who will not tolerate an organ in
their churches either on Sunday or on week days. In
fact, the movement against the bands begins to wear the
appearance of a crusade against the art of music. In the
dreary lay sermon which has been put forth by Mr. Ed-
ward Baines, the arguments against musical perform.
ances for the delectation of numerous assemblies, if they
are of any weight at all, tell as conclusively against the
practice on any day of the week as on Sundays.