The Sun.
London, England, 1856-05-29 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, MAY 29, 1866.

THE ILLUMINATIONS.

The greatest fools make the rarest chows !

We Lope that the evil consequences (yet to
come) of this patched up mock - Peace
may teach Posterity to beware of being
parties to such national humiliation in their day.
The once proud land of the Free is now betrayed
to Continental hypocrites, in order that a foreign
nobody of yesterday may be the future purveyor
of kindred despots :
" Trust not your freedom to the Franks ;
They have a King who buys and sells :
In native swords, and native rankg,
Your only hope of freedom dwells !"

The day of illumination for the bitter first
fruits of a mismanaged war has at last arrived.
And of all days in the year, as we took •ccasion
to notice last week, it is the anniversary of the
restoration of that debauched traitor, CHARLES
IL, who sold his people for French gold, and
suffered that glorious flag, which the genius of the
Great OLIVER and the enterprise of the heroic
BLAKE had elevated to the highest pinnacle of
renown, to be draggled in the mud—brought
England, in point of fact, to so sorry a pass
that a Dutch Admiral, with every circum-
stance of insult, swept the Channel, and,
sailing unimpeded up the Thames, menaced with
the thunder of his guns the safety of the me-
tropolis ! Royal Oak day ! Could there have
been a more appropriate day selected for the cele-
bration of a truce dictated and enforced by a con-
spiracy of foreign despots and domestic traitors !
Corporal NYM must have admired " the humour
of it " had that veteran conveyancer been still in
the land of the living.

" Sold again !" cried the sententious parrot over
the victim of a huckstering espousal. "Sold
again." Not all the guns in the Park will this
day be able to drown the ominous words, "SDld
again"—a thorough unmitigated "sell !" The
very artists employed by Government to furnish
designs for the illumination seem to have been
influenced by a consciousness of the fact. At
Somerset House, for instance, the wreath of
neional glory is painted-- waving feebly upward
from beneath the anchor in the salt ooze
where it lies drowned. Nevey was wit-

Bossed a greater poverty of invention, nor a
snore straggling array of paltry devices on the part
of private individuals. When the people of this
co•antry do rejoice they do so handsomely. The
inference is obviouQ, and the absence of all enthu-
siasm in the streets confirms it—everybody feels,
to a greater or less extent, we have been " sold
again." We are only surprised that the illumi-
nation at the Horse Guards is not in keeping with
that at Somerset House. The device there should
have been the Gallic Cock, in the act of crowing,
perched on tin shoulders of the British Lion,
muzzled. The motto of the Garter is, however,
well enough in its way. iloni soil qui mal y
pinse—evil be to him who evil thinks—in indi-
rect confession, as we take it, of guilt. S 3 poor,
in fact, is the display, and so little proof does
it afford of any rejoicing on the part of the
people, that were the Government designs with-
drawn there would be little more to be wituesse 1
than on an ordinary Birth-day.

The people are 'wiser than their rulers give
them credit for. What have they to - rejoice
over ? Rejoice, in May, orer a German Peace,
concluded in March ; a peace in the making of
which they had no say, and which was ratified
without the semblance of their concurrence. It
is bad enough to be sold ; it is intolerable to be
called upon to rejoice over such a bitter humilia-
tion ! The triumph is a German triumph, and a
triumph over, and not of, the people. Let
German hearts and German voices rejoice over it,
together with those grovelling traders who would
an readily illtiminate if the CZAR were in posses-
sion of Loudon. The population having to pay
for all, whether they like it or not, may choose
to witness the exhibitions which Government has
provided, but they neither will nor can do more.
Too many noble lives have been sacrificed, too
much national treasure has -
been- wasted, too
bitter a pill of national humiliation, has been
swallowed, to admit of that. Their forefathers
rejoiced (war great victories gloriously won, and.
followed by greaVresults. How should they rejoice
over a German Peace—over the stoppage of the
national arms, just` as a career of glory and sue-
...
ens) following °# 'a period of ever-memorable dis-
aster, was opened otl tcithpin ! The people have
not forgotten Agineoqt,,'Cressy, the victories of
the Peninsula, and the(iglorious 18th of June.
NELSON and hii achievements are not quite erased
from their recollection. Prince ALBERT has not
got them sufficiently Germanised for that. They
cannot rejoice. Not a few, indeed, are to be
found who go so far as to deplore the fact that her
MAJESTY'S Birthday should be celebrated on a day
characterised by so much national humiliation.-

L would, indeed, have been fortunate if the
irresponsible and secret directors of the Govern-
ment, and the responsible and avowed Ministers
had been as solicitous for the honour and welfare
of the United Yingdona as they showed them-
selves to be to prevent any humiliation, or loss
of powor.to :Russia. Had it been so we never
have hr dof '' the witertible Cuo.ANDoN