The Sun.
London, England, 1869-05-27 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 27, 1869.

ought to be suspected. lam convinced that after a
little reflection you will regret the step you have
taken." Than this remonstrance nothing surely could
be more dignified or more temperate. We shall be
curious to observe how it will be responded to by its
distinguished recipient. Not only has the indignation
of M. BALAGNY, the mayor of the arrondissement of the
Batignolles, been excited by this extraordinary pro-
ceeding on the part of M. THIEns, but the incident
is said to have produced an exceedingly unpleasant
impression (and no wonder 1) upon the National
Guard on duty at the Mairie. Bear in mind, more-
over, the fact, that the result of the first ballot
has so far proved unfavourable to M. THIEP.S
that, although placing him at the head
of the list of candidates voted for in the Second Cir-
cumscription, by reason of his having obtained
13,333 suffrages out of the 32,683 electors making
up the aggregate of the constituency, it still leaves
him 3,009 below the required absolute majority of
16;342! Bear that in mind, and it may be under-
stood at once how very iurliscrectly M. THIERS has
acted. With a fresh ballot before him, he has wan-
tonly and evidently quite causelessly awakened this
angry feeling, not simply in the mind of the
Mayor of Batignolles, but among the National
Guard of the arrondissement. It is to
be hoped that it may not prove fatal to his interests
in the new election now immediately impending.
'Whatever may be the numerical strength, or rather
weakness, of the Oppositio❑ in the Corps Legislatif,
there cannot be two opinions as to its force in-
tellectually, any more than there can be an in-
stant's doubt as to the formidable character it de-
rives from the glaring fact that it is a direct emana-
nation from Paris and from the other leading consti-
tuencies. This is a fact which we are certain is
thoroughly appreciated throughout Europe, and by
no one in Europe more thoroughly than by his Ma-
jesty the Emperor NAPOLEON 111.

THE word of command has been given, and meet-
ings are being held up and down the country in
order to screw the courage of the Peers up to the
fighting point. The meeting at Belfast has just
been succeeded by one at Birmingham, and
both were distinguished by a fine display of
Kentish fire and bad logic. That very respectable
nobleman the Earl of HAnnowßY presided at
the English gathering, and he was followed
by Mr. NEWDEGATE, M.P., Mr. CHARLEY, 111. P.,
Mr. LLOYD, and Dr. EVANS, the defeated candi-
dates at the general election, and a certain
Mr. BREWIN GRANT, who is just now the
hero of a storm in a teacup. One member of
the Upper House, two members and two would-be
members of the Lower House, and a Dissenting
minister who has quarrelled with his co-religionists,
are not a very formidable phalanx. The Lords are
scarcely likely to mistake this " demonstra-
tion " as the voice of Birmingham, still less as
the voice of England. If the Opposition cannot do
better than this they will be wise in refraining
from any further demonstrations. The only thing
they demonstrate is the smallness and the insigni-
ficance of the Opposition.

" LOST, somewhere between Mercury and Saturn,
a balloon., Any comet giving such information as
will lead to the recovery of the said balloon, shall be
handsomely rewarded." Did our readers chance to
notice this announcement in any of yesterday's
papers ? A " captive balloon " has for some days
past been soaring above the chimneys of London.
Every afternoon it has been cheated with the
pretence of freedom. It has been allowed to rise to
a certain height, but its upward progress has
always been checked by ropes. On Tuesday,
favoured by a strong wind, it burst its
bonds and shot aloft. All night it went
joyously careering through the heavens like *" a
rejoicing native of the infinite," to quote " Testus "
BAILEY. All night it cleft the clouds, and laughed
at the rain, and went dodging about through the
constellations, taking care to avoid collision with
meteors, and to escape entanglement in comets' tails.
There was no one in it, n o one to check this triumphant
march by pulling at valve-strings. What fun it
would have been if there had been just one person
inside, or say two—a pair of lovers, for instance—
blissfully ignorant of balloon management, and
carried hither and thither among the planets and
tho stare, whither they hart nn nf ten gnareil
together in imagination. Only fancy their feelings
in being thus transported beyond this sordid, mun-
dane, commonplace region into the infinite abyss of
light and joy. A little cold, perhaps, now and then ;
but it is only to go a few thousand miles nearer the
sun to get warm again. Rather hungry work, do
you say ? Who would think of eating and drinking
when listening to the music of the spheres ? Or
supposing it had been Mr. CARLYLE who,
tempted by the near proximity of the
captive balloon to his Chelsea home, had seated
himself in the car. What an opportunity for making
acquaintance with the " silences " and the " immen-
sities " and the " eternities "—and what a story he
would have had to tell on his descent, supposing he
ever did descend ! Even his German-English would
be inadequate to the telling of it. He would have
had to invent some new linguistic combina-
tion compared to which " Sartor Resartus " would be
easy and pleasant reading. What an opportunity
has been lost ! If poor EDGAR ALLAN POE had been
alive he would not have lost it.

„__, ,!•:,,,_ twwialtat
it t
ii,V

HER MAJESTY.

BALXORAL, May 24.
This being her Majesty's 50th birthday she spent
it quietly with the Royal Family.
Her Majesty invested Prince Arthur with the
Order of the Thistle, and Prince Leopold with the
Garter.

The Prince and Princess of Wales went to
Epsom races yesterday.

THE LATE SIR WENTWORTH DILKE.—We be-
lieve that the remains of the late Sir Wentworth Dilke
will reach London, from St. Petersburg, on Friday, and
that the interment will take place at the lionsal-green
Cemetery, on Monday, at 12 o'clock.

It appears that the report last Saturday of the
arrival of the Essex from Australia with £72,000
was erroneous. She has been 88 days out, detained
most probably by the easterly winds lately preva-
lent.

ROSSINI'S LAST WORK.—AII the world, musical
and otherwise, are crowding, in Paris and London, to
listen to Rossini's last great work, the "MesseSolennelle."
In regard to this sublime production (the farewell to his
divine art by its illustrious composer), there has, for ob-
vious reasons, been fierce contention. All the music pub-
lishers have been iu the field about it. Very large sums
are spoken of as having been paid even for limited copy-
right. The important house of Rieordi and Co., music
publishers of Milan, triad Ullman (another well-known
speculator), whose large ventures, and larger success, are
well known, have competed. Sums like 7.5,000 f., 95,000 f.,
and 170,000 f. are mentioned as paid for proprietary rights
in different directions. It is now definitely understood
that this great work is secured for England, the
proprietor of the copyright (for purposes of publication in
England) being Mr. Thomas Chappell. Rossini's Mass
has been produced by the directors of the United Opera,
London, in a locale (St. James's Hall), that will lend to
this "Mess() Solennelle," its due effects of fullest majesty.
Nothing will therefore exceed tho interest that will attach
to this great production when illustraaed by the talents
of the first' vocal artistes ; when the choruses are sung by
a body of choristers who are unrivalled ;, and when the
grand orchestral effects rest in the hands of the fine band
belonging to the Royal Italian Opera. We really think
that we supply (in the above) must welcome news to all
music loveYs'in this country. Aud such we are sure will
be admitted.

LITERATURE.

Familiar Quotations. One Vol. Pp. 524. George
Routledge.

The compiler of this very excellent gathering to-
gether of Familiar Quotations, Mr. John Bartlett,
may be congratulated. It is beyond any question
the best collection of the kind wehave ever examined.
It is the most copious, the most accurate, and the most
admirably well-arranged compendium of " Familiar
Quotations," to our thinking, that has ever yet
been published. "Passages and Phrases in Com-
mon Use" is the sub-title of the book. The words,
in effect, here given in inverted commas, are taken
from Mr. Bartlett's title-page. To say that the
volume embraces within it all such phrases
and passages would be, of course, to write
an obvious absurdity. An absolutely complete
collection must always remain a result to be
aimed at, never to be accomplished. Supposing
the work to run through any number of editions,
each edition being revised and added to with every
conceivable amount of care—something, we may
be certain, must still remain forgotten or over-
looked, in spite of all the energy and all
the caution of the original compiler or of
his successors. One distinguishing peculiarity of
the collection here under notice is this, that
it is accompanied by an Index so considerable that
any passage or phrase in the volume can be turned
to at once with the utmost facility. How consi-
derable the Index is, may be best indicated perhaps
by our mentioning the fact that out of the 524
pages making up the book, nearly i'oo are devoted
simply to that same Index. In point of fact, there
are 174 pages of Index to 350 pages of Quotations.
Whenever a reader wants to trace home to its right
author any familiar phrase, any familiar line, any
familiar passage, whether of prose or poetry, he
has but to turn to the alphabetical Index here pro-
vided for him by Mr. Barlett, and the page in the
book in which it may be found wid be indicated
upon the instant, The volume is as acceptable
an addition to any library in the laud as the
new number of Bradshaw, with all its faults, is to
a Railway Traveller, or as Ahirray is to any tra-
veler on the American Continent. Bartlett's
Familiar Quotations in effect is a handbook to all
that is best, or at any rate, to all that is most epi-
gramatically felicitious in English Literature.

GOLDEN LEISURES—CasseII, Petter, and Galpia.
—A graceful little brochure, so entitled, compris-
ing within it ten harmonious fragments of verso,
and numbering altogether less than thirty pages of
letterpress, here brings to us, evidently enough, the
first effusions of a sensiti ye and poetical tern petatnent.
It is a promise, not a fulfilment. It is a harbinger,
like the earliest budding of a young tree in spring.
The writer disdains to appear anonymously, a❑d
therefore unaffectedly inscribes his name upon his
title-page, as William Gordon Smythies. The
superscription he has chosen is explained by the
very motto on the title-page—namely, these three
melodious lines from Longfellow :

" 0 my songs! whose ;velcoma measures
Filled my heart with secret rapture !
Children of my golden leisares !"
A. beautiful green nook in Gloucestershire gives its
name—" Bisley"—to the first piece in the little
pamphlet; a poem inscribed, under date 29th July,
1863, to the widow of the venerated author of
"The Christian Year." The sorrowful atnr2sphere
of death breathes throughout the remainder—as
evidence the very titles of some—" Take Them !''
" Adteul" " Gone Home !" " Consolation !" again,
is the heading to some lines on the death
of J. H. G., dead in Australia. Another,
the second piece, is an eulogistic memento of Charles
Kean, the Tragedian. "At Last" has reference to
one beloved but long passed away. " Springtime,"
apparently a more hopeful title, in its penultimate
stanza utters the lamentation—
" I see again that sunny Spring
When with suspended breath,
I saw her spirit take its wing
Into the realms of death."
" The Old Letter," also, is suggestive of the ejacu-
lation—.

" Oh, thou dearly loved old letter,
Thou art crumbling into dust !
As the hand that wrote thee has done
As the hand now writing—must."

Even when the writer chauntsa Hymn, to the re-
frain " Trust in God," one of his earliest adjurations
is to the effect—

" "When the friends you love and cherish,
In your heart's deep inmost core,
Die or let their f riendship perish,
And are friends to you no more—

Trust in God."
Death, or rather the sense of death, so pervades the
whole, that, vernal though these lines are, it is as if
there were the canker of death upon each of them.
'There is enough of pron"*." Future, however,
in them all, to admit of our hoping for happier re-
sults from the next budding, or, better still, from a
later efflorescence.

7HE RULE OF THE ROAD AT SEA.

away to the southward. This finding and sentence
were ordered to be read on board all her Majesty's
ships in commission.
If such is to remain the law, I can only say that
the seas will not be navigable.—Yours obediently,
WILLIAM STIRLING LACON.
London, 25th May, 1869.

LATEST INTELL MENGE

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

AMERICA.
NEW YORK, May 26.
The National Steamship France arrived out to-

COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE.
CLOSING PRICES.

Gold closed at 1391 ; the highest quotation dur-
ing the day was 1401; the lowest, 1391.
Sterling Exchange on London lO9B.
5-20 U. S. Bonds, 188') 1.311.
" 1885 ll7l.
4t " 1867 llBl.
10-40 64
Illinois
Erie 2Bg.
Cotton—Mid. upland 2Bllc.
Petroleum—Standard White 3lc.
Flour, extra state, $5.70c. to $6.30c. Corn, old
mixed, 96c.
QUEENSTOWN, May 27.

The National Steamship Company's steamship
Helvetia, from New York, arrived here at 7 a.m
to-day. She landed passengers, and proceeded for
Liverpool. All well.
The Guion steamship Idaho arrived here from
Liverpool at 8 a.m. to-day, embarked passengers,
and sailed at 11.30 a.m. for New York. All well.

BOMBAY, May 25.

Official reports from Peshawur state that the
Ameer Badukshau was collecting an army of 4,000
men in the interest of Shere Ali, hoping to subdue
Turkestan without the assistance of the latter.

Shere Ali reached Cabul on the 10th inst., and
had au interview with Yakoob Khan in the presence
of all the Sirdars and the army.

Rumours have come from Bokhara to the effect
that the Russians were moving against Kokhand
and Colub (?)