The Sun.
London, England, 1869-06-28 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING,' JUNE 28, 1869

and exceptional opportunity of bringing once more
together, in a very public manner, and with all be-
fitting splendour, the English People and the Eng-
lish SOVEREIGN. Since the death of the PRINCE
CONSORT, Her MAJESTY has never appeared
before her loyal subjects with any such
Royal pageantry as was in attendance
upon her throughout the proceedings on
Saturday. It was like the restoration of her MA-
JESTY to the people from whom, by her protracted
retirement, she has been so long estranged. And the
event was welcomed, accordingly, with enthusiasm.
It mattered comparatively little that the number of
the troops reviewed upon the occasion barely exceeded
an aggregate of five thousand. The occasion itself
was everything. And 5,000 were as good as 50,000,
for inasmuch as they afforded the Host and the Guest,
the QUEEN and her Lieges, the wished-for opportunity.
Besides, when we looked to the manoeuvring of those
5,000 troops on the verdant and level greensward of
Windsor Great Park—in the well-known open
space lying between Queen ANNE'S Ride and
the Long Walk —a review-ground unmatched
for beauty, and girdled all round by, the
loveliest framework for such a picture as that, a leafy
wall or bordering of umbrageous elms now in their
thickest foliage--one could find nothing wanting,
there, to the view, even regarding it simply and
solely as a military spectacle. A larger number of
troops than were there, assembled would only have
crowded the particular spot we are referring to as
the arena selected for Saturday's review, and would
certainly have added nothing to the completeness of
the whole display as a military demonstration. In-
fantry, cavalry, and artillery were there in their very
perfection. Horse, foot, and guns were all " picked"
out of the QUEEN'S army, as examplars of its efficiency
and of its discipline. There were the Ist and 2d Life
Guards, there were the Royal Horse Guards, the Royal
Artillery and the Royal Horse Artillery, there were the
Grenadier Guards of the 2d and 3rd battalions, the
Coldstream Guards of the Ist and 2nd battalions,
and the Scots Fusilier Guards of the Ist and 2nd bat-
talions—comprising, in all, 5,051 men and 1,045
horses, the former consisting of 266 officers and
4,788 privates. Given; as the scene, the loveliest por-
tion of the noblest park in England—as the time,
the finest summer afternoon within the year's expe-
rience—as the " material" for the Review, the very
pick of the whole army—as the occasion, the welcome
of the Egyptian Khedive upon the very morrow
of his princely reception, at Grand Cairo,
of the Heir Apparent to the Crown of England—
and the aided charm of the demonstration that Sa-
turday was iu reality, to a certain extent, the cele-
bration of her MAJESTY'S restoration to her people
after her prolonged retirement—and the mere gala-
day seems somehow to assume to itself a certain ex-
ceptional importance. No wonder, everything con-
sidered, that such aday passed off to every one's satis-
faction. The Englishman's privilege of grumbling
was for once denied to him at Windsor on Saturday.
Even his old enemy, the weather, he could find no fault
with at all. Sunshine and shade were, there, exquisitely
intermingled. The warmth of the June afternoon
was tempered by the most refreshing breezes. '['here
was not a speck of dusk. There was not a drop of
rain. Green grass under foot, green boughs over-
head, the bluest sky beyond, flecked with silvery
clouds of perpetually changing beauty—even the
typical Englishman of the epigram which says of
him, that he is never happy unless he is miserable,
just as a kindred epigram declares of the typical
Frenchman that he is never at peace unless he's at
war, and of the typical Seotchman that he is never
at home unless he's abroad—even the carping Eng-
lishman, who is, as we might say, internationally re-
garded as the very incarnation of a Curmudgeon,
even lie, in. regard to his own clini tte,
could discover nothing to find fault with—
just for once ! And so the day passed off
smoothly from beginning to end. Punctual to the
minute, her MAJESTY inauguratted the Review at the
very time appointed, namely at exactly half-past
four o'clock in the afternoon, by taking her depar-
ture from Windsor Castle at 4.30 p.m., as the firing
of a single gun from the Castle itself announced to
the assembled troops and the surrounding multitude
of spectators awaiting that signal on the review
ground in eager expectation. The discharge of the
distant gun at Windsor Castle, was instantly re-
sponded to by the firing of a royal salute
by a battery of artillery and the run-
ning up to the head of the flag-staff of the
royal standard. Gradually, at a walking pace, the
cavalcade passed in gorgeous procession between the
array of troops and the long line of the concourse of
spectators until the Royal carriage, bearing the Eng-
lish QUEEN and the Egyptian VICEROY, drew up for
a while immediately under the flagstaff bearing the
royal standard. Directly after the whole line had given
the salute, with the flash of steel and the flutter of
lowered flags, and the playingof the National Anthem
by the bands of all the regiments, the royal cavalcade
again passed and repassed—serpentining in the open'
space between the crowd and the troops, and passing
at last slowly along the whole lin-e of the latter, the
bands of the different regiments taking up in turn
the Egyptian Hymn in honour of the vice-regal guest
of the occasion. Afterwards;when the Royal carriages
had been grouped once more under the shadow of
the flagstaff bearing the royal standard, the Review
took place with all befitting 'magnificence. The
Cavalry in all their gorgeous panopoly of helmets
and breastplates of burnished steel, with their jack-
boots and scarlet and blue uniforms, and their furred and
embroidered housiags,the Infantry moving in extended
lines with the precision of machinery, the Artillery
trailing their guns over the green-sward with a
swinging ease, full of power and animation—each in
turn, or all together, carried the review through, with
an evidence of discipline that rendered it, from first
to last, a brilliant success. The whole wound up
with a deadly cannonade, and a still deadlier, crash-
ing, ripping discharge of musketry, that realised, in a
very signal manner indeed, the rapidity of fire
secured to us by the Snider rifle and the Armstrong
field-pieces.

TWENTY pounds is not a heavy fine to pay for the
luxury of grievously libelling a Member of Parlia-
ment of noble extraction; but even this small award
represents a good deal of punishment when it
involves the costs of a five days' trial. This
amount of consolation is left the Hon. F.
CADOGAN, who has just won an action for libel
against the North Wilts Herald, and has been alloted
the sum of twenty pounds in damages. The compensa-
tion to him is very small ; but to his adversary the
penalty is very considerable. Whether, however,
Mr. CADOGAN has been on the whole a gainer by
this suit, whether he would not have done much
' better in allowing the effusions of the North Wilts
Herald, grievous as they were, to pass unnoticed,
are questions upon which there can be but one
opinion. Mr. CADOGAN has secured a verdict in his
favour ; but he has brought into a court of justice,
and revealed to all the world, a chapter of his history
which might most advantageously have been left
interred in the columns of the Swindon journal.
At the general election of last autumn, the Hon.
F. CADOGAN was the successful candidate for Crick-
lade in the Liberal interest, and during the lively
battle which preceded his victory ono of his most
doughty opponents was the _North Wilts Herald.
The editor of this journal imagined that the Consti-
tution and the Throne might be advantageously
upheld by publishing a mock election address, in
which Mr. CADOGAN was made to detail the most
serious charges against his own character. This pro-