The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-23 00:00:00

`~+~

THE SUN.
LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 1860.

Two great Powers are again at work in the
East. What they both aim at generally no one
can doubt ; what their special schemes may be,
whether they have any, or whether they only
intend to make themselves conspicuous on the
scene, and he ready to turn to advantage the chapter
of events, it is not easy to discern. That France
would like to be supreme in Egypt, and Russia on
the shores of the Bosphorus, is certain. Perfidious
Albion would find the gate across her chief road
to India in the hands of the second Empire, and the
Battle of the Nile would be avenged by the Ruler
of France occupying the throne of the Caliphs,
or using their successors as viceroys ; while Russia
will never be satisfied till she has free access to the
Mediterranean, and till the CzAR becomes the
successor at Constantinople of the Greek Emperors
and of the heads of the Greek Church.

Long, however, will the two great Empires
have diverse interests on this point. It might suit
France by the aid of Russia to drive England frDm
the seven Islands, from Malta, and from Gibraltar,
but that would only convert the Mediterranean
into a Franco-Russian lake. That would not do.
Russia at Constantinople would soon have a navy
equal to that of France, and a navy which might find
it much more politic to employ itself in checking the

movements of the latter, than in quarrelling with
its best customer ; and, except in Turkey, with a
power which is by no means antagonistic to her.
We may well be content with our share of Asia;
the Russian border is not likely to be advanced on
the side of Europe ; and for the rest, France is more
likely in the long run to be opposed to than to be
allied with Russia.
Still for the present the twu Empires are evi-
dently acting in accord. The visit of so eminent a
Russian as the Archduke NICHOLAS to Paris can-
not be merely for pleasure ; and the coincidence of
the representations of the Russian Minister to the
Ministers of Foreign Powers at St. Petersburgh,
on the subject of the Christians in Turkey, with the
mission and language of the Marquis de LAVALETTE
at Constantinople, shows that there is an under-
standing between Russia and France. We find
also that there has been an effort to get up a case.
The Russian Prince DOIGOROWSKI has been visit-
ing the Herzegovine and Bosnia to see whether the
celebrated Hatti Hamayoun was really acted on,
and it is reported that ho finds it a dead letter.
That the Turks do not treat the Christians as equals,
that the Christian rayahs are sadly oppressed, so
much so that he advised them to apply to the CZAR
and to ask his gracious and disinterested protection.
Of course petitions were dul3 sent, and these were
the documents which Prince GORTSCHAKOFF
showed to the Foreign Ambassadors at St. Peters-
burgh.

Now, we have no doubt that Christian rayahs
in Turkey, like Hindoo ryots in Bengal, have much
that they may justly complain of, and much which
they suffer because they are Christians. England,
of course, would be the last Power in the world to
'muse this, No one has done a tithe for real reli-

gious liberty in Turkey compared with what her
Ambassador has done. Americans—and better
witnesses for an Englishman there could not well
be—are hearty in their praises of the good effected
by Lord STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE, in securing
the utmost attainable freedom for all professions.

And there seems to be little doubt that the
SULTAN really prefers this policy, and only yields,
perforce, every now and then to the Mahomedan
Puseyites (for such there are) who occasionally
get into power, and adopt, as far as they dare, a
reactionary policy. But the SULTAN has physical
difficulties to overcome which are unknown in
France or England, or even in Russia. There are
no roads in Turkey. But a few miles from Con-
stantinople—beyond, perhaps, a few day's ride
from it his power to enforce the Hatti-
Humayoun, or any other decree, is limited by
the impunity afforded by being out of reach of
his arm. Every thing is localised by the want of
communications. The pasha and his tax-collectors,
and magistrates, are all to a considerable extent
beyond the reach of the central power at Constan-
tinople. If they do but pay the taxes which they
farm, they think
.they have done their duty to the
Sultan; and of the extortion requisite to col-
lect them, he hears nothing till it has
driven the inhabitants into insurrection. It
is not in his power to prevent the col-
lectors fleecing the Christian, who in Turkey,
is the Dissenter, without mercy. Neither can he
compel a Mahommedan Cadi to believe the Christian
witness in a court of justice against the Mahom-
medan's testimony. Turkey must be physically
regenerated before any Government at Constan-
tinople could compel prompt respect for the laws ;
it must be regenerated socially before Mahom-
medan governors, judges, and officers can really
believe that Christians have equal rights with
themselves,

The SULTAN, however, very naturally declines to
accept any intervention of the Great Powers on
behalf of the Christian population. The language
of the treaty, which he points to, is precise—" it is
well understood that the firman shall not in any
case give to the Powers the right to interfere, either
collectively or separately, in the relations between
his Majesty the SULTAN and his subjects, or in the
internal administration of the Empire." He has
the right on his side in this doubtless, and
England's policy will be to see that fietitous,
or even real and just complaints from the
Rayahs of Turkey are not made the pretext for
another MENSCHIKOFF mission. The case is in
itself a difficult one, and it is made still more so
by the frequently worthless character of the com-
plainants. From the testimony of all travellers
the Christian population of Turkey is morally quite
as degraded as the Mahommedans. And, often
enough, a Turkish judge has but too little reason to
credit what is most solemnly sworn to by Chris-
tians who appear before him.
One thing cannot, however, but strike us all—
Who are these Emperors who are thus lecturing
another and a Mahommedan Emperor on the matter
of Christian toleration ? We have all of us heard,
under the perfectly centralised government of
France, where the arm of the EMPEROR can strike
almost anywhere in four-and-twenty hours, strange
tales of Catholic priests, and prefects, and maires,
in the more rural districts, persecuting and harrass-
ing the Protestants under form perhaps of law, yet
but too effectually—and that, though we hardly
doubt that Louis NAPOLEON himself, like the
SULTAN, is favourable to religious liberty. He
must, however, oftentimes concede to the priests,
just as the SULTAN must to his moollahs.
But the Emperor of RUSSIA is himself far less
tolerant than the SULTAN. Lord SHAFTESBURY
can tell us that while the SULTAN permits the
freest circulation of the Scriptures, the CZAR ex-
cludes them from his dominions; and that while
missionaries are free to preach as they please in
Turkey, they are not permitted by Russia even to
attempt the conversion of the heathen tribes of
Asia. They must be converted to the Christianity
of the Greek Church or not converted to Chris-
tianity at all ! It appears also that great numbers
of the Mahommedans have but a hard time of it
under his rule—indeed he is said to be driving
them by hundreds of thousands to seek safety in
the Sultan's dominions.

The extraordinary intellectual vitality and viva-
city displayed within the last few days by two
ranowned octogenarians—one of them actually now
within two years of being a nonogenarian—cannot
but have awakened in their behalf, far and wide,
by this time, mingled feelings of astonishment
and admiration. Lord LYNDHURST on Monday the
21st of this present month of May celebrated the
day on which he completed his 88th year by the
delivery, in the House of Lords, of a speech
that materially aided, by the closeness and cogency
of its reasoning, in leading a division in the Upper
House to one of the most memorable majorities
ever inscribed among the records of that branch of
the Legislature. Lord BROUGHAM on Saturday
rendered thenceforth for ever remarkable the date
of his assumption of the academic chair as
Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, by the
delivery of an inaugural harangue that must rank
high even among the noble and learned lord's own
oratorical masterpieces.
There are surely few if any who can read
that astonishing oration without emotions
akin to those defined by Mr. CARLYLE as hero-
worship. The inaugural address delivered on Sa-
turday by Lord BROUGHAM, as Chancellor of the
University of Edinburgh, is of itself sufficient at-
testation that there are still giants in these days, that
one of the intellectual giants of later times is yet
happily surviving. Who was it who once remarked
with such humorous flippancy when speaking of
the intellectual versatility of Lord BROUGHAM, that
" If he knew a little of law he would know a little
of everything?" The observation sounds wittily
enough, but is of course essentially shallow and
frivolous. Of the scope and profundity
of Lord BROUHAM's intellect the world has by this
time a vivid appreciation. As to his professional
reputation—let his career and his achievements
answer. The records of both remind us that
HENRY BROUGHAM, up to the hour when he ex-
changed the stuff-gown of a barrister for the scarlet
and ermine robes of the Lord High Chancellor of
England, was recognised unanimously as about the
most brilliant and formidable advocate who
ever adorned the bar of England. Comparatively
brief though the period of his lordship's occupancy
of the woolsack undoubtedly was, it was at any
rate sufficiently protracted to demonstrate the
energy and lucidity with which his judgment
cleared away the long accumulated arrears then
encumbering the Court of Chancery. As a law-
reformer the noble and learned lord has nowhere a
superior—has nowhere, we may boldly assert, an
equal in the annals of our English jurisprudence.
His accomplished exploits as a law reformer are
nothing less in their way, in their magnitude and
their multiplicity, than literally Herculean. He
has thus already himself partially realised the
words of the magnificent peroration of, perhaps,
among all his great speeches, the most superb he
ever delivered within the walls of Parliament. The
catalogue of his achievements as a law reformer has

" And Thou, too, madest that floweret gay,
To glitter in the dawn ;
The hand that fired the lamp of day,
The blazing comet launched away,
Painted the velvet lawn."

been compiled in a ponderous tome, by Sir EARDLEY
WILMOT—a volume which is, of itself, a monumEnt
cue perennius—and of which volume we have been
interested to note, that there has recently been
issued in a popular form a felicitous condensa-
tion. The reputation achieved for himself Lord
BROUGHAM, is, however, as manifold or many-sided,
as it is broad, or as it is elevated. It is the repu-
tation of a great orator, an indomitable law re-
former, a practical philanthropist, a luminous critic,
Us one of the first and most laborious of the Edin-
burgh Reviewers, a versatile author, a persevering
and sagacious experimental philosopher.
It is curious while taking into account thus the as-
tonishing versatility which, in Lord BROUGHAM'S
intellect, is one of its distinguishing characteristics
—it is curious, we say, remarking this, to find him
in a manner inveighing against discursiveness in in-
tellectual labours as pernicious almost to the extent of
being absolutely reprehensible. "Though," argued
Lord BROUGHAM in the course of his inaugural
address of Saturday, at Edinburgh—" Though the
acquisition of general knowledge is a primary duty,
and the confining our study within the narrow
limits of one or two branches enfeebles the mind,

impairing its powers, and even preventing an entire
mastery of the selected branches, yet it is on every
account highly expedient, indeed all but absolutely
necessary, to single out one branch as the main ob-
ject of attention." While saying this, in regard to
others, it is manifest, from his whole career, that
Lord BROUGHAM has himself singled out not one
branch alone, but many branches as especial and
peculiar objects of Ms attention. Jurisprudence,
for example—the natural sciences—metaphysics—
oratory—polite literature. Yet, having acted thus
himself he insists upon it that " This selection [of
one branch] is required by the impossibility of
thoroughly mastering different unconnected kinds
of knowledge, and the risk of distraction which

passing from one subject to another occasions, the
danger even of the greatest evil occurring—that of
superficial learning—the rule being inflexible that
no one subject or part of a subject must be studied
without going to the very bottom, fully and accu-
rately, of what he would learn; not proposing to
ourselves, it may be, to go beyond a certain length,
but as far as we profess and purpose to go, becom;ng
thoroughlymaster of the subject." Adding, " There
is, however, another reason for selecting one especial
branch ; we thus draw, as it were, a meridian line
to which all our steps in other directions may be
referred." And immediately illustrating his ar-
guments asking his hearers " what might not have
been expected from the bold and happy conjectures
of FRANKLIN, under the guidance of the inductive
method, so familiar to him in all its rigour, had he

BALDI.

not devoted his life to the more important cause of
his country and her liberties ?" Enforcing his ar•

gument by these aptly chosen recollections culled
from the annals of scien ce--"PRIEsTLEv's discoveries,
all but accidental, however important, were con-
fined in their extent and perversely misapprehended
in their results by the controversies, religious and
political, which engrossed his attention through
life. DESCARTES, instead of the one great step which
the mathematics owe him, was destined to make
vast progress in physical science, and not to leave
his name known by a mere baseless hypothesis, had
he not been seduced by metaphysical speculation ;
and LEIBNITZ, but for the same seduction, joined to
his legal labours, would assuredly have come near
the Newtonian system in dynamics, as he had pre-
ferred a just claim to share in its analytical renown."
As to the mere political or historical portion of
Lord BROUGHAM'S oration of Saturday, we shall con-
tent ourselves with remarking in regard to that
as Lord BROUGHAM remarked in this very spirit
in regard to HuME the historian—" But that his
political prejudices biassed his mind can hardly be
doubted." Lord BROUGHAM'S view of the wars,
and the exploits, and the character of the Great
NAPOLEON are not those we believe of the world
at large—will certainly, we rest assured, not be those
of a remote posterity—are already,we feeleonvinced,
not those of the vast majority of intelligent Eng-
lishmen. The estimate formed upon these heads
by our fathers—are not our own—will not be those
of our children. The public opinion of to-day
has risen above the public opinion of yesterday.
We look back at those events serenely removed
from their darkening influences. We are not there in
the midst of the bloody dust raised by the conflict
and floating over those historic battlefields—cloud-
ing the vision and obscuring the judgments of the
actual combatants. The venerable orator who
descanted upon these famous themes at Edinburgh
on Saturday himself passed through those dust
clouds floating over to our sires and grandsires
from the European Continent, when NAPOLEON
the Great was bestriding the earth like a colossus.
They darken Lord BROUGHAM'S vision still, when
looking back to them, they still obscure even his
ordinarily clear and lofty judgment.
Turning from those distorted views of the fugi-
tive past to the nobler and severer allusions made
by Lord BROUGHAM to the eternal present, as re-
vealed to us in this awful universe by the eye of
philosophy and the upward pointing finger of Re-
ligion, we listen delighted to the voice of this
" old man eloquent," reminding us in burning
words how truly Natural Theology stands at the
head of all the sciences, from the mere
fact of its tendency being pre-eminently sublime and
elevating. "It tells," he exclaims, '° of the creation
of things, of the mighty Power that fashioned and
sustains the universe, of the exquisite skill that
contrived the wings and beak and feet of insects,
invisible to the naked eye, and that lighted the
lamp of day, and launched into space comets
myriads of times larger than the earth, whirling
10,000 times swifter than a cannon ball, and 2,000
hotter than red-hot iron." And, reading these glow-
ing words, excressiVe of so much wondering adora-
tion, we remember that years ago the same grand
thought was articulated rhythmically, by Lord
BROUGHAM, in a harmonious "Hymn to the Creator,"
penned when the writer of it was far, indeed, from
having attained the age of an octogenarian. A
hymn in which we first read melodious words that
still cling to our remembrance—

It is at once impressive and most fitting that
thoughts like these, thus sung by him in melodious
numbers, when he was yet adolescent, should now
be echoed in more solemn accents by the lips of
Lord BROUGHAM, now that he is surviving amongst
us—honoured for his great genius and his noble
achievements—a veteran octogenarian.

A Cabinet Council WQS held yesterday at the
official residence of the First Lord of the Treasury in Dow!: -
ing-street. The Ministers present were Viscount Palmer-
ston, the Lord Chancellor, Earl Granville, the Duke of
Argyll, Sir G. C. Lewis, Lord J. Russell, the Duke cf
Newcastle, the Right Hon. Sidney Hei bort, Sir Charlcs
Wood, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Duke of Some, -
set, the Right Hon. T. Milner Gibson, Sir George Grey,
the Right Hon. C. P. Villiers, and the Right Hon. E.
Cardwell.

Their Royal Highnesses the Duchess of Cam-
bridge and the Princess Mary, attended by Lady Geraldine
Somerset and Colonel Home Purves, honoured the Duchess
of Inverness by their company at dinner on Monday even-
ing, at Kensington Palace, where a distinguished company
joined the circle.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING,

TUE ALLEGED DEFEAT OF GARI-

The Paris correspondent of the Times (Second
Edition), in his letter, dated May 22, says :
"If one may judge from the intense anxiety which
now prevails at the Neapolitan Legation here,
things must be in the worst possible condition in
Sicily ; and if the news came that orders had been
given by the Neapolitan Government for the with-
drawal of the Royal troops from the theatre of the
contest, and of the complete surrender of the island
to the insurgents, no one would be surprised at
it. We are probably destined to see before long
the example of Austria in Lombardy imitated by
the King of Naples with regard to Sicily. It is
thought that one of the first acts of Garibaldi will
be to proclaim a Dictatorship in the name of King
VictorEmmanuel,preparatory to the usual measures
for the annexation of Sicily to Piedmont. On
this point, however, it is said that the French
Minister at Turin has given the assurance to the
Neapolitan Minister at the same Court that France
would view with displeasure the annexation of the
Two Sicilies to the new Italian Kingdom. There is
a rumour (whether serious or a mere pleasantry I
cannot say), to the effect that the King of Naples
is disposed to grant a constitution to his people ;
but, as his people have unfortunately but little
confidence in Royal concessions wrung under pre-
sent circumstances, the Imperial Government of
France would not refuse to guarantee the said
Constitution against the possibility of a coup d'etat,
or, as it is termed,a Bourbon DeuxDecembre. With

the guarantee of France, if the report be serious,
the subjects of his Neapolitan Majesty ought, of
course, to be satisfied. It would appear that an
understanding has been come to between General
Goyon, the Commander of the French army at
Rome, and General Lamoriciere, the Chief of the
Papal volunteers. The former remains in the city
to protect the Pope and keep the city tranquil; the
latter will operate outside the walls. The Duke of
Grammont has arrived in Paris to take the verbal
instructions of the Emperor in the present emer•
gency. The Sardinian Government has again been
lectured for the ungrateful tardiness of the Parlia-
ment in ratifying the treaty for the surrender of
Savoy."