The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-03 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 3, 1869.

ME7ROPOLITAN GOSSIP-11,ilisflay.

We have leaped suddenly out of a burning summer into
a cold and dreary autumn. It is most melancholy to
walk through the parks and to see the havoc which ha,sbeen
wrought by the easterly gale of the last five days. The
limes and the sycamores are stripped nearly bare.
The burnt and dried-up grass is covered with still dryer

leaves, that crackle beneath your feet as though we were
in the last days of October instead of within the octave of

St. Partridge.

Politics were never duller than they are now.
Apparently, as if by common consent, the London
journals have dropped them, thinking, apparently, that
their readers had enough of them during the last session

and will have enough during the next. They are prepar-
ing, however, to discuss the Irish land question in due
season. The Times has taken (the wind out of its com-
petitors' sails by sending a special commissioner to Ireland ;
and so forestalling at least one journal which had
intended to do the same thing. In connection with this

subject let me recommend all your readers who are
interested therein to get Mr. Chandos Wren Hoskyns's

shilling pamphlet, " Land in England, Land in Ireland,
and Land in other Lands," published by Longmans. It
is most admirably written, and is so full of wit and
sparkle that even the dullest details of that great topic
become lively. The new member for Hereford ought to
be a great acquisition to the House of Commons during

next year's debates.
There is likely to be a contested election in England
before long—quite a novelty in these dull days. The
county of Cheshire has for a long time past been almost
under the control of the Egertons. Under the Reform
Bill it was divided into three districts. Nevertheless,
each district returned an Egerton, and in only one divi-

sion (Mid-Cheshire) was there a contest. A vacancy has
now taken place in North Cheshire by the death of Mr.
E. C. Egerton. For the vacant seat Sir Edward Watkin
has appeared as a candidate in the Liberal interest. None has
yet been announced in the Conservative interest, but, of
course, one will be forthcoming, and it is probable that
Major Legh will be the man. Sir Edward lost his seat
at Stockport through the removal from that town of his
legal agent, who had great influence in the boron gh,and
who has gone to reside at Manchester. Whether Sir
Edward's business transactions will prove any hindrance
to him remain to be seen. It is pretty certain that his
former electioneering dealings will not. Bribery is an
offence soon forgotten. Meanwhile it is to be noted that
he was formerly very uncertain in his politics, and owed

his knighthood to Mr. Disraeli.
There are rumours of changes at the War Office. The
new control system has answered so well in Ireland
and the colonies that it will, in all probability, be extended
to England. In that case Sir Henry Storks will have the
supreme control of the expenditure, subject, of course, to
the Secretary of State. Lord Northbrook's committee on
the reconstruction of the War Office is still sitting, and it
is not known when its deliberations will be over. At pre-
sent, therefore, all ideas as to future arrangements must
be little better than guesses. It is not improbable, however,
that the War Office and the Horse Guards will be brought
into one building, so as to save the enormous delay and cost
involved in the incessant letter writing and sending between

the two departments. The authorities were very anxious
to have the new India Office, but could not obtain it. It
is rumoured that there will be very shortly a fresh reduc-
tion of the clerical staff at the War Office, which is at
present far too large to be efficient. Captain Vivian's
post is not much more than a sinecure, and it will probably
be necessary to give him additional duties, or to transfer
him to another department.
The Byron scandal is the great topic of the day. Told
in plain language, Mrs. Stowe's charge against the poet
is that he was living in adultery with his half-sister, the
Hon. Augusta Leigh ; that he told Lady Byron this on
the day of their marriage ; that she, nevertheless, lived
with him for thirteen months; (Mrs. Stowe says two yews)
that Lady Byron consented to let her daughter be named
after her rival ; that she further kept the matter
secret through her whole life; and that having
charged her three executors nct to allow any one to
become acquainted with the history of her life, she told it
to Mrs. Stowe, who was well known to be a literary lady,
and, therefore, not unlikely to publish the story. All this
Mrs. Stowe asks us to believe, and she makes so great a
demand upon our powers of credulity that she must
excuse us if we say that they are not equal to
it.

Her own countrymen doubt the accuracy of
her narrative, and censure her for telling it. Vie, the
fellow countrymen of Byron, ought to be still more cau-
tious how we accept so fearful a tale as truth. Dr.
Lushington is said to be acquainted with the whole
history. If he be, let him come forth and say what he
has to say. Let him do it at once, for when a man reaches
87 years of age there is not much time to be lost. I will
only a,ll. that should the story prove untrue, it is scarcely
likely that Lady Byron can have intentionally misled Mrs.
Stowe. Everybody who knew the poet's wife adored her.
How high-minded a woman she was, we can gather from the
references to her in that book which all the world is
reading now, the "Diary of Henry Crabb Robinson."
Meanwhile, Mrs. Stowe's story is published simulta-
neously in the Macmillan's and the Atlantic Monthly
magazines is making both periodicals sell to a prodigious
extent. - More than 30,000 copies of the first periodical
have been sold already.
Th ecclesiastical world is greatly exercised by the pro-

pective episcopal appointments. It is taken for granted
that Bishop Wilberforce will be translated to Win-
chester, a reward merited alike by long episcopal
services, and by the help which he gave to the present
Government during the debates on the Irish Church
Bill. But who will succeed him at Oxford? That
is the question. The position is almost the most influential
in the Church (although the emoluments are small), and
proportionably great is the interest felt in the filling of it.
It is no secret that the Queen wishes to place Dean
Stanley there, and that he would like nothing so well as
that post. But will Mr. Gladstone venture to carry out
the arrangement? He might have done so a few months
ago, but I do not think he can since the unfortunate
" Voysey" letter. It is all very well for Dean Stanley's
admirers to say that he subscribed to the Voysey Defence
Fund not because he approved of the sentiments con-
tained in the " Sling and the Stone," but because he
wished all parties to have fair play. The obvious reply is,
why did he not subscribe to the Mackonochie Defence
Fund? lam told that should Dean Stanley be designated
by the Queen, the majority of the chapter of Christ
Church would refuse to elect him, and would be prepared
to incur the penalties of pnemunire rather than give effect
to the conge d'elire. lam inclined to think that the new
Bishop of Oxford will be found not at Westminster, but
at Oxford, and that Dr. Scott will be the new head of
that illustrious diocese. At the election of 1865, when
Mr. Gathorne Hardy wrested the seat for the Univer-
sity from Mr. Gladstone, Dr. Jacobson was the president
of Mr. Gladstone's committee, and he was rewarded with
the see of Chester. The other important members of the
committee were Dr. Pusey, Dr. Williams, Professor Payne
Smith, Professor Jowett, Professor Rogers, Dr. Scott,
Dean Hook, Mr. Liddon, Mr. Flood Jones, Dr. Temple,
and Archdeacon Grant. Now, of these gentlemen, three,
at least, are not likely to get a mitre—the first, the fourth,
and the fifth. The third is also an extreme man on
the Low Church side as Dr. Pusey is on the High,
and Professor Jowett on the Broad. Of the
rest, Dr. Temple and Dean Hook have refused
preferment, and Mr. Liddon is, probably, not acceptable
in high quarters. Dr. Scott is a Broad Churchman, a
scholar (the principal editor of the famous Liddell and
Scotts Lexicon), and the head of the most intellectual
college in Oxford. Should he be selected, it is believed
that Professor Jowett would succeed him as Master of
Balliol. This would be consolation in a quarter where the
desire for liean Stanley's promotion is most keen.
The Ladies' College at Hitchin will be opened very
shortly, and then an attempt will be made to supply edu-
cation of the highest order to female students. The pro-
ject is due mainly to the energy of Miss Emily Davies,
sister of the Rev. Llewellyn Davies, and author
of an article in the new number of the Contemporary
Review. The number of students will not be
large to begin with, but it is hoped that they
will increase. Meanwhile Miss Davies will con-
tent herself with renting a house instead of building
a college. Heartily wishing the scheme to succeed I
would ask if the payment-2150 a year—is not too
high? It is true that education and board at Oxford
and Cambridge cost as much, and probably more. But
than Hitchin is not Oxford nor Cambridge, and the lady
students will not have such demands made upon them in
the way of hospitality as Oxonians and Cantabs have.
There is another point. Is it quite wise and consistent to
restrict the professorships to men? I understand that a
most competent German scholar, one who had translated
Tennyson and other difficult English poets into German,
was refused the post of German professor simply because
she was a woman. This does not sound quite in keeping
with the main idea of this institution, that women's
education may be, and ought to be, equal to men's.
Literature has sustained no light loss by the untimely
death of Mr. Burnell Payne. He was a man of no ordi-
nary powers, and was rapidly rising to a high position in
the world of letters. Educated at Cambridge, he entered
holy orders and became the curate of Mr. Llewellyn
Davies, in Marylebone. He resigned his curacy last
Christmas on account of theological difficulties, And
devoted himself entirely to literature and prt. He wrote
several essays on art in the London Student, and one on
the same subject in Macmillan's Magazine for June,
intending to complete his subject in a subsequent number.
At the same time ho was writing the criticisms in the Pall
Mall Gazette Amon the Royal Academy Exhibition,
and was reviewing books for the same journal.