The Sun.
London, England, 1856-06-28 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 1856.

H.R.H. yesterday was for once in a Minority !
The House of COmmons at length asserting its
rights, its title, and its dignity as the assembly
of the National Representatives. Yes—there is
no mistake at all about it, this time—the non-
musical project of the PRINCE CoN SORT has, at the
very eleventh hour, gone to the wall, the absurd
and ridiculous project of carting away the National
Gallery and shooting it like so much dry rubbish
iu the shallow waste of those miserable ex-
market-gardens at Kensington Gore ! Bravo,
Lord ELciro, say we. Already you have done
good service, my Lord, to the cause of Art
in this country by your Committee of 1853.
You have now done a vast deal more service to it
by your motion of 1856—your triumphant and
very memorable motion of Friday evening, June
the twenty-seventh, by which the House of Com-
mons decided (by 153 votes as opposed to 145,
in other words, by a clear majority of eight in a
house of nearly three hundred), upon an Address
to her MAJESTY, begging for the issue of a cer-
tain remarkable Royal Commission. A Royal
Commission, that is to say, empowered to
determine the site of the new National
Gallery, as well as encouraged to report upon the
propriety of combining with it the Fine-art and
Archaeological collections of the British Museum
suggestion in accordance with the recommen-
dation of the Select Committee of the National
Gallery, the famous but hitherto (comparatively
speaking) fruitless Committee of 1853. S 3 far,
so good ! So far, indeed, let us say at once,
admirable ! There is breathing-time allowed us
for another year or so, just in the very nick of
time, when we had grievous cause, in truth, to
dread the very ludicrous spectacle of the National
Treasures of Art being stowed away en masse in
11A-lanilres Foux," down among the potato beds
and cabbage gardens, among
sweet the marigolds and
pets,among the Brompton Stocks and the
London Pride, " all a-blowing and a-growing" in
parterres
the Cockney at Kensington Gore !
Triumphant and memorable we have called the
division of last night in the 110‘ile of Commons,
the division deciding by a clear majority of 8,
out of an aggregate of 298, against the most
recent of the PRINCE CONSORT'S frivolous
schemes of Pococurantism, against the last
Court Hobby, against the latest pet
Absurdity of what may be called in this unfortu-
nate land of ours just now the New Germanic
Confederation ! Triumphant and memorable—
Although the majority was no more than eight—
Was it not Triumphant ? Why, as a very suffi-
cient token that it was, we have the Ministerial
organ itself this very morning acknowledging that
never has there been such a " whip" known during
all this session ! Notwithstanding which, in
Spite of the most dextrous employment of the
Parlilwaentary scourge, in defiance at once of ad-
ministrative " pressure from without," and of
Court influences from within—the Soap-bubble
Bill blown by Rag., and wafted onward so
tenderly by the favouring zephyrs of the most
sweet breath of the Government, suddenly burst,
$1 melted into thin air," and so forth—leaving
any Lord Faxuo's uncourtly motion--(to the dis-
may of Palace Tuft-hunters and Toad-eaters, of
taloomi of the Stole and Lords of the BedcLam-