The Sun.
London, England, 1856-03-14 00:00:00

Civil Lords attempted to prove, they committed
a very serious offence in concurring in his
nomination. They were bound to select the
best man for the arduous and important
duty, and in place of so doing, they yielded to
popular clamour—(that is their own version of
the case)—in choosing a person perfectly unsuit-
able. Sir CHARLES NAPIER has sustained great
injury ; but we fear that he has by no means
helped his own reputation as a naval commander
by the course be has thought proper to adopt.
He has injured Sir JAMES GRAHAM and Admiral
BERKELEY, but not served himself by his motion.

earnest and successful promoters of this long-
desired aet of justice, was the great writer who
closed his first tale of humour by leaving its
amiable hero (tights, gaiters, spectacles, and all
complete) sauntering about the green lanes, and
strolling into the pleasant picture gallery at Dul-
wich—let uc not forget another debt of gratitude
(Lae to the glorious humorist, who is at once the
delight and the ameliorator of his generation.

If the English farmer cannot, like OPHELIA,
" turn all things into favour and to prettiness,"
he would seem to possess the secret of turning
ruin into prosperity—a useful art as times go.
Bow often he has been finally and irretrievably
ruined within the range of our recollection we
will not undertake to say at a moment's warning;
but we are quite sure not seldomer than his pros-
perity has been placed on a better basis than
before.
The fact is he has suffered a good deal from
hypochondriacism. Brought up in the unhealthy
atmosphere of Protection, the very notion of ex-
posure to the rubs of this work-day world has
operated as a shock to his nerves, and conjured
up a host of apprehensions for which there was
no real foundation. If his malady has not led
his morbid fancy to the conclusion that ho was
dterally made of glass, it certainly has repeatedly
led him to believe he was in danger of becoming
a broken man from the effect of changes really
calculated to do him good. To what terrible ap-
prehensions did not the threatened repeal of the
Corn Laws give rise in his perturbed mind ?
apprehensions, it must be confessed, incessantly
stimulated by his " natural protectors." It would
sfford considerable amusement to posterity if his
notions of the corn-growing capacity of the tillers
of the soil on the Danube and in America, pre-
vious to the repeal of the Corn Laws, were accu-
rately recorded. Never, it would be seen, had
the world witnessed such a Titanic race of agri-
ollturists, soil so fertile, and produce as plentiful.
His little gleanings were doomed to be swept
aside like chaff before the corn storm they would
infallibly pour into the markets of this much-
misguided country. Competition with the
foreigner was a thing impossible ; or, if possible
for a moment, must eventuate in utter ruin. No
prospect loomed before him but that of extinction
as a member of a class, or—expatriation.
There was still that chance left him. To some
more favoured country it was still open to him
to transfer his little capital, and his overborne
energies, leaving an ungrateful country to deplore
! his loss. So, in a minor degree, was it with the
introduction of au improved mode of culture.
Deep draining and shallow draining, economic tl
hedging and ditching, wore sufficiently bewilder-
ing ; but guano and chemical appliances were
4gencies fraught with mischief, if not with de-
Atruction. Poor timid creature, to his diseased
imagination the assurance of the poet went for
nothing—a breath could make or unmake him,
while it was impossible he could be replaced.
The Corn Laws, notwithstanding, were repealed,
and the resources of chemistry were brought to
bear on the culture of the soil, and how little
were his apprehensions justified by the result !
Once exposed to the bracing air of competition,
his fine manly constitution had fair play, and with
the renovation of his energies came the sharpen-
ing of his invigorated understanding. Ruined !
Not a bit of it ! In those stalwart arms, and
that keen eye of his for the main chance, there
was an everlasting bulwark against ruin. lie
set to with a will, took kindly before long to
artificial composts, reaped as be had sown, and
with healthier spirits and fuller barns and folds
became a vastly better man than he ever was
before.

Besides being, to our mind, incomparably
and beyond all manner of doubt, the greatest
humorist England has ever produced
CHARLES DICKENS has proved himself to be,
again and again, during the last twenty
years, one of the most distinguished, practi-
cal, brave-hearted, out-spoken, and, let us
add to all this, one of the most eminently succes-
ful of our Great Social Reformers. Our accuracy
in this assertion is attested in shining characters
upon ono after another of his remarkable, and,
happily by this time, somewhat numerous serial
narratives. He has overturned, we don't know
how many monster-abuses—bringing them down
unerringly with the shafts of his matchless ridi-
cule. He has tumbled them over as effectually
as ever was tumbled over in the days •of
the fairies, the famous Humpty Dumpty of
the nursery-song. Regarded in the light of these
very notable triumphs of his as a social reformer,
• the mere enumeration of his fictions may be con-
, sideeed as, in some way, tantamount to a catalogue
of victories over the Dragons and Chimaeras of
Every-Day Life—Social Errors, Social Evils, Social
Abuses, Social Cruelties, Social Prejudices, and so
forth. Without eve' writing expressly and pre-
pense, " for a purpose "—he has, nevertheless,
always so contrived simultaneously " to point a
moral and adorn a tale," that with each one
of his extraordinary works of imagination
some noble object, some generous aim, some
beneficent intention may at once on the instant be
declared to be inextricably associated. It is thus
from the " Pickwick Papers," in which he took
occasion, in 1836, to insist upon the cruelty of
protracted imprisonment for debt, as illustrated
by his powerful delineation of the interior of the
Fleet Prison, down to his current serial of " Little
Dorrit," in which, in this present year of grace
1856, he is enforcing, if possible yet raort
earnestly, the same humane argument by his por-
traiture of time inner life of the now almost forgottet
Marshalsea. Everybody remembers too, perfectly
Tell, how effectually he destroyed the vii
ianous Yorkshire Schools at one blow by his me.
mcrable account in "Nicholas Nickleby " of tilt
rascally SQUEERS, and of that horrid and squalid dee
of cruelty theacaderny of Do-the-boys-Hall. Neil hem
is, it forgotten how exquisitely, with what a master-
hand, with what an adroit scalpel, he laid bare the
abominations of the Poor-Lsw System in hit-
homely, but eminently tragic and poetic, rornanct
of " Oliver Twist." Have we not still a vivid
recollection, moreover, of the scornful and blight-
ing satire upon sectarian bigotry involved in his
historical tale of "Berneby Rudge"—as well as
of the Cumulative sarcasms upon the vice of
gambling, making up the dark background of the
wondrously beautiful picture of the " Old Curio-
sity Shop ?" Beside: this—were there not more
than merely casual hints thrown out, through.
"Martin Chuzziewit," of the sore need felt, foi
years upon years, for Hospital Improvement : long
before the gentle hand of FLORENCE NIGIITINGALI
had smoothed the soldier's pillow at Scutari, or
pointed nearer home to the gradual dawn of man)
a benign innovation ? SAIREY GASP and be;
" frequend pardner" BETSY PRIG, seem to us ti
hiccup a reply—rather audibly—in the affirma.
give ! And "David Copperfield"—wasnot that the
deadliest arrow ever driven home to the heart's
core of the evil system of the Ecclesiastical
Courts, the Ghoul-like functionaries of which had
been battening almost time out of mind upon
generation after generation of victims in the
snug recesses of Doctor's Commons, and within
the congenial precincts of St. Paul's Churchyard ?
And " Dambey and Sou"—was not thati among
other things, the vehicle for a scornful laugh al
mercenary marriages? And "Bleak House"—it
too, in its turn, was it not the last and deadliest
blow administered to the legal Moloch of Greal
Britain—the Court of Chancery ? From first to last
it has been the game with CHARLES DICKENS.
The most delightful of our great English Humor-
ists—be is, at the same time, one of the most
illustrious and triumphant of our great Social
Reformers. The latter, by the force of his great
heart—the former, by that of his great genius,
Recently his overwhelming ridicule has been dis-
tributed with a certain degree of impartiality—
with the same unsparing energy, and the sans(
Unstinted prodigality—to three now (thanks te
him) tolerably notorious abuses, those visible,
strangely enough, in three of our well-known
public charities : abuses, that is to- say, conse-
quent upon their monstrous mismanagement.
The " Literary Fund " for one—for another, the
" Charter House "—the third in this singular
group being GOD'S Gift, or " Dulwich College."
Speaking of the preposterous mismanagement of
the Literary Fund on Wednesday, Mr. DICKENS
drolly avowed that he felt in its regard for all
the world as though he were a RIP VAN WINKLE
who had gone to sleep the wrong way,
and had suddenly 'woke up in the midst
of all the boggle, darkness, and confusion
of three or four hundred years ago ! Comment-
ing upon the odious misappropriation of the funds
of the Charter House, in the course of a series of
pungent articles in " Household Words," he has
prepared the way, we do believe, for the ultimate
amelioration of the pains and sorrows of those
poor Cistercian Brothers in whose behalf the death
of one Colonel Thomas NEWCOME has for ever and
ever enlisted our dearest sympathies. Recount-
ing', only yesterday the history of the very exe-
crable mal-administration of the affairs of
Dulwich College, Mr. DICKENS, in a speech of
admirable ability, pronounced in manly terms
the noblest and most touching panegyric upon
the memory of EDWARD ALLEYNE, the munificent
founder of "God's Gift," otherwise known as Dul-
wich College. And, in so doing, illustrated
anew the social rights, the reasonable claims, and
for that matter be it added, even the moral
dignity of the theatrical profession generally.
This latter incident occurring, lot us remark,
upon the occasion of a most interesting meeting
convened in the Adelphl, by that ALLEYNE of our
own day, at once as manager, as actor, and
as gentleman, Mr. BENJAMIN WEBSTER, whose
day-dream it has been now for more than a quar-
ter of a century that "GOD'S Gift" should becomea
"Godsend" to those who were obviously in tended to
bo benefitted by the noble-hearted founder of the
charity—in other words, that the enormous funds
of Dulwich College should no longer be n• a one
sense most shamefully, and in another most shame-
lessly, misappropriated. That day-dream we have
every confidence is just now upon the very eve of
being most happily realised : and when our hope
in its regard shall have actually been fulfilled i Ties Lady Elizebesli Mope Vere and Mr?. Tovrngend
ilson have let it not then be forgotten that amoarrived in Dover, and eccupy apartments
the most ' at the Lord Wardea HOWL

A farther trial now awaits him. He is as good
as booked to furnish agricultural statistics for the
service of the State. Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY
has brought in a bill to compel him to send in an
annual return of the number of acres ho holds,
and how much of them is devoted to wheat, bar-
ley, oats, and other descriptions of produce, and
this the STANLEY whilome of Protection, to wit,
Lord DERBY, declares to be just and necessary.
Will our agricultural friend recognise in the act
another impending ruin ? We would fain hope
he is by this time too wise for that. As Lord
DERBY remarked, " the farmer is not called on
to disclose any of his private affairs ;" 'all he is
asked to reveal is what his landlord's steward
could easily ascertain if he chose. The farmer
need have no fear, therefore, of his rent being
raised in consequence. It would be a diffi-
cult matter, impossible indeed, to get at
the sum total of his profits through such. returns.
In other respects it will be both to his profit and
credit to make no bones about the matter. He
wilt have to furnish such returns under penalty,
ovhether he likes the notion of it or not, and they
fill do him good, and not harm. A wealthy
farmer may, to be sure, once on a time make a
lucky hit under the present want of Aystem, but
against that hit must be set the misses of a hun-
dred of his less fortunate brethren. The new
system once in operation, farming will soon be
placed on a healthy basis, and will cease to be dis-
turbed by rash speculation. Let him think the
subject over and ask himself whether, with the
example of Scotland and Ireland before hiM,
where the farmer makes similar returns of his
own accord for the general benefit, it would be-
come him to confess himself—as he would by op-
position—inferior in manliness, patriotism, and
resource to either. If he does so, and we feel
some degree of confidence he will, the result can-
not be doubtful. Ho will offer no opposition to
the principle of the measure, but content himself
with directing his attention to the best means to
prevent his prosperity- being endangered by the
efforts of plying curiosity. It is for him to discover
whether any improvement can be made in the
form of the return, and any better or less offensive
agency employed in the collection ; and, if ho
succeeds iu doing either, to suggest the result to
his " natural leaders."

LETTER FOR THE BALTIC.

Letters for the British Fleet in the Baltic, will, for
the present, be forwarded daily, via 0 ;tend and Kiel.
Mails will also be made up on the departure of ships
of war or vessels in the service of her Majesty.
The letters of commissioned, non-commissioned, or
warrant officers, as well as those of soldiers and seamen,
forwar,led via Ostend and Kiel, will be liable to a com-
bined British and foreign rate of postage of-
-3 I. when not exceeding a (-fluter-of-an-ounce,
GI, when exceeding a quarter and not exceeding
half-an-ounce ;
and so on, increasing threepence for every:quarter-of-an•

The Caine rate of threepence per quarter-of-an-ounce
will be chargeable upon letters of commissioned or war-
rant officers, conveyed by Queen's ships or transports,
but the letters of soldiers and seamen may be sent by
those vessels at the reduced rate of one penny, when
not exceeding half-an-ounce in weight.
In ail cases, the postage must be paid in advance, or
tlo ;otters will net be forwarded.
Newspaper.r cannot be sect by the route of Kiel, be-
cause the arraegements of the Danish Post-office do not
allow of the foreign postage, to which those newspapers
would be liable, being collected in the United Kingdom.
They would, therefore, be detained at Kiel until that
postage was paid.
By ♦essels of war, however, or transports, newspapers
till be forwarded to the Baltic fleet at a charge of ono
penny each, which must be prepaid.