The Sun.
London, England, 1858-05-10 00:00:00

know, to the Norwegian Constitution is a really
admirable one. The Norwegians have an Upper
styled--how appropriate would be the
1-:,translated name to our own—the Lagthing ; if
the Lagthing declines for three years to pass a
measure sent up to it annually by the Lower
House, the measure becomes law, the Lagthing
and the Crown notwithstanding. There is
surely reason in this under a representative
Constitution. We commend the plan to the
consideration of our Reform Bill makers. The
House of Lords plainly needs reform, even more
than the House of Commons. It threatens to be-
come a simple obstruction. If not vanquished on
the Jew Bill, it will most certainly take courage
from the precedent, and we shall have the revolt-
ing spectacle of a few partiz tin Lords, with a long
tail of hereditary dunces, year after year, thwarting
all liberal legislation, and especially every Eccle-
siastical reform, on which the hearts of the people
are set. We warn the Lords that, as the Com-
mons have overthrown the titled dictator in their
own house, so they will overthrow the titled and
hereditary dictatorship of " another place."

Upon the occasion of the recent anniversary
dinner in aid of the Royal Literary Fund, the
Noble Viscount who occupied the chair, Lord
PALMERSTON, incidentally referred to what must
certainly be regarded as a rather notable circum-
stance in the history of Literature. It was in
giving the customary loyal toast—The Queen—
that the ex-Premier reminded the assembled men-
of-letters and their convivial sympathisers that
her present most gracious MAJESTY was the first
English Sovereign who had, by investing en
Author with the dignity of the Peerage, admitted
to participation in the highest rewards within the
gift of the Crown the cultivators of the fields of
literature. Hitherto the bauble of a coronet has
never been dreamt of as a recompense to a great
writer in this country. Baron MacautaY is the
first, and, up to this account, the only literary
noble admitted to "the other place," the Upper
House of Parliament. Upon the opposite shwas
of the Channel they had in this, too, managed
things much better, and very differently. M.
VICTOR Hugo, a poet-novelist, was long ago made
Viscomte by King Louts PHILIPPE. It is re-
corded, moreover, of the first Emperor—NAPO-
LEON the Great—that he had said of CORNEILLE,
" If be had lived in my time I would have made
him a Prince." There is, of course, very little in
the distribution of these honours. They are mere
symbols—symbols, too, that have often and often
been abused and misapplied. [Everybody remem-
bers the Roman horse who was made a senatur
and fed out of a golden manger.] Yet, as one
poet has said—
" Men are but children of a larger growth,"
and as another has written—
" The child's the father of the man ;"
so at every time of life there is real need, appa-
rently, of Toys—if only in reward and recompense.
And certainly the toys of adults, if we come to
examine into them are, all things considered, as
various and fantastic as those manufactured for
the younger occupants of the nursery. They
range from diadems and sceptres down through
many a nice gradation to clasps and medals, to a
bit of ribbon in a button-hole, and even for that
matter, actually to two or three letters of the
alphabet. How many are there who have striven
hard for years and years simply to the end that
they might be dubbed M.P., or Q.C., or LL.D.,
or what-not : precisely in the same ambitious
mood in which Mr. NATHANIEL WINKLE or Mr.
AUGUSTUS SNODGRASS may have first aspired to
have the magic M.P.C. upon the brass buttons of
their blue dress coats, or Mr. SAMUEL PICKWICK
himself the still granderinitial-title of G.C. M.P.C.
It must be particularly borne in mind, moreover,
that the covetted prizes of the social system are
merely the fruits of old-world institutions. Some
of them are of very recent organisation. There
is the Legion of Honour, founded by the
First Consul at the beginning of the present cen-
tury. There is the Victoria Cross, originated
only the other day by the reigning Sovereign.
'Ne may laugh at these things as intrinsically
very frivolous. But they mean a vast deal more
than a morsel of bronze or of silver, a coin or a
-tar. For them, death is braved under its most
terrible aspects. The insignia have a priceless
significance. Nevertheless, reverting from these
comparatively minor and generally more attain-
able rewards to the original subject of our remarks
—the admission of men of letters into the ranks
of the Peerage—it may be cursorily observed that
hitherto literature has done very well without this
very magnificent and overwhelming recognition
of it by the aristocracy. And Ito wonder—for
what grander dignity, what more majestic title,
what more august glory could possibly belong to
the name and the fame of the chiefs in the grand
bead-roll of literature ? What order of knight-
hood, what grade of nobility, what heraldic
emblazonment could by any imaginable contri-
vance enhance the greatness of the memory of men
like HOMER, like DANTE, like SHAKSPEREI. Never-
theless one delights all the while to remember
that the Emperor CHARLES picked up the brush
of TITIAN--one does not very willingly forego an
apocryphal a belief in the pleasant dream that
FRANQIS the FIRST supported in his arms the
dying form of LEONARDO. Not that in either
instance the dignity of the great artist was in any
way enhanced—simply only that it was very
signally recognised. And so it is now with re-
ference to the encircling of the forehead of a
bookinan like THOMAS Lord MACAULAY with a
baron's coronet. The historian might say as a
famous lawyer did once (meaning Lord TauttLow)
when taunted with his plebeian origin, "My
Lords, I must say the peerage solicited me, not
I the peerage." The honour appertains more to
the House of Peers than to a scholar who is ad-
mitted within it. Still the inauguration in this
instance of our distinguished national annalist, a
perfectly new system in the distribution of the
titles of nobility, is au event so far noteworthy
that it constitutes the most signal evidence tha

could well be afforded of the distinct recognition
by the State of the intrinsic and inalienable
dignity of the most elevated, because the most
purely intellectual of all the professions—that of
literature.

"The Narrative of the Defence of Lucknow,
by a Staff Officer, published by Smith, Elder, and
Co., Cornhill, is from the pen of Captain T. F.
Wilson, 13th 8.N.1., who was Assistant-Adjutant-
General during the whole of the memorable defence
of Lucknow to its final relief.

We are informed that a meeting Ras held at C,lm-
bridge House yesterday, at which it was resolved ta
ill° Ve a
Resolution in the House of Commons ou Thurs-
day
next upon the subject of the Despatch from Lord
Ellenborough censuring the issue of Lord Canning's
Proclainwion to the people of Oude, and that this Rego-
,n will have the concurrence of Lord John Russell
arid the principal members of the so-called Peelits
p arty. Times.
The Bisnop of Ex,:ter completed his eightieth year on
Thursday, May 6, and be is reported to be in good
health and spirits. Eighty is not an uncommon age in
Devonshire.
Miss Burdett Coutts has signified her ittention
through Mr. John Cheetbaro, M.P., to contribute a
donation of 2001, and to give an annual subscrii tion of
1001. to the Lancashire Cotton Supple- Association.
THE AMERICAN MAILS.—LIVERPOOL, Saturday.—
The British and North Anrericau Mail steamship
Niagara sailed from the Mersey this afternoon for
Halifax and Boston with the weekly mails, 108
passengers, and a full cargo of manufactured goods.