The Sun.
London, England, 1859-07-16 00:00:00

the structure itself is yet actually finished, a build-
ing the very :atmosphdre penetrating which is
anything but pleasant or salubrious. In reference
to the last-mentioned grievance, however, as the
member for the North Riding of Yorkshire re-
marked with an execrable Cockney pun—we
must, following the advice of Mrs. GLASSE—
" first catch our hare " It is neither
a slovenly and expensive mode of doing this—to
pour, as-we are now doing, 100 tons of lime daily
into the current of that pestiferous river of the
Thames weltering up and down with the ebb and
flow of the tide past the Legislative Palace at
Westminster. Let us but once really purify the
river, and depend upon it we shall settle down
comfortably with something like contentment in
our really noble and superb, though purely Gothic,
Houses of Parliament.

One of the " Napoleonic Ideas" of the uncle, the
nephew has, beyond all denial, admirably illus-

trated—that " it is but a step from the sublime to
the ridiculous." On the 7th ult. we were all
looking at NAPOLEON the nephew almost as we
once did at NAPOLEON the uncle on the same spot ;
we were beginning to think he might be a great,
a master-mind, after all—that liberating Italy,
from the French Alps to the Adriatic, was no vain-
glorious boast, but soon to become an accomplished
fact. NAPOLEON 111. stood at Villafranca, on the
left side of the Mincio, the victor of half-a-dozen
fights, the last one being the imposing battle of
Solferino. He had vanquished every army in the
field—he now stood before the famous Quadrangle
summoning it to surrender. Two armies are yet
fresh, the other flushed with victory, and a fleet
on the other side of the Quadrangle seemed to
place the keys of Italian independence and the
power to fulfil his proclamation in his hands.
Thus it was on the 7th ; on the Bth, just when
expecting to hear of another decisive battle, which
should shut up every Austrian in the fortresses,
came the puzzling news of a five weeks' armistice !
What could it mean ? Could Austria be yet so
humbled as to surrender the four fortresses, and
Venice, without a battle or a siege ?—or, could
Louis NAPOLEON show his face again in France

if they were left longer in Austrian hands—if the
Adriatic were not even gazed on by the French
soldiers, who were to write " Italy Independent"
on the sand of its shores. We had not long to
wait : by Tuesday evening we Ns ere told that the
vanquished victor had signed a peace ! A peace
leaving Austria supreme in Italy, glorifying the
POPE with a tinsel crown, consigning Sardinia to
political insignificance, and giving her the Duchy
of Milan as a sweetmeat to pacify the innocent
creature !llt was hardly a day, at least, between
the sublime and the ridiculous. On Monday, the
victor Emperor of fifty met the vanquished Empe-
ror of half his age, and on Tuesday we heard that
the boy had vanquished in the Cabinet the man
who had thrashed him in the field ;—the youn
Hapsburg turns homeward with the fame of clever
diplomacy after disastrous fighting—the old
NAPOLEON quits for Paris to be laughed at for
empty beasts and for being outwitted by a boy !
We can hardly, indeed, realise to ourselves the
absurd result of such awful sacrifices. The victor
of Montebello, of Buffalora, of Magenta, of Solfe-
rino, quaking before Mantua, Pescheira, and Verona,
and while begging mercy of Austria—and—calling
it moderation ! His own country and his army
will never forgive him that moderation—forgive
him for being beaten by the quadrangle. Waterloo
was no dishonour ; the French fought, and fought
nobly, too, there. But, they undertook to conquer
the quadrangle, they conquered only the open coun-
try, and left the quadrangle—real difficulty !
France vanquished at Solferino—she was herself
vanquished at Verona. NAPOLEON I. did miracles
for his means, at Waterloo ; NAPOLEON 111. left his
miracles yet to be performed at Verona.
' But he has done cleverly for his interest ! He
has made a humbled friend of Austria ; he has
bought Sardinia, if, indeed, VICTOR EMMANUEL be
base enough to be bought by a handsome present;
he placed that constitutional King between the
coercion of the despotic quadrangle on one side,
and the despotic French Empire on the other ; he
has killed off officers enough to enable him to make
a good batch of promotions ; he has bribed the
POPE with a gilt crown, and the Roman Catholic

clergy by his nominal homage to their head. The
little dukedoms, in future, also must all obey him
and Austria ; and he has given the name of inde-
pendence to Italy, and kept the thing for himself
and FRANCIS JOSEPH ; besides, he has stopped all
nationality work in Hungary and elsewhere, and
the Italians well know that they must obey his
bailiffs, or share the fate of Perugia.
Yes, we can think of a hundred clever things,
but as mean as clever. We do not read of one
noble proposal. It is not even stipulated that the
garrisons and army of Venetia and the quadrangle
shall be composed of Italians, officered by Italians,
and the administration conducted by Italians.
That might have given some hope, even under an
Austrian Archduke. No, it is all the timid, cow-
ardly concession of the despot of France to the
despot of Austria, when he found her, as he
thought,' more than a match for him. In truth,
his former victories measure the disgrace of his
present retreat. Paris blushes before Europe, and
tears down the recreant proclamation.

Such of our readers as wish to know what is the
weight of opinion on the subject of marriage with
a deceased wife's sister may have full satisfaction
by referring to a monster advertisement which
appears in our columns to-day. It commences with
twenty-seven facts, and such of the facts as could
be called in question are supported by an array of
opinions which we cannot undertake to number.
If any question could be settled by an appeal to
the judgment of a long list of persons best qualified
to judge, this marriage question is one of them.
The promoters of Lord BURY'S Bill appear to
consider the right interpretation of the Scripture
on the subject the chief point. They argue, that
on the Levitical degrees of consanguinity, those of
the law of the land are expressly founded by the
only statute, one of HENRY VIII., relating to the
subject ; also, that the people of this country would
not longer consent to have their liberty fettered by
the Church merely, if they were satisfied that the
Scriptures did not prohibit the marriages in ques-
tion. They are perhaps right. Yet it seems
impossible that our English version of the Bible
could have either generated or encouraged the
error. We do not see how any plain Englishman
could read the prohibition in the celebrated passage,
Leviticus c. xviii, v. 18, in an age when polygamy was
common and lawful, " thou shalt not take a wife
to her sister, to vex her, beside the other in her life-
time," and could understand it in more than the
restricted sense, the restriction—" in her life-time,"
making it clear that after the death of the
married sister the surviving parties were at
liberty to act as they pleased. The advertisement
we refer to is accordingly:evidence enough that this
is the view taken by numerous laymen of the
soundest judgment and of high ability. But what is
equally or more important, those who are thoroughly
acquainted with the Hebrew original, including
the learned Hebrews themselves, guarantee us that