The Sun.
London, England, 1866-03-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

THE " SATURDAY REVIEW " ON THE INCAPACITY
OF LORD RUSSELL AS PREMIER.—The blunder made
by the Times iu announcing the resignation of Lord
Russell was very unfair and very prejudicial to the
Ministry, but its exposure has also been so humili-
ating to those who made it that there is no need to
comment on it. That the rumour should have been
at once received with a wide belief, and that the
public should have thought the resignation of Lord
Russell the most natural thing in the world, is some-
thing much more important. If there had not been
strange symptoms of weakness in the Government
apparent to every one, it would have seemed very
extraordinary that a Premier should resign with a
large majority in the Commons still unbroken ; and
still more extraordinary that Lord Russell should
have been able to see that he was not fitted to carry
on the Government. Bat the rumour was believed
because the Government has obviously so many
difficulties to contend against, and because a large
portion of these difficulties have been created
by Lord Russell himself. In the first place,:Lord
Russell has chosen to accept office without hav-
ing physical force and, nerve enough to fill a
high place as it ought to be filled. If the Premier
is in the House of Lords, it may at least be sup-
posed that the great disadvantages which this
entails will be compensated by some advantages of
a special kind. The Premier ought to be able to
give the debates of the Lords more importance than
they ordinarily possess. He ought to impart a surer
and firmer tone to the announcements of Govern-
ment, to make his party in the house seem better
organised, more compact, and coherent than it
otherwise would be. Here Lord Russell has utterly
broken down. He can scarcely go through the
exertion of a speech. He can give no information,
nor can he speak with authority on any subject.
Those who are members of his own Cabinet intimate
their disapproval of measures which he introduces.
There is no one in the Lords who can answer ques-
tions as to the intentions of the Government, even
in minor matters. For, with the Premier in the
Lords, no other Peer feels it to be his duty to con-
duct the daily business of the Government there ;
and so the Government is even more imperfectly
represented in the Upper House than it usually is
when the Premier is in the Commons. All that
Lord Russell retains of his former self seems to be
his ancient ardour in jobbing for his friends, and his
old
_impulsive rashness in taking unfortunate but
important steps without consulting his colleagues.
Ile is still capable of making Lord Romilly a Peer,
and he is still capable of importing a young and
untried member into the Cabinet, without letting
his colleagues know what he intended to do. But
there his capacity for the Premiership ends. That
the Premiership should have been offered to him
was perfectly right. His high position, the respect
due to his better qualities, the prominent part he
has so long played in the eyes of the country, made
it quite natural that he should have the refusal of
the place which the death of Lord Palmerston
made vacant. In an evil hour for his own happi-
ness and for his future fame he accepted the offer,
and the consequence is the melancholy position in
which he now finds himself. Lord Russell, more-
over, has to overcome difficulties greater than
usually beset the path of a Premier. lie is at the
head of a party which leans in two different direc-
tions, and the divisions of his Cabinet. Of course
eves y party in some measure leans in different direc-
tions, for it has its extremes as well as its centre.
There is a very wide divergence between the Con-
servatism of Mr. Newdegate and the Conservatism
of Mr. Disraeli. But there is no difference of the
kind that embarrasses the leader of a party. Lord
Derby can reckon on the votes and adherence of the
Conservative party as confidently as Count Walew-
ski can reckon on the support of a majority of the
French Chamber. But the Liberal party is split up by
a divergence of opinion that enters too deeply into
every department of thought to be easily overridden
by the pressure of party ties. One section of the
Liberals is quite satisfied with the present machinery
of government, and the present constitution of the
governing classes. It confines its attention solely
to measures, and is content with the position of a
Liberal Ministry which watches with languid indif-
ference while private members carry liberal mea-
sures through the House of Commons, and send
them up to be decisively and instantaneously rejected

by the House of Lords. It aims at keeping the
general body of Liberals in decently good humour,
and of appealing for public support by providing a
competent body of men to carry on the business of
the country. The other section of the Liberals looks
at things in quite a different way. It aims at a change
in the system of government, and a change in the
composition of the governing classes. It is compara-
tively careless of the fate of particular measures, and
careless even to irreverence of the claims of old
public servants on the confidence of the nation. Its
main desire is to infuse into Parliament that
sympathy with the masses, that harmony with
the wishes of the lower classes, which it calls
liberal, and which its enemies call revolutionary.
For a time both sections may go on well together,
for each is reluctant to lose the countenance and
support of the other ; and there is a large number
of men who do not clearly know to which section they
belong, and who are prudently waiting to find out
which is the stronger, and then to declare that it is
to this stronger section that they have always be-
longed. But no one can doubt that this divergence
of Liberal opinion might easily show itself any day
in a disruption of the Cabinet. No one believes
that Lord Clarendon, or the Duke of Somerset, or
Lord Stanley of Alderley would wish to see a Re-
form Bill carried if they did not think a Reform of
some sort inevitable. The Cabinet appears to be
agreed upon the Reform Bill that is to be proposed.
But the real battle that is to be fought will be
fought when the details of the bill furnish the field
of conflict. Modifications will be proposed, and
then, if the Government shows itself inclined to the
side of the safe-going Whigs, it will alienate the
more decided Liberals, and make them indisposed
to fight as hard for the bill as its supporters must
fight if it is to be carried. If, on the other hand,
the Government lets it be seen that its sympathies
are with the extreme Liberals, all the more timid
members of their party will take the first opportunity
to make the passing of the bill impossible. At such
a crisis, the first condition of success, and even of
safety, is that the Premier should have those mental
and social gifts, that commanding influence, and
that power of reconciling men of discordant opinions
which enable a leader to keep his Cabinet in har-
mony, and his party at his command. Of these
gifts, and this power, Lord Russell is perhaps more
destitute than any Prime Minister who has held
office for century. The resignation of Lord Rus-
sell is therefore only a matter of time, and probably
of a very short time. Whether the Reform Bill
suceeds or fails, Lord Russell's Premiership must
come to an end.

THE " SPECTATOR" ON Mn. JOHN PARRY'S WED-
DING BREAKFAST.—That curious power of Mr. John
Parry's over the lines of expression of his own face,
by which he makes us believe, directly his enter-
tainment is over, that, though we have really seen
only him, and him in a gentleman's ordinary even-
ing dress, we have nevertheless seen all sorts of
different people as well—young ladies flirting, elderly
ladies doing the polite, the respectable butler, the
spoiled child, the vain, empty-headed coxcomb, and
various other personages—is enough to startle the
most unspeculative of British spectatorsinto momen-
tary metaphysics. Is it that Mr. Parry has enough
of Colonel and Mrs. Roseleaf, and Mrs. Jene (nee
(Gushington), and Mr. Olympus, and the butler,
&c., in himself, to become a precisely similar charac-
ter by voluntarily accenting, as it were, some little
drift of tendency in his own character ; or is it that
all these numberless expressions of face represent
merely the most superficial mannerisms of social
convention—a variety of masks which almost any
one 'could assume under a little social pressure,
without ceasing to be their own individual selves ?
The latter can scarcely be the case, because Mr.
Parry goes a good deal deeper than the mere ripple
of conventional affectations. His face expresses
almost every variety of self-love and amiability,
from Mr. Jenes muddy and selfish vanity about
his own songs and singing, to Mrs. Roseleaf's really
amiable affectation of a hostess's flattery and rail-
lery. Yet there is something much more extraordi-
nary than mere acting in what Mr. Parry achieves.
An actor who takes a set part has all the advantage
of concentrating his mind on that part, as well as
the advantage of appropriate dress and incident to
remind him of the attitude of feeling he is expected,
as far as he can, to assume. But Mr. Parry works
with no help of this kind, and yet passes through as
many transformations as Indus in the course of half
au hour without putting off his swallow-tail coat,
by the mere moulding power of his fancy over the
lines of his own face. Of course the limits within
which he works are narrow; he does not attempt to
migrate into any character out of the world of ordi-
nary drawing-room experience. He does not change
from comedy to tragedy. He always wears some va-
riety of the company face. But within these limits
the changes he produces upon his own face are asto-
nishing, and, as we have said, go quite beyond the
changes of conventional manner, covering changes
of real individual temper and character. Mr. Jen 6,
and Mr. Olympus, and Colonel Roseleaf are all
quite different men, not merely men with a different
crust of social manner upon them. Perhaps indeed
his most delicate touches are touches indicating the
different effect of conventional position on the
character. 'Take, for instance, his hired musician
in Mrs. Roseleaf's Xvening Party, and his respectful
butler who announces breakfast in the Wedding
Breakfast. The same man, assuming the countenance
of two characters so near each other in social position,
might be supposed to be in danger of confusing the
two. But in fact they are as different as Colonel
Roseleaf and his own butler. The hired musician,
though working for hire, has a perfectly indepen-
dent air about him. He is all mechanical obedience
to his superior, but there is no touch of obsequious-
ness in his face. What he expresses is the feeling
of a professional drudge, for whom the music has lost
all meaning. He is a monotony, a fatigued mono-
tony, producing a monotonous variety of sounds.
He yawns freely as the evening goes on. He exe-
cutes his orders punctually like an operative, not
with deference like a personal attendant. His ex-
pression is almost that of a prisoner turning a crank,
except that there is also the energy of a man earn-
ing his bread. The butler, on the contrary, is all
reverence and self-respect. As he enters the room
his eyes are fixed on his master, and slightly turned
up to express ceremonious waiting. Yet even here,
where the main difference is due to a variety of
social function, you will scarcely be able to conceive
that the same man might, under different circum-
stances, have filled the two situations. There is too
deference—the essence of the body-servant in the
butler. You feel that in undress he would probably
be insolent, riotous, intemperate, and vulgar. The
hired musician is, on the contrary, a respectable and
trustworthy, though, of course uneducated, sort of
person, who, though he can relish his glass of wine
after fatiguing playing, and thinks a little of his sup-
per, yet has nothing riotous about him. Then with
what wonderful delicacy Mr. Parry expresses the
various phases of the same person's mind under
different circumstances. In the " Evening Party"
Mr. Jen 6 was all muddy, dissatisfied vanity. He
sang his little song—" words and music both my
own"—in a sulky, exacting mood, darting furious
glances at the door as each new guest's announce-
ment interrupted the attention of the company.
He grumbled morosely to himself when it was over.
His face was all suffused with the secretion of his
irritated self-love, and his clumsiness exaggerated
by the ungainliness of his enormous voracity for
applause. As bridegroom he is still " like his ordi-
nary self,—like, but oh how different !" He is still
a shade sulky at first, and asks Colonel Roseleaf
how long they will be kept in the drawing-room
before breakfast is ready, almost with his old rude
moroseness. But there is a perceptible flutter of
gratified vanity about him, and the bilious expres-
sion of face gradually gives way to a sort of moony
and half-doubtful consciousness of success. In-
stead of glowering, there is a haze of smile strug-
gling for development on his reluctant countenance,
like a doubtful sun behind a mist. He supposes " a
man must do this sort of thing once in his life,
though it's deuced awkward." His speech at the
breakfast is a marvel of art. , There oozes from
him a sort of thick dreggy sentiment, such as you
would expect from the author of " Would You Love
Me, if You Knew Me?" in a state of half-satiated va-
nity. "There are some situations in life," he says, "to
which a man feels himself wholly inadequate, and I
am sure that if ever in my life I was in that situa-
tion it is this situation." What a vapid, infinitely
clumsy egotism Mr. Parry gives to this beautiful
sentence ! Mr. Jetni's eyeglass is stuck awkwardly
into his eye, and the brow contracted to keep it in,
and yet the muddy face is thawing a little beneath
the cheers of the guests and the sense of his own
importance. Then hcgoes on to say that " When I
feel myself the happy possessor of so much grace
and beauty"—great cheering, amidst which the face
of Mrs. -Jene (nee Gushington) is suddenly seen
from behind the wedding cake beaming with affected
coyness, and the bouquet is thrust out with playful
menace, and a gratified "Don't, you naughty man,"
towards the place in which her husband was the
moment before standing—" when I feel myself, I
say, the happy possessor of so much grace and
beauty—I really am so much confused I scarcely
know what I am saying -- and think that we
are to brush on together through life,"—a sob from
Mrs. Jene and the ladies—" I own that I am deeply
moved. I know that there is many a cup between
the slip and the lip, I mean many a lip between the
cup and the slip—and really I am so confused that
I will only thank you very heartily for the
kind way in which you have drunk the
health of my dear wife "—sobs---" my darling
wife"--more sobs—" and myself—and conclude
in the words of the poet—indeed I quite forget the
exact words to which I referred"—here Mr. Jae
sits down amidst rapturous cheering, looking almost
sunny for him, as if a very watery sun had got quite

through the mist for a moment. And then Mr.
Parry suddeniy changes into the bachelors friend,
Mr. Olympus—a heavy, classical-allusionist gentle-
man of ponderous jocosity—who looks sternly over
tortoiseshell spectacles at the bridesmaids whrise
.
health he proposes—begins with " The ancient
Greeks," goes on with the Vestal Virgins, quotes his
" humorous friend Homer," reflects on the disaa.
vantage of shaving young ladies' heads, apropos
of the supposed custom of the Vestal Virgins'
hurls—with that grave energy which precludes
the idea of anything more than oratory —heavy
compliments straight at the eight bridesmaids' 5i
teen eyes, and ends, after a long pause, with an
emphatic and even earnest enunciation of the 11
pose, " I shall now sit down." The manly decision
of this last resolve, the firmness with which it is in,"
stantly carried into execution, the strongly :narked
divisions of his sentences, and the steady, thoroul,,,
going way which Mr. Olympus goes through all h!'
classical allusions, jokes, and compliments, are all 1n
striking contrast to the espiglerie and flutter °L
emotion which otherwise marks the whole occasil's
Mr. John Parry can transform himself at a moment,
notice from" the delicate, curvetting, conscious Ara''
into the strong, stout cob.
THE ANGLO-AMERICAN TIMES" ON EUR°PE.:::sId
FRIENDS OF AMERICA.—It was pertinently a
forcibly asked by a great Reformer of a Peoplee
in the olden time—" Am I, therefore, beconli
your enemy because I tell you the truth r Wityl
equal force and pertinence, it may be asked pc"
—ls, therefore, the friend of America of neces-
sityt the enemy of Europe ? Certainly
But 'here the other inquiry naturally arises—lv
are the friends of _ America in Europe ? There
but one answer to this question—The friends °'
America are they who tell the truth about her;
America ought not to recognise any others as her
friends, either at home or abroad. In other dais
she had these friends in Europe, whose faithful pro'
dictions have been more than verified by the subse-
quent events of history. In more recent tines
America has found other friends in Europe, friends
who have told the truth about her, through go°
report and through evil report ; and how tri%
phantly are their prophecies being fulfilled ! /Yd
claim Richard Cobden, and John Bright, to,
Thomas Bayley Potter, and Sir Morton Pe
and Edward Baines, and P. A. Taylor, and inell
of like character as friends of America, because they
have done nomore and no less than tell the truth
about her, in plain English. For the same rea-
son we honour Laboulye and Gasparin, in Fran
Kossuth, in Hungary, Garibaldi, in:ltaly, aed
men of a kindred spirit in Germany, Switzerlau i
and other parts of Europe. Professors Cairns,
and and Newman, and Smith, Reverends Hall, n,itte
Noel, and Guthrie, and other good men, er
friends of America, because, in representing his
position, they have told the truth. In doing ,s
great work are all these men, therefore, the eliernui.
of Europe ? Again we reply—certainly' n°
The high-minded and well-informed man elenri;
where must see that the growth of America In ' .h.ef
greatness is but the transplanting and expansi°uti,
sound European principles on the American Con
neut. The original founders of America Sprang
directly from England. The drank their It's
draughts of liberty from Englis fountains; drang„e
that lost none of their strength by a wintry 'NY,"
of three thousand miles in the cabin of the 11
Flower, and by being replenished from the slid.
broader and deeper springs of life in. the New Wr°l-
to
Americans do not ask their friends in Europe ir
flatter America. They well know that Ole
country has had her faults, and has them still. "0
would not dissemble about them nor have theas
cloaked. Let the truth be told ofAmerica just
it is, for that alone will stand the test of ages.. le
any of the men we have named in this artLe
should visit America—some of them, we are haPf
to say, have done so—they would see much there
to condemn. But no intelligent or candid Anie,hrie
can would on that account regard them as
enemies of his country. Neither would he regard
j.
the American who told the truth about Europe, e 7
therefore, the enemy of America. By the same r
they who commend that which is commendablete
America are by no means to be regarded as the
enemies of Europe. On the contrary, they are "
only real friends of both countries.