The Sun.
London, England, 1859-03-28 00:00:00

~1

before his death, the great statesman saw his words
fulfilled :

On the 19th of February, 1778, Lord North !rose in the
House of Commons to move a fresh conciliatory budget. He
proposed :-1. To repeal the tea duty absolutely. 2. To re.
nounce by act of Parliament all right of taxing the colonies
for revenue, and to provide that the produce of any duties
imposed for the regulation of trade should be paid over to
the colonies. 3. To appoint commissioners who should
have the power to treat with Congress as such to put a
stop to the war, and to suspend all laws of which the
Americans might complain, and which the commissioners
should be willing to provoke. A dull, melancholy silence
succeeded the delivery of Lord North's speech. Astonish-
ment, dejection, and fear overloaded the whole aasembly.
No mark of approbation appeared from any part of the
house. Nor was this to be wondered at. Members who
had supported the war must have seen the fabric of empire,
which Lord North had hitherto displayed before their eyes,
vanish into air, with feelings of consternation. Others of a
different stamp, who had warned the Ministry not to repeat
the experiment of the stamp duty, must have reflected with
sorrottr that ten years earlier the concession now made
migh have saved millions of treasure, rivers of blood, and
the affections of three millions of people.
The united eloquence of Chatham, Burke, Fox, and
their supporters could not turn the weak minister
and obstinate, narrow-minded king from their per-
verse policy. After narrating the death of Lord
Chatham Lord John Russell makes the following
observations on his character :

In estimating the general conduct of a great man, the
failings of the age must be allowed to palliate those of the
individual. In this manner Tacitus vindicates the charac-
ter of Agricola; in this manner the admirers of Chatham
must be allowed to plead the factiousness of- many, the
feebleness of most, the corruption of nearly all of his
contemporaries. It cannot be denied that, in opposition to
Sir Robert Walpole, he recklessly urged on the Spanish
war, and cast undue odium on the Hanover connexion.
The Spanish war is now generally admitted to have been
forced on by this great orator against the just views of policy;
the Hanover connexion became to Lord Chatham himself,
when Minister, a source of national strength. The great
period of Lord Chatham's glory occurred in the four years
between 1757 and 1761, when he wielded the thunder-
bolt and fulmined over Europe and America. A greater
war Minister has never been seen ; his spirit animated the
nation, his sagacity descried the merits of Wolfe, and his
firmness sustained the genius of Frederick of Prussia. In
the American struggle, his wisdom was no less conspicuous;
but his overbearing pride threw away the instruments by',
which his policy might have been assured to adopt tools he
thought more pliant, but which were sure to break in his
hands.

Lord Chatham's eloquence appears to me to be marked
by feeling and imagination beyond that of any orator,
ancient or modern. In the regular sustained march of
dignified language and close argument he was inferior to
many : the fire of some orators is more skilfully prepared,
their flame burns longer and more steadily, but Lord Chat-
ham's flashes are from Heaven.

The meeting of the Rhone and the Saone, the immunity
of an Englishman's home, where the wind might blow
through every cranny, but the King's writ could not enter,
the statutes turned down in dogsears, the master feather in
the eagle's wing, and several more images of great beauty,
will occur to every one. They have no parallel in the
speeches of his son, of Fox, or of Sheridan—Burke alone'
in a different style, and more sustained flight, can bear
comparison with tho Great Commoner.

It is in the earliest part of the volume, during his
vigorous struggle for the rights of the colonists,
that the chaaacter and abilities of Fox shine most
brightly. 'Afterwards he becomes involved in the
official tactics of parties. Mr. Grattan, himself no
inconsiderable orator, on being asked which were
the best speeches he ever heard, replied without
hesitation, " Fox's during the American war." His
biographer gives many samples of his powerful in-
vective and impassioned declamation. This first
volume closes, as it were, the first epoch of his
Parliamentary career. The tenure of office by the
Coalition Government was brief and unsatis-
factory. The next volume will bring us to
the struggle of the French Revolution and
to those contests between the two great rivals
which resounded for years within the walls of the
English Parliament. Through those stirring years
and animated debates, one who is himself a states-
man and a debater is well qualified to lead us. The
records of a time so eventful and so important can
never be uninstructive. Every one of the chief
figures may be painted with pre-Raphaelite accu-
racy and minuteness of detail, and still the history
would be interesting. In these days, when the bit-
terness of party spirit is dying out, when political
rancour is modified, and political intrigues less
secure, the leaders of great parties, and men of
authority in the State, may learn something from
the errors and mistakes into which their predeces-
sors fell. Looking upon the results of each great
party move as influencing the destinies of nations,
weighing the consequences of . class animosity or
personal ambition in the men of ability and autho-
rity, the conscientious statesman may find more in
the life of a great political chief than the interest
of the history or the value of the record. By few
could those records have been more worthily told
than by one who is himself die possessor of a great
historical name,, and conspicuous in the catalogue of
English statesmen.

Ellen Raymond; or, Ups and Downs. By Mrs.
Vidal, author of "'Pales for the Bush," &c., &c.

3 vols. Smith and Elddr.

This is an interesting story ; it is rather compli-
cated in its detail:, but the plot is skilfully worked
out. The character of Ellen Raymond is very well
described, and her strange, eventful life possesses
many features of a mournful interest. Her family
was a peculiar one, and the circumstances attend-
ant on her home existence well calculated to be
extremely irritating to one of her tempera-
ment. Her father was a man of a very
violent temper and singular disposition. Soon
after Ellen's return home from school, he renewed
an acquaintance with a widow to whom in early
life he had been attached. Mrs. Hay was no friend
to the beautiful Raymond, who in htr turn
resented the constant interference that went on and
the perpetual complaints transmitted to her from
the designing widow, which reached her in no
pleasant way from her irate and prejudiced father.
She was also in the extreme fear from her hasty
temper, and the consequence was that she left her
father's to reside with an intimate friend of hers
who had been a companion of her mother's in their
young days. Mrs. Wentworth is ably pictured to
us as a woman of much kindness of heart, but too
volatile of disposition, and too indifferent to the
prejudices and practices of society to be a safe or
desirable guardian to so yoang and beautiful a girl
as the wayward Ellen Raymond. She had intended
to make the daughter of her deceased friend her

heiress, but she was too afraid of dwelling on un-
pleasant subjects to make a will, hence when she
died suddenly, some crafty relatives, whom she did
not like, and who did not care for her, seized upon
everything. Ellen roused herself to exertion, and,
having persuaded a widowed sister to reside with
her, she supported herself for some time by the sale
of pictures ; she had always possessed a great talent
in that way. There are some painful passages in
the story, as for instance the part which relates to
John Mortimer, who had been passionately at-
tached to Ellen, and she being thoughtless and
hasty, treated his declaration with scorn. This
excited the ungovernable temper of the man,
and he vowed revenge. He fulfilled his
threat in a very unmanly way, for he married the
elder sister of Ellen, the unfortunate Bessie Ray-
mond. She for a long time believed her husband
attached to her, while he was merely playing out
his own purpose of forcing Ellen to succumb to his
plans. By the threat of disclosing all to Bessie,
which she knew would distract her, he compelled
Ellen to give up to him nearly all the money which
was being kept apart for her. It was her drawing
out the money secretly, and refusing;to account for
it that occasioned the final quarrel with her father.
The Mortimers were fated to be the bane of Ellen's
existence, for her attachment to Granville, the
brother of John, proved a misfortune to her. Her
constancy to this feeling made her refuse Edward
Vaughan, who was a very estimable character, and
who was much more truly attached to her than
Granville, who, with all his professions, gave up at
the very first difficulty, and hurried away to marry
another without waiting to clear up the mystery.
All the confusions attendant on these disappoint-
ments and calamities tended to embitter Ellen's

iii,-aiiiitharCifienCe which had promised so
brightly was overshadowed. At the conclusion
she seemed to brighten, however, and the change
from her gloomy cottage to the cheerful home of
her younger sister was very beneficial to her. Many
years after she again met Mr. Vaughan, and find_
ing.his devotion to her unchanged, she consented to
their union. On the whole this work displays con-
siderable ability, and many readers 'will be delighted
with its perusal. There are many persons intro-
duced, who impart a variety to its pages, and
there are scenes of an exciting nature which
characterise its progress. It may be considered a
success in its peculiar style and character.

Six Years' Travel in Russia. By an English
Lady. 2 vols. Hurst and Blackett.
We here meet with two most pleasing volumes,
presenting us with interesting and instructive ac-
counts of Russia and her people. The work is
written in an easy, flowing style, and can hardly
fail to meet the approval of impartial readers. It
is true that occasionally the author is too prone to
favouritism, and too apt to regard the country
in which she passed some years so happily, under
too favourable auspices ; but she evidently speaks
her own opinions, and this circumstance does not
detract from the merits of the book, as presenting
lively sketches of society and graphic details of the
manners and customs prevalent in Russia. There
are also some passages of historical incidents, and
occasionally some legends are introduced, as those
of the Kreml, which impart an additional interest
to the work. The habits of the Russians are
strapge in some respects, as,for instance, in raising
the temperature of their houses to such a degree
that they are enabled to wear summer costume in
the depths of winter. It would seem more i ational
to inure themselves more to the atmosphere than to
breathe such an enervating air as that produced by