The Sun.
London, England, 1835-12-25 00:00:00

66th do.

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LONDON,
FRIDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 25, 1835.

We particularly call the attention of the Hon. Mem-
ber for Middlesex to the details of an excellent letter on
the important subject of Light Houses, which will be
found in another column. We know the writer, and
are well satisfied that he would not advance any state-
ment on light grounds ; but as any strictures made by
us would not fail to have an injurious effect upon par-
ties who have yet no opportunity of defending them-
selves, we are averse, for a little longer, to take up the
question in such a way as might lead others to sup-
pose that we were influenced by individual representa-
tions. In calling the attention of Mr. HUM E to the
subject, we render a most important service to the
country ; and at the same time afford the several Com-
panies who nave contracted to light the coasts and
harbours of the United Kingdom, a sufficient oppor-
tunity of answering those charges which are thus
publicly advanced against them. The Hon. Member
for Middlesex was the first to call the attention of the
country to the abuses carried on in this department of
the public service ; and we trust he will not relax in
his efforts to reform it before the fullest investigation
has been instituted, so that justice may be rendered to
all parties. For our on n part we shall await the
meeting of Parliament before giving full scope to our
impressions on the subject. At the same time we
must observe, that we are convinced, as well from
private sources as from the inquiries instituted by Par-
liament, that a great deal of peculation has been car-
ried on under the sanction of those persons whose duty
it was to superintend the lighting of the British and
Irish coasts. We are no longer surprised at the loud
complaints of the shipping interest, when we find it
thus defrauded to fill the pockets of private individuals.
But the country has suffered with too much forbearance

the continuance of this leaven of the old Tory system.

Heairen knows it is bad enough to have to give large
pefia for services, which if ever rendered, are un-
, . Ito
(pimple who pay the taxes ; but it is a
-',.•-• Aiikan ;t7 , ore insulting to the nation to be
L , ~..,, _ •,,,,,
~: to to', .41. , sham contracts, and suffer a rob-
C jr tu'ilqke Rl/41 .of remunerating services.
(t
,k • ..- ,ZT ._, --;%:-,,,,,,,eit ;::,, ; I
OM.
tt 1,,, t . -
\, ' Mr. Dlsß4)the younger—the quondam client
q !ifr. O'Coiti4*- I. for the honour of a: seat in Par-

liament, and the author of certain " addresses " re-

e.cted by more than one constituency of his country-
men---has addressed a letter to Lord LYNDII URST, in

vindication of what, thank HeaVen, is not in the
slightest danger—the British Constitution. The ori-
gin of this letter is not a little curious. . " Your Lord.
commence:, the modest youth, • " has honoured
.me by a wish that some observations which I made in
conversation, on the: character of•. our Constitution,
might be expressed in a more formal and a more public
manner." The conclusion is evident—ris, in fact; bO-•-
fore us. The Noble and Learned Baron desired
something more formal than Me..DlsßAEE.es..viva
voce strictures on the _British Constitution, and lo !
the wish is embodied in a Treatise of two hundred
pages. This is, certainly, a formal enough mode of
expressing oneself, even to a Peer, on any subject,
however important. Now, as Lord LYND URSt is
something of a dry humourist, we should not at all
wonder if the Noble Baron covertly proposed a second
application to the Great Agitator, with a view to the
"formal" expression of Mr. D'lsß A ELI'S opinions on
the floor of the House of Commons. Lord LYNDII Illt ST
is well known as one of those Statesman who see in an
end the sanctification of every means to attain it. We
speak of him as a politician. Had success, therefore,
followed a compliance with his " friendly suggestion,"
Mr. D'ISRAELI would have been received in the
Tory' ranks, with arms as outstretched as if he had
never sacrLe2ced his integrity, with a view to betray the
confidence repose :1 in him by his constituents.
But as Mr. D'IsrtAY,LI is a young gentleman ra-
ther notorious for the extreme pliancy of his opinions
—though not without abilities to place them in the
most favourable point of view—we are disposed to
treat him with the greatest lenity. That he is op-
posed to us now is merely a temporary misfortune----
five, years ago he was much more violently hostile to
the Tory party, now the object of his devotional ad-
miration. The events of a year have a wonderful ef-
fect on such a partizan. Besides, as he has already
boxed two sides of the political compass unsuccess-
fully, it is but fair to conclude that he will yet try
what may be gained by enumerating the few points
that remain.

No " heaven-born " Minister ever saw half the per-
fections in the British Constitution which Mr.
D'ISRAELI the Younger has discovered in it. There
is neither spot, stain, or wrinkle upon its hallowed
and imperishable surface. Whatever it sanctions is
the perfection of wisdom ; and it sanctions all that
exists, with the exception of the Whig Ministry, the
Whig Reform Bill, the Utilitarians, and DANIEL
O'CONNELL. For all these the British Constitution
has the greatest possible contempt—at least, so says
Mr. D'ISRAELI in his Vindication, and we must be
understood to state the alleged fact on his authority.
His is no niggard, no exceptional praise, doled out,
subject to limitaticns. He takes the Constitution as
the Tories have made it, or feign to understand it,
and right boldly maintains its claim to the veneration
of all mankind. In an hereditary peerage—a bench
of episcopal legislators—votes given by proxy—a state
church, with all its cumbrous and expensive machi-
nery, and persecuting spirit—a House of Commons
nominated by the KING, the Peers, and the squire-
archy—Mr. D'ISRAELI discovers the most perfect
system of Government of which man in a sublunary
state is really capable. Every departure from such a
state of things he regards as a violation of our " glo-
rious Constitution in Church and State I" Mark the
splendour of his first enthusiastic burst of overpower-
ing admiration :
ziaitiluarck,....xs4-,‘,

a free

•overnment on an extensive

blems of humanity, is certainly the greatest achievement of
human wit. Perhaps I should rather term it a superhuman
achievement ; for it requires such refined prudence, such
comprehensive knowledge, and such perspicacious sagacity,
united with such almost illimitable poweri of combination,
that it is nearly in vain to hope for qualities so rare to be
congregated in a solitary mind. Assuredly this suminum
bonunz is not to be found esconced behind a revolutionary
barricade, or floating in the bloody, gutters of an incendiary
metropolis. It cannot be scribbled down—this great inven-
tion—in a morning, on the envelope of a letter by some
charter-concocting monarch, or sketched with ludicrous fa-
cility in the conceited common-place book of an Utilitarian
sage. With us it has been'the growth of ages, and brood•
ing centuries have watched over and tended its perilous
birth and feeble infancy. The noble offspring of liberty and
law now flourishes in the full and lusty vigour of its proud
and perfect manhood. 'Long may it flourish ! Long be its
life, venerable its age, and distant its beatified euthanasia !"
Were the peroration equal to the exordium,. the
Tories might well be proud of their new ally. The
more religious among them will be happy to discover
him thus on his knees, manifestly resolved to move
Heaven and Earth in their support. Should his
arguments prove of no avail, they have still his prayers
to depend upon—prayers neither wanting in faith nor
fervour. But let us divest the subject of these tawdry
common-place ornaments, and at once approach it in
a proper spirit, as becomes intelligent beings. And
now, let us ask, whO were the men who framed those
documents, which Mr. DISRAELI assumes as the
foundation of those rights and privileges to which we
give the title of the British Constitution ? Were
they not the Barons and Clergy of England in the
reign of the Jou s, the HENRYS, and the ED-
WARDS—men whom the Tories denounce as noto-
riously the slaves of the grossest superstition ? STE-
PHEN LANGTON was at the head of those who,
sword in hand, wrested Magna Charta from King
JOHN; yet, was STEPHEN alive now, Master D'ls-
RAELI would sneer at him for his Papislical errors of
belief, and maintain, in the teeth of the good Bishop,
that his religion. disqualified him from being other than
a tyrant or a slave.

But admitting that the formation of the English
Constitution engaged the attention of "all mankind
since Noah's flood, and that, moreover, it is now per-
fect—what inference ought we to draw from this ?
Surely not that as much time would be required to
frame a model of it. The dissemination of the
knowledge of any disCovery is a very different affair
from making the discovery itself. What, for example,
would foreign countries have said, had JOHN GOT-
TENBURG, the first printer of a book, addressed
them in such language as this :—" The Germans.
have practised the art of penmanship for upwards of a
thousand years. They have at several times made various
improvements in the. art, as may be seen by referring
to their illuminated missals. By the discovery of
printing we have now perfected the system ; but be
careful that you only establish a printing-office, when
you shall have passed through the same initiatory
course. Don't trouble yourselves about profiting by
our experience. To arrive at the truth, you must go
blindfolded as we did, and probably after another thou-
sand years you too may be qualified to establish a
printing-office." Now, if such sophistry as this would
be scouted as soon as spoken, what conceivable reason
can there be for not scouting the still more monstrous
absurdity, blurted out by Mr.D'ISRAELI in his bom-
bastic peroration ? Besides, every assertion contained
in it is a pure fiction. The English Constitution—
all pure and immaculate as it is—has been found en-
sconced behind a revolutionary barricade in England,
as well as in France. It has floated in the bloody
gutters of an incendiary metropolis ; and, what is more
to the purpose—has been scribbled down (at least in
all the material parts of it) in a morning, and that
too in a spirit as upright as any that ever warmed the
breasts of our patriotic and wise ancestors during the
reign of the Plantagenet dynasty. The Liberal