The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-31 00:00:00

wards the end of the month Austria rejected the
proposal of Prussia for a Congress, because France
demanded that Sardinia should be represented
there. Count CAVOUR, at the very end of the
month, paid a visit to Paris, and then came the
Austrian offer to agree to a Congress if Sardinia
would cease from her military preparations, which
Sardinia reasonably enough declined to do.
April came, and in the middle of it a demand, on
the part of Austria, for a general disarmament as a
condition of admitting anything like arbitration.
Her unreasonable demands, in regard to it, found
no support anywhere ; and on the 22d she forwarded
her famous ultimatum, which was of course rejected
by Sardinia, and war was precipitated. Media-
tion,( offered by England, being now rejected
by France, Austria placed her army rapidly on
a war footing ; Prussia mobilised 70,000 men ; a
loan of £30,000,000 was promptly raised in France,
a contingent of 140,000 men demanded, and her
troops
_began to assemble on the frontiers of Savoy ;
the Grand Duke of TUSCANY fled, and his subjects
named VrcTon EMMANTJEL their king, and on the
29th the Austrian troops crossed the Ticino at three
points, while by the next day the French had
reached Turin, and 40,000 of them had landed at
Genoa. The campaign was now opened.
We have recalled the leading points of the pre-
liminaries to the war, as being most likely to have
escaped the memory of our readers ; the striking
events of the war itself they will not so easily
forget. The rapid advance of the Austrians after
a day or two; their being then afraid to attack
General LA MARMORA'S line on the Sesia ; the
able manner in which the French turned their
enemies' flank, which led to the victories of Palestro
and Magenta; the crossing of the Ticino by the allies;
the exploits of GARIBALDI at the foot of the Alps; the
enthusiastic reception at Milan ; the abandonment
of Piacenza, Pavia, and all Milanese Lombardy to
the allies, and the final stand on the Mincio, was all
the work of but six or seven weeks. Meantime all
the other States of Central Italy had revolted as fast
as Austrian support failed their rulers. Italy was
lost to Austria and her influence, except the country
east of the Mincio and north of the Po. On the
24th of June the great battle of Solferino followed,
the Austrian EMPEROR being determined not to
await the allies, but to attack them on the right
bank of the Mincio. On the Bth of July the Em-
peror of the FRENCH made his proposals for an
armistice at Villafranca, and thus terminated a war
which had begun only on the 29th of April. Both
sides were frightened; LOUIS NAPOLEON, as he
said, at the attitude of Germany, at the
anger of the French clergy trembling for
their POPE, at the strength of Verona,
and at the rapid spread of liberty. Austria, at the
prospect of further defeats and hopeless bankruptcy,
above all, at the success of KOSSUTH in the forma-
tion of a Hungarian Legion, the rising spirit of
Hungary itself; and, as she also said, at the atti-
tude of Germany—one moment complaining that
Germany was hostile to him, the other that she
would not help him. Both probably were right.

sort of PORTUGAL, the Bey of TUNIS, the
Emperor of MOROCCO, the late unpopular
King of NAPLES, and the late popular King
of SWEDEN, the last-mentioned being the
son of the famous, some might say rather
the infamous soldier BERNADOTTE! More pro-
foundly interesting to ourselves, and, we believe,
also to the world at large, is that melancholy cata-
logue of men of rare talent or of rarer genius,
closed with about the grandest and the noblest
name of all (commented on by ourselves yesterday)
that of THOMAS BABINGTON, first and last Baron
MACAULAY. This catalogue of great names pre-
sents, in truth, an array of intellectual worth now
dead and gone (in the flesh), that renders this
fatal year of 1859 a subject for mournful contem-
plation. What two delightful embellishers of
English literature have we not lost in -WASH-
INGTON IRVING and LEIGH HUNT—the authors
of the " Sketch Book" and the " Indicator,"
of "Ralph Esher" and " Bracebridge Hall,"
and of so many other charming and trea-
sured productions of taste the most exquisite,
of humour the most delicious, and of ripe and varied
scholarship ! Previous to the pre-eminent and
irreparable loss sustained by English literature, just
upon the close of this December, through the abrupt
and quite unexpected death of Lord MACAULAY,
1859 had bereft England of HENRY HALLA:',I and
America of WILLIAM PRESCOTT—names shining
luminously among those of the world's later his-
toriaris. France too within this same year has had
to grieve for the loss of M. DE TOCQUEYILLE.
Germany, Europe, the whole world has had to
mourn the demise of the giant author of " Kosmos,"
the venerable and patriarchal HUMBOLDT. As
early as April last we had to record sorrowfully the
decease of Dr. LAIIDNEE., in May that of Professor
LEE, in September that of Professor NICHOL, in
November that of Professor I\7ll,3oN—each of them
more or less radiantly a luminary of the scientific
world. Besides these Edinburgh has in 1859 lost
Lord MURRAY ; Cambridge, Sir JAMES STEPHEN ;
rboth Dublin and London, Lady MORGAN. While
other men of letters (as the names already given above
will have intimated) breathed their last, either in
their prime or in their old age, one full of promises
of good in a fair way towards their brilliant ful-
filment, died prematurely—BATLE ST. JOHN,
author of the " Purple Tints of Paris," and other
works of singular ability. The engineering world
has had a double (and, coming as their deaths did
almost simultaneously a wholly irreparable)
bereavement, through the demise (here, too
as in the instance already given of the,
Earls of JERSEY) within a month of each
other, of ISAMBARD BRUNEL and ROBERT
STEPHEN SON. Among the more celebrated modern
adorners and illustrators of the fine arts we must
note the passing away from us this year of BACON
the eminent sculptor, of HAMILTON the distin-
guished architect, of SPOHR the illustrious musical
composer, of DAVID COl the great master among
water-colourists, of two Associates of the Academy,
and of two Royal Academicians ! The Associates
being FRANK STONE and RtprristorLLE—the
Academicians, JAMES WARD (the Father of the
Academy) and CHARLES LESLIE the illustrator of
so many of the masterpieces of our native literature,
from POPE'S " Rape of the Lock" to SCOTT'S
" Heart of Midlothian !" Boslo the singer is
dead in 1859—YEH the Chinese magnate and
mandarin METTERNICH the veteran Austrian
diplomatist. The Indian army has had to
mourn the death of General JACOB—the British
army, the deaths of Generals EYRE and LUSH-
INGTON. Conspicuous, too, among our most
eloquent writers not particularised here as recently
deceased, have we not reason to note with regret
the death of T!TOMAS DE QUINCEY, renlwned as
" The Opium Eater ?" Such, with a few other
names of eminence not specified, for the list is
melancholy enough and ample enough as it is
—such are the remembered notabiiites darken-
ing with funereal gloom the going out of
fifty-nine. May the coming year of our Lord
1860 prove less destructive of men distinguished
above their fellows by their moral worth or their
intellectual attainments.

ST. SLEPHEN'S.

The stipulations of Villafranca, of course,
astounded Italy—she saw the promise to expel the
Austrians stopped midway ; indeed the territory
Austria was permitted to retain was, in a mili-
tary sense, stronger than all she yielded. Then
followed the game of the Italians planning to secure
their independence, and Austria to recover the
Duchies for her satraps. The States voted the
decheance of their rulers, and annexation to Pied-
mont ; but Count CAVOUR retired ; France pro-
fessed to support the Dukes, and Sardinia recalled
all the Commissioners and Delegates whom she had
sent to preserve, in her name, order in the Duchies
and Legations. The later diplomatic dealings of
the Monarchs and the emancipated States need not
be recounted—January, 1859, found them almost
hopeless at the feet of Austria, December of the same
year leaves them free, with no small prospect of con-
tinuing so. A Congress impends as the result of the
monitory words of last New Year's Day —a Con-
gress in which all Europe seems inclined to take a
part. France has shown her latest sentiments by
permitting Count CAN-OUR to be there, and by M.
DE LA GUERRONIERE'S pamphlet ; England's views
are well known; and the Russian lecture to Austria
in the Inralide Russe pretty plainly shows the side
which will be taken by that Power ; Prussia says
nothing, which is equivalent to saying that she will
go with the strongest. The great continental affair
of the year closes, therefore, hopefully for Italy ;
whose freedom, perhaps including that of the Ro-
mans themselves, we may hope to see recognised in
1860.

BOLINGBIWKE.

Looking beyond Italy, north, south, east, and
west, we may easily see that the movement there
has not been without its influence elsewhere. In
France itself, notwithstanding the return to attacks
by the Government on the Press,' there has been
a much stronger assertion of the principles of popu-
lar rights. An army and a kingdom, baulked of
their promised glory in Italy, had to be conciliated
at home, and the power of the priesthood, which did
so much to stop the war, has evidently diminished.
Germany is posed. She knows not what to think.
She has to submit to seeing Austria stripped in
great part of its Italian power and territory, and
France proportionately exalted above her. Austria
herself trembles under the blow to her utmost ex-
tremities. Fact showed that KOSSUTH could soon
have raised a Hungarian Legion; she attempts,
therefore, in vain to conciliate Hungarian Protes-
tants by a juggle which even Hungarian Catholics
resent; while Transylvania, Croatia, Bohemia, and
the Tyrol, all murmer more or less loudly since the
Italian war. Austria is a paralysed power. Russia,
her mighty neighbour, on the contrary seems
stronger. She has vanquished SCHAMYL ; she is
improving her commercial arrangements ; she is re-
solutely converting a nation of serfs into a nation
of freemen, and she feels herself in a position to
instruct Austria in the duty of progress ! Prussia
is as usual an ignoble, selfish non-entity. The mi-
nor states of course remain where they were.
Naples has gained the loss of one of the most brutal
of tyrants, replaced indeed by a younger one little
better ; the remorse of the dying wretch availed
however to liberate the noble POERIO and his
companions. Spain ends the year seeking military
glory by a crusade against the Moors. But she
has it all yet to win in 1860. On the whole,
whatever the motives with which Louis Niro-
LEON began the campaign in Italy its results to
all appearance will be favourable to a cause so
dear to Englishmen--that of National Indepen-
dence. We must defer till Monday remarks on
home matters and our own foreign relations.

The obituary of 1859, closing to-day, shows a
lamentable abundance of great names. Great,
we mean, rather in regard to genius than with
reference to station. For it is comparatively in-
significant, in our view of things, that the list of
the departed in this dying twelvemonth displays at
" the head and front of its offending" (socially) the
names of many of our English peers (including
among them two Earls of JERSEY, sire and son,
both dead within one month of each other, together
Arith the Ezirli of MINT°, WALDEGRAVE, and
WESTMORELAND), b2iiideS those of several crowned
heads. The royal and imperial dead including among
them the youthful and newly-married Queen Con-

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 31, 1859

SONG OF VIE OLD YEAR.

Oh! I have been running a gallant career
On a courser that needeth nor bridle nor goad ;
But he'll soon change his rider, and leave the Old Year
Lying low in the dust on Eternity's road.
Wide has my track been, and rapid my haste,
But whoever takes heed of my journey will find
That in marble-built city and camel-trod waste
I have loft a fair set of bold way-marks behind.
I have choked up the earth with the sturdy elm-board,
I have chequered the air with the banners of strife ;
Fresh are the tombstones I've scattered abroad,
Bright are the young eyes I've opened to life.
My race is nigh o'er on Time's iron-grey steed,
Yet he'll still gallop on as he gallops with me ;
And you'll see that his mane will be flying again
Ere you've buried me under the green holly-tree .
If ye tell of the sadness and evil I've wrought,
Yet remember the share of " good works" I have done ;
Ye should balance the clouds and the canker I've brought
With the grapes I have sent to be crushed in the sun.
If I've added grey threads to the worldly-wise heads,
I have deepened the chestnut of Infancy's curl ;
If I've cherished the germ of the shipwrecking worm,
I've quickened the growth of the crown-studding pearl;
If I've lengthened the yew till it brushes the pall,
I have bid the sweet shoots of the orange-bloom swell ;
'lf I've thickened the moss on the ruin's dank wall,
I have strengthened the love-bower tendrils as well.
Then speak of me fairly, and give the Old Year
A light-hearted parting in kindness and glee,
Chant a roundelay over my laurel-decked bier,
And bury me under the green holly-tree.
Ye have murmured of late at my gloom -laden hours,
And look on my pale wrinkled face with a frown ;
But ye laughed when I spangled your pathway with flowers,
And flung the red clover and yellow corn down.
Ye shrink from my breathing and say that I bite—
So I do—but forget not how friendly we were
When I fanned your warm cheek in the soft summer night
And just toyed with the rose in the merry girl's hair.
Fill the goblet and drink as my wailing tones sink,
Let the wassail-bowl drip and the revel shout rise—
But a word in your ear, from the passing Old Year,
'Tis the last time he'll teach ye—" be merry and wise I'
Then sing, while I'm sighing my latest farewell,
The log-lighted ingle my death-pyre shall be ;
Dance, dance, while I'm dying, blend carol and bell,
And bury me under the green holly-tree.
ELIZA. COOK

THE NEW POEM IN " BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE."

There is but one hand in England that could
have traced the following masterly portraitures.
They are selected from the first part of a poem (to
be completed in Three Parts) inaugurating the
new number of Maga for January, 1860—a
Poem entitled as above, and designed (we are told
through the explanatory note prefixed) "to give
succinct sketches of our principal Parliamentary
Orators, commencing with the origin of Parliamen-
tary oratory (in the Civil Wars) and closing with
the late Sir Robert Peel." The anonymous writer's
view, obviously, throughout, and very often too
his achievement, combines the terseness of Pope,
the wit of Cowley, and the harmonious resonance
of Dryden. There are single lines here, and frag-
mentary passages—some of which we have itali-
cised—destined, in time, we are certain, to become
"familiar as household words " in the mouths of
lettered Englishmen. Take the subjoined inimit •
able outline sketch of PY3I, as one of the first—
" Founders of England's slow-built eloquence—
Truth's last adornment as her first defence—
Pass—but as shadows ! Nevermore again
May the land need, yet reel beneath such wen
•
Mark in the front, fit leader of the van,
Yon large, imperfect, necessary Man ;
With all e zeal a cause conflicting needs,
And all the craft by which the cause succeeds ;
Iron as Ludlow, yet as Villiers trim,
'Twixt saint and sinner—Atlas-shoulder'd PYM."
Or take the following page, where—
" Great HA.MPDEN fills the eye I
Oh, wise as Strafford, and as Vane sincere,
Warm without frenzy, wary without fear,
Freedom's calm champion while in peace her trust,
Freedom's first martyr while her war was just.
Hadst thou but lived thine own designs to crown I
No ! at its brightest let thy sun go down !
If Heaven in thee had viewed the later guide,
From Heaven's elected death had turned aside.
Thrice happi one ! thy white name is not seen
In the red last of Bradshaw's jurymen;
Thy manhood smote not the grey crowuless head—
Thy faith forsoOk not the good cause it led—
Thy cheek flush'd not at the usurper's scoff,
When pikemen bore a people's bauble off ;
Hid from thy sight the loved Republic's doom,
In courtiers crowding Cromwell's ante-room,
And Gideon-Saints, the men of Marston Moor,
Drill'd into sentries at the _Brewer's door.
So pass, 0 pure Ideal of the free,
True stir to steer by, wheresoe'er the sea,
Linking the cause that gives the world its breath—
With Cromwell's triumph ? No ; with Hampden's
death."

FRANCE.

Better than all, however, the exquisite limning
here in verse of the form, the features, the genius,
and the oratory of

" What voice now swells from Anne's Augustan
days ?
What form of beautx glows upon the gaze ?
Bright as the Greek to whom all toil was case,
Flash'd forth the English Alcibiades.
He for whom Swift had not one cynic sneer,
Whom hardiest Walpole honoured with his fear,
Whose lost harangues a Pitt could more deplore
Than all the gaps in Greek and Roman lore,
Appalling, charming, haunting ST. JOHN shone,
And stirr'd that age as Byron thrill'd our own;
Sighing for ease, yet ever keen for strife,
Zeno's his creed, yet Aretin's his life;
With Protean grace through every change he sports,
Now awing senates, now perplexing. courts ;
A soul of flame, though both a brand and torch,
Firing the camp or dazzling from the porch.
Behold him now, not in his autumn day,
But the full flowering of his dainty May ;
Not Pope's sad friend, and soul-deceiving guide,
But the State's darling and the Church's pride.
How the fair aspect, ere a sound is heard,
Prepares the path for the melodious word ;
Mark in its gesture force with ease allied,
And manly passion with patrician pride ;
And oh, that style ! so stately, sweet, and strong,
Which, tamely read, has all the charm of song,
What must its power o'er beating hearts have been,
The genius speaking while the man was seen I
Judge it by this —bobold a later time,
His party shattered, and its cause a crime;
His white name blotted, his young vigour spent,
A lone grey man comes back from banishment.
Fear seized the Council ; England seemed too weak
Against that tongue, if once allowed to speak ; •
Law ransacks all the expedients at its choice,
Restores the peer, and then proscribes his voice.
So the grand orator, his field denied,
Shrunk to a small philosopher, and died."
We are sorely tempted to give next the portraits of
Harley and Walpole, but ave are precluded from
doing so by the length already run by our quotations.
Enough if we end these as the first part of this
remarkable effusion of genius itself closes very
admirably—i.e., with this noblest portraiture of
all, displaying to us the historic and heroic form
of—

THE GREAT TARL OF CIIATTIA3I.
" Pass by the lesser, not inglorious host ;
Awed, they shrink back; arise, majestic ghost
Lo, the great Arts' unrivalled master one,
The mightier Father of the mighty Son
Like hero myths before the Homeric time,
Looms the vast form--if vague, the more sublime ;
That pomp of speech but such memorial leaves,
As the gone storm with which the wave still heaves ;
Or as, on hills remote, the cloudy wreath,
Flusli'd with the giant sun that sank beneath.
Yet it is not by words that critics praise,
Nor yet by deeds which after-judgment weighs
With ounce and scruple in impartial scales,
That a great soul, like a great truth, prevails.
Apart from what is said and what is done,
There is a force by which the world is won,
Born in men's destined ruler'—Reason halts
To gauge the merits or assess the faults,
While forth nnguess'd magnetic influence flows,
Attracts the followers, or unnerves the foes.
Our fathers tell us what their fathers told
How from those lips the glorious cataract roll'd ;
And while its scorn all barrier swept away,
Each wave the roughest still flash'd back the day.
The effect sublime ; the cause why fritter down?
Did stage-craft teach tho mode to wear the crown ?
Learn'd he from Roscius in what folds to bring
The imperial purple ?—was lie less the king
'Actor' you call him ; yes, with enborn ease
What labour made divine Demosthenes ;
Tones with the might of music at their choice,
The front august, the eye itself a voice,
These Nature gave ; did care the rest impart,
Nature herself were chaos without art.
Was it a fault, if cowering Senates shook,
Thrill'd by a whisper, spellbound by a look ?
Or cruld the gesture dazzle and control,
Save as it launch'd some lightning of the soul ?
Others take force from judgment, fancy, thought,
CHATHAM from passion ; for its voice he sought
Sounds rolling large as waves of stormy song,
By pride made stately, but by anger strong;
To colder lips he left the words that teach ;
He awed and crush'd—the 2Eschylus of speech."

FUNERAL OF MR. 'WRIGHT, THE COMEDIAN• 7—
The burial of the mortal remains of this popular favourite
took place this day at Brampton Cemetery. A large num-
ber of theprofession attended on the mournful occasion.

TIIE GIIIEII COMMISSIONERSIIIP OF WORKS.
--
Speculation at the west end is busying itself with the wanner
in which the Chief Commissionership of Works, vacant by
the death of the Rig-ht llon. 11. Fitzroy, is to be filled 11P.
The rumour circulated last evening was that the office had
been offered to Sir John Ramsd,n, whose acceptance would
render necessary a new election for the West Riding.
Another report gives the vacant department to the Rig&t
Hon. W. F. Cowper, to whose present duties at the Board
of Trade Lord De Grey and itipou would succeed,

LATEST NEWS.

The following telegrams have been received at
Mr. Reuter's office :

MADRID, DEC. 30.

Yesterday the Spanish squadron burnt and blew
up the forts at the mouth of the river of Tetuan.
The troops are in perfect readiness to continue the
military operations.
Two tribes not wishing to continue the war have
withdrawn to their mountains.

TURIN, DEC. 30.

The Marquis de Villamarina having refused the
post offered to him of Governor of Milan, Count
Gallena, Senator, has been raised to that dignity.
M. de Villamarina has been appointed Minister
Plenipotentiary to Naples.

BERLIN, DEC. 30.

The New Prussian Gazette (Kreuz Zeitung)
says :—" According to current reports Prince Ho-
henzollern Sigmaringen intends shortly to give up
the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and to
assume the command of the 7th corps d'annee."

MADRID, DEC. 29.
The squadron left Algesiras yesterday. Its desti-
nation is not known.

PARIS, DEC. 30.

There is at this moment, between the Cabinets
of Paris. Vienna, and Rome, an active exchange
of despatches, easily explained under existing cir-
cumstances.

All that is said of the unfavourable disposition
of the Court of Rome is false. Monsignore Sacconi
awaits instructions.

There is every ground for believing that the
reunion at Fontainebleau of the Emperor, Prince
Metternich, and M. Walewski, will have the effect
of smoothing down many difficulties, and of hasten-
ing the meeting of the Congress.

PARIS, FRIDAY.

It is said that the Minister of War is occupied
with the organization of a corps of reserve for China,
which is to be despatched by Suez in case of neces-
sity.
Experiments were made yesterday at Vincennes
with canon of a new model for the naval service,
in presence of commissioners specially appointed by
the Minister of Marine. Greaf precautions were
adopted to prevent accidents, and fortunately none
took place. The experiments appeared to have com-
pletely succeeded.
The Forfait, the second steam corvette built for
account of the French Government by M. Nor-
mand, of Havre, was launched with complete suc-
cess on Wednesday last, notwithstanding the heavy
sea running and the violent south-west wind.
Every necessary precaution was adopted, and at
1 o'clock the Forfait took her rapid course into the
sea. Two steamers towed her into the port, having,
as an additional precaution, been supplied with a
provisional rudder. She will be immediately pro-
vided with machinery.
A letter from Algesiras of the 18th inst. informs
us that the French fleet under the orders of Vice-

Admiral Romain Desfosses has received a stock of
provisions and clothing for seamen, which leads the
writer of the letter to believe that the French flee
will remain for some months longer on the coast f
Spain.

PARIS BOURSE.—The market was rather lute
buoyant at the opening, and for a time prices 4pt
up. Later in the day stock again became ofAed,
and prices receded. Threes, after having beenjone
68f. 90e., improved to 69f. 85e., and are nw at
69f. ; Mobilier varied from 815 to 800 f. ;
920 to 912 f. 50c ; Orleans, 1,400 to 1395 f.
Southern, 517 f. 50c. to 515 f. ; Lombard, tisf. to
562 f. 50c. The following were the last quotalons :-
41 per Cents. 95 75 Credit Foncier.. • • 720
Do. end month 95 75 I Belgian 4} . ......
3 per Cents 69 301Piedmontese (5) • . 85
Do. end month 69 21 Roman ......... 81 _
Bank Shares 2830 Austrian ....... , 86
Cr6dit Mobilier 815 Spanish Threes 43 60
Do. Account