The Sun.
London, England, 1835-10-27 00:00:00

with that propriety of expression for which Tories are
so remarkable, particularly when their zeal for decorum

is at the highest :
" I am, indeed, determined to adopt the suggestion
thrown out in one of the most influential public Journals,
and do declare, most solemnly, that should it ever be my
misfortune to Meet Daniel O'Connell in private society, I
will leave the room in which he may be, stating publicly
that I do not choose to hold—even indirectly—intercourse
with a man, whom I hold in such intense abhorrence."
The trecenti conjuravimus of Caius Mucius to
T'orsena, is quite eclipsed by this awful declaration of
N. Goldsmid to Daniel O'Connell. We only fear
chat Mr. O'Connell will spoil the sublimity of this great
passage in modern history by simply answering, " Wait
till you are asked." But the grandeur with which those
crushing words were uttered, " I do declare most so-
lemnly," &c., must yet be conceived, and the subject
would be fine for an historic painting. Hay don would
do it justice —N. Goldsmid crushing O'Connell.
Begging pardon for the meanness of the co4mparison, we
remember something like this sense of destroying
power more mercifully expressed in a favourite old
comic picture. A jolly tar is in the act of presenting
a check for 201. upon Coutts's bank ; the cashier is
running his eye over the draft, and the sailor, with a
look of pride in boundless wealth, softened with a
good-humoured compassion, is saying, " Egad it's a
lumper 1 but d—e don't be down-hearted ; I'll give
you time." Mr. N. Goldsmid is the tar without the
mercy. He breaks O'Connell at once with his check,
whatever may be the amount of it. Of this personage,
this Mr.N.Goldsmid, we know nothing but that his ora-
tory occupies more than a column of the Times, but
,from his language he must be inferred to be a very
considerable person, for he talks of Lord Melbourne,
Lord John Russell, and Lord Palmerston, as " his
associates," and says that he has already treated them
mercifully ; nay, he does not give us to understand
that he .would refuse to meet them in society :
" I trust that, in speaking of my political opponents, I
have never violated the rules of courtesy, although I do

not consider my Lord Melbourne the wisest or most con
sistent of Statesmen, my Lord John Russell the mos-
eloquent of speakers, Mr. Spring Rice the most .profound
of financiers, or my Lord Palmerston the most dignified of
diplomatists. I have not, I believe, forgotten that they.,are-
entitled to courtesy as gentlemen by birth and educatillh."
Things have not yet come to such a pass that he
would refuse to dine with those Ministers. This is
a great man indeed ! The Tories must rejoice
greatly at finding such a giant suddenly in their ranks.
Where can he up to this hour have concealed his vast
importance ?—Morning Chronicle.
In' the number of the Edinburgh Review, just
published, there is an article under the head of " The
Last Session of Parliament," in which the occurrences
and measures of that period are ably and minutely
detailed, and certain deductions drawn from the whole
of the proceedings, and from the state of parties as
exhibited therein, which will excite as much the re-
gret, and it may be the indignation, of all zealous
Reformers, as they will rejoice the hearts and make
glad the tents of the patrons of corruption, and the
abettors of abuses. The first portion of this article is
devoted to a consideration of the causes which produced
such a total failure in point of carrying the many salu-
tary measures which were proposed by his Majesty's
Ministers ; which failure is attributed to the small and
wavering majorities exhibited in different contests by
the representatives of the people over their enemies,
and the blame again of that failure transferred to the
backs of the people, who are charged with having gone
to sleep over their own rights—a charge, no doubt,
founded in truth to a certain extent,, but easily traced,
at the same time, to its main source, the insufficiency
of the instrument placed in the bands of the people for
accomplishing their wishes by the authors of the Re-
form Act itself.. The second to an absolution of the
House of Lords from some charges which have, through
iaadvertence, been unwittingly and wrongfully brought
against them, and a defence of them- from throwing
out or postponing others which the public anxiously
desired to have passed, but which the noble author of
the article—for its -parentage cannot be mistaken—
deems to have been judiciously put aside to a more
convenient season, because there were either many
and conflicting opinions respecting them, or because
there' did not exist before the close of the Session
sufficient time for their consideration. From any
charge on
,these two points we bold the author per-
fectly free. He has endeavoured to state facts upon
some points with respect to which the public was
but indifferently informed; and we perfectly agree
with him that "It is never of any real use
to conceal the truth on any question, and least
of all on questions of a practical nature, where delu-
sion cannot long prevail, and where the worst conse-
quences must flow from acting in the dark ;" but it is
one thing to lay down such an axiom for the regula-
tion of one's conduct, and quite another thing to abide"
by it in practice—it is one thirig to profess a dete:-
;nination to adhere to the truth, and another to carry
that adherence into effect free from sophistry and un-
fettered by prejudice. The noble author of the article
has, in fact, furnished us with a splendid specimen of
the way in which the best intention may become the
prey of prejudice, and a perception of the mcst glar-
ing enormities in the consti;;ution of the Government
be made the foundation for inductions the most con•
trary that can be imagined to the premises laid down.
What, for exa-taple, could have been expected from an
author who admits " the Lords are not likely to pull
in the same direction with the people of this country,
and that some remedy must be sought for an evil which.
bids fair to produce the worst of mischiefs to our Con-
stitution, if not to endanger its very existence?"—buts
proposition either that the Reform Act be repealed, and
the Commons and people of Englanclagain handed over,
bound in chains, to the Aristocracy of England, so
that there may be the harmony between them which was
wont to exist; and that " order may reign in England,"
as it now " reigns at Warsaw"—or that the House of
Lords be abolished—or, as a milder remedy, that it be
reformed and re-constructed on the same liberal and
solid basis as the House of Commons, leaving it to all
the powers with. which it is at present invested, and
merely depriving it of what is its bane and curse—mo-
rally, physically, and politically—its hereditary charac-
ter. But no : the end is admitted—its mischief is ad-
mitted—its imminent and threatening nature to " the
very existence of the Constitution" is admitted ;—but
still no plan—no proposed remedy—no means pointed
out for uprooting the evil, and averting the danger but
—what dost think, reader ?—the return, at the next
election, of an overwhelming majority of Reformers I
\Ve admit, in justice to the author of the article, that
he glances at two or three plans for improving the
constitution of the House of Lords, and that he dis-
misses them all, most moderate and inefficient as they
seem to us, as worse than useless. We agree with
him that an hereditary House, the Members of which
should be chosen by election by and among the nobi-
lity, would avail nothing towards remedying the evil
complained of, inasmuch as nearly three-fourths of
the Peers are Tories, and nothing but a sense- of de-
cency—not very likely to actuate them—could in-
duce them to return other than the most violent
and bigoted of their class ; nor does it require much
foresight to perceive, that were the Crown to select
Peers, as in France, among the nobility, the House,
so elected, would be the mere creature or duplicate
of the Crown, without a shadow of character or the
slightest image of independence ; but why, we ask,
not have them elected by the people of England, as
we proposed in another article, and in the same man-
ner that the Commons are elected ? Oh I because,
says our author,'the " Tipper House would be a mere
duplicate of the Lower ;' but this is a gross mis-
take, or rather an egregious sophism easily disproved
by the slightest reference to facts. Westminster, for
example, returns two Members to the House of Corn-
mons ; but is Colonel Evans the duplicate of Sir
Francis Burdett ? The same thing may be said of
Lambeth—of the Towei Hamlets—of Middlesex—
nay, almost of every borough, town, city, and county
which send Representatives to Parliament. The same
spirit----the same general principles may animate and
actuate both the Representatives ; but in their prac-
tical application of them—in their adaptation of them
to times and circumstances, there not only frequently
is, but there is almost invariably a wide and striking
difference, and upon this difference, fatal to the sophism
of the Noble author, we ground the truth of our theory,
and the hollowness of his not -proven assertion, that a
House of Lords elected after the manner of the House