The Sun.
London, England, 1832-03-30 00:00:00

it, and in spite of the abusive epithet " revolu-
t.on," the sound frightened nobody ; the " revo•
lution" was hailed by nine-tenths of the people
as a great and real good. So the union with
England was a tremendous " revolution."
was so designated, but it passed ; and Scot-
land may date- her prosperity from that hour.
The degrading epithet of " revolution,"—
the cuckoo-note of the Duke of Wellington and
others. whose arguments are all compressed
within that word of five syllables,—that epithet

had no terror for the Ministers of Queen Anne :

when employed by the people of Scotland to
deter them, thr, Ministers, happily for Scotland
herself, persisted, and the " revolution" was per-
petrated. What was the event of 1688, but a
Scotch as well as English and Irish revolution ?
The Duke of Wellington, had he, unfortunately
for the England of the 19th century, and perhaps
not less so for the England of the 17th—had
the gallant Puke, we say, been a subject of
James IL, he might then, too, have exclaimed
against the act of abdication, " What are Toll
doing, ye turbulent and disaffected Whigs
Why this is nothing short of a revolution."—
True, it was, God be praised, a " revolution."
The Duke of Wellington, as brave and great a
soldier as Marlberzmgh, and as a politician, if
so !cog-sighted, certainly as honest, would.
probable, have attacked the Dutch troops,
beaten William, but the statesmen of that
were no more to be scared by the vulgar
of revolution, than are the statesmen and
e people of three kingdoms now. So the
" revolution" of 1688—often since appealed
to by this very Duke of Wellington, and
by every Bishop on the Bench--the "revolu-
tion" of 1688 became the law and constitution
of the realm. The Irish Union, too, we sup-
pose, was a " revolution"—another, a minister-
r.ade " revolution." Yet the Duke of Wellington

and
age

would terrify us with the sound, as if in this case
words were things. Alas ! he cannot help it :
it is his only argument. 'We tell his Grace,
and his crotchetty ally Lord Carnarvon, and hi,
somewhat slippery friends the Bishops, that the
people will have this Reform, the value of which
consists in its extensive—that is, what the
Tories call its " revolutionary"—character. But
the people desire that it should be a revolution
without victims, if noble Lords will permit.
With regard to the second reading, we hope it
will be carded. But there are had as well as
weak spirits abroad, and until the " noses" are
counted up, there is no good in guessing. But
since the Duke of Wellington talks of Scotland,
is his Grace so far familiar with the political
organization of Scotland at this moment, as to
form even the most distant conjecture of what
would happen at Glasgow, Leith, and Paisley,
should he succeed, through some demon's influ-
ence, in defeating the principle of the popular
clauses of the Bill ? Let him not speak again,
we beseech the Duke of Wellington, of treating
the national eagerness for reform with contempt,
or of " the loyalty of the King's troops," as
if it were to be tested by the blood of the King's
subjects.—Times.
Mr. Portman's resignation of his seat for
Dorsetshire has been, during these two days, a
subject of very general regret, and for the sake
of truth we are bound to add, of not very par-
tial animadversion. Why should a Whig
Member for a county desert the service of that
county in times like the present, if not personally
disabled from discharging the duties of his post?
It appears that the Hon. Gentleman in question
had declared that if Lord Ashley should turn
out to be the choice of the electors of Dorset,
he would himself not continue to sit for that
county with an Aiti-Reforner for his colleagu?..
Now, in order to justify such a determination,
which would at all events expose the county to
another contest, Mr. Portman ought at least to
have been quite sure of a refoi ming Member
being elected as his own successor, otherwise
the fltvour which he conferred on Dorsetshire
would amount to this—that having at present
one Tory vote in Parliament effectually neutral-
ized by that of a Reformer, she might henceforth
be blessed with a pair of Tories, both counting
in each division, and making a difference of two
against the country ! This is not the legacy
which Dorsetshire has a right to expect from a
gentleman bearing upon him such numerous anti
just marks of her esteem and respect as Mr.
Portman. Nor is a possible triumph to the
house of Bankes, as the fruit of an arduous,
acrimonious, and exhausting contest, any honour
to the memory of a liberal representative, who
has wantonly volunteered such an infliction upon
his county. This wiry-edged fastidiousness, at
such a period, is some degrees worse than cut-
ting blocks with a razor : it is an attempt to
soften granite with milk and water.— Times.
Much interest is at present excited by the
question, whether the numerical strength of what
is termed the middle party extends beyond the
Lords Harrowby and Wharnciiffe. The Bishop
of London indeed may be added to the number
of the waverers by those who do not recollect
that the Right Reverend Prelate offered as an
excuse for not attending his Parliamentary duty
on the second reading of the Reform Bill, last
autumn, the death of his father, and that deco-
rum and his feelings would not allow him to
appear in public ; though in less than twelve
hours after the decision in the House of Lords
against the overthrow of the Constitution the
Bishop of London attended a public meeting,
-mud took an active part in its discussions, his
Lordship's nerves having become suddenly reno-
vated for the duty that he had later in the day
to perform. By those who recollect this fact
the Bishop of London will not be regarded as a
new waverer. And now as to Lords Harrowby
and Wharncliffe, the two Commanders without
soldiers. It is fully believed, and by those too
who have good means of information, that their
wavering Lordships are minus a corps ; and the
probabilitieS also strongly tend to that conclusion.
In their:own proper persons they thought it neces-
sary to declare that they intended to vote fur the
second reading of the Ministerial Bill. They
performed this task with all the pomp and cir-
cumstance necessary for an occasiou upon which
two Peers were to belie their former declara-
tions ; and, by analogy, if it were desirable for
the officers to declare allegiance to the new dy-
nasty of mob law, it was doubly incumbent upon
the soldiers, if there be any, to undertake this
duty. For weeks it had been reported that these
two Peers had come round in favour of the
second reading, and therefore they only con-
firmed floating rumours by their declarations on
Monday night ; but how imposing would it have
been, after the Adelphi in political c ,nsisteney
had arisen to avow their new-found principles to
the world, if adhesions had been offered to those
principles, even . should they have issued
from
.some dozen of Peers only ? The public
has been kept in the dark as to the number and
names of the rank and file in the Harrowby Bat-
talion of Reformers ; and consequently the effect
would have been powerful if only a detachment
of them had appeared in the field ; but no, not a