The Sun.
London, England, 1859-09-10 00:00:00

THEATRE-ROYAL, HAYMARKE
Lessee, Mr. J. B. Btickstone.
THIS EVENING the performances will commence with
ILA.LLOWE'EN.
With THE CONTESTED ELECTION.
After which, OUT OF SIGHT OUT OF MIND.
Aid A. DAUGHTER. TO MARRY.
Commence at 7.

ROYAL STRAND THEATRE.
Lessee and Directress, Miss Swanborough
THIS EVENING, THE GOOSE WITH THE GOLDEN
EGGS.
And TO PA LIEN I'S AND GUARDIANS.
♦fter which, TRYING IT ON.
Followed by THE VERY LATEST EDITION OF THE
LADY OF LYONS.
Commence at 7 o'clock.

CANTERBURY HALL CONCERTS.-
EVERY EVENING.—The Music of Verdi's Opera of
MACBETH (now first made public hr England at these Con-
Sens), the extraordinary Violin Performances of the cele-
brated Infant DELEPIERRE FAMILY, and the usual
Vocal Concert.
Comic Vocalists—Messrs. George Hodson (the Irish Come-
dian and Mimic), W. T. Critchfield, and E. W. Maclmey.
Several interesting Pictures are added to the Fine Arts
Gallery. The suite of Halls have been re-decorated and
beautified, and constitute one of the most unique and brilliant
sights of the metropolis.

THE WEATHER.—SUN OFFICE, SEPTEMBER 10.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
68—highest since noon yesterday.
65—lowest this morning and during the night.
68—this day at noon.
BARomErmt-30.15.
WIND, W. ; light, with fine weather.

---
HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THIS DAY.—Morning, 12h. 15m.—Afternoon, Ih. Ilm,
To-Monuow-Morning, Llh. 30m.—Afternoon, lh. 47m,

Somebody—was it not the late learned Doctor
LARDNER of Encyclope3diac reputation ?—once des
dared it to be no better than an idle day-dream to
talk of steaming across the Atlantic. Somebody
else—whose name, by the way, was legion—looked
for years and years upon JAMES WATT as a
visionary. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS used to be
jeered at and hooted through the streets of Lisbon
and Madrid, derided as the " mad Italian " by
the very children. Mr. SMILES'S admirable Life
of GEORGE STEPHENSON shows how that grand old
patriarchal founder of the Railway World had to
battle his way resolutely onward, through all kinds
of derision and contumely, to the realisation of a
project regarded by him from the first as feasible,
but scouted by almost every one else as a delusion
and an impossibility, until the rails were laid down
upon peat-moss, and the locomotive was clat-
tering over them triumphantly. We have had a
repetition of all this recently enough in regard to
the Great Eastern steamship—the Leviathan, the
Behemoth, the Mastadon of the Deep. What
sneers have been directed against it since its
commencement ! What croaking there has been
in the way of evil predictions ! How sure the
cynics were of its failure as something quite inevi-
table ! While it was yet in the great shipbuilder's
yard at Deptford—was not the favourite name for
it, with many, Brunel's Folly ? There was no end
to the ridicule of some of the more splenetic Smell-

funguses. And when it was begun to be launched
—what a roar of scorn there was at the great en-
gineer whose genius had called the monster into
existence, but who found some little difficulty in
getting the said monster down, first of all, into its
own element ! Because there was a hitch there—
all the rest was forgotten, and Mr. BRUNEL was
actually &tided by some as though he were
really a sort of flagrant malefactor. All that
extraordinary blending of daring and inge-
nuity by which he had contrived to con-
struct the mightiest sea-going vessel ever
built since the Deluge—all that was forgotten. The
one thing alone borne in rememberance was the cir-
cumstance that the ship was not precisely " up to
time" in the launching. Immediately—it was pre-
dicted that there the Great Eastern would remain
"high and dry," " stuck in the mud," rotting
slowly away a gigantic memorial upon the rivers'
bank of the wise-folly of a man whose only equal
(in this attribute of " wise-folly") was to be found
in the crack-brained philosopher mentioned in
" Rasselas," who wanted to fly first to the top

of a mountain, but who instead of that
got nearly drowned in a lake. There was even
a earicature7actually published, representing the
(bleat Eastern as she might be supposed to appear

a few centuries hence, when pencilled down in the
sketch-book of Lord MACAULAY'S New Zealander.
Scarcely had this absurd picture been lithographed,
however, when, lo ! the Great [Eastern was there
afloat upon the bosom of the Thames. A mere
shell, however—said the depreciators of the pro-
ject—the empty hull of a bankrupt company. It
was idle to talk any more about it—the thing was
a failure—it would never come to good, it could
never come to good. We were all to go down at
our leisure, whenever we so pleased, and look
at that great hull, and laugh at the
foolhardiness that had built it and set it afloat.
Suddenly, however, in steps Sir CUSSACK RONEY
with one word of common sense—resolving into har-
mony the chaos of the financial part of the under-
taking. So far the result has been, as we all know
—the new Company and the new ship going on to-
gether since then swimmingly. The Great Eastern
that was never to be completed was completed.
Equipments, masts, yards, sails, tackling, paddle-
wheels, screw-propeller, engines, coals, crew
everything and everybody aboard. "0 ! but"—
then said the cynics at their last gasp of incredulity
she'll never get safely out of the river down
into the deep water of the Channel."
As we write this—comes to us, as in mockin
answer to that preposterous prediction—comes to
us, flashed along the telegraphic wire, this pithy
Said: laconic Telegram :

" Portland, Saturday Morning.
" The. Gfreat •Eastern anchored here at 9 50 a.m."
Let us no more, then, of these absurd
croakings of the venomous toad-prophets of Evil.
FrOm first to last their every ill-prediction has been
utterly falsified. Henceforth lot the cry be—
Honour to BRUNEL 1 and GOD speed his grand
floating masterpiece

cc Full
many a gem of purest ray serene,
u thei v
al
e rs
The dark unfathomed caves of Ocean
But, who would have thought
un-
fathomed recesses of the Peerage bore a that n
suffragist—a grave, logical, conscientious universal
suffragist ? We may presume that few of Our
readers overlooked a letter which appeared in The
Sun of Tuesday, under the heading "Lord TEYN-
HAM and Reform ;" possibly some may have done
so : their first impression might be that a letter
from a peer on such a subject could only be a
little dignified denunciation of " that person
JOHN BRIGHT," and all the other utopists, char-
tists,. subversionaries, and " Americanizers of our
institutions,' who are habitually associated with
him: Nothing of the sort, however, would they
have found. Lord TEYNHAM'S letter is the most
complete, the best argued defence of universal
suffrage within the compass of half a column of a
newspaper, which we ever saw, or which probably
exists anywhere. Whatever opinion any reader
may hold on the subject he will, if an intelligent,

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THE SUN.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1859.