The Sun.
London, England, 1859-06-02 00:00:00

that the Austrians attacked the Sardinian outposts
at Sesto Calendo, but were beaten off after two
hours' fighting, and that the allies had crossed the
Ticino in pursuit of the enemy. If this be so, it
seems clear that the capital of Lombardy will soon
be in the hands of the allies, and that the insur-
rection which is already spreading must soon
extend through the entire country. Indeed, the
Austrians have ample cause to deplore their pre-
cipitation in forcing on war, or if determined to
produce it, to lament their inactivity at the time
that they had it all their own way, with none but
the Piedmontese troops to resist their march on
Turin.

There is no direct intelligence of GARIBALDI,
which would go far to prove that he had extricated
himself from his difficulties. At the same time
the reports are so conflicting that it is difficult to
know to which credence can be given. It is stated
that a numerous Austrian corps d'armee appeared
before Varese ; that GARIBALDI ordered the Na-
tional Guard not to resist, and fell back on the Lago
Maggiore; another, that he attacked Lavona on the
lake, but had not succeeded in taking the town,
and that heavy cannonading was heard all night on
the frontier of the Canton of Tessin. A Genoese
account stated that he was still at Como. It is
manifest that several of these assertions must be
erroneous, and the difficulty is to ascertain whether
any, and which of them, have any foundation in
fact.

The Austrians have unquestionably strong posi-
tions, and there is every reason to suppose that
they will defend them to the utmost ; still they
have a formidable enemy to encounter—one ani-
mated by the prestige of victory. They have a
revolutionary population, and are threatened with
attacks from front and rear. It would have been
far better had they consented to make the necessary
concessions in Italy, and thus saved themselves
from the expense, the bloodshed, and the defeats
which they have sustained.

It is assumed with confidence by some that a new
Ministry is safe to be formed off-hand out of the
reconciled divisions of the Liberal Opposition. The
differences which have so long divided the great
aggregate of the Reformers in the House of Com-
mons are said to have been made up, and a perfectly
satisfactory compact entered into between the two
rival chiefs above and below the gangway, both
of them ex-Premiers—Lord JOHN and. Lord PAL-
MERSTON. The ladies from Pembroke Lodge and
Cambridge House are said by the hon. and learned
gentleman the member for Sheffield to have been
brought together. An alliance has been formed, an
alliance both offensive and defensive, between the
leader of the Whigs and the leader of the so-called
Canningites. The war is to be carried into the
enemy's camp. When, is a matter still, it appears,
of some uncertainty. How, even, has not, it would
seem, been yet definitively settled. According to
some, the division is to be brought about upon the
question of our Foreign Policy—according to others,
upon the question of Parliamentary Reform—
according to a third section of prophetic specula-
tors as to the future, upon a distinct vote of Want
of Confidence. Immediately (this may be), namely,
at the end of the first week of June., but just now
commenced. The catastrophe may be delayed
possibly a fortnight. It may evert be postponed
until midsummer. But before the, dog-days the
DERBY Ministry is to be doomed—definitively
and past all possible redenription. There
is to be another grand Coalition Cabinet
established en permanence in D owning •street.
Another Cabinet of All the Talents; in other words,
all the GREYS, and all the ELLIOPTS, and all the
RUSSELLS are to be arranged to tle mutual satis-
faction of Lord JOHN RUSSELL an, I Lord PALMER-
STON. At first it was intimated tb at the Premier-
ship and the lead of the House of Commons would
be allotted jointly to the noble lord's the Member for
the City of London—the ever-vivacious viscount
being reinstated in his old post as Foreign Secre-
tary. At last it is understood, h:o wever, that the
lead both in the Commons and th e Cabinet is to be
assigned to Lord PALMERSTON—: kris " noble friend"
being perfectly prepared again to serve under the
Member for Tiverton in any cap; ti:ity that may be
deemed most convenient under th A: circumstances—
Foreign, Home, or Colonial—a s Member of the
Cabinet without any seals of any 'office, as President
of the Council, as " High" or " IloBv"—as JACK and
the Game ! There is a very oh I saying, however,
about counting chickens before -tl ley are hatched !
And there is another equally old., about chickens of
a certain kind, such as those bel 91 aging to Mother
CAREY, going home to roost. I?, erhaps the male-
dictions, and objurgations, and! anathemas pro-
nounced of late upon the antag o nists of the two
noble conspirators already ment;io ned—antagonists
still in office, but very speedily nt ow to be expelled
from it in perpetuo—may go hot ns 2 to roost like the
rest of them. Perhaps the eggs 4 hat are so certain
to be hatched may, after- all, prove to
be already irretrievably addled. Who knows? Mr.
ROEBUCK ? If so, we know in t a: 'n now, from that
positive and absolute prediction . 'by him on Satur-
day of the summary disappoint arent prepared for
all the golden hopes of power and patronage in-
dulged in by Lord JOIIN Russt L and. Lord PAL-
MERSTON, Does Sir JOHN RA SDEN know what
is in store for us in the new Par] lit onent ? If so, he
has told us pretty plainly, I ;o o, in his manly
speech on Monday--when, as or r.e.) of the victorious
candidates for the West Ridin g. of Yorkshire, he
avowed his entire unbelief, in s pfite of himself, in
spite of his most cherished as pi rations, his com-
plete and deliberate unbelief in the possibility
of forming a stable Government ;of any kind out of
the divided parties and subd. ivided sections of
parties discernible on the side o f that unfortunate,
dispirited, melancholic, and d iminished Liberal
Opposition. If Mr. BRIGHT see: ; the future mapped
out clearly before his mind's eye, he does not
vouchsafe to give us one passing 7glimpse of it, even
through half a wink. Wh de ROEBUCK and
RAMSDEN spoke on Saturday and Monday, with
all commendable and manly f rankness as to their
intentions and opinions in regt ird to the situation
and the prospects opened up to us in the new Par-
liament--BRIGHT, on Tuesday , was for once dull
with the dulness of a timorous and suspicious re-
ticence. Not an inkling did he give to the 600
working men who cheered hi aa to the echo over
their half-crown dinner at B irmingham, not one
inkling did he vouchsafe to th( ma as to the proba-
bilities or possibilities of a n .ew Reform Cabinet
being constructed out of then saterials to be found
in the Liberal Opposition. Tl ie principal incident
noticeable, indeed, in regard t( ) Mr. BRIGHT'S last
speech at Birmingham, was on .e performed by him
with such pious unction so oft( rn—one, in the course
of which, referring anew to t he Crimean war, he
thanked GOD he was not as of her men, and so forth.
An incident in which this re an, who is so often
boasting about having establi Shed 300 newspapers
in these islands, alludes perpetually, with an im-
placable and spiteful animosity, to the very Press,
to the agency of which he i s himself principally
indebted for whatever infl aence and whatever
reputation he possesses. TI 'ere is something we
cannot but think very sig ;nificant, and at the
same time very characterist is in the vague gene-
ralities and studied reticence of Mr. BraGuT upon