The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-19 00:00:00

THE SUN.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 19, 1859.

Whatever Mr. COBDEN talks about, he talks
about in terms the most positive. We have to do
no more than read or listen. We are to have no
appeal against his assertions, whatever those asser-
tions may chance to be. We have nothing else to
do but to accept them with a credence, instant,
absolute, and implicit. Mr. COBDEN has said it.
It is enough. According to the mood in which he
speaks—we have merely to " believe and tremble,"
or to believe and rejoice. Autos eipen—ipse dixit
—that is the gilding of the pill : and we have no
other course to follow in regard to this bolus—be
it sweet, or be it bitter—than just to swallow it.
Now, so long as Mr. COBDEN argues " with" us,
we confess that his dogmatic tone is perhaps a little
more than barely endurable. It is a weakness,
doubtless, which we are here frankly acknowledg-
ing—and a weakness by the avowal of which we
offer our quota to the sum of human weakness. The
irritating influence of Mr. COBDEN'S dogmatism,
we admit, passes us by, at these times, not only
without causing even the most momentary annoy-
ance, but, we will yet further admit, with a plea-
surable consciousness of the exquisite irritation it
will in all probability cause to our antagonists.
An admission, this, that would doubtless have been
acceptable to a La BRITYERE or to a ROCHEFOU-
CAULD. So it is, however, in honest truthfulness ;
and, conscious of the fact, we are not slow to con-
fess it. Hence, when the member for Roch-

ample, we are fain not for one instant to say
him, Nay ! Granting his premises—knowing
them to be in such an instance sound at heart—
we read him or listen to him at such moments with
a peculiar degree of complacency. When he tells
the opponents of the Ballot that, in spite of all
their opposition to its coming, it will come never-
theless, we are aware that he is telling the plain
home truth, with no mistake at all about it. The
telling of those kind of truths may be exceedingly,
(doubtless is wonderfully) vexatious to those who
fail to recognise it as a truth. So—recognising it
ourselves, however, we listen like the wedding
guest, and the mariner hath his will.
But the one great peculiarity of Mr. COBDEN'S
dogmatism is, that it is universal—that it is abso-
lutely encycloptediac. It relates, not by any means,
to the question of free trade in corn, to the question
of vote ballot, or to the question of the distribution
of the electoral franchise. It embraces every
imaginable topie. It is, without exception, the
most comprehensive dogmatism that ever man had,
as an offensive (sometimes a particularly offensive)
weapon, to deal lightly or heavily about him among
his fellows according to his own free will and plea-
sure. Mr. COBDEN is never dogmatic by halves.
His one watchword in this is Thorough. He " goes
in" at any and every question " full tilt"—be it
as yielding as a feather bed or as impregnable as
a wall of adamant. And it is precisely, because of
this one great dominant characteristic, because of
this universal and all-comprehending dogmatism
that a speech from Mr. COBDEN (ranging, as his
speeches almost invariably do, over a great variety
of subjeets), presents a spectacle quite as interesting
in its way as an exhibition of what they call
Ground and Lofty Tumbling.
Without the customary tights and spangles,
but with the inevitable chair and little bit of
carpet, Mr. COBDEN, the ground and lofty tumbler
of modern oratory, has been showing off recently
upon two successive occasions at Rochdale at the
particular desire of that (his own) constituency. And
with the worthy and worshipful the lecal mayor,
seated in the Chair, and with all kinds of things
in rapid sequence dragged upon the Carpet, or, as
the French say, upon the tapis, and with two or
three or four thousand spectators, " looking on and
encouraging of thesame"—it can hardly be deemed
in any way surprising that the display has proved in
a great measure worth looking at. RAMO SAMEE
with five and six knives twittering and flickering
in the air—occasionally taking eccentric excursions
down the performer's throat, and coming up again
to revolve over him in dangerous proximity to his
head and fingers—was really nothing to it. The
peg-top twirling on the tip of the long flexible cane
the globe balanced on the soles of the inverted feet'
the posturings, the summersaults, were in no con,
parable degree as surprising as the exhibition of
intellectual agility with which Mr. COBDEN'S
Dogmatism careered among the diverse topics taken
in hand yesterday, and the day before, down at
Rochdale. Election Petitions—the Ballot—Non-
Intervention—the State of Italy—National Defences
—Foreign Invasion—the French and English Navies
—the Refusal of a Seat in the Cabinet—the Exten-
sion of the Franchise—the Remodelling of the
Electoral Districts—the Duration of Parliament—