The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-29 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, JULY 29, 1861.

an4soldiers underlim. One such man is equivalent
to an army. His troops, too, are from the Western
States, and he has therefore taught the South that
the North-Western soldiers are more than a match
for them ; the Southern boast having been,
hitherto, that Northern farmers and shopkeepers
could never stand against the " chivalry of the
South." The chivalry, however, has had to turn,
flee, or surrender in most " penitent" style before
the young Northern General. We should not
be surprised to find that this three days' battle in
Western Virginia becomes what the battle of
Maida was in the last French war—the battle
which will reverse the current opinion, of the
South respecting the superiority of their troops to
those of the North, just as the Italian battle
taught France and all Europe what they had
little dreamed of before, that French infantry
could not stand a bayonet charge of the British.
If so, its moral effect will go far towards deciding
the issue of the war.

Of course the great battle is yet to be fought
opposite Washington. General BEAUREGARD is
thought to be in considerable force there, and in
all the part of Eastern Virginia, north of its capi-
tal, Richmond. But either from cunning or from
fear, the South is very silent ; and if the gallant
Veteran SCOTT knows the strength of their
army, which some say he does, he at least keeps
his own counsel. M'CLELLAN'S movements have
all been under his direction ; and it would seem
that having cleared Western Virginia, he will bring
PATTERSON and Nl' CLELLAN on the flank of the rebel
position as fast as the rugged nature of the country
admits; when, if he deems himself strong enough
in front, he will push ITDowALL forward, and
then, fighting or retreating will be the only alter-
native for BEAUREGARD. His main army is said
to consist of 55,000 men, and to have advanced
lately about five miles towards Washington.
As to Congress it is almost unanimous—minori-
ties of six or seven, at most, oppose the strongest
resolutions. One was passed in this way condemn-
ing the Southern movement in the strongest terms
and pledging the house to all the supplies requisite
for crushing the rebelli )n. We mentioned the
other day that seven members of the Senate were
expelled for knowing of the conspiracy to rebel
and not informing the Government of it. The
civilians seem to be fighting their battle as
vigorously as M'CLELLAN is fighting his. We
may now look every day for some important move
at Washington ; though SCOTT is not the man to
be betrayed into premature action, by the success
of one of his subordinate movements.

Mr. LAYARD'S appointment as the successor of
Lord WODEHOUSE will give satisfaction to ethers
besides the numerous personal friends of the hon.
gentleman, the member for Southwark. It is a
selection that cannot but be regarded with interest
by all the more impartial observers who—alien
though their sympathies may be from the majority
of the political opinions of Mr. LAYARD—have
watched the career of that energetic aspirant for
distinction as a public man, first of all in the arena
of Literature, and afterwards in that of Parliament.

AUSTIN LAYARD, though as yet but upon the
threshold of power as an administrator, though as
yet but in the early vigour of maturity, may be
said without any exaggeration to have already won
for himself two distinct reputations. As the Dis-
coverer of Nineveh his course has long since been
run and the goal won triumphantly. Among the
most interesting trophies of archaeological research
now collected together in the British Museum are
those colossal attestations of the energetic labours
which were carried to their completion with such
extraordinary rapidity by this young antiquarian
Adventurer. Among the most remarkable
Books of Travel published within the pre-
sent century is the at once profound and
enthralling, the erudite and romantic record
penned by Mr. LAYARD of those gigantic inves-
tigations which led to the disentombment, after the
lapse of so many ages, of the great Buried City,
once the capital of the ancient world, doomed to de-
struction by the • wrath of God. Coming as Mr.
LAYARD'S Discoveries, and as his picturesque and
impressive narrative of those Discoveries, did
just mid-way between the cynical scientific
unbelief enunciated in the " Vestiges of Crea-
tion," and the insiduous, and if we may
so express it, purely ethical unbelief of the
" Essays and Reviews." Mr. LAYARD'S opus mag-
num, as a man of letters and an archaeologist has
left a salutary impress upon the age, one, the
wholesome influence, of which—if only from the
mere circumstance of being more instantaneously
recognisable and widely appreciable by the
masses —is calculated to be far more
durable in its effects than either the " Vestiges of
Creation " or the "Essays and Reviews," or, in
point of fact, than both of them put together.
The visible corroborations of the truth of Holy
Writ brought to light by the combined agency

of the daring hand, and the indefatigable
genius of AUSTIN LAYARD will affect the belief
of the world at large, far more powerfully, far
more lastingly, than all the most audacious
hypotheses ever indulged in by soi disang philo-
sophic daydreamers, or than all the most
ingenious sophistries—sophistries, now " hinting "
Doubt, now " hesitating " Deism ever
put upon paper and printed and published by all
the Essayists and all the Reviewers who have yet
striven to reduce the Bible to the level of the Shas-
ter and the Zendavesta.

Apart altogether from his first and "finished"
career as a literary antiquary, Mr. LAYARD has long
ago adventured upon another and a very different
career,
indeed, that of a politician aspiring to
nut" a conspicuous place in the national Parlia-
ment asDebater,
a as a Legislator, and finally as an
Administrator.
At the outset of this his second
career, Mr. LAYARD gave large promise of realising
very rapidly the high expectations indulged in by
those who imagined they knew him best, and who
felt confident that his energies and abilities would
carry him onward—energies
and abilities both
cf them considerably above the average
even among
the leading men of his time and of his own age.
How grievously these more sanguine observers were
mistaken—how grievously we were all of us more
or less in error in so viewing Air. LAYARD,B pro_
spects as a rising politician—the majority at least
must bear in rather disagreeable remembrance. It
was very much as if the old anti•climax were really
and truly about to be recognised in his
instance, in the instance of this archaeological
man - of - letters turned in to a popular
representative—the hon. "Member for Nineveh"
as Punch called him—it was really and truly, we
say, as if in this instance we were at length to see
one who, having gone up like a rocket, was to come
down like a stick. Before any such melancholy
spectacle could be witnessed, however,—and it
actually did at one time seem to be very imminent
—M. LAYARD was (opportunely we now think it,
for his reputation !) deprived of his seat in Parlia-
ment. During the interval which elapsed between
the hon. gentleman's ignominious rejection by his
first constituency, that of Aylesbury, and his
triumphant return by his second constituency,
his present constituency, that of Southwark—
he had, what we hope and believe to have been alone

wanting, ample leisure for reflection. For, Mr.
LAYARD'S failure in the House of Commons—it is
satisfactory to remember this now, and to feel per-
fectly convinced of this—Mr. LAYARD'S failure in
the House of Commons, while sitting there as
the independent member for Aylesbury, arose in
no way whatever from the fact of either his energy
or his ability having been exaggerated—arose en-
tirely and exclusively from his extraordinary lack
of discretion. And this we are disposed in a great
measure to attribute simply to the precipitation
with which the young and inexperienced
M.P. plunged at once into the thick
of the political fight immediately upon his gaining
admission to the arena of Parliament. His position,
we feel satisfied, would have been far more advanced
than it is, had he been less adventurous, had he been
less eager to win distinction for himself at once
without schooling himself cautiously to the win-
ning of it. He thought to fight his way into the
very heart of the stronghold of power by a sort of
coup de main, and the result was almost by ne-
cessity, that those who admired him the most, who
looked forward most confidently to the witnessing
of his early success both as a debater and as an ad-
ministrator, had the anguish here again of beholding
that sorriest spectacle, that wretched bathos
of public life, " the engineer hoist with his own
petard.,, Happily, however, before too late the
electors of Aylesbury came, as we have said, to the
rescue. Cruel only to be kind—they afforded Mr.
LAYARD the opportunity of reviewing calmly the
blunders into which he had been hurried by his
impetuosity and precipitation. The hon. gentle-
man's forced absence from the House of Commons,
we are satisfied—if only by reason of his conduct
during the brief interval which has elapsed since
his election as M.P. for Southwark—Mr. LAYARD'S
forced absence from the House of Commons has
proved eminently beneficial. He has returned to
the Legislature to a great extent an altered man—a
man so far improved, at least, in that he at length
can add the virtue of discretion to the gifts of un-
wonted energy and of very rare ability. However
brief may be his career now as Under Secretary for
Foreign Affairs, we count with some degree of con-
, fidence upon his making good during that interval,
be it long or be it short, his right to take rank, and
that conspicuously, among the most gifted of our
1 rising administrators.

The Imperial Rescript, and the manner of its
reception by the Diet, are now before Europe.
FRANCIS JOSEPH has won for himself fresh laurels
at St. Petersburg and Berlin and at the petty courts
of Germany—and that of Madrid, too, if it notices
him, will give him all due praise. We wish we
could hope that our old Whigs and Tories did not
inwardly rejoice that the Hapsburg obstinacy had
fully resumed its sway. The document, which we
give in another column, may be described as one
string of legal lies, set off a little by a
series of arbitrary injunctions having no authority
but the self-will of an Emperor of AUSTRIA, who is
certainly not yet, legally, King of Hungary.
In the face of treaties and documents to be found
in every great library in Europe—in the face of
well-known history, this impudent paper asserts
the historical and real union of Hungary with
the German provinces. We may truly say
that it would not have been at all more
in violation of truth and right, had Queen
VICTORIA denied the merely personal union
of the Crowns of England and Hanover, and
insisted on the retention and amalgamation of -the
government of both countries. The Rescript does
not even profess to answer the clear statements and
arguments of the address. No doubt, for the best
reasons. Its real meaning is—we will give such a
constitution as we please to this ancient kingdom,
after having suppressed its rightful one for a
dozen years. With unparalleled effrontery it refers
to Imperial acts of violence as proofs of what ought
to be done. Past crimes are to be the unques-
tioned precedents for fresh crimes ! It assumes a
right to pick and choose amongst the laws of
1848, solemnly assented to by the Monarch of the
day,declaring that FRAN CIS JOSEPH had not assented
to them ; as if the continuance of laws duly and
constitutionally enacted depended on the will of a
fresh Sovereign, that Sovereign, too, a usurper, im-
posed by Russian bayonets ! The Russian King of
HUNGARY had never assented to what the real King
of HUN GARY had signed—therefore he would repeal
by his fiat all of those laws he did not like.
The Diet in both houses treated the document
with the contempt it deserved. It could not sup-
press laughter at the demand that it should send
representatives to the Vienna Reichsrath, nor keep
its indignant groans from becoming half audible as
the more imperious and treacherous parts were
read. Of course Austria calculates on two things—.
1 she has kept arms out of the hands of the Hun-
I garians, and Italy is too busy putting down
Ithe brigandage which issues from the Papal terri-
-1 tories to attack Venetia just now. Hungary, how-
-1 ever, can be firm. While she is so Austria must
be weak. A power in Europe she can never be
till she conciliates Hungary by admitting her legal
claims, and relieves herself of the distracting and
costly charge of garrisoning Venetia. She is now
endeavouring to set up treacherously the other
subordinate nationalities against Hungary, and, she
may partially succeed, but it will be at the cost of
weakening herself more than Hungary.

Before the 16th of December next, the Turner 1
Collection must be under the roof of The National
Gallery, or it will be lost to the nation to whom
the great Artist had bequeathed it. Put it how
we may—the dilemma is rather an anxious one.
There is the Turner Collection now at this moment,
towards the end of July, poked away almost, one
might say, like so much lumber in those wretched
"Brompton Boilers" as they are called, down in the
south east corner of South Kensington. There is
the National Gallery at the same time in Trafalgar-
square—half choke-full with the pictures peculiarly
apuertaining to the National Gallery—and the other
half of it still set apart for the convenience of the
Royal Academy. But a few days more, and this last
mentioned moiety of the building will be almost
entirely emptied of its contents. The walls of its
Pri
eipt apartments—walls hitherto covered
annually for no more than about three months at a
time with the year's collection—the walls of the
principal apartments of the Royal Academy-half of
the National Gallery will be stripped of the various
tion. Then certainly
opportunity for which
paintings making up
willthe
w e have
oaetvatehl
the opportunity.
thes
v le Bry6 ll
oEn
ox
Tlbi ileibeaint-
looking forward. Then will be the very occasion,
that is to say, when (with a reason for doing it) the
nation claim from the Royal Academy the
space my
hithertoa lent to the Royal Academy in the
National Gallery'—to the extent even, that space,
of one full half of the National Gallery. we
have had the assurance very recently of the re-
sponsible administrator, that, whenever called upon
to do so, the Royal Academy will retire from its
present place in the National Gallery. The Royal
Academy has avowed its perfect readiness to do
this whenever its withdrawal from the building
may be required by circumstances. If ever they
are to be required—by a very urgent necessity--
surely it must be now, it must be before the
approaching 16th of December. By that date 00

stipulated period marked down in Mr. TURNER'S
will, the stipulated period of so many years, within
which the Turner Collection must be found a home
in the National Gallery, or be irrevocably lost to
the nation—that stipulated period will by that time,
by the 16th of next December, have expired. The
need there is now for thus recalling to the use of the
National Gallery the suite of rooms hitherto lent
as the building so designated to the Royal Academy
—the need there is for this being done every
one will allow to be at length to be
most urgent, to be at length little else
than imperative. Let the Royal Academy, then,
be at last called upon to withdraw from their pre-
sent position in the National Gallery. Let the
Turner Collection, immediately after the with-
drawal of the Royal Academy, be removed thither,
under the roof of the National Gallery, from South
Kensington. Otherwise—if those two changes
be not effected by the 16th of December, the
Turner Collection of Paintings, a collection alto-
gether priceless in value, will be lost to the nation.
Supposing this calamitous loss really to befall the
nation there is but one man, there is at any rate
one man above all other men, who would be held
responsible for it. And that man is Mr. COWPER,
the First Commissioner !

CITY OF LONDON ELECTIOIV.

E NIT i4IT 1,1 8.
L I 7*'

TURIN, SUNDAY.

The Official a azette of to-day contains a report
from the Minister of Finance to the King on the
result of the subscription among the bankers to
the national loan.

The report is followed by a Royal decree.
Tenders amounting to 564,000,000 f. have been
accepted, but will be reduced 42 per cent.

One hundred and fifty millions are to be offered
:o the public at the price of 70f. 50c.

Bankers and subscribers for 100,000 f. and upwards
will be allowed a commission of one-half per cent.
on the nominal amount of their subscriptions. The
public subscription is to be opened on Monday next,
and will be closed on the sth of August.
Count Fleury left yesterday for Paris.

VIENNA, SATURDAY.

In to-day's sitting of the Lower House of the
Reichsrath the President declared that the retire-
ment of the members of the Right yesterday arose
from a misapprehension of his words. The members
of the Right thereupon resumed their seats.

LISBON, JULY 28.
Disturbances have broken out in the province of
Algarve respecting the new law of taxation.
The insurgents have been in collision with the
military, who are being reinforced.