The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-15 00:00:00

tions which had been urged against the eloquent his-
torian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
might be urged with equal justice and with equal
force against the works of the great poet whose name
had just been mentioned. Almost every one of his
poems contained inuendos, descriptions, and assertions
which, on the ground of morals as well as of religion,
disqualified the writer from any right to
claim admission after his death into a sanc-
tuary consecrated to the worship of CHRIST." Lord
BYRON has certainly put forth many careless random
opinions in his works, and he was not quite so orthodox
a Churchman as the Dean and Chapter of Westminster
could perhaps wish; but to compare him with GIBBON
in this respect, is to do his memory the cruellest in-
justice. The historian of Rome, gravely and deli-
berately, by argument and by sarcasm, and ingenious
twisting of the truth, endeavoured to sap the founda-
tion of Christianity ; he brought learning, method,
and a deep-rooted spirit of infidelity to his task; and
with solemn pompousness in his text, and epigram-
matic point in his notes, laboured to show that the
earlier Christians were by no means what the world
supposed them to have been. Far otherwise was
it with poor BYRON. He had no cold, settled, inveterate
hatred to Christianity. He did not diligently
bring all the powers of his great, but ill-regulated,
mind to bear against it. Deism was not a faith—a
ruling principle of action with him. We could
quote upwards of a hundred passages from his works
informed with the truest and most fervent religious
feeling ; and know not where to look for a purer—

more sacred—more inspiring body of sentiment, than
is to be found in his Evening Address to the Virgin
in " Don Juan." But Lord BYRON, says the Bishop,
was immoral ! Well, and was not PRIOR immoral—

grossly so ? Was not CONGREVE the most immoral
dramatist of his age—so flagrant in his immorality
that it is scarcely possible to represent his plays on the
stage, or recommend them for perusal in the boudoir ?
Was not DRYDEN—" glorious JOHN," as he was
called—immoral in many of his poems—immoral in
his exquisitely sycophantic and lying dedications—

still more immoral in his reckless change—from a
sheer desire to advance his worldly interests—from
Protestantism to Popery ? Yet all these great men
have statues in Westminster Abbey, despite their
notorious immorality; and, now, in the nineteenth
century—a century which boasts of its perfect free-
dom from intolerance—it is gravely insisted, in the
highest Court of Judicature in the kingdom, that Lord
BYRON'S statue has no right to be introduced into a sanc-
tuary where CONGREVE, and PRIOR, and DRYDEN are
deemed quite moral and virtuous enough to be repre-
sented in effigy ! Shame on this sickening cant, which
is alike unworthy of the age in which it is uttered,
and of the episcopal dignitary who uttered it !
BYRON immoral ! Impossible ! Had he been so,
surely the late respectable publisher of that High
Church and State periodical, the Quarterly Review—
the patronised of Lords and Bishops—would never
have dreamed of republishing " Don Juan" with all
the passages, which were once thought objectionable
and expunged as such, diligently restored to the text!
If there be one fact more discreditable than another
to the much vaunted spirit of the age, it is the studied
exclusion from Westminster Abbey of the statue of
the most genuine poet that the world has known since
the days of SITAKSPEARE.

We learn, from Madrid Journals of the 7th, that
MuNoz, the husband of the QUEEN MOTHER, has
been made a Grandee of Spain. The fact is an-
nounced in these words in the papers :—" By a royal
decree communicated to the chiefs of the Palace, her
Majesty Queen Donna ISABELLA 11. has been
pleased to raise Don FERNANDO MUNOZ, now residing
at Paris, to the rank of Grandee of Spain, with the
title of Duke de RIANZARES." NARVAEZ, and the
Minister of Foreign Affairs were daily expected at
Madrid, when it was generally believed some new
coup cretat would be announced. Among the reports
that prevailed, it was affirmed that the Cortes would
be immediately dissolved ; and that steps were in
progress to make important changes in the consti-
tuencies. It was said, also, that the new Finance
Minister intends to make a rigid inquiry into the
financial operations of the late Cabinet, and that,
owing to some suspected malversations, BRAVO
and CABRASCO had been ordered to remain at
Madrid. The funds still continued greatly depressed.
On the 7th, the Three per Cents, were done at 27 for
cash, and 27 at 60 days ; and the Five per Cents. at
201 at 60 days.

Most of the Paris journals again advert to the
commencement of hostilities in Morocco, but without
adding any fresh intelligence, and if we except one
journal, without any bitterness against the Govern-
ment or this country. The National is the exception,
but its unmeaning hostility to England, its unwar-
rantable imputations against the good faith of this
country, and its rabid articles, intended only to stir
up war between two great nations, are so well
known, that any opinion expressed by that journal,
on a question which involves the national interests
of England and France, is entitled to very little
weight. Nothing short of the entire conquest of
Morocco will satisfy, that organ of the Republicans.
"The blow," it says, "should be given at once with
all our might and main. A decided victory is the
only negotiation possible, for the Koran itself pre-
scribes submission to superior force. We are able to
assail Morocco with our troops—to take possession of
her coast by means of our ships. Bold, rapid, and
well-combined movements would enable us in a very
short time to carry our arms into the very heart of
the empire, and, by reducing its chief to a state of
impotence, we should in a very short time obtain a
decisive influence over the whole of the tribes of
Algeria. A conquest of Morocco would be a death-
blow to that holy war, which is incessantly raised
against us."

In the Chamber of Deputies, on Wednesday, a
lengthened discussion took place on the Orleans and
Bordeaux Railroad. The arguments turned chiefly
on one point, whether the new lines should be con-
structed by the Government, or left to companies•
M. DE BORT moved that the lines should be executed
by the State. The motion was opposed by the
Minister of Finance, chiefly on the ground that the
surplus revenue which had existed for several years
had all been absorbed, and that it would be a
hazardous experiment, under present circumstances,
to borrow money to the amount that would be re-
quired. " Some years back, in 1838, he had sup-
ported the system nosy proposed by the Hon•
Deputy's amendment—of having the railroads exe-
cuted by the State exclusively. His motive for so

speak, and Sir JAMES GRAHAM, Mr. F. SHAW, andl
Mr. SPEAKER, too, were all obliged to listen to him
in solemn silence, while he was vociferously cheered
by those Members who stood up for the liberty of
the subject. Never did any Minister of the Crown
come out of a scrape with so little credit. The
Home Secretary is the greatest enemy of Sir ROBERT
PEEL. He has dispersed, by main force, public
meetings peaceably assembled to discuss the griev-
ances of the people, and he now imitates the policy
of foreign despots, by opening private letters confided
to the Post-office. These are the acts of a Conserva-
tive Government. This outrage upon public liberty,
however, cannot rest here. Sir JAMES GRAHAM must
undergo some further interrogations, and if we mis-
take not, Mr. T. DurzcomßE will compel him to make
a full confession.

An exceedingly edifying discussion took place in
the House of Lords last night, on the subject of the
Bishop of EXETER'S Bill for the suppression of bro-
thels, when Lord CAMPBELL, with a delicate and vir-
tuous consideration for the morals of the community,
and of the reporters in particular, suggested that the
discussion should be taken with closed doors, so that
none should be made acquainted with the awful facts
detailed by the ghostly Prelate—whose speech, to do
him justice, exhibited an infinite variety of research,
and proved that he was thoroughly master of his subject
—but their Lordships and the Bench of Bishops, to
whose apostolical purity and simplicity of nature
the heinous disclosures made by their episcopal bro-
ther would of course be unintelligible. Lord
CAMPBELL'S suggestion, however, was not adopted
by the House, and, to say the truth, we
are by no means sorry for it, for if
the discussion had been carried on with closed doors,
the " pensive public" would have lost one of the
richest bits of cant that was ever indulged in, even
by the Bishop of LONDON. In reply to some forcible
remarks made by Lord BROUGHAM respecting the
exclusion of BYRON'S statue from Westminster Abbey,
the Right Rev. Prelate observed :—" All the objec-