The Sun.
London, England, 1829-04-28 00:00:00

GALLONS DISTILLED IN

GALLONS EXPORTED PROM

England 3,974,795 Scotland to England ...r,232,M3
Scotland 10,117,027 Ireland to England 681,463
Ireland 9,753,136 Scotland to Ireland-- 996,368

Total 123,849,948

PAID DUTY FOR HOME CONSUMPTION.

MISS SMITHSON.

(From the Nederlandesehe Mercurius, No. 29.)

On the announcement of Miss Smithson's ar►ival,
the expectations of the Amsterdam public were
raised, and an impatient longing was very general
among that class v%ho are acquainted with English
literature. The cx 04401.1i/laq reputation which she
acquired in so short a period, by her performance at
Paris, has spread through Europe, and placed her
upon a level with Clairon and Siddons. Even the
French, who are commonly partial, consider her
superior to Georges and Duchesnois. Conse-
quently, our exultation, in having an opportunity
of beholding this excellent tragedian, was natural
and warranted : and, indeed, our expectations haire
not been disappointed; for we have applauded,
with unfeigned rapture, the only actress who was
able to bring to our remembrance that ideal of act-
ing, the incomparable Waffler. The first character
in which she appeared was that of Jane Shore,
wherein she displayed art beyond all praise. Her
just and refined conception grasped all the transi-
tions of that arduous part, and she pourtrayed them
with an elegant delicacy and feeling. In the first
act her air was captivating and graceful ; and her
auditors felt themselves overpowered with compas-
sionate emotions during her personation of that
amiable and penitent character; particularly after
she had entrusted her jewels to the care of her
treacherous friend Alicia, while pronouncing with
heartfelt emotion :

" While woman, sense and nature's easy fool,
If poor weak woman swerve from virtue's rule,
If strongly charmed, she leave the thorny way,
And in the softer paths of pleasure stray,
Ruin ensues, reproach, and endless shame;
And one false step entirely damns her fame;
In vain with tears the loss she may deplore,
In vain look back on what she was before;
She sets, like stars that fall, to rise no more !"
Nor was she less . excellent in third act, when
Hastings would have seduced her to his will. She
resisted his brutal attempts,not with haughtiness,not
with useless gestures, but with delicacy, with an ex-
pressive look of reproach for abusing the confidence
she had placed in him. In the fourth act she shewed
herself to be a consummate actress, when, after
having briefly related her griefs to Gloucester, in a
most affecting manner, she became instantaneously
enraptured on hearing that Hastings had taken the
part of the Royal orphans, and justly appreciated the
noble-mindedness of the man by whom she had been
insulted. Her voice resounded awfully when she herself
stood up in defence of the atnhappy children ; and
when Gloucester's order sentenced her to the most
horrible of deaths, her pantomimic performance was
superlatively excellent. Yet it was in the last, the
terrible act, that she gave especial proof of the
power and witchery of the art. None but a tra-
gedian like herself, when placed in the same shock.
ing situation, during a whole act creeping along the
ground in the agonies of death, could have fettered
the attention of the spectator, to that degree which
rendered them insensible to the miserable scenery,
the theatre, and the lamentable acting of the other
performers—nay, Miss Smithson herself was for-
gotten in the public bewailings of the pitiable fate
of Jane Shore. On her entering in penance-garb,
barefooted, enfeebled by three days famine, ex-
hausted and pined away, a chill of horror pervaded
the whole assembly. All shuddered as she ap-
proached the door of Alicia, to crave that support
which it was conjectured would be refused. But
who can paint that glance of anxiety she cast
around, to see if ;to guard lurked near, before she
ventured to touch the knocker ? or who can depict
the fright she exhibited when the noise of the
knocker struck upon her ear? She seemed to dread
that her pursuers had heard the sound. Her pa-
tience and gentleness under the reproaches- and
spurnings of Alicia, and the terror with which she
was seized when her injured husband presented
himself before her, are indescribable. What despair
was heard as she pronounced—
" Oh, save me, Belmeur ! from his angry shade !"
and, a little further on, how sublimely simple and
affecting was her expression of—

" Alas ! wond'rous faint ;
But that's not strange—l have not eat these three days."
All the tones, all the transitions, so difficult and
diversified, Miss Smithson knows how to express
with the greatest propriety, without using unneces-
sary gesticulations, by her charming and distinct
voice, together with the magic of two bewitching
eyes. Her graceful form, her nobleness of features,
and the tastefulness of her movements, contribute,
in no small degree, to produce an ensemble of per.
fection not easily to be found in others. We
earnestly recommend onr Dutch actresses not to neg-
lect the opportunity now afforded them of improving
themselves in the art ; for a studious attention to
Miss Smithson's performance will teach them more
than they can learn from a hundred theoretical
lessons.

LAVATER'S SYSTEM of PHYSIOGNOMY.

(An Extract from Tales of the Great St, Bernard.)
We were turning over a Sue and interesting col-
lection of drawings, portraits of the chief patrons
and brethren of the Convent, when I made some
casual observation on the rapid rise and equally
rapid declension of Lavater's system.
" Lavater was a fop," said the Englishman ; " and
had no more idea of the true reserve of science,
than a French ballet-master has of walking. His
Swiss soul was in a perpetual whirligig; and so on
he went in a caper of discovery, till he set the
world laughing at himself and his system together."
" Yet he certainly made some very singular dis-
coveries," said I, making an effort for the honour of
Zurich.

" He did," said an Italian with a smile; he found
out genius in Joseph the Second."
" And magnanimity in Frederic," said a Saxon.
" And humanity in Catherine," said a Pole.
" And on the same principle," said the English-
man, " that he found courage in the mouse, gentle-
ness in the rat, and fidelity in the sparrow."
" The truth was," continued the Englishman,
" he kept an inn for the reception of fools, great and
small, whose compliments gave him that grand bribe
of continental smatterers, a European reputation;
or, in other words, the pleasure of being talked of in
the coffee-houses, and scribbled to by the idlers of
the Continent : a pleasure which he amply repaid by
putting the faces of his correspondents into his
work, and making them ridiculous as far as the book
could travel. I knew Lavater well. He was a
simple, harmless, and good-natured being: pious ac-
cording to the genius of his native country, which
consists in singing hymns to mountain-tops, and run-
ning into raptures every evening at the sight of the
stars ; a republican, by occupation, and fancifully
conceiving a republic to consist of the best of possi-
ble purposes; but, at the same time, unable to con-
ceal his ecstacies at the view of a scrap of ribbon,
red, green, or blue, on the breast of one of his
visitors ; or his exultation at the display of the
hideous autographs by which the illustrious travel-
lers deign to disfigure albums."
" Yet his theory was benevolent," said an Eng-
lish officer—a bold-featured asid cheerful-looking
soldier, who with his graceful wife had stood by
laughing at our rival remarks on the old physiogno-
mist. " For," continued the officer, "in his good-
nature, he was wont to discover ability in faces
almost as unconscious of their merits as so many
marks ; and sent every body away as happy as the
possession of genius, and virtue, and perpetual good
luck could make them."

" Friend of the human race," said the French-
man, " he loved them all, men, women, and children,
and hated nobody but D'Alembert."
" But why ?" was the general question.
" For two reasons : because he was an atheist, and
still more, because he had a red nose."
The officer laughed outright; his lady smiled,
and exchanged a significant glance with him.
" I must protest," said he to the Frenchman,
" against the red nose making a part of the indict-
ment against the encyclopedist; for to the wearer of

such a nose -have I been indebted for my life, my
wife, and my half-pay."
He was asked to explain the riddle. His grace-
ful wife protested in vain against his detailing so
much of the family history; but he laughed away
her resistance, and related" The Captain's Tale,
or the Red-nosed Lieutenant."* * * #

THE CURRENCY.

(From the Manchester Guardian.)

About four months ago we presented to our
readers two or three articles on the subject of the
Currency, and on the effects likely to result from
the withdrawal of the small notes.

In previous articles on the currency we have
stated that the extinction of the small notes would
be felt more or less severely in proportion as Bank-
ers were inclined to facilitate or throw obstacles in
the Way of the measure; and accordingly we hear
from different quarters very different accounts as to
their inclinations and conduct. Whilst some have
acquiesced in the change of the law with a good
grace, and have evinced every disposition to ac-
commodate their business to the altered circum-
stances, others are stated to have had recourse to
such a resolute denial of accommodation to their
customers as have created a serious pressure in their
districts, and others to have invented shifts and eva-
sions of the law of a kind by no means creditable.
These, however, of course, can only have been
practised by houses of the !Kst wealthy or reput-
able kind—houses whom it is a gross,anomaly; and a
heavy reflection on the judgment of our legislators,
that we should ever have seen at all invested with
the privilege of interfering with the King's prero-
gative in the issue of a currency.
We were quite ready to admit, and indeed we
stated (Guardian, January 3), that " in districts
where, local notes having been almost the only cir-
culation, credit had been accustomed to stand in a
great degree in the place of capital, there would pro-
bably be a severe temporary pressure." This pres-
sure now exists ; we are perfectly willing, indeed,
to allow that a pressure exists much beyond what
we have ever anticipated, as connected with the
change in our monetary system ; but the question
still remains--is that pressure referable wholly or
only in part to that change ? We think only in
part—in a very small part; and we are perfectly sa-
tisfied that but for other untoward circumstances
which are accidentally coincident with it, there
would have been no pretext, however fallacious, for
representing it as productive of serious difficulty.
We shall proceed to enumerate some of the causes
to which the present depressed condition of trade,
and the difficulty of obtaining payments, are attri-
butable. We state them as they occur to us, with-
out professing to place them in the order of their
relat►ve importance.
Ist. There is a total absence of any inducement
to speculation (except as regards corn), from the
existence of apprehensions of scarcity. Under cir-
cumstances of the abundant supply of commodi-
ties, without an increasing demand for them, the
tendency of prices must be towards reduction. And
whilst such is generally the case, trade will always
appear to be labouring.
2. From political and other causes, the vent for
our manufactures in various countries has of late
been greatly curtailed. Our trade with Portugal
has been almost ruined by the state of the Govern-
ment; with Spain and the North of Africa it has
been interfered with by the fever at Gibraltar; with
the Levant, by the war in the East ; with the
United States, by their Tariff; with Mexico, Co-
lombia, and Peru, by the intestine commotions in
those countries ; with Buenos Ayres, first by the
war with the Emperor Pedro, and subsequently by
the unsettled state of the Republic. To other
markets—the Brazils and the East Indies, for in-
stance—there has been a great deal of overtrading,
the necessary result of which is a temporary check
to the demand for goods, and a serious reduction of
transactions.

The shipping business of the present spring has
been limited also by the unusually late period to
which the river Elbe and the Baltic have remained
dosed against navigation by the ice. The enume-
ration of matters which have recently had a very
unfavourable influence on our foreign trade, weihave
no doubt, might easily be extended; but those we
have mentioned will suffice for our purpose.
Of another class of circumstances which have
tended materially to depress business, is the want of
confidence ; that arose about the end of last year, in
consequence of the failure of two London banking-
houses, both of whom appear to have been for many
years insolvent, and one of which suspended pay-
ment under circumstances infinitely more prejudicial,
as regards its effects on credit, than a common failure
to'an equal amount. The want of confidence was
further increased •by the vast number of failures
which have occurred in Glasgow, many of them the
direct result of the over-trading in 1824-5; but all
going to indicate a degree of unsoundness in the
system of business in that city, which could not but
seriously affect the trade of this district. The im-
provident shipments of last year, too, by which
some markets were so completely glutted with goods
as to make the result of the sales there absolutely
ruinous, were, we believe, chiefly on Scotch ac-
count, and have themselves produced many very
serious failures.

But the greatest cause of the existing distress is
beyond all doubt the very unfavourable harvest of
last year. This, it is indisputable, was not only
greatly deficient in quantity, but in most parts of
the country very seriously injured in quality. Under
common circumstances crops of grain, larger or less
than usual, depress or raise prices much beyond the
ratio of the excess or the deficiency. But under cir-
cumstances such as those of last year, this effect is
not produced. Our wheat, generally, we believe,
was of very bad quality, and it was brought into
competition with a great deal of foreign wheat of
good quality ; consequently it fetched only a compa-
ratively low price. The farmer, therefore, has been
necessarily a heavy sufferer, without any hope of re-
lieving himself until the occurrence of a more favour-
able season makes up for the losses of its opposite.
It would be ridiculous in us to attempt to make
anything like an exact estimate of the pecuniary in-
jury sustained by the agricultural interest from the
bad harvest of last year; but we have no doubt
that it must have amounted to many millions. It is
to be observed, too, that the consumers have not
here, as in case of more than ordinarily productive
harVests, benefitted by the sufferings of the farmers.
They have had to pay an advanced price for their
food, though comparatively little of the profit of
that advance has gone to the English cultivator.
Without pursuing this part of the subject further,
however, it must suffice to remark, that the country
trade generally would have been in a state very dif-
ferent from what it has been for the last six months,
if the harvest of 1828 had been a favourable one.
Indeed, we fully believe that had such been the
case, but little of the distress which some public
writers are now attributing in the gross to the ex-
tinction of the small notes would have been in exist-
ence.

e,l s
It s very Well known that even when trade gene-
rallyt is not suffering under particular depression, the
"ageer o o.
of labourers do not rise from the mere occur-
rencef one unfavourable harvest. Their situation is
rated to the extent, to which they are obliged
to devote an extra portion of their wages to the
purchase of food, beyond what suffices for that ob-
ject in common seasons. . Hence they are unable to
obtain their usual supplies of clothes and other com-
modities; and all the trades connected with the
furnishing of these accordingly suffer. The de-
rangement arising out of such a harvest as the last
consequently pervades almost every class of society.

A deputation of gentlemen connected with
the Silk-trade attended at the Treasury, for the purpose of
having a conference with some of the Cabinet Ministers.
The deputation were received by the Duke of WELLING-
Tow, the PRESIDENT Of the BOARD Of TRADE, End the
CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER. Mr. HUME, of the
Customhouse, also assisted at the interview, which lasted
about an hour.