The Sun.
London, England, 1827-08-11 00:00:00

Hall, professing to take a farewell look at his
Lordship, as the shortest possessor of the Great
Seal on record. Of Lord Lyndhurst's retire-
ment, let who will be at the head of the Mini-
try, we should not, however, augur the smallest
probability. It is well known that he was chalked
out as the successor to Lord Eldon a twelve-
month or more ago, and his Lordship has also
another strong and fortunate circumstance on
his side, which is this—that no party has among
them a single soul in any way qualified to suc-
ceed him, such is the desperate paucity of any
thing like judicial talent at the Chancery Bar.
A day or two will probably solve the difficulty.
The probability, we should imagine, is, that Mr.
Peel, Lord Eldon, and the Duke of Wellington,
will return to office ; and the -Whigs, we dare
say, rather than lose the footing which they have
obtained in the Government, will gulp a few
more of their principles to save their places.
Should Lord Eldon return, it would, of course,
not be to the Chancellorship, but probably to
the Presidentship of the Council, the charge of
the Privy Seal, or some office of comparatively
little labour. But all, as we have already said,
is as yet mere conjecture; and in throwing out
these remarks, we are only blending the guesses
of others with our own.—Morning Herald.
We stated yesterday, the elements out of
which a future Cabinet was to be formed, an-
nouncing, as the first and most probable arrange-
ment, the Cabinet, as at present constituted,
with Lord Goderich at its head. We believe
we may now so far announce the shape which the
Ministry is to assume, as to state that what we
then gave as the most likely (which was all that
was determinately known until yesterday after-
noon, notwithstanding the bolder assertion of one
of our morning contemporaries), will actually
take place. Lord Goderich will be the First
Lord Commissioner of the Treasury. The of-
fices thus left vacant are, the Colonial Secretary-
ship and the Chancellorship of the Exchequer.
On whom they will devolve, we do not profess to
know ; and we have no inclination to substitute
guessing for facts. Lord Goderich will be a po-
pular Minister. He is a frank, honest, sincere,
straight-forward English Gentleman, of a clear
head and a sound heart. His eloquence is, in
its prominent features, analogous to his character
—plain, simple, and convincing. In some re-
spects he has the advantage of his great departed
friend. He is not the maker of his own for-
tunes. It was humourously and justly observed
by Napoleon, that he could have maintained
himself on the Loire after Waterloo, if he had
been his own grandson. Mr. Canning's posi-
tion, in like manner, would have been much less
assailed, if not more secure, had his grandfather
and father been Ministers before him. The best
friends of the late Premier need not have been
offended nor surprised at the opposition that
arose out of the circumstance of his being a new
man. Cicero was taunted when Consul, as in-
quilinus civis. Lord Goderich's noble birth
will save him the opposition on such grounds,
whether public or private, and other opposition
his extreme courtesy is well fitted to disarm. It
was said, by the late Mr. Whitbread, on the
death of the late Mr. Perceval, that he never
carried his anger against any Member out of the
House, but his anger against Mr. Perceval he
could never carry to the door ; and he must be
singularly given to nurse his wrath, who can
carry his anger against Lord Goderich that
length.—New Times.
We imagined that the virulent abuse with
which Mr. Canning was assailed when living
would have been abandoned, if not from better
motives, at least from a feeling of decency,
when death had taken him away from the tur-
moil of politics as well as the other troubles of
the world. We did at least expect that so long
as the mouldering remains continued uninterred,
a pause to the ribald invectives of his enemies
would be allowed. We were willing to believe
that they would permit the funeral pomp to pan
by ; that they would wait until dust had been
restored to dust, and until the grave had swal-
lowed his dead, ere they renewed their attacks.
This brief truce, we thought, they would grant
to the 'wounded feelings of his numerous friends
—to the sorrowing hearts of his relations—to
the tears of his children—and to the bowed
down and broken spirit of his desolate widow.
Such were our anticipations : how they have
been answered, let the following extract tell :
" If Mr. Canning died a Christian, it is due to his me-
mory—due to those who surrounded his death-bed--due
to the everlasting welfare of thousands' we fear we might
say millions, of the vulgar, in all ranks, whose religious
feelings are too much influenced by the fashion set by great
and popular persons, to state that he died in a saving faith.
" If, on the other hand (and we tremble to put the hy-
pothesis upon paper), the unfortunate gentleman died with-
out religion, it is important that it should be known. If
an Atheist he died, an Atheist he irinst have lived, for no
man apostatises in the. hour of death ; and here, as in the
cases of Mr. Fox, Mr. Whitbread, Sir Samuel Romil]y,
and hundreds of others, we should have a key to that la-
titudinarian liberality, which would postpone the spiritual
interests of mankind to political convenience, and brand
with the imputation of bigotry all who conscientiously
maintain the religion of their conviction."
The above is from an Evening Paper of yes-
terday ; and on what, it will be naturally asked,
are the doubts in the first, and the alternative in
the second paragraph founded ? On the fact
that in the gossiping accounts which have for
the last five days reached town from Chiswick--
not one of .which is accurate in all its points,
and the greater part of which are accurate in
none—that in these accounts, furnished not by
persons connected with the late Premier's family,
nor even, in many cases, by persons connected
with the Newspapers, there appears no mention
of the religious exercises of Mr. Canning !
Our readers know, and the writer of the para-
graphs, which we have quoted, knew well,
that so little conscious was Mr. Canning
of his real state, but an hour or two be-
fore
henever
he intosu:wkoke,that n
that
otlethargy from which
only
did he not
imagine he was dying, but he did not
even think he .was in the slightest danger.
—Yet with this—one of the few authen-
ticated facts relating to his last moments—
staring the writer in the face, he, with a. cant of
sensibility most ineffably disgusting, trembling,
forsooth ! puts upon paper an hypothesis, ac-
cording to which Mr. Canning lived and died an
Atheist ! ! The atrocity of the charge with
which the quotation concludes, is only to be
equalled by the unparalleled impudence and folly
of the demand with which it commences. The
wife or the children of Mr. Canning, while the
body of their only earthly hope is yet above
~ ground, are to come forward with a certificate of
his being a Christian, in answer to the call of an
anonymous scribbler, and for what purpose P—
r For the everlasting salvation"--7-we tremble in
earnest, when we see these solemn words used
for purposes so infamous—" of millions of
the vulgar, in all ranks, whose religious feel-
, ings are too much influenced by the fashion
set by the great." So this orthodox and pious
writer would have us believe, that the religious
feelings of millions Ain. fellow subjects in