The Sun.
London, England, 1827-04-11 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We believe that we may with confidence an-
nounce that a step has been taken in settling the
Government ; but whether that step be progres-
sive or retrograde it is difficult to say. Mr.
Canning has been desired to form an Adminis-
tration ! So far so good ; but he has likewise
been directed to assimilate it (in some inexpli-
cable manner) to the late Ministry, of which
Lord Liverpool was chief. This condition, we
apprehend, has sprung from the Lord Chancel-
lor. What can it mean ? That Mr. Canning
is simply to put into Lord Liverpool's place
some one professing his Lordship's opinion upon
the Catholic question ? We really do not know
who that could be, except it were the Chancel-
lor himself: or does the injunction wean gene-
rally, that Mr. Canning should form a divided
Administration upon the most essential points of
national policy, as was the last? If so, it is a happy
condition, certainly, to insist upon, in constituting
that body which is to govern the nation, and instil
into it unanimit♦ and concord ! We begin now to
suspect that Mr. Canning's enemies predominate,
either through power or guile; and that their ob-
ject is to weary out his patience, by pressing him
to form a Ministry, whilst they annex impossible
conditions to the execution of the task : then, should
he retire in disgust, they will charge him with de-
serting the King in his difficulties; they will swear
that he might have formed an Administration to his
mind, had it not been for his own petulence.—
Times.

Mr. Robinson, it will be seen, has stated to
Parliament, that an idea " had been" entertained
of encroaching on St. James's-park, by advan-
cing a new line of houses into Bird-cage-walk ;
but that the mischievous and obnoxious project
is now abandoned. So far we are ready to con-
gratulate the people of London. But it further
appears, from the Right Hon. Gentleman, that
a piece of " waste and shabby-looking ground,"
between the Barracks and the Palace, is still to
be covered with houses. Now, it is this very
pestilent spirit of covering every bit of ground
that can be laid hold of with " houses" which
we have always felt to be deserving of the most
pointed reprobation. We know the spot alluded
to, and an ugly article it is ; but why not plant
it, and sow it with grass, or gravel it neatly, in
stead of cramming it with houses ? Why not
beautify this dirty surface, instead of besmearing
it with mortar, and adding more smoke to the
mass which already smothers us ? The inha-
bitants of Westminster. noblemen and gentlemen,
and respectable persons in every rank, have opened
a powerful battery upon a knot of persons who take
their money for spoiling their drink. Let the wes-
tern division of the metropolis make an equally vi-
gorous push for the other grand element of health
and longevity—let them fight for what remains of
clear atmosphere, as well as for what is attainable of
pure water,—and they will succeed in both. If our
fellow citizens are wise, they will not consent to one
inch of space which now is open in any quarter to
the free circulation of air, being closed up with brick
and mortar. London is enormously overgrown,—
it is intolerably swollen; there are already many
thousands of inhabitation, congregated to this one
point, beyond what con►enience or salubrity, or
morality, or any great national interest would sanc-
tion. The Egyptians were spared an eighth inflic-
tion, little short of any which they actually endured,
when that of edification was omitted. It ought to
be added to the above observations, that as to the
cutting down of trees on both sides of St. James's
Park, the Chancellor of the Exchequer thought fit
to maintain a prudent silence.—/bid.

We insert, as readily as we did the charge, a
letter exculpatory of Alderman Thompson, on
8,1 • -

panies, from which so much misery has emanated.
We hope, however, that our present cor-
respondent is not attempting to bring the Al-
derman-candidate off, upon a quibble between
the two tenses present and past—is and was !
We fear the morality of an act is the same, whe-
ther it was done or is now doing. The question
is, whether the Alderman was or was not impli-
cated in several of those bubble companies at
the same time ? If, indeed, he were never a

Director of the Equitable Loan Company, or of
the Hope Insurance, then is our first corre-
spondent in a culpable error. But if he were in
both, then is our present correspondent, who
attaches " is not" to both those speculations,

guilty of something like equivocation. The
backing out is sometimes a more reprehensible
act than the prancing in. But the fact is, that
we have actually seen Alderman Thompson's

name in the prospectus to the Equitable Loan
Company ; and he stands in the Red Book, as
g, Director of the Hope Insurance, which is
lately merged into another Company. And be-
sides the several companies, be they of what cha-
racter they may, which were mentioned in our first
letter, and with which he was charged with being
implicated, he is also, we learn, Director of the Bri-
tish Gas Company, ditto of the St. Catherine's
Dock Company, and Auditor of the Colombian
Agricultural Company !!! So that we apprehnd
he has found but an . awkward defender. A totally
different correspondent has, indeed, promised to
favour us with a perfect list of all the Companies
with which this person—now to be associated with
the Directois of the Bank of England—is now, or
has been, concerned.—We must also farther observe,
and that without any reference to Alderman Thomp-
son whatever, or to any other Alderman, that we
put down, on the authority of our first correspondent,
above a dozen speculations, which sprung up or
were flourishing at the time of the general com-
mercial failures; and we must say, that any single
person engaged in only one half of them, is very
unfit to be selected for the trust of administering the
affairs of the Bank of England.—lbid.

Last night a petition was presented by Mr.
Hobhouse from the County Fire Office, against

the illegal and unconstitutional manner in which
the Commissioners of Revenue Enquiry had
proceeded towards that respectable Establish-
ment. With every disposition to make allow-
ance for men intrusted with large powers to in-

quire into frauds committed against the Revenue,
with a view to the introduction of a better sys-
tem, we cannot see that Mr. Wallace and his
colleagues were justified in striking at the credit
of a great Commercial Establishment on such
conjectural authority as he had succeeded in ob-
taining. It is clear that if the course followed
by Mr. Wallace is justifiable, every man's pro-
perty is at the discretion of men in office. We
shall on a future day revert to this important
subject, which we can only advert to at present.
Sir Francis Burdett, with his usual hatred of
every thing ungenerous and vindictive, expressed
himself very warmly against the disingenuous
mode which had been pursued for destroying
the character of a body of respectable individuals.
Sir Francis generally feels correctly, but does not
always reason very soundly. " Such conduct,"
he said, " was contrary to the principles of
Aetagna Charts ; and though he was aware that
it wee the fashion for modern philosophers to laugh
at the wisdom of our ancestors, he confessed, for
hig part, that he thought the few lines in Magna
Charta, which denounced ,such invasions of the
Constitutional rights of the subject, worth all
.:14e rftl or pretended discoveries of these mo-
2ern philospphers." row, without attempting to
fed rcctate Mafia Charts, which was suited to the

rude age in which it appeared, we must confess that
the attempt even to plaee it in opposition to the in-
quiries of the present age, strikes us as exceedingly
puerile. There is hardly a nation in Europe which
Chas not had its Magna Chartas. That of the Hun-
garians is highly extolled, and, what is singular, that
bf the Turks is said to be by far the best. An edi-
tion of the Turkish Magna Charta has lately been
published at Vienna by M. Von Hammer, the cele-
brated Orientalist, which fully hears out this opi-
Mon, and serves at the same time to shew of how
little efficacy these Charters are in affording security
to persons' property. Perhaps it was fortunate that Magna
Charta was so inefficacious as a check against our Kings ;
for we firmly believe that we owe the prosperity of Eng-
land, chiefly to the subsequent encroachments of the Kings
on the power of the Barons, which that Charter had it
alone in view to secure. Nay, it is curious enough that,
to the intelligent foreigners who visited England, it ap-
peared to resemble Turkey more than any other part of
Europe. To the Elzevir edition of Sir Thomas Smith,
there is appended an account by a Venetian Ambassador,
resident here, in the time of Henry VIII., who observes,
that from the time of Edward 111. downward, the Royal
authority had acquired such strength, that Parliaments
were rather screens for the King than a restraint on his
wishes, and he states, that the Kings were as absolute as
the Grand Turk.—Morning Chronicle.

The times seem to be sadly out of joint. Our
Ministers have betaken themselves to the extol-
ling Turgot and Galilei, Sir Francis Burdett has
become a convert " to the wisdom of our ances-
tors," and our Contemporary of the Courier has
indited a goodly sermon against Witchcraft.
Speaking with reference to a trial in another co-
lumn, our Contemporary says—

" A curious trial will be found in another column, of
certain persons charged with having cruelly maltreated an
aged female on the supposition of her being a witch, whose
unholy arts had proved destructive to the cattle in her
neighbourhood. The brutes concerned in this proceeding
tore her garments down to her waist--wounded her flesh
.with a thorny stick, tore her hair from her head, to see if
it would burn, and compelled her to kneel down by a colt
which she was required to bless.'
" Such stupid and atrocious proceedings we hardly ex-
pected to hear of at this time of day, but as forming part
of the materials of a romance writer. We should have
hoped that common sense and humanity would have reach-
ed even Abergavenny, in sufficient strength to save a poor
woman of ninety from being thus inhumanly dealt with,
and that, too, by persons who appear to have hare had
some pretensions to respectability. The offenders were all
convicted of the assault ; and the Judge, from the singu-
larity of the case, deferred pronouncing sentence till yester-
day. We look for its arrival with some curiosity."
So here our contemporary not merely takes
the field against " the wisdom of our ancestors,"
but endeavours to shake the belief in what al-
most all the eminent Divines of this country have
conceived to be essentially interwoven with -Chris-
tianity. Is the Courier aware that Queen's
College, Cambridge, sends every year a Doctor
or Bachelor in Divinity to preach a sermon, for
forty shillings a time, at All Saints' Church, in
Huntingdon, on the Annunciation of the Bless-
ed Virgin, "against the Sin of Witchcraft, and to
teach the people how they should discover and
frustrate the machinations of witches and dealers
with evil spirits ?" We have a printed collection
of the sermons delivered within these few years
in that church. Is the Courier aware that the
belief in witchcraft was strenuously inculcated by
the late Mr.- Wesley, and became, in conse-
quence, almost universal among the 'Wesleyan
Methodists ? The Rev. Mr. Naylor, of Wake-
field, in his Tract on the Mischief of Vulgar Su-
perstitions, published in 1795, says, " Numbers
accustomed to ascribe to this great man an al-
most Papal infallibility, dared not to reject what
he advanced with such an air of earnestness, or
to question the truth of what he appeared to
sanction by his authority. Their conviction
has insensibly spread itself amongst the
multitudes connected n with them -by the

ley, and a Jury of Wesleyan Methodists,
would not have scrupled to give our contemporary
the succession of Carlile in Dorchester Gaol, for the
infidelity contained in the paragraph which we have
quoted from him. Mr. Wesley, in his Journal pub-
lished down to his death, after noticing the case of
a woman on whom some witch had laid her spells,
observes, " When old Dr. A—r was asked what her
disorder was ? He answered, It is what for-
merly they would have called being bewitched.'
And why should they not call it so now ? Because
the infidels have hooted witchcraft out of the world :
and the complaisant Christians, in large numbers,
have joined with them in the cry. I do not so much
wonder at this; that many of these herein should
• talk like infidels. But I have sometimes been
inclined to wonder at the pert, saucy, indecent
manner wherein some of those trample upon men
far wiser than themselves : at their speaking so
dogmatically against what not only the whole
world, Heathen and Christian, believed in all
!past ages, but thousands, learned as well as un-
'learned, firmly believe at this day. I instance Dr.
Smollett and Mr. Guthrie, whose manner of
speaking concerning witchcraft must be extremely
offensive to every sensible man who cannot give
up his Bible."—We wish to respect the sincere belief
of all men, and therefore we will offer no opinions which
. may give offence to so large and respectable a body as the
Wesleyan Methodists, who cannot yet have renounced the
opinions of their great founder, who died since the break-
ing out of the French Revolution. We are not aware that
any new light has been thrown on the subject since that
time; and we would observe to our contemporary, who,
like the Lord Chancellor, may be inclined to take his
Christianity at short-hand from the decisions of Parlia-
ment, that the Act of George the Second only declares,
that persons shall not be tried for witchcraft, but leaves
:the question, a 9 to the existence of witchcraft, where it
;was. All we can say is, that it is well with him that he
!is under a ministry, who feel as much disposed as himself
:to turn their backs on the eminent divines in all past ages,
and to worship a Turgot and a Galilei. How lucky it is
that the belief in witchcraft forms no part of the Athanasian
Creed, for then our contemporary thirst not have uttered
.a whisper against it !—ln Wale,, where' this case was
tried, the people are mostly Methodists. It would be cu-
rious to know in all these cases to what religious body the
'actors belong?—lbid.

If Mr. Canning should be ultimately ousted
from the Ministry, or lose that station in it
which he appears so anxious to attain, such a
result will be in no small degree owing to the
injudicious zeal of his Whig and Radical adhe-
rents both in and out of Parliament. Of no
-small part of the latter we have no doubt he is
himself totally unconscious ; and as far as he is
aware of it, must be, as his true friends are, dis-
gusted. To see himself lauded in the most ful-
isome and extravagant terms, and that too at the
,expense of others, by those who have shown that
they would to-morrow as readily join in his con.
• .demnation, can excite no other feelings in an
honourable mind, than those of contempt and
regret, that any portion of an instrument so pow-
erful as the Press, should be so lost to good
taste, and moral integrity, as to insult and mis-
lead those whom it is its duty to instruct and
inform. Of the sort of puff-preliminary by
which Mr. Canning has been met by his Whig
friends in the House of Commons, we cannot
give him credit for being equally unconscious.
'On the contrary, we suspect that it has not
' happened without some degree of pre-arrange-
ment. What took place on the short debate
produced by Mr. Tierney, betokened strong
symptoms oi'this. Now there is nothing in our
estimation that will put a discreet man so muchon
his guard, or so readily induce him to suspect his
own judgment and conduct, as the too ready ap-
plause of those who have hitherto been his oppo-
;nents. To silence all opposition, to conciliate all
imen's judgment, and unite the good opinion both
iof friends and foes, is what really falls to the lot of

few men either in public or private life. In Mr.
Canning's case it is not true, as it is pretty evi-
dent that he has by throwing himself to a certain
degree into the arms of his quondam opponents,
in no small degree contrived to alienate the re-
gard of some of those who have hitherto been
among his most powerful and consistent adhe-
rents. And, after all, what does this prove, but
that Mr. Canning, with all his splendid acquire-
ments, does not possess that consistency or that
soundness of judgment and discretion which are
qualities so essential in any aspirant to the highest
office in the State ? The most disgusting part of
the highflown eulogiums which are showered so
profusely upon Mr. Canning is, that it is in no
small degree done at the expence of others who are
his colleagues in the Ministry, some of whom, at
least, are as deservedly popular in their respective
departments, and in their general character, as Mr.
Canning can be, and who have throughout shown a
dignified forbearance on this occasion, which must
increase the high estimation in which they are held.
by the country. In what points, we would ask, are
Mr. Robinson and Mr. Peel inferior to Mr. Can-
ning ? We shall probably be told, in splendid over-
powering
eloquence. If mere eloquence were all
that was required in a Statesman, or the only recom-
mendation which Mr. Canning himself possessed,
this qualification, we have no doubt, would be
readily assigned him by universal consent. But if
eloquence, as it sometimes does, leads a man to say
that to-day which he finds it necessary to unsay to-
morrow ; if a fervid imagination, misled by momen-
tary applause, induces a man to hazard the peace
and welfare of his country, in terms which he finds
it necessary by means of the Press to retract, then
we should say, that a little less eloquence and a little
more judgment may be quite as valuable in a States-
man, as the mest sparkling scintillations of the
one unchecked and undirected by a due portion
of the other. It is one of the consequences of in-
judicious high-flown eulogium, to induce awkward,
and otherwise uncalled-for comparisons; and
when, therefore, Mr. Canning's too ardent adherents
tell us that he is the only man in the country fit to wield
its destinies—and for such a man as Mr. Canning to hold
office under any one would be to cover himself with dis-
grace—we are bound to remind them, that the temporary
gud of their idolatory is the very same person who has all
his life held office under some one or another ; and that
some of those with whom he now holds office, are at least
his equals in talent and public estimation. If such com-
parisons as these are offensive and unpleasant, it is not
those who make thctn, but those who compel them to be
made, that are to blame. If Mr. Canning had been al-
lowed to wait patiently for the judgment of the Sovereign,
he might perhaps have been called by general consent to
the head of affairs, though even then his removal from his
present post would have been a misfortune. But if the
Premiership is, as it were, to be taken by storm and cla-
mour, and in doing so, men of high characters, both for
talent and integrity, are to he classed ,below what their
merits entitle them to, it becomes the duty of the inde-
pendent part of the press, as the organ of truth, to un-
mask and decry the deception.—Morning Herald.