The Sun.
London, England, 1827-02-13 00:00:00

hope to content his old friend and companion, the A ttorney-
General,when I say that I regard his project with strong and
unaffected condemnation. In any convulsion which may
take place in Ireland, it is likely that the individuals who
are most active in Catholic affairs would be amongst the
first victims. Any man who has the least stake in the
country (and I hope I have one without a spike at the
end of it), must look with alarm at the events which are
not produced by their anticipation, and lam not one of
those prophets who are able to verify their own prognos-
tications. The humblest man amongst us is substantially
interested in arresting those disasters, of which we have
had already some sort of experience. But while my ar-
dent wishes are offered up for the peace and tranquillity of
my country, I own that my apprehensions are differently
directed. If I refer to the past, it is because I consider it
an image of the future." Alluding to the Declaration of
of the most eminent Hierarch of the Catholic Church of
Ireland (Dr. Doyle), that the Clergy would not now, as
in 1796, excommunicate their flocks for their disloyalty,
Mr. Shiel observes, that a French General " will not
have to vault over the altar on his arrival in Ireland.—
Things are a good deal changed since 1796. Steam and
religion have made a difference." No man can read the
speech, without discovering in every sentence of it, that
the speaker was firmly persuaded that a continuance of
the present state of things was pregnant with danger, and
deeply anxious to guard against it while it was yet time.
And this brings us to the consideration of the State rea-
sons for the prosecution► of such a speech. There is either
ground for the alarm felt and expressed by Mr. Shiel, or
there is not. If there is no ground, the best course
would be to show, that should we be at war with a first-
rate power, we have no cause for apprehension, either in
the increased number of the Catholics, their increased intel-
ligence, the altered feeling of the priests, and the invention
of steam-vessels. AVe have heard it observed by a friend,
conversant in naval affairs that from the distance at which
steam-vessels can be perceived at sea, the nation in posses-
sion of a superior navy could always be directed in time to
the point of landing, and disturb the disembarkation.
We leave the matter, however, for competent judges of
these affairs, which we are not. If, on the other hand,
there is really ground for the alarm, and yet we are de-
termined not to take the warning in good part, but to
hazard the consequenees, we do not exactly see the ad-
vantage of drawing the attention of Europe to our vulner-
able point. This is telling our enemies that we are not
only open to attack in this quarter, but we are determined
to be always open to attack. We protest against the doc-
trine, that a subject of this country is not to be allowed
freely to draw the attention of his fellow-citizens to what-
ever
is of public concernment. If he see danger to his
country from the disposition of a part of the population
produced by a certain system, it is net merely allowable
to him, but it his positive duty to endeavour to enlighten
his countrymen on the subject. Who, for instance, dur-
ing the disaffection of the Scotch Jacobites which explod-
ed in rebellion, in 174.5, would have thought of prosecuting
an orator for endeavouring to shew that the relations be-
tween landlords and vassals were pregnant with danger to
the existing Government, and for suggesting the expedi-
ency of securing the Government, by promoting the inde-
pendence of the vassals ? What absurdity can be greater,
than the pretending that all public matters are fair sub-
jects for discussion, and yet withdrawing from discussion
a subject of such paramount importance, that it involves
the very existence of all that we hold dear. This would
be mockery indeed ! Surely we are not come to that pass,
that we exist only through the ignorance of the French,
or other Continental nations of our weakness. While,
then, there is danger, and a remedy for it, he is the best
friend of his country who warns of the danger, and points
to the remedy.—Moruing Chronicle.

The Lord Chancellor, who bore without flinching the
effect of the miserable arrangements on a late melancholy
occasion at Windsor, which have proved so fatal to other
less hardy plants, complains nevertheless of the miserable
atmosphere of his Court ; and that a place on which modern
architecture has just been employed, at an unlimited ex-
pence, to attain, if it could be attained, almost perfection.
There is nothing in which the present age is so miserably
behind all which have gone before it as in the science—or,
at any rate, the application, of architecture to the common
wants and conveniences of life. As far as frippery and
meretricious ornament go, we have abundance. Our taste
in that way is much the same as we might expect from the
natives of some island in the Pacific Ocean, into whose
hands the same means were intrusted; bat as far as utility
and comfort are concerned, this science has actually retro-
graded, and we are every day pulling down public build-
ings as well as private houses, for the purpose of erecting
in their stead some showy gew-gaw palaces or mansions,
not half so habitable in point of comfort as many of those
which jack-daws and bats have taken possession of ; and
all this occurs in an age when we boast of our mathema-
tical knowledge, and when atone of our Universities in par-
ticular that branch of science is more deeply cultivated
than ever, while its application becomes less apparent. No
one can view the vast creations of former times, which
have descended hallowed and unimpaired to ours, without
feeling ashamed of the ignorance and presumption of a pe-
riod which can venture to throw the terms dark and bar-
barian back upon an s,ra so far superior in every respect
to our own. Let stay man but view the cathedrals,
the churches, the halls, and other edifices of our
ancestors, and then select the best of our modern struc-
tures, and he must view with shame the empty boastings
of an age whose efforts are as pigmy as those of the other
were gigantic. But, on this occasion, let him take West-
minster Hall alone, without a glance at the Abbey, and
under this one roof lie will find all that is mean, con-
temptible, and useless, covered and surrounded by all that
is magnificent and praiseworthy. We admit that, in the
erection of the new Courts, the architect was limited in
his space. That may be a reason why so little accommo-
dation is to be found for the public in any of them; but
it is no reason why the sense of hearing is almost useless
in some of them—,still less is it a reason why the Lord
Chancellor should sit frozen in his chair; and why an at-
tendance in these places should often endanger the health
and life of every man who is called to them in any ca-
pacity. These objections arc not confined to these Courts,
' but .extend, more or less, pretty nearly to every public
bUilding of any note of which we have of late years wit-
nessed the completion. It is worthy of inquiry how it
happens that these things are so; and that that which has
hitherto been esteemed a science is no longer worthy of
such distinction among us. At any rate, if such matters
cannot be improved, and the glaring fanits of such a
system developed, let us hear no more of Committees of
Taste, and those numberless other worthies who fatten
upon this source of public disgust. Surely it would be
better to discard at once the whole race of modern archi-
tects, and betake ourselves to plain builders and carpen-
ters, than see the public money and convenience sacrificed
to the practical insufficiency of a race, whose whole skill
seems to be confined to plans and draughts upon paper,
but who are utterly ignorant of the grand, the sublime, or
the useful.; and who are themselves the first to wonder at
the total failure in practice of what in theory and on paper
looked so we11.—.21/oraing Herald.

KEAN, AND KNOWLES'S ALFRED.-111 a recent
Edinburgh Journal there is the following paragraph .—" We have
just observed, with much astonishment, the following announce-
ment in a London Paper. "In consequence of Mr. Kean's re-
fusal to perform the hero of Mr. Knowles's tragedy, Alfred, the
intended representation of it at Drury-lane is abandoned for the
present." We cannot believe this information to be correct ;
we cannot -believe that a mere actor, let his reputation be what it
may, (and there have been actors of greater reputation than Kean),
would thus venture to pia genius to the sleeve of his coat, to be
taken off, and to be worn as his humour may suggest. Are the
works of Knowles, one of the first Dramatists of the day, to de •
pend upon the caprice and petty jealousies of any self-conceited
servant of the public, who " struts and frets his hour upon the
stage?" Macready was the friend of Knowles, and Kean, for-
sooth, does not choose to play Macready's parts! Kean ought
to know his place and powers better. We repeat again, that
• we do not believe this scandal of Kean ; but, should it prove to
be true, he shall hear more of it."—London Free. Press.