The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1856-02-13
From the Daily Times.l
SCENE IN THE HOUSE OF COM
MONS.

The following extract of letter from
a gentleman who has been member o
the British Parliament, describing a Gu
rious scene in the House of Commons
will be read with interest. The Incl
dent occurred during the debate of Sil
Robert Peers Free Trade project
"You ask me, my dear -, whether
I have seen Gen. Morris last song
Jenny Marsh, of Cherry Valley
You can hardly know, when you put
such question, the place he has bull
himself in the hearts of all classes here
His many songs and ballads are house
hold words in overy home in England
and have dear old chair by every cir.
Gle in which kindly friends are gathered
and parents smile with pleasure to see
brothers and sisters join their voices in
the evening song. and twine closer those
loving chords-the tenderest of the hu-
man heart. 1t is no mean reward to
feel that the child of ones brain has a
chair in such circles, and that the love
for the child passes in hundreds OF hearts
into love for its unseen parent. In that
old chair " Jenny Marsh of Cherry Val
ley" is fast securing place. After all,
what are all the throat warblings in the
world-to one such hosrt-sopg as My
Mothers Bible ?" It possesses the
true test of genius, touching with SYM
pathy the human heart, equally in the
palace and the cottage. AS an instance
Of the efest of one of his many songs on
the higher classes, I will mention q
scene in the most fastidious assembly in
the world-tho British House of Com
mons-at which happened to be pres
ent, and which offers homage, that not
only your national bard, but your coun-
try. should feel proud of.
1t was just about the hour, near
twelve, when the perfumed and biased
dandies turn in rom the Coventry Club,
or some Belgravian rout, when, except
three or four of the first men in the
House, no one would be endured, and
no one is listened to, unless, perhaps, a
buffo like Colonel sibthorp, or Rabe-
lasian wit like Henry Drummond, or
flashing hussar of debate like Osborne,
who rushes in every sentence at some
opposition foe and levels him with his
lance. The hour of twelve is death to
bores. They dare not cross its thresh-
old.
Yet it was just this hour, when,
from the back of the whig benches, an
old man arose, tall and silvered. From
his dress of top boots, and drab breech-
es, and blue coat with gilt buttons, one
would have fancied he had been dug up
from some region of the Georges, had
not the fresh bloom on his cheek, caught
in many hunting morning, and his
hale hearty look, proclaimed I" the fine
old English gentleman" This was Ca
ley, of Yorkshire. At first the dandies
stared, and were inclined to ehastise such
unusual audacity in invading an hour
sacred to Peel, and Stanley, and Rus
sell. and Gladstone, and D'Israeli. But
somehow the genial, kindly presence of
the man, and the good cid garments he
wore. to which even base young Eng
land softened, saved him, and the House
into listlessness. But listfess-
ness soon grew into interest, when, after
a most earnest and touching appeal to
the Premier, to save the old glory, and
old customs, and old peasantry of Eng
land, he repeated, with manly, touch
ing pathos, the song of Woodman,
spare that treer' I cannot well de-
scribe the effect these beautiful words,
which do honor to the head and heart
Of their author, produced. The House
was perfectly still when the old man sat
down.
"Sir Robert felt it, and when he rose
his voice faltered :" I admit" said he,
" the touching beauty of that ballad
but I deny It's application to any meas.
ure of mine" It was sometime before
the sensation subsided; but, after it did
so, groups gathered around Osborne and
D'Israeli, to listen to a personal de-
of the author, who was famil-
lar to them from the picturings of Will
lis and others. Morris is now as well
known in fancy to many of us as if we
bad looked into his kindly face, or felt
The warm pressure Of his hand"