New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1900-01-28
WHERE THE SUN NEVER SETS
A RHETORICAL GEM OF CONSIDERABLE
ANTIQUITY.
NOT AN EXCLUSIVELY ENGLISH POSSESSION, BUT
USED ALSO BY SPAIN AND PORTUGAL
BY NAPOLEON AND OTHERS
FROM The London Globe.

London
an axiom which suggests rather than defines the
means of scientific or even literal exactness But
we all recognize the meaning of the phrase which.
terest is very much older than the setting in which
attributed to Pitt: and it no doubt received from
him a splendid send off its introduction to the
sons and resources the Prime Minister used the
Ian ed o 6mown expression The King of Eng
mat 1t made great impression may well be
afterward the eloquent Daniel WebfeT rem}ndaS
his hearers that England was power which bed
dotted the SURFACE OF the entire globe with her
beat, following the sun and keeping Company with
the hours, encrcled the earth daily with one
OF En5land" This graphic and picturesque en-
Itself suggestive Of the Inspiration of former age
Ano az a matter OF TACT England neither coined
to Us as heritage Of empire nc Inquire mas ia'en
has TINS Isis best by the fact that the phrase
we Unexpectedly encounter it in the works of the
life Sir francis Drake SAWS ms that sfefh ho of ths
poor private man, the Admiral hereafter under
who, as not contented that the sun riseth and
make ali his own WhePe he 6y to b dess TO
QSoupt ABOUT the monarch here referred to- nor of
nged spanish Kings beard # %as IN the
reign Of Philip II that the Spanish monarchy at
When the Ambassador Gondomar was combining
bade Spanish grandee who was Returning to his
own 6s he country remember him to the sun, which
which he would be sure to find in Spain
that the sn T hoWeyer had long been conscious
territories. In one of Howers well known col
a II S Crows oame 5hs
de sfa a ana truly to give the spaniard his
s1, Europe Hhi Asia Africa and America. So the
natural day upon some part other Of his coun-
tT Sd Tor part Of the antPodes are subject to him
chanan quotes the following sentence of a Dutch
| potentate. who stands with one foot in the east
ana the other in the west. and the sun never sets
The same idea also finds expression in GuaGinis
in which Catherine of Austria is spoken Of as the
! lllustrious daughter of the monarch on whose
But Portugal had also put forward her claim to
an ever present sun and certainly not without
| the Importance of the mother country the Portu-
! doubt she was surpassed by Spain in the great
! burst of maritime discovery. But within the cen
/ Good Hope was doubled by Vasco da CANA while
expansion east and west, more than enough for a
poet TO build upon; and. in the "Lusiad'' Camoens
upon when it rises it st 6ehods it at sum d iS9ks
ana when 1t sets 1t sets behind it." In whatever
that 1t is entirely poetic in its origin though po-
cosmopolitan virtues have endowed II with ali the
more force and vitality. Schiller uses it with eff
Peninsular War Napoleon deemed it polite to re-
immense empire sun y neT sets on the
phrase seems at some time other to have been
in the mouth Of every nation that had smallest
pretenslons to employ 1t, though it doubt OBJ
tanned its widest currency after the discovery of
the New World. The Romans adapted II to their
state of geographical and astronomical knowledge
T1bullus expressed 1T in poetry, and Rutilius in
prose. And two thousand years afterward their
descendants speaking of the contemplated visit
of the Queen to their shores that Of Queen and
Empress whose dominion the sun never sets
Traces of the same idea doubt discoVerable
in Oriental literature. The poetry of the East has
been called the poetry of the sun. and our near
est fixed star is naturally the of vast sys-
tenn OF Oriental images and traditions. The eve
OF the ancient world was almost exclusively direct
ed TO the east. 1t turned to the rising sun; the
very Idea Of the seemed cold and repellent
But II is from the west that there comes a beautiful
grating of upon the old idea. This occurs
in the following stanzas of really noble poem
on the English language. written years since
by an American clergyman:
1T kndles realms so far apart
That, while its craise you sing
These may be clad with autumn's fruits
And those with flowers OF spring.
1t quickens lands whose meteor lights
Flame in arctic sky.
And lands for which the Southern Cross
Hangs its orbed fires on high"
But there Is evidently a class of tepid lovers OF
their country who appear TO define patriotism as
an unwarrantaDle prepossession in our own favor
exercised to the prejudice OF other nations Even
these philosophers. however, can scarcely detect
proclamation of malevolence'' in the fact of Tho
suns relations with the British Empire Happily
fellow subjects manfuy realize their responsbili-
ties under so great a 1spensaton
I'm what land The doth visit
Brisk are we, whate'er betide
To give space for wandering ia n
That the world was made so wide"
DANGERS OF SNAP JUDGMENT