19th Dec.
Puan well-known London penny Sunday "paper The Sunday Times com-leted its seventieth year and issued its 3,629th sumper, on the 23rd of October last. Tt sigualised the occasion by distributing to its subscribers as a supplement a reprint of its first number, dated the 20th of October, 1822. It is a! four-page sheet, rather larger than the woderu Globe, and it cost sevenpence, of which, however, fourpence was paid for the stamp which every newspaper had in those days to have impressed upon it; and its motto is: "Let it be impressed upon your minds, let it be instilled into your children, that the 'Lreerty oF THE PRess Is THE PALLA-prom of all the Civil, Political and Rewiaious Riguts or an Encuisnmay." 'There are only two columns of advertise~ ments, on the frontage, and of these three-fourths are literary. One relates to " Burgess' New Sauce," which the current issue of the Sunday Times reminds us is still to be obtained at the same address, 107, Strand, as in 1822. The other three columns of the front pas are ocoupied by two long articles caded © "Original Strictures." The former has the sub-title, "'I'o Our Readers," and dilates on the wretched condition of England with a Cabinet backing up the Holy Alliance in its oppression of Europe. Once, we are told, there was a time when an wwpurchased, unshackled press existed in England. "Editors did not sell their columns, their consciences, and souls, to patronising Ministers, Ihey breathed the spirit of freedom, and were contented with the bread of honesty. But uow, slavery not only boasts the loudness of her trump peters, but triumphs in the superiority of their numbers, and affects to laugh at the paucity and the feeble tone of those of their opponents. How is an} evil of this description and magnitude to be met? How resisted? Only by an increased courage and fervour in the patriotic journalist." This patriotic journal, this resolute asserter of public freedom, the Sunday Times was to be. The latter article, on the "Aspect of Public Affairs," describes that aspect the most melancholy terms. It begins: "In directing our attention to this painful and heartrending subject, we feel an awful presentiment that damps our spirits, and almost induces us to lay down, our pen in despair. If we glance our eye to the state of foreign politics, we are appalled with the Sickening view of our umatural alliance with a Combination of Despots, assembling in Congress to consult and devise how they shall most effectually subdue the. spirit of liberty, and rivet the chains of the people of Europe. we turn from the contemplation of this disgusting scene, to the internal state of our country, an endless and unvarying succession of almost general distress presents itself to our'view. Bankruptey, beggary, and calamity, with giant strides, stalk through this once-smiling and flourishing country; while the weight of taxation, and an obstinate adherence on the part of Ministers to the same profligate. waste of the national resources, and the same corrupt system to which are to be attributed all-our.! reverses, precludes all rational lope of returning prosperity." And the article ends—for-we may pass over the details of the wicked tyranny of the Continental sovereigns and the even more wicked obsequiousness ut the British Cabinet However affairs may proceed, we promise that our journal shall be the consistent and faithful reporter of existing circumstances, and the free and independent commentator on public. men and public measures, at once represeuting things as they really are, and uifolding the secret springs by which the Government is actuated."
The second page opens with an advertisement by 'I, Pish, 4 Cornhill, and 9, Charing Cross, of the State Lottery, the attractions of which are set out at length; the chief is that itis a good old-fashioned Old English Scheme with no novelties in it; and it is added that "in the late Lottery HISH sold, as he usually does, the greatest prize, viz, No. 4,660, £30,000, and several minor Capitals." here is not much more than a column of foreign news, a large space being taken up with the arrest by the French government of Mr. John Bowring—a name well-known in China—while carrying some sealed despatches from the Portuguese government, which the French authorities were anxious to read. Great things were hoped for Freedom from the union of England, Spain, and Portugal. Nearly 'a column is devoted to the opening of Drury Lane Theatre after the reconstruction of its interior; and the prologue, which was written by Mr. Colman and delivered by Mr. Terry, is inted in full. The opening play was The School for Scandal, and it was followed by the opera of The Poor Soldier, in which " Madame Vestris performed 'Patrick'! with great spirit, and sung with fine effect." At Covent Garden the attractions were The Jealous Wife and Venice Preserved. Some space is devoted, to the sudden death, at the age of 98,.of Mrs. Garrick, who on the morning of her death was making preparations to'atteud. the reopening of Drury Lane, Theatre. Then we have an account. of an " atrocious outrage " in Ireland, the country being ina most alarming state. "Such are the fruits of that inexorable system of coercion to which this country has been doomed." There is plenty of police court news, and there are prize fights, casualties, 2 murder and robberies. "There are thirty-nine unfortunate convices under sentence of death in. Newgate, nine or ten of whom are expected to suffer death." Over half a column is devoted to a "Character of Buonaparts it is a long assemblage of con-traditions, "a splendid prodigy which towered amongst us like some ancient ruin, whose frown terrified the glance its magnificence attracted, Such a medley of contradictions and at the some time, such an individual: eousistency, were never united in the same character, a Royalist, a Republican, and an Emperor: a Mahometan; a Catholic and a patron of the Synagogue Subaltern and x Sovereign; a. Uraitor and a 'I'yraut; a Christian and an infidel; he was, through all his vicissitudes, the same stern, impatient inflexible original; the same mysterious, incomprehensible self; the mau without a model and without a shadow." 'I'he death of Canova is noticed too, and a good story is told of George Washington's refusing to appoint a personal friend, who was incompetent, to office, and giving-the place to a strong political enemy, because he was a good man: for the post. In this few of his' successors have imitated George. Washington. Poetry is found-too,; for there is a long attack in very good: verse on the King of France, headed "On the Death of Four Heroes of Persia, Executed for an Attempt to give Liberty to their Country," and purporting to be" translated from a fragment discovered in the ruins of Persepolis." 'I'he last verse is very powerful And sweet it is to sit on Thrones Built upon skulls, and stained with gore, Midst shouts wud songs, and cries and groans, 'The mourners' wail—the courtier's roar.
Such thrones are on ani earthquake's mine, And Xerxes! such a throtie is thine, And to this are added an epigram on the need of great repairs in the House of Commons, and a savage one on Lord Castlereagh, with which we may conclude this notice Oh! Castlereagh thou art " pa OW 5 Caro divd for his country, xs didst thou; He perished rather than see Rone enslaved, Thou cutest thy theat, that Britain may be saved.
So He as cut his throne, at last!—He who?
The man who cut his country's long "go.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.