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THE LATE MR ERNEST JONES.

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THE LATE MR ERNEST JONES. Poets who mingle in politics must from the very nature of things be more liberal than the Liberals who think in prose. They reach by intuition what uninspired mortals only attain after laborious reasoning and anxious thought. Milton, Shelley, and Byron were all ardently, almost transcendantty liberal in their belief as to the possibilities open to humanity, and it would be easy to multiply examples of smaller men whose convictions have led them into constant opposition to the received authorities of the world, and whose development of poetical feeling has been genuine and marked. Thomas Cooper, the author of the Purgatory of Suicides, and Chartist lecturer, was one of these, and Ernest Jones, whose death we recorded yesterday, is another. Of late years the name of the latter had lost the peculiar significance it had when Physical Force Chartism was vigorous and young. The man's politics were unchanged, but they had mellowed by time and experience. Some of those in court during the Old Bailey trials of the Fenian prisoners recognised in the rich tones of the stout, fair-haired, red-faced gentleman in wig and gown the voice which had so often roused excited public meetings into tumultuous enthusiasm but few remembered the depth and breadth of the trials and vicissitudes the iniddle- hged prosperous barrister had undergone for what he believed to be his country's cause. Ernest Jones was a poet. We do not put him forward as a hero, but he was undoubtedly in earnest, and his mental gilts lent favour to his sincerity. If we turn to his half-forgotten little volume, The Battle Day, and other Poems, ample evidence will be found of his ("Iaim to genuine fancy and imagination. But Ernest Jones was essentially national in his loves and hopes. His sympathies were not confined to his own country, as the speeches he delivered during the Danish war proved but he was proud of being an Englishman—proud of the land, many of whose ancient traditions he rebelled against so vigorously, and proud of the language he could wield with so much effect. There is something of the irony of fate in his being summoned away just as one of his life's hopes seemed on the point of accomplishment. He suffered imprisonment, obloquy, loss, for his opinions he was consistent in his desire to advo- cate what he held to be the rights of the mass of his countrymen, and to advocate them in Parliament. By pen and speech and coutisel he did his utmost to bring others round to his political views, and he saw many of the concessions he was called revolu- tionary for advocating granted by the party which was most earnest in proclaiming him an incendiary. Three times had he sought a seat in Parliament and failed. Now, just as the result of the test-ballot had given him an overwhelming majority over Mr Milner Gibson, when the leading journal had congratulated the country on the prospect of his being in the House, when his friends and partizans pronounced his success as certain-he dies. The last speech he made in public contained what seems now like a prevision of the end. "There was a personal rea- son," he is reported to have said, why he desired soon to get into the House of Commons, and that was that he could not afford to wait very long. What little work there was in him must be taken out sppedily, or it would soon be lost altogether." His half-century of life had been actively sympa- thetic throughout. He ran away from home "to help the Poles" at 11 years of age and at no part of his public career could his most virulent assailant accuse him of any sordid self-seeking. Many of his old opponents, as well as his old allies, will regret that his views have escaped the test provided by the sobering atmosphere of the House of Com- mons and that he has gone to the land of solved problems without having had the opportunity be so ardently longed for throughout his pilgrimage here. Ernest Jones in the new Parliament would have saved it from the reproach of being destitute of exceptional men.— The Express, Jan. 27th. MR COBDEN ON CLERICAL FONDNESS FOR WAR- LIKE Topics -Mr Cobden thus concluded aletter to a ministeral correspondent Will you pardon me if, before 1 lay down my pen, I so far presume upon your forbearance as to express a doubt whether the eager- ness with which the topic ofthe Duke of Wellington s career was so generally selected for pulpit minifesta- tions, was calculated to enhance the influence of mi- nistersof the Gospel or promote the interests of Chris- tianity itself. Your case and that of public men are very dissimilar. The mere politician may plead the excuse, if lie yields to the excitement of the day, that he lives and moves and has his being in the popular temper of the times. Flung as he is in the mid- current of passing events, lie must swim with the stream or be left upon its banks for few have the strength or courage to breast the rising wave of public feeling or passion. How different is your case! Set apart for the contemplation and promotion of eternal and unchanging principles of benevolence, peace and eharity, public opinion would not only tolerate but n pplaud your abstinence from all displays where martial enthusiasm and hostile passions are called into activity. But a far higher sanction than public opinion is to be found for such a course. When the Master, whom you especially serve, and whose example and precepts are the sole credentials of your faith, mingled in the affairs of this life, it was not to join in the exaltation of military genius, or share in the warlike triumphs of nation over nation, but to preach 'Peace on earth and good will toward men.' Can the humblest layman err, if, in addressing the loftiest dignitary of the Christian Church, he says,' Go thou, and do likewise'?" KINAHAN'S L. L." and really good old Irish Whisky are synonymous terms. Until the Messrs. Kinahan introduced their delicious old mellow spirit it was impossible to get good old Irish Whisky in England but now the L. L." can be obtained in all its purity in every town throughout the kingdom in the well-known red seal and pink labelled bottles. EGLWYS-FACH.—The annual donation of the Rev. L. C. Davies, of Charlton Musgrove Rectory, Somer- setshire, (late of Ynyshir House,) was distributed this week by the Rev. Edward Edwards, vicar of the parish. The thanks expressed to the almoner were, Bendith Duw ar ben Mr Davies a'i deulu."

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