REVELATIONS.
Mr. Evans will sell to morrow (Saturday) sonic curious autograph letters, chiefly addressed to the well-known Dennis O'Bryen, by the late Mr. Fox, Lord Liverpool, Air. Canning, &c. One of the lots consists of ten autograph letters of the late Lord Liverpool to Mr. O'Bryen; in one of which, dated August 26, 1820, he says, he will be " very thankful to him to extract the offensive passages from the Times, dur- ing the last three days, on the House of Lords ; it would not, obviously, be prudent to meddle with those respecting the King's government at present." From this revelation, it is pretty evident that there was no want of will to strike at our contemporary ; and that had the Lords seconded the attempt of the Ministry of George the Fourth against Queen Caroline, the press would next have come in for its reward.
There is a very curious letter from Mr. Fox, dated December 24, 1802, from which it would appear that great statesmen do not always entertain the best opinion of the honesty of each other. Mr. Fox was at that time bitterly attacked in all the papers, with the excep- tion of the Morning Chronicle, and Mr. Sheriden was as generally praised ; and the former statesman suspected that Mn Sheridan directly or indirectly was the author of both the censure and the praise. All great men must have little men about them to do their dirty work, and it appears that Mr. Fix set Dennis to work with Sheridan. He was to rally him in some such off hand way as this, "Can't you manage to abuse Fox without praising yourself?" but not to push the thing too far, if Sheridan should appear to resent it. In the catalogue this is described as "most curious remarks on the conduct of Sheridan."
One of the letters is from the late Mr. Canning to Dennis. It is dated 28th of May 1817. It is curious that Mr. Canning should deem it necessary to explain to this correspondent the reason which induced him to refuse to dine with the Pitt Club.
In one of fourteen letters of Mr. Canning, in 1817, be complains that the Morn- ing Chronicle had not reported some of his remarks, from which it would appear "that Mr. Br. [Brougham] was saucy and unchastised."
These "revelations," copied from the Morning Chronicle of Friday, elicited the following indignant remarks from the Standard.
" Of Mr. Dennis O'Bryen we happen to know just as much as that he was as dull as ditch-water, and as ignorant as the dirt precipitated from it. The public knows, too, that be was charged with endeavouring to seduce the rabble to mischief by incendiary placards—that he fled from the charge, and was him- self placarded in turn—he receiving a large pension all the while. Yet this man was, according to the statement of the Morning Chronick, aihnitted into the most intimate confidence by Mr. Fox, whose simplicity of nature, and abhor- rence of any thing like meanness or fraud, were always put forward as the extenua- tion for his licentious habits, public and private. We find, too, that O'Bryen had not imposed himself upon Mr. Fox's simplicity as an honest man ; for, It is in an office of treachery we have Mr. Fox seeking to employ him. Mr. Sheridan was never yen- select in his company or associates, and therefore we may pass Lim. But whom have we next. Lord Liverpool! honest Lord Liverpool ! the statesman whose bontraty was the apology for all the ignorance, feebleness, and timidity that nearly ruined the country. We have this very honest load iu close and confidential correspondence with M. Dennis O'Bryeo. And then we have the chivalrous Mr. Canning, warm from the House of Con3moris!—just wiped his lips from mouthing commonplaces of ingenuousness, generosity, and worn of all base arts—sitting down to hint, only to hint, slyly to Mr. O'Bryen, that it would be well to put a little more pepper for Mr. Brougham in the reports of his (Mr. Canning's) speeches in the Morning Chronicle! Ia not all this unspeakably disgusting?"
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