We looked at the top of the paper to see if we had not got hold of the Times by mistake. It is a bitter, tyrannical, unjust attack—one which speculates in its premises, and condemns on conclusions idly drawn from them. It is personal and unmanly; striking, as it does, a man when he is down.

We believe, invention or no invention, Captain WARNER to be an honest enthusiast. But he is compared to Dousterswivel, or the latter is inferentially compared to him. Thus he is placed in the invidious light of a charlatan, who has, with base intention, swindled his king, his country, and his friends, all in turn. But the article we refer to, which pleads in the old style and joins issue on every plea, finds fault equally with Captain WARNER, even if his invention be genuine, not only in his mind, but per se. "If he can blow folks up, so much the worse.' It is not attempted to prove, except by insinuation and the doubt in narrow minds attending every invention-which, of necessity, is a novelty, and, therefore, to be condemned by anticipation—that Captain WARNER is not really the possessor of some deadly secret in the destructive art. But, if he be, so much the worse that he has escaped imprisonment. It is a pity that he and his bomb cannot both be thrust back into prison for contempt of Chancery, with nothing but the chance of a visiting-officer during fifteen years to discover them; and Sir Edward Sugden, in the parched and arid language of a whole Sahara of legal eloquence, to explain satisfactorily his case! Odds death and bloodshed! Why, this man deserves to be strangled by the fingers of a peace-maker for wishing to anticipate the routine of Woolwich. Why didn't he build a glass-house instead? Odds cotton and cant! Why could he not invent some novelty in a mill for human labour

-to make children happy, as they must be in growing distorted and dying early, to fill the pockets of a Cobden ?

But there is to be a place in the Exhibition for plans of national defences, of which notable design we speak elsewhere. Are these to be irrespective of bloodshed? Are they simply to be a number of broad-rims, stuck on marrowfat pea-sticks?—or white cotton pocket-handkerchiefs fresh from wringing the nasal organ of snuffling hypocrisy, or drying the oily tears of sentimentality weeping over negro brothers? What is to be the style of defence—a martello tower or a musket-Queen Elizabeth's pocket-pistol or a sworn constable's staff? We should like to know, as, doubtless, will the French, what Britannia proposes to herself. However, as long as war exists, and gunpowder is used for other purposes than bird-shooting and rock-blasting, we maintain that it is our duty to cherish every discovery-ay even in the way of destruction-by which this country may excel others. Patriotism and Peace alike demand it-not the citizenship of the world and the theoretical peace of fools and traitors; but real peace, and the patriotism which learns to benefit the world by cherishing home first.

We cannot go through all the attack in the Daily News against a man who has just emerged from prison upon a thankless world, who has never spent anything upon himself, who has nine children, who has been deceived by the promises of a Monarch, who has been the sport of shuffling officials, who has been ridiculed, maligned, and held as contemptible; but who has never offered to sell his secret to the Russians or the French-disgusted, and worn out, and driven to a desperate resource. Were we the writer of one or two essays, more valuable in Mr. Cobden's opinion than all the history of Thucydides, we should be inclined, perhaps, to

make a pompous classical allusion, which ought rather to have commenced our article in the following style :

"When CAIUS MARCUS CORIOLANUS was condemned to the Tarpeian rock-a process more summary though not more fatal than some facts of modern jurisdiction—having contrived to elude that punishment, the ingratitude of his country made so indelible an impression on his mind that he joined the enemies of ROME and allied himself with his former inveterate foes the VOLSCIANS, from the capture of whose capital CORIOLI, the surname of CORIOLANUS had been conferred upon him," &c., &c., &c.

But we do not wish really to usurp the style, lest, perchance, we should imbibe some of the feeling, of the Times, which might lead to repentance and a suicide in the "Aceldama" of Tothill's-fields or Frenchman's Island; and, therefore, we will content ourselves with our own less ponderous and magnificent style of declamation. The article in the Daily News displays such "moral" virulence against Captain WARNER and his project that it actually blames him for the non-performance of a trial, which was announced but which did not take place, in consequence of the absence, on one occasion, of Sir ROBERT STOPFORD, who would not stop for 't, but who went off suddenly, being appointed to the fleet; and on the other of a similar absence on the part of Sir Howard Douglas, who went off to an election at Liverpool; and Sir Edward Owen, who went after Stopford to the Mediterranean! To reproach WARNER with this, is, indeed, to add insult to injury; and nothing but the reckless perversity of a "leader" running a-muck on the Mammon side of the question can equal it. We cannot, as we said before, go through the whole case. To us it looks very like a combination against the inventor.

We know what it is to be out of the usual line. The trade are dead against you. The craft will not brook an outsider. We have heard of a case where an inventor-whose invention, one in gunnery, was put aside as useless-had the satisfaction of seeing it tried afterwards with much pomp on board ship as the work of another, and half-a-dozen performers knocked over because the stupid copyist had not provided for the recoil. Who knows how many would-be Warners have been racking their brains since the John of Gaunt was destroyed by this charlatan, in a manner for which no one can account, under the very nose, if we mistake not, of Lord Brougham?

To sum up all, Captain WARNER was worth a fair trial, or none. Every obstacle was placed in his way. Private liberality alone assisted him, with which he is now abominably reproached by those who have paid nothing. Were we not so thoroughly English as we are, we should certainly wish, as a meet retribution, that Captain WARNER would leave his discovery, on dying, inclosed in a frank obtained from a British Minister, and addressed to the French nation, together with a recommendation to that "knowledge of Christian truth" which the writer in the Daily News so oddly and profanely asserts to be the best method of obtaining and holding the "supremacy of the seas!"—he might as well have said, of making a pudding. In heaven's name, let us go the whole hog, and immediately plough-no, build factories-over Woolwich, and turn the Excellent into a foreign reception boarding-house or an emigrant-ship to the island of Feejee, the most extraordinary spot in the world for liars.

FREE-TRADE AND RECIPROCITY WITH THE ROMAN STATES.

In accordance with the Whig doctrine of free trade all over the world, to which Lord John Russell and his father-inlaw Lord Minto are fairly committed, we cannot imagine a better opportunity of displaying their talents than is afforded by the aggression of the Roman power. If we desire to have reciprocal relations with the world, here is an opportunity. Rome insists that she is the "Centre of Unity," on the reasonable ground that without a head we can do nothing. This is a matter for Lord John's consideration; but laying aside this personal matter-that is, the Caput of the Pope or that of Lord John-we could agree with Cobden himself in thinking that, if we could speculate in an exchange of weak wine, and olive oil every day in the week for fish on Fridays, between Italy, England, and Norway, it would be a benefit to the relative localities—that is to say, exchange the salt fish of Norway for the oil and wine, and sell the latter here. If Cobden could accomplish this, we would readily put him down as a cleverer fellow than a certain acquaintance of ours, who tried the experiment and failed after spending a fortune upon the adventure.

Here, however, we must drop temporalities to go upon another tack. We are challenged by the "Centre of Unity " upon our spiritualities; and, according to our present Government, there must be free-trade in confession as well as in corn or coal. The classification of these commodities is a mystery which time only will unravel. In the meantime we love fair play; and we have no doubt whatever of being supported in our opinions by all independent Members in the House of Commons, and the majority of the bench of