The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-22 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 1853.

The trial which has just taken place at King-
ston, of the parties concerned in the Egham duel
(a full report whereof will be found in another
part of this day's impression), affords additional
and very powerful corroboration to the assertion,
that too stringent enactments are calculated to
defeat their own objects, and that juries will fre-
quently—nay, habitually—interpose between the
undue severity of the law and the prisoners on
trial, so as to protect the latter from the penal
consequences of comparatively venial violations of
the criminal code. It was in cases of duelling
especially, that the sympathies were so strongly
excited, and that juiiea invariably disregarded the
charge of the presiding Judge, refusing to find
that parties, engaged in a fair encounter, where
the life of one was set against the other, were
guilty of wilful and deliberate murder if there
should have been a fatal result to the meeting.
The so-called laws of honour and the law of the
land were diametrically opposed to each other,
and the wisest, the best of our statesmen, of our
naval and military celebrities, yielded to the
fashion of the day, and engaged in transac-
tions which might have led to their igno-
minious execution upon the gallows. It is suf-
ficient to say that the late Duke of WELLINGTON—
the Iron Duke—the hero of a hundred fights—a
man of whose personal courage there could have
been no possible doubt, was not satisfied to rest
on his well-established reputation ; but, although
a sexagenarian, deemed it essential to demand
" satisfaction," for what he conceived to be an
imputation on his honour ; and that his distin-
guished successor at the Horse Guards—Viscount
HARDINGE—aided and abetted him in his offence,
by consenting to act as his second on the occasion.
Sir ROBERT PEEL called out Mr. O'CONNELL, and
the invitation was only refused because the chal-
lenged had, but a few years previously, stained
his hands with the blood of his opponent—Mr.
DESTERRE—a catastrophe which, we have reason
to believe, excited the deepest contrition in the
mind of the Liberator to the last hour of his
existence.

And yet, when these occurrences took place,
the law was precisely the same as it is at present,
and as it was when Lieutenant MUNRO was
convicted of wilful and deliberate murder
at the Old Bailey. What would the people
of England think if the names of WELLING-
TON and HARDINGV.-Of PEEL, and O'CONNELL-OT,
going a little farther back, of CANNING and
CASTLEREAGH, CURRAN and GRATTAN, had been
inscribed in the Newgate Calendar as murderers—
wilful and deliberate murderers—who had expi-
ated their offences on the scaffold, or, through
the interposition of the Royal prerogative of
mercy, in perpetual exile from their native land.
There must have been something rotten in the
state of affairs that placed such men in opposition
to the law on one point, of which they were in
all other respects the most strenuous supporters.
There must have been something radically wrong
in the enactments, which juries repeatedly,
almost invariably, refused to lend their aid
in carrying into execution—violating their oaths
rather than become participators in what they
conceived to be the infliction of a still greater
wrong on the parties on trial.
A healthier and a better state of feeling, how-
ever, arose. Public opinion became opposed to
the " monamachia," or single combat. Juries
were found to execute their painful duties faith-
fully and truly ; and the case of Lieutenant
MUNRO, on which we have repeatedly commented,
proved that there might be a capital conviction
--although there had been no foul play—nothing
unfair in the management of the duel, and the
survivor had done all in his power to avoid the
painful alternative. This conviction gave a
heavy blow and a great discouragement to the
practice of duelling—none could be found willing
to brave the fearful results of a conviction ; and
even if men allowed their passions so far to pre-
vail over their reason, they could not find friends,
real or nominal, to act as seconds. The conse-
quences were too formidable to be lightly encoun-
tered, duelling became obselete, and the efforts
that were made to revive the objectionable prac-
tice only entailed ridicule and contempt on those
trying the experiment.
This salutary state of affairs has, however, been
completely altered. A duel, in which foreigners
Only were engagedmen ignorant alike of English
law and
English feeling on the matter—had a
fatal termination.
Nhave been fairer thantolitehieungtir7turl
adia,sawcteiobne.liew.vee,
fully and completely exonerate the parties con-
cerned from anything that could create the
slightest suspicion of foul play;
and, so far as they
are person ally concerned, we rejoice that
they have been practically exempted from the
were implicated. The Learned Judge
who presided more stringent consequences
of the offence in
which ths
id eyed laid clown the law clearly and wun-
equivocally.r Ile declared that, " if two or more
persons went
ther armed with deadly
an unlaw-
ful act, which fighting
weapons, fi then' pout u
r
p
o
s
e
of committinga
duel undoubtedly was, and
,
the death of one of the parties enst ed , it was in
the eye of the law murder, in every one of the
ransaeticui, and that
parties connected with the t

it applied equally to the seconds of the deceased
as well as those of the survivor—that all should
be held responsible for that which might be re-
garded as the natural result of the act they were
about to commit." The only real questions for
their consideration then were—Did a duel take
place? Was the deceased wounded in that duel ?
Was that wound the cause of his death? Aid were
the defendants engaged therein ? There should
then have been either a conviction on the entire
charge or an absolute acquittal. There was no
intermediate course, no compromise, that could
properly be adopted. They might as well have
returned a verdict of petty larceny, or libel, as of
manslaughter. We fear that the effect of the
verdict and the sentence (two months' imprison-
ment) will be to bring duelling again into fashion.
We would, therefore, once more urge the neces-
sity of special legislation on the subject—of an
enactment rendering duelling a grave misde-
meanour, punishable with fine and imprison-
ment, no matter what might be the reiult, and
making all parties in any degree concerned,
either at the meeting or as accessarias before the
fact, liable. The power of adding " hard labour "
at the discretion of the presiding Judge would be
exceedingly beneficial, so as to prevent single com-
bats on trivial, or insufficient, or indeed on any
grounds, and to restore matters to the same state
that they had been before these refugees engaged
in the transaction which led to the investigation
at Kingston, to which we have considered it our
imperative duty to direct the public attention.

A NATIONAL GALLERY—Worthy of the name—
has, at length, we rejoice to think, come to be re-
garded as a necessity. By the word " gallery"
we mean both the casket and its contents—we
imply under the phrase " national gallery" both
the splendour of the edifice and the completeness
of the collection. As matters stand at present it
is really painful and humiliating to reflect how
England is situated in regard to Art. Although
the wealthiest country in the world, she has—the
fact is notorious—the poorest collection of paint-
ings of all the great Powers of Christendom.
Not merely the poorest collection of paintings, but
the most miserable edifice that could possibly
(with such a purpose in view) have been con-
structed for their conservation. Look at it.
Look at that architectural masterpiece (!) on " the
finest site in Europe," (! !) and then examine its
pictorial treasures. (! !!) The disgrace reflected
upon the nation by all this is known to
every intelligent man to be of the most
flagrant character imaginable. Externally
there are two or three stone pepper-castors
on the top of a tasteless structure, devoid
even of the merit of a moderately good elevation.
Internally there are half-a-dozen apartments, in-
differently furnished with pictures, some of them
of very questionable authenticity, selected obvi-
ously without much regard to intrinsic excellence,
and disposed round the walls apparently without
any eye to symmetry of arrangement. And this
is the National Gallery of the United Kingdom I
Compare it with almost any one of the large
Galleries on the Continent. Compare it with the
Louvre at Paris—with the Royal Museum at
Berlin—or with that of Munich, the famous
Pinacothek ! Why, the shame of the contrast is
something ignominious. Here scantiness, and there
profusion ; here parsimony, and there munificence ;
here confusion and meanness, there order and
magnificence. Those are the results of even the
most cursory and superficial comparison. Never
let us brag again of our fine taste as a people, so
long as that fine taste continues to be mainly ex-
emplified by those abominations of Trafalgar-
square, by that execrable building, and that me-
lancholy collection. Until we have turned over a
new leaf in this particular, we ought to be a trifle
more circumspect in putting in our claims to the
merits of artistic fastidiousness.

England, too, ought surely by right to assume
a nobler position among the national patrons of
Art—Art having found some of its most illus-
trious cultivators among the ranks of her more
gifted children. Yes : for in the revelation
of original genius in Art, the Anglo-Saxon race
has approved itself scarcely inferior to the most
elevated of its distinguished contemporaries.
Yielding, of course, to Italy, to Spain, and to
Flanders, the glory of their pre-eminent reputa-
tion ! Setting aside, as altogether out of the
category of comparison, the works of some
among the loftier masters, the products of an age
more classic and more ambitious—

" Whate'er Lorraine light touched with softening hue,
Or savage Rosa dashed, or learned Poussin drew 1"

Putting altogether aside the pioneers of the
golden revival of the art of APELLEs—setting
apart the whole of that glorious catalogue of ori-
ginators from CIMABUB to GIOTTO, and from MA-
sAmo to PF,RuoiNo—above all, avoiding any
more direct reference to the designing of DA
VINCI, the colouring of GIORGIONE, the grace of
CORREGIO, the grandeur of MICHAEL ANGELO, and
the divine and matchless excellences combined in
the incomparable RAFFAELLE—We may still ven-
ture to regard some among the higher departments
of modern art as not having been wholly mono-
polised by foreign competitors to the exclusion of
every Englishman. The time has arrived when
we may speak thus without treason to the purer
schools of the Roman Peninsula. The day
has come when we may presume to express
opinions such as these without necessarily being
charged with a sort of poetic leze-maje,ste to the
Gods of the Brush at Bologna or at Florence.
Happily, we may dare to speak thus nowadays,
without being accused of depreciating the supreme
merit of such men as SARTO or PIOMBO, as TINTO-
RETTO Or DOMENICHINO, as TITIAN Or the CARAC-
cis, men like PARMEGIANO, and PAUL-VERONESE,
and RUBENS, and VANDYCK, and REMBRANDT,
and SALVATOR, and CLAUDE, and GUIDO, and
VELASQUEZ. Reverencing their fame according to
the respective value of their productions, we may
yet be permitted to claim a certain degree
of consideration for our fellow-countrymen.
If England has no TENlERs—she has a
HOGARTH. If she has no OSATADE—She has
a WILKIE. If she never possessed a CINALETTO--
she has produced a TURNER. Descending to the
lowlier departments, to the delineation of fruit
and of animals—we have a LANCE if we are with-
out an UNDINA, and a LANDSEER if we are with-
out a SNYDERS. Ascending again to the loftier
schools of art—if France had her DAVID, had not
England her ETTY ? Throughout the whole list
we might advance, name by name, without shrink-
ing in any one instance from the comparison—
alluding to the artistic history of a race illus-
trated by the labours of a CONSTABLE, a REY-
NOLDS, a WEST, a COLLINS, and a GAINSBOROUGH.
Allusion to the chiefs among our living masters
might be invidious ; yet among their names, too,
we might find abundant corroboration. So has it
been in Art with England—England disgraced by
her National Gallery, while so much might have
been expected from a country numbering a
HOGARTH and a TURNER among her painters, a
FLAXMAN and a GissoN among her sculptors, a
WREN and a PUGIN among her architects !
Thank Heaven, however, there now appears
some probability of a change for the better in this
particular. Already we have gained the rot, gra)
for a noble enterprise between Brompton and Ken-
sington. Already, moreover, we have witnessed
the index finger of a living master pointed steadily
in the right—meaning, of course, the onward—di-
rection, one of our gifted Royal Academicians
having in this important matter, and at this criti-
cal juncture, ventured upon the somewhat umn-
viting labours of a censorious pamphleteer.*

* " The National Gallery : its Formation and Manage-
ment. Considered in a Letter, addressed, by permission,
to H. R. H. The Prince Albert, K.G., &c., &c. By Wil-
liam Dyne, R.A." Bvo. pp. 84. Chapman and Hall.
London, 1853.

EMIGRATION TO AUSTRALIA.—The departures from
the port of London for the Australian colonies during
the past week have again been more numerous than ever.
They consisted of nine- vessels to Port Philip, with an
aggregafe burden of 3,740 tons ; three to Sydney, with
an aggregate burden of 1,160 tons ; two to Hobart-town
with an aggregate burden of 829 tons ' • one to Adelaide,
of 680 tons ; and one to Launceston, of 213 tons. Their
total capacity was, consequently, 6,622 tons. ,Consider-
able shipments are still made of manufactured goods and
general merchandise, but no essential change has occurred
in the rates of freight.