The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-24 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SIR, —As you gave Mr. Morris Moore a column in I
your paper of the 17th inst., I am sure you will not
grudge a smaller space to the " one item" of " our
profligate and servile House of Commons," at whom
that eminent dealer in pictures and invective has
pointed the finger, or rather shaken the fist, of his scorn.
Mr. Moore's tone would amply justify me in leaving his
letter to go unanswered to that oblivion which has
swallowed up works, even larger and more terrible, of
abler, and, if possible, angrier, writers. On one pas-
sage, however, I will say a few words. " With respect,"
writes Mr. Moore, " to Mr. Stirling's ignoble and under-
hand, yet obvious attack upon me, I shall have suffi-
ciently punished him by declaring that, substantially,
it was a direct contradiction to the sentiments he once
expressed to me in my own room, and which he
has repeated elsewhere." But for the words "in my
own room," this polite sentence might have been
as unintelligible to me as it, perhaps, has been
to most of your readers, to whom I beg, therefore, to
offer the following gloss upon Mr. Moore's text. In the
committee of the House of Commons on Monday, 7th
inst., I said that " Mr. Miindler's alleged mistake in
imagining himself the possessor of a Correggio was a
kind of mistake into which collectors were very apt to
fall ; and that I had myself known persons so trans-
ported by their imaginations as to believe themselves
the owners of Rafaelles"—or words to that effect. In-
credible as it may appear to Mr. Moore, I uttered these
words in total forgetfulness that he, too, was subject to
like hallucinations, and had been the purchaser, and pos-
sibly the vendor, of a doubted or doubtful Rafaelle.
But in these simple words, naturally suggested
by the remark to which I was replying, his
fine critical faculty at once detected a personal and par-
ticular attack upon himself and his property. What rea-
sons he may have for feeling that the cap fitted him
better than any other of the many collectors and dealers
before whom I was speaking, it is no business of mine to
determine or discuss. I shall content myself with saying
thau the sole occasion on which I expressed to him the
sentiments I am accused of contradicting was in 1853,
when Mr. Coningham and I called at 27, Soho-square,
for the specific purpose of seeing the picture aforesaid.
Thinking it an interesting and beautiful work, I said
so ; but I certainly never questioned or indorsed its
originality, or presumed to attempt either to shake or
strengthen the foregone conclusions of Mr. Moore.
Since, and " elsewhere," if I have spoken of the pic.
ture, I have always spoken in exact accordance with
the agreeable impression it has left upon my mind.
Being at one time much talked about, it was of course a
bone of critical contention, and was praised with the
rapture and condemned with the bitterness which the
serene creations of art and the slashing pamphlets of
Mr. Moore evoke and exemplify. But by no unscru-.
pulous foe or foolish friend did the pretensions of the
picture ever seem to me so likely to be seriously da-
maged as by the admission of the happy though thin-
skinned owner, that he cannot bear a casual allusion to
the possible existence of a spurious Rafaelle, without
feeling and proclaiming that such allusion is" an ignoble
and underhand, yet obvious attack" upon him and his
ge.m.

Mr. Moore has farther thought it becoming to report
to the public, without my sanction or knowledge, cer-
tain alleged conversations with me, for the purpose, as
it would seem, of enlivening with a little personal sa-
tire his remarks on my "discreditable" vote. I shall
only say that the conclusiveness of his reasoning and
the poignancy of his satire equal the calmness of his
tone; and that, leaving the public to judge between us,
I shall seek no renewal of intercourse with so unsafe a
depo,itory of casual and careless talk as Mr. Moore's
letter proves him to be.—l am, &c.,

WILLIAM STIRLING.
128, Park-street, Grosvenor-square, April 19.

THE MOON'S MOTION.