The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-16 00:00:00

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It must be confessed that hitherto the political season
has been terribly dull. Those of us who live by the
telling, or live for the reading, of news, have been thus far
sorely disappointed. We looked forward to this session
as a sort of golden time, full of skirmishes, surprises, and
battles ; but the whole thing is as dull and spiritless as a
mock fight upon a stage. The end is known from the be-
ginning. It is in that respect like the Dano-German war of
five years ago. The Danes are very brave, and stand by their
flag and shout " No surrender !" in a way that excites more
admiration for their pluck than approbation for their
prudence. They are hopelessly outnumbered. Their
Diippel must fall sooner or later ; it is only a question of
a few weeks, more or less. And while there is none of
the excitement of uncertainty, there is also no interest in
the subject of the quarrel. The Schleswig-Holstein
question of 1861 was not more wearisome than the
Trish Church question of to-day. One is absolutely
nanzeated by the very words, and when it comes to
columns upm c,hunns of debate ; when Mr. Dis-
raeli proposes amendments as long as all the arms of
Briareus put together, and Mr. Gladstone follows suit;
when Sir G. Jenkinson proposes thirteen amend-
ments, Mr. Pim nine, and the whole amend-
ments together occupy eight printed folio pages ; when
Mr. NewdegAte threatens to fight the whole battle
over again from the beginning; when Mr. Aytoun prates
about Maynooth ; and when the thermometer is up to
seventy in the shade, really life becomes hardly bearable.
Newly-elected M.P.s little know the nights of intolerable
ennui they were preparing for themselves some six months

Of course no one supposes that any of Mr. Disraeli's
important amendments will be carried. The Liberal
party could not possibly support them. There is abso-
lutely no material out of which to make a Cave. The
bill will go to the Lords substantially in its present condi-
tion. Will they adopt the amendments? Possibly ;
though, if they do, the Commons will, of course, dissent
from them, and their] lordships will then give way.
There are some persons sanguine enough to suppose
that the amendments will take such a long time
in the Lower House that the Upper will plead want of
time to consider the bill this year, and that Lord Salis-
bury's proposal will be adopted, whereby the Lords may
take up in the next session the bill which has passed the
Commons in the preceding session. But it is difficult to
see how the Opposition would gain by this. Delay may be
of use when parties are at all nearly equal ; but in this
matter the Conservatives are overwhelmingly outnum.
bered, and the best thing they can do is to expedite the
settlement of the question and look out for another less

hopeless.
The number of pictures sent into the Royal Academy
last week was something appalling to everybody except the
porters. It was so large that the academicians, who are
always allowed a day or two longer to send in their
works, were put off beyond the usual period. The
theory is that the fate of all pictures is de-
cided according to their merits ; but theory and
practice are not always identical. At the old
building size was a very important element of fitness.
Supposing the three hangers wanted to fill in a space
between two other pictures, they could not but have
regard to the number of inches which had to be occupied.
Then came the turn of the porters to choose. They, of
course, being wholly and passionately devoted to art,
would bring forward the pictures that seemed in their
highly-trained and critical judgment the most deserving.
It was really touching to notice the devotion with
which some of these men would cling to certain pictures ;
how they would on every possible and impossible occasion
bring them to the front again and again. They could
not have shewn greater pertinacity even if they had been
feed. But the porter mind, refined by constant associa-
tion with art, is of course above all sordid considerations.
This year, however, these judges will scarcely haves.) much
opportunity for displaying their enthusiasm, inasmuch as
the pictures will not be hung closely together, so that the
three hangers, being lessrestricted in the matter of inches,
will trust less to the judgment of the porters and more to

their own.
Among the exhibitors to the Water Colour Society,
which opens on the 26th, will be Mr. Richardson and Mr.
Gastineau, who, though not far short of 80 years of age,
sends, I believe, nearly a dozen pictures. Mr. Yeames sends
a picture to the Academy in which one of the figures is a
portrait of his wife. The Water Colour Institute has its
private view on Saturday. Mr. Holman Hunt has, I be-
lieve, at last left Florence fur the Holy Land. He has
been detained in the Italian capital a year while superin-
tending the erection of a memorial to his wife. He is
likely to spend several years in Palestine. -VisitGrs to
London may like to be informed that his " Christ in the
Temple" and " Isabella and the Pot of Basil" will be on
view during the season at Messrs. Gambart's, to whom both
works belong. Mr. Hunt has recently somewhat touched up
the former work by softening the red tint of our Lord's
hair, and also by restoring the right-hand portion of the
picture, which was injured by a fire that nearly des-
troye.l this great work.
There has been a great gathering of amateurs at
Christie's to-day. They were attracted by the announce-
ment that the Turners belonging to Mr. Ruskin were
for sale. The room was densely crowded, and the
competition very keen. Turner's " Slave Ship "
went for 1,915 guineas ; " The Lake of Lu-
cerne " for 980 ; " The Lake of Brientz " for 312.
The sale is continuing as I write. Of other pic-
tures also disposed of, Tayler's " The Keeper's Daughter"
was knocked down for 290 guineas, Copley Fielding's
" Scene between King's House and Inverary" for 440,
and the same artist's " Off Portsmouth " for 460. Brett's
" Val D'Aosta" went for 245 guineas.
The Siamese Twins are the peg upon which a good many
jokes are hung just now. There is one story to the effect
that a certain gentleman, well known in club-land for
the weakness of being supposed to know everybody, was
asked if he had seen the Siamese Twins, and replied,
"Oh yes, I met one of them in the Park yesterday."
Still better is the remark said to have been made in all
seriousness by a gentleman, who certainly was not born
on the eastern shore of St. George's Channel—" It is
fortunate that the twins know each other well ; it might
have been very awkward if they had been strangers."
Persons accustomed to pass through Trafalgar-square
will have noticed from time to time a sturdy disreputable
beggar, who is blind in both eyes. This man is a notorious
scoundrel. He is no other than Hare, the associate of
Burke in the Edinburgh murders, which originated the
term " Burking, " forty-one years ago. Hare turned
Queen's evidence, and so saved his own neck from the
gallows. Subsequently he went to work under an assumed
name, but his fellow-workmen, discovering who he was,
threw him into a lime pit, and there his eyes were burnt
out. He now appeals to the charity of the public, who
have, of course, no idea who he is.
At length Mr. Murray is able to announce definitely
Mr. John Forster's long-expected life of Walter Savage
Landor. It is to appear on May 3, almost simul-
taneously with the diary of his old friend, Henry Crabbo
Robinson, which is being published by Macmillan.
Sir John Taylor Coleridge is adding considerably to
his Life of Keble, which will probably appear in
two volumes. Miss Yonge, the novelist, is writing
her Recollections of Keble. Messrs. Bell and Daldy have
purchased the copyright of Charles Knight's " Pictorial
History of England," and Messrs. Hogg that of the
" Directorium Anglicanum." Another item of literary
news is that Dr. William Smith (author of the Classical
Dictionaries), having undertaken the editorship of the
Quarterly Review, will not offer himself for re-election as
classical examiner of the London University.
The Pall Mall Gazette has thought proper to give a notice
of the proceedings in reference to the British Lying-in
Hospital, which conveys about as incorrect a notion of the
actual facts as it was possible to give in the space
devoted to the notice. Dr. Edmonds, one of
the physicians of the hospital, is accused of very
strong language to Dr. Beck, but it is not
mentioned that Dr. Beck committed an assault on Dr.
Edmonds so serious that the assailant was fined five
pounds by a magistrate. Dr. Edmonds is represented as
having threatened Mr. Hoare and others with contempt
of court if they " continued their investigation." The
fact is, that by the advice of counsel they
were informed of the pending action, in order
that they might not commit a contempt of court by
repeating defamatory statements. A full investigation
did take place, and it was continued until
'Mr. oreHe
himself proposed the following resolution : at
board, having investigated the more important of the
charges conveyed in the printed evidence, and having
found them entirely unsubstantiated, think it unnecessardy
to go further into the inquiry, and acquit Dr. Edtom
this
of any unprofessional conduct as py
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again exonerated Dr. Edmonds from all charges, but
requested him
to resign, in order to promote the peace of
the hospital. This amendment was carried, but it was
thought by many of Dr. Edmonds's friends that as he
was entirely acquitted of the charges, his accusers, and
not Dr. Edmonds, ought to be called upon to take that
step.

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