The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-30 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The present aspect of Fenianism in
Ireland may appear, perhaps, somewhat perplexing
to those who have taken only a limited or partial
survey of the subject. There is, unhappily, nothing
new in an Irish conspiracy, but it is certainly a
novelty to find a conspiracy surviving when the
whole plot has been exploded and the ringleaders are
in gaol. Yet this part of the story is perfectly in-
telligible. It is simply a feature of the plot as ori-
ginally designed. When Stephens, the " Head
Centre," was informed of the seizure of the Irish
People, he observed that it was only what he had
been expecting, but that the work would go on all
the same. It has gone on, after its fashion, aided,
perhaps, by the continued agency of Stephens him-
self, but there is every reason to suppose that the
plotters would still have persevered in their folly for
a time even if the " Head Centre" had been more
effectually detained. To understand this anomaly
the reader must remember that Fenianism has had
at least three years to take root and grow, and that,
besides being planted in Ireland, it was carefully
cultivated in America at the same time. It is always
hard to approximate to actual figures in cases like
these ; indeed, even in the United States, where
Fenianism is organised without disguise or conceal-
ment, nobody can say whether the members of the
" Brotherhood" are 300,000 or 200,000. But if we
suppose that even 100,000 Irish lads of the shop-
boy and apprentice class had been enrolled in the
" Brotherhood" before last September, it will be
evident that such a conspiracy, in a country where
secret societies flourish naturally, could not be
expected to expire in a moment. The plot, too,
if such it may be called, was kept up all the
more easily from its loose and unsubstantial
nature. In the cases brought out in evidence
it appeared that the manufacture of a Fenian was
the work of a minute. A young shopboy was
asked if he would be sworn in ; he said he would ;
he then took a short oath, and the thing was done.
When drilling was going on, the recruit, perhaps,
joined some awkward squad for a night or two,
but now a man may take the oath and hear nothing
more about the matter. This does not amount to
much, except as a sign of disaffection in a particu-
lar class ; but, on the other hand, it is a thing very
easily kept up. But the explanation of the story is
mainly to be found in the American half of the de-
vice. Fenianism was hatched and organized in the
United States among a section of the population
who were Irish by nature and Americans by habit.
This branch of the conspiracy was inaccessible to
the Government against which it was directed, so
that a moiety of the " Brotherhood" was beyond
reach of disturbance. The American Fenians can
easily answer for the nominal existence of Fenianism
in Ireland. A few fanatical missionaries, a few
crafty agents, and a few thousands of pounds can
always keep a political plot going, especially where
the plotters are not called upon to do anything. In
the United States there is a pretentious system of
machinery by which considerable sums of money
are raised, and there must needs be something to
show for the receipts. That product is sought in the
professed maintenance of the design, in the purchase
of a few cases of arms, and in the prolonged agita-
tion to which Ireland is subjected. The Irish Go-
vernment, in dealing with Fenianism under these
conditions, fares like the Italian Government iu
dealing with brigandage. The brigands come from
over the border ; their incursions are made from an
asylum, and though the invaders cannot gain a
footing, they can create disturbance enough to
prevent progress and retard peace. There is,
however, as we feel, one thing more to be men-
tioned in the estimate of this worthless but
troublesome plot. We believe we have suffered
from that presumption of our public policy which
of late has been more than once advanced. There
has been an impression in many quarters that
England would do no more fighting. It was
thought that, come what would, we should never
accept the ultimate appeal again, and that even
with the integrity of the Empire at stake we
should, when it came to actual extremities, decide
for peace. This view of the case was clearly stated
in a private letter by one of the best educated of
the conspirators. O'Keefe argued that the Fenians
had only to persist obstinately in their agitation,
and England would be glad to let them go " as she
did the lonian Islands." It is rather hard that our
political prudence should bear such unpleasant fruit,
but so it is. We have withdrawn so discreetly from
Continental quarrels, and we have talked with such
philosophical indifference about colonies and depen-
dencies, that the world has thought us too calculat-
ing, if not too timorous, to strike a blow for any-
thing, and the Fenians have drawn encouragement
from the general delusion. Even the great lesson
of the American war failed to correct their views.
They had an opportunity of witnessing in America
exactly such an insurrection as they designed to
create in Ireland, and they saw what came of it.
They saw the demands of six millions of people for
independence fiercely rejected. They saw the in-
surgent country beaten down and trampled under
foot, and they heard war proclaimed to the " bitter
end"—that is, to the extermination, if necessary, of
every patriot fighting for a nationality of his own.
Of this, however, they took little heed, and though
they now see it declared in America that treason is
the most heinous of crimes, they go on as before.
If, then, we reflect that Ireland has had its secret
societies in some shape or other for many genera-
tions ; that it has now been introduced to a society
promising more and asking less than any of its pre-
decessors; that a branch of this society, safely esta-
blished in a foreign land, provides encouragement
by example, and support by pecuniary contribu-
tions ; and that all this machinery has been at
work for these three years, we shall cease to feel
much astonishment at the apparent vitality of even
so incredible a folly as Fenianism. The "Brother-
hood" does not resemble one of the old secret
societies magnified by circumstances. Even in the
most striking incidents of the affair there has
been nothing extraordinary. Stephens, it is true,
walked quietly out of prison, as if no locks or
gates were proof against his power, and he now
defies, as is believed, from his new place of con-
cealment, all the efforts of the Government to dis-
cover or apprehend him. At first sight it is
natural to read in such events the evidence of sin-
gular influence and extensive organisation, but the
inferences vanish if we look at things a little more
attentively. So far was the escape of Stephens from
indicating any extraordinary ability or authority on
his part that the wonder is rather that any prisoner
was kept in custody than that one escaped. The
Judge from the bench disposed of all these fancies
when he observed that one good warder in the pro-
per place would have been quite sufficient to baffle
any device attributed to the Head Centre. Nor need
the impunity and protection now enjoyed by Stephens

be regarded as any proof of extraordinary influence.
We have seen exactly the same thing in the cases of
the vilest criminals. Over and again the most
cowardly murders have successfully defied the pur-
suit of the police. Stephens is only sheltered, as
hundreds of others have been sheltered, in spite of
similar search and greater offers of reward. The
instincts of Irishmen have for years been running
almost indiscriminately against the law, and the
Head Centre gets the benefit of a common advan-
tage. Although, however, Fenianism is thus tena-
cious of life, its lease can hardly be a long one, for
the Irish Fenians must understand the hopelessness
of their designs, and the American Fenians are sub-
jected to a trial too severe for ordinary patience.
To keep agitation alive they must not only conspire
but subscribe, and the subscriptions must be liberal
enough to leave a sufficient margin above the claims
of the " Administration" in America. Mr. Mahony
and his colleagues take care, in the first place, of
themselves ; it is only a balance of income which
finds its way to Ireland. These remittances may go
on for some time, and as long as they go on Irish-
men at home will be looking for an armada of iron-
clads, and calculating on the arrival of an army
from abroad. It is the interest of so many people
to maintain these delusions that we cannot expect
them to disappear in a day, but time must ulti-
mately place the folly in its proper light, and mean-
while we have only to take care that law and order
arc maintained by the necessary measures of pre-
caution and control.

HERALD.—The Royal Academy is much to be
pitied. The country is about to turn it out of doors,
and about the same time Sir Edwin Landseer re-
fuses to be its President. Events, happens as they
may, have at least been foreseen. The influence
on the Government of the country of the Royal Aca-
demy—that is to say, of 50 academicians and 20
associates—is not all powerful, and there are Eng-
lish painters in their midst who are above being at
its head. The world is moving, after all, and has
certainly moved a great deal, since the days when
cliques reigned supreme, and tuft hunting was so
possible to even a man of genius, that a Chatham
could fall on his knees when admitted to the pre-
sence of Royalty. Will anybody tell us after this
that the Nelson Monument will not be finished, or
that England will never win that conquest over the
arts which she has at one time or another achieved
over everything else ? For ourselves, though we
should have felt it. necessary to have thanked Sir
Edwin Landseer for accepting the position, we
thank him much more for refusing it. The penalty
of greatness for a painter in this country is the
necessity of being an academician. It is a distinc-
tion which comes on him, just as he has arrived be-
yond the need of it—which he cannot escape when
it is of no further use to him, and which tends more
than anything else to undo all the qualities by
which he achieved it. It places. him under a new
law of circumstances the most likely to prejudice
his judgment, restrict his freedom, and fritter away
his time. In the degree that he acquires the clever-
ness which makes him an efficient corporator in that
degree is he likely to lose the exquisite sense of art
which raised him into a painter. But if this be so
with the mere academician, how much more with
the president ? Where would the divine Cor-
reggio have been had good fortune condemned
him to the bustle, and business, and beadledom
of academical greatness ? How with Raphael,
whose love of art, when turned into a martyrdom
by the additional cares of court, killed him
at thirty-seven ? To be really great in painting a
man must not only be born for it, but live for
nothing else ; and if he be not above the importance
of official position, and the gratification afforded
by the associations connected with it, he ought at
all events to be beside them. On our side we know
of no advantage in having Sir Edwin Landseer at
the head of the academy which would repay us the
loss of one good picture a year, did it cost us no
more. We would really sooner give up the Royal
Academy altogether than lose one good painter
through it. The academy, in our opinion, is of
little service to art, except by the facilities it gives
for the study of living models, and by its manage-
ment of our annual display of artistic works ; and
we are not sure that there may not be periods when
these advantages are more than counterpoised by
its influence in forming the student to the second
nature of the lay figure, and setting up as a standard
for him the bad taste and worse mannerisms of the
reigning authority. Even if we put the profit at
the highest, there is no reason why we should buy
it at the price of turning our best painter into a
corporate office-bearer, and withdraw for common-
place matters a time, which, given to art, is in-
valuable. Of all vocations the most jealous is that
of the painter. It permits no more of divided duty
than that of mediocrity. It is its infirmity that it
has to reproduce by imperfect media the workman-
ship of a perfect artist. Its furthest reach will
always leave a great deal to be desired, and we are
not sure that we should not look upon the most
graceful of all our painters as a social apostate,
abandoning the fidelity which has helped him to so
high a reach of art, if he consented to lower his
fancies and systematically misapply his time by
giving up to coteries what was meant for mankind.
There :is unquestionably a great deal to be done
for art in England, and some of it, too, to be done
through the Academy, but it by no means follows
that we should un-Pegasus our Landseer for the
work. The man of genius, sodden with the poetry
of his calling, may be exactly the man who knows
best about the organisation which might best guard
it from decay or most assure its prosperity. The
priesthood of art is especially the priesthood of "the
great mother," Nature—and is apt for business and
the associations of the profanum vulgus but in the
proportion in which it is untrue to itself. Mr.
Maclise, we are told, is so much of this opinion that
he has been giving the most unhesitating assurances
that he will not accept the position of President of
the Royal Academy if it be offered to him. He de-
sires—it is added—to give all his life and energies
to painting, and we are left with the consolitory
conviction that he shares the sentiment of his nu-
merous admirers "in grudging every hour that
might be diverted from the execution of such works
as the " Nelson and Wellington pictures at West-
minster." The new phase of opinion that is thus
so decidedly expressed for us by this abnegation on
the part of two of the most distinguished members
of the Academy is of good augury, and it is per-
mitted us to hope that the downfal of the spirit of
academical intrigue and cliqueism which it certifies
for us, like that of the Borgian system at Rome,
will prove the signal for Great Britain of a more
than De Medici development of taste and art. The
35 Academicians who dispersed on Wednesday last
under the flattering hope that they might induce
Sir Edwin to recall his refusal, and accept the
honour they had placed at his disposition, are re-
ceiving a lesson they cannot place too much at
heart ; and when they meet to-morrow they can-
not, perhaps, do better than address themselves to
the question how far they can unite their suffrages
on one of those practical * administrators
whose vocation for the service of Melpomene
has not been so prononcee. If there were no
spirit of caste which made it necessary that
the head officer of that institution should
always be an Academician—in other words, that
there should always be a painter in the pillory—the
predilection of our judgment would be for a man
who, like either of the late Messrs. Vernon and
Sheepshanks, had at once the judgment to appre-
ciate art, and the leisure to live for its guidance.
The violent ejectment from the rooms of the Na-
tional Gallery forces the Academy into the throes
of its second birth, and there never was a moment,
when it was more important that its President should
be able to devote all his time to its assistance. He
ought not only to be a man of business, fond of the
strepitus funiumque urbis, but capable of giving him-
self exclusively to the administration of its affairs.
There is a new home to be provided ; an accumu-
lated fund of about £150,000, with an income of
about £5,000 a year, to be dealt with, and if there
were no such things additionally in question as one
of the most important teaching establishments in
the kingdom, and an annual exhibition of British
art, the duties of the next two or three years
might reasonably enough be expected to ask every
moment of the time of the new president. To con-
fiscate our Landseers in such a service recalls Gold-
smith's image of cutting blocks with a razor. Pos-
terity, if defrauded of only half a dozen pictures by
the arrangement, would never forgive us such a
sacrifice of genius on the altar of official snobbism.
A less man would serve us a great deal better, and
we should be plus our four lions a great deal sooner,
to say nothing of another gallery of immortal
paintings.

A memorial, maid to have originated in New
England, asking, for the impeachment of President John-
son, is circulating in Tennessee. The course taken by
the President in the reconstruction movement is the
ground on which the absurd document is based.
Ex-President Millard Fillmore and wife, Dr.
Jas. P. White and wife, and Miss Anna Dobins, of Buffalo,
have arrived at Brest from New York. Mr. Fillmore in-
tends to remain abroad for six or eight months, and Dr.
White a year at least.

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