this combination against one who would be always right if he were
not proved always wrong, to be endured in a country that boasts of
its freedom and its fairness?

But, the Tattlesnivellian who now raises his voice against
intolerable oppression, may be told that, after all, this is a
political conspiracy. He may be told, forsooth, that Mr. Disraeli's
being in it, that Lord Derby's being in it, that Mr. Bright's being
in it, that every Home, Foreign, and Colonial Secretary's being in
it, that every ministry's and every opposition's being in it, are
but proofs that men will do in politics what they would do in
nothing else. Is this the plea? If so, the rejoinder is, that the
mighty conspiracy includes the whole circle of Artists of all kinds,
and comprehends all degrees of men, down to the worst criminal and
the hangman who ends his career. For, all these are intimately
known to the London Correspondent of the Tattlesnivel Bleater, and
all these deceive him.

Sir, put it to the proof. There is the Bleater on the file--
documentary evidence. Weeks, months, before the Exhibition of the
Royal Academy, the Bleater's London Correspondent knows the subjects
of all the leading pictures, knows what the painters first meant to
do, knows what they afterwards substituted for what they first meant
to do, knows what they ought to do and won't do, knows what they
ought not to do and will do, knows to a letter from whom they have
commissions, knows to a shilling how much they are to be paid. Now,
no sooner is each studio clear of the remarkable man to whom each
studio-occupant has revealed himself as he does not reveal himself
to his nearest and dearest bosom friend, than conspiracy and fraud
begin. Alfred the Great becomes the Fairy Queen; Moses viewing the