Mr. Irving's prosecution of Fun for its libel on him
has been -dropped, after an apology from both the editor of Fun and the writer of the silly diatribe in question. Mr. Sampson, the editor, -declared that he regarded the letter as a burlesque, and that its inflated style seemed to him to indicate a burlesque. That shows that Mr. Sampson is a bad judge of burlesque; and Mr. Sims, who -evidently wrote quite seriously, did not himself venture to declare that he meant the letter as a burlesque. There are wind-bags -which are filled only in order to be broken with a bang, and there are wind-bagawhich are supposed to be musical instruments of a high kind, and obviously Mr. Sims's wind-bag was of the latter -class. Mr. Irving did well to accept the apologies of these gentle- men, and would, perhaps, have done still better to ignore the rather witless attack altogether. But a thick skin is rarely given to artists, and Mr. Irving is no exception to the rule.
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