¹ See heading to Chapter III.

¹ Life of Sir J. E. Millais, by his son.

¹ In a Lecture to students late in his life Holman-Hunt said, referring to his father's scrap-book, “I can aver that within its simple covers were all the enchantments a child's mind was capable of receiving. It was prepared by my father for the delectation of his children, and on Sunday evening, after some chapter in the New Testament had been read, this scrap-book was brought out. Then, with my father in the middle, all the little family thronged around, every one eager for the best place, and page after page was turned over, not without great reluctance in the company to part with each fading vision of beauty, and perhaps, still more hard to have come to an end, was the running commentary made by my father upon the different pictures, upon the characters represented, and upon the artists who had been the authors of the original works. The whole continent of Europe was illustrated, and the then recent history of the civilised world was pictured with its great military heroes, their triumphs, their glories, and their reverses; works of imagination also, and the faces of their authors were made familiar to us, lineaments of kings who wore crowns, and of those anointed ones who had never worn 'that hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king' were known to us as our dearest friends. I can safely say that thus I learned more in a few hours than in many months of schooling, and that all better feelings of sympathy for the miserable and admiration for the noble, were first awakened in me by those fascinating picture-stories.”

To this portrait of Holman-Hunt's father may fittingly be added the testimony borne by his commonplace book, scrupulously collected from his varied reading, and as carefully inscribed, together with the library (small in bulk though it was) of chosen volumes in days before cheap reprints from the Classics had been dreamed of. Plutarch's Lives, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca were among the number; illustrated volumes of travel and Chambers's Journal abound, and early the little son imbibed the father's taste, for on the fly-leaf of a Book of Voyages and Travels, presented to him at the age of thirteen, is this quaint inscription very carefully penned: “Presented by his aunt, for which he is very much obliged, thinking it a very useful and amusing book.”

Nor should his mother be omitted in the parental portrait, for she was a person never to be forgotten by those who had met her. Stately if somewhat imperious was she, punctilious both as to receiving and bestowing due attention, with a lingering unconscious instinct for the substantial family fortunes which had been ruined in the days of her grandfather of stalwart horse-loving yeoman class. Punctilious also she was as to order and propriety in her home and surroundings, a devoted wife and a queen amongst her children.

¹ Published 1684 by John Daye, "with addition of persecutions up to date."

¹ It may here be interesting to add, as showing that art had its patrons among City warehousemen sixty years ago, that some of Haydon's pictures were hanging in the counting-house of Messrs. Bennoch and Twentyman, a firm long extinct. Mr. Bennoch was a patron of the arts, a poet of no mean order, and was wont to relate many stories of the unfortunate Haydon.

² It was only some years later that by the friendly business-like help of Mr. Jacob Bell, Landseer became prosperous in his profession.

¹ In referring to the pedimental figures I use the names in use in my student days.

¹ His son, on reading my remarks in the Contemporary Review , wrote assuring me that Haydon used the living model to the last. I could not doubt Haydon's use of all available means to give truth to his work. I saw him come to the British Museum to draw from the bust of Nero, and later I examined the pictures in the room where he died, and I could see that the same firm spirit which actuated him at first had to the last stirred him to study his forms from Nature. Yet in that little front room, with heroic canvases in hand, how confined in every way had been the great soul!

¹ As time went on Holman-Hunt became a singularly enthusiastic and proficient dancer. He used to be amused to find some of his admirers a little shocked at this in one whose mission they thought to be solely that of a painter of sacred pictures.

¹ With regard to conversations with Millais, I cannot pretend to have recorded every exact word. But the illustrations and criticisms used, and the names of the works of art cited, are as fresh in my memory as if they had been spoken only yesterday, and therefore a revival of the conversatonal form of the interview seems to me the best way in which to convey an idea of what passed, and in our boyish talk I am sure we were characteristically profuse.

¹ Reynolds urged Benjamin West, when painting “The Death of General Wolfe,” to represent him in a toga as appropriate.

¹ I never knew what particular picture he had in his mind; certainly in later years he dwelt enthusiastically upon the excellences of the great portrait painter; the self-sufficiency of youth must be remembered in the case of us both.

¹ “Two of our greatest painters, Raphael and Domenichino, have painted demoniacal boys. In the convent of Grotto Ferraba, in the neighbourhood of Rome, Domenichino has represented St. Nilus in the act of relieving a lad possessed. The Saint, an old man, is on his knees in prayer; the lad is raised and held up by an aged man, the mother with a child is waiting the consummation of the miracle. Convulsions have seized the lad; he is rigidly bent back, the lower limbs spasmodically extended so that only his toes rest on the ground; the eyes are distorted; the pupils turned up under the eyelids. This would be the position of Opisthotonos, were not the hands spread abroad, the palms and fingers open, and the jaw fallen. Had the representation been perfectly true to nature, the jaws would have been clenched and the teeth grinding. But then the miracle could not have been represented, for one, under the direction of the Saint, has the finger of his left hand in the boy's mouth, and the other holds a vessel of oil with which the tongue is to be touched, and the grandeur of the old man makes this one of the most admired paintings in Italy.

“I have here given a sketch of the true Opisthotonos, where it is seen that all the muscles are rigidly contracted, the more powerful flexors prevailing over the extensors. Were the painter to represent every circumstance faithfully, the effect might be too painful, and something must be left to the taste and imagination. The original sketch is in the College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. I took it from soldiers wounded in the head at the battle of Corunna. Three men were similarly hurt, and in short successive intervals similarly affected, so that the character could not be mistaken.

“In the same painter's great picture of ‘The Transfiguration’ in the Vatican there is a lad possessed, and in convulsions. I hope I am not insensible to the beauties of that picture, nor presumptuous in saying that the figure is not natural. A physician would conclude that this youth was feigning. He is, I presume, convulsed; he is stiffened with contractions and his eyes are turned in their sockets. But no child was ever so affected. In real convulsions the extensor muscles yield to the more powerful contractions of the flexor muscles; whereas, in the picture, the lad extends his arms, and the fingers of the left hand are stretched unnaturally backwards. Nor do the lower extremities correspond with truth; he stands firm; the eyes are not natural; they should have been turned more inwards, as looking into the head, and partially buried under the forehead. The mouth, too, is open, which is quite at variance with the general condition, and without the apology which Domenichino had. The muscles of the arms are exaggerated to a degree which Michael Angelo never attempted; and still it is the extensors and supinators, and not the flexors, which are thus prominent.”—Bell's Anatomy of Expression.

¹ G. F. Watts had quoted some lines of Keats to his exquisite figure of “Echo.”

² In the Contemporary Review I mentioned that the volume had been lost by lending. A hitherto unknown friend, on reading this statement, most generously made me the possessor of a daintily bound volume in place of my original copy.

¹ A later recurrence to this manner of drawing may be found on page 81.

¹ “Brown had a system of education which he would gladly apply to me. He set me to fag at some still life—drawing and painting both; but I could not stand that kind of thing, and after a time or two gave it up.”— Letter from D. G. Rossetti to W. B. Geoff .

² William Rossetti wrote: “I think it was more especially Holman who after a while considered that the Society was of little use, being weighted with too many ‘muffs’; he, Millais and Gabriel dropped it, and I fancy it survived not for long.”

¹ Mrs. W. M. Rossetti.

¹ Mr. William Rossetti informs me that he did not understand that “any such assumption amounted to a condition.”

¹ Life of W. B. Scott, edited by W. Minto, vol. i. p. 289.

¹ This portrait of D. G. Rossetti, attributed to his pen by F. G. Stephens in his memoir of Rossetti in the Portfolio, was a hasty scribble made by Holman-Hunt in his Cleveland Street Studio, and the unconsidered trifle was given by Rossetti to A. Munro, who gave it to Arthur Hughes, who gave it to W. H. H.

¹ The review in the Athenæum of the pictures by Millais and myself was evidently dominated by the key-note of antiquarianism found in Rossetti's work, otherwise its comments are not without phrases marked by independent perception.

“There is so much ability and spirit in two works by men young in age and in fame, mixed up with so much that is obsolete and dead in practice, that some remark is demanded on a system whose tendency may be hurtful to our growing artists and to our School. The ‘ Isabella ’ (311), by Mr. J. E. Millais, imagined from a poem by Keats, and ‘ Rienzi ’ (324), by Mr. Hunt, are both by artists with whose names we have had before but slight acquaintance. Both are a recurrence to the expression of a time when art was in a state of transition or progression rather than accomplishment. If the artist must have some particular model for his practice, the perfect rather than the imperfect would surely be a wise adoption. To attempt to engraft the genius of foreign nations upon our own is a most dangerous experiment. National art and taste are infallibly destroyed, and foreign excellence is rarely if ever attained. The justice of these remarks as applied to the imitative system in painting must be evident, and the inconsistency to which it leads is subversive of all national characteristics. The faults of the two pictures under consideration are the results of the partial views which have led their authors to the practice of a time when knowledge of light and shade and of the means of imparting due relief by the systematic conduct of aerial perspective had not obtained. Without the aid of these in the treatment of incident and costume we get but such pictorial form of expression as, seen through the magnifying medium of a lens, would be presented to us in the mediæval illumination of the chronicle or the romance. Against this choice of pictorial expression let the student be cautioned. He may gain admirers by it among those whose antiquarian prejudices may be gratified by the clever revival of the merely curious, but he will fail to win the sympathy of those who know what are the several integral parts necessary to making up the great sum of truth.

“In classing together these two works it should be understood that reference is made merely to the correspondence of views which has actuated both artists. In their several elaborations there is a marked difference. Mr. Millais has manifested the larger amount of resource. There is excellent action, painting, and character in the several heads of his picture (well distinguished in age and sex), and in certain occasional passages of incident and of form, but the picture is injured by the utter want of rationality in the action of a prominent figure carried almost to the verge of caricature. This figure extends his unwieldy legs to the immediate front of the picture so as not merely to divide attention with, but to appropriate all attention from the lovesick Lorenzo and the fair Isabel, who

• Could not sit at meals but feel how well
• It soothed each to be the other by.

hard monotony of contour and absence of shadow which are due to the causes before stated. In Mr. Hunt's picture it is the intention or design alone which can be estimated, and there are force of thought and concentration of purpose, though expressed in such affected language.”— Athenæum, 1849, p. 575.

¹ A Dance of Nymphs by Andrea Mantegna; in the Louvre.

(It is necessary to mention, that this picture would appear to have been in the artist's mind an allegory, which the modern spectator may seek vainly to interpret.)  

• Scarcely, I think; yet it indeed may be
• The meaning reached him, when this music rang
• Sharp through his brain, a distinct rapid pang,
• And he beheld these rocks and that ridg'd sea.
• But I believe he just leaned passively,
• And felt their hair carried across his face
• As each nymph passed him; nor gave ear to trace
• How many feet; nor bent assuredly
• His eyes from the blind fixedness of thought
• 10To see the dancers. It is bitter glad,
• Even unto tears. Its meaning filleth it,
• A portion of most secret life; to wit;—
• Each human pulse shall keep the sense it had
• With all, though the mind's labour run to nought.

² A Venetian Pastoral, by Giorgione; in the Louvre.

(In this picture, two cavaliers and an undraped woman are seated in the grass, with musical instruments, while another woman dips a vase into a well hard by, for water.)  

• Water, for anguish of the solstice—yea,
• Over the vessel's mouth still widening
• Listlessly dipt to let the water in
• With slow vague gurgle. Blue, and deep away,

• The heat lies silent at the brink of day.
• Now the hand trails upon the viol-string
• That sobs; and the brown faces cease to sing,
• Mournful with complete pleasure. Her eyes stray
• In distance; through her lips the pipe doth creep
• 10And leaves them pouting; the green shadowed grass
• Is cool against her naked flesh. Let be;
• Do not now speak unto her lest she weep—
• Nor name this ever. Be it as it was—
• Silence of heat, and solemn poetry.

¹ “Angelica rescued from the Sea-monster,” by Ingres; in the Luxembourg.

• A remote sky, prolonged to the sea's brim;
• One rock-point standing buffeted alone,
• Vexed at its base with a foul beast unknown,
• Hell-spurge of geomaunt and teraphim;
• A knight, and a winged creature bearing him,
• Reared at the rock; a woman fettered there,
• Leaning into the hollow with loose hair
• And throat let back and heartsick trail of limb.
• The sky is harsh, and the sea shrewd and salt.
• 10Under his lord, the griffin-horse ramps blind
• With rigid wings and tail. The spear's lithe stem
• Thrills in the roaring of those jaws; behind,
• The evil length of body chafes at fault.
• She doth not hear nor see—she knows of them.

The same.

• Clench thine eyes now,—'tis the last instant, girl;
• Draw in thy senses, set thy knees, and take
• One breath for all; thy life is keen awake,—
• Thou may'st not swoon. Was that the scattered whirl
• Of its foam drenched thee?—or the waves that curl
• And split, bleak spray wherein thy temples ache?—
• Or was it his the champion's blood to flake
• Thy flesh?—Or thine own blood's anointing, girl?...
• ...Now, silence; for the sea's is such sound
• 10As irks not silence; and except the sea,
• All is now still. Now the dead thing doth cease
• To writhe, and drifts. He turns to her; and she
• Cast from the jaws of Death, remains there, bound,
• Again a woman in her nakedness.

¹ On going to press I receive the following interesting information from my friend Mr. John R. Clayton—

“I refer to an incident which took place in Rossetti's studio in Newman Street, and which, from its literary interest, you might deem worthy of reference in your book.

“At the time W. M. Rossetti was writing in The Spectator as a reviewer, when free from his work in the Revenue Office. This connection of his with the publishers enabled him to secure an advance copy, before publication, of Tennyson's new and mysterious volume, which excited such great interest on its announcement.

“On the night referred to, a large group of art and literary men had assembled at Rossetti's. I was of the number. After long waiting, when the clock indicated nearly midnight, there was a ring at the bell, and footsteps on the stair intensified expectation, until William burst into the room, waving the little brown cloth book over his head in triumph. It was In Memoriam. The volume was at once passed on to Gabriel, who then read the whole of it without faltering in his unapproachable tones and inspired interpretations, to the delight and amazement of all present, who had listened in rapt silence.

“I spoke in recent years of the incident to a friend of Tennyson, who was then still living. My friend repeated my story to Tennyson, who, as I afterwards learnt, broke out into enthusiastic pleasure in knowing thus how his work had affected a group of young men all under thirty years of age. I can understand how the incident must have touched his inner sympathies.”

¹ “We have already in the course of our Exhibition notices of this year come in contact with the doings of a school of artists whose younger members unconsciously write its condemnation in the very title which they adopt (that of Pre-Raphaelite), and we would not have troubled ourselves or our readers with any further remarks on the subject were it not that eccentricities of any kind have a sort of seduction for minds that are intellectual without belonging to the better orders of intellect. It is difficult in the present day of improved taste and information to apprehend any large worship of an Art Idol set up with visible deformity as its attributes, but it is always well to guard against the influence of ostentatious example and fascination of paradox. The idea of an association of artists whose objects are the following out of their art in a spirit of improved purity, making sentiment and expression the great ends, and subordinating to these all technical consideration, is not new. The difference between the proceedings of a band of German painters who in the early part of the present century commenced such an undertaking in Rome and those of these English Pre-Raphaelites is nevertheless striking. The Germans in question (who had each tested the difficulties of composition in his own several style, each encountered the struggle of pictorial principle in his own studio) yearned to throw off the yoke of conventionalism which, commencing with the eclectic ages before, had brought the art in their time in Italy down to its lowest level, etc., etc. With all their good taste and acquirements their formal recurrence to amend art has been repressive of the first great condition of success (originality of thinking). That a body of young painters (untravelled, without experience, and below these Germans in intelligence, going back for revival to a yet earlier period from a yet later) should fail far more signally and find that they have arrived at an absurdity might have been expected beforehand from the mere conditions of the case. This school of English youths has, it may be granted, ambition, but not of that well-regulated order which, measuring the object to be attained by the resources possessed, qualifies itself for achievement. Their ambition is an unhealthy thirst which seeks notoriety by means of mere conceit. Abruptness, singularity, uncouthness are the counters by which they play for game. Their trick is to defy the principles of beauty and the recognised axioms of taste. Again these young artists are mistaken if they imagine that they have reverted to any early period of art for their type of pictorial expression....In all these painters the absence of structural knowledge never resulted in positive deformity. The disgusting incidents of unwashed bodies were not presented in loathsome reality, and flesh with its accidents of putridity was not made the affected medium of religious sentiment in tasteless revelation. Purity of presentment inspired by

devotional enthusiasm marked the works of these old rude masters....Let us conjure these young gentlemen to believe that Raphael may be received as no mean authority for soundness of view and excellence in practice. They stand convicted of insincerity by the very cleverness of some of their pictures. What a wilful misapplication of powers is that which affects to treat the human form in the primitive and artless manner of the Middle Ages, while minor accessories are elaborated to a refinement of imitation which belongs to the latest days of executive art! By the side of their affected simplicity and rudeness they write the condemnation of the same, saying ‘You see by the skill with which we can produce a shaving that we could joint and round these limbs if we would. We show you that which some of us could, if we chose, do as well as they who use the enlarged means and appliances of art; we can also do and choose to do as ill as they who wanted our knowledge. We desire you to understand that it is not for want of knowing what nature is that we fly to affectation.’ In point of religious sentiment Rossetti stands the chief of this little band. Mr. Hunt stands next in his picture of ‘ A converted British Family ’ (No. 553). There is a sense of novelty in its arrangement and of expression in its parts and a certain enthusiasm, though wrongly directed in its conduct. Mr. Millais, in his picture without a name (518), which represents a Holy Family in the interior of the carpenter's shop, has been most successful in giving the least dignified features of his presentment, and in giving to the higher forms characters and meanings, a circumstantial Art Language from which we recoil with loathing and disgust. There are many to whom his work will seem a pictorial blasphemy. Great imitative talents have here been perverted to the use of an eccentricity both lamentable and revolting. ‘Ferdinand lured by Ariel’ (504), by the same hand, though better in the painting, is yet more senseless in the conception, a scene built on the contrivances of the stage manager, but with very bad success. Another instance of perversion is to be regretted in ‘Berengaria's Alarm for the Safety of her Husband’ (etc.) (535), by Mr. Charles Collins.” — Athenæum,1850.

¹ Page 149

¹ Another reason alleged for the asserted refusal of F. M. Brown to join us is that the experiment of young artists combining in fellowship had been tried in Germany and failed. Certainly the coterie he referred to was more respected by him than by us.

¹ Page 175.

¹ Millais, with characteristic optimism, wrote to Mr. Combe: “I have designed a frame for Charles' painting of Lilies, which I expect will be regarded as the best frame in England.”

¹ “Pre-Raphaelitism is spreading, I am glad to see; glad, because it is by spreading that such affectations perish.” —(Lord Macaulay's Life and Letters .)

“The result was he had caricatured every wrinkle, as his friend has in those horrible knuckles of Shem's wife....The only possible method of fulfilling the Pre-Raphaelite ideal would be to set a petrified Cyclops to paint his petrified brother....A picture is worth nothing, you say, unless you copy Nature. But you can't copy her. She is ten times more gorgeous than any man can dare represent her.”—(Kingsley, Two Years Ago.)

¹ Millais died August 13, 1896.

¹ Since writing this I have come upon a note of invitation from this lovable man to W. H.-H. which, simple as it is, illustrates his modest courtesy to one of the young generation.

“ Hampton, Middlesex,

“16 th September, 1852.

...“I hope we may have the pleasure of seeing you without hurrying you in the picture you are engaged upon, we have no temptation to offer you at all worth putting you to any extra trouble, but shall be delighted to see you...with no inconvenience to yourself.”

¹ On the Death of Richard Doyle

• A light of blameless laughter, fancy-bred
• Soft-souled and glad and kind as love or sleep,
• Fades, and sweet mirth's own eyes are fain to weep
• Because her blithe and gentlest bird is dead.
• Weep, elves and fairies all, that never shed
• Tear yet for mortal mourning: you that keep
• The doors of dreams whence nought of ill may creep,

¹ Hueffer's Life of F. M. Brown.

¹ “As to the pure white ground, you had better adopt that at once, as I can assure you you will be forced to do so ultimately, for Hunt and Millais, whose works already kill everything in the exhibition for brilliancy, will in a few years force every one who will not drop behind them to use their methods. Apropos of these young men, you must be strangely puzzled to know what to think of them if you see many of the English papers on the present exhibition. For the amount of abuse that has been lavished on them has been such as to impart dignity to a name which used to be looked on more as a subject of mirth than anything else. You will remember that with all of us, whatever used to be thought of Rossetti's, Hunt's, and Millais' talents, the words Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, or the letters P.R.B., used to be looked upon as the childish or ridiculous part of the business. But now, I can assure you, that I pronounce the words without hesitation as an ordinary term in the everyday of art. The term will now remain with them, and, in the course of time, gain a dignity which cannot fail to attach to whatever is connected with what they do. For my own opinion, I think Millais' pictures, as small pictures, more wonderful than any I have yet seen, and Hunt's picture is a truly noble one. This is my sincere opinion. I also know that Mulready, Maclise, and Dyce think most highly of them; so that, after these opinions, backed by old Linnell, who told Anthony that he thought them the finest pictures in the Academy, I cannot put much reliance on the invectives of Frith and such a lot. As to newspapers, you know how much we value them, but I think I see more than usual spleen in their effusions, and I have no doubt but that Stone and Hart, and other disgusting muffs of influence, are at the bottom of it. I have just heard from Marshall that Ruskin has written a letter to the Times in defence of them.”

² Page 143.

¹ From a provincial newspaper of the date—

THE LIVERPOOL ACADEMY PRIZE PICTURE

To the Editor of the Albion.

“Sir,—The award by the Liverpool Academy of the fifty-pound prize to Mr. Holman Hunt, for his painting from the “Two Gentlemen of Verona,” has caused such an outburst of surprise, I may add, contempt, from a number of even professional artists, that I trust you will afford me some little space in your columns for a few observations on that remarkable production.

I shall not enter into the vexed quæstion of “pre-Raphaelism,” but merely treat of the picture on its own individual merits, apart from any school. I will, however, just mention that it is classed as pre-Raphaelite, and that, considering the overbearing obloquy with which pre-Raphaelism has been assailed, it shows a high moral courage on the part of the Liverpool Academy in having resisted the popular opinion, and giving their prize on the abstract merit of Mr. Hunt's production.

In my own opinion, there are more originality, meaning, accurate conception of character and incident, truthfulness, and inspiration in this picture than in any other in the exhibition. Compared with many other highly-finished and matured productions there it is like the infant Hercules compared with full grown pigmies.”

The following very interesting Message “To the Frequenters of the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool,” was received from Mr. HOLMAN-HUNT on the Opening Day, 1907—

Perhaps what I have already said elsewhere of the service which the Liverpool Academy, representing your City, in the year 1851, rendered to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood might seem sufficient; but I must not be deterred by fear of appearing egotistical from acknowledging the great service Liverpool rendered our Body by awarding me the annual prize. After a lapse of over half a century I gratefully bear witness to the conscientious courage of the Council which incurred contemporary odium by its championship of our efforts at Art reform.

¹ “Holman-Hunt was heroically simple and constant in his purpose of primarily serving religion by his Art, and had a Quixotic notion that it was absolutely obligatory upon him to redress every wrong that came under his notice. This mistake sometimes brought him into serious trouble, and more than once into danger of his life.” — Memoirs and Correspondence of Coventry Patmore .

¹ On the lines of this early design his later picture of “Romans leaving Britain” was founded.

² For the evolution of this picture, see Mr. J. Guille Millais' report of it in Life of Sir J. E. Millais, vol. i. pp. 136-41.

¹ To whom Shakespeare bequeathed his sword.

¹ “When I was in Venice the method I took to avail myself of their principle was this. When I observed an extraordinary effect of light and shade in any picture, I took a leaf of my pocket-book and darkened every part of it in the same gradation of light and shade as in the picture, leaving the white paper untouched to represent the light, and this without any attention to the subject or to the drawing of the figures. A few trials of this kind will be sufficient to give the method of their conduct in the management of their lights. After a few experiments I found the paper blotted nearly alike; their general practice appeared to be to allow not above a quarter of the picture for the light, including in this portion both the principal and the secondary lights; another quarter to be as dark as possible; and the remaining half to be kept in mezzotint or half shadow.”—SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS’ Notes to Du Fresnoy.

¹ It was in the year 1856 that he took up this picture to cover the body with drapery and make other changes. He did this to its manifest advantage, as was always the case when he retouched his pictures. See Hueffer's Life of F. M. Brown, Chap. VII. p. 182.

¹ THE GRAVE OF EDWARD LEAR

A Sonnet: By Eden Phillpotts

• Amid the silent lodges of the dead,
• Beneath the terraced hills of Italy,
• He lies, with sunny cypress at his head
• And mourning purple of the fleur-de-lys
• Upon his marble. Roses of white and red
• Twine there, and round about the mystery
• Of olive groves their twinkling silver spread
• Along the sapphire of the Inland Sea.
• Sleep, laughter-maker of a vanished day.
• 10What merry jester of them all can vie
• With your mad fancies, whimsical and gay?
• No sorrow here! We'll pass this pillow by
• In happiness of gracious thoughts, and pay
• The tribute of a smile; but not a sigh.

Mr. Phillpotts writes: “Among the notes and sketches brought home with me from my holiday in France and Italy, I find this little sonnet, written last month. Edward Lear, the famous author of the Nonsense Book —perhaps the first real nonsense book ever written—lies at San Remo, and his flowery grave inspired these lines.”

Edward Lear was born in the year 1812, and became a popular painter. The Earl of Derby, who was his patron, sent him to Italy and Greece, where he painted many landscapes which were exhibited in the Royal Academy. His Nonsense Book was dedicated to the children of the Earl of Derby, and subsequently went through twenty-nine editions.

¹ (From a letter of Charles Collins congratulating W. H. H. on the sale of “Strayed Sheep”): “Poor old weather-beaten canvas—thou shalt no longer be bandied about on the shoulders of gunpowder monarchs from marshmallow beds and elecampane plantations to punts and then to potato sheds for a night's resting-place, or still worse, to inflammable outhouses where gunpowder menaces thy existence every minute, but thou shalt rest in silken curtained and carpeted drawing-rooms, safe and clean and, let us hope, appreciated.”

“Those obstinate, fervid, often wrong-headed Pre-Raphaelites, who will set us wrangling with their enthusiastic, ascetic crotchets and poetic extravagances, are strongly represented here....Perhaps the most beautiful and magical picture in the room is that by their Coryphæus, Mr. W. H. H., “Fairlight Downs.”— French Gallery, Athenæum , Oct. 30, 1858.

¹ The collection some twenty years after was broken up, some of the portraits being sold at Christie's. The pastel of Rossetti, much rubbed, and in danger of obliteration, was obtained by his brother William, who kindly lent it to me to make an oil painting of it, which I still possess.

² This he kept at hand to enjoy its mysterious colours.

¹ For later investigation see “Sir Wyke Bayliss on the Likeness of Jesus Christ.”

¹ “Once more art has renewed itself, done battle for itself, like a little Hercules has crushed its serpents, the first of many labours; laid the foundation of a new renaissance, amidst scorn and derision, as ill-fated as the laugh that Remus laughed over the building of the great city when the death-stroke met him; above all, has linked itself again to faith and religion, its natural home and source of inspiration....

“Look back a moment at what this school of Pre-Raphaelites has done already. If their principles had in them anything of truth, they knew that condemnation, misconstruction—oblivion, if you will, would not quench its light for ever; some day it would burn through with consuming fire. The beginnings, therefore, were among the lowly things of the earth, ‘whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure;’ ever mounting upwards to one end; the running stream becoming a great river, and the quiet light a burning torch; teaching lessons of purity, singing legends of heroism, wakening into horror the fickle cruelty of unholy love, startling into alarm and remorse whatever is cold, cruel, and inconstant, finding at last a consummation and happy fellowship in such thoughts as realised the ‘Light of the World.’...Those large mournful eyes, set in such sorrowful expectation, till the door shall open, the head slightly bending, even as it bowed upon the cross; it is the Son of Man standing before us, in all the beauty and the sadness of our common humanity; we could call Him Brother, and expressibly beautiful the thought seems to us; but another look, and it is the Son of God, risen and glorified, the royal crown upon

His Head, and the royal robes enfolding Him, starred with jewels; so are we bowed down with awe before the Judge of quick and dead; yet are there signs of comfort, making the God whom we worship, and the Brother whom we love, one; and these are the crown of thorns budding with new leaves, and the pierced hands....And while the heart is bowed downwards yet in silence, filled through and through with its glory, that wondrously lovely background, earth and sky together, comes upon one like a soft wind, when the brain is overwrought and fevered; the orchard, too, and fruit trees, till one remembers the written words of the wise king: ‘As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, so is my Beloved among the sons.’ Have we not seen it many a time, that strange pale colour in the sky at night, so bright along the east that we know the day is coming? The stars up in heaven are very bright, piercing through the boughts till they seem to hang like white blossoms among the leaves, but above the Head is one, very bright and large and dazzling, and we know it for His star that led the wise men westwards, and think perhaps of the time when that star shone above Him, in the lowly stable of Bethlehem.

“I believe that every man, to whom God has granted truthfulness, veneration, and earnestness, will come from the diligent reading of this book with a spirit of deep solemnity upon him.”—Edward Burne Jones: Oxford and Cambridge Magazine , 1856.

¹ In doing this he indulged the ambition, which we had entertained from the beginning, to combine architectural design with picture painting as part of the work of a cultivated artist.

¹ The following letter was written at the time—

Williams' Indian Family Hotel,

Cairo, Egypt, March 16, 1854.

My Dear Millais,—I have been bothered overmuch lately with the difficulties about the little picture, and thus was hindered in getting this letter away by the last mail. I wrote to Egg last from our tent at Ghizeh; after that time I was driven back by the wind, which disturbed the sand so much as to make sketching in colours a task of too much time; for the result I might add one or two other trifling annoyances, but then you would think the climate here as victimising as that in England, which would be an injustice, even if the present two weeks of winter weather were continuous. After cautioning you thus much, I don't mind saying that one morning before we had completed the first task of tying up the fleas for the day, a little breeze arose which compelled us to hold on to the skirts of our tent for half an hour, in fear that otherwise we might be blown to the Sahara. My genius is not sufficient to convey a true impression of the event either by

artistic or literary means. I have registered the fact, however, in both arts, and my conscience is relieved. Before concluding my notice of our nomadic ménage, it may not be uncalled for to explain the figure to the right of the composition above. In the year 1820-25-30-35-40—it is very difficult to compute his age—the subject of our biography was born in India, of a family of the most ancient descent. Indeed, in this respect one may venture to state that no European family, not even that of Hannay, would venture to compete with this remarkable being; for even by his own computation 360 generations of ancestors have continuously pursued one vocation (and one may reasonably conclude that such a family could not have risen in a day, and that therefore there must have been some founders which tradition cannot reach). The most profound investigation fails to discover the events of his earliest youth, as he chooses to discountenance all impertinent curiosity by a broad grin and a repetition of his compendious English vocabulary, “Vare kood, ser!” When this gentleman had arrived at the age of discretion in the year 1850, he was appointed by the Pacha's officer in charge of the hippopotamus as sub-guardian of that interesting infant, in which capacity he accompanied it to England, and together with it formed the attractive exhibition in the Zoological Gardens for several months. At the end of that period he returned to the Nile country, and has remained here ever since; his vocation is that of serpent charmer, in which he is undoubtedly possessed of the highest talent. This recommended him to Seddon's attention, who has such an unqualified love for the inhabitants of this quarter of the globe as to covet specimens of all the noxious reptiles that dwell here. At the moment illustrated above, I am bound to confess that Hippopotamus (for his charge stood sponsor to him and gave his own name to his affectionate use) did not stand thus classically entwined by serpents in the spot where he is depicted; but as since his sudden appearance here some three weeks since, with nearly all the most venomous creatures of Egypt in his bosom, which he had captured for his admiring master, he has always been present to my most nervous imagination as I have represented, so I have thought it well to adopt an abstract manner of treatment of the design. Seddon returned with me from Ghizeh, but after two or three days, as the delightful weather of this season was restored, he again took up quarters in the tent; he intends to paint there. I stay in Cairo to commence a little subject which I witnessed in the street. If it were not for the hope of employing my time until our start in April for Sinai with this town subject, I think I should be inclined to leave at once and go to Syria; for the country offers nothing with more than antiquarian interest as landscape; the Pyramids themselves are extremely ugly blocks, as one always knew, and arranged with most unpicturesque taste. . . . There are palm trees about, which attract my passing admiration, but for all else one might as well sketch in Hackney Marsh. The desert is beautiful; but as I have said I could not settle down there, I find a good deal of difficulty in doing so here, for there are four or five other Englishmen in the hotel, and it is impossible to feel secluded enough to study, even when Seddon is away. . . . I must say Seddon's good-nature and ability for useful arrangements go much beyond my expectations.

Thursday Morning.—The mail came in yesterday, and this morning the letters have been delivered. I have received yours and two or three in one from my family. . . . God help poor Deverell! I was prepared for the fatal news, but not the less affected by it. The longer I live the less certainty I feel as to the course to be taken, and I almost determine to do nothing. I am ashamed at the little enthusiasm I feel, even with the novelty of my present life. I hope you will come out in the autumn. Seddon will have gone back by then, and I will have made some way with the language if possible. I am very likely to remain abroad for a year or two; it is impossible to do any good in merely passing through a country, particularly when one has so many prejudices to overcome towards the annoyances which exist here. I wish we could meet abroad and travel and work together for a good while, with occasionally another or two for companions (Halliday for one). The country offers nothing to me but landscapes and buildings of antiquarian interest; you know I want figures. I don't feel certain as to the best place to remain in; this may be the most convenient and practicable, but my last information points to Beyrout, where one might think and work without vexatious interruption.. . . I am glad to have your full letter before me again and to learn that Inchbold is likely to get on. Your proposition to entertain my little sister at tea with your cousin gratifies me beyond any other that could be made. . . . Certainly cultivate a beard. I am persuaded to overcome my Anglican prejudice in favour of a clean chin. I should not do so, however, if I found it disguised my nationality, for that is worth every other pretension one travels with; it finds one in cringing obedience and fear from every native, even a dog when told one is an Englishman runs away yelping. With this nationality, indeed, and a fist I would undertake to knock down any two Arabs in the Usbeykia and walk away unmolested. The Russians one hears of occasionally, but only from England, when the news is so old as to have gained admission into the Appendix of Goldsmith's School History of Great Britain . The fact is, as you hinted before my departure, one hears nothing here, so do

pray append one line of news to each letter, particularly if you have anything at hand about Cairo, for as I am here I am naturally anxious to know what has passed besides the everlasting donkeys, which, by the bye, are the only steeds one can get here without expending enough to purchase a horse completely; so you may see I do not enjoy the luxury nor endanger my valuable life by running after the hounds. Appended you see an example of the ordinary load an ass has to carry in this country. I intend sending a letter to Gabriel by this post; he wished to learn about the expenses of living here, so I will leave the subject entirely for his perusal. I wish my attempt to get models had been encouraging in the result. Bedouin may be had in twenties and thirties merely by paying them a little more than their exceedingly low rate of wages, and these are undoubtedly the finest men in the place; but when one requires the men of the city or the women, the patience of an omnibus man going up Piccadilly with two jibbing horses on an Exhibition day is required. I have made the attempt to get women to sit, until at the end of a fortnight or three weeks I have reaped nothing but despair, although I have spared no pains to achieve my purpose. One chance my servant discovered and told me of exultingly, so I went with him without question into a house where I was followed by scrutinising eyes through windows and door-cracks on each storey. Going up the outside staircase, I found myself at last at the top of the house entering the guest-room. This was a small chamber without much furniture, but surrounded by divan seats in front of a rich lattice-work mushrebeeah, where people sit for the cool air in the heat of the day. No one was present, so I had leisure to examine the objects in the room and speculate upon the beauty of the houris in the house, and to make some study of the manner in which I would arrange the figures which I should have to do that same day; and here I heard women's voices outside, and shuffling of feet. Four or five entered veiled, with a duenna. They ranged themselves in a rank with their backs against the door. With but only twenty words of Arabic, and a great deal of impatience, I could not afford much ceremony; so after I had fired off the nineteenth, I thought it time to walk up to the most graceful figure and utter the still unexhausted twentieth “ Ya bint.” The shy daughter of the full moon lifted her veil and squinted. “The evening star” had lost her front teeth, the “sister of the Sun” had several gashes in her cheek, while the “mother of the morning” had a face in shape like a pyramid. I told my man to express my regret that heaven had not bestowed on me enough talent to do justice to that order of beauty, and I took my departure by giving a backshish to the old woman; a fight with a man or two in going downstairs, and an encounter with several dogs in the yard, and I found myself in the street with my man behind me in a state of utter bewilderment at the turn affairs had taken. The next day I applied to the wife of the English missionary, who explained that it was a matter of the greatest difficulty. She had once induced her servant girl to sit, but then it was to a clergyman; perhaps it might be possible to get her again for me, but not at present, for it was a great fast, which was observed at home indoors, and moreover she herself was just setting out to Mount Sinai for two or three months, and without her presence in the room nothing could be done. The day after this I persuaded my landlord to exert himself, which ended in his procuring me a lady as ugly as a daguerreotype, whom I dismissed after I had blunted my pencil in my sketch-book. In the afternoon I had another woman brought, who turned out to be uglier than any I had seen. There are beautiful women here in the country. The fellah girls wear no veils and but very little dress, and these are perhaps the most graceful creatures (about twelve or thirteen) when in their prime, you could very well see anywhere. Near the Pyramids, turning a corner, I suddenly came face to face with one of these. The young girl stared like a startled gazelle as though electrified, and suddenly she bounded away with feet almost flying over the earth. Seddon's Hippopotamus was with me, but I only explained my desire to him without further satisfaction than could be got by his going through his complete vocabulary with all its variations of “Vare kood, ser—yes, ser, vare kood, ser—vare kood, ser.” Good-bye, old fellow.

along an alley descending at an angle of 35°, without sufficient room to allow us to walk upright. It was a difficult matter to proceed down this slippery pavement and reach out far enough in each stride to come upon a rudely broken step which perhaps had been made at first for the use of visitors or workmen. I managed, however, here without the assistance of either the Arab before or the one behind. At the end of fifty yards we came upon a halting-place, where they stayed and lighted the candles they had each brought. Behind and upwards we looked on the long cool passage with the hot white sky at the end; for our further passage we had to turn on one side and along a low tunnel requiring one to stoop double: here my guides were divided as before, each holding their candle towards me. I heard through their monotonous chanting shrill and sharp sounds as of creatures frightened; but there was no opportunity for inquiry, the men had chosen a pace and there was no interrupting it, and when we stopped at last it was at such a strange    

W. H. H.]

FROM A LETTER TO MILLAIS

neither all they that go down into silence. But we will praise the Lord : from this time forth for evermore. Praise the Lord.' And before the sound had settled I got up to go out again, when I was startled by an echo clear as a reply: 'The dead praise not thee, O Lord : neither all they that go down into silence. But we will praise the Lord : from this time forth for evermore. Praise the Lord. ‘”

¹ The face of the girl is not the same in intensity of expression as when first painted. Sir Thomas Fairbairn, on living with it day by day, found it to be so distressful that he persuaded me to reconsider it, but before I could satisfy myself with any modifications I fell ill and, the picture being required somewhat suddenly for a family gathering, I sent it away counting upon a later opportunity for final treatment, and I can only hope that what I did was with due judgment.

¹ The framed print only shows in part, and obscure by reflection in the glass; but it was painted from an engraving of another picture than the one Mr. Ruskin suggests.

¹ In answer to an inquiry from Mr. Morland Agnew concerning the difference between the large picture (in which the goat is white) and the small picture (now in the Manchester Fine Art Gallery, in which the goat is black, and a rainbow is introduced), Holman-Hunt replied, “On the first of my visits to the Dead Sea, as I stood on the spot which finally I selected for my picture, a magnificent rainbow spanned the whole landscape, and this suggested to me the question whether I should incorporate this in my large picture. Before my return to Oosdoom I made the rainbow experiment on the small picture you now possess, passing consideration determined me to represent a black goat as ‘Azazeel,’ but eventually for the large picture I thought it best to adopt a white goat and omit the rainbow. It was not until after my second return from Oosdoom that I completed the small picture.”