exquisitely finished style, while for the reader it suffers somewhat from its evidences of too conscious art, affords for that very reason an all the more inspiring and serviceable model to the student. His influence is largely traceable in all the lighter literature of the imagination at the present day, and, due allowance being made for the dangers which beset all young writers still in the imitative stage, it has been on the whole an influence for good; while the prose of essay and criticism which had sought, perhaps, an excess of point, precision, and emphasis under the long-continuing and only now declining domination of Macaulay, has-thanks in part to the unparalleled power and fascination of John Ruskin, the successor to the tradition of Landor, De Quincey, and the other early nineteenth-century masters of the rhetorical and "impassioned" prose style-acquired a colour and flexibility, and an adequacy of response to emotional and æsthetic Later F. G. Later needs, in which for more than a generation it had been lacking. In every field of literature, in short, the endeavour after literary correctness, literary grace, and, if possible, literary distinction, is conspicuous and increasing. The impulse has extended even to the drama, which for more than half a century had lived in contented divorce from literature, and even before that period had been able to effect no closer or happier union with it than is recorded in the respectable, but absolutely undistinguished, productions of Sheridan Knowles (1784-1862), and the deftly constructed but showily rhetorical dramas of Bulwer Lytton. Our leading dramatists of to-day are nothing if not literary, at any rate in aspiration and purpose, and are, some of them, avowedly committed, with what success we have yet to see, to the undertaking of regaining for the English drama a position in English literature of equal consideration with that to which accomplished writers like Augier and Dumas the younger have raised French drama in the literature of France. This, however, is but one among many signs of the universal eagerness for literary acceptance and recognition which is one of the most striking characteristics of the age, and which the immense. development of the cheap newspaper press and its largely increased attention to literary things and persons have provided with the means of gratifying itself in far too many spurious, pretentious, and ridiculous ways. But it is the duty -though the difficult duty-of the critic of literature and the student of its history to endeavour to discover, and measure the extent of, the reality which underlies this somewhat rank overgrowth of sham; and our belief is that those who address themselves with patience and without prejudice to this task will find that, on the whole, it yields them not merely satisfactory but highly encouraging results. IN one respect, to which, perhaps, not sufficient attention is usually given, Pre-Raphaelitism was remarkable. It was really Victorian the one which in this country tended to the formation of a school in the historical sense of that term, as it is applicable to Roman, Florentine, Low Country, German, and modern French painting. Here, in fact, was a group of men of genius, Artists. The of Pre ism. [1865 who, however diverse they might be, acted according to a common impulse. Of no other congeries of English artists can this be said. In the course of a few years, too, the group became the centre of a very important company of artists, each of whom was, as the members of the Brotherhood began and continued to be, perfectly independent. In respect to time and his early death, the first to be reckoned in this numerous rank of more or less eminent and original painters was Walter Howell Deverell, a youth of extraordinary Resultants promise, much beloved by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Raphaelit Far more developed was Mr. Arthur Hughes, whose delightful" April Love" is one of the few examples fit to be ranked with Millais's "A Huguenot" and "The Order of Release," and is instinct with exquisite sentiment. Mr. Henry Wallis's "Death of Chatterton," "The Stone-breaker," and a host of pictures in water-colour, proved him to be an artist of very rare accomplishments and sympathies. The next in the order of time who was a confessor of the same order was G. P. Boyce, whose "The Confessor's Chapel," "Bridewell,” and "Where stood Bridewell," delight all eyes, and charm those whose sense of beauty does not need to be aroused by startling effects and gorgeous coloration. Subtle, delicate, and demure, the art of this painter will endure. The brilliant, solid, and powerful seascapes of John Brett qualified him to be Neptune's Painter in Ordinary, while Mr. Hook and Henry Moore have shown the world more of the splendour and beauty of the ocean and its shores than was ever known before. But, however true to nature the latter two great artists may be, they cannot, in the ordinary sense of that designation, be called Pre-Raphaelites. W. J. Inchbold's art never obtained the recognition its merits, expressiveness, and delicious harmonies of tint and tones demand, and which it will some day receive. His "Lake of Geneva" might have been painted by the king of Faëry-land. A more fortunate and resourceful poet-painter was Alfred William Hunt (1830–96). Mr. J. G. Naish, C. P. Knight, and half a dozen less known landand sea-painters deservedly hold high places in the ranks of naturalistic landscapists, one of whose aims it is to infuse the fidelity and vigour of their works with sentiment of the higher and less obvious sort. J. W. Oakes depicted Welsh mountains 1885] and valleys with a profound sentiment which is not "classical," nor in the manner of John Varley, Turner, or any other master; his work excels in brightness, research, and precision. A confessor, it might be said an early martyr, of PreRaphaelitism is Mr. W. S. Burton, who, in 1856, gave the world an austere and original tragedy called "The Puritan," . which represented a dying Cavalier after he has been wounded in a duel. Insomuch as his antetype and model in art was Millais most Walker. no less a person than Frederick Walker might be enrolled Frederick with the distinguished group of men we are now discussing. Notwithstanding the vulgar notion that Pre-Raphaelitism and high stippling were one, it is impossible not to call Walker's "Boys Bathing," "The Harbour of Refuge," "Fishmonger's Shop," "Philip," and "The Ploughman" brilliant, happy, powerful works of that order which includes Millais's masterpieces in figure- and landscape-painting. With these, too, must be ranked Mrs. Allingham's for ever charming "A Flat Iron for a Farthing," which either Walker or Millais might have produced, and half a score more of fresh and fair illustrations of rustic life. Mr. W. Gale |