'Beloved' or the
'Blue Bower;' and you could name twenty of the poet's water-colours
which, for design, invention, devious symbolism, and religious impulse,
surpass the finest of Mr. Hunt's most elaborate works. Even in the
painter's own special field--the symbolised illustration of Holy Writ--he
is overwhelmed by Millais with the superb 'Carpenter's Shop.' In
Millais, it was well said by Mr. Charles Whibley, 'we were cheated out of
a Rubens.' Millais was the strong man, the great oil-painter of the
group, as Rossetti was the supreme artist. In Mr. Holman Hunt we lost
another Archdeacon Farrar. Then, in the sublimation of uglitude, Madox-
Brown, step-father of the Pre-Raphaelites (my information is derived from
a P.R.B. aunt), was an infinitely greater conjurer. Look at the radiant
painting of 'Washing of the Feet' in the Tate Gallery; is there anything
to equal that masterpiece from the brush of Mr. Holman Hunt? The
'Hireling Shepherd' comes nearest, but the preacher, following his own
sheep, has strayed into alien corn, and on cliffs from which is ebbing a
tide of nonconformist conscience. Like his own hireling shepherd, too,
he has mistaken a phenomenon of nature for a sermon.

One of the great little pictures, 'Claudio and Isabella,' proves,
however, that _once_ he determined to be a painter. In the 'Lady of
Shalott' he showed himself a designer with unusual powers akin to those
of William Blake. Still, examined at a distance or close at hand, among
his canvases do we find a single piece of decoration or a picture in the
ordinary sense of the word? My definition of a religious picture is a
painted object in two dimensions destined or suitable for the decoration
of an altar or other site in a church, or room devoted to religious
purposes; if it fails to satisfy the required conditions, it fails as a
work of art. Where is the work of this so-called religious painter which
would satisfy the not exacting conditions of a nonconformist or Anglican
place of worship? You are not surprised to learn that Keble College
mistook the 'Light of the World' for a patent fuel, or that the
background of the 'Innocents' was painted in 'the Philistine plain.' Who
could live even in cold weather with the 'Miracle of the Sacred Fire?'
Give me rather the 'Derby Day' of Mr. Frith--admirable and underrated
master. What are they if we cannot place them in the category of
pictures? They are pietistic ejaculations--tickled-up ma