be, poems. No one was more aware of
this than the landscape painter whom he worships so devoutly, and who is
generally thought to have pushed poetical treatment of landscapes to an
extreme.

"But, perhaps, this writer does not tell us what we want to know, and we
must look for Pre-Raphaelitism in the pictures themselves. Most of them
are clever, and some of them show the very highest ability; but this, of
course, is not the Pre-Raphaelite part of the work, and must be put out
of sight. No new principle can produce _genius_, though genius may find
out the new principles. What then remains? Is there a quaintness of form
and manner which reminds one of the early Italian painters? I think
there was a good deal, and still is some, but they happily seem to be
working themselves free from a peculiarity which, to my mind, is neither
more nor less than affectation. Is it an extraordinary fancy for ugly
people that seems occasionally to possess them like an evil spirit? If
this is the new principle, the sooner it is put down the better. There
are quite enough frights in the world without stereotyping them for the
delectation of all time. Or is it a toilsome elaboration of detail,
which not one man out of a thousand could ever see without a glass? I
confess, that even where the minute objects themselves form the subject
of the picture, this painful execution is quite oppressive to me. I seem
to be looking through an inverted telescope, which gives everything a
hard outline that I never see in Nature myself, and never want to see;
and further, while there is an atmosphere, I don't believe anybody else
can see. But where this minute detail is merely accessory to the subject
of the picture, there I hold the system to be wrong and false in the
strongest sense. It is, of course, very catching to talk about imitating
Nature exactly, but one simple test will show that for dramatic or
poetical subjects it won't do. Dress up two models as carefully as you
like, put them into appropriate attitudes, take a calotype of the group,
copy it exactly on the canvas, call it _Hamlet and the Ghost_, and then
ask yourself what notion it gives you of SHAKSPERE. Imitation of Nature
is only an expedient. The end of Art is to please."

* * * * *

THE CROWN OF ST. STEPHEN.

The new-found crown of Hungary has been brought in great state to
Vienna, and with like state returned again to Hungary. The reason for
this (we impar