6

post. It was in Cousin Amelia's hand, and bore the Dangerfield post-mark. What now?' I thought, dreading to open it lest it might contain some fresh object of annoyance, some further inquiries or remarks calculated to irritate my already over-driven temper out of due bounds.

'Cousin Amelia never writes to me unless she has something unpleasant to say,' was my mental observation, and a very little more would fill the cup to overflowing. Whatever happens, I am determined not to cry-rather than face all those ladies with red eyes, when I go to wish Lady Scapegrace 'good. bye,' I would forego the pleasure of ever receiving a letter or hearing a bit of news again!'

So I popped Cousin Amelia's epistle into my desk without breaking the seal, and put on my bonnet at once, that I might be ready to start and not keep Cousin John waiting.

The leave-taking was got over more easily than I expected. People generally hustle one off in as great a hurry as the common decencies of society will admit of, in order to shorten as much as possible the unavoidable gêne of parting. Sir Guy, stanch to his colours, was to drive me back on the detested drag, but his great face fell several inches when I expressed my determination to perform the journey this time inside.

'I've bitted the team on purpose for you, Miss Kate,' he exclaimed, with one of his usual oaths, and now you throw me over at the last moment. Too bad; by all that's disappointing, it's too bad! Come now, think better of it, put on my box-coat, and catch hold of 'em, there's a good girl.'

'Inside, or not at all, Sir Guy,' was my answer, and I can be pretty determined, too, when I choose.

'Then perhaps your maid would like to come on the box,' urged the baronet, who seemed to have set his heart on the enjoyment of some female society.

Gertrude goes with me,' I replied, stoutly, for I thought Cousin John looked pleased, and Sir Guy was at a nonplus.

'Awfully high temper,' he mut

tered, as he took his reins and placed his foot on the roller-bolt; I like 'em saucy, I own, but this girl's a regular vixen !'

Sir Guy was very much put out, and vented his annoyance on his off-wheeler, double-thonging' that unfortunate animal most unmercifully the whole way to the station. He bade me farewell with a coldness and almost sulkiness quite foreign to his usual demeanour, and infinitely pleasanter to my feelings. Besides, I saw plainly that the more I fell in the baronet's good opinion, the higher I rose in that of my chaperone, and by the time John and I were fairly settled in a coupé, my cousin had got back to his old frank, cordial manner, and I took courage to break the seal of Cousin Amelia's letter, and peruse that interesting document, regardless of all the sarcasms and inuendos it might probably contain.

What a jumble of incongruities it was! Long stories about the weather, and the garden, and the farm, and all sorts of things which, no one knew better than I did, had no interest for my correspondent whatever. I remarked, however, throughout the whole composition, that mamma's' sentiments and regulations were treated with an unusual degree of contempt, and the writer's own opinions asserted with a boldness and freedom I had never before observed in my straitlaced, hypocritical cousin. Mr. Haycock's name, too, was very frequently brought on the tapis-he seemed to have breakfasted with them, lunched with them, dined with them, walked, driven, played billiards with them, and, in short, to have taken up his residence_almost entirely at Dangerfield. The postscript explained it all, and the postscript I gave verbatim, as I read it aloud to Cousin John whilst we were whizzing along at the rate of forty miles an hour.

'P.S.-I am sure my dear Kate will give me joy. You cannot have forgotten a certain person calling this autumn at Dangerfield for a certain purpose, in which he did not seem clearly to know his own mind. Everything is now explained. My dear Herod (is it not a pretty Christian name ?), my dear Herod

is all that I can wish, and assures me that all along it was intended for me. The happy day is not yet fixed, but my dearest Kate may rest assured that I will not fail to give her the earliest intelligence on the first opportunity. Tell Mr. Jones I shall be married before him, after all.'

The last sentence escaped my lips without my meaning it. Had I not come upon it unexpectedly, I think I should have kept it to myself. John blushed, and looked hurt. For a few minutes there was a disagreeable silence, which we both felt awkward. He was the first to break it.

Kate,' said he, do you think I shall be married before Miss Horsingham ?'

How can I tell?' I replied, looking steadfastly out of the window, whilst my colour rose and my heart beat rapidly.

'Do you believe that Welsh story, Kate?' proceeded my cousin. I knew by his voice it couldn't be true; I felt it was a slander, and I whispered, 'No.'

One more question, Kate,' urged Cousin John, in a thick, low voice; "Why did you refuse Frank Lovell ?'

He never proposed to me,' I answered; I never gave him an opportunity.'

'Why not?' said my cousin.

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'Because I liked some one else better,' was my reply; and I think those few words settled the whole business.

*

I shall soon be five-and-twenty now, and on my birthday I am to be married. Aunt Deborah has got better ever since it has all been settled. Everybody seems pleased, and I am sure no one can be better pleased than I am. Only Lady Horsingham says Kate will never settle.' I think I know better: I think I shall make none the worse a wife because I can walk, and ride, and get up early, and stand all weathers, and love the simple, wholesome, natural pleasures of the country. John thinks so too, and that is all I need care about. I have such a charming trousseau, though I am ashamed to say I take very little pleasure in looking at it. But kind thoughtful Cousin John has presented Brilliant with an entirely new set of clothing, and I think my horse seems almost more delighted with his finery than his mistress is with hers. My cousin and I ride together every day. Dear me how delightful it is to think that I shall always be as happy as I am now.

their earnestness of purpose and singleness of heart; a love for nature, and a fixed determination to delineate her truths unflinchingly and perseveringly to the utmost of their power, exercising the same ennobling effect upon their paintings, that deep and genuine religious feeling communicated to those of the early Italians. In other respects there is not a shadow of resemblance between the two styles; the modern pre-Raphaelites imitate no pictures, they paint entirely from nature, and they are just as superior to their ancient brethren in skill of manipulation, power of drawing, and knowledge of effect, as inferior to them in grace of design.

The perfect unison of expression, as the painter's main purpose, with the full and natural exertion of his pictorial power in the details of the work, is found only in the old pre-Raphaelite period, and in the modern pre-Raphaelite school. In the works of Giotto, Angelico, Orcagna, John Bellini, and one or two more, these two conditions of high art are entirely fulfilled, so far as the knowledge of those days enabled them to be fulfilled; and in the modern pre-Raphaelite school they are fulfilled nearly to the uttermost. Hunt's 'Light of the World' is, I believe, the most perfect instance of expressional purpose with technical power which the world has yet produced.*

Mr. Ruskin further tells us that he believes that those bright Turnerian imageries which the European public declared to be 'dotage,' and those calm pre-Raphaelite studies which in like manner it pronounced

puerility,' form the first foundation that has ever been laid for true sacred art.' And he answers the question which he has heard ' querulous readers' asking-how he could possibly praise styles so opposed and contrasted as those of Turner and the pre-Raphaelites ?-by affirming that he has never praised Turner for any other reason than that he gave facts more delicately, more pre-Raphaelitically than any other painter; and that the object of all his writings has uniformly been to impress upon the artist the necessity and duty of being in all respects as like nature as possible; and that

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both Turner and the pre-Raphaelites are praised for exactly the same excellence their perfection of truth and finish.

Mr. Ruskin is exceedingly indignant at the opposition which preRaphaelitism has encountered, at the scurrilous abuse,' and 'loudness and universality of the howl,' which has been raised against it; but he does not hesitate to retaliate in the very style which he condemns, and shows that, in intensity and eloquence of vituperation, he is more than equal to the most virulent of his antagonists: thus, he informs us, in his most recent work, that

A large proportion of the resistance to the noble pre-Raphaelite movement of our days has been offered by men who suppose the entire function of the artist, in this world, to consist in laying on colour with a large brush, and surrounding dashes of flake-white with bituminous-brown; men whose entire capacities of brain, soul, and sympathy, applied industriously to the end of their lives, would not enable them at last to paint so much as one of the leaves of the nettles at the bottom of Hunt's picture of the 'Light of the World.'

Such we believe to be a fair summary of Mr. Ruskin's views with regard to pre-Raphaelitism and its opponents. Let us now advert to Mr. Ballantyne's. His pamphlet, unfortunately, is stiff, incorrect, and feeble in point of style, forming in this respect a striking contrast to the brilliant brochure of Mr. Ruskin. He is also sometimes unfair in his statements, and unjust towards the school of art whose character and tendencies he condemns. Still, however, he has found many a weak point in his opponent's panoply, and skilfully availed himself of the openings. He insists upon the actual resemblance in style, as well as in spirit, between the early Italians and the modern pre-Raphaelites, and he entirely denies the technical superiority which Mr. Ruskin claims for the latter. He cannot perceive the consistency or propriety of praising both Turner and the pre-Raphaelites, as their styles are in every respect entirely opposed; the former, al

+ Ibid. vol. iii. p. 60.

pre

though a devoted student of nature, having continually availed himself of the knowledge of the past, and having attentively studied the works of his great predecessors, traces of which are frequently apparent in his paintings; whereas the latter profess to study nature only. He censures their neglect to avail themselves of the assistance and improvement to be derived from the study of good pictures, and the folly of the idea, with which they appear to have started-that, in order to portray nature faithfully, no hitherto recognised guiding principles of art are required or admissible. In order more strongly to illustrate and support his opinions, Mr. Ballantyne selects a Raphaelite picture, termed The Carpenter's Shop,' which appeared some years ago in the Exhibitions of the Royal Academy, and more recently in that of the Royal Scottish Academy. This he contrasts, in point of feeling and sentiment, with Raphael's 'La Belle Jardinière,' and, in point of finish and technical excelfence, with Sir David Wilkie's 'Blind Man's Buff,' giving, in every respect, the preference to the two latter, and condemning the former as ugly, caricatured, vulgar in form and drawing, and as having an obtrusive prominence given to mean and secondary objects. Although we perfectly agree with Mr. Ballantyne in his condemnation of this picture, which we well remember, we cannot help thinking that it was hardly fair to select one of the worst specimens of pre-Raphaelitism, and to contrast it with, perhaps, the most charming of Raphael's Madonnas, and one of Wilkie's most graphic and finished delineations of Scottish peasant life.

Mr. Ballantyne points out, with much truth and good sense, the injustice and partiality of Mr. Ruskin in founding his unlimited and exclusive admiration of the preRaphaelites, upon the ground that they alone study nature, overlooking the fact that this has been the prac tice of the greatest painters in all ages, including even that immediately following the Raphaelesque, -and in the present age, too.

This constant reference to nature (he

goes on to say) is one of the points which we entirely coincide with Mr. Ruskin in regarding as essential in education and in after practice; but it is to the way in which nature is studied and rendered by the so-called preRaphaelites, that we enter our protest. It has been well said by Burnet, in his Practical Hints upon Painting, that, 'the general character of an object is its most important feature, and this is to be preserved at the price of every other quality, if it cannot be retained upon other terms, as it is this which is imprinted on the mind of every one, and which is, therefore, paramount to all its other qualities.' It is the almost total absence of this quality, in their representations of objects, which makes us averse to the pre-Raphaelites being held up as the founders of a true school of art, or to allow that their works are to be considered useful and safe examples for the guidance of a student; and the more so for the reason that Mr. Ruskin, evidently, would rather have the student study nature through the spectacles of the early painters and those who imitate them, than through those of Raphael. That is a matter of taste; for our own part we would advise the disuse of any spectacles whatever. Let the student look at nature with the naked eye; he will then at least paint only what is visible, and not, like the pre-Raphaelites, render objects which, from their minuteness or distance, would require a microscope at one eye, and a telescope at the other, to make them distinguishable at all.*

Such, then, are Mr. Ballantyne's views of pre-Raphaelitism, not very complimentary, certainly, and the perfect antithesis of Mr. Ruskin's; but it is impossible to deny that they possess much truth and justice, especially in refusing to admit the arrogant claims of its disciples to a monopoly of nature. Vixerunt fortes ante Agamemnona multi.' Many a man studied nature before Mr. Millais, and with all attention and humility, even during that long and melancholy period of sensualism and degradation which, according to Mr. Ruskin, divides the ancient from the modern pre-Raphaelites; those dark ages of painting which intervened between the calm radiance of Angelico, and the more perfect brightness of Mr. Holman Hunt. Even during that dreary time, many painters devoted them