all was Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  ‘By critic I mean finding fault,’ says Sir William Richmond; so let us follow his advice, and avoid technical discussion along with the popular jargon of art criticism.  ’After staying two or three hours in the always-delightful Leicester Galleries, let us walk home and think a little of what we have seen.’  For the essence of beauty there is nothing of Mr. Holman Hunt’s to compare with Rossetti’s ‘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 maxims in pigment of extraordinary durability—­counsels of perfection in colour and conduct.  Of all the