PRE-RAPHAELITISM 355

that pictures painted, in a temper of resistance, by exceedingly young men, of stubborn instincts and positive self-trust, and with little natural perception of beauty, should not be calculated, at the first glance, to win us from works enriched by plagiarism, polished by convention, invested with all the attractiveness of artificial grace, and recommended to our respect by established authority.

18. We should, however, on the other hand, have anticipated, that in proportion to the strength of character required for the effort, and to the absence of distracting sentiments, whether respect for precedent, or affection for ideal beauty, would be the energy exhibited in the pursuit of the special objects which the youths proposed to themselves, and their success in attaining them.

All this has actually been the case, but in a degree which it would have been impossible to anticipate. That two youths, of the respective ages of eighteen and twenty,¹ should have conceived for themselves a totally independent and sincere method of study, and enthusiastically persevered in it against every kind of dissuasion and opposition, is strange enough; that in the third or fourth year of their efforts they should have produced works in many parts not inferior to the best of Albert Dürer, this is perhaps not less strange. But the loudness and universality of the howl which the common critics of the press have raised against them, the

¹ [Millais born in 1829; Holman Hunt in 1827. “The third or fourth year of their efforts” would be 1850 or 1851; for their pictures of those years, see the Letters to the Times, above, pp. 319-327. Of Millais’ precocity Ruskin made some notes in his diary, recording no doubt what the artist told him:-

“Millais. Born at Southampton; has a dim recollection of country house there and gravel walks, and falling down and hurting his hand. Goes over to Dinant for his mother’s health, their house there on a fort-overlooking a deep moat; the children forbidden to go near it; and partly frightened by story of old man who lived at the bottom of it. His sister making a swing which swung right over the edge of it-his intense longing to look over mixed with horror. Never quiet but when he got pieces of paper to draw on. Drew soldiers for a boy he used to play with-the officers saw them and would not believe they were done by the child. They made a bet of a dinner about it-he recollects their calling to him and taking him into the great square under the sycamore trees, and making him draw soldiers and guns; and laughing, and being delighted; and then his being called in to the dinner given by those who had lost the wager, and put in the middle of the table, and made a show of, and all their glasses held in a circle round him.”]

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