MILLAIS 



help of a study of Wordsworth. 

 Km m is jo -58 he was employed 

 in t ho Eaat India Oftice, and 

 retired on a j>cnsioii whrii the >m 

 pany came to an end. From 1865- 

 68 he was M. P. for Westminster, in 

 1866 Lord Rector of the univer- 

 sity of St. Andrews. He died at 

 Avignon, May 8, 1873. The in- 

 of Mrs. John Taylor, 

 whom he met in 1830 and married 

 in is.'il, greatly affected his views, 

 and tended to modify and humanise 

 bis doctrinaire Benthamism. 



From an early age Mill was en- 

 gaged in literary work, writing 

 books and contributing to reviews. 

 His System of Logic, 1843, is an 

 elaborate exposition of the theory 

 and methods of induction. The 

 basis of induction is not belief in 

 the uniformity of the laws of 

 nature, but the laws of causality, 

 resting on the fact that we see a 

 succession of phenomena always 

 occurring in the same order. His 

 metaphysical standpoint is set 

 forth in his Examination of Sir 

 William Hamilton's Philosophy, 

 1865. He is strongly opposed to all 

 forms of intuition, while he admits 

 the reality of the external world 

 and of mind, as based upon the 

 principles of association. Matter is 

 a permanent possibility of sensa- 

 tion, and mind a series of feelings 

 with a background of possibilities 

 of feeling. In Ethics, he is an altru- 

 istic utilitarian. Happiness is the 

 highest of all aims, not a selfish 

 happiness, but a happiness iden- 

 tical with that of mankind in 

 general. Happiness itself differs 

 not only in quantity, but also in 

 quality ; there are higher and 

 lower kinds of it, the former chiefly 

 intellectual. Moral judgements and 

 feelings are the result of association. 



For many years Mill was an en- 

 thusiastic admirer of Comte's sys- 

 tem of positive philosophy. When 

 a young man he had founded a 

 utilitarian society. His Principles 

 of Political Economy, 1848, the 

 object of which was to systematise 

 and complete the theories of Adam 

 Smith and Ricardo, is still con- 

 sidered indispensable for the study 

 of the subject He was the first to 

 give a full description of the phe- 

 nomena which determine current 

 value, and also to see that exchange 

 is not a primitive and necessary 

 phenomenon, but only relative to 

 a certain mode of appropriation. 

 Hence value is not a natural and 

 necessary quality of wealth. It is a 

 relative term ; there is no such 

 thing as a general rise or a general 

 fall of values. The temporary or 

 market value of a thing depends on 

 the demand and supply. The de- 

 mand varies with the value, and 

 the value always BO adjusts itself 



54 t 3 



that the demand is equal to the 

 supply. In politics, Mill, at least in 

 his later years, belonged to the ad- 

 vanced radical party. His essay 

 On Liberty, 1859, represents his 

 mature political views. He was a 

 warm defender of the rights of the 

 working classes and an enthusiastic 

 advocate of women's suffrage. See 

 Liberalism ; Utilitarianism. 



Bibliography. Autobiography, 

 1908 ,- Lives, A. Bain, 1882 ; W. L 

 Courtney, 1889 ; J. 8. M., a Study 

 of his Philosophy, C. Douglas, 1895 ; 

 The English Utilitarians, L. Stephen, 

 1900. 



Millais, SIR JOHN EVERETT 

 (1829-96). British painter. Bora 

 at Southampton, June 8, 1829, he 



Self-portrait. Uffi:i Gallery, Florence 



came of a Jersey family, and was 

 taken thither at an early age. Some 

 drawings executed when he was 

 seven were exhibited at the 

 Academy in the winter of 1898. In 

 1838, on the recommendation of 

 Sir M. A. Shee, he was sent to 

 Sass's drawing school in Blooms- 

 bury, and later to the R.A. schools. 

 When ten he received a silver 

 medal from the Society of Arts, 

 and he took his first prize at the 

 schools a year later. Shortly after 

 1848, with Holman Hunt and Ros- 

 setti, he started the Pre-Raphaelite 

 Brotherhood. 



Millais' first important picture, 

 painted on the lines laid down by 

 the 1 Ml. 13., was the Banquet Scene 

 from Keats' Isabella and the Pot of 

 Basil, exhibited in 1849, followed 

 in 1850 by Christ in the House of 

 His Parents, better known as The 

 Carpenter's Shop. In 1921 a suc- 

 cessful appeal was made to the 

 nation to acquire the latter, then 

 in the Tate Gallery, to prevent its 

 being sold to the Melbourne Gallery, 

 Victoria, Australia, the price being 



, MILLAIS 



10,000 guineas. Many similar 

 pictures followed, notably The 

 Huguenot, The Proscribed Royal- 

 ist, The Order of Release, etc., but 

 gradually Millais was escaping from 

 the rigid lines laid down by his 

 companions in the P.R.B. ana de- 

 veloping definite characteristics of 

 his own. Perhaps his two most 

 important pictures executed under 

 Pre-Raphaelite influence were Au- 

 tumn Leaves, 1856, and The Blind 

 Girl, one of his greatest works. 

 Later he stayed with Raskin in the 

 N. of England and in Scotland. Sir 

 Isumbras at the Ford, exhibited in 

 1857, marked a departure in style 

 which evoked a protest from Rus- 

 kin. Its successors, The Vale of 

 Rest and Apple Blossoms, clearly 

 showed the emancipation of Millais 

 from his early mannerisms. 



In the sixties Millais was largely 

 concerned with book illustration. 

 From the time that he became an 

 R.A. in 1863, there was a great 

 demand for his portraits, con- 

 siderable desire to obtain his land- 

 scapes, especially those painted in 

 Scotland, and an ever increasingly 

 enthusiastic public for his senti- 

 mental paintings, such as The 

 North-West Passage, The Princes 

 in the Tower, The Yeoman of the 

 Guard, and The Princess Elizabeth. 

 Among his finest portraits must be 

 mentioned those of the Marquess 

 of Hartington, Lord Tennyson, 

 Cardinal Newman, Sir James 

 Paget, Gladstone, Du Maurier, and 

 Mrs. Jopling. 



Millais in 1855 married the lady 

 who had been Mrs. Ruskin, but 

 who had obtained a decree of 

 nullity of her first marriage. He 

 was created a baronet in 1885, suc- 

 ceeded Lord Leighton, as P.R.A., 

 Jan., 1896, and died of cancer of 

 the throat Aug. 13, 1896. He was 

 buried in S. Paul's Cathedral 



Millais was a buoyant,- popular 

 personality, strong, manly, and 

 genial. It is by his Pre-Raphaelite 

 pictures and his portraits that he 

 will best be known. His pictorial 

 work in black and white can 

 hardly be paralleled. Its charm, 

 dignity, and importance were re- 

 markable. He cannot be regarded 

 as an inspired painter, and in his 

 landscapes showed himself un- 

 acquainted with the subtleties of 

 Atmospheric effect or momentary 

 illumination. He was, however, a 

 man of amazing patience and sur- 

 prising quickness of vision, and he 

 spared no toil to arrive at what 

 seemed to him to be pictorial ex- 

 pression. See Armlet; Art; Hugue- 

 not ; Pre-Raphaelites. Pron. Millay. 



Bibliography.^ Millais and his 

 Work, M. H. Spielmann, 1898; 

 Life and Letters. J. Q. Millais, 1899 ; 

 Lives, A. L. Baldry, 1899 ; J. . 

 Reid, 1909. 



