628 ifcfnas of tbe 1RoD, raffle, ant) Gun 



biggest. However the exercise has been of great benefit 

 to me and I never felt better, although my voice 

 continues feeble.' " 



Never again was the great artist to whip the streams 

 or shoot over the moor. For when the next autumn 

 came John Everett Millais had passed " behind the 

 veil." 



It is not for me to criticise his art ; but there will 

 never fade from my memory that long February day 

 a day indeed to be marked with a white stone which 

 I passed among his collected pictures in Burlington 

 House two years ago. There was with me on that 

 never-to-be-forgotten day an old friend whose wide 

 and varied artistic knowledge is supplemented by 

 a spirit of sympathy and reverence rarely found in 

 art-critics nowadays. What versatility and variety 

 there was among those 380 subjects old men and 

 old women, young men and maidens and children, 

 youth and age all touched with the same deft and 

 tender and faithful hand ! And the souls of them all in 

 their faces ! What knowledge of human character, what 

 penetrative vision into the human heart ! It was like 

 reading Shakespeare or Walter Scott to wander through 

 that romantic gallery. And then, what a subtle, sym- 

 pathetic insight into Nature ! She seemed to have 

 taken this loving and reverential son into her inmost 

 confidence, to have whispered to him her secrets and 

 revealed to him her mysteries. And everywhere, in 

 landscape, in portrait, in historic or domestic scene, 

 there was visible that fine, strong, healthy manhood 

 which found its vigorous expression in love of sport. 



