Holman Hunt

"The only artists I ever knew who achieved work of note in any sense whatever, went first through a steady training of several years and afterwards entered their studios with as unwearying a punctuality as business men attend their offices, worked longer hours than these, and had fewer holidays, partly because of their love for art, but also because of their deep sense of the utter uselessness of grappling with the difficulties besetting the happy issue of each contest, except at close and unflinching quarters."

"I have many times in my studio come to such a pass of humiliation that I have felt that there was no one thing that I had thought I could do thoroughly in which I was not altogether incapable." W. H. H.

Upon a wintry afternoon in London, in the year 1834, a little boy of six years old was standing on the stairs of a poor artist's house, watching, through a window in the wall, the marvellous deeds of the man within. The man within was painting the "Burning of the Houses of Parliament." Scarlet and gold! Scarlet and gold! He used them up so quickly that he had to grind and prepare more and more. Every time he ground with the muller on the slab a fresh supply of vermilion and chrome yellow, there was a fresh flare up of the conflagration, another outburst of applause from the little boy. Meantime, the artist's wife put the kettle on the fire, and cut bread and butter as if nothing out of the way were going on; and by-and-by she and the father and their children sat down to tea. It seemed very strange to the little watchman that they could behave in this calm, everyday manner when such wonders were all about them in the room. Presently a porter came from a warehouse in Dyer's Court, Aldermanbury, where dwelt a merchant, Mr. William Hunt; and he took the little boy home to his father.

[Illustration: PLATE II.--THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. (Painted in 1852)

The subject of this picture is taken from the last act of Shakespeare's "Two Gentlemen of Verona." It will be remembered that Proteus and Valentine had each gone from Verona to Milan to improve by travel and by seeing the wonders of the world abroad. Later on Julia, whose love Proteus had won, followed him disguised as a page, only to discover that the false, fickle, and treacherous wooer was endeavouring to supplant his friend Valentine in the affections of Sylvia, the Duke's daughter. But Valentine, interposing at the critical moment, rescued her. This is the moment the artist depicts. The scene is one of pure bright sunlight, in which the brilliant colours of the gay costumes tell out with almost startling vividness. In the background are seen advancing the outlaws, with the Duke and Thurio whom they have captured. It adds an interest to the picture to know that Sylvia was painted from Miss Siddall, who afterwards became the wife of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The beech-tree forest scenery was painted in Lord Amherst's park at Knowle, Kent.

The picture is in the Birmingham Art Gallery.]

This little boy had been born on the 2nd April 1827, in Wood Street, Cheapside, and was christened William Holman at St. Giles's, Cripplegate. From the time that he could hold anything he held a pencil. When he was about four years old he begged for a brush and some paints, and his joy is thus described: