. He
was only twenty-three when he produced his "Dante and Virgil," which put
him at the head of the so-called "romantic school." His clear intellect,
his strength as a draughtsman, his abundance of invention, his wonderful
color, made themselves felt at once. He had a long career in which to
develop, and he was tireless in reinforcing his own great powers by
profound and careful study of great authors, besides working
perpetually to discover the secrets of the splendid paintings of
Raphael, Velasquez, Veronese, and, above all, Rubens. It was his habit
to spend whole days at the Jardin des Plantes, watching the animals,
observing their postures and movements, aiming to pluck the heart out of
the mystery of each organization. In 1828 he went to England, and,
although he disliked the country, its architecture, the ill-made shoes
and soiled stockings of the women, he carried back with him powerful
impressions from Constable and from Kean's impersonations of Shakespeare
which animated all his later work. His picture of "Hamlet," although it
was not completed until 1843, owes its conception to this period. His
lithographs of "Faust" elicited from Goethe the remark, "He has
surpassed the pictures I had made for myself of the scenes written by
myself."

The carefully-prepared monographs on Millet and Holbein, accompanied by
excellent designs after their works, are full of suggestive criticism,
and show how well the modern practice of popularizing art is carried on
in Paris. Millet was born some sixteen years after Delacroix, and came
to Paris in 1837, when that great master had produced some of his best
pictures, which of all contemporary art were what aroused Millet's
admiration and homage. "_Grands par les gestes_," he called them,
"_grands par l'invention et la richesse du coloris_." Millet himself,
however, was to found a separate school from that of the brilliant
Delacroix. The fac-similes in this brochure from his original designs in
crayon or pastel give much of the sentiment and meaning of his work. As
the author says, they might well be the illustrations of a mighty poem
called "The Earth." Night and morning, sunrise, noon, and sunset, the
succession of seasons, the patient industries of the workers who toil
like nature's own forces, simply, sternly, and with silent strength, all
tell their story here. Millet had passed his youth in the fields, and,
the son of a peasant, he must himself have been the central figure in