one of
them escaped for all that: they are sealed up in that strange storehouse
of his; he may take one of them out perhaps, this day twenty years, and
paint it in his dark room, far away. Now, observe, you may tell both of
these men, when they are young, that they are to be honest, that they
have an important function, and that they are not to care what Raphael
did. This you may wholesomely impress on them both. But fancy the
exquisite absurdity of expecting either of them to possess any of the
qualities of the other.

189. I have supposed the feebleness of sight in the last, and of
invention in the first painter, that the contrast between them might be
more striking; but, with very slight modification, both the characters
are real. Grant to the first considerable inventive power, with
exquisite sense of color; and give to the second, in addition to all his
other faculties, the eye of an eagle; and the first is John Everett
Millais, the second Joseph Mallard William Turner.

They are among the few men who have defied all false teaching, and have
therefore, in great measure, done justice to the gifts with which they
were intrusted. They stand at opposite poles, marking culminating points
of art in both directions; between them, or in various relations to
them, we may class five or six more living artists who, in like manner,
have done justice to their powers. I trust that I may be pardoned for
naming them, in order that the reader may know how the strong innate
genius in each has been invariably accompanied with the same humility,
earnestness, and industry in study.

190. It is hardly necessary to point out the earnestness or humility in
the works of William Hunt; but it may be so to suggest the high value
they possess as records of English rural life, and _still_ life. Who is
there who for a moment could contend with him in the unaffected, yet
humorous truth with which he has painted our peasant children? Who is
there who does not sympathize with him in the simple love with which he
dwells on the brightness and bloom of our summer fruit and flowers? And
yet there is something to be regretted concerning him: why should he be
allowed continually to paint the same bunches of hot-house grapes, and
supply to the Water Color Society a succession of pine-apples with the
regularity of a Covent Garden fruiterer? He has of late discovered that
primrose banks are lovely, but there are other things grow wild besides
primroses: