are made to express the essence of that particular art
of which the man was a spokesman. In his portrait of Tennyson, the
bard with his laurel wreath is less Tennyson the man, if one may say
so, than Tennyson the poet. The picture might be called 'poetry,' as
that of Joachim could be called 'music,' for the violinist with his
dreamy beautiful face, playing his heart out, looks the soul of music's
self.

Watts was never a Pre-Raphaelite, clothing anew his dreams of medieval
beauty; nor a seeker after the glories of Greece and Rome, like Leighton
and Alma Tadema; nor a student of the instant's impression, like
Whistler. To penetrate beneath the seen to the unseen was the aim of
his art. He wrestled to express thoughts in paint that seem
inexpressible. When we go to the Tate Gallery in London, to the room
filled with most precious works of Watts, we feel almost overawed by
the loftiness of his ideas, though they may seem to strain the last
resources of the painter's art. One of them is a picture of 'Chaos'
before the creation of the world. Half-formed men and women struggle
from the earth to force themselves into life, as the half-wrought
statues of Michelangelo from the marble that confines them. Near by
is a picture of the 'All-pervading,' the spirit of good that penetrates
the world, symbolized as a woman gazing long into a globe held upon
her knee. Opposite is the 'Dweller in the Innermost,' with deep,
unsearchable eyes. These are pictures that constrain thought rather
than charm the eye. When the thought is less obscure, it is better
suited to pictorial utterance, and Watts sometimes painted pictures
as simple as these are difficult.

There is nothing obscure in our frontispiece picture of 'Red
Ridinghood.' It sets before us a child's version and vision of a child's
fable that is imperishable, and as such makes an immediate appeal to
the eye. She is not acting a part or posing as a princess, but is simply
a cowering little girl, frightened at the wolf and eager to protect
her basket. In her freshness and simplicity, a cottage maiden with
anxious blue eyes, most innocent and childish of children, she need
not shun proximity to Richard II., Edward VI., William of Orange, Don
Balthazar Carlos, and the Duke of Gloucester.

And thus we conclude our procession of royal children with a child
of the people. Beginning with Richard II., a portrait of a king rather
than a child, we end with a picture in which childhood merel