as perfect of their kind, beyond praise or blame, and yet to fail to realise that they possess the true vitality of those few classics which are for all time. The term monumental must not be applied to them, for it suggests something dead in fact, although living in sentiment and admired by reason of conventional precedent. The Millais drawings have still the power to excite an artist as keenly as a great Rembrandt etching that he sees for the first time, or an early Whistler that turns up unexpectedly in a loan collection, or an unknown Utamaro colour print. The mood they provoke is almost deprived of critical analysis by the overwhelming sense of fulfillment which is forced on your notice. In place of gratified appreciation you feel appalled that one man should have done over and over again, so easily and with such certainty, what dozens of his fellows, accomplished and masterly in their way, tried with by no means uniform success. If every canvas by the artist were lost, he might still be proved to belong to the great masters from his illustrations alone; even if these were available only through the medium of wood-engraving. The first volume of _Once a Week_ contains, as Millais' first contribution, _Magenta_ (p. 10), a study of a girl who has just read a paper with news of the great battle that gave its name to the terrible colour which typifies the period. It is badly printed in the copy at my side, and, although engraved by Dalziels, is not an instance of their best work. In _Grandmother's Apology_ (p. 41) we have a most delightful illustration to Tennyson, reproduced in his collected volume, but not elsewhere. _On the Water_ (p. 70) and _La Fille bien gardée_ (p. 306) may be passed without comment. But _The Plague of Elliant_ (p. 316), a powerful drawing of a woman dragging a cart wherein are the bodies of her nine dead children, has been selected, more than once, as a typical example of the illustrator at his best. _Maude Clare_ (p. 382), _A Lost Love_ (p. 482), and _St. Bartholomew_ (p. 514), complete the Millais' in vol. i. In the second volume we find _The Crown of Love_ (p. 10), a poem by George Meredith. This was afterwards painted and exhibited under the same title in the Royal Academy of 1875. _A Wife_ (p. 32), _The Head of Bran_ (p. 132), _Practising_ (p. 242), (a girl at a piano), and _Musa_ (p. 598), complete the list of the five in this volume. In vol. iii. there are seven: _Master Olaf_ (p. 63), _Violet_ (p. 140), _Dark Gordon's Bride_ (p. 238), _The Meeting_ (p. 276), _The Iceberg_ (pp. 407, 435), and _A Head of Hair for Sale_ (p. 519). In vol. iv. but two appear, _Iphis and Anaxarete_ (p. 98) and _Thorr's Hunt for the Hammer_ (p. 126), both slighter in execution than most of the _Once a Week_ Millais'.