Thus English art in this matter made a curious circuit, giving and taking. First, the English fertilised French art; but at the time when French artists stood under the influence of the English, the latter swerved in the opposite direction, until they ultimately received from France the impulse which led them back into the old way. In accordance with these different influences, several currents which cross and mingle with each other are to be found flowing side by side in English landscape painting: upon one side a spirit of prosaic reasonableness, a striving after clearness and precision, which does not know how to sacrifice detail, and is therefore wanting in pictorial totality of effect; on the other side an artistic pantheism which rises at times to high lyrical poetry in spite of many dissonances. The pictures of _Cecil Lawson_ lead to the point where the pre-Raphaelites begin. The elder painters, with their powerful treatment and the freedom and boldness of their execution, still keep altogether on the lines of Constable, whereas in later painters, with their minute elaboration of all particularities, the influence of the pre-Raphaelites becomes more and more apparent. Where Cecil Lawson ended, _James Clarke Hook_ began, the great master-spirit who opened the eyes of the world fifty years ago to the depth of colouring and the enchanting life of nature, even in its individual details. His pictures, especially those sunsets which he paints with such delight, have something devout and religious in them; they have the effect of a prayer or a hymn, and often possess a solemnity which is entirely biblical, in spite of their brusque, pungent colours. In his later period he principally devoted himself to sea-pieces, and in doing so receded from the pre-Raphaelite painting of detail, which is characteristic of his youthful period. His pictures give one the breath of the sea, and his sailors are old sea-wolves. All that remains from his pre-Raphaelite period is that, as a rule, they carry a certain burden of ideas. _Vicat Cole_, likewise one of the older school, is unequal and less important. From many of his pictures one receives the impression that he has directly copied Constable, and others are bathed in dull yellow tones; nevertheless he has sometimes painted autumn pictures, felicitous and noble landscapes, in which there is really a reflection of the sun of Claude Lorrain. [Illustration: _Brothers, photo._ LAWSON. THE MINISTER'S GARDEN. (_By permission of the Corporation of Manchester, the owners of the picture._)]