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“Rienzi” honourably hung in the large room, pendant to “Lorenzo and Isabella,” made a favourable impression, but was not sold until after the closing of the Academy; and meantime, the landlord seized Hunt’s books, furniture, and sketches, and he was obliged to return to his family. As soon as he could he paid the man, who thought he had been “shamming poverty.” At one time he was not able to post a letter because he had not even a penny wherewith to buy the stamp; as he threw himself back on a chair, he thrust his hand between the back and the seat, and lo, it came in contact with half-a-crown! When he went to Lambeth to paint the background of “Claudio and Isabella,” the man who carried his traps was so much better dressed that the porter was taken for the artist. Still, he was in good heart, and he and Millais, eager to improve the reputation already gained, were hard at work upon two large works, “Christians escaping from Persecuting Druids” and “Christ in the Carpenter’s Shop,” when all at once a derisive paragraph appeared in one of the papers, betraying the significance of the three letters, P.R.B., and holding up the new school to ridicule. Munro the sculptor had wormed the secret out of Rossetti, and, after promising not to tell, he had passed it on to a journalist.

The storm of anger which followed was curiously out of proportion to the cause. The Germ, a magazine started at Rossetti’s instigation, to be the organ of Pre-Raphaelites, would have failed, it may be, in any case, for lack of funds; but jealousy, and that hatred of light which is peculiar to old institutions, can alone account for the venomous reception of the new pictures, when once the secret of the letters became known. The Academy sprang to arms; the older artists, and their pupils, waxed furious. They enlisted literature on their side. Dickens joined in the hue and cry. With the honourable exception of The Spectator, every single paper attacked the men who had dared to break with tradition. Raphael had been insulted; Raphael was, it appeared, the idol of all England.

Ruskin came, flashing, to the rescue a year later, with a letter to The Times, in which he declared that since the days of Albert Dürer, there had been nothing in art so earnest or so complete as the pictures of Millais and Holman Hunt. They were not this year hung together; they were placed in a less favourable light. The onslaughts of the press were well sustained. “Valentine and Sylvia” (the subject taken from Shakespeare’s “Two Gentlemen of Verona”) had suffered, in part, from Hunt’s distress of mind and the want of means occasioned by the bad conduct of a man whom he trusted; even after Ruskin’s letter no one ventured to buy. Nobody came to him for a portrait now. His father’s acquaintance in the city offered to bet £10 that any picture of his would be sent back within a week. Anonymous insults poured in upon him. A publisher, who had asked for illustrations of Longfellow, declined to publish them. Debt was staring him in the face, and failure seemed absolute.

At this crisis of fortune, when he had resolved that he must give up Art and adopt some other line of life—preferably that of a settler in the backwoods—Millais came forward. He had freed himself from personal straits only a week or two earlier; now, with the warm concurrence of his father and mother, he offered to share every penny he had with his friend. His generous will to help overcame all resistance; the money—repaid the following year—was advanced; and the two Brothers went off to Surbiton together, to paint “Ophelia” and “The Hireling Shepherd.” “Valentine and Sylvia” had been retouched and sent to Liverpool, where a prize of £50 was offered for the finest painting.

Never did the two gentlemen, even in their native Verona, provoke more comment than followed their footsteps wherever they appeared in England. Immediately, anonymous insults in letters and papers began again. Week after week went by; there was not a word from the authorities. At last it grew intolerable. The painter turned on his tormentors. He had never seriously expected such distinction for a moment; but he determined to write to the committee, and ask, by way of bitter satire, why the prize had not been awarded to him. Happily, his designs, and a book in which he was interested, kept him up too late to begin that night. Next morning, as he sat at work not far from the house, he heard Millais’ voice, “Another letter from Liverpool”! “Valentine and Sylvia” had won the prize; and they gave three cheers for the Council in chorus.

The happy days of comradeship at the old, ghost-haunted house called Worcester Park Farm glided by all too fast. Millais became intent upon “The Huguenot”; Hunt continued “The Hireling Shepherd” while the sun shone; after dark he threw his strength into “The Light of the World.” Whenever the moon was full, although it was so cold that people skated in the daytime, he would work out-of-doors from nine at night until five the next morning. For the most part he enjoyed undisturbed solitude, but now and then a friendly guardian of the public peace came to see what he was about.

“Have you seen other artists painting landscape about here?” he inquired.

“I can’t exactly say as I have at this time o’ night,” said the policeman.