LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 RIVERSIDE 
 
 Ex Libris 
 ISAAC FOOT "
 
 JOHN MILLER GRAY
 
 Two hundred and twenty-five copies printed.
 
 JOHN MILLER GEAY 
 
 ti 
 
 MEMOIR AND REMAINS 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 EDINBURGH 
 
 DAVID DOUGLAS 
 
 1895
 
 ftCJ 
 073 
 /.I.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THIS little book is the outcome of a desire 
 on the part of his friends for some per- 
 manent memorial of the life and work of 
 one who was not only regarded by them 
 with feelings of high esteem, but whose 
 attractive personality inspired warm affec- 
 tion in those who knew him best. The 
 few pages which deal with his biography 
 are the brief record of a career cut short 
 before it had attained the plenitude of its 
 power : still, there was more than promise ; 
 there was performance of a very substantial 
 kind, performance which would certainly 
 have led to wider recognition and higher 
 preferment had life been spared. 
 
 No attempt has been made to write an
 
 VI PREFACE 
 
 elaborate memoir ; such indeed would have 
 been out of place. But some of his more 
 intimate friends (to whom all courteous 
 thanks are due for their trouble) have 
 written of him as he appeared to them 
 in personal intercourse, and from other 
 points of view : a chapter, too, has been 
 added, indicating to some extent the work 
 which he was able to accomplish. 
 
 In selecting the articles for reproduction 
 regard has been had not merely to their 
 individual excellence, but also to their 
 representative character. In papers like 
 those on the " Holiday in Arran," and " The 
 Old Edinburgh Street," the author's power 
 of descriptive writing is well exemplified; 
 his knowledge of history and portraiture 
 is seen in the article on "Pinkie House"; 
 his critical ability displays itself in the re- 
 views of the works of his favourite writers, 
 and the lecture on engraving shows how 
 he had educated himself in its technical
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 processes, a familiarity with which was 
 of value to him in the discharge of his 
 duties. 
 
 Thanks are due to the proprietors of the 
 Academy and the Magazine of Art for 
 liberty to reprint the articles which origi- 
 nally appeared in those Magazines. 
 
 J. BALFOUK PAUL. 
 W. R. MACDONALD.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 PACK 
 
 PREFACE v 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS BY MRS. M. M. TURN- 
 BULL 3 
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART, BY J. BALFOUR 
 
 PAUL, LYON KING OF ARMS .... 33 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS BY MICHAEL FIELD ... 79 
 
 ART CRITICISM BY W. D. MACKAY, R.S.A. . . 99 
 
 PAPERS AND CRITICISMS 
 
 AN HOUR IN AN OLD LIBRARY . . .113 
 NOTES OF HOLIDAYS IN ARRAN . . . 125 
 REVIEW OF BROWNING'S PACCHIAROTTO . 137 
 OBITUARY OF JOHN BROWN, M.D. . . . 149 
 REVIEW OF SHARP'S ROSSETTI . . .157 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PORTRAIT, Frontispiece 
 
 " J. M. GRAY PASSETH A BOOK SHOP," . face p. 113 
 COAT-OF-ARMS, 164
 
 PEKSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 BY MRS. M. M. TURNBULL 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 
 
 T OOKING back to those early times when 
 -*^ John Gray, my brother, and I were 
 children together, there is much that is vague 
 and misty; but one vivid picture detaches 
 itself, and remains clearly imprinted on my 
 memory. It is that of two figures, seen 
 almost every day, but full of pathetic contrast 
 even to a child's unheeding eyes. One, an 
 old man, with face lined and wrinkled, his 
 shaggy eyebrows overhanging deep-set thought- 
 ful eyes, his expression grave but not unkindly ; 
 slightly lame, he leant heavily on a stick, 
 while beside him there walked a small fair 
 boy, the child of his old age, and his insepar- 
 able companion. 
 
 His mother had died at his birth, and 1 
 recall the childish wonderment with which I 
 heard the servants talk, of how as a baby he 
 was not expected to live, how he was wrapped 
 in wadding, and indeed owed his life to the
 
 4 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 care and devotion of his old nurse Jeanie. 
 Even then that delicacy was plainly visible, a 
 quite uncommon fineness marking him out 
 from the ordinary child. His hair of a light 
 brown colour waved thickly over smooth high 
 temples, his skin and complexion were ex- 
 ceedingly fair, and one eyelid, the right one, 
 drooped heavily over that eye, half hiding 
 it, and giving a dreamy expression to the 
 face. 
 
 This must have been about the year 1857, 
 when he was seven years old. We had come 
 to live in Edinburgh, and they were our next- 
 door neighbours in Craigie Terrace. A mutual 
 passage ran between the back gardens, into 
 which two doors opened doors that generally 
 stood open so that the little fellow could run 
 out and in, joining us in our play, borrowing 
 our story-books, and evidently rejoicing in the 
 companionship of children about his own age. 
 When my pet chaffinch Jacky Doodles by 
 name died (it is to be feared of hunger), my 
 remorse found vent, as many an older person's 
 has done since, in an elaborate funeral. Of 
 course, Johnny Gray was formally invited, 
 and appeared, solemn and sympathetic, at the 
 obsequies in the back garden.
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 5 
 
 As time went on my brother used to amuse 
 himself painting landscapes in water-colours 
 from copies, and our little neighbour im- 
 mediately set to work too. Each production 
 of my brother was carried off next door, to be 
 copied in even more uncertain and fainter 
 lines, and these efforts were duly submitted 
 by an anxious, expectant little face, for the 
 elder boy's verdict. Thus, happily eluding 
 the drudgery of drawing and perspective, he 
 made his first plunge into art. 
 
 Then, too, he entered the enchanted land of 
 romance, by the gateway, for him as for so 
 many, of the Waverley Novels. We had a 
 nice old edition, with illustrations by Turner 
 and Cruikshank, and these volumes he bor- 
 rowed in turn down to ' Count Robert of 
 Paris,' for his father (who was a grave, austere 
 man, belonging to the Quaker persuasion) 
 did not possess works of fiction, though 
 he appears to have allowed his son to read 
 them. 
 
 He and my brother both went to Mr. 
 Munro's school in Middleby Street, New- 
 ington ; and from what he afterwards told me, 
 his favourite class was that of English litera- 
 ture, taught by Mr. Crabbe, a man of fine
 
 6 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 discrimination, with a faculty for leading his 
 pupils to recognise and love the true and 
 beautiful in poetry and literature generally. 
 
 One morning there was great consternation 
 in the school, as news spread of the failure of 
 the Western Bank. On retiring from business 
 Mr. Gray had invested his fortune, some six 
 or seven thousand pounds, mostly in shares of 
 that Bank, and on him and his son the blow 
 fell heavily. Calls had to be met, and any 
 other property had to be sold to meet them. 
 He and his son were ruined. 
 
 The sterling character of old Mr. Gray had 
 rendered him much respected not only by his 
 friends in Edinburgh, but by others in England. 
 They rallied round him in his time of trouble, 
 and raised a fund sufficient to purchase back 
 his house and furniture and to provide a 
 slender provision for his remaining days. So 
 father and son continued to live on in Craigie 
 Terrace, and the faithful and resourceful Jeanie 
 eked out the small income by taking boarders, 
 declaring at the same time she would take no 
 wages if such were not forthcoming. 
 
 This sad reverse of fortune undoubtedly 
 changed the whole course of John Gray's 
 life.
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 7 
 
 It deprived him of a University career, and 
 even his schooling was curtailed ; for while still 
 a boy he went to serve his apprenticeship in 
 the Newington Branch of the Bank of Scot- 
 land, an opening offered by a kind friend, 
 and gratefully accepted by his father, but 
 one unutterably repugnant and irksome to 
 him. 
 
 Before this happened we had removed from 
 Craigie Terrace ; and though the distance to 
 Blacket Place was not far, we did not see so 
 much of our little playmate. He still came 
 and went with story-books, and water-colour 
 copies, and joined us on Saturday afternoons 
 in long rambles over Arthur's Seat and the 
 Salisbury Crags. On one of the slopes we had 
 found a natural cavern, made by a huge rock, 
 resting on a smaller one. Here we played at 
 Robinson Crusoe, or brigands, or whatever was 
 wild and adventurous, and here the smoke of 
 our fire discovered us choking and with 
 smarting eyes to the Park Kanger, by whom 
 we were summarily evicted. My brother re- 
 members how he and some school companions 
 dared him to climb up a steep rock on the 
 Haggis Knowe, and how he scrambled bravely 
 up by a crack running vertically in the rock, 
 
 *1 
 
 </\
 
 8 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 and with nothing to hold on by, a feat none of 
 the others would attempt. 
 
 This shows that though a delicate and 
 fragile boy, he was not wanting in pluck and 
 courage. 
 
 His disposition too was extremely sweet 
 and gentle ; for I have no memory, either in 
 those early days, or onward to the end, of ever 
 seeing him cross or ill-tempered, or of ever 
 hearing a harsh or unkind word fall from his 
 lips. 
 
 As time went on, changes came, and we 
 left Edinburgh, and only occasionally saw or 
 heard of the blithe companion of our youthful 
 escapades, who was now ' cribbed, cabined, 
 and confined ' in the dreary Bank. He did 
 the work with scrupulous care and diligence, 
 though he had neither aptitude nor liking for 
 it; and perhaps it taught him one good lesson, 
 that extreme accuracy, which, along with his 
 Quaker precision and neatness, always char- 
 acterised him. But when the day's work 
 was over he was at liberty. Then, a friend 
 tells me, he wrote an essay which gained a 
 prize of 2, 2s., by which he gleefully told her 
 he had earned a pair of boots. Then he read 
 Tennyson, Carlyle, and Kuskin : ' Modern
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 
 
 Painters' he got from the Philosophical 
 Institution Library, and studied with the 
 greatest care, making copious notes, and many 
 fine pencil drawings of the illustrations. 
 
 Every matter that touched on Art attracted 
 him, and thus he trained himself, in his leisure 
 hours, to be the discerning critic he afterwards 
 became. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 MANHOOD 
 
 "I17ITH the exception of a visit he paid us 
 in the winter of 1870, shortly after the 
 death of his father at the ripe age of eighty- 
 five, we did not see much of John Gray till, 
 by a happy chance, we met in Paris in the sum- 
 mer of 1874. I shall never forget that June 
 evening, as we sat in the courtyard of the old 
 Hotel du Louvre, and suddenly caught sight 
 of his slight figure springing with light alacrity 
 up the steps towards us, his face aglow, his 
 eyes beaming with pleasure and excitement; 
 nor yet the next morning in the Louvre 
 Galleries, to be followed by many others, when 
 he would expatiate on his favourite pictures, 
 and quote Rossetti's Sonnets before Giorgione's 
 'Pastoral,' and Leonardo's 'Vierge au Rochers/ 
 But best of all was one long summer day we 
 spent together at Chartres. 
 
 Leaving Paris in the early morning, the 
 train whirled us through the rich cornlands of 
 the Beauce, to that grandest and most impres-
 
 MANHOOD 1 1 
 
 sive of Cathedrals, Notre Dame de Chartres. 
 What admiration it woke in him ! the great 
 portal, with its rows on rows of solemn kings 
 the massive pillars like banded forest trees, 
 their bases smooth and blunted, ' worn by the 
 passing waves of humanity,' he quoted; the 
 delicate carved work round the choir, with the 
 little doors of black oak ; the sense of vastness ; 
 and most of all, the deep rich colouring of the 
 stained glass, through which the sunshine 
 filtered iridescent on the grey old stonework. 
 Our behaviour was so reverent that the young 
 verger would not believe we were not "bons 
 Catholiques ; ' and after showing us the Crypt, 
 he took us up to the tower to ring the Vesper 
 Bell. Here, to our amazement, he leapt on 
 one of the large bells, and swung it backwards 
 and forwards by the impetus of his body, while 
 our ears were deafened by the clang. In 
 coming down we lost our way, and while in 
 the long double roof a tremendous crash of 
 thunder broke overhead, shaking the huge pile 
 to its foundations. John Gray often referred 
 to that happy day as ' one of the good things 
 that never come twice in this world.' 
 
 He was then a vegetarian, though not a 
 strict one, for he ate fish and eggs ; and this
 
 12 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 was not from principle, but simply from a 
 distaste he took to animal food. He still 
 retained the delicacy and fineness of his boy- 
 hood, but his face had become more sensitive, 
 more expressive, the thin veil of flesh, scarcely 
 veiling spirit, ' that subtle thing,' of which he 
 was so largely compact. 
 
 George Mac Donald's writings had inclined 
 him to mysticism, and he was a student of 
 Jacob Bohme. Of a volume by Harris, lent 
 him by Dr. Pulsford, he says : ' I did not find 
 so much that " my soul could sing in tune to " 
 as in dear old Behmen.' 
 
 His admiration for Browning had then 
 begun, and it was in Paris he bought for me 
 the Tauchnitz selection of his poems, marking 
 his special favourites, and kindling in me a 
 like enthusiasm. Then, as ever, his sympathy 
 was keen and true, and his sensitive nature 
 answered with genuine responsiveness to every 
 passing mood. His manner was one of tender 
 courtesy, and he had a rare consideration for 
 the feelings and opinions of others. How 
 gently he would correct an error in taste or 
 judgment, or a misappreciation, with ' Come 
 now, you really don't mean to say you like 
 that ! '
 
 MANHOOD 13 
 
 'Gently comes the world to such as are 
 cast in a gentle mould/ was indeed true of 
 him. 
 
 A passage from a letter written after his 
 return shows how he regarded the Bank and 
 his work there : ' I did not take very well to 
 work at first after my return, after having had 
 twenty-two and a half actual days of idleness 
 and liberty, but there was plenty work to do, 
 and I have got my neck pretty well under the 
 yoke again by this time.' 
 
 After this we corresponded regularly, and 
 his letters reflect with delightful frankness the 
 course of his life ; the friendships he made, 
 the books he read, and the various ' scribblings ' 
 that engaged him. He also formed the excel- 
 lent habit of spending the May Bank Holiday 
 with us, coming as he said with ' the primroses 
 in the primrose wood, and the greening of the 
 willows,' and learning to love our open, wind- 
 swept border country. 
 
 In 1874, too, his ' Hour in an Old Library ' 
 was published, and though only in the humble 
 sheets of The People's Friend, how proud we 
 both were of this firstling in its dignity of 
 print. He had visited my brother near Barn- 
 borough the year before, and afterwards
 
 14 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 recorded his impressions of the Castle Library, 
 along with his own sad, poetic imaginings. 
 
 This first success encouraged him to go on, 
 and gradually he became a regular contributor 
 to the Edinburgh Courant of Reviews of Books, 
 Notices of Art Galleries, etc. 
 
 In August 1876 his 'Notes of a Holiday in 
 Arran ' appeared in that paper ; and speaking 
 of these a year or two ago, he said to me, ' I 
 consider them the best things I have ever 
 done.' 
 
 But the great event of 1876 was the begin- 
 ning of his friendship with Browning. It was 
 at the suggestion of Dr. John Brown that he 
 sent a copy of his review of ' Pacchiarotto ' 
 (published in the Courant) to the author. 
 His letter telling me of it gives a pleasant 
 side-glimpse of the inimitable author of Rob. 
 
 1 He (Dr. J. Brown) said it " would warm 
 the cockles of the gruffish heart of the great- 
 browed, great-bearded man." I got such a nice 
 letter in reply from Browning from Lamlash, 
 where he is staying just now. I felt inclined 
 to rush down at once and see him, but re- 
 strained myself.' 
 
 Were I to quote all the interesting bits of 
 autobiography contained in my pile of letters,
 
 MANHOOD 15 
 
 the chapter allotted to me would grow into a 
 ' Life/ so I pass over the next year, and his 
 visit to London, when he ' saw " R. B." in the 
 flesh,' 'got a kind note from Burne Jones to 
 see his studio,' etc. etc., to a letter he wrote 
 me evidently in high spirits after his holi- 
 day in the South, and recording the rise of 
 another distinguished friendship : 
 
 '30th Sept. 1878. 
 
 ' . . . I have been wishing for a long time 
 to hear from you, how you are all getting on, 
 and hoping for a letter standing indeed on 
 my dignity in not writing you ! for I have a 
 lot to tell you about my holidays. And 
 standing on one's dignity is an uncomfort- 
 able posture, so I hereby give it up. Well. 
 I had a grand time of it away about six- 
 teen days in all. First a week in London 
 staying with my friend Wedmore, seeing 
 all the artistic sights to be seen in London, 
 and having the most artistic conversations 
 thereon in the evenings. Meeting too no 
 end of artistic and literary swells Arthur 
 O'Shaughnessy among the rest, and of course 
 visiting Burne Jones' studio and calling on my 
 friend Robert Browning, and his charming
 
 16 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 elderly sister. After the week in London I 
 went down to Oxford, saw the boat race (the 
 Oxford one), and made the acquaintance of 
 Walter Pater/ I saw him twice, lunched in 
 company with him, his two sisters, and their 
 cat which by this time has become quite a 
 classic creature to his clique, and he (Pater, 
 not his cat) took me to see some grand painted 
 windows at Christ Church Chapel designed by 
 Burne Jones. Then I saw Holman Hunt's 
 "Light of the World" in Keble College 
 Library, went through a good many of the 
 Colleges, visited an exquisite old Norman 
 Church at Iffley, a mile from Oxford. But 
 best of all, I went through Ruskin's rooms at 
 Corpus Christi. I wish I had time to tell 
 you all I saw there, hope to do so at some 
 future time. He has among other grand 
 things a most glorious Titian portrait an old 
 white-haired Doge of Venice. Altogether I 
 enjoyed this my second visit to Oxford even 
 more than I did my first. Leaving Oxford, I 
 had a week quietly at Pangbourne, a beautiful 
 fishing village on the Thames, four miles above 
 Reading. I was quite alone, and spent my 
 time in reading, writing, rowing on the river, 
 and taking long walks exploring the fine
 
 MANHOOD 17 
 
 wooded lanes, and quaint little villages in the 
 neighbourhood. Time last week of May and 
 first of June. All about myself. Well, letters 
 have to be that, chiefly. And just retort in 
 the same fashion by giving me a long letter 
 all about yourself. . . . What are you read- 
 ing, doing, thinking ? There is a question the 
 answering of which admits of much scope! 
 ... As usual, I am up to the ears in work of 
 one kind or another, not a moment to spare. 
 
 ' Enclosed is a paper from the August Mac- 
 millan, which I should like you to read and 
 give me your opinion of if you have not 
 already seen it. It seems to me wonderfully 
 delicate and tender and finished no less true 
 than ideal. . . .' 
 
 This was Pater's imaginary portrait, ' The 
 Child in the House/ for which he had an 
 especial liking one that years only strength- 
 ened. It seemed to touch some chord of 
 memory, or early association, and he would 
 speak of it in the same soft low monotone in 
 which he would recite 'Abt Vogler,' Tears 
 and Scruples,' and ' Never the Time and the 
 Place,' his favourite short poems from Brown- 
 ing, and Rossetti's 'Blessed Damozel.' This 
 letter was written from 25 York Place, for in 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 18 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 the spring succeeding his father's death he 
 and Jeanie left the Craigie Terrace house for 
 a flat in Oxford Street. There his faithful 
 nurse and friend died, and after a brief 
 sojourn in 13 Lothian Road (which was his 
 first introduction to his landlady, Mrs. Warden, 
 with whom he resided, though at different ad- 
 dresses, for the rest of his life) he removed 
 to York Place. In his rooms there what 
 delightful evenings I have spent, as one after 
 another he brought out his newly-acquired 
 treasures. How daintily and lovingly his 
 fingers handled a first edition, or a rare print, 
 and how generously he would even lend 
 these cherished possessions to a friend; and 
 what pains he would take to expound and 
 explain their hidden beauties and special 
 virtues. Nowhere did he show to such 
 advantage. He threw off* all reserve, giving 
 full play to his genial warm-hearted nature. 
 
 As the talk grew livelier, bright flashes of 
 humour peeped out to the accompaniment of 
 merry laughter. For he had a laugh peculi- 
 arly his own, not 'loud and deep,' indeed, 
 rather high-pitched, but with a genuine 
 hearty ripple, that never lost the careless 
 pure ringing note of a boy's. I might give 
 many examples of this 'perfect gift of
 
 MANHOOD 1 9 
 
 humour,' as Louis Stevenson somewhere calls 
 
 it, from his letters, but many of the touches 
 
 are personal, though I may add never unkindly. 
 
 Here are one or two, however : 
 
 'What a grave paragraph that in your 
 
 letter was, called forth by , and what a 
 
 sweeping assertion that all men and no 
 women are changed by marriage. I am 
 doubtful about its truth, at least I have not 
 observed it with the unvarying uniformity 
 which you notice. But no doubt marriage is 
 a greater change to a man. Women are 
 naturally so domestic, but domesticity is at 
 best an acquired habit in a man. Well, 
 fortunately, I am in no need of your " solemn 
 deliverance " and warning. Extreme poverty 
 combined with extreme caution put mar- 
 riage quite out of the sphere of practical 
 politics, so far as my life is concerned. And 
 really I don't want to undergo the change 
 which you predict, or to lose my old familiar 
 faulty personality by marriage, conversion, 
 death, or any of the popularly accredited 
 methods of so doing. I distrust them all.' 
 
 'Dr. M'Intosh's paper in Encyclopedia was 
 on the reptile Leech, mine on the artist Leech 
 necessarily a much less important matter ! '
 
 CONGENIAL WORK 
 
 HP HOUGH his work in the Bank was per- 
 formed with scrupulous care, he often 
 expressed his extreme distaste for it ; so when 
 in 1880 we chanced to meet S. C. Hall in 
 London, and to hear soon after that the post 
 of sub-editor of the Art Journal was vacant, 
 his claims were put forward. After some 
 correspondence, however, the project fell 
 through. He writes of it thus : 
 
 ' 12th January 1881. 
 
 ' That certainly was a good chance lost the 
 sub-editorship of the Art Journal. The salary 
 would have been magnificent more than twice 
 what I have now. Still, the work would have 
 been greatly of the nature of business; no doubt 
 there would have been a good deal of anxiety. 
 ... It is at any rate well to look on the dark 
 side, now that the chance has escaped me. I 
 still cherish the hope of finally getting some
 
 CONGENIAL WORK 21 
 
 Art Journalism in London. Prospects of 
 advance in all but the higher departments of 
 banking which I can never hope for get 
 daily more dismal.' 
 
 One result only remained. He had a kind 
 letter from the new editor asking him to con- 
 tribute to the reconstructed journal whenever 
 he chose. In this year we conjointly became 
 members of the ' Browning Society,' sharing the 
 copies of the ' Proceedings,' etc., between us. 
 He meant to collate the various readings in 
 'Pippa Passes' from the rare, old, double- 
 columned first edition he was so proud of, but 
 whether he ever completed this I do not know. 
 
 Next year, 1882, was a busy one for him. 
 Gratified by the praise his * Manson ' volume 
 had received, he was working strenuously at 
 his ' Life of David Scott,' determined to spare 
 no pains to make it complete. In May he was 
 saddened by the death of Dr. John Brown, 
 and his August letter records other friend- 
 ships those of W. B. Scott and William 
 Sharp. The latter's poems he finds 'very 
 good not at all influenced by Eossetti, 
 which is curious and promising, arguing a 
 strong individuality.' Next he was reading
 
 22 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 Carlyle's Life a ' very grand book,' and he 
 gives me these hitherto unpublished particulars 
 of a very notable last meeting : 
 
 ' 16th December 1882. 
 
 'About Browning . . . He knew Carlyle 
 well, and respected him greatly, and liked him 
 personally. He told me he called shortly 
 before the old man's death. He was asleep 
 at the time, and his niece took Browning in 
 to see him, and that was the last look he had 
 of the grand old face. He seemed to be much 
 annoyed with Froude's various publications 
 the Reminiscences, at any rate. He seemed to 
 think that they gave an impression of Carlyle 
 untrue to that which he personally made. No 
 doubt Browning would have that pity of 
 which you speak for a nature not healthy all 
 round. Certainly he, if any one, 
 
 " Lives and likes life's way, 
 Nor wishes the wings unfurled 
 That sleep in the worm, they say. " 
 
 He is one of those of whom Emerson speaks, 
 "Free from dyspepsia, to whom a day is a sound 
 and solid good." Does not that express the 
 thing squarely and concisely ? ' 
 
 The disappointment of the lost sub-editor- 
 ship was not to last long, neither was he
 
 CONGENIAL WORK 23 
 
 destined to find, to quote his own words, 
 ' congenial work, which more than most 
 things is true success in life,' in Art journal- 
 ism in London, but in his own dear familiar 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 What pleased him specially in his appoint- 
 ment as Curator to the Scottish National 
 Portrait Gallery was the recognition it brought 
 him, and the appreciation it called forth from his 
 now large and varied circle of friends, 'the 
 capital testimonial from K. B., dated from the 
 Val D'Aosta, also excellent ones from Pater, 
 W. B. Scott, Wedmore, Skelton, Kobertson- 
 Smith, etc. etc., and from the leading R.S.A.s. 
 The matter is being taken up most warmly 
 by my friends, and by those here generally 
 who are interested in Art, and I have good 
 hope of ultimate success. There is a prospect, 
 too, that the salary may be a decent one for 
 a bachelor at least, but this is still a little 
 doubtful. (N.B. Not the bachelor, but the fair 
 salary.) There would be much work for the 
 first year or two, but more leisure for literary 
 effort after that.' 
 
 After this epoch in his life it is pleasant to 
 note the happy tone of his letters, telling how 
 the London men received him ' with open arms ; 
 in fact, like a curator and a brother ! ' How,
 
 24 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 after a holiday, he ' settles down to work with 
 great contentment.' And again : ' The way time 
 flies would be terrible to think of had I not a 
 quite fixed belief that as one gets older one 
 certainly should probably will get happier. 
 I Ve found it so, as yet, at any rate.' 
 
 In 1885 this access of good spirits reached 
 high-water mark, judging from his long and 
 frequent letters, all written in buoyant humour. 
 One, dated 15th April 1885, is so delightful, I 
 only regret I cannot give it in extenso. 
 
 ' I have been feeling, like you, a strong wish 
 to fly to the sunny south, for the wings of a 
 dove, or a wild goose, or the homelier domestic 
 one, or any such available creature, to effect 
 withal so desirable and pleasant a purpose. . . . 
 While I was away my room has been getting 
 painted. ... I have not been able to call the 
 colour-scheme of my room by any such fine 
 name as Whistler adopts for his "arrange- 
 ments." It is not a "Nocturne in blue and 
 silver," or anything of that sort. I have 
 chastely titled it " An Afternoon in Brown 
 and Yellow, with occasional moments in 
 Green." The pretty phrase a poor one, 
 madam, but mine own has a certain attraction 
 for me from its terseness and brief descriptive-
 
 CONGENIAL WORK 25 
 
 ness ; but, you know, I always was a lover of 
 finished style my own and other people's. 
 
 ' Is there anything else to tell 1 Yes, I have 
 been suffering from an attack of book-buying 
 one of a most virulent and rabid character. 
 I marched into Paterson's the other day, and 
 came out about ten pounds poorer. Eeally 
 it was an exceptional chance . . . And on the 
 most mature consideration I may perhaps 
 neither have been rabid, nor virulent, nor 
 anything of the sort, in the matter ; for as 
 there is every prospect of my losing all I 
 have more or less through "stocks and 
 shares," that most typical quintessence and 
 most ultimate and most obvious development 
 on earth of Old Nick "the least exalted 
 fiend," etc. etc., see Mr. Milton, probably 
 my little transaction with Mr. Paterson was 
 about the most rational investment I have 
 made for some time past. It may have been 
 a mere sober and sane attempt on my part 
 to lay up treasure which, if worms may (to 
 some extent) eat it, and moths (to some extent) 
 corrupt, will at least not take the muckle 
 Diwl's wings to itself and fly away.' 
 
 After a digression to Vernon Lee her ' Miss 
 Brown and Euphorion ' he concludes : 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 26 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 * What a long, odd scribble this is ! Some 
 tricksy sprite must have been perched on my 
 quill all the while. Well, I hope you will 
 excuse him not me, the grave curator, whom 
 you know, and that his cantrips may at least 
 make you smile.' 
 
 In all his letters he only twice complains of 
 'want of money and leisure ' once when a visit 
 to Italy had to be given up, and later on, when 
 'a trip to Spain was knocked on the head, 
 chiefly from a want of funds.' 
 
 The visit to Italy was only deferred, for that 
 dream of his life was to be realised in the spring 
 of 1887. In the previous winter he made an 
 attempt to learn Italian, but speaks thus dis- 
 paragingly of his linguistic talent : 
 
 * 23rd November 1886. 
 
 ' A young lady friend offers to coach me up 
 in it (the language) before starting, and en- 
 courages me by reporting that last year in 
 three weeks she poured enough Italian into 
 another friend rather a dull friend, she 
 remarks, with an obvious bearing on the 
 present case to enable him to get on 
 capitally all over Italy with the natives. 
 Wonderful, is it not, but I am still most
 
 CONGENIAL WORK 27 
 
 doubtful as to myself. The books arrived 
 to-day, and the very sight of them makes 
 me sick. I have no turn at all for languages. 
 Some remote ancestor of mine must have 
 played a more than usually eminent part in 
 that tower of Babel business, and so trans- 
 mitted a double portion of his curse to his 
 unfortunate descendant. A very bad affair 
 indeed that ancient architectural effort ! ' 
 
 It is always a deep regret to me that we did 
 not meet abroad. He was at Florence when 
 we were in Venice, and wrote to me there, 
 wishing we ' could have seen the great things 
 together, and revived the memories of that 
 pleasant time long ago in Paris.' 
 
 He goes on : ' We are looking forward to 
 Venice as one other grand sensation yet 
 possible in life, after all that we have recently 
 experienced, one other thing yet ' left remark- 
 able, beneath the visiting moon.' 
 
 Next spring he went no further than London, 
 but had ' a good time there/ seeing his friends, 
 etc. I shall only transcribe the account of his 
 visit to Browning : 
 
 ' 1st February 1888. 
 
 ' One afternoon I spent a most delightful
 
 28 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 hour with Browning and his sister. . . . They 
 received me most cordially, like an old friend 
 really, to say " with open arms " would be 
 hardly a figure of speech. . . . He was telling 
 me, too, about his new uniform edition which 
 Smith, Elder, and Co. are going to publish. 
 " You know, Gray," he says, " there will be 
 nothing in it for you. The publisher wished 
 me to revise and add some notes. But I can't 
 make them any better. And, if you '11 believe 
 me" (confidentially, laying his hand on my 
 shoulder), " I think it 's best always to be like 
 the Apostle, ' forgetting the things that are be- 
 hind, and pressing on to those things that are 
 before.' Not bad that for seventy -six, is it 1 " 
 
 Of religion he did not often speak nor 
 shall I for it was inextricably wrought into 
 the texture of his life that life so ordered, 
 so full of charity (in its large sense), so almost 
 cloistral in its purity, its peace, and its 
 loneliness. For lonely he was, with no 
 near and dear relation in the world, though 
 with a wealth of friends outside. Two quota- 
 tions, however, will indicate his attitude of 
 mind : 
 
 ' I feel with you entirely in what you say 
 about Browning's hold on immortality, and
 
 CONGENIAL WORK 29 
 
 the comfort that he gives in these sadly 
 
 shaken times. 
 
 " He, at least, believes in soul, is very sure of God." ' 
 
 And again : 
 
 ' I have not yet seen " Robert Elsmere," and 
 somehow don't feel much attracted by it. Its 
 main interest seems to be a religious one, and 
 really one must consider that matter as settled 
 at some period of one's life.' 
 
 In the spring of 1887 he made his final 
 move to 28 Gay field Square. Two years 
 later he had a severe attack of influenza, 
 which left him * ill and feeble for a full year,' 
 and after this he often complains of feeling 
 poorly, and of a want of energy and pleasure 
 in his work. His sensitive heart was much 
 saddened by the loss of friends, and he 
 reiterates the need of 'clinging closer to 
 those that are left,' and of ' working while 
 it is day, for the night cometh.' 
 
 Still this never prepared me for the bolt out 
 of the blue, which turned the blaze of March 
 sunshine into blackness, ending with one sharp 
 final blow a friendship perfect in its unbroken 
 serenity, its loving helpfulness, and tried 
 strength.
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE 
 AND ART 
 
 BY J. BALFOUR PAUL 
 
 LYON KING OF ARMS
 
 WOKK IN LITERATURE AND ART 
 
 JOHN GRAY'S love of literature was inborn: 
 ** at an age when to his more robust con- 
 temporaries school games seemed the greatest 
 interest in life, his delight was to wander, 
 solitary but unwearied, in the flowery meads 
 of romance under the guidance of the Wizard 
 of the North. Nor were more solid pursuits 
 neglected. Like most boys of an inquiring turn 
 of mind, he dabbled in chemistry, and no doubt 
 burst the usual number of glasses and burnt 
 the ordinary number of holes in the carpet, 
 though owing to his natural neat-handedness 
 he probably made fewer mistakes than most 
 juvenile experimenters. But it was not as 
 a scientist that he was to become distin- 
 guished ; it was literature that really claimed 
 his early affections; and he read so much, 
 and profited so well by what he read, that 
 when as a lad of eighteen he entered the 
 Young Men's Literary Society in connection 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 34 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 with the Newington U.P. Church to which his 
 father belonged, he was well equipped for taking 
 part in its debates and criticism. It is on record 
 that his first speech was made in defending 
 the thesis of the advantages of a town life over 
 a country one, a subject on which he probably 
 spoke with conviction, as the stimulus of 
 society and the quickening influences of con- 
 genial companionship were always more to his 
 mind than the beauty of landscape; though, on 
 the other hand, his innate artistic sense made 
 him fully alive to the enjoyment of the latter 
 also. Then followed essays on many subjects. 
 He discussed in turn the poetical merits of 
 Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning, the last 
 a poet for whose writings he had always a special 
 love, and whom he afterwards came to know 
 as a personal friend. In his study he wrote 
 much and tried his hand at various styles of 
 composition tales, sketches, poems, were at- 
 tempted in succession, few of them perhaps of 
 more merit than might be expected of an 
 earnest and thoughtful lad, and most of them 
 tinged with a strain of pensive sadness, but 
 all displaying a delicacy of touch and an 
 accuracy of language which foreshadowed that 
 rhythmic diction and flow of appropriate epithet
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 35 
 
 which characterised his later writing. His 
 earliest poem which has been preserved, 
 written in January 1869, when he was only 
 eighteen, is evidently the work of a lonely 
 and tender hearted-boy. 
 
 A LONGING. 
 
 Within my heart there is an ache, 
 
 To still it I 've no art, 
 And nothing I can find will make 
 
 A rest for my poor heart. 
 
 Long I for name of those who teach ? 
 
 Or pour forth artless lays ? 
 Long I for praise as one who sings 
 
 Wearing half -withered bays ? 
 
 Love is of Heaven, but even there 
 
 My soul could never rest, 
 Nor with good things be satisfied, 
 
 Desiring still the best. 
 
 This hunger is for thee, O God, 
 
 Thou of man's soul the rest ; 
 I will arise and go to Thee, 
 
 And then I shall be blest. 
 
 These lines are so evidently reminiscent of 
 the religious training which he must have got 
 at home, and of the influence on his mind of 
 Scottish Psalmody, that they form an interest- 
 ing trace of his mental development. But 
 having passed through the period of verse- 
 making, which lasted two or three years, that 
 pursuit was laid aside, and probably never
 
 36 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 resumed. His tastes lay more in the direction 
 of pictorial art ; and he must have begun at an 
 early age to cultivate that affection for old 
 prints which he never lost, for we find him in 
 1870 getting information from a correspondent 
 in London as to the means of obtaining access 
 to the Print Boom of the British Museum, 
 Albert Durer and Martin Schongauer being 
 specially recommended to him for study. It 
 was in 1872 that he made his first appearance 
 as an art critic, and indeed as a writer, by 
 contributing a notice of the Eoyal Scottish 
 Academy Exhibition of that year to the Perth- 
 shire Courier. The description of the pictures 
 and the criticism of the technical work of the 
 various artists are written with ease and 
 grace, and studded with quotations both in 
 prose and verse, which show how he made his 
 reading serve his requirements when writing, 
 and how he had stored his memory with many 
 an apt allusion. 
 
 He began the year 1874 by contributing a 
 beautifully written New Year's article to the 
 People's Friend, a paper in which some months 
 later appeared another paper entitled 'In 
 an Old Library,' a subject which possessed 
 peculiar attractions for him, and which was the
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 37 
 
 result of a holiday spent near Bamborough 
 Castle. In this year too he wrote his first 
 art paper for the Edinburgh Courant at the 
 beginning of the editorship of Mr. W. K. 
 Law son. It was on the Whistler Exhibition 
 in London, and displays a very discrimina- 
 tive appreciation of the work of an artist 
 whose canons of art were not so well under- 
 stood then as they have subsequently become. 
 His opinion is well summed up in the last 
 sentence of the critique : ' Of human interest 
 his works have generally very little, but they 
 have their own special and peculiar charm 
 as sensitive studies in grace of line and 
 harmony of abstract colour.' Another paper 
 which he contributed to the Courant was on 
 the ' Lectures on the History and Practice of 
 the Fine and Ornamental Arts,' by William 
 B. Scott, a man whom he afterwards came 
 to know intimately, and the life of whose 
 accomplished brother he was destined to write. 
 He had again an opportunity of criticising the 
 pictures of the year in the Scottish Academy. 
 This time it was for the Dumfriesshire Herald 
 that he wrote ; but it was the last of such 
 critiques that he contributed to the provincial 
 press. Mr. Lawson of the Courant, ever quick
 
 38 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 to note and ready to encourage rising talent, 
 had noticed Gray's capacity for writing easily 
 and effectively on art subjects; and in 1875 
 six notices of the Academy Exhibition ap- 
 peared in that paper from John Gray's pen, and 
 till the Courant became defunct he invariably 
 contributed these notices, besides many others, 
 to its columns. It was for it too that he 
 noticed in the last-mentioned year the works of 
 several authors with whom he was to become 
 more intimately acquainted in after life. He 
 wrote, for instance, an appreciative notice of the 
 exhibition of the works of George Manson, 
 who had but recently died, and whose biogra- 
 pher he was ultimately to become. He wrote 
 too a review of Browning's ' Pacchiarotto,' l a 
 task which he did con amore, for he had always 
 been much influenced by the poet's work. He 
 probably felt that he had written it well, as he 
 put his initials to the article, and sent a copy 
 to Dr. John Brown, whose acquaintance he had 
 made a short time previously. In acknowledg- 
 ing it, the genial Doctor wrote as follows: 
 
 ' 23 RUTLAND STREET, 
 '6th August 1876, 
 
 'DEAR "JOHN GRAY," Thanks very much 
 
 1 See p. 137.
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 39 
 
 it is excellently done, keen and just and well 
 worded; you have "the vision and the faculty." 
 You should send the great-browed and bearded 
 man a copy ; it will warm the cockles of his 
 gruffish heart. I am glad to know that line 
 is his wife's. She is the greatest she-poet 
 since Sappho, though I hate her "Aurora 
 Leigh" as much as I love her lines on 
 " Cowper's Grave." Thanks again. . . .' 
 
 Gray took Dr. Brown's advice and sent 
 Browning a copy, which produced the follow- 
 ing reply : 
 
 ' BLAIRBEO, LAMLASH, ARRAN, 
 'Aug. 12, 1876. 
 
 ' DEAR SIR, Your kind letter and criticism 
 follow me to this beautiful island. I thank 
 you exceedingly for what harmonises so well 
 with the influences about me. I should be 
 sorry, however, if you fancied that even in 
 noisy London I am unduly "annoyed and 
 disturbed" by the critics I had a moment's 
 amusement with, this May day, for the first 
 time and last, probably. The particular 
 little man I may have laid too rough a finger 
 upon, has been what he calls castigating 
 me these seven or eight years ; and I only used
 
 40 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 his own figure of speech by impressing my 
 " castigator " what he might expect if he (still 
 in a figure of speech) ventured within boot's 
 reach of me, whom, in reality, he never saw, 
 nor is likely to see. But a very little of this 
 sportiveness serves its turn, and there shall be 
 no more of it, I promise you. Pray believe 
 me, dear Sir, with repeated thanks, yours 
 very truly, ROBERT BROWNING.' 
 
 Gray himself was in Arran in the summer 
 of 1876 with his friend Mr. William Young, 
 and has left us a graphic and picturesque 
 account of a hardly earned and much enjoyed 
 holiday. He was back ere long to the some- 
 what uncongenial but ever faithfully performed 
 work of the Bank, spending his leisure hours 
 in the cultivation of literature, and in making 
 the beginnings of that interesting collection of 
 objects of art which grew more and more 
 valuable as it went on. 'Many a happy 
 afternoon I spent with him/ writes one of his 
 most intimate friends, 'collecting frames for 
 pictures in the Canongate, Cowgate, Leith 
 Walk, etc., and raking about old furniture 
 shops for furniture, china (especially blue), and 
 prints.'
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 41 
 
 In December 1876 he wrote for the Courant 
 a Review of Mr. Wedmore's studies on English 
 Art. As happened in other instances, this was 
 the means of bringing him into direct com- 
 munication with the accomplished author, an 
 acquaintanceship which speedily ripened into 
 warm friendship. When Mr. Wedmore came 
 to Edinburgh in 1877 to deliver a lecture at 
 the Philosophical Institution he stayed with 
 Gray, and up to the last the intimacy thus 
 begun was continued; it was also through 
 his introduction that Gray first began to write 
 for the Academy, contributing a notice of the 
 Scottish Academy Exhibition to that periodi- 
 cal in 1878. He had indeed a rare faculty of 
 making friends ; his sympathetic nature caused 
 men with whom he had anything in common 
 to draw to him in a remarkable manner ; and 
 his appreciation of their work was not the 
 mere undiscriminating adulation of an ordinary 
 admirer, but the generous enthusiasm of a cul- 
 tivated mind. Even as quite a young man he 
 collected round him a circle of friends, all more 
 or less devoted to literature or art ; and there 
 were three distinguished Edinburgh men whom 
 he had set his heart on knowing, and of all 
 of whom he ultimately became a warm friend. 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 42 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 One of these was Dr. John Brown, and we 
 have seen that he had come to know him; 
 another was Sir Noel Paton, whose work he 
 much admired. Several of his pictures he had 
 written about with enthusiasm in the Courant, 
 but it was not till 1877 that he actually 
 came into personal contact with him. The 
 third of his desired friends was Mr. John 
 Skelton, and with him also he ere long became 
 acquainted ; we shall afterwards see what the 
 estimate was that was formed of the young 
 writer by the accomplished historian of Queen 
 Mary. It was in 1878 that he wrote his first 
 Review of any of Shirley's works, contribut- 
 ing to the Courant a long and carefully written 
 critique of the " Essays in Eomance." It was in 
 this year too that he began to correspond with 
 Mr. Walter Pater, for whose finished style he 
 had a great admiration. Mr. Pater on his 
 side was not slow to recognise the talent and 
 ability of his correspondent. Writing in 1878, 
 he says 
 
 ' Many thanks for your charming fragments 
 of criticism, which ought, I think, to go 
 finally into some large and complete work of 
 criticism. You seem to me to have real pos- 
 session of many important principles in
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 43 
 
 speaking of Whistler's exhibition, for instance 
 and unite them to a style which seems to 
 me at once highly picturesque, finished, and 
 temperate. Thank you also for your apprecia- 
 tion of my article in Macmillan I value it 
 much the appreciation I mean. . . .' 
 
 The year 1879 found Gray gradually ex- 
 tending the sphere of his literary efforts. 
 While continuing his contributions to the 
 Courant, he wrote several articles for the 
 Academy, and two papers one on ' Edinburgh 
 Literary Celebrities,' and the other on 'Scottish 
 Art' for the Madras Mail. For the first- 
 named paper he wrote an appreciative notice 
 of Browning's " Dramatic Idyls " ; he sent this 
 to the poet, who wrote in reply as follows : 
 
 'MY DEAR MR. GRAY, Thank you very 
 much for yet one other instance of your kind- 
 ness and sympathy, both valued, I am sure, as 
 they deserve. . . . 
 
 * For your two questions. The ' painful birth,' 
 etc., is a merely general allusion to the fact that 
 just at the beginning of the thirteenth century 
 Art was revived in Siena (even before 
 Florence), presumably under some such cir- 
 cumstances, to judge by the character of work
 
 44 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 still extant, work of a singularly beautiful as 
 well as saintly character. I localised the fact 
 that is all. 
 
 * " L'Ingegno," however, " The Genius," was 
 a person of whom mention is made in the 
 annals of art as so pre-eminent among the 
 scholars of Perugino as to have obtained that 
 distinguishing appellation, even with Eafael 
 for a fellow-disciple. His master's preference 
 is shown by the choice of Andrea Luigi of 
 Assisi such was his name as his assistant 
 in various important works those in the 
 Cambria at Perugia, some at Assisi, and 
 eventually the paintings in the Sistine Chapel. 
 But while still very young he was struck with 
 blindness; and, incapacitated from the pro- 
 secution of his art, subsisted in his native 
 Assisi on a sufficient provision generously 
 allowed by the Pope, who had recognised his 
 early promise, and thus he lingered out his 
 life of eighty-six years. 
 
 ' My sister thanks you for your kind remem- 
 brances of her, and repeats my own hope that 
 we shall see you ere long. Meanwhile and 
 always, believe me, dear Mr. Gray, yours most 
 truly, EGBERT BROWNING.'
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 45 
 
 The first time that Gray appealed directly 
 to the public as an author was in his Life of 
 George Manson, the inception of which is 
 described elsewhere in this volume. It was 
 the record of a short but gifted life, whose fair 
 promise never attained maturity. The writer 
 did his task with delicate sympathy and with 
 thorough artistic appreciation. The book was 
 received not only with favour, but with admir- 
 ation. Dr. John Brown writes with cordial 
 congratulation : ' It is perfect ; it is plus quam 
 perfectum. Yours is excellent. I do think you 
 should send a copy to Ruskin.' Praise like 
 this was no mere empty compliment; and there 
 is no doubt that the Manson life gave its 
 author a position and a reputation as a writer 
 wider than he had hitherto enjoyed. For the 
 Academy he wrote at this time a Review of 
 Blake's life, by Alexander Gilchrist ; and then 
 he turned his attention to a man whose art 
 exercised on him an almost equal fascination 
 as did that of Blake, David Scott. He entered 
 into communication with his brother, Mr. 
 William Bell Scott, and in November there 
 appeared in Blackwood an able article on the 
 artist, an article which led the way to the 
 publication a few years later of a volume with
 
 46 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 a more extended memoir and specimens of 
 Scott's work. The article was much thought 
 of by competent judges, such as Mr. Walter 
 Pater, who writes : 
 
 ' Thank you very much for your charming 
 article on David Scott, which I have read with 
 great pleasure and interest. ... I hope you 
 will do much more of such excellent work as 
 that paper. I am very pleased to hear of your 
 continued memory of and interest in my pro- 
 jected series of Imaginary Portraits, one of 
 which I have now seriously on hand. I have 
 been looking over it, but find it is still too 
 much a matter of shorthand notes at present, 
 or I would very gladly send it you, and should 
 value your remarks upon it. . . .' 
 
 In March 1882 he contributed to the 
 Courant a Review of Dr. John Brown's ' John 
 Leech and other Papers,' and received the 
 following characteristic note from the author: 
 
 ' Who are you ? I fear you are John Gray. 
 I am none the less grateful, but sugar, how- 
 ever refined, injures some constitutions. J. B. 
 likes it, I fear, too much.' 
 
 Another article on the same subject in the 
 Academy was acknowledged in much the same 
 style by the genial essayist, but this was to be
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 47 
 
 the last of their communications. The shadow 
 of death was looming very near, and a few 
 weeks later the able and popular author of 
 Rob passed to his rest. His friend who 
 had so lately written of his works with so 
 much loving appreciation now penned an 
 obituary notice for the Academy, the conclud- 
 ing sentence of which sums up admirably his 
 estimate of the man : ' The writings of Dr. 
 Brown were the spontaneous outcome of his 
 nature, and their tenderness and sympathy, 
 their insight and humour, were the character- 
 istics of his own individuality. There was a 
 strange and winning charm about him which 
 made itself constantly felt, and attracted to 
 him all with whom he came in contact. In 
 his prime he was a brilliant conversationalist ; 
 and even to those of us who knew him only in 
 later life, and were permitted to spend many 
 hours with him in the little smoking-room at 
 the top of his house, the memory of these 
 evenings, and of him who made them bright 
 with his mirth and genial wisdom, will be 
 preserved for ever as a treasured possession.' 
 
 It was in 1882 that he first began to write 
 for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, contributing 
 articles on Leech, C. R. Leslie, and John
 
 48 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 Linnell ; and he continued writing for that 
 publication from time to time biographies of 
 various eminent artists. He also wrote for the 
 Art Journal a long and able article on George 
 Reid, R.S.A., giving an account of his life and 
 work. The beginning of the following year 
 found him writing for the Magazine of Art and 
 contributing to the Courant and Academy long 
 and careful critiques of the Loan Exhibition 
 of Old Masters which was held at Edinburgh 
 in that year. 
 
 Gray's lifelong devotion to art was destined 
 to receive some recognition. He had, as has 
 been shown, 1 endeavoured without success to 
 get an official connection with Art Journalism 
 in London. But when it became clear that a 
 Curator of the new Scottish National Portrait 
 Gallery was to be appointed, his kind and 
 valued friend, Sir Noel Paton, suggested that he 
 should apply for the post. He did so, and sent 
 in in support of his application a set of testi- 
 monials which must have amply satisfied the 
 Trustees as to his fitness. Robert Browning said 
 that in securing his services ' the new estab- 
 lishment will begin their labours auspiciously 
 indeed, associating themselves, as they will, 
 1 See p. 20.
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 49 
 
 with a gentleman whose literary ability is 
 commensurate with his artistic discrimination 
 and may I venture to add 1 ? with every 
 advantage of bearing and manner that should 
 accompany these.' Mr. Walter Pater ex- 
 pressed the high opinion he had been led to 
 form of his ability and accomplishments. Mr. 
 Frederick Wedmore bore testimony not only 
 to his general knowledge of art and sympathy 
 with it, but to his business qualifications and 
 to the order and exactitude which showed 
 itself in the arrangement of his own collection 
 of prints. Mr. Skelton said it would be diffi- 
 cult to find a candidate better fitted for the 
 post, in respect of his being at once a critic, a 
 historical and antiquarian student, and a lover 
 of art. Very similar testimony was borne 
 by many others, among whom may be men- 
 tioned the editors of the Academy, Art Jourtial, 
 and Edinburgh Courant, Sir Noel Paton, Sir 
 George Reid, Professor Robertson Smith, Messrs. 
 S. C. Hall, R. Herdman, R.S.A., A. S. Murray 
 of the British Museum, W. D. Mackay, R.S.A., 
 W. B. Scott, W. E. Lockhart, R.S.A., J. Law- 
 ton Wingate, A.R.S.A., Robert Gibb, R.S.A., 
 etc. etc. With such a consensus of opinion 
 there could be little doubt of the result. He 
 VOL. I. G
 
 50 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 received the appointment, and entered on a 
 sphere of life for which he was eminently fitted, 
 and the duties of which he was so admirably to 
 perform. From a monetary point of view in- 
 deed he did not gain by leaving the Bank, where 
 he had served for seventeen years. He had 
 performed his duties there faithfully and well, 
 as was cheerfully acknowledged by his official 
 superiors ; but there can be no doubt that the 
 work which now opened out to him was of a 
 kind much more fitted to the bent of his mind, 
 and he found it congenial and engrossing. 
 There was much to be done, and he plunged 
 into his new duties with ardour and enthu- 
 siasm. His habits of order and exactitude of 
 which Mr. Wedmore spoke stood him in good 
 stead, while his bright and winning presence 
 made him an acceptable guest in the many 
 houses which he had to visit in the execution 
 of his duties. 
 
 The next few years were full of hard and 
 earnest work. The getting together the 
 nucleus of a collection of Scottish Portraits 
 was no easy task. Many houses had to be 
 visited, owners of pictures interviewed, and 
 letters written, before the walls even of a 
 temporary exhibition room could be furnished.
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 51 
 
 But in the midst of all this he still found time 
 to contribute many articles on subjects of 
 literary and artistic interest to various periodi- 
 cals, besides bringing out a volume on David 
 Scott and his works, which was as successful as 
 his Manson book. He wrote a long and ela- 
 borate series of articles for the Courant on the 
 Loan Exhibition of Scottish Portraits held at 
 Edinburgh in 1884 ; and the following year he 
 contributed two thoughtful and able critiques 
 on 'Marius the Epicurean' to the Academy 
 and the Courant ; it was gratifying to him to 
 find that these met the approval of the accom- 
 plished author, who on the 24th of March 
 1885 wrote him the following interesting 
 letter : 
 
 * MY DEAR MR. GRAY, It gives me extreme 
 pleasure to know from your generous article 
 on it in the Academy that my new book has 
 not disappointed you one of the most valued 
 of my readers. Of three or four very friendly 
 recognitions of my work, yours is the most 
 complete, and it is a great encouragement to 
 me to receive a criticism so kindly in what is 
 itself so graceful a piece of writing. 
 
 ' I was very glad to find in your letter of
 
 52 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 Feb. 23rd that your office in the National 
 Portrait Gallery was what you had hoped to 
 find it, and wish all prosperity to your own 
 literary and artistic work. Excuse this brief 
 note. It seems gracelessly little after your 
 good work and trouble for me, but I cannot 
 delay these few lines of acknowledgment. 
 Always very sincerely yours, 
 
 * WALTER PATER.' 
 
 In 1887 Gray was able to carry out a long- 
 cherished plan. In the spring of that year he, 
 along with Mr. W. D. M'Kay, R.S.A., made a 
 tour in Italy, visiting Rome, Venice, Florence, 
 and other towns. It was a holiday he enjoyed 
 to the full, and many happy hours were spent 
 in the Picture Galleries hours full not only of 
 enjoyment to himself, but of education and 
 information which were most useful to him in 
 after years. His Journal contains much minute 
 criticism of the things which specially struck 
 him, and is illustrated by many slight sketches 
 which served to fix these more accurately in 
 his memory. Much as he found in the 
 Museums to interest him, it was not in these 
 only that he found pleasure ; the whole country 
 seemed to awake a responsive echo in his
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 53 
 
 breast : the warmth and brightness, the soft 
 and taking manners, and the atmosphere of 
 history which pervaded everything, all appealed 
 to him strongly. The following passage from 
 his Journal shows how acutely observant he 
 was ; and though he once said to the writer 
 of these lines that on the whole he preferred 
 a good picture to a good view, how acutely 
 alive he was to all the small details of colour 
 and form which go to make up a landscape: 
 
 ' Left Home for Florence along with M'Kay 
 at twelve on morning of Monday, 2 1 st March 
 1887. It was a grey day, and we perhaps 
 did not see the country to the very fullest 
 advantage. First the dreary green stretches 
 of Campagna with the Tiber and other smaller 
 and equally yellow and sluggish streams; their 
 sides and the slopes near them gleaming richly 
 here and there with a pure white blossom like 
 that of the black-thorn. 
 
 ' The view of Lake , particularly impres- 
 sive in the effect we had : first the promontory 
 jutting out into the lake with what looked 
 like a square-towered fortress, but might be a 
 church ; and further to the left the domed church 
 
 of , which, as the train passed behind it, 
 
 formed, to the very point of its red-tiled tip,
 
 54 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 the apex of a cone formed by the hill slopes 
 on either side. Then came another wonderful 
 stretch of the lake. A foreground of the very 
 strongest green grass we have ever seen, with 
 the yellow earth telling through it, and turning 
 it to a rich goldenish tone, like an inner glow 
 warming it through and through; a broad 
 stretch of this wonderful green seen between 
 sparse and thinnish brown (warm) tree-stems ; 
 beyond this the pale green of the shallow lake 
 with a hue of yellowish sand showing through 
 it; beyond that again a grey blue line of 
 Appenines, and above them a tender grey sky 
 with a hue or space, showing to left, of faint 
 warmish yellow. Altogether a most strange 
 and unusual combination of colour. Beyond 
 this mulberry trees, and, on conical hills, old 
 towns perched picturesquely as in the old 
 masters' backgrounds.' 
 
 While most of the Journal is filled with 
 critical and careful notes on the pictures in 
 the various Galleries, he was by no means 
 
 X 
 
 indifferent to the beauties of nature and the 
 manners and customs of the people. He 
 visited the graves of Keats at Rome, and 
 Clough at Florence, from the latter of which 
 he plucked some daisies to send to a friend
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 55 
 
 in Edinburgh. One evening at Florence he 
 went with some friends to see a procession in 
 honour of the Morte Gesu, and describes it 
 as follows : 
 
 ' A most picturesque scene ; the people very 
 quiet and reverent, a long procession carrying 
 an image of the dead Christ, the instruments 
 of the Passion, and the Madonna. Many of 
 them in white surplices and white handkerchiefs 
 wound round their heads. Many girls with 
 them carrying lighted candles. Drew up on 
 the Square of the Ponte di Certosa, [?] and saw 
 it passing. A glorious moonlight night; great 
 variety of colour in the sky, the brilliancy of 
 the moonlight bringing out the local colour 
 of the tiles, etc., as I had never observed it 
 before. The yellow light of the candles with 
 which the windows and fronts were illuminated 
 turned the white walls to a warm mellow, 
 almost rosy colour, and brought out by the 
 opposition of their yellow flame the full dark 
 blue of the night sky. Our first real glimpse 
 of the ways of the Italian peasantry, and alto- 
 gether very memorable.' 
 
 One other extract from the Journal descrip- 
 tive of his last day in Italy is too delightful 
 to be passed over. The travellers are at
 
 56 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 Bergamo, and are seeking rest after seeing the 
 sights and galleries : 
 
 'Returned to the "Trattoria Giardinetto," 
 just outside the Porto S. Agostino, where I 
 am now writing with a glorious view of the 
 Alps before me to north and south over the 
 red red roofs and white walls of the town, 
 from a terrace shaded by great laurels, and 
 with a vine trellis just breaking into tender 
 green. Roses and peony-roses ready to blossom, 
 and a fountain spouting pleasantly in the air, 
 its rounded basin raised a foot or two on 
 a single column, and planted with forget- 
 me-nots in rich blue flower. Watched the 
 view, and then walked down through the full- 
 leafed avenue from market-place to station, 
 the hills to the east, seen through the green 
 foliage, tinted on their snow with a lovely 
 rose-colour. Returned by railway ; two clear- 
 cut featured black-robed priests busied in the 
 evening office of their breviary, and noble-faced 
 woman with thin cheeks, straight nose, very 
 short upper lip, white hair brushed from the 
 fine forehead, and covered in nun-like fashion 
 by a black woollen mantilla. Sunset of the 
 full yellow and ruddy sky slumbrous and rich 
 of hue with intensest purple and ruddy clouds
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 57 
 
 (like those of Millais in "Autumn Leaves" 
 and "Sir Isumbras"), the great mass of Monte 
 Eosa, and the pyramid of the Matterhorn, 
 pale delicate blue against it ; and before we 
 reached Milan the steadfast stars had taken 
 gradual and quiet possession of the heavens, 
 and the poplars were flickering like grey and 
 visionary shadows above the darker breadth 
 of fields.' 
 
 His fellow-traveller, Mr. M'Kay, has kindly 
 supplied some notes of this tour. He says : 
 'Gray was quite an ideal travelling com- 
 panion ; his knowledge of the cities and towns 
 which we visited seemed inexhaustible, also of 
 the origin and development of the various Art 
 Schools of Italy. He had with him a small 
 volume or couple of volumes by J. Addington 
 Symonds concerning some of the , smaller 
 towns we visited. These he would read by 
 snatches as we travelled, and be ready with all 
 requisite information on our arrival at Verona, 
 Bergamo, or Siena, as the case might be. 
 
 'Though fragile in appearance, Gray was 
 light and active, and the amount of work he 
 went through in Rome, Florence, and Venice 
 was very great, as his notebooks well attest. 
 We were both of us light on our feet; and 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 58 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 I sometimes recall with a smile our being 
 called on to moderate our pace while walking 
 along the Corso with a young Italian doctor. 
 "It's easy seeing you two are from the North," 
 he said, after keeping up with us for a while, 
 " but just look how easily the folks about you 
 are taking it ! " 
 
 ' His method on entering a church or art 
 gallery was to take a hasty walk all round ; 
 then, having ascertained what the place con- 
 tained, he would start, notebook in hand, 
 writing diligently, and embodying the principal 
 characteristics of the picture or statue in 
 wonderfully few but very graphic words. 
 Sometimes he would come to me and consult 
 me on some point, or ask me to supplement 
 his notes with a rough sketch. 
 
 ' The galleries of most of the Koman palaces 
 contain comparatively few fine pictures ; and I 
 can remember how, as we passed by scores of 
 worthless canvasses, he used to sigh for "a 
 judicious fire." In Home our great disappoint- 
 ment was not being able to see the finest of 
 the private collections, the Borghese Palace 
 being closed owing to the death of a Princess 
 of that house. 
 
 ' Toward the end of our tour in Venice
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 59 
 
 he seemed to be feeling the strain of his 
 incessant activity, so much so that he used to 
 go to bed very early, between eight and nine 
 o'clock, so as to be fresh for the work of the 
 following day. 
 
 'He was always on the alert for anything 
 bearing on Scottish portraiture, and both in 
 Rome and Florence he seemed to light on a 
 good deal to interest him in that way.' 
 
 He certainly enjoyed this experience of 
 travel to the full, and Mr. M'Kay adds an 
 interesting reminiscence of their last day in 
 Italy : ' He seemed to revel in the glorious 
 sunshine of that day, and I can remember 
 how as we lingered over our Chianti under 
 the trellised vines at the restaurant where we 
 had lunched at Bergamo, with the glorious 
 Lombard Plain spread out before us, he said to 
 me in the fulness of his heart, " Surely life has 
 nothing better to give," or words to that effect.' 
 
 His holiday over, Gray got back to work 
 again, and threw himself into it with char- 
 acteristic vigour and enthusiasm, and with 
 a mind enlarged and cultivated by his ex- 
 periences of travel. The Courant, to which 
 he had previously contributed so much, having 
 ceased to exist, he transferred his pen to the
 
 60 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 columns of the Scottish Leader, a new Radical 
 paper conducted with much enterprise. It is 
 almost needless to state that Literature and Art, 
 and not Politics, occupied his attention ; in the 
 latter indeed he was but slightly interested, 
 and never professed any strong opinions ; the 
 strife of party and contention for power did 
 not, as may well be imagined, appeal to his 
 quiet and fastidious tastes. One of his earliest 
 contributions to the Leader was a series of 
 articles on the Art Treasures of Scotland, 
 the first set of seven papers being on New- 
 battle Abbey. This was a kind of work 
 peculiarly suited to his powers of graphic de- 
 scription and critical exposition, and his remarks 
 on the family portraits and objects of art con- 
 tained in the house are full of vivacity and 
 interest. The next set of articles, which treated 
 of Keir, were equally interesting in the detailed 
 account which they gave of the treasures which 
 had been from time to time accumulated by 
 Sir William Stirling Maxwell and his ancestors. 
 The third and last of the series which he con- 
 tributed to the Leader was on Penicuik House; 
 he evidently found this descriptive work ex- 
 tremely congenial to him, appealing as it did 
 both to his sense of artistic beauty and histor-
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 61 
 
 ical association. We find accordingly that he 
 wrote similar papers for the Scottish Art Review 
 in 1889 on Pinkie House, 1 and for the Art Re- 
 view in the following year a set upon Hopetoun. 
 Immediately following this the editor of the 
 Magazine of Art commissioned him to go to 
 Warwick Castle and write a description of 
 that noble building. Gray was always singu- 
 larly reticent about the visits which he made 
 to the great mansions of the country, as he 
 had not a particle of snobbery in his composi- 
 tion ; but when he could be brought to talk 
 about it at all, it was evident that there were 
 few visits which he enjoyed more than this. 
 His host and hostess did the honours of the 
 place delightfully, and were much pleased with 
 the wide culture and unpretending manners 
 of their guest. There is a letter from the 
 Countess in which she says of the article on 
 the Castle : ' The descriptions are so charm- 
 ingly written, and bring it all before one so 
 wonderfully, I who know it so well feel as if I 
 had never read so picturesque or so faithful a 
 description of it before. I seem to hear the 
 sound of the waterfall and to smell the cool 
 damp moss in the drive.' 
 
 1 See vol. ii. p. 71.
 
 62 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 When the article ultimately appeared, he 
 was somewhat disappointed to find it much 
 cut down and quite spoiled. This was the 
 last article on a Mansion House and its contents 
 that he wrote ; but his busy pen continued to 
 be busier than ever. He had quite earned a 
 reputation as a graceful and brilliant writer 
 and an art critic. Merely to enumerate the 
 articles he wrote and the journals for which he 
 wrote them would be to occupy an undue 
 amount of space. The Scottish Leader, of course, 
 had a large proportion of his contributions, 
 but he was kept much occupied in writing 
 biographical notices for Chambers' 's Cydopcedia ; 
 amongst other periodicals to which he from 
 time to time contributed may be mentioned, 
 the Century Guild Hobby Horse, the Scots 
 Magazine, the Social Pioneer, the Art Journal, 
 Magazine of Art, the Bailie, the Bookman, 
 Good Words, etc. To the Social Pioneer he 
 contributed a set of papers on the Tudor 
 Exhibition of 1890; and for another magazine 
 which has also gone the same way as the last 
 mentioned, the Children's Guide, he wrote a 
 charming series of papers on the ' Children of 
 the Painters.' They are full of art criticism, 
 but criticism of a sort which would make it
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 63 
 
 intelligible to juvenile readers; it is beauti- 
 fully simple, but never infantile, and it will 
 not be surprising if an art critic of some future 
 day acknowledges that he owes his first intro- 
 duction to the subject to its lucid exposition 
 by the author of these papers. 1 
 
 While working at the description of the Art 
 Treasures in Penicuik House, Gray had been 
 shown a curious family relic in the shape of 
 an autobiography of Sir John Clerk, one of 
 the Barons of Exchequer. In 1892 he edited 
 this for the Scottish History Society, and the 
 volume proved one of the most popular of all 
 their valuable publications. From the number 
 of allusions to different persons which occur 
 throughout the biography, it was no light task 
 to undertake to identify each individual re- 
 ferred to, but with indefatigable industry the 
 editor set himself to the work. There is 
 hardly a name which he did not run tp earth, 
 and about which he did not embody some 
 information in a footnote. There are several 
 hundred notes, biographical, historical, and 
 topographical, and they, together with an 
 admirably compiled preface, form as thorough 
 and complete a setting to the text as could 
 1 See vol. ii. p. 117.
 
 64 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 possibly be desired. He had, no doubt, the 
 assistance of Mr. T. G. Law and Sheriff Scott 
 Moncrieff, but by far the greater proportion of 
 the work was his, and must have cost him 
 many an hour of tedious investigation ; the 
 result, however, was as complete a picture of 
 life in the first half of the eighteenth century 
 as has ever been given to the public. Hardly 
 had he completed this when he commenced 
 researches with the view of writing a mono- 
 graph on James and William Tassie, with 
 a catalogue of their portrait medallions. The 
 Tassie medallions are so widely scattered 
 over the country, though a large collection of 
 them is in the possession of the Board of 
 Manufactures, Edinburgh, that their collec- 
 tion, collation, and identification involved a 
 great deal of arduous work and heavy corre- 
 spondence. The task, however, was done with 
 his usual thoroughness, and the sketch and 
 catalogue appeared early in 1894. This work 
 brought him some reputation not merely in 
 this country, but on the Continent, and in the 
 December following its publication and his 
 own death a very laudatory notice of it 
 appeared in the Parisian journal L'Art, from 
 the pen of M. Paul Leroi, in which he expresses
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 65 
 
 a wish that the volume should be translated 
 into French, its artistic and historical interest 
 being so great. The last paper which he wrote 
 for the Magazine of Art was one upon the 
 Foulis Academy and James Tassie, which ap- 
 peared in that Journal very shortly before the 
 death of the author. The very last literary 
 work which he did was to write a Preface 
 to the Catalogue of the paintings by his 
 friend Mr. J. Lawton "Wing'ale, E.S.A., which 
 were exhibited in Edinburgh in the spring of 
 last year. It is a most delicate and subtle piece 
 of art criticism, and in it there is no trace of 
 failing power, no hint of the shadow that was 
 then so close behind him, and which was so 
 soon to still that busy and fertile brain for 
 ever. 
 
 In the hasty summary of John Gray's work 
 which I have attempted in the foregoing pages, 
 I have not alluded to one thing about which, 
 if he could be said to be proud about anything, 
 he was justly proud. It had much personal 
 interest for me the writer of these lines as, 
 though I had known Gray for many years 
 previously, it brought me into closer contact 
 with him than I had ever been before, and 
 forms one of the sweetest reminiscences of my 
 
 VOL. I. i
 
 66 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 intercourse with him. This was the Heraldic 
 Exhibition held at Edinburgh in 1891, and of 
 which Gray was the originator and enthusiastic 
 organiser. I may perhaps be permitted to 
 devote a page or two to the story of the 
 inception and carrying out of the idea. 
 
 When I was appointed Lyon King of Arms 
 in 1890, among the many kind congratulations 
 sent me by friends, not the least warm were 
 those from John Gray. I wish I could quote 
 from two charming letters I received from him 
 at this time, they are so characteristic and so 
 kind. One thing, however, I soon found out, 
 that he was a devoted student of Heraldry, 
 though, as he himself said, he looked at it more 
 as an art than as a science that he was more 
 interested in its decorative potentialities than 
 in its genealogical meaning. This may have 
 been so, but Gray's genealogical knowledge 
 might have fitted out many a man with more 
 pretensions to have studied that subject. As 
 for Heraldry, he was quite enamoured of it; 
 he set himself to get together a good heraldic 
 library, and spared neither pains nor money 
 for this object. Many were the rare and 
 valuable books which he picked up, and at 
 the time of his death he had an important
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 67 
 
 collection on the subject, all of which, with 
 characteristic thoughtfulness, he bequeathed to 
 the library of the Lyon Office. As an example 
 of his determination to secure everything that 
 was good, it may be mentioned that he was 
 one of the very few men in Great Britain 
 possibly the only one who possessed a copy 
 of M. Victor Bouton's large hand-painted 
 edition of the Armorial de Gelre, and of the 
 almost equally large and uncommon repro- 
 duction of the Groningen Armorial. The 
 acquisition of books like these afforded him 
 intense pleasure, and he appreciated to the 
 full their masterly freedom of style and 
 glorious combinations of colour. He had a 
 true conception of the right spirit of heraldic 
 art, and the emblazonings of the arms in the 
 Lyon Register to-day owe not a little to his 
 assistance and kindly advice. Conspicuous 
 also among the decorations of his own taste- 
 fully arranged rooms were a series of coats 
 of arms taken from examples in the Armorial 
 de Gelre, cut out of sheet lead and coloured 
 in their proper tinctures, while in his windows 
 were hung quaint reproductions in coloured 
 glass of old heraldic achievements. 
 
 Such being his tastes in this direction, I
 
 68 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 welcomed with pleasure a proposal which he 
 made, that a Heraldic Exhibition should be 
 got up in view of the meeting of the Royal 
 Archaeological Institute at Edinburgh in the 
 summer of 1891. Circumstances were not 
 indeed favourable to the holding of any 
 exhibition just at that time, but the attempt 
 was made, and, thanks to Gray's indomitable 
 energy and perseverance, it proved a complete 
 success. A guarantee fund was got up, not of 
 any large amount, but which, owing to the 
 personal labour bestowed on the preliminary 
 work, and the careful economy exercised in 
 the expenditure, proved more than sufficient 
 for the object in view. Gray did not spare 
 himself in the carrying out of his favourite 
 project : I fear indeed he somewhat overtaxed 
 his strength in his devotion to the work, and 
 his steadfast resolution to delegate nothing to 
 paid labour which could be carried out other- 
 wise. I shall not soon forget these long 
 spring and summer days of 1891, when he 
 toiled at the thousand and one details in- 
 cidental to the getting up of the Exhibition. 
 He felt, however, that he was amply com- 
 pensated for his efforts by the result. For 
 three months the Exhibition was open to
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AflD ART 69 
 
 the public free of charge, and the many 
 wonderfully interesting and artistic objects 
 there shown were quite a revelation to the 
 thousands of people who availed themselves 
 of the opportunity to see them. His labours 
 did not end with the mere collection of the 
 exhibits and the return of them to their 
 respective owners : he chose with great dis- 
 crimination those objects which he thought 
 should be put on permanent record, and 
 superintended along with his friends, Mr. 
 W. K. Macdonald and Mr. A. W. Inglis, the 
 production of an Illustrated Catalogue, which 
 is now one of the most valuable items in a 
 heraldic collector's library. He wrote also 
 in the Scotsman the greater number of a series 
 of articles descriptive of the Exhibition. 
 
 I have endeavoured in the foregoing pages 
 to give a general indication of the variety 
 and extent of John Gray's work. Had his 
 life been prolonged, there can be little doubt 
 that he would have made a still greater mark 
 in that line of literary work on which he had 
 entered. Of his critical powers I shall leave 
 others, more qualified than I am, to speak; but 
 it is clear to the most casual reader of what 
 he wrote that he not only possessed the pen
 
 70 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 of a ready writer, but that he had the faculty 
 of expressing himself in language which was 
 at once rhythmic and graceful, and the capacity 
 to choose the right word and to use it in the 
 right place. He had an inborn love for art 
 and poetry and all that was beautiful, a love 
 which he fostered with sedulous care, and 
 made it not only a source of pleasure to 
 himself, but of use to others. The powers 
 which he had thus cultivated had reached, 
 at his death, a height which gave him a 
 recognised position as an authority on his 
 special subjects. The study and diligence of 
 his more youthful years were bringing forth 
 fruit ; and it is no breach of confidence to say 
 that within the last few days of his life an 
 offer was about to be made him of a post 
 which would not only have been very ad- 
 vantageous to him from a pecuniary point 
 of view, but would have afforded him a 
 more extended sphere for the exercise of 
 his special abilities than that in which he 
 then was. 
 
 This, however, was not to be : the end 
 came unexpectedly. After one week of 
 suffering, which, though severe, did not till 
 latterly excite the alarm of his friends, the
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 71 
 
 end came with startling suddenness. Though 
 tended through his illness by careful hands, 
 he was, at the moment when the call of the 
 Master came, absolutely alone ; but we may 
 be certain that no spirit ever left its frail 
 tenement of clay with greater certainty of 
 being greeted with the ' Well done, good and 
 faithful servant.' 
 
 He died on the 22nd of March 1894, and 
 five days afterwards he was laid to rest by a 
 company of mourners, among whom were 
 included some of the most distinguished leaders 
 of thought and culture in Scotland. His loss, 
 indeed, was felt to be a personal one by all 
 with whom he had come in contact during his 
 life; and many were the expressions of the 
 esteem in which he had been held, and of the 
 affection which his gentle nature and sweet- 
 ness of disposition had evoked. Of these I 
 may be permitted to quote that of Sir George 
 Scharf, the Director and Keeper of the 
 National Portrait Gallery in London, which 
 he contributed to the Athencmm of June 1 6, 
 1894: 
 
 'Whilst mourning the loss of my most highly 
 valued friend, John Miller Gray, of Edinburgh, 
 a fellow-worker in the field of portraiture and
 
 72 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 historical research, and a most genial com- 
 panion, who died suddenly in March last, I 
 read with considerable emotion a letter from 
 him in the Athenaeum of April 14th, which 
 seemed to me as a voice from another world. 
 It was really written during his last illness, 
 and a reference to me in that letter showed 
 that my name was on his dying lips. 
 
 ' I now wish, before it is too late, in common 
 with a host of other friends, who have already 
 borne testimony to his high worth and gener- 
 ous unselfish nature, to record my full sense of 
 his rare qualifications for the duties to which 
 circumstances had fortunately led him, as 
 Curator of the Scottish National Portrait 
 Gallery. Gray was devoted to history. He 
 had a strong natural perception of form (an 
 essential qualification for the identification of 
 likeness), a quick memory, with indomitable 
 energy and sagacity in penetrating to the 
 origin and groundwork of whatever came 
 before him. He was well able to sift evidence. 
 His industry and extensive reading were shown 
 in the varied and numerous reviews which he 
 contributed to the leading periodicals both of 
 London and Edinburgh, many containing 
 monographs on portrait collections in ancestral
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 73 
 
 houses; and his essays on Burns and the 
 Tassies will be constantly referred to. 
 
 ' He completed an excellent Catalogue of the 
 Loan Collection of Portraits at Edinburgh in 
 1885. One of his most useful and character- 
 istic productions was his history of the Scottish 
 National Portrait Gallery, opened in state at 
 Edinburgh, July 15, 1889, which was printed 
 in 1891, with illustrations. He there gave a 
 clear account of the origin of the Gallery and 
 its progress, fostered by the munificence of an 
 anonymous benefactor, whose honoured name, 
 John R. Findlay, was first revealed on the 
 occasion of the state inauguration. My high 
 appreciation of Mr. J. M. Gray's qualifications 
 had long determined me to endeavour to obtain 
 his co-operation in carrying out the arduous 
 task which still remains before me of arranging 
 the portraits on the walls of the new building, 
 now nearing completion, in the neighbourhood 
 of Charing Cross. Mr. Gray had already 
 become acquainted with my wishes, and I had 
 every reason to hope that arrangements might 
 have been made for realisation of the scheme. 
 
 ' Gray was of a responsive disposition, and 
 always ready to impart information to others 
 from his abundant stores of knowledge. I feel 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 74 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 his loss as that of a younger brother who 
 would most ably have assisted in carrying out 
 the projects I had in view. 
 
 'GEORGE SCHARF.' 
 
 No better testimony than the above could be 
 given, not only to the esteem, but the affection 
 which Gray inspired in those who were best 
 qualified to judge of his abilities in the line 
 which he had specially marked out for himself. 
 His friend, Mr. Frederick Wedmore, penned a 
 graceful tribute to his memory in the columns 
 of the Academy. The estimate of his character 
 by an equally dear friend and a distinguished 
 writer, Mr. Skelton, may fittingly close this 
 brief record of Gray's life-work : 
 
 ' I had a true regard for Gray. During the 
 last years of his life he was often with us both 
 at the Hermitage and in the Highlands. He 
 was a most pleasant inmate, easy, unassuming, 
 unexacting. He had very considerable ability, 
 and his industry was unremitting. He had 
 indeed no aptitude for mercantile business; 
 and as a Bank clerk he must have suffered pro- 
 longed martyrdom. But he escaped from the 
 slavery in course of time, and by great good luck 
 found the work which suited him. By great
 
 WORK IN LITERATURE AND ART 75 
 
 good luck ; for his tastes were rather uncom- 
 mon. He was keenly interested in literature ; 
 but the books that he most relished, the men 
 he most admired, could hardly be called popu- 
 lar. While the readers of the latest sensational 
 and not particularly edifying romance of so- 
 ciety are numbered by thousands, the readers 
 of Pater and Eossetti, and even of Browning, 
 are numbered by tens. But it was the pre- 
 cision, the exactitude, of his information on all 
 the subjects, literary or artistic, which came 
 home to him that impressed one most. His 
 area might be somewhat limited ; but within 
 that area he had few rivals. He went direct 
 to the fountain-head; he took nothing on 
 hearsay, or at second-hand ; he was a born 
 investigator. The spirit, moreover, in which 
 he worked was admirable. It was the spirit 
 of the pure student. The material interests in 
 which we worldlings are more or less immersed 
 had no attraction for Gray. He was never 
 mercenary, never scheming, never sordid. So 
 long as his simple wants were met, he desired 
 nothing more, except what might aid him in 
 the pursuit of his craft. I sometimes compared 
 him in my mind to the mediaeval monk who 
 spent his life in illuminating a missal. Other
 
 76 JOHN MILLER GKAY 
 
 men might spend their lives in money-mak- 
 ing; others in politics or sport; others with 
 wives and families about them. But this by 
 no means ascetic monk lived a solitary life ; 
 his books were his family ; to the line of 
 research which he had deliberately selected he 
 devoted himself heart and soul And to the 
 end he was true to his vocation. Because he 
 was constitutionally and wisely frugal " mag- 
 num vectigal est parsimonia" he was able 
 on a very slender income to gratify his finer 
 tastes, and to devote himself exclusively and 
 with an enthusiasm which never flagged to the 
 discharge of duties which, pecuniarily at least, 
 brought no very adequate recompense. He 
 died a comparatively young man, with his work 
 unfinished ; but his was a frail body defi- 
 cient in the coarser fibre which lasts and his 
 death can hardly be said to have taken those 
 who knew him well by surprise.'
 
 RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 BY MICHAEL FIELD
 
 RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 ~IT7"E first met John Gray for a brief hour 
 when he visited Clifton in the spring 
 of 1886 ; but it was not until the autumn of 
 the same year, when we went north, that our 
 friendship with him really began. 
 
 We had only the slightest knowledge of 
 Edinburgh ; with an exquisite chivalry he did 
 the honours of a host for his city, and brought 
 out, by a kind of welcoming tact, all the love- 
 liness of its site, and the vitality of its past. 
 He was never a guide, from the moment of our 
 first walk down the High Street to the 
 moment when we explored our last Wynd : 
 never wearisome nor over emphatic, he 
 directed the spirit of what we saw to our 
 sympathy. Since then among Scottish people 
 we have often found a gift for drawing out of 
 a place delightful entertainment for strangers ; 
 but John Gray added to this gift the justness 
 of a trained eye, the charm of a delicately 
 enjoying temperament.
 
 80 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 Our friendship with him was formed as we 
 wandered about Edinburgh, and was carried 
 further by several visits to his rooms at 25 
 York Place, where The Germ was put in our 
 hands, The Defence of Guinevere praised with 
 zeal, Browning read aloud, and all questions 
 that had to do with the literature of the 
 middle of the century, and the art springing 
 from Pre-raphaelitism discussed merrily, and 
 always with a bias on his part toward appreci- 
 ation. He was pre-eminently an enjoy er, who 
 persuaded his friends to share his glee by the 
 infection of his own excitement. He gave 
 them a relish for his choice, whether it were 
 theirs or not. ' I should like you to enjoy the 
 same joy as myself,' he once confessed. 
 Although too finely strung to be secure 
 against sadness, and much too frail in health 
 not to be physically despondent, when he was 
 speaking of books, of pictures and portraits he 
 was jocund ; his eyes would dance, a boyish 
 chuckle would often be the spontaneous ex- 
 pression of his triumph at having bought a 
 treasure, or of his mere abounding admiration 
 for a good verse in a poem, for character or 
 quaintness in a design. 
 
 His room was like encountering his person-
 
 RECOLLECTIONS 81 
 
 ality in an outer court ; it was so much him- 
 self full of his own qualities, his sense of 
 order, his daintiness, his love of sun-faded 
 colour, of poetry, of research, and of the 
 graphic arts. From his table-desk he could 
 see or handle objects singularly interpretive of 
 his affections and tastes; no one could sit 
 down among them without recognising that he 
 was in the home of a man who delighted to 
 look long at the portraits of his friends, to 
 take up and hold communion with his favourite 
 authors, and to watch the visitings of the light 
 on objects he loved. 
 
 To realise, to get into sympathy with such a 
 life, we cannot do better than turn to certain 
 quiet pictures of St. Jerome, with his lion, his 
 Vulgate and its appurtenances on the rock, 
 and, in the distance, a crucifix. John Gray, 
 it is true, was a town solitary, while St. Jerome 
 belonged to the desert and open air; their 
 resemblance lies in their devoutness, their 
 passion, and their reticence. If they prayed, 
 their prayer was to one in secret; if they 
 wrote, they wrote to give glory to names not 
 their own. We cannot extract a creed from 
 such men ; we divine what is precious to them 
 and step aside from it with instinctive rever- 
 
 VOL. i. L
 
 82 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 ence. John Gray never discussed religion nor 
 poetry in the abstract : he was too full of faith 
 and enjoying energy to lay bare the origin of 
 his spiritual or aesthetic emotions. 
 
 When at last we left Edinburgh, we left a 
 friend behind us, to whom we wrote, and from 
 whom we heard with more or less frequency. 
 His letters, like his room, had a very intimate 
 resemblance to himself orderly handwriting, 
 very small and very legible ; a crisp, business- 
 like statement of the subject about which he 
 was writing, that yet in a few happy words 
 here and there vibrated with interest or 
 became sportive, or confiding, or affectionate. 
 
 In the spring of the next year (1887) he 
 was studying Browning's Parleyings, and wrote : 
 * As yet I have not been able to read it very 
 often, not above seventeen times or so, 
 shall we say] When I have gone over it 
 even till the seventieth-times-seven, I may 
 then feel I have got it all.' 
 
 This little extract is typical of the persever- 
 ance with which he read the authors he loved. 
 That long, steady attention the eye has to learn 
 before it can become an organ of art criticism, 
 was used by him also in appreciating literature. 
 He read and re-read and read again * for the
 
 RECOLLECTIONS 83 
 
 very often again,' as he put it the printed 
 words, the symbols of the writer's mind, just 
 as he looked into the forms and colour of an 
 artist's work in a gallery, with the same 
 patient exhaustiveness, and, stranger still, 
 with the same vivacity. There are few, 
 very few readers who have this method; 
 the printed page rarely commands fidelity 
 and receptive devotion such as he gave 
 it. And he was no commentator; he did 
 not compare, analyse ; he only looked into a 
 book as into a picture, that his enjoyment 
 might be clear and apprehending. 
 
 We have dwelt on his power of joy and on 
 the attention he gave to books, because with- 
 out doubt our friendship with him deepened 
 largely through his possessing these two 
 qualities. If we are to speak of him as we 
 really know him, it is impossible to avoid 
 speaking of ourselves. 
 
 He enjoyed our best work almost as we 
 enjoyed it in the making ; nevertheless, if what 
 we had written gave him no pleasure, he owned 
 it without hesitation. ' See how frankly and 
 severely I speak, as though the piece were 
 written by myself. Could friendship do 
 more? ' Yet always he made the effort to enjoy,
 
 84 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 believing that the critic should strive to be 
 in harmony with the aim of the artist, which 
 is from the first to embody pleasure. 
 
 Through the eight years of our friendship 
 he welcomed warmly and read our volumes 
 completely. When we met him he had already 
 reviewed a play of ours, Brutus Ultor, without a 
 suspicion of its authorship, in a review that, 
 as usual with his criticism, was chiefly a record 
 of the elements of pleasure he had found in 
 the book. During our visit to Edinburgh he 
 discovered the real authorship ; and from that 
 time received copies of all we published, and 
 reviewed each work either privately in a letter 
 or in one of the journals. His spirited in- 
 terest was very delightful. His good wishes 
 (as he himself said) ' were as prayers.' 
 
 There is no question that, in purely literary 
 criticism, though often fervid, he was also 
 restricted; and though most authors brought 
 to him a special kind of pleasure, he rarely, if 
 ever, considered them in their relation to their 
 age or to other ages. His own acute, subjective 
 enjoyment was what gave life to his reviews ; 
 his sympathies were more liberal than his 
 culture, more profound than his powers of 
 thought.
 
 RECOLLECTIONS 85 
 
 In the autumn of 1887 we were again in 
 Edinburgh, on the track of Queen Mary ; and 
 now, for the first time in our friendship, we 
 came to understand John Gray's minute know- 
 ledge of Scottish portraiture, to discover his 
 power of tracing essential qualities of likeness 
 under divergences of treatment that simply 
 bewildered us. We found he could make his 
 special study alive for others, just as before he 
 had made his knowledge of his city inspiring. 
 And he spared no pains to help ; yet what he 
 could do was always done so unobtrusively that 
 it did not seem like help it came to one as 
 if from his very nature, with the ease of an 
 instinct. 
 
 On this visit, too, he joined us in several 
 expeditions to castles and towns connected 
 with Queen Mary's life. Out in the country 
 we found him an exhilarating companion. 
 That delicious prick frost gives to one's 
 energies when one starts on a walk was very 
 like the effect of John Gray's light-hearted- 
 ness ; his playful expectation of adventure, the 
 way he rubbed his hands and looked at every- 
 thing as if it were a treat, his impetuous 
 movements, provoking emulation all these 
 things gave point to a walk in his society.
 
 86 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 On one occasion he even insisted on enjoying 
 a rainy day at Borthwick Castle. ' I like it,' 
 he said, when we objected that it was chilly 
 and miserable ; ' Oh, I like it; ' and all through 
 the sopping wet he greeted the beauty of berry, 
 of autumn leaf, of streamlet, or of the least 
 gleam across the clouds. 
 
 A letter received from him early next year 
 speaks, for the first time in our correspondence, 
 of a visit to Robert Browning. His attach- 
 ment to the ' brave and splendid grey-beard 
 singer' had from the first been a bond of 
 friendship between us, and some of the pleas- 
 antest moments we had together were those 
 when he read Browning's lyrics with a pas- 
 sionate restraint in his voice that accorded 
 well with the tension of the verse. He speaks 
 of this visit as most pleasant : ' They ' (i.e. 
 Mr. Browning and his sister) 'received me 
 quite like an old friend ; " with open arms " is 
 hardly a figure of speech.' 
 
 By the middle of June (1888) he was 
 settled in his new rooms at 28 Gayfield Square. 
 It was very much to him to find that they 
 looked to the south-west on a public garden, 
 ' with an exquisitely kept space of grass, and 
 with many willows and a red hawthorn lush,
 
 RECOLLECTIONS 87 
 
 large, old, red you may call it, or at least 
 ruddy-pink, say at least, the colour running up 
 among its witheredness like a blush over a 
 wrinkled, weather-browned face.' 
 
 This impression distantly recalls the red haw- 
 thorn passage in Pater's "Child in the House"; 
 and undoubtedly the two men whom we could 
 see most continuously at work in their influence 
 on John Gray's life, were Robert Browning 
 and Walter Pater; one appealed to his fer- 
 vour, his manliness, his religious faith; the 
 other cultivated his deep but rather narrow 
 sense of beauty, and increased its responsive- 
 ness in many directions. 
 
 The year 1889 was to show us that our 
 friend could trust death without fear. We 
 had, during the summer, to wrestle with 
 sorrow and loss in our own home; and his 
 sympathy made him write of intimate, spiritual 
 hopes he had never before acknowledged so 
 freely : ' Yes, it is a grand and solemn thing to 
 have struggled out of the cramping, torturing 
 shell of mundane conditions and got into 
 reality. What a process it is ! but when it is 
 finally over and done with, surely then 
 
 " Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail 
 Or knock the breast nothing but well and fair, 
 And what may quiet us ! "
 
 88 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 ' Some of us, I know, would gladly have got 
 over with it all too, with death become a 
 mere educative experience of the past (like 
 some of the terrible things of the past that we 
 look back upon now, with a grave smile, as we 
 remember them), and with around us in the 
 present nothing but sweet, fit, fostering con- 
 ditions, for the development of our right 
 humanity. " Give us the glory of going on," 
 must be our deepest prayer to the Power who 
 has " loved us into being," who has made us, 
 with no will of ours, and pressed us on irre- 
 sistibly into existence ; and in the future may 
 we never go back, never become less ourselves 
 than we are now, but more and more our- 
 selves, developing our own individuality and 
 particular genius, as parts of a great whole, 
 members moved by one spirit.' 
 
 The year ended with the death of Eobert 
 Browning; and again John Gray's faith, 
 which was so much of the same muscle as the 
 dead poet's, proved its strength. 
 
 'As for the Abbey and its burying,' he 
 writes, ' I don't care a single straw one way or 
 the other. Let the dead bury their dead just 
 exactly as they please ; for my own part, with 
 the lifted wings of my most strenuous aspir-
 
 RECOLLECTIONS 89 
 
 ations, I shall follow the risen man into the 
 celestial spaces.' 
 
 More than a year before he had written con- 
 cerning Matthew Arnold's death : ' But don't 
 finish your love for Matthew by loving him 
 "in nature" only. That love won't carry 
 far. Whatever in him nature had sway over 
 isn't very human or very lovable by this 
 time it's getting made into daisies and 
 buttercups with much celerity, and you won't 
 find it ennobling to culminate by loving them 
 because they are all that is left of Matthew. 
 No, I came on a thing in the writings of an 
 old astrologer just to-night, which hits the 
 thing straighter. He is speaking of the 
 misfortune that attended the mother of our 
 Queen, Henrietta Maria, and came even on all 
 countries that she visited ; and he goes on, 
 "True it is, and I do very well know, that 
 some people born under an unfortunate con- 
 stellation of heaven (without this, that they live 
 above nature and live wholly in the spirit), are 
 so extremely unsuccessful in everything they 
 undertake," etc. etc. No, nature is just a 
 flattering Jael that brings you " milk and butter 
 in a lordly dish ; " and when she has got you 
 thoroughly pleased and placid, hammers a ten- 
 
 VOL. i. M
 
 90 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 penny nail through your temples, through 
 every bit of you she can possibly get at. No, 
 I have no ultimate trust in nature at all.' 
 
 In the autumn of this sad year we had 
 been as usual to Edinburgh, and found John 
 Gray established in his Portrait Gallery, to 
 which he had been giving all his energies for 
 months. And the pleasantly-lighted room 
 bore unemphatic but unmistakable witness 
 to the devotion, knowledge, good taste, and 
 patience of its curator. He put into the 
 public Gallery something of that same self- 
 expressiveness he put into his own rooms ; 
 it was strange that so quiet a personality 
 should have such a power of adhering to all 
 that it dealt with, but the power was cer- 
 tainly there, and was due in great measure 
 to the independence, the reality of his tastes, 
 a truth to himself in all he purchased, 
 handled, or expressed. In 1890 we missed 
 his spring visit to town, and in the autumn 
 we did not visit Scotland. Most of this year 
 he was absorbed in arranging the Heraldic 
 Exhibition ; and, as he asks in a letter, * What 
 have poets to do with Heraldry?' We on 
 our part were absorbed in the study of Italian 
 Art, for which he never showed more than a
 
 RECOLLECTIONS 91 
 
 rather distant love. Therefore 1890 was a 
 year in which our friendship was stationary ; 
 that gave us none of these mutual discoveries 
 that feed our pleasure in each other. 
 
 But when, next year, we were imprisoned in 
 a German Fever Hospital, we found that John 
 Gray could be as brave a helper in illness as 
 in bereavement. 'To the poet there are 
 more moving and intimate teachers than even 
 these/ he wrote, referring to our disappoint- 
 ment in being banished from the Dresden 
 Gallery and Opera House, ' if we will but let 
 the Power that rules our human life work his 
 perfect will with us. Let us build altars to 
 the beautiful necessity, that is apt to look 
 so terrible of aspect. Let us let all the waves 
 and billows go over us, and emerge all the 
 stronger, also all the braver, for the shock, 
 convinced that whatever Life says to us, it at 
 any rate speaks no word of fear.' John Gray 
 could always write the serious words that the 
 situation needed ; and then he would vary his 
 fellow-feeling by a kind of discreet banter, only 
 safe when tenderly directed, but always safe 
 from him. In the matter of service, what- 
 ever he could do was done unobtrusively, 
 and if possible, continuously. For instance,
 
 92 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 the whole of the time we were in the Kran- 
 kenhaus books and papers reached us from 
 Edinburgh, witnessing his patient thought for 
 us week by week. He had a happy touch for 
 that most delicate of problems how to deal 
 with the unhappiness of others ; never draw- 
 ing too near to one's sorrow to be over- 
 shadowed by its cloud. During the spring 
 that followed this autumn of enforced im- 
 prisonment we resumed our happy Art Studies 
 visiting together the Exhibitions, as we had 
 done for five years. In a Gallery he was in- 
 clined to be genial in heart toward the pic- 
 tures, but his eye was severe and his comments 
 of praise or blame very brief. He was gener- 
 ally too much absorbed in the actual work 
 of looking to be at all inclined to say much, 
 except when a canvas struck him with such 
 swift joy that he grew ejaculatory. 
 
 This same May a May of sunshiny blue- 
 ness we had a freshening week together, 
 when he came to stay near us in our Surrey 
 home. We visited Penshurst and Richmond, 
 and we walked over our own downs, always 
 finding him attuned to the beauty before him, 
 and so full of lines and phrases, sometimes 
 whole verses from the books he had read
 
 RECOLLECTIONS 93 
 
 again and again that it almost seemed as if 
 his consciousness had been woven for him by 
 many poets. 
 
 In the autumn he joined us at Grantown- 
 on-Spey, in a sparkling holiday mood, ready 
 for long walks, for discussion, for the ' smooth 
 jellies and creams ' he enjoyed so daintily for 
 supper, yet all the while with a frail appear- 
 ance that remored his mirth far from any 
 animal boisterousness. 
 
 We parted full of the hope of meeting 
 again, but from that day we never saw each 
 other although, in the early Spring of 1894, 
 we had almost agreed to meet in Paris, during 
 the May that our friend did not live to 
 welcome. We had just visited Stonehenge 
 for the first time, late in the March of that 
 year, when we heard quite suddenly of John 
 Gray's death. It was impossible to realise 
 that we should not see him again those 
 bright eyes that seized everything as their 
 own; the face so delicately modelled and 
 responsive, yet quietly marked by a character 
 at once definite and reticent a face, not so 
 much handsome as plastic, with bits of 
 sensitive shadow and touches of almost trans- 
 parent light.
 
 94 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 Then we recalled the words he himself 
 wrote when Robert Browning died : 
 
 * No, I feel nearer to him now than when 
 I knew him living at Kensington or Venice. 
 Even now it is possible to see him "clearer 
 than mortal sense perceived the man." Friends, 
 let us love each other well, since we cannot 
 love the flesh-vestured selves of each other 
 long. You remember the painter Constable's 
 last letter asking friends to visit him, " I 
 pray you come, life is short, friendship is 
 sweet " and he was gone the next morning. 
 Yours always, J. M. GRAY.'
 
 RECOLLECTIONS 95 
 
 STONEHENGE 
 
 That sudden, awful temple of the plain 
 Left but an hour ago, we learnt that he 
 Th' elected guardian of our memory 
 And friend of our spring years was dead ; 
 
 the brain 
 
 Grew torpid with a sense of coming pain : 
 Our past was gone from us, and whither we, 
 What was our goal ? We turned instinctively, 
 Back to those solemn temple-stones again. 
 For all that faith can do is simply done 
 Around that grassy height: the dead are there, 
 The unrecorded dead about the slope 
 Men raised that cromlech for the western sun 
 To wander over, in a great despair 
 Of knowledge, greeting an eternal hope. 
 
 March 1894.
 
 ART CRITICISM 
 
 BY W. D. MACKAY, R.S.A. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 AET CRITICISM 
 
 TT is nigh twenty years since I became 
 -*- acquainted with John Gray. In those 
 days, the middle seventies, the custom of giving 
 a preliminary notice of what our Annual Exhi- 
 bition was likely to be, had not yet been given 
 up, and representatives of the various journals 
 visited the studios a week or two before 
 receiving day, to note what was forthcoming. 
 
 Amongst others, one of delicate and sensitive 
 cast of countenance, and most juvenile appear- 
 ance, introduced himself as Mr. Gray, Art Critic 
 for the Courant. He said little, but quietly 
 took his notes, and for some years our 
 acquaintance was confined to this annual visit, 
 and an occasional nod of recognition on the 
 street. 
 
 About the year 1878 Mr. P. W. Adam and 
 I had resolved to publish, as a memorial of 
 our friend George Manson, a volume contain- 
 ing photographic reproductions of his work 
 in water-colour and pencil, together with a
 
 100 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 memoir of his brief but interesting career. 
 It was no light task, for photographic re- 
 production was far from having attained its 
 present perfection, and in Scotland at least 
 little had been done in that way. But what 
 troubled us most was the question of the 
 Memoir. Neither of us felt capable of such a 
 literary effort. Who was to write it ? 
 
 One indeed we knew who had all the 
 necessary qualifications, personal acquaintance 
 with Manson, keen artistic sympathy, and a 
 power of literary expression almost unrivalled 
 for such a work, Dr. John Brown ; and though 
 we hardly dared to hope, to the good doctor 
 we went. 
 
 We were most kindly received, but it was 
 as we had feared ; Dr. Brown felt that his 
 literary work was over. He showed the 
 greatest sympathy with our purpose; and 
 when we told him of our plight, said, some- 
 what abruptly, as his manner was, 'You should 
 ask John Gray.' 
 
 We were still hesitating, for neither of 
 us knew much of Gray's literary powers, 
 when we had a letter from him, inspired 
 perhaps by Dr. Brown, asking to be allowed 
 to undertake the work as a labour of love,
 
 ART CRITICISM 101 
 
 and expressing the great delight Manson's 
 art had been to him. Something in the tone 
 of the letter gave us confidence, and it was 
 agreed that he should write the Memoir 
 an arrangement which assuredly we had no 
 cause to regret. 
 
 From this time dates our more intimate 
 acquaintance, which was fostered by his sub- 
 sequent publications, ' David Scott,' and the 
 critical estimate of the art of P. W. Nicholson 
 appended to Mr. Baildon's memoir. 
 
 In the spring of 1887 we spent nearly two 
 months together in Italy, visiting the various 
 shrines of the artist's Mecca. Such an experi- 
 ence, as may well be imagined, drew us closer 
 together, and led to various projects for the 
 future, so that our reminiscences of Italy were 
 mingled with dreams of Spain, the Low 
 Countries, and the famous Hermitage at St. 
 Petersburg. Such dreams, alas! are difficult 
 of realisation; and though one of them almost 
 had its fulfilment in 1890, dreams they re- 
 mained till the end came, so suddenly and 
 unexpectedly. 
 
 On the strength of this intimate acquaint- 
 ance with John Gray and his art work during 
 the past fifteen years, I have been asked to
 
 102 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 furnish some notes on him in his capacity of 
 art critic. 
 
 Twenty-five years ago Art Criticism was in 
 rather a chaotic state, from which it is only 
 slowly emerging. A story is current that a 
 famous editor of those days, on being asked 
 how he allowed such notices of our Exhibitions 
 to appear in his paper, replied that he would 
 never think of setting any one who could do 
 anything else to write about picters. If not 
 literally true, this explanation contained a 
 germ of truth, for no special faculty seemed 
 necessary ; and having acquired a few technical 
 terms, the critic was free to join himself to 
 the innocent or the slashing school, as he might 
 think fit. We had specimens of both on our 
 Scottish press, and their articles were read, 
 and doubtless believed in, by a public not 
 very discerning in such matters. 
 
 The procedure of the innocent school, which 
 happily predominated, was to give a descrip- 
 tion, more or less elaborate, of the subject of 
 the work under review, set off with a few 
 technical phrases, whilst the slasher's only 
 object was well to slash, which he did with 
 the perfect confidence born of ignorance. 
 
 Nor ought artists to be so severe as they
 
 ART CRITICISM 103 
 
 often are on this state of affairs; for Art 
 Criticism is itself a difficult art, implying keen 
 sympathy, long training, and almost, one would 
 say, some measure of latent capacity for art 
 production, combined with a faculty for trans- 
 lating into words sensations which seem at 
 first to defy such form of expression. 
 
 Let the artist who doubts this station him- 
 self before one of the world's masterpieces, 
 Velasquez's 'Surrender of Breda,' or Rem- 
 brandt's ' Syndics,' and try to give a rational 
 and readable account of what in them excites 
 his admiration and enthusiasm. Or let him 
 try to make clear to a supposed average 
 reader (for that is the critic's task) what 
 differentiates the styles of the two masters, or 
 distinguishes either from the work of a third. 
 Then perhaps he may learn to sympathise 
 with those who have to do so, minus his 
 own initial advantage of practical acquaint- 
 ance with the painter's art, and to be thankful 
 that of late years a school of criticism has 
 been growing up, based on some adequate 
 conception of our art, patiently and laboriously 
 acquired. 
 
 Of this School, Gray was an able repre- 
 sentative.
 
 104 JOHN MILLEK GRAY 
 
 I think I have heard that in his boy- 
 hood he came under the influence of Euskin ; 
 and, like so many others, followed for a while 
 the course of instruction recommended in 'The 
 Elements of Drawing.' However this may 
 be, he seems early to have realised that his 
 connection with art was not to be in the 
 productive direction. But it is interesting as 
 evidence that he possessed in some measure 
 that latent faculty referred to above, as being, 
 if not a necessity, at least a great advantage 
 to the capable critic. 
 
 Another qualification, this time surely a 
 first necessity, Gray had attained to in 
 his later years catholicity of view. I have 
 said, in his later years, because there was a 
 time when it seemed that he was being drawn 
 somewhat too strongly in one direction. Was 
 it his early enthusiasm for Euskin and the 
 Pre-Eaphaelites, his literary proclivities, a 
 slightly morbid strain in his own tempera- 
 ment, or a combination of all three that led 
 to his excessive admiration for the painters of 
 the JEsthetic School, into which the earlier 
 Pre-Eaphaelitism merged some twenty or 
 twenty-five years ago ? From whatever cause, 
 it is undoubted that the works of this school
 
 ART CRITICISM 105 
 
 and of their prototypes of the middle ages 
 occupied for some years rather more than a fair 
 share of his attention. 
 
 It is said that when some ardent disciples 
 of the Pre-Kaphaelite School visited Antwerp 
 in the early days of the movement, they 
 passed the works of Kubens with averted eyes. 
 John Gray would never have done anything 
 so foolish ; but there was something of the same 
 spirit in the way he would turn from some 
 accomplished work of the sixteenth or seven- 
 teenth centuries with the monosyllable ' late.' 
 This I had frequent occasion to note during 
 our Italian tour. 
 
 Naturally the productions of painters who 
 dealt largely in symbolism had a strong at- 
 traction for his literary side ; for this school 
 of artists has produced its own school of 
 authors, and reams have been written on 
 Blake and Rossetti by men who would not 
 have a word to say concerning such masters 
 of their craft as Terburgh or Jan Steen. 
 
 To this class of writers, men of great literary 
 culture most of them, technique, mere technique, 
 as it is sometimes called, is a trivial affair ; so 
 inveterate is the tendency to ignore the very 
 root of the matter, that ' exterior envelope,' as 
 
 VOL. i. o
 
 106 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 a great writer has said, ' without which the 
 works of the imagination neither are nor live.' 
 For in spite of their culture, these gentlemen 
 belong essentially to the class of critics already 
 alluded to, who take refuge in describing the 
 subject ; they expound the symbolism and see 
 mystic meanings in pouting lips, unhealthy 
 complexions, and lack-lustre eyes. 
 
 Happily, Gray's nature was too healthy 
 to permit him to confine his admiration to 
 the works of any one school, and the danger 
 of his becoming a mere devotee of ^Estheticism 
 was of short duration. For always, alongside 
 of the slightly morbid strain referred to, there 
 was the healthy love of all that was beautiful 
 in his surroundings. Nature, animate and 
 inanimate, had infinite charms for him. He 
 was no sickly recluse, but went much into 
 society, and this busy nineteenth century life 
 of ours, 'late' though it was, kept him in 
 touch with the times he lived in, and with 
 the movements of contemporary art. 
 
 Nothing could well have been more success- 
 ful than his Memoir of George Manson, of which 
 we have spoken at the commencement of these 
 notes, or more sympathetic and discriminating 
 than the annexed estimate of his art. To me
 
 AET CRITICISM 107 
 
 it has always remained a marvel that one who 
 had no personal acquaintance with the artist 
 should have been able to produce so delightful 
 a record. It is scarcely too much to say that 
 in doing so he has saved a reputation. If 
 here and there, in this, and in his subsequent 
 works on David Scott and P. W. Nicholson, 
 one feels ' the pale cast of thought,' that was 
 almost inevitable, from the nature of the 
 subjects he had to deal with. In Gray's 
 later writings there is, I think, abundant 
 evidence that his sympathies were going more 
 and more with the stronger and healthier 
 developments of modern art. The articles on 
 our Annual Exhibitions, contributed latterly 
 to the Scottish Leader, were gaining in strength 
 year by year ; whilst his latest utterance, the 
 notice of J. Lawton Wingate, prefixed to the 
 catalogue of the artist's works exhibited at 
 Mr. Dott's rooms last spring, seems to me his 
 best. For here we have not only a lucid ex- 
 pression of keenest sympathy with, and delight 
 in the various aspects and moods of nature 
 recorded by the artist, but evidence that the 
 critic was more and more fully realising how 
 indissolubly the painter's art is bound up in 
 its technique. This is of great importance,
 
 108 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 and we wish to emphasise it ; for just 
 as a masterly command of his medium of 
 expression is the infallible mark of the true 
 artist, so the capacity to discern and feel 
 this is the crucial distinction betwixt the 
 genuine art critic and the mere writer about 
 pictures. Eugene Fromentin has realised the 
 value of technique when in his Les Mattres 
 d'autrefois he expresses his opinion that the 
 handicraft of the * little masters ' of Holland 
 places their work on a far securer art basis 
 than such pictures as Millet's 'Angelus' 
 or 'Sower/ which an elevated sentiment has 
 made familiar in two hemispheres. 
 
 We do not claim for Gray anything 
 like the position of the great Frenchman, 
 but it is something to be able to say that 
 he was advancing on right lines. In the 
 article we have referred to, though he 
 modestly says that in speaking of Mr. 
 Wingate's work he feels the inadequacy of 
 literary expression, the immediately follow- 
 ing paragraphs do very clearly set forth 
 how largely the spectator's delight is depen- 
 dent on 'expressive draughtsmanship,' 'spirit 
 and accuracy of touch/ and ' combinations of 
 tone and colour.' Such appreciation of the
 
 ART CRITICISM 109 
 
 accent of the brush as we have here, is to 
 the artist a sure indication that his critic is 
 no longer writing in the dark; but that he 
 has attained to that freedom of the craft 
 which carries with it the right to criticise. 
 
 Here, surely, we are far enough from the 
 journalistic articles of quarter of a century 
 ago; and I believe that all who watched 
 Gray's steady advance in knowledge and 
 art wisdom, will agree with me that, in the 
 not distant future, he would have taken a 
 high place amongst the art writers of his 
 time. 
 
 Those only who knew him best can feel the 
 full extent of the loss that has fallen on us; 
 but amongst his many artist friends his early 
 death is mourned, not on personal grounds 
 only, but as the removal of an influence for 
 good in the development of Scottish Art.
 
 AN HOUR IN AN OLD LIBRARY 
 
 FKOM The People's Friend, TTH OCTOBER, 1874 
 
 fTlHE library which we are about to visit is 
 * contained in an old sea-coast castle in 
 the north of England. The castle, along with 
 much of the neighbourhood, belonged to a 
 certain high dignitary of the Church, and was 
 by him bequeathed to a charity which bears 
 his name. There are schools for the village 
 children held in it now; and, instead of 
 swarming with armed men, it is filled with 
 quaintly-dressed boys and girls, and echoes to 
 the sound of their youthful merriment. We 
 wonder if the mouldering walls have a con- 
 sciousness, and, if so, whether they enjoy the 
 change from their old warfaring days, or if on 
 winter nights, when the fierce winds howl 
 around, and the wild waves dash beneath, they 
 live their old times over again, and think of 
 sieges and assaults. 
 
 To reach the castle we have a walk of about 
 a mile, partly by the sea beach, and partly by 
 
 VOL. i. p
 
 114 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 a footpath winding through among 'sand 
 bunkers.' It is a lovely day. The sky is of 
 deepest summer blue, flecked with white clouds. 
 Directly in front are the turreted walls, situated 
 on a commanding rock, with the village and 
 her church nestling at its base. To the left 
 are corn-clad fields, and on the right the sea, 
 stretching away in dreamy haze. In the 
 extreme distance a faint line indicates the 
 position of an island celebrated in British 
 history as an ancient seat of learning and 
 piety. We soon reach the castle, and, ascend- 
 ing a corkscrew stair, we enter the library. 
 
 A certain awe comes over us as we cross the 
 threshold. We should as soon think of stand- 
 ing with covered head in the beautiful village 
 church beneath as of doing so here. For the 
 place is in some sort holy ground, haunted and 
 consecrated by the spirits of those great dead 
 ones, whose life-work surrounds the walls. 
 Thoughts come over us of other libraries with 
 which we are familiar of the Bodleian, with 
 its venerable antiquity, its heavy oaken ceiling, 
 and its reading nooks, dear to the heart of the 
 bookworm; and of the Union Reading-room 
 at Oxford, with its modern literature and 
 modern comforts. And we remember pleasant
 
 AN HOUR IN AN OLD LIBRARY 115 
 
 morning hours spent in this latter, in the 
 easiest of reading- chairs, the fresh spring 
 breeze bearing gently to our ear through the 
 open windows the melody of college bells and 
 bird's song, and the sound of the whetting 
 scythe. 
 
 The library in which we now find ourselves 
 contains a good collection of the classics in fine 
 old editions ; but we do not feel much inclined 
 to dip deeply into this department. There 
 are also an immense number of pamphlets and 
 treatises of religious controversies refutations 
 of heresies which have long since become 
 extinct, or which now flourish under new 
 names. The eyes of theologians may have 
 kindled over them in bygone days, but all 
 interest has gone from them, and there they lie 
 covered with dust their leaves seldom opened. 
 
 But the library is specially rich in our older 
 literature, and this to us is its most interesting 
 department. If we will, Chaucer is ready to 
 give us a spring walk among England's dewy 
 meadows ; or, the golden-mouthed Taylor will 
 throw around us the rich autumnal glow of his 
 eloquence. Spenser will guide us through dim 
 enchanted forests, or Shakespeare will tell us 
 of all things upon which the sun looks down.
 
 116 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 Herbert will delight us with his pregnant 
 quaintness, and the tender fancy of Crashaw 
 will gleam fitfully upon us. Milton will 
 picture for us in his poetry the wars of heaven, 
 or will stir us as to battle with the trumpet- 
 notes of his prose. All those mighty spirits 
 will play upon us if we only open ourselves to 
 their influence, and make our souls responsive 
 to their touch, 
 
 ' As an harpe obeieth to the honde 
 That maketh it soune after his fyngerynge.' 
 
 Here is an early copy of that once famous 
 book, Lyly's Euphues. It opens of its own 
 accord, and between the pages we find a dry 
 rose, from which all colour and perfume has 
 long since faded. It marks the following 
 passage : 
 
 ' Heere shalt thou behold, as it were in a 
 glasse, that al the glory of man is as the grasse, 
 that all things under heaven are but vaine ; 
 that our lyfe is but a shadow, a warfare, a 
 pilgrimage, a vapor, a bubble, a blast ; of such 
 shortnesse that David saith it is but a span 
 long; of such sharpnes that Job noteth it 
 replenished with al miseries, of such uncer- 
 teinetie, that we are no sooner borne but we 
 are subject to death, the one foote no sooner
 
 AN HOUR IN AN OLD LIBRARY 117 
 
 on the ground but the other ready to slip into 
 the grave.' 
 
 The flower may have grown in the parterre 
 of some stately Elizabethan garden. It may 
 have drunk the sunshine which gilded the 
 days of the good Queen Bess, and the winds 
 which scattered the Armada may have rocked 
 it upon its stem. Perhaps it was plucked by 
 some happy lover, and given by him to his 
 mistress as she sat in the window recess read- 
 ing this ' last new novel.' And the pair may 
 have wedded, and grown old together, and had 
 children born to them, and seen them die, 
 till at length the lady, aweary of the sun, 
 turned her face to the wall in the bitterness of 
 death, and passed from this world to the quiet 
 land beyond. And the little flower has had a 
 sort of immortality conferred upon it, and 
 survives still to meet our eye, long after the 
 hand which placed it there has become dust, 
 the lips that kissed it been silenced by the 
 clay, and the heart which prized it stilled in 
 the calm of death. 
 
 Here is an old volume of quarto plays 
 many of them with the printer's errors cor- 
 rected on the margin in a stiff Elizabethan 
 hand. It may have been done by the drama-
 
 118 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 tists themselves, giving the finishing touch to 
 the pet products of their brain. What passion 
 and life has been expended on these old books 
 what hours of midnight toil have gone to 
 their making ! and now they rest calmly 
 enough upon the shelves ; most of them undis- 
 turbed from year's end to year's end, some 
 taken down now and then to verify a date or 
 a quotation, only a very few with the slightest 
 vital or human interest remaining. Surely it 
 were a good sedative for any feverish aspirant 
 after literary fame to be brought to this old 
 library, and forced to spend a silent hour, 
 faced by those quiet dust-clad volumes. 
 
 Yet books are not all dead nay, they have 
 in them a quite surprising vitality and power 
 of life. Think for a moment on the marvel of 
 that thing which we call a book. A sentence 
 is lightly spoken, and the idle wind is ready 
 to bear it away to the land of forgetfulness ; 
 but we write it down, and it is straightway 
 immortal oblivion is cheated of his due. We 
 should rightly esteem it an inestimable privi- 
 lege if we might listen daily to the common 
 converse of great men. We should prize their 
 lightest words, and store them carefully in our 
 memory. But here we are admitted to the
 
 AN HOUR IN AN OLD LIBRARY 119 
 
 fullest companionship with the greatest minds 
 which the world has produced in every nation 
 and period ; and we hear, not their impulsive 
 and ill-considered words, but the purest quint- 
 essence of their wisdom and experience. It is 
 as though each author laid his hand upon his 
 book and thus addressed us : ' Here I have 
 said what I can say here is the sum and sig- 
 nificance of my life ; this I would have remem- 
 bered when all else about me is forgotten. In 
 my life I said foolish words, and did some 
 foolish deeds, but here I would be wise for you, 
 and for posterity.' Kings will lay aside their 
 royal robes, and become our teachers saints 
 will stoop from heaven to guide us on the way 
 thither and tempted sinners will confide to 
 us their mortal hopes and fears, triumphs and 
 falls. Men of science will patiently explain 
 their discoveries ; travellers will tell us of far 
 distant lands ; and poets will sing such songs 
 as shall reveal to us our inner nature, and 
 make the outer world blossom, forth before our 
 eyes in tenderer and more suggestive beauty. 
 And so natural has this mode of instruction 
 become to us, that we can all sympathise with 
 Charles Lamb in his distrust of any future 
 state where knowledge must come, ' if it come
 
 120 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 at all, by some awkward experiment of intui- 
 tion, and no longer by this familiar process of 
 reading.' 
 
 Yet we read this book and that, and rise 
 from their perusal much the same men as 
 when we sat down. We may easily number 
 on the fingers of one hand the names of those 
 which have been of quite vital and sovereign 
 power to us which have changed for us the 
 ' aspect of the earth and the imagery of heaven,' 
 and made us feel 
 
 ' Like some watcher of the skies 
 When a new planet swims into his ken.' 
 
 De Quincey has divided books into two 
 classes books of information and books of 
 power. It is only works of the latter class 
 which will have this effect. We may extract 
 useful enough facts from dictionaries and 
 directories, but only a book of power will give 
 us a new world. 
 
 But, after all, we may live too much in the 
 world of books, and forget that we were born, 
 not into a library, but into God's world. We 
 look out of the turret window; the sun is 
 setting in a glorious agony of palpitating light, 
 casting a ruddy glow over the village beneath. 
 How fresh and youthful Nature is ! Her
 
 AN HOUR IN AN OLD LIBRARY 121 
 
 colours have not faded yet ; they are as fresh 
 to-night as they were on the creation evening. 
 There is a man dying in a chamber down 
 there, and there is more of pathos in the sight 
 than in any tragedy we ever read. Two lovers 
 are walking through the evening corn-fields, 
 and their rapture has never found its way into 
 a book. The children are shouting at play on 
 the village green, and no lyric has ever caught 
 half their gladness. The firmament which 
 encircles the earth is wider than the walls of a 
 library. Let us leave the library now, and 
 walk forth into the world. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 NOTES OF HOLIDAYS IN ARRAN 
 
 FROM The Edinburgh Courant, I?TH AUGDST 1876
 
 NOTES OF HOLIDAYS IN ARRAN 
 
 TN a former article we described a night 
 *- spent with the Arran herring-fishers; in 
 the present we intend giving an account of 
 several of our expeditions in the island itself; and 
 the first of which we shall speak is an ascent 
 of Goatfell from Brodick to see the sunrise. 
 
 We had been sitting late over our supper, 
 which was enlivened, if we remember rightly, 
 with a few drops of aqua vita for when in 
 Eome we do as the Romans do. It was nearly 
 three o'clock in the morning when two friends 
 who had been supping with us rose to depart ; 
 but they had hardly put their noses into the 
 outer air when they returned and insisted that 
 we should start in a body to see the sunrise 
 from Goatfell. Somewhat loath we equipped 
 ourselves for the journey, but were quite recon- 
 ciled to the expedition when we saw the lovely 
 night and the splendour of the sky. To the 
 right was the full moon shedding a broad band 
 of glory over the water, while away to the left 
 the sky was brightening into the delicatest
 
 126 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 pinks and faintest yellows with the approach- 
 ing dawn. So we walked steadily along the 
 road, which we had found flat and common- 
 place enough in our often-repeated walks by 
 day, but it was now made ' strange and new ' 
 by the unfamiliar light of blending night and 
 morning. Then came a walk through a dark 
 fir wood, among whose hollows the night lay 
 black, the trees gathering together in a mys- 
 terious way, as though they were whispering 
 among themselves about some secret of which 
 we were quite ignorant. Next came a stretch 
 through an open park full of half-awakened 
 cattle, and with two or three great red obelisks 
 marking the last resting-place of some pre- 
 historic chieftains; then a stretch of pine 
 forest again, and we were at the beginning of 
 the ascent, standing among the heather and 
 ferns, with the open sky above us and the 
 grand hill in front, while far away the graceful 
 form of a stag was seen on a ridge of the 
 mountain relieved against the pallid morning 
 sky. And now began a steady climb over the 
 steep sloping ground, keeping by the side of 
 the stream, which gradually dwindled in size 
 as we ascended, and flowed over a clear, 
 shallow bed composed chiefly of granite, which
 
 NOTES OF HOLIDAYS IN ARRAN 127 
 
 was being gradually worn away and deposited 
 at the bottom of the stream in a fine white 
 powder. We soon reached the shoulder of the 
 hill By this time the mist had covered the 
 summit ; we felt its presence already, fifty or 
 sixty yards more would have brought us into 
 its midst ; we were therefore obliged to resign 
 all hope of a view from the top, but we were 
 amply rewarded for our climb by what we saw 
 from the elevation we reached. Away to the 
 south was Ailsa Craig, looking wonderfully 
 near ; and nearer still was Brodick Bay, lying 
 calm and placid between its encircling hills, 
 with an unearthly look about it, seen in that 
 strange morning light, like a white human 
 face from which the holy hand of death has 
 wiped away all trace of fret and disquiet. To 
 obtain a view towards the east we had to 
 climb a few steps farther, so as to overlook the 
 ridge of the hill, and here we seated ourselves 
 in a snug heathery corner of a rocky nook, 
 perfectly sheltered from the cutting mist-chilled 
 wind, and gathered close together for warmth. 
 And from this cleft in the rock we saw the 
 glory of the sunrise over the sea. Not ten 
 feet from where we sat a sheer precipice ran 
 eight hundred feet to the valley below, where
 
 128 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 the slim slender thread of a stream was gliding 
 away to the ocean. Into this valley, from our 
 own level or higher, the wind was fiercely 
 driving the mist, till it looked like smoke 
 rained down from heaven. At the mouth of 
 the valley were a few straggling cottages, a 
 little harbour, and one solitary ship. Beyond 
 the distant island of Bute, and the still more 
 distant mainland and Highland mountains, the 
 sun was rising in his strength, above one level 
 band of clouds and then another, shedding a 
 broad path of yellow brilliancy over the sea, 
 which lay beneath utterly motionless but for a 
 shiver which seemed to pass over its surface 
 when a film of mist drifted between us and it 
 a great expanse of faint, blending purple 
 and blue, which, in its crystalline purity, 
 might have served Fra Angelico for a celestial 
 pavement of glass mingled with fire, whereon 
 to set the blessed feet of saints and redeemed 
 ones. We satisfied our eyes upon the sight, 
 or rather would have satisfied them, for in 
 moments like this the eye cannot be filled with 
 seeing. Then began the descent over the 
 granite boulders and through the pasture and 
 woodlands; and as we walked through the 
 forest we saw the deer moving about with the
 
 NOTES OF HOLIDAYS IN ARRAN 129 
 
 light dappling their dainty skins, not dim and 
 far-distant like the one which we saw during 
 our ascent, for the grey light of morning was 
 now lost in the yellow sunlight which had 
 flooded in like another subtler tide over the 
 bay and the valleys : 
 
 ' The sweet land laughed from sea to sea 
 Filled full of sun ; ' 
 
 and another day had come with its call to 
 labour and joy. 
 
 Our next walk up Goatfell was to see the 
 sunset. We followed the same course as on 
 the preceding expedition, till we reached the 
 point where we had lain in the hollow of the 
 rock and watched the sunrise ; thence we strode 
 right upwards among the great grey boulders, 
 and the luxuriant staghorn moss which clung 
 around them. Gradually the vegetation grew 
 sparser and sparser, and the immense natur- 
 ally-piled masses of granite resembled a stone 
 wall in their wonderful regularity, as though 
 the mountain had been one of the last-held 
 fortresses of some giant race of fallen Titans. 
 A stiff climb brought us to the summit, and 
 disclosed to us the gates of the west flashing 
 with the intolerable radiance of a great ruddy 
 sunset. First were seen the bold Arran hills, 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 130 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 Glen Rosa, and Glen Sannox lying between us 
 and them ; beyond, the illumined sea ; then 
 the remoter peaks of Jura and Mull ; farther 
 to the north the Highland mountains, and to 
 the south-west the coast of Ireland. Turner 
 might have hinted at the colours on canvas. 
 After gazing long on the sight, we satisfied 
 our thirst with a drink of rain-water which 
 had collected in some cavities of the great 
 stones which crowned the very summit of the 
 mountain in most literal truth, ' water out 
 of the flinty rock/ Then we turned north- 
 west, resolved to have a glimpse into Glen 
 Sannox, to strike the 'Saddle,' as the ridge 
 dividing that glen from Glen Rosa is called, 
 and thence to proceed homewards by Glen 
 Rosa. A few steps down the hill, and the 
 brilliance of the sunset was hidden from us, 
 and instead there was such a long dismal vista 
 down a little nameless glen away seawards, all 
 grey and gloomy it looked in this light, or 
 rather absence of light, like a dead land 
 deserted of its god ; but how the place would 
 laugh out in sparkling colours, and how the 
 ocean would ripple and glance for very joy 
 when its god the Sun returned in splendour ! 
 Soon we gained the upper ridge of Glen
 
 NOTES OF HOLIDAYS IN ARRAN 131 
 
 Sannox, and here had a very impressive 
 glimpse into the valley below. It was through 
 a long narrow cleft in the rock. Into this 
 cleft a great mass of granite had fallen and 
 firmly wedged itself, leaving beneath its lower 
 surface an open space which disclosed a peep 
 into the glen far beneath. The sudden 
 surprise of the thing, and the sense of 
 immense depth, reminded us forcibly of a 
 similar effect in one of the Liber Studiorum 
 prints, the Mount St. Gothard. After a rather 
 precipitous climb we reached that portion of 
 the ' Saddle ' immediately between the two 
 glens beforementioned. Here we lit our 
 pipes and paused for a few moments to allow 
 the impressiveness of the scene to sink deep 
 into our memory and heart. To the north, 
 looking over Glen Sannox, we had a glimpse 
 of the distant islands set in the silver sea and 
 bathed in the ruddy evening light. The dark 
 hills immediately in front shut from our gaze 
 the direct radiance of the sunset, their strong, 
 clearly defined masses standing out a mono- 
 chrome of dark purple against the clear sky of 
 delicate blue, flecked with intense flame- 
 coloured clouds, which mirrored themselves in 
 two little pools among the dark rocks beneath,
 
 132 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 and they in their turn answered the kiss of 
 the heavens, and flushed up in quite a startling 
 way, like two little pools of blood. And now 
 came the finishing touch to the scene the one 
 living presence, to remind us by its isolation 
 of the awful solitude of the place. An eagle 
 rose from behind a dark peak, disappeared 
 behind it for a moment, then again rose into 
 view, floated majestically across the glen, its 
 extended wings black against the sun-filled sky, 
 and disappeared behind Goatfell. Soon the 
 descent began down Glen Rosa. Far off we 
 saw a herd of deer, led by a stag, crossing 
 the Rosa Burn, and gracefully springing up 
 the mountain side towards a wild, lonely 
 corrie ; and soon it required all our endeavours 
 to keep the rough hill-path, for 
 
 ' Hands unseen 
 Were hanging the night around us fast,' 
 
 and the holy calm of darkness was descending 
 upon the earth. 
 
 Before concluding these rambling notes we 
 must say a word or two about that lovely little 
 graveyard at Glen Sannox, which was the 
 original, we believe, of Mr. Smart's impressive 
 picture of the ' Graves o' our Ain Folk.' It 
 lies just at the entrance of the glen, sufficiently
 
 NOTES OF HOLIDAYS IN ARRAN 133 
 
 far from the dwellings of the living to have 
 the most perfect solitude, the great mountains 
 rising up on one side in the stony grandeur, 
 and on the other spread out the great expanse 
 of lifted sea. The place is luxuriant with lush, 
 waving grass, and brilliant wild fuchsia. Some 
 of the stones are very old, hardly raised above 
 the earth level, and carved with cross-bones 
 and skulls, and all the hideous things with 
 which living men had expressed their fear of 
 death. But the moss, russet and green, is 
 filling the ghastly eyeholes of the death's-heads, 
 and the rain is wearing down the tool-marks, 
 and nature is doing her best to restore to the 
 stones that calm which the sculptor's hand 
 disturbed so rudely a hundred years ago. And 
 we thought that if the dead were to return, 
 having known the secrets, it might be that 
 they would fully approve of Nature's quiet 
 work ; and, obliterating all the rude emblems, 
 would carve cherub faces or palm-branches of 
 victory in their stead. It was strange to read 
 on the more modern stones such inscriptions 
 as ' Lost at Sea,' ' Drowned in Corrie Harbour,' 
 ' Drowned in the Clyde/ and then to raise the 
 head and watch the ocean dreaming there in 
 bluest depth of summer calm.
 
 134 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 But these pleasant Arran days of ours soon 
 came to a conclusion. ' Sweetest things have 
 saddest ending,' says the poet. Our last day 
 was wet and stormy, the island vanished from 
 our eyes in a cloud of mist and rain, and these 
 happy holidays became a thing of the past. 
 But a thing of the past may be a very real 
 possession still sometimes more of a posses- 
 sion than when it was actually present ; for in 
 the haze of distance all that was unpleasant 
 and marring vanishes from our eyes, and the 
 scene or time shines forth with that perfect 
 ideal beauty which the actual strove but 
 imperfectly to express. If this is a law, it is 
 of course true of the greatest as well as of the 
 most trivial matters. Shakespeare says it is 
 true about those friends who have left us, 
 and some of us know in ourselves that he 
 speaks the truth. Of the lover of Hero 
 she being dead as he supposes the Friar in 
 ' Much Ado about Nothing ' says 
 
 ' The idea of her life shall sweetly creep 
 Into his study of imagination, 
 And every lovely organ of her life 
 Shall come apparell'd in more precious habit, 
 More moving-delicate and full of life, 
 Into the eye and prospect of his soul, 
 Than when she lived indeed. '
 
 REVIEW OF BROWNING'S 
 PACCHIAROTTO 
 
 FROM The Edinburgh Courant, 4-ra AUG. 1876
 
 EEVIEW OF BROWNING'S 
 PACCHIAKOTTO 
 
 rpHE announcement some weeks ago, that a 
 -*- new volume of miscellaneous poems by 
 Mr. Browning would be shortly published, 
 excited expectations of no ordinary nature in 
 the minds of such students of modern verse as 
 consider that, among the many voices of poetic 
 wisdom which are at present crying in the 
 English market-places and at the street-corners, 
 his is the most deserving of hearing and atten- 
 tion. It was felt that a volume of short poems 
 would be more interesting than the longer 
 works which he has recently put forth, and 
 might afford a more decisive opportunity of 
 comparison between the poet's powers in 1864, 
 the date of Dramatis Persona, and his powers 
 at the present time. And now the book is 
 before us. 
 
 ' Pacchiarotto and How he Worked in Dis- 
 temper,' is the poem from which the volume 
 takes its name. It relates how an Italian 
 
 VOL. i. s
 
 138 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 artist left the ' position in life to which God 
 had called him,' abandoned his colours and 
 brushes, 'took "reform" for his motto,' and 
 chose for his future work the setting of the 
 madly wandering globe upon its proper orbit 
 again. But in order to judge of his chance of 
 success in this modest little undertaking, he 
 first constructs a grotto, paints its plastered 
 sides with a great array of human beings in 
 their typical characters of men and women, 
 king, clown, pope, emperor, etc., and proceeds 
 with much gusto to harangue this imaginary 
 audience in order to habituate himself to 
 public speaking, and to judge of the effect 
 which he would produce when he addressed 
 living men. All, of course, goes well in his 
 dealings with the painted figures, and nothing 
 now remains but an opportunity to commence 
 business as public reformer. The opportunity 
 soon came, for a famine fell on Siena, our 
 hero's town. He repairs to a meeting of a 
 club called the ' Freed Ones, Bardotti,' a word 
 meaning the ' spare horses ' of the social team, 
 a society who themselves 'had opinions,' and 
 felt quite equal to put the world all right 
 again. And this was their recipe for the 
 cure of this sick, distempered world
 
 REVIEW OF BROWNING'S PACCHIAROTTO 139 
 
 ' " Just substitute servant for master, 
 
 Make Poverty Wealth, and Wealth Poverty, 
 Unloose man from overt and covert tie, 
 And straight out of social confusion 
 True Order would spring ! " Brave illusion, 
 Aims heavenly attained by means earthly.' 
 
 And with this sapient society Pacchiarotto's 
 labours begin and end. He mounts the rostrum 
 and harangues his select audience, the gist of 
 his speech being that all would go well with 
 Siena and the world if they only knew what 
 to do, if 
 
 ' ' ' Ye did as ye might place 
 
 For once the right man in the right place : 
 If you listened to me." 
 
 At which last " if " 
 
 There sprang to his throat like a mastiff, 
 One "Spare Horse" another and another. 
 Such outbreak of turmoil and potter, 
 Horse faces a-laughing and fleering, 
 Horse voices a-mocking and jeering, 
 Horse hands raised to collar the caitiff 
 Whose impudence ventured the late " if." ' 
 
 Pacchiarotto, Pacchiarotto, thou would-be 
 shepherd of the social flock, truly ' thou art in 
 parlous state,' and this treatment you have re- 
 ceived from the illuminati of the place those 
 upon whom the day-star of better coming things 
 had risen not from the mere vulgar multitude 
 at all. He flees for very life, reaches an old
 
 140 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 tomb, lies perdu therein for two days, and at 
 length emerges a sorry object, 'starved back 
 to sanity,' and repairs to a convent. Here the 
 worthy worldly Superior, who has outlived all 
 his youthful enthusiasms, who has grown ac- 
 customed and reconciled to his worldly sur- 
 roundings, whose soul, like the dyer's hand, is 
 subdued to what it works in this Superior 
 gravely admonishes the hare-brained poet in a 
 speech which contains the moral of the whole 
 
 ' Let tongue rest and quiet thy quill be ! 
 Earth is earth, and not heaven, and ne'er will be. 
 Man's work is to labour and leaven 
 As best he may earth here with heaven. 
 'Tis work for work's sake he 's needing. 
 Let him work on and on as if speeding 
 Work's end, but not dream of succeeding ; 
 Because if success were intended, 
 Why, heaven would begin ere earth ended. 
 
 All's for an hour of essaying 
 
 Who 's fit and who 'a unfit for playing 
 
 His part in the after-construction 
 
 Heaven's piece whereof earth 's the Induction. 
 
 Things rarely go smooth at Rehearsal 
 
 Wait patient the change universal, 
 
 And act, and let act, in existence. ' 
 
 That is to say, in this world a man must be 
 content in just doing his own ordinary part 
 honestly, calmly, and quietly ; must not fuss 
 and fret himself too much about results, nor
 
 REVIEW OF BROWNING'S PACCHIAROTTO 141 
 
 dream that his puny efforts will remedy all 
 abuses, nor be unduly anxious to see the seed 
 which he has planted ripening, or the acorn 
 which he has cast into the earth standing an 
 oak in the sunshine. Then, having finished 
 Pacchiarotto and his story, the author favours 
 his critics with a few words which amount to 
 this 'Well, I, "Eobert Browning, writer of 
 plays," have here given up the puzzling mental 
 analysis which you so much object to, and 
 have told our friend's story in shortest, curtest 
 words. I trust you are satisfied ; but, by your 
 leave, I mean, for my own part, to take my 
 own way, and please myself, not you.' It 
 seems difficult to avoid feeling that there is 
 a covert reference in the poem to the recent 
 developments of a great art critic, who has to 
 some extent abandoned his ' natural vocation,' 
 and turned aside to political economy and the 
 regeneration of the world. May the poem 
 be regarded as the verdict of Mr. Browning 
 on the recent efforts of Mr. Ruskin efforts 
 which we know from a chance reference in 
 the 'Inn Album' have been watched by the 
 poet with that clear-eyed scrutiny which he 
 seems to give to all history, social and political 
 alike ? A word on the rhythm of the poem.
 
 142 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 In a work like Wordsworth's famous 'Ode,' 
 any reader can recognise the suitability of the 
 measure to the subject, can feel how the 
 ordered words flow and pause, leap and then 
 hesitate in harmony with the thought which 
 they express; but some may hardly feel 
 that the roughshod Skelton-like measure of 
 ' Pacchiarotto ' 
 
 ' Begun with a chuckle, 
 And throughout timed by raps on the knuckle,' 
 
 is good art ; yet in reality it is, and its author 
 is a consummate artist. The rough-and-ready 
 ordering of the words is most exactly suited to 
 the rough-and-ready humour and practical wis- 
 dom which the words embody. The expression 
 of such thoughts in the perfectly polished verse 
 of say the 'Earthly Paradise' would be absurd; 
 when the author sings of the death of ' Evelyn 
 Hope ' he can be softly melodious enough in all 
 conscience. 
 
 Passing to the other poems, we find many of 
 them full of railing at the critics, and to our 
 mind this is the most disagreeable feature of 
 the book. The railing is, of course, done in 
 the most good-humoured and offhand way 
 half-jocular at least ; yet through all we seem 
 to perceive some trace of annoyance and dis-
 
 REVIEW OF BROWNING'S PACCHIAROTTO 143 
 
 turbed feeling. But a man who has produced 
 such work as Mr. Browning's should surely 
 know the value of that work, and ought there- 
 fore to dwell in an atmosphere of unruffled, 
 calm, and pure serene, far above the fret and 
 stir of that dim spot where carking critics 
 abide. He should surely feel something of 
 that calm which guided Albert Durer's pen 
 when he wrote laconically to a friend who 
 had found fault with a picture of his, ' Sir, it 
 cannot be better done.' On the whole, the 
 poems are still more subjective to use a cant 
 phrase than any of the author's previous 
 works though even these were never ' land- 
 scapes with figures,' but had always the human 
 interest paramount. In previous works he 
 has given us just enough background of nature 
 to ' place ' and explain the actions and feelings 
 of the actors ; in much of the present volume 
 human feelings only are dealt with, apart 
 altogether from either human action or 
 natural surrounding. Of this class are 
 ' Shop,' ' Pizgah Sights,' ' Fears and Scruples,' 
 the last being specially noteworthy and 
 admirable; and in the midst of these is 
 introduced with fine effect the ballad of 
 ' Herve" Kiel,' which deals simply with brave
 
 144 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 human action a poem having in it the smell 
 of the sea and the freedom of open air. In 
 ' A Forgiveness ' we have the story of a 
 politician, calm and steadfast, his reticent 
 nature hiding vast gulfs of love and of 
 passion. His wife fancies that he neglects 
 her, immersed in his state-craft, and he 
 becomes aware that she is unfaithful. For 
 three years they live together, to the public 
 eye the same as before, yet ice-cold at heart 
 to each other, till at length the wife can bear 
 it no longer, but slays herself in her,husband's 
 sight. In the poem he is relating the story at 
 confessional ; the confessor is the betrayer of 
 his wife ; he knows it, and in the end springs 
 at his throat. ' A sensational story,' says the 
 reader. Yes ; but not a sensational poem ; 
 for when the facts have been mingled with 
 the poet's feeling the poet's heart-blood 
 and thus through divine alchemy have been 
 transformed into a poem, all that is merely 
 horrible, and therefore vulgar and debasing, 
 vanishes, and only pure soul-purging terror 
 remains. If we remember rightly, there are 
 some rather sensational elements in Shake- 
 speare murders, suicides, and worse but we 
 don't call his plays sensational. A work of
 
 REVIEW OF BROWNING'S PACCHIAROTTO 145 
 
 art is sensational only when its chief interest 
 centres in such incidents, not when such 
 incidents are used for the exhibition of 
 exceptionally great displays of character and 
 passion. The fact is, that Shakespeare knew, 
 and Browning knows, just as well, that the 
 tame level of ordinary life is not the fittest 
 stage for the exhibition of the greatest art; 
 that high and exceptional situations produce 
 high thoughts, high feelings, high poems ; 
 and that a peculiar disposition of both pebble 
 and sun of both soul and circumstance is 
 required in order that the stone may flash 
 forth with that sharpest brilliance which at 
 all times lies hidden within it. In the 
 ' Epilogue ' there is the following affecting 
 little reference to the poet's wife that 
 sweetest of woman-singers, that ' Lyric Love/ 
 whose spirit-form the author has once or 
 twice in his poems touched with so tender, so 
 reverent a finger : 
 
 ' " The poets pour us wine," 
 Said the dearest poet I ever knew, 
 Dearest and greatest, and best to me. ' 
 
 We shall conclude with a short poem which 
 admirably exemplifies that quality of fresh- 
 ness and originality which characterises this 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 146 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 volume, and, indeed, all true poetry ; for each 
 true poem is a kind of ' sweet surprise,' seems 
 quite impossible till we have seen it, quite 
 natural and inevitable when we have seen it, 
 is like that flower which they say grew in the 
 holy Campo Santo earth of Pisa 'in that 
 place there came up a wondrous flower, the 
 like whereof had never been seen on this 
 earth before.' In the poem which we shall 
 quote a lover asks whereunto shall he liken 
 his lady] To the fair, frail loveliness of 
 vegetable existence ? No ; but to the fiery 
 faithfulness and enduring steadfastness of a 
 precious stone. 
 
 ' Flower I never fancied, jewel I profess you ! 
 
 Bright I see and soft I feel the outside of a flower. 
 Save but glow inside and jewel I should guess you 
 Dim to sight and rough to touch, the glory is the 
 dower. 
 
 You, forsooth, a flower ? Nay, my love, a jewel 
 Jewel, at no mercy of a moment in your prime ! 
 
 Time may fray the flower-face : kind be time or cruel, 
 Jewel, from each facet flash your laugh at time.' 
 
 Let any one read this poem aloud, and he 
 will never after doubt whether Mr. Browning 
 can, or cannot, write melodious verse.
 
 OBITUARY OF JOHN BROWN, 
 M.D. 
 
 FROM The Academy, 20TH MAY 1882
 
 OBITUARY OF JOHN BROWN, M.D. 
 
 rjlHE news of the death of the author of Rob 
 *- and his Friends will come as a painful 
 shock to a singularly wide circle of personal 
 friends, and to the yet wider circle of readers, 
 both in this country and abroad, who knew 
 him only through his genial and delightful 
 writings. Though Dr. Brown was an old 
 man, and his health had been for many years 
 feeble and uncertain, it seemed as if he had 
 entered on a period of peaceful and productive 
 evening quiet. He was relieved from the 
 greater part of his professional duties, and had 
 returned to literary work which had been long 
 discontinued, preparing for the press the col- 
 lected edition of his works recently issued, and 
 writing a Preface to a series of calotype por- 
 traits to be shortly published a task for 
 which he was specially qualified by his interest 
 in art and his comprehensive knowledge of the 
 Scottish society of the last generation. A few
 
 150 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 days ago he caught cold. At first no danger 
 was apprehended, but congestion of the lungs 
 set in, his enfeebled frame speedily succumbed, 
 and he passed from us on the morning of the 
 llth inst. 
 
 Dr. Brown was born at Biggar on September 
 22, 1810, the descendant of a long line of 
 Secession clergymen who were well known 
 and greatly respected in Scotland. His father 
 removed to Edinburgh, where he was long the 
 esteemed and eloquent minister of Broughton 
 Place Church. The son was educated at the 
 High School and University ; and after serv- 
 ing an apprenticeship with Mr., afterwards 
 Professor, Syme, his attached and life-long 
 friend, he spent a year as an assistant surgeon 
 at Chatham. There is an anecdote connected 
 with this period which is worth preserving. 
 Many years afterwards Dr. Brown met Charles 
 Dickens for the first and, I think, the 
 only time. The conversation turned on 
 nationalities, and Dickens said that he had 
 been cured of any Cockney prejudice against 
 Scotsmen which he might have had by the 
 heroic conduct of a young Scottish surgeon 
 which he had witnessed at Chatham during the 
 cholera time. Strange to say, this young
 
 OBITUARY OF JOHN BROWN, M.D. 151 
 
 surgeon was none other than the friend to 
 whom he was telling the story. Keturning to 
 Edinburgh in 1833, Dr. Brown graduated as 
 M.D., and began to practise as a physician. 
 His leisure was occupied with literature. The 
 history of the touching little tale with which 
 his name is always associated is a curious 
 one. He had been asked to give a lecture to 
 a country audience, the congregation of a 
 clerical friend. He recalled a memory of his 
 student days, and embodied it, no doubt with 
 this and that touch of ' added artistry,' in a 
 little story, which was written at speed 
 through one brief midsummer night much as 
 we have been recently told Rossetti wrote his 
 Hand and Soul and read somewhat nervously 
 and ineffectively to his rustic listeners, upon 
 whom it fell strangely flat. It was only when 
 published that the story obtained immediate 
 recognition as one of the most perfect and 
 pathetic of modern tales, going directly to the 
 hearts of all classes of readers, and attaining 
 a well-nigh unparalleled number of editions. 
 Along with his kinsmen, Dr. Samuel Brown, 
 the chemist, and Mr. John Taylor Brown, 
 Dr. Brown was a contributor to the North 
 British Review. Such of his articles as 'A
 
 152 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 Jacobite Family,' ' Arthur Hallam,' and the 
 inimitable ' Marjorie Fleming ' were collected 
 in 1858 and 1861 in the Horae Subsecivae 
 volumes, along with various character-studies 
 of medical worthies which first appeared in the 
 Edinburgh Medical Journal ; but one remark- 
 able contribution to the North British is still 
 to be found only in its columns an able and 
 eloquent review of the first volumes of Modern 
 Painters, the first important public recognition 
 which the work received. 
 
 Like Landor, Dr. Brown ' loved first nature ' 
 human nature ' and after nature art.' 
 Next in value to his studies of humanity and 
 its environments are those which deal with 
 the painter's reflections of them. Among 
 such papers are the essays on Leech and 
 Raeburn and the more fragmentary ' Notes on 
 Art ' selected from the reviews of the Scottish 
 Academy's exhibitions contributed to the 
 Witness newspaper in 1846 at the request of 
 Hugh Miller, its editor. They are full of vital 
 and sympathetic insight, and are brightened 
 by the playful fancy and genial humour which 
 characterise all Dr. Brown's writings, shining, 
 as in the works of all the truest and pro- 
 foundest humorists, against a background of
 
 OBITUARY OF JOHN BROWN, M.D. 153 
 
 sadness, and never flippant or frivolous, for 
 always 
 
 ' The root of some grave, earnest thought is under- 
 struck so rightly 
 
 As to justify the foliage and the waving flowers 
 above.' 
 
 They give little prominence to the technicalities 
 of art, though their author was by no means 
 ignorant of these, for he lived in close inti- 
 macy with many painters, had studied for at 
 least a short time under J. W. Ewbank, R.S.A. ; 
 and his rough pen-and-ink sketches, like the 
 two reproduced in Our Dogs, are full of per- 
 ception and character. It was greatly to be 
 desired that Dr. Brown should have given us 
 a critical estimate of his friend the late Sir 
 George Harvey, P.E.S.A., but his sense of loss 
 on the artist's death was too profound and 
 poignant to admit of this. 
 
 The writings of Dr. Brown were the spon- 
 taneous outcome of his nature, and their 
 tenderness and sympathy, their insight and 
 humour, were the characteristics of his own 
 individuality. There was a strange and 
 winning charm about him which made itself 
 constantly felt, and attracted to him all with 
 whom he came into contact. In his prime he 
 
 VOL. i. u
 
 154 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 was a brilliant conversationalist ; and even to 
 those of us who knew him only in later life, 
 and were permitted to spend many hours with 
 him in the little smoking-room at the top of 
 his house, the memory of these evenings, and 
 of him who made them bright with his mirth 
 and genial wisdom, will be preserved for ever 
 as a treasured possession.
 
 REVIEW OF SHARP'S ROSSETTI 
 
 FROM The Academy, GTH JANUARY 1883
 
 REVIEW OF SHARP'S ROSSETTI 
 
 TT is but nine months since the death of 
 -*- Rossetti, and already two important 
 volumes dealing with his life and works have 
 been placed in our hands. Both will be wel- 
 come to the admirers of the great painter-poet, 
 for each occupies its own distinct field of 
 investigation. As its title indicates, Mr. 
 Caine's volume dealt mainly with the personal 
 aspects of its subject, recording the author's 
 intercourse with Rossetti, and deriving much 
 of its exceeding interest from the liberal 
 quotations which it contained from the letters 
 written during the three years which pre- 
 ceded the meeting of Mr. Caine with Rossetti, 
 and that residence with him which ensued 
 and did so much to cheer the last months of 
 the artist's life. The correspondence, confined 
 rather exclusively to questions of art and 
 literature, has a singular value ; and it was 
 supplemented by such a general account of 
 Rossetti's works in painting and poetry as was
 
 158 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 necessary to give some degree of completeness 
 to the sketch. 
 
 Mr. Sharp, however, has set before himself 
 a wider aim. His volume claims to be 'A 
 Record and a Study' of Eossetti. His first 
 forty pages are occupied with a concise and 
 excellent biography ; but during the rest of 
 the book he holds the personal element strictly 
 in abeyance, and views his subject through 
 the medium of his poetic and pictorial accom- 
 plishments, though of course adding to the 
 view thus obtained the results of such side- 
 glimpses as intimacy and friendship have 
 afforded him. 
 
 The second chapter deals in an interesting 
 and penetrative way with the ' Pre-Raphaelite 
 Idea,' giving liberal extracts from the Germ, 
 and a general synopsis of its contents which 
 will be greatly valued by many readers to 
 whom the four numbers of this very scarce 
 little magazine are inaccessible. Then ' Ros- 
 setti the Artist ' is considered ; a very full and 
 detailed account of his book-illustrations, 
 designs, and paintings is accompanied by 
 appreciative and justly critical remarks on the 
 characteristics and general tendencies of his 
 art. This is followed by a chapter on Ros-
 
 REVIEW OF SHARP'S ROSSETTI 159 
 
 setti's prose works, such as Hand and Soul 
 a tale which Mr. Sharp justly parallels with 
 Mr. Pater's exquisitely imaginative sketch of 
 The Child in the House and the critical 
 papers, on Dr. Hake's poems and the Fraser 
 Portraits of Maclise, which appeared in the 
 Academy. The rest of the volume is occupied 
 with the poetry of Eossetti. It is especially 
 interesting for its comparison of the changes 
 from first readings made in the later editions of 
 many of the pieces, and for its publication of 
 some fine but cancelled passages, like the 
 following, which originally stood as the eighth 
 stanza of ' Love's Nocturn : ' 
 
 ' As since man waxed deathly wise, 
 Secret somewhere on this earth 
 
 Unpermitted Eden lies 
 Thus within the world's wide girth 
 
 Hides she from my spirit's dearth 
 Paradise 
 
 Of a love that cries for death.' 
 
 Not less admirable than the fulness and 
 accuracy of the ' Kecord ' of Rossetti's work is 
 the fairness and critical acumen of the ' Study.' 
 It might have been expected that a young 
 author like Mr. Sharp, brought into such close 
 intercourse with a personality so magnetic and 
 fascinating as that of Rossetti, might have
 
 160 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 been overmastered by it, might have come to 
 see the world of art and literature through the 
 eyes of his gifted friend ; and when the time 
 arrived for him to write regarding the work 
 of this friend, his tone might have been one 
 of unmixed laudation. But Mr. Sharp's former 
 volume, The Human Inheritance, and other Poems, 
 gave us hope of better things, for it showed 
 no noticeable trace of the influence of Rosetti's 
 verse, and proved that the author had been 
 able to maintain his poetic individuality. And 
 now he writes in a spirit distinctly critical and 
 impersonal regarding his dead friend and his 
 work, and shows them he is well aware of the 
 faults which mingled with the greatness of his 
 subject ; of the faults of draughtsmanship, for 
 instance, which are characteristic of his pic- 
 torial art ; and of that hopelessness which is 
 the predominant note of his poetry, marring 
 the influence of his song, and disclosing some 
 radical warp and weakness in the singer him- 
 self. 
 
 4 We may take exception to this and that 
 isolated expression throughout Mr. Sharp's 
 volume. We may hesitate to consider Kos- 
 setti as ' at least equalling the great Venetian 
 colourists,' and feel as little disposed to parallel
 
 REVIEW OF SHARP'S ROSSETTI 161 
 
 his place in English art with that of Turner 
 as we should be to assign to him that seat in 
 English literature ' not far from Shakespeare's 
 self which certain enthusiastic admirers claim 
 as his due. We may feel that the modern 
 surroundings of his 'Lilith' rather strike a 
 discord in the conception of the legendary 
 enchantress than heighten its symbolic and 
 imaginative impressiveness ; and, remember- 
 ing 'The Blessed Damozel,' 'The Last Con- 
 fession/ and ' Dante at Verona,' we may doubt 
 as to the supremacy claimed at p. 357 for 
 'Sister Helen' and 'The King's Tragedy.' 
 But in the main scope of the volume, with 
 Mr. Sharp's general estimate of Eossetti's work, 
 and indeed with most of his detailed criticism, 
 we can gladly and gratefully agree. 
 
 Regarding the style of the book, we must 
 notice that it contains a quite undue propor- 
 tion of irritating little verbal inaccuracies. 
 There is a persistent awkwardness in the 
 placing of the adverb ; and sentences like the 
 following are far too frequent : ' In the paint- 
 ing of the same subject belonging to Mr. 
 Graham . . . the face and attitude are alike 
 somewhat different ; ' ' but his health was not 
 now equal to what it was' for 'had been.' 
 
 VOL. i. X
 
 162 JOHN MILLER GRAY 
 
 These, and such as these, by no means prove 
 the author's inability to write accurate 
 English, for the more important parts of the 
 book are correct and even excellent in style, 
 the accounts of the various pictures, for example, 
 being not only definitely and clearly descrip- 
 tive, but occasionally touched with impassioned 
 eloquence. The errors that we have indicated 
 simply show that Mr. Sharp's proof-sheets 
 have not received a thorough and searching 
 revision, an omission probably to be accounted 
 for by the speed necessary in the production 
 of the volume. It was eminently desirable 
 that the book should be in the hands of its 
 readers before the opening of the Rossetti 
 displays at the Eoyal Academy and the 
 Burlington Club ; and it is no bad augury for 
 the future of a young writer that he has 
 devoted his main effort, during the limited 
 time at his disposal, rather to the collection 
 of reliable and significant facts than to the 
 polishing and perfecting of his sentences. The 
 care and labour involved in the compilation of 
 that annotated catalogue of nearly four 
 hundred pictures and sketches which occupies 
 the last pages of the volume will be duly 
 appreciated only by such readers as have
 
 REVIEW OF SHARP'S ROSSETTI 163 
 
 themselves attempted some similar under- 
 taking. 
 
 One of Rossetti's latest drawings, the 
 'Design for the Sonnet,' transcribed in a 
 most delicate wood-engraving, by the hand of 
 Mr. H. Linton, if we mistake not, forms a 
 singularly appropriate frontispiece to a volume 
 dealing with the double artistic life of the 
 poet-painter, and a valuable addition to the 
 very few of his designs which have been 
 published. Perhaps we might have chosen in 
 preference a purely mediaeval subject had the 
 object been simply to give an example of what 
 was most distinctive in the art of Rossetti. 
 But the present design, while marking in a 
 most happy way the two sides of his artistic 
 nature, is also illustrative of several of the 
 general characteristics of his pictorial work 
 of its gravity, for instance, and imaginative 
 impressiveness ; while the fourteen-stringed 
 lyre, the winged sand-glass, and the split coin 
 indicate his habitual use of symbolism; the 
 involved twigs and leafage, his love of intricate 
 and detailed decoration ; and, it must be con- 
 fessed, the throat and shoulders of the figure 
 hint at his frequently imperfect draughtsman- 
 ship.

 
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