human being should behave in accordance with his preconceived standard of beauty and decorum than that it or he should express some fundamental truth of character, 'whether shapely or not.' We may be sure that Ruskin would have been revolted by Rembrandt's uncouth Disciples in the little etched 'Christ carried to the Tomb.' Full of his ideal as to how the Christ's disciples ought ideally to look, he would have preferred a procession of nobly featured and perfectly proportioned athletes. Taken to its logical end this preference gives us the art of Leighton, Alma Tadema, and posters for custards and complexion soaps, art that has the relation to truth that a Gaiety Theatre musical opera bears to actual life. But, as we have suggested, humanity is not lastingly interested in ideal beauty; after a period of unthinking acquiescence in and contentment with surface qualities and sentimental associations, it turns on Art and demands, What do you show us of the deeper qualities of life, the things that matter, the subtle and spiritual significance which we can only recognise with the help of seers?' We reach the time when we require of the masters that they shall take us further and give us a hint of that something which is over and above the facts that a camera can register, and in which as humanity we implicitly if unconsciously believe.

That moreness, in fine, is what we mean by significant life, whether we speak of humanity, landscape or still life. To a painter accustomed to reflection it is a commonplace that he is aware of some quality in nature that is not explained or covered by what he actually sees. The form, tone and colour that his trained eyes perceive do not by themselves account for his emotion; given a perfect apparatus they could be recorded in a photograph, which would yet be barren of that higher quality. Whether that quality actually exist outside, in people or in landscape, or whether it be entirely innate in the artist's mind, does not here concern us. Whatever it be, we recognise and answer to it. But this is practically certain-the quality of life perceived corresponds with the quality of the mind perceiving. The artist with a rare and acutely sensitive mind gravitates, as it were, to the wonderful things in humanity and light and atmosphere, though to him, we

may reasonably suppose, they are ordinary phenomena; for it is highly probable that a great artist is unconscious of the quality in his work that seems to the onlooker strange and magical.

The critic then who would communicate something of the content of great art to his public has first of all to rid his mind of reputations and the doctrine of an Ideal Beauty superior to truth. He has to possess a working test, an acid with which to try all art. We are not discussing decorative or architectural art, but that which interprets the life that is visually perceived. The only working touchstone, in our belief, is life, whether it be the truth of Degas or Millet as opposed to the pretty and mechanical convention of a Bouguereau or a Greuze; the truth of Gerard Dou, as opposed to the attractive tricks of a W. van Mieris, the truth of Cosimo Tura contrasted with the academic posturing of Francia; the truth of Cotman, Turner or Constable as distinct from the self-conscious exaggerations of the Birket Foster School. Just as in the other occupations of the human mind men see truths of slight or profound significance, according as they are limited or far-ranging in thought, so artists see truths of little and of deep import. Truth is on a sliding scale. So that our critic unencumbered with considerations of Ideal Beauty has to know within him what in life itself really matters, in the sense that it has enduring interest and stimulation for humanity. The delicious colour, substance and texture of Titian's 'Flora's' bosom; the richly beautiful and sensuous bodies of Rubens' Goddesses who feast the gaze of Paris in our National Gallery, these are true and living. But compared with the mysterious and baffling significance that animates Giotto, Mantegna, Tura or Rembrandt they touch but the physical surface of our emotions. The things that permanently exceed our grasp and elude our explanations-for example, Blake's realisation of the Eternal, and the nature of Job, or Turner's consciousness of landscape-perhaps prepare us for the verities of a non-physical existence.

However that may be, the time has come for us to seek in Art not incriminating evidence of authorship, not suave attractiveness that is more pleasant than truth, not even scientific accuracy in fact-recording, but

insight into life and the power to make palpable the impalpable.' We must learn, no matter how gradually, to be aware of the indefinable quality that is present in Rembrandt's 'Old Lady' of 1661, but wanting in his 'Old Lady' of 1634 (both pictures are in our Gallery); to prize above Raphael's past mastery of flowing line and faultless composition the profound humanity of Signorelli's 'Circumcision'; to recognise that Degas' revelation of a sodden drunkard is more valuable than a shop-girl Roman Empress by Alma Tadema, that Wilson Steer's expression of the infinite content and ever-changing aspect of light takes us further into Nature's confidence than a Cubist formula or an Academician's patiently mechanical multiplication of alpine flowers or curls on a sheep's back.

If a picture lacks this revelation of profound significance, then we should be able to face the fact that Titian painted it with indifference. If a St Sebastian takes the languid pose of a bored model and expresses only the desire to fit the composition so as skilfully and picturesquely to appeal to our compassion, we should despise the picture as a sentimental falsity. In the same way, if the agony is piled up with false emphasis and calculated brutalities (as is the present fashion in 'strong' realistic literature), we should at once detect the selfconscious note and deliberate falsification of true values. Life, it is obvious, is the only working gauge and standard; great ideas brought up on Ideal Beauty that is independent of life can but lead into the ditch, for even the Alma Tademas and custard-poster people lay claim to great ideas and beauty. The great artists find no difficulty in penetrating deep into life; even Hals, who for most of his career was not much more profound in insight than an instantaneous photograph, acquired this vision. The trouble is that we, the outside public, have not learnt to recognise, when put before us, the subtler truths of life. For us, if for any one, should critics live, to put us in the way of apprehension.

C. H. COLLINS BAKER,

Art. 11.-THE HOME RULE TRUCE.

IN the July number of this Review we gave some account of the events which compelled the Liberal Government finally to abandon their convenient theory that Ulster's objection to being thrust under Dublin rule was mere bluff. On April 29, Mr Asquith declared in the House of Commons:

'I have never closed the door and I never will close the door, until I am compelled by absolute force of circumstances to do so, to any means of arriving at a settlement in this matter, provided that it satisfies the condition that it meets with the assent, the honest and sincere assent, of those who are mainly interested, Irishmen both upon one side and upon the other, and of the two great political parties in the State. No other terms can possibly be satisfactory in this matter.'

In

The discussion now centred on the exclusion of Ulster, regarded by neither side as a satisfactory arrangement, but by both as the only means of avoiding civil war. a memorable speech on April 30, Mr Balfour gave expression to the sentiments of most Unionists when he said: 'If anybody thinks I shall regard it as a triumph that there should be put on the Statute Book a Bill setting up anything I regard with such horror as a Home Rule system, even without Ulster, they little understand the ideas for which I have striven all my life. There was a time. . . when I cherished the dream that, if law was restored in the southern provinces of Ireland, if every grievance was removed, every inequality smoothed away, every encouragement given to legitimate industry . . . ancient memories would gradually soften, men would look forward as well as backward, and there would grow up what there ought to be between these two islands-a common hope, a common loyalty, confidence in a common heritage-and that all this might be accomplished under one Parliament. For that I have striven; for that I have argued in this House and out of it. . . . And, Sir, if the result of all this is that, in order that civil war may be avoided, . . . there is yet to be established in Dublin a separate Parliament, to the injury, as I think, of the Irish people, and not less, perhaps, to the British people, then, Sir, I may be an object of pity to the right hon. gentleman, but he need not think I shall regard such a consummation as a triumph over my political enemies. On the contrary, it is the

mark of the failure of a life's work; it is the admission that the causes for which I have most striven . . . are fated to break down, and that the long labours spent in this House and out of it have not borne the fruit that I once hoped they might.'

These noble and touching words were generally taken to mean that Mr Balfour had come to regard the passing of Home Rule in some form as inevitable; and there can be little doubt that the great majority of his party were of the same mind. With all the more energy they fought for the point that at least the Bill should not inflict an intolerable injustice on the loyal people of the North. On the other side, the bulk of Ministerialists, having at last awoke to the fact that the forcible inclusion of Ulster meant civil war, had reluctantly made up their minds to accept the principle of exclusion. But the difficulty lay in its practical application. Was there to be a time-limit, or not? What portion of Ulster was to be excluded? And how was the population of Ulster to express its opinion? On these points, week after week, the controversy vainly turned.

On May 12 Mr Asquith declared that the Government would make themselves responsible for introducing an Amending Bill, in the hope that, as a result of concerted action by persons in all quarters of the House,' the measure would be so framed as to pass; and he added that it was the intention of the Government that the Home Rule Bill and the Amending Bill should become law practically at the same time. A fortnight later the Home Rule Bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons by a majority of 77, Mr Asquith stating that, if an agreement respecting Ulster were reached, the Amending Bill would give effect to it; if not, the Bill would embody the proposals sketched by him on March 8. But the agreement was not reached.

Throughout the summer there was a series of negotiations and proposals designed presumably to conciliate the Opposition; while the Prime Minister's decision to dispense with the Committee stage of the Home Rule Bill, and his refusal to consider amendments in the 'suggestion' stage, showed an equal concern to satisfy Messrs Redmond and Devlin. As a sop to the Unionists,