Welsh Journals

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We must not omit to mention Mrs. Arnesby Brown fresh and freely handled portraits, and we note with satisfaction that Mr. Carey Morris is developing a vigorous and interesting technique. A City of Refuge," the picture which gained for Miss Lindsay Williams the Gold Medal and Travelling Scholarship in the Royal Academy Schools, is characterised by incisive drawing and academic composition, both of which qualities are valuable assets and may become stepping stones to a freer and more individual form of expression. Sir W. Goscombe John's great reputation as a sculptor renders it needless to do more than draw attention to his very beautiful bronzes, while Mr. Harvard Thomas's Terpsis, a work of unaffected charm, reaches a very high level of achievement. "Going to This picture, the original of Work. which is in Glasgow, is a fine and typical example of the work of Jean Francois Millet, the great French painter and inspired peasant. He was born on the 4th of October 1814 in the hamlet of Gruchy, a few miles from Cherbourg, and was the second of eight children. His parents belonged to that sturdy French and Catholic peasantry whose moral strength and dignified thought has been the very life blood of France. One of Millet's earliest recollections was of his grandmother awakening him and saying Up, my little Francois If you only knew what a long time the birds have been singing the glory of God." This grandmother, an intensely religious woman, living in God, like a woman of Port Royal, was perhaps the greatest influence in his life. Until he was twenty. Millet worked in the fields with his father and mother, mowing and making hay, win- nowing, ploughing, manuring, sowing and so taking part personally in the life whose grandeur he was afterwards to reveal. His profound insight into this life enabled him, while disregarding particular and accidental traits, to depict the type, and this power of generalisation gives his work a monumental character, and places it alongside the great art of the world. He scorned embellishments of every kind, but sought to express himself directly and vividly. He was a great prophet, without being a preacher or moralist in the ordinary meanings of those words he simply saw things with an artist's eye, portrayed them as they impressed him, and let them tell their tale. St. David's It is perhaps, St. David's most Day. enduring claim to the gratitude of his fellow-countrymen that he has become the symbol of its nationality." Last year the Board of Education issued suggestions to teachers about to celebrate St. David's Day in the elementary schools. This year the Circular has been considerably enlarged, and we congratulate the Welsh Department on a useful publication. All that is known and much that is conjectured about the national saint is here summarised; there is a detailed section showing what might be done to illustrate Bygone Wales" on the lines of the recent Museum Exhibition at Cardiff and there is an illustrated appendix dealing with the "Myddeltons of Denbigh the tercentenary of whose principal achievements falls during the present year. It is a stirring story of the spacious days of Elizabeth. William Myddelton smoked the new tobacco with Sir Walter Raleigh in the streets of London, and was one of the most daring sailors of the Spanish Main. He varied fighting in the West Indies with the composition of a Welsh Metrical Version of the Psalms. Thomas Myddleton united in himself the love of commerce and literature. He was Lord Mayor of London in 1613, and he helped in 1631 to publish "The first Welsh Bible that ordinary laymen could hope to possess." The day on which Thomas became Lord Mayor saw the triumph of the engineering feat of his brother Hugh, for on that day the water of the New River flowed into London. There is plainly plenty of material here to make St. David's Day 1914, one of inspiring memories and radiant hopes. A Welsh For ten years and more the Guild Dictionary. of Graduates has contemplated the publication of a standard and exhaustive dictionary of the Welsh language. During the last few weeks the Western Mail, with characteristic enterprise, has published columns of opinion on the project. We think we can put the whole matter in a logical paragraph. Most graduates have brains and no money. Some patriots have much money and little (philological) brains. To publish a national dictionary would run to the price of two or three respectable motor cars, or four or five Cymmrodorion banquets. Sir Ivor Herbert is right it is a matter of money. Meanwhile the brains are waiting-at Aberystwyth.