The Pre-Raphaelite cause had been fully successful, and the new school of naturalist landscape was rapidly asserting itself.

Old friends were failing, such as Stanfield, Lewis, and Roberts: but new men were growing up, among whom Ruskin welcomed G.D.Leslie, F.Goodall, J.C.

Hook,--who had come out of his "Pre-Raphaelite measles" into the healthy naturalism of "Luff Boy!"-- Clarence Whaite, Henry Holiday, and John Brett, who showed the "Val d'Aosta." Millais' "Vale of Rest" was the picture which attracted most notice: something of the old rancour against the school was revived in the _Morning Herald_, which called his works "impertinences," "contemptible," "indelible disgrace," and so on.

It was the beginning of a transition from the delicacy of the Pre-Raphaelite Millais to his later style; and as such the preacher of "All great art is delicate" could not entirely defend it.

But the serious strength of the imagination and the power of the execution he praised with unexpected warmth.
He then started on the last tour abroad with his parents.