increased during his last year. He died unmarried, on 1 July 1910, at his sister's house at Forest Gate of inflammation of the brain. A posthumous volume, entitled 'True Stories of the Past' (1910), bears witness to his untiring diligence and dexterous treatment of romantic episodes.
In addition to the works mentioned above, Hume edited a reprint of 'A History of Spain' (1900) by U. R. Burke [q. v.], translated a novel, 'Face to Face and Dolorosa,' from the Spanish of F. Acebal (1906), wrote a study on 'Fashion in Femininity' for Mary Craven's 'Famous Beauties of two Reigns' (London, 1906), and published 'Through Portugal,' an account of a short tour in that country, in 1907. In 1907 he also, amid much similar work, collaborated with F. B. Harbottle in a 'Dictionary of Quotations (Spanish),' supervised 'The South American Series' of historical manuals, and edited another series entitled 'Romantic History.'
Hume's interest in Spanish history and politics was genuine and well-informed, and he did good service in popularising these subjects. But his work at the Record Office shows that he was capable of better things. He took little pains to conceal his dislike for the academic type of mind, and professional critics were sometimes blind to the real merits which lay behind his emphatic style and journalistic methods. He was sensitive to criticism and was much chagrined at his failure to obtain chairs in history and Spanish for which he applied at the universities of Glasgow and Liverpool respectively. His merits were recognised in other ways; he was made hon. M.A. of Cambridge in 1908; he was a corresponding member of the Royal Spanish Academy, of the Royal Spanish Academy of History, and of the Royal Galician Academy, and a knight grand cross of the order of Isabel the Catholic. As a retired officer of the 3rd battalion of the Essex regiment he was known to the public as Major Hume; to his intimates and friends as 'Don Martin.'
[Private information; The Times, 4 July 1910. A memoir by R. B. Cunninghame Graham is in preparation.]
HUNT, GEORGE WILLIAM. [See under Macdermott, Gilbert Hastings (1845–1901), music-hall singer.]
HUNT, WILLIAM HOLMAN (1827–1910), painter, born in Wood Street, Cheapside, London, on 2 April 1827, was eldest son in a family of two sons and five daughters of William Hunt, warehouseman there, by his wife, Sarah, daughter of William Holman. He was baptised in the famous church of St. Giles, Cripplegate. His father, William Hunt, who had some taste for art and books, took his son, while a child, to call on John Varley, the water-colour painter, but young William's early artistic ambitions were not encouraged by his father. After education at private schools the boy, in his thirteenth year, had his first touch of commercial life, engaging himself as assistant to a surveyor or estate agent, and afterwards to the London agent of Richard Cobden [q. v.], calico printer and politician. Finding these employments uncongenial, he obtained the reluctant permission of his family to spend his evenings in learning something of the practice of art. In this he was assisted by one Henry Rogers, a portrait painter living in the City of London, in whom lingered some of the traditions of Reynolds. Holman Hunt's own early efforts in portraiture attracted the attention of his master. In 1843 he left his mercantile employment and began work as a student at the British Museum. He spent three days a week there, and soon devoted another two days to copying at the National Gallery. In 1844 he was received into the Academy schools as a probationer after failing in a first attempt, and was promoted to studentship the following year. Millais, two years younger than himself, was already known among Holman Hunt's fellow-students at the Museum as a precocious genius. At the Academy the two youths made each other's acquaintance, and became friends for life. With another Academy student, Dante Gabriel Rossetti [q. v.], Holman Hunt was soon on 'nodding terms,' but he did not form a close acquaintance with him till they had left the school. In 1846 Holman Hunt began to exhibit at the Academy, sending from a studio at Hackney a picture entitled 'Hark!' a little girl holding a watch to her ear. In 1847, when he had removed to 108 High Holborn, he sent to the Academy 'Dr. Rochecliffe performing Divine Service in the Cottage of Joceline Joliffe at Woodstock,' a scene from Scott's novel. At the British Institution he exhibited in the same year 'Little Nell and her Grandfather.' These paintings were followed in 1848 by the 'Flight of Madeline and Porphyro,' from Keats's 'Eve of St. Agnes' (now the property of Walton Wilson). Like Holman Hunt's former Academy picture, this performance fired the enthusiasm of Rossetti, then a pupil of Ford Madox Brown. Rossetti told the artist that the illustration of Keats was
