he executed in other media any works which have since been lost trace of, or whether he was for the time discouraged, I do not feel certain. Perhaps the fact that in the autumn of this year he made his first pilgrimage to Italy, might lead us to believe that he felt that his time for the study of the old masters was now at hand. In Italy he was most moved by the works at Siena, where he spent some months. I do not think that his art was much changed by this visit. As a matter of fact he was so much under the influence of Rossetti that so I have heard said-he chiefly sought for works that might have influenced his master. On his return, in 1860, he painted the lovely figures of "Sidonia" and "Clara von Bork." Meinhold's romances had great power over the minds of the Pre-Raphaelites, and Barne-Jones certainly caught the infection to some purpose. In later days "Sidonia the Sorceress" was one of the publications of that Kelmscott Press to which Morris and Burne-Jones devoted so much care and genius. In the same year he again attempted temperapainting, at the "Red House" which Morris had built for himself at Upton. Rossetti, perhaps grown wiser, preferred to paint his "Salutatio Beatrix" upon the panels of a door. The fact may be regarded as the first assertion of Burne-Jones's own individuality-he preferring to attempt again the solution of a problem insufficiently fascinating for his master. Indeed, with 1860 Burne-Jones may be said to have outgrown his tutelage. The drawing of the "Parable of the Burning Pot" would of itself be sufficient to demonstrate as much. Its beauties and its strength by so far outbalance its weaknesses that it might easily be styled the work af a great master. It must, however, be remembered that pen-and-ink drawing was the branch of his art to which he had devoted the most attention and the greatest amount of time. By the end of 1860 Burne-Jones was accepted as an equal by most of the associates of the Pre-Raphaelite coterie. He was one of the first members of the Hogarth Club, was the intimate friend of Rossetti, Madox-Brown and Arthur Hughes, and of Morris and Swinburne. Moreover, he " shared the patrons" with them all; he was introduced to the Dalziels, and worked for their Bible and for Good Words, sold pictures to Mr. Plint, to Mr. Bodley, and subsequently to Mr. Rae, Mr. Miller, Mr. Leathart, and the other great patrons of the circle. Then, too, in 1860 the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. was in existence. Even before its inception, Burne-Jones, like MadoxBrown and other of the members, had designed stained glass for Messrs. Powell & Co., and more or less elaborate articles of furniture for himself and his friends. The firm-apart from the work it "turned out "-is interesting on account of its members. Seven in number (like the original English Pre-Raphaelites), they included all the leaders of that later movement which an inaccurate world has insisting on dubbing "Pre-Raphaelite." Yet the supporters of Estheticism had among them only one of the original Pre-Raphaelites and no upholder of the old laws. For Rossetti himself had, by that time, abandoned his earliest style and inclined towards works like his "Lucrezia Borgia" and its contemporaries. For Morris & Co. Burne-Jones made a prodigious number of cartoons for stained glass, which alone would be sufficient to rank him among the highest of masters. It would be difficult to conceive anything more effective or more adapted to the mode of expression than the "Nativity" and "Crucifixion" in the east window of St. Philip's Church, Birmingham, to name but one of that vast series. One is almost tempted to declare them the highest attainment of the artist, almost of the century. Prolific as Madox-Brown was in designs for the same purpose, I doubt whether, during the time of his connection with the "firm," he produced more than one-half the number that Burne-Jones achieved during the same period. It is possible that immediate needs may have conduced to this end. For some years Burne-Jones must have been under the necessity of relying for his earnings upon these very cartoons-though to none of them that I have seen would it be possible to give the name of "potboiler." A month after the day that saw the union of Rossetti and Eleanor Siddall, Burne-Jones married Miss Georgina Macdonald--a lady whose face is familiar to all lovers of her husband's works. She is the sister of Lady Poynter and of Mrs. Kipling, the mother of Mr. Rudyard Kipling. To her love for music, and particularly for the old French songs, of the "Echos du Temps Passé," we may trace the inspiration of pictures like the " Chant d'Amour," with its motto: "Hélas je sais un chant d'amour, In 1862 Burne-Jones made his second visit to Italy. Mr. Ruskin, who was then suffering from a serious attack of depression, took advantage of his society, giving him, in return for heartening companionship, the benefit of his advice. At that time it took the form of advising him to copy Tintoretto. Thus, finally, Burne-Jones seems to have sacrificed to the orthodox deities, and, like any other National Gallery student, to have copied the "old masters." I must confess myself unable to trace any influence of Tintoretto in any of BurneJones's subsequent work-in any, that is, that I have seen so that Mr. Ruskin's panegyric of Titian's great rival would seem to me to have left this nineteenth-century peer of the masters of all time comparatively unaffected. But there is no doubt that the experience was extremely valuable. It is easy to trace in Burne-Jones's work the influence of artists whose pictures are only to be seen in any number in Italy, and Mr. Ruskin's fire and eloquence, unbalanced as they have always been, may possibly have been better in some ways than solitary study in places like Rimini and Siena. contemn. It must not, however, be imagined that Burne-Jones allowed himself to be overwhelmed by Ruskin's appreciations or dislikes. Ruskin loudly upheld Tintoretto; Burne-Jones, with quiet and subtle persistence, advanced the claims of Carpaccio, whom Ruskin affected to But we find Ruskin writing to "Dear old Ned," in after years, and acknowledging that "this Carpaccio is a new world to me." Carpaccio and Bellini, indeed, may be said to have seriously influenced Burne-Jones himself. On his return he did work like the "Merciful Knight," a picture in parts of which reminiscences of the Venice of the Quattrocentists are particularly observable. Indeed his "Theophilus and Dorothea," and his Whitley "St. George" series, seem to be directly inspired by Carpaccio's "Ursula" and "St. George." The remainder of Burne-Jones's life was given up to the gradual development of his powers. Not until five years later did he rely much upon oils for expression, nor was it until 1864 that, at the exhibition of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours, he came before the public as an exhibitor. The fact that his works, when noticed, were received with ridicule need not be emphasised. His contributions were "Fair Rosamond," a charming little drawing; "Cinderella"; the "Merciful Knight," unsurpassed in its way; and the second version of the "Annunciation." Pre-Raphaelism had by this time fought its hard fight-it was even shaking the Royal Academy, and filling the public prints with projects and rumours of reform; but Estheticism was a new growth, and even so staunch a friend to PreRaphaelite painters as the critic of the Athenæum seems to have found. something new and strange in the works of the coming master. is only fair to say that that gentleman was fully conscious of the promise of genius, yet it is a little amusing to read such an absolute misinterpretation of an unfamiliar pose as is enshrined in the notice of "No. 200": 66 It Enjoying to the utmost the colour of the Annunciation,' we protest against the minauderie of the angel Gabriel, who, with the air of a French modiste, 'presents' the lily to the amazed little Virgin. The frivolity of the figure is obvious. Mr. Jones is capable of graver thoughts." As a matter of fact, given a slight temporary lack of " graver thoughts" and an absolute unfamiliarity with the "look" of Mr. Jones's work on the part of the critic, it might be possible for him to thus misconstrue the painter's meaning. The Spectator, on the other hand, which had at one time been the Pre-Raphaelite organ, damns him without faint praise, but utters the pious hope that the com panionship of the older members of the O.W.S. may wean him from the follies imbibed with Pre-Raphaelite milk. It was not until the Grosvenor Gallery exhibition of 1877 that any really great impression was made. There he was represented by the "Beguiling of Merlin," the " Days of Creation," and "Venus' Mirror." At the Grosvenor Gallery he continued to exhibit his works for some ten years. Indeed, the ultimate disappearance of that undertaking may be set down to his defection. In 1877 his following was small though enthusiastic. The 'seventies were the fat years of Estheticism. The Press—which at the beginning of the period was, as a rule, rabid -gradually changed its tone, and we may, perhaps, accept its fulminations as voicing the public mind of those days. The Athenæum, in 1877, continued to temper its praise with chastening heat, the Spectator remaining cheerfully damnatory. But in 1885 we find the latter organ upbraiding the Royal Academicians for attempting to bolster up their tottering house with the works of one "whose springtime blossoms its wintry blast had nipped." In 1886 Burne-Jones made his sole appearance at the Academy, contributing the picture of a mermaid and her victim, which used to be called the "Depths of the Sea." I believe the name of it has since been altered. He never afterward lightened the gloom of Burlington House, and, as we know, he subsequently made room for more condescending men. His connection with exhibitions was never over-fortunate. The Hogarth Club, where the first of his works appeared, was short-lived. The obtuseness of the members of the Old Water-Colour Society caused him to sever his connection with them in 1864, though in that year he actually exhibited along with them. He was afterwards induced to allow himself to be re-elected. Various circumstances caused him to abandon the Grosvenor Gallery, and his union with the Academy was so ill-assorted that its discontinuance was inevitable. His connection with the New Gallery was, however, an exception. His career in his later years was a tranquil but triumphal progress, and honours, like the gentle rain from heaven, fell upon him unstrained. At the time of his death, if he had done his best work, he had certainly not exhausted his vein, and no signs of a failing hand troubled him. For any one who was not a constant inmate of Burne-Jones's studio it is an almost impossible task to trace in his pictures any ordered development of style. Once out of his absolute novitiate and past his years of devotion to Rossetti, he took upon him a manner almost entirely his own. It was a manner reminiscent or suggestive of others, but it had more than sufficient of individual salt to save it from the corruption of mere imitativeness. It is obviously easy to distinguish between the style of, say, the " King Cophetua," which was finished in 1884, and that which gave us the "Sidonia von Bork of 1860. But such a work as the "Wine of Circe" is more difficult to approach. It was commenced in 1860, whilst the artist was still more or less timidly tentative, but was finished as late as 1869-70, when he had attained to a stage of brilliant experimentalism. It was Burne-Jones's habit to have a large number of works always on the easel. Perhaps want of patrons may have formed, in early days, a habit that, later, became confirmed and, as it were, constitutional. Then, too, Burne-Jones's work was never altogether equal in level. He was one of those happy men who remain learners to their lives' ends, and, he was peculiarly prone to make experiments, which were all so many casts-aside from the ordered progress of less wayward masters. A man who considers, as he did, that he has to overtake the flying feet of a decade and a half of years of an early manhood not devoted to his art, may perhaps be pardoned for attempting short cuts to mastery. I am not altogether certain that his experiments were such attempts. They may have been the effects of remembered impressions, for he was singularly open to the influence of reminiscences, and they seem to have acted upon him with all the force that actual surroundings produce upon other men. Whatever be the real explanation of these points, the student of development is none the less presented with difficulties. It would not be impossible to meet with a work by Burne-Jones which had been begun in 1860 or thereabouts, and had been worked upon at intervals of varying wideness up to the year 1890. It might conceivably be sufficiently like the original design; it might contain drapery (the product of 1872 or thereabouts) strongly early Italian in flight of lines; it might be distinguished by that paleness or soberness of colourscheme that the artist affected in his later periods; and yet the whole might be brought together and harmonised in colour and composition with all the masterliness that was his at the last. Extreme though this case might be, it would not be impossible that some such work should have escaped exhibition and record or catalogue. Lacking it, there are examples enough to fall back upon. Take the truly magnificent "Laus Veneris." The original watercolour was commenced in 1860-61, and, together with the large oil-picture begun in 1873, it was finished in 1878. In this particular design we are confronted by a beauty of composition and flow of line that the artist did not attain to until considerably later than the commencement date of this water-colour. The scheme of colour, however, might conceivably be relegated to the early 'sixties, at least as far as the water-colour is concerned. The tapestry in the back |