red away by the frame. It would not be the act of a
true friend to Rossetti's memory to pretend that these drawings, of
which for the next ten or fifteen years he continued to produce a
great number, were without faults of a nature which any coxcomb could
perceive, or without eccentricities which an untrained eye might
easily mistake for faults; but this does not in the least militate
against the fact that in two great departments of the painter's
faculty, in imaginative sentiment and in wealth of color, they have
never been surpassed. They have rarely, indeed, been equalled in the
history of painting. A Rossetti drawing of this class hung with
specimens of other art, ancient or modern, simply destroys them. I do
not mean that it is better or worse than they are, but that it kills
them as the electric light puts out a glow-worm. No other man's color
will bear these points of ruby-crimson, these expanses of deep
turquoise-blue, these flagrant scarlets and thunderous purples. He
paints the sleeve of a trumpeter; it is such an orange as the eye can
scarce endure to look at. He paints the tiles of a chimney-corner;
they are as green as the peacock's eyes in the sunshine.

The world is seldom ready to receive any new thing. These drawings of
Rossetti's were scarcely noticed even by those who are habitually on
the watch for fresh developments in art. But when the painter next
emerges into something like publicity we find him attended by a
brilliant company of younger men, all more or less influenced by his
teaching and attracted by his gifts. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
had been a very ephemeral institution; in three years, or four at the
most, it had ceased to exist; but its principles and the energy of its
founder had left their mark on the whole world of art. In 1849
Rossetti had exhibited his picture, "The Girlhood of Mary Virgin," at
the Portland Gallery, an exhibition in rivalry of the Royal Academy,
which existed but a very short time. As far as I can discover, he did
not exhibit again in London until 1856, when he and his friends opened
a collection of their pictures at 4 Russell Place, Fitzroy Square. We
would rather have seen that little gallery than see most of the
show-exhibitions of Europe. In it the fine art of the Anglo-Saxon race
was seen dawning again after its long and dark night. Rossetti himself
was the principal exhibitor, but his two earliest colleagues, now
famous painters, Mr. Millais and Mr. Holman