y the _ne plus ultra_ of water-color painting,--especially the
"Llanthony Abbey," of which I recall those early impressions with the
greatest distinctness[1]. I saw in the Academy Exhibition the last
pictures he ever exhibited, some whaling subjects, fresh from his
retouching of two days before, gorgeous dreams of color art, but only
dreams--the actuality had all gone out. I saw them years after when
they had become mere wrecks, hardly recognizable.

[Footnote 1: I saw it again in the Guildhall Exhibition of 1899.]

I saw also that year a picture by Rossetti and one by Millais, and the
latter impressed me very strongly; in fact it determined me in the
manner in which I should follow art on my return home. I did not and
could not put it on the same plane as the "Llanthony Abbey," but the
straight thrust for the truth was evidently the shortest way to
a certain excellence, and this of the kind most akin to my own
faculties, and I said to Delf, who was with me at the exhibition
of the Academy, that if ever English figure painting rose out of
mediocrity it would be through the work of the P.R.B. My impression is
that the picture was the "Christ in the Carpenter's Shop," but of this
I cannot be sure, though I am certain that it was in the exhibition of
1850. The Rossetti was in the old "National Society," and was either
the "Childhood of the Virgin Mary" or the "White Lady." Beautiful as
it was, it did not impress me as did the temper of Millais's work,
the scrupulous conscientiousness of which chimed with my Puritan
education. I left England with a fermentation of art ideas in my
brain, in which the influence of Turner and Pyne, the teachings
of Wehnert, and the work of the Pre-Raphaelites mingled with the
influence of Ruskin, and especially the preconception of art work
derived from the descriptions, often strangely misleading, of the
"Modern Painters."

I received from my brother, as I had anticipated, the order for a
passage on the Atlantic, one of the Collins line of steamers, and one
of my fellow-passengers was Jenny Lind, on her way for her first visit
to America under the guidance of Barnum. She gave a concert on board
for the benefit of the firemen and sailors, and to this the half of
Delf's sovereign contributed, the other half going for a bottle of
Rhine wine, to return the compliment of my next neighbor at the table,
who had invited me to take a glass of wine one day. Thus, as usual, I
landed penniless from my