the poet's
eloquent eulogy of his friend's talents. An interesting piece of
autobiography is afforded in the same article, where Swinburne tells us
that his own poem of 'Erotion,' in the first series of _Poems and
Ballads_, was written for a drawing by Simeon Solomon; and in another
number of the same magazine there appeared 'The End of the Month,' to
accompany a new design of Solomon's, the poem appearing later in the
second series of _Poems and Ballads_. Very few English artists--not even
Millais--began life with fairer prospects. Thackeray wrote in one of the
'Roundabout Papers' for 1860: 'For example, one of the pictures I admired
most at the Royal Academy is by a gentleman on whom I never, to my
knowledge, set eyes. The picture is (346) "Moses," by S. Solomon. I
thought it finely drawn and composed. It nobly represented to my mind
the dark children of the Egyptian bondage. . . . My newspaper says: "Two
ludicrously ugly women, looking at a dingy baby, do not form a pleasing
object," and so good-bye, Mr. S. S.' This beautiful picture, painted
when the artist was only nineteen, is now in the collection of Mr. W. G.
Rawlinson, and was seen quite recently at the Franco-British Exhibition,
where those familiar with his work considered it one of Solomon's
masterpieces. Very few students of Thackeray realised, however, that the
painter thus singled out for praise formed the subject of a sordid
inquest reported in the _Times_ of August 18th, 1905.

That Solomon's pictures were at first better known to the public than
those of his now more famous associates is shown by Robert Buchanan
confessing that he had scarcely seen any of their works except those of
Solomon, which he proceeded to attack in the famous _The Fleshly School
of Poetry_. As a sort of justification of the criticism, in the early
seventies, the extraordinary artist had become a pariah. He was
imprisoned for a short while, and on his release was placed in a private
asylum by his friends. Scandal having subsided, since he showed no
further signs of eccentricity, he was, by arrangement, sent out to post a
letter in order that he might have a chance of quietly escaping and
returning to the practice of his art. He returned to the asylum in half
an hour!--a proceeding which was almost an evidence of insanity. He was
subsequently officially dismissed, and from this time went steadily
downhill, adding to his other vices that of intemperance. Every effort