nd looks on
unconcernedly, his spear lying across his breast. A young man, probably
acquainted with the writing of Dante, sympathises with him. In the
centre and just before the feet of Dante, is a beautiful child,
brilliantly dressed and crowned with flowers, and dragging along the
floor a garland of bay leaves and flowers, while looking earnestly and
innocently in the poet's face. Next come a pair of lovers, the lady
looking at Dante with attention, the man heedless. The last wears a vest
embroidered with eyes like those in a peacock's tail. A priest and a
noble descend the stairs behind, jeering at Dante."[3]

It was the _Golden Hours_ which, though perhaps less memorable and
imaginative than the others, won the greatest popular success of the
three, a success beyond anything that the artist had so far painted. As
this picture is here reproduced, description is needless, except so far
as regards the colour of the background, which is literally golden. The
dress of the lady who leans upon the spinet is white, embroidered with
flowers. The _Orpheus and Eurydice_ showed that the old friendship,
formed originally in Rome, between the painter and Robert Browning, was
maintained. Some of the poet's lines served as a text for the picture;
and as they are little known we repeat them here:

"But give them me--the mouth, the eyes, the brow--
Let them once more absorb me! One look now
Will lap me round for ever, not to pass
Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond.
Hold me but safe again within the bond
Of one immortal look! All woe that was,
Forgotten, and all terror that may be,
Defied,--no past is mine, no future! look at me!"

[Illustration: HELEN OF TROY (1865)
_By permission of Messrs. Henry Graves and Co._]

[Illustration: ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE (1864)]

To this year, also, belongs a portrait of _The late Miss Lavinia
I'Anson_, a circular panel showing the sky for background. This was
exhibited again in the winter Academy of 1897.

In 1865 the artist showed once again his eclectic sympathies, by the
variety of the subject-pictures that he sent to the Academy, ranging
from _David_ to _Helen of Troy_.

In his tenderly conceived _David_, the Psalmist is seen gazing at two
doves in the sky above; he, sunk in a profound reverie, is seated upon a
house-top overlooking some neighbouring hills. The whole is large in its
handling and treatment, and in the simplicity of its drapery