d
the same college, having also the intention of taking orders. The two were
thrown together, and grew close friends. Their similar tastes and
enthusiasms were [v.04 p.0849] mutually stimulated. Burne-Jones resumed his
early love of drawing and designing. With Morris he read _Modern Painters_
and the _Morte d'Arthur_. He studied the Italian pictures in the University
galleries, and Duerer's engravings; but his keenest enthusiasm was kindled
by the sight of two works by a living man, Rossetti. One of these was a
woodcut in Allingham's poems, "The Maids of Elfinmere"; the other was the
water-colour "Dante drawing an Angel," then belonging to Mr Coombe, of the
Clarendon Press, and now in the University collection. Having found his
true vocation, Burne-Jones, like his friend Morris, determined to
relinquish his thoughts of the Church and to become an artist. Rossetti,
although not yet seen by him, was his chosen master; and early in 1856 he
had the happiness, in London, of meeting him. At Easter he left college
without taking a degree. This was his own decision, not due (as often
stated) to Rossetti's persuasion; but on settling in London, where Morris
soon joined him at 17 Red Lion Square, he began to work under Rossetti's
friendly instruction and encouraging guidance.

As Burne-Jones once said, he "found himself at five-and-twenty what he
ought to have been at fifteen." He had had no regular training as a
draughtsman, and lacked the confidence of science. But his extraordinary
faculty of invention as a designer was already ripening; his mind, rich in
knowledge of classical story and medieval romance, teemed with pictorial
subjects; and he set himself to complete his equipment by resolute labour,
witnessed by innumerable drawings. The works of this first period are all
more or less tinged by the influence of Rossetti; but they are already
differentiated from the elder master's style by their more facile though
less intensely felt elaboration of imaginative detail. Many are pen-and-ink
drawings on vellum, exquisitely finished, of which the "Waxen Image" is one
of the earliest and best examples; it is dated 1856. Although subject,
medium and manner derive from Rossetti's inspiration, it is not the hand of
a pupil merely, but of a potential master. This was recognized by Rossetti
himself, who before long avowed that he had nothing more to teach him.
Burne-Jones's first sketch in oils dates from this same year, 1856; and
during