The place which should be assigned to Sir Edward Burne-Jones in the history of modern art is by no means easy to define, for his work with its unusual qualities of intention and achievement does not lend itself readily to classification. At the outset of his career he might with some justice have been numbered with the Pre-Raphaelites, because the first influences to which he responded were those which directed the Pre-Raphaelite movement, and because in his earliest productions he showed that these influences had counted for much in the shaping of his æsthetic inclinations. But as he developed he made plainer and more convincing the assertion of his individuality, he ceased to be simply a follower of a movement, and evolved for himself a system of æsthetic practice which was personal both in aim and in manner of expression. That in formulating this system he borrowed much from early Italian art, that he based himself upon certain remote masters, with whose primitive methods he was deeply in sympathy, can scarcely be denied; but in this reference to the past he did not show the blind readiness to imitate which is the vice of the copyist; he altered and adapted, varied this principle and modified that detail, until he had with the material he collected built up a quite complete superstructure, which was Italian only in its foundation. And in this process of building up he was guided surely enough by a right instinct for decorative propriety, an instinct which was partly innate, partly the outcome of associations by which he was largely affected throughout his life. If his personality had been less strong, or his æsthetic preference less defined, these associations might easily have cramped his imagination and narrowed him into the repetition of a set formula; but his intelligence was so keen and his conviction concerning his artistic mission was so clear, that he was able to overcome all the obstacles by which he might have been turned from his right course. His career, thanks to the consistency with which he worked, became a record of continuous effort to realise an ideal that lacked neither nobility nor intellectual variety. [Illustration: PLATE II.--SIDONIA VON BORK (In the possession of W. Graham Robertson, Esq.) As an early picture, painted while Burne-Jones was still under the influence of Rossetti, "Sidonia von Bork" illustrates characteristically a particular phase of the artist's practice; one of much importance in the evolution of his art. "Sidonia von Bork" was one of the characters in a romance called "Sidonia the Sorceress," which was written by a Swiss clergyman. The book was a favourite of Rossetti's, so that evidently Burne-Jones was influenced by his master both in his choice and in his treatment of a subject from its pages. A reprint of the story was issued by William Morris from the Kelmscott Press.]