The attention of Mr. Ruskin had meanwhile been diverted to some extent from the work of Millais and Hunt by his entrance in 1854 upon a close personal friendship with Rossetti, which lasted in cordial fidelity for some ten or twelve years. At the time of his first public championship of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Mr. Ruskin had known nothing of Rossetti’s work, inasmuch as it had never yet appeared on the walls of the Academy or in any of the popular exhibitions of the period. But, for such unintentional and unconscious neglect of the real leader of the movement which he so warmly endorsed, the great critic now made ample reparation. He became a constant and generous patron of Rossetti’s pictures until the painter passed, about the year 1865, into his third artistic period, and developed methods less in accordance with Ruskin’s especial tenets. That the gradual severance of intimacy between artist and buyer should have been brought about by the former’s independence of spirit and resolute adherence to his own inspirations and aims, in the face of some, perhaps, over-officious criticism and counsel from his patron, is certainly no discredit to Rossetti. At the same time, the art-world owes a debt of gratitude to Mr. Ruskin for having so long encouraged, by his support and sympathy, the production of those exquisite water-colours which Rossetti, unsettled as he then was in habits of painting, might not otherwise have accomplished in such splendour and cogency during his transition period.