FREDERICK WALKER (1840--1875) died just as he had fulfilled the promise of his youth. After spending a short time in the office of an architect and surveyor, he left this uncongenial region to practise art. He occasionally studied in the Academy Schools, and began his artistic career by illustrating Thackeray's "Philip" in the "Cornhill Magazine," thus winning much praise. He became a member of the Old Water-Colour Society, and an A.R.A. A career full of promise was cut short by death at St. Fillan's, Perthshire, in 1875: the young painter was buried at his favourite Cookham, on the Thames. His chief works are _The Lost Path_, _The Bathers_, _The Vagrants_, _The Old Gate_, _The Plough_, _The Harbour of Refuge_, and _The Right of Way_. Mr. Redgrave said, "His genius was thoroughly and strikingly original. His works are marked by a method of their own; the drawing, colour, and execution, alike peculiar to himself. They are at once refined and pathetic in sentiment, and novel in their conception of nature and her effects. His figures have the true feeling of rustic life, with the grace of line of the antique." [Illustration: OUR VILLAGE. _By_ FREDERICK WALKER. _Exhibited at the Water-colour Society's Exhibition._ A.D. 1873.] GABRIEL CHARLES DANTE ROSSETTI (1828--1882), poet, and painter of sacred subjects and scenes inspired by the writings of Dante, was the son of an Italian patriot, a political refugee, who became Professor of Italian in King's College, London. He exhibited at the Portland Gallery his first picture, _The Girlhood of the Virgin_, in 1849, and became the founder of the pre-Raphaelite school, which included Millais, Holman Hunt, and other artists now celebrated. Rossetti's best-known pictures are _Dante's Dream_ (now at Liverpool), _The Damosel of the Sancte Graal_, _The Last Meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere_, _The Beloved_ (an illustration of the Song of Solomon), and _Proserpina_. He seldom exhibited his paintings in public, but they were seen by art-critics, one of whom wrote (in 1873)--"Exuberance in power, exuberance in poetry of a rich order, noble technical gifts, vigour of conception, and a marvellously extensive range of thought and invention appear in nearly everything Mr. Rossetti produces." He was equally celebrated as a writer of sonnets and a translator of Italian poetry. * * * * * It is not within the province of this work to include notice of living artists. To give an account of all the celebrated painters would require another volume. During the past decade Art has advanced with steady progress, and we can confidently say that at no time have the ranks of the Royal Academicians and the two Water-Colour Societies been filled more worthily than at the present day. The last quarter of the nineteenth century is likely to be a golden era in the history of British Art. PAINTING IN AMERICA. BY S. R. KOEHLER. [Illustration] PAINTING IN AMERICA. INTRODUCTION.