Of the first Pre-Raphaelites--of those of the first generation--more than one changed his ways, his work, his whole conception of Art, obviously, as time went on, and the most illustrious of them all--Millais--was far enough removed from a Pre-Raphaelite in the end. But of that distinguished and untiring practitioner of the second generation, whose hold, of late years at least, upon the English and to some extent upon the French public has become phenomenal, though it will not be constant, it is certainly to be noted that although there was, at different times, an unequal capacity, there was at no time visible change in the direction of his tastes or in the method of his work. Of the human figure Burne-Jones was not at the first an excellent, and was never, at any time, an absolutely faultless draughtsman. Yet the poetry of his figure-drawing, the almost feminine tenderness with which he followed the lines of dainty human movement, the dreamy grace that was in the place of strength, the elegant diffuseness, so to say, which was characteristic of his style--never even by accident tense and terse--these things are noticeable in his earlier water-colours and in the very latest of his performances in this year’s New Gallery. It was as a water-colour painter that he first began to be known. A pupil of Rossetti, as far as he was a pupil of any one, Burne-Jones was from the beginning romantic, and he was affluent in colour. But what, it may be asked, are the especial characteristics of Sir Edward Burne-Jones’s art, as it has been revealed not only in the designs for painted glass, mosaic, tapestry, in numberless pages decorated with beautiful ornament--such as the Morris translation of Virgil, and later, the great Chaucer--but likewise in the series of large pictures, the adequate display of which was, so to say, one of the _raisons d’être_ of the old Grosvenor Gallery? He had indeed extraordinary individuality. He was amenable to influence, for all that; and the influence he felt the most--that of his true fellows--was exercised by the Italians of the earlier Renaissance: a period scarcely primitive, scarcely accomplished. Those early Italians, though engaging, were not really great draughtsmen of the human figure--not great draughtsmen in the sense of the Greek sculptors, or Michael Angelo, or Raphael, or Ingres, or Leighton, or Bouguereau. Sir Edward Burne-Jones, lacking the peculiar education which fitted the temperament and brought out the qualities of the men we have named last of all, not unnaturally sympathised with those in whom intention counted sometimes for more than execution. But it must not be thought that because the ever-inventive artist did not possess the Academic qualities, he was not, therefore, in certain respects, very remarkable in draughtsmanship. He drew with the ease of conversation; and, though never a master of accurate gesture--seldom dramatic in the representation of the particular hour or scene--he was a master