"We begin, in all probability, by telling the youth of fifteen or sixteen that Nature is full of faults, and that he is to improve her; but that Raphael is perfection, and that the more he copies Raphael the better; that after much copying of Raphael, he is to try what he can do himself in a Raphaelesque, but yet original manner: that is to say, he is to try to do something very clever, all out of his own head, but yet this clever something is to be properly subjected to Raphaelesque rules, is to have a principal light occupying one-seventh of its space, and a principal shadow occupying one-third of the same; that no two people's heads in the picture are to be turned the same way, and that all the personages represented are to have ideal beauty of the highest order, which ideal beauty consists partly in a Greek outline of a nose, partly in proportions expressible in decimal fractions between the lips and chin; but partly also in that degree of improvement which the youth of sixteen is to bestow upon God's work in general." This canting and misdirected worship of Raphael by men who had discarded his spirit, and the realization that before Raphael there were painters of lofty aim, may well have determined the title under which the three enthusiasts conspired to band themselves in revolt. From most points of view it was unfortunate. It meant very little in actual fact, it was misleading so far as it did mean anything, and it was responsible for much of the acrimony and abuse which the devoted trio afterwards brought down upon their most meritorious efforts. One curious feature of the matter is that they appear to have possessed between them at this time a comparatively slight acquaintance with pre-Raphaelite pictures, not more, perhaps, than the average intelligent visitor to the National Gallery to-day. Scarcely anywhere in their writings (we must except one article by Mr. F. G. Stephens) do we find praise, or even mention, of most of the great pre-Raphaelite painters. Nothing of Mantegna, Botticelli, Bellini, Orcagna, Fra Angelico, Melozzo, Lippo Lippi, or Piero della Francesca. At a slightly later date Rossetti visited Bruges, and fell in love with Memling; but his letters even then reveal some very crude preferences in art. Whatever was perceived or imagined in the work of the men they decided to follow must have been largely a matter of instinct, backed up by a strong sympathy for the naïve and simple charm of the few early Italian pictures which they had seen. It is a mistake to suppose that what Rossetti and his companions admired or sought to imitate in these old masters was their mediaeval and primitive style of painting. The mediaeval quality proved infectious, no doubt, and may have influenced all more or less at first in the direction of angularity and awkward composition. But there were other causes which also contributed to this. Amongst them may be mentioned an idea that for every scene an actual unidealized