Mr. Fuller's life was constantly swayed by circumstances, and through it all he was impelled to steps which he might never have taken of his own accord. He was drawn by influences that he could not control into his fruitful course of study and experience at Deerfield, where his farm gave him support, and permitted him to indulge in an unembarrassed practice of his art; then, when his time was ripe, he was driven by the sharp lash of financial embarrassment into the world again. Eight years ago he reappeared in Boston, with about a dozen paintings of landscapes, ideal heads, and small figures, which were exhibited and promptly sold amid every expression of interest and favor. Confirmed and strengthened in his belief by this success, he again established his studio here, and began that series of remarkable works which have given him a place among the greatest of American painters. The touch of popular favor quickened him into a lofty and quiet enthusiasm, and stimulated both his imagination and his descriptive powers. During all his experience at Deerfield a certain lack of self-confidence seems to have prevented him from making any large endeavor, but with his convictions endorsed by the public, he attempted at once to labor on a more ambitious scale. He broadened his canvases, and increased the size of his figures and landscapes, and where he was before sweet and inviting, became strong and impressive, yet still holding all his former qualities. The first year of his new residence in Boston saw the production of The Dandelion Girl, a light-hearted, careless creature, full of a life that had no touch of responsibility, and descriptive of a joyous and ephemeral mood. A long step forward was taken in The Romany Girl, which immediately followed,--a work full of fire and freedom, strongly personal in suggestion, and marked by a wild and impatient individuality which revealed in the girl the impression of a lawless ancestry, that somehow and somewhere had felt the action of a finer strain of blood. The next year Fuller reached the highest point of his inspiration and power in The Quadroon, a work which is likely to be held for all time as his masterpiece, so far as strength of idea, importance of motive, and vivid force of description are concerned. Without violence, even without expression of action, but simply by a pair of haunting eyes, a beautiful, despairing face, and a form confessing utter weariness and abandonment of hope, he revealed all the national shame of slavery, and its degradation of body and soul. Every American cannot but blush to look upon it, so simple and dignified is its rebuke of the nation's long perversity and guilt. The artist's next important effort was the famous Winifred Dysart, as far removed in purpose from The Quadroon as it could well be, yet akin to it by its added testimony to the painter's constant sympathy with weak and beseeching things, and worthy to stand at an