In 1856 _The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine_ was founded as a monthly periodical. There were several contributions by Rossetti, and in this way he became so well known in Oxford that the Union accepted an offer from him to execute a series of wall-paintings. Accordingly he painted several pictures from the Arthurian legends, making the sketches for them himself, and employing for their elaboration a number of young men, some of them amateur artists and students at the University. In this way he came into connection with Arthur Hughes, William Morris, and Edward Burne-Jones. These artists, afterwards joined by Spencer Stanhope and Walter Crane, both of them younger men, became--with George Frederick Watts at their flank--the leading members of the new brotherhood, the representatives of that New pre-Raphaelitism in which interest is still centred in England. [Illustration: _Pageant._ ROSSETTI. MONNA ROSA. (_By permission of Mr. W. M. Rossetti._)] Their art is a kind of Italian Renaissance upon English soil. The romantic chord which vibrates in old English poetry is united to the grace and purity of Italian taste, the classical lucidity of the Pagan mythology with Catholic mysticism, and the most modern riot of emotion with the demure vesture of the primitive Florentines. Through this mixture of heterogeneous elements English New Idealism is probably the most remarkable form of art upon which the sun has ever shone: borrowed and yet in the highest degree personal, it is an art combining an almost childlike simplicity of feeling with a morbid _hautgoût_, the most attentive and intelligent study of the old masters with free, creative, modern imagination, the most graceful sureness of drawing and the most sparkling individuality of colour with a helpless, stammering accent introduced of set purpose. The old Quattrocentisti wander amongst the real Italian flowers; but with the New pre-Raphaelites one enters a hot-house: one is met by a soft damp heat, bright exotic flowers exhale an overpowering fragrance, juicy fruits catch the eye, and slender palms, through the branches of which no rough wind may bluster, gently sway their long, broad fans. [Illustration: _Cassell & Co._ ROSSETTI. ECCE ANCILLA DOMINI. (_By permission of Messrs. T. Agnew & Sons, the owners of the copyright._)]