unknown men at the precise stage of their studies at which it was afforded them. Madox Brown’s style in particular was strongly and permanently influenced by such exercise, and the competitions evoked from him a series of historical and dramatic _genre_ paintings which won Rossetti’s special admiration. Chief among them were “The Body of Harold brought before William the Conqueror,” which still ranks with the artist’s finest productions of its kind, “Justice,” a widow pleading before a Norman baron, “Adam and Eve after the Fall,” “Wiclif reading his Translation of the Bible to John of Gaunt,” “Our Lady of Good Children,” and “The Infant’s Repast.” One fine cartoon from the hand of another artist also drew Rossetti’s delighted attention, “Caractacus led Captive in Triumph through the Streets of Rome,” by G.F. Watts, a painter worthily representative of the noblest phase of Pre-Raphaelite work, though never openly associated with the movement. He too had vainly traversed the desert of academic studentship, as we may gather from his own naïve record: “Finding there was no teaching, I very soon ceased to attend.” His picture of “Caractacus,” however, was now rewarded with a first-class prize of £300. Millais also competed in the exhibition of 1847; taking for his subject “The Widow bestowing her Mite.” In the spring of 1848, Rossetti, deeply impressed by the originality and power of Madox Brown’s designs, wrote to the artist and begged permission to enter his studio as a pupil. Mr. Brown did not receive pupils professionally, but, with a generosity which he showed to many an eager votary at that period, he welcomed Rossetti to his studio as a friend, and from that time became one of his kindest and most valued counsellors. At the date of Rossetti’s self-introduction to Madox Brown, the latter was engaged upon a somewhat elaborate picture, “Chaucer reading the Legend of Custance before the Court of Edward III.”; and Rossetti was invited to sit to him for the head of the poet. Hunt and Rossetti were now working together in a studio which they shared in Cleveland Street, Fitzroy Square; whither soon came Madox Brown to encourage their tentative efforts, and to aid them both with practical and friendly instruction. And now a new influence from the world of literature came upon the little student-band. It was the inspiration and stimulus of Ruskin’s “Modern Painters.” For Ruskin also was at war with the old conventions that lay chill and heavy upon English art; he too was weary of the dead level of triviality and scholasticism to which painting had sunk, and saw with prophetic eyes, through the murk of present life and the shadowy vistas of history, a higher and attainable ideal.