Lizzy has been very unwell lately. I have introduced her to the Howitts, and we have spent several evenings there. They are quite fond of her, and most delighted with her productions. I have also brought her and my sister Christina together, as our family are now in London again. The Howitts insisted on Lizzy’s seeing a Dr. Wilkinson, a friend of theirs, and I believe an eminent man. He finds that the poor dear has contracted a curvature of the spine, and says she ought not to paint at present; but this, of course, she must. He says her case is a very anxious but by no means a hopeless one. You know, I suppose, that Miss Howitt has been kicking up quite a great row with her picture at the Portland Gallery. Miller has bought poor Deverell’s _As You Like It_ for 50 guineas. Lizzy is sitting by me working at the most poetical of all possible designs, and sends her love to both Emma and you. Yours affectionately, D. G. ROSSETTI. LETTER XXVI. TO MADOX BROWN, FINCHLEY. Miss Barbara Leigh Smith became after a while Mrs. Bodichon--a name held in high and deserved honour by persons interested in the cause which she served with lifelong zeal and liberality--the advancement of women. She was also a landscape-painter of considerable gift. [Chatham Place, London.] Wednesday [? 1854.] Dear Brown, Dear Lizzy is very unwell indeed, and I think on Saturday I shall probably be taking her down to Hastings, for her to stay there some time at a place that Barbara Smith, who has got quite thick with her, has recommended as cheap and nice. Barbara Smith, the Howitts, and Dr. Wilkinson, are all enraptured with the dear. I mean to show her productions to Ruskin, who was here again this morning, and who I know will worship her. Will you come on Tuesday? or sooner and better on Friday. FOOTNOTES: [1] This was probably Charlotte Polidori--or possibly the _Grand_-Aunt, Harriet Pierce. [2] “Sloshy” was a term of disparagement used by the P.R.B.’s in their early days, to indicate anything lax and scamped in the processes of painting; and hence it got applied more generally to any thing or person of a commonplace or conventional cast. [3] The name, thus written, occurs in _The Carillon_. MADOX BROWN. SOME LETTERS FOLLOWED BY A DIARY. MADOX BROWN TO ELIZABETH BROWN, HASTINGS. LETTER I.