ialogue on Art." The brief remarks prefacing
this dialogue were written by Dante Rossetti. The diction of the
dialogue itself was also, at Orchard's instance, revised to some
minor extent by my brother, and I dare say by me. Orchard was a
painter of whom perhaps no memory remains at the present day: he
exhibited some few pictures, among which I can dimly remember one of
"The Flight of Archbishop Becket from England." His age may, I
suppose, have been twenty-seven or twenty-eight years at the date of
his death. In our circle he was unknown; but, conceiving a deep
admiration for Rossetti's first exhibited picture (1849), "The
Girlhood of Mary Virgin," he wrote to him, enclosing a sonnet upon
the picture--a very bad sonnet in all executive respects, and far
from giving promise of the spirited, if unequal, poetic treatment
which we find in the lines in "The Germ," "On a Whit-Sunday Morn in
the Month of May." This led to a call from Orchard to Rossetti. I
think there was only one call, and I, as well as my brother, saw him
on that occasion. Afterwards, he sent this dialogue for "The Germ."
The dialogue has always, and I think justly, been regarded as a
remarkable performance. The form of expression is not impeccable, but
there is a large amount of eloquence, coming in aid of definite and
expansive thought. From what is here said it will be understood that
Orchard was quite unconnected with the P.R.B. He expressed opinions
of his own which may indeed have assimilated in some points to
theirs, but he was not in any degree the mouthpiece of their
organization, nor prompted by any member of the Brotherhood. In the
dialogue, the speaker whose opinions appear manifestly to represent
those of Orchard himself is Christian, who is mostly backed up by
Sophon. Christian forces ideas of purism or puritanism to an extreme,
beyond anything which I can recollect as characterizing any of the
P.R.B. His upholding of the painters who preceded Raphael as the best
men for nurturing new and noble developments of art in our own day
was more in their line. In my brother's prefatory note a question is
raised of publishing any other writings which Orchard might have left
behind. None such, however, were found. Dr. W. C. Bennett (afterwards
known as the author of "Songs for Sailors," etc.), who had been
intimate with Orchard, aided my brother in his researches.

By F. G. Stephens (called "Laura Savage" on the wrapper): "Modern
Giants."

By Dante G