hnical power than he; but he was, nevertheless, the brain and soul
of the enterprise. What these young men proposed was excellently
propounded in the sonnet by "W. M. R.," which they prefixed to their
little literary venture, the "Germ," in 1850. Plainly to think even a
little thought, to express it in natural words which are native to the
speaker, to paint even an insignificant object as it is, and not as
the old masters or the new masters have said it should be painted, to
persevere in looking at truth and at nature without the smallest
prejudice for tradition, this was the whole mystery and cabal of the
P. R. B. They called themselves "preraphaelite," because they found in
the wings of Lippi's angels, and the columbines of Perugino's gardens
that loving and exact study of minute things which gave to them a
sense of sincerity, and which they missed in the breadth and ease of
later work. They had no ambition to "splash as no one splashed before
since great Caldasi Polidore;" but they did wish to draw a flower or a
cloud so that it should be a portrait of that cloud or flower. In this
ambition it would be curious to know, and I do not think that I have
ever heard it stated, how far they were influenced by Mr. Ruskin and
his "Modern Painters." I should not expect to find Rossetti influenced
by any outside force in this any more than in other instances, but at
all events Mr. Ruskin eagerly accepted the brotherhood as practical
exponents of the theories he had pronounced. None of them, I think,
knew him personally when he wrote the famous letter to the _Times_ in
1851, defending Mr. Millais and Mr. Holman Hunt from the abuse of
ignorant critics, who, he said, had failed to perceive the very
principles on which these "two young men" were proceeding. Somebody
wrote to him to explain that there were "three young men," and Mr.
Ruskin wrote a note to Gabriel Rossetti, desiring to see his work, and
thus the acquaintance of these two remarkable men commenced.

Meanwhile, although the more vigorous members of the brotherhood had
shown no special sympathy for Rossetti's religious mysticism, a
feebler artist, himself one of the original seven, had taken it up
with embarrassing effusion. This was the late James Collinson, whose
principal picture, "St. Elizabeth of Hungary," finished in 1851,
produced a sort of crisis in Rossetti's career. This painting
out-mystified the mystic himself; it was simply maudlin and
hysterical, though dra