t Oxford, were engaging Rossetti and his associates,
including Burne-Jones, William Morris, Mr. Val. Prinsep, Mr. Arthur
Hughes, and Mr. Spencer Stanhope.

[Illustration: A PENCIL STUDY]

It was in the summer of 1858, Mr. F. G. Stephens tells us, that the
original Hogarth Club was founded, of which the two Rossettis were
prominent instigators,--one of the most notable of the many protestant
societies that have sprung up at different times from a slightly
anti-Academic bias. It is interesting to find that Leighton's famous
_Lemon Tree_ drawing in silverpoint was exhibited here. The Hogarth Club
held its meetings at 178, Piccadilly, in the first instance; removed
afterwards to 6, Waterloo Place, Pall Mall, and finally dissolved, in
1861, after existing for four seasons.

To speak of other painters more or less associated with Rossetti and his
school, Mr. Holman Hunt, whose _Light of the World_ had greatly struck
Paris in 1855, exhibited his _Scapegoat_ at the Academy of 1856, a
picture which called from Mr. Ruskin immense praise, and a
characteristic protest: "I pray him to paint a few pictures with less
feeling in them, and more handling." Of Millais we have already spoken.
In 1856 he exhibited _The Child of the Regiment_, _Peace Concluded_, and
_Autumn Leaves_.

In 1859 Leighton showed three pictures at the Academy. One, _A Roman
Lady_ (then called _La Nanna_), a half-length black-haired figure,
facing the spectator, in Italian costume; another, now called _Nanna_,
then entitled _Pavonia_, a half-length figure of a girl in Italian
costume, with peacock's feathers in the background; and _Sunny Hours_,
which seems to have escaped record so far. The same year saw another of
his pictures, _Samson and Delilah_, exhibited at Suffolk Street.

We must not pass by the famous _Study of a Lemon Tree_ (now at Oxford),
mentioned above, without quoting the praise by Mr. Ruskin, which made it
famous. Mr. Ruskin couples it with another drawing, both of which we
have been fortunately able to reproduce in our pages. These "two perfect
early drawings," he writes, "are of _A Lemon Tree_, and another of the
same date, of _A Byzantine Well_, which determine for you without
appeal, the question respecting necessity of delineation as the first
skill of a painter. Of all our present masters Sir Frederic Leighton
delights most in softly-blended colours, and his ideal of beauty is more
nearly that of Correggio than any seen since Corregg