d to learn that a constantly increasing subscription-list,
both at home and abroad, shows, not only that Mr. Runkle judged wisely
in thinking such a journal needed, but also that the editorial office
has fallen upon the right man.

_Memoir and Letters of the late Thomas Seddon, Artist_, By his BROTHER.
London: 1858.

Associations are fast gathering round the English Pre-Raphaelites. Those
that come with honors and with death already belong to them. A permanent
influence is assured to the new school by a continuance of vigor, and by
the space which it already occupies in the history of Art. This little
volume is of interest as being the first of its biographies. Mr. Seddon
attained no wide reputation during his life, but he left a few pictures
of enduring value; and his early death was felt, by those who best knew
his powers and purposes, to be a great loss to Art.

He was the son of a cabinet-manufacturer, and was born in London in
1821. After receiving a good school-education, at the age of sixteen he
entered his father's work-rooms. He had already shown a decided love of
drawing. He had a quick perception of beauty, and excellent power of
observation. His disposition was serious, and his conscience sensitive;
but he had a pleasant vein of humor, and a generous nature. After some
years of irksome work, he was sent to Paris to perfect himself in the
arts of ornamentation, and his residence there seems to have confirmed
his taste for painting, to the practice of which he desired to devote
his life. But for the next ten years he was engaged in business, giving,
however, his evenings and his few vacations to the study and practice of
Art, and becoming more and more eager to leave an employment which was
wholly uncongenial to him. At length, in his thirtieth year, he was able
to begin his career as a professional artist. His experiences at first
differed but little from those of the common run of young painters; but
his fidelity in work, his conscientious rendering of the details of
Nature, and his sincerity of purpose, gave real worth even to his
earlier pictures, and brought him into relations of cordial
friendship with Holman Hunt, Madox Brown, and others of the heads of
Pre-Raphaelitism. After making a long visit, in company with Hunt,
for the purposes of study, to Egypt and Palestine, and painting a few
remarkable pictures, he returned home, and was married. Some months
afterward he set out again for the East, but