e he looked upon himself as a dramatist, and
indeed still hopes to achieve as such--when he shall have tired of the
novel as a vehicle and shall have learned, the present object of his
closest study, the technicalities of the stage--a success as great as
that which has attended his novels. Many of his friends, indeed, hope
for even better things from him as a dramatist; and Blackmore, for
instance, hardly ever writes to him without repeating that, great as
has been his success as a novelist, it will be nothing to his success
when he gets possession of the stage.

[Illustration: R.E. MORRISON. R.H.SHERARD. HALL CAINE.

From a photograph taken specially for MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE, by George B.
Cowen, Ramsey, Isle of Man. Mr. Morrison is an artist who has lately
painted a portrait of Mr. Caine.]

CAINE'S ASSOCIATION WITH ROSSETTI.

Till the age of twenty-four he remained in Liverpool, earning his
living in a builder's office, lecturing, starting societies, working
as secretary of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings,
and writing for the papers. His lectures on Shakespeare attracted the
attention of Lord Houghton, who expressed a desire to meet him. A
meeting was arranged at the house of Henry Bright (the H.A.B, of
Hawthorne); and the first thing that Lord Houghton, the biographer of
Keats, said when Hall Caine came into the room was: "You have the head
of Keats." He predicted that the young author would become a great
critic. Another of Hall Caine's lectures, delivered during this
period, "The Supernatural in Poetry," brought a long letter of eulogy
from Matthew Arnold. His lecture on Rossetti won him the friendship of
this great man, a correspondence ensued, and when Caine was
twenty-five years old, Rossetti wrote and asked him to come up to
London to see him. Caine went and was received most cordially.

[Illustration: BISHOP'S COURT, WHERE DAN MYLREA IN "THE DREMSTER" WAS
REARED.]

[Illustration: SIR W.L. DRINKWATER, THE PRESENT FIRST DREMSTER OF THE
ISLE OF MAN.
From a photograph by J. E. Bruton, Douglas, Isle of Man.]

"He met me on the threshold of his house," he relates, "with both
hands outstretched, and drew me into his studio. That night he read me
'The King's Tragedy.'"

During the evening Rossetti asked him to remove to London and invited
him to his house; at the same time--it may be to prepare him for their
common life--he showed him, to Caine's horror, what a slave he had
become to the