works than by those of any other artist, especially with regard to composition. He delighted to surround himself with paintings by these and other artists.

With regard to his method of working, Birket Foster's early training for drawing on wood-blocks considerably influenced his water-colour work, which was very dissimilar to the "wash" methods of the early school of water-colour painters. He, indeed, worked with his brush as dry as it well could be, and probably no artist in using the medium of water-colours ever used so little water. Of course, all painting may be said to be drawing with a brush, but Birket Foster's was practically drawing to a peculiar degree, not washing with a brush. He used a very fine brush with very little paint in it, and owing to his habit of frequently putting it between his lips to make the point of it as fine as possible, it used to be said that the paint came out of the artist's head.

Birket Foster worked very rapidly in his own way of obtaining the effects he desired, and his remarkable gift for composition enabled him to people his scenes with wonderful facility and felicity. He never engaged a professional model; his children were all sketched from the rustic boys and girls, whom he found in the course of his wanderings.

In 1860 Birket Foster was unanimously elected an associate of the Old Water-Colour Society, and became a full member two years afterwards. He greatly appreciated the honour conferred upon him, and thoroughly gave his best interests to the Society.

He was a most prolific worker, and beside the large number of water-colour paintings exhibited at the Old Society, to which he contributed more than four hundred and fifty, many of his drawings were bought by the picture-dealers straight from his studio, and in some cases he received direct commissions for paintings from collectors.

Birket Foster, like many other water-colour artists, turned his attention to painting in oils, and for the nine years, 1869 to 1877, he regularly contributed oil paintings, thirteen in all, to the Exhibitions at the Royal Academy, but after that period he abandoned this medium, as he found that his little water-colour gems were far more appreciated by the public. In 1876 Foster was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Berlin.

Although the rural scenery of his native country had its peculiar charms for his pencil, still Birket Foster was greatly attracted by the grander views to be obtained on the Continent. His early visits were made to the Rhine, but subsequently the Italian lakes and Venice were his favourite hunting grounds in search for "bits" to sketch. The word "bits" is particularly applicable in the case of Birket Foster, for he almost invariably preferred to make a drawing of some detail rather than a broad landscape. He used to say that the mountain scenery of Switzerland was too panoramic and had no attractions for him. It is somewhat remarkable that whilst he relied to a great extent on lanes and fields, and hedgerows and rustic children, for his English drawings, the views for his Continental paintings were largely selected from towns with architectural details introduced into them.

The first visit made to the Continent by Birket Foster was in 1852, when he was commissioned by a publisher, who was bringing out an illustrated edition of "Hyperion," by Longfellow, to follow in the footsteps of Paul Flemming, and to depict on the spot the varied scenes amid which the poet had laid the incidents of his story. Paul Flemming, as is well known, was Longfellow himself, and the romance was a passage in the author's own life.

From that date Foster made almost annual tours along the Rhine and through Switzerland, but it was not until the year 1868 that he was first able to feast his eyes upon the beauties of Venice, and afterwards he made numerous subsequent trips