feeling he retained for some while after he had freed himself of the technical mannerisms which he derived from his master, and for nearly twenty years traces of this colour sympathy can be detected, but for the rest of his career he was as individual in his management of colour as he was in design or in the sentiment of his work.

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This point needs to be elaborated for the sake of clearing up any misapprehensions which might arise from his more or less erratic way of exhibiting his work. As an example, when he exhibited for the first time in 1864 in the gallery of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, he showed the "Fair Rosamond," painted in 1862, with the "Annunciation" and "The Merciful Knight," both of which belong to 1863; but in 1865 he sent "A Knight and a Lady," finished just before the exhibition opened, "Green Summer," painted in 1863, and "The Enchantments of Nimue," which was one of the things he produced in 1861 while he was still frankly and unreservedly an imitator of Rossetti. Such an inversion in the order in which his works were set before the public might cause some perplexity to students of his art if they did not realise what was his custom in this matter.

He exhibited in the gallery of the Royal Water Colour Society in 1869 a painting, "The Wine of Circe," which was not only the most important work he had produced up to that time but is also to be counted as one of the most admirable of all his performances; and he showed there in 1870 two other notable works, "Love Disguised as Reason" and "Phyllis and Demophoon." It was over this last painting that the dispute arose which led to his resignation of his membership of the Society; and one of the results of this dispute was that for a space of seven years hardly any of his pictures were seen in public. Indeed, the only things he exhibited during this period were a couple of water-colours, "The Garden of the Hesperides" and "Love among the Ruins," which appeared at the Dudley Gallery in 1873. Both were important additions to the list of his achievements, and the "Love among the Ruins" especially was a painting of exquisite beauty and significance. He repeated this subject in oil some twenty years later, because the original water-colour had been damaged somewhat seriously, and was not, as he considered, capable of repair.

The opening of the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877 gave him his first great opportunity of setting before the mass of art lovers his claims to special attention. Hitherto he had counted in the minds of a few men of taste and sound judgment as an artist of remarkable gifts who promised before long to take high rank in his profession, but by the larger public interested in art matters he was practically undiscovered. That he would have won his way step by step to the position he deserved cannot be doubted; if there had been no break in his activity as an exhibiting painter his successive contributions to the Royal Water Colour Gallery could not have failed to make him widely known. But his reappearance at the Grosvenor Gallery was so dramatic, and so convincing in its proof of the amazing development of his powers, that he leaped at one bound into the place among the greatest of his artistic contemporaries, which he was able to hold for the rest of his life without the possibility of dispute.

For he had not been idle during this seven years of abstention from exhibitions; the period had been rather one of strenuous activity and unceasing production. It saw the completion of several important canvases on which he had laboured long and earnestly, and it saw the commencement of many others which were in later years to be added to the list of his more memorable achievements. In some ways, indeed, it was a fortunate break; it saved him from the need to strive year by year to get pictures finished for specific exhibitions, and it allowed him time for calm reflection about the schemes he desired to work out. It freed him, too, from the temptation—one to which all artists are exposed—to modify the character of his art so that his pictures might be sufficiently effective in the incongruous atmosphere of the ordinary public gallery. He was able to form his style and develop his individuality in the manner he thought best; and then at last to come before the public fully matured and with his æsthetic purpose absolutely defined.

When the first fruits of this long spell of assiduous effort were seen at the Grosvenor Gallery, Burne-Jones became instantly a power in the art world. The judgment of the few connoisseurs who had hailed "The Wine of Circe" and "Love among the Ruins" as works of the utmost significance, and as revelations of real genius, received wide endorsement; and though some people who were out of sympathy with the spirit of his art were quite ready to attack what they did not understand, their voices were scarcely heard amid the general chorus of approval. Indeed, for such pictures as "The Days of Creation," "The Mirror of Venus," and "The Beguiling of Merlin," exhibited in 1877; "Laus Veneris," "Chant d'Amour," and "Pan and Psyche," which with some others were shown in 1878; the series of four subjects from the story of "Pygmalion and the Image," and the magnificent "Annunciation," in 1879; and that exquisite composition, "The Golden Stairs," which was his sole contribution to the Grosvenor Gallery in 1880, nothing but enthusiastic approval was to be expected from all sincere art lovers; to carp at work so noble in conception and so personal in manner implied an entire want of artistic discretion.

There were two exhibitions at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1881. In the summer one Burne-Jones was not represented, but the winter show included a number of his studies and decorative drawings, among them the large circular panel, "Dies Domini," a water-colour of rare beauty which can be reckoned as one of the most admirable of his designs. In 1882, however, he showed "The Mill," "The Tree of Forgiveness," "The Feast of Peleus," and several smaller paintings; and in 1883 that splendid piece of symbolism, "The Wheel of Fortune," and "The Hours." The following year is memorable for the appearance of the important canvas, "