"limner" to George IV. In 1825, however, the clouds began to gather; his mother's death in the beginning of that year was succeeded by that of his elder brother, James, who left a widow and several children totally unprovided for, of whom Wilkie took upon himself the entire charge. Under the sudden strain of grief and anxiety the painter's health gave way, and his doctors ordered him to go to a warmer climate. He wandered about in Italy, Germany and Spain for two years, returning home laden with sketches for the later pictures, which aroused such hostile criticism from all who had loved and admired his earlier work. In 1836 he was knighted by William IV., and in 1837 he painted "Her Majesty's First Council"

by order of the maiden queen. In 1839 Wilkie went to Scotland, for the last time, to make sketches for a contemplated picture, "John Knox administering the Sacrament at Calder House," but he did not live to complete it. His health again began to fail, and on his return to London he was ordered abroad once more. This time he decided to go to Palestine, but he was delayed for some time at Constantinople by the war in Syria, then going on, so that he did not reach his destination till January, 1841, when he set to work with eager zeal to explore the sacred sites, using no guide book but the Bible. "The time had come," he said, "to draw the supply of sacred Art from the Fountain Head," and he started for home, after a long sojourn in Jerusalem, full of enthusiasm for the Holy City. He arrived at Alexandria on the 20th of April, apparently in good health, but he had to wait there three weeks for a steamer, and seems to have contracted the germs of the disease which was so soon to

prove fatal. He spent the time in painting the portrait of Mehemet

He

Ali, which he took on board with him when he set sail on his last voyage, intending to finish it in England. The picture, alas, arrived without him, for on May 31st he was taken seriously ill and died the next morning, just as the vessel came in sight of Gibraltar. was buried at sea, and his tragic ending was immortalized by Turner in the poetic picture known as "Peace; or the Burial of Wilkie," now in the National Gallery. Truly no hero of romance or history ever had a more touching tribute rendered to his memory than did the simple-hearted Scotch painter.

GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS

HE prophet-painter, George Frederick Watts, has formed his style on that of the Old Masters, especially of the Venetians, whose breadth of handling and splendour of colouring seem, in his work, to haunt whilst they elude him. Though he has, strictly speaking, no followers or imitators, and has founded no school, he is perhaps more looked up to and respected in England than any other artist. In his native country he is felt to be a great and guiding power with an important message to deliver; for as he said himself, he "paints ideas not things," seeking nobility before beauty. His work is not strikingly original in subject or even in execution, but its spirit is individual and unique; it may, perhaps, be called didactic; preaching in a language which loses some of its force and weight because its formulæ are in the familiar phraseology of long ago. At the first glance it seems as if some Old Master were speaking whose name cannot for the moment be recalled. Watts does not appear to come fresh from communing with nature; his voice is not the clear ringing cry of the forerunner, "Repent! for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" but is, as it were, an echo from an age that is past; a beautiful echo, no doubt, and one well worth listening to, but remaining an echo to the last. To quote his own words, his aim "has never been to delight and amuse, but to urge on to higher things and nobler thoughts." As a profound thinker and earnest teacher, he stands above all other English masters, and such pictures as his "Love and Death," "Love and Life," "Death crowning Innocence," "The People that sat in darkness saw a great Light," "The Court of Death," "The Messenger," "Hope," "Mammon," "The Seamstress," with many others, are poems in colour, dealing with the philosophy of life; the outcome of the mind of one who has thought as deeply on the great problems of humanity as Tennyson himself. There seems indeed to be a kinship

of spirit between the two great teachers, the writer of "In Memoriam and the painter of "Love and Death," for the work of each would fitly illustrate and illuminate that of the other. In the creations of both, Faith, Love and Hope are shown forth as the guiding stars of the seekers after God.

The portraits from the hand of Watts are as remarkable in their way as are his subject pictures. He himself confessed that he painted them merely as pot-boilers, yet they have about them a nobility of purpose which places them in the highest rank as works of art. They are admirable alike in their execution and in the insight into character they reveal; they are, in fact, in every case the revelation of the inner ego of the sitter. Few of the greatest names are absent from the long roll of those who sat to Watts, but amongst them all he was most successful with Walter Crane and Burne-Jones, which is not to be wondered at, for those two great masters of decorative art were of a genius akin to that of the man who interpreted them so well. It is related that Tennyson once asked the painter to tell him what he considered a true portraitist should be, and Watts's reply is embodied in the "Idylls of the King" in the well-known passage:

"As when a painter, poring on a face,
Divinely, thro' all hindrance, finds the man
Behind it, and so paints him, that his face,
The shape and colour of a mind and life,
Lives for his children, ever at its best."

George Frederick Watts was born in London in 1820. He had little art instruction, and says, referring to the short time he spent in the Academy School, that he soon "satisfied himself that he could learn quite as much alone." He spent hours studying the Elgin marbles at the British Museum, and it was probably from them that he learnt the simple grandeur of form characteristic of his work. In 1837 he exhibited his first oil painting, "The Wounded Heron," at the Royal Academy, but it was not until 1845 that he won recognition as an original genius by his cartoon of "Caractacus led captive through the streets of Rome," which was sent in for the competition for the decoration of the new Houses of Parliament. Writing to his mother in July, 1843, Rossetti singles out this cartoon as the most remarkable of those then on view at Westminster Hall: "The artist," he says,