FOLLOWERS AND FRIENDS
129
painters. His grandly simple and reposeful “Old
Churchyard ” will compare even with Millais’s
“Vale of Rest,” and his “Nature’s Mirror” with
Mr. Burne-Jones’s “Mirror of Venus” in later
years. Mr. John Brett, now famous in seascape,
was for some time intimate with the Brotherhood ;
and among friends and sympathizers on a similar
footing may be mentioned Vai Prinsep, Thomas
Seddon, J. D. Watson, J. F. Lewes, W. S. Burton,
Spencer Stanhope, M. F. Halliday, James Camp-
bell, J. M. Carrick, Thomas Morten, Edward Lear,
William Davis, W. P. Boyce, J. W. Inchbold, and,
by no means least, John Hancock, a young sculptor
who won an Art Union prize in 1848 with a bas-
relief of “ Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem.” He was
a friend and fellow-worker with Woolner, and fell
so far (with Rossetti) under the fascination of the
Dante legends as to accomplish a very fine statue
of “ Beatrice” in or about 1852. One other artist
of the first rank in his generation remains to
be named,—Frederick Shields, an intimate and
warmly-loved friend of Rossetti, cherished by him
in close and unbroken companionship even to the
hour of death ; and in point of critical estimate
pronounced by him to be one of the greatest of
living draughtsmen, taking rank with Sir Frederick
Leighton, Sir Noel Paton, and Mr. Sandys.
Such were a few of the personalities that gathered
between 1848 and 1858 around the three prime
129
painters. His grandly simple and reposeful “Old
Churchyard ” will compare even with Millais’s
“Vale of Rest,” and his “Nature’s Mirror” with
Mr. Burne-Jones’s “Mirror of Venus” in later
years. Mr. John Brett, now famous in seascape,
was for some time intimate with the Brotherhood ;
and among friends and sympathizers on a similar
footing may be mentioned Vai Prinsep, Thomas
Seddon, J. D. Watson, J. F. Lewes, W. S. Burton,
Spencer Stanhope, M. F. Halliday, James Camp-
bell, J. M. Carrick, Thomas Morten, Edward Lear,
William Davis, W. P. Boyce, J. W. Inchbold, and,
by no means least, John Hancock, a young sculptor
who won an Art Union prize in 1848 with a bas-
relief of “ Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem.” He was
a friend and fellow-worker with Woolner, and fell
so far (with Rossetti) under the fascination of the
Dante legends as to accomplish a very fine statue
of “ Beatrice” in or about 1852. One other artist
of the first rank in his generation remains to
be named,—Frederick Shields, an intimate and
warmly-loved friend of Rossetti, cherished by him
in close and unbroken companionship even to the
hour of death ; and in point of critical estimate
pronounced by him to be one of the greatest of
living draughtsmen, taking rank with Sir Frederick
Leighton, Sir Noel Paton, and Mr. Sandys.
Such were a few of the personalities that gathered
between 1848 and 1858 around the three prime