Thomas Humphry Ward

“ Thomas’s, he seems to have felt no real vocation for the clerical career; for, on the one hand, on the outbreak of the Crimean war he was extremely anxious to enter the army, and, on the other, his friendship with another Exeter undergraduate, also of Welsh nationality, William Morris [q. v. Suppl.] , who was independently experiencing a like change of feeling, very soon led him away from the paths of divinity to those of literature and art. ”

“ Although we hear very little of any preliminary attempts or of any lessons from drawing-masters, it is certain that Burne-Jones already showed many of the developed gifts of an artist. For in February 1857, not much more than a year after their acquaintance began, Rossetti writes to William Bell Scott, ‘Two young men, projectors of the “Oxford and Cambridge Magazine,” have recently come up to town from Oxford, and are now very intimate friends of mine. Their names are Morris and Jones. ”

“ From these early years there survive a certain number of works in various media; the earliest is a pen drawing of ‘The Waxen Image’ (1856) , and in the next year come four designs for stained glass executed for the chapel at Bradfield. That autumn was given to Oxford, and to the heroic but ‘piecemeal and unorganised’ attempt to adorn the Union debating-room with frescoes, of which Burne-Jones contributed ‘Nimue and Merlin.’ In 1858 we find him painting some decorations in oil for a cabinet, and characteristically choosing an illustration from Chaucer ”

“ Far away from politics as he was, he was deeply stirred by the Parnell movement, and was an enthusiastic admirer of the Irish leader. As to other interests he had a scholarly and exact knowledge of all kinds of mediæval tales, Eastern and Western, was familiar with D’Herbelot and Silvestre de Sacy, was also interested in mediæval Jewish lore, and devoted to Marco Polo and the travellers of the middle ages. ”

“ They have turned artists instead of taking up any other career to which the university generally leads, and both are men of real genius. Jones’s designs are marvels of finish and imaginative detail, unequalled by anything unless perhaps Albert Durer’s finest works’ (W. B. Scott, Memoirs, ii. 37) . During the year which preceded this letter, Burne-Jones, although not actually a pupil of Rossetti, had been constantly present in his studio in Blackfriars ”