by W.M. Rossetti." At the date when I wrote the present introduction,
that volume had not been offered for publication.

With so many persons having a kind of co-equal right to decide what
should be done with the magazine, it soon became apparent that
somebody ought to be appointed Editor, and assume the control. I,
during an absence from London, was fixed upon for this purpose by
Woolner and my brother--with the express or tacit assent, so far as I
know, of all the others, I received notice of my new dignity on
September 23, 1849, being just under twenty years of age, and I
forthwith applied myself to the task. It had at first been proposed
to print upon the prospectus and wrappers of the magazine the words
"Conducted by Artists," and also (just about this time) to entitle it
"The P.R.B. Journal." I called attention to the first of these points
as running counter to my assuming the editorship, and to the second
as in itself inappropriate: both had in fact been already set aside.
My brother had ere this been introduced to Messrs. Aylott and Jones,
publishers in Paternoster Row (principally concerned, I believe, with
books of evangelical religion), and had entered into terms with them,
and got them to print a prospectus. "P.R.B." was at first printed on
the latter, but to this Mr. Holman-Hunt objected in November, and it
was omitted. The printers were to be Messrs. Tupper and Sons, a firm
of lithographic and general printers in the City, the same family to
which John Lucas Tupper belonged. The then title, invented by my
brother, was "Thoughts towards Nature," a phrase which, though
somewhat extra-peculiar, indicated accurately enough the predominant
conception of the Praeraphaelite Brotherhood, that an artist, whether
painter or writer, ought to be bent upon defining and expressing his
own personal thoughts, and that these ought to be based upon a direct
study of Nature, and harmonized with her manifestations. It was not