THE GERM.
The Germ. (Elliot Stock. 10s. 6d.)—This is a facsimile reprint of the organ of the Preraphaelite Brotherhood, the first number of which was published on January let, 1850, and the last in May of the same year. The three Rossetti!, Dante Gabriel, William, and Christina, contributed a great part of the contents, and though most of their work has been republished, still it is interesting to see it as it first came out. Mr. William Rossetti has written a preface to the present reprint, giving a short account of the Preraphaelite Brotherhood, and of the diffi- culties he went through in his editorship of the Germ. It was well reviewed in several papers, the Guardian being one of them, but so few copies were sold that its publication stopped at the fourth number. We wonder if at the present day there is a band of young men of genius struggling with the world, and trying to realise and point out to others the true way of looking at Nature and art. But this is unlikely. People are inclined to find fault with the glare and publicity of modern life, but it probably has the advantage of enabling us to perceive a young genius who Might otherwise have been neglected. Most of the poems treat Of death, despair, and vanity of vanities, as is the habit of young art, but they do not degenerate into sentimentality Of the prose papers, tbe one, "On the Mechanism of a Historical Pictures" bY Ford Madox Brown, is interesting as showing his
methods of working. He advises the artist to make studies of himself in the looking-glass for the dramatic figures, as the ordinary model finds it impossible to assume the characteristics of the person in the painter's mind. There is peculiar pleasure in reading contemporary reviews ef writers who afterwards became famous. It is like seeing a well-known view in an unaccustomed light, —that of sunrise, for instance. We have here an interesting notice of "The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems, by A—," in which Mr. William Rossetti showed his appreciation ot the then unknown Matthew Arnold. There is an etching in each of the numbers by Holman Hunt, James Collinson, Ford Madox Brown, and Walter Deverel respectively. The four little volumes, together with the preface in a separate cover, are conveniently held in a cardboard case.
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