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 paintings were 'The Death of Sir Tristram,' 1863, the grim grotesqueness of which emphasised the artist's dramatising power. But it did not show those less favourable elements of his art which are marked in such designs as 'Jacob and Joseph's Coat,' where the ill-conditioned sons of the patriarch present to him the blood-stained garment of their brother, and a dog is made to smell the stain! Then came 'King René's Honeymoon,' 1863, where the amorous queen caresses her gentle spouse in a charmingly naïve manner; the vigorous and powerful 'Elijah and the Widow's Son,' where the prophet carries the boy down a flight of steps (the finest version of this design is at South Kensington); 'Cordelia's Portion,' which belongs to Mr. Albert Wood of Conway; 'The Entombment of Christ,' a composition worthy of a great old Italian master, 1866-9; 'Don Juan found by Haidee,' an inferior work in every respect, which, unfortunately for Brown's fame, has found a place in the Luxembourg at Paris; 'Sardanapalus,' 1869, a noble design, disfigured by some questionable drawing; and 'Cromwell on his Farm,' 1877, a somewhat overrated picture.

In 1878 Brown began to paint in panels on the wall of the town hall at Manchester, and, as a commission from that city, a series of works designed to illustrate the history of the place. These are twelve in number, and as a completed series they are unique and unrivalled in this country, though indeed the examples, compared with each other, are not a little unequal; the best of them is 'The Romans building Manchester,' in which Brown's quaint vein of humour is manifest in the incident of the centurion's spoilt little son kicking at the face of his guardian; the same vein appeared in another panel at Manchester of 'The Expulsion of the Danes,' where little pigs escaping get between the legs of the marauders and upset them. 'Crabtree watching the Transit of Venus,' 1882, has, despite some awkwardness in its technique, a singularly expressive and original design. The face and figure of Crabtree are worthy of Brown's best years.

Proud and sensitive, Brown was always keenly resentful of neglect or injury, real or imaginary. In fact, he was by nature a rebel, and his influence upon not a few who became eminent made him a sort of centre for many varieties of discontent. A lifelong quarrel with the Royal Academy began in 1851, when room equal to that of ten ordinary works was given in the exhibition of that year to his huge canvas, 'Chaucer reading the Legend of Custance,' but its position caused Brown dissatisfaction, which never left him. He ceased to send his pictures to its exhibitions after 1855, cherishing thenceforth antagonism against all constituted artistic societies. His quarrel with the academy marred the effect which his genius and great technical resources might have produced upon the art of his contemporaries. In 1865 Brown made a numerous collection of his pictures, and exhibited them in Piccadilly with some éclat. He gained two prizes in the Liverpool Academy, by awarding which the artistic members of that society so greatly offended their lay patrons as to induce a revolution in its history. He contributed to the Paris exhibitions in 1855 and 1889; to the Manchester Art Treasures of 1857, and to various galleries in Edinburgh, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Manchester. Brown was one of the founders of the original Hogarth Club in London, which included among its members W. Burges, Sir F. Burton, Lord Leighton, Rossetti, G. E. Street, and Thomas Woolner; and at the little so-called Pre-Raphaelite exhibition in Russell Place, Fitzroy Square, there were several pictures of his.

Desiring to develop a love for art in England, Brown was one of the first of English artists who, at Camden Town, many years before the Working Men's College in Great Ormond Street was founded, helped to establish a drawing-school for artisans. At the Working Men's College, which was constituted in 1854, he was from the first among the soundest teachers, giving his time, knowledge, and skill without remuneration. For some years—from 1861 to 1874—he was a leading member of the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, & Co., decorative artists and manufacturers of artistic furniture, which was founded by [q. v. Suppl.] and his friends in Red Lion Square, and ultimately—after 1874—became Morris's sole concern. The firm's influence upon decorative art has been revolutionary and of the greatest value. Many of its best works in stained glass and other methods of design were by Brown.

In 1891 a number of artists (including many royal academicians) and amateurs subscribed about 900l. in order to secure for the National Gallery a picture which should adequately represent Brown's art. This compliment, paid mainly by painters to a painter, is unique, and of the highest kind. Death intervening, the commission thus offered was never completed, but with a portion of the money 'Christ washing Peter's Feet' was bought for the National Gallery, where it now is, the large cartoon of 'The Body of Harold brought to the Conqueror'