Before Watts entered upon his series of great imaginative paintings he had used realism for didactic purposes.  In those days his work was less rugged than in later times, and had a delicateness and refinement which is seen to perfection in some of his earlier portraits.  A few of these efforts may be mentioned.  “Study” is the bust of a girl, with long red hair, looking upwards; it represents a beautiful combination of spirituality and human affection.  “The Rain it raineth every day” is a picture of ennui and utter weariness, beautifully and sympathetically expressed.  The colouring is very brave.  In “Prayer” (see Plate VIII.) the simplicity of the treatment may lead any one to pass it by as something slight and conventional, but it is perhaps one of the greatest of this type where simplicity and spirituality are combined.  In “Choosing” Watts approached very near to the summit of simplicity and charm.  A golden-haired girl is choosing a camellia blossom; but where all are so beautiful it is difficult for her to decide.  Great interest in this picture lies in the fact that it was painted in 1864, and was drawn from Watts’ young bride Miss Ellen Terry.  One is almost tempted to find in this picture the germ of allegory which grew to such heights in the artist’s later efforts.

The Warrior Series.—­Watts, like Ruskin and many other of the nineteenth-century philosophic artists, idealised warfare.  His warriors are not clad in khaki; they do not crouch behind muddy earthworks.  They are of the days before the shrapnel shell and Maxim gun; they wear bright steel armour, wield the sword and lance, and by preference they ride on horseback.  Indeed, they are of no time or country, unless of the house of Arthur and the land of Camelot.

We are thus able to understand the characteristic of Watts’ warrior pictures.  The first is “Caractacus,” the British chief; though no Christian, he is the earliest of Watts’ heroes.  The second is the beautiful “Sir Galahad,” whose strength was as the strength of ten, because his heart was pure.  We see a knight standing bare-headed at the side of his white horse, gazing with rapt eyes on the vision of the Holy Grail, which in the gloom and solitude of the forest has suddenly dawned on his sight.  The features of young Arthur Prinsep, with his bushy hair, who later became a general in the British army, can be detected in this wonderful and simple picture.  Its composition is like a stained-glass window.  It is of all Watts’ perhaps the nearest to mysticism, and at the same time it is an appeal to the young to be like Sir Galahad.  The original is in Eton College Chapel.