“At length the shadowy king,
    His sorrows pitying,
    ‘He hath prevailed!’ cried;
    ’We give him back his bride! 
    To him she shall belong,
    As guerdon of his song. 
    One sole condition yet
    Upon the boon is set;
    Let him not turn his eyes
    To view his hard-won prize,
    Till they securely pass
    The gates of Hell.’  Alas! 
    What law can lovers move? 
    A higher law is love! 
    For Orpheus—­woe is me!—­
    On his Eurydice—­
    Day’s threshold all but won—­
    Looked, lost, and was undone!”

In “The Minotaur,” that terrible creature, half man, half bull, crushing with his hideous claw the body of a bird, stands ever waiting to consume by his cruel lust the convoy of beauteous forms coming unseen and unwilling over the sea to him.  It is an old myth, but Watts intended it for a modern message.  The picture was painted by him in the heat of indignation in three hours.

A small but very important group of paintings, which I call “The Pessimistic Series,” begins with “Life’s Illusions,” painted in 1849.  “It is,” says Watts, “an allegorical design typifying the march of human life.”  Fair visions of Beauty, the abstract embodiments of divers forms of Hope and Ambition, hover high in the air above the gulf which stands as the goal of all men’s lives.  At their feet lie the shattered symbols of human greatness and power, and upon the narrow space of earth that overhangs the deep abyss are figured the brighter forms of illusions that endure through every changing fashion of the world.  A knight in armour pricks on his horse in quick pursuit of the rainbow-tinted bubble of glory; on his right are two lovers; on his left an aged student still pores over his work by the last rays of the dying sun; while in the shadow of the group may be seen the form of a little child chasing a butterfly.

This picture has the merit, along with “Fata Morgana,” of combining the teaching element with one of the finest representations of woman’s form that came from Watts’ brush.  He was one of those who vigorously defended the painting of the nude.  These are some of his words: 

“One of the great missions of art—­the greatest indeed—­is to serve the same grand and noble end as poetry by holding in check that natural and ever-increasing tendency to hypocrisy which is consequent upon and constantly nurtured by civilisation.  My aim is now, and will be to the end, not so much to paint pictures which are delightful to the eye, but pictures which will go to the intelligence and the imagination, and kindle there what is good and noble, and which will appeal to the heart.  And in doing this I am forced to paint the nude.”

“Fata Morgana” is a picture of Fortune or Opportunity pursued and lost by an ardent horseman.  It was painted twice, first in the Italian style, and again in what must be called Watts’ own style—­much