{1} Many of the particulars here given regarding “The Germ” appear in the so-called “P.R.B.  Journal,” which was published towards December 1899, in the volume named “Preraphaelite Diaries and Letters, edited 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 until December 19, when the issue of our No. 1 was closely impending, that a different title, “The Germ,” was proposed.  On that evening there was a rather large gathering at Dante Rossetti’s studio, 72 Newman Street; the seven P.R.B.’s, Madox Brown, Cave Thomas, Deverell, Hancock, and John and George Tupper.  Mr. Thomas had drawn up a list of no less than sixty-five possible titles (a facsimile of his Ms. of some of them appears in the “Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti to William Allingham,” edited by George Birkbeck Hill—­Unwin, 1897).  Only a few of them met with favour; and one of them, “The Germ,” going to the vote along with “The Seed” and “The Scroll,” was approved by a vote of six to four.  The next best were, I think, “The Harbinger,” “First Thoughts,” “The Sower,” “The Truth-Seeker,”