MÜLLER, William John, an eminent English landscape and costume painter, was the son of a German, and was born at Bristol in 1812. He was instructed in landscape-painting by J. B. Pyne, and was greatly assisted in the study of his art by a knowledge of natural history, which he acquired from his father, the curator of the Bristol Museum. His most valuable lessons, however, were received in the great school of nature. Setting out in 1833, he travelled with unwearied enthusiasm through Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, studying devotedly every feature of the striking landscapes through which he passed, and enriching his portfolio with numerous valuable sketches. On his return to his native place in 1834, the progress he had made in his art was not great enough to satisfy himself. He therefore spent 1835 and 1839 in wandering amid the colossal remains of Egyptian architecture and the classic scenes of Greece. His pictures of "Athens" and "The Memnon," completed after his return, and exhibited in the Academy in 1840, proved that he had now attained the skill of a master-artist. They brought him into notice, and were the means of procuring for him employment in London. Two years afterwards, his "Picturesque Sketches of the Age of Francis I." carried his fame beyond his own country. Yet his ardent striving after perfection did not flag. He accompanied the Lycian expedition of Sir C. Fellows in 1843. The results of this tour, consisting of five pictures, were sent to the Royal Academy's exhibition of 1845; but happening to be hung in a disadvantageous position, they failed in a great measure to strike the spectators. This misfortune deeply wounded his sensitive and sanguine temperament, and prostrated his previously impaired constitution. He died of heart disease at Bristol in September 1845.