LIBRARY 
 
 University of 
 
 California 
 
 Irvine
 
 "Great Writers." 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 ERIC S. ROBERTSON, M.A., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY IN THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF THE PUNJAB, LAHORE. 
 
 L1PE OF ROSSETTL
 
 LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTl 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH KNIGHT 
 
 LONDON 
 WALTER SCOTT 
 
 24 WARWICK LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW 
 1887
 
 CONTENTS; 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PACK 
 
 Rossetti family of Italian origin ; original appellation Delia 
 Guardia ; Domenico Rossetti a native of Vasto d'Ammone ; 
 his son, Gabriele Rossetti, assists in obtaining a Constitu- 
 tion from Ferdinand, King of the Two Sicilies ; escapes 
 in an English uniform ; proceeds to Malta, and subse- 
 quently to London ; marries Miss Polidori, and becomes 
 the father of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who is born May 12, 
 1828 ; early life of Dante Gabriel Rossetti ; first literary 
 efforts ; his earliest letters ; adopts the career of a painter ; 
 collects prints ; visits Boulogne ; enters the Antique School 
 of the Royal Academy .11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Rossetti's friendships with Mr. Holman Hunt, Sir John Millais 
 and Mr. Woolner ; hesitates between literature and art ; 
 enters the studio of Mr. Ford Madox Brown; establish- 
 ment of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood ; paints The 
 Girlhood of Mary Virgin ; connection between the Pre- 
 Raphaelite movement and the revival of letters in England ; 
 Rossetti's efforts to obtain a vocabulary ; his early influence 
 on his associates ; scheme for a set of Immortals , ,31
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PACK 
 
 Exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite pictures ; the first Pre-Raphaelites ; 
 Rossetti ; Sir John Millais; Mr. Holman Hunt; Mr. F. 
 G. Stephens ; James Collinson ; Mr. Thomas Woolner ; 
 Mr. William Rossetti ; artists in sympathy with the move- 
 ment ; C. A. Collins ; E. L. Baleman ; Bernhard Smith ; 
 Mr. Arthur Hughes ; Mr. William Bell Scott ; Thomas 
 Seddon ; Mr. Ford Madox Brown ; Mr. Burne Jones . 31 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Projection of Tlie Germ ; Rossetti's letters to his brother con- 
 cerning it ; his visit to Pais in company with Mr. Holman 
 Hunt ; appearance of the first number of The Germ, on 
 January I, 1850 ; its avowed aim ; change of title to Art 
 and Poetry; contributors to the first number; Rossetti's 
 share in the entire work ; death of The Germ ; influence 
 of this event on the projectors 38 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " Hand and Soul " a work of phantasy ; autobiographical reve- 
 lations furnished by its story ; resemblances between the 
 career of the hero and that of the writer ; written under 
 influences similar to those which produced " The Blessed 
 Damozel " 48 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Rossetti removes to Chatham Place ; intellectual growth ; early 
 poems ; " My Sister's Sleep ; " " The Blessed Damozel ; " 
 " Love's Nocturn ; " " The Staff and Scrip ; " its indebted- 
 ness to the " Gesta Romanorum ; " visits Newcastle ; 
 Rossetti's early picftau i '. 53 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Miss Siddall becomes Rossetti's model ; is afterwards his pupil ; 
 an atradnrrent to her is formed ; results in a betrothal ; 
 they are married on May 23, 1860 ; visit Paris ; her death ; 
 Rossetti's grief ; he buries his poems in her coffin . . 69
 
 CONTENTS. 7 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 References to Mrs. Rossetti in " The Portrait ;" "The Early 
 Italian Poets ; " merits of the translation ; aid afforded 
 Rossetti by his brother ; letter to Mr. Coventry Patmore ; 
 The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine ; the decorations of 
 the Union Club, Oxford ; fading of the pictures ; intimacies 
 formed with Mr. Burne Jones, Mr. William Morris, and 
 Mr. Swinburne . . . . . ,~ . . 78 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Shares 1 6, Cheyne Walk with his brother, Mr. Swinburne, and 
 Mr. George Meredith ; becomes subsequently its only 
 tenant ; adventure with a zebu ; pleasant evenings in 
 Cheyne Walk ; joins the Arundel Club ; goes to Paris ; 
 the Flint sale of Pre-Raphaelite pictures ; Rossetti attempts 
 earlier hours ; suffers from insomnia and affection of the 
 eyes 93 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Preparations for the volume of poems ; exhumation of the buried 
 MS. ; publication of the book ; its ballad contents ; 
 " Sister Helen ; " " Troy Town ; " " Eden Bower " . 104 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Contents of the collection of 1870 continued; "A Last Con- 
 fession," the most" dr'alflatic of Rossetti's works; not free 
 from mysticism ; "Jenny ; " " Stratton Water ; " " Dante 
 at Verona ; " comparison between Rossetti's " Burden of 
 Nineveh," and Mr. W. B. Scott's " The Sphinx ; " allitera- 
 tion in " The Stream's Secret ; " translations from Villon ; 
 the sonnets; their form and workmanship . . .115 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Rossetti as a painter ; influence of his worship of Dante upon 
 his productions ; the subjects of his pictures not seldom the 
 same as those of his poems ; difficulties in the way of his
 
 8 CONTENTS. 
 
 FACE 
 
 painting subjects on the scale their importance demands ; 
 common characteristics of poems and paintings ; period of 
 tranquility follows the publication of the first collection ; 
 Rossetti's satisfaction with the rewards of poetry ; appear- 
 ance in The Contemporary (Oct. 1871) of "The Fleshly 
 School of Poetry ; " Rossetti ascertains the airffiorship ; 
 replTes~m" Tt The Stealthy School of Criticism ; " serious 
 effect of the attack upon Rossetti's health ; apparent trnn- 
 quility of the life at Cheyne Walk 131 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Rossetti resides at Kelmscott Manor ; schemes of further work ; 
 issues a second edition of " The Italian Poets ; " death of 
 James Hannay ; Rossetti's correspondence shows signs of 
 depression ; lives almost as a recluse at Cheyne Walk ; goes 
 to Ilerne I>ay ; appearance of the collection of 1881 ; 
 "Rose Mary;" "The White Ship;" "The King's 
 Tragedy;" Rossetti's use of supernatural machinery . 145 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The " House of Life ; " appropriateness of the title to Rossetti's 
 personal views ; scheme of the poems ; Rossetti's theories 
 concerning love ; the collection of sonnets the greatest gift 
 in its class since Shakespeare ; analysis of certain sonnets. 160 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Appearance of the Collected Edition of Rossetti's works ; it 
 contains a few posthumously printed works ; " Henry the 
 Leper ; " Rossetti is stricken with paralysis ; retires to 
 Birchington ; his death on April 9, 1882 ; projected 
 biographies . . . . . . . . . 174 
 
 INDEX . 181
 
 NOTE. 
 
 IN the following compilation Rossetti is studied prin- 
 cipally as a writer. With his paintings I have no 
 very extensive acquaintance, nor have I the ability to 
 pronounce upon them a judgment. Full use has been 
 made of the very valuable labours of my predecessors, 
 Mr. William Sharp and Mr. Hall Caine. I am glad to 
 acknowledge my grwitino'eBfecTness to Mr. Ford Madox 
 Brown and Mr. William Rossetti for the privilege of 
 access to the correspondence of Rossetti, and, in the 
 case of the latter, for constant and most friendly services. 
 Early associates of Rossetti who now occupy a foremost 
 place in art and letters have been obligingly communica- 
 tive and kind, placing at my disposal letters and recollec- 
 tions. If I do not mention the names of those to whom 
 my warmest acknowledgments are due, it is because I do 
 not wish to make the porch too ornate and distinguished 
 for the edifice. 
 
 JOSEPH KNIGHT.
 
 LIFE OF ROSSETTI. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AS the name indicates, the family of Dante Gabriel 
 Rossetti is of Italian origin. On the paternal 
 side the painter-poet belongs to Vasto d'Ammone, the 
 ancient Histonium, a small, secluded, and picturesquely 
 situated city of the Abruzzi, on the Adriatic coast of the 
 then kingdom of Naples. The name Rossetti, though 
 borne in Italy by several men who attained eminence in 
 painting or music was not originally that of the family to 
 which it owes its highest honours. The primary name 
 of this was Delia Guardia. In a language overflowing 
 with diminutives, the name Rossetti, indicating an original 
 tendency to red hair, a characteristic which ceased to 
 distinguish the family, was bestowed upon certain of its 
 members. In compliance with a custom more common 
 in Italy than in England, but not unknown here, what 
 was originally applied as a nick-name became accepted 
 as a patronymic. The poet's grandfather, Domenico 
 Rossetti, was connected with the iron trade in his native 
 city. His son, Gabriele Rossetti, subsequently distin- 
 guished as a patriot and a man of letters, was born at 
 Vasto, and proceeded to Naples, where he became a
 
 12 LIFE OF 
 
 custodian of ancient bronzes in what was then known 
 as the Bourbon Museum. An eager advocate of the 
 liberties of his country, he was one of a body of 
 reformers by whom, in 1820, a Constitution was wrested 
 from Ferdinand, King of the Two Sicilies. The return 
 of the monarch at the head of an Austrian army from 
 Laybach, whither he had been summoned to meet in 
 congress the Emperor of Austria, brought with it, to 
 the leaders in the movement, a " reign of terror." 
 Gabriele Rossetti, whose patriotic songs no less than 
 his actions, had made him an object of special ani- 
 mosity to the authorities, was, after a period of conceal- 
 ment, smuggled, in an English uniform, out of Naples 
 by the aid of the admiral of the English fleet in the 
 Bay. In 1822 he arrived safely in Malta, where he 
 remained until 1825, when, furnished with introductions 
 by the governor, John Hookham Frere, whose friendship 
 he had secured, he proceeded to London. In the year 
 after his arrival he married Frances Mary Lavinia 
 Polidori, a lady of mixed Italian and English birth, 
 being the daughter by an English mother, whose maiden 
 name was Pierce, of Gaetano Polidori, the translator of 
 Milton, somewhile secretary of Alfieri, the dramatist, 
 and sister of Dr. Polidori, who in 1816, as a physician, 
 accompanied Byron to Geneva. Appointed in 1831 to 
 the post of Professor of Italian Literature at King's 
 College, Gabriele Rossetti relinquished that post in 
 1845 in consequence of failure of sight. He lived nine 
 years longer, dying on April 26, 1854. He wrote 
 many works in prose and verse, the best known in 
 England being his "Comento Analitico sulla Divina
 
 ROSSETTt. IB 
 
 Comedia," 1826-27 : "Sullo Spirito Anti-Papale," 1832 ; 
 and " II mistero dell' amor platonico," 1840. In those of 
 his works dealing with Dante he strenuously advocated 
 the view that the character of Beatrice is allegorical, and 
 is designed to serve as a vehicle for political, theological, 
 and social theories. In Dante and other poets of his 
 cycle he divined an intention, under the veil of poetical 
 and allegorical expression, to attack the Papacy. These 
 views, it is needless to say, have not passed unchallenged. 
 In Italy, and especially in his own district, the name of 
 Gabriele Rossetti is held in high reverence and affection 
 for his services to the cause of liberty. A medal has 
 been struck in his honour. Centenary commemorations 
 were held in 1883. His house was purchased as public 
 property. The noble market-place in his native town, 
 formerly known as the Piazza del Pesce, is named after 
 him, the Piazza Gabriele Rossetti, and is intended to 
 contain a statue to his memory ; and the theatre is called 
 in his honour Teatro Comunale Rossetti. Mrs. Rossetti 
 meanwhile survived her son, dying April 8, 1886. 
 
 Four children were born to Gabriele and Frances 
 Rossetti. These are all honourably known in connec- 
 tion with literature. Maria Francesca, the author of 
 " A Shadow of Dante," was the eldest. Dante Gabriel, 
 who was born on the izth of May, 1828, at 38, Char- 
 lotte Street, Great Portland Place, London, came next in 
 order. He was originally called after his father, his god- 
 father, Charles Lyell, father of the eminent geologist, 
 and the great Italian poet, Gabriel Charles Dante. 
 William Michael, the poet and critic ; and Christina, the 
 inspired author of ' Goblin Market," " The Prince's
 
 14 LIFE OF 
 
 Progress," and other works in prose and verse, complete 
 the list, having been born respectively in 1829 and 1830. 
 Concerning the early life of Rossetti little is pre- 
 served. After receiving some instruction at a private 
 school in Foley Street, Portland Place, where, he 
 stayed from the autumn of 1836 to the summer of 
 1837, he went to King's College School, where he 
 remained until 1843, receiving an education in Latin, 
 French, and the rudiments of Greek. In Italian he 
 was naturally proficient, and such portions of his corres- 
 pondence with his father as survive are in that language. 
 A certain knowledge of German he acquired at home. 
 His taste for literature was developed at an early age. 
 When five years old he wrote a so-called drama which 
 he entitled "The Slave," the two characters in which 
 were respectively entitled Slave and Traitor. In or 
 about his thirteenth year he began a romantic prose 
 tale called " Roderick and Rosalba." Towards the close 
 of his schooldays, " Sir Hugh the Heron : a Legendary 
 Tale," in four parts, by Gabriel Rossetti, junr., founded 
 upon a tale by Allan Cunningham, was privately printed 
 by his maternal grandfather, Gaetano Polidori. Little 
 in this work, a copy of which is in the British Museum, 
 shows signs of more than common promise. It is 
 not included in his collected works, and has hitherto 
 escaped the attention of the grubbers after early produc- 
 tions of genius. That it will finally avoid being unearthed 
 and reprinted is scarcely to be hoped. Apprehensive of 
 the result, Rossetti who had strong views on the subject, 
 and held that the portion of a writer's work which he 
 himself intended for publication should alone be given to
 
 ROSSETTI. 15 
 
 the world placed on record, in a common-place book, the 
 history of the growth of the poem, and the record of his 
 opinion that it was destitute of ordinary juvenile promise. 
 Before quitting school the desire to be a painter had 
 taken possession of him. After the summer vacation of 
 1 843, accordingly, Rossetti, instead of returning to school, 
 began his technical education in art at Gary's art academy, 
 in Bloomsbury. The earliest of his letters which has 
 been preserved is dated September i, 1842, from Chal- 
 font, St. Giles, where he was staying with his uncle, a 
 solicitor, who had anglicized his name to Henry Polydore. 
 It is addressed to his mother, with whom he maintained 
 the most affectionate relations, and marks the commence- 
 ment of a correspondence with the same dearly-prized re- 
 lative, in which all that is brightest and best in his nature 
 comes out. A positive adoration for his mother animated 
 Rossetti through his life. To the closing days he owned 
 her influence upon his literary opinions and verdicts ; her 
 beliefs were to him matters of reverence. To please or 
 to amuse her he employed all the resources of his intellect ; 
 describing for her scenes and characters, treasuring up 
 records of the behaviour of animals, depicting with poetic 
 vividness the features around him, and rarely failing, 
 when he was in the country, to deluge her with flowers. 
 From the first communication we get some insight into 
 the boy's character and his intellectual growth. After 
 dismissing the house associated with Milton as un- 
 questionably the ugliest and dirtiest in the village, he 
 describes his reading or his attempts to read. First he 
 begins " The Infidel's Doom," by Dr. Bird, but is unable 
 to finish the perusal. No more success attends an
 
 1C LIFE OF 
 
 attempt to read Walpole's " Castle of Otranto," and the 
 young student at the period of writing is deep in Defoe's 
 " History of the Plague." He announces his intention, 
 for the benefit of his sister Maria, to make a sketch of 
 the church which he thinks pretty, and then indulges in 
 some banter on his mother's assumed uneasiness be- 
 cause he has started without a Prayer Book, and assures 
 her that his uncle's " swearing book " that is, the book 
 on which oaths were taken will answer all purposes. 
 It may be here noted that the Rossettis, though de- 
 scended from Italian and Catholic families, were brought 
 up as Protestants. Gabriclc Rossetti's feud with the 
 Papacy made him tolerant of any dissent from Catholicism. 
 Miss Polidori meanwhile was the daughter of an English 
 mother, and by an arrangement more common in those 
 days than it has since become the sons were brought up 
 in the father's religion, and the daughters in that of the 
 mother. Mrs. Rossetti remained to her death a devout 
 Protestant, and her son manifested a constant respect for 
 her views. At this early age the taste of the collector, by 
 which Rossetti was always strongly influenced, asserted 
 itself. In conjunction with his brother he commenced to 
 illustrate with purchased engravings the Waverley Novels, 
 and he complains that his Christmas boxes have all been 
 spent in the acquisition of prints. He also collected 
 illustrations to Shakespeare and Byron. The following 
 year he is at 50, Charlotte Street, to which house, from 
 38 in the same street, his family have removed. He is 
 following assiduously his profession, and tells how he 
 has just finished studying the bones, and that his next 
 drawing will prcbibly be an anatomy figure. He is
 
 ROSSETTI, , 17 
 
 much struck by the exhibition at Westminster of the 
 cartoons for the Houses of Parliament, which he pro- 
 nounces, with juvenile enthusiasm, "a splendid sight," 
 preferring it to the exhibition of the Royal Academy. 
 Among the cartoons which win his special praise 
 are Armitage's Landing of Julius Caesar in Britain ; 
 Watts' Caractacus led Captive, which is his first 
 favourite ; and Boadicea addressing her Army, by 
 Selous ; Severn's Queen Eleanor sucking the Poison 
 from her Husband's Arm, he pronounces " almost com- 
 pletely wanting in expression ; " and he condemns a 
 Signing of the Magna Charta as " the work of a 
 child." In the fact that the works exhibited are by 
 young painters, he finds a vindication of English art, and 
 he opposes the accusation that artists of the English 
 school clothe their figures overmuch, in order, by attract- 
 ing attention to outside ornament satin, jewels, and 
 cloth of gold in the highest state of finish to hide 
 their ignorance of anatomy. These opinions of a lad of 
 fifteen are crude in some respects ; they are, however, 
 wanting neither in candour nor in insight. 
 
 At meetings of the Sketching Club, which he joins, 
 he begins two sketches. These are The Death of 
 Marmion, and The Old Soldier relating his Battles to 
 the Parson from "The Deserted Village;" and he plans 
 a third to be done, as he writes to his mother, who is in 
 Paris, " in prime style," which shall represent the parting 
 of two lovers. He also tells the same correspondent that 
 he does not care, as yet, to go up to the Academy with 
 a probation drawing and risk rejection. 
 
 Side by side with his art studies he continues his
 
 18 LIFE OF 
 
 literary efforts. He is, he states, writing a romance 
 entitled " Sorrentino," of which all traces are lost. The 
 tribulations of this ill-starred production are so many, and 
 so great, that, " if the approbation of others were the only 
 encouragement to an author to continue his literary 
 labours, the romance in question would long since have 
 found its way behind the grate." His sister Maria 
 refuses, he complains, to listen to it. On its completion, 
 however, he will offer it to some publisher, for, " defying 
 all accusation of vanity and self-esteem," he cannot help 
 considering that " it is equal to very many of the sense- 
 less productions which daily issue from the press " a 
 modest meed of praise to which it might well be entitled. 
 At the close of the following year, and the beginning of 
 1845, he is at Boulogne, where he has an attack of small- 
 pox, from which fortunately he escapes unscarred. His 
 enthusiasm is now in behalf of Gavarni, Tony Johannot, 
 andNanteuil, whose works he assiduously collects. His 
 study of literature is confined to the writings of French 
 novelists of the day, some of which he condemns for 
 their stupidity and obscenity. The " Colomba " of 
 Prosper Me'rime'e excites, however, his extreme admira- 
 tion. It contains, he declares, some Corsican ballads 
 exactly in the style of the old English poetry. One of 
 these, unfortunately a fragment, he so much admires, that 
 he has taken the trouble of translating it. A supernatural 
 story called " La Ve"nus d'llle " is " unutterably fine." In 
 these verdicts the future author of " Rose Mary," " The 
 King's Tragedy," and " Sister Helen " may be foreseen. 
 
 From this time until the beginning of the period of 
 his literary and artistic activity, his correspondence with
 
 ROSSETTI. 19 
 
 his mother and his brother languished, for no reason 
 probably except that he was at home and had no need 
 to write. In 1846 he was admitted to the Antique School 
 of the Royal Academy. The life school of the same 
 institution he never attended. He appears to have worked 
 hard, if spasmodically. His attendance at the school 
 of art must have been fairly regular. He tells us how, 
 after consuming a frugal meal at some street stall, he 
 has been at a class by six o'clock. Concurrently 
 with his art occupations, moreover, he " kept his hand 
 in " at poetry by writing original verses and translations 
 from the Italian and the German. Indications of 
 his future development are afforded in the selection 
 of German works for translation. These included 
 passages from the " Niebelungen Lied," which re- 
 mained a favourite subject of conversation with him 
 even when his knowledge of German had faded, and 
 the whole of the tender and gracious " Arme Heinrich," 
 of Hartmann von Aue, the Swabian Crusader and 
 Minnesinger, now included under the title " Henry the 
 Leper," in the second volume of his collected works. 
 Of his life at this and a previous time he spoke in sub- 
 sequent days with little enthusiasm. To his friend and 
 biographer, Mr. Hall Caine, he described himself as 
 deficient in youth and physical courage, and disinclined 
 to take part in school games or in boyish quarrels, " not 
 without generous impulse, but in the main selfish of 
 nature, and reclusive in habit of life." So far as regards 
 the latter portion of this statement, it was in part assum- 
 ably true. The whole can only be accepted as the 
 estimate of a man of introspective habits, who mistakes
 
 20 LIFE OF ROSSETTI. 
 
 for timidity a keen sense of danger. Through his entire 
 life Rossetti, though fond of walking, showed little dis- 
 position to violent exertion. He was, however, sustained 
 and resolute when action was forced upon him, and on 
 one or two occasions when unexpected peril presented 
 itself he showed himself brave and collected. These 
 qualities do not come at call. Reclusive in life, and in 
 some respects inert in his youth, he probably was ; but 
 cowardice, and selfishness in its larger acceptance, could 
 never have been numbered among his defects.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 AT his father's house Rossetti had met poets, scholars, 
 and patriots, and had acquired that knowledge of 
 Italian literature, and especially of Dante and his cycle, 
 which was to bear ripe fruit in his following life. At the 
 Academy he came under the personal influence of men 
 such as Mr. Holman Hunt, Sir John Millais, and Mr. 
 Thomas Woolner. He seems for a while to have hesi- 
 tated between literature and art. Mr. Holman Hunt, in 
 his interesting papers on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 
 states that Rossetti had sent specimens of his poems to 
 Leigh Hunt, with a request that he would read them and 
 counsel the author as to the expediency of turning to 
 literature as a profession. While speaking in complimen- 
 tary terms of the poems, Leigh Hunt in his reply had 
 strongly dissuaded the young aspirant from adopting the 
 profession of poetry as " too pitiable to be chosen in cool 
 blood." At this time, moreover, the influence of Rossetti 
 over those around him, the extent and power of which 
 constitutes one of the most remarkable aspects of his 
 individuality, and can neither be measured nor very 
 easily credited by those to whom he was wholly un- 
 known, had asserted itself. He had, even then, at the 
 Academy, "-a following" of those whom Mr. Holman
 
 22 LIFE OF 
 
 Hunt, not too sympathetically, describes as " noisy 
 students." 
 
 In March, 1848, Rossetti, who had been greatly struck 
 with the work of Mr. Ford Madox Brown, wrote to him 
 requesting permission to attend his studio as pupil. In 
 the letter making the request he warmly praises Mr. 
 Madox Brown's paintings, especially his Parisina and 
 Giaour, and says that if he ever does anything on his 
 own account, it will be under the influence of such inspi- 
 ration. This application of an enthusiastic youth to one 
 but seven years his senior met with courteous acceptance. 
 Rossetti accordingly commenced to paint in Mr. Madox 
 Brown's studio, not as a paying pupil, but as a friend, 
 and laid, in so doing, the foundation of a close friend- 
 ship, amounting almost to brotherhood, which extended 
 over, and greatly influenced, his subsequent life. His 
 intimacy with Mr. William Bell Scott, like himself, poet 
 and painter, began even earlier, and was scarcely less 
 active for good. It was, however, as a poet, not as a 
 painter, that Mr. Scott was approached. By various 
 poems contributed by Mr. Scott to magazines Rossetti 
 had been profoundly struck. With that feeling of 
 brotherhood to all aiming high in literature or art, which 
 to the end remained a striking characteristic, Rossetti 
 wrote to the author of these compositions, expressing his 
 admiration for them, and enclosing some of his own 
 poems. The letter thus sent is dated 25th November, 
 1847, and signed Gabriel Charles Rossetti. Mr. Scott, 
 who was at that time in Newcastle, was greatly struck 
 with the verses, and, after his return to London, a friend- 
 ship, which proved close and enduring, was formed.
 
 ROSSETTL 23 
 
 While working in the studio of Mr. Madox Brown, 
 Rossetti executed his first oil painting a portrait of 
 his father. This was in 1847. I n the same year he 
 took, jointly with Mr. Holman Hunt, a studio in Cleve- 
 land Street, close to Rowland Street, Fitzroy Square. 
 Among the traces of this association admirers of Mr. 
 Holman Hunt will find, in that artist's famous picture of 
 Rienzi swearing revenge over the body of his brother, 
 the portrait of Rossetti, who sat for Rienzi. It may be 
 mentioned, also, that in Sir John Millais' well-known pic- 
 ture of the same epoch, Lorenzo and Isabella, Mr. William 
 Rossetti sat for the principal figure, and Dante Gabriel 
 Rossetti for a guest who is seen drinking. The meeting 
 of these fervid youths, devoted to the study and practice 
 of painting and poetry, led naturally to schemes for the 
 regeneration of the art they loved, and to the foundation 
 of a species of dnacle^ as, after the ccenaculum, or 
 chamber in which was held the Last Supper, Sainte- 
 Beuve, E. and A. Deschamps, Gautier, and other 
 founders of what is known in France as Romanticism, 
 elected to call themselves in sign of their worship 
 of Victor Hugo. This later cenade was destined to 
 exercise an influence far more durable than such insti- 
 tutions, constantly sneered at and disparaged, but always 
 interesting, often exhibit. The date when the Pre- 
 Raphaelite Brotherhood was established was the autumn 
 of 1 848. This was not the only scheme which the young 
 blood, " brisk as the April birds in primrose season," had 
 excogitated. One mad idea which Rossetti ventilates at 
 this period deserves to be mentioned as anticipating in a 
 remarkable manner a portion of Mr. Robert Louis Steven-
 
 24 LIFE OF 
 
 son's brilliant romance, the " New Arabian Nights." It 
 is propounded by Rossetti to his brother and close ally, 
 writing to whom he says : " Apropos of death, Hunt and 
 I are going to get up among our acquaintances a mutual 
 suicide association, by the regulations of which every 
 member being weary of life may call at any time upon 
 another to cut his throat for him. It is all, of course, to 
 be done very quietly, without weeping or gnashing of 
 teeth. I, for instance, am to go in and say, 'I say, 
 Hunt, just stop painting that head for a minute and cut 
 my throat,' to which he will respond by telling the model 
 to keep the position, as he shall only be a moment, and, 
 having done his duty, will proceed with the painting." If 
 there is any one to whom this wild pleasantry seems dis- 
 tasteful, it must be remembered that its originators were 
 lads of twenty, or thereabouts, whose schemes shortly 
 afterwards all but revolutionised art, and who, before 
 they reached the age at which the responsibilities of man- 
 hood are supposed to begin, were to see themselves pil- 
 loried for work which their enemies could neither equal 
 nor grasp. In the spring of 1849 Rossetti had painted 
 The Girlhood of Mary Virgin, Mr. Holman Hunt the 
 great picture of Rienzi, and Sir John Millais the Lorenzo 
 and Isabella, which Mr. Holman Hunt justly calls " the 
 most wonderful painting that any youth still under twenty 
 years of age ever did in the world." Mr. Holman Hunt 
 attributes the shape taken by the ideas of revolt, then 
 surging in his own mind and in that of Rossetti, to the 
 sight at the house of Millais of a book of engravings of 
 the frescoes in the Campo Santo at Pisa. "The Life 
 and Letters of Keats " of Lord Houghton, to the perusal
 
 ROSSETTI. 25 
 
 of which by himself and Rossetti, during a visit together 
 to Rochester and Blackheath, Mr. Hunt refers, must also 
 be credited with an influence in the same direction. 
 According to Mr. Hunt, this appears to have been earlier 
 in date than the inspection at Millais' of the book of 
 frescoes. 
 
 On the 2oth of August, 1848, Rossetti speaks of himself 
 and Hunt as settled down (in the studio) "quite comfort- 
 ably," and says that his companion is engaged upon the 
 preparations for his Rienzi. He refers to his not having 
 yet got through the first volume of " The Life of Keats," 
 and continues, " He seems to have been a glorious fellow 
 and says in one place (to my great delight) that having 
 just looked over a folio of the first and second schools of 
 Italian painting, he has come to the conclusion that 
 some of the early men surpassed even Raphael himself." 
 
 In the same letter he states that he went with Hunt to 
 Woolner's " the other evening," where, on what he calls 
 the alternate principle, they composed a poem of twenty- 
 four stanzas. Facility in verse writing had long been a 
 gift of Rossetti. In their home at Charlotte Street, he, 
 William, and their sister Christina had been accustomed 
 to bouts rimes, or verses written to rhymes previously 
 supplied, and other forms of composition. At this 
 time, however, Rossetti, who had already written many 
 of his most remarkable compositions, including several of 
 the translations from Dante and poets of his cycle, " My 
 Sister's Sleep " and " The Blessed Damozel," stood fully 
 equipped in poetic accomplishment. It would, however, 
 be a matter of extreme interest if the poem composed by 
 three such men, supposing it not to have been mere
 
 26 LIFE OF 
 
 banter, as perhaps it was, could be traced. Rossetti 
 unfortunately neglects to give the name. 
 
 That the present century has witnessed in art and 
 letters a second renaissance, or period of new birth, 
 neither less remarkable nor less potent than that 
 heralded or marshalled by the discovery of printing, 
 has recently been borne in upon men's minds. In this 
 renewal of life the Pre-Raphaelite movement is at once 
 a manifestation and an influence. It has been pointed 
 out by different writers, and nowhere more clearly and 
 forcibly than by Mr. Theodore Watts, in the brilliant 
 essay upon Rossetti he contributes to the " Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica," that the secret of what the writer calls the 
 Renascence of Wonder consists in going back from the 
 "temper of imitation, prosaic acceptance, pseudo-classicism 
 and domestic materialism" to the " temper of wonder, 
 reverence, and awe." Within certain limitations this is 
 true, as it is finely said. Between the period of Milton, 
 in whom the " temper " last spoken of was only disturbed 
 by political and theological obsession, and Blake, in whom 
 it manifested its reviving influence, there interposed prac- 
 tically a century and a half, during which poetry was 
 narrowed to the careful observance of traditions, to a 
 sacrifice of essence to form, and to an apparently cynical 
 contempt for whatever in the world breathes the spirit of 
 romance and mystery. Though this space, compared 
 with the long Polar night of ignorance which followed 
 the conquest of civilization by barbarism, seems but short, 
 it is probably enough to justify the view that regards it as 
 death. It is possible, however, that in a subsequent age, 
 those who from a more remote stand-point have a wider
 
 ROSSETTI. 27 
 
 view may see in this period but the ebb of a great wave. 
 It may, at least, be maintained that the malign influence 
 over our literature in post-Shakespearean times has been 
 French. To trace the causes by which the spirit of the 
 first Renaissance, nowhere more active than among the 
 southern French, was quenched by the joint persecutions 
 of the Parliament and the Sorbonne, until the great up- 
 heaval of the sixteenth century was absolutely arrested, 
 and from Liguge, the seat of Geoffroi d'Estissac, the 
 enlightened bishop of Maillezais, and patron of Rabelais, 
 and the early French reformers, the brilliant company 
 of dreamers and workers, who were the last hope of 
 France, went forth to die on the Place de Greves, to 
 seek shelter at Geneva, or to perish of want or suicide 
 in alien lands, is a subject for a volume rather than a 
 paragraph. Up to the stake "Justfau feu exclusive- 
 ment" Rabelais, joking upon the restrictions upon 
 his practice of surgery imposed upon him as an eccle- 
 siastic, who was not allowed to cut or to cauterize, 
 said he would carry his revelation of truth. So far 
 as this exactly went freedom of thought in France, and 
 it needed the tocsin of St. Bartholomew, and the axe of 
 Richelieu, to leave French life and literature what they 
 became in the late seventeenth, and in the eighteenth 
 centuries. 
 
 English literature, meanwhile, which after the flood 
 time of the Elizabethan and Jacobean drama had 
 ebbed into affectations and conceits, took under the 
 Restoration its colpur from France. Beneath a king a 
 pensioner on the French monarch, it was not surprising to 
 see Courtier-Poets under the like obligation to French
 
 28 LIFE OF 
 
 wits. With the cessation of French influence the national 
 spirit reasserted itself, and such external sway as has 
 been felt during the present century has been largely due 
 to Teutonic and Scandinavian literature, with which our 
 own, at its best, has constantly been associated. To his 
 familiarity with the Italian poets Rossetti added, as 
 has been seen, some knowledge of German litera- 
 ture. He was, moreover, well read in the old ballads 
 and romances. The last-named productions he used to 
 read, apart from the pleasure he took in their perusal, for 
 the purpose of enriching his vocabulary. It is only in 
 recent years that great writers have been seen, as in the 
 case of Victor Hugo and of Rossetti, deliberately to seek 
 in such fashion to enrich their style. The French poet, 
 it is known, rarely dealt in his fictions with any form of 
 labour or occupation without acquiring an acquaintance 
 with its innermost and most technical vocabulary, the 
 result being at times a little perplexing to the English 
 student who wishes to follow every word of Victor Hugo, 
 and does not always find a dictionary that will assist him. 
 Unconscious, meanwhile, of the existence of this prece- 
 dent, Rossetti was employed at the British Museum 
 reading romances of chivalry, in the hope to "pitch 
 upon stunning words for poetry." To his brother he 
 states that he has " found several," and has also received 
 much enjoyment from the romances themselves, some of 
 which he declares to be " tremendously fine." 
 
 Rossetti, accordingly, apart from his gifts of imagination 
 and expression, was well stocked with-the kind of litera- 
 ture most likely to fructify under existing conditions. He 
 was familiar also with the English poets of the previous
 
 ROSSETTI. 29 
 
 half-century, was an enthusiastic admirer of Byron, and 
 had come under the influence of Mr. Browning, from 
 whose works, which he had purchased, he was accus- 
 tomed to quote. To these things must be added the 
 before-mentioned power of inspiring enthusiasm and 
 making proselytes, a power which, according to Mr. 
 Holman Hunt, he appears to have exercised to an incon- 
 venient extent, and to which, in his own despite, Mr. 
 Hunt himself was compelled to yield ; an unfailing 
 memory for any poetry that won his admiration, and 
 (Mr. Hunt again) " a voice rarely equalled for simple reci- 
 tations." Yet one more possession, rarest, perhaps, of all, 
 has to be chronicled. This was an ungrudging, out- 
 spoken, loyal, and unselfish delight in the work of others, 
 combined with a capacity and a disposition to bestow that 
 praise, at once thoroughly appreciative and yet distin- 
 guishing, which to the artist temperament brings the 
 keenest of pleasures. 
 
 Thus equipped, Rossetti, it may fairly be supposed, 
 was, from the poetical side at least, the dominant influ- 
 ence in the establishment of the Pre-Raphaelite Brother- 
 hood. That a picture of Mr. Holman Hunt, The Eve of 
 Saint Agnes, formed the point de depart, or start-point, 
 Mr. Hunt has told us, and is known from other sources. 
 That Mr. Hunt also was the first to realize the purity of 
 work in the early Italian painters, and that before he knew 
 either of his subsequent associates, he had set to work to 
 rival the sincerity of handling of the artists he admired, is 
 also conceded. As stated by Mr. Ruskin, in after times 
 their eloquent and sustained advocate, the aim of the Pre- 
 Raphaelites was to " paint nature as it is around them,
 
 80 LIFE OF ROSSETT1. 
 
 with the help of modern science." It is doubtful whether 
 the leaders of the movement, glad as they were of the 
 advocacy of their brilliant ally, were altogether content 
 with the description of their aim. Without venturing on 
 the dangerous ground of a definition, this aim may be 
 said to have been to divest art of conventionality, to work 
 with sincere purpose, and to reproduce with scrupulous 
 fidelity all objects in animate and inanimate nature. 
 
 So far as regards Rossetti, it is easy to over-estimate 
 the influence of Pre-Raphaelitism upon his work. At the 
 outset, howerer, the idea commended itself warmly to 
 him. He was at this period full of schemes of work and 
 of worship. One scheme, suggestive of Comte, but prob- 
 ably owing nothing to him, to which he appears to have 
 won the assent of his companion, Mr. Hunt, was the 
 establishment of a " Set of Immortals." The full hier- 
 archy has never been given to the world. The first 
 rank was, however, reserved for Shakespeare and Jesus 
 Christ.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 IN the studio jointly occupied by Mr. Hunt and 
 Rossetti, the two artists began the pictures in which 
 their new faith was to be shown to the world through 
 their works. Mr. Hunt's picture, as is known, was the 
 Rienzi swearing Revenge over the Body of his Brother. 
 Rossetti's was The Girlhood of Mary Virgin. Working 
 with them, in his own studio, was Sir John Millais, whose 
 adhesion to their new creed the young associates had 
 obtained. His contribution consisted of his picture 
 from Keats' " Lorenzo and Isabella." 
 
 With the exhibition, in 1849, of these three pictures, 
 a ferment in artistic and literary circles, destined to 
 outlast the cause to which it owed its birth, took 
 place. The signification of the three letters, P.R.B., 
 or Pre-Raphaelite Brother, indicative of aims such 
 as have previously been mentioned, which the painters 
 affixed to their names, had been revealed by Rossetti 
 to friends, one of whom gave it to the world. A 
 storm of indignation was aroused among those against 
 whose practice in art the new school was a protest. 
 Writers were, of course, found to declaim with customary 
 zeal against innovation, and as has generally been the
 
 82 LIFE OF 
 
 case, especially in England, under similar conditions, 
 the leaders of the new heresy were regarded as offenders 
 against most things that are sacred or of good repute. 
 
 It is possible now to smile at the pother that was 
 raised. The movement, which had in fact been anticipated 
 by Mr. Madox Brown, was originated by young men, of 
 whom the oldest was barely of age. Its influence, as a 
 protest, was enduring, its tendency was beneficial, and 
 the men, nurtured in its faith, however much they may 
 have diverged from their first convictions, have attained 
 the foremost places in their art. Whatever was extra- 
 vagant or fantastic in view, might, and should, have been 
 treated at the worst with banter. Time has vindicated 
 the aim and the exertions of the Pre-Raphaelites, and 
 nothing but shadows are now left for their antagonists to 
 fight. At the outset, moreover, much useful support 
 from outside sources was enlisted on their behalf. The 
 active advocacy of Mr. Ruskin was of course invalu- 
 able to them. Other champions espoused their cause, 
 and from the ranks of painters of established fame 
 came some who perceived what was noble in their 
 aim and stedfast in their work. Out of the Royal 
 Academy, even, sprang encouragement and aid, by which 
 one at least of the sorely pressed evangelists of a new 
 doctrine was enabled to keep the wolf from the door, 
 and proceed with his mission. 
 
 Before dealing with the short-lived magazine, which 
 was put forward less as an " Apologia " than as a 
 " Manifestation of Faith," it seems worth while to point 
 to the outcome of Pre-Raphaelitism, so far as regards its 
 principal exponents.
 
 ROSSETTI. 33 
 
 This is debateable ground, and the decisions here 
 given are open to be challenged. Dealing only with 
 works of primary importance, it will be found that 
 Rossetti painted in oil, in accordance with his Pre- 
 Raphaelite principles, The Girlhood of Mary Virgin, 
 An Annunciation, otherwise known as Ecce Ancilla 
 Domini, and the woman's face and the white calf in 
 Found, a noble work, which, unfortunately, remains 
 unfinished. From this time (1853) his work in this 
 medium, while preserving its poetic and imaginative style 
 of design and colouring, had no claim to be considered 
 Pre-Raphaelite. It can indeed, with its strongly marked 
 individuality, be forced into no class. 
 
 Sir John Millais continued faithful until 1855, and, so 
 to speak, coquetted with his former love until 1856-57, 
 after which he reverted to free handling and broader 
 treatment. Among his latest works in the Pre-Raphaelite 
 style are the Portrait of Ruskin, The Blind Girl, The 
 Wounded Child on a Tomb, and The Vale of Rest. 
 Some traces of Pre-Raphaelitism are also found in The 
 Return of the Dove to the Ark. Mr. Holman Hunt 
 may, then, claim to be the Abdiel of Pre-Raphaelitism, 
 to which, while informing it with an assertive and price- 
 less individuality, his art still belongs. 
 
 Other painters belonged, however, to the school 
 so soon as it was formed, and by a curious irony of Fate, 
 some who are now held the most representative among 
 Pre-Raphaelites, were never, nominally at least, in its 
 ranks. 
 
 Among the first Pre-Raphaelite painters was Mr. F. G. 
 Stephens, now eminent as an art critic, at the time an 
 
 3
 
 34 LIFE OF 
 
 eloquent defender of the views of the Brotherhood, 
 towards the members of which, even to the present day, 
 he has shown an exemplary loyalty. He was at that time 
 an intimate friend of Mr. Holman Hunt, and warmly 
 espoused the cause. His early paintings were Pre- 
 Raphaelite, but his vocation for writing overpowering 
 that for painting, he gave up the brush for the pen. 
 
 Walter Deverell was one of the most enthusiastic 
 votaries whom the eloquence of Rossetti, and the example 
 of Mr. Holman Hunt, seduced, and was, after a time, 
 enrolled a probationary member. So exquisite a sense 
 of simplicity and grace had this young painter, combined 
 with a close fidelity to nature, that his premature death 
 was a loss not only to Pre-Raphaelitism, but to art in 
 general. 
 
 Charles Allston Collins painted for a time in the same 
 manner, but was never a member of the Brotherhood. 
 He failed to satisfy himself with his work, and after a 
 time abandoned art for literature, in which he made a 
 reputation. 
 
 James Collinson, the artist, was a Pre-Raphaelite 
 Brother, and in addition to the artistic capacity, displayed 
 in his youth great poetic capacity. He resigned his 
 membership, however, after a short period, having joined 
 the Catholic Church, with an idea, subsequently aban- 
 doned, of entering the priesthood. 
 
 Mr. Woolner, R.A., the sculptor, through his con- 
 tributions to The Germ, was associated with the Brother- 
 hood of which he was a member. His connection with 
 it did not, however, extend far beyond his poems which 
 appeared in that periodical, and his friendship with the
 
 ROSSETTI. 85 
 
 artists, and his admiration for their works. His labours 
 bear no traces of its influence. The connection of Mr. 
 E. L. Bateman was the same, minus the contributions to 
 The Germ. 
 
 Bernhard Smith, a sculptor, was closely bound up 
 with the founders of the new faith. He went, in 1852, 
 to Australia, where he died a couple of years ago. 
 
 Mr. Arthur Hughes was also an intimate of some of the 
 Brotherhood. 
 
 Mr. William Bell Scott became a close, warm, and 
 constant friend of Rossetti and other members of the 
 Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. At the period when they 
 first exhibited, he had been an exhibitor for nine years, 
 and his imputed connection with the school is purely 
 imaginary. 
 
 Thomas Seddon was carried away by the movement, 
 but had no share in the initiative. 
 
 Two men, neither of them Pre-Raphaelites, remain to 
 be mentioned. The first is Mr. Ford Madox Brown. 
 An exhibitor since 1841, he did more to influence the 
 Pre-Raphaelites than any other. Mr. Sharp, in his 
 "Life of Rossetti," says, "If Dante Rossetti be con- 
 sidered the father of Pre-RaphaelitismTTftrTMadox Brown 
 may be considered its grandfather." His sympathy with 
 aspirations he helped to form was naturally keen, and the 
 only cause of his not becoming a member of the 
 Brotherhood was his disbelief in the advantage of cliques. 
 In no other painter, however, have the principles of 
 Pre-Raphaelitism found earlier or abler exposition. It 
 may almost be held that his great picture of Work is the 
 absolute masterpiece of Pre-Raphaelite method, It is
 
 86 LIFE OF 
 
 painted with a thoroughness, completeness, and sincerity 
 not to be surpassed in any painting belonging to, or 
 inspired by, the school. 
 
 Mr. Eurn& Tones did not take up painting as a 
 profession until, in subsequent years, at Oxford, he came 
 under the sway of Rossetti, to whom indeed it is due 
 that, abandoning the idea of entering the Church, he 
 became a painter. The influence of Rossetti was strong 
 upon 'him, and his method has much in common with 
 that of the Pre-Raphaelites, as one of whom he is often, 
 but mistakenly regarded. There were then in all seven 
 Pre-Raphaelite Brethren six artists, viz. : Holman Hunt, 
 Rossetti, Millais, Woolner, James Collinson, and F. G. 
 Stephens, and one literary member, the critic and poet, 
 Mr. William Rossetti, who should yet be the laureate of 
 the Brotherhood. 
 
 It is singular as well as gratifying to see how much 
 virility as well as genius there was in the band. Collinson, 
 the one weakling, vacated a seat which he was never 
 qualified to fill. With that exception, the Brotherhood 
 continued to do work of the highest class for thirty-four 
 years, when Rossetti, at the close of a brilliant career, 
 died, prematurely after all, his health ruined by indulgence 
 in narcotics. What noble work in painting or sculpture 
 is due to surviving members, Sir John Millais, Mr. 
 Holman Hunt, and Mr. Woolner, and in poetry to the 
 last-named, is known to the world at large. The know- 
 ledge of the fitness of some of their associates to rank 
 with them is confined to a limited public. It is at 
 least difficult to treat with ridicule or contempt a faith out 
 of which such results have sprung, and it is a vindication
 
 ROSSETTI. 87 
 
 of hard work, that five out of seven of the men who, 
 thirty-seven or thirty-eight years ago, inaugurated a great 
 movement, are still at the height of their productive 
 powers, and in the foremost places in public estimation.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ANEW creed requires a new evangel. This it was 
 an early aim of the Brotherhood to supply. The 
 idea of a magazine, in which by letter-press and illus- 
 tration, the views of the cenacle should be put forth, 
 was Rossetti's. His own family, on the aid of which he 
 might depend, supplied him with three poets. From the 
 moment the scheme was formed, Rossetti, with charac- 
 teristically sanguine faith, set to work for its realization. 
 Material in abundance for a start was in existence. The 
 forces, were, however, ill-drilled, the commissariat needed 
 attention, and the ammunition even was adequate rather 
 for a skirmish than a campaign. One evening in 
 September, 1849, in a studio which Rossetti had taken 
 in Newman Street, the arrangements with regard to the 
 forthcoming publication were made, and the name of 
 The Germ, suggested by Mr. William Cave Thomas, was 
 adopted. William Rossetti, then aged barely twenty, 
 was nominated to the editorship. 
 
 Some difficulty was experienced in inducing the 
 editor to undertake the functions assigned him. The 
 original intention was to announce the new publication 
 as conducted by artists. This, of course, was prohibitive
 
 LIFE OF ROSSETTI. 39 
 
 of the editorship being assigned to William Rossetti. 
 This portion of the project was, however, abandoned, 
 and the words " conducted by artists " were struck from 
 the projected title-page. 
 
 Rossetti's correspondence with his brother at this 
 period is full of the projected magazine. On Sep- 
 tember 26th he starts with Mr. Holman Hunt on a long 
 projected trip to Paris, and he sends his brother from 
 Boulogne, on the 2 8th, a poem, "Upon the Cliffs Noon," 
 as well as some extracts from the book of Job, in writing 
 out which he had found employment during a rough 
 passage. Previous to his departure, however, he had 
 communicated much information of interest, stating that 
 he hopes that he has found a publisher in Messrs. Aylott 
 and Jones, of Paternoster Row, to whom he had been 
 introduced by " a printer, a friend of Hancock's; " that the 
 proprietors, by which he means the speculators, amount 
 to about nine, including Hancock (a young sculptor of 
 repute) and Herbert (Mr. J. R. Herbert, R.A.), who he 
 fears, however, " is rather a doubtful case ; " that 
 Stephens is writing for the first number an article on 
 early art, which he (Rossetti) has not seen, and that 
 Hunt, who is now " tremendously agog about the thing,'' 
 is "at his etching." Somewhat doubtfully he suggests 
 that " Old Collinson " should be induced to take a share, 
 and urges his brother to impress this obligation upon such 
 amount of mind as "Old Collinson" possesses. Woolner, 
 he also states, is going with him into the country. This 
 scheme was never carried into effect. Mr. Woolner was, 
 however, induced by his energetic young friend to con- 
 tribute to the new periodical. He was, indeed, warmly
 
 40 LIFE OF 
 
 assured by Rossetti that his poem, " My Beautiful Lady," 
 which appeared in the first number of The Germ, was 
 written on the true Pre-Raphaelite lines. 
 
 His great piece of news is, however, that Mr. Coventry 
 Patmore, to whom // (assumably the projected first 
 number) was shown, seemed considerably impressed in 
 its favour, and was even induced thereby to contribute to 
 it a little poem of three stanzas, which, in order not to 
 inflict upon his brother the agony of hope deferred, he 
 copies out. The poem is that which, under the title of 
 " The Seasons," appears on page 19 of the first number 
 of The Germ. 
 
 This poem Rossetti, with pardonable warmth, pro- 
 nounces, in a characteristic form of expression, "stun- 
 ning." His jubilancy is, however, checked by the fact that 
 Patmore, who does not intend to figure in any periodical 
 until his new book of poems is out, withholds permission 
 to publish his name. 
 
 These particulars, of no special importance in them- 
 selves, are interesting as illustrations of the eagerness and 
 impetuosity of Rossetti's nature, and of the power he 
 possessed of winning over to his own views the generous 
 minds with which he was thrown into contact It may 
 be mentioned as showing the state of mind in which, at 
 this period of The Germ, its founder was, that his letters 
 from Paris disclose views in art which, whatever their 
 value, were much modified in his later years. 
 
 After complaining to his brother of Hunt spoiling his 
 writing paper in attempts " to concoct an undecipherable 
 monogram of P.R.B., to be signed to passports," &c., and 
 sending a variety of sonnets, written on the top of
 
 ROSSETTI. 41 
 
 Notre Dame and elsewhere, he delivers his opinions on 
 the paintings he has seen. At the Luxembourg " there 
 are the following really wonderful pictures, viz. : two by 
 Delaroche, two by Fleury, one by Ingres, and one by 
 Hesse ; others by Scheffer, Granet, &c., are very good." 
 The rest with a few exceptions the two travellers con- 
 sidered "trash." Delacroix, though, "almost worshipped" 
 in Paris, incurs an eminently unfavourable verdict, except 
 that his pictures " show a kind of savage genius." 
 
 In the Louvre there are a " most wonderful copy of a 
 fresco by Angelico," a "tremendous " Van Eyck, " some 
 mighty things by that real stunner, Leonardo," a "tre- 
 mendous portrait by some Venetian," whose name he 
 forgets, and a "stunning Francis I." by Titian. By 
 Ingres he is puzzled. One picture in the Luxembourg 
 is "unsurpassed for exquisite perfection " by anything he 
 has seen. For others he would not give "two sous." 
 "Now," he says, "for the best, Hunt and I solemnly 
 decided that the most perfect work, taken in toto, 
 that we have seen in our lives, are two pictures by 
 Hippolyte Flandrin, representing Christ entering into 
 Jerusalem, and His departure to death, hung in the 
 Church of St. Germain des Pres." After this expression 
 he writes, " Wonderful ! wonderful ! wonderful I" 
 
 On the ist of January, 1850, the first number of The 
 Germ wa~3" issued by Messrs. Aylott and Jones, of 8, 
 Paternoster Row. Brilliant as are its contents, the 
 poetical portion of them especially, the whole is, in a 
 sense, juvenile. There is little in it to appeal to any but 
 an esoteric circle. A sonnet, by Mr. William Rossetti, 
 printed on the cover of the four numbers, conveyed in
 
 42 LIFE OF 
 
 lines richer in thought than music the principles to advo- 
 cate which the magazine was started. On the back of the 
 second page of the cover appeared a species of prose 
 advertisement, embodying the views of the founders, 
 and forming a sort of substitute for a preface. After 
 stating that " an attempt will be made, both intrinsically 
 and by review, to claim for poetry that place to which its 
 present development in the literature of the country so 
 emphatically entitles it," this continues in what may be 
 regarded as the Shibboleth of Pre-Raphaelitism, to state 
 that " the endeavour held in view throughout the writings 
 on Art, will be to encourage and enforce an entire adherence 
 to the simplicity of nature; and also to direct attention, 
 as an auxiliary medium, to the comparatively few works 
 which Art has yet produced in this spirit. It need 
 scarcely be added that the chief object of the etched 
 designs will be to illustrate this aim practically, as far as 
 the method of execution will permit ; in which purpose 
 they will be produced with the utmost care and com- 
 pleteness." 
 
 In the third number the title of the periodical changed 
 to "Art and Poetry : Being Thoughts towards Nature. 
 Conducted principally by Artists." The name of Dickin- 
 son and Co., of New Bond Street, appears before that of 
 Aylott and Jones. The wording of the advertisement is 
 altered, the explanation contained in the most pregnant 
 passage being to the following effect : " With a view to 
 obtain the thoughts of Artists upon Nature as evolved in 
 Art, in another language besides their oivn proper one, this 
 periodical has been established. Thus, then, it is not 
 open to the conflicting opinion of all who handle the
 
 ROSSETTL 43 
 
 brush and palette, nor is it restricted to actual practi- 
 tioners; but is intended to enunciate the principles of 
 those who, in the true spirit of Art, enforce a rigid adher- 
 ence to the simplicity of Nature, either in Art or Poetry, 
 and consequently regardless whether emanating from 
 practical Artists, or from those who have studied nature 
 in the Artists' school." 
 
 In these two passages, not otherwise perhaps claiming 
 to be reprinted, the aim of the Pre-Raphaelites at the 
 commencement of their mission is declared concisely 
 with their own lips. It may be noted that in the second 
 extract, an oversight in the first, which must have been 
 galling to the concoctors of the magazine, is corrected. 
 In the earlier while Art appears with all the dignity of 
 a capital letter nature, whom it was a chief purpose to 
 extol, is not similarly honoured. The italics in the 
 second extract appear in the original those in the first 
 do not. 
 
 The first number opens with two subtle poems, by which 
 though only a fragment of the more important and beauti- 
 ful poem into which the two were subsequently woven, the 
 reputation, as a poet, of Mr. Thomas Woolner, was first 
 established, " My Beautiful Lady," and " Of my Lady in 
 Death," with a species of double etching, or etching in two 
 parts, by Mr. Holman Hunt, each half of which illustrates 
 a passage in one or other of the poems. Then follow 
 an unsigned sonnet of Mr. Ford Madox Brown ; a not 
 very brilliant paper by Mr. J. L. Tupper, on "The 
 Subject in Art" ; Mr. Coventry Patmore's poem, "The 
 Seasons," the right to publish which had gladdened the 
 heart of Rossetti ; and " Dream Lands," a delightful poem
 
 44 LIFE OF 
 
 of Miss Christina Rossetti. Rossetti himself comes 
 next with " My Sister's Sleep," a poem written towards 
 1847, an d his prose allegory, "Hand and Soul. 1 ' 
 A readable and penetrative criticism of "The Bothie 
 of Toper-na-Fuosich," of Arthur Hugh Clough, by Mr. 
 William Rossetti, occupies with long quotations a space 
 perhaps disproportionate. A characteristic sonnet, also 
 by the editor, a poem by Mr. J. L. Tupper, decidedly 
 Pre-Raphaelite in intention, and a short poem by Miss 
 Christina Rossetti, complete a number of exceptional 
 interest to students of literature and art, and unlike any 
 literary venture ever attempted, but bearing signs of 
 weakness, that those accustomed to estimate the chances 
 of prolonged life, cannot fail to note. Without being still- 
 born, the infant was at least barely viable, had scarcely 
 the conformation and development essential to the pro- 
 longing of life. 
 
 Upon the character and contents of the remaining three 
 numbers it is needless to dwell. In The Germ Rossetti 
 published twelve contributions, including the before- 
 mentioned prose allegory, " Hand and Soul." Five of 
 these are lyrics, " My Sister's Sleep ; " " The Blessed 
 Damozel," " From the Cliffs Noon ; " written as is before 
 mentioned at Boulogne, and subsequently called "Sea 
 Limits i " " The Carillon," inspired by the bells at Bruges, 
 whither, in course of the journey with Mr. Holman 
 Hunt, he had gone ; and " Pax Vobis," afterwards entitled 
 "World's Worth:" and six are sonnets, respectively 
 called " A Virgin and Child," by Hans Memmling ; " A 
 Marriage of St. Katherine," by Hans Memmling ; " A 
 Dance of Nymphs," by Mantegna ; "A Venetian
 
 R^SSETTL 4 
 
 Pastoral," by Giorgbne; and two sonnets on "Angelica 
 rescued from the Sea," by Ingres. 
 
 With the exception of "My Sister's Sleep," "The 
 Blessed Damozel," and " Pax Vobis," these poems were 
 the outcome of his recent journey. The two Memm- 
 lings, with which, naturally, he was deeply impressed, 
 were seen at Bruges. The Angelica picture he studied 
 in the Luxembourg, and the two remaining pictures in 
 the Louvre. 
 
 Of the six sonnets four, with slight alterations, appear 
 in the "Poems" (1870). The lyrics from The Germ, 
 which are comprised in the same collection, are much 
 altered and enlarged, the additions in one case doubling 
 the length. 
 
 At this period, then, Rossetti's merits as a poet and a 
 painter stood revealed. It was in the earlier respect he 
 thought himself more plenarily endowed. The sense of 
 shortcoming in form weighed upon him, and the con- 
 quest of difficulties in the employment of poetic phrase 
 constituted to him more of a labour of love than his 
 struggle to make up for neglect of drawing in his early 
 years. 
 
 When in April, 1850, The Germ expired, it left Rossetti 
 with a high reputation. The circle of his admirers was the 
 narrowest, possibly, to which the knowledge of a man of 
 equal eminence has often been confined. His friends 
 and admirers were however the coming men. Most 
 qualities of his future work were moreover adumbrated 
 if they were not revealed in the poems already published. 
 "The Blessed Damozel," which underwent subsequent 
 alteration, remains unsurpassed in workmanship. " From
 
 46 LlfE OF 
 
 the Cliffs " showed the insight into Nature's mysteries 
 subsequently developed in most of his poems, and the 
 sonnets evidenced already a mastery of workmanship such 
 as few of his predecessors or contemporaries have 
 surpassed. 
 
 It is easy to believe that the collapse of the short- 
 lived periodical into which the young enthusiasts put 
 their best, was a disaster as well as a mortification. The 
 work was not all loss, however, and aided in establishing 
 the position of many poets. Very much of the poetry 
 that first saw the light in The Germ is now enshrined 
 in works which the world, in Milton's phrase, " will not 
 willingly let die," while it is an amusing though incom- 
 prehensible thing that the four parts on which con- 
 temporary criticism would scarcely waste a word, are now 
 probably, from the bibliographical standpoint, among the 
 costliest works of their epoch, the identical copy by aid 
 of which the above-mentioned productions have been 
 verified having cost many more pounds than the original 
 work brought shillings. 
 
 Among the sonnets and poems reserved for the 
 collected works, or still unpublished, which belong to the 
 period 1848-50, some are on pictures seen in Paris. 
 One sonnet is on the last of Paris, a second on the 
 road from Brussels to Waterloo, and a third on the 
 return journey. Of these, however, except the sonnet, 
 "On the Road to Waterloo," Rossetti speaks in depre- 
 ciatory terms. During his visit to Paris he was greatly 
 impressed by the acting of Rachel, whom he saw in 
 Adrienne Lecouvreur, the year of its first production at 
 the Theatre Francais (1849). With characteristic enthu-
 
 ROSSZTTL 47 
 
 siasrn, he declares himself "astounded" by her. His 
 utterances concerning the stage are few. He speaks, 
 however (3rd September, 1850), of having been the 
 other night to see " The Legend of Florence " (of 
 Leigh Hunt), and finding it much more poetical than 
 he anticipated. Miss Glyn, by whom the part of 
 Ginevra was played at Sadler's Wells, where Rossetti 
 must have seen her, he declares to have been " Godlike."
 
 60 LIFE OF 
 
 He is well-favoured and very manly in his walking, with 
 a glory upon his face " as upon the face of one who feels 
 a light round his hair." 
 
 From his indulgence in pleasures, and his apathy with 
 regard to art, he is roused by the reputation that is 
 being acquired by a youth named Bonaventura, in whom 
 Giunta Pisano has to fear a possible rival. He resumes 
 work, accordingly, with diligence, " living entirely to him- 
 self." After nightfall he walks "abroad in the most 
 solitary places, . . . hardly feeling the ground under 
 him, because of the thoughts of the day," by which he is 
 held in fever. The room contains, besides the matters of 
 his art, a " very few books," a " small consecrated image 
 of St. Mary Virgin, wrought out of silver," before which 
 stands always in summer time " a glass containing a lily 
 and a rose." He is, as a rule, calm and regular in study, 
 but sometimes works through the whole of a day, " not 
 resting once so long as the light lasted." At times, when 
 he cannot paint, he sits " for hours in thought of all the 
 greatness the world has known from of old, until he was 
 weak with yearning, like one who gazes upon a path of 
 stars." 1 
 
 What follows is of no less interest as illustrating Ros- 
 setti's aims and theories of art, and for the key it affords 
 to much subsequent workmanship. Read by the light of 
 Rossetti's career, the revelation thus afforded is startling. 
 He, however, is but a poor hand at piecing out imperfec- 
 
 1 The extracts are taken from the story as it appears in The Germ, 
 and not from the versions, different in some respects, which appeared 
 in pamphlet form, in The Fortnightly Review, and in The Collected 
 Works.
 
 ROSSETTL 51 
 
 tions who cannot, from this sketch, draw a picture of the life 
 of the impetuous, yet dreamy student, to whose imaginative 
 temperament pleasure and work alike presented them- 
 selves in their most seductive aspects. While keenly 
 sensitive to the prick of that " spur which the clear spirit 
 doth raise," Rossetti was not one too early to despise or 
 to forget the delights which others " use " 
 
 " To sport with Amaryllis in the shade 
 Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair." 
 
 Much of what he ascribes to Chiaro dell' Erma is, of 
 course, his own experience. The aspirations which drove 
 his hero to be a painter are those by which he was him- 
 self stirred. The longing after a veritable embodiment of 
 his thoughts and the touch of growing faint, like Porphyro 
 in the chamber of Agnes, in sunsets, or at the sight of 
 stately persons, could come only as a revelation from 
 within. Like Chiaro dell' Erma, Rossetti sought for ad- 
 mission into the studio of the master whose work he 
 admired, and, like him, assumably, though without any 
 lessening of his admiration for his master, felt the dimi- 
 nution of enthusiasm that not seldom comes when the 
 desired in art as in other things becomes the possessed. 
 Like him, once more, it is fair to suppose he was stung 
 to further exertions by the success of some painter of his 
 own hour, his close associate, Mr. Holman Hunt, or 
 another, and began the career of work to which success 
 comes in most cases as a necessary response. 
 
 Supposing, even, that these coincidences are insignifi- 
 cant, such is not at least the picture of the aspects under 
 which pleasure presented itself, nor the association of
 
 52 LIFE OF ROSSETTL 
 
 musical groves, and gardens laid out for delight, with the 
 beautiful women, at whose sight the young pulse was 
 stirred, and who, doubtless, were of the stately people at 
 whose sight he grew faint. These things, with the subse- 
 quent account of his nocturnal walks, then, doubtless 
 infrequent, but afterwards familiar, supply a picture of his 
 early life differing little, it may be, from that of many other 
 youths of genius, but containing much not elsewhere to 
 be found, and with many traits that are characteristic and 
 individual. 
 
 In the literary work of this epoch there are some signs 
 of youth and inexperience. In " Hand and Soul," how- 
 ever, the language of which is sustainedly poetical, and 
 in " The Blessed Damozel," which ranks with Rossetti's 
 best accomplishments, the touch is firm and assured. The 
 opinions expressed concerning contemporary artists are 
 not always those of his later years. It is easy to under- 
 stand how the purity and austerity of work, and the 
 elevation of expression in the pictures of Hippolyte 
 Flandrin which betray him into raptures should seem to 
 him a justification of his own theories. In subsequent 
 days, however, Flandrin, with other objects of his juvenile 
 adoration, was more judicially appraised
 
 CHAPTER Vi. 
 
 ABOUT 1850, Rossetti, who had hitherto lived in his 
 father's house in Charlotte Street, and worked in 
 the studio of Mr. Madox Brown, in that in Cleveland 
 Street which he shared with Mr. Holman Hunt, or in 
 Newman Street, in a house part of which was occupied 
 as a dancing saloon, or, as he jocularly called it, a " hop 
 shop," took rooms at 14, Chatham Place, Blackfriars 
 Bridge. In these rooms, now swept away, which were 
 situated near the north-west corner of the bridge, and 
 commanded a fine view of the Thames, an active and 
 very productive portion of his life was spent, and it is with 
 them that the romance of his life is associated. Though 
 true to old friends and constant in former faith, new 
 acquaintances were made, and the broadening influence 
 of maturing years, independence, and friction with the 
 world asserted itself. No long time after he was settled 
 in his new quarters, he made the personal acquaintance of 
 Browning, for whom he had a warm admiration, and to 
 whom, when that poet was in Italy, he had written. 
 Browning's poems, of which he was one of the earliest ap- 
 preciators, furnished him with subjects, his first water-
 
 54 LIFE OF 
 
 colour painting, an illustration to Browning's " Labora- 
 tory," having been painted so early as 1849. Among 
 others, in addition to his Pre-Raphaelite friends, with 
 whom he was at this period intimate were James Hannay, 
 J. P. Seddon, Hancock, and Mr. Allingham. 
 
 To this change of life and widening of associations 
 may, perhaps, be assigned the blending with the mystical 
 and transcendental in his writings and paintings of the 
 romantic. The original sketch, now lost, of How They 
 Met Themselves, the design of which was not finished in 
 ink until 1860, while the water-colour painting belongs to 
 1864, was executed in 1851. To about the same period 
 belongs the ballad of " Sister Helen," which a year or two 
 later was printed, under the signature of H. H. H., in the 
 Diisseldorf Annual, by Mary Howitt, to whom, at her 
 request, he had sent it. That a striking change of 
 method and of view has come over the painter and the 
 poet between the production of The Girlhood of Mary 
 Virgin and " The Blessed Damozel," on the one hand, and 
 the inception of How They Met Themselves and the 
 execution of " Sister Helen," will not be disputed. The 
 transition is not abrupt, and there are instances of recur- 
 rence to early manner and motives ; but it is effectual. It 
 is a subject of regret that the date of many of Rossetti's 
 poems is uncertain. During many years he entertained 
 the idea of publishing a volume of poems to be called 
 " Dante at Verona, and other Poems," and he occupied 
 himself also with the preparations for the volume of trans- 
 lations which in 1861 saw the light under the title, "The 
 Early Italian Poets, from Ciullo D'Alcano to Dante Ali- 
 ghieri," and was subsequently reprinted as " Dante and
 
 ROSSETTI. 55 
 
 his Cycle." At the close of the earlier edition of this 
 work, indeed, "Dante at Verona" is announced as shortly 
 to be published. This volume never saw the light. The 
 poems, however, which were intended for it, and found 
 subsequently a place in the collection of 1870, were prin- 
 cipally written before 1861. The dates of most of these 
 are conjectural, and some even which, like " Jenny," were 
 begun early, were not perfected until late. Practically, 
 however, "My Sister's Sleep" and "The Blessed Damozel" 
 represent what he regarded as his earliest accomplishment, 
 and practically, also, these works belong to the frame of 
 mind as well as the period in which he painted The Girl- 
 hood of Mary Virgin. Between the execution of the paint- 
 ing and that of the poems there is no comparison. The 
 mystical adoration of Medievalism is finely shown in 
 this, Rossetti's first exhibited picture. The face of the 
 Virgin who is embroidering the Annunciation lily, 
 which a young angel is tending, is carefully painted from 
 his sister Christina ; St. Anna, who is on the right of the 
 Virgin, being taken from Mrs. Rossetti. The details are 
 elaborate, and much of the painting is admirable. Scarcely 
 a trace, however, is there of the marvellous colouring which, 
 so far as regards execution, became the most striking 
 characteristic of Rossetti's painting, and the drawing, 
 which was never Rossetti's strong point, is weak and un- 
 certain. As the creation of a youth of twenty, it is 
 remarkable, and its imaginative gifts entitle it to its place 
 beside the works of Rossetti's two associates in setting 
 forth the gospel of Pre-Raphaelitism. It is signed Dante 
 Gabriele Rossetti, P.R.B. In the case of the poem, 
 " The Blessed Damozel," however, no excuse for imma-
 
 56 LIFE OF 
 
 turity or shortcoming has to be made. In place of 
 promise there is performance. 
 
 Though imaginative in conception, in the sense that 
 no known or recorded event supplied the basis, "My 
 Sister's Sleep" is a purely domestic poem. It is full of 
 pathos, and, like much of Rossetti's poetical work, a little 
 " set " or elaborate. The movements of the characters 
 are described with a fulness of detail which explains why, 
 in some estimates, the poem is held to be Pre-Raphaelite. 
 It is, indeed, characteristic of the school to introduce into 
 a simple story of death and life a verse such as that 
 descriptive of how 
 
 " Our mother rose from where she sat : 
 Her needles, as she laid them down, 
 Met lightly, and her silken gown 
 Settled : no other noise than that" 
 
 And the curiously mystical and uncanny description of 
 the heavens, as seen through the window, is like the 
 background of a picture. This stanza is quoted as it 
 appears in the collection of 1870, and not as it was first 
 written 
 
 " Without, there was a cold moon up, 
 Of winter radiance sheer and thin ; 
 The hollow halo it was in 
 Was like an icy crystal cup." 
 
 Though not the first to use this metre, Rossetti was desi- 
 rous that the fact should be known that "My Sister's Sleep" 
 was earlier in date than the publication of Tennyson's " In 
 Memoriam," in which the same stanza is adopted. It
 
 ROSSETTI. 57 
 
 furnishes a curious comment upon the individuality with 
 which a poet can charge the very forms he employs, that 
 the notion of resemblance between the metre of this 
 poem and that of " In Memoriam " is scarcely sug- 
 gested. 
 
 "The Blessed Damozel" is a far more ambitious and 
 successful effort. So few were the readers of The Germ, 
 that the poem remained practically unknown. Passages 
 from it were, however, quoted by those who had read it in 
 print or in manuscript, or, it may be, had heard it recited, 
 and thus served to keep up a sort of mystery eminently suited 
 to the work. Apart altogether from the question of the 
 poet's age when it was written, it is the most remarkable 
 poem of its day. Unlike some of the works by which 
 it was followed, which owed something, at least, though 
 never much, to the influence of writers under whose 
 ascendency Rossetti had come for a time, this poem 
 seems to have no literary prototype. Nothing in it is 
 directly assignable to the influence of the early reading of 
 Shakespeare, Byron, or Scott, the subsequent influence of 
 Keats, or that of the closely-studied Dante. Such inspi- 
 ration as is traceable to any source whatever belongs 
 assumably to the pictures of those early Italian painters, 
 whom Rossetti had lovingly studied, and to domestic 
 influences to which he yielded. Those who are ac- 
 quainted with the beauty and purity of life of his 
 mother and sisters, and their devotional tendencies, 
 know how much in his early work, with its mystic piety, 
 drew its inspiration thence. 
 
 Essentially a painter's poem, " The Blessed Damozel " 
 surprises by its imaginative pictures of the unknown
 
 68 LIFE OF 
 
 world. In the spirit of Milton, rather than in that of 
 Dante, Rossetti may claim to have " presumed into the 
 Heav'nofHeav'ns" 
 
 "An earthly guest and drawn empyreal air." 
 
 Nothing in the descriptions recalls any preceding work. 
 In Protestant literature, at least, it is a thing unheard 
 of in a poem in a sense religious, to find no trace 
 of the biblical phraseology, the influences of which 
 on much that is noblest in the English language 
 cannot easily be over-estimated. Rossetti knew the 
 English Bible well, but seems to have drawn little 
 from it. His style has more that reminds one of the 
 Vulgate, into which he used to dip. The language of 
 this, especially in the Psalms and Lamentations, has a 
 beauty of its own to which no scholar can be insensible, 
 and a richness of phrase by which Rossetti was likely to 
 be captivated. The use of the word gold to describe the 
 bar on which the blessed Damozel leans is almost the 
 only conventional expression in the poem. An image 
 with which the second stanza concludes 
 
 " Her hair that lay along her back 
 Was yellow like ripe corn," 
 
 ;nay have been suggested by Mussel's " Chanson de For- 
 tunio," a poem, in its way, as perfect as " The Blessed 
 Damozel," and written a dozen years earlier, in which the 
 poet asserts of the heroine 
 
 " Qu'elle est blonde 
 Comme les ble"s." 
 
 The representation of the spectacle to be contemplated
 
 ROSSETTI. 59 
 
 from " the rampart of God's house," so high " she scarce 
 can see the sun," is marvellously daring and original 
 
 " It lies in Heaven, across the flood 
 
 Of ether, as a bridge. 
 Beneath, the tides of day and night 
 
 With flame and darkness ridge 
 The void, as low as where this earth 
 
 Spins like a fretful midge." 
 
 The boldness, almost amounting to grotesqueness, of the 
 last simile is remarkable. The illustration is, however, 
 well calculated to serve its purpose. Equally startling is 
 a second illustration, a few stanzas further on, when it is 
 said 
 
 " The sun was gone now ; the curled moon 
 
 Was like a little feather 
 Fluttering far down the gulf." 
 
 A precedent for this kind of daring may be found in 
 " Festus," by Mr. Philip James Bailey, in which Rossetti, 
 with all cultivated men of his epoch, took great delight. 
 Rossetti's work has, however, nothing except courage in 
 common with " Festus," a poem to the beauties of which 
 the younger generation shows itself little sensible, but 
 which exercised in its day an influence the extent of 
 which is even now scarcely recognized. The picture of 
 the fair saint conveyed in the opening stanzas of " The 
 Blessed Damozel" is worthy of Keats, and seems wrought 
 in a species of ecstasy, while the manner in which the 
 leavening influence of human emotion is shown, even in 
 the mansions of the blest, is, in its way, unique. As an 
 imaginative conception, and as an illustration of the 
 power of mystic insight possessed by Rossetti, the
 
 CO LIFE OF 
 
 entire poem has highest interest. Other poems, of 
 the same or a subsequent epoch, have similar gifts. 
 It is like a lesson in Rossetti's method to see how 
 lovely in themselves, and how picturesque are the words 
 employed, and how the remote significations of scenes 
 are sought rather than their obvious meanings. 
 In " Love's Nocturn " the stanza 
 
 " Where in groves the gracile Spring 
 
 Trembles, with mute orison 
 Confidently strengthening, 
 
 Water's voice and wind's as one 
 Shed an echo in the sun. 
 Soft as Spring, 
 Master, bid it sing and moan." 
 
 Here "gracile," a word with the introduction of which into 
 English Rossetti may be credited, combines delightfully 
 the ideas, gracious and fragile. " Mute orison " is, again, 
 an eminently poetical combination. It may be doubted, 
 however, whether from the stanza, with or without the 
 context, many readers get a very distinct idea. This 
 poem is, indeed, full of happiest epithet, and abounds 
 with descriptive passages, such as that already quoted, at 
 once lovely and nebulous. Such is, to furnish another 
 instance, the account of Dreamland 
 
 " Vaporous, unaccountable, 
 
 Dreamland lies forlorn of light, 
 Hollow, like a breathing shell." 
 
 It may here be urged that the subject itself is incapable 
 of close definition, and that the words are purposely 
 chosen to convey this idea. Accepting this view, even, 
 the fact remains that in the early poems of this epoch the
 
 ROSSETTI. Gl 
 
 phrases are often more beautiful than interpretative. 
 Where they are happiest and most significant it is rather 
 in descriptions of the broader effects of nature, in pictures 
 of celestial phenomena and other objects open to the 
 dwellers in towns than in close observations of nature's 
 secrets. Rossetti, as will be seen, lived during no incon- 
 siderable portion of his life in the country, and was 
 sensible to its beauties. His was, however, to a great 
 extent, a town life. 
 
 The change in mind indicated by the passage from "The 
 Blessed Damozel " to " Sister Helen," was ascribable in 
 part to the changed conditions of his life, involving, 
 as a natural and healthy consequence, his being left to 
 his own devices. During his intercourse with Hunt and 
 Millais, his was the most imaginative, as well as the most 
 richly stored, mind. Neither of these associates of his 
 youth will dispute the obligation he was under to Rossetti 
 for suggestions of subject, and for general poetical illumina- 
 tion. At the same time, a corresponding influence was 
 exercised upon Rossetti by his two friends, and especially 
 by Mr. Hunt, whose earnestness and concentration were 
 well calculated to impress and influence his associate. 
 Perhaps the most striking fact in connection with Ros- 
 setti's life-work is the commencement of the great un- 
 finished picture, Found. In this work, which, though 
 later by a year or two than the composition of " Sister 
 Helen," belongs to the same period of intellectual deve- 
 lopment, Rossetti strove to be faithful to influences which 
 had passed or were passing out of his life. Bent on 
 showing his power to deal with a subject drawn from 
 modern life, and to demonstrate the dramatic quality
 
 62 LIFE OF 
 
 which had developed itself in his mind, he still at the 
 outset adhered in his workmanship to his early method. 
 
 The picture, which has more than once been described, 
 presents an unhappy girl who has been sacrificed to the 
 insatiable lust of the great city, and who cowering against 
 the wall of a graveyard is recognized by a rustic lover, 
 who, while the wan light of early morning is struggling 
 with the fading glare of the gas, is driving into London 
 a cart in which is a white calf. The face of the woman, 
 partly hidden by her dishevelled hair and the calf, are 
 painted upon Pre-Raphaelite principles; the remainder 
 of the work, so far as it is finished, is different in 
 workmanship. 
 
 Whatever may be the opinion as to the relative value 
 of the two methods, it seems that the romantic style is 
 that in which Rossetti moves most at his ease. It is the 
 direct outcome of his mind so soon as he gets free from 
 the sustained influence of the distinguished painter whose 
 studio he shared. In poetry, however, and as has been 
 said in painting, in the latter especially, in subsequent 
 years the tendency to mysticism asserted itself. Found, 
 however, marks clearly the period when what, for want 
 of an adequate word, may be called Rossetti-ism, estab- 
 lishes itself over previous influences. 
 
 To the books which he studied may be added " The 
 Death of Marlowe," by Richard Hengist Home ; Sir 
 Henry Taylor's plays which he greatly admired ; and the 
 " Gesta Romanorum," which he read in a translation, and 
 with llie Lllkle~sc.ories in which, at least as subjects for 
 poems and pictures, he expresses himself disappointed. 
 Many other works in which he delighted might be men-
 
 ROSSETTL 63 
 
 tioned, including the poems of that powerful and erratic 
 genius Thomas Lovell Beddoes. Ballad and romance 
 literature remained however, if not the chief, at least the 
 most easily and advantageously assimilated food. That 
 Rossetti was ever a close student of the Elizabethan drama 
 does not appear. Shakespeare he studied from boyhood ; 
 Marlowe was an early favourite ; of Chapman, either as a 
 translator or as a dramatist, he knew little; and Web- 
 ster's two great tragedies came within his ken. As a 
 whole, however, the literature which has been prodigal of 
 delights to most men of imaginative powers or tendencies, 
 influenced him but little. In the depreciated " Gesta 
 Romanorum " he found the materials for " The Slaff 
 and SCMp," a poem which also belongs in part to the 
 mystical period, and was projected not later than 
 1849. An admirable illustration of Rossetti's method 
 is afforded by a comparison of this poem with the story 
 as it appears in the original. In the early English 
 translation, edited by Sir Frederick Madden for the 
 Roxburgh Club, the tale is called " The Bloody Shirt : 
 of a Knight who restored a Princess to her Kingdom, 
 and of her gratitude to him " [Harl. MS. 7333]. The 
 Emperor Fredrericus (sic) of Rome bequeaths on his 
 death-bed his entire empire to his daughter. " So what 
 time that a certayne Erie hurde of this, after the deth of 
 the Emperour, he come to the dameselle and stered 
 hire to synne, and anoon the dameseile enclined to his 
 wordis. So whanne the dameselle was filid (defiled) with 
 synne, he put hire out of hire empire ; and than she made 
 lamentacion more than ony man can trowe, and gede 
 (went) into an other kyngdome or cuntre." Sitting in her
 
 64 L/F OF 
 
 sorrow she receives the visit of a " faire yong knyghte^ 
 sitting vp on a faire hors," who asking the cause of her 
 grief receives the full history. On the promise that she will 
 be his love he undertakes to recover her heritage. Be- 
 fore setting out to do this he imposes conditions : " If 
 it happe me to dye for the (thee) in batill, and not to 
 have victory, that thou sette out my blody serke (shirt) 
 on a perch afore, for twey skilis (two reasons) ; the first 
 is that the sighte of my serke may meve (move) the to 
 wepe as ofte tyme as thou lokist theron ; The secunde 
 skile (reason) is, for I woll, that whenne ony man comyth 
 to the, for to haue the for wife, that thou renne (run) to 
 the serke, and biholde the serke and sey to thiself, ' God 
 forbede that euer I sholde take ony to my husbond, after 
 the deth of this lord, which deyde for my love and re- 
 coveryd myne heritage.' " According to his foreboding 
 the lover won the victory and regained her estates, but 
 " gate his deth " in so doing. His shirt soaked in his 
 life's blood was brought to the lady, and when she saw it 
 " all her bowelis (bowels) weere troubelyd more than 
 tunge may telle." The conditions, it is needless to say, 
 were observed, and when suitors came she rushed into 
 the chamber and with a " lamentabill voys " cried out 
 according to his suggestion. " And so she answerid to all 
 that come to hire for that erende, and fayr endid hire 
 lyfe." 
 
 Like the stories of the Arthurian cycle this legend 
 breathes the very spirit of chivalry, and in the primitive 
 language in which it is couched has a certain quaint pathos 
 and nobility. A bargain such as the knight made was quite 
 according to the rules of chivalry, and the lady whose fair
 
 ROSSETTI. 65 
 
 life ended in eternal devotion to his memory, as signalized 
 in the grim souvenir would not be held unhappy among 
 women. In substituting for the bloody shirt the staff 
 and scrip of a pilgrim returning from Palestine, Rossetti 
 seems false to the sincerity of his ordinary workmanship. 
 The name of Queen Blanchelys which he bestows on the 
 heroine, and that of Duke Luke assigned her oppressor, 
 are entirely happy. Quite in the spirit of " The Blessed 
 Damozel" is the description of the queen as she is first 
 seen by the pilgrim. 
 
 " The Queen sat idle by her loom : 
 
 She heard the arras stir, 
 And looked up sadly : through the room 
 The sweetness sickened her 
 Of musk and myrrh. 
 
 Her women, standing two and two, 
 
 In silence combed the fleece. 
 The pilgrim said, ' Peace be with you, 
 
 Lady ; ' and bent his knees. 
 She answered, 'Peace.' 
 
 Her eyes were like the wave within ; 
 
 Like water-reeds the poise 
 Of her soft body, dainty thin ; 
 
 And like the water's noise 
 Her plaintive voice." 
 
 The lines in italics in the first stanza are in keeping 
 with Pre-Raphaelite execution ; the last stanza anticipates 
 many descriptive passages to be found in subsequent 
 poems by Mr. Swinburne and Mr. Morris. 
 
 The pilgrim departs armed by her with a sharp sword 
 whose blade "he kissed," feeling the while its belt about 
 
 5
 
 66 LIFE OF 
 
 his body, as sweet as her own arms, a green banner with 
 " one white lily stem," and a white shield on which he 
 emblazons her face. He returns victorious .with the 
 sword broken in his hand, the battered shield by his side, 
 and the banner across his lifeless face. She keeps the 
 staff and scrip, which he has left with one of her hand- 
 maidens to be given her in case of his death, and is faithful 
 to his memory until life ends, when the poet transfers the 
 lovers to heaven, where the action is finished. Addressing 
 the warrior he says 
 
 " The lists are set in Heaven to-day, 
 
 The bright pavilions shine ; 
 Fair hangs thy shield, and none gainsay 
 The trumpets sound in sign 
 That she is thine." 
 
 The blending of human devotion with pious mysticism 
 is eminently characteristic of Rossetti's early produc- 
 tions. Something of the kind indeed permeated most of 
 his works. Though an adherent of no creed Rossetti 
 possessed a mind of eminently devotional tendencies. 
 "The Staff and Scrip" is moreover stiff with elaborate 
 embroidery. Few of Rossetti's poems have the light 
 agile motion of unimpeded youth. Stateliness and 
 splendour are his. The virgin moves with long, heavy 
 draperies, with serene look, and with the aureole around 
 her head. His heroines wear almost always some nimbus 
 of sorrow, of fate, or of death. 
 
 In July in the year 1853 Rossetti made one of his few 
 excursions, visiting Mr. William Bell Scott, in Newcastle- 
 on-Tyne. In company with his host he went to Carlisle
 
 ROSSETTL 67 
 
 and Hexham, with both of which he was delighted. Re- 
 turning to Chatham Place, where he is again found in 
 August of the same year, he visited many places of 
 interest in the Western Midlands Coventry, Warwick, 
 Kenilworth, &c. From Kenilworth he walked to Strat- 
 ford. To the beginning of the following year belongs the 
 death of Deverell, by which Rossetti was greatly affected. 
 At this period he speaks of himself and his companions, in 
 terms probably of banter, as " too transcendent spirits far in 
 advance of the age." He is desirous not to parade pecu- 
 niary difficulties in the face of strangers, and is anxious that 
 the matters whereof he was accustomed to write should not 
 be mentioned in the presence of friends so intimate even 
 as James Hannay, who appears at this time to have been a 
 frequent guest. A conscientious worker, he hesitates 
 about making additions to paintings for which he had 
 commissions for fear that by doing uncovenanted for and 
 unpaid for work he should get the character of being 
 enthusiastic. 
 
 In painting, meanwhile, the growth of the romantic 
 and dramatic style is less easily traced, inasmuch as this 
 is curiously blended with the mystical. 
 
 In a series of monographs of distinguished or repre- 
 sentative writers, it is out of place to dwell at any length 
 upon pictorial works with which indeed the present 
 writer confesses his inability to deal. It is only accord- 
 ingly as they illustrate the intellectual growth which 
 is traceable in his writings that Rossetti's pictures 
 are mentioned. In the works which followed The 
 Girlhood of Mary Virgin, Rossetti is seen affirming his 
 strength by sustained exertion under the influence of Mr.
 
 68 LIFE OF ROSSETTI. 
 
 Holman Hunt and Mr. Ford Madox Brown, and, even in 
 a less degree, of Sir John Millais. 
 
 In The Laboratory, a work illustrative of a poem 
 of Mr. Browning, and in Michael Scott's Wooing, the 
 mysticism which is paramount in The Girlhood of Mary 
 Virgin and the Ecce Ancilla Domini, and has been held by 
 Mr. F. G. Stephens, Rossetti's subtlest critic, to have found 
 its highest development, in " The Blessed Damozel" 
 both poem and picture, the Bride, and Astarte Syriaca, is 
 combatted by the romantic. The Parable of Love, an 
 unimportant drawing given to Mr. Coventry Patmore, Mr. 
 Stephens takes as the prototype of the mystic designs of 
 Rossetti. The Laboratory is the prototype of the studies 
 of human passion, of the pictures which deal less with con- 
 templation than with action in which perhaps the highest 
 outcome of Rossetti is found. As The Laboratory belongs 
 to 1849, it follows that the mystical, which many years 
 later was to resume its sway in painting, was combatted 
 by the romantic earlier in regard to pictures than so far as 
 is known it was in poetry. Another painting, founded 
 like The Laboratory upon Mr. Browning's* poem, which 
 Rossetti with his bell-like utterance was fond of read- 
 ing aloud, is Kate the Queen, from "Pippa Passes." 
 This, supposed by Mr. Sharp to be lost, was exhibited at 
 the Burlington Club. It is a finished oil sketch for a 
 large picture never completed.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DURING his residence in Chatham Place Rossetti 
 came under themost potent influence of hislife. The 
 most romantic and touching episode in his career is found 
 in his courtship, marriage, and early bereavement, and in 
 the sacrifice by which the last event was followed. Con- 
 cerning the long engagement and the brief nuptials few 
 particulars are preserved. Both are passed over by his 
 biographers with slight comment. From his letters to Mr. 
 Ford Madox Brown, however, who next to his brother, 
 and in some respects even more than his brother, was his 
 most trusted friend and counsellor, and from his corres- 
 pondence with his family it is possible to frame an idea 
 of this connection, the influence of which upon his work 
 during some of the most productive years of his life cannot 
 easily be overestimated. Somewhere near 1850 his friend 
 Deverell met Miss Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall, and was so 
 struck with her beauty of face and form that he persuaded 
 her to sit to him. She was the daughter of a Sheffield 
 tradesman, and was occupied in London as a milliner's 
 assistant. Sharing his friend's enthusiasm, Rossetti, to- 
 wards the close of 1850 or beginning of 1851, induced 
 her to sit to him also. She had not long been with him
 
 70 LIFE OF 
 
 before he recognized in her a strong aptitude for art. 
 This, with characteristic zeal, he sought to foster, and the 
 position of model was soon associated with that of student 
 Under Rossetti's zealous tuition her progress was rapid, 
 and her water-colour drawings soon displayed marked 
 proficiency and a fine sense of colour. By the keen 
 stimulus of the admiration she excited, her faculties 
 generally were quickened, and her achievements in poetry 
 were no less remarkable than those in painting. 
 
 A result all but inevitable, when to the attractions of 
 youth and beauty is added the magnetism that springs 
 from kindred tastes and occupations, ensued. The close 
 intimacy involved in the relationship of master and pupil 
 gave every opportunity for successful wooing, and Miss 
 Siddall became affianced to her teacher. Apart from her 
 intellectual gifts she was at that time peculiarly calculated 
 to stimulate the imagination and fix the fancy of a painter. 
 A portrait of her head painted by herself two or three 
 years later it is signed E. E. S., and dated 1853-54 is 
 in the possession of Mr. William Michael Rossetti. It is 
 admirably painted, and not in the least idealized. Full 
 justice is, however, done to the beauty of the face, the 
 dreaming, abstracted look in which, due in part to suffer- 
 ing, is well caught ; the long oval of the cheek, the clearly 
 cut features, the pale luminous complexion, the mouth 
 with that special curve of lip which artists have always 
 affected, the large drooping eyes and full eyebrows, are 
 shown. Her hair, of a deep bronzed red, is parted in 
 the middle, and its thick wiry folds are gathered in a 
 mass suggesting the use of the net then a customary 
 portion of female head-gear; no net is, however, em-
 
 ROSSETTI. 71 
 
 ployed. In the delicate set of the head upon the neck 
 is found the only indication of her figure, which was tall 
 and eminently graceful. 
 
 The exact date of the engagement between Rossetti and 
 Miss Siddall cannot be fixed. It was probably 1853 ; 
 certainly not later than 1854. At Miss Siddall's request 
 the contract was kept secret, and its first publication to 
 Rossetti's close friends seems to have been contrary to 
 her wishes. Those, however, with whom Rossetti lived 
 on terms of intimacy can have had little doubt as to 
 the nature of the feeling on one side at least. Rossetti's 
 correspondence at this date most of it as yet unpublished 
 is full of affectionate references to Miss Siddall. To 
 Mr. Madox Brown he speaks of her invariably as Lizzie, 
 coupling frequently with the appellation some endearing 
 adjective, and using at times such names caressing or 
 grotesque as secure affection loves to bestow. So 
 early as August 25, 1853, he communicates the intelli- 
 gence that Liz is going to begin a picture for the Royal 
 Academy. The following year he tells of her introduc- 
 tion to his sister Christina, and to William and Mary 
 Howitt. Writing to his mother he speaks of Lizzie and 
 himself scratching their initials on a stone at Old Roar. 
 On the 23rd May, a day which, somewhat curiously, was 
 to be that of his subsequent wedding, he indulges, to Mr. 
 Madox Brown in all a lover's ecstasies. Writing from 
 5, High Street, Hastings, he says : " Lizzie is looking 
 lovelier than ever," and later on, " Every one adores and 
 reveres Lizzie. I made sketches of her with iris stuck in 
 her dear hair the other day, and we all wrote up our 
 monograms on the panel of the window in memorial of
 
 72 LIFE OF 
 
 the very pleasant day we had spent at the farm." The 
 farm was a house belonging to Miss Barbara Leigh Smith, 
 subsequently Mrs. Bodichon, some miles from Hastings, 
 which Rossetti more than once visited. Such outbursts 
 of admiration on the part of Rossetti were not uncommon, 
 and at times involved some trouble to his friends. At the 
 period when a planned excursion was on the point of 
 being carried out, or an immediate return from one was 
 expedient, the lover, seeing his mistress in some pose of 
 exceptional beauty, would insist upon everything being 
 suspended until he had taken a sketch. Later on in 
 the communication from which the last quotation was 
 taken, he continues " I think I told you that she and I 
 are going to illustrate the old Scottish ballads which 
 Allingham is editing for Routledge. She has just done 
 her first block (from ' Clerk Saunders '), and it is lovely. 
 Her power of designing even increases greatly, and her 
 fecundity of invention and facility are quite wonderful, 
 much greater than mine." In April, 1855, she spends 
 with him a day at Ruskin's, and he states with delight 
 that R(uskin) thought her a noble woman. His 
 happiness at this time appears to have been exuberant, 
 though damped somewhat by pecuniary difficulties, and 
 by constant anxiety for her health, for which there was 
 indeed but too much cause. His letters are full of a 
 species of banter to which he was always given, but of 
 the existence of which outsiders have scarcely dreamt. 
 At times he writes in rhyme, not poetry, but pure, 
 jubilant, light-hearted doggerell, redolent of hope and 
 excitement. In another mood he is wild with apprehen- 
 sion. In March, 1854. Dr. Garth Wilkinson, an eminent
 
 ROSSETTI. 73 
 
 homoeopathic physician, is called in, and declares Miss 
 Siddall to have curvature of the spine. All the consola- 
 tion the lover can find is that the case, though pronounced 
 serious, is not hopeless. 
 
 In February, 1857, the engagement is openly men- 
 tioned, though even then its promulgation is opposed by 
 Miss Siddall. References to her at this time are constant, 
 and in presence of contemplated nuptials some attempt 
 is even made at economy of expenditure at all times 
 a difficult task for RossettL The idea of purchasing a 
 coveted Hogarth is abandoned, the young painter taking 
 an example from his correspondent, Mr. Ford Madox 
 Brown, and dismissing all idea of the treasure as " a luxury 
 he can't afford." In April, 1860, when the marriage is 
 imminent, a severe attack of illness on the part of Miss 
 Siddall throws him once more into extreme apprehension. 
 On the 1 7th of April he writes from 12, East Parade, 
 Hastings, to his brother, in language of extreme anxiety, 
 saying that if he were to lose her he does not know what 
 effect it might have upon his mind. He has, he states, 
 been inquiring after a special license since he has fears 
 of her ability to stand the cold of the church. With so 
 much delay and expense, however, will this be attended, 
 he hardly sees how it is possible to obtain it. The 
 ordinary license he has, and he trusts to God he may be 
 able to use it, adding once more, " If not ... I do not 
 know how it might end for me." He urges his brother 
 not to dwell in his letters upon the state of her health as 
 " it is so wretched a subject, especially at such a 
 moment." On the nth of the following month (May) 
 he writes from Hastings to say that to-morrow, his birth-
 
 74 LIFE OF 
 
 day, has been fixed for his marriage, but Lizzie is too ill. 
 Not long deferred was the event, since on the 23rd of 
 the same month he writes to Mr. Madox Brown : " All 
 hail from Lizzie and myself, just back from church." 
 
 The ceremony was performed in St. Clement's Church, 
 Hastings, the officiating clergyman being the Rev. T. 
 Nightingale. In the announcement which Rosseth 
 sent to his brother for insertion in The Times he 
 describes himself as Dante Gabriel, eldest son of the 
 late Gabriel Rossetti, of Vasto degli Abruzzi, Kingdom 
 of Naples, and speaks of his wife as " Elizabeth Eleanor, 
 daughter of the late Charles Siddall, of Sheffield." The 
 married couple then went to Paris by way of Folkestone 
 and Boulogne, staying in the latter town some days. 
 Here he sees a chateau " with a wonderful garden and 
 many paintable things, and has an idea of taking it 
 unless they find it advisable to push for the South." In 
 Paris he stays at the Hotel Meurice until he finds it 
 expedient, still under the spell of economy, to get into 
 cheaper lodgings. 
 
 Between the apprehensions for the health of his wife, 
 and the feeling that it is time he returns to work and earns 
 some money, he is a little perplexed even in the very 
 month of honey. The chief duty to art which he per- 
 forms while in Paris is having several good looks at " the 
 great Paul Veronese, the greatest picture in the world, 
 beyond a doubt." 
 
 Alter this trip Rossetti returned with his bride to 14, 
 Chatham Place, at which house considerable alterations 
 had been made in anticipation of their arrival. 
 
 Between the first meeting of Rossetti and Miss Siddall
 
 ROSSETTI. 75 
 
 and his bringing her home as his wife a delay of nearly a 
 decade had taken place. This was to some extent attribu- 
 table to prudential motives. With an uncertain income 
 Rossetti did not dare to face the responsibilities of 
 marriage. One more passage on this subject from a 
 correspondence, the right to publish which is reserved 
 for another, is all on which I shall venture. On the 5th 
 March, 1861, Mr. Madox Brown is told that Lizzie has just 
 had a dead baby. Particulars as to the attention she 
 receives and the anxiety she inspires follow. A develop- 
 ment of Mrs. Rossetti's illness, the root of which was 
 consumption, consisted in neuralgia, relief from which 
 could only be found in laudanum. To this seductive 
 and dangerous agent Mrs. Rossetti trusted, with the 
 result that she took an overdose. One night in 1862 
 the Madox Browns, then living on Highgate Rise, were 
 alarmed by a violent knocking at the door. This was 
 due to Rossetti, who, after frantically seeking one 
 physician after another, aroused his friend to aid him in 
 his extreme emergency. All was, however, in vain. The 
 spirit had fled ; the fair frame was tenantless, and she 
 whom Rossetti in sustained adoration had just painted as 
 Regina Cordium, had passed away for ever from his life. 
 
 How poignant and enduring was the grief of Rossetti 
 is now a matter of history. Though mention of her name 
 fades from his correspondence, the devotion of the lover 
 is shown in his work after her death as before. Among 
 the many portraits of her in her own person, or in his 
 imaginative work, which exist, none is more faithful 
 as a portrait, nor more interesting as a record, than the 
 lovely Beata Beatrix, painted the year following her
 
 70 LIFE OF 
 
 death and bought by Lord Mount Temple. Of this 
 work he executed a small replica in water-colours in 1871, 
 and a second in oil the following year. A third replica 
 in oil, painted in 1880, is one of the last works he lived 
 to finish ; how abiding was his affection is thus shown. 
 The scene which followed her death is known. On the 
 day of the funeral Rossetti walked into the chamber in 
 which the body lay. In his hand was a book into which 
 at her bidding he had copied his poems. Regardless of 
 those present he spoke to her as though she were still 
 living, telling her that the poems were written to her and 
 were hers, and that she must take them with her. He 
 then placed the volume beside her face in the coffin, 
 leaving it to be buried with her in Highgate Cemetery. 
 This touching scene will some day doubtless be the 
 subject of a picture. Time, after its wont, hallowed and 
 sanctified the memory of loss, but the bereavement was 
 long and keenly felt. Meanwhile, the entombment of 
 Rossetti's poems had an effect upon which the writer had 
 not calculated. They were familiar to many friends, and 
 passages of them were retained in the recollection of some. 
 These poems were during subsequent years the subject 
 of much anxiety and wonderment, and the existence of 
 the buried treasure was mentioned with reverence and 
 sympathy, and with something of awe. Seven years later 
 Rossetti, upon whom pressure to permit the exhumation 
 of the volume had constantly been put, gave a reluctant 
 consent With the permission of the Home Secretary 
 the coffin was opened by a friend of Rossetti and the 
 volume was withdrawn. Its contents were copied by the 
 author and by Mr. Fairfax Murray, and were ultimately
 
 ROSSETTL 77 
 
 printed in the first collection of poems. A portion of them 
 only was new. Some had been printed in The Germ and 
 The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, and others were 
 in the possession of friends. Of many of them, how- 
 ever, no memory existed, and these, without the extorted 
 permission to open the grave, must have been entirely 
 lost.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 /CONSIDERATION of the poems making up the 
 V_^ volume known as the first collection belongs to 
 a later epoch in Rossetti's life. One or two of them have 
 already been discussed, and many of them, perhaps the 
 majority, were written during the happy period of court- 
 ship and the brief honeymoon of wedded life. One even 
 bears strongly upon what has previously been said as 
 to the wooing and espousal. The poem entitled " The 
 Portrait," though written in 1847 with no reference to 
 any actual fact, was touched up after the death of Mrs. 
 Rossetti. It is easy to fancy he alludes to her picture 
 when he writes 
 
 " I gaze until she seems to stir, 
 Until mine eyes almost aver 
 That now, even now, the sweet lips part 
 To breathe the words of the sweet heart : 
 And yet the earth is over her." 
 
 A little further in the poem he continues 
 
 " In painting her I shrined her face 
 
 'Mid mystic trees, where light falls in 
 Hardly at all.
 
 LIFE OF ROSSETTL 79 
 
 A deep, dim wood ; and there she stands 
 
 As in that wood that day ; for so 
 Was the still movement of her hands, 
 
 And such the pure lines gracious flow ; 
 And passing fair the type must seem, 
 Unknown the presence and the dream. 
 
 'Tis she : though of herself, alas ! 
 
 Less than her shadow on the grass, 
 Or than her image in the stream." 
 
 One more stanza serves to present the scene in which the 
 portrait was executed, and seems to hint at the spot where 
 the incident occurred 
 
 " But when that hour my soul won strength, 
 
 For words whose silence wastes and kills, 
 Dull raindrops smote us, and at length 
 
 Thundered the heat within the hills. 
 That eve I spoke those words again, 
 Beside the pelted window-pane ; 
 
 And there she hearkened what I said, 
 
 With under-glances that surveyed 
 The empty pastures blind with rain." 
 
 This description, equally noteworthy for tenderness 
 and for the elaborateness of detail which is characteristic 
 of much of Rossetti's work, suggesting that there was a 
 divided individuality, half of which scrutinized and 
 studied, while the other half felt, might, it almost seems, 
 be assigned to April, 1854, when Rossetti had followed 
 Miss Siddall to Hastings, whither, on account of illness, 
 she had been sent. Its scene would in that case be the 
 farmhouse near Hastings, belonging to Miss Barbara Leigh 
 Smith, to which previous reference has been made. The 
 assumption is necessarily conjectural. In his correspon-
 
 80 LIFE OF 
 
 dence, however, with Mr. Ford Madox Brown, Rossetti 
 describes himself painting her portrait, refers to the 
 shelter from the rain, and dwells upon their carving their 
 monograms on the panel of a window, in memory of an 
 exceptionally happy day. In the case of a poem which 
 seems directly inspired by personal feeling, an attempt 
 to fix a time and locality, even if not wholly conclusive, 
 may be pardoned. 
 
 To this happy period belongs a piece of prose 
 descriptive of nature, which has not yet been published. 
 Writing from Hastings, still in 1854, in a period of Lotos 
 eating, pleasant to reflect upon, he says, " I lie often on 
 the cliffs which are lazy themselves, all grown with grass 
 and herbage, not athletic, as at Dover, nor gaunt, as at 
 North Shields. Through the summer mists the sea and 
 sky are one, and, if you half shut your eyes, as of course 
 you do, there is no swearing to the distant sail as boat or 
 bird, while just under one's feet the near boats stand 
 together immoveable, as if their shadows clogged them, 
 and they would not come in after all, but loved to see 
 the land. So one may lie, and symbolize till one goes to 
 sleep, and that be a symbol, too, perhaps." 
 
 A literary work the completion of which belongs to the 
 period of courtship and wedded life, is the " Early Italian 
 Poets, from Ciullo d'Alcamo to Dante Alighieri (noo- 
 1200-1300,") with the "Vita Nuova" of Dante, which 
 was published in 1861, with a dedication, signed D. G. R. : 
 " Whatever is mine in this book is inscribed to my wife.'"' 
 The inception of this work belongs of course to the 
 outset of Rossetti's career, when he was living in his 
 father's house, and listening to endless disquisitions upon
 
 ROSSETTL bl i 
 
 the works and meaning of Dante and the poets of his 
 cycle. Most of the translations, moreover, must rank 
 among his earliest productions. They began in 1846, 
 or even 1845, and nine-tenths of them were probably 
 finished by the end of 1848 or beginning of 1849. 
 
 Dante's "Vita Nuova" is of course, a classic, and a 
 work which may well arrest the attention of scholars. It 
 had in part, so early as 1835, been translated by Rossetti's 
 godfather, Charles Lyell, and a full translation by Mr. 
 (now Sir Theodore) Martin trod close on the heels of 
 that of Rossetti. Italian, moreover even the Italian of 
 the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries offered little 
 difficulty to Rossetti, who also delighted in the exercise 
 of intellect involved in the search after rhyming 
 equivalents in English to a language offering such facili- 
 ties for versification as the Italian. Making all allowances, 
 however, it remains doubtful whether any but a lover so 
 exceptionally endowed as Rossetti, and so enamoured of 
 womanhood as to be able to assign to a mistress, real or 
 imagined ; raptures, sincere or artificial, with which he 
 might be called upon to deal, would have had the 
 patience to translate the whole work. 
 
 Ciullo d'Alcamo, who is earliest of all, since his 
 writings date back to 1172-78, is all well enough. In 
 his dialogue between a lover and his lady beats a full 
 pulse of human passion. The lady appears, it is true, 
 needlessly coy and inaccessible. Her coldness is, how- 
 ever, but simulated, worn apparently for the sake of 
 inciting her lover to further raptures. Her heart listens 
 with scarcely concealed delight to his wooing, and she is 
 glad of an excuse that shall justify him in continuing to 
 
 6
 
 82 LIFE OF. 
 
 flatter and to plead. Portions of this poem have, more- 
 over, a faint perfume of the garden scene in Romeo and 
 Juliet. Juliet, were she given to banter, and had her 
 secret not been surprised " ere " she " was ware ," might 
 warn her lover in some such language as this 
 
 " Nay, though my heart were prone to love, 
 
 I would not grant it leave. 
 Hark ! should my father or his kin 
 
 But find thee here this eve, 
 Thy loving body and lost breath, 
 
 Our meat might well receive. 
 Whatever path to come here thou dost kno\v, 
 By the same path I counsel thee to go." 
 
 And his answer, though unlike anything assigned to 
 Romeo, is not dissimilar in spirit 
 
 " Would'st thou in very truth that I 
 
 Were slain, and for thy sake ? 
 Then let them hew me to such mince 
 
 As a man's limbs may make ! 
 But meanwhile I shall not stir hence, 
 
 Till of that fruit I take 
 
 Which thou hast in thy garden, ripe enough : 
 All day and nigl.t I thirst to think thereof." 
 
 Much of what follows is, however, difficult to any except 
 those "that be lovers." Rossetti himself speaks in his 
 preface of the imperfections of poems belonging to the 
 first epoch of Italian poetry, which, he says, are not all 
 to be charged to the translator. Among these he classes 
 ' its limited range of subjects and continual obscurity, as 
 well as its monotony in the use of rhyme, or frequent
 
 ROSSETTI. 83 
 
 substitution of assonances." Their beauties are, he 
 insists, of a kind that " can never again exist in art," and 
 they " offer, besides, a treasure of grace and variety in 
 the formation of their metres." This, doubtless, is true, 
 and the light which is cast upon certain forms of social 
 existence in mediaeval Italy is also of signal value. The 
 monotony of subject of which complaint is made would, 
 however, except in the case of a man passionately 
 enamoured of womanhood, constitute a virtual prohibi- 
 tion of translation, and is an impediment even to their 
 perusal. It may safely be assumed that the translation 
 is complete and final. A man with a mind more in accord 
 with what is mystic and transcendental in these poems 
 than Rossetti possessed is not often to be encountered. 
 When to this requirement are added a metrical power 
 and a command of rhyme altogether exceptional, an 
 irrepressible enthusiasm for the subject, and a keen 
 sympathy with what is individual in many of the 
 utterances, gifts all of which Rossetti possessed, a com- 
 bination of essentials not likely to be found again in 
 another man is offered. 
 
 The translations are said to be close ; they are certainly 
 terse and vigorous. To those unacquainted, as are 
 necessarily most English readers, with the originals, which 
 are not too easily accessible, the conquest of difficulty 
 achieved by Rossetti is not immediately apparent. His 
 task was nothing less than finding in a language, which 
 with all its merits, including its fitness for the highest 
 poetical expression, is yet hard and unyielding, equiva- 
 lents for the amorous phrases and redundant rhymes 
 of the most plastic and musical of tongues. Rossetti's
 
 84 LIFE OF 
 
 success in this effort is remarkable. Few of the poems 
 read like translations, and the use of such devices 
 employed by Rossetti in his original poems, as the 
 rhyme on a syllable not ordinarily accented, as when 
 "sob-broken" does duty as a rhyme to "then," and "sing" 
 rhymes to " sorrowing," add to the feeling that the poems 
 are charged with his own personality. Seldom indeed 
 has a poet been able to get more thoroughly inside the 
 works of other men, and the book in this, as in some 
 other respects, stands almost, if not quite, alone in 
 literature. Rossetti is, perhaps, most at his ease in his 
 translations from the "Vita Nuova," and from Guido 
 Cavalcanti, who is a special favourite with him. In the 
 sonnets the triumph over difficulty is the more remarkable; 
 the poetical qualities are perhaps better seen in the 
 rendering of ballata or canzone. A single illustration of 
 this may suffice. The most remarkable sonnet in the 
 volume is that of Cavalcanti, in which Dante is rebuked 
 for the way of life into which he fell after the death of 
 Beatrice. The occasion of the sonnet is probably, as 
 the translator points out, the same infirmity for which 
 Dante makes Beatrice rebuke him in the lines in the 
 thirtieth canto of " II Purgatorio," commencing 
 
 " Quando di came a spirto era salita 
 E bellezza e virtu cresciuta m'era 
 Fu' io a lui men cara e men gradita." 
 
 " I come to thee by day-time constantly, 
 
 But in thy thoughts too much of baseness find > 
 Greatly it grieves me for thy gentle mind, 
 And for thy many virtues gone from thee.
 
 KOSSETTI. 86 
 
 It was thy wont to shun much company 
 
 Unto all sorry concourse ill inclined : 
 
 And still thy speech of me, heartfelt and kind, 
 Had made me treasure up thy poetry. 
 But now I dare not, for thine abject life, 
 
 Make manifest that I approve thy rhymes ; 
 
 Nor come I in such sort that thou may'st know. 
 
 Ah ! prythee read this sonnet many times : 
 So shall that evil one who bred this strife, 
 
 Be thrust from thy dishonour'd soul and go." 
 
 Apart from the interest this possesses as a record 
 unimpeachable in authority of such shortcoming on the 
 part of Dante as brings him within the ken of ordinary 
 mortals, and takes from him a portion of the awe as well 
 as of the extreme veneration with which men are inclined 
 to regard the great light of mediaeval literature, it is a 
 fine sonnet. On the page immediately opposite is a 
 rendering of a ballata of the same author. Six or eight 
 lines of this are sufficient to illustrate the opinion 
 advanced 
 
 "Within a copse I met a shepherd maid, 
 
 More fair, I said, than any star to see. 
 She came with waving tresses pale and bright, 
 
 With rosy cheek, and loving eyes of flame, 
 Guiding the lambs beneath her wand aright, 
 
 Her naked feet still had the dew on them, 
 
 As, singing like a lover, so she came, 
 Joyful, and fashioned for all ecstasy. 
 
 It is impossible not to feel the free motion of this, its 
 soft, untrammelled, unconventional grace. 
 
 A special merit in these translations is the selection of 
 words which, without any character of antiquity, are
 
 88 LIFE OF 
 
 full of archaic suggestion. Two opening stanzas of the 
 lovely canzone to his " Dead Lady of Giacomirio Pugliesi 
 Knight of Prato," will illustrate this 
 
 " Death, why hast thou made life so hard to bear, 
 Taking my lady hence ? Hast thou no whit 
 
 Of shame ? The youngest flower and the most fair 
 Thou hast pluck'd away, and the world wanteth it. 
 
 O leaden Death, hast thou no pitying? 
 
 Our warm loves' very spring 
 Thou stopp'st and endest what was holy and meet ; 
 
 And of my gladdening, 
 
 M.ik'st a most woful thing, 
 
 And in my heart dost bid the bird not sing 
 That sang so sweet. 
 
 Once the great joy and solace that I had 
 Was more than is with other gentlemen : 
 
 Now is my love gone hence, who made me glad. 
 With her that hope I lived in she hath ta'en, 
 
 And lelt me nothing but these sighs and tears, 
 
 Nothing of the old years 
 That come not back again, 
 
 Wherein I was so happy being hers ; 
 
 Now to mine eyes her face no more appears, 
 
 Nor doth her voice make music in mine ears, 
 As it did then." 
 
 In its continuance th : s poem remains equally beautiful 
 and touching, and the manner in which the imaginary 
 possessions mentioned by the poet as useless to bring back 
 his dead love are described in English is a triumph of 
 ingenuity and poetry. " The Early Italian Poets" secured 
 the immediate recognition of scholars. Popular it could 
 never be. An edition was slowly sold, and no long space 
 before his death, Rossetti, while meditating a translation
 
 ROSSETTI. 87 
 
 of the poems of Michael Angelo, turned to the work of 
 his youth, rearranged its contents, changed its title, and 
 issued a new edition, through his friend and publisher, 
 Mr. Ellis. 
 
 The share of Mr. William Rossetti in lightening 
 his brother's labours, in correcting proofs, in writing 
 notes, and in collating the translation of the "Vita 
 Nuova " with the original, finds full recognition in Ros- 
 setti's correspondence. In a letter to his brother he ex- 
 presses his thanks for a most essential service, thoroughly 
 performed. It is, indeed, obvious that but for the assis- 
 tance rendered in this respect by this friend, staunch and 
 helpful in all respects, the publication of the Italian Poets 
 must have been deferred. Among the friends whom he 
 consulted during the progress of the work were Mr. 
 Coventry Patmore and Mr. William Allingham. A letter 
 to the former, obligingly lent by him, sees now for the first 
 time the light, and is interesting in many respects. It is, 
 indeed, in some regards, a criticism by Rossetti upon his 
 own performance. Unfortunately, like many of Rossetti's 
 letters, it is undated, and does not even name the place 
 whence it was despatched. It is simply headed " Wed- 
 nesday night." Its probable date is 1853-4. 
 
 " DEAR PATMORE, Before sending you the transla- 
 tions, I looked over Allingham's notes, and want to 
 apprise you that all instances of varying metre, missing 
 rhymes, &c., are close adherences to the originals, and 
 not carelessnesses. He suggests rightly in one place 
 that titles are wanted to the different poems should any 
 strike you in reading, I wish you'd jot them in the
 
 88 LIFE OF 
 
 margin. I consider myself that descriptive headings 
 brief arguments to the poems would, perhaps, be best, 
 but leave all classification till the end. I can't say I 
 always agree with A. or his preferences. For instance, 
 there is one poem, at page 39, which he has not marked 
 at all, and which seems to me almost the loveliest of the 
 lot. I name this as occurring to me but there are 
 others. By the by, at page 156 is one copied out since I 
 saw you, and which I think you'll agree with me in liking. 
 It is by Cino da Pistoia (though generally attributed to 
 Guido Guinicelli), and I believe it myself to be addressed 
 to Dante on the occasion of the death of Beatrice. This 
 is rather strengthened by Dante quoting it (though only 
 in an argument on language) in his treatise ' De Vulgari 
 Eloquio ; ' and there are various undoubted pieces of 
 correspondence in rhyme (some I have translated, though 
 not yet copied) between Cino and Dante. 
 
 " Pray remember that all notes or suggested alterations 
 of any kind -whatever from you -will be most thankfully 
 received in the margin ; especially suggestions as to any of 
 the poems if any which you think the ones to be left 
 out With thanks beforehand for the trouble I'm thus 
 saddling you with, and with a request for one line to tell 
 of safe delivery of MSS. when they reach you believe 
 me yours very sincerely, D. G. ROSSETTI. 
 
 " P.S. There are a good many more not yet copied, 
 which you shall have in due course, if you care." 
 
 Other letters to Mr. Patmore, written from 45, Upper 
 Albany Street, the house of Mr. William Rossetti and Mrs.
 
 ROSSETTI. 89 
 
 Rossetti, senior, contain some characteristically apprecia- 
 tive and cordial criticisms upon Mr. Patmore's own poems. 
 
 To this period of Rossetti's life belong his contributions 
 to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, a periodical 
 which, more fortunate than The Germ, contrived to live 
 through the year 1856. These poems are now obtainable 
 in other works, and the interest of the magazine is purely 
 bibliographical. It is, in fact, if less scarce at all, only 
 less scarce than The Germ. Rossetti's acceptance of an 
 engagement it can scarcely be called a commission to 
 take part in the decoration of the Union Debating Room 
 at Oxford took place in 1857. Though the result was, in 
 some respects, disaster, the influences of the visit to 
 Oxford and the friendships thus made was potent for 
 good. 
 
 Rossetti's share in the designs was due solely to his 
 love for art. Mr. Woodward, the architect of the Univer- 
 sity Museum at Oxford, was particularly desirous that the 
 details of the building, the capitals of the shafts, &c., 
 should be left to the individual workman, who was to 
 work them out according to his own fancy. His instruc- 
 tions, however, were that the foliage chosen for conven- 
 tional treatment should be that of the plants common in 
 the neighbourhood of Oxford. An idea of this kind was 
 eminently calculated to appeal to Rossetti, who took forth- 
 with keen interest in Mr. Woodward and his work, and 
 made occasional visits to Oxford to see how the scheme 
 progressed. 
 
 In 1857 Mr. Woodward was about finishing the new 
 buildings for the Union Club in Oxford. Rossetti, who 
 accompanied him on a visit of inspection, was struck by
 
 90 LIFE OF 
 
 the opportunity furnished in the bays of the Debating 
 room for wall decorations of a kind entirely new, at least 
 in England. He proposed that the walls should be 
 covered with a series of tempera pictures illustrative of 
 scenes from the " Morte d'Arthur," a work which had at 
 this time a special attraction for him, and from which he 
 took the subjects of many water-colour paintings. His 
 idea was acceptable. The funds of the Union would not, 
 however, allow the committee to give a commission to the 
 painters. 
 
 Chiefly through the agency of Mr. Bowen, now Sir 
 Charles Bowen, Lord Justice of Appeal, who was the 
 PresideTff of the" Uniuii, and was very helpiul to the 
 scheme, an arrangement was made by which all inci- 
 dental expenses, material, scaffolding, travelling charges, 
 &c., should be defrayed by the club, the artists contribu- 
 ting gratuitously the remainder of the work. 
 
 Rossetti entered with characteristic enthusiasm into a 
 scheme which was calculated at every point to appeal to 
 him, and during the year 1857 he busied himself con- 
 tinuously in interesting other artists in the project, and in 
 obtaining their co-operation. Thus, beating up for re- 
 cruits, he obtained the co-operation of Mr. J. Hungerford 
 Pollen, who near that time was Proctor at the University, 
 .Mr. E. Burne Jones, Mr. William Morris, Mr. Val Prinsep, 
 
 Mr. Arthur Hughes, and MrTSpencer Stanhope. Some 
 difficulty was experienced in securing the co-operation of 
 Mr. Morris, but this was at length obtained, and in the 
 close of 1857 the work began. - 
 
 A month was the time assigned by Rossetti's sanguine 
 mind to the execution of the task. Successive causes of
 
 ROSSETTL 91 
 
 delay surged up, however, and six months were spent 
 before it was accomplished, and the tempera designs, 
 which are popularly, but inaccurately, from the technical 
 point of view, spoken of as frescoes, were finished. 
 
 The result, so far as the present generation is concerned, 
 is failure, and the pictures have peeled away until, at the 
 present moment, they are not decipherable. The walls 
 were new, and were not properly prepared not, in"35ed, 
 having even been flattened. These compositions, accord- 
 ingly, which, at least, attracted in their time some atten- 
 tion, are lost. Rossetti was responsible for Sir Lancelot 
 before the Shrine of Sangreal, a work which was never 
 quite finished, the purposed completion being abandoned 
 when it was discovered that the whole was doomed to 
 perish. A design of Rossetti's presenting Arthur seated 
 with his Knights at the Round Table, was carved in stone 
 and coloured by Mr. Munro, and now appears in the 
 tympanum of the porch. 
 
 In itself this abortive scheme has no special interest. 
 By the intimacies into which he was thrust, however, 
 a strong influence was brought to bear upon Rossetti 
 personally, and art and literature are likely to look back 
 to these Oxford days as marking an epoch. With those 
 associated with him in the execution of the task Rossetti 
 was previously acquainted. His intimacy with Mr. E. 
 Burne Tones had begun in London a few months previ- 
 ou sly, and his influence appears to have been strong 
 enough to have induced his new friend to take up the 
 profession of painting, in place of entering the church, as 
 had at one time been intended. While Rossetti and Mr. 
 Burne Jones were at work on the paintings, Mr. Swin-
 
 92 LIFE OF ROSSETTI. 
 
 burne entered the room, and introduced himself to both 
 artists'. The friefiflships then contracted were no less 
 permanent than those previously made. Rossetti's friendly 
 and affectionate feeling to Mr. Burne Jones, Mr. Morris, 
 and Mr. Swinburne, taking these names in the order in 
 which the acquaintance was made, lasted to the end of his 
 life. He lost sight of Mr. Swinburne, however, towards 
 1872, and Mr."Morris towards 1877. Mr. Burne Jones 
 he saw so late as the Christmas before the finol departure 
 for Birchington.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 AFTER the death of his wife, Rossetti found the 
 chambers he occupied with her too charged with 
 painful memories to be tolerable. He went for a short 
 period to stay with his friend, Mr. Madox Brown, at High- 
 gate Rise ; then, after a brief residence in Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields, he took a lease of the house at No. 16, Cheyne 
 Walk, possession of which he retained until his death. 
 Though unprovided with a studio that fully answered his 
 requirements, this fine old building, with its handsome iron 
 gates, its frontage commanding the river, and its extensive 
 garden, formed an almost ideal residence for him. The 
 conditions under which it was taken had, however, no 
 element of possible permanency. Joint occupjints with 
 Rossetti were Mr. Swinburne, Mr. George Meredith, and 
 Mr. William Rossetti. That four men of individualities 
 so potent, and, in some senses, so aggressive, or at least 
 assertive, as those of the men named, should be able to 
 live together in closeness of continuous intimacy, from 
 which there was scarcely an escape, was barely conceiv- 
 able. MrTGeorge Meredithy'acxrordingry^TnTrae no long 
 stay? Next alter" him ^MrTSWiHburne departed. The 
 two brothers held on, as was natural, for some time
 
 94 LIFE OF 
 
 longer, the younger, in this, as in every other case, assist- 
 ing the elder with counsel, not always followed, and 
 in the early days with money. This association, which 
 never involved continuous residence on the part of Mr. 
 William Rossetti, ceased upon his marriage in 1874, 
 after which date Rossetti occupied alone this house 
 which had always a chamber vacant for a friend. His 
 entry upon this new habitation took place, assumably, 
 about October, 1862. On the 23rd of this month he 
 writes : " I suppose I shall sleep in Chelsea to-morrow." 
 On the yth of January of the following year a letter is 
 dated from Cheyne Walk. Since the destruction of 
 the rooms in Chatham Terrace, Cheyne Walk is alone 
 associated, so far as London is concerned, with his 
 memory. Whatever other residence he occupied after 
 this time was in the country. His relatives and most 
 intimate friends recall him at the Manor House, Kelms- 
 cott, near Lechlade, a house which, near 1869, he 
 occupied jointly with Mr. William Morris. More than 
 one long stay was made at Penkill Castle, in Ayrshire, 
 where he and Mr. W. Bell Scott were guests of Miss Boyd. 
 Mr. Theodore Watts and Mr. George Hake were with him 
 for a time at Bognor. More than one visit was made 
 to the houses of friends, his disappearances in later 
 years being due to failing health. With Cheyne Walk, 
 however, most recollections of Rossetti are associated. 
 The house he crowded with quaintly-carved oak furniture, 
 and other beautiful and costly objects in which he de- 
 lighted. Here his fine collection of blue china was 
 exposed to view, or was employed, regardless of risk, at 
 the dinner parties, which he was fond of giving. Here,
 
 ROSSETTI. 95 
 
 too, were gathered, not all at the same time, the motley 
 collection of animals, peacocks, armadilloes, the wom- 
 bat, woodchuck, or Canadian marmot, and other out- 
 landish creatures, including the famous zebu, which last 
 animal is the subject of the only surviving story presenting 
 Rossetti in a light absolutely comical. That Rossetti 
 was greatly struck with the beauty of this animal, and 
 that he induced his brother to join him in purchasing it 
 for ^20, is certain. Large as was the garden at the rear 
 of 1 6, Cheyne Walk, in which the beast was to feed, no 
 access to it was possible except through the house, the 
 passages in which were tortuous, and of no great width. 
 A veritable bull in a china shop, then, the zebu had, 
 with the greatest care, to be carried, firmly bound and 
 lassooed, into its destined home. Here, for a time, it 
 remained fastened to a tree, and was duly exhibited to 
 visitors. Rossetti, meanwhile, at a safe distance, dwelt 
 upon its beauties, and pointed them out with his maul 
 stick. According to the testimony of Mr. Whistler, 
 whose well-known waggishness casts, perhaps, a faint 
 shadow of suspicion on the story, the fierce little animal, 
 which was not much bigger than a Shetland pony, nursed 
 a sullen resentment against the indignities to which he 
 was subjected. One day, when the two were alone in 
 the garden, and Rossetti was contemplating once more 
 the admired possession, and pointing out with the objec- 
 tionable stick the points of special beauty, resentment 
 blazed into indignation. By a super-bovine exertion the 
 zebu tore up by the roots the tree to which it was attachedi 
 and chased its tormentor round the garden, which was 
 extensive enough to admit of an exciting chase round the
 
 96 LIFE OF 
 
 trees. Finally Rossetti was enabled to escape from his 
 pursuer, whose freedom of movement had, fortunately, 
 been hampered by the disrooted tree. The animal had 
 now to be got rid of, at any cost, and, as a purchaser was 
 not to be found, it had to be given away. With renewed 
 precautions, it had to be carried back through the house. 
 No smash occurred in either progress, and the zebu finally 
 went its way. That the story is true in all its details, or 
 that imagination has done nothing to supply colour, may 
 be doubted. Rossetti, in subsequent years, when dis- 
 cussing his pets, past and present, was not much given to 
 talk of the zebu. 
 
 Here, lastly, were held those meetings, prolonged often 
 until the early hours of the morning, which to those 
 privileged to be present were veritable nights and feasts 
 of gods. Here in the dimly-lighted studio, around the 
 blazing fire, used to assemble the men of distinction or 
 promise in literature and art whom the magnetism of 
 Rossetti's individuality collected around him. Here Ros- 
 setti. himself used, though rarely, to read aloud, with his 
 voice of indescribable power and clearness, and with a 
 bell-like utterance that still dwells in the mind, passages 
 from the poems he admired ; and here, more frequently, 
 some young poet, encouraged by his sympathy, which to 
 all earnest effort in art was overflowing and inexhaustible, 
 would recite his latest sonnet. So far as regards years, 
 this is anticipating a little. While on this subject it may, 
 however, be said that Rossetti's appearance at this period, 
 especially when, during later years, to his own annoyance, 
 he had got a little fat, has often been compared to that of 
 Shakespeare. Mr. Gosse says it reminds him rather of
 
 ROSSETTI. 97 
 
 Chaucer. Making allowance for difference of size, since 
 Rossetti was not more, probably, than five feet seven 
 inches in height, and for training, as regards deportment 
 and voice, Rossetti, in physical appearance and in speech, 
 may be said to recall Signer Salvini. In complexion and 
 some other respects the resemblance was striking, and 
 there was, in addition to similarity in the shape of the 
 head, about both in private life the same appearance of 
 placid strength. 
 
 About 1865-6, Rossetti, who was at that period strongly 
 disposed to social pleasures, joined the Arundel Club, 
 an association of painters, journalists, actors, and others 
 which met, and still meets, in Salisbury Street, Strand. 
 He was for many years a member of the Garrick Club. 
 In the Arundel, however, at which the meetings were less 
 formal, and which then numbered among its members 
 Mr. F. Sandys, Mr. J. M. Whistler, Mr. Albert Moore, 
 Mr. George Chapman, Mr. Thomas Jeckyll, Mr. Anderson 
 Rose, and other friends of Rossetti, he sought to unbend 
 himself. The experiment, so far as he was concerned, 
 was but moderately successful. An attempt to join the 
 whist players resulted in fiasco. For whist Rossetti had 
 an absolute disqualification, and no amount of respect or 
 attachment to his genius could reconcile players to a 
 partner who ignored or scorned the elementary rules of 
 the game, and who could only be regarded as a third 
 enemy. 
 
 In connection with his membership of the Arundel 
 Club, however, an event hitherto unrecorded took place. 
 This was an exhibition of pictures by members of the 
 club, to which Rossetti sent several important works. No 
 
 7
 
 98 LIFE OF 
 
 catalogue of this exhibition is preserved, and an unassisted 
 memory may not attempt to say what the works were. 
 The exhibition, however, was a conspicuous success, and 
 inspired much interest. Rossetti also exhibited some paint- 
 ings at the Hogarth Club. Nor were these the only exhibi- 
 tions to which he sent paintings or drawings. Altogether 
 inadequate were, it is needless to say, these exhibitions 
 to do more than stimulate curiosity concerning Rossetti's 
 powers. It was reserved for the Royal Academy to substi- 
 tute for the appetising tastes of Rossetti's work, which had 
 previously been afforded, a full and satisfying drink. Con- 
 cerning the fitness of this proceeding some doubt maybe ex- 
 pressed. That the Academy, which in the lifetime of Ros- 
 setti had accorded him no slightest courtesy, should upon 
 his death pose as his patron, and should itself reap the pro- 
 fits of the tender interest which the premature death of the 
 brilliant poet and painter was calculated to inspire, seems 
 scarcely fair to the family by which Rossetti had been 
 constantly and conscientiously aided, and to which he 
 would himself have bequeathed whatever profit his name, 
 as a part of his possessions, was worth. 
 
 The first portion of Rossetti's residence in Cheyne 
 Walk was fairly happy. He was never tired of admiring 
 the trees in the garden, one tree, a sycomore, especially, 
 which may be traced in many of his pictures, and he 
 found much pleasure in the quaint animate nature with 
 which he was surrounded. He began at this time to 
 write \vith something like regularity to his mother, whom 
 he always addresses in terms of the utmost affection. To 
 her he describes, August 16, 1864, how "the peahen 
 has hatched two out of her four eggs, and now stalks
 
 ROSSETTI. 99 
 
 about with two little whining queernesses at her heels, no 
 bigger than ordinary chicks, but perhaps a little steadier 
 on their pins;" and tells her, which may cast a light upon 
 his conscientiousness in labour, that he has spent a week 
 in getting roses for his picture, and has had honeysuckle 
 sent him from all parts of England. To Mr. Madox Brown 
 he utters complaints which he keeps from his mother 
 about the difficulty in the way of finding purchasers for 
 his best work, the constant cry of painters, in his case 
 fully justified. The only thing to do is, he says, to stick 
 to water colours, in order to live. " It is disgusting," he 
 says, in August, 1864, "to do such 'sloshy' work at all" 
 (" sloshy " was with him a favourite word of contempt) ; 
 " but as soon as I do better the dun is at the door, so 
 needs must." 
 
 In November, 1864, he took a fresh trip to Paris, 
 stopping at the Hotel de Dunkerque, 32, Rue Laffitte. 
 On this visit he was taken by " Fantin " (Fantin-Latour, 
 the painter of L'Hommage h. Delacroix) to see Edouard 
 Manet, the pupil of Couture, who the year previously had 
 startled Paris by his marvellous picture of Le Ddjeuner sur 
 1'Herbe, in which nudities and modern costumes were 
 strangely blended. He speaks also of Gustave Courbet, 
 the founder of the realist school, whose labours in France 
 had gone in some respects in the same direction as those 
 of Rossetti in England, and who subsequently presided 
 over the destruction of the column in the Place Vendome. 
 With the works of these men Rossetti was but moderately 
 impressed. Courbet's paintings, he holds, have great 
 merits in parts, but " are all most faulty." He speaks of 
 "this incredible new French School people painted
 
 100 LIFE OF 
 
 with eyes in one socket, through merely being too lazy 
 to efface." 
 
 The results of the death, a year or two earlier, of Mr. 
 Thomas Edward Flint, of Leeds, an early collector of the 
 young school of English painters, carried dismay into 
 many studios, and among others into that of Rossetti. 
 Commissions had been liberally distributed by Mr. 
 Flint, and very considerable sums had been paid on 
 account of pictures not yet finished. The affairs of Mr. 
 Flint upon his death were not wholly satisfactory, and 
 the sale of his pictures and the realization of his assets 
 became necessary. Among the pictures in Mr. Flint's 
 collection were Mr. Madox Brown's great picture Work, 
 one of the masterpieces of the so-called Pre-Raphaelite 
 school, and very many paintings by Rossetti, Millais, 
 Hughes, Wallis, and others. The collection was ex- 
 hibited in London, and was sold by auction. The result 
 of the sale in 1865 was anything rather than encouraging 
 to painters of the younger school. Rossetti speaks of 
 things being desperate, and states in one of his letters 
 that works of his colleagues which were purchased at 
 ^250 each were sold for ^30 and 60, and condoles 
 with his correspondent that "your being bought in at 
 550 and my 84. were the triumphs of the sale." One 
 more thing in connection with painting which he mentions 
 in his correspondence is that he has just had lent him his 
 old first picture, The Girlhood of Mary Virgin. Of this he 
 says, " I can look at it a long way off now as the work of 
 quite another ' critter.' " It is satisfactory to learn thai 
 he finds it a long way better than he thought 
 
 One or two purchases which he makes near that d.ate
 
 ROSSETTL 101 
 
 inspire him with enthusiasm. In one case he writes : 
 '' I have just bought for 2 a most god-like picture of 
 the Old Swan Inn and Market Place at Barnet." This 
 he calls a chef d'osuvre of the British School, and thinks 
 is by Morland in his best time. " But really," addressing 
 his correspondent, he continues, " it would ravish your 
 innermost soul, only it has got holes knocked in it, and 
 so I must get it in hand at once." The second purchase 
 which took place when he was staying at Tenterden, 
 in Kent, assumably two years later, ;>., in 1866, is of a 
 different kind. It consists of a box-tree cut in the shape 
 of an arm chair. He saw it at the door of a cottage 
 where it had been trained by the inmates since 1833. 
 The old woman to whom it belonged sold it to him for a 
 sovereign, and he sent it to Chelsea where it was at once 
 to be planted. He tells this to his mother, to whom he 
 confides his intention of sending the vendor, who moves 
 his compassion, a second sovereign upon its arrival. 
 With Winchelsea, whither he proceeds, he is much struck, 
 forwarding to his mother an account of the procession to 
 inaugurate the session. This, he continues, " may give 
 you some idea of the doziness of the place, which is 
 more to my taste than any other I know. Every one is 
 82 if he is not 96." 
 
 About 1867 Rossetti made a strenuous, but not too 
 successful, effort after earlier hours. To Mr. Madox 
 Brown he complains pathetically, " I have no chance of 
 seeing you now, for a new doctor has told me to be in 
 bed by twelve, and I'm trying to do it." The doctor in 
 question, whose advice coincided with that of others of 
 his profession previously consulted, appears to have been
 
 102 LIFE OF 
 
 Sir William Jenner. Jointly with Mr. Sandys he under- 
 took about this time what he considers a "friendly duty" 
 towards Mr. Swinburne, whose " Poems and Ballads " had 
 drawn upon him many discomforts. To his brother he 
 defends this interference, though he adds that " the 
 genius displayed in his (Mr. Swinburne's) works " is not 
 benefited " by association with certain accessory tenden- 
 cies." In a letter to his mother, whom he addresses 
 constantly as " Dear good Antique," or by a score of names 
 caressingly frivolous, he writes under date May 12, 
 1 868, apropos to his fortieth birthday : " The reminder of 
 the solemn fact that I am a man of forty could hardly 
 come agreeably from any one but yourself. But con- 
 sidering that the chief blessing of my forty good and bad 
 years, has been that not one of these has taken you from 
 me, it is the best of all things to have the same dear love 
 and good wishes still coming to me to-day from your dear 
 hand at a distance, as they would have done from your 
 dear mouth had we seen each other." 
 
 In this year, 1868, the first trace appears in his letters 
 of the insomnia, which, aggravated by so-styled remedies, 
 was to be the curse of his life. Penkill Castle, Ayrshire, 
 was re-visited in September. On his way Rossetti spent 
 a couple of hours in the Exhibition at Leeds, finding time 
 to notice " a most glorious Sandro Botticelli " (a Nativity), 
 " a very fine Carpaccio," and " splendid heads by Titian, 
 Moroni, Bellini, and Velasquez." Upon his arrival at 
 his destination he is delighted with the place, adding, " I 
 slept better last night than I have done for a long time." 
 After this declaration, sufficiently ominous when read by 
 the light of his later life, he mentions having consulted
 
 ROSSETTf. 103 
 
 Bader, the oculist of Guy's Hospital, with regard to his 
 eyes, from which he suffered much, and detects in his 
 mother's " dear letter a funny old intention of writing 
 large for the benefit of my sight." " This,'' he adds, 
 " would be quite in the antique spirit." Upon his return 
 he sends his mother his sonnets, which he describes as a 
 "band of bogies," and fancies them joining with the 
 skeletons of various closets to entertain her by a ballet. 
 With humour characteristically quaint in its blending of 
 extravagance and mysticism, he continues : " Their 
 shanks are rather ghastly, it is true, but they will keep 
 their shrouds down tolerably close, and creak enough 
 themselves to render a piano unnecessary. As their own 
 vacated graves serve them to dance on, there is no danger 
 of their disturbing the lodgers beneath, and, if any one 
 overhead objects, you may say that it amuses them per- 
 haps, and will be soon over, and that as their hats were 
 probably not buried with them, these will not be sent 
 round at the close of the performance." 
 
 An extract from a letter addressed to a male corres- 
 pondent is thoroughly characteristic of his feelings with 
 regard to those he thought in any serious way interested 
 in art, and of his prejudice against those belonging 
 to academic circles. " I am very much grieved to hear 
 of poor Payne's death. He was a good fellow, a good 
 friend, and a man of true inclinations to good things in 
 art and poetry. It is singular how these rare birds, 
 whether patrons or critics, get picked off one by one, 
 while no man ever heard of the putrid academic sty 
 being a pig the worse for all the epidemics and cattle 
 plagues that turn up."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 TOWARDS the close of the year 1869 Rossetti was 
 busily occupied with preparations for his forth- 
 coming volume of poems. To his mother he speaks, 
 August 21, 1869, of printing some old and new poems, 
 chiefly old, which he promises to show her in proof. 
 The reason advanced is, " I thought it necessary to finish 
 them as I found blundered transcripts of some of my old 
 things are flying about, and would at some time have 
 got into print perhaps, a thing afflictive to one's bogy 
 (spirit)." With his brother William, to whom the task of 
 revision is entrusted, he discusses the omissions that he 
 will make. " I believe," he says, " I am likely to cut out 
 ' Mary in Summer,' ' The Choice ' (three sonnets), and 
 the ' Bullfinch Sonnet.' I hesitated to print ' Ave ' be- 
 cause of the subject, but I thought it well done, and so 
 included it. Sonnet, ' French Liberation of Italy,' I have 
 removed from the second section, and shall not replace." 
 In the directions concerning the revision of proof he asks 
 his brother to be careful as to the punctuation, a matter 
 which he always regarded as important. . " In punctua- 
 tion," he writes, " I have my own ideas, which may not 
 be yours, so I will ask you generally to leave this alone."
 
 LIFE OF ROSSETTL 105 
 
 The changes prospective or actual which he makes are 
 too numerous to be dealt with. A few, however, are of 
 interest to those who study his manner of work. To 
 "Sister Helen" he affixes a first stanza, on the recom- 
 mendation of Mr. William Bell Scott, who held that 
 without this the impression of what was going on was 
 not perfectly distinct. This criticism of Mr. Scott is just. 
 Something may, however, be urged in favour of the bold 
 commencement originally planned, the dramatic fitness 
 as well as the abruptness of which is very fine. He 
 debates the propriety, in "Stratton Water," after the 
 lines 
 
 " The kine were in the byre that day, 
 The nags were in the stall " 
 
 of re-writing some stanzas which had dropped out de- 
 scriptive of the gradual impression on Lord Sandys of his 
 recognition of the girl whom he thought dead, and seeks 
 counsel whether it would be better to re-insert them. 
 Apparently the answer to this was in the affirmative, 
 since the two descriptive stanzas which now follow the 
 lines are not necessary to the action, are not in the 
 general ballad style, and are apparently introduced for 
 the purpose of explanation. Of " My Sister's Sleep," 
 which, as has been said, is one of the earliest poems, he 
 declares that it is very distasteful to him, and that he 
 would not insert it were he not afraid of surreptitious 
 copies getting into print. A poem called " Song and 
 Music " he omits. 
 
 At this period the exhumation of the MSS. had not 
 been made, and the poems dealt with were those which
 
 106 LIFE OF 
 
 had been recalled by memory, existed in collections, or 
 were in the possession of friends. The exhumation in 
 question took place apparently on the 6th or 7th of 
 October, 1869. On the i3th of the same month he 
 mentions to his brother that the manuscripts are in his 
 possession. Friends, he states, had hinted from time to 
 time at the possibility of the buried poems being re- 
 covered, and when he had been in Scotland the previous 
 year, Mr. William Bell Scott had recurred to the subject. 
 What appears to have brought the matter to a head was 
 the offer of a friend, Mr. Charles Augustus Howell, of his 
 own accord to take charge of the execution of the task. 
 Rossetti was still averse from the proceeding. Even- 
 tually, however, he yielded a reluctant consent, and " the 
 thing was done." An order had of course to be obtained 
 from the Home Secretary, who proved to be an old and 
 rather intimate friend of Rossetti, Mr. H. A. Bruce. 
 All was found as it was left, but the book, though not in 
 any way destroyed, was soaked through and through, and 
 had to undergo a long process of ablution in the hand of 
 the medical man who assisted Mr. Howell. By his care 
 also the whole was dried leaf by leaf. There seems 
 reason to fear, Rossetti writes, that " some minor portion 
 is obliterated, but I must hope this may not prove to be 
 the most important part. I shall not, I believe, be able 
 to see it for at least a week." To his brother he apolo- 
 gizes for not telling him earlier, saying, " It was a service 
 I could not ask you to perform for me, nor do I know 
 any one except Howell who could well have been en- 
 trusted with such a trying task." It was necessary to 
 employ a solicitor in the proceedings, since some diffi-
 
 ROSSETTI. 107 
 
 culties were raised by the cemetery authorities, naturally 
 anxious to be assured that nothing of the nature of a 
 fraud was involved in the disinterment of the MSS. 
 Three days later, after seeing the book, which " will take 
 some days yet to dry," he declares it is in a disappointing, 
 but not hopeless state. The only further reference to 
 the poems previous to publication which calls for notice 
 in his letters is the information supplied to his brother : 
 "You know I always meant to dedicate the book to you. 
 This I shall of course do." As all readers of the volume, 
 which now, apart from its other merits, is a bibliographi- 
 cal rarity, are aware, the volume is dedicated to Mr. W. 
 M. Rossetti. 
 
 " Poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti," as the first volume 
 is called, was published on terms eminently advantageous 
 to Rossetti by his friend, Mr. F. S. Ellis, then of King 
 Street, Covent Garden, and subsequently of Bond Street. 
 By the lover of Rossetti's poems it will always be valued 
 on account of containing the first version of many of the 
 poems, and one sonnet which has been omitted from the 
 collected " House of Life," and from the general col- 
 lection of works. Seventy-four sonnets, eleven songs, 
 and twenty-six longer poems were selected by him as 
 worthy of preservation. Of the contents " The Blessed 
 Damozel," " The Staff and the Scrip," and " My Sister's 
 Sleep," have already been discussed. Of the remaining 
 poems " Sister Helen " is the most important 
 
 In this the romantic and the dramatic aspects of 
 Rossetti's genius attain their highest development. The 
 poem in its class is less unequalled than unique. In his 
 employment of a burden to a ballad, if not in the ballad
 
 108 LIFE OF 
 
 generally, Rossetti is happier than Mr. Morris, happier 
 even it may be than Mr. Swinburne, to name the poets 
 who were led by influences of association, and kindred 
 studies, to practise similar forms of composition. With 
 the general work of Mr. Swinburne, who is unequalled in 
 lyrical fervour, and has enriched English verse with a 
 greater variety of metres than any other poet it may 
 almost be said than all other poets to compare that of 
 Rossetti would be preposterous. In some domains, 
 however, and notably in the sonnet and the ballad, 
 Rossetti may stand by his side. The ballad especially 
 commended itself to Rossetti's imagination and his taste. 
 His admiration of it dates from the time when he read with 
 avidity the earlier ballad literature of England and Scot- 
 land. There is, however, little affinity between his work 
 in this direction and the masterpieces by which he was 
 stimulated. 
 
 " Sister Helen " is, in fact, a dialogue with a slightly 
 varying chorus, spoken, it may be assumed, so far on the 
 principle of the Greek chorus that its utterance depicts 
 the feelings of some, in this case imaginary and unseen, 
 spectator. As a tale of calm and inexorable vengeance 
 on the part of a wronged woman, it is unapproached in 
 literature. Medea herself is neither more fateful nor 
 more relentless than is Sister Helen. In the stanzas 
 which Rossetti added in his later years, and included in 
 the issue of 1881, the nature of the offence perpetrated 
 by the victim of Sister Helen's conjurations is stated. 
 Owing fealty to her, he has taken to his bed another 
 bride. Three days have elapsed since the wreath has 
 been placed upon the bride's head, the three days during
 
 ROSSETTI. 109 
 
 which the groom's body has melted away into death, even 
 as the waxen image has melted before the fire. The 
 stanzas in which this information is conveyed are in all 
 respects equal to the remainder of the poem, and the 
 variations of the burden are so striking and so character- 
 istic of Rossetti that, once given, their removal would be 
 intolerable. The last letter ever written by Rossetti, 
 dated April 5, 1882 he died on April gth was to 
 the writer of these lines, and communicated the news 
 that he had ventured on an addition to the poem, a 
 proceeding which he knew was likely to be regarded 
 by his correspondent with no great favour. This letter 
 will be given in its proper place. It is pardonable to 
 maintain that the effect of the added revelation diminishes 
 the spectral terror of the poem, a fine element in which is 
 its appalling vagueness and mystery. 
 
 The superstition on which " Sister Helen " is based, 
 though old assumably as antique times, has in years quite 
 recent, difficult of credit as this may seem, been known to 
 be practised. Among the pretensions of witchcraft ex- 
 posed by Reginald Scot in his " Discovery of Witchcraft," 
 the first edition of which appeared in 1584, is "A charme 
 teaching how to hurt whom you list with images of wax, 
 &c.," with directions how to frame in virgin wax the 
 image of the individual to be killed, and with what 
 magical additions or unguents to bedeck or smear it. 
 The customary treatment was to stick pins in the image, 
 the result of which was supposed to be the death of the 
 individual simulated. A second method was to melt the 
 waxen image before the fire, the consequence being that 
 as the wax dissolved the person it was sought to injure
 
 110 LIFE OF 
 
 would melt and die in torments. This is the plan adopted 
 by Sister Helen. The process is watched by the brother 
 of the woman who has resolution enough to carry it out. 
 His inquiries as to the meaning of what is taking place, 
 and his comments upon the action outside the house, 
 supply the action of the poem. A couple of stanzas will 
 show the treatment. 
 
 M \Vhy did you melt your waxen man, 
 
 Sister Helen? 
 
 To-day is the third since you began.' 
 ' The time was long but the time ran, 
 
 Little Brother.' 
 (O mother, Mary Mother, 
 Three days to- Jay, between Hell and Heaven !) 
 
 * * * 
 
 ' Oh the waxen knave was plump to-day, 
 
 Sister Helen ; 
 
 How like dead folk he has dropped away.' 
 4 Nay now, of the dead what can you say, 
 
 Little Brother ? ' 
 ( mother, Mary Mother, 
 What 'of the dead, between Hell and Heaven ?) " 
 
 From the balcony into which he ascends the child sees 
 the objects that go by. Three riders in turn appear 
 to supplicate pity for the man who is being slain. 
 Two are the brothers of the dying man, the third the 
 "mighty Baron" Keith of Keith, his father. Their 
 petitions are delivered by the child, and are received 
 with grim, cynical, and fateful comment by Sister Helen, 
 who watches the figure disappear until the bell from over 
 the hill tolls the dying knell of her victim, the wax figure
 
 ROSSETTI. Ill 
 
 drops, and the flames win up apace. Her crime accom- 
 plished, the penalty has instantly to be met. This is 
 indicated in the last verse 
 
 " 'Ah ! what white thing at the door has cross' J, 
 
 Sister Helen ? 
 
 Ah ! what is this that sighs in the frost ? ' 
 ' A soul that's lost as mine is lost, 
 
 Little Brother ! ' 
 (0 mother, Mary Mother, 
 Lost, lost, all lost between Hell and Heaven !) " 
 
 " Sister Helen " is a poem to which no extracts can do 
 justice. It must be read as a whole. Each verse is 
 practically inseparable from the other, and the slow 
 accumulation of scarcely defined horror is part of the 
 mystery and might of the poem. Slight as are the 
 changes of the burden, they are weighty in significance, 
 and the answers of the heroine, with their grave acqui- 
 escence in the soul's death, which she knows is the price 
 of her deeds, have dramatic force that is indescribable. 
 Some suggestion of the name of his characters may 
 have been found by Rossetti in the marvellously fine 
 poem of Sydney Dobell, one stanza of which is 
 
 " She makes her immemorial moan, 
 
 She feeds the shadowy kine. 
 Oh Keith of Ravelstone, 
 The sorrows of thy line ! " 
 
 In every other respect the poem is original in inception 
 and execution, nor can this adoption of a fairly familiar 
 name be held in the slightest degree to impair its
 
 112 LIFE OF 
 
 originality. In sombre mystic beauty and passion, in 
 the use of the supernatural, and in that most eminent of 
 poetic gifts, the extorting from inanimate things an en- 
 forced sympathy with, and response to, human aspiration 
 and suffering, or even, as it almost seems, a stake in 
 human destiny, " Sisti r Helen " stands alone among 
 contemporary work. We have to go back to the power- 
 ful and unblessed imagination of Webster to find anything 
 equally bold, original, and tremendous. 
 
 To the same class of composition belong two other 
 poems in the first collection, " Troy Town " and " Eden 
 Bower." Both are much later works than " Sister 
 Helen," having been composed shortly before the pub- 
 lication of the volume, and with a view to their appear- 
 ance in it. There seems something incongruous in 
 assigning to a story such as " Helen of Troy " what may 
 perhaps be called a Gothic setting. Justification can be 
 found in the writing of previous poets who have adapted 
 classical legends to the music of their day, or that of 
 their choice. Rossetti, however, was little given to draw 
 precedents from the works of others. It is interesting, 
 accordingly, to be told by Mr. Hall Caine that, in his 
 later years, Rossetti thought less of this poem than he 
 did upon its appearance. The construction is happy, 
 the central line ringing its changes upon the phases of 
 " the heart's desire." The latter portion of the burden 
 
 " O Troy's down, 
 Tall Troy's on fire " 
 
 is neither very musical nor very significant. Neither
 
 ROSSETTJ. 113 
 
 Venus nor her suppliant has any very distinct individu- 
 ality. Perhaps the finest part in it is that in which the 
 effect of Cupid's shaft is seen, and Paris 
 
 " Turned upon his bed, and said, 
 Dead at heart with the heart's desire, 
 ' O, to clasp her golden head." " 
 
 In his best workmanship, however, Rossetti guards against 
 the recurrence of such sounds as " bed," " said," and 
 " dead," which occur practically within half a line. 
 
 In "Eden Bower" what was most mystical in Rossetti's 
 mind was called into play, and was applied to a difficult 
 subject. That the legend of Lilith, according to Rab- 
 binical mythology, the first wife of Adam, a species of 
 witch, whom Goethe introduces into " Faust," and who, 
 in spectral shape, is still held to haunt the air, appealed 
 strongly to him, is shown by the fact that he painted 
 Lady Lilith once in oil, and often in water-colour or other 
 medium. A powerful study of snake-like seduction, and 
 witchery, and of burning and implacable hatred is afforded. 
 The picture of Lilith in the opening stanza 
 
 " Not a drop of her blood was human, 
 But she was made like a soft, sweet woman " 
 
 explains at once the weirdness of the conception and its 
 want of human sympathy. The period during which a 
 subject such as this had attraction for Rossetti was not 
 long, and it is fortunate for his fame that it was not. 
 Monstrous embraces and passion semi-animal, semi- 
 
 8
 
 114 LIFE OF ROSSETTL 
 
 diabolic are not easily rendered conceivable or attractive. 
 For one person who reads "Eden Bower "and "Troy 
 Town," a score study the "House of Life," or dwell 
 upon " A Last Confession," and " Jenny."
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " A LAST CONFESSION " is the most dramatic 
 J.\. poem Rossetti has written. Without resem- 
 bling any individual work of Mr. Browning, .it 
 seems due to the inspiration of that writer. So 
 essentially original is Rossetti, a trace of imitation, 
 conscious or unconscious, is scarcely to be found. Keen 
 admiration and close study of a man's work beget, how- 
 ever, a species of rivalry, and " A Last Confession " 
 appears to have been written under some such influence. 
 Like many of the poems recently described, it is a story 
 of vengeance. The passion, however, that is displayed 
 is human and masculine, and there is no element of 
 diablerie such as burns lurid in Sister Helen, and creates 
 in Lilith a shuddering revolt. The Italian character of 
 the hero, and of the background of the story, renders 
 the avowal of murder on the part of the hero conceivable. 
 A man, for his loyalty to his country a wanderer and an 
 outcast, has learnt to love the girl whom he has adopted. 
 To the priest, when dying, he tells the story of her 
 adoption, of his growing love, of her responsive affection, 
 the change to coldness that comes over her, the fear 
 of her future degradation, and the sudden assassination.
 
 118 LIFE OF 
 
 Fragmentarily and inconsecutively the events are narrated 
 by one whose dying hours are haunted by the vision of 
 his victim, now fair and tender and trusting, now un- 
 winding from her side the thick dark hair, wet with her 
 blood, and smiling on him as she essays to draw from 
 her side the dagger he has planted there. Psychological 
 study, keener than Rossetti often affects, marks the pro- 
 gress of the narrative, and the shuddering avoidance 
 by the narrator of all mention of the murder, even 
 when the point is reached at which a description 
 of the event seems imperative, is admirable. Con- 
 summate art is shown, moreover, in the recurrent 
 waves of interruption, and in the species of at- 
 tempted vindication when the final spur to action is 
 said to have been the recognition of the resemblance 
 between the laugh of the murdered girl and that of the 
 " brown-shouldered harlot," to whose coarse, empty 
 mirth he had listened in the fair. Lovely touches are 
 afforded when he describes the sudden pity that smote 
 him when he thought that the child, appealing to him, 
 had been left by her parents to God's chance 
 
 " Because of the great famine, rather than 
 To watch her growing thin between their knees. 
 With that, God look my mother's voice and spoke, 
 And sights and sounds came back, and things long since, 
 And all my childhood found me on the hills, " 
 
 It is perhaps natural that the soul of the painter should 
 speak through the mouth of his hero. The portrait of 
 the heroine is, unlikely to have been given by one, what- 
 ever his opportunities of seeing early art, who had not
 
 ROSSETTI. 117 
 
 undergone Rossetti's training in the worship of special 
 forms of beauty. There is at least more of Rosselti 
 than of any hunted Italian patriot in the description of 
 
 "a mouth 
 
 Made to bring death to life the under lip 
 Sucked in, as if it strove to kiss itself. 
 Her face was ever pale, as when one stoops 
 Over wan water ; and the dark crisped hair 
 And the hair's shadow made it paler still: 
 Deep-serried locks, the dimness of the cloud, 
 Where the moon's gaze is set in eddying gloom. 
 Her body bore her neck as the tree's stem 
 Bears the top branch ; and as the branch sustains 
 The flower of the year's pride, her high neck bore 
 That face, made wonderful with night and day. 
 * * * * 
 
 Her great eyes, 
 
 That sometimes turned half dizzily beneath 
 The passionate lids, as faint, when she would speak, 
 Had also in them hidden springs of mirth, 
 Which, under the dark lashes evermore 
 Shook to her laugh, as when a bird flies low 
 Between the water and the willow-leaves, 
 And the shade quivers till he wins the light." 
 
 The language of passion is often poetical. In this 
 case the illustrations and the perceptions are scarcely 
 noticeable as those of any man except Rossetti himself, or 
 an associate in the P.R.B. In one passage, indeed, of 
 this poem the mystical turn of Rossetti, in his earliest 
 poems, asserts itself. This is the description of the 
 dream of the garden of God, which visited the murderer 
 on the eve of the confession. The women walking in 
 the garden are, as he says, known to him from their
 
 118 LIFE OF 
 
 painted images in the church. The account, however, 
 how " the sun flared a spent taper," and the picture of 
 the blessed maidens who 
 
 " Threw their tresses back, 
 
 And smote their palms, and all laughed up at once, 
 For the strong, heavenly joy they had in them 
 To hear God bless the world" 
 
 are conceived in the very spirit of "The Blessed Damozcl." 
 With " A Last Confession " it is natural, if only for 
 the sake of contrast, to associate "Jenny." The first 
 draft of the later poem belongs probably to a period 
 so early at least as 1853, when Rossetti began the picture 
 of Found, the resemblance of which to it in subject has 
 naturally been pointed out. Its form, as it at present 
 exists, was assigned it at a much later date. Together 
 with certain of the sonnets belonging to the " House of 
 Life," " Jenny " has aroused some opposition. It has, 
 however, found many strenuous defenders. The subject, 
 especially the personal aspects of the relationship 
 pourtrayed, is calculated to wound certain suscepti- 
 bilities and violate the precepts of English society, which, 
 whether to its praise or blame, has always been more 
 squeamish concerning names than things. It is futile 
 to point out that in France the reticences of this poem 
 would be regarded as more remarkable than its avowals. 
 Between the literatures of France and England there is 
 a gap not yet at least to be bridged. In defence of 
 "Jenny," it is to be urged that there is no violation of 
 sanctity, as well as no picture of evil. All that can be 
 brought against it is that it presents, with some few, slight
 
 ROSSETTI. 119 
 
 touches of realism, scenes that occur nightly whenever 
 civilized or half-civilized masses are drawn together, that 
 it stops short of any form of passion or vicious pro- 
 ceeding, and that it furnishes material for a series of 
 reflections upon the conditions of modern society, 
 and is filled with a manly pity for feminine weakness. 
 The defence of the subject it is needless to undertake. 
 The poem itself is perhaps the most essentially human 
 in the volume. The banter, which in its course the 
 author chides himself for directing against the heroine, 
 is, in fact, directed against human nature, and the poet 
 accepts a full share in the amount of condemnation 
 involved. So long as the world and humanity remain 
 what they are, men will indulge in speculations such 
 as Rossetti herein puts forth. The execution mean- 
 while is equal to the level of Rossetti's best work, 
 and has a species of humour and tenderness more 
 familiar in his spoken words and in his correspon- 
 dence than in his printed writings. A book written for 
 universal perusal is different from a poem which appeals 
 to the cultivated alone. When then the theme of a poem 
 has to be indicated rather than shown, it is difficult to 
 quote a passage even. Here are, however, a few lines 
 which have the spirit of Hood, with a grace and refine- 
 ment beyond the reach of Hood, true poet though he 
 was 
 
 " For sometimes, were the truth confess'd, 
 You're thankful for a little rest, 
 Glad from the crush to rest within, 
 From the heart sickness and the din, 
 Where Envy's voice at Virtue's pitch 
 Mocks you because your gown is rich,
 
 120 LIFE OF 
 
 And from the pale girl's dumb rebuke, 
 Whose ill-clad grace and toil-worn look 
 Proclaim the strength that keeps her weak." 
 
 One phrase illustrative of the moral of the poem, which 
 is conveyed in Othello's memorable words, "O, the 
 pity of it ! " is quite Divine. It is that in which, likening 
 Jenny to a rose shut in a book, he says 
 
 " Yet still it keeps such faded show 
 Of when 'twas gathered long ago, 
 That the crushed petals' lovely grain, 
 The sweetness of the sanguine stain, 
 Seen of a woman's eyes, must make 
 Her pitiful heart, so prone to ache, 
 Love roses better j or its sake." 
 
 " Stratton Water " is a ballad thoroughly different in 
 type from those previously mentioned. It has no burden, 
 and is, in fact, a direct imitation of the style of the old 
 ballads of the borders, some of the na'ive humour of 
 which, as well as the style of treatment, is caught 
 Unlike almost any other long poem of Rossetti's, it has 
 a happy termination 
 
 " Now make the white bed warm and soft, 
 
 And greet the merry morn ; 
 The night the mother should have died, 
 The young son shall be born." 
 
 Some importance is attached to " Dante at Verona," 
 since Rossetti selected it to give a title to his promised 
 volume, and as the earliest in date of the important 
 poems, it heads the Collected Edition of Rossetti's 
 works. It is moreover a species of complement to his
 
 ROS SETTS. 121 
 
 translations from the Italian, and an essential portion 
 of the tribute of reverence and affection which the 
 family paid to the great poet of medievalism. The 
 touching story of Dante's exile, and of the shelter afforded 
 him at the Court of Can Grande della Scala, is sym- 
 pathetically told, and the poem, though somewhat of 
 the nature of a scholastic exercise, is sustainedly elevated 
 in thought and diction. It is a little formal, however, 
 and in too heroic a strain, as when it presents the 
 attitude of Dante to the Jester in his host's house as 
 that of loathing. 
 
 With " The Burden of Nineveh" it is helpful, in a sense, 
 to compare the fine poem of Mr. Bell Scott, " The Sphinx, 
 considered as the Symbol of Religious Mystery," which 
 probably belongs to a period not widely different. Both 
 poems contrast, as is natural, the present time with that 
 of which the object addressed in Mr. Scott's case, "The 
 Sphinx ; " in Rossetti's, a winged bull from Nineveh in 
 the British Museum is representative. " Across the 
 centuries " Mr. Scott hears " the clang of Coptic ham- 
 mers " round " the limbs half freed," or watches, in later 
 years the Cenobite, as he " hurries half naked by " 
 striking the idol " with his crutch and palsied hand." 
 Before this sublime antiquity the interests of the present 
 seem but fool's play, and the modern generation 
 shrinks 
 
 " Into small grasshoppers or clamouring storks, 
 That build frail nests on roofs of kingless towns." 
 
 Not wholly dissimilar is the strain in "The Burden of 
 Nineveh." From the time when, within the shadow of
 
 122 LIFE OF 
 
 the great winged bull, Sennacherib knelt, and Semiramis 
 brought, in offering, incense and zones of gold, to that 
 last year, when to another God the Christian knelt and 
 prayed, Rossetti passes. His reflections, have, however, 
 a quaint, half-serious humour, characteristic of Rossetti, 
 who pictures the files of school children learning to view 
 the idol " as a fact, connected with a zealous tract," and 
 anticipates some future day in which possibly the beast 
 may be borne away by some coming race, " a relic of 
 London not of Nineveh," and may even, by its presence, 
 give rise to doubt as to whether Londoners walked in 
 "Christ's lowly ways," or bowed "unto the god of 
 Nineveh." A rather fantastic notion is perhaps this, but 
 such commended themselves to Rossetti. The other 
 miscellaneous poems belonging to this first volume may, 
 with the exception of "The Stream's Secret," be dis- 
 missed. In "The Stream's Secret" Rossetti is once 
 more at his best. ' That worship of collective woman- 
 hood which informs his poetry is here, as in other cases, 
 focussed in an imaginary individual, to his love for whom 
 he strives to make Nature respond. It is pleasant to learn, 
 on the authority of Mr. Sharp, that the stream from 
 which the poet strives to wrest the secret of love is the 
 Penwhapple in Ayrshire, which runs through the grounds 
 of Penkill Castle, the residence of his friend, Miss A. 
 Boyd. To the same authority we owe the knowledge 
 that the poem was written in 1869. "The Stream's 
 Secret " is elaborated with signal care ; its music has 
 something of the waters' flow, and its cadences are more 
 caressing and dream-like than those of any other poem 
 of Rossetti it might almost be said of any poem of the
 
 ROSSETTI. 123 
 
 epoch. In the first stanza the recurrence of words is 
 eminently poetical and suggestive : 
 
 "What thing unto mine ear 
 Wouldst thou convey, what secret thing, 
 O wandering water, ever whispering ? 
 
 Surely thy speech shall be of her. 
 Thou water, O thou whispering wanderer, 
 What message dost thou bring ? " 
 
 The employment of alliteration is also singularly judi- 
 cious. It has not the 'antithetical happiness of Mr. 
 Swinburne's " Lisp of leaves and ripple of rain," or of 
 Milton's "Most musical, most melancholy," but it is the 
 more effective from being at first scarcely observed. The 
 notion that the verse is alliterative scarcely presents itself. 
 Inspection shows, however, that no less than ten words 
 in the stanza begin with w. How successfully the rhymes 
 are used is at once apparent, the whole possessing a slow 
 broken harmony, the effect of which is inexpressibly 
 lulling. The same gifts are noticeable throughout the 
 entire poem, which, while it possesses no such glowing 
 hues as some of its predecessors, has ineffable delicacy 
 of colour as of form. In this poem, as in certain of the 
 sonnets, Rossetti paints with a warmth of colour that 
 incurred some subsequent censure. In the following 
 exquisite picture even there is a frankness of revelation 
 that is not common in poetry : 
 
 " Beneath her sheltering hair, 
 In the warm silence near her breast, 
 Our kisses and our sobs shall sink to rest ; 
 
 As in some still trance made aware 
 That day and night have wrought to fulness there, 
 And Love has built our nest."
 
 124 LIFE Of 
 
 So delicate and fragrant is the whole that we should no 
 more think of censuring it than of condemning the 
 divinely hardy passages in " Cymbeline," containing per- 
 haps the highest tribute to purity ever written, in which 
 lachimo stealing into the room in which Imogen is 
 sleeping, declares, in what sounds like a lover's rapture 
 
 " Tis her breathing that 
 Perfumes the chamber there." 
 
 and notes 
 
 " On her left breast 
 
 A mole, cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops 
 I' the bottom of a cowslip." 
 
 From first to last " The Stream's Secret " is a gem. 
 
 At this period, so far as regards his poetry at least, 
 Rossetti seemed almost to have broken away from the 
 religious ecstasy that colours his early work, and even 
 to have quitted for a while the mysticism that exercised 
 a more abiding influence. For perfection of workman- 
 ship the Laureate might be proud to claim this poem, 
 which for the rest breathes a spirit not altogether unlike 
 his own. 
 
 As a translator Rossetti has had few equals. An 
 effective translation from a poet can only be accom- 
 plished by an equal. Rossetti was more than the equal 
 of Villon, the inspired poet of the bordel and the gallows, 
 and his translation of the famous " Ballade dcs Dames 
 de temps jadis" is a marvellous instance of conquest over 
 difficulties. It is perhaps impossible to find in English 
 any absolute equivalent to the burden of the ballad " Ou 
 sont les neiges d'antan ? " But " Where are the snows
 
 ROSSETTI. 125 
 
 of yester-year ? " is a very bold and poetic attempt to 
 grapple with the difficulty. Villon's " Lay ou Rondeau 
 sur la Mort," and the " Ballade de Villon a la requeste 
 de sa Mere pour prier Notre-Dame" are no less well 
 rendered. " John of Tours," which is described as old 
 French, is especially touching, and " My Father's Gere," 
 from a chanson which used to be sung by Mrs. Burne 
 Jones, is supremely delicate and graceful. One or two 
 translations from the Italian, in one case from Rossetti 
 himself, are included in the second volume, and two 
 others executed about the beginning of Rossetti's poetic 
 effort say 1847-8 appeared in The Athenaum. 
 
 There remain the sonnets. In writing these Rossetti 
 took extreme pleasure, and his success was in proportion 
 to his zeal. His graver thoughts seemed to flow naturally 
 into sonnet form, as his lighter ideas concerning persons 
 and things took the shape of nonsense verses, of which 
 he composed an indefinite number, many of them ex- 
 tremely whimsical. Upon the sonnet meanwhile he 
 lavished the wealth of his imagination and the treasures 
 of his research. Whatever words most noble, graceful, 
 picturesque, or significant he could, by thought and 
 research, add to his vocabulary were reserved for his 
 sonnets. These he polished and recast with the same 
 earnestness that he devoted to his pictures, and his 
 youthful work was not seldom entirely re-shapen. The 
 principle on which he wrote was that in each sonnet a 
 thought should be crystalized and wrought into a gem. 
 In Tiis workmanship he does not rigidly adhere to one 
 form of construction, though most of his best sonnets accept 
 what must be considered the regular form, the opening
 
 126 LIFE OF 
 
 octave with its rhymes doubled, and the closing sestett with 
 them alternate. By this rule he was not, however, closely 
 bound, and many sonnets may be advanced in which the 
 two last lines of the sestett consist of a rhymed couplet. 
 Reserving until the volume of 1881 is considered "The 
 House of Life," which therein first saw the light in its 
 complete form, it is easy from the remaining sonnets to 
 gain an idea of Rossetti's method and aim. In one 
 respect the sonnet to the memory of his father, entitled 
 "Dantis Tenebrse," comes short of the ideal Rossetti 
 subsequently framed. The portion of the thought con- 
 stituting the octave is not completed within that limit, 
 but overlaps the sestett. It may almost be said, more- 
 over, that the language here is less elaborate, and the music 
 less fervent than in other sonnets of the same period. 
 For such shortcoming, explicable enough in itself, if 
 shortcoming it be, there is full compensation in the 
 mystical significance with which it is charged, and in the 
 biographical revelation it affords. 
 
 " And didst thou know indeed, when at the font, 
 Together with my name thou gav'st me his, 
 That also on thy son must Beatrice 
 Decline her eyes according to her wont, 
 Accepting me to be of those that haunt 
 The vale of magical dark mysteries 
 Where to the hills her poet's foot-track lies, 
 And wisdom's living fountain to his chaunt 
 Trembles in music ? This is that steep land 
 Where he that holds his journey stands at gaze 
 
 Tow'rd sunset, when the clouds like a new height 
 Seem piled to climb. These things I understand ; 
 For here, where day still soothes my lifted face, 
 
 On thy bowed head, my father, fell the night,"
 
 ROSSETTI. 127 
 
 In his sonnets, as in his pictures, Rossetti is indeed of 
 those that " haunt the vale of magical dark mysteries." 
 Not seldom the words he chooses are ennobled by the 
 use to which he forces them ; the observation of Nature 
 that is supplied is of her remote suggestion and latent 
 significance ; and things are charged with an amount of 
 symbolism, the full influence of which the poetic nature 
 alone can grasp. So deeply impressed with the sym- 
 bolism of most things in Nature was indeed Rossetti that 
 he incurred, as is known, the charge of coarse realism. 
 To his mind sanctities were inherent in human relations, 
 and the notion of rinding uncleanness in homage, even 
 though physical, was scarcely to be conceived. 
 
 As is the case with most imaginative natures, Rossetti's 
 mind was filled with a vague unrest. What, in letters 
 and poems, he chose to call indolence in himself, was 
 frequently aspiration after unattainable closeness of re- 
 lation with beauty. At the end of his sonnet on "Autumn 
 Idleness " this species of yearning is fully illustrated 
 
 " While I still lead my shadow o'er the grass, 
 
 Nor know, for longing, that which I should do." 
 
 The joy that Wordsworth felt in Nature does not come 
 near Rossetti. Like Jaques he "chews the cud of sweet 
 and bitter fancy," but the fancy is more frequently bitter. 
 The trees whisper to him " what he feared to know." 
 In the case where he is moved by music, it only 
 
 " In regenerate rapture turns my face 
 Upon the devious coverts of dismay."
 
 128 LIFE OF 
 
 His fancy even, a. gift which, though rarely exercised, 
 he possessed in an eminent degree, is more often gro- 
 tesque and, so to speak, boding, than happy. Once in 
 the sonnets of the first volume, he has a conception 
 equally graceful and quaint when he sees the deer " dap- 
 pled white and dun " grazing from " hillock eaves," and 
 holds it is 
 
 " As if, being foresters of old, the sun 
 Had marked them with the shade of forest leaves." 
 
 His most reckless indulgence in fancy is in the remark- 
 able sonnet "A Match with the Moon," in which, walking 
 merrily, he dogs " the flying moon with similes," and 
 finds her now " like a wisp " in ponds, now " caught in 
 tree-tops like a kite," and anon "in a globe of film all 
 vapourish," swimming " full-face like a silly silver fish," 
 until, when the road turns and she gets behind him, she 
 sends his " wizened shadow craning round " at him. In 
 spite of the pleasant farewell when she kisses him for 
 good-night, the whole effect is weird, elfish, and uncanny. 
 " On Refusal of Aid between Nations " is striking in the 
 political lesson it reads. Anything rather than a politi- 
 cian was Rossetti, whose views upon things political and 
 theological, though influenced by those of his brother, of 
 Mr. Ford Madox Brown, and other associates, were less 
 advanced than theirs. In the separation of interests, the 
 incapacity to combine to resist oppression or wrong, and 
 the indifference of the non-stricken to the sufferings of 
 the stricken he felt 
 
 " We know 
 That the earth falls asunder, being old."
 
 ROSSETTI. 129 
 
 This view was strongly held. Here lies its chief interest. 
 Its importance or significance relating to other influences 
 need not be discussed. 
 
 The majority of the sonnets in the volume of 1870 not 
 belonging to the "House of Life " are for pictures, of 
 which ten are for works of his own. These can with 
 difficulty be fully comprehended except by the light of 
 the pictures themselves. The most human of these is 
 that of Mary Magdalene at the door of Simon the 
 Pharisee, in which, however, the zeal, warmth, mysticism, 
 and personality of the Roman Catholicism to which 
 Rossetti, while remote from it in conviction, was close in 
 sympathy and imagination, are strongly illustrated. This 
 is especially the case in the closing lines. In the drawing, 
 Mary, seeking to break from a festal procession and enter 
 a house in which is Christ, is held back by her lover. 
 The last six lines are 
 
 " Oh, loose me ! See'st thou not my Bridegroom's face 
 That draws me to Him ? For His feet my kiss, 
 
 My hair, my tears, He craves to-day ; and oh ! 
 What words can tell what other day and place 
 
 Shall see me clasp those blood-stained feet of His ? 
 He needs me, calls me, loves me ; let me go." 
 
 The contrast between the monosyllabic intensity of this 
 and the sustained amplitude of treatment, and magnifi- 
 cence of phrase ordinarily used, is very striking. In the 
 above lines there are only two words, both compound, one 
 wholly Saxon, " Bridegroom " and a second Saxon in 
 part, "blood-stained," that attain to more than one 
 syllable. A lesson on Rossetti's workmanship is afforded 
 
 9
 
 130 LIFE OF KOSSETTf. 
 
 by a comparison of this sonnet with that on Pandora, in 
 which, dealing in no very classical spirit with a classical 
 subject, he employs such phrases as the " Olympian 
 Consistory " and " Powers of the impassioned hours pro- 
 hibited."
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DURING the years over which the composition 
 of the poems included in the first collection ex- 
 tended, Rossetti's reputation as a painter had been estab- 
 lished. On his progress in art it is superfluous to dwell . 
 So linked and interwoven are, however, the two forms 
 of accomplishment in Rossetti that they are mutually 
 helpful and explanatory. Not easy is it to divorce one 
 from the other. Apart from the direct influence of such 
 long developed study as that of Dante, the picture as was 
 natural continually begot the poem and the poem the 
 picture. With the choice of two media, in the use of 
 both of which he was equally proficient, Rossetti made 
 naturally frequent experiments as to which was the 
 better adapted to his powers. To this moment the 
 question remains unanswered. Unlike some poets, how- 
 ever, who have employed verse for the purpose of 
 illustrating problems, polemical and metaphysical, with 
 the result that they are regarded as poets among phi- 
 losophers and as philosophers among poets, Rossetti 
 lias been received with enthusiasm in both capacities 
 by both poets and painters. It may, indeed, be 
 said that he is a painter's painter, and a poet's poet.
 
 132 LIFE OF 
 
 Difficult as was, through deficiency of early training, 
 the task of draughtsmanship, he could, when the 
 occasion vindicated or exacted the effort, draw with 
 surprising accuracy and vigour. As a colourist his 
 reputation is unsurpassed, and the warmth and splendour 
 of his workmanship have won general recognition. More 
 important, however, than any technical skill was the 
 imaginative and creative power displayed in his paintings, 
 the smallest and obscurest of which, if such terms can 
 be applied to one who gave forth no work that was not 
 carefully planned, are informed with soul, while the 
 greatest soar beyond reach of easy comparison. 
 
 Through his entire career his Dante worship asserts 
 itself. In those famous water-colours with which, for the 
 most part, his life was occupied between his gradual 
 estrangement from what was narrowest in Pre-Raphaelit- 
 ism and the establishment of his reputation, productions 
 which constitute in some respects his most interesting 
 works, one of the earliest was Giotto painting Dante's 
 Portrait a thoughtful, beautiful, and admirably finished 
 design. Earlier even than this, in 1849 and 1850, he had 
 drawn in pen and ink the triptych, II Saluto di Beatrice, 
 the execution of subjects from which subsequently occu- 
 pied him. In 1852 he painted in water-colours the 
 design for the left division with the motto " Guardarmi 
 ben ; ben son, ben son Beatrice." This subject shows the 
 meeting in Eden of Dante with Beatrice, who, with veil 
 backwards drawn, gazes sustainedly at the poet. A replica 
 of this design was executed in 1864. To an early period 
 belongs the execution of a design from the " Vita Nuova," 
 representing Dante surprised by visitors on the anniver-
 
 ROSSETTT. 1C8 
 
 sary of the death of Beatrice, and Beatrice denying Dante 
 her salutation. Francesca da Rimini is ascribed to 1854. 
 Shortly afterwards was painted in water-colours Dante's 
 Dream at the time of the Death of Beatrice, also taken 
 from the "Vita Nuova," reproduced in oil in 1870; and 
 noteworthy in the reproduction, as the largest work which 
 the conditions of art and art-patronage allowed Rossetti 
 to paint. This picture, which some have held Rossetti's 
 masterpiece, and of which Sir Noel Paton, quoted by 
 Mr. Sharp, says : " Fifty years hence it will be named 
 among the half-dozen supreme pictures of the world," 
 was purchased in 1881 for 1500 guineas by the Corpora- 
 tion of Liverpool, and is now in the Walker Art Gallery 
 in that city. Beata Beatrix is a study in crayons, from 
 the " Vita Nuova," of which the result was a lovely oil 
 painting of the same name, subsequently (1863) executed 
 and purchased for the collection of Lord Mount Temple. 
 This is another of the painter's most masterly efforts. A 
 list indeed of the paintings illustrative of Dante and his in- 
 fluence would under such conditions as now exist become 
 a mere nomenclature. It is needless, accordingly, to do 
 more than mention the famous triptych of Paolo and 
 Francesca, the centre of which represents Dante, con- 
 ducted by Virgil through hell, passing the lovers ; while 
 the right compartment shows the famous kiss after which 
 they " read no more that day," and the left their penance, 
 the Madonna Pia, and the portraits of Dante. Of the 
 subjects of poems in the first volume which Rossetti 
 treated pictorially, Lilith, is that which for a short period 
 he most affected. This witch wife of Adam appealed 
 to Rossetti's imagination by her magical associations no
 
 184 LIFE OF 
 
 less than her physical loveliness. Between the com- 
 mencement of the fine oil painting of the beautiful, 
 sensual, and fateful face, and its completion, Rossetli 
 gave to the world no less than five separate works, so 
 entitled, on which, as indicative of the character of its 
 beauty, he bestowed the name Lady Lilith. Pandora, 
 Sibylla Palmifera, The Passover in the Holy Family, and 
 Venus Verticordia, are also fine pictures to which illus- 
 trative poems are supplied. 
 
 Among the works of importance between which and 
 the poems no direct connection can be traced, though in 
 these even it is continually possible to see the influences to 
 which the poems owe their genesis, a few stand promin- 
 ently forward. Foremost among these is the triptych for 
 Llandaff Cathedral. The various divisions of this are 
 curious as exemplifying the boldness with which at this 
 period and subsequently Rossetti threw off the trammels 
 of Pre-Raphaelitism, and while adhering to the mysticism, 
 the recurrent phases of which mark his entire life, hesi- 
 tated not to employ costume and effects which commended 
 themselves by picturesqueness and beauty rather than by 
 archaical correctness. In richness of colouring and in 
 impressiveness this work remains one of the most striking 
 oil paintings of Rossetti's middle period. The water- 
 colours include many subjects from the " Morte d' Arthur," 
 the influence of which is more perceptible in Rossetti's 
 painting than in his poems, not a few supplied by a per- 
 sistent study of Mr. Browning, and miscellaneous works 
 covering the whole of classic and romantic literature, with 
 some the subject of which is modern. In these what is 
 characteristic of Rossetti is seen at its best. Until a few
 
 ROSSETTL 135 
 
 years ago the mention of such v,*orks as Bccca Baciata, 
 Fair Rosamond, Lucrezia Borgia, The Blue Bower, The 
 Beloved, and a score of other works, finished in execution, 
 and displaying the most fervent imagination, would have 
 conveyed little to any except a privileged circle. Now, 
 however, the value and significance of these pictures, of 
 the crayon and pencil drawings, and of the book illus- 
 trations are generally known and enthusiastically acknow- 
 ledged. That pictures, for which in the period of struggle 
 the painter could not obtain the modest sum barely 
 sufficient to fill his mouth and supply materials for further 
 efforts, should be subsequently bought for more pounds 
 than the painter asked shillings, by the State or by private 
 purchasers, is in no sense an individual grievance. Hard- 
 ships and penury are at the outset the usual attendants of 
 an artistic career and constitute probably in the main a 
 stimulating and beneficial experience. Rossetti's griev- 
 ance was that during the best and most productive period 
 of his life, which unfortunately was not the latest, he was 
 unable to paint his subjects in the dimensions which 
 their importance demanded, and that works had to be 
 compressed within small canvases which for their due 
 development required greatly increased space. There 
 are few lovers of art, who, looking at such small and 
 exquisite works as many of those named, including a 
 whole series of Dante pictures, and again of pictures such 
 as the Hamlet and Ophelia, do not experience regret 
 that national encouragement of art seems impossible, and 
 that our collections are enriched, not by works which the 
 artist could paint for fame, but by those which he has 
 executed while " cabined, cribbed, confined " by circum-
 
 136 LIFE OF 
 
 stances over which he has no control. Comparatively 
 few words of complaint are to be found in the correspon- 
 dence of Rossetti, whose Italian blood failed to find the 
 relief in grumbling which northern natures experience; 
 but the necessity of painting what he can sell, rather than 
 what he wishes, is a source of constant heartache. In 
 his later years Rossetti obtained great prices for his 
 pictures. It is certain that the success of the volume 
 of 1870, by bringing him prominently before the public, 
 raised the monetary value of his paintings. Taking, 
 however, into account the quality of his paintings, and 
 the amount of conscientious labour he put into them, 
 the prices obtained in his palmiest days were far from 
 extravagant. For such works indeed of subsequent years 
 as the Bella Mano, the Astarte Syriaca, and the Veronica 
 Veronese it is difficult to conceive what price future days 
 will regard as excessive. 
 
 Of Rossetti's painting as a whole, into the details of 
 which it is impossible to enter, it may be said that its 
 qualities are those in which English art is, as a rule, most 
 deficient. Apart from the mastery of colour which is con- 
 ceded to Rossetti by those to whom the types of beauty 
 he affected appeal least directly, the qualities inherent 
 in his pictures, as in his poems, are dramatic force and 
 passion, mysticism, and symbolism, which differ from 
 those of early art in being voluptuous rather than ascetic. 
 Rossetti's reverence takes the nature of adoration. 
 There would have been little cause for surprise had he in 
 his early years fallen in with that retrograde movement 
 to ancient forms of faith which came as an attendant 
 upon a renaissance in art. This, however, he escaped,
 
 ROSSETTI. 187 
 
 and although to the end of his life he had reverence for 
 the mysteries of Christianity which, on many sides, ap- 
 pealed to him, and even showed a sort of half disposition 
 to turn to its teachings for comfort, he remained un- 
 attached to any set of theological views. In his work 
 generally, however, he was a worshipper ; and much of 
 transcendentalism and devotion characterizes his pictures 
 of womanhood. To the full extent he obeyed the maxim 
 " Quod Deus puricavit tu commune ne dixeris." Beauty 
 was with him the object of pursuit, and the mystery of 
 its significance is such that all effort after its attainment, 
 and all homage rendered it, were in his eyes essentially 
 reverential. It is by this light that his work, poetical and 
 pictorial has to be studied, and some of the difficulties 
 which have been felt with regard to portions of the 
 "House of Life," and to such subjects as Lilith, will dis- 
 appear. A few pictures of later date may find mention 
 here, and so dispose of this portion of his work. 
 
 In oil Water Willow is interesting as" a picture of the 
 houses at Kelmscott where Rossetti, with his friend Mr. 
 Morris passed some of his happiest days. Mariana, 
 executed in the same medium, can scarcely be regarded 
 as a study from Shakespeare, but is at least named after 
 the Mariana of Shakespeare. It is a miracle of colour. 
 Rossetti was at times tired of naming pictures. In a fit 
 of petulance he once declares, " I cannot be bothered to 
 stick names on things now; a head is a head.'' That 
 was, however, but a passing mood. As a rule, if no asso- 
 ciation inspired the painting of a head, such came during 
 the progress of the work, which was shaped to it. 
 Veronica Veronese and La Ghirlandata, two works in
 
 138 LIFE OF 
 
 oil, for Mr. Graham and Mr. Lcyland respectively, belong 
 to about the same epoch, and are fine specimens of his 
 powers. These were followed by The Roman Widow 
 or Dis Manibus, Fleurs de Marie, and Proserpina, a 
 subject of which Rossetti never wearied. The last- 
 named picture is ascociated with two sonnets one in 
 English, and a second in Italian. Meanwhile the 
 list of water-colour paintings, crayon drawings, pen- 
 and-ink sketches, bears witness as much to Rossetti's 
 industry as to his genius. Many of these which are in- 
 accessible to the general public, are visible in photo- 
 graphs. There are few of Rossetti's friends whose private 
 stores are not enriched by these reproductions, unsatis- 
 factory, it need scarcely be said, of some of his manifold 
 works. Through these, even, the beauty and poetry ot 
 conception and design, which are scarcely less marvel- 
 lous than the glory of the colouring, may at least be 
 traced. 
 
 The period which immediately followed the appearance 
 of the first volume, and its general acceptance by the 
 critical organs and by the public, was perhaps the most 
 serene, if not the happiest of Rossetti's life. A new 
 future, down the vistas of which he delighted to gaze, 
 opened out before him, and dreams of new work in 
 the same line at once shaped themselves in his brain. 
 Mr. Ellis, his publisher, a close personal friend, had pub- 
 lished the book on such terms as young authors seldom 
 obtain. With pardonable enthusiasm, accordingly, he 
 writes to Mr. Madox Brown, "Ellis tells me that he 
 has sold out my first thousand, all but two hundred, and 
 is going to press again at once, and so the two editions
 
 ROSSETTI. 139 
 
 at one quarter value of a twelve-shilling book, will bring 
 me three hundred pounds in a few weeks. Not so bad 
 for poetry, after all, even if the public find themselves 
 glutted with the second thousand." To Mr. James 
 Anderson Rose, a close and constant friend, he writes, 
 under the date May 19, 1870, concerning his book : " Its 
 success has surprised me. A second thousand called 
 for in less than ten days ! Poetry is likely to prove no 
 such bad trade in England before long." Referring to the 
 long ballad poem he contemplates, about a magic mirror 
 which is a crystal ball, soon to take shape and appear as 
 the noble poem known as " Rose Mary," he says, " I 
 wish one could live by writing poetry, I think I'd see 
 painting d d." It is possible that a few months later 
 when the storm burst, his views as to the relative plea- 
 santness of the two forms of art might have been found 
 to be changed. 
 
 Meanwhile, among the old friends whose faith in 
 Rossetti's poetry had been firm and fervent, there was of 
 course great rejoicing. New admirers, whom the magic 
 of intimacy with a man such as Rossetti converted at 
 once into friends, came around him, and he found him- 
 self the centre of a circle of worshippers, including many 
 of those who have subsequently given direction to modern 
 thought. No dissonant note was heard in a chorus of 
 enthusiasm which rose around him. Widely divergent 
 estimates were of course formed of the value of this latest 
 contribution to poetry, but censure was at least respectful 
 in tone, and the writer seemed to be 
 
 " Advanc'd above pale envy's threatening reach.'
 
 140 LJFP CF 
 
 At once like thunder from a clear sky, to use a hack- 
 neyed figure, came an attack before which the enchanted 
 fabric of complacency fell to the ground. In The Con- 
 temporary Revietv for October, 1871, appeared an 
 article signed Thomas Maitland, and headed " The 
 Fleshly School of Poetry." Into the origin of this 
 curiously unprovoked and unjustifiable attack it is futile 
 to inquire. Some of the minor minstrels with whom 
 Rossetti had been more or less closely associated, re- 
 sented the kind of recognition awarded the volume of 
 " Poems," all unlike that accorded their own works. In 
 the "fierce light" with which Rossetti's poems were 
 surrounded, the flickering recognition they had them- 
 selves received could scarcely be seen. With hinted 
 disapproval of the choice of subjects accordingly, they 
 began to disparage the work, and hold aloof from the 
 writer. 
 
 No motive of past friendship, however, reduced to feeble 
 muttering the censure of Mr. Thomas Maitland, a critic 
 who, speaking in terms of solemn arraignment, publicly 
 likened Rossetti to authors of whom it may be said, as Sir 
 Thomas Browne said of " sins heteroclitical," that there is 
 "a sin even in their histories," and that of them there 
 should remain no "register but that of hell." It was with 
 amazement that Rossetti heard that the indignant Scot, 
 who " came from a remote retreat in the Highlands to 
 this great centre of life which men have named London," 
 with a mission to rebuke vice and to expose iniquity by 
 linking the writings of Rossetti with the foulest outcome 
 of depravity and disease, was himself a poet long resident 
 in London. " What do you think ? " he asks his brother,
 
 ROSSETTI. 141 
 
 under the date October 17, 1871, " writes me that 
 
 Maitland is Buchanan." There is little temptation to drag 
 back to the light of day particulars, now buried, of a 
 feud which, though in some future edition of "The 
 Quarrels of Authors " it may move the mirth of our de- 
 scendants, will always leave an ill-taste in the mouth of 
 those who have the highest interests of literature at heart. 
 For his imputations Mr. Buchanan had the grace ulti- 
 mately to apologize. That the original offence was heigh- 
 tened by the publication in pamphlet form with his own 
 signature, and with justificatory additions of the article, 
 cannot perhaps be held. Rossetti himself wrote at some 
 length in protest against his assailant, and " The Stealthy 
 School of Criticism " an unwise step which gave rise to 
 much subsequent controversy. His friends, moreover, 
 came to his aid, and replied in terms of no measured in- 
 dignation, contempt, and wrath. Smarting under imputa- 
 tions of motive and lash of censure, Mr. Buchanan, after 
 the authorship was fixed upon him, was in no mood for 
 penitence. During some years accordingly the attitude 
 of hostility was maintained, and it was not until the 
 pother was over that sane reflection induced Mr. 
 Buchanan to dedicate a work to the subject of his 
 quondam assault, and in so doing to withdraw his arraign- 
 ment. One quotation alone from a letter of Rossetti 
 addressed to the writer of this sketch shall be given. It 
 is to this effect. " You may be sure that these monstrous 
 libels both the pamphlet and its press results cause me 
 great pain, but I have been in doubt what course to take 
 till this evening, when it seems clear to me that I have 
 the right to adopt a tone raising me above the question.
 
 142 LIFE OF 
 
 I have no part in insult or violence, and cannot be in- 
 volved because their atmosphere is raised around me." 
 This letter, unfortunately dated only " Monday night," is 
 thoroughly characteristic, and the resolution to have no 
 part in insult and violence, belongs to Rossetti's innermost 
 nature. In a letter from Mr. Buchanan, forming a por- 
 tion of his amends, which is given as a note in Mr. Hall 
 Caine's "Recollections of Rossetti," the writer speaks of 
 his pamphlet being "a mere drop of gall in an ocean of 
 eau sucree." That it could have had on Rossetti the 
 effect Mr. Hall Caine has described, he can scarcely 
 believe, and he adds, "Indeed, I think that no living 
 man had so little to complain of as Rossetti on the score 
 of criticism." Not very logical is all this, though it is 
 perhaps natural. The fact that a man has known nothing 
 but praise does not prepare him to receive censure with 
 equanimity. A succession of hot baths is not the best 
 preparation for a plunge into iced water, or even for the 
 receipt of a discharge of mud. Rossetti had obtained full 
 recognition. His nature was robust as well as tender, 
 and a hostile criticism w r ould no doubt have startled him, 
 and perhaps have acted as a healthy stimulus. There is, 
 however, a difference between literary criticism and moral 
 indictment. Weak spots may easily be found in the 
 literary armour of Rossetti, from whom some important 
 gifts are wanting. That a man, however, who had won 
 in art and letters the praise and sympathy of all whose 
 approval was worth having, whose bosom friends and 
 associates in youth had risen to the topmost place in 
 their professions, and who throughout his career had 
 found all that was earnest in art clinging to him with de-
 
 ROSSETTf. 143 
 
 votion, and appealing to him for counsel, should see 
 himself held up to infamy as a deliberate assailant of 
 virtue and corrupter of his age, was enough to shock and 
 to pain. Shocked and pained Rossetti accordingly was, 
 and his early demise is due indirectly to the disturbance 
 thus caused. In those long nights of insomnia which 
 grew increasingly frequent, he dwelt upon the cruelty 
 and the outrage to which he held he had been subject, 
 and the resort to chloral hydrate grew correspondingly 
 easier and more constant. 
 
 Exteriorly his life was peaceful and calm. At no time 
 wefeTrTe gatherings at Cheyne Walk more interesting or 
 more brilliant than they were in 1871 and the first half 
 of the following year, and never did the host, when he 
 substituted the role of speaker for that of listener, grow 
 more eloquent or more convincing. To a circle drawn 
 round the fire in the studio, while the greater portion of 
 the room remained in twilight, Rossetti would read with 
 his unequalled voice and delivery some passage from a 
 favourite author, and would make this an excuse to draw 
 from some young and but half-reluctant poet his latest 
 sonnet. The interest Rossetti took in these compositions 
 did not cease with the words of encouragement he was 
 ready to utter. If the poem commended itself to him, and 
 any flaw in its perfection seemed capable of removal, letter 
 after letter with suggestions for alteration would come to 
 the writer at his house. So many as half-a-dozen sepa- 
 rate letters have been written by him on consecutive days 
 for the purpose of dealing with a crux in a sonnet. How 
 rare is friendliness such as this, and how rarer is the 
 sacrifice of personal vanity, must be at once obvious.
 
 144 LIFE OF ROSSETT1. 
 
 No less evident is it how calculated was such interest to 
 light in the minds of those around him, the kind of de- 
 votion which attended Rossetti in life, and is still conse- 
 crated to his memory. The room, meanwhile, had other 
 guests besides its human occupants, and the tenant of a 
 sofa was likely enough to be startled by the appearance 
 from under a pillow of a wood-chuck, a wombat, or some 
 other animal equally outside the range of ordinary 
 sympathies.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 AFTER the pleasant enthusiasm begotten of the 
 success of his volume and the memory of his feud 
 grew more distant, Rossetti, partly for the purpose of 
 carrying out his conception of poems, partly on account of 
 ill-health and insomnia, was more frequently, and for 
 longer periods, absent from London. His migrations are 
 traceable in his correspondence with his mother and 
 other members of his family. In conjunction with Mr. 
 William Morris, he took The Manor House, Kelmscott, 
 Lechtede, in Gloucestershire, on the Upper Thames. 
 Apart from their personal interest, his letters from this 
 and other haunts are valuable, as showing the schemes 
 he formed of new work before he found respite from 
 suffering in collecting the materials for his second volume. 
 The idea of writing a play on the subject of Pompey 
 appears to have commended itself to him. He expresses 
 surprise that Shakespeare, who " seems to have given 
 more perfecting labour to Roman subjects than to any, 
 should have left this alone, and adds, "I suppose 
 most faultless by far of his plays is 'Julius Csesar, 
 Another scheme which commended itself to him was the 
 translation of the poems of Michael Angelo. Under the 
 
 ven 
 ly," 
 
 the 
 . >
 
 146 LIFE OF 
 
 date of January 10, 1873, he writes to his brother, " I am 
 writing to Ellis for the most recent exhaustive edition of 
 Michael Angelo's poems, &c. (if so there be). I mean to 
 translate and edit him at odd times." Five days later he 
 recurs to the subject, and says, " My own impression is 
 that Michael Angelo stands almost alone as a good Italian 
 poet after Dante, &c., unless we except Poliziano." 
 Schemes for pictures accompany those for poems. One 
 from the life of Michael Angelo strongly commends 
 itself to him, but appears not to have been begun. 
 "Condiva tells us," he says, "that he heard Michael 
 Angelo, when quite old, say that he regretted nothing 
 more than that when he visited Vittoria Colonna on her 
 death-bed he .did not kiss her face, but only her hand. 
 This interview would make a noble picture, and I think 
 1 ought to paint it as a companion subject to my Dante's 
 Dream. I suppose the omnivorous French School have 
 nobbled it somewhere, but I don't remember to have' 
 seen it done." This story forms the basis of the not very 
 successful sonnet, " Michael Angelo's Kiss, No. xciv." of 
 "The House of Life." Of the Proserpine on which he 
 is then engaged he says it will be his best picture. 
 Among unrealized schemes is a visit to be made, in 
 company with his brother William, to Italy, which was 
 strongly pressed upon him by his friends, and to which 
 in his letters he frequently recurs. In case of visiting 
 Vasto he is anxious to avoid any form of public recog- 
 nition, such as his father's son was sure to receive. The 
 best thing to be done, he holds, would be " to go to the 
 very quietest and most Italian places that could be heard 
 of," an aspiration that speaks of the nervous shrinking
 
 ROSSETTI. 147 
 
 from general intercourse which the use of narcotics was 
 causing, and must not be taken as indicative of his 
 general feeling with regard to Italy. 
 
 The first literary work upon which he now engaged 
 was the publication of the second edition of his trans- 
 lations from the Italian Poets. This work furnished him 
 with pleasant occupation. To his mother he says, " I 
 am meaning to dedicate to you the new edition of my 
 Italian Poets. The first was dedicated to poor Lizzy, and I 
 had some thought of retaining the dedication with date, 
 but this seeming perhaps rather forced, I shall substitute 
 your dear name in the second edition." 
 
 Poetry, at this time, commended itself strongly to 
 him. Under the influence of his more lately found 
 friends, and especially of Mr. Theodore Watts, whose 
 services to him and to literature are beyond reach of 
 acknowledgment, he had resumed the composition of 
 sonnets. He seems at this time to have made closer 
 observations of Nature, and to have found pleasure in her 
 mysteries and beauties closer than had previously been 
 evidenced. His letters of this period, 1873, contain 
 passages of delightful description. Of a poem he sent 
 to The Athenceum he says, " It is one I wrote when first 
 I came here (Kelmscott), and embodies a habit of the 
 starlings, which quite amounts to a local phenomenon, 
 and is most beautiful and interesting daily, for months 
 together, in summer and autumn." This poem appears 
 in the second volume under the title of " Sunset Wings." 
 His descriptions are ordinarily those of a painter : " The 
 river growths have continued to develop one after the 
 other. The arrow-head rush puts forth eventually a most
 
 148 LIFE OF 
 
 lovely staff of blossom just like a little sceptre. The 
 way that the white blossom grows triple round the staff 
 is most lovely, and the whole might really be copied 
 exactly in gold for a sceptre. . . . The white lily in 
 the garden has grown to a perfect decorative cluster." 
 Some of his descriptions of the animals around him are 
 humorous. A comically fat and stolid Iceland pony, 
 that was only on two occasions seen to do anything but 
 eat in his private field, and on these occasions leaned 
 against a tree to meditate, moves his mirth. His 
 favourite subject is, however, a dog of the name of 
 " Dizzy," belonging to his companion and secretary, Mr. 
 George Hake, which like himself displays an untoward 
 propensity to growing fat. On one occasion an attempt 
 was made in the dog's interest to reduce him on a diet of 
 dog biscuits. He became gradually more and more de- 
 jected, until one morning he ate a stone instead, which, 
 reappearing on the hearth-rug, convinced his master that 
 he must not be reduced to despair. 
 
 The death of his old friend James Hannay brings out 
 a fine aspect of Rossetti's character which it is impos- 
 sible to ignore, but which none the less, after his death even, 
 there is some delicacy in approaching. A subscription 
 for the family, which had been left with no very brilliant 
 position, was begun, and to this Rossetti gladly con- 
 tributed. To Mr. Ford Madox Brown he writes to the 
 effect that he has no superfluous means, but he sup- 
 poses that it will not do him so much harm as it will do 
 the recipients good, and adds that he very much prefers 
 subscribing, say ;io, to the printed list, and giving the 
 rest privately to the family, so that he may not " swell it
 
 ROSSETTL 149 
 
 in the circular." The subscription is sent through his 
 brother, to whom he expresses his great desire to do 
 more, adding, " Of course, any help I could render would 
 be limited enough, but, at any rate, I have no family of 
 my own to provide for, and am therefore doubly bound 
 to do what I can for an old friend's children." 
 
 One more letter to his mother from Kelmscott, where 
 some gleams of happiness still broke upon him, places 
 the relationship between the pair in a golden light. It 
 is dated February 23, 1874. "I have often thought 
 of you since we last met always whenever my path in 
 the garden lies by the windows of that summer room at 
 which I used to see your dear beautiful old face last 
 summer. . . . To-day the little Morris girls collected 
 all the flowers we could find in the garden no very 
 choice gleaning and they were sent on to you, so per- 
 haps you have them ere this reaches you. I know they 
 will be better than nothing to your flower-loving heart" 
 
 A couple of years later, January 21, 1876, he pays 
 her a compliment such as a mother seldom receives from 
 a son of equal distinction. " What you say of Haydon 
 shows how clear and lucid your mind is at an advanced 
 age, and how well and incisively you can express your 
 conclusions. I assure you that your first inculcations on 
 many points are still the standard of criticism with me, 
 and that I am often conscious of being influenced 
 correctly by these early-imbibed and still valuable 
 impressions." 
 
 A passage from a letter to a friend shows Rossetti in 
 
 his most riotous mood of description : " got here 
 
 at last, after which he whirled us for three days in a
 
 160 LIFE OF 
 
 tornado of lies, and was off again, probably on his way 
 to the Walpurgis nacht. Three a.m. gave place to 5 a.m., 
 as bedtime before the house was clear of him, and 
 reputations fell thicker than the trees in the last great 
 gale." 
 
 Towards the end of 1876 his correspondence alters in 
 tone, the writer being more and more depressed. From 
 Broadlands, Romsey, the seat of Mr. Cowper-Temple 
 (afterwards Lord Mount-Temple), he writes to his mother: 
 "I must tell you that my bodily state is very suffering, and 
 that my nights are something of which it would be difficult 
 to convey to you an idea for utter unrest and frequent 
 severe pain." During his residence he supposes that at 
 least fifty or sixty visitors have " stayed and gone " with- 
 out his seeing one of them. Of his hostess he says, " You 
 would simply adore her Christ-like character." 
 
 Near this period he resumed his life at Cheyne Walk. 
 The old social conditions were, however, not realized. 
 Apart from other pernicious effects, chloral hydrate had 
 separated him from most of his friends, and converted 
 into a comparative recluse one of the most sociable of 
 men. A few chosen companions rallied around him, 
 and friends, at the head of whom stood Mr. Theodore 
 Watts, the closest of his associates, and most fervent 
 and valuable of allies, yielded him the constant com- 
 panionship which at this time became indispensable. 
 During nearly four years Rossetti scarcely, if ever, 
 quitted his own residence, such exercise as he took being 
 confined to the garden at the back of the house. Such 
 conditions were the worst conceivable for a man whose 
 illness had taken the outward shape of hypochondria,
 
 ROSSETTI. 151 
 
 and whom nothing, not even the negotiations for the sale 
 of his great picture, Dante's Dream, to the Corporation 
 of Liverpool, nor the preparation of his new volume of 
 poems, could rouse to continuous activity or permanent 
 interest in life. From Herne Bay, where he made, in 
 1877, a long stay, he writes to his mother declaring that 
 " absolute want of occupation is rotting my life away 
 hour by hour." To his sister Christina he also writes, 
 his letters, though brief, being very affectionate and very 
 sad in the revelations of change they afford. 
 
 In 1 88 1 the second volume of poems made its appear- 
 ance, under the title, " Ballads and Sonnets." In no 
 respect of value or interest does it yield to the earlier 
 volume, and in its possession of the completed series of 
 sonnets, entitled " The House of Life," a portion only of 
 which appeared in 1870, it establishes paramount claims 
 upon attention. " Rose Mary," the opening poem, is 
 regarded by many as its author's highest poetic accom- 
 plishment. It is, at least, a magnificent ballad, using, 
 with unrivalled effect, a mystical Eastern conception, and 
 charged with the subtlest and the most poetical signifi- 
 cance. Something like the description of the stone itself 
 is the language of the poem 
 
 " Rainbow-hued through a misty pall, 
 Like the middle light of the waterfall." 
 
 The idea is old of a magic crystal in which to the eyes of 
 pure maidenhood the action passing at a distant place 
 stands revealed. Such a conception belongs to the same 
 order of diablerie as the waxen image which furnishes the 
 idea of " Sister Helen." Reginald Scot, in " The Dis-
 
 152 LIFE OF 
 
 coverie of Witchcraft," refers to the fairy Sibylia, who can 
 be conjured into a crystal stone, and who is likely, unless 
 bound by solemn -adjuration, to work mischief. With his 
 marvellous power of quickening with spiritual meaning, 
 and intensifying with passion, the fantastic conceptions 
 which came to his hands, Rossetti has given for tenants 
 to the beryl stone which answers to the crystal sphere, 
 " Fire spirits of dread desire," whose mission it is to lure 
 to their destruction those whom sin has brought within 
 the range of their powers. Mysterious and fateful as 
 any dream of old mythologies are these unseen spirits, 
 of whom we know nothing except through their own half- 
 warning, half-jubilant chaunt ; and the limitation of the 
 exercise of their sorcery to those who have " let in defile- 
 ment" in no way diminishes their spectral terror. It 
 would be difficult to make more than Rossetti has made 
 of this subject. Rose Mary attends the coming of her 
 future lord. Her mother, who knows of his approach, and 
 of the perils with which he is menaced by the way, brings 
 once more to her the beryl stone, that the maiden's eyes 
 may, as before they have done, read where and what are 
 the dangers to be shunned. Alas ! Rose Mary is no longer 
 qualified to read aright. Her virgin zone has been un- 
 loosened, and the spirits of evil have power over her. By 
 the ruined weir on the river path she sees the glint of spears, 
 and the pennon of her lover's arch enemy, the Warden of 
 Holycleugh, while the upper path is clear from all ob- 
 stacle and danger. Sir James of Heronhaye comes, accord- 
 ingly, by the upper path, and is slain, the love sin between 
 him and Rose Mary being the cause of his death, and of 
 the triumph of the spirits of the beryl By her mislead-
 
 ROSSETTI. 153 
 
 ing vision, Rose Mary's secret has become known to 
 her mother. There is no time for chiding, and none for 
 escaping the calamity. What follows is not directly con- 
 nected with the legend of the beryl stone. Sorry, indeed, 
 should we be to lose it. Nothing in the first volume o 
 poems of Mr. Morris, with portions of which Rose Mary 
 has much in common, is finer than the description of the 
 appearance of the corpse when it is brought into the 
 chapel 
 
 " The fight for life found record yet 
 In the clenched lips and the teeth hard set ; 
 The wrath from the bent brow was not gone, 
 And stark in the eyes the hate still shone 
 Of that they last had looked upon. 
 
 The blazoned coat was rent on his breast 
 Where the golden field was goodliest ; 
 But the shivered sword, close-gripped, could tell 
 That the blood shed round him where he fell 
 Was not all his in the distant dell." 
 
 A new and startling interest is supplied in the discovery 
 by the mother of the dead man's falsehood, and the 
 picture of Rose Mary passing, by the secret path her feet 
 had not trodden before, to the altar, and her destruction 
 of the beryl, would supply a fine subject for a painting, 
 which Rossetti himself might have painted. The poem 
 is, in fact, nobly conceived throughout, and the execution, 
 though unequal, is consonant with the subject It is 
 better when the poet warms to his work than it is at the 
 outset. Some of the opening stanzas, notably the third
 
 154 LIFE OF 
 
 are weak. The elision necessary to bring the second of 
 the opening lines can scarcely be made 
 
 " Daughter, once more I bid you read, 
 But now let it be for your own need." 
 
 The compulsion of a rhyme by forcing the accent from 
 the penultimate to the last syllable, a grace when spar- 
 ingly employed, as in the lines 
 
 " The lady upheld the wondrous thing : 
 ' 111 Care ' (she said) ' with a fiend's-fairing," " 
 
 is employed too frequently, and in some cases with an 
 effect which is fantastic, rather than pleasing 
 
 " What glints there like a glance that flees ? 
 Nay, the flags are stirred in the breeze, 
 And the water's bright through the dart-rushes." 
 
 These inequalities of workmanship constitute, however, 
 but a small blemish in a work of marvellous power and of 
 sustained imagination. 
 
 "The White Ship" is one of the most dramatic of 
 Rossetti's ballads. The method of narration of the 
 calamity, in which the son and daughter of Henry I., 
 with three hundred souls, returning from France to 
 England, perish in mid channel, is happy, the calamity 
 being described by Berold the Butcher of Rouen, the 
 sole survivor of the wreck. The use of the burden, not 
 at the close or in the middle of each stanza, but thrice 
 only in the poem, is effective. Little in the method
 
 ROSSETTI. 155 
 
 belongs, according to Rossetti's intention, to the early 
 English ballad. The treatment is, indeed, in some 
 respects, French rather than English, but the entire 
 effect is fine, and the description of the death of Fitz- 
 Stephen, when he finds that the prince he sought to 
 save is lost, is thrilling and heroic. 
 
 It must add to the grief experienced at the premature 
 death of Rossetti to find that he was capable to the close 
 of writing a ballad such as " The King's Tragedy," with 
 which the list of his productions in this line of poetry 
 closes. That the character of James I. of Scotland, the 
 poet-king whose youth was spent as a prisoner in England, 
 and whose turbulent reign was one long effort to repress 
 the disorders of a kingdom in which violence and crime 
 had reigned unchecked, should appeal to Rossetti, was 
 natural. While taking, however, an historical basis for 
 the story, and adhering so far to the truth as to introduce 
 into his poem some stanzas from James's poem of " The 
 King's Quhair," Rossetti did not hesitate, for the purpose 
 of effect, to depart from strict historical accuracy, especi- 
 ally in regard to the circumstances under which the king, 
 by retiring to the Charterhouse he had erected at Perth, 
 facilitated the operations of his murderers. He naturally 
 retained the supernatural element, which no one who 
 knows his affinities for such subjects will be surprised 
 to find is the most effective portion of the poem, 
 and is, moreover, treated in the very spirit of the old 
 ballads. Less consonant with this ballad spirit is the 
 assigning the task of narration to Kate Barlass, or Cathe- 
 rine Douglas, the heroine of the murder, whose arm 
 thrust through the socket from which the bolt had been
 
 156 LIFE OF 
 
 withdrawn, is the means of temporarily arresting the 
 assassins. 
 
 The historical incidents, the interruption of the siege 
 of Roxbro' hold by the news of the disaffection of the 
 nobles, the rapid return of the king, the arrest of Sir 
 Robert Graeme, and the temporary repression of rebel- 
 lion, are told with spirit. With the start of the regal 
 cavalcade for Perth and the meeting with the crone, 
 whose mysterious predictions fail to turn the king from 
 his purpose, the poem rises into sublimity, and the execu- 
 tion from this point forward is such as Rossetti alone 
 could have afforded. Little in imaginative literature is 
 more noteworthy for weird power and appropriateness 
 than the message of the witch woman 
 
 " ' O king, thou art come at last ; 
 But thy wraith has haunted the Scottish Sea 
 To my sight for four years past. 
 
 ' Four years it is since first I met, 
 Twixt the Duchray and the Dhu, 
 
 A shape whose feet clung close in a shroud, 
 And that shape for thine I knew. 
 
 ' A year again, and on Inchkeith Isle 
 
 I saw thee pass in the breeze, 
 With the cerecloth risen above thy feet 
 
 And wound about thy knees. 
 
 ' And yet a year in the Links of Forth, 
 
 As a wanderer without rest, 
 Thou cam'st with both thine arms i' the shroud 
 
 That clung high up thy breast.
 
 ROSSETTI. 167 
 
 ' And in this hour I find thee here, 
 
 And well mine eyes may note 
 That the winding-sheet hath passed thy breast 
 
 And risen around thy throat. 
 
 ' And when I meet thee again, O king, 
 
 That of death hast such sore drouth, 
 Except thou turn again on this shore, 
 The winding sheet shall have moved once more 
 And covered thine eyes and mouth." 
 
 Supernatural intervention such as this is frequent in 
 ancient poetry and fiction, and is ordinarily futile. 
 Rossetti's employment of it is always prosperous. If 
 ever supernatural interference is justifiable, it is in a case 
 such as this, where through those misty highlands, in 
 which the traditions of wraith and spectre linger longest, 
 a gallant king is riding to his doom at the hands of 
 traitors. In striking contrast with the unpretentious 
 nature of the sibyl is the effect of her presence upon in- 
 animate nature. At the charms of the Lapland witches, 
 "the labouring moon eclipses." Nature, in awe, accords 
 to the spectral presence of the old woman the attention 
 the king refuses, and furnishes the poet with opportunity 
 for those descriptions of the wrath or affright of the earth 
 and heavens, in which he was most at home. The 
 woman, of course, appears once more when the curtain is 
 rising on the tragedy, and equally, of course, her warning 
 voice is once more heard and unheeded, though this time 
 it declares 
 
 " ' Last night at mid- watch, by Aberdour, 
 When the moon was dead in the skies, 
 O king, in a death-light of thine own 
 I saw thy shape arise.
 
 158 LIFE OF 
 
 * And in full season, as erst I said, 
 
 The doom had gained its growth j 
 And the shroud had risen above the neck 
 
 And covered thine eyes and mouth.' " 
 
 In the hands of small men supernatural machinery of 
 this description is a dangerous device ; in those of a 
 master of the craft its influence is irresistible. The effect 
 of this episode, for such, in a way, it is, in binding to- 
 gether the parts of a story the action of which is diffuse, 
 and in giving the whole tragic dignity and solemnity, 
 cannot be over-estimated. Without it the story would be 
 no more than a fairly spirited narrative ; with it it im- 
 presses us as do the sombre scenes in a great tragedy. 
 
 A few poems, thoughtful, descriptive, and meditative, 
 and a few sonnets make up, with the ballads mentioned, 
 and "The House of Life," the contents of Rossetti's 
 latest volume. Of these, "Sunset Wings," to which 
 previous reference has been made, is remarkable with "The 
 Wood Spurge," as the poems in which Rossetti's obser- 
 vation of Nature in her ordinary phenomena, and apart 
 from any mystic sympathy and suggestion, is closest. 
 The opening stanzas might almost have been written 
 by Wordsworth. Rossetti, who was no Wordsworthian, 
 would have been but moderately gratified by a criticism 
 of this sort. " The Cloud Confines " has a melody and 
 fervour almost Swinburnean, and occupies a high position- 
 among Rossetti's latest poems. Of the miscellaneous 
 sonnets, several are for pictures. " Untimely Lost" is a^ 
 noble tribute to the memory of Oliver Madox Brown, 
 whose untimely death Rossetti, in common with all his 
 friends, deplored. " Winter" is a peculiarly lovely sonnet,.
 
 ROSSETTI. 159 
 
 showing close and observant study of Nature. " Czar 
 Alexander the Second " is interesting as showing that 
 Rossetti, though the son of one who accepted exile for 
 the sake of freedom, was, within certain limitations, on 
 the side of order as against social revolt. Five sonnets 
 to poets Chatterton, Blake, Coleridge, Keats, and Shelley 
 prove who among English poets of the past were, with 
 Shakespeare, the objects of Rossetti's special admiration. 
 The volume bears the following dedication : " To Theo- 
 dore Watts, the friend whom my verse won for me, these 
 few more pages are affectionately inscribed."
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 BY a general consensus of opinion "The House of 
 Life " has been pronounced Rossetti's greatest 
 literary work. Strong objection has been taken to the 
 title, which, unless, as has been suggested, the word 
 House is used in the sense attached to it by the 
 astrologers, is indeed in some respects ambitious and 
 misleading. No such justification as warranted Balzac in 
 assigning his own works, the title appalling and presump- 
 tuous in any other case, of " La Come'die Humaine," is in 
 this instance to be found. It is necessary, however, to take 
 into account the idiosyncrasy of the man. " The House 
 of Life " is, as has been well said, The House of Love. 
 The part, however, which love plays in life was in 
 Rossetti's opinion so much higher than it is in general 
 estimation, that it is doubtful if the objection had been 
 made to him while living whether he would have attached 
 much importance to it. Rossetti was not slack in regard 
 to his interests. These were, however, a part of the neces- 
 sities of existence, and no more concerned the soul's life 
 than the discharge of normal functions. For politics he 
 cared little ; of ordinary ambition he had scarcely a trace. 
 Had he been wholly free from some unreasonableness,
 
 LIFE OF ROSSETTI. 161 
 
 some weaknesses of vanity and the like, he would have 
 been less human, less approachable, less loveable. His 
 real life was, however, in his affections. His own family 
 he loved with a tender trust that is as rare as attractive to 
 contemplate, and that was, it is pleasant to think, fully 
 returned. Ungrudging service of every kind was rendered 
 him not only by his brother, who filled many functions 
 for him between assistant in his work and banker in his 
 need. Those outside his immediate circle, his aunts, the 
 Misses Polidori, and others, were always helpful, as he 
 was glad to acknowledge. The devotion of his friends 
 culminated in that of Mr. Watts, who gave up to him a 
 large share of life. These and other services Rossetti 
 greeted, " Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance boun- 
 teous," repaying in the same kind, and portioning out his 
 life among his friends. When an old friend died, as in an 
 instance before mentioned, Rossetti was willing not only 
 to subscribe to his family to the extent of his means, but 
 to undertake the education of the children at his own 
 charge. The period in which, under the baneful influence 
 of an insidious drug the character and working of which 
 are not even yet understood, he was possessed of idle 
 suspicions of acquaintance once justly valued and guilt- 
 less, in the majority of cases, of the slightest wavering 
 in their attachment to him, may not be taken into 
 account. At this time he was not master of himself, and 
 his vague mistrusts floating like some marsh light from 
 spot to spot, disappearing from one point to appear at 
 another, were the delusions of a disturbed brain. To 
 , women he had a kind of loyalty which, if not unknown in 
 other cases, is, at least, reserved to few natures. An attach- 
 
 ii
 
 162 LIFE OF 
 
 ment, once formed was abiding. Favour from a woman 
 involved obligations he was always ready to acknowledge 
 and meet, and from which no subsequent treachery on 
 her part would easily absolve him. Sombre and painful 
 passages in his life read by this light become intelligible. 
 By this same light must be studied "The House of 
 Life," or of Love. Censure of certain passages in the 
 portion of " The House of Life " first published influenced 
 him, and when the completed work was given to the 
 world one sonnet was omitted in acquiescence with the 
 judgment of Mr. Theodore Watts, and two or three 
 passages in other sonnets were modified. Rossetti was, 
 however, in these matters silenced rather than convinced, 
 and the plea in favour of what was misinterpreted remains 
 in the work itself from which the poems that bred offence 
 have disappeared. 
 
 Before dealing with this defence, it is worth while to 
 point out that the scheme of " The House of Life " was 
 modified so far as regards executive details during its 
 evolution. In the first volume there appeared, as a portion 
 of the scheme, various poems, not of sonnet shape, in- 
 cluding the passionate " Love Lily," " The Sea Limits," 
 perhaps the most divine of Rossetti's short lyrics, " The 
 Wood Spurge," a short poem of subtlest significance, 
 "Penumbra," and some others. These, with some others, 
 when the second edition was published, appeared under the 
 general head " Lyrics." From the " Ballads and Poems " 
 of the same date they were banished. The second edition 
 contained, moreover, none of the sonnets belonging to 
 " The House of Life " which appeared in the first volume, 
 their place being occupied with one or two short poems,
 
 ROSSETTI. 163 
 
 and with " The Bride's Prelude," a work of early years 
 which Rossetti, wisely perhaps, never finished, since in 
 spite of its quaint medievalism, its story is purely painful, 
 and the treatment too stiff and set. The key to the so- 
 styled indiscretion in " The House of Life " must be 
 found in Sonnet v. of the completed series. This is 
 entitled " Heart's Hope " 
 
 " By what word's power, the key of paths untrod, 
 Shall I the difficult deeps of Love explore, 
 Till parted waves of Song yield up the shore 
 
 Even as that sea which Israel crossed dry shod ? 
 
 For lo ! in some poor rhythmic period, 
 Lady, I fain would tell how evermore 
 Thy soul I know not from thy body, nor 
 
 Thee from myself, neither our love from God. 
 
 Yea, in God's name, and Love's and thine, would I 
 Draw from one loving heart such evidence 
 
 As to all hearts all things shall signify ; 
 Tender as dawn's first hill fire, and intense 
 As instantaneous penetrating sense, 
 
 In Spring's birth hour of other Springs gone by." 
 
 Love in the individual, according to the rather obscure 
 utterance of the sestett, or six concluding lines, stands a 
 portion of the eternal love of the ages past and to come, 
 a thing in which mortal worship of the best is signified 
 and sublimated. The reading of the octave is simple. 
 In the attempt to analyze love, and to separate what 
 is earthly from what is heavenly, there is in Rossetti's 
 idea profanity. Soul and body the woman beloved 
 and responsive becomes a part of the man. The 
 twain are one, and the love which binds them is the
 
 164 LIFE OF 
 
 one Divine effluence not to be distinguished from Divinity. 
 Possessed by this idea, as remote surely from fleshliness 
 as any conception of human relations not wholly passion- 
 less, ideal, and futile, Rossetti included in " The House 
 of Life " such sonnets as " Nuptial Sleep " and " Supreme 
 Surrender." The expediency of dealing in any public 
 form with the closest of domestic sanctities is open to 
 question. It is not even justified by descriptive passages 
 of Arcadian love, in which the primitive simplicity of 
 " The Age of Gold " is exposed, supposing these to 
 escape censure. Between the warmest painting of amorous 
 scenes and the revelation, however idealized and symboli- 
 cal, of the culmination of personal affection, there is a 
 distinct difference. Granting, however, the propriety under 
 any circumstances of such confession, and some of the 
 greatest poets have ventured on it, it is to be expected 
 in a series of poems such as constitute " The House of 
 Life." In the case even of the sonnet subsequently 
 suppressed, the chief objection seems to lie in the use of 
 the word " fawned," as applied to the mouths of the 
 lovers in the last line of the octave. A poet is not to be 
 confronted with philological derivations. It is a part of 
 his privilege, if not of his occupation, to ennoble words 
 by use. In this case, however, Rossetti, while supplying 
 an idea which is physically unattractive, fails to dignify 
 a word of Scandinavian origin which implies almost 
 necessarily something of cringing and servility. The 
 phrase which Rossetti himself employed, in the vindica- 
 tion of his work from the censure passed upon it in " The 
 Fleshly School of Poetry" and elsewhere, is that the 
 sonnet to which special objection was taken embodied, as
 
 ROSSETTI. 165 
 
 " its own small constituent share, a beauty of natural 
 universal function, only to be reprobated in art, if dwelt 
 upon (as I have shown that it is not here) to the exclu- 
 sion of those other highest things of which it is the 
 harmonious concomitant." The " beauty of natural 
 universal function" must be accepted by the light of 
 what is known of Rossetti. A similar plea might other- 
 wise be advanced in defence of the works of aggressive 
 realism with which France has of late deluged civilization. 
 In the case of Rossetti the defence was valid, and is 
 generally accepted. 
 
 Taken as a whole, this series of sonnets constitutes in 
 its class the greatest gift that poetry has received since 
 the days of Shakespeare. Individual sonnets as fine as 
 any in " The House of Life " are to be found in Milton, 
 Wordsworth, Mrs. Browning, and other poets. A series 
 such as this, which is, in fact, a life's utterance and a 
 life's story, modern literature does not possess. That 
 passages are obscure, and that the sequence of idea is not 
 always to be traced is true. The same, however, holds 
 good of every poem written under similar conditions and 
 in an approximately similar form. As a. whole " The 
 House of Life " is not more difficult of interpretation than 
 " In Memoriam." The opening sonnet, " Love En- 
 throned," declares that the throne of Love is far above 
 the seat of Truth, Hope, Youth, Fame, and Life, though 
 all these things are in themselves sweet and helpful. That 
 his own art, even with its rewards, was inferior in his 
 eyes to this primal moving heat and worship of love, he 
 admits in assuming that 
 
 " Fame be for Love's sake desirable."
 
 166 LIFE OF 
 
 What follows may be summed up in the opening lines of 
 Coleridge's " Love " 
 
 " All thoughts, all passions, all delights 
 
 Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 
 All are but ministers of Love, 
 And feed his sacred flame." 
 
 " Bridal Birth," the second sonnet, illustrates the growth 
 of love by the birth of a child, and with all its sweet spiritual 
 significance is almost as much open to the charge of 
 fleshliness as those singled out for arraignment. It is 
 wholly characteristic of Rossetti, and of no other English 
 poet, to dignify by comparison with the earthly birth the 
 opening life of the soul ; to elevate a " natural universal 
 function," by making it the symbol of spiritual manifes- 
 tation. How finely, moreover, it is done 
 
 "Born with her life, creature of poignant thirst, 
 And exquisite hunger, at her heart Love lay 
 Quickening in darkness, till a voice that day 
 Cried on him, and the bonds of birth were burst." 
 
 Armed and equipped Love springs, and the conquest 
 he achieves is immediate. Succeeding sonnets are 
 full of the adoration, rapturous and playful in turns, 
 which follows surrender when it comes as the fulfilment 
 of a life dream. "The Portrait" (Sonnet x.) is an 
 almost solitary indication of the author's profession. In 
 this, however, the triumph of the painter is not in his 
 skill in his craft; it is wholly in the thought that 
 through all time it may be understood 
 
 " They that would look on her must come to me."
 
 ROSSETTL 167 
 
 Sonnet xi., " The Love Letter," is one of the most 
 gracious of the series. Its commencement 
 
 " Warmed by her hand and shadowed by her hair 
 
 As close she leaned and poured her heart through thee. " 
 
 And the last of the following lines is exquisite 
 
 " Fain had I watched her when, at some fond thought, 
 Her bosom to the writing closelier prest ; 
 And her breasfs secrets peered into her breast" 
 
 The sonnet is, however, marred by a conceit worthy of 
 the days of Donne if not of Lyly or Marino, when the ink 
 with which the letter is written is described as 
 
 " The smooth black stream, that makes thy whiteness fair." 
 
 That adoration is apt to employ the language of half- 
 fantastic hyperbole is granted. The very exercise of 
 coercing all existing things to yield homage to his mistress, 
 or to join in the song in her praise, is a delightfulsome task. 
 A comparison or illustration that satisfies the lover, but will 
 not reach others, is better omitted from recorded praise, 
 and such an illustration is here supplied. Condemnation 
 has been passed upon Rossetti for the use of language 
 that is too ornate and elaborate. Mr. Sharp, even, an 
 acute and appreciative critic, censures the substitution for 
 the simple words disease and misfortune of two such lines 
 as 
 
 " What smouldering senses in death's sick delay 
 Or seizure of malign vicissitude."
 
 108 LIFE OF 
 
 The employment of language such as this is character- 
 istic, and is more easily defensible than conceits such as 
 that instanced. If not defensible per se it is at least 
 paralleled in the work of the greatest poets. When for 
 Pharaoh and his host Milton substitutes 
 
 "Busiris and his Memphian chivalry" 
 
 an instance in every way analogous, it is accepted as a 
 beauty. There is a place for rhetorical grace, and when 
 the association ennobles, its presence has a special ap- 
 propriateness. It is under the influence of the most 
 overmastering passion that Othello likens, in some of the 
 nobliest lines ever penned, his bloody thoughts to 
 
 " The Pontic Sea 
 
 Whose icy current and compulsive course 
 Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on 
 To the Propontic and the Hellespont " 
 
 words by some occult but true theory of fitness selected 
 for their grandeur of sound ; and it is in a similar spirit 
 that Macbeth uses the marvellous phrase 
 
 " No ; this my hand will rather 
 The multitudinous seas incarnadine." 
 
 11 Youth's Antiphony " (Sonnet xiii.) is delightful 
 prattle of lovers in sonnet form. That which follows, 
 " Youth's Spring Tribute," has an idea almost fit to put 
 beside Mr. Swinburne's unsurpassable lines
 
 ROSSE1 77. 1C9 
 
 "The Spring begun 
 Thy growth ere April had half done 
 With the soft secret of her ways." 
 
 After spreading out the hair of his mistress on the bank, 
 and watching through the golden tresses the wood-flowers 
 bashful-eyed, the sonnet continues 
 
 41 On these debatable borders of the year 
 
 Spring's foot half falters ; scarce she yet may know 
 The leafless blackthorn-blossom from the snow." 
 
 It is impossible to go seriatim through sonnets almost 
 all of which claim separate notice and commendation. 
 A few only can be mentioned. " Love-Sweetness " 
 stands conspicuous by its avowed preference for " the 
 confident heart's still fervour," over the " sweet dimness 
 of her loosened hairs downfall," her "mouths culled 
 sweetness," and all the fragrant perfections of bodily 
 presence on which the poet dwells. It is, indeed, ad- 
 vanced by Rossetti himself, as a complete answer to the 
 charge of " fleshliness." Sonnet xxiv., " Pride of Youth," 
 is the first that indicates the kind of regret indicated 
 by Keats in the " Ode to the Nightingale " 
 
 41 Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, 
 Nor young love pine for them beyond to-morrow." 
 
 In the concluding sestett of this Rossetti draws attention 
 to the change familiar to every lover of Nature, that gives 
 the hint of decay before the ripeness is obtained, that
 
 170 LIFE OF 
 
 plants the first wrinkle on the brow of beauty before its 
 maturity is reached, and the sere leaf on the same branch 
 as the blossom. 
 
 " There is a change in every hour's recall, 
 And the last cowslip in the fields we see 
 On the same day with the first corn-poppy. 
 Alas for hourly change ! Alas for all 
 The loves that from his hand, proud Youth lets fall, 
 Even as the beads of a told rosary. " 
 
 In " Heart's Compass " (Sonnet xxvii.), he places him- 
 self once more in the most spiritual of moods, to see his 
 mistress the meaning of all beauty, and in so seeing, to 
 liken her to Love, whose name she is. 
 
 " Sometimes thou seem'st not as thyself alone, 
 But as the meaning of all things that are ; 
 A breathless wonder, shadowing forth afar 
 Some heavenly solstice, hushed and halcyon." 
 
 In " Her Gifts" (Sonnet xxxi.), he recounts once more 
 the perfections of his mistress. None of his poems 
 is more eloquent in praise than this. Once more the 
 ennobling touch comes after the record of physical and 
 intellectual attraction. 
 
 " These are her gifts, as tongue may tell them o'er, 
 Breathe low her name, my soul, for that means more." 
 
 Adoration can scarcely be expressed in language at 
 once more vague if measured, yet more charged with
 
 RVSSETTI. 171 
 
 expression and suggestion. "Secret Parting" (Sonnet 
 xlv.), descriptive of the pained ecstasy of a meeting 
 which is to be the last, contrasts finely in its tender 
 melancholy with the burning and scornful outbreak in 
 "Parted Love," which .stands next in order. From this 
 point regret and sorrow triumph over jubilancy. The 
 sole joy in the four fine sonnets, with the sub-title of 
 " Willow Wood," is that derived from dreams which bring 
 a momentary and shadowy bliss, and leave the soul more 
 desolate than before. While not less fine in execution, 
 the sonnets included in the second part of the " House of 
 Life," are less easily read, and on the whole less fervent 
 than those by which they are preceded. Sometimes the 
 thoughts, as in " Inclusiveness " (Sonnet Ixiii.), are ex- 
 quisitely painful, and show a tendency to dwell upon 
 subjects almost morbidly distressing, as 
 
 " What man has bent o'er his son's sleep to brood 
 How that face shall watch his when cold it lies ? 
 Or thought as his own mother kissed his eyes, 
 Of what her kiss was when his father wooed ? " 
 
 In "Known in Vain" (Sonnet Ixv.), a hopeless love 
 finds despairing utterance, the termination being inex- 
 plicably sad. 
 
 " Ah ! who shall dare to search through what sad maze, 
 
 Thenceforth their incommunicable ways, 
 Follow the desultory feet of Death ? " 
 
 The three sonnets, " The Choice," contrast with
 
 172 LIFE OF 
 
 the counsel, " watch and pray," the Biblical phrase 
 " to-morrow thou shalt die." " Souls' Beauty " 
 (Sonnet IxxviL), typifies under the guise of a personal 
 affection, the beauty that he has followed daily with 
 heart and feet " how passionately and irretrievably ! " 
 One more instance, the last to be quoted, of the 
 deep sorrow which is breathed by the late sonnets, 
 is furnished in Sonnet Ixxxiv., entitled " Farewell to 
 the Glen." The sestett portion of this is as follows 
 
 " And yet farewell ! Far better shalt thou fare 
 When children bathe sweet fa:es in thy flow ; 
 
 And happy lovers blend sweet shadows there 
 In hours to come, than when an hour ago 
 
 Thine echoes had hut one man's sighs to bear, 
 And thy trees whispered what he feared to know." 
 
 Though intended to reflect, and in fact reflecting, 
 varying moods of Rossetti's mind, these sonnets convey 
 no idea of his ordinary mental attitude. Excej)t in the 
 few closing years of his life, he was anything "father than 
 a melancholy man. He had with Jaques, " Neither the 
 scholar's melancholy, which is emulation ; nor the 
 musician's, which is fantastical ; nor the courtier's, which 
 is proud ; nor the soldier's, which is ambitious ; nor the 
 lawyer's, which is politic ; nor the lady's, which is nice ; 
 nor the lover's which is all these." He had not, indeed, 
 like the famous philosopher of Arden, a melancholy of 
 his own, " compounded by many simples." His general 
 mood was joyous, if not absolutely mirthful, and the fits 
 of depression to which he was subject were wholly
 
 ROSSETTI. 173 
 
 attributable to the influence of narcotics. Few books 
 took a stronger hold upon him than Mr. Gilbert's " Bab 
 Ballads," the grotesque rhymes of which he was un- 
 wearied in quoting.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 T N the Collected Edition of Rossetti's works, edited by 
 J_ his brother, and published when the foregoing 
 ; remarks had been written, there appear a few works of 
 more interest than importance, which are not included 
 in the previous volumes. So exigent was Rossetti with 
 regard to his own work, and so careful in rejecting what- 
 ever did not reach the high standard of his own judgment, 
 his reliquicB were sure to repay investigation. In future 
 times, no doubt, the ghouls, whose dismal and self- 
 imposed task it is to drag to light what the poet has 
 buried out of sight, will exercise their wicked will with 
 Rossetti. In the two volumes, however, of 1886, are 
 contained all for which the genuine lover of the great 
 poet will ask. 
 
 The addition of highest interest consists of " Henry 
 the Leper," the translation of the curious Swabian 
 poem of Hartmann Von Aue. Supremely tender and 
 touching, and curiously characteristic of the days of 
 mediaeval thought, is this poem, in which, as in " Patient 
 Grizzle," and other works of a similar date, the lesson is 
 taught that the highest grace and privilege of womanhood 
 consist in submission to man, or sacrifice on his behalf.
 
 LIFE OF ROSSETTI. 175 
 
 The little maiden of humble birth in " Henry the Leper," 
 hearing that the cure of her master, a nobleman, can only 
 be wrought by the sacrifice for him of life by a virgin, 
 offers herself up to die on his behalf. In the true spirit 
 of mediaeval legend the sacrifice is accompanied by a 
 species of exposure, from which maidenhood recoils with 
 as much fear as from death itself. The physician of the 
 great school of Salerne, by whom the deed is to be 
 executed, points this out to her, and endeavours to dis- 
 suade her from the sacrifice. 
 
 " Bethink thee and consider thereof 
 How the pains thou tempt'st are hard and rough. 
 First, with thy limbs naked and bare, 
 Before mine eyes thou must appear, 
 So needs shall thy maiden shame be sore : 
 Yet still must thy woe be more and more, 
 What time thou art bound by heel and arm, 
 And with sharp hurt and with grievous harm 
 I cut from out thy breast the part, 
 That is most alive even thine heart. 
 With thine eyes thou shalt surely see 
 The knife ere it enter into thee." 
 
 Noways dissuaded from the accomplishment of her 
 resolution, she urges upon the leech the necessity of 
 proceeding with the operation. Reluctantly he consents, 
 and bids her take her raiment off. 
 
 "Then was her heart joyous enough, 
 And she obeyed, and in little space 
 Stood up before the old man's face 
 As naked as God had fashioned her : 
 Only her innocence clothed her :
 
 176 LIFE OF 
 
 She fear'd not, and was not asham'd, 
 In the sight of God standing unblamed ; 
 To whom her dear life without price 
 She offered up for a sacrifice." 
 
 More merciful than the ordinary writers of pious legend, 
 or the compilers of the lives of saints, Hartmann von 
 Aue spares the girl her martyrdom. Her lord, at the last 
 moment, refuses to permit the accomplishment of the 
 sacrifice, and, thanks to her humbling of his proud spirit, 
 and the maiden's incessant and fervent prayers, the 
 leprosy is removed without the purgation of the blood of 
 the heroine. A full reward for her sufferings is provided 
 when her master takes her for his wife. This notion 
 truly masculine of recompense lasted until the days 
 of Richardson, whose Pamela is similarly rewarded for 
 heroism of another sort, and still influences our litera- 
 ture. 
 
 The prose works first collected include the " Hand 
 and Soul;" the portion of Gilchrist's "Life of Blake" 
 contributed by Rossetti ; the article contributed to The 
 Athenaum in reply to Mr. Buchanan, entitled the 
 "Stealthy School of Criticism;" some criticisms on 
 poems and pictures; "The Orchard Pit" the prose 
 framework of a poem; and "Saint Agnes of Inter- 
 cession," an eminently interesting fragment, not, pro- 
 bably, without autobiographical significance. Many 
 short poems and translations, gnomes, apothegms, &c, 
 are also given. For most of these the world will be 
 thankful. There is, however, nothing that furnishes any 
 further insight into Rossetti's character, or reveals a new 
 facet of his powers.
 
 ROSSETTI. 177 
 
 No such gratification as attended the publication of 
 the first volume of poems was in store for him when the 
 second appeared. The reception was not less cordial, 
 and the enthusiasm of Rossetti's admirers was jarred by 
 no discordant note. He was, however, incapable of 
 being deeply stirred by any active emotion, at least of a 
 selfish nature. A visit, in 1881, with his friend, Mr. Hall 
 Caine, to the Vale of St. John, in Cumberland, failed to 
 bring any permanent advantage to his health. Upon 
 his return, indeed, he was even weaker than before. 
 
 One evening, after being cheered by the society of his 
 dear friends, Dr. Westland Marston and his son, Mr. 
 Philip Bourke Marston (whose recent and premature death 
 is a loss to literature), Rossetti discovered that a portion 
 of one side had become partially paralyzed. From this 
 he made a partial recovery. It was none the less the 
 beginning of the end. Early in 1872 he profited by the 
 offer of a villa at Birchington-on-Sea which was made 
 him by his friend, Mr. Seddon. Here he removed with 
 Mr. Hall Caine ; hither he was followed by his mother and 
 his sister Christina ; and here the end came. Into the 
 particulars of his illness and death, which have been fully 
 described by Mr. Hall Caine in his admirably sympa- 
 thetic " Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti," there 
 is no need to enter. A moment's intrusion of self, which 
 brings with it a clear insight into the graciousness and 
 tenderness of Rossetti, is pardonable in the present 
 writer, whose purpose has been not to intrude on the 
 reader his own individuality. A review of Rossetti's new 
 volume of poems, contributed by the present writer to 
 the French magazine Le Livre, of which he was at that 
 
 12
 
 178 LIFE OF 
 
 time the English correspondent, elicited from Rossetti 
 a late, if not the last letter he wrote. This it is per- 
 missible to quote in full. It was accompanied by a 
 reprint, dated 1881, of the volume of 1870, in which 
 alterations, some of them named in the letter, had been 
 made : 
 
 " WEST CLIFF BUNGALOW, 
 
 " BIRCHINGTON-ON-SEA, KENT. 
 
 " 5 March, /St. 
 
 " MY DEAR KNIGHT, " Curiously enough, I had not 
 till to-day seen Le Livre for December, and read (though 
 I had heard of it from Watts) your generous and un- 
 forgetful praise of one whom you could not speak of 
 more warmly if we met as often as I could wish. Of 
 the article's purport I hardly have a right to speak 
 further, but can more pardonably dwell on its true literary 
 faculty. I do not gather, of course, whether the French 
 is your own, or rendered by another. In either case, the 
 tone could not be more akin to the language. 
 
 " I have come here for a short time, being much out 
 of health. Watts is with me to-day, and sends his truest 
 remembrances from the sofa where he is reading your 
 article. I have not seen the Marstons for some time, 
 but must try to do so on my return to London, and I do 
 hope you and I may yet again foregather. 
 
 i ; I have been penning a few verses to-day in lack of 
 other occupation. I write with this to Ellis and White 
 to send you a copy of the new edition of my old poems. 
 In ' Sister Helen ' (which, I remember, you always liked) 
 there is an addition which (though it sounds alarming a
 
 ROSSETTI. 179 
 
 first) has quite secured Watts's suffrage. With love from 
 what is left of me, 
 
 " Yours affectionately, 
 
 "D. G. ROSSETTI." 
 
 X 
 
 On the Qth of the following April Easter Day, 1882 
 he died at Birchington, where his body is interred. 
 Loving ministrations attended him, it is pleasant to think, 
 to the last. His mother, sister, and brother, Mr. Watts, 
 Mr. Shield, and Mr. Hall Caine were with him, and Mrs. 
 William Rossetti arrived at a moment following his death. 
 So died Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and with him passed 
 away a man whom the leader of a school of painting the 
 most opposed to his own pronounced " the most interest- 
 ing individuality that followed art." This Rossetti was, 
 but he was also much more. He was a poet, a creator, 
 a leader of men. Few who came beneath the spell of 
 his influence were able or desirous to shake it off. To be 
 his friend was, in a sense, to be his disciple. It was next 
 to impossible to resist the enthusiasm with which his 
 convictions were expressed, the contagion of his bright, 
 animated presence, the influence of his singularly winning 
 voice. Enemies, in the full sense of the word, he did 
 not know. Putting on one side the aggressive vanity of 
 the second half of the first line, Landor's epitaph upon 
 himself might almost have been written by Rossetti 
 
 " I strove with none, for none was worth the strife : 
 
 Nature I loved, and, after Nature, art : 
 I warmed both hands before the fire of life : 
 It sinks ; and I am ready to depart."
 
 180 LIFE OF 
 
 To the general public he was almost unknown, and 
 ridiculous rumours concerning him prevailed and still 
 prevail. In literary circles even, outside his own imme- 
 diate surroundings, an idea has been formed that Rossetti 
 was a species of aesthete, effeminate in manner and 
 prkcieux in style. Nothing could be further from the 
 mark. He was essentially virile and robust, a little 
 stubborn, and dogmatic in tone. A friend himself a 
 poet writes of him in the language most nearly ap- 
 proaching condemnation that one admitted to his inti- 
 macy could employ : " I liked him much, though I was 
 often irritated by his prejudices, and his strong language 
 against this or that person or subject He was borne, too, 
 somewhat in his interests, both on canvas and in verse, 
 and would not care for certain forms of literature and 
 life which he admitted were worth caring for. . . . 
 However, his talk was always full of interest, and of rare 
 knowledge, and he himself, his pictures, and his house, 
 all together, had, I think, an immense influence for good 
 on us all, and on English art and work, being not insular, 
 yet not unEnglish ; and bringing into our world new and 
 delightful subjects, and a personal character very striking, 
 and unusual, and loveable." 
 
 An exhaustive biography of Rossetti is not yet to 
 be expected, since few men are equal to the task of 
 estimating fully his work in two different branches. That 
 Mr. Watts will write a literary biography is the hope of 
 all who loved Rossetti. Mr. F. G. Stephens, Rossetti's 
 old and close friend, is understood^to be engaged upon a 
 biography, which will review his career as a painter, and 
 will finally settle the relative dates of his pictorial works.
 
 ROSSETTf. 181 
 
 The value of this as a contribution to a knowledge of 
 Rossetti can scarcely be over-estimated. Of importance 
 almost equal will be the publication of Rossetti's 
 correspondence with his family, which Mr. William 
 Rossetti purposes, at no distant date, to give to the world. 
 In this, as has before been said, Rossetti is seen at his 
 best. Affectionate always, earnest and playful in turns, 
 expansive and strongly influenced by prevailing moods 
 and fancies, he stands before us in his true nature, with- 
 out a notion of concealment. But for the privileges of 
 access to this correspondence the foregoing poor attempt 
 to present to others Rossetti as he was seen by one for a 
 period in his intimacy, could never have been attempted. 
 
 THE ENT)
 
 INDEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 Arundel Club, Rossetti becomes a 
 member, 97 
 
 B. 
 
 Bailey, Mr. Philip James, author 
 
 of "Festus," 59 
 "Ballads and Sonnets" (second 
 
 vol. of poems) published in 
 
 1881, contents described, 151- 
 
 173 ; reception of vol. , 177 
 Bateman, Mr. E. L., 35 
 Beata Beatrix, a portrait of Mrs. 
 
 Rossetti, 75 
 " Blessed Damozel," The, 25, 44, 
 
 45. 5 2 ' 55 I analyzed, 57-61, 68 
 Brown, Mr. Ford Madox, 22, 23, 
 
 3 2 . 35. 43. 68. 69, 73, 93, 99, 
 
 ICO 
 
 Browning, Mr., 29, 53, 54, 68 
 Buchanan, Mr. Robert, his article 
 on "The Fleshly School of 
 Poetry," 140-143 ; its evil effects 
 on Rossetti, 143 
 
 " Burden of Nineveh," The, ana- 
 lyzed, 121, 122 
 
 Burne Jones, Mr., A.R.A., 36, 90, 
 91,92 
 
 C. 
 
 Collected Edition of Works, Con- 
 tents described, 174-176 
 Collins, Charles Allston, 34 
 Collinson, James, 34, 36, 39 
 Coventry Patmore, Mr., 40, 43, 
 87, 88 
 
 D. 
 
 "Dante at Verona," 120, 121 
 Dante, Gabriele Rossetti's views 
 on, 13 ; "Vita Nuova 1 ' trans- 
 lated by Rossetti, 80, 81, 84, 85 ; 
 influence of, on Rossetti, 132, 133 
 Deverell, Walter, 34, 96 ; his death, 
 67 
 
 E. 
 "Early Italian Poets," afterwards 
 
 reprinted as " Dante and his 
 
 Cycle," 54, 80-88 
 " Eden Bower, "analyzed, 112-114
 
 184 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 F. 
 
 Flandrin, Hippolyte, Rossctti's 
 temporary admiration for, 41, 
 53 
 
 " Found/' 33, 6r, 62 
 
 French artists, Rossetti's views 
 on, 41, 99 
 
 G. 
 
 Germ, The, founded, 38, 40 ; first 
 number published January r, 
 1850, 41 ; description of Germ 
 and its contents, 41-47 
 " Gesta Romanorum," 62-64 
 Girlhood of Mary Virgin, 24, 31, 
 33- 55. 6 7. 68, 100 
 
 H. 
 
 Hall Caine, Mr., 177, 179 
 
 " Hand and Soul," 44 ; to what 
 
 extent autobiographical, and 
 
 analysis of, 48-52 
 " Henry the Leper," analyzed, 
 
 174-176 
 Holman Hunt, Mr., 21, 23, 24, 
 
 25. 29, 31, 33, 34, 36, 39, 40, 43, 
 
 61, 68 
 " House of Life,' 1 The, analyzed, 
 
 described and criticized, 160-173 
 Hughes, Mr. Arthur, 35, 90 
 
 J- 
 
 "Jenny," analyzed, 118-120 
 
 K. 
 
 "King's Tragedy," The, ana- 
 lyzed, 155-158 
 
 " Laboratory," The, 68 
 
 "Last Confession," A, analyzed, 
 
 115-118 
 
 Leigh Hunt, 21, 47 
 "Love's Nocturn," 60 
 
 M. 
 
 Meredith, Mr. George, 93 
 
 Michael Angelo, 146 
 
 Millais, Sir John, R.A., 21, 23, 
 
 24, 31, 33, 36, 6r, 68 
 Morris, Mr. William, 90, 92, 94, 
 
 145 
 
 " My Sister's Sleep," 25, 44, 45, 
 55 ; poem analyzed, 56, 57, 105 
 
 P. 
 
 Pictures, Various, of Rossetti, ex- 
 amined, 132-138 
 
 " Poems by Dante Gabriel Ros- 
 setti " (vol. of 1870), poems for, 
 revised, 104-107 ; contents de- 
 scribed, 107-130 ; a great suc- 
 cess, 138, 139 
 
 " Portrait," The, 78, 79 
 
 Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 23, 
 2 9' 3 X 3 2 1 members of the 
 Brotherhood, 33-37 
 
 Prc-Raphaelitism, 29, 30, 32, 33, 
 42, 43 ; Rossetti throws off its 
 trammels, 134 
 
 R. 
 
 Renaissance in present century, 
 
 26-28 
 
 " Rose Mary, 1 ' analyzed, 151-151 
 Rossetti, Miss Christina, 13, 44, 
 
 55. 179
 
 INDEX. 
 
 1S5 
 
 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, family, 
 ii ; birth on May 12, 1828, 13 ; 
 boyhood, 14-20 ; works with Mr. 
 Madox Brown, 22 ; takes studio 
 with Mr. Holmau Hunt, 23 ; 
 paints Girlhood of Mary Virgin, 
 24 ; his contributions to The 
 Germ, 44, 45 ; to what extent 
 " Hand and Soul " may be con- 
 sidered as autobiographical, 48- 
 52 ; goes to live at Chatham 
 Place, Blackfriars Bridge, 53 ; 
 meets Miss Siddall, and is en- 
 gaged to her, 69-74 ; is married 
 May 23, 1860, 74 ; grief at his 
 wife's death in 1862, 75 ; his 
 poems buried with her, 76 ; plans 
 and paints designs for Union at 
 Oxford, 89-91 ; takes a house at 
 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, 93 ; his 
 manner of life there, 94-96 ; his 
 appearance at this time, 96, 97 ; 
 begins in 1868 to suffer from in- 
 somnia and from his eyes, 102 ; 
 begins to revise poems for col- 
 lection in a volume, 104-107 ; 
 agrees that his poems shall be 
 exhumed from his wife's grave, 
 105-107 ; his skill as a translator, 
 124, 125 ; power as painter and 
 poet examined, 131, 132 ; cha- 
 racter of his pictorial art, 136, 
 137 ; is happy in success of his 
 first volume of poems, 138, 139 ; 
 greatly affected by Mr. Robert 
 Buchanan's article on the 
 " Fleshly School of Poetry" in 
 1871, 140-143 ; life at this time, 
 143, 144 ; yields to chloral hy- 
 drate, 150 ; his loving nature, 
 160-162 ; is partially paralyzed, 
 177 ; dies April 9, 1882, at 
 
 Birchington, 179 ; his character, 
 
 179, 180 
 Rossetti, Oabriele, 11 ; comes to 
 
 England, 12, 13 
 Rossetti, Maria Francesca, 13 
 Rossetti, Mrs. (Rossetti's mother), 
 
 12, 13, 15, 16, 55, 98, 99, 102, 
 
 103 ; Rossetti acknowledges his 
 
 intellectual debt to her, 149, 179 
 Rossetti, Mrs. (Rossetti's wife). 
 
 See Siddall. 
 Rossetti, William Michael, 13, 36 ; 
 
 appointed editor of The Germ, 
 
 38, 39 ; 41, 44, 87, 93, 94, 104, 
 
 161, 179, 181 
 Royal Academy, exhibition of 
 
 Rossetti's works, 98 
 Ruskin, Mr., 29, 30, 32, 72 
 
 S. 
 
 Scott, Mr. William Bell, 22, 35, 66, 
 94, 105, 106, 121 
 
 Seddon, Thomas, 35 
 
 Sharp, Mr., 35, 167 
 
 Siddall, Miss Elizabeth Eleanor, 
 afterwards Mrs. Rossetti, 69 ; 
 description of her, 70 ; engage- 
 ment, 70-74 ; marriage to 
 Rossetti on May 23, 1860, 74 ; 
 failing health, 75 ; takes an 
 overdose of laudanum, and dies 
 in 1862, 75 ; Rossetti buries his 
 poems in her grave, 76 ; they are 
 afterwards exhumed, 105-107 
 
 "Sister Helen," 54, 61, 105; 
 analyzed, 107-112, 178 
 
 Smith, Bernhard, 35 
 
 Sonnets, Rossetti's power and 
 success in, and character of 
 those contained in first volume
 
 186 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 of poems, 125-130, 158, 159 ; 
 ' ' House of Life '' series, 160- 
 
 173 
 " Staff and Scrip," The, analyzed, 
 
 63-66 
 Stephens, Mr. F. G., 33, 36, 39, 
 
 68, 180 
 
 "Stratton Water," 105, 120 
 ' Stream's Secret," The, analyzed, 
 
 122-124 
 Swinburne, Mr., 92, 93, 102 
 
 T. 
 
 Translator, Rossetti as a, 81-87 
 
 124, 125 
 "Tory Town," 112, 113 
 
 U. 
 
 Union, The, at Oxford, decorated 
 with paintings by Rossetti and 
 his friends, 89-91 
 
 V. 
 Victor Hugo, 28 
 
 W. 
 
 Watts, Mr. Theodore, 94, 147, 
 
 150, 161, 179, 180 
 "White Ship,' 1 The, analyzed, 
 
 IS4. 155 
 Woolner, Mr. Thomas, R.A., 21, 
 
 25. 34. 35, 36. 39. 43
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY, 
 AND CATALOGUE OF PICTURES. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN P. ANDERSON 
 (British Museum), 
 
 I. WORKS. 
 IT. SINGLE WORKS. 
 
 III. MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 IV. ILLUSTRATIONS TO BOOKS. 
 
 V. APPENDIX 
 
 Biography and Criticism. 
 Poems set to Music. 
 Magazine Articles. 
 
 VI. CHRONOLOGICAL 
 WORKS. 
 
 LIST OF 
 
 VII. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OP 
 PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS. 
 
 I. WORKS. 
 
 The Collected Works of Dante 
 Gabriel Rossetti. Edited, with 
 jireface and notes, by William 
 M. Rossetti. In two vols., 1886, 
 8vo. 
 
 Contains various items, poetry and 
 prose, never before printed. 
 
 II. SINGLE WORKS. 
 
 Sir Hugh the Heron : A Legendary 
 Tale, in four parts. [Inverse.] 
 London, 1843, 4to. 
 
 Printed by Rossetti's grandfather, 
 G. Polidori, for private circulation 
 only. 
 
 The Early Italian Poets from Ciullo 
 
 ^XaAlcamo to Dante Alighieri 
 
 jr (1100-1200-1300), in the original^ 
 
 metres, together with Dante's 
 
 Vita Nuova, translated by D. 
 
 G. Rossetti. London, 1861, 
 
 8vo. 
 
 )ante and his Circle ; with the 
 Italian Poets preceding him 
 (1100-1200-1300). A Collection 
 of lyrics, edited and translated 
 in the original metres, by D. G. 
 Rossetti. Revised and rear- 
 ranged edition. London, 1874, 
 8vo. 
 
 Notes on the Vita Nnova and 
 Minor Poems of Dante, together 
 with the New Life, and man}' of 
 the Poems. New York, 1866, 
 12mo. 
 
 The translation used in this edition 
 of The Vita Kuova is that by D. G. 
 Rossetti in The Early Italian Poets, 
 published in 1861. 
 
 ems by D. G. R. London, 1870, 
 8vo. 
 
 An edition was published at 
 Boston the same year. 
 
 Second Edition. 
 1870, 8vo. 
 
 London,
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Poems. New Edition. London, 
 
 1881, 8vo. 
 
 This is to a great extent the 
 same book as the Poems, 1870 ; but 
 by no means identical with it some 
 compositions from the vol. of 1870 
 being removed, and others sub- 
 stituted. 
 Poems by D. G. R. Boston [U.S.], 
 
 1882, 8vo. 
 
 Poems. (Tauchnitz Edition, with 
 
 Memoir by Hueffer). Leipzig, 
 
 12mo. 
 Ballads and Sonnets, by D. G/R. 
 
 London, 1881, 8vo. 
 There is also a Tauchnitz Edition, 
 
 1882, with Memoir by Hueffer, and 
 
 a Boston Edition, 1882. 
 
 III. MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 The Germ : Thoughts towards 
 Nature in Poetry, Literature, 
 and Art. Nos. 1, 2. London, 
 1850, 8vo. 
 
 [Continued as :] 
 
 Art and Poetry; being Thoughts 
 towards Nature. Conducted 
 principally by Artists. Nos. 3, 
 4. London, 1850, 8vo. 
 
 This now rare magazine only 
 reached four numbers ; the title of 
 The Germ after the issue of parts 1 
 and 2 was altered to Art ana 
 Poetry. Christina, Dante, and Wil- 
 liam Rossetti contributed largely, 
 the latter being the editor. Dante 
 was the author of twelve contribu- 
 tions, as follows : Pt. 1, Songs of one 
 Household (ify Sister's Sleep), and 
 Hand and Soul; pt. 2, The Blessed 
 Damozel; pt 3, The Carillon, Sea 
 Limits, hero called From the Cliffs : 
 JVoon ; pt 4, Pax Vobis (afterwards 
 reprinted as World's Worth in the 
 Poems, re-issue of 1881); and six 
 Sonnets .4 Virgin and Child, by 
 Hans Memmeling; A Marriage of 
 St. Katherine, by the tame ; A Dance 
 of A'ymphs, by Manteana ; A 
 Venetian Pastoral, by Giorgione; 
 Angelica rescued from the Sea- 
 Monster, by Ingres, and another 
 sonnet on the same. There are two 
 copies of The Germ in the Library of 
 
 the British Museum, parts 3 and 4 
 of one of which contains MS. notes 
 by W. M. Rossetti. 
 
 The Blessed Damozel. [The Ox- 
 ford and Cambridge Magazine, 
 1856, pp. 713-715.] 
 
 Written by Rossetti in his nine- 
 teenth year, and published for the 
 first time in The Germ. 
 
 Hand and Soul. 
 
 First published in The Germ, after- 
 wards in pamphlet form, of which 
 only a few copies were printed, not 
 published, and finally, with some 
 alterations, in The Fortnightly Re- 
 view, voL viii., N.S., 1870, pp. C92-702. 
 
 Sister Helen. 
 
 First published in the Dusseldorf 
 Annual, about 1853, at the request 
 of the editress, Mrs. Howitt. It re- 
 appeared with improvements in the 
 volume of Poems, 1870, and again in 
 1881. 
 
 The Burden of Nineveh. 
 
 The Oxford and Cambridge Maga- 
 zine, 1856, pp. 512-516, afterwards in 
 the Poems, 1870 and 1881. 
 The Staff and Scrip. 
 
 The Oxford and Cambridge Maga- 
 zine, 1856, pp. 771-775 ; afterwards in 
 the Poems, 1870 and 1881. 
 
 Life of William Blake, " Pictor 
 Ignotus." With Selections from 
 his poems and other writings, 
 by the late Alexander Gilchrist, 
 etc. 2 vols. London, 1863, 
 8vo. 
 
 Alex. Gilchrist having died before 
 this book was published, his widow, 
 Anne Gilchrist, prepared it for the 
 press. D. G. Rossetti did all the 
 editing, in vol. ii. , of Blake's writings 
 in prose and verse. lie also wrote 
 certain passages in vol. i. The 
 details are traceable in D. G. R.'s 
 Collected Works. 
 
 Another Edition. 2 vols. 
 
 London, 1880, 8vo. 
 
 D. G. E.'s work in vol. i. of this 
 edition is slightly modified and ex- 
 tended beyond the first edition. 
 
 Of Life, Love, and Death : Sixteen 
 Sonnets Willowwood (4), Sleep- 
 less Dreams, Lost on Both Sl'ks,
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 iii 
 
 Run and Won, A Superscription, 
 Winged Hours, The Landmark, 
 Broken Music, Lost Days, Known 
 in Vain, Inclusiveness, and New- 
 born Death (2). 
 
 Fortnightly Review, voL v., N.S., 
 1869, pp. 26C-273. 
 
 An account of Ebenczer Jones, the 
 poet. 
 
 Notes and Queries, vol. v., 4th 
 Series, 1870, p. 154. 
 
 Exhibition of Modern British Art 
 at the Old Water Colour Gal- 
 lery. 
 
 Rossetti wrote a notice for the 
 Critic, December 1, 1850, p. 576. 
 
 Exhibition of Pictures at Lichfield 
 House. 
 
 Rossetti wrote a notice of the 
 Exhibition for the Spectator, Aug. 
 30, 1851, pp. 835-837. 
 
 Exhibition of Sketches and Draw- 
 ings in Pall Mall East. 
 
 IJossetti wrote the notice for the 
 Spectator, Sept. 6, 1851, pp. 859, 860. 
 
 II Losario : Poema Eroico Roma- 
 nesco, di Ser Francesco Polidori. 
 Reviewed by Rossetti in the Critic, 
 April 1, 1853, p. 181. 
 Madeline, with other poems and 
 parables. By Thomas Gordon 
 Hake. 
 
 Reviewed by Rossetti in The 
 Academy, Feb. 1, 1871, pp. 105-107. 
 
 On the Site of a Mulberry-Tree ; 
 planted by William Shakespeare, 
 felled by the Rev. F. Gastrell. 
 The Academy, Feb. 15, 1871, p. 128. 
 
 Maclise's Character Portraits. 
 
 Reviewed by Rossetti in The 
 Academy, April 15, 1871, pp. 217-218. 
 
 The Stealthy School of Criticism. 
 Rossetti's reply in The Athenaeum, 
 Dec. 16, 1871, to Robert Buchanan's 
 article entitled " The Fleshly 
 School of Poetry." 
 
 The Cloud Confines. 
 
 The Fortnightly Review, vol. xi., 
 N.S., 1872, pp. 14, 15. 
 
 Parables and Tales. By Thomas 
 Gordon Hake. 
 
 Reviewed by Rossetti in The Fort- 
 nightly Review, vol. xiii., N.S., 1873, 
 pp. 537-542. 
 
 Sunset Wings. (Seven verses.) 
 
 The Athenceum, May 24, 1873, p. 
 660. 
 
 Translations of two poems from 
 Tommaseo The Young Girl and 
 A Farewell. 
 
 The Athenoeum, June 13, 1874, p. 
 793. 
 
 Sonnets of Three Centuries. 
 Edited by T. Hall Caine. Lon- 
 don, 1882, 4to. 
 
 Contains several sonnets by Ros- 
 setti, one of which, "Raleigh's Cell in 
 the Tower," is printed for the first 
 time. 
 
 IY. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS TO BOOKS. 
 
 The Music Master : a love story, 
 and Two Series of Day and 
 Night Songs. By William 
 Allingham. London, 1855, 
 8vo. 
 
 Contains one illustration by Ros- 
 setti, The Maids of Elfen-Mere, one 
 of the Day and Night Songs. 
 
 Poems by Alfred Tennyson. Lon- 
 don, 1857, 8vo. 
 
 The illustrations by Dante Gabriel 
 Rossetti are to The Lady of Shalott, 
 p. 75 ; Mariana in the South, p. 82 ; 
 The Palace of Art, pp. 113 and 119 ; 
 Sir Galahad, p. 305. 
 
 Goblin Market, and other poems, 
 by Christina Rossetti. With 
 two designs by D. G. Rossetti. 
 Cambridge, 1862, 8vo. 
 
 Goblin Market, The Prince's Pro- 
 grese, and other Poems. With 
 four designs by D. G. Rossetti. 
 New edition. London, 1875, 8vo. 
 
 The Prince's Progress, and other 
 poems, by Christina G. Rossetti. 
 With two designs by D. G. 
 Rossetti. London, 1866, 8vo.
 
 Iv 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 V. APPENDIX. 
 
 BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM? 
 
 Buchanan, Robert. The Fleshly 
 School of Poetry and other 
 phenomena of the day. Lon- 
 don, 1872, 8vo. 
 
 A reprint of Buchanan's article, 
 which appeared in the Contemporary 
 Review, Oct. 1871, with the signature 
 " Thomas Maitland." This reprint is 
 greatly enlarged by the addition of 
 chapters attacking Swinburne and 
 Baudelaire. Rossetti wrote a reply 
 to the article in The Athenceum for 
 Dec. 16, 1871, styled The Stealthy 
 School of Criticism. 
 
 Burlington Fine Arts Club. Bur- 
 lington Fine Arts Club, 1883. 
 Pictures, drawings, designs, 
 and studies by the late Dante 
 Gabriel RosscttL London, 1883, 
 4to. 
 
 Mr. II. Virtue Tebbs took the 
 principal part in compiling this 
 Catalogue. 
 
 Caine, T. H. Hall. Recollections 
 of D. G. Rossetti. London, 
 1882, 8vo. 
 
 A Disquisition on Dante Ga- 
 briel Rossetti's painting in oil, 
 entitled "Dante's Dream," de- 
 livered at the Walker Art 
 Gallery, Nov. 3, 1881. Liver- 
 pool, n.d., 4to. 
 
 Catalogue. Catalogue of the re- 
 maining works of D. G. R. . . . 
 tthich will be sold, by Messrs. 
 Christie, Manson, and Woods, 
 May 12, 1883. [London, 1883> 
 8vo. X^ 
 
 Chesneau, Ernest. La Peinture 
 Anglaise, par E. C. Paris [18S2]. 
 8vo. 
 References to Rossetti's paintings. 
 
 The English School of Paint- 
 ing. Translated by L. N. Ether- 
 ington. (Fine Art Library.) 
 London, 1885, 8vo. 
 
 Encyclopaedias. Encyclopedia 
 Britannica. Ninth edition, 
 Edinburgh, 1886, 4to. 
 
 Rossetti, by Theodore Watts, voL 
 xx., pp. 857-861. 
 
 Ferrazzi, Jacopo.-Manuale Dantes- 
 ca. 4 vols. Bassano, 1865-71, 
 STO. 
 
 Contains various details about Ros- 
 setti's writings and designs on Dante. 
 Forman, H. Buxton. Our Living 
 Poets. An Essay in Criticism. 
 London, 1871, 8vo. 
 
 DanteGabriel Rossetti, pp. 185-225. 
 (Reprinted from Tinsley'i ilagazine). 
 Gamberale, Luigi. Poeti Inglesi 
 e Tedeschi modern! o contem- 
 poranei ; version! di L. G. 
 Firenze, 1881, 16mo. 
 Hamilton, Walter. The ^Esthetic 
 Movement in England. Lon- 
 don, 1882, 8ro. 
 
 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, pp. 54-CO ; 
 Buchanan's Attack on Rossetti, pp. 
 60-61. [A second edition embodies 
 some corrections, etc., communi- 
 cated by W. M. Rossetti.] 
 Hueffer, Francis. Italian and 
 other Studies. London, 1883, 
 8vo. 
 
 Exhibitions of Rossetti's Pictures, 
 
 ). 83-105. Reprinted from the 
 
 r im<, Dec. 30, 1882, Jan. 13 and 15, 
 1883. 
 
 Ingram, John H. Oliver Madox 
 Brown. A biographical sketch, 
 etc. London, 1883, 8vo. 
 
 Contains some matter relating to 
 Rossetti, with a few letters to Oliver 
 Madox Brown. 
 
 Myers, F. W. H. Essays, Modern. 
 London, 1883, 8vo. 
 
 Rossetti and the Religion of 
 Beauty, pp. 312-334. [Reprinted 
 from the Cornhitl llas/aziiie, 1S83]. 
 Nicholson Peter Walker. The 
 Round Table Series. No. vi., 
 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, poet 
 and painter. Edinburgh, 1886. 
 8vo. 
 
 Only one hundred copies of this 
 edition printed. 
 
 Tin
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the / 
 
 >x 
 
 Placci, Carlo. Dante Gabriele 
 Rossetti. (Reprinted from the 
 Masscgna Nazionale.) Firen 
 1882. 8vo. 
 
 Rossetti, W. M. Notes on the 
 Royal Academy Exhibition, 
 1868. Part i., by W. M. R., 
 Part ii. f by A. C. Swinburne. 
 London [1868], 8vo. 
 
 Swinburne on Rossetti's pictures, 
 pp. 45-51. 
 
 Royal Academy. Exhibition of 
 Works, by the Old Masters, 
 including a special selection 
 from the works of John Linnell 
 and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 
 Winter Exhibition, 1883. Lon- 
 don [1883], 8vo. 
 
 Sarrazin, Gabriel. Poetes Mo- 
 dernes do 1'Angleterre. Paris, 
 1885, 8vo. 
 
 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, pp. 233- 
 271. 
 
 Sharp, William. Dante Gabriel 
 Rossetti: a record and a study. 
 London, 1882, 18mo. 
 tedman, Edmund Clarence. 
 Victorian Poets. Boston, [U.S.], 
 1876, 8vo. 
 
 Latter-day Singers Robert Bu- 
 chanan, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 
 "\Villiam Morris, pp. 342-378. 
 
 Swinburne, Algernon C. Essays 
 and Studies. London, 1875, 
 8vo. 
 
 The poems of Dante Gabriel 
 Rossetti, pp. 60-109. [Reprinted 
 from The Fortnightly Review, 1870.] 
 
 Tablettes. Tablettes Biograph- 
 iques. (Eighth Year.) Paris, 
 1882-3, 8vo. 
 Rossetti, by Ch. de Guillaumet. 
 
 Tirebuck, William. Dante 
 Gabriel Rossetti ; His Work 
 and Influence, including a brief 
 survey of recent art tendencies. 
 London, 1882, 8vo. 
 
 Ward, Thomas H. The English 
 Poets, etc. London, 1883, 8vo. 
 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, by Walter 
 H. Pater, vol. iv., pp. 633-664. 
 
 POEMS SET TO Music. 
 
 A Little While. Poetry by D. G. 
 Rossetti. Music by Florence A. 
 Marshall. London [1870], fol. 
 
 A New Year's Burden. Song 
 [begins "Along the grass"]. 
 Words by D. G. R. Music by 
 Lord Henry Somerset. London 
 [1876], fol. 
 
 A New Year's Burden. Song 
 [begins "Along the grass"]. 
 Written by D. G. R. Music by 
 Florence A. Marshall. London, 
 [1877], fol. 
 
 A New Year's Burden. Duet 
 [begins " Along the grass "]. 
 Words by D. G. R. Music by 
 Eaton Faning. London [1879], 
 fol. 
 
 Love-Lily and other Songs, by 
 D. G. R. Love-Lily, Plighted 
 Promise, A Young Fir- Wood, My 
 Father's Close, Autumn Song, 
 A Little While. Set to Music by 
 Edward Dannreuther. London 
 [1884], 8vo. 
 
 MAGAZINE ARTICLES. 
 
 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. Old and 
 New, vol. 2, 1870, pp. 92-94. 
 Tinsley's Magazine, vol. 8, 
 1871, pp. 150-160. Scribner's 
 Monthly, by Edward C. Sted- 
 man, vol. 9, 1875, pp. 431-434. 
 Academy, byEdwardDowden 
 vol. 20, pp. 285, 286. St' 
 James's Magazine, by Thoma g 
 Bayne, vol. 32, 1877, pp. 415 
 430. Unsere Zeit, by Mary F"
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. 
 Robinson, voL 1, N.S., 1879, 
 pp. 767-778. Century, with 
 portrait, by Edmund W. Gosse, 
 vol. 24, 1882, pp. 718-725. 
 Harper's New Monthly Maga- 
 zine, by Mary F. Robinson, vol. 
 65, 1882, pp. 691 - 701. 
 Academy, by T. Hall Caine, vol. 
 21, 1882, pp. 265-268. Art 
 Journal, by William Tirebuck, 
 1883, pp. 27, 28. Quarterly 
 Review, vol. 132, 1872, pp. 59- 
 84 ; same article, Eclectic 
 Magazine, N.S., vol. 15, 1872, 
 pp. 385-399. 
 
 and Fleshly School of Poetry. 
 
 Contemporary Review, by 
 Thomas Maitlaud (Robert 
 Buchanan), rol, 18, 1871, 
 pp. 334-350. 
 
 . "Fleshly School" Scandal. 
 
 Tinsley's Magazine, vol. 10, 
 1872, pp. 89-102. 
 
 . and Tadema, Linnell, and 
 
 Lawson. Blackwood's Edin- 
 burgh Magazine, by J. B. 
 Atkinson, vol. 133, 1883, pp. 
 392-411. 
 
 and the Religion of Beauty. 
 
 Cornhill Magazine, by F. W. H. 
 Myers, vol. 47, 1883, pp. 213- 
 224 ; reprinted in Essays, etc., 
 by Myers, 1883. ** 
 
 Art of. Contemporary Re- 
 view, by Harry Quilter, vol. 43, 
 1883, pp. 190-203. 
 
 Earlier Works of. Portfolio, 
 
 by F. G. Stephens, 1883, pp. 
 87-94 and 114-119. 
 
 English Pre - Raphaelite and 
 
 Poetical School of Painters. An- 
 dover Review, by Helen B. Mer- 
 rimau, vol. 1, 1884, pp. 594-612. 
 
 Exhibitions of his Pictures. 
 
 Art Journal, 18S3, pp. 61, 62. 
 Pall Mall Gazette, Jan. 3, 1883. 
 
 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. 
 
 Times, Jan. 13, 1883. Ath- 
 
 naeum, Jan. 6, 1883, pp. 22, 
 
 23. Academy, by C. Monk- 
 bouse, vol. 23, 1883, pp. 14, 
 
 15, and 50, 51. 
 Influence in Art. English 
 
 Illustrated Magazine, by J. 
 
 Comyns Carr, 1883, pp. 28-40. 
 Memorials of. Atlantic 
 
 Monthly, vol. 51, 1883, pp. 549- 
 
 655. 
 Notes on his Works. Art 
 
 Journal, by W. M. Rossetti, 
 
 1884, pp. 148-152, 165-168, 
 
 204-208, 255. 
 Obituary Notices of. Athe- 
 
 nteum, by Theodore Watts and 
 
 Fred. George Stephens, April 
 
 15, 1882, pp. 480-481. 
 On Some Marginalia made by 
 
 him in a copy of Keats' s Poems. 
 
 Manchester Quarterly, by Geo. 
 
 Milner, vol. 2, 1883, pp. 1-10. , 
 Painter and Poet. Putnam's 
 
 Monthly Magazine, by W. J. 
 
 Stillman, N.S. vol. 6, 1870, 
 
 pp. 95-101. 
 Parodied. Pall Mall Gazette, 
 
 Nov. 5, 1881. 
 Picture, ' ' A Vision of Fiam- 
 
 mctta." Athenaeum, Oct. 5, 
 
 1878, pp. 439, 440. 
 
 Pictures of. Athenaeum, Aug. 
 
 14, 1875, pp. 219-221 ; April 
 14, 1877, pp. 486, 487 ; Nov. 1, 
 
 1879, pp. 566, 567; Feb. 26, 
 1881, p. 304; Aug. 20, 1881, 
 p. 250. 
 
 Poems. Fortnightly Review, 
 
 by A. C. Swinburne, N.S. , vol. 
 7, 1870, pp. 551-579. Athe- 
 naeum, April 1870, pp. 573, 574. 
 Westminster Review, vol. ,'8 
 N.S., 1870, pp. 226, 227 ; voi. 
 39, N.S., pp. 55-92. North 
 American Review, by J. R. Deu-
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Vll 
 
 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. 
 
 nett, vol. Ill, 1870, pp. 471-480. 
 Fraser's Magazine, by John 
 Skelton, vol. 1, N.S., 1870, pp. 
 609-622 ; same article, Littell's 
 Living Age, vol. 105, 1870, pp. 
 686-697; Eclectic Magazine, vol. 
 12, N.S., pp. 143-154. New 
 Monthly Magazine, vol. 146, 
 1870, pp. 681-700. Atlantic 
 Monthly, vol. 26, 1870, pp. 
 115-118. Lakeside Monthly, 
 vol. 4, 1870, pp. 320-323. 
 Nation, vol. 11, 1870, pp. 29, 30. 
 North British Review, vol. 52, 
 1870, pp. 598-601. Broadway, 
 vol. 1, 3rd series, 1870, pp. 286- 
 288. St. James's Magazine, 
 by Frederick Wedmore, vol. 
 9, N.S., 1872, pp. 31-40. 
 New Eclectic, vol. 7, p. 110. 
 Catholic World, by J. C. 
 Earle, vol. 19, 1874, pp. 263-272. 
 New Monthly Magazine, by 
 T. H. Hall Caine, vol. 116, 1879, 
 pp. 800-812. Le Livre, by Jos. 
 Knight, 1881, pp. 722, 723. 
 Critic, vol. 1, 1881, pp. 305, 
 306. Pall Mall Gazette, Nov. 4, 
 1881. Athenssum, Oct. 1881, 
 pp. 457-460 ; same article, 
 Eclectic Magazine, vol. 34, 
 N.S., 1881, pp. 851-858. 
 Art Journal, by Alice 
 Meynell, 1882, pp. 85-87. 
 Fraser's Magazine, by Thomas 
 Bayne, vol. 25, N.S., 1882, pp. 
 376-384 Edinburgh Review, 
 voh 155, 1882, pp. 322-337. 
 British Quarterly Review, 
 vol. 76, 1882, pp. 109-127. 
 Contemporary Review, by 
 Principal Shairp, vol. 42, 1882, 
 pp. 17-32. 
 
 The Painted Poetry of, and 
 
 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. 
 
 Watts. Nineteenth Century, 
 by Mrs. Barrington, vol. 13, 
 1883, pp. 950-970. 
 
 Pictorialism in Verse. Port- 
 folio, by William Sharp, 1882, 
 pp. 176-180. 
 
 Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. 
 
 Contemporary Review, by Wm. 
 Holman Hunt, vol. 49, 1886, 
 pp. 471-488, 737-750, and 
 820-833. 
 
 Pre-Raphaelite Exhibition. 
 
 Saturday Review, vol. 4, 1857, 
 
 pp. 11, 12. 
 Pre-Raphaelite Magazine. 
 
 Fraser's Magazine, by J. 
 
 Ashcroft Noble, vol. 25, N.S., 
 
 1882, pp. 568-580. 
 Pre - Raphaelitism. Nation, 
 
 vol. 1, 1865, pp. 273, 274. 
 -Pre-Raphaelitism in Art and 
 
 Literature. British Quarterly 
 
 Review, vol. 16, 1852, pp. 
 
 197-220. 
 Reaction from Prc-R&phad- 
 
 itism. Fine Ails Quarterly 
 
 Review, by P. G. Hamerton, 
 
 vol. 2, 1864, pp. 255-262. 
 Recollections of (Cainz's). 
 
 Nation, vol. 36, 1883, pp. 67-68. 
 A Record and a Study 
 
 (Sharp's). Nation, vol. 36, 
 
 1883, p. 408. 
 Translations. Nation, vol. 
 
 18, 1874, pp. 159, 160. Na 
 
 tional Review, vol. 15, 1862, pp. 
 
 60-95. Fraser's Magazine, vol. 
 
 65, 1862, pp. 580-594. 
 
 Truth about. Nineteenth 
 
 Century, by Theodore Watts, 
 vol. 13, 1883, pp. 404-423. 
 
 Two Drawings by. Nation, 
 
 vol. 3, 1866, pp. 501-502.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 VI. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS 
 
 Sir Hugh the Heron 
 
 The Germ 
 
 My Sister's Sleep 
 Hand and Soul 
 The Blessed Damozel 
 The Carillon 
 From the Cliffs 
 Pax Vobis 
 Six Soiiuets 
 
 1843 
 1850 
 
 Sister Helen 
 Burden of Nineveh 
 The Staff and Scrip 
 The Early Italian Poet* 
 Poems . 
 Ballads and Sonnets 
 
 Collected Works 
 
 c. 1853 
 1856 
 1856 
 1861 
 1870 
 1881 
 
 18S6 
 
 VII. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF PAINTING 
 DRAWINGS. 
 
 AND 
 
 1846. 
 
 1 Pencil Portrait of Win. 
 
 Rossetti. 
 
 K. 
 
 18*7. 
 
 2 Pencil and While Chalk.- 
 
 Portrait study of the 
 artist himself. 
 
 1848. 
 
 3 Penandlnk. "The sun may 
 
 shine and we be cold." 
 
 4 ,, Gretchen in the Chapel, 
 ii ,, Genevieve. 
 
 6 Sketch of himself. 
 
 7 Sejiia. "La Belle Dame sans 
 
 mercy." 
 
 8 Oil. Portrait of Professor 
 
 Gabriele Rossetti (Father 
 of the Artist). 
 ? ., Portrait of Mrs. Banks. 
 
 1849. 
 
 10 Oil. Girlhood of Mary Virgin. 
 
 11 Pen and Ink. " The First 
 
 Anniversary of the Death 
 of Beatrice." 
 
 12 Water Colour. The Labora- 
 
 tory from Browning. 
 [Rossetti's First Water 
 Colour.] 
 
 13 Pen and /. " II Saluto 
 
 di Beatrice" (1849-50). 
 
 1850. 
 
 14 f)il. Ecce Ancilla Domini. 
 
 15 Water Colour. Small up- 
 
 right figure in red [Rosso- 
 vestita], 
 
 16 Pen and Ink. " Taurello's 
 
 First Sight of Fortune " 
 (from Browning's " Sor- 
 dello"), 1850-51.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 17 Crayons. Study of Two Girls 
 
 Dancing. 
 IS Pencil. Designs for No. 19. 
 
 19 Water Coloiir. Morning 
 
 Music. 
 
 20 Fen and Ink. Dorothy and 
 
 Theophilus 
 
 21 ,, Several portraits, etc. 
 
 22 Water Colour. Beatrice, 
 
 meeting Dante at a 
 marriage feast, denies 
 him her salutation. 
 
 23 Indianlnk. Bethlehem Gate 
 
 [c. 1851]. 
 
 24 Water Colour. The Queen's 
 
 25 Pencil and Black Chalk. A 
 
 little Girl dancing [c. 
 1851]. 
 
 26 Pencil. How they met them- 
 
 selves. See Nos. 108, 
 174. [Original sketch 
 destroyed or lost.] 
 
 27 Pen and Ink. Hesterna 
 
 Rosa, No. 1. 
 
 28 ,, Boy and Girl dancing. 
 
 29 Water Colour. Lucrezia 
 
 Borgia playing on a lute, 
 with dancing children, 
 etc. 
 
 1852. 
 
 30 Water Colour. " Fazio's 
 Mistress." Seo Nos. 166, 
 
 173. 
 
 31 ,, Giotto painting the por- 
 
 trait of Dante. 
 
 32 ,, The Annunciation [un- 
 
 finished]. 
 
 33 The Meeting of Dante and 
 
 Beatrice in the Purgatorio. 
 
 34 Oil The Two Mothers. 
 
 35 Pencil Head of Ford Madox 
 
 Brown. 
 
 36 Crayon. William Bell Scott 
 
 head. 
 
 1853. 
 
 37 Pen and Ink. "Found.' 
 
 [Early study for the oil 
 picture begun this year, 
 and unfinished in 1882.] 
 
 38 ,, Another sketch, supposed 
 
 to be earlier. 
 
 39 ,, Sketch of the artist's 
 
 Mother. 
 
 40 ,, Two Designs in one frame 
 
 [c. 1853]. "Fra Ango- 
 lico Painting." Giorgione 
 painting from a model. 
 
 41 ,, A little Girl wheeling 
 
 Baby in a Trundle. 
 
 42 Pencil. Sketch of the Artist's 
 
 Father. 
 
 43 ,, Girl reclining on a pillow. 
 
 44 Water Colour. Dante at the 
 
 Anniversary of Beatrice's 
 Death. 
 
 45 ,, Carlisle Tower. 
 
 46 ,, Female Figure singing to 
 
 a Lute. 
 
 47 Ink. Portrait of himself. 
 
 1854. 
 
 48 Pen and Ink and Pencil. 
 
 Miss E. Siddal. 
 
 49 Pencil. do. 
 
 50 ,, Paolo and Franceses. 
 
 [Study for the first com- 
 partment of Triptych, 
 No. 142.] 
 
 51 Water Colour. Paolo and 
 
 Francesca. 
 
 52 ,, Arthur's Tomb; or, the 
 
 Last Meeting of Lancelot 
 and Guenevere. 
 
 53 Pencil. The Maids of Elfen- 
 
 Mere. [See No. 61.]
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 1855. 
 
 54 Water Colour. Chapel before 
 
 the Lists. 
 
 55 Pen and Ink. Hamlet and 
 
 Ophelia. 
 
 56 Water Colour. Portrait of 
 
 Miss Siddal. 
 
 57 ,, " La Belle Dame sans 
 
 mercy." 
 
 58 Dante's Dream at the time 
 
 of the death of Beatrice. 
 
 59 Pen and Ink. Sketch of 
 
 Alfred Tennyson reading 
 
 "Maud." 
 
 GO ,, Another sketch of do. 
 01 On Wood. Illustration to Al- 
 
 lingham's Poems. [Same 
 
 as No. 53.] 
 
 62 Water Colour. The Passover 
 
 the Holy Family. 
 [ ? 1855, unfinished.] 
 
 63 Pen and Ink. Cats' Cradle. 
 
 [c. 1855.] 
 
 1856-57. 
 
 C4 Pencil. Bride and Bride- 
 groom [c. 1856.] 
 
 65 Oil. King Rent's Honey- 
 
 moon [Panel in a Cabinet]. 
 
 66 St. Catherine. 
 
 67 Pen and Ink Morte d' 
 
 Arthur. 
 
 68 Water Colour. The Tune of 
 
 Seven Towers. [See 
 Defence of Guenevere. 
 W. Morris, p. 199.] 
 
 69 ,, The Gate of Memory. 
 
 [Retouched 1864.] 
 
 70 Wedding of St. George. 
 
 71 ,, Fra Pace. 
 
 72 On Wood. Five Tennyson 
 
 Engravings. [Existing 
 also as water colours, but 
 Mr. W. M. Rossetti 
 doubts whether the St 
 
 Cecilia or the Arthur and 
 Queens exist as water 
 colours.] 
 
 73 Water Colour. The Blue 
 
 Closet. 
 
 74 ,, The Bower Garden. 
 
 75 Fresco. Lancelot at the 
 
 Shrineof the Sanct Grael. 
 
 76 Black Chalk. A. Fawn [c. 
 
 1857]. 
 
 77 Water Colour. Kir Galahad. 
 
 [No. 1.] 
 
 78 Water Colour. Sanct Grael. 
 
 79 Death of Breuse sans 
 
 Pitie. 
 
 80 St. Cecilia [see No. 72]. 
 
 81 ,, Chalk Design. St. Luke. 
 
 The Painter. 
 
 82 Water Colour. Meeting of 
 
 Sir Tristram and Yseult. 
 
 83 Pencil. Mary in the House 
 
 of John. 
 
 84 Head of a Scotch Girl. 
 
 [c. 1856.] 
 
 85 Pen and Ink. Mary Magda- 
 
 lene at the door of Simon 
 the Pharisee. 
 
 1858. 
 
 88 Indian Ink. Queen Guene- 
 vere. [A study for the 
 figure of Guenevere in the 
 Union Building, Oxford.] 
 
 87 Water Colour. A Christmas 
 
 Carol. [See Nos. 219 
 and 220.] 
 
 88 Mary in the House of 
 
 John. [See No. 105.] 
 
 89 Ruth and Boaz. 
 
 90 Golden Water. 
 
 91 Ink. Mary Magdalene, etc. 
 
 92 Water Colour. Passover 
 
 Drawing. 
 
 93 Pen and Ink. Sketch of Miss 
 
 Siddal.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 94 Pencil Finished Study of a 
 
 Girl's Head (Ada), 
 [c. 1858.] 
 
 95 Outline Study of a Girl's 
 
 Head (Ada), [c. 1858]. 
 
 96 ,, Sketch of a Girl asleep on 
 
 a Sofa [c. 1858]. 
 
 97 Study of a boy, Christ. 
 
 1859. 
 
 98 Water Colour. My Lady 
 
 Greensleeves. 
 
 99 Water Colour and Oil. 
 
 Head of Christ. 
 
 100 ,, Mary Magdalene at the 
 
 Door. [Replica.] 
 
 101 Crayons. Beata Beatrix. 
 
 [First study for No. 163.] 
 
 102 Oil. Dante and Beatrice. 
 
 103 Pencil. Study for the follow- 
 
 ing 
 
 104 Oil. Bocca Baciata. 
 
 105 Water Colour. Mary in the 
 
 House of John. [Eeplica 
 of No. 87.] 
 
 106 Portrait of Robert Brown- 
 
 ing. 
 
 107 Triptych for Llandaff 
 
 Cathedral. [Coloured 
 study for No. 132.] 
 
 1860. 
 
 103 Ink. How they met them- 
 selves. [Finished design. 
 See Nos. 26 and 174.1 
 
 109 Pencil Portrait of Mrs. 
 
 Ford Madox Brown. 
 
 110 Pen and Ink. Dr. Johnson 
 
 and the Methodist Ladies 
 at the Mitre. 
 
 111 Water Colour. do. 
 
 112 Pencil. Mr. Swinburne 
 
 (head and shoulders.) 
 
 113 Oil. Portrait of Mr. Swin- 
 
 burne. 
 
 114 Indian Ink Dantis Amor. 
 
 [c. 1860. This design was 
 carried out as a panel 
 painting.] 
 
 115 Pencil. Signor Giuseppe 
 
 Maenza (head). 
 
 116 ,, Portrait of Mrs. D. G. 
 
 Rossetti. 
 
 117 ,, Aspecta Medusa, 
 
 118 Indian Ink. A Fight for a 
 
 Woman. [Design for No. 
 196.] 
 
 1861. 
 
 119 Oil. Portrait of Mrs. D. G. 
 
 Rossetti. 
 
 120 Water Colour. Portrait of do. 
 
 121 Pencil. Portrait of do. 
 
 standing at an easel. 
 
 122 ,, Miss E. Burne Jones. 
 
 123 Water Colour. Leah and 
 
 Rachel. 
 
 124 Oil Burd-Alane. 
 
 125 Pen and Ink. Cnssandra. 
 
 Retouched, 1869. 
 
 126 Oil. Portrait of Mrs. J. A. 
 
 Heaton. 
 
 127 Red Chalk. Portrait of John 
 
 Ruskiu. 
 
 128 Oil. Fair Rosamond. 
 
 129 Water Colour. Fanner's 
 
 Daughter. 
 
 130 Crayons. Regina Cordium. 
 
 131 ,, Penelope. 
 
 132 Oil. The Triptych for Llan- 
 
 daff Cathedral. [See No. 
 107.] 
 
 133 Pencil Mrs. H. T. Wolf, 
 
 after Death. 
 
 134 ,, Lachesis. [Study of a 
 
 lady seated, holding a 
 thread.] 
 
 135 Water Colour. Lucrezia 
 
 Borgia. 
 
 136 ,, Sir Galahad. [Replica of 
 
 No. 77.]
 
 Xll 
 
 B1BLIOGRAPH Y. 
 
 137 Indian Ink. Spring a 
 woman cutting a branch 
 of a tree. [c. 1861.] 
 
 133 Glass. Adam belore the Fall. 
 
 139 ,, Eve before the Fall. 
 
 140 Panel. The Annunciation. 
 
 141 Pencil. Head of a Lady. 
 
 About 1861, seven car- 
 toons may have been 
 executed for painted 
 Class, "The Parable of 
 the Vineyard." The 
 glass itself is in a church 
 in Scarborough. 
 
 1862. 
 
 142 Water Colour. Paolo and 
 
 Francesca. [See No. 50, 
 Triptych.] 
 
 143 ,, do. [A second design.] 
 
 144 St. George and the 
 
 Princess Sabra. 
 
 145 Oil. Female Portrait. 
 
 146 ,, Girl at a Lattice. 
 
 147 Slack a iid lied Chalk. Por- 
 
 trait of Artist's Mother. 
 
 148 Pencil. Portrait of Mrs. 
 
 Leathart [Study for the 
 following.] 
 
 149 Oil. do. do. 
 
 150 Indian Ink. King Rene's 
 
 Honeymoon. [Designs 
 for a stained glass 
 window.] 
 
 151 Ink. Reminiscence of M. 
 
 Boyce Mrs. II. T. Wells. 
 
 152 Pencil. Two designs for 
 
 Goblin Market. 
 
 153 Water Colour. Heart of the 
 
 Night. 
 
 154 ,, Bethlehem Gate. 
 
 155 Indian Ink. Threshing. 
 
 [Design for glazed tile. 
 e. 1862.] 
 
 156 Pencil. Portrait of Miss 
 
 Boyd. 
 
 157 Water Colour. Lucrozia 
 
 washing hands alter 
 compounding a poison. 
 
 1863. 
 
 158 Oil "Belcolore." 
 
 159 Red Chalk. Girl biting a 
 
 rosebud. [Study for 
 preceding.] 
 
 160 Crayons. Venus Verticordia. 
 
 161 Pencil and Black Chalk. Girl 
 
 playing on a stringed 
 instrument. [Study for 
 No. 208.] 
 
 162 ,, Earlier study of do. 
 
 163 Oil. Beata Beatrix, No. 1. 
 
 Sea Nos. 300, 388. 
 
 164 ,, Miss Herbert [c. 1S63]. 
 
 165 Helen. 
 
 166 Aurelia (originally Fazio's 
 
 Mistress). Repainted 
 1873. 
 
 167 Girl with Castanets dan- 
 
 cing, [c. 1S63.] 
 
 168 Water Colour. Lucrezia 
 
 Borgia. 
 
 169 Water Colour. St George 
 
 and the Dragon. 
 
 170 Black Chalk and Pencil. 
 
 Head and Bust (for the 
 Blue Bower). Finished 
 Study. 
 
 171 Water Colour. Brim full. 
 
 172 Black Chalk and Pencil 
 
 Study of a Negro Boy 
 for " The Beloved." 
 
 1864. 
 
 173 Pencil. Fazio's Mistress. 
 
 [Replica of No. 30.] 
 
 174 Water Colour. How they 
 
 met themselves [See 
 Nos. 26, 108.] 
 
 175 Oil. Lady Lilith. [Finished 
 
 in 1868.] 
 
 176 Crayons. Sibylla Palmifera. 
 
 [Finished Study.]
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 xni 
 
 177 Black Chalk. Sibylla Palmi- 
 
 fera. [Replica.] 
 
 178 Pencil and Black Chalk. 
 
 Head of a Mulatto Girl. 
 [Study for "The Be- 
 loved."] 
 
 179 Crayons. Study for the 
 
 Bride in "The Beloved"]. 
 
 180 Water Colour. Dante meet- 
 
 ing Beatrice in Paradise. 
 
 181 Oil The Loving Cup. [See 
 
 No. 217.] 
 
 182 Water Colour. do. 
 
 183 Spring. 
 
 184 ,, First Madness of Ophelia. 
 
 185 Pencil. Miss Heaton, Jun. 
 
 186 Water Colour. Sir Galahad, 
 
 Sir Bors, etc. 
 
 187 ,, The Rose Garden. [Roman 
 
 de la Eose.~\ 
 
 188 Glass. King Rene's Honey- 
 
 moon. [For a window in 
 Mr. Birket Foster's 
 house.] 
 
 189 Water Colour. Joan of Arc. 
 
 [SeeNos. 190, 394, 399.] 
 
 190 Oil. do. [Replica in Oil.] 
 
 191 ,, Monna Pomona. 
 
 192 Water Colour. Finished 
 
 Portrait-Study for No. 
 210. (Miss Wilding.) 
 
 1865-6. 
 
 193 Water Colour. Venus Verti- 
 
 cordia. Retouched 1877- 
 [See No. 250.] 
 
 194 ,, The Merciless Lady. 
 
 195 ,, Hesterna Rosa. [See No. 
 
 27. Replica.] 
 
 196 ,, Fight for a Woman. 
 
 [Morte d' Arthur.] 
 
 197 ,, Portrait Head Mrs. Ver- 
 
 non Lushington. 
 
 198 Pencil. Washing Hands. 
 
 [Slight sketch for follow- 
 ing.] 
 
 199 Water Colour. Washing 
 
 Hands. [See No. 327.] 
 
 200 Pen and Ink. Sheet of Six 
 
 Studies. [For Prince's 
 Progress, by Christina 
 Rossetti.] 
 
 201 Pencil Head of a Girl. 
 
 ["Ada."] 
 
 202 ,, Head of a Fair- Haired 
 
 Girl. [Same as preced- 
 ing-] 
 
 203 Pen and Ink. The Bed- 
 
 Chamber. 
 
 204 Crayons. Study for Dante's 
 
 Dream. 
 
 205 Water Colour. Aurora. 
 
 206 Oil. II Ramoscello. 
 
 207 ,, "The Beloved," or The 
 
 Bride. [Retouched in 
 1873. 
 
 208 , , The Blue Bower. 
 
 209 Crayons. Portrait of Chris- 
 
 tina Rossetti. 
 
 210 Oil Sibylla Palmifera. [Fin- 
 
 ished 1870.] 
 
 211 ,, Monna Vanna. 
 
 212 ,, King Rene's Honeymoon. 
 
 213 ,, Venus Verticordia. 
 
 214 ,, Portrait of Mrs. Gabriele 
 
 Rossetti. 
 
 215 Water Colour. Hamlet and 
 
 Ophelia. 
 
 216 Oil The Boat of Love. [A 
 
 large oil monochrome, 
 c,186<\ now in the Public 
 Gallery, Birmingham.] 
 
 1866-7. 
 
 217 Water Colour. The Loving 
 
 Cup. [Replica ] 
 
 218 ,, Lady Lilith. (Replica 
 of No. 175.] 
 
 219 Crayons. A Christmas Carol. 
 [Replica of No. 87.] 
 
 220 Oil do. [A different com- 
 
 position.]
 
 XIV 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 221 Oil Joli-Ccenr. 
 
 222 Crayons. Andromeda. 
 
 223 ,, Venus Verticordia. [Study 
 
 for No. 250.] 
 
 221 Water Colour. Tessa La 
 Bionda. 
 
 225 Pencil. [Study for the Delia 
 
 in No. 226.] 
 
 226 Water Colour. The Return 
 
 of Tibullus to Delia. 
 
 227 Oil. do. 
 
 228 Pencil. Portrait of Ford 
 
 Madox Brown. 
 
 229 Crayons. Studyof a Head for 
 
 a Picture. 
 
 230 ,, A Magdalene. [See Nos. 
 
 326, 354.] 
 
 231 Oil. Monna Rosa. 
 
 232 The Loving Cup. [See 
 
 Nos. 181, 182, 217.] 
 
 233 ,, Portrait of Mrs. Lushing- 
 
 ton. 
 
 234 Glass. Memorial window to 
 
 Miss M. M. Polidori, in 
 Christ Church, Albany 
 Street. "Sermon on the 
 Mount." 
 
 235 Crayons. Peace. 
 
 236 ,, Contemplation. 
 
 237 Water Colour. Sir Tristram 
 
 and Yseult drinking the 
 Love drink. 
 
 1868. 
 
 238 Crayons. Reverie. 
 
 239 ,, do. [Replica.] 
 
 240 ,, Lady seated near a Table. 
 
 [Study for No. 241.] 
 
 241 Oil. Portrait of Mrs. Morris. 
 
 242 Crayons. Study of a Head. 
 
 243 Red Chalk. do. 
 
 244 Water Colour. L& Bionda 
 
 del Balcone. [Larger 
 Replica of the Bocca 
 Baciata, No. 104.] 
 
 245 Crayons. Portrait of Mrs. 
 
 William Morris. 
 
 246 Pencil. Orpheus and Eury- 
 
 dice [c. 1868]. 
 
 247 Crayons. Study of a Female 
 
 Figure (draped). 
 
 248 do. 3 length, life size. 
 
 249 Lady Lilith (figure only). 
 
 [Replica of No. 175.] 
 
 250 Oil. Venus Verticordia. [Re- 
 
 plica of No. 193.] 
 
 251 Crayons. La Donna del la 
 
 Finestra Vita Nuova. 
 
 252 Water Colour. The Rose. 
 
 253 ,, The Princess Sabra. 
 
 [Replica 2.] 
 
 254 Crayons.- Andromeda's Head. 
 
 255 La Pia. [Principal Study, 
 
 see No. 391.] 
 
 256 Study of a Female Head 
 
 for Dante's Dream. 
 
 257 ,, Anrea Catena. 
 
 258 Portrait of Christina Ros- 
 
 setti. 
 
 259 Pencil. Portrait of Mrs. J. 
 
 Fernandez. 
 
 260 Crayons. do. 
 
 1869. 
 
 261 Crayons. Pandora. [See No. 
 
 831.] 
 
 262 La Donna della Finestra. 
 
 263 ,, Calliope Coronio. 
 
 264 ,, A portrait. (Female head.) 
 
 265 , , La Mandolinata. 
 
 266 ,, Beata Beatrix. [Replica 
 
 of the original oil ot 
 1863.] 
 
 267 Penelope. 
 
 268 ,, Monna Vanna. [Replica 
 
 of No. 211.] 
 
 269 ,, Rosa Triplex. [See No. 
 
 317.] 
 
 270 ,, Girl holding her knees. 
 
 271 Study of Female Head. 
 
 [For Dante's Dream. ]
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 xv 
 
 1870. 
 
 272 Crayons Portrait of Mrs. H. 
 
 Virtue Tebbs. 
 
 273 Portrait of Mrs. A. 
 
 Coronio. 
 
 274 ,, Lady with a Fan. 
 
 275 ,, La Donna della Fiarnma. 
 
 276 Black Chalk. Portrait of 
 
 Mrs. Rossetti, Senior. 
 
 277 Crayons. do. 
 
 278 ,, Head of Dante. 
 
 279 ,, Silence. 
 
 280 Oil Mariana. 
 
 281 Dante's Dream. [Ros- 
 
 setti'a largest picture, 
 now in the Walker 
 Gallery, Liverpool.] 
 
 282 Crayons. Two Studies of 
 
 Female Heads. [For No. 
 281.] 
 
 283 ., Color d'Amore e di pieta 
 
 Sembiante, [The Lady of 
 Pity.] 
 
 284 Black and IVTiite. The 
 
 Prisoner's Daughter. 
 
 285 Pencil Death of Lady 
 
 Macbeth, [c. 1870.] 
 
 286 Pen and Ink. do. 
 
 287 Crayons. Two Portraits ; 
 
 Miss Cassavetti and Miss 
 Cassavetti. [c 1870.] 
 
 288 Portrait of Miss Baring. 
 
 289 Indian Ink. Troy Town. 
 
 [Design illustrating the 
 same legend as Rossetti's 
 ballad, "Troy Town."] 
 
 1871. 
 
 290 Oil The Water Willow. 
 
 291 Crayons. Head of Miss Jane 
 
 Morris. 
 
 292 ,, do. Miss May Morris. 
 
 293 ,, Proserpina. 
 
 294 ,, Perlascura. 
 
 295 Water Colour. Elena's Song 
 
 [Hesterna Rosa]. See 
 Nos. 27, 195. 
 
 296 W ater Colour Ee&ta. Beatrix. 
 
 [Small Replica of No. 
 163.] 
 
 297 Crayons. The Dead Beatrice 
 
 [of Dante's Dream]. 
 
 1872. 
 
 298 Oil. Veronica Veronese. 
 
 299 Crayons. Portrait of Dr. 
 
 Gordon Hake. 
 
 300 ,, CW.Beata Beatrix. [Re- 
 
 plica of No. 163.] 
 
 301 Crayons. do. [figure only.] 
 
 302 Water Colour. The Saluta- 
 
 tion of Beatrice [coloured 
 study for No. 392.] 
 
 303 Crayon. A Lady fingering 
 
 her Necklace, [c. 1872.] 
 
 1873. 
 
 304 Oil La Ghirlandata. 
 
 305 Crayons. The Blessed Damo- 
 
 zel. [Study for No. 351.] 
 
 306 ,, Ligeia Siren. 
 
 307 ,, Study for a Lady in 
 
 "Dante's Dream." 
 
 308 Portrait of Mr. George 
 
 Hake. 
 
 309 Crayons. Portrait of Lady 
 
 Mount-Temple. 
 
 310 Pen and Ink. Mrs. William 
 
 Morris, in an Icelandic 
 Costume, (c. 1873.) 
 
 1874. 
 
 311 Crayons. Study for the head 
 
 in No. 312. 
 
 312 Oil. Fleurs de Marie. 
 
 313 ,, Dis Manibus ; or, the Ro- 
 
 man Widow. 
 
 314 ,, Head of the Blessed 
 
 Damozel. 
 
 315 Crayons. Proserpina. [Fin- 
 
 ished Crayon study for 
 the following.]
 
 XVI 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 316 Oil. Proserpina. [See Nos. 
 
 353, 386, 393.] 
 
 317 Water Colour. RosaTriplex. 
 
 [Replica of No. 269.] 
 
 318 Crayons. Portrait of Mr. W. 
 
 Theodore Watts. 
 
 319 Oil. The Damozel of the 
 
 Sanct Grail. 
 
 320 CVai/OTW.f -length Study. 
 
 321 ,, Portrait Study, in profile. 
 
 (Lady.) 
 
 322 ,, Two Female Heads. 
 
 323 Black Chalk. Dante (full 
 
 length). [Study for No. 
 366.] 
 
 324 OIL Portrait of Mrs. Morris. 
 
 325 Crayons. Portrait of Mrs. 
 
 William Rossetti. 
 
 326 Pencil. Life-size Head Study 
 
 (Lady). 
 
 1875. 
 
 327 Crayons. Washing Hands 
 
 [different to No. 199 ; 
 study for No. 328]. 
 
 328 Oil. LA Bella Mano. 
 
 329 Crayons. The Blessed Damo- 
 
 zel. [Study for No. 351.] 
 
 330 Pencil. The Question. [Or 
 
 the Sphinx.] 
 
 331 Otl Pandora. [See No. 261.] 
 
 332 Crayons. A Winged Cherub. 
 
 333 Pencil. Portrait of a Lady. 
 
 334 Crayons. Astarte Syriaca. 
 
 335 Penan! Ink. do. 
 
 [Study for No. 349.] 
 
 336 Crayons. Study of an Angelic 
 
 Head. 
 
 337 ,. do. 
 
 338 Portrait of Mrs. C. A. 
 
 Howell. 
 
 339 Female Figure. [Study 
 
 for Dante's Dream, No. 
 366.] 
 
 340 ,, Study for central portion 
 
 of do. 
 841 ... Portrait of Mrs. Still man. 
 
 342 Crayons. -Dante's Awakening 
 
 from his Dream. [Stu>ly 
 for one of the predella 
 subjects to No. 366.] 
 
 343 ,, The Sea-Spell. [Study fcr 
 
 No. 350.] 
 
 344 ,, Figure and TwilightLan'l- 
 
 scape. [Study for predella 
 to the Blessed Damozel.] 
 
 345 Pencil. A Vision of Fiam- 
 
 metta. [Study for No. 
 367.] 
 
 346 Crayons. Three Studies for 
 
 Heads of do. 
 
 347 ,, Head Studies for Astarte. 
 
 348 ,, Mrs. Gabriele Rossetti. 
 
 [Head and Bust] 
 
 1876-7. 
 
 349 Oil Astarte Syriaca. 
 
 350 The Sea-Spell. 
 
 351 ,, The Blessed Damozel. 
 
 No. 1. [See No. 377.] 
 
 352 Crayons. Domizia Scaligera. 
 
 [c. 1876.] 
 
 353 Oil. Proserpina. [Replica. 
 
 See No. 316.] 
 
 354 Crayons. A Magdalene. 
 
 (Head). 
 
 355 ,, The Spirit of the Rainbow. 
 
 356 Forced Music. 
 
 357 The Salutation (Head 
 
 Study of No. 392.] 
 
 358 Mnemosyne. [Finished 
 
 Study of No. 385.] 
 
 359 Oil. Mary Magdalene. 
 
 360 Crayons. Gretchen. Study 
 
 of a head. [See No. 390.] 
 
 1873. 
 
 361 Crayons. Pandora [Replica]. 
 
 362 Study of a Female Head. 
 
 363 ., Perlascura. 
 
 364 ,, Portrait of Christina Ros- 
 
 setti. 
 
 365 ,, Mrs. Rossetti, sen., and 
 
 Miss Rossetti.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 xvu 
 
 366 Oil. Dante's Dream. [Smaller 
 
 Replica, with double pre- 
 della of No. 281.] 
 
 367 A Vision of Fiammetta. 
 
 368 Crayons. The Day Dream. 
 
 [Finished study for No. 
 389.] 
 
 369 Water Colour. Bruna Bru- 
 
 nelleschi. 
 
 370 Crayons. Study for Head in 
 
 No. 392. 
 
 371 Pen and Ink. First Study 
 
 for Desdemona's Song. 
 [See No. 384.] 
 
 372 Crayons. The Day Dream. 
 
 [Finished Study for No. 
 3S9.] 
 
 1879. 
 
 373 Crayons. Pandora. 
 
 374 Pen and Ink. La Donna della 
 
 Finestra. [Study for fol- 
 lowing] 
 
 375 Oil do. 
 
 376 Crayons. Sancta Lilias. 
 
 377 Oil. The Blessed Damozel, 
 
 No. 2. [See No. 351.] 
 
 378 Crayons. Portrait of Miss 
 
 Williams. 
 
 379 Oil A. Beatrice. 
 
 380 Crayons. Desdemona. 
 
 381 , , Head of Desdemona. 
 
 382 ,, Desdemona. 
 
 383 do. 
 
 384 ,, Desdemona's Death Song. 
 
 1880. 
 
 385 Oil Mnemosyne. 
 
 386 Water Colour. Proserpina. 
 
 [Replica of No. 353.] 
 
 387 Ink. Design for the Sonnet. 
 
 [Afterwards used as Fron- 
 tispiece to Mr. Sharp's 
 Volume]. 
 
 388 0tf. Beata Beatrix. [Replica 
 
 of No. 163.] 
 
 389 ,, The Day Dream. 
 
 390 ,, Risen at Dawn. 
 
 1881. 
 
 391 ,, LaPia. 
 
 392 ,, Salutation of Beatrice. 
 
 1882. 
 
 393 ,, Proserpina. 
 
 394 Joan of Arc. 
 
 395 ,, Found. [Still unfinished, 
 
 see No. 37.] 
 
 Date unknown. 
 
 396 Oil Circe. 
 
 397 ,, Diana. 
 
 398 Pencil. A Stooping Figure. 
 
 399 Water Colour. Joan of Arc. 
 
 [Replica of No. 189.] 
 
 400 Crayons. Michael Scott's 
 
 Wooing. 
 
 401 Water Colour. Christ 
 
 Crowned. 
 
 402 Crayon. Girl tying up Mis- 
 
 tletoe. 
 
 403 Black Clialk. Study of Two 
 
 Girls Dancing (draped). 
 
 404 ,, do. (nude). 
 
 405 Pen and Ink. 
 "Lo Marinaio oblia 
 
 Che passa per tal via." 
 
 The dates of some of these works must ba regarded as conjectural 
 only. There are cases in which absolute certainty is impossible.
 
 XVI II 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 PHOTOGRAPHS WHICH HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED AFTER 
 WORKS BY ROSSETTI. 
 
 FROM OIL PICTURES. 
 
 1. The Girlhood of Mary Virgin. 
 
 2. The Beloved. 
 
 3. Lilith. 
 
 i. Dante's Dream (the larger oil- 
 picture). 
 
 5. Mrs. William Morris. 
 
 6. Gabriele Rossetti (Portrait of 
 D. G. Rossetti's Father, 1848). 
 
 7. Proserpina. 
 
 8. Mnemosyne. 
 
 FROM WATER-COLOURS. 
 
 9. Dante drawing an Angel in 
 memory of Beatrice. 
 
 10. Rosa Triplex. 
 
 11. Washing Hands. 
 
 12. Borgia (seated lady with 
 dancing children). 
 
 FROM DESIGNS. 
 
 13. Beatrice dead Crayon"\ . 
 
 14. Head of Dante do. Ig^l 
 
 15. Head of one of the at- 1 J| 
 tendant Ladies-Crayon J fifi 
 
 16. The Sphinx Pencil. 
 
 17. Hesterna Rosa Pen and ink. 
 
 18. Cassandra Pen and ink. 
 
 19. La Donna della Fiamma 
 Crayon. 
 
 20. How they met themselves 
 Pen and ink. 
 
 21. Pandora Crayon for the oil- 
 picture. 
 
 22. Hamlet and Ophelia Pen and 
 ink. 
 
 23. The Sonnet Rossetti's son- 
 net on The Sonnet, with 
 illustrative design Pen and 
 ink. 
 
 24. The Prince's Progress Two 
 designs for Christina Ros- 
 setti s poem Pen and ink. 
 
 25. Mary Magdalene at the door 
 of Simon the Pharisee Pen 
 and ink. 
 
 26. The Parable of the Vineyanl 
 Seven separate designs 
 Cartoons for stained glass. 
 
 27. La Donna della Finestra 
 Crayon. 
 
 28. The death of Lady Macbeth- 
 Pencil. 
 
 29. Same subject Pen and ink. 
 
 30. Design from an Old Ballad- 
 Indian ink. 
 
 31. Three designs from Tennyson's 
 Poems, for the Woodcuts 
 Indian ink. 
 
 32. The Sancgrael Design in- 
 tended for the Union Build- 
 ing, Oxford Pen and ink. 
 
 33. The Salutation of Beatrice- 
 Crayon. 
 
 34. Lovers Kissing Pencil. 
 
 35. Troy Town Indian ink. 
 
 ?6. Design for Title of Early 
 Italian Poets Pen and ink. 
 
 37. Dantis Amor Indian ink. 
 
 38. "Found" Study of the man's 
 head Pencil. 
 
 39. Sister Helen Pen and ink. 
 
 40. Desdemona's Death - Song 
 Pen and ink. 
 
 41. From the Blessed Damozel. 
 (Lovers embracing) Pencil. 
 
 42. do. (A different 
 group) Pencil. 
 
 43. Orpheus and Eurydice-Pencil.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 44. The Sea-SpellFirst Sketch 
 for the Picture Pen and ink. 
 
 PORTRAITS AND HEADS. 
 
 45. Mrs. Rossetti (Senior) and Miss 
 Christina Rossetti Crayon. 
 
 46. Mrs. Rossetti (Senior) Pen 
 and ink. 
 
 47. Miss Christina Rossetti (half- 
 length) Crayon. 
 
 48. The same (head) Crayon. 
 
 49. Miss Herbert Pencil. 
 
 50. William Bell Scott Crayon. 
 
 51. Algernon Charles Swinburne 
 Pencil. 
 
 Mrs. Dante Rossetti Series. 
 
 52. Full Figure ; two separate 
 drawings Pencil. 
 
 53. Standing Figure Pen and 
 ink. 
 
 54. Half-figure at easel Pencil. 
 
 55. Head Pen and ink. 
 
 56. Head Pencil. 
 
 Perlascura Series. 
 
 57. Lachesis Pencil. 
 
 58. Queen Guenevere Indian ink. 
 
 59. The Roseleaf Pencil. 
 
 60. The Couch Pen and ink. 
 
 61. Head ; three separate draw- 
 ings Crayon. 
 
 The Scotch Girl Series. 
 
 62. The Laurel Pencil. 
 
 63. Profile Pencil. 
 
 64. The Hair-net- Pencil. 
 
 Printed by WALTER SCOTT, Felting, Newcastle -ufon-Tyne.
 
 MONTHLY SHILLING VOLUMES. 
 
 G R E AT_WRIT E R S. 
 
 A New Series of Critical Biographies. 
 
 Edited by Professor ERIC S. ROBERTSON. 
 
 ALREADY ISSUED 
 
 LIFE OP LONGFELLOW. BY PROFESSOR ERIC S. 
 ROBERTSON. 
 
 " The story of the poet's life is well told. . . . The remarks on Longfellow as 
 a translator are excellent." Saturday Review. 
 " No better life of Longfellow has been published." Glasgow Herald. 
 
 LIFE OF COLERIDGE. By HALL CAINE. 
 
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