Dante Gabriel Rossetti; a record and a study

(>\/

^e^cM'i^i^^^^'^^^^^^

University of California • Berkeley

Purchased as the gift of |

The Friends

OF THE \

Bancroft Library

DANTE GABEIEL EOSSETTI

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2007 with funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/dantegabrielrossOOsharrich

N^i^Sfl

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

A RECORD AND A STUDY

BY

WILLIAM SHARP

This soul's labour shall be scann'd

And found good." — Wellington's Funeral.

D. G. ROSSETTI.

ILontron

MACMILLAN AND CO.
1882

For the right to engrave the design that forms the Frontispiece,
the Author is indebted to the kindness of Mrs. Gabriele Bossetti and
Miss Christina Hosseiti,

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

Life ...... 1

CHAPTER II.

The Preraphaelite Idea — " The Germ " . .39

CHAPTER III.

Book-Illustrations — Designs — Pictures . .102

CHAPTER III.— (Continued).
Designs and Paintings . . . .189

Addenda to Chapter HI. . . . .270

CHAPTER IV.
Prose Writings — " Hand and Soul "—Translations 272

viii CONTENTS.

CHAPTEE V.

PAGE

Lyrical Poems . . . . . 314

CHAPTER YI.
Ballads . . . . . . 353

CHAPTER Vn.

The Sonnet — Sonnets for Pictures — Miscellaneous
* Sonnets ..... 385

CHAPTER VIII.

" The House OF Life " .... 406

APPENDIX.

Catalogue of Pictorial Compositions, supplementary

TO Art-Kecord .... 433

CHAPTEE I.

LIFE.

At rare intervals in the records of memorable lives

we come across the names of men who seem to

have been gifted with an almost too disproportionate

amount of talent in whatsoever they laid their hands . J

to, men who, like Lionardo da Vinci, take a fore- (xdOMCX-^^^

most place amongst their contemporaries, and to whom ^

painting, poetry, literature, or science seem equally

familiar. It is very often supposed that diversity

of gifts means mediocrity in all, but a glance at the

histories of many well-known lives tends to disprove

any such supposition, while on the other hand it

may be admitted that multiplicity of talents has too

often militated against the due fulfilment of some

special bent. Lionardo, one of the most powerful

and subtle intellects as well as one of the greatest

painters of his time, is an example of one so gifted

and at the same time so restrained by temperament

and varied interests as never to reach the supreme

position in art he migM have attained. We know

that Michel Angelo was a painter, a sculptor, an

architect, and a poet ; that Eaffaelle's spirit found

other than merely pictorial expression ; that Dante

was an artist as well as the author of an immortal

epic; but we never hesitate in deciding the first to

jr B

2 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

be less great in verse than in the plastic arts,
the second to he a painter above all else, — though
indeed of this we can hardly judge, considering that
the often -referred -to sonnets "dinted with a silver
pencil, such as else had drawn madonnas," have not
come down to us, — or in recognising the author of
The Divine Comedy as less excellent with his brush
than his pen. But certainly in this century the
number of diversely- gifted men of genius amongst our
countrymen alone has been remarkable, and amongst
those still with us such instances may be mentioned
as William Morris, poet and artist ; Mr. Woolner,
at once sculptor and poet; Sir Noel, Paton, at once
painter, sculptor, and poet; and William Bell Scott, an
accomplished art-critic and painter as well as poet; —
but in each of these instances there is more or less
little cause to hesitate as to wherein each is specially
and decisively notable. But in the case of the subject
of this record it is not so, — or, at any rate, no absolute
decision can be given that will meet with almost
universal acceptance. Great in both the great arts of
Poetry and Painting, Dante Gabriel Eossetti held and
will continue to hold a unique position. Those whose
attention is specially given to literature regard him as
one of the truest and most remarkable poets of his
time, and greater by virtue of his poetic than his
artistic powers : while those, on the other hand, whose
studies or tastes concern the art of painting consider
him even greater as an artist than as a poet. Nor can
his own opinion be taken as decisive, for genius is often
blind as to its own products and without the sure and
careful judgment of later minds ; but after all the
discussion is immaterial, leading to no good end, for

I. LIFE. 3

the supreme facts still remain that literature and art
have both been enriched with the creations of a master.
An acknowledged leader in both, Eossetti attained a
position amongst English poets and amongst English
artists that will appear more remarkable as it will
gain more general recognition in days to come. His
recent death is a loss greater than is at present real-
ised, except by a comparative few : and to those who
had the great privilege of his friendship it is a sorrow
far beyond the ordinary expressions of regret. A lofty
spirit, a subtle and beautiful intellect, a poet and artist
such as the world does not often see, a generous critic,
and a helpful friend, the man who so lately passed away
from our midst will not readily be forgotten.

Dante Eossetti, however, is not the only member
of the family bearing the same name who has achieved
wide and well-merited distinction : the name of his
father, for one, being perhaps as well known in Italy
as the poet- artist's in England and America.

At Vasto, situated amongst the mountainous regions
of the Abruzzi, Gabriele Eossetti was born on March
1, 1783 ; and now that remote little town remembers
with grateful affection one who took part in the national
struggle, and whose patriotic poems encouraged and
kept alive the popular emotion whose pulse was
Freedom. Some thirty -five years ago a medal was
struck in his honour, and there has lately been a
successful movement to erect a statue to his memory
in the chief piazza of Vasto, which also, by-the-bye,
bears the name of the poet-patriot. The story of the
participation of Gabriele Eossetti in the constitutional
struggle with King Ferdinand and of his escape after

4 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

his proscription has been frequently told since the
death of his son, so that only a brief recapitulation is
now necessary. He was one of the small band of
patriotic Neapolitans who extorted by their determined
persistence a fairly satisfactory constitution from King
Ferdinand, who, having first left Naples under cover
of a lie, treacherously returned with an Austrian army,
and ere long stamped his foot upon the newly-gained
constitution and proscribed those concerned in the
forcible formation thereof. Gabriele Eossetti was in
especial disfavour and eagerly sought after by the
Austrian soldiery and mercenary police, for not only
had he been one of the most urgent in his claims for
an honourable constitution but also his songs and
patriotic hymns had taken root in the hearts and
e:5^ression upon the lips of the excitable populace ;
and it would indeed in all probability have gone
badly with him if it had not been for timely and
secret foreign intervention. A portion of the English
fleet was at the time stationed in the Bay of Naples,
the admiral in command being Sir Graham Moore ;
and it was this gentleman who was instrumental in
rescuing the proscribed patriot. Sir Graham had been
persuaded to attempt rescuing Eossetti by the solicita-
tions of Lady Moore, who was an ardent admirer of
the poet's compositions and political opinions ; so one
afternoon the admiral and a brother officer, dressed in
the uniform that required no other passport, reached
the hiding-place of the poet, where they disguised him
in a uniform similar to their own, thereafter making
their way in a carriage unchallenged till they reached
the shore. According to one account, Eossetti was
then conveyed on board Sir Graham Moore's own ship

I. LIFE. 5

for the night; according to another he was put at
once on board a steamer bound for Malta, which place
he in any case arrived at ere long. These events took
place in 1821, and Eossetti remained in Malta for
about four years, finally settling in London early in
1825. His means were at first extremely limited, for
his income had hitherto been mainly derived from his
position as director at the Museo Borbonico in Naples,
a post of course forfeited by his political " misde-
meanours," but in a comparatively short time he found
himself able to support a wife whom he chose in the
person of Frances Polidori, sister of the Dr. Polidori
who travelled with Lord Byron, and daughter of Sgr.
Polidori, secretary to Alfieri. Married in 1826, one
year after he had settled" in London, he in 1831
obtained the post of Professor of Italian Literature at
King's College, which he occupied till 1845 when he
practically lost his sight, and in consequence resigned
the chair; but though partially deprived of the use
of his eyes he retained his health for a considerable
time, his death not taking place till 1854, the recorded
date being the 26 th of April. Mrs. Eossetti still lives,
beloved by all her friends and looked up to by her
surviving family, and to her influence each of her four
children owed much more than is recordable. The
chief prose productions of Gabriele Eossetti are the
Comento Analitico Sulla Dimna Commedia (published
in 1826-7), Sullo Spirito Anti-papale (1832), II
Mister 0 delV amor platonico svelato (1840), and Za
Beatrice di Dante (1852) : the drift of the best known
of these works being an endeavour to prove that the
special poetic vehicle chosen for expression by Dante
and his contemporaries was selected as being the most

6 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

suitable to veil their aversion to the papacy, while
they introduced a " lady of love " (in Dante's case —
Beatrice) as the symbol of true Christianity and the
special object of their love and adoration. The best-
known collections of his poetic work are Bio e Vuomo
(1840), // reggente in solitvdine (1846), Foesie (1847),
and L-Arpa Evangelica (1852). Of the four children
of this marriage the eldest, Maria Francesca, was born
in 1827; the next child was the subject of this
memoir ; the third, William Michael, was born in
1829, and in December of the following year Chris-
tina Georgina. The eldest of these children became
soon deeply imbued with the spirit animating the
Divine Comedy, and, following in the footsteps of her
father, wrote an elaborate and interesting commentary
or analysis of Dante's great poem, the volume being
called A Shadow of Dante, and representing, so far as
I am aware, the only published matter by Miss Maria
Eossetti.-^ In later life she joined a sisterhood
attached to the Anglican Church, and died in earnest
fulfilment of her self-imposed duties some few years
ago. William Michael Eossetti from his earliest
youth showed marked critical ability, his essays and
reviews in The Germ being in every way noticeable as
the work of one in his twenty-first year ; and not
reviews only did he contribute to the famous but short-
lived magazine of which he was editor, but also poems
marked by a strong and sympathetic love of nature if
also by somewhat crude expression. The high rank

^ That is, original matter. Miss Rossetti compiled a useful volume
of Exercises for securing Idiomatic Italian by means of Literal Trans-
lation from the English, and the Key to the same, entitled Anedotti
Italiani : One Hundred Italian Anecdotes, selected from " II Compagno
del Passeggio Campestre,'*

I. LIFE, 7

as critic in both literature and art which Mr. W. M.
Eossetti has attained is too well known to require
further mention here, and the same may be said of
Miss Christina Eossetti, who has achieved a fame that
no poetess since Mrs. Browning has equalled, and
whose lovely lyrics are known to thousands both in
England and the Colonies as well as to her large
public in the United States. Altogether a family
that is unique in the chronicles of Art and Literature,
surpassing in variety and importance of gifts even
that other famous household who made the name of
Bronte so significant to all lovers of literature.

The elder son and second child of Gabriele and
Frances Eossetti was born on the 12 th of May
1828, and was christened with three names, Gabriel
Charles Dante — the first being after his father, the
second after Mr. Charles Lyell (father of the well-
known Sir Charles Lyell, the geologist), a frequent
visitor and friend at 38 Charlotte Street, Portland
Place, where Mr. and Mrs. Eossetti had fixed their
residence and where their four children were born,
while the third name of the future poet-artist was
that of the greatest of Italian writers whose influ-
ence affected every member of the Eossetti family
to a marked degree. The household was indeed such
an one that it would have been strange if the chil-
dren belonging to it had not fostered at least one
strongly intellectual life, for not only did both father
and mother dwell in an atmosphere of study, poetry,
and national aspirations, but also their house was the
resort of many who could not fail to leave a more or
less definite impress upon sensitive minds however
young. I remember having heard that amongst those

8 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

visitors was one swarthy Italian republican, with the
odour of a political assassination about his name, who
possessed both an awe and a fascination for the young
Eossettis, especially for the impressible Gabriel, who
many years later wrought partly from imagination and
partly from memory the tragic dramatic poem A Last
Confession. It is a fact of great significance that the
earliest educational influences upon Dante Gabriel
Eossetti were the writings of Dante and Shakespeare,
for long before ordinary children reach the point where
mere rudimentary instruction is left behind he had
made the acquaintance of Hamlet in Eetzsch's Outlines,
and was familiar with the sound of the vowelled
Italian as written by the great Florentine and often
quoted by the child's father. Eeference has frequently
been made since the poet's death to an early dramatic
attempt called The Slave, but what the author has
himself said frequently in private is doubtless the case,
that the production has been absurdly overrated and
was marked by nothing that was manifestly other than
the efforts of a precocious child. The Slave, written
at the age of five years, was no " drama," but con-
sisted of some rough passages childishly set down, as
was but natural ; the characters were two, one called
"Slave" and one "Tyrant," and the diction of the
"play" was just such as a precocious child would
commit to paper. This understood, the significance of
the early production can be estimated at its true value,
and we can recognise fully the promise embodied in
the fact of a child of five years attempting original
composition and the intellectual awakening and creative
impulse so early manifested. Considerably later, when
in his thirteenth or fourteenth year (and not in 1844,

1. LIFE, 9

as every obituary and critical notice has stated) Eos-
setti wrote a poem of a different class from The Slave
and under other influence than Shakespeare's, but even
with the advantage of seven years further maturity
the result was boyish to a marked degree and contained
little fulfilment of the promise held in the precocity of
Tlie Slave. The verses, bearing the romantic name of
Sir Hugh the Heron, have for motto the lines from
Scott's Marmion (canto i.) —

" Sir Hugh the Heron bold,
Baron of Twisell and of Ford,
And Captain of the Hold " —

and, as the title-page informs us, form A Legendary
Tale, in Four Parts, hy Gahriel Rossetti Junior, printed
privately by G. Polidori, at his residence near Eegent's
Park. The verses must be pronounced void of any
special merit, a fact the author fully recognised, re-
gretting at the same time that even for limited family
circulation they should ever have been printed; com-
paring them with the other little volume also printed
by Mr. Polidori containing the early verses of Miss
Christina Eossetti the contrast is very marked, the
sister's precocity much excelling that of the brother in
regard to quality of work at an equally early age.

Before the composition of Sir Hugh the Heron, how-
ever, the young poet had in his eighth or ninth year
been sent to a private school close to his father's
house, where throughout the greater part of a year he
received some rudimentary instruction from the Eev.
Mr. Paul; and in 1835 he was removed to King's
College School, where he remained till his fifteenth
year and where he acquired the elements of Latin,

10 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

French, and German. Greek, I believe, he never
learned — certainly not further than the mere rudi-
ments— and Italian was naturally to him almost as
familiar as English; but despite this latter fact he
rarely, so he told me more than once, used to think in
the language of Dante, and only in dreams and then
only during the years of youth was Italian the groove
for his unconscious mental actions. Before 1843, the
date he left King's College School, he had manifested
a strong desire to become a painter, and was so per-
sistent in his expressed desire that his parents agreed
that as soon as he could leave school he should receive
fitting instruction in art; and accordingly, when he
had reached his fourteenth year, he was allowed to go
to Gary's Art Academy in Bloomsbury, better known as
Sass's, where he remained till 1846, when he was ad-
mitted to the Royal Academy Antique School. While
thus endeavouring to attain the rudiments of an artist's
education he was not intellectually idle, but spent his
evenings chiefly in reading and translating Italian
poetry, in occasional original composition and in
German translation. From the last-named language
he rendered into English verse a small portion of the
Niebelungen Lied, a few scenes from Faiust, and the
whole of the Arme Hcinrich of Hartmann von Aue ;
but his proficiency in the Teuton tongue was imper-
manent, and in latter years he could not have accom-
plished what he did in the way of German translation
in his teens. The study and labour entailed was,
however, of great advantage to him not only in
maturing his own poetic gift, but also in giving him
greater intellectual ease and skill in the careful and
beautiful translations then begun, and later given to

I. LIFE. 11

the reading world as The Early Italian Poets, and sub-
sequently as Dante and His Circle. During the two
years he attended the Antique School and omitted
attending the Life School he was a rather desultory
student, and in consequence by no means attained
proficiency in the important items of drawing and
arrangement, an inattention that often subsequently
was to cost him deep regret and , was the chief cause
perhaps of his leading defect as an artist. Immature
as in many respects was his earliest work in art,
Rossetti had rapidly matured in his poetic gift, and
astonished many of his friends by productions mark-
edly original and individual. In his nineteenth year,
besides several lyrics with one exception unpublished,
he wrote My Sisters Sleep and The Blessed Damozel,
both, but the latter especially, showing that a new and
original poet had found voice — a lyric so strangely
beautiful and with touches of such vivid imagination,
that whUe we recall Chatterton with his Ballad of
Charitie and the late Oliver Madox Brown with his
few but memorable compositions, we also recognise an
absolute maturity hardly characteristic of the finest
work even of " the marvellous boy." But as this intro-
ductory chapter must be mainly occupied with a re-
capitulation of biographical facts, nothing further than
mere reference can be made to either Eossetti's early
poetic or artistic achievements, regarding which a full
account will be given in the chapters dealing with his
career as poet and artist. After leaving the Academy
schools he entered for a time as pupil (not by fee but
by kindness) the studio, of Mr. Ford Madox Brown, to
whom the younger artist was ever through life willing
to admit his early indebtedness ; indeed, he may be

12 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

said to have been the first to awaken enthusiastic ad-
miration in the young Eossetti of 1846-47, and this
moreover by an early and ill-hung work in the Eoyal
Academy. At the time Eossetti entered Mr. Madox
Brown's studio the latter was engaged on the large
picture of Chaucer at the Court of Edward III., which
was subsequently bought by the Corporation of Sydney
in New South Wales, a work, apart from its other
great merits, remarkable for being the painter's first
attempt in sunlight; and from witnessing such work
as this no doubt in part grew the impulse of protest
against artificial method that afterwards animated the
young painters known as Preraphaelites — in part only,
because, as I shall point out in the succeeding chapter
on Tke Preraphaelite Idea, the famous art-movement
was in reality mainly an artistic outcome of the wider
Tractarian movement that so affected thinking minds
amongst English-speaking peoples. The direct cause
of the young student's admission as pupil to the latter's
studio lay in an appeal by letter which Eossetti made
subsequent to having seen and been greatly affected
by the Westminster cartoons Finding of the Body of
Sarold after the Battle of Hastings, and Justice, which
Mr. Madox Brown had contributed to the exhibitions
of cartoons by candidates for the honour of selection
for the mural decoration of the Houses of Parliament.
About this time Eossetti's first oil picture was executed,
a portrait, namely, of his father, which is still in the
possession of the family ; but on leaving, at least as
a regular student, Mr. Madox Brown's studio for
one leased in Cleveland Street, in fellowship with Mr.
Holman Hunt, he began the often -referred -to paint-
ing which has more than once been designated as

I. LIFE, 13

the prototype in art of The Blessed Damozel in literature,
which, however, with all its merits of conception, in-
tense earnestness, and simplicity, is certainly not the
case — the execution of the one being perfect and that
of the other immature ; the picture in question being
of course Tlu Girlhood of Mary Virgin. This inter-
esting and impressive work was either finished in the
Newman Street studio or in one in Eed Lion Square,
was exhibited in 1849 in the Free Exhibition held
in the Portland Gallery, and was the second remunera-
tive piece of work he had accomplished, the painting
having found a purchaser at £80 in the person of
the Marchioness of Bath, who afterwards gave it
to the present owner, her daughter. Lady Louisa
Feilding. Before this satisfactory event, however,
Eossetti had made an acquaintance that was to ripen
into the friendship of a lifetime. The young painter-
poet came across some magazine verses, which he much
admired, especially a ballad called Bosahel, and on the
impulse at once wrote to the author, Mr. WiUiam Bell
Scott. In writing, he also enclosed several short poems
as specimens of his own poetic calibre, chief amongst
the few being My Sisters Sleep and The Blessed
Damozel ; and the letter, dated 25th November 1847
and signed " Gabriel Charles Eossetti," was full of
enthusiastic feeling and a very characteristic naiveU in
personal matters, and moreover contained one or two
unusual or self-coined words, " dignitous " especially I
remember. Mr. Scott has told me what he thought
of the letter with the unknown signature when it
reached him in Newcastle, where he was then resid-
ing, and how thoroughly surprised he was at its poetic
contents — apparently the work of an Italian youth.

14 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

and work, moreover, as individual as it was fine, for it
must be remembered that the mediaeval movement,
which in literature may be said to have commenced in
earnest with the publication of the Oxford and Cam-
bridge magazine in 1856, had then scarce received
its first impulse, and that consequently such work as
The Blessed Damozel was doubly remarkable. In a
word, it proves conclusively — as it did at the time to
Mr. Scott — that the author was a man of original and
powerful genius. Some months subsequent to the
receipt of this letter Mr. W. B. Scott visited the studio
in London, where the two young painters, Eossetti and
Holman Hunt, were working at their first pictures,
respectively The Girlhood of Mary Virgin and the Oath
of Rienzi ; and again he recognised the fact that a
youth of genius was maturing for good work, and now
in art, for despite certain technical drawbacks and un-
attractive colouring at the stage in which Mr. Scott
saw The Girlhood of Mary he speedily recognised its
intellectual earnestness and spiritual fervour. About
this time Eossetti paid his first visit to the Continent,
having for company a fellow-student ; the trip, which
was the outcome of the sale of his first picture, was,
however, limited in duration and distance, consisting
mainly of a visit to two or three old towns in
Belgium. A poem called The Carillon, which will be
quoted in Chapter V., is especially interesting as a
record of this short tour that was confined to visit-
ing Antwerp, Bruges, and Ghent ; and even the direct
mention in that poem of the Flemish painters Mem-
meling and Van Eyck does not express how deeply
the young English artist appreciated their truthfulness
and rich colour effects. I remember Eossetti's having

I. LIFE. 15

said lie saw nothing when abroad, meaning thereby
that his attention was given wholly to the works of
these painters whose influence undoubtedly affected
his early work, and to the exclusion of all sight-seeing,
pictorial and otherwise. When at Bruges he heard
the carillon of the famous bells while he was standing
rapt in admiration of the technical mastership of the
Flemish painters' productions, and this he has recorded
in the fifth verse of the crudely-expressed but very
individual poem already mentioned, and to be found
only in the rare magazine The Germ : —

" John Memmeling and John Van Eyck
Hold state at Bruges. In sore shame
I scanned the works that keep their name.

The Carillon, which then did strike

Mine ears, was heard of theirs alike :
It set me closer unto them."

According to a sketch by Mr. Eyre Crowe, dated
about this time, Eossetti must have had anything but
a robust appearance, being very thin and even some-
what haggard in expression. He went about in a
long swallow-tailed coat of what was even in 1848
an antique pattern. That his appearance in his
twentieth and some subsequent years was that of
an ascetic I have been told by several, including
himself, and in addition to such pen-and-ink sketches
as the above, and of himself sitting to his Miss SiddaU
(his future wife) for his portrait, there are the perhaps
more reliable portraitures in Mr. Millais' Isabella
(painted in 1849), and Mr. Deverell's Viola} On

* In the first of these (which has been engraved recently in the
Art Journal), Rossetti is the farthest on the right hand at the table,
and in the second he is the Jester "singing an antique song," while
Viola herseK was modelled from Miss Siddall.

16 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

the other hand, a beautifully-executed pencil head of
himself in boyhood shows him much removed from
the ascetic type of later years, not unlike and strongly
suggestive of a young Keats or Chatterton ; while
in maturer age he carefully drew his portrait from
his mirrored image, the result being a highly -finished
pen-and-ink likeness. While speaking of portraits
I may state that Eossetti was twice photographed,
once in Newcastle (which is the one publicly known,
and upon which all other illustrations have been based),
and once standing arm-in-arm with Mr. Euskin, the
latter being the best likeness of the poet -artist as he
was quarter of a century ago. There is also an etch-
ing by Mr. Menpes, which, however, is only founded
on the well-known photograph ; and finally, there is
a portrait taken shortly after death by Mr. Frederick
Shields. 1

Either shortly before or shortly after the Belgium
trip Eossetti composed the beautiful story called Hand
and Sold, a fitting companion in its maturity of style
and thought to 7^ Blessed Bamozel. Portions of
this are specially interesting from an autobiographical
point of view, the passages in question having a
direct bearing upon the artistic views of the author;
but I will not here refer to it further, as it will
be fully dealt with in the fourth chapter of this book,
beyond stating that it excels anything of the kind
in our language, or is at any rate only equalled in
style by Mr. Walter Pater's exquisite " narrative,"
The Child in the House. It was not long after the
composition of Hand and Soid that a meeting was

^ There was a cast of his face taken after death, but it is alike
misleading and unpleasant.

I. LIFE. 17

held in the studio at No. 8 3 Newman Street, the out-
come of which was an organised body called the Pre-
raphaelites, and the organ thereof styled Tlie Germ.
So much has been said for and against the Pre-
raphaelite movement, it has incurred so much enmity
and misrepresentation, and moreover as all facts con-
cerning its origin are becoming somewhat vague and
confused, I have devoted the following chapter to the
consideration of it and The Germ ; but I may here just
mention that the movement was essentially a protest,
and not merely the more or less earnest vagary of some
enthusiastic young painters, and that Eossetti was
essentially the animating or guiding member as well
as original founder. To the Preraphaelite Brother-
hood— the mysterious P. B. B. — neither Mr. W. Bell
Scott nor Mr. Madox Brown belonged, as has some-
times been stated, both declining actual membership
for the similar reason of disbelief in the suitability of
cliques, and in this they were undoubtedly right, only
being mistaken in not recognising the difference be-
tween a temporary organised union and a literary or
artistic clique devoted to mutual admiration and
general animadversion. Such cliques are the bane of
all true change and advance in art, and still more in
literature, and though it is true they have but their
little day and are soon forgotten, save in semi-scornful
reminiscence, they yet retard for a time the progress
of better work than can be achieved by their own
members, and only too frequently wound where they
cannot kill. No one recognised this fact more than
Eossetti himself, and he was ever wont to advise any
young artist or writer to avoid joining or having any-
thing to do with the mutual-admiration cliques that

c

t8 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

are like musliroom-growtlis in the fields of literature
and art.

Before the publication of The Germ, Eossetti made
his first acquaintance with the poetry of Eobert Brown-
ing. The 8ir Hugh The Heron period was long past,
and the mediaeval sentiment had become an animating
principle, when one day in the British Museum the
author of The Blessed Damozel and painter of The Girl-
hood of Mary came across a small volume called Paidine.
The book had no name on the title-page but Eossetti
felt certain it could be by no other than Mr. Brown-
ing, and, his admiration having been deeply stirred,
wrote to the latter on the subject. Mr. Browning has
told me that he received this letter while staying in
Venice, that it came from one personally and altogether
unknown to him, and that it was to the effect that
the writer had come upon a poem in the British
Museum which he copied the whole of from its being
not otherwise procurable, that he judged it to be Mr.
Browning's but could not be sure and wished the
latter to pronounce on the matter, which Mr. Brown-
ing accordingly did. A year or two later, the elder
poet had a visit in London from Mr. AUingham and a
friend, who proved to be Eossetti ; and when Mr. Brown-
ing heard that the latter was a painter he insisted on
calling upon him despite protestations as to having
nothing to show, which, in Mr. Browning's words, was
far enough from the case. Subsequently, on another
of the latter's periodical returns to London, Eossetti
painted his portrait in water-colours, finishing it shortly
after in Paris, whither he went once in 1855, and
once in 1860; the first date being fixed in Mr.
Browning's mind as that of the completion of the

I. LIFE. 19

portrait, by the fact that the latter was finished in the
same year that Mr. Tennyson published Maud, and
that he, Eossetti, and a few others were present at
a private proof-reading. While there Eossetti made,
from an unobserved coign of vantage, a rapid but
very good pen-and-ink sketch of Mr. Tennyson
as he read the proof-sheets of Maud, and this he
gave to Mr. Browning, who still possesses and duly
values it.^

To return to The, Germ period. It was about this
time or a year or so later that Eossetti, who had con-
tinued living (with studios elsewhere) in his parent's
house at 50 Charlotte Street, Portland Place, whither
Mr. and Mrs. Gabriele Eossetti had removed in 1833
from No. 38 in the same street, left home and took
chambers in 14 Chatham Place, Blackfriars Bridge.
No such place now exists, but before the erection of
the present bridge a row of handsome houses so-called
overlooked the Thames, and in these rooms some of
the most important events of his life took place and
many fine compositions in verse and on canvas saw
the light. Amongst the first things he wrote in his
own residence was the weird and dramatic ballad
lister Helen, which a year or two subsequently he sent
to Mary Howitt for a magazine which she then edited
and published in Germany and which was known as
the Busseldorf Annual. The poem is there printed as
" Sister Helen. By H. H. H.," and on the margin of the
copy of the pages belonging to Mr. William Eossetti,

^ The sketch has a memorandum on the back of the frame with the
date and particulars. The reading took place at 13 Dorset Street,
Portman Square, on the 27th September 1855, and those present
besides Mr. Tennyson were Mr. Browning, Mrs. E. B. Browning,
Miss Arabella Browning, and Rossctti.

20 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

the following pencil note is inscribed by the author : —
" This is the first form in which the ballad was printed ;
the pages are from the Diisseldorf Annual, printed in
Germany about 1853 or '54, and edited by Mary
Howitt, who asked me to contribute. She altered
' seeth'd ' into ' melted.' I think the ballad had
been written in 1851, or the beginning of '52. The
initials as above were taken from the lead -pencil,
because people used to say my style was hard. —
D. G. E." ^ A design fully as weird as the ballad of
Sister Helen was made about the same time, the im-
pressive and, comparatively speaking, well-known How
They Met Themselves, called also The Doubles, and both
titles suggesting the Doppelgdnger legend on which it
is, of course, founded. Eossetti at this time took
pleasure in deriving subjects for pictorial designs from
Mr. Browning's poetry, but at present it will be suffi-
cient to merely mention the large painting begun on a
hint given in Pijppa Passes, but given up afterwards in
despair owing to what were at that time insurmount-
able technical difficulties (and now extant only in part
in a water-colour drawing called Two Mothers — cer-
tainly in name unsuggestive of Kate the Qiceen) — and
in an interesting water-colour drawing founded on
some lines in The Laboratory. But at the time of the
composition of The Troubles he was enthusiastic on
the merits of Sir Henry Taylor's Philip van Artevelde,
the result of this enthusiasm being the powerful
Hesterna Eosa, or Elena's Song, founded on some lines
therein.

1 These and many of the foregoing details will now be familiar to
many who read the interesting and sympathetic article by Miss
A. Mary F. Robinson in Harper's Magazine for October.

I, LIFE. 21

In 1853 Eossetti visited Mr. Scott in Newcastle,
profiting much thereby in instruction in the techni-
calities of art. For the next four or five years he de-
voted himself to the production of those poetic and
brilliantly-coloured small water-colours that are replete
with such individuality and such charm, and of which
Mr. George Kae of Birkenhead and Mr. William
Graham possess so many striking examples; and, in
addition to these, the fine designs for the illustrated
*' Tennyson quarto," published by Moxon, and the
exquisite, if in drawing faulty, Mary Magdalene at
the Boor of Simon the Pharisee, of which Mr. Euskin
has spoken so highly : in literature, contributing some
of his now well-known poems to the Oxford and Cam-
bridge Magazine, which lasted the twelve months of
1856. About 1857 the young painter was asked to
take part in the decoration of the Union Debating
Eoom at Oxford, and thus was originated what proved
an experiment exerting a subsequent wide influence on
English art ; but as I shall, of course, have occasion to
refer to the famous Oxford Frescoes in the portion of
this book forming the artistic record I will not now
dwell upon the subject, only regretting what has long
been a matter of notoriety, that the so-called frescoes
are fast fading and peeling off and threaten soon to
become existent only in memory. In this undertaking,
as wherever else he came into union wath sympathetic
workers, he took by right of strongest gift the place of
guide and inspirer, the vigorously magnetic personality
of the man being in itself almost sufficient to account
for this, — that irresistible magnetism which may be
defined as bodily genius. It was at this time that he
made the acquaintance of Mr. William Morris, Mr.

22 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

Burne Jones, and Mr. A. C. Swinburne, who had just
left Eton to become an undergraduate at Oxford, — of
these he knew first Mr. Burne Jones, that gentleman
having called upon him in London before the Oxford
attempt was commenced. It is now a well-known
fact that the famous painter of Laus Veneris and
The Golden Stairs owed his embracing art as a pro-
fession to the advice and solicitation of the poet-
artist w^ho influenced also to such an extent Mr.
Morris and Mr. Swinburne, Eossetti urging Mr. Burne
Jones to give up the idea of entering the Church, and
to study painting, for which he detected the latter's
genius.

Early in 1860 Eossetti made great changes at 14
Chatham Place, enlarging the accommodation and
adding in other ways to the comfort of his residence,
and here in " the mating time o' the year " he brought
home his wife, Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall. This lady,
who was very beautiful, and who showed brilliant
promise as a colourist, he had known for a consider-
able time, and the short-lived happiness of their union
in some respects recalls another marriage of like with
like when the author of Aurora Leigh married the
author of The Ming and the Book. Her face is very
familiar in compositions belonging to this period, but
though there are one or two interesting portraits of
her the best likeness in every way is the pathetically
faithful face of Beatrice in the lovely Beata Beatrix
belonging to Lord Mount-Temple, — painted, indeed,
subsequent to the death of Mrs. Eossetti, but none
the less a direct portrait. Several friends possess
pencil and other drawings of her as she appeared
before her husband in daily life, many of them of ex-

I. LIFE. 23

quisite and delicate execution, and in each tliere is to
be traced the artist lover's gaze as it caught pose after
pose and expression after expression, the latter, how-
ever, varying more in shades of sadness, for it seemed
almost as if a premonition of early death overshadowed
her life. In the year following their marriage a daughter
was born, but only for death, and in February of 1862
Mrs. Dante Eossetti herself suddenly died. The blow
was in many respects an exceptionally terrible one to
Eossetti. In the impulse of his grief it came about
that, before the cofifin-lid was closed on the face he
should not see on earth again, he hastily gathered
together the MSS. of the greater number of the poems
now so familiar in England and America, and laid them
as a last gift on his wife's breast. As his chief friend,
Mr. Theodore Watts, said in the obituary notice in the
Athenceum, like Prospero he literally buried his wand.
Many years passed, and still it seemed that the old
interest and the old creative impulse would not again
take possession of him, but this only in so far as con-
cerns poetry ; the statements in several press and
other notices that he abandoned creative work of all
kinds for a lengthened period being very far from the
truth, as a glance at the years 1862 to 1869 (the
period meant), in the supplementary list to Chapter
III., at the end of this volume will show — a lustrum,
and more, wherein some of the artist's most famous
pictures were painted, amongst others, Beata Beatrix^
Sibylla Palmifera, Monna VariTia, Venus Verticordiay
Lady Lilith, and The Beloved. At the time of his wife's
death Eossetti was only thirty-three, yet at this early
age he had accomplished work in art and literature
which might well have been considered a fair achieve-

24 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap,

ment for a lifetime, and to realise this it is only neces-
sary to call to mind such pictures as The G-irlhood of
Mary, Ecce Ancilla Domini, Giotto Painting Dante s
Portrait, Dante Painting the Angel, the score or so
Arthurian and Eomantic water-colours, Dante's Dream
(water-colour), Mary Magdalene, the Passover drawing,
The Gate of Memory, Mary in the House of John, Bocca
Paciata, the Triptych for Llandaff Cathedral, Cassandra,
Fair Rosamond, Penelope, Paolo and Francesca, and
others too numerous to mention, — and in literature,
such compositions as The Blessed Damozel, My Sisters
Sleep, The Burden of Nineveh, The Sea Limits, Tlve
Staff and Scrip, Ave, Sister Helen, Giorgione's Venetian
Pastoral, etc. He had also composed Hand and Soul
in prose, and the widely -known translations from
poets preceding and poets contemporary with Dante,
including the finest rendering in our language of the
Vita Nuova. The last-named, or rather the volume
containing all the translations, was dedicated to his
wife, its publication only taking place in the year
before her death ; the volume, issued subsequently with
alterations and additions as Dante and His Circle, was
dedicated in turn to his mother, " a book prized by her
love."

The rooms in Chatham Place now became un-
endurable to Eossetti, so as soon as was at all practic-
able he left them and took chambers in Lincoln's Inn
Fields. Here he remained for about six months, at
the end of which time he took on a lease No. 16
Cheyne Walk, the well-known row looking out upon
the river ; and from this residence he never afterwards
removed save on his rare visits or when residing at
more or less lengthened intervals at Kelmscott Manor,

t . LIFE, 26

Lechlade. This fine old house was exactly suited for
such a man as its last occupier. The studio, which
was on the ground-floor, was large and roomy, and had
a most convenient exit to the good stretch of latterly
untended garden- ground behind, wherein for some two
or three years past Bossetti took his only open - air
exercise, and at the eastern window, close to which
was the writing-desk, grew a tall sycamore, whose
large delicate leaves, with their innumerable lights and
shadows, made in summer a ceaseless shimmer of love-
liness and in autumn waved to and fro like gold and
amber flakes. Those who have seen the fine painting
called The Day-Dream and one or two other pictures,
and have noticed " the thronged boughs of the sliadowy
sycamore," will have seen the much-loved tree's repre-
sentation on canvas. The garden itself must have
seen in its time an assortment of animals infrequent
near English households, from the wombat, w^hich Mr.
W. Bell Scott etched, to two armadilloes who were the
last pets at 16 Cheyne Walk. In this house Eossetti
for some time did not live alone, his brother being
with him for a time, also his friend George Meredith
for a brief period, Mr. Swinburne, and later on other
friends either temporarily or for lengthened periods ;
but in five or six years his life became more and
more solitary : he frequented less the " evenings " of
such old friends as Mr. Madox Brown, Dr. West-
land Marston, Mr. J. Knight, and others, and took his
sole outdoor recreation in walking up and down the
long garden and watching whatever bird or animal
was then prime favourite. But his health was not
now equal to what it was, though the brilliant intellect
remained unclouded and the wit and conversational

26 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

power unimpaired; an increasing nervousness over-
took hiiu, and even a threatened loss of eyesight.
The outcome of all this was the much dreaded and
insidious complaint which so many emotional natures
suffer from, insomnia ; and though from this relief
and rest were obtained by the use of chloral, which
Eossetti commenced taking on the assurance, at that
time so much brought forward, that the drug was
harmless in its action, yet it was the use of this
very sedative that so lamentably altered the tempera-
ment and shortened the life of the great poet and
painter.

In the autumn of 1868 Eossetti went to join his
friend Mr. W. B. Scott at Miss A. Boyd's romantic
residence, Penkill Castle, in Ayrshire ; and here he at
last came to a decision regarding the exhumation of
his buried MSS., of which some had been printed in
The Germ and the Oxford and Canibridge Magazine^
others existed in copies formerly given to a few friends,
and a few came slowly back on the insistent efforts of
memory, but many were wholly forgotten, and the
author could not be insensible to the fact that much
good work had been put away in a manner that no
" creator " has a right to do. He could not, however,
.bring himself to take direct action in the matter ; but
his still reluctant consent having been once obtained,
there was no further delay save what was unavoidable.
The consent of the Home Secretary came in course of
time, and accordingly one night two of Eossetti's
friends were present at the grave of Mrs. Eossetti
in Highgate Cemetery, when the coffin was opened
and the packet removed. The matter is too painful
to dwell upon, indeed I might not have referred to

LIFE. 27

it at all had not the story heen often repeated of
late and with varying accounts ; but the foregoing is
exactly all that happened, and in due course of time
the poems were printed, the author having recopied
them all from the exhumed MSS. Towards 1869,
besides the house in Cheyne Walk, he rented along
with Mr. William Morris the Manor House, Kelms-
cott, near Lechlade in Gloucestershire, and here he
stayed on and off, but principally at Cheyne Walk,
till the autumn of 1872, but from that time till the
summer of 1874 almost wholly at Kelmscott. Before
this, however, Eossetti made a second visit in the
autumn of 1869 to Penkill Castle, a visit in every
way memorable, for here he definitely decided on pub-
lishing his poems and not printing them privately, as
he had for some time intended ; and it was here also
that he wrote or thought of some of his finest produc-
tions, The Streains Secret (the "stream" being the Pen-
whapple, running through the Penkill grounds till it
joins Girvan Water and flows therewith to the sea),
Farewell to the Glen, Autumn Idleness, Troy- Town, and
Fden Bower. Despite the melancholy that at that
time so greatly overclouded his life, I have often heard
him speak of this visit as one of memorable enjoyment,
the attention and care he received from his friend Miss
Boyd being in itself sufficient to make the visit
pleasant and memorable. Mr. Scott has told me how
often after finishing his painting he used to go down
to the glen and there find Eossetti sprawHng in the
long grass or lying in a narrow little cavern close
to the murmuring burn and labouring hard at The
Stream's Secret. It was from remembrances of Penkill
that the idea of writing The Kings Tragedy afterwards

28 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

entered Eossetti's mind, this having been suggested
by the beautiful mural paintings illustrative of the
King's Quliair with which the double staircase in
Penkill Castle is decorated by Mr. Scott, — the patient
and loving labour of years.

1870 is the year made memorable to all lovers of
our noble poetic literature by the publication of the
Foems. This volume, which had exercised so potent
an influence years before it was ever made public, at
once raised its author to the front rank of living poets,
meeting as it did with almost universal acceptation
and welcome. Here and there indeed, especially from
the very conservative and clerical organs, censure and
dislike found expression, but this was simply what was
to be expected in the case of work not stamped by
time and thus beyond their damnatory strictures. One
well-known writer indeed wrote a bitter attack in the
Pontemporary Review, giving rise to the famous literary
war of 1871 in re The Fleshly School of Foetry, when
Mr. Buchanan's attack (by no means wholly devoid of
basis as regards the School) was met and worsted by
the fiery throng of words marshalled under Mr.
Swinburne's Under the Microscope. From various
causes the unjust and miscomprehensive attack of Mr.
Buchanan deeply affected the then very precarious
health of Eossetti, and was beyond doubt the most
painful incident of the latter's literary career. Com-
plete misapprehension is more trying to a poet than the
severest strictures, and it was this that disappointed
and wounded the author of The House of Life, and not
a mere critical onslaught. I have no intention of
again reopening a subject that would require a volunae
in itself for due explanation and e;Kamination, but

I. LIFE. 29

those desirous of further information may consult the
letters exchanged by Mr. Eossetti and Mr. Buchanan
which appeared in the Athenceum at the time, Mr. Swin-
burne's Under the Microscope, and Mr. Buchanan's The
Fleshly School of Poetry.

In 1872 the health of the poet-artist completely
gave way, and nervous prostration in its worst forms
attacked him. The ceaseless care of his friends
brought him from danger to comparative convalescence,
and he was still further renovated by a month's visit
(15 th July to 15 th August) at his friend Mr. William
Graham's houses of Urrard and Stobhall in Perthshire.
It was just after this illness that he made an acquaint-
ance which rapidly ripened into a friendship which,
equally with the friendship of much older standing of
Mr. Madox Brown, he considered the most eventful in
his life. Having had a desire to meet Mr. Theodore
Watts, to whom he had been mentioned by mutual
friends, he wrote to the latter to that effect, and
circumstances ere long brought them together. In
every sense of the word the friendship thus begun
resulted in the greatest benefit to the elder writer,
the latter having greater faith in Mr. Watts' literary
judgment than seems characteristic with so domi-
nant and individual an intellect as that of Eossetti.
Although the latter knew well the sonnet -literature
of Italy and England, and was such a practised
master of the " heart's -key " himself, I have heard
him on many occasions refer to Theodore Watts as
having stiU more thorough knowledge on the subject
and as being the most original sonnet -writer living.
It is generally the case in literary lives, as well
as in most others, that some special friendship is

30 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

indissolubly connected with each great writer, and
is almost invariably suggested by remembrance of
the personality thereof — thus we cannot disassociate
Shakespeare and the " Will " of the sonnets (whether
the Earl of Pembroke or Earl of Southampton), Milton
and Edward King {Lycidas), Shelley and Trelawney,
Keats and Arthur Severn, or Tennyson and Arthur
Hallam, — and in like manner it will henceforth be
difficult to separate in memory Dante Gabriel Rossetti
and the friend whom he loved and admired beyond
other men and to whom he dedicated his most mature
and greatest work. Not infrequently has it been re-
marked to me that with his generosity and good-
fellowship Eossetti had yet little capability of deep
affection and certainly no demonstrative emotion : I
know that personally I found him ever affectionately
considerate, and generous of heart in a way that
few are able to be with men younger than them-
selves and with no pretensions to equality, and that
his friendship as friendship has been to me one of
the chief boons of my life. This I know for myself,
and I have heard him again and again, and down
to my very last visit to him, speak of Mr. Theodore
Watts, for instance, in terms of love and trust that
could have come from no other than a loving nature ;
and that his friendships were not limited to artistic
or literary circles is manifest in his having welcomed
as intimate acquaintances gentlemen such as Mr.
William Graham, Mr. George Rae, Mr. W. A. Turner,
Mr. L. R Valpy, Mr. H. V. Tebbs, and others not
directly associated with the arts. I am sure there
is not one of those whom I have mentioned who
could not bear testimony to the kindly and generous

I. LIFE. 31

heart that so recently ceased to beat. It is true
indeed that he was not always quite equal to him-
self, for the fatal effects of a constant use of a
dangerous drug and the irritation of a ruined con-
stitution frequently made him say unjust words that
rose as it were on the surface and not from the
depths — and on such occasions he was afterwards
more grieved than any one concerned, and more than
ordinary allowance should be made for any one who
suffers from this well-known effect of chloral. Another
thing must be taken into consideration, namely, the
irresistibly imaginative groove in which his thoughts
moved and which made it often difiicult for him to
resist the temptation of exaggeration in recounting
any personal narrative and in praise or denunciation.
He offended many by this recklessness, but those
who really knew him overlooked these minor incon-
sistencies and forgave much where they gained much
more. The time has not yet come to write a really
complete biography of Dante Kossetti, but it is much
to be hoped that in the course of a few years, when
time has somewhat more adequately adjusted the
too diverse lights of the present into an exact focus,
the friend who knew him best of recent years, and
whom Eossetti himself wished to undertake the task,
Mr. Theodore Watts, should write the comprehensive
and permanent account of the eventful forty years
of the man whose genius is so undoubtedly great,
and whose influence in two directions has been so
marked.

From the latter part of 1872 to 1874 Kossetti
was almost wholly at Kelmscott Manor, a fine old
house of the time of Elizabeth, on the banks of the

32 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

•Thames. Here he spent some of the happiest years
of his life, devoting himself to painting and to the
study, though not the production, of poetry, seeing
only Mr. Watts constantly, and a very few friends, —
his mother and sister, Mr. Madox Brown, Mr. Morris,
Mr. Scott, Dr. and Mr. George Hake (the latter having
lived with him for a time as friend and secretary),
occasionally Mr. F. R Leyland and Mr. Howell, and
perhaps one or two others. Besides producing such
pictures as ProserpiTie and others of his finest three-
quarter lengths, he may be said to have gone through
an entire course of reading. He was extremely fond
at this time of reading aloud, and I have heard
Mr. Watts say that Eossetti, while at Kelmscott, read
out to him during the long winter evenings at various
times many of the novels of Alexandre Duiiias and
nearly the whole of Shakespeare. It was now indeed
that he made that thorough study of the text of
Shakespeare for which he was afterwards remarkable.
His health too at this period may, for him, for a con-
siderable time be said to have been perfect, and he
used to take long walks by the river, — one reminis-
cence of which will be found in the verses called
Down Stream, in the reissued Poems of 1882. From
1874 onward till the autumn of 1880 he remained
exclusively at 16 Cheyne Walk, seeing few friends
as visitors and still fewer as regular comers, amongst
the latter (if I am not forgetting) being only Mr.
Watts, Mr. Shields, Mr. Scott, Mr. TrefPry Dunn, Mr.
Leyland, Mr. P. B. Marston, Mr. Hall Caine, and
myself

While still in the prime of life the energies of the
body slowly weakened, and at last in the autumn of 1 8 8 1

I. LIFE. 33

Eossetti went with Mr. Hall Caine, a gentleman who
from the summer of 1881 onward generously devoted
the greater part of his time to residence with and care
of the poet-painter, to the Vale of St. John, in Cum-
berland. He returned, however, little if at all the
better for the change and had soon to spend the
greater part of each day in bed, a partial paralysis of
the left arm causing him great anxiety and trouble.
As the weeks went past the few friends who had
access to him were sometimes hopeful, sometimes the
reverse, but none anticipated the rapidly approaching
end, for in the first place the sufferer had originally
had an iron constitution, and in the next his illness
was at no time apparently so severe as in 1872. In
January or early in February, and on medical advice,
he took advantage of a kind offer of Mr. Seddon, who
volunteered the loan of Westcliffe Bungalow at Birch-
ington-on-Sea, and here Eossetti and Mr. Caine re-
moved, followed in a short time by Mrs. Eossetti senior
and Miss Christina Eossetti. Mr. Watts, Mr. Shields,
Mr. F. E. Leyland, myself, and one or two others
visited him regularly from this date till Easter drew
near. When I last saw him, exactly a week before
his death, I had little idea it was for the last time ;
indeed, he seemed to me to be slowly but surely re-
covering, and laughed and talked with his old hearti-
ness. He had greatly enjoyed the recent writing of
an amusing ballad, and had just composed two fine
sonnets on the well-known design of the Sphinx, called
The Question (composed in 1875), and was moreover full
of plans for future work ; his tone of mind altogether
being very different from the melancholy and depression
that had been with him constantly for many months.

D

34 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

Six days later he was to recognise that these plans
would never be fulfilled, and that he himself was about
to obtain the answer to that question which his design
represented as unanswerable in life. On Good Friday
it became certain that he was nearing his end, and
though on Saturday he did not seem worse he realised
the truth himself, stating that he had no wish to live
longer as the period of really good work had quite or
nearly reached its close. On Sunday he was again more
hopeful, the instinctive clinging to life and instinctive
creative faculty alike urging him to wish for prolonga-
tion of his years. But it was not to be. Between
nine and ten on Sunday night he gave two short sharp
cries, and about a quarter of an hour later died quietly
and without pain. At the last his brother and mother
and sister were with him, as also Mr. Theodore Watts,
Mr. Hall Caine, Mr. Shields, and the local physician.
Dr. Harris.

Thus at the early age of fifty-three passed away a
painter such as, English art had not hitherto known, a
poet that in contemporary literature takes his place
in the front rank. In the ensuing pages I shall en-
deavour to trace out his work and influence in both
creative fields, and here I will only remark that his
death brings home to us more decisively than before
that in Dante Gabriel Eossetti we had a writer and
an artist whose name will surely sound in the ears of
posterity as now sound in ours the names of William
Mallord Turner in art and possibly Samuel Taylor
Coleridge and John Keats in literature. Great in
two great arts, he will be regarded by future genera-
tions in a way that is impossible now and until all
prejudices silt away like loose sand in an oncoming

■V

I

I. LIFE. 35

tide, until truth asserts itself and party passions have
passed away like mists before the morning. An ardent
and appreciative critic, he seldom failed to select the
peculiar excellences of any poem by a contemporary
writer he might be reading, irrespective of the author's
celebrity or insignificance ; and it was the same in art,
the mention at any time of such names as Sir Frederick
Leighton, Sir Noel Paton, Millais, Holman Hunt,
Frederick Shields, Ford Madox Brown, W. B. Scott,
the late Samuel Palmer, Frederick Sandys, and others,
being at once resultant in trenchant and generous
remarks. In poetry he held Tennyson to be the
greatest poet of the period, and he was gratified as if
by a personal pleasure when Mr. Theodore Watts, also
an ardent believer in Tennyson, wrote his fine sonnet
to the Laureate, with the inscription " On his publish-
ing in his seventy -first year the most richly -various
volume of English verse that has appeared in his own
century." He appreciated to a generous extent the
poetry of present younger writers, but failed to see in
nine-tenths of it any of that originality and individual
aura that characterise work that will stand the stress of
time ; but of the poems of Mr. Philip Bourke Marston
he spoke ever in the highest terms, regarding him as
undoubtedly the most gifted of all the younger men. I
have heard him declare Mr. Marston's early poem called
A Christmas Vigil, written in the author's twentieth
year and under the terrible disadvantage of blindness, to
be more memorable than any of his own early produc-
tions, and many of his friends may recollect the generous
pleasure he used to take in reciting some of the Garden
Secrets which have been so widely appreciated in
America as well as in England. Amongst men of

36 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

maturer years he was wont to speak admiringly of
such poets as Dr. Gordon Hake and John Nichol,
regarding the latter's Hannibal a peculiarly fine dra-
matic composition.

As to the personality of Dante Gabriel Eossetti
much has been written since his death, and it is now
widely known that he was a man who exercised an
almost irresistible charm over most with whom he was
brought in contact. His manner could be peculiarly
winning, especially with those much younger than him-
self, and his voice was alike notable for its sonorous
beauty and for a magnetic quality that made the ear
alert whether the speaker was engaged in conversation,
recitation, or reading. I have heard him read, some of
them over and over, all the poems in the Ballads and
Sonnets, and especially in such productions as The
Cloud Confines was his voice ,as stirring as a trum-
pet tone ; but where he excelled was in some of the
pathetic portions of the Vita Nuova, or the terrible and
sonorous passages of Z' Inferno, when the music of the
Italian language found full expression indeed. His
conversational powers I am unable adequately to de-
scribe, for during the four or five years of my intimacy
with him he suffered too much from ill health to be
a consistently brilliant talker, but again and again I
have seen instances of those marvellous gifts that made
him at one time a Sydney Smith in wit and a Cole-
ridge in eloquence. In appearance he was if anything
rather over middle height, and, especially latterly,
somewhat stout ; his forehead was of splendid propor-
tions, recalling instantaneously to most strangers the
Stratford bust of Shakespeare ; and his gray-blue eyes
were clear and piercing, and characterised by that rapid

I. LIFE, ST

penetrative gaze so noticeable in Emerson. He seemed
always to me an unmistakable. Englishman, yet the
Italian element was frequently recognisable ; as far as-
his own opinion is concerned, he was wholly English.
Possessing a thorough knowledge of French and Italian,
he was the fortunate appreciator of many great works
in their native language, and his sympathies in religion,
as in literature, were truly catholic. To meet him even
once was to be the better of it ever after ; those who
obtained his friendship cannot well say all it meant
and means to them ; but they know that they are not
again in the least likely to meet with such another as
Dante Gabriel Eossetti.

Having had little to do during his life with Eoyal
Academies or Public Exhibitions, this brief introductory
chapter on the personal history of Dante Eossetti may
fitly be closed by extracts from the voluntary acknow-
ledgments of two well-known art corporations.

Sir Frederick Leighton, as President of the Eoyal
Academy, remarked in his Banquet-speech : —

" I cannot pass on to lighter topics without allusion to the
loss, within the year, of two most noteworthy artists who did
not sit within our fold. One was John Linnell, etc. etc. The
other was a strangely interesting man, who, living in almost
jealous seclusion as far as the general world was concerned,
wielded nevertheless at one period of his life a considerable
influence in the world of Art and Poetry — Dante Gabriel Eossetti,
painter and poet. A mystic by temperament and right of
birth, and steeped in the Italian literature of the mystic age, his
works in either art are filled with a peculiar fascination and
fervour, which attracted to him from those who enjoyed his inti-
macy a rare degree of admiring devotion. Such a man could
not leave the world unnoticed here, and I am glad to think it is
within these walls that the pubhc will see next winter a selection,
of the works of these artists whom the Academy did not count
among her members."

38 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap. i.

At the last April meeting of the Eoyal Scottish
Academy the following record was made on the
minutes :■ — •

" The Council have heard with much regret of the death on
Sunday last of Mr. Dante Gabriel Eossetti, whose many-sided
and original genius and high accomplishments, not only as a
painter but as a poet also, have shed a lustre on the artistic pro-
fession. From his supersensitive aversion to ' exhibitions,' his
thoughtful and imaginative pictures are but little known to the
general public ; but his influence on contemporary English art
has confessedly been very great, while that of his poetry has been
more widely and markedly felt. Probably few artists of more
distinct individuality and intellectual force ever appeared ; and
his removal in the full maturity of his power cannot but be re-
garded as a heavy loss to art and literature."

CHAPTEK 11.

THE PEERAPHAELITE IDEA THE GERM.

No action, however seemingly individual, springs from
an original personal impulse alone. The greatest men
of genius — ^schylus, Plato, Homer, Dante, Shake-
speare— do not stand forth in their respective genera-
tions as deviators from the intellectual life of their
fellow-men, with an antecedent as well as contemporary-
separation — but are each the outcome of circumstance.
Dante is not so absolutely individual as to seem to us
detachable from his time : he was led up . to through
generations of Florentine history. There is no such
thing as an absolute independency of antecedents ;
and what is true of the individual is true of any
movement in the intellectual or social evolution of
man. By the way in which the movement known
as the Preraphaelite has been and is even yet
spoken of, it would seem to be regarded by many as
a mere eccentric aberration from orthodox methods,
sprouting up irresponsibly and unexpectedly, and with
the sudden sterile growth of the proverbial mush-
room. But that this is far from being the case any
one having any real knowledge of our antecedent
art and literature will know well: that it could not
be the case will at once be recognised by any student
of historic evolution.

40 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

The latter half of the nineteenth century has been
fitly called the English Kenaissance. But this term
would be quite out of place if applied only to the
outcome of Preraphaelite principles ; for the spirit of
change has been at work not only in one or two arts,
and amongst but a small band of enthusiasts, but in
all the arts, in social life and thought, in science, and
in politica,l development, and amongst all the foremost
men of the day — scientists, poets, artists, philosophers,
religionists, and politicians. Indeed, to say the breath
of change has passed over our time is not sufficiently
adequate, for if we contrast the present with so late a
period as thirty years ago we will perceive that there
has been nothing short of a national awakening. The
national mind, as represented by the great mass of
intelligent fairly cultivated people, may be likened to
the very sunflower the ultra-sestheticists have brought
into such disrepute, turning towards a light of which
the need is felt — the same light, whether it is the
Beautiful of the artist and poet, the Truth of the
philosopher, or the Higher Morality of the teacher and
the priest. In religion, and in what is now called
sociology, as well as in literature, the first stirrings of
this awakening spirit appear unmistakably, if faintly,
towards the close of the last century. Before Byron
and Keats and Shelley and Coleridge and Wordsworth
there was "something in the air," the first indefinite
revulsion from the bugbear of an effete pseudo-classi-
cism; such a pseudo-classicism as received in France
its deathblow on a certain evening in February 1830,
when Hernani was the victorious standard of the
Eomanticists. But as these stirrings grew and grew
the hearts of men of true genius took fire with a new

II. THE PRERAPHAELITE IDEA. 41

enthusiasm, and in poetic literature there came that
splendid outburst of Eomanticism in which Coleridge
was the first and most potent participant. Human
thought flows onward like a sea, where flow and ebb
alternate ; hence after the deaths of Shelley and Keats
and Byron and Coleridge there came the lapse that
preludes the new wave. At last a time came when a
thrill of expectation, of new desire, of hope, passed
through the higher lives of the nation ; and what fol-
lowed hereafter were the Oxford movement in the
Church of England, the Preraphaelite movement in art,
and the far-reaching Gothic Eevival. Different as these
movements were in their primary aims, and still more
differing in the individual representations of interpreters,
they were in reality closely interwoven, one being the
outcome of the other. The study of mediaeval art,
which was fraught with such important results, was
the outcome of the widespread ecclesiastical revival,
which in its turn was the outcome of the Tractarian
movement in Oxford. The influence of Pugin was
potent in strengthening the new impulse, and to him
succeeded Euskin with Modern Painters and Newman
with the Tracts for the Times. Primarily, the Pre-
raphaelite movement had its impulse in the Oxford
religious revival ; and however strange it may seem to
say that such men as Holman Hunt and Eossetti and,
later, Frederick Shields followed directly in the foot-
steps of Newman and Pusey and Keble, it is indubit-
ably so. Theoretical divergence on minor points does
not militate against certain men, whether writers or
artists, being classed together, so long as in the main
the outcome of their endeavours assimilates. Between
two such artists as Dante Eossetti and Mr. Frederick

42 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. ' chap.

Shields there is, of necessity, much in common, and
in their work in art there is an unmistakable affinity ;
yet to the one the " Gothic " spirit powerfully appealed,
and to the other, I think I am not mistaken in saying,
it seems fitter for a crude age than for one which
would cultivate the highest art.

Earnestness was at the period of which I am speak-
ing the watchword of all those who were in revolt
against whatever was effete, commonplace, or unsatis-
factory. Eeligion and art were closelier drawn to one
another than had yet been the case in England, and it
seemed as if at last the two were going to walk hand
in hand ; and even when the twain were not directly
united in spirit, there was a determination to get at
the truth of things, to work in the most absolute sin-
cerity, that made the pursuit of art a very different
thing from what it too generally was. It could not
have been otherwise but that such a man as John
Euskin was at once and strongly attracted to the
programme and initiatory works of the young artists
known as the Preraphaelites, for in them he recog-
nised men of undoubted talent and possessed with a
new purpose — talents such as had not been exercised
in art since Albert Durer, and a purpose vital with
truth and throbbing with the pulse of ardent and lofty
endeavour. Their choice of designation could not be
said to be fortunate ; for, apart from anything else, the
mere selection of an epithet like Prerapkaelite was
a mistake, playing as it did into the hands of those
whose chief weapon was ridicule. The term, as a
definitive title, was quite a misnomer ; for between the
works of the band of artists who preceded Eaphael,
and those who were called after them in the nine-

II. THE PRERAPHAELITE IDEA. 43

teenth century, there was no real resemblance; the
only bond that united them being that of going direct
to nature for inspiration and guide, for, as Mr. Euskin
points out, the young brotherhood of contemporary
artists were altogether superior to the Italian Pre-
raphaelites in skill of manipulation, power of drawing,
and knowledge of effect ; as superior in these as they
were inferior in grace of design. To the title must
certainly be imputed at least part of the widespread
misunderstanding that beset the early efforts of Millais,
Holman Hunt, Eossetti, and others, that they imitated,
perhaps intentionally and perhaps not, the errors of
the early Italian painters. And certainly the " Brother-
hood" got their fair share of scornful contempt, too
frequently, unfortunately, undergoing also the morti-
fication of imputed falsity to art, and not infrequently
suffering from the stings of personal spite. But if the
public, or at least the critical public, was to them a
huge and threatening Goliath, their spirits were soon
to take new courage for suddenly a very David came
forth as their champion, and Euskin in the Times, in
Modern Painters, and elsewhere, spoke of their efforts
with characteristic dogmatic conviction, insisting on
the young painters' rectitude of aim and frequent
beauty of accomplishment, and scornfully dismissing,
amongst others, such antagonistic assertions as were
constantly repeated regarding the absence of perspec-
tive in PreraphaeHte work, by such counter-blasts as :
"There was not a single eiTor in perspective in three
out of the four pictures in question. I doubt if, with
the exception of the pictures of David Eoberts, there
was one architectural drawing in perspective on the
walls of the Academy. I never met with but two

44 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

men in my life who knew enough of perspective to
draw a Gothic arch in a retiring plane so that its
lateral dimensions and curvatures might be calculated
to scale from the drawing. Our architects certainly
do not, and it was but the other day that, talking to
one of the most distinguished amongst them, the
author of several valuable works, I found he did not
know how to draw a circle in perspective." ^^

It is no wonder that Mr. Euskin, and for that
matter many of the public as well, welcomed the con-
scientious endeavours of the Preraphaelites, when, in
his own words, he asks us to look around at our ex-
hibitions " and behold the ' cattle-pieces,' and ' sea-
pieces,' and 'fruit-pieces,' and 'family -pieces,' the
eternal brown cows in ditches, and white sails in
squalls, and sliced lemons in saucers, and foolish faces
in simpers, and try to feel what we are, and what we
might have been."

Of course, as always with anything that is new
and non-artificial as opposed to insincerity, the loudest
and most wulent outcry was anonymous. Behind
the safe shelter of the journalistic "We" many a
skirmisher fired off his bullets of ignorant criticism
and disguised malice, at times hurting, it is true, but
never mortally wounding. It is the nature of these
ephemerse to discharge their poison and then pass
away, and though for a time the sufferer may smart
and perhaps be inconvenienced by their stings it is
not for long, if he have that in him which is of worth.

But equally, of course, the objecting side wrote not

^ Preraphaelitism, 1851. See also the somewhat too insisted on
opinions regarding the value of correct perspective expressed in the
Preface to The ElcTnents of Drawing.

.II. THE PRERAPHAELITE IDEA. 45

entirely anonymously. Then, and later, there were
well-known writers who put forward their non-appre-
ciative or partly appreciative opinions on Preraphael-
itism, qualified authors like Mr. Hamerton and Mr.
Palgrave in England, and Messieurs Prosper Merimee,
Henri Delaborde, Eugene Forgues, J. Milsand, and
Henri Taine, in France.

The writer whose antagonistic criticisms took the
most permanent form was the Eev. E. Young, who in
1857 published a considerable volume entitled Fre^
rafaelitism, the outcome of a pamphlet bearing mainly
on the same subject. The first impression one gains
from this book is that its title should have been John
Euskin : An Impeachment, and the next is a growing
doubt as to Mr. Young's qualifications for his self-set
critical task. As an instance in support of the latter
assertion I quote a passage from page 75 of his work,
wherein he speaks as follows of an artist whom the
world at large has recognised as one of the greatest of
all times : — " Turner is in all this the faithful type
of all Prerafaelitism — I mean a want of selection, a
want of discrimination, a want of judgment, a want of
special sympathy with the grand, the solemn, the
tender, and the beautiful ; a want of keeping things in
their right places, a want of distinguishing the master
chords from the inconsequential notes of nature's
music."

Again, he says (page 203): "I suppose no intelli-
gent eye can look on Eaffaelle's Lo Spasimo, Da Vinci's
Last Stopper, or I might even say Michael Angelo's
Emsin^ of Lazarus, painted by Del Piombo, without
recognising more or less the Ch^eek conception!' The
Eev. E. Young may here be right, but I confess I fail

46 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

to see the assimilitude of either Lo Spasimo, the Last
Supper, or the Raising of Lazarus, to The Greek ; in the
severity of outline and modelling alone in Da Vinci's
great work there is that which is not alien certainly,
but both Lo Spasimo and the Raising of Lazarus seem
to me, alike in treatment as in subject, especially
foreign to the artistic mind of the great nation of
antiquity.

What the Eev. E. Young seems to find especially
objectionable in such painters as Holman Hunt and
Eossetti is their having the boldness and unqualified
rashness to deal with Eeligion in Art. " All I ask,"
he exclaims, "is that heaven-born Eealists would at
least abstain from Scripture subjects." We have
the contrary view in Mr. Euskin's second paper in
The Nineteenth Century on The Three Colours of Pre-
raphaelitism : " But such works as either of these
painters have done, without antagonism or ostentation,
and in their own true instincts ; as all Eossetti's draw-
ing from the life of Christ, more especially that of the
Madonna gathering the bitter herbs for the Passover
when He was twelve years old ; and that of the mag-
dalen leaving her companions to come to Him, — these,
together with all the mythic scenes which he painted
from the Vita Nuova and Paradiso of Dante, ai^e of
quite imperishable power and. value" The Eev. E.
Young's dislike to Holman Hunt, Eossetti, and others
having anything to do with religious art, does not
prevent his condescending to explain that he does not
necessarily wish realistic painters to be done away
with altogether. The same apparently as regards
poets ; for, in his own words, he has " no more desire
that, because the antique is above the life, there should

II. THE PRERAPHAELITE IDEA. 47

be no such beings as realistic painters than that,
because Homer and Milton are in the first order of
poets, there should be no such persons as Crabbe and
Wordsworth. All I ask is that heaven-born Eealists
would at least abstain from Scripture subjects." By
this I suppose Mr. Young would look upon Words-
worth as not open to objection so long as he kept to
his realistic studies of peasant life, but as deserving of
the critical lash whenever attempting such work as the
Sonnet on Westminster Bridge, the Ode on the Intima-
tions of Immortality, and the personal epic of The Ex-
cursion. Yet "such a person " as Wordsworth, despite
this indifference, is even yet regarded by some people
as a great poet; and Holman Hunt, D. G. Eossetti,
J. E. Millais, and others, have not yet sunk into their
doubtless deserved oblivion. Mr. Young unduly dis-
parages Giotto amongst the older masters whom he so
reverences, perhaps because of the very reason that
made Euskin compare Millais to him as a protester
" of vitality against mortality, of spirit against letter,
and of truth against tradition.",^ Nor does he seem
to understand Mr. Euskin when the latter explains the
true reason of the greatness of Giotto by saying : " It
was not by greater learning, not by the discoveries of
new theories of art, not by greater taste, not by the
ideal principles of selection, that he became the head
of the progressive schools of Italy. It was simply by
being interested in what was going on around him, by
substituting the gestures of living men for conventional
attitudes, and portraits of living men for conventional
faces, and incidents of everyday life for conventional
circumstances, that he became great and the master of

^ Notice for the Arundel Society.

48 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

the great."! The rock of " Truth " is that with which
Mr. Young on more than one occasion collides ; the
problem of what is truth, things in their actuality or
things in their relativity ? And it is in common with
Mr. Young that so many, both opponents and partisans,
have come to grief ; for the whole question of the '' Pre-
raphaelite Idea " has been simply the question of how
to treat truth, fact. Mr. Young and no doubt many
think the matter is easily settled, and prove at once
to their own satisfaction the orthodoxy of their posi-
tion ; but however apparently such may seem in the
right a flaw is sometimes discoverable in their argu-
ment. The following represents not alone the argu-
ment of Mr. Young, but of many who have given forth
publicly or privately their opinions in solution of this
problem. " Nothing easier," says Mr. Young, " nothing
easier, of course, than to talk of ' truth and nature.'
But as I have asked already, What Truth ? Is it
abstract, general, comprehensive ? or personal, local,
circumstantial, idiosyncratic truth ? So again of
' Nature.' Wliat Nature .? Is it human nature ? or
an individual piece of it ? Is it typical or actual ?
noble or ignoble nature ? Do you see it in the Apollo,
or in the filthy Ganymede of Eembrandt ? Both are
nature: which do you mean when you oppose the
words 'truth and nature' to 'tradition.' A man
may prefer the cabbage -stump to the lily ; but is the
lily, therefore, not nature ? There is, if I may be
allowed the expression, a lily-humanity and a cabbage-
stump humanity." It is in the last sentence that we
discover the cloven hoof: the lily and cabbage-stump
theory is here, as all along, a mistake ; for it is not a

.1 Notice for the Arundel Society.

II. THE PRERAPHAELITE IDEA. 49

lily instead of a cabbage, but the fittingness of a cab-
bage and lily respectively. If a painter like Era
Angelico on the one hand, and Millais or Holman
Hunt on the other, were to paint the same scene — say
" Christ healing the sick " — the productions would be
very opposite ; but because the work of the Fra An-
gelesque painter would be utterly unreal to fact, how-
ever true to the inner truth, to the " eternal verities,"
surely this is no reason why the work of the later
artist, true to the facts of costume, country, and time,
and at the same time equally true in inspiration,
should be inferior ? But Mr. Young, and those who
stand in the same position, ignore the possibility of an
artist combining realism and idealism in his work — ■
or rather, they would say the true idealism includes
whatever of realism is necessary. And it must be
admitted that, at the best, historic painting or religious
painting based on historic fact, can only be approxi-
mately true ; and it may have been the recognition of
this that made such men as Eaffaelle paint poor
Galilean fishermen in flowing robes, preferring typical
representations to historic accuracy. But these are
not the times of Raffaelle, and owing to the enormous
extension of knowledge, not only in regard to our
immediate surroundings but also in regard to man's
environment in the past, the necessity for truth, or the
closest possible approximation to truth, is expected of
the latter-day artist. And surely this natural evolution
does not militate against an equally natural evolution
of imagination ? An imaginative idea, a lofty concep-
tion, may be not the less great because it be married
to relative as well as absolute truth; nor does the
imagination that ignores fact necessarily in that very

E

60 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

ignoring attain the loftiest height. Is the symbolism
of Hunt's Scapegoat less effective because the landscape
of the picture is true both to nature and to the part of
the country wherein happened the historic fact upon
which the idea of the picture is based ? Would it
have been more so if the goat had been more ideal in
portraiture, and the landscape an English common or
Italian plain ? Granted equality of imaginative in-
sight, surely it is well that in a picture truth should
satisfy the mind as well as the idea affect the spirit ;
and this even if the truth be only approximate. In
painting Csesar, even if we cannot represent the great
statesman-warrior as he seemed to his contemporaries,
we would not make an ideal Englishman of him, but
would make his representation Italian, Eoman, in the
first place, and then from the record of historian,
carved gem, or impressed coin, complete in detail what
would be necessary to realise the mental conception.
That a Nemesis pursues the Eealist it is true, showing
him that after all his ideal of realisation of things past
is frequently futile. Yet this is no reason why realism
in high art is false : for in what is there no Nemesis ?
The Idealist will not deny the dreaded following foot-
steps. A marked instance of this frequent futility in
realistic work is afforded in Holman Hunt's Christ
among the Doctor ^^ of which Mons. Milsand narrates^ — •
" Apr^s avoir examinS le tableau une dame Juive dit
gravement : — ' Cela est fort beau, seulement on voit gue
Vauteur Tie connaissait pas le trait distinctif de la ra^e
de Juda ; il a donn4 db ses docteurs les pieds plats qui
sont de la tribu de Ruben, tandis gue les hommes de
Juda avaient le cou-de-pied fortment cambr4 !'" As M.

^ VEsthetique Anglaise, par J. Milsand. 1864.

II. THE PRERAPHAELITE IDEA. 51

Milsand remarks, here Mr. Hunt's Preraphaelite
accuracy has "Been his Nemesis ; for in endeavouring
to be literally true to nature he has only succeeded in
obtaining a general Jewish type and not those differ-
ences at once palpable to a people acquainted with
their own characteristics.

However, if one must err, it is well to err on the
safe side. There are many even now who would echo
the Prior and his art-friends in Browning's poem, who
rated the young painter - brother for painting from
nature, from life, instead of " idealising " —

" How ? what's here ?
Quite from the mark of painting, bless us all !
Faces, arms, legs and bodies like the true
As much as pea and pea ! It's devil's game !
Your business is not to catch men with show,
With homage to the perishable clay,
But lift them over it, ignore it all,
Make them forget there's such a thing as flesh.

Paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms."

To all such no better reply could be given than
Fra Lippo Lippi's own words —

*' Now, is this sense, I ask ?
A fine way to paint soul, by painting body
So ill, the eye can't stop there, must go further

And can't fare worse

Why can't a painter

Make his flesh liker and his soul more Hke,
Both in their order ?"

Speaking of realistic treatment, Mr. Young says
scornfully : " Here is a country wench with a child on
a donkey. This also is a plain fact. Will you call it

52 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

The Flight into Egypt V Well, I would say in repiv,
" Here is the picture of an Italian lady with a haloed
infant on an ass, gay with embroidered trappings.
Will you call it The Flight into Egypt V The truth
is that a representation of the former would no more
be a true Preraphaelite picture than would the latter.
Because Mary was a countrywoman of Syria there
would be no reason why she should be delineated as
an English " country wench," nor for the matter of
that as with unrefined features at all. Looking at
her simply as Mary, she could have been no ordinary
maiden ; she was probably, as E^nan has said, a
visionary of a lofty, pure, and refined nature, and
therefore a painter would be quite justified in idealis-
ing the model he might paint her from to a result con-
sistent with his conception. She would still be but a
I^azarene woman seated on an ass with the child of
her great hope in her arms and her high serenity of
soul manifest in her expression. Surely such a repre-
sentation, true as far as practicable to historical and
local truth, while fully permeated with the essence of
high spiritual conception, would appeal as powerfully
to the religious sense, and far more effectively to the
higher artistic, than a picture where a young Italian
or Spanish woman, however beautiful, rode out in
flight through the desert, clothed with utterly im-
probable garments, and with a child Christ depending
upon a gold halo to give to the beholder the sense of
religious sacredness ? Of course some, as the Eev. E.
Young, would argue that these varied and splendid
garments of the Virgin were symbolical, or were the
representation of a higher truth than that of actuality ;
but wherein this higher truth consists I fail to see.

II. THE PRERAPHAELITE IDEA. 53

"Roman Catholics would say that the splendour of the
Papal and Cardinal robes is in conformity with the
dignity of being Christ's apostolic followers ; but surely
the white robe of the Carthusian and the brown of the
Franciscan are alike more dignified and nearer the
truth, actual and ideal.

Preraphaelitism is not simply another name for
Photography, not what the Kev. E. Young calls it, "a
mere heartless reiteration of the model." The absurd
accusation was made against the Preraphaelites that
their paintings were in reality copied photographs, a
charge that Mr. Euskin effectually dissipated by
challenging any one to produce a Preraphaelite
picture by that process. It is strange that now that
Preraphaelitism has become a phrase of the past the
tradition of its synonymity with photography should
still exist, for only the slightest knowledge of the latter
science is required to show the wide difference there is
between it and art. The other day I was looking at
the picture of one of our most eminent sea-painters,
and more than once I heard the remark " that it was
too photographic : " well, this painter's method of
delineation may or may not be the true way to repre-
sent the ever-changing and multiform beauty of the
sea, but one thing is certain, that it is beyond any
photograph. No painter worthy of the name could
paint a picture of the sea or marine coast that would
not contain many more facts than any photograph could
possibly do, for the limitations of the scientific method
are such as to preclude more than perhaps but one
truth being given at a time. If mere accumulation of
facts were all that were wanted, then doubtless a series
of positives would be more valuable than the picture

54 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

of an artist. Suppose what is wanted is a representa-
tion of tlie Dover Cliffs as viewed midway in the
Channel, with a fresh south-west breeze blowing
through the summer day, what would the painter give
us ? There would be overhead the deep blue of mid-
heaven, gradated into paler intensity as the eye ranged
from the zenith; here and there would move north-
wards and eastwards (granting the wind-current to be
the same at their elevation) fringed drifts of cloud
whiter than snow, while down in the south-west great
masses of rounded cumuli would rise above the horizon,
compact, like moving alps ; the sea between the
painter and the cliffs would be dazzling with the sun-
glare, and the foam of the breaking waves constantly
flashing along the glitter of the sparkling blue : here
the sea would rival the sky, there it would seem as
though dyed with melted amethysts, and farther on
where dangerous shallows lurked pale green spaces
would stretch along; outward-bound, some huge ocean
steamer would pass in the distance, with a thin film
of blue smoke issuing from her funnel, and, leaning
over with her magnificent cloud of canvas, a great ship
from Austral or Pacific ports would overtake a French
lugger making for Calais, or a heavily-built coaster
bound for London; dotted here and there would be
the red sails of the fishing boats, quite a cloud of
them far away on the right, and beyond the red sails
the white clijffs, surge-washed at their bases, and at
their summits green with young grass. Words can
give no idea of these cliffs, however, as they would
really seem to the painter — the marvellous blending
of colours, the shades of delicate gray deepening to
purple, the glow of minute vegetation seeming like

II. THE PRERAPHAELITE IDEA. 55

patches of orange light, the whitest portions seem-
ing dusky in contrast with the snowy cloud and the
glitter of the sea. No painter could transfer this
scene to canvas as it appeared to him in its entirety ;
for in cloud and sea there is an incessant and
intricate changefulness defiant alike of painter and
poet ; but he could give a representation of it
which, though not literally true, would yet in another
sense 5e true, for nothing that appeared in his
picture would be out of harmony with natural truth
so long as it was in itself guiltless of disrelation in its
parts.

And now what would the photographer give us of
the same scene ? In far less time than an artist's
briefest sketch would occupy, we would have a repre-
sentation of the sea, of the clouds, of the ships and
fishing craft, of the cliffs and the cliff-formations. But
in what condition? We see the cliffs clearly por-
trayed— even the gorges are recognisable ; but to make
up for this one truth the rest of the representation is
falsehood. The sea is a white blank, waveless, glitter-
less, unbuoyant; the sky is pale and hueless, with
dull, slate-coloured clouds, the whole seeming more as
if permeated with wan moonlight than the glory of
noonday ; the blue film of the steamer's smoke is a
dingy gray, and the vessel itself a black smudge, while
the red sails of the fishing boats are dark and shadow-
less. This is what the photograph would be if a repre-
sentation of the cliffs were specially desired ; and the
result 08 a whole would be equally unsatisfactory if
only the sea and cloud effects had been wished. In
this case the photographic copy would be more accu-
rate than the sketch in retaining the actual formation

56 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

of the clouds, and would also give the delicate shading
beautifully, and would moreover represent well the
glitter of the sea ; but this would be at the sacrifice of
the other constituent parts of the picture, for the vessels
would be mere blotches and the cliffs irrecognisable as
chalk steeps or anything else under the sun. In the
first instance, in order to obtain the transference of the
solid objects in the distance, the negative would have
to be so long exposed to the actinic rays that decom-
position would affect the more delicate sea and cloud
impressions, resulting in non-gradation, and finally in
a mere uniform flatness : and in the second, so very
short a time would the negative have to be exposed in
order to obtain true portraitures of passing cloud and
sea-glitter that the cliffs and farther vessels would be
left quite or almost blank. Of course, a series of
photographed facts taken simultaneously, some with
the negative exposed but for a very brief space, some
for a sufficient time to obtain medium effects, and some
so as to adequately represent the most solid objects,
would produce a great many truths — in the main,
might produce as many truths with more literal accu-
racy than any painting. But, apart from the impracti-
cableness of this method of obtaining truth from nature,
the series of photographs could never really bring before
the mental vision of the spectator the scene with any-
thing like the in one sense inaccurate and exaggerated
delineation of the painter ; for though an artist might
be able to paint a true and beautiful painting from
these photographic facts, it would entail too great an
intellectual effort on the part of any one not an
artist, unless indeed his or her observant powers were
highly developed, both naturally and by ceaseless usage,

II. THE PRERAPHAELITE IDEA. 57

to compreliend the scene in its fitness of detail ; and
certainly the work of the landscapist is to convey a
speedy impression to the onlooker of some beautiful or
truthful natural scene, and not to set before him what
would mainly entail a difficult labour of comprehension.
Fifty artists sketching simultaneously from the same
scene, each devoting the few minutes available to its
ever-changing aspects, would doubtless give us an in-
valuable series of truthful effects; nevertheless we
would get a far better idea of the scene through the
literally inaccurate but harmonious rendering in the
complete picture of one artist. However commonly
we see people purchasing and even preferring photo-
graphs of scenery to paintings or water-colours or
sketches, the enormous disadvantages of the artificial
compared with the artistic method in rendering recog-
nisable aspects are easily proved. Show a photograph
of Snowdon, or Ben Lomond, or Hartfell, to some people
without mentioning the mountain in question, and it is
doubtful if more than one in half a dozen would really
recognise it even if well acquainted with the neigh-
bourhood ; but show a sketch in water-colour, or paint-
ing in oil, and though the mountain's features may be
exaggerated, the foreground of moor or woodland filled
in in the studio, and an unusual effect of sunrise, noon-
glow, or sunset be over all, yet few who have once seen
them would fail at once to recognise Hartfell, Snowdon,
or Ben Lomond. And this fact arises from an apparent
contradiction, namely, that nature as accurately deline-
ated by photography is less truthful in the effect it
produces than any good artistic representation — hecause
any given natural aspect appeals not only to the sense
of sight, to the mere faculties of recognition, but also.

68 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

and most potently, to the imagination. The imagina-
tion does not want mere imitation, it can reduplicate
sufficiently itself ; what it craves is a powerful impres-
sion upon which to employ itself. But there are many
persons who do not realise this — hence the common
dislike to much of our most powerful modern etching,
and the use of the detracting term impressionist. Mr.
Hamerton stated the matter concisely in The Portfolio
(September 1878) in criticising the remarks of an
American critic who condemned Turner's Venetian
pictures on the ground of their not being imitations of
nature : " The question is not whether they are close iinita-
tions of nature, hut whether they have the art power of
conveying a profound impression, and that they unques-
tionably have." Mr. Hamerton has also ably touched
upon this necessity of exaggeration in land or sea scape
art in his deeply interesting volume Thoughts about
Art, where he also recognises what is doubtless as in-
dubitable a fact, an equal necessity in literature dealing
as in fiction and dramatic poetry with character. I
think Mr. Hamerton is right in believing in this
equal necessity, but only I think to a certain degree,
and not to the extent he specifies, " that no study of
human character would ever be generally recognised as
true which was not idealised and exaggerated almost
to the verge of caricature." And speaking of this very
irrecognisable photographic as compared with artistic
representation, let the reader look at any photograph of
some mountain with which he is familiar, and observe
how dwarfed it seems to him, how devoid of all glory and
majesty, how different from the sympathetic and im-
aginative work (i.e. poetic insight, artistic grasp) of the
artist. This, of course, is very much more noticeable

II. THE PRERAPHAELITE IDEA. 59

in the case of photographs of English and Scotch hills
than of the Alps, where height alone is sufficient to
captivate the imagination in portraiture ; but, as Words-
worth has pointed out, and as any observant lover of
mountain scenery fully realises, mere height in itself
is not alone what gives rise to emotions of grandeur
and majesty, but the shadows of clouds passing over-
head, the drifting of mists from crag to crag, the
" mountain gloom " and " mountain glory ;" therefore
when these natural garments of the hills are not repre-
sented, or represented poorly and falsely, the results are
unsatisfactory in the extreme, and the hill-range we
love is metamorphosed into a dull brown band, and the
moss-cragged, fir-sloped, ravined, and bouldered majesty
of Helvellyn or Schehallion changed to a dark and
dreary mass.

The processes of photography being then so differ-
ent from the method of painters, it can be seen how
absurd was the charge made against the Preraphael-
ites which Mr. Kuskin dissipated by his challenge, and
how inaccurate is the frequent remark that such and
such a painting is merely a coloured photograph. So
foreign is both process and result of one from the other
that the accusation brought then and still brought
against certain artists of painting much of the detail
of their pictures froin photographs instead of direct
from nature (a subsequent modification of the original
charge) is quite untenable in the sense of detraction ;
for supposing an artist desirous of painting an old dis-
mantled castle w^all, half covered over with ivy, with
wallflowers peeping out of the chinks and crannies and
long grasses waving over ruined buttresses, and only
having time or opportunity to make a brief sketch, he

60 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

would doubtless obtain considerable help from a plioto-
graph faithfully reproducing the old wall with all its
wallflowered interstices and waving grasses, and with
the exact configurations of the ivy tendrils ; on these
data he could regulate his drawing, but what would
they give him of what is most essential to a painter —
colour ? He would have to paint the various shades
of gray of the castle wall, here green with one kind of
moss, here brown with . another — the wall-flowers in
their brown, rusty, and golden-yellow hues, the gray-
green of the grasses, some seeded and almost purple —
the light and shade of passing clouds — and the over-
arching azure sky. This he would have to do himself;
in what sense, then, could it be said that he was not
a true painter but only a photograph-copyist ? ''All
good painting, however literal, however Preraphaelite
or topographic, is full of human feeling and emotion.
If it has no other feeling in it than love or admiration
for the place depicted, that is much already, quite
enough to carry the picture out of the range of photo-
graphy into the regions of art."^

Both Preraphaelite and synthetic painters can
agree on one point, viz. that the fountain-head of
nature is the only legitimate spring wherefrom to draw
inspiration ; but this agreement means little when both
difiPer as to methods of interpretation. The analytic,
the Preraphaelite artist would consider fidelity to
fact essential to the highest and truest art; the syn-
thetic would consider the individual interpretation and
representation of fact superior to mere literalness.
There can be no doubt that truth- absolute dwells with

1 Thoughts about Art, page 63. The essential differences are fully-
gone into in this instructive volume.

II. THE PRERAPHAELITE IDEA. 61

neither side in extremis ; the pure analyst is as on^
who triumphs in the flesh but sins in the spirit — the
pure synthetist as one who succeeds in the spirit but
misses unity because of being insensible to " the value
and significance of flesh." Undoubtedly the ideal
painter is he who accepts the broad view of things in
their relation to surroundings, who sees synthetically,
but who at the same time can value and practise detail
and elaborate finish when advisable, true to the facts
of nature, true also to these facts as seen through the
veil of individual impression. Now, while it is true
the Preraphaelite painters had a tendency to be
analytic before all things, all had not this tendency in
like degree ; and, moreover, if Preraphaelitism is to
be judged by its chief exponents it will be seen to be
primarily a protest, and not in itself a fixed creed.
That Eossetti was a Preraphaelite leader is well-
known, but to say he was a painter who adhered to
literality above all things would be absurd — for there
has been no artist in our generation who had or has a
more marked and wonderful gift of infusing his work
with a poetic, a supernatural in the sense of ordinarily
natural, idea. Even the Quarterly Review, in its
bitter disparagement of Preraphaelitism, speaks more
respectfully of Eossetti. " With him," it says, " how-
ever, it was realism no longer, and though it perhaps
retained a more archaic treatment and distribution than
was usual with other painters, it was never the slave
of material, but appealed by mental images rather
than by the rigid imitation of facts. . . . The poetic
idea, rather than the mechanical execution, is the
leading object of the work." The Athenceura, which
from the first recognised the exceptional gifts of the

62 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

great artist, said in the same year (1873) : "Exuber-
ance in power, exuberance of poetry of a rich order,
noble technical gifts, vigour of conception, and a mar-
vellously extensive range of thought and invention,
appear in nearly everything which Mr. Eossetti pro-
duces."

There is a manifest difficulty in avoiding mis-
understanding when speaking of Preraphaelitism at
this late date, in the fact that in the first place there
is now no artistic body of painters who can be sepa-
rately classed under the term ; and, in the second, that
the word " Preraphaelite " in public usage has come
to signify something derogatory. When at exhibitions
visitors see a picture which is simply an absolutely
unindividual soulless imitation of nature, or a figure -
painting remarkable only for total absence of grace of
outline and of harmonic gradation in colour, or an
allegoric subject represented in quaint gestures and
archaic habiliments, it is at once half-amusedly, half-
scornfuUy passed by as " Preraphaelite." Without
any doubt, the amusement (and sadness) and scorn are
in nine such cases out of ten deserved, but the calling
such a picture Preraphaelite is quite a mistake. It is
true that travesty often flaunts itself under the guise of
its original, but, like the ass who donned the lion's skin,
it does not succeed in deceiving any but the ignorant.
When Mr. Horatio Grub writes an epic in twelve
books on The Deluge, and is praised by the Bally-
rashoon Be'porter or the ^traw- cum -Muddle Weekly
Post as the producer of a poem Mil tonic in diction
and Dantesque in force, no one but of the same in-
tellectual vigour as Mr. Grub and the Reporter and
Post reviewers is deceived ; the professional critic and

II. THE PRERAPHAELITE IDEA. 63

the lover of poetry alike knowing how utterly out of
place such terms of comparison are. It is the same
with Preraphaelitism. Those who know what the
characteristics of the " Brotherhood " were, both in aim
and accomplishment, would not make such a mistake
as the visitors just mentioned. It is true that amongst
these characteristics one of our leading art writers,
Mr. Hamerton, specifies an " absolute indifference to
grace, and size, and majesty," a statement which I
think would have more truth in it if the word
" absolute " were omitted. It was not so much con-
scious and voluntary indifference the "P.K.B." were
guilty of, as a ruthless naturalness that at times
bHnded their artistic vision.

One of the most brilliant of the French critics who
noticed the Preraphaelite movement in England was
M. Prosper Merimee, who, however, begins with a mis-
take in his essay on Les Beaux-Arts en Angleterre, by
attributing the rise of Preraphaelitism to Euskin — -
" A la faveur d'un style bizarre parfois jusqu'^ I'extra-
vagance mais toujours spirituel, il a mis en circulation
quelques idees saines et meme pratiques " — not dis-
tinguishing that Euskin was a champion, not an
originator. M. Merimee considers that all the defects
of the young school, thoroughly analysed, reduce them-
selves to one — inexperience. The partial way in
which he gi-asped the real state of affairs will be seen
in the following extract, where, having explained that
the Preraphaelites proposed to follow Van Eyck,
Memmeling, Masaccio, and Giotto as masters, he goes on
to say that these were for them " les grands peintres
aprds lesquels la decadence a commence. Limitation
exacte de la Nature, tel est le mot dJordre des novateurs.

64 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

Bi vousfaites un portrait, ce n'est point assez, vous diront-
ils, de hien copier la figure et Vexpression de voire
module; vous devez encore copier tout aussi fiddlement
ses hottes, et si elles sont ressemeUes, vous aurez soin de
marquer ce travail du cordonnier. Sous ce rappont, la
nouvelle ^cole anglaise ressemhles a celles de nos r4alistes
ne s'entendraient que sur un point : c'est a renier pres-
ques tous leur devanciers. Les realistes sont venus
protester contre les habitudes acaddmiques, contre les
poses de tMdtre, les sujets tir^s de la mythologie, Vimita-
tion de la statuaire antique. Tls ont voulu prendre la
nature sur le fait et Vont trouvde cJiez les commission-
naires du coin de leur rue. En Angleterre, il n'y avait
ni academic ni mythologie du comhattre. Jamais on n'y
avait connu la peinture qu'on nomme classique. La
seule convention qui fdt d renverser c'etait un coloris
d^atelier, une metJiode de harhouillage. LI faut re-
marquer encore que c'est tb Vinstigation des litterateurs
que les Prdraphaelites ont lev4 leur Standard, tandis que
nos realistes sont des artistes qui re rdvoltent contre les
jugemens des gens de lettres." He goes on to complain
that the Preraphaelites repudiate as false all the
" artifices," selection, effect, etc., which had been
studied and admired in the great masters ; that they
must have the whole truth or absolutely surrender to
the untranslatability of natural truth ; their dictum
being, all the eye sees must be faithfully reproduced.
Can nature err ? neither can the artist who copies
nature faithfully.

But M. Merimee fully recognises the benefits
almost certain to be the outcome of the protest repre-
sented by the new school, stating that one thing
remains from the PrerapHaelite movement which is

II. THE PRERAPHAELITE IDEA. 65

probably of greater value than any pictorial achieve-
ments it can show, namely, the remodelling of the
system of study in England; for at last design is given
an important place, which henceforth will give a solid
base to artistic education.

Another well-known French critic, M. Eugene
Eorgues, speaking of the Preraphaelites, ces fiers reven-
dicateurs de Vindejpendance individuelle, having found
un evangile dans Vmuvre singulUre du paysagiste de
Turner, et un propMte dans la personne de M. J.
Buskin, styles them ces mormons de la peinture. Per-
haps the best way to state the most evident fault of
the P.RB. at the early stage of the movement would
be to say that they, individually more or less, lacked
the faculty of selection in details. If "Eve being
tempted in the Garden of Eden " were the subject in
hand, a painter like the Preraphaelite Millais (not
the Millais of to-day) would say to himself "In
Eeality is Truth, therefore I must make my picture
real ; I will paint my own, or Hunt's, or Eossetti's
garden with literal exactness, since I cannot paint with
literal exactness the Garden of Eden ; for the serpent
I shall paint a boa-constrictor from the Zoological
Gardens, so as not to be misled by any false ideal-
isation of the Biblical serpent ; for the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, the first apple-tree I come
across, and for the fruit thereof the first apple I pluck.
So-and-so is the most beautiful model I know, there-
fore she shall be my ' Eve ; ' it does not matter that she
is quite unlike what most imaginative artists would
conceive Eve as more or less resembling — it is better
to paint * So-and-so ' with literal exactness than an
ideal portraiture not absolutely true to nature." The

F

66 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

fault in such a painter's determination would not be in
the choice of subject, which is a fine one, nor in paint-
ing the actual detail of a serpent's exterior from the
life, which would be the true and only fit way to do ;
but the fault would lie in the want of discrimination in
selecting an ordinary garden to represent what really
represented the fulness of the whole earth, or, in the
most restricted sense, a very different scene from any
English garden — in selecting the first tree that came
to hand, as likely as not one unfitted for pictorial
effect, unpicturesque, mean, and barren in appearance
— and in painting the symbolic fruit of the paradis-
iacal account as an ordinarily wrinkled eating-apple.
This want of fit selection does not, however, neces-
sarily postulate want of poetic feeling, for a strong
poetic bias is manifest in most of the early Pre-
raphaelite work ; it is simply the unfortunate pre-
dominance of a mistaken idea of truth. A lately
deceased eminent painter — Mr. Samuel Palmer — made
the best definition of natural truth in art when he
said — " Truth in art seems to me to stand at a fixed
centre, midway between its tivo antagonists — Fact and
Phantasm^ -^

On the other hand,, the " Brotherhood " were re-
markable for strength of purpose, for intellectual
power, high moral fervour, and quite unexampled
manipulative skill. Their primary aims were to
choose in the first instance high subjects fit for art,
and in the next to treat these subjects with the utmost
analytic detail and absolute faithfulness to truth ; to
accept nature as the only reliable guide, and have

1 Vide Mr. L. R. Valpy's Account of Mr. Palmer's Series of Draw-
ings {Fine Art Society, 1881).

II. THE PRERAPHAELITE IDEA. 67

nothing to do with tradition. What such an ideal
means, any artist can realise — the high mental powers
requisite, the enormous labour of hand, the keenly
observant eye, faculties for the most laborious analysis,
intense conviction and marvellous patience. That the
Preraphaelites were thus gifted there can now be surely
no dispute, and that they fulfilled a purpose and in-
fluenced the artistic spirit at large there can equally
be no doubt.

The Preraphaelite movement, though in itself
mainly devotional or appertaining to what is called
high art, was in reality the outcome of the spirit
working in art that was already working in the world
of thought — it was essentially a sceptical revolt. The
investigations of scientists had led them to conclusions
antagonistic to accepted dogmas, even to Biblical
declarations, and the scientific mind was in revolt
against the clerical conception of the creation, the
flood, the lapse of geologic periods, and so forth ; the
labours of the literary philosopher had resulted in
speculative theories, more or less convincingly backed-
up, in direct opposition to orthodox creeds, and these
theories, whether religious or social, and having first
joined hands with the scientific deductions, had per-
meated all classes ; and at last the artistic minds of a
select few, catching fire from the sceptical (that is, " ex-
amining ") spirit abroad, banded together for the pur-
pose of animating what they considered a dying English
art by revolting against tradition and bringing all the
powers of intellect and laborious manual analysis, as
opposed to a slovenly uninspired synthesis, to bear
upon whatever they undertook. Looking back, these
artist - sceptics saw that the band of earnest truth-

68 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

loving workers who preceded Eaphael resembled them
in this, an absolute reliance on nature ; and hence
they likened themselves to, and called themselves, the
FreraphoAite Brotherhood.

Their convictions were assured, their energy unique,
their enthusiasm intense — therefore it is not to be
wondered at that, intellectually dowered as they
moreover were, they in several instances turned also
to literature not only as another means of advanc-
ing their doctrines, but as itself a somewhat fouled
stream they would fain refresh with pure and original
springs. And amongst them the intellectual bias was
as strongly marked as the artistic, the public proof
being that out of the original seven promoters of the
movement three have subsequently made their names
in literature.

A Protestant, a protester, belonging nearly always
to an extreme minority, is inevitably disliked — some-
times feared, but always disliked ; and though nearly
every good law we possess, our individual, our social,
our religious, our moral freedom, is owing to protest
after protest, the theory of the beneficent action of
protestation is only admitted in theory and as only
praiseworthy in the past. Yet let the protesting
spirit die out of our midst, and the result will be first
stagnation, and then retrogression. The craving human
spirit, whether manifested in religion, or politics, or the
life social, whether in the peasant who craves for his
small right to the soil of his fatherland or the artisan
who demands manhood suffrage, in the merchant who
would fain extend commercial enterprise still further,
and in the politician who labours for a republic or a
constitution, in the poet, the musician, and the artist—

II. THE PRERAPHAELITE IDEA. 69

everywhere and with ever -recurring insistence this
craving human spirit must ask, ask, ask. It is there-
fore that Preraphaelitism, even if it possessed no
other virtue than that of protestation, served a good
purpose in art ; and if it be true, as it is, that the term
no longer embraces a specific body of artists, none the
less the influence of the protest was not impotent, but
has borne good and lasting fruit. That, practically,
the spirit that animated the Brotherhood had for its
main aim to 'protest is made apparent in the fact that
after the coherent energy necessary for protestation
had been expended, the individualism of each artist
showed itself by gliding into separate if parallel
grooves, and ultimately, as in the case of Millais, into
grooves widely apart. To the one principle that above
all at heart inspired the young artist, the infusion of
an essentially poetic idea into all artistic composition,
Eossetti has been throughout the most consistent as
Millais has been the least. As the last great painter,
for a great painter beyond all doubt Mr. Millais is,
shook off the defects that marked him during his Pre-
raphaelite period, there came a time of uncertainty,
of hesitancy, in his work. When this " relapse " was
over, Mr. Millais' convalescent art no longer resembled
that of the Brotherhood ; and in the eyes of most, of an
overwhelming majority, the change was considered a
cause of devout thanksgiving. That Mr. Millais as a
synthetist is a greater painter than he was as an
analyst, a Preraphaelite, is doubtless true ; his touch
has become surer and more facile, his colour more
harmonious, and his choice of subject wholly or almost
wholly contemporary ; yet there are some who miss
the old inspiration, the old earnestness — who look for

70 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

the animating high conception, the animating poetic
idea, and look in vain. If it be true that it is
sufficient for an artist to be nothing beyond a con-
summate fainter, then I suppose it is better for art as
it is as regards Mr. Millais ; but is it true ? There
are some at least who do not think so, who do not
thus regard art.

But Dante Kossetti, the most poetic of the Brother-
hood as he was from the first, has consistently with
each picture united a poetic idea ; so truly so, that it
may well be doubted if in the history of art there is
any more marked example of a " poet on canvas," and
to such an extent that there is a certain element of
truth in the remark of an American critic -} — " It will
always be a question, we think, whether Mr. Eossetti
had not better have painted his poems and written his
pictures ; there is so much that is purely sensuous in
the former and so much that is intellectual in the
latter."

I have not unfrequently heard the opinion expressed
that in his choice of archaic subjects Eossetti was a
Preraphaelite ; but as a matter of fact there is no
necessary connection between archaism and Preraph-
aelitism. And it must be remembered that if Pre-
raphaelitism be taken as mere Imitativeness, then no
more un-Preraphaelite painter ever lived than Dante
Gabriel Eossetti. Indeed, he disliked the term very
much latterly, because he knew that it had a false
significance to the outside world — and, in this outside
signification, was quite inapplicable to himself In
the best sense of the term he was a Preraphaelite,

^ Mr. "W. D. Howells, in an (unsigned) review of the Poems in the
Atlantic Monthly for July 1870.

IL THE PRERAPHAELITE IDEA. 71

and in none other, in the main; and it will not
be out of place to recall here the now well-known
anecdote that, when asked by a lady one evening
at a friend's house (that of Dr. Westland Marston)
if he were the " Preraphaelite Eossetti," he replied,
" Madam, I am not an ' ite ' of any kind ; I am only
a painter."^

The Saturday Revievj, in 1858, writes of Mr. Morris
as the leading or representative Preraphaelite poet.
But what is Preraphaelitism in poetry ? The name is
surely an entire misnomer here. If by Preraphaelitism
in painting we understand the principle of unartificial,
anti- classic, and purely natural work, and by Pre-
raphaelitism in poetry mean the same thing, we would
have to designate such different and time -separated
poets as Chaucer, Cowper, Crabbe, Wordsworth, Burns,
and Tennyson as Preraphaelites, which would be a
manifestly absurd and incongruous use of the term.
One writer,^ indeed, does actually speak of Chaucer as
being the representative of Preraphaelitism in English
verse, and again of Cowper and Wordsworth awakening
it {sic ?) in England, and Burns in Scotland ; but the

1 " Of the whilome leaders of Preraphaelitism Mr. Dante Rossetti is
perhaps the only one who combines in just balance the passion for
beauty with intellectual subtlety and executive mastery. And the
name of this painter brings us from the realistic, didactic part of the
sequel of Preraphaelitism ... to the art whose aim is beauty.
. . . Of the original Preraphaelite brethren, Mr. Rossetti, perhaps
the chief intellectual force in the movement, is the only one who
seems thoroughly to have combined beauty with passion and intellect.
An amazing power of realisation and extreme splendour of colour are
used to embody subjects symbolically suggestive, and pregnant of
fanciful allegory." — Prof. Sidney Colvin, English Painters and Paint-
ing in 1867.

2 Mr. Gerald Massey, in his second lecture on Preraphaelitism in
Painting and Poetry, delivered in Edinburgh 17th March 1868.

12 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

complete irrelevancy of the term in such instances
must be apparent to any one who understands its true
signification. Burns was not a protester, he was a
singer; and to speak of Chaucer as a Preraphaelite
bears on the face of it its own refutation. The fact of
the case is that the term is now never used in poetry
to designate natural non- artificial work, and that if
another Wordsworth were to appear it would be the
very last term used in speaking of his work ; when
used at all, which it should not be, it is only to signify
some affectation of quaintness or grotesqueness, or some
archaic choice of subject. Thus, taking Eossetti's poems
as an example, we find that The Blessed Damozel is
called Preraphaelite while The King's Tragedy is not ;
but if there is any meaning in the term as applied to
poetry, the application should be vice versd. But there
is no meaning, poetically spaking, in the term, there-
fore to call The King's Tragedy a Preraphaelite ballad
would be absurd. In whatever sense the word may
be used, whether as signifying archaism or naturalism,
it would be a good thing if it now dropped for good
from the critical category.

The whole subject of Preraphaelitism has been
greatly misunderstood, sometimes ludicrously so, as in
the case of a " critic " in the North American Beview
(for October 1870) who, referring to the absurd story
of the affectation of the P.R.B. in pronouncing the
name of their magazine, TJie Germ, with a hard g, adds,
" there is nothing in this procedure which is essentially
inconsistent with the characteristics of the works which
Breraphaelitic art has produced !" Preraphaelitism, as
the principle of a sect, is now a thing of the past : but
let it be remembered for its beneficent influence and

THE ''P.R,Br 73

deeds, as well as for its faults and later backslidings in
disciples who never attained the platform in art of the
original Brotherhood. For when the protest was accom-
plished and had borne fruit, each individual member
pursued his own separate and independent groove ; and
it was only amongst the so-called disciples that a una-
nimity of style and choice of subject was perpetuated.
Nor shoidd the impression, arising out of so much
adverse criticism, be allowed to crystallise, the impres-
sion that adherence to Preraphaelite principles almost
of necessity postulates sterility of imagination and
absence of insight, however great may be the manifest-
ation of mechanical skill — for it is not so. There is
nothing in the Preraphaelite principle of " absolute,
uncompromising truth" to "nature, and to nature
only" to prevent any artist of necessity from accept-
ing in spirit and following up in deed the principle
set forth in Bacon's beautiful sentence in On the
Advancement of Learning (Bk. ii.) — " The world being
inferior to the soul; by reason whereof, there is
agreeable to the spirit of man a more ample greatness,
a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety
than can be found in the nature of things." For
the animating spirit is nature as much as the per-
meated matter.

Having thus so far examined the aims and methods
of Preraphaelitism, I shall now proceed to give an
account of the famous though rare magazine wherein
its principles are supposed to be embodied.

When the " Brotherhood " was formed the member-
ship consisted of seven in number, viz. five painters,

74 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

one sculptor, and one young man who afterwards be-
came celebrated as an acute and able critic in both
art and literature. The last mentioned was William
Michael Eossetti ; the sculptor was Thomas Woolner ;
and the five painters were Dante Gabriel Eossetti,
William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, James
CoUinson, and Frederick George Stephens. That the
band was a specially gifted one will be evident when
it is remembered that William Eossetti has shown
notable poetic as well as critical gifts, that Dante
Eossetti has achieved a great and enduring name in
two arts, that Thomas Woolner is well known through
his two fine volumes of poetry, that Mr. ColKnson
exhibited in his youth considerable poetic promise,
and that Mr. F. G. Stephens has made his mark as
an acute and eloquent art critic. I have at times
come' across references to several other artists as
belonging to the Brotherhood, but this is a mistake ;
for though doubtless several more or less well-known
artists might be mentioned who belonged to the school,
no one beyond the seven enumerated was endowed
with actual membership. There are three names that
have more insistently than others been spoken of as
" Brothers," the late Thomas Seddon, Mr. Ford Madox
Brown, and Mr. William Bell Scott ; but the first of
these, though decidedly of the school, had no active
concern in the original movement at all. Mr. W. B.
Scott has been throughout his career consistent to the
individualism that prevented his joining " the sacred
seven ;" and Mr. Ford Madox Brown, it is well known,
refused membership on the ground of scepticism as to
the utility of coteries of any kind. But the latter is in
one sense more closely united with the Preraphaelite

THE GERM, 76

body than other sympathisers, in that if Dante Eos-
setti be considered its father, Mr. Brown may be con-
sidered its grandfather, — for no artist had a more
marked influence on the young painter of 1847 than
he whose Westminster frescoes had won for him such
a wide reputation; and indeed since the days of student-
hood in the " forties " down to the last years of his
life, Eossetti never ceased to think highly of the genius
of his friend and coadjutor.

In any case the members of this new cinacle would
probably have soon recognised the advisability of litera-
ture as a method of propagandism, but inevitably
so in the fact of the literary bias being so strong as
it was. Though discussed with his brother and sister
in the first instance, the scheme was really born of
the energetic and enthusiastic mind of Gabriel, and
once resolved upon, was not long in being set afoot.
So one evening in the early autumn of 1849, a small
company being assembled at Eossetti's studio in New-
man Street, various plans and names were suggested ;
at last a title suggested by Mr. William Cave Thomas
was accepted, this title being Tlie Germ — one considered
specially applicable to the subject. By this name the
magazine was therefore first known, and subsequently
has always been referred to, though of the four num-
bers it reached only two were issued as The Germ, the
two later being, at the instigation of the printer (and
friend), Mr. J. L. Tupper, altered to Art and Poetry.
The three Eossettis were literally the mainstay of the
new organ, a large proportion of the contents being
from their pens, and William, moreover, being the
editor.

This short-Hved publication must always be looked

76 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

upon with a double interest, for not only is it the
receptacle for the early work of men and women (or
rather one woman) who have since taken " honours "
in different arts, but it is also, as Mr. J. Ashcroft
!N"oble says in his interesting paper in Frasers Magazine
for May, " the first, and indeed the only, official mani-
festo or apologia of Preraphaelitism." By-the-bye, I
see that Mr. Noble has made a mistake in supposing
the article on The Purpose and Tendency of Early
Italian Art to be by "Mr. John Seward, another
young painter;" there was no such painter, and the
name was simply a temporary nom-de-plume of Mr.
F. G. Stephens, who is also the " Laura Savage," whose
name follows a paper appearing in the fourth number,
entitled Modern Giants. The extent of the Eossetti
contributions will be seen by the following figures,
when it will also be seen that the main portion thereof
consisted of poems. In the four numbers there are in
all thirty-eight separate reviews, poems, and an alle-
gorical art-tale, to which are attached the signatures
of William, Dante, or Christina Eossetti : —

Dante Gabriel (then aged 21) was tlie author of twelve
contributions — namely, Hand and Soul, five poems, and
six sonnets.

William Michael (then aged 20) of nineteen contributions
— namely, four reviews, eleven short poems, three
sonnets, and the sonnet that was printed on the cover
of each number.

"Ellen Alleyn" (Christina) (then aged 19) of seven con-
tributions, all short poems.

As I have just referred, on the front page or cover
of The Germ, in each of its four numbers, there appeared
an interpretary sonnet by William Eossetti ; a sonnet
not indeed specially remarkable in itself, but note-

II. THE GERM. 77

worthy for embodying the Preraphaelite principle —
Truth the primary aim —

" When whoso merely hath a little thought

Will plainly think the thought which is in him —
Not imaging another's bright or dim.

Not mangling with new words what others taught ;

When whoso speaks, from having either sought
Or only found, — ivill speak, not just to skim
A shallow surface with words made and trim,

But in that very speech the metier brought :

" Be not too keen to cry — ' So this is all ! —
A thing I might myself have thought as well.

But would not say it, for it was not worth /'
Ask : ' Is this truth V For is it still to tell

That, he the theme a point or the whole earth,
Truth is a circle, perfect, great or small."

The first number was issued in January 1850, at
the price of one shilling. It was entitled The Germ :
Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature, and Art,
and contained an etching by Holman Hunt, illustrative
of a scene in the opening poem. It is a double etch-
ing— that is to say, it is in two sections though on
one plate ; but it must be confessed that the strength
of The Germ by no means rests in its etchings. The
lower section of this first illustrative matter is much
the better, having pathos and truth without affectation.
It describes the scene referred to in the following
verse from the poem referred to — the My Beautiful
Lady of Thomas Woolner : —

" Silence seemed to start in space

When first the bell's harsh toll
Rang for my lady's soul.
Vitality was hell ; her grace
The shadow of a dream :
Things then did scarcely seem :

78 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

Oblivion's stroke fell like a mace :

As a tree that's just hewn

I dropped, in a dead swoon,
And lay a long time cold upon my face."

The prone figure on the new-made grave of his
" Beloved Lady " is finely done, and we can almost
fancy we hear the toll of the slanted bell above him
as it swings in an aperture of the convent chapel, and
the low Miserere of the nuns passing two-and-two in
the background, beyond whom are the crosses and
grassy mounds of the little cemetery.

My Beautiful Lady has since become so well-known
to the public that there will be no necessity to refer
to it further than to say it is given in The Germ only
in part : the first section consisting of thirty six-line
stanzas, and the second, called Of my Lady in Death,
of twenty of ten lines each. Immediately following
this poem is a sonnet (unsigned) by Ford Madox
Brown, entitled The Love of Beauty,

Then comes the first prose paper, a dissertation that
must certainly have amused, while it astounded, the
orthodox artist or connoisseur of the day. It is by-
Mr. J. L. Tupper, and entitled The Subject in Arty
but cannot be said to show marked literary faculty ;
for instance, there is one sentence that extends to
between two and three hundred words without a full
stop, and embraces, besides two sets of brackets and
five italicised words or phrases, twenty-four dashes.
It is thoughtful, it is true; but there is such an
extraordinary misapplication of the thought on, for
instance, the subject of " still life " that the value of
the writer's other, opinions is somewhat deteriorated.
The first of the following short extracts will show

THE GERM. 79

the Preraphaelite instinct at work, and the second
the false step the author took as regards " still life "
in painting : —

"Thus then we see that the antique, however
successfully it may have been wrought, is not our
model ; for, according to that faith demanded at setting
out, fine art delights us from its being the semblance
of what in nature delights. Now, as the artist does
not work by the instrumentality of rule and science,
but mainly by an instinctive impulse, if he copy the
antique, unable as he is to segregate the merely delect-
able matter, he must needs copy the whole, and thereby
multiply models, which the casting-man can do equally
well ; whereas if he copy nature, with a like inability
to distinguish that delectable attribute which allures
him to copy her, and under the same necessity of
copying the whole, to make sure of this 'tenant of
nowhere ;' we then have the artist, the instructed of
nature, fulfilling his natural capacity, while his works
we have as manifold yet various as Nature's own
thoughts for her children" (page 14).

"Let us consider the merits of a subject really
practical, such as * dead game ' or ' a basket of fruit ;'
and the first general idea such a subject will excite is
simply that of food, * something to eat.' For though
fruit on the tree, or a pheasant in the air, is a portion
of nature, and properly belongs to the section ' Land-
scape,' a division of art intellectual enough ; yet gather
the fruit or bring down the pheasant, and you presently
bring down the poetry with it ; and although Sterne
could sentimentalise upon a dead ass ; and although
a dead pheasant in the larder, or a dead sheep at a
butchers, may excite feelings akin to anything but

80 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

good living ; and though they may there be the excitive
causes of poetical, nay, of moral reflection; yet see
them on the canvas, and the first and uppermost idea
will be that of ' food] and how, in the name of decency,
they ever came there. It will be vain to argue that
gathered fruit is only nature under a certain phase,
and that a dead sheep or a dead pheasant is only a
dead animal like a dead ass ; it will be pitiably vain
and miserable sophistry, since we know that the
dead pheasant in a picture will always be as food,
while the same at the poulterer's will be but a dead
pheasant" (pp. 15-16).

I am afraid most people will continue to be "piti-
ably vain and miserable sophists," believing the " food
idea " more readily brought to mind by the poulterer's
shop than the painted canvas — who will continue to
prefer, for ocular purposes, their fruit as seen in
Lance to the same as exhibited in the green-grocer's
window.

After The Subject in Art follows a short poem in
three verses, entitled The Seasons. It was written by
Coventry Patmore, but bears no special mark of the
school; and was subsequently reprinted in Mr. Pat-
more's collected works. Dream Land succeeds Tlie
Seasons — that exquisite lyric by Christina Eossetti,
which is known to hundreds in America and England.
Facing it is the My Sister's Sleep by her brother Gabriel,
under the sub-title Songs of One Household. It is dif-
ferent, through subsequent omissions and alterations,
from the version that is generally known, but the
poem itself and these alterations will be found treated
in detail in Chapter V. of this book. As to the famous
and beautiful allegoric narrative, Hand and Soul, I have

THE GERM, 81

already referred to one or two passages in it in Chapter
I., passages specially bearing upon the writer's indivi-
duality ; but it will be found discussed at greater length
in Chapter IV., amongst Eossetti's prose writings. The
long review of Arthur Hugh Clough's Bothie of Toper-
na-Fuosich (Vuolich) that follows is distinguished by
a marked critical faculty, all the more noticeable from
the fact of the unpopularity the poem met with at the
time. It probably did not influence the sale of a single
copy out the " circle," for the circulation of The, Germ
was extremely limited, the magazine being almost quite
unnoticed by the press ; but it gave great gratification
to the author, and showed him and a few others that
the seeing eye of the critical fraternity was not
entirely obscured. The next contribution is also by
William Eossetti, a thoughtful sonnet entitled Her
First Season; and this is followed by some verses by
J. L. Tupper, called A Sketch from Nature, showing a
quick eye for natural colour. The number concludes
with the lyric An End, by Christina Eossetti, verses
full of the exquisite dreaminess that pervades so
much of her work.

In February the second number w^as issued, with,
for frontispiece, an etching by James Collinson, illus-
trative of some lines in his poem on the Five Sorrovjful
Mysteries. Below it are the words Ex ore infantium
et lactentium perfecisli laudem. In the right of the
etching Nazareth crowns a low hill, and below it, on a
shoreward slope, are one or two cottages ; in the back-
ground and to the left the cliffs break down to the
quiescent Sea of Galilee, and on the lake's margin is a
group of quaint solemn children in the midst of whom
sits the young Christ crowned by his companions with

G

82 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

a wreath of flowers. The absolute sincerity of the
etcher is unmistakable, but the work itself is too " Era
Angelesque " to suit contemporary taste, save the false
taste of the ultra-sestheticists. The poem itself, called
The Child Jesus : A Record typical of the Five Sorrow-
ful Mysteries, is of considerable length, being in five
parts extending in all to about 330 lines ; the five
parts, 'or " sorrowful mysteries," being respectively The
Agony in the Garden, The Scourging, The Crowning
with Thorns, Jesus carrying His Cross, and The Cruci-
fixion. There is much that is really fine in this poem,
its chief charm, perhaps, being the earnest simplicity
that is manifest in it throughout ; but now and again
there are very striking lines, such as the following,
wherein Mary relating a dream describes an electric
glimmer, antecedent of storm, shinmg at night upon a
sterile and desolate waste : —

" darkness closed round me.
(Thy father said it thundered towards the morn.)
But soon, far off, I saw a dull green light
Break through the clouds, which fell across the earth,
Like death upon a bad man's upturned face."

The five sorrows are not, as their titles would seem
to signify, the actual five agonies of Christ as chroni-
cled in the New Testament, but are prophetic fore-
shadowings of these events seen in childhood. Thus
the Agony in the Garden is the grief of the child Jesus
over the sudden violent death of a fledgling dove he
had been watching learning flight from its mother, for
in the midst of the latter's solicitude and hovering
care a hawk swoops down and, killing the young bird
with its talons, carries it to a cleft in the rocks savagely

THE GERM. 83

tearing and devouring it. All the rest of that day
Jesus sat in the garden and wept,

" Sad, as with broken hints of a lost dream,
Or dim foreboding of some future ill."

The second sorrow, the Scourging, is when the young
Christ sees, one afternoon, two young men goading and
lashing an overburdened yearling ass ; the patient
pathetic look of the animal goes to his heart, and a
sudden strange grief comes upon him as his eye catches
sight of the natural cross marked on every ass — so
deep and foreknowing that Mary "remembered it in
days that came." The poem throughout is eminently
pictorial, and nowhere more so than in this second
part. The first twenty lines make an exquisite picture,
such as pre-eminently would have suited the genius 'of
Eossetti at the time he painted The, Girlhood of the
Virgin, the child sitting at his mother's feet in the
open air outside their cottage, with the fretted light
breaking through vine-leaves falling upon him, and on
his naked foot, shining in the warm glow of the sun, a
newly alighted moth with "blue-eyed scarlet wings
spread out " — sometimes listening to her, with little
hands crossed and tightly clasped around her knee,
sometimes lost in thought when seeming only to be
wa.tching "the orange-belted wild bees" coming and
going from "their waxen- vaulted cells in a hazel-
covered crag aloft."

The Crowning with Thorns is emblematised in the
children offering young Jesus a reed for a sceptre and
a wreath of hawthorn flowers ; a scene that is more
beautifully delineated in verse than in the etching
which illustrates it. The agony of bearing the cross

84 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

is foreshadowed in the fourth part, wherein Jesus would
fain help to bear the burden of Joseph, carrying a
heavy log of felled wood from the shore, but the old man
tells him he is yet too young, but will ere long be strong
enough to bear on his shoulders even such a tree —

"O'

" Then Jesus lifted deep prophetic eyes
Full in the old man's face, but nothing said,"

The fifth sorrow, the Crucifixion, is prophetically
preluded in the beautiful story of the little lamb
beloved of the young child, and which Mary saw in a
dream fallen into a deep pit choked with briars and
thorns, many having torn its head and bleeding feet,
and one having pierced its side from which flowed
blood and water.

I have dwelt specially upon this poetic production
of Mr. Collinson, not only because of its intrinsic
merit or being the only work of its kind by him with
which I am acquainted, as because it never seems to
me to have got its due meed of praise from critics,
public or private.^

It is followed by a short poem, A Pause of ThoitgM,
by Christina Eossetti, which is succeeded by an inter-
esting, from a Preraphaehte inquiry point of view,
paper on The Purpose and Tendency of Early Italian
Art. It is given forth as by John Seward, but, as I
have already had occasion to explain, this was simply
one of the pseudonyms of Frederick G. Stephens. The
author at once strikes the Preraphaelite keynote, the
article opening thus : — " The object we have proposed

^ To this I must except the brief reference of Mr. J. Ashcroft Noble
in Fraser's Magazine for June 1882, who speaks of the beauty of the
poem being ' ' at once severe, pensive, and solemn. "

THE GERM. 85

to ourselves in writing on Art has been ' an endeavour
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 is in
accordance with the former and more prominent of
these objects that the writer proposes at present to
treat."

Further on, he proceeds to say : " It has been said
that there is a presumption in this movement of the
modern school, a want of deference to established
authorities, a removing of ancient landmarks. This is
best answered by the profession that nothing can be
more humble than the pretension to the observation of
facts alone, and the truthful rendering of them. If we
are not to depart from established principles how are
we to advance at all ? . . . That this movement is an
advance and that it is of Nature herself, is shown by its
going nearer to truth in every object produced, and by
its being guided by the very principles the ancient
painters followed, as soon as they attained the mere
power of representing an object faithfully. These prin-
ciples are now revived, not from them, though through
their example, but from Nature herself." He then goes
on to a defence of the early Italian painters, in propos
of the modern Preraphaelites ; taking up the cudgels
manfully for the then much ridiculed gauntness and
quaintness of so much of the work of the early Italians,
saying: "A certain gaunt length and slenderness have
also been commented upon most severely ; as if the
Italians of the fourteenth century were as so many
dray horses, and the artists were blamed for not follow-
ing his model. The consequence of this direction of

86 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

taste is that we have lifeguardsmen and pugilists taken
as models for kings, gentlemen, and philosophers. The
writer was once in a studio where a man six feet two
inches in height, with Atlantean shoulders, was sitting
for King Alfred. That there is no greater absurdity
than this will be perceived by any one that has ever
read the description of the person of the king given by
his historian and friend Asser." The remainder of the
paper is occupied with an ardent eulogy of the early
Italians, a philosophic reference to the transient and
deceptive glory of the kind of " Indian summer " that
we often see in the art of generations or nations before
ultimate decadence, and insistence on truth in every
particular being the aim of the artist, natural truth
alone, moreover, being sufficient. Purity of heart, he
declares, is above all necessary to him who has entered
upon the new era. The spirit of willing sacrifice
rather than that of yielding to the conventional or
degraded prevailing taste, and of working in humility
and truth ; but above all, purity of heart, freedom from
the vice of sensuality of the mind.

If narrow in its comprehensiveness this paper is at
least earnest and praiseworthy, and full of the divine
spirit of protest.

Succeeding it are four poetical contributions. The
first consists of two exquisite little verses by Christina
Eossetti ; the second, a poem of about 130 lines in
length, by William Bell Scott, entitled Morning Slee'p}
contains some characteristically fine passages, such as
this, where the poet drowsily watches from his bed

1 Reprinted in the edition of 1854, and afterwards with some slight
alterations in the collated edition.

THE GERM. 87

the growing day, remembering at the same time how
that same day is even then dying in the Orient \ —

" And now the gradual sun begins to throw
Its slanting glory on the heads of trees,
And every bird stirs in its nest revealed,
And shakes its dewy wings. . . .

. . . To an Eastern vale
That light may now be waning, and across
The tall reeds by the Ganges, lotus-paved.
Lengthening the shadows of the banyan-tree.
The rice-fields are all silent in the glow,
All silent the deep heaven without a cloud,
Burning like molten gold. A red canoe
Crosses with fan-like paddles and the sound
Of feminine song, freighted with great-eyed maids
Whose unzoned bosoms swell on the rich air ;
A lamp is in each hand ; some mystic rite
Go they to try."

The third of these contributions is a sonnet by
Calder Campbell, and the fourth some dialogue verses
by Coventry Patmore, entitled 8tars and Moon.

Mr. Ford Madox Brown next contributes the first
part (entitled The Design) of a dissertation On the
Mechanism of a Historical Picture ; but as The Germ
came to an end before the second or remaining parts
saw the light, it can only be considered as a fragment.
It is written in a moderate spirit, and is addressed
mainly to those about to paint their first historical
composition ; and here also the Preraphaelite key-
note is speedily stricken, in the words advising a
dififerent procedure from the false, feebly synthetic,
" historic " art then prevalent. " The first care of the
painter, after having selected his subject, should be to
make himself thoroughly acquainted with the character
of the times and habits of the people which he is

88 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

about to represent ; and next, to consult the proper
authorities for his costume, and such objects as may fill
his canvas, as the architecture, furniture, vegetation,
or landscape, or accessories, necessary to the elucida-
tion of the subject."

The succeeding contribution is a poem called A
Testimony, unsigned, but which readers of Christina
Rossetti will at once recall by the opening line, / said of
laughter : It is vain. The following two verses, entitled
0 WTien and Where, are by Mr. Woolner.

This second part of The Germ shows pre-eminently
how strong was the poetic element in its supporters.
Already I have mentioned in it Mr. CoUinson's long
poem, four sets of verses by Christina Rossetti, Mr. W.
Bell Scott's Morning Sleep, a sonnet by Calder Camp-
bell, and dialogue verses by Coventry Patm^ore ; and
before the review with which the part concludes there
are still notable poetic productions to consider. These
are the four short poems called together Fancies at
Leisure, by William Rossetti ; three sonnets, entitled Tlie
Sight Beyond, by "W. H. Deverell ; and the famous
Blessed Damozel of Dante Rossetti.

The Fancies at Leisure are respectively JVoon Best,
A Quiet Place, A Fall of Bain, and Sheer Waste, and
are remarkable as showing a keen eye for nature, an
instinctive grasping of the inner significance of any
scene or landscape. There is at times too marked an
insistence of what may be called Wordsworthian sim-
plicity,— as, for instance, in the second and fourth verses
of the fourth of the Fancies ; but they have the one real
raison d'etre, that of their conception being impulsive,
spontaneous, not wrought out with laborious choice of
detail like so much of our recent verse, which is so

THE GERM. 89

often very artistic and so seldom truly poetic. Sheer
Waste is the longest of the four, and has for its key-
note the same thought that found expression in the
Empedocles of Matthew Arnold —

" Is it so small a thing
To have lived light in the sun,
To have enjoyed the spring ? "

W. H. Deverell's three sonnets are in no way specially
remarkable save from their interest as the work of one
whose genius found vent in a different art from that of
poetic composition.

The Blessed Damozel differs a good deal in many
minor details from the version best known to the
public, and will be fully considered in its place in
the fifth chapter of this book. It seems strange that
a poem of this length, exhibiting so much origin-
ality and so representative of a new element in
poetry, should have attracted so little notice outside
of the " circle " as was the case ; but it must be
remembered that The Germ was quite unknown to the
general public and almost quite unnoticed by the
contemporary press.

The review of Matthew Arnold's first volume,
issued as The Strayed Reveller, and other Poems by
A., is in itself analytic and sympathetic to a high
degree, but the critical faculty it shows is all the
more noticeable in that it was written by a youth of
nineteen, which was about the age of William Rossetti
at the time of its composition. The critic, while
giving due and generous praise to a first book, dis-
criminated wisely, pointing out what are undoubted
blemishes; and at times his remarks are peculiarly

90 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

felicitous, as when he speaks of the classicism pervad-
ing Mr. Arnold's poetic work, where, admitting its
genuineness and alienation from that "mere super-
ficial acquaintance with names and hackneyed attri-
butes which was once poetry," he states that it is not
the same as " that strong love which made Shelley, as
it were, the heir of Plato ; not that vital grasp of con-
ception which enabled Keats without, and enables
Landor with, the most intimate knowledge of form
and detail, to return to and renew the old thoughts
and beliefs of Greece." That this remark shows true
critical insight will, I think, be evident to all who
know Mr. Arnold's work.

In April the third part of the Magazine appeared,
but no longer as The Germy the title now being
Art and Poetry : Being Thoughts towards Nature.
Conducted princi^pally hy Artists.

The etching accompanying this number, Cordelia's
last Charge to Goneril and Began when leaving her
Father's Palace with the King of France, is by Ford
Madox Brown, but is certainly, save in its value as
a design, unsuccessful as an etching ; ^ and the verses
which serve to illustrate the etching are by the editor,
but are in no way noteworthy.

The contribution entitled Macbeth is one of the
most remarkable in The Germ. It is an essay or
rather study on a moot point in Shakespeare's tragedy,
and, while its point of view is now familiar to us, it

1 On the other hand, it must be remembered that Mr. Madox
Brown's etching was hurriedly executed for The Germ, having to take
the place of one prepared by Dante Rossetti, but at the last minute
withdrawn by him as unsatisfactory. As a Shakespearian inter-
preter Mr. Brown has long ere this made a wide and deserved
reputation.

THE GERM. 91

is notable for its originality at a time when sucli a
view was unheard of. Its author, Mr. Coventry
Patmore, states that it has been written to demon-
strate the existence of a mistaken idea in the universal
interpretation of the character of Macbeth, and that
he can prove " that a design of illegitimately obtaining
the crown of Scotland had been conceived by Macbeth,
and that it had been communicated by him to his wife,
prior to his first meeting with the witches, who are
commonly supposed to have suggested that design."
The view thus and throughout the essay unfolded is
one that has been brought home to us by Henry
Irving, the view that Macbeth liad the idea of usurpa-
tion and murder, if need be, from the first, mentally
formed or unformed, and that he was not, as Schlegel
and other critics have made him out to be, a man of
" many noble qualities " ruined by evil influence and
suggestion.

Following on Macbeth, Christina Eossetti contributes
under her usual pseudonym two poems, BepintTig and
Sweet Death, the former being about two hundred
and fifty lines in length, and never having been
reprinted. The author has doubtless good reasons for
this, so I shall only quote from it some few lines
which will show the executive and imaginative power
of this girl of seventeen.

tj"

" He answered not, and they went on.
The glory of the heavens was gone ;
The moon gleamed not nor any star ;
Cold winds were rusthng near and far.
And from the trees the dry leaves fell
With a sad sound unspeakable.
The air was cold ; till from the south
A gust blew hot, like sudden drouth.

92 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

Into their faces ; and a light

Glowing and red, shone thro' the night

" A mighty city full of flame
And death and sounds without a name.
Amid the black and blinding smoke,
The people, as one man, awoke.
Oh ! happy they who yesterday
On the long journey went away ;
Whose pallid lips, smiling and chill,
While the flames scorch them smile on still ;
Who murmur not, who tremble not
When the bier crackles fiery hot ;
Who, dying, said in love's increase :
' Lord, let thy servant part in peace.'

" Those in the town could see and hear
A shaded river flowing near ;
The broad deep bed could hardly hold
Its plenteous waters calm and cold.
Was flame-wrapped all the city wall.
The city gates were flame-wrapped all.

" What was man's strength, what puissance then ?
Women were mighty as strong men.
Some knelt in prayer, believing still,
Eesigned unto a righteous will.
Bowing beneath the chastening rod.
Lost to the world, but found of God.
Some prayed for friend, for child, for wife ;
Some prayed for faith ; some prayed for life ;
While some, proud even in death, hope gone,
Steadfast and still, stood looking on."

Next comes the second paper by J. L. Tupper on The,
Subject in Art, this time being mainly an effort to
disprove " the supposed poetical obstacles to the
rendering of real life or nature in its own real garb
and time, as faithfully as art can render it." The
writer puts forward some very pregnant queries which
are still applicable, apart from the question of Eealism

THE GERM. 93

or Idealism in Art, — "Why to draw a sword we do
not wear to aid an oppressed damsel, and not a purse
which we do wear to rescue an erring one ? Why to
worship a martyred St. Agatha, and not a sick woman
attending the sick ? . . . Why to love a Ladie in
hower, and not a wife's fireside?" The paper con-
cludes with the expressed intention to consider in
detail in a future number the claims of ancient,
mediaeval, and modern subjects, the writer not im-
agining that the magazine's decease was to take place
the following month.

Of the ten poems that follow two are by Dante
Gabriel Eossetti, and wUl be duly considered hereafter:
one of them being the exquisite Sea Limits, here called
From the Cliffs : Noon, and the other an unpublished
set of verses entitled The Carillon, a verse in which
has already been referred to in the first chapter.
EmUems will be familiar to readers of Thomas Woolner,
and is succeeded by a characteristic sonnet. Early
Aspirations, by William Bell Scott. William Eossetti
contributed a second set of Fancies at Leisure, this time
five in number, named respectively — Ln Spring, Ln
Summer, The Breadth of Noon, Sea -Freshness, and Tlie
Fire Smouldering, the latter three of which are sonnets.
The tenth poem, being the first of the papers of " The
MS. Society," is one of the only two humorous pro-
ductions appearing in Tlie Germ; it was by one of
the Tuppers, the three papers having been written by
J. L. and G. F. Tupper. It purports to be an incident
in the Siege of Troy, seen from a modern observatory,
and begins —

" Sixteen specials in Priam's Keep
Sat down to their mahogany :"

94 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL

The two remaining papers in prose are called
Swift's Dunces and Mental Scales, and are followed by
William Eossetti's review of Cayley's romance in
verse, Sir Reginald Mohun. The young critic chari-
tably looks forward to a second canto with con-
fidence in Mr. Cayley's gifts, — a confidence, I should
think, unshared by any of the readers of Sir Reginald
Mohun.

In May the last number of The Germ, alias Art and
Poetry, appeared, with a very poor and mannered
etching by W. H. Deverell, with illustrative verses
by J. L. Tupper, called Viola and Olivia. But the
first paper is one of special interest, being the only
record left to the public of one, highly gifted, who
died before the promise of his youth had matured — a
young painter named John Orchard, frail and almost
infirm from his childhood. This bodily frailty mili-
tated against a successful prosecution of his art, and
the little he ever did publicly exhibit met with no
encouragement ; so, " feeling the vehicle of expression,"
in the editor's words, to be "more within his grasp
than was the physical and toilsome embodiment
of art," he purported a series of dialogues on art,
wherein to work out his artistic convictions. The
Dialogue, that occupies about twenty pages of The
Germ, remains, unfortunately, only a fragment, for a
week after it had been forwarded for publication its
author was dead.

As to the popularity, and hence the utility, of the
Dialogue as a form of instructive literature there may
be considerable variance of opinion, but there can be
no doubt that from an author's point of view it
possesses great advantages. It admits of a bringing

THE GERM, 95

together many side-lights upon one truth, within
limited compass, such as would be impracticable in
any essay or philosophic or literary discourse where
art was not sacrificed to condensation; and has, if used
by a master of the style, what may be called a dra-
matic aura that at once peculiarly affects the reader.
Where direct instruction, based upon experience and
fact, is intended, then the form is out of place ; but
where discussion from more points of view than one
upon a debatable subject is desirable, then the
dialogue form, if well managed, can be very effective.
It will only be necessary to recall the name of one
of the greatest of our English prose writers, Walter
Savage Landor, to realise this.

In this Dialogue on Art by Mr. Orchard there are
four speakers, — Kalon (in whose house the debate is
carried on), Sophon, Kosmon, and Christian. In the
personage of the last-named the author puts forward
his own position, and, as might have been expected
from the name, advocates the union of art and religion,
or rather advocates their being already one, all high
art being spiritual and therefore religious. Kalon
may be said to represent the purely artistic position,
while, as will be readily inferred from their names —
Sophon and Kosmon regard the philosophic and scien-
tific aspects of art respectively. Kalon is the Walt
Whitman of the Dialogue, Christian the Longfellow :
the one, luxuriating in and gladly cognisant of all the
multiplicity of life, worships Nature ; the other, not
scorning indeed the human, yet ever looking to the
superhuman, would restrain every impulse to one
direction, the glorification of the beautiful, meaning
thereby his own conception of the beautiful. Christian

96 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

takes up the nobler attitude throughout, but in real
life he would probably have been more narrow — such
a union of spirituality and intense religious fervour with
due recognition of the beauty of things material and the
claims of life as life, and nature as nature, being exceed-
ingly rare. An extract of some length will show the
attitude of Christian more clearly, both its highness
and its self-sophistication ; and the best I can select
is one on the much-debated question of nudity in art,
a question ever being discussed, and last summer
waged often for and against in reference to Sir
Frederick Leighton's beautiful and nobly conceived
Phryne at Eleusis.

Kalon, having argued that if Christian's ideas were
strictly carried out there would be little left for the
artist to do, asks the latter if he, Kalon, were not right
in understanding him to object to the use of any
passion, whether heroic, patriotic, or loving, that was
not rigidly virtuous : —

" Christian. I do. Without he has a didactic aim ; like as
Hogarth had. A picture, poem, or statue, unless it speaks some
purpose, is mere paint, paper, or stone. A work of art must
have a purpose, or it is not a work of fine art : thus, then, if it
be a work of fine art, it has a purpose ; and having purpose, it
has either a good or an evil one : there is no alternative.

" Sophon. Suffer me to extend the just conclusions of Christian.
Art — true art — fine art — cannot be either coarse or low. Inno-
cent-like, no taint will cling to it, and a smock frock is as pure
as " virginal-chaste robes." And — sensualism, indecency, and
brutality, excepted — sin is not sin, if not in the act ; and, in
satire, with the same exceptions, even sin in the act is tolerated
when used to point forcibly a moral crime, or to warn society of
a crying shame which it can remedy.

" Kalon. But my dear Sophon, and you, Christian, — you do

THE GERM. 97

not condemn the oak because of its apples ; and, like them, the
sin in the poem, picture, or statue, may be a wormy accretion
grafted from without. The spectator often makes sin where the
artist intended none. For instance, in the nude, — where per-
haps, the poet, painter, or sculptor, imagines he has embodied
only the purest and chastest ideas and forms, the sensualist sees
— what he wills to see ; and, serpent-like, previous to devouring
his prey, he covers it with his saliva.

" Christian. The Circean poison, whether drunk from the clear-
est crystal or the coarsest clay, alike intoxicates and makes beasts
of men. Be assured that every nude figure or nudity introduced
into a poem, picture, or piece of sculpture, merely on physical
grounds, and only for effect, is vicious. And, where it is boldly in-
troduced and forms the central idea, it ought never to have a sense
of its condition : it is not nudity that is sinful, but the figure's
knowledge of its nudity (too surely communicated by it to the
spectator), that makes it so. Eve and Adam before their fall
were not more utterly shameless than the artist ought to make
his inventions. The Turk believes that, at the judgment-day,
every artist will be compelled to furnish, from his own soul,
soul for every one of his own creations. This thought is a
noble one, and should thoroughly awake poet, painter, and
sculptor, to the awful responsibilities they labour under. With
regard to the sensualist, — who is omnivorous, and, swine-like,
assimilates indifferently pure and impure, degrading every-
thing he hears and sees, — little can be said beyond this, that for
him, if the artist he without sin, he is not answerable. But
in this responsibility he has two rigid yet just judges, God and
himself; — let him answer there before that tribunal. God
will acquit or condemn him only as he can acquit or condemn
himself.

" Kalon. But, under any circumstances, beautiful nude flesh
beautifully painted must kindle sensuality ; and, described as
beautifully in poetry, it will do the like, almost, if not quite, as
readily. Sculpture is the only form of art in which it can be
used thoroughly pure, chaste, unsullied, and unsullying. I feel,
Christian, that you mean this. And see what you do ! What
a vast domain of art you set a Solomon's seal upon ! how
numberless are the poems, pictures, and statues — the most
beautiful productions of their authors — you put in limbo ! To
me, I confess, it appears the very top of prudery to condemn

H

98 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

these lovely creations, merely because they quicken some men's
pulses.

" Kosmon. And to me, it appears hypercriticism to object to
pictures, poems, and statues, calling them not works of art — or
fine art — because they have no higher purpose than eye or ear-
delight. If this law be held to be good, very few pictures
called of the English school — of the English school, did I say ?
— very few pictures at all, of any school, are safe from condem-
nation : almost all the Dutch must suffer judgment, and a very
large proportion of modern sculpture, poetry, and music, will
not pass. Even Christohel and the Eve of St. Agnes could not
stand the ordeal.

" Christian. Oh Kalon, you hardly need an answer ! What !
Shall the artist spend weeks and months, nay, sometimes years,
in thought and study, contriving and perfecting some beautiful
invention, — ^in order only that men's pulses may be quickened ?
What ! — can he, Jesuit-like, dwell in the house of soul, only
to discover where to sap her foundations ? — Satan-like, does he
turn his angel of light into a fiend of darkness, and use his
God -delegated might against its giver, making Astartes and
Molochs to draw other thousands of innocent lives into the em-
braces of sin ? And as for you, Kosmon, I regard purpose as I
regard soul ; one is not more the light of the thought than the
other is the light of the body ; and both, soul and purpose, are
necessary for a complete intellect ; and intellect of the intel-
lectual— of which the fine arts are the capital members — is not
more to be expected than demanded. I believe that most of
the pictures you mean are mere natural history paintings from
the animal side of man. The Dutchman may, certainly, go
Letheward ; but for their colour, and subtleties of execution,
they would not be tolerated by any man of taste."

The succeeding poem is also by Mr. Orchard, but
shows no distinct poetic faculty. Modern Giants is a
short paper by Frederick Stephens under the pseudonym
of " Laura Savage." To the Castle Ramparts is a poem
of over a hundred lines of blank verse, by William
Eossetti, exhibiting the same love and intimate know-
ledge of certain aspects of nature characterising his

II. THE GERM. 99

foregoing work in verse. This number also contains
the Fax Vdbis (afterwards reprinted as World! s Worth
in the reissue of 1881), and six sonnets by Gabriel —
the latter being respectively A Virgin and Child, hy
■Hans Memmling ; A Marriage of St. Catherine, hy the
same ; A Dance of Nymphs, hy Mantegna ; A Venetian
Pastoral, hy Giorgione ; Angelica rescued from the Sea
Monster, hy Ingres ; and a second sonnet on the same.
The latter four only were afterwards printed, and will
be referred to farther on in Chapter VII. Between
the Pax Vohis and the six sonnets are a Modern Idyl,
by W. H. Deverell, and a sonnet, Jesus Wept, by the
Editor ; and succeeding the latter are the fourth and
fifth papers of the MS. Society, by J. L. Tupper —
the first, Smoke, being clever and amusing.

The Germ comes to an end with two contributions
by its editor, the first a review of Browning's Christmas
Eve and Easter Day, and the second the fine sonnet
The Evil under the Sun. When it is remembered that
the date of this review was a time when Browning's
writings were caviare to the general public, and that
most of the criticism he had received had been either
antagonistic or unsympathetic, the notice in The Germ
becomes still worthier of remembrance. Mr. Browning
here found a warm advocate, an advocate who judged
his poems not by any fixed standard but the standard
of poetry ; an advocate who would not say a poet like
Mr. Browning was a poet because he acknowledged
the individual principles of this, that, or of all the
great poets, but simply because he was Mr. Browning
and spoke fitly in accordance with his time and cir-
cumstance. Because Pope wrote in heroic couplets or
Milton in blank verse of a peculiarly sonorous kind, it

100 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

is no reason why Browning should do so also if other-
wise impelled. Each poet must find his own form,
and then it will be seen that the form and the
subject are so interdependent that they must be
considered in union and not separately. The way to
judge a picture or poem, argues Mr. Kossetti, is not to
say "this picture or this poem is not as I should
have conceived and executed," but "what is the
author's intention, and has that intention, whatever be
its limits, resulted in successful achievement ?" This
method of criticism was not prevalent about 1850,
and the hearts of painters and poets must have
warmed towards the publicly unknown scribe in the
unknown periodical.

The sonnet that concludes The, Germ was written
about eight months before its appearance in the
magazine, namely, about October in 1849. It is
the strongest and most individual poetic utterance
of Mr. William Eossetti as yet referred to, having
the simplicity and intense earnestness of another
noble sonnet of the same order. The Massacre in
Piedmont, of Milton. It has since been reprinted
in Mr. T. Hall Caine's admirable selection of Eng-
lish sonnets by both contemporary and past writers
entitled Sonnets of Three Centuries, appearing there
under the improved title, Democracy Downtrodden, but
with no alteration save the substitution of "here and
there " instead of " one or two " in the second line of
the sestet.

Altogether, a remarkable little volume ; interesting
because of the contributors who have since made their
mark in the world, and interesting because of great
part of the contents in themselves ; remarkable because

II. THE GERM. 101

of its being the official organ of the Preraphaelite or
Protesting sect ; and again remarkable because of the
ability and promise frequently shown by writers still
in their teens.

Note, — Those who would wish to trace further the youthful writings
of some of our best-known poets and painters will find much to repay
them in the " Oxford and Cambridge Magazine'^ for 1856, the practical
outcome of " The Germ."

CHAPTEE III.

ROSSETTI THE ARTIST — BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS

DESIGNS PAINTINGS.

In the preceding chapter I spoke of the constant
union of poetic emotion with the artistic idea in
everything that came from the pencil or the brush of
Dante Kossetti ; and it is this union that raises the
work of the great artist in question so much above
the level of English art in general. It may or may
not be true, as M. Henri Delaborde says in his essay
Les Preraphadites, that an inability to understand the
chef-d'oeuvres of the Italian school is a vice of the
national temperament of the English ; for mere tradi-
tional, what may be called Tourist admiration is no
criterion of the impression high art makes upon our
countrymen at large ; but it is undoubtedly the case
that poetic art, until very recently at any rate, has
never obtained more than a grudging public recogni-
tion in England. Landscape art, poetically, that is
ideally, treated, has achieved a decided eminence
indeed, but even there the bugbear of " Fancifulness,"
" Unreality," haunts the average spectator. The
aesthetic movement in England, so much parodied and
ridiculed, has been no mere vagary of fashion, but the
stirring of a really awakening love of art in the upper
or cultivated classes, and the artistic spirit may at last

CHAP. III. ROSSETTI THE ARTIST. 103

be said to have come down upon a section of our
countrymen. Once the seed has been well sown it
is sure in due time to fructify, and the direct and
indirect instruction and exemplification now given so
widely to both art-student and the ever-widening art-
public must soon or late result in a widespread appre-
ciation of the beautiful in art in its universal sense,
and in an intolerance of the prosaical surroundings so
general both in private dwellings and public buildings
that go so far to make average middle-class life barren
in what is fair or seemly to the eye.

Certainly one of the strongest influences immedi-
ately originating this aesthetic movement was the
genius of Eossetti, an influence, as it was, exercised in
two arts. Interwoven as were the Eomantic Eevival
and the ^Esthetic Movement, it could hardly have
been otherwise but that the young painter-poet should
be strongly attracted to that Arthurian epoch, the
legendary glamour of which has since made itself so
widely felt in the Arthurian idyls of the laureate. Not
only were several of his early designs drawn from this
source but also in Oxford an important achievement
was wrought which had an influence, however appa-
rently extremely limited, which to this day makes
itself felt both in our art and literature. Eefemng to
this, Mr. Euskin speaks in his lecture on The Eelation
of Art to Eeligion, delivered in Oxford, of our indebt-
edness to Eossetti as the painter to whose genius we
owe the revival of interest in the cycle of early
English legend.

To be a poetic painter was the ideal of Eossetti in
art, an ideal he has certainly attained ; and this, which
was undoubtedly his chief charm, was perhaps also the

104 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

cause of his chief shortcoming, a frequent deficiency in
form. Great colourists are seldom strict formalists,
and that Eossetti at his best is one of the greatest
colourists not only of our own but of any time will
not now be generally denied. Colour-sentiment and
poetic emotion seem to be kin, for they generally are
found united ; and though there are periods in his
life-work when Eossetti's colour-sentiment predomi-
nated, the poetic emotion was in the main the spirit
of his achievements. It is generally taught, and
possibly wisely, in the development of ordinary talent,
to first attain a mastery over form, then strive to
achieve a corresponding result with colour, and finally
think of your poetic subjective motif or objective
subject ; but Eossetti seems to have reversed this
method, and thought first of his poetic motif, secondly
of its representation through his marvellous powers of
colour, and lastly of form, to which a stricter attention
would doubtless have rendered his art really consum-
mate. It has been urged against him that he lacks
" flesh and blood," dealing only with dreams and
abstractions. The painter of Found, showed that he
could paint modern life in a thoroughly "flesh and
blood " manner ; but the tendency of his genius was
towards transcendental renderings of ideas, facts, or
personalities : as a poetic painter, then, he should
be judged, and not as a Hogarth or a Frith. Again,
it has been said that "his method is undeniably
mannered," but it, must be remembered that man-
nerism is almost inseparable from the working out
of a consistent high ideal; while as to the objection
of his subjects and their treatment being foreign to
common sympathies, this is in great part because

III. BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS, 105

the spiritual is ever foreign to the material, the nn-
common to the common.

Although Eossetti made his mark in book-illus-
trating, his work in this way was very Hmited, so
that it will not matter much if I refer to these few
wood engravings out of their chronological order before
considering further his position as an artist, and his
work in crayon, water-colour, and oil.

These illustrative designs are ten in all : one pub-
lished in W. AUingham's Bay and Night Songs, in
1855; five published in 1857 in the illustrated
poems of Tennyson brought out by Moxon ; two in
1862 in The Gohlin Market : and Other Poems, by
Christina Eossetti ; and two in 1 8 6 6 in The Princes
Progress: and Other Poems, by the same author. The
latter four, as being the most widely known, I will
refer to first.

The quaint design, Buy from us with a golden curl,
that preceded the title-page of Goblin Market, now
also forms the frontispiece to the collective edition of
Miss Eossetti's poems, and is therefore well known
throughout Britain and America, the authoress having
no more ardent admirers than her large public in the
States. The line which is its motif is of course from
the leading poem. In the background Lizzie is seen
hurrying up the sloping bank from the haunted glen,
while around Laura, sitting amongst the flags and
rushes, are the cat-faced, rat-faced, owl -faced, wombat-
faced, parrot-faced goblin men, with their melons and
grapes on golden platters, and split over-ripe pome-
granates in silver bowls, and luscious pears and pine-
apples in baskets. Eatface is beckoning to the re-
treating Lizzie, but the others are intent on poor

106 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

Laura, clipping off a lock of golden hair at the cun-
ning persuasion of Catface. It will be observed that
there is no consistency between the Lizzie of this
and of the succeeding design ; in the first, she being
a regular country-girl frightened at the goblin rout,
and in the second a stately Eossettian lady, if the
word " stately " be not inapplicable to one asleep
in bed.

The second illustration, called '' Golden head by
golden head," represents the two sisters asleep in their
curtained bed and in each other's arms, "like two
pigeons in one nest — folded in each other's wings."
In a globe in the corner of the design are visioned the
moon and stars, out of all proportion, shining above
the goblin-men dancing down the slopes of the glen ;
an artifice meant to represent the dream that haunts
Laura's sleep as she lies clasped in the protecting arms
of her sister. Despite some technical inconsistencies
the design is very charming, and must have delighted
many a reader of the simple yet fascinating poem that
made its author so well known.

The first illustration to Tlie Prince's Progress has
below it the line therefrom, " The long hours go and
come and go," expressive of the weariness of her who
waits like the Mariana of Tennyson's ballads for one
who, tarrying, never comes. Spell-bound, the waiting
bride to be sits in her room, watching with yearning
eyes across the quaintly-ordered garden with the tiny
fountain splashing through the summer-heat, unknow-
ing, that then the Prince is dallying underneath a
shady apple-tree far thence with a cream -white
maiden, who twines her hair in braids like serpent
coils around him and holds him there for a day and

III. BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS. 107

a night. The attitude is finely rendered and the
engraving altogether finely illustrative of the lines in
the poem chosen. That succeeding, which is the only
one of the four which is full-page, illustrates the
occasion when the tardy Prince has at length arrived
at his destination, only to find his promised bride just
dead. In a high quaint carven bed she lies at rest at
last, veiled in white, with hands crossed above her
bosom, and her crown on a pillow behind the weary
head. Above it a row of lamps are burning, and in
front of it her young handmaidens are singing her
death-song. At the doorway the Prince stands, with
bent head and hand-covered face — stunned with the
shock, and full of grief and remorse ; and with him
with a cruel dignity expostulates the bride's mother or
nurse, with her hands against his breast, as though
repelling him from the sacred precincts hallowed by
death where he had no right now to enter. "You
should have wept her yesterday" are the words she
is saying — now it is too late ; the white sleep-poppies
are now the fitting flowers and no longer the red roses
he brings with him, and which have fallen at his feet.
This is a very fine design in drawing, condensation of
material, and in general effect, though the engraving
is not up to the mark throughout.

These four designs differ materially from those in
the quarto Tennyson — differ in the important matter
of interpretation. They are really illustrations, that
is, they are based upon certain lines in the Goblin
Market or The PriTice's Progress, and adhere strictly to
those lines or relative descriptions elsewhere in the
poems, and are thus simply pictorial representations
of the text. But the Tennyson designs, though of an

108 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

earlier date, can hardly be called such, being more
justly definable as original creations ; for, though
illustrative of the sjpirit of the poems they accompany,
they more or less but slightly adhere to their separate
subject lines or verses. The four that were published
with his sister's volumes showed Eossetti to be an apt
illustrator, but those of 1857 show him to be primarily
a creative artist — a line, a name, like St. Cecily, being
sufficient to germinate the idea that produced illustra-
tions not literal but spiritual. Herein these Tennyson
designs are the more characteristic of him, for his
intense individuality and vivid imagination at once
cast their own glow over whatever of another appealed
strongly to him, so that both in translating a canzone
from the old Italian and illustrating a poem of Tenny-
son he renders in general the spirit more literally
than even the external form. Such an engraving
as the one coming first in the Palace of Art has
really but little to do with the poem, and is hence
inefficient as an actual illustration, however noteworthy
as an original design. No doubt in the main such a
method of translation or illustration is the best, except
for technical purposes ; for it is more important to be
impressed by the spirit of a poem than by exactitude
of pictorial delineation or insistence in the translation
on the literal wording and form of the original — as in
the instance of Mr. Fitzgerald's famous rendering of
The JRuhaiyat of Omar Khayyam, where the beautiful
and powerful work of the Persian poet is brought
home to us more truly as well as effectively than exact
literalness could possibly have done. But work of this
kind must be the work of genius, otherwise the literal
version is almost necessarily preferable — for none but

III. THE TENNYSON DESIGNS. 109

genius can adequately represent genius in individual-
ising renderings.

Of the five engravings on wood after designs by
Eossetti which illustrate poems in the fine illustrated
quarto edition of Tennyson's select work,, brought out,
as I have already mentioned, in 1857, the first is one
founded on the last two verses of The Lady of Shalott
In the immediate foreground is the boat bearing its
dead burthen, over whose head an arched covering
supports burning candles, how there and how litten
known only to the designer ; and, being moored to the
oaken stairway of the palace in Camelot, the light of
the torch held by some servitor gleams on the pale
silent face of her who lies so still and quiet, as well
as on the face of Lancelot as he stoops above her,
musing on her possible story. Beyond are swans on
the river, startled by the sudden commotion, and,
farther off, hurrying figures attracted from revelry or
service by the strange spectacle. The most satisfactory
drawing in this design is that of Lancelot, whose figure
is finely fore-shortened as he bends from the stairway
over the barge ; while the half-jesting half-real curiosity
of the courtier behind him is well rendered. The suc-
ceeding illustration is to the ballad Mariana in the
South, its motif being the third verse. Mariana has
cast herself down before a crucifix, and is kissing the
feet of the body of Christ, "with melancholy eyes
divine, The home of woe without a tear." In her
hands she holds old letters written to her by the lover
who never comes, and others have fallen from their
fastenings below her knees and over the couch on
which she rests : and behind her is a mirror in
antique wooden frame which reflects " the clear per-

110 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

fection of her face." The execution of this design is
good, and the interpretation sympathetic ; and where
the latter differs from literalness it is generally to
artistically improve, as in the substitution of a crucifix,
whose feet Mariana embraces in mingled adoration
and supplication, for the image of " Our Lady " men-
tioned in the third verse.

Quite different from the simplicity of Mariana
is the first design for The Palace of Art, already
referred to. I have read or heard it explained that
the two figures represent the soul and the body, the
former still in a trance, but being kissed into the
music of life by the desire of the latter. The illustra-
tion, however, is in reality mainly based upon the
following verse : —

" Or in a clear- walled city on the sea,
Near gilded organ-pipes, her hair
Wound with white roses, slept St. Cecily ;
An angel look'd at her."

The design is a marvellously intricate one, and in
the extreme so-called Preraphaelite manner. The
gilded organ-pipes are in centre of the foreground and
seem to be raised above a dungeon, the inner dark-
ness and outer bars of which just appear; in the left
corner an armed soldier is eating an apple, and in the
right a dove is winging its flight apparently from the
dungeon, symbolising probably a life that has escaped
at last the control of any earthly guard. At the organ
kneels St. Cecily, with nerveless hands laid on the
notes, and head and body inclined backward in the
embrace of the very dishevelled and mortal-like angel.
Behind the organ is a dial, and, beyond, the walls of a
great city mounted with cannon ; beyond again, the

III. THE TENNYSON DESIGNS. Ill

quiet sea thronged with ships from strange waters.
Below, in the centre of the design, is a deep court,
with a tree very much out of perspective, and a man
at a draw-well. This, as will be apprehended from
the foregoing description, is really an illustration /or
the poem, not of any verse therein ; but if it is not an
interpretation it is a creation, and therefore interesting
in its very disassociation from the work of the poet.

Eegarding this design, Mr. Euskin's words may be
remembered in the appendix to his Elements of Draw-
ing where, after referring to the cutting on the wood
being bad, especially in rendering the expression of
the faces, he adds, " This is especially the case in the
St. Cecily, Eossetti's first illustration to the Palace of
Art which would have been the best in the book had
it been well engraved. The whole work should be
taken up again, and done by line-engraving, perfectly;
and wholly from Preraphaelite designs, with which no
other modern work can bear the least comparison "
Eelative to the last clause, there is a true and some-
what similar remark in M. Prosper Merimee's Essay
in Les Beavx Arts en Angleterre.

The companion illustration is much simpler both
in conception and execution. It represents "mythic
Uther's deeply wounded son " lying dozing in Avalon,
with round him ten weeping and watching queens ;
while the strange barque that brought him there is
moored beyond the rocky shore, and what looks like
a small chapel stands on the farther desolate coast.
It is not the Avalon of legend, but the Avalon of
the artist, sad with the gloom of a strange land and
a strange doom. One of the queens is recognisable as
having been modelled on the artist's sister, Christina.

112 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

The last of the designs for this volume, and the
most beautiful, is that illustrative of the third stanza
of &ir Galahad. The " Maiden-knight " has reached
some lonely sanctuary, having heard afar off in the
wood a noise as of chanted hymns ; before the altar in
the sacred shrine, where he has arrived seeing neither
worshipper nor habitant, the tapers burn, and in their
light the silver sacramental vessels gleam ; while, stand-
ing on rough wooden stairs, he bows before it, stooping
to make the sign of the cross on his face with the holy
water in a vessel suspended on a beam. In front,
between and above him and the altar, a slanted bell is
giving forth its solemn clang, tolled by (to him) un-
seen nuns, singing at intervals strange chants. Beyond
in the forest darkness his horse, clad with white
banner with a red cross, and impatiently pawing the
ground, awaits him. This design is simple and impress-
ive to a high degree, and poet and artist seem mutual
interpreters.

The illustration to Mr. Allingham's book is for
some lines in the poem called The Maids of Elfen-
Mere ; the subject being the appearance of the three
maids to the dreamy boy, who pines away, and ulti-
mately dies. This design has been so spoilt in the
cutting, it is difficult to decide what rank it should
take. Eegarding this design, the following words,
known to have been written by Mr. Burne Jones as
long ago as 1856 in the Oxford and Cambridge Maga-
zine, will be of interest to many possessing, or acquainted
with, the Day and Night Songs (2d series) : —

" There is one more I cannot help noticing for its
marvellous beauty, a drawing of higher finish and pre-
tension than the last, from the pencil of Eossetti, in

III. BOOK ILLUSTRATION. 113

Allingham's Bay and Night Songs, just published. It
is, I think, the most beautiful drawing for an illustra-
tion I have ever seen ; the weird faces of the maids of
Elfen-Mere, the musical, timid movement of their arms
together as they sing, the face of the man, above all,
are such as only a great artist could conceive."

Compared with the innumerable book-illustrations
of his quondam coadjutor, Mr. Millais, Eossetti has
done but little in this important if till lately and even
yet much neglected and abused branch of art ; yet of
such quality is this scanty production that if nothing
else were to be preserved of the great paiuter who has
so lately gone from our midst, it is certain that the
record of his worth would not find contradiction in
these designs, showiag as they do the original creative
power of a true artist. Probably one reason of this
paucity in illustrative design might be found in the
incessantly active imagination of Eossetti, an imagina-
tion especially individual and peculiar, rendering him
averse to expend labour in interpretation of another's
thoughts when so plentiful were his own conceptions.
Indeed this very fertility of conception militated
against many achievements on a large scale, for the
temptation to embody a new idea before the last had
reached from the sketch state to the oil painting was
often too great to be resisted ; hence, in viewing the
sum total of tliis painter's works, we find the germs of
important pictures in pen and ink, chalk, and water-
colour drawings never utilised.^ The creative faculty

^ Another, and a very potent reason, for this, is the fact that his
small purchasing public were in general desirous of replicas of his
famous single figure studies, or similar pictures, so that he had not the
requisite encouragement to carry out all his noble designs. Indeed,
some of his letters trying to induce intending purchasers to take his
fine subjects instead of single figures are most pathetic.

I

114 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

when allied with slow executive power, as was the
case with Eossetti, naturally predisposes a painter
against the labour entailed in high finish on a large
scale, and to a preference for the more rapid mediums
of pencil, chalk, and water-coldur : hence some of the
most important and striking creations of this artist
have never reached beyond the limits of small water-
colours or drawings, as, for instance, the powerful
Death of Lady Macbeth, and the strange How They Met
Themselves. Such designs were always, or generally,
meant for future enlargement ; but only comparatively
now and again did this occur, for new ideas were
ever pleading for expression. An intense fervour
characterises Eossetti's work from the earliest days
of crude execution and forced colour to his last great
painting, the impressive Salutation of Beatrice ; and the
same words might be spoken of this characteristic as
Euskin used in speaking of Preraphaelite work in general :
"i^one but the ignorant could be unconscious of its
truth, and none but the insincere regardless of it." ^

In a recently -published essay on Eossetti as an
artist, the author writes thus : " But there is another
barrier besides mysticism between this artist and the
public. His ultimate sum-total of female or, indeed,
of male beauty is not, from a public standpoint, very
sympathetic." Yet it is in his female facial beauty
that Eossetti has surpassed all living painters. It is
surely admissible to say that he has given an indi-
vidual spiritual significance to the female face such as
art has not yet recorded, invested it with a charm of
spiritual beauty wholly original. The type may or

^ Lectures on Tainting and Architecture, Edinburgh, 1853. Ad-
denda to Fourth Lecture.

III. ROSSETTPS FACIAL TYPE. 116

may not be of the highest, may or may not appeal to
many, but it is -undoubtedly a type such as we look
in vain for elsewhere in antecedent and, indeed, in
contemporary art ; and there are occasions when the
intensity of its inner significance is so strong as to
constrain the beholder to the strange spiritual person-
ality represented, alone, leaving him altogether oblivious
to the details of the rendering. Take such instances
as Proserpina, or Fandora, or Beata Beatrix, or La
Pia, or MTiemosyne, or Syhilla Pahnifera, and it will be
impossible not to recognise that a new spiritual type of
the female face has been given to the art of the world by
Dante Eossetti. Personally, Mnemosyne has for me a
special fascination: the eyes of this lovely portraiture of
idealised memory are as "sweet and subtle" as those of
De Quincey's Mater Lachrymarum, "filled with perished
dreams," like those of his Mater Susjpiriorum. Again,
what wonderful expression has the face of Beatrice in
Beata Beatrix, despite the closed eyelids and the pas-
sive trance condition ; indeed, what has been said by
one of the most masterly and cultivated art-writers of
our time, Mr. Walter Pater, of Michelangelo, may in
the last phrase be said of Dante Eossetti : " No one
ever expressed more truly than Michelangelo the notion
of inspired sleep, of faces charged with dreams."-^ As
to the essayist's further remarks with reference to
Eossetti's subjects, and their treatment being foreign
to common S5mipathies, it is simply, as regards his
art-work, the question of the old divergence between

1 The Renaissance : Studies in Art and Poetry. By "Walter Pater,
Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford. Macmillan and Co. One of
those books which no lover as well as student of high art can afford
to be without, full as it is of the higher criticism and the most sym-
pathetically interpretive spirit.

116 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

idealists and non-idealists ; but with reference to his
poetry, surely the writer has forgotten such poems as
The King's Tragedy, The White Shijp, etc., ballads such
as cannot help appealing to common sympathies, alive
as these, moreover, ever are to the " ballad " as a
literary record or vehicle of emotion.

I must also take exception to the same writer's
remarks as to Eossetti's nature painting and to his use
of symbolism. As to the first, he writes : " A flower
(or rather the phantom of a flower, for even this bit
of nature with Eossetti is dreamy) is sometimes intro-
duced on his canvas or even on the frame of his
picture. To the initiated this flower speaks parables ;
to the ignorant (the many) it is an obtrusive enigma,"
etc. This is quite an unfounded statement, and, to
take only a few instances, what of such a flower as
the lily in the Annunciation, or of the fig-leaves in
La Donna della Finsstra, or of the sycamore boughs
in the Day-Bream, or the convolvulus tendrils in La
Ghirlandata, or the apple-blossoms in Fiammetta, or the
vine-leaves clustering around La Pia, as she sits in
her fortress-prison in the Maremma ? I have watched
the artist at work on the latter, and know with what
care and enjoyment he painted those beautiful, lucent,
real leaf- clusters. Again, in landscape, how beautiful
is the twilit stream creeping along underneath shadowy
boughs, in the predella of The Blessed Bamozel, and in
the glimpses of green forest we get every now and again
in the Arthurian and Dante drawings.^

"With reference to the use of symbolism, Mr. Tire-

1 Perhaps the most notable instance of Rossetti's painting of land-
scape is the beautiful little picture called Water Willow, belonging to
Mr. W. A. Turner.

in. THE USE OF SYMBOLISM. 117

buck (the writer in question) says that while such has
the aspect of learning, it also hints at least a want
of expressional power; that Eossetti's symbols are
really made to express what the character in his
picture, by its simple existence, ought to express;
that by giving Love or Death or Memory a separate
expression in a plant, flower, or a bird, he converts
the character (the very core of his subject) into a
superior lay figure elaborately labelled with its attri-
butes ; and adds, that if the character representing an
emotion does not tell that emotion without the aid of
a symbol, which really becomes a pictorial ticket, has
not the artist failed in the higher eloquence of art ?

But what is there to prevent " the higher eloquence
of art" finding expression in symbolism, if through sjon-
bolism the mind of the spectator is more rapidly affected?
How could an artist better express, say, the personality
of a " Persephone," than by placing in her hand the
significant pomegranate ? In a sense this might be
what Mr. Tirebuck calls pictorial-ticketism, but none
the less is it true artistic symbolism. And would the
putting of this pomegranate in the painting, in prefer-
ence to leaving Persephone in her simple womanhood,
or walking in a meadow of which no feature was so
distinctive as to impress the onlooker as Sicilian, show
a want of expressional power ? Why should time be
wasted in speculating as to the motif of a picture if
some easily recognisable symbol would at once suggest
the subject — or is the latter not a pleasanter method
of discovery than having to look doubtfully to the ex-
planation of a printed catalogue ? Nor can even a
dual or repeated symbolism be out of place if at once
unobtrusive and relative. Thus there is additional sig-

118 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

nificance in the portraiture of Love in Dante's Dream
as a youth clothed in a soft, flame-coloured garment,
and in the placing a scallop-shell clasp on his shoulder,
taking away the impression of individualism given by
an actual figure, and symbolising the Emotion, the
Love, that, visiting every land and every household,
like the scallop-wearing pilgrim of old wanders ever
over the earth.

The same writer I have been referring to repeats a
mistake that is frequently indulged in, viz. the sup-
position that asceticism is a main feature of Eossetti's
work. It is true there was a severity amounting to
asceticism in some of the early religious works, but by
no means universally, while of the greater number of
his large paintings it would be difficult to select any
with the shadows of the cloisters upon them ; his
facial type is not, as is ignorantly supposed by some,
synonymous with the less material creations of Mr.
Burne Jones, but highly sensuous though only rarely
sensual. Any one knowing the Venus Verticordia,
especially the original in chalk, or the Lilith, would
hardly imply the asceticism of the cloisters to Eossetti's
female portraitures.

There is a magnetic quality in his work which
irresistibly attracts, a potent individualism that exer-
cises a charm even over alien natures — and this not
alone in his art but in his poetic work as well. What
manifests itself so strongly in the outcome of his genius
exhibits itself in a high degree in the personality of
Eossetti himself; and it is almost certain that no man
of his time has had such an influence over younger
men of genius and talent in both arts as was exercised
by him. To some it is given to move the masses ; to

III. THE GREEK AND GOTHIC IDEALS. 119

others it is given to move those who in turn attain the
public appreciation ; both are in the end equal, and a
man should not be judged by the extent of his audience
but by his work itself.

Some time ago in a critical notice of Eossetti I
read that his ideal in art and literature was synony-
mous with the Greek, but work more opposite, whether
for good or evil, to the Greek spirit can scarcely be
imagined. It is true the beautiful was the ideal of
the Greek artistic mind, and also that the beautiful
was the aim of Eossetti in his dual vocation— but how
different the conceptions of beauty ! The former
looked to light, clearness, form, in painting, sculpture,
architecture; to intellectual conciseness and definite-
ness in poetry; the latter looked mainly to diffused
colour, gradated to almost indefinite shades in his art,
finding the harmonies thereof more akin than severity
of outline and clearness of form,^ while in his poetry
the Gothic love of the supernatural, the Gothic delight
in sensuous images, the Gothic instinct of indefinite-
ness and elaboration carried to an extreme, prevailed.
Not only were his modes of expression more allied to
the Gothic than the Greek, and naturally his art-
aspirations, but also his appreciations ; he would take
more pleasure in a design by David Scott or William
Blake, or an etching by M^ryon, than in the more
strictly artistic drawing of some revered classicist,
more enjoyment in the weird or dramatic Scottish
ballad than in Pindaric or Horatian ode; and he
would certainly rather have had Shakespeare than
JEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides put together.

1 This statement is of course inapplicable to such work as The
Girlhood of Mary Virgin^ and the Ecce Ancilla Domini.

120 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

Colour and imaginative motif, these he always in-
stinctively apprehended in precedence of pure intellect
and perfect clarity of outline.^ I remember well the
interest and pleasure he took in the mystical and
sonorous utterances of Jacob Boehme with their strange
accompanying illustrations by Law, to which I intro-
duced him ; and certainly nothing could well be more
alien to the "Greek" than the old German's half-inspired
half -mad dissertations, and the vaguely symbolical
designs of his English translator and commentator.

Certainly in the very front rank of colourists it
would be difficult to name any one who equalled,
certainly none who surpassed, Eossetti in his wonder-
ful management of blues and greens. These colours,
with innumerable shades and gradations, he constantly
used, the blue predominating ; and in many instances
they form the staple of a picture which yet does not
challenge attention by monotony of hue. A fine ex-
ample of this can be seen in the picture entitled Mary
in the House of John, an early work but full of the
peculiar beauty of gradation so distinctive of the artist.
As a piece of magnificent colouring, full of variations in
the same hue, I remember nothing to equal the effect
of Mariana, in the possession of Mr. William Graham.

Eossetti was one of the most consistent of artists,
his ideals altering but slightly, and his execution being
nothing more than an upward advance. He had but
one aim in art — have something to say first, and then
say it beautifully ; an aim that is very simple in
expression, but beyond nine out of every ten artists to
accomplish. To none could his own words be more ap-

1 The perfect drawing of his heads and hands may seem contra-
dictory to this, but the statement is broadly-speaking true.

III. AS A COLOURIST. 121

plicable than to himself, worshipper as he was at that
shrine where " under the arch of life," guarded by " love
and death, terror and mystery," beauty sits enthroned : —

" This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise

Thy voice and hand shake still, long known to thee
By flying hair and fluttering hem, — the beat
Following her daily of thy heart and feet,
How passionately and irretrievably,
In what fond flight, how many ways and days !"

Comparisons of one painter with another seldom really
fit the case, and still less frequently is such likely
when there is strong individualism to be taken into
account ; but it is probably, as a well-known art-critic
has pointed out, approximately true to say that
Eossetti is more akin to Tintoret than to any other
of the great masters. He has all the glow and colour
of the Venetians, and while he may fall short of the
best of them in technical workmanship, he is certainly
not surpassed in mastery of hues and choice of sub-
jects. His earliest oil painting is strikingly unlike the
Venetian school, and it was not until after he had
painted The Girlhood of the Virgin that the significance
of colour took hold on his imagination, while he also
was fascinated by the executive charm of such artists
as Hans Memmeling and Van Eyck ; but in his middle
period and later works the Venetian love of colour was
a dominant influence.

It has frequently been asserted that nothing by
Eossetti, except the small picture just mentioned and
the Dante s Dream bought by the Liverpool Corpora-
tion, has ever been publicly exhibited, but as a matter
of fact several more or less important water-colours,
crayon drawings, and pictures, have been on view in

122 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

provincial academies and galleries, in so-called private
galleries in London, in Christie's sale-rooms, and in
one or two of the numerous Piccadilly and New Bond
Street art galleries. Thus in 1850, in the exhibition
held at the Portland Gallery, Eegent Street, there
were on view and sale the beautiful Ecce Ancilla
Domini or Annunciation, and a water-colour drawing
entitled Giotto jpaintin^ Dante's portrait. In the
Liverpool Academy of 1858 there were three water-
colour drawings by him, entitled A Christmas Carol,
The Wedding of St. George, and Dante's Dream on the
Day of the Death of Beatrice; the last mentioned
having been exhibited the preceding year in the " Pre-
raphaelite " Exhibition at Eussell Place, Pitzroy
Square, where also was the companion piece The
Anniversary of the Death of Beatrice, in addition to
Hesterna Bosa, Mary Magdalene, and The Blue Closet,
and possibly one or two minor drawings, meriting the
mention in a contemporary notice of " the somewhat
numerous contributions of Mr. Gabriele Eossetti"
constituting the main interest of the exhibition. That
this was by no means an unimportant exhibition will
be recognised by those familiar with the drawings
mentioned, as well as by those who recall the sentence
concerning one of them, the Mary Magdalene, quoted
from Euskin in the last chapter. Again, there were
exhibited in the Eoyal Scottish Academy in 1862
two important or interesting pictures, one called
Fair Rosamond, and the other entitled The Farw.er's
Daughter, the latter being the study for what was
ultimately to become known as Found ; these, moreover,
were sent for exhibition and sale by the artist himself.
In 1877 the Tihidlud return to Delia w^as No.

III. REASONS FOR NOT EXHIBITING. 123

424 in the Albert Gallery Exhibition in Edinburgh,
having been lent for the purpose by its owner, Mr.
J. M'Gavin of Glasgow; in 1877 or 1878 Mr.
Graham of Skelmorlie lent his fine Pandora to the
Glasgow Institute of the Eine Arts, where also, in
1879, there was the beautiful little water-colour called
Spring, belonging to the late A. B. Stewart of Ascog.
During the spring and summer of this year there was
to be seen at the Fine Art Society's Galleries the
characteristic and beautiful picture referred to as
Mary in the House of John; and the lovely little oil
called Bocca Baciata, as well as a drawing entitled
Lncrezia Borgia (not the same design as that of 1851
belonging to Mr. G. P. Boyce), will be remembered by
many at the Hogarth Club's (I think first) Exhibition.
Of course these remarks are only written to correct
a frequent misstatement, for, as far as enabling the
general public to become acquainted with his work,
these few pictures at widely apart times and places
mean practically next to nothing.^ It was not a quarrel
with academical authority, as has sometimes been stated,
that led Eossetti to the decision of non-exhibition of
his compositions, but his consciousness of the indif-
ferent work that found such "acres of wall" ever
ready, and his dislike to association of his work with
such, knowing how his colours would suffer by sur-

^ During last summer a loan exhibition of pictures was held at the
Royal Manchester Institution, where were on view nine compositions
by Rossetti ; four water-colours, Washing Hands (Mr. Craven's),
ProserpiTw, (replica), Lncrezia Borgia (replica of Mr. Boyce's original),
and Hesterna Rosa (replica in colour from the drawing of 1851) ; and five
oil paintings, Proserpina (Mr. Turner's), Two Mothers, Joli Coeur,
A Vision of Fiammetta, and the Water Willow. Certainly the most
important public exhibition of Rossetti's work that has taken place
previous to the winter of 1882.

124 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

rounding vulgarities. Moreover, at the early period
of his career in question, such imaginative work as
his met with little recognition but with much mis-
understanding, so that it is not to be wondered at if
he decided that his appreciators must come to him,
and not he go to his appreciators ; again, he was con-
scious of his defects in drawing, and knew that defects
are much quicklier spied out than abilities ; and lastly,
he recognised the distraction of exhibiting, and the
danger of forced guidance by immature or false public
taste. In course of time he could have relapsed from
this decision without injury to his reputation or posi-
tion, but the habit and determination of earlier years
had become fixed, and to the last his aversion, at least
in so far as taking action himself, remaiiied.

Before going on to consider Eossetti's art- work, I must
dwell for a moment on his use of his materials. Those
who have seen his oil paintings will have recognised
a depth, a glow, and a masterly strength thoroughly
characteristic of the school, if any, to which he assimi-
lates ; his colours are never glaring, but are instinct
with light, and in gradation are specially remarkable.
His best water-colours have a depth akin to his works
in oil, such a depth and fervour of hue as to frequently
give the impression of being the more solid medium ;
their effects are more brilliant but not, except in the
earlier compositions, less held in just reserve. It is in
chalk that he is a specialist, — a seductive but seldom
mastered medium: and the strength of colour and beauty
of line he could create with his crayons is unsurpassed,
and perhaps unequalled by any living artist. But though
a specialist in chalk in the sense of having a special
mastery over that form, it is of course in oil that he

III. EARLIEST PRODUCTIONS. 125

is supreme, and in oil it was that he felt it only pos-
sible to develope his genius to its full extent. That
he recognised this will be seen by the following letter,
written by him to the Athenceum, with reference to a
remark in a notice of some of his paintings : —

"16 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea,
" Oct. 15, 1865.
" I see that at the outset of your description of some of my re-
cent pictures, it is said that I have, 'of late,' to some extent ' resumed
the practice of oil painting.' "Will you allow me to say that I
never abandoned such a practice, or considered myself otherwise
than as an oil painter, in which character only I first became
known. Commissions for water-colour drawings have since
induced me sometimes to adopt that material ; but now, for a
good many years past, all my chief works have been again in
oil. As the proper understanding of this point is of great pro-
fessional importance to me, will you oblige me by publishing this
letter? — I am, etc., D. G. Rossetti."

The earliest production by Dante Eossetti of which
I can find record is the interesting portrait of his
father made in 1847, Gabriele Eossetti the elder
being at this time about sixty-four, and the weakness of
sight that had long troubled him having practically
become blindness. This and a small but beautiful
pencil head of himself (the artist), probably done
about the same time or in the succeeding year, belong
to his aunt, Miss Charlotte Polidori. There is also
belonging to this period (1848) the pen-and-ink
sketch of himself, already in the first chapter mentioned
as being in the possession of Mr. W. B. Scott, which
may be taken partly as self-caricature, partly au sSrieux;
for, according to the statement of the friend and fellow-
student who originally possessed the sketch, the young
artist really used to go about at that time in a some-
what antique long-tailed coat.

126 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

Fine, however, as is the painting of his father,
a greater interest naturally attaches to Eossetti's fre-
quently referred to Girlhood of the Virgin. Shortly
after leaving the antique school in the Eoyal Academy,
where, as has been already mentioned in the first
chapter, he was but a very desultory student, he
began this his first pictorial achievement in oil,
being at this time (1848) settled in a studio at 7
Cleveland Street, Fitzroy Square. It was sent, not to
the Portland Gallery as generally stated, but to its
predecessor at Hyde Park Corner, managed by the
" Association for Promoting the Free Exhibition of
Modern Art," and in the exhibition there held in
1849 was exhibited as "No. 368, The Girlhood of
Mary Virgin^ by G. D. Eossetti." It was priced at
£80, and the address of the painter was given as
" G. D. Eossetti, Charlotte St., Portland Place," which
was his father's residence. In the catalogue was
printed an illustrative sonnet, since reprinted amongst
the Sonnets for Pictures in the Poems, which I will
not give here, as it will be found mentioned with its
many alterations in Chapter VII.; but I may quote the
beautiful lines applied to Mary —

" Thus held she through her girlhood ; as it were
An angel-watered lily, that near God
Grows, and is quiet."

Any one ignorant of the young painter's personality
and made cognisant of his fitful technical training would
have had no hesitation in prophesying a disastrous
failure ; those who knew both the man and his habits
expected certainly some effort full of emotion or thought,
but probably somewhat crude in colour and surely
deficient in drawing and harmony of arrangement : so

III. ''THE GIRLHOOD OF MARY virgin:' 127

the result was correspondingly surprising and gratify-
ing when the finished picture was ready for inspection.
Artistically, it was full of promise despite somewhat
crudely faint colour, and emotionally it was permeated
with an earnestness and dignity that at once appealed
to those open to such influences. It is the only one
of his oil paintings signed, so far as I am aware, with
the letters P.E.B. after his name, while, despite the
specification in the catalogue, is painted in the left
hand-corner " Dante G-abriele Kossetti," with the date
1849. Several times in later life he put the final
" e " to his second name, but his usual pictorial signa-
ture was generally the weU-known circular monogram,
or else occasionally " Dante Rossetti."

To the right of the picture, seated at a kind of
folding table, are the figures of St. Anna and the
young Mary, the latter engaged in some scriptural
embroideiy.^ The face of the Virgin is pale and
ascetic, exactly such a Mary as E^nan imagines, full
of dreams and visions ; it is quite unlike the painter's
best-known type, uniting as it does the simplicity of
refined girlhood with the individuality of approaching
womanhood. Above the long fair hair that sweeps
over her shoulders and past her waist, almost touching
a small harpsichord behind where she sits, is an
oblong golden circlet, within which are the letters
" S. Maria S. M.;" her dress is more beautiful in its soft
gray colour than in its folds and gradations, having
evidently been painted from a very thin and angular
model, while her sleeves are of sage green as they are
disclosed a little. above the wrists, with a pink band
along the hem of her gray robe. With her right hand

1 Mary is an accurate portrait of Miss Christina Rossetti, and
St. Anna of the artist's mother.

128 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

holding the needle poised above' her embroidery, un-
derneath which her left is suddenly arrested as it dis-
entangles the threads, she looks earnestly before her
as though seeing in vision the young angel represented
in the picture as cherishing the Annunciation Lily;
on her right sits Anna clothed with a dark myrtle-
green mantle over a pale umber robe, and vdth a white
band across her forehead underneath a brick-red head-
covering falling in folds on either side her face, watch-
ing with clasped hands the work her daughter is
engaged on — with also above her calm dignified face
an oblong golden circlet containing the inscription
" S. Anna." In front of them are six large and heavily-
bound volumes placed on the floor, one above the other,
representing by the names visibly written on each the
cardinal virtues, Caritas, Fides, Spes, Frudentia, Tern-
perantia, and Fortitudo — their respective hues being
golden-brown, blue, pale-green, gray, white, and light-
brown; and above these is a simple but curiously-
designed reddish pot, out of which grows to a consider-
able height a beautiful three-flowered lily, tended night
and day by a quaint young angel whose only heavenly
characteristics are the two rose-coloured wings folded
half round him, reaching as they do from his head to
narrow points at his feet. He has in his allotted
watch an absorbed intent look that better than any
artifice tells of his invisibility, altogether an angel-child
of a severe ascetic godliness — differing wholly from the
joyous and sportive children whom Correggio loved to
introduce and so excelled in painting, differing yet
quite as charming perhaps in his own way, in reality
because of his thorough harmony with the whole com-
position. In the immediate foreground, in front of the

III. ''THE GIRLHOOD OF MARY virgin:' 129

angel-guarded lily and the books of life and by the side
of Mary and her mother, are some long bare slips of
thorn, two of them almost spears, emblematical, of
course, of the future passion. Beyond them a carved
stone balcony runs across the picture, with hung over it
the pale crimson coat of Joachim, and behind them a
long curtain of olive-green is drawn two-thirds back
upon a bar suspended crosswise, opening up the land-
scape beyond. Underneath the upper stone semicircle
of the window is a trained vine laden with fruit, which
Joachim with upstretched arms is tending and prun-
ing ; and specially remarkable is the drawing and
painting of the vine-leaves, which are very beautiful —
all the more noteworthy from the indifference to such
workmanship exhibited by the great body of the
artistic contemporaries of the painter's youtn. Above
Joachim is likewise the circlet with the inscription
" S. Joachinus," and though his face is of a Scottish or
American type it is in perfect conformity with those of
Mary and Anna and with the spirit of the whole
design ; the vine he is tending is intended to represent
the future Church, if such symbolism appeals to the
spectator, if not he can look on it simply as the natural
work of a Nazarene countryman. Between him and
the balustrade narrow supporting stems, round which
cling young ivy tendrils, form a cross — a design so ex-
quisitely executed as in nowise to force its symbolical
meaning upon an onlooker, and which, indeed, is hardly
apparent till after the first glance has become interested
study ; and on a higher support broods a white dove,
surrounded by a flat oval golden halo in the most
quaintly Fra Angelesque manner, signifying the bless-
ing and presence of the Holy Spirit. On the balus-

130 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

trade itself is an oil-lamp of antique pattern, and a
narrow glass bottle filled with water, from which bends
a rose, beautiful as, if not really, a Kose of Sharon ; and
beyond is a landscape in the Italian Preraphaelite
manner, wherein the quiescent lake of Galilee dreams
against a sparsely tree-clad shore, with at the hither
end tall poles with fisher nets hung up to dry, and on
the left a rounded hill with a temple on its summit.

Altogether, a most fascinating and even beautiful
composition, though wholly lacking the depth and glow
of colour so characteristic of Eossetti's mature work, and
such as once seen not likely to be soon forgotten ; made
doubly remarkable by its being the conception and
work of a youth still in his twenty-first year. The artist
had it in his studio about 1875 or 1876 for re-inspec-
tion, and he had it then photographed ; but few impres-
sions were taken, and fortunate may the few friends be
considered to whom Eossetti gave such. In addition to
the sonnet already referred to as appearing in the
catalogue of the Portland Gallery Exhibition, there is
painted on the frame on the base by its side the
following sonnet, hitherto unprinted : —

" These are the symbols : on that cloth of red
I' the centre is the Tripoint, perfect each
Except the second of its points to teach
That Christ is not yet born. The books whose head
Is golden charity, as Paul hath said,

Those virtues are wherein the soul is rich,
Therefore on them the lily standeth which
Is Innocence being interpreted :
The seven-thorn'd briar and the palm seven-leaved
Are her great sorrow and her great reward.
Until the time be full the Holy One
Abides without. She soon shall have achieved
Her perfect purity : — yea, God the Lord

Shall soon vouchsafe His Son to be her Son."

III. TIVO EARLIEST WATER-COLOURS. 131

This picture, which would now fetch such a con-
siderable sum, was purchased at the catalogue price
(£80) by the Marchioness of Bath, who subsequently
gave it to its present owner, her daughter, now Lady
Louisa Feilding. Amongst the very earliest water-
colour drawings (if not, as I think likely, the earliest)
by Eossetti is one belonging to Mr. William Bell
Scott ; a drawing that is specially interesting not only
on this account, but also as being one of the only
two pictorial records extant of the great charm the
poetry of Eobert Browning had for him in his youth.
He painted at least two or three others from the same
source of inspiration, but such were either mislaid and
lost, or destroyed because of their manifold technical
deficiencies, so that with one exception there now only
remains the one specified with its subject lines —

" In this devil's smithy
"Which is the poison to poison her, prithee ? "

the point chosen for illustration being that when the
heroine of the poem gives up her pearls in payment to
the alchemist for the poison. Kossetti's second water-
colour was a small upright female figure in red which
he painted as a present to Mr. Ford Madox Brown.

No wonder that Mr. Euskin was attracted to the
work of the young artist who before manhood had
really been entered upon produced two such composi-
tions as The Girlhood of the Virgin and the Ecce
Ancilla Domini, regarding the latter of which readers
of the Nineteenth Century will remember some re-
marks in two papers that appeared in November and
December 1878, entitled The Three Colours of Pre-
raphaelitism. In the second of these papers he
speaks of its mental power consisting in the discern-

132 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

ment of what was lovely in present nature, and in
pure moral emotion concerning it ; and of its physical
power, in an intense veracity of direct realisation to
the eye.

This lovely picture was exhibited in 1850 at the
Portland Gallery already referred to as under the same
auspices as the two exhibitions that were held at
Hyde Park Corner. In the catalogue it was entered
as "No. 225, Ecce Ancilla Doinini" and priced at
£50 ; and as by this time Eossetti had left the studio
in Cleveland Street where he painted The Girlhood of
the Virgin, and taken one more suitable at 72 New-
man Street, Oxford Street, the latter address was
appended to the other particulars. The picture was
either bought at the time or has since come into the
possession of Mr. William Graham, who owns so many
drawings and paintings by Eossetti, Holman Hunt,
and Burne Jones.

The main colour of this composition is white, but
blue and rich crimson wonderfully add to the general
effect of lucency ; and it is wrought in such exquisite
lightness, delicacy, and beauty as to deserve the
highest praise that Mr. Euskin or any one else could
bestow upon it. It seems to me to stand alone
amongst this artist's works for perfect clarity, and
has even less of the early Italian Gothicism than
The Girlhood of the Virgin ; certainly, whatever other
merits his subsequent work may possess, none dwell
in such an atmosphere of light. Tli#:e is great
severity, rigidity in form, but the excellence of the
" three colours of Preraphaelitism " would nullify still
more serious drawbacks. Mr. Euskin refers to it as
differing from every previous conception of the scene

III. " THE ANNUNCIA TION. " 133

known to him, in representing the angel as awakening
the VirgiQ from sleep to give her his message ; but in
his subsequent remarks as to the angel's non-recog-
nisability as such, " not depending for recognition of
his supernatural character on the insertion of bird's
wing's at his shoulders," or in being "neither trans-
parent in body, luminous in presence, nor auriferous
in apparel," he, while noting the pale yellow flames
about his feet, surely forgot to note the aureole that
radiates round his head — though, on the other hand,
it may be that he referred only to personal and not to
external signs. The Virgin, clothed in white, is sit-
ting up in her white pallet-bed and reclining forward
with eyes still awestruck with the premonitory dream
that foretold her of God's will; she seems to look
backwards into the mystery that came to her in sleep
with a yearning questioning as to reality or non-reality
as affecting herself, and forwards into the dim future
with the awe of some great thing she can yet scarce
comprehend in its significance. Unseen to her, the
divine messenger with calm grave face and clothed
simply in white, aureoled, and upborne, while appa-
rently standing on the floor, by pale golden flames
just reaching above his feet, stands looking at her,
having through her sleep spake the message he came to
give; and in his hand is a stem bearing Annunciation
lilies, just over which is poised in downward flight
the dove of the Holy Spirit. In front of her simple
pallet thereg^ an upright piece of crimson cloth in a
wooden frame, .and worked downwards in it a very
rigid but exactly delineated white lily-branch ; and
behind her and the white pillow on her bed there is a
light square curtain of deep cerulean blue, exquisite

134 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

as anything not Nature's own production can be. To
the left of this curtain-screen there is the semicircular
window-space, wherethrough the scented air can enter
freely ; but nothing is visible through it save the clear
blue Syrian morning sky and the leafy crown of a
single palm. On the ledge of the window, above
Mary's head, is a lamp with a flame still burning, but
seeming quite white owing to the clear subdued radi-
ance of fulfilled dawn. The drawback to this other-
wise exquisite piece of workmanship is its prevailing
angularity and uprightness, in the angel, in the em-
broidery-screen, in the curtain, and, in Mr. Euskin's
words, in "the severe foreshortening of the Virgin
herself;" though at the time of its exhibition this was
a minor matter compared to the heresy of deviation
from sacred tradition in re representation of angels
and madonnas, and from the traditional choice of time
and surroundings for the Annunciation, as also in its
realistic tendencies. I confess I can only partially
agree with Mr. Euskin in considering the Ucce Ancilla
Domini a realistic representation of what actually did
occur in the dwelling of the Nazarene carpenter, for,
though doubtless succeeding better in this than those
"jewellers of the fifteenth century" who set the
example that became stereotyped, the room, with its
screen and embroidery and other surroundings, cannot
well be regarded as a probable representation of the
very humble abode and corresponding method of life
we are taught and infer from Biblical and secular
history as likely to appertain to a poor carpenter in a
poor, if naturally well-provided, district. But these,
after all, are minor points, and are forgotten or put
aside when looking at the pure colours and the solemn

III. ''DANTE AND BEATRICE:' 135

significance of this most lovely and memorable picture.
Its motif was given in the same sonnet as was printed
in the catalogue recording The Girlhood of the Virgin,
of which picture it is indeed a successor ; so that while
the first two-thirds of the sonnet may be taken as
applicable to the earlier work the concluding three
and a half lines refer to the Annunciation : —

. . . " Till one dawn, at home,
She woke in her white bed, and had no fear
At all, — yet wept till sunshine, and felt awed ;
Because the fulness of the time was come."

In the same year and in the same gallery there was
also exhibited a water-colour drawing entitled Giotto
Painting Dante's Portrait, an important and highly-
finished design, now in the possession of Mr. J. P.
Seddon. In addition to its great interest as a design,
this picture, early water-colour as it is, is a very
notable composition as to colour, and must always
rank high amongst the compositions of this period.
This year also Eossetti painted, but did not exhibit,
a small square water-colour called Morning Music,
which, however, its purchaser did not retain long,
for it soon got into the hands of a well-known art-
dealer, from whom in due course it was purchased by
Mr. William Graham, its present proprietor, the first
thing of the painter's, if I am not mistaken, which the
latter gentleman ever saw. The subject is the morning
toilet of an Italian lady of the mediseval period ; the
figure is half-length, and the fair rounded face is in
fuU, while behind is a tire-woman combing out the
long golden hair of her mistress ; while to the right of
the lady, in an easy stooping posture, is the husband,
lover, or troubadour, who is stringing his lute, bringing

136 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

out therefrom the Morning Music which gives its
name to the drawing.

To this and the preceding year belongs likewise
the pencil drawing, the triptych Dante and Beatrice,
one portion of which has been at least twice painted
in water-colour, — the original study being in the
possession of Mr. George Eae. It is a drawing of very-
great beauty, especially the right division, below which
are the words E cui saluta fdu tremar lo core. This
delineates Dante's famous meeting with Beatrice when
her salutation so overcame hinj. by its exceeding grace
and kindness. The face of the poet here more dis-
tinctly assimilates to the Giotto portrait than on any
other occasion. The left division, the meeting beside
a field of lilies in Paradise of Dante and Beatrice has
the line Guardami hen; hen son, hen son Beatrice
beneath it. Between the two compartments is a
figure of Love, in his right hand holding the down-
turned torch, and in his left a dialplate recording the
fatal hour of the 9th of June 1290 ; above this most
unconventional Love being the words Ita n'^ Beatrice
in alto cielo, and beneath it these others Ed 7ia laudato
Amor meco dolente. The exact title of the whole work
is II Sahito di Beatrice ; the right compartment having
been drawn in 1849 and the left in 1850.

In 1851 Eossetti made the first design, either in
ink or in pencil, of the strange How They Met
Themselves. This design was either lost or destroyed,
and it was not till some years later — namely, in
I860 — that he completed the drawing as it is now
known; this, a beautifully -finished composition in
ink, was executed at Paris. Four years later he
painted on commission a replica of it in water-colour,

III. ''HOW THEY MET themselves:' 137

and though this is the one I shall describe, it is not,
in my opinion, so fine as the highly- finished black-and-
white drawing of 1860 belonging to Mr. George Price
Boyce. But as 1851 is the date in which the con-
ception was first harboured, under this date I will
describe it instead of in order of chronological com-
pletion, though it must be remembered the drawing
which is commonly spoken of is that of 1860, which
was the one the artist had photographed for select
private distribution.

It is one of the weirdest and most mysterious com-
positions of any painter since Blake or David Scott, and
it is not at all improbable that the influence of at least
one of these great artists had something to do with
his choice of subject — choice of subject, for it is of
course not the case, as I have heard alleged, that the
conception was an original one, there being extant
in Germany a well-known legend to the like effect.
On the other hand, Eossetti at that time perhaps
only heard the story in some vague form, which would
naturally impress an imaginative mind like his, as, for
instance, did the story as to Shelley's seeing his own
double ; but certainly later in life he was fully
acquainted with the Doppelgdnger superstition, which
is now almost as familiar as that of the Wraith or that
of the Were-Wolf.^ Of the glamour that pervades this
composition there is a kindred example in literature,
mentioned in an article in the London Quarterly for
1868 on Alexander Smith's Last Leaves, where the
writer, speaking of the mysterious beauty of Sydney
DobeU's exquisite ballad Keith of Eavelston quotes

^ I believe that he knew all these legendary fancies from early
boyhood.

138 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

it, and adds, "We remember a picture by Dante
Eossetti, called Hoiu They Met Themselves, which
breathes the same mysterious import." Amongst other
poems having the same motif the latest and one of
the finest is Mr. Theodore Watt's subtle and highly
imaginative sonnet that attracted so much attention on
its appearance in the Athenceum a year or two ago, —
the sonnet, namely, called Foreshadowings (" The Stars
in the Eiver "), which Eossetti himself pronounced to
be the most original of all the versions of the Doppel-
ganger legend, and which he vaguely talked of trans-
ferring to canvas or paper whenever opportunity and
ability concurred.^

The time is towards twilight, in a thick and pre-
sumably lonely wood where two lovers have met by
secret appointment. They have stopped to embrace,
hidden from the world by the dark forest, from heaven
by the roof of closely-interwoven branches and dense
foliage, when suddenly they behold themselves walk
towards and past them. The two supernatural figures
have nothing to denote their unmortality save a gleam-
ing light along the line of their bodies, not, however,
visible to the lovers : with clasped hands they approach

1 Readers mil remember Poe's William Wilson, and some may
recall Shelley's well-known lines in Prometheus Unbound : —
** The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child,
Met his own image walking in the garden.
That apparition, sole of men, he saw.
For know, there are two worlds of life and death,
One, that which thou beholdest ; but the other
Is underneath the earth, where do inhabit
The shadows of all things that think and live,
Dreams of light imaginings of men,
And all that faith creates or love desires.
Terrible, strange, sublime, or monstrous shapes. "

III. ''HOW THEY MET THEMSELVES:' 139

and slowly pass on, the lady looking right into the
eyes of her mortal double, and the man with a fixed
and terrible expression staring back the startled gaze
of the lover. The lady of life, if she may be so
called in contradistinction, falls fainting against a tree
with her face deatlily pale with sudden fear and horror,
and h^ lover, with his left arm supporting her, with
his right draws his sword in order to make trial of
this strange double of himself — but for some reason his
arm seems paralysed, and he cannot raise his weapon.
This is the moment chosen for illustration : in another,
the lovers will be alone again, shuddering with fear at
the occult significance of this strange and unnatural
meeting with, to all intents, themselves. In the water-
colour drawing the dresses or cloaks of the real and
the supernatural ladies are green with dark shades
throughout, the tunics of the men dark with dull red
hose, their caps of lake with blue feathers, and around
the neck of each is a small hunting-horn on a chain.
There is something intensely fascinating about this
design, permeated as it is with the very spirit of weird
imagination ; the story it opens up, for one thing, con-
taining such dramatic possibilities. The half-shrink-
ing half-defiant attitude of the lover is well rendered,
and the living " lifelessness " of the fainting lady par-
ticularly fine ; while the drawing of the " doubles " is
in every way excellent. The strange and mysterious
power of the design is undoubtedly mainly due to the
reality of the lovers' vision ; it is no ghost-seeing : they
are not confronted with apparitions, but with realities
like themselves, literally themselves. In the faces
there is greater likeness preserved between the female
than the male.

140 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

Either in this year, 1851, or that following, Eos-
setti composed a design nominally founded on some
verses by Henry Taylor, now Sir Henry. It shows
that interpretive blended with creative faculty referred
to while mentioning the designs for • the Tennyson
quarto, that choice of an objective subject resulting in
a subjective representation. The details added to the
pictorial composition add greatly to its significance,
details unmentioned in the poem.. The illustrated
verses run as follows : —

" Quoth tongue of neither maid nor wife
To heart of neither wife nor maid,
' Lead we not here a jolly life
Betwixt the shine and shade V

" Quoth heart of neither maid nor wife
To tongue of neither wife nor maid,
' Thou wag'st, but I am sore with strife
And feel like flowers that fade.' " ^

The sketch is a highly-finished pen-and-ink, and could
easily have been enlarged to an oil picture, but,
though the artist often intended to do this, I am
not aware that he ever accomplished anything beyond
two fine but small water-colour replicas. The centre
of the drawing is occupied by a kind of sofa or
couch, on or close to which are four figures, two
gamblers and their mistresses ; a square massive stool
in front of the sofa serves for a table, on which
the men are throwing the dice, one gamester sitting
with crossed legs on the sofa, and the other, to the left,
kneeling beside his Eose of yesterday, who gives the
name to the design, Hesterna Rosa. The latter

^ The song sung by Elena in the second part of Philip van Artevelde
(Act V. Sc. 1).

III. HESTERNA ROSA {ELENA'S SONG). 141

gambler is still sufficiently enamoured of his mistress
to be susceptible to her touch, for though intent on
the throw his companion is about to make he lifts her
left hand to his mouth to kiss it. But her face is
averted, and covered by her right hand ; some sudden
memory of past purity and girlhood having perhaps
been struck by the low lute-music made by a young
serving -girl or innocent sister beside her : her com-
panion in misfortune, however, is either beyond or
reckless of the past, and with an ungirlish song on her
lips leans over the sofa clasping both arms around the
neck of her lover. Both women are crowned with
flowers, but they are wreaths such as Bacchantes might
have worn ; and beyond, on the right, a hideous ape .
is scratching itself, adding by its presence a significant
type of degradation. From a very good photograph
in my possession I notice that the design of the kneel-
ing gamester's sleeves is very similar to that used
about six years later in the lover's robe in the famous
Mary Magdalene drawing. Hesterna Rosa is signed
simply " Dante Eossetti," and was exhibited some five
or six years later in the small exhibition of Prera-
phaelite painters, held at 4 Eussell Place, Fitzroy
Square, and is now, I believe, in the possession of its
first owner, Mr. F. G. Stephens.

Subsequently, in 1865, a water-colour was made
from the same design, concerning which the artist
wrote to the purchaser, Mr. Frederick Craven, "The
scene represented is a pleasure tent, at the close of
a night's revel, now growing to dawn. . . . The
effect is that of a lamplight interior towards dawn,
when (or in twilight also) all objects seem purely and
absolutely blue by the contact with the warm light

142 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

within." This belongs to Mr. Frederick Craven, and
was lately exhibited in Manchester. Later still a
larger and somewhat finer water-colour replica was
executed, and to this was given the title Elena's Song.
To 1851 also belongs the small water-colour called
Borgia, a fine composition and full of character,
especially in the instances of the Duke and the Pope,
the colours also being subdued and harmonious. It
is really an elaboration of a small rough pen-and-ink
sketch of the preceding year, wherein a lady reclines
on a couch in the same attitude as Borgia, while in
front two demure young people, a page and a girl,
dance with quaint posturing ; the motto or name for
the design being the appropriate lines —

" To caper nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute."

In the succeeding year Rossetti painted the first of the
two water-colours referred to in connection with the
Dante and Beatrice triptych ; it is that forming the
left division, entitled Cruardami hen : hen son, hen son
Beatrice. The scene here represented is a wood at
spring-time, the "new spring" of Paradise, with
Dante meeting Beatrice ; the latter, clothed in a long
green mantle over a red dress, has come forward seeing
his approach, accompanying her being two damsels both
dressed in deep blue and with citherns in their hands :
while round the head of each, interpretive of their
heavenly condition, is a subdued halo, Beatrice in
addition being crowned with laurel. She is in advance
of her attendants, and draws back her veil in order to
look right into the face of Dante, who steadfastly
returns the gaze, he being clothed with a purple-brown
cloak over a green robe and with a laurel wreath

III. ''DANTE PAINTING THE ANGEL, ETC?' 143

around his velvet hood. A replica of this drawing
was made in 1864 for Mr. Graham, and is much the
more finished of the two, the colours at the same time
being noticeably less crude.

At this time (1852) also was painted the interesting
and thoroughly individual drawing Hail, thou that art
highly favoured amongst women, once, I believe, belonging
to Mr. Kuskin, and now in the possession of Mr. Boyce.
On the lower portion of the frame are also the words,
My Beloved is mine and I am his : He feedeth amongst
the lilies. There is an almost uniform colour of light
green, formed by the fresh delicate foliage and the
moist region wherein the water-lilies grow; in the
midst of the latter a figure stoops, and standing under
the trees is an angel, winged, and looking like a green
flower himself. Despite its faulty execution it has a
very great charm, such a charm as no verbal description
can give, and which, perhaps, in itself might after all
appeal to but a few. I am surprised the artist did not
subsequently attempt an oil or large water-colour ela-
borated reproduction, but like many of his most charming
and characteristic designs it never reached either stage.
Such a design was that belonging to the following year,
one which he often intended to reproduce in oil, but of
which there was never, so far as I am aware, even
made a replica; this was entitled The Anniversary
of the Death of Beatrice, sometimes called Dante surprised
while Fainting the Angel for Beatrice, and is in the
possession of Mrs. Combe of Oxford, whose late hus-
band was the original purchaser. It is a highly-finished
and finely-painted drawing, over which a great amount
of care and time must have been taken : Dante himself
kneels beside a window opening on the Arno, and

144 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

turns round at the greeting of untimely visitors, one of
whom leans forward eager with introductions. The
room is quaintly ornamented with a row along the
top of carved heads such as seraphim are represented
with, and behind the open door a glimpse is caught of
a green woodland or garden, forming a charming con-
trast to the view seen from the window where the
blue Arno washes the white walls of the Florentine
palaces. In one hand Dante holds the drawing on
which he has been interrupted, and his face has a
grave severity as he turns to look on those who have
entered. There were a few photographs privately
taken of this drawing, but they were not successful,
and this early and important work is little known '
even amongst the few who are comparatively familiar
with Eossetti's work. The words from the Vita
Nuova which it illustrates are as follows :^ "On that
day which fulfilled the year since my lady had been
made of the citizens of eternal life, I sat in a place
apart, where remembering me of her, I was drawing
an angel upon certain tablets. And as I drew, I
turned my eyes and saw beside me persons to whom
it was fitting to give honour, and who were looking
at what I did ; also, as it was told me afterwards, they
had been there a while before I perceived them. Per-
ceiving whom, I arose, and saluting them, said :
' Another was present with me.' "

There are also three small but interesting pen-and-
ink sketches belonging to this period, in one of which,
half in caricature half in earnest, he delineates himself

^ I have not taken the rendering of this passage as given by Mr.
Rossetti in Dante and his Circle (p. 95), but rather the early trans-
lation made at the time specially for the drawing.

III. DEFECTS IN DRA WING. 145

sitting either as a model or for his portrait to his wife,
then Miss Siddall ; but as far as likeness goes the only
thing that can be traced is a strong resemblance to
the well-known etching of Meryon, as he sits up with
dishevelled hair on his wretched pallet. Another is
that of his mother, and similar in size is the third
sketch, which is a portrait of the artist himself care-
fully drawn before the glass, finished with extreme
care, delicacy, and exactness, and for which a well-
known publisher offered the possessor of it an almost
inordinate sum, considering all things. These two latter
drawings belong to one of the friends who did Eossetti
the service after his wife's death referred to in the first
chapter, Mr. Charles A. Howell ; and the same gentle-
man owns the drawing of Miss Siddall made in 1858
or 1859, shortly before her marriage.

Some few pages back I referred to the great charm
the poetry of Eobert Browning at this period had upon
Eossetti, a charm that though it did not engender
imitation induced extreme appreciation, which the latter
tried to find a vent for in pictorial illustration. About
this time (1853) he set himself in earnest about two
great paintings, one of which had for its subject a
scene in Browning's masterpiece, or at least what
Eossetti, amongst others, considered his masterpiece,
Pippa Passes; but after persistence reaching over a
period of many months, indeed of years, the result was
only disastrous failure, the technical difficulties proving •
in this instance insurmountable. These difficulties were
not in the colouring, a process that came naturally to
Eossetti, but in the drawing, an obstacle that stood
in the artist's way from his earliest days to the final
mature decade : indeed, it cannot be denied that

L

146 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

the drawing in many compositions, especially the
early water-colours and drawings, is boyish in its
inefficiency; an unfortunate truth resulting from
want of discipline in this important essential at
the outset of his career. Eossetti may be said to have
succeeded in the main at last after almost insuperable
difficulties, and made himself what he often despaired of
being possible ; but at this period it was nothing short
of absolute despair that took hold of him, indomitable
perseverance and confidence in his otherwise extra-
ordinary powers enabling him to triumph in the end.

The song of Kate the Queen will be remembered in
Pijppa Passes, and it is this song which gave the title
to the painting in question, the scene represented
being an imaginary one where the maids are all work-
ing at their seams and the page sits singing ; no sketch
even of the complete picture exists however, and hence
no further description can now be given ; the satisfac-
tion to set against this being in the fact that the
destruction of the painting was probably the wisest
thing the artist could do, seeing its faults as he did.
A portion of it, however, is preserved in the interesting
picture belonging to Mr. J. F. Hutton entitled Two
Mothers ; this being a small composition in oil.^

In common with Kate the Queen, another large
painting was referred to as having been commenced
in 1853; not this time suggested by any poem of Mr.
Browning's, but by one of Mr. William Bell Scott's,

^ This, I must state, is only conjectural. It is almost certain that
Two Mothers has some connection with Kate the Queen, but it may
simply have been founded on some studies therefor, and not really
have formed a portion of the large painting itself. At the same time,
one or two friends of the artist's youth regard the latter as the case,
including Mr. Madox Brown.

III. ''FRANCESCA DA RIMINI.'' 147

the well-known ballad called Mary Anne, and origin-
ally published as Rosabel. This ballad had made a
great impression upon Eossetti's mind, especially (for
illustrative purposes) the verses suppljring the central
idea of Found, the name of this second great painting,
which, however, had not the disastrous ending of the
first, though after thirty years' probation it still remains
uncompleted though far advanced. Either at this
date or considerably later Eossetti finished a water-
colour of the same subject, though differing in details,
which I will refer to again in 1861, the year preced-
ing its exhibition in Edinburgh — the drawing in ques-
tion being The Farmer's Daughter, mentioned a few
pages back.

In Mr. Graham's possession there is a very inter-
esting and richly coloured if somewhat crude early
drawing, dated 1854, called variously Arthurs Tomb
and The Last Meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere,
the subject being taken from the well-known poem
by William Morris. Over the tomb of the great
prince, surrounded by green trees and undergrowth,
mourns Guinevere, clad as a nun, in her bitter repent-
ance; while across the carven stone head Lancelot,
armed and ready for departure, stoops to kiss her
over the effigy of his dead friend, the still crowned
queen, however, repelling him from what would alike
disgrace her vows and the memory of the quiescent dead.
About this time, or possibly in 1852, was painted the
small water-colour, Francesca da Bimini, more note-
worthy than the last both for colour and dramatic yet
non- obtrusive effect ; the period chosen being the
famous moment when the perilous volume is laid down,
and the lips of the lovers meet in sudden passionate love.

148 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

Francesca is clad in a soft green garment, and beside
her sits Paolo in a robe of subdued crimson with the
book falling from his knee as he turns to embrace her
whom he loved, while behind and in front of them
pink and red roses grow in clusters from dark wooden
tubs. Above them is the ominous crest of the lord of
Eimini, an evil -looking griffin, with the inscription
" Malatesta," and just seen in front of the heavy cur-
tains is a single foot — sufficient to tell that Francesca's
husband has ascended the stairs and come upon them
unseen, and that he has in his hand the gift to the
lovers of death and eternal sorrow. This is a beautiful
little drawing, full of subdued and harmonious hues, and
pregnant with the spirit of the doom that is at hand.
That Eossetti at this time was very unequal in the
work that came from his hands is seen, for instance,
in another water H3olour also belonging to 1854, the
very " Preraphaelite " and mannered Roman de la
Rose. About this time (very likely in 1855, though
it is undated, and I can find no exact record of it)
he composed in pen and ink the important design
for a picture called Hamlet and Ofhelia, a design
which had decided elements of pictorial success, but
which never reached anything beyond a small though
beautiful water-colour rendering of the same size.^
Hamlet and Ophelia are in some outer room of the
palace facing a court, the room or balcony or boudoir
having quaint furniture, evidently drawn from actual
models, and with drawn -back curtains which would
otherwise shut out the court from view, beyond which
are the massive battlements of Elsinore with curved

1 With some material differences. Vide the water-colour described
under date 1866.

III. ''HAMLET AND OPHELIA:' 149

double flight of stairs reaching them from below, stairs
certainly of a thoroughly original pattern and remarkably
out of perspective. On the battlements two or three
soldiers are moving about, and from a stone window
in a turret in the left-hand corner two figures, the
king and queen, look unseen on the interview taking
place beneath them. Ophelia is sitting in a high
carved chair, dressed simply, and with no signs of
mental distress save sorrow and gentle protestation,
while standing near her, with arms outstretched along
the balcony, is the "Prince of Denmark," dressed
wholly in a plain black robe sufficiently monastic to
have enabled its wearer to pass as one in the service of
religion, save for the long heavy-hilted sword at his side.
The scene represented is from Scene 1 Act iii. of Shake-
speare's great play, and shows Ophelia in the act of
returning the presents and letters given to her by
Hamlet, which the latter still denying she turns her
head away, but still holds out to him his gifts in sad
remonstrance ; Hamlet with his right hand plucks and
tears the rose leaves from a thick bush growing along-
side and over the balcony, and looks down with a
peculiar expression upon his unfortunate betrothed.
On the right hand of Ophelia there is a stone alcove
containing two volumes and a large crucifix, and in
the extreme left of the design the flush rose-tree from
which Hamlet plucks at random. This is beyond
question a most original rendering of a much hackneyed
subject, reflecting neither previous conceptions on canvas
nor on the stage, although within the last few years a
resemblance, in the sipirit of the conception, may with
some reason have been traced by some between the
Hamlet of Eossetti in 1855 and the Hamlet of Irving

150 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

in the " seventies." The highly interesting drawing.
The Lovers, was painted at this time/ and has changed
hands in a manner infrequent with Eossetti's composi-
tions, which are owned by a comparative few, and
seldom parted with ; in this instance the first possessor
was Mr. Ford Madox Brown, the second Mr. Windus,
the third Mr. Flint, at whose decease it was purchased
by its present owner, Mr. H. Virtue Tebbs. It is
sometimes called Carlisle Wall, from the motto line,
"The sun shines red on Carlisle Wall;" and the scene
is that of two lovers, a knight and a girl, on a castle-
turret of red brick. The colours are strong but har-
monious, and the drawing, which is a small one, is
charged with that unmistakable and fascinating poetic
emotion manifest in so many of the early water-colours
of this artist. To 1855 belong also the famous water-
colour Dante's Dream and the small water-colours La
Belle Darfie Sans Mercy and Fazio's Mistress. Two
years later the first of these, with its companion
piece The Anniversary of the Death of Beatrice, was
exhibited at a private gallery in 4 Eussell Flace,
Fitzroy Square, and attracted great admiration amongst
the few who believed in the small band known as the
Preraphaelites ; the exhibition, though small, being
by no means unimportant, considering that on its walls
were the productions (seventy-two pictures and draw-
ings according to the Saturday Review) of such men as
Millais, Eossetti, Holm an Hunt, Ford Madox Brown,
Arthur Hughes, Inchbold, Collins, John Brett, the late
Thomas Seddon, William Davis, W. L. Windus, and
others. But though deserving of high praise, it falls
very far short of the magnificent oil painting of the
1 1853.

III. ''DANTE'S DREAM'' {WAT. COL.) 151

same name now in Liverpool, in details, in character,
and especially in colour, though I am aware there are
some who prefer the earlier work, for what reason I
am at a loss to understand. The full title is Dante's
Dream at the time of the Death of Beatrice, the expla-
natory words from the Vita Niiova being " Then Love
said unto me : ' It is true that our lady lieth dead.'
And so strong was this idle imagining, that it made
me to behold my lady in death ; whose face certain
ladies seemed to be covering with a white veil ; and
who was so humble of her speech, that it was as
though she said, ' I have attained to look on the be-
ginning of peace.' And I saw in heaven a multitude
of angels who were returning upwards, having before
them an exceedingly white cloud." ^ As 1 shall have
occasion to describe this picture again in its supreme
form, I shall only in this instance notify diifferences.
Thus, in the water-colour there are no strange crimson
birds as in the Liverpool picture, no scroll with signi-
ficant Scriptural words, no lamp with dying flame ; while
Love, instead of being clad in a garment of " flame-
colour, is in one of brilliant blue with green shades
throughout, the live green colours of the two ladies lifting
the canopy from Beatrice being in too strong a contrast
with the blue of Love. The faces, moreover, are dif-
ferent from those of the later work, and by no means
so attractive, though to some that of Dante might be
more agreeable owing to the closer resemblance it has
to the portrait by Giotto. Besides being exhibited at
Eussell Place (where also, in addition to the Anniver-
sary drawing, were Hesterna Bosa, Mary Magdalene, and

^ See the much finer rendering of a later period in Baide and his
Circle, p. 70.

152 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

The, Bine, Closet), it was on view the following year
(1858) at the Liverpool Academy Exhibition, in com-
mon, as has already been mentioned, with The Wedding
of St. George and A Christmas Carol. La Belle Dame
sans Mercy does not, as one would infer from the name,
suggest at once the beautiful ballad of Keats, though
I believe such was its origin ; but it is certainly not
amongst the most successful of the early water-colours.
Fazio's Mistress is a much more interesting drawing ;
readers of Dante and His Circle will remember the
exquisite lines by Eazio Degli Uberti in praise of his
lady, Angiola of Verona, and it is this Fazio, of course,
that is meant; the lines forming the motif of the
drawing being, lo miro i crespi ed i biondi capegli, Dei
quali ha fatto per me rete Amore — " I look at the crisp
golden-threaded hair, whereof, to thrall my heart. Love
twists a net." Mr. George Eae has an interesting
water-colour of this date, entitled Chapel before the
Lists, markedly in the artist's early manner, but sug-
gestive and possessing decided charm ; and, as far as I
can be certain, it was either now or in 1857-8 that
The Sprinkling of Blood on the Lintels, with Mary
gathering the bitter herbs for the Passover, was designed.
The words of Mr. Euskin in reference to this drawing
will be remembered. The drawing itself, if I am not
mistaken, was once in the ownership of Mr. Euskin,
and now belongs to the Taylor Museum in Oxford;
the scene, in the artist's own words, being "in the
house-porch, where Christ holds a bowl of blood, from
which Zacharias is sprinkling the posts and lintel.
Joseph has brought the lamb, and Elizabeth lights the
pyre. The shoes which John fastens, and the bitter
herbs which Mary is gathering, form part of the ritual."

ui. " WA TER-COLO UR DRA WINGS:' 153

There are, or were, three important drawings which
can more or less accurately be dated about this period,
but of which I can find no exact record. One was
the design entitled &t. Luke, for which the artist wrote
two fine sonnets, the other ^ was the pencil draw-
ing for which the lines in the Poems called Aspecta
Medusa were written, where over a pool of water
Andromeda bends and looks in safety upon the Gor-
gon's head which Perseus holds so that its fatal face
is visible but only " mirrored in the wave ;" and the
third was the >S'^. Cecily, of which the well-known
writer, whose pseudonym was " Shirley," spoke many
years ago as actually glowing with colour, " with such
a glow of gold and amethyst as sometimes burns upon
the sunset Atlantic."

In 1857 I find Eossetti executed a good deal of
work, some of it very important. Besides finishing
the Passover drawing just mentioned, this was the year
in which the artist also completed the five designs
which were engraved for the Tennyson quarto, and
when he, amongst others, painted the walls of the
Oxford Union Debating Eoom. There is also a water-
colour, bearing date 1857, called The Meeting of Sir
Tristram and Yseult, and I have seen five or six others
of the same period, viz. — Fra Face, Sir Galahad, The
Blue Closet, Sanct Grael, The Tune of Seven Towers, and
The Death of Breuse sans Pitie ; of these the last fQur,
in common with two other drawings (the Paolo and
Francesca and the Chapel 'before the Lists), were painted
for Mr. William Morris, the author of The Earthly
Paradise, from whom, in 1864, they were purchased
by Mr. George Eae. Of these Eossetti subsequently

1 Vide entry in Supplementary Catalogue (1860).

154 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

requested for " improvement " the last named, but the
result was so unsatisfactory that Mr. Eae wisely re-
sisted many frequent after-requests to retouch the
others. Bir Galahad is a replica in colour of the fine
design described near the beginning of this chapter,
forming the fifth illustration to Tennyson's Poems, and
was exhibited the same year in the private gallery
at Eussell Place. The Blue Closet and The Tune of
Seven Towers were not, as might be inferred from their
names, suggested by passages in the similarly titled
poems by Mr. William Morris but themselves sug-
gested the latter. Of these the latter seems to me
more grotesque than beautiful ; but The Blue Closet is
pretty and harmonious, the four " damozels wearing
purple and green " singing " in the closet blue " their
one song on Christmas eve, while in front of them
grows up through the floor an orange lily, "with a patch
of earth from the land of the dead." The Sanct Grael
is interesting both in itself and as the early study of
the oil known as Tlie Damsel of the Sancgrael, and has
the vague charm so characteristic of the early water-
colours. That Eossetti at twenty painted The Girl-
hood of the Virgin and the Ecce Ancilla Domini, and
that Eossetti in his thirtieth year painted The Tune
of Seven Towers and the Death of Breuse seems a
contradiction of likelihood. These 1857 drawings,
notwithstanding, possess a peculiar interest, as, though
deficient in technical merit, they are intensely and
peculiarly poetic, and are thoroughly individual, repre-
sentative also of a phase through which the mind
of the artist passed several times. He himself was
quite conscious subsequently of their faults, as seen by
his ahnost invariable desire of retouching, which at

III. " ERA PA CE "— THE OXEORD ''ERESCOESP 155

times amounted to repainting ; but he always Lad an
affection, based on the poetic sentiment, for what he
termed his romantic in opposition to his later imagina-
tive period. To some it is the violent contrasts of
colour that are unpleasant, to others the real or apparent
affected grotesqueness or quaintness, but to some, willing
to overlook these drawbacks, there is great and ceaseless
charm in these designs, of which it may be remarked
The Deaih of Breuse sans Pitie — as it now appears, at
any rate, after its retouchment — ^is the crudest in colour
and most grotesque in treatment. Fra Pace is an
extremely interesting small water-colour in the artist's
early manner, showing more directly than anything
else I remember the influence of Van Eyck and Mem-
meling, from whom he is supposed to have learned so
much, and whom he certainly at one time greatly
admired. The " Brother " is in a loft, painting a missal
on a desk, down which are slung six phials containing
respectively emerald, carmine, blue, purple, red, and
yellow pigments, with close at hand on a shelf a sliced
pomegranate ; while behind the friar is a boy tickling
a cat seated on the former's trailing robe, and in front
from a hollow in the floor a rose-tree blooms, with
overhead a bell, the rope belonging to which hangs
down past the steps leading to the loft, beyond the
steps a glimpse being caught of forest greenery. The
drawing of this composition is sometimes inefficient,
especially about the bed in the background, but the
double charm of colour and interest is ceitainly not
wanting. It was, I was told, the first artistic work of
Eossetti at which his friend Burne Jones saw him
engaged, and this was on the occasion of a visit of the
latter, then a young undergraduate, to the older artist

156 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

just previous to Eossetti's going to Oxford himself for
the painting of the " Union."

There was a remarkable " drawing together " of
sympathetic minds in this famous undertaking, the
leading architect and the leading artist, moreover, both
being markedly original. Dante Eossetti was the
acknowledged inspiring influence amongst the small
band of young painters who voluntarily gave their
services towards what was in two cases a first good
opportunity of public exhibition, these two being
Yal. Prinsep and E. Burne Jones, though the latter
had already executed designs for the stained glass in
Bradfield College, Berks. The subjects chosen by
the last-mentioned artists were Merlin heing lured
into the pit hy the Lady of the Lahe^ and Nimne
bringing Sir Feleus to Ettarde after their quar-
rel; while amongst the other earliest decorative
designs were King Arthur receiving the Sword Ex-
calihur from the Lady of the Lake^ by J. H. Pollen
(already known by his painting of the roof of Merton
Chapel) ; Arthur conveyed ty weeping Queens to Avalon
after his death, by Arthur Hughes ; Sir Palomides'
jealousy of Sir Tristram and Iseult, by William Morris,
who also painted the roof; and Sir Lancelot asleep
before the shrine of the Sancgrael, by Dante Eossetti.
The general effect of glowing colours may be imagined,
rich blues, purples, greens, and reds being predominant
— indeed only one of the so-called frescoes was in
consistently dark hues, namely, that by Mr. Hughes,
where the scene is in partly moonlit darkness ; but
unpleasant effects of contrast were avoided by its
being at one end of the room, facing the design by
Mr. Pollen, richer in colour certainly than Mr. Hughes',

III. THE OXFORD '' FRESCOESr 157

but more subdued in tone than the other mural paint-
ings. It was originally intended both by the artist
himself and by the Committee that Eossetti should
paint one and perhaps two more "frescoes," but this
never came about ; indeed the 8ir Lancelot hefore the
Shrine of the Sancgrael remains still with an unfinished
" patch " in the foreground ; but this does not, however,
represent his whole actual work at Oxford, he having
also made a design of Arthur sitting at table with his
knights, which design was carven in stone and coloured
by Mr. Monro, and is now in the tympanum of the
porch. Altogether the result of the first half-dozen
wall-paintings was looked upon as a daring innovation
in the introduction of non- architectural style and
colour in conjunction with architectural surroundings ;
in the words of a contemporary notice, " the result is
a departure from precedent as indescribable as com-
plete. Eossetti, whom Mr. Euskin has pronounced to
be the only modern rival of Turner as a colourist,
must at least be allowed (whether we admit the
rivalry or not) to equal Turner in one of the noblest
and least attainable qualities of harmonious colour —
viz. its mysteriousness ; of which quality the apparition
of the Damsel of the Sancgrael surrounded with angels,
on the wall of the Union, is a remarkable example."
In the same critique there is full recognition shown of
the successful way in which the young painters " have
observed the true conditions and limitations of archi-
tectural painting with a degree of skill scarcely to
have been expected from their inexperience in this
kind of work." The writer is himself evidently a
" Eomanticist," " Preraphaelite," or " Protester," for
his advocacy is thorough throughout, and his theory

158 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

as to mural painting not such as was then recognised
in England, or indeed elsewhere; for, after acknow-
ledging that an indefiniteness of outline (adding, how-
ever, that such does not imply any general dissolution
of form) is a necessary result of Eossetti's colour-
method, he goes on to say that this indefiniteness is
all the more suited for architectural painting owing to
its relieving the general effect of absolute definiteness
of outline characteristic of architecture, a definiteness
that had hitherto always been emulated rather than
relieved. But the writer's confident anticipations as
to their lasting success as regards colour-endurance
were not well founded, for in a comparatively short
period the colours began to lose their brilKancy and
later to fade still more decisively; Mr. Gullick and
Mr. Timbs, in their popular treatise on painting, being
nearer the mark in their prophecy that " as the paint-
ings are in distemper, not fresco, we have no great
confidence in their permanency." They were not even
in distemper, however — the paints being laid on the
brick walls in a way that would have astounded the
old fresco painters ; and that the result has been
proved to be unsatisfactory has for a considerable time
past been fully recognised, but of late especially the
ravages of time or damp or both have been more
marked, and when I saw them a few months ago
much of the work throughout was virtually de-
stroyed,— here and there indeed a fine piece of colour
still remained, but there was little coherency of form
and a general decay in tone. They were, as I have
said, simply painted on the brick, which, with the
easily atmospherically -affected nature of the friable
Oxford stone, doubtless fully accounts for their ulti-

III. THE OXFORD ''FRESCOES." 159

mate unfortunate condition. Their execution was
entirely a labour of love in so far as remuneration was
concerned, but the expenses of the young artists at the
hotel where they sojourned were defrayed, — by no
means, in the opinion of the Committee, such a small
matter as one might think owing to the decidedly
non-auchoritic tastes of the enthusiastic painters. I
remember Eossetti always used to refer to the matter
with a quiet laugh, adding that he thought it would
be a lesson to the Committee to rather pay a definite
sum and leave the artists to meet their hotel expenses
themselves. As to the subject of the latter's " fresco,"
it will be remembered that when Lancelot came to the
shrine of the Holy Grail he could not enter because of
his forbidden love for Guinevere, and being full of sor-
row and fatigue lay down before it in a deep sleep ;
and it is a dream or vision during this sleep that is
the subject of the fresco. He sees the Queen herself
regarding him half with love and half with triumph,
clad in raiment of glowing colours, and with arms
intertwining with the branches of an apple-tree, a
symbolical allusion that will be at once comprehended;
while beyond the interposing figure of Guinevere
appears in the air the mysterious figure of the Damsel
of the Sancgrael, holding the sacred chalice for him
unobtainable, and herself surrounded by angels. The
colours are, or rather were, rich and beautiful, and
were laid on with an elaborate skill and care, but the
drawing was bad. I have heard Eossetti blamed for
not fulfilling the original intention as to painting
other " frescoes," and also for never having completed
the one he did execute ; the latter he himself regretted,
and often said in a vague way he should like to finally

160 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

touch up, but when he first learned of the improbable
permanency of the mural paintings he hardly con-
sidered it worth while, and this, along with the un-
remunerated loss of time that would have resulted,
amply accounts for his withdrawal from further work
at the " Union."

There is another important water-colour of this
date which I have forgotten to refer to, the com-
position called the Gate of Memory, and, like Found,
based on some verses in Mr. W. Bell Scott's ballad
JRosahel, or Maryanne as called subsequently in the
reprint in 1854. The verses are those beginning

" On saunters Maryanne,
Once a time the harvest-queen,"

ahd the specially illustrated lines are those in the next
stanza,

" She leaned herseK against the wall,

And longed for drink to slake her thirst

And memory at once."

Like the girl in Found, she of the Gate of Memory is
also an unfortunate "lost at twenty-five," and has
paused in her wanderings in the city to which she was
beguiled. She leans against a wall, the rich wealth
of her uncovered hair shrouding her comely face, and
round her ill -protected frame being a close -wrapt
shawl; while between her and an archway, the Gate
of Memory, in mid -arch of which hangs a yellow-
flamed lamp, glides in the dismal dusk a large and
evil-looking rat. She peers aside at the vision seen
through the " Gate " (against a background of fine
mansions lighted up) where is herself as a little girl
seated flower -crowned with her young companions
dancing and singing around her. This vision is

III. "A CHRISTMAS CAROLr 161

specially finely executed, is indeed more real in a
sense than the poor woman herself; but the whole
work is one of great beauty, and strongly impressive.
Painted as it was in 1857, some subsequent final
touches were given to it in 1864, and it is this latter
date which the picture somewhat misleadingly bears.

I have already made mention of a water-colour
drawing, entitled A Christmas Carol, having been ex-
hibited at the Liverpool Academy in 1858, and I have
seen a richly -coloured, though small, oil belonging
to Mr. George Eae similarly named, but in date more
probably the early "sixties." It is, however, just
possible that it may have been painted in 1857 or
early in the succeeding year, and have been the picture
exhibited at Liverpool, its classification as a water-
colour being simply a clerical error ; but if so, it is
the only oil I know of by Eossetti which was not
preceded by a plain or coloured design other than the
study,^ This is a beautiful little work, possessing to a
high degree that charm of colour permeated by senti-
ment so characteristic of the artist. A fair girlish woman
with a " flower-like face " sits playing a two-stringed
lute, on the upper end of which is a sprig of holly with
scarlet berries ; her dress is a curious robe with gold
markings over a purple ground, the underside of which,
upturned at the sleeves and the neck, is crimson while
twisted round her supporting the lute is a pale-green
delicate veil, and clasped close to the white throat itself

1 Since writing the above I have found that Mr. James Leathart
possesses the original drawing in water-colour, and that it bears date,
Christmas 1857-1858. The small oil belonging to Mr. Eae was finished
much later than the period where it is here described, that gentleman
purchasing it from a dealer in 1877. There is also a Christmas Carol
in tinted crayons, belonging to Mrs. Aglaia Coronio.

M

162 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

is a necklace of green emeralds ; with behind all this
exquisite and harmonious colouring a background of
tinted and flowered wall, and hung thereon a metal
oval with roughly moulded Virgin and Child. Her
head is thrown slightly back, and her red lips are
parted as she sings the ^ong of Christ's Birth, as
quaintly narrated in the Winchester Mysteries,

In 1858 also were wrought two important designs,
the one a water-colour called Mary in the House of
John, and the other the famous Mary Magdalene draw-
ing. There are two water-colours bearing the title of
the former, one painted as just mentioned and one in
1859, but the earlier picture is very much the finer
of the two, alike in colour and execution ; it once, I
believe, belonged to Mr. Loft, and is, or was lately, on
view at the Galleries of the Fine Art Society in New
Bond Street. The scene is an interior of a room, with an
open window across which transverse bars form a cross,
the view beyond consisting of the hilly slopes whereon
the white dwellings of the Nazarenes cluster thickly ;
the purplish gleams of a calm twilight softening and
beautifying every object. Mary and John are clothed
in delicately -shaded greens and blues, the former
standing close to the window and pouring oil from a
small vessel into a lamp, while her sad womanly face
is turned towards John sitting in front of her, who
strikes a light from a flint; the actions by both, it
need hardly be said, being directly symbolical. While
both the water-colour pictures on this subject are
beautiful, it is evident that the feeling was absent in
that of 1859, the soft and chastened glow of colour,
the definite drawing, and the magnetic earnestness of
the personal delineations being much more noticeable

III. ''GOLDEN water:' 163

in the first work. This beautiful composition was
suggested by some lines in the poet-artist's Am, that
lovely " hymn " so well known to readers of the Poems.

As full of charm in its own way is an exquisite
little water-colour called Golden Water; a long and
narrow composition, being about fourteen inches in
height by seven in breadth. The subject is just such an
one as Eossetti delighted to take in hand, something
belonging to the realm of legend or of imagination ; in
the case of Golden Water to the latter, the subject
being taken from the narrative in The Arabian Nights
entitled The Story of the Two Sisters who were
jealous of their Younger Sister. The portion therein
chosen for illustration is that of the descent of the
Princess Parizade from the mountain, wT.th behind her
the " Singing Tree>" fluttering above her the " Talking
Bird," and in her arms the barrel containing the
" Golden Water ; " the first of these being of emerald
green with mauve blossom, and the second of pure
scarlet. Her dress is of orange trimmed with green,
and the long hair falling down her shoulders is of a
duU-red auburn. Such pictures have, of course, only
one end — that of appeal to the colour sense, hence
to many they seem objectless and even frivolous ; but
to those who are sensitive to the charm of colour, a
charm almost as indefinite as that of rare music, they
are a source of pure and constant delight.

In 1857 was drawn in ink a tiny sketch of
very great interest — the first committal to paper —
namely, of the Mary Magdalene drawing, and valu-
able as showing how completely the picture dwelt
in the artist's mind before undertaking the finished
design. This belongs to Mr. C. A. HoweU. Subse-

164 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

quent to the finislied design, which I am about to
describe, there was a replica made (though I may be
mistaken as to the medium) in water-colour, which
the artist himself considered much below the mark,
and which was so, but which was executed only as a
feeler to a large and important picture of the subject.
It may be noted, however, that in the finished design
itself the drawing is here and there exceedingly bad, as
in the wall of Simon's house, the stairs leading thereto,
and the entrance, and the room where Christ sits.

It was of the Mary Magdalene drawing that Euskin,
as I quoted in the last chapter, spoke so enthusi-
astically in the Nineteenth Century as being, in common
with the Passover drawing and others from the life of
Christ and the Vita Nuova, "of quite imperishable
power and value." I was told that it was originally,
or is now, in the possession of Mr. Euskin, but for
some time it belonged to the late Mr. Flint, at the sale
of whose effects in 1862 it, with one or others, was
reserved for the benefit of the family for future dis-
posal. The full title is Mary Magdalene at the door of
Simon the Pharisee, and those familiar with Eossetti's
poetic work will recollect a very fine, and dramatic
interpretive sonnet on the same amongst the Sonnets
for Pictures ; the composition not being a water-colour,
as it has once or twice been denominated in notices of
his life-work since the artist's death, but simply a
drawing, though a marvellously skilful and beautiful
one. In 1859, or perhaps 1860, he began a large
oil picture of the same, never, however, getting much
beyond the head and neck and arms of the Magdalene ;
this, and the already mentioned sketch and replica,
and a study of the head of Christ, and sometime

III. THE ''MARY MAGDALENE" DRA WING. 165

previous an elaborate drawing of the fawn plucking
the vine -leaves, complete, if I am not mistaken, all
Eossetti did in connection with this design.

The drawing is full of figures, and the difficult
matter of grouping is managed with considerable skill
and fidelity to nature. In the left is the house of
Simon, with two open window spaces looking out into
the narrow street, at one of which sits the Pharisee with
his worldly sensual face, behind him being an attend-
ant carrying a dish of somewhat for feast day, Simon
himself looking with a face of half-indifference half-
contempt at the Magdalene casting aside the joy of
life in order to come to pay homage to the poor
Nazarene Prophet at present his guest. The latter
sits opposite him, with sad face full of thought and
love and brooding care, and it is his glance that has
arrested the beautiful Syrian girl as she hurries along
in the festal procession, rose-crowned and with laughter
on her lips ; the model from which the face of Christ
was drawn being, it may be of interest to some to
know, Mr. Burne Jones. On the lowest of the stone
steps leading up to the doorway sits a girl half-naked,
with tangled hair and an incredulous jeering expression,
herself one who has chosen a vicious life ; and beside
her strut fowls eager to pick up what falls from the
wooden pottinger on her lap ; and behind this unfor-
tunate, underneath the window where Jesus sits sad-
eyed, is a lovely fawn feeding upon the young and
tender vine leaves. The roadway is of small rounded
stones, with grass growing in tufts every here and
there ; and along the narrow street, beyond which a
view is caught of a lake and white village, winds a
festal procession, singing and laughing, while the warm

166 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

wind carries eddying overhead the joyous music of
lutes and silver trumpets. From the midst of these
Mary suddenly turns, her life touched in its inmost
depths by the sorrowful brotherly love and yearning
of Christ's eyes, and ascending the stairs would fain
at once enter were it not that her lover and another
following after interpose, and with mockery and
entreaty by turns seek to persuade her not thus to
leave a happiness within immediate reach. Tair faces
look back upon her, some wondering, some laughingly
remonstrating, but she stands on the steps with stead-
fast purpose, heedless alike of those in the procession,
of the music and the feast, of the man who angrily
tries to stop with outstretched arm her entrance to
Simon's house, and of the lover scornful now and now
persuasive, standing on the hither side of the steps.
With upstretched arms she disentangles from her flow-
ing hair the roses and other flowers that added to her
loveliness, beginning then and there the new life that
was to be filled with such bitterness of spirit, when
ere very long darkness was to come down one memor-
able night and shroud three crosses upon the hill of
Calvary.

This exquisite design was photographed privately,
and through these few photographs it has been rendered
better known than could well have been the case as
long as it remained in private hands. The intricate
workmanship of, for instance, the cloak of the lover,
covered with a rich design, the drawing of the fawn,
of the figure of Mary standing in all the loveliness of
young and beautiful womanhood, her robe falling in
folds, her girdle and strange palm-leaf fan, her wavy
hair, and face almost as much like a flower as the

III. ''BOCCA BACIATA:' 167

roses and lilies which her white hands seek to disen-
tangle and throw away, is very good; though other
bad drawing has just been referred to. The sunflower,
for whose introduction into personal, mural, and em-
broider decoration Eossetti and Burne Jones are some-
what inconsequentially supposed to be responsible,
here first in any picture by the former appears. Just
within the threshold of the feast-room of Simon the
Pharisee is on either side a narrow wooden pillared
balcony, on one side being a large pot containing a
tall lily, and on the other one with large and heavy
sunflowers. It is greatly to be regretted that this
memorable design never reached a stage of comple-
tion in oil, when it would in all probability have been
such a work as all lovers of art could well be proud
of having in the national collection.

In 1859, besides painting the replica o^ Mary in the
House of John, already referred to, and a water-colour
called The Garden Bower, Eossetti executed an im-
portant though small oil entitled Bocca Baciata, and
the first study in chalk of what was to become ulti-
mately one of the most beautiful of his pictures. The
Bocca Baciata (the "kissed mouth") had its motif in
some lines from a sonnet of Boccaccio, well known to
Italian students, and was, as wiU be remembered by
many, exhibited at the Hogarth Club some few years
ago. The complexion of the fair damsel is painted
with extreme care and delicacy, though the general
effect was somewhat marred after its exhibition by
being nominally touched up by the painter; for few
artists have the faculty of successfully re-manipulating
their pictures, and it is well known amongst his friends
that Eossetti seldom if ever improved anything by long

168 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

subsequent alteration or " smoothing." In this instance
it is simply an alteration in the flesh tints on the nose,
sufficient, however, to attract attention. The chalk study-
referred to, which is in the possession of Mr. William
Graham, is that for Beata Beatrix, in the opinion of some
perhaps the loveliest in subdued colour of all Eossetti's
works; his wife in this year (1860) having not been
long married, and the model for her who inspired the
Vita N'uova and the Divina Commedia. It will be
remembered that mention was made of a repHca of
the head of Christ in the Mary Magdalene drawing,
and this, in common with the picture called The Gate
of Memory, belongs to Mr. Moncure D. Conway. In
this " Head " the eyes are especially fine and clear, and
altogether the face is that of a poet of the people, his
brow and eyes freighted with refined power ; as for the
composition, it would seem to be partly in water-colour
partly in oil, the latter perhaps predominating.

In 1860 Eossetti was in Paris, and it was shortly
before going thither that he made the fine finished
water-colour study of the triptych that was painted
in oil the following year and placed in Llandaff
Cathedral, and which original design is now in the
possession of Mr. Vernon Lushington. There will be
no necessity, however, to describe it separately from
the later work. Also at this time, or perhaps in 1859,
Eobert Browning sat for his portrait at the special
request of the artist, the drawing (which was finished
in Paris) being in water-colour, and highly interesting ;
and also to this period belongs an interesting though
much slighter sketch of Mr. Tennyson. The latter is
owned and much valued by Mr. Browning, who tells
me that Tennyson was reading his new poem Maud

III. ''DR. JOHNSON AT THE MITRE:' 169

one evening, and that Eossetti, who with himself, Mrs.
E. B. Browning, and others, was present, made a rapid
but very graphic pen-and-ink sketch of the Laureate
from an unobserved corner of vantage.^ No wonder
that the owner of this drawing duly values an authentic
portrait of Alfred Tennyson while reading such a
poem as Maud, when such was made by a fellow-poet
as well as artist like the author of The House of Life.
It was while staying in Paris that he also com-
pleted the fine composition already described under
the title How They Met Themselves, and in addition to
this a most interesting and uncharacteristic drawing
called Dr. Johnson and the Methodist Ladies at the
Mitre. This design is also one of those highly-finished
ink drawings that he so excelled in executing, and
alien as the subject seems to be to his special powers
it is yet remarkably successful, a true Hogarthian spirit
seeming to have influenced its composition, the char-
acterisation of the Doctor and the ladies being admirable,
and the surroundings carefully studied. It is a small
drawing, certainly not more than about ten inches by
eight, and is still in the possession of its original owner,
Mr. Boyce ; and it is, if I am not mistaken, the only
design or picture by Eossetti that has the place of its
painting inscribed on the face in addition to the signa-
ture and date. A replica was subsequently made of
it nearly or quite double in size, but I have been
unable to ascertain whether in colour or not,^ though I
should think it most probably the former ; the only

1 I should have antedated this sketch by four or five years. For
exact particulars vide footnote to page 19, Chapter I.

2 Since writing this I have learned that the replica is a highly-
finished drawing in water-colours. .

170 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

record I have being that of its disposal at the sale
after Mr. Flint's death, already referred to, where it was
purchased for about £76. Mr. Boyce has also a small
pencil portrait-drawing belonging to this year, beauti-
fully finished ; this was executed at Upton, and is, I
believe, a very good likeness of one whose face became
the artist's ideal type in female portraiture. About this
time was executed a fine portrait of Mr. Swinburne,
and it was also about the autumn of 1860 that Ros-
setti commenced an important work which was finished
about the end of the following year, viz. a triptych for
Llandaff Cathedral. I have heard this spoken of as a
typical example of the higher Preraphaelite manner,
but the confusion of ideas prevalent as to what is Pre-
raphaelitism is here again wrong or partly wrong;
indeed, nothing can be more misleading than to call
Rossetti a Preraphaelite in any other sense of the term
than that of a Protestor ; and in this triptych he is
only " Preraphaelite " in so far that his treatment of
sacred subjects is not conventional, as for instance in
the omission of nimbi round the angels' heads, trust-
ing rather to impressive colour-tones and solemnity of
treatment for the effect older painters were wont to
obtain by well-understood symbols ; but he is far from
acting up to the central Preraphaelite idea of absolute
natural and historic truth, or truth as approximate as
possible, when, for instance, he paints King David, in the
right wing, as in the costume and coat of mail of a medi-
aeval knight, and seated on a throne with brazen peacock-
feather designs. Here he is represented as playing a
harp, music fitting for one of those triumphant psalms
after victory that have echoed ever since in the hearts
of all nations fighting in a righteous cause. In the left

III. THE " CASSANDRA " DESIGN. 171

wing the young poet-shepherd of Israel is seen prepar-
ing for his combat with Goliath, but the figure of the
latter is not seen in the painting. In the central
portion, pre-eminently remarkable for rich but subdued
colours, there is represented the manger of the Nativity,
with the Virgin and Child receiving the worshipful
recognition, not of the conventional shepherds and wise
men of the East, but simply of one shepherd, typifying
the humble estates of life, and one king, typical of the
great and powerful upon earth. The latter lays his
crown and the former his staff before the young Christ,
and betwixt them a kneeling angel holds a hand of
either ; while around the manger stand, watchful of
the Divine Child, a circle of angels, and above, in the
arch made by the frame, two others with musical in-
struments. There are few who have seen this fine
composition who have not been impressed by its
dignity and solemnity, its rich depth of colour, and
the charm of its general effect.

Amongst the Sonnets for Pictures in the first series
of Eossetti's poems will be remembered two on a
drawing called Cassandra, a design that the artist
attached great importance to himself, and which he
composed during 1861. His own descriptive foot-
note to these sonnets gives a brief outline of the draw-
ing : " The subject shows Cassandra prophesying among
her kindred, as Hector leaves them for his last battle.
They are on the platform of a fortress, from which
the Trojan troops are marching out. Helen is arming
Paris ; Priam soothes Hecuba ; and Andromache holds
the child to her bosom." This drawing is a fine piece
of composition, and visibly contains the possibilities
of as great an historical picture as has been painted

172 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

for many a year, and though the foreshortening is
sometimes -unsuccessful the figures of Hector and the
beckoning soldiers are impressive in their fittingness.
On the other hand, Helen is hardly such an one as
her whose beauty " launched a thousand ships, and
burned the topless towers of Ilium," resembling more
some spiteful Goneril or Eegan with a certain cruel
witchery and fascination about her serpentine pre-
sence. Paris is not so much a soldier as a courtier of
mediaeval France, one part vanity, one part bragga-
doccio, and two parts licentious to the very heart's
core. Helen, sitting upon the couch where he is lying
and fastening on his lower armour, is clothed in a
white robe, clasped at the shoulder by the symbolic
scallop shell ; and on Paris himself, as he toys with
her flowing hair and seems to mock Hector's earnest-
ness, there are two significant ornaments — one, a large
gold or silver brooch with a figure of Venus in the
act of throwing the apple of discord, and an armlet of
a silver torch and gold flame, symbolical of what their
love was to ancient Greece and the " Trojan land:" —

" 0 Paris, Paris ! 0 thou burning brand,

Thou beacon of the sea whence Venus rose,
Lighting thy race to shipwreck." . . .

In the same year were painted Fair Rosamond and
The Farmer's Daughter, the first of w^iich was an oil,
and both of which were sent the following year to the
Eoyal Scottish Academy by the artist himself from his
studio in Chatham Place, Blackfriars, where they were
Is'os. 796 and 729 respectively, and where neither
were sold and seemed to have attracted little or no
public notice. As already mentioned, the drawing
called The Farmer's Daughter was an early water-

III. ''LUCREZIA BORGIA''— ''LEAH ^^ RACHEL." 173

colour, differing in minor details from the large and
important painting called Found, upon which for so
long a period Eossetti was engaged, and which, after
all, he did not live to complete. A celebrated artist
who saw Fair Rosamond at the time of its exhibition
has spoken to me of it as one of the finest productions
of Eossetti's early period, and a picture that he can
recall in all its beauty despite the lapse of twenty
years. He has described it to me as a " life-size oil
picture, of very splendid colour and rich impaste.
Eosamond is represented leaning from a window sur-
rounded with roses, holding in one hand — the other
being pressed against her bosom — the tightening red
silk cord which guided the king to her bower, and
indicated his approach."

Mr. Boyce, who has so much of the early interest-
ing work of Eossetti, has a pencil dramng which the
latter took of Mrs. Wells the day after her death,
dated loth July 1861, perhaps the most exquisite
piece of pencilling the artist ever accomplished. At a
first glance it may seem somewhat slight, but there is
not a single stroke lost, while not a single stroke could
be missed, and the delicacy and refinement of the
drawing deserves all praise. There are two interesting
water-colours, Litcrezia Borgia and Leah and Bachely
painted in this year; the first is not a replica of the
Borgia already referred to in the possession of Mr. Boyce, <
but a different subject belonging to Mr. Eae. Lucrezia is
clad in a white dress with gold embroidery, and is wash-
ing her hands in a curious basin, after preparing a poison-
draught for the figures approaching ; the general effect,
however, is that of a composition somewhat crudely
painted, in great part the result of a "retouching"

174 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

whicli was not an improvement, subsequent to its ex-
hibition at the Hogarth Club. The Leah and Rachel
is a very interesting drawing. In the foreground is a
well-spring at either side of which stand the sisters,
Eachel dressed in purple with a gray-green veil about
her, and a golden band round her waist and falling
down her robe, and Leah in a uniform green ; while
beyond is the figure of Jacob walking meditatively
towards them, the background being composed of green
grassy sward and light green woodland, with the young
trees wide apart ; such trees and greenery, it may be
remarked, as no ancient Israelite ever beheld in his
native land. Mr. Heaton has in his possession a
drawing entitled Regina Cordium, signed Woodhank,
Nov. 1861, wherein a lady sits looking at a heart-
shaped pansy ; the picture being in reality a portrait
of Mrs. Heaton as seen through the medium of
Eossetti's not always improving or even " resembling "
crayon or brush. Early in the same year was finished
the fine head in oil called Bard-Alane, which was
originally in the possession of Mr. Flint, and now
belongs to Mr. Leathart ; and contemporaneously the
artist executed the small oil portrait of his wife, which,
till lately, was in the possession of Mr. Euskin.

I am not absolutely certain, but I think the first
of the Penelopes was drawn in this year.^ It is a large
cartoon executed in red and black crayons, and is
amongst the first, if not the first, of that impressive
series of what may be called classical re-creations that
raises Eossetti's work in this sphere to the extreme
heights of imaginative achievement. Yet his "classical"

^ If tlie fine chalk belonging to Mr. Leathart be the original, then
I have antedated it by seven years.

jii. HIS SUPREME PERIOD. 175

work can be so called only in a restricted sense, first
and most importantly because his sympathies were not
Greek but Gothic, and because his creations typify the
mysterious yearning of life, the brooding and hope
and despair and resignation of a certain type of
womanhood, not the joy in life, the exultation of
physical being, the spiritually untroubled Greek ideal.
Penelope, Pandora, Proserpina, these as they appeal
to us through the medium of Eossetti's subtle and
beautiful art are not the Penelope and Pandora sung
of and painted from time immemorial, the Proserpina
who wandered in fair girlhood in the bright sunshine
along the warm sweet-scented Sicilian fields: but
through the eyes of this Penelope all womanhood that
dreams and yearns for a scarcely definite yet appre-
hended ideal love seems to look forth ; in the eyes of
this Pandora lie prophetic gleams of all she, typical
of women, can let loose upon the world, as she opens
the casket from whence wing in circling and evasive
flight passions and delights and joys and sorrows ; and
on the face of this Proserpina, queen of the dark
realms, as she passes along a corridor in her splendid
but desolate palace, there broods the regret and the
passionate longing of all women who look into the
past and see that it is full of light, and that its day
can never dawn again.

This period of his art-career, wherein his highest
imaginative and technical work was accomplished and
his inspiration came to him direct from his own poetic
dreams and visions, or from the sympathetic pages
of the VUob Nuova and II Paradiso, may be roughly
stated as being from 1866 to 1876, such a ten years of
imaginative and consummate work as may be doubted

176 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

ever to have been excelled or even equalled by any
English artist save Turner.

Also in 1861 or possibly early in 1862, Eossetti
executed some important work for the fine church of St.
Martin's in Scarborough, consisting of two designs for
windows and a panel painting in two partitions. A
better impression, indeed, would be obtained from these
cartoons than from the windows themselves, partly
because the rough " leading " of the windows breaks
up the designs, giving a somewhat coarse look to
the work ; and partly because the windows are high in
the west wall of the church, so that they cannot be
seen to advantage. The subjects are respectively,
Adam in Paradise hefore the Fall and Eve in Paradise
hefore the Fall; the figures in both instances being
life-size, and the treatment throughout each cartoon
being very similar. Under a tree with rich green
foliage, Adam, with his left arm thrown over one of its
lower boughs, stands in an easy and finely-poised
attitude, and with his right foot tickles a bear which is
lying on its back, while his face beams with laughter at
the antics of the brown clumsy animal ; and from the
tree looks down upon him, as if sharing his amusement, a
brown squirrel, while around him are other animals, not
fearing or inimical but companions. The figure is nude
but draped with masses of foliage ; and a strict harmony
of colour is maintained between the rich browns of the
bear and squirrel, the varying green of the trees and
foliage, the light golden hair and the flesh tints of Adam,
the yellow sunflower, etc. ; the same being observed in
the Eve picture, where also one or two red flowers give
a deeper contrast. Eve is represented fondling a dove ;
an owl looks at her from a tree, and other birds are about

III. DESIGNS FOR WINDOWS, 177

her ; near at hand also is a dappled deer or fawn, not
unlike the one in the Mary Magdalene drawing, the fair
face of the mother of man being almost as beautiful as
the central figure of that design.

More characteristic than these is the double-panel
painting in the pulpit of St. Martin's, in the ornamenta-
tion of which Mr. Ford Madox Brown and others were
coadjutors. Eossetti's two panels are on the subject
of the Annunciation y and are painted by himself and
not simply after his designs. They are placed one above
the other, and in the lower the Virgin, clad in a white
dress almost hidden by a blue cloak, is sitting as if rapt in
meditation ; and on her knee lies the open book of the
Scriptural prophecies which she has been reading. Apart
from the expression of the face there is a wonderful
expressiveness in the attitude of submission in the
stretched open hands, and it would be evident even if
not pictorially made manifest, that she has heard and
accepted meekly the angelic revelation : the two panels
being made one by the trellis-work, composed in part of
red and white roses and lilies, extending from the back-
ground of the lower. From the upper panel the
Annunciation angel is looking down, ornamented with
brilliant peacock wings.

About six years later (1867) Eossetti executed his
last composition of this class — the design for the
memorial window to his aunt, Miss Maria Margaret
Polidori, now in Christ Church, Albany Street; the
second, I think, on the right-hand side after entering.
It is in three small divisions, each a square surrounded
by small square panes of white glass, with each a con-
ventional rose in sepia thereon : in the central division
Christ (the subject being The Sermon on the Mount),

178 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

clothed in a red robe and standing on the green grass,
is teaching, while grouped beside him are male and
female figures, amongst the latter one evidently being
St. Peter. In the right division is represented an
angel in the sky, leading a crowd of halt and maim to
the Saviour, and in the left there is a similar angel guid-
ing another number of hale young men and women, some
with infants, to the central figure : the colouring through-
out being rich and harmonious, and the drawing good.
In 1862 Eossetti completed the two designs for his
sister's Goblin Market, and other Foems, which have been
already described ; the original sketches and drawings of
these, as well as those of 1866, belong to Mr. Charles A.
Howell ; another interesting sketch at this time being
the fine pencil portrait of his friend of long standing.
Miss Alice Boyd of Penkill Castle, in Ayrshire, where
it will be remembered he spent part of the autumns of
1868 and 1869. In addition to the important Faolo
and FraTicesca dtawing, and a portrait in oil of Mrs.
Leathart, he also painted in this year four or five water-
colours, and one small oil. The most interesting of
these is the Frin-cess Sabra, for its interest depends not
alone upon its subject and execution, but also on the
fact that it was the last thing he ever painted, with
his wife as a living model ; her final sitting to him for
the purpose taking place but a few days before her
death. It is the same drawing as sometimes referred
to under the title of St. George and the Dragon, and
exemplifies one of those legendary tales which Eossetti
so delighted in. The far-famed knight and the Prin-
cess Sabra are in a room looking out into a thronged
square where lusty heralds are trumpeting forth their
messages to the attentive crowds, from whose midst is

III. " THE PRINCESS SABRA^' ETC. 179

reared a huge platform on which is borne the vast and
hideous bulk of the slain dragon. The hero himself
is unhelmeted but otherwise fresh from his deadly
encounter, and he stands with eyes still watchful of the
whilome curse of the land as he washes his blood-
stained hands. His face is of a fine manly type, and is
none the less thoroughly human because of the nimbus
around it wherein is written "St. George." Kneeling before
him, the Princess holds for him his long steel-crested
and heavy helmet, in whose capacious hollow the water
is contained with which he bathes away the bloody stains
of the conflict, kissing his hands awhile as she looks with
pathetic and loving eyes upon his somewhat weary and
anxious face. She is crowned, and over her rich green
robe the heavy luxuriant hair sweeps to the floor.
The composition is altogether a fine one, though
decidedly more fitting for its water-colour stage than
for replication in a large oil painting, which the
artist indeed never attempted, though some years later
(in 1868) he completed a somewhat enlarged and
altered water-colour replica, if the word may be thus
used, which is now in the possession of Mr. Frederick
Craven ; and it is this latter, and not the original
belonging to Miss Heaton, that was exhibited during
the past summer in the Loan Exhibition at the Eoyal
Institution of Manchester.

As the Princess Sabra was the last thing he painted
before his wife's death, so a small but richly-toned
water-colour, known simply as Girl at a Lattice, was
the first he executed thereafter. It was while staying
with Mr. Madox Brown that he was attracted one day
by the healthy face of a sunburnt country girl looking
out of a window with a framework of green leaves, so

180 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

that lie once more took up the brush and wrought this
healthy and pleasant little picture. Early in this
chapter the design for the Tennyson quarto called
Mariana was described, and there is not much more
to be said for Mr. Eae's beautiful little water-colour
replica of the same, done in 1862, except that it is
much the more effective of the two : indeed it is
perhaps the most beautifully toned of all the early
water-colours, and one that the artist set great store
by himself The same gentleman has also an inter-
esting head in oil belonging to this year. Beth-
lehem Gate is remarkable for some very fine colour-
ing and some very ineffective drawing. It is in water-
colour, and is full of a subdued light, replete with
indefinite charm as the "gloom and glory" of a
windowed cathedral aisle. The Virgin, dressed in a
dark-brown robe with over it a long dark-blue mantle,
escapes from the scene of the massacre with her child
in her arms, with Joseph following beside her with
clasped hands and anxious face, while in front flies
the dove, conspicuous in its aureole. Mary is led by
an angel, clad in green and with scarlet wings, while
a similar angel, of whom only the head and one arm
are seen, guards the refugees behind, beyond whom
again is the Gateway thronged with a confused medley
of soldiers, swords, and murdered children. Beyond
the walls a dark neighbouring hill rises sheer up, and
above it a troubled darkness where the night is passing
away and overhead the rose and yellow preluding the
dawn ; I^ature here becoming the glass wherein the
future of humanity is mirrored. The drawback to
this otherwise fine and impressive picture is the pain-
fully drawn child, who looks more like some fat Esqui-

III. THE TRIPTYCH ''PAOLO &- FRANCESCA:' 181

maux baby than an Eastern Jewish, much less an
ideal infant.

In addition to these drawings and designs, it was
in 1862 also that Eossetti painted one of his master-
pieces in colour, the comparatively speaking well-
known Paolo arid Francesca. The original is still in
the possession of Mr. Leathart, and a replica differing
considerably in colour and never retouched belongs to
Mr. George" Eae, while the first pencil study is, or was,
owned by Mr. Euskin. It is in three compartments,
the central of which represents Dante and his guide
Virgil passing in hell the lovers whom the former has
immortalised ; and as the Florentine gazes with pity-
ing eyes he draws up almost to his mouth his robe, as
though shrinking from so pitiable a sight, while over
his and Virgil's head, in the upper part of the design,
is the simple exclamation " 0 Lasso!" In the left
compartment the lovers are seen in a close embrace,
but blown like leaves before a gale, and as they drift
past in an air filled with red flames like fiery hearts
they turn their woe-begone faces to him who thus
sorrows for their fate, faces white with the anguish
that is not of a day or a year, but of all days and all
years for ever; but still they cling to one another,
their very garments seeming as one, and neither the
fiery rain of those desolate and cruel regions nor
memory of the past nor hope for the future can make
one separate from the other. They are as one love,
passing through flames of division but indivisible. In
the right compartment is represented the scene whose
fateful termination was so sad, for here Paolo and
Francesca come upon the passage wherein a love-chord
awaits their touching, — the line is read, the volume

182 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

{G-aleotto fu il lihro e chi lo scrisse !) is allowed to fall
from their hands, the look is given which can never
be recalled or forgotten, the long passionate kiss that
can never be cancelled lives on the lips of both, and
close at hand is the unseen treacherous dagger that
shall enable them to love each other for ever, but in
hell. N'ot only is the colour throughout this triform
design in thorough harmony, and the whole technique
such as any artist might be glad to include amongst
the productions of his best period, but the insight also,
the sympathetic depth and earnestness of treatment,
the artistic fervour throughout are in a high degree
remarkable. It is greatly to be wished and hoped
that such work as this should be well exhibited, and
if possible secured for institutions or museums where
art students pursue their studies ; the example of such
compositions, in every sense harmonious, colour, draw-
ing, finish, motif, and artistic insight, could not fail to
be seed that would produce probably a limited but
certainly a rich harvest.

When referring to compositions by Eossetti of
1849 and 1850 I mentioned Mr, Eae's having the
first study in ink of the picture called Dante and
Beatrice. This composition is in oil, and was com-
menced and perhaps finished about 1859, and though
it is not so full of sustained power or so impressive as
the Paolo and Francesca triptych, it is yet an important
composition. It is in two compartments, the left of
which has been twice, and perhaps oftener, reproduced
as a small water-colour, while the right is familiar in
subject though not in detail to those acquainted with
one of the later and finest Dante pictures. The latter
represents a street or piazza in Florence with Beatrice

in. THE ''BE ATA BEATRIX:' 183

descending as Dante himself ascends the stone steps,
and she is giving him that salutation which, he him-
self has told us, made him as though about to faint ;
while in the right compartment the scene is in para-
dise with Beatrice, accompanied by two others, meeting
her laurelled lover, and gazing at him with an intense
spiritual longing, while his face seems too solemn for
joy, too full of patient reverence for aught save silent
expectation. This portion was described, under the
title " Guardami ben : ben son, ben son Beatrice," as
belonging to the year 1852, and mention was also
made of a more finished and softer- coloured replica
painted in 1864 belonging to Mr. Graham.

By the summer of 1863 Eossetti had painted one
of the most beautiful of his pictures, the lovely Beata
Beatrix, now in the possession of Lord Mount-Temple.
He stated once that no picture ever cost him so much
pain in painting, and at the same time he was conscious
of never having been more master of his art ; and the
first of these expressions will be understood when it is
explained that Beatrice is a direct portrait of his wife,
and the first time her face had been painted by him
since her death; the portraiture being partly from
memory, partly from various earlier drawings, and
partly from the chalk study for the picture already re-
ferred to. The Beata Beatrix is frequently spoken of
and referred to as The Dying Beatrice, and even as The
Bead Beatrice, but both titles are misnomers, she being
only in a trance symbolical of death ; but the follow-
ing letter from the artist himself will at once settle the
question of title and adequately explain the subject : —

" The picture {Beata Beatrix) illustrates the Vita Nuovaj
embodying symbolically the death of Beatrice as treated in that

184 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

work. The picture is not intended at all to represent death,
but to render it under the semblance of a trance, in which
Beatrice, seated at a balcony overlooking the city, is suddenly
rapt from earth to heaven.

"You -wdll remember how Dante dwells on the desolation
of the city in connection with the incident of her death, and for
this reason I have introduced it as my background, and made
the figures of Dante and Love passing through the street, and
gazing ominously on one another, conscious of the event ; while
the bird, a messenger of death, drops the poppy between the
hands of Beatrice. She, through her shut lids, is conscious of
a new world, as expressed in the last words of the Vita Nuova —
Quella beata Beatrice che gloriosamente mira nella fascia die
colui qui est per omnia soecula henedictus"^

The figure of Beatrice is life-size and about two-
thirds is represented on the canvas, where she sits with
lovely rapt face and. clasped hands, and closed eyes, as
if inly gazing upon quiescent death, or upon approach-
ing sleep leading with him some rare unearthly and
too beautiful dream : in reality, she is in the trance
spoken of in the foregoing letter, and in the spirit has
already entered upon the new life. About her auburn
hair an indescribably soft radiance of light plays, not
definite enough to be called an aureole and yet almost
such ; and a crimson bird with outspread wings, a dove
heavenly coloured, poises in downward flight just above
her knee, bearing to her a large white poppy emblem-
atical of the sleep of death. She is clothed in a soft
green bodice exquisitely harmonising with the faint
purple of her sleeves and paler dress. Behind, in the
right of the picture, is a figure, also softly aureoled,
clothed in crimson or flame-colour, this being Love ;
beside whom is Dante in a stooping posture, as though

^ * * That UessSd Beatrice who now gazeth continually on His counte-
nance 'who is blessed throughout all ages.^"

III. THE ''BEATA Beatrix:' i85

bending forward in eager contemplation ; while in front
of Beatrice is a dial, whereon the sun-guided shadow
registers the hour wherein ere long she shall be called
to " be glorious under the banner of the blessed Queen
Mary," the day of June 1290 having the mystic, and
in Dante's mind sympathetic, number nine. The exr
quisite harmony and softness, grace and loveliness, of
this painting entitle it to rank amongst the artist's
masterpieces, and to take a high place amongst the
great works of art by which England has been enriched
during the last hundred years. If all else by Dante
Rossetti were to perish, and two such works, say, as the
Dante's Dream, now at Liverpool, and the Beata Beatrix
were alone to reward the search of some great art-critic
of the future, there can be little doubt but that these
would be sufficient in themselves to establish a great
reputation, a reputation second, perhaps, to no English
artist of the poetic school — such as would be the case
with Michelangelo or with Eaffaelle if nothing but the
Sibyls of the Sistine survived or if the Madonna di San
Sisto was all of the Urbinate's that remained to us.

In this instance, as in many others, the frame itself
was designed by the artist, and adds greatly to the
general eifect. On the underside, in addition to the
date 9th June 1290, it has the words Quomodo sedet
sola civitas, the first words of that lamentation from
Jeremiah which Dante used when after the death
of Beatrice "the whole city came to be as it were
widowed and despoiled of all dignity:" Quomodo sedet
sola civitas plena populo ! facta est quasi vidua domiiia
gentium ! " Hmv doth the city sit solitary, that ivas full
of people I how . is she become as a widow, she that was
great among the nations /"

186 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

More than once Eossetti had heen asked to paint a
replica of this picture, but for long he invariably refused,
those intimate with him knowing that it was because of
the painful memories it recalled, the idea that when he
was painting Beatrice in her death-like trance he was
also painting again his dead wife ; but some nine years
after this date he voluntarily offered to paint for his
friend Mr. Graham the long-desired replica, the latter
having done Eossetti a considerable service which he
thought it fitting to thus acknowledge and repay. This
duplicated picture bears date 1872, and differs from
Lord Mount-Temple's in having a predella, the subject
of which is the meeting of Dante and Beatrice in para-
dise, with damsels playing lutes and citherns, and
behind Beatrice herself eight crimson birds hovering
in soft winged flight. On the lower part of the frame
are the words and date —

Mort:Die31. Anno 1300.
Veni, Sponsa, De Libano.

A fine composition certainly, but not equalling the
original, lacking its depth and glow and soft chastened
light, and showing traces of laborious working out not to
be found in the earlier picture. It is, nevertheless, a fine
and noble painting, only inferior to the artist's highest
when seen immediately after the picture of 1863.

About midway in the same year a small oil paint-
ing called Aurelia was finished, which, painted from
the same model, might pass as an indefinite prelude to
Lilith, begun a year or so later, probably late in 1864
or early in 1865. That is, as it now appears, for
Aurelia was almost repainted and greatly improved in
1873; originally, no resemblance of the kind mentioned

III. STUDIES FOR " THE BL UE BO WER^' ETC. 187

would have been observable, the picture then being an
oil replica of the Fazio's Mistress drawing already de-
scribed. It was at the date of repainting and altera-
tion that Eossetti changed its title to Aurelia, on what
ground I am not at present aware. It is one of the
extremely limited instances wherein he improved a
picture by alteration.

A careful replica of the Lucrezia Borgia drawing of
1851 is dated 1863, and was one of the exhibited
pictures in the Manchester Eoyal Institution Exhibi-
tion : and Mr. S. Wreford-Paddow has a highly-finished
Head of a Girl in pencil on Whatman paper, about
three-quarter small Venetian life-size; this drawing
being the first executed for The Blue Bower, begun or
finished the following year. It is complete, however,
in itself, and is one of the most successful drawings
from a well-known model of the artist's, — not a friend
but a model. Late in the autumn was drawn the
first study for the splendid Venus Verticordia, which,
though altered and in some ways greatly improved
in the water-colour and oil pictures, is in the chalk
one of the finest crayon compositions the artist ever
achieved, the combined delicacy and strength, light
and depth, being little short of marvellous. In this
drawing Venus leans upon a bar, or perhaps the
upper part of a balustrade, and looks straight forward
with significant eyes ; and while the apple and the
dart are here, neither the butterflies nor the foliage
that add such charm to the complete work are intro-
duced. The face differs also, not so much in feature
as in significance ; and while it lacks a certain spiritu-
ality manifest in the painting, it more resembles the
ideal Venus Verticordia, being of a more fleshly type.

188 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap. hi.

Also at tliis time, by-the-bye, a replica was made of the
Bt. George and the Dragon drawing, some pages back
described under its usual title Priiicess Sabra.

The years 1864-5 were the last in which Eossetti
painted from choice much in water-colour, after this
date most of his large pictures being commissioned
before painting or when half finished, and so leaving
him little leisure for minor work.

CHAPTEK 111.— Continued.

DESIGNS FOR PICTURES: CRAYONS: PAINTINGS.

In 1864 three important oils were finished or partly
completed, but I will mention the water-colours first.
Chief amongst these is the large and fine picture belong-
ing to Miss Heaton, called Joan D'Are, a picture that
has subsequently been painted twice and perhaps thrice,
and, in at least the last instance, in oil. The saviour
of France is clothed in armour of which only the mailed
arms are visible, over it being a mantle worked in
gold, with large lily-like flowers, red-hearted and out-
lined, patterned thereon. Her powerful and strongly
marked face, with the visionary gray eyes, is thrown
back, and the dark-brown wavy hair sweeps down
over her shoulders ; while with firm mascuKne hands
she clasps the heavy hilt of the backward-slanted
sword, kissing it as she vows her vow of deliverance.
Behind, signifying France I presume, are four tall
white lilies which stand out in pleasant relief against
the dark hair and the metallic sheen of the sword and
armour. It is a picture much admired by all who
have seen it, and though not perhaps so characteristic
of Eossetti it is one he thought weU of himself, and
which he was less unwilling to duplicate than was
generally the case, despite the many replicas he
painted in all. Another drawing of this date was the

190 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

small water-colour already referred to as having been
exhibited in Glasgow in 1879, entitled S'pring, and
representing a girl cutting blossoms from a tree ; and
also at this period was finished the replica in colour
of the strange design called How Tluy Met Theiiiselves,
already described ; as also the water-colour Guardami
hen, etc., mentioned under date 1852 as forming
portion of the Dante and Beatrice picture. Two
other water-colours and one pencil sketch make up
the drawings of which I have record, executed in this
year, the latter being a portrait of Miss Heaton
(London) ; one of the former being another Hamlet
subject. It is entitled The First Madness of Ophelia,
and the representation is that of Horatio leading
Ophelia away, while the king and queen look on ;
Horatio is dressed in a red mantle over purple, and
the unfortunate Ophelia in a dress of deep blue,
with her hair crowned with flowers. The queen is
dressed in green. This is an interesting drawing, but
by no means equal to the " Hamlet and Ophelia " of
1855. The other of the two water-colours is accom-
panied by the lengthy title. How Sir Galahad, Sir
Bors, and Sir Percival were fed vnth the Sancgrael ;
hut Sir PercivaVs sister died hy the way. On the
right is painted the altar, and in front of it the
Damsel of the Sancgrael giving the cup to Sir Galahad,
who stoops forward to take it over the dead body of
Sir Percival's sister who lies calm and rigid in her
green robe and red mantle, and near whose feet grows
from the ground an aureoled lily ; while with his left
hand the saintly knight leads forward his two com-
panions, him who has lost his sister, and the good Sir
Bors. Behind the white-robed damsel at the altar a

III. ''THE LOVING cup:' 191

dove, bearing the sacred casket, poises on outspread
pinions ; and immediately beyond the fence enclosing
the sacred space stands a row of nimbus'd angels
clothed in white and with crossed scarlet or flame-
coloured wings. Interesting as this drawing is, it
almost seems discrepant at the same period when the
artist was painting such pictures as Lilitli (just begun)
and The Blue Bower and even The Loving Cup, not
so much because of subject but owing to the much
cruder execution. Of the Loving Cup I have also seen
a water-colour drawing, but whether it was the first
study in colour for the oil or whether it was a small
replica I cannot say for certain, though strongly in-
clined to consider the former the more probable.

The painting is not a large one, that is to say, not
large compared to the generality of Eossetti's pictures.
It is mainly composed of one figure, that of a fair
healthy girlish lady, holding in her right hand the
golden Loving Cup, and in her left its cover ; while
behind, against a background of diaper, is a row of
bronze plates, beneath which some sprays of green
tree ivy trail crosswise along the wall of the corridor
or court in which she stands. Fixed behind her head,
with its lovely soft brown hair, and twisted below her
neck, falling thence adown her right shoulder, is a delicate
green veil ; round the white throat is a coral necklace
of large square beads, with strings of silvery seed-
pearls lower down over her dress ; and from long
sleeves of white lawn the fair arms and hands emerge,
contrasting with the subdued gold of the carven cup.
The deep blue eyes and the beautiful face are the
crowning charm to a very charming picture, and one
cannot help envying the fortunate cavalier for whom

192 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

the cup is ready and possibly some greeting that will
fill his eyes with the same soft light that is in hers.
A replica of this painting exists dated 1867, and is in
the ownership of Mr. F. Leyland ; indeed it is this
replica I have just described, not having seen, so far as
I can remember, the picture of 1864, though I under-
stand Mr. Leyland's is the finer every way, and there
is also a water-colour replica of this date in the col-
lection of Mr. A. S. Stevenson of Tynemouth.

The Blue Bower is not only one of Eossetti's most
fascinating pictures, but it is one of his masterpieces in
technique, ranking in exquisite and harmonious colour
effects with such consummate compositions as La Bella
Mano or Veronica Veronese. Colour here becomes
almost sweet sound such as the lady is listening to
from the touched strings of her dulcimer, colours deep
and lustrous and rich as any Venetian pigment ever
used, and blended harmoniously, as blue foam-crested
waves with green hearts blend and melt into each
other. The name is a mere designation, signifying
nothing beyond the fact of the scene represented, being
a lady's bower with the w^alls inlaid with flawless blue
tiles, the colour being perpetuated and intensified in
the absolute blue of the cornflowers that lie in front
of the black dulcimer she is playing, from which is
pendent a crimson tassel, and in the turquoises in her
hair and the depth of her lustrous eyes. In the
centre of the picture is a table whereon beside the azure
cornflowers a dulcimer is laid, and leaning thereover is
a beautiful woman clad in a robe of superb sea-green,
black bordered and lined with soft white fur, this
latter falling in thick folds over her bosom but leaving
the full throat bare in its own beauty, while falling

III. " THE BLUE BO WERJ' 193

over the side of her face and adown her shoulders are
great masses of luxuriant golden brown hair, portions
of the latter being kept back from the listening and
charmed ear by a golden pin where a deep carbuncle
or ruby is encircled by turquoises of such pale delicate
blue as hills take on seen across water on a summer
day. With her right hand she touches chord after
chord into sweet repeated and allied music, and she
seems herself to vibrate and thrill with every note
that rises circling through the blue bower or seems to
swim dreamily just above the wild convolvulus whose
large flowers mingle alongside of her with the trailing
dark-green foliage of purple passion-flowers; for her
lips are parted as though an accordant sound were
about to issue therefrom, or as though the breath, held
in for delight, were issuing softly, and her dreamy
eyes are half closed as though the soul were lulled by
some indefinite ecstasy. The lady of the bower has
nothing of "conventual loveliness," she is sensuous
with all the exquisite sensuousness of a creation by
Titian or Giorgione; she is beautiful with the irre-
sistible fascination of supreme bodily loveliness ; en-
trancing as a Lilith with the dominant loveliness of
Venus Verticordia, she has an additional charm, that of
the inevitable refinement of music, — and though she
were as lovingly cruel and remorseless as the Idalian
and as wily as she whose beauty transcended Eve's,
the fact of being in such absolute accordance with
exquisite sound would enhance her with a Siren charm
that would appeal to whomsoever looked upon her
loveliness. She is sensuous but not sensual, a perfect
physical woman yet not merely a woman ; yet even if
no soul animated the fair body she would be beautiful,

o

194 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

and therefore no more have been created in vain,
whether on canvas by the artist or in life by nature,
than the peacock who flashes his sunlit body amongst
his fellows amid eastern forests, or the rose or lily that
buds and blooms and passes away under English skies.

In the autumn of this year was commenced the
large oil called Lilith, just referred to ; but as it was
not completely finished till early in 1868, it will be
described under the latter date. Also early in 1865
was carried on in earnest what had been commissioned
some few years previously, namely, a picture considered
by some as one of his supreme works, the splendidly-
coloured The Beloved, or as it is sometimes called. The
Bride; and in the same year was finished the first
^Fenus Verticordia, commissioned some years previously
and proceeded with to a great extent in Paris, but not
finished till this date. It was again painted upon and
greatly improved in 1873. The latter, though more
interesting from being the original, is neither so large
nor so fine in technique as the oil of 1868 belonging
to Mr. Graham ; and as, with the exception of a some-
what different type of face, the other differences are
negative, it will be better to describe both together
farther on.

The motif of The Beloved is in some words from the
Song of Solomon, " My beloved is mine, and I am his ;
let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth ; for thy
love is better than wine ; " and the picture represents
a beautiful woman, with one of the loveliest, and at
the same time 'unmannered, faces that Eossetti has
painted. The prince or lord whom she is about to
wed is unseen, indeed nothing is visible save the group
around the bride, the figures in the foreground being

III. " THE beloved;' or " THE BRIDES' 195

only little more than two -thirds painted; but the
expressions tell their own tales, and where aU the faces
are such as would easily find bridegrooms, it is wonder-
ful that the beauty of the "Beloved" should so far
transcend each. She is robed in a dress of grass-
green, richly flowered in blue and red and gold, and
with her white hands and raised arms she lifts with
lingering grace a silky blue -green and white veil
from her face, that its beauty may be made visible at
last to the approaching bridegroom ; while, in strong
relief to the soft creamy whiteness of her skin, her
head is crowned by two aigrettes composed of large
pearls and brilliant scarlet corals and set so delicately
that with every motion of the white neck and flower-
like face, they tremble and vibrate like acacia sprays
in a low wind. The four attendant ladies are diversely
clad, but all so as to at once harmonise with and
enliance the effect of the central figure, and in their
expressions one may read with tolerable certainty how
each regards the future lord of the bride whom they
lead forth in all the pride and glory of her beauty :
one of them on the right holding a large and scented
japonica, and one on the left a bronze-yellow tiger-
lily. Above them are the odorous blossoms and foliage
of a spreading orange-tree, and in the foreground of
the picture, serving as an admirable foil to the bride,
is a swarthy and stalwart young negress, whose dusky
skin shines with a bronze-hued lustre as the glow of
the Eastern atmosphere lightens it up. She holds in
her hands a gold vase full of pink and yellow roses,
which are but intensified hues of the complexions of
the bride and her hand-maidens, while on her swart
breast lies a heavy gold ornament, set with rubies or

196 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

carbuncles, and round her head a golden band studded
with blue turquoises. To many this picture will
strongly appeal to whom Eossetti's more characteristic
type of female face has not the attraction it has for
others ; and splendid, certainly, as are such faces as
those of Beatrice, Proserpina, The Blessed Damozel,
and Astarte Syriaca, it must yet be confessed that
though that of the Beloved lacks their mystic signifi-
cance and spiritual force, it is nevertheless more
fascinating from a purely human point of view ; and
after all, when it is a bride that is in question, there
is surely none who would hesitate between the central
figure of this painting and such a queenlier but more
unmortal love than Venus Astarte. It is not reflec-
tion, or regret, or sorrow, or nameless trouble, or the
mingled pain and pleasure of indefinite yearning that
is seen on any face here, but healthy nature, joy in the
pride of life, happiness ever near, and anticipation ever
beforehand. Eossetti fully recognised this himself,
and I remember his telling me that, though he did not
necessarily rank it the highest, he considered he had
never surpassed it for downright loveliness ; and though
it is true he thought the type which is now so well-
known and easily recognisable the most spiritually
beautiful he was quite aware that departures there-
from, as in the " Beloved " and the forceful and impress-
ive Sibylla Palmifera, were occasionally not only fitter,
but every way finer under the circumstances. In a
sense, indeed, he became almost a slave to one tjrpe ;
but his invariable defence of this was that it was to
him an ideal face, or at any rate the highest in all
qualities that appealed to him which he had ever seen,
and that, therefore, not being a portrait painter, he could

III. '' IL RAMOSCELLOr 197

not do better than accept it as his prevailing model.
This is in great part true, but none the less there is a
residuum of mistake which will be evident to any one
seeing many of his pictures together; turning, for
instance, from the Astarte Syriaca to the Mnemosyne,
the impressiveness of whichever is last looked at must
in great measure be lost upon the spectator, when an
almost identic face and neck and thick-clustering hair
are visible; while either seen separately would be
strongly impressive.

Besides some chalk studies and some four or five
water-colours, there was also painted in 1865 a small
but most beautiful oil called // Ramoscello, which is a
half-length and less than half life-size figure of just such
another lady as her of the Loving Cwp or the Christmas
Carol, only more lovely than either, the delicate bloom
on her face being peach-like in its softness and rarity.
She is dressed in a kind of slate-green, holding in her
hand an acorn branch ; her brown hair is such as we
often see in England, and her blue eyes are not filled
with strange dreams but with undefiled happiness in
life for life's sake. Some time subsequently to its
purchase Eossetti requested it again on loan for a
short period, but the owner being in the studio one
day perceived that the former was repainting it for
some reason, greatly altering the type of face and the
whole tone of the picture ; fortunately he was able to
get it away either at once or very shortly, and as soon
as it was in his possession again he had the fresh and
still wet material carefully removed, so successfully
that the picture as it now hangs shows no signs of its
temporary transformation. Of the five water-colours one
is the Hesterna jRosa or Elena's Song, regarding which

198 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

some explanatory words of tlie artist have been already
quoted when describing the original pen-and-ink design.
In common with this drawing two others of the same
date belong to Mr. F. Craven, one called Aurora and the
©ther Washing Hands ; concerning the Washing Hands
the following notes by the artist will be of interest :
" This drawing is called Washing Hands, and represents
the last stage of an unlucky love affair. The lady has
gone behind the screen (in the dining-room perhaps)
to wash her hands ; and the gentleman, her lover, has
followed her there, and has still something to say, but
she has made up her mind. We may suppose that
others are present, and that this is his only chance of
speaking. I mean it to represent that state of a
courtship when both of the parties have come to view
in reality that it will never do, but when the lady is
generally, I think, the first to have the strength to act
on such knowledge. It is all over, in my picture, and
she is washing her hands of it." The Merciless Lady
is an interesting water-colour, consisting in colour
chiefly of strong blues and greens, and somewhat
recalling La Belle Dame sans Mercy already spoken
of; but the remaining water-colour of 1865 is a
much finer one, painted in the same soft suffused
undertones as Bethlehem Gate and Francesca da Eimini.
It is styled Fight for a Woman, and the representation
is that of a forest at twilight or early moonrise with
two armed men in a life -and -death struggle, both
evidently lovers of the lady standing near them with
clasped hands and anxious face. The subdued colour-
ing adds greatly to the effectiveness of the motif as
well as being delightful to the eye in itself.

In 1 8 6 6 Eossetti painted on commission the Hamlet

III. ''HAMLET AND OPHELIA'' {WAT. COL.) 199

and Ophelia, one of his most beautiful water-colours and
the original of which in ink has already been described
under date 1855. Besides the additional interest of
colour there are some material differences of arrange-
ment, so much so that the two designs may be con-
sidered different versions of the same subject, but these
differences I will not now specially point out, as they
will be observable at once on comparison with the
antecedent description. The Prince of Denmark and
his betrothed are standing in a gallery, on the right
Hamlet clothed in a black robe and with rich auburn
hair, and on the left Ophelia in a dress of bluish-green
with red sleeves, and with a veil covering the upper
portion of the soft fair hair that suits the pathetic
face. Before her is an ivory casket containing the
things she is returning to Hamlet, and a bundle of
letters wrapped round with green silk, while the
Prince holds her right hand with both his own close
to his lips, Ophelia's left hand resting on an open
book. At the back is an opening through which trees
are seen, and tapestry with dim figures and ships
worked on it. Hamlet rests against a dark -green
column with a red capital from which an arch springs,
and there is a similar column on Ophelia's left side ;
the arch between the two columns being indicated by
the curve of the stones immediately above the capitals.
On the lower part of the frame the artist painted the
words : What should such fellovjs as I do crawling
between earth and heaven ? The drawing is about 1 5
inches by 10 or 10^, and the colour is wonderfully
rich and luminous, so much so that it is frequently
taken by those who see it for the first time to be an
oil painting. Contemporaneously, the two wood engrav-

200 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

ings for The Prince's Progress were finished, also one
or two chalk drawings of heads, and in the latter
part of the year (September) an exceedingly interest-
ing crayon portrait of the artist's sister, Christina,
sitting at a small reading -table, with book outspread
before her, and leaning on her elbows with her chin
supported on crossed hands. This drawing could
easily be engraved, and would doubtless be welcome
to many amongst the large number to whom the
name of Christina Eossetti is amongst the best known
of contemporary writers. To this year also belong
two very fine oils, one being especially notable, viz.
the Sibylla Palmifera and Monna Vanna. One or
two pages back I spoke of the face of the bride in
TTie Beloved as one of the most beautiful he had
painted, but that of Monna Vanna will probably be
considered its superior by those who prefer the Eosset-
tian ideal type (though by no means here too mannered,
or even mannered at all in the fair sense of the term),
and certainly as not far short by those opposed thereto.
The motif of the picture might be defined "Beauty,
as manifested in refined and exquisite feminine loveli-
ness." The lady Vanna (" Monna " being but a con-
traction for " Madonna ") sits looking right out from
the canvas, dressed in a robe of white and gold with
green rosettes, with, by her side, a large carefully-
painted feather fan. Eound her neck falls a long
interlaced coral necklace and in her fair soft hair are
pearl ornaments, while pendent over her bosom is a
beautiful transparent crystal through which, like a waif
of morning cloud, the soft cream-white skin can just
be discerned ; the green key, that is manifest through-
out, being struck again in the large emerald or green-

III. ''SIBYLLA PALMIFERA:' 201

stone in the ring of her right hand. The background
is green, with a green glass vase containing flowers.
Painted in 1866, it was purchased from the easel by
the late Mr. William Blackmore, from whom, in 1869,
it was repurchased by Mr. George Eae, and finally
was again almost repainted by the artist in 1873 ; the
latter considering it the best representation of his ideal
of physical loveliness, as in Sibylla Palmifera he ex-
pressed his ideal of intellectual beauty. Indeed the
name of the latter has a double significance, not only
being his highest conception of beauty, but also being,
in his own judgment, his finest work at the time of
execution.^ In his own words, " She bore the palm
amongst all his other works."

Sibylla Palmifera is one of these splendid pictures
one feels at once the artist has put himself into, as well
as all his artistic powers. It is "that Lady Beauty,
in whose praise " Eossetti's hand and voice were never
tired, and his vision of her is thus —

" Under the arch of Life, where Love and Death,
Terror and Mystery, guard her shrine, I saw
Beauty enthroned."

The palm-bearing Sibyl sits in a kind of stone alcove
forming the arch of Life, above her head on the right
being a sculptured cupid, with blinded eyes and
wreathed with a crown of fresh roses ; on the left, a
carven stone skull, wreathed also but with symboKcal
poppies, heavy and richly red. Her oval face, with

1 Commissioned in 1864, the Sibylla Palmifera was mainly painted
in 1866-7, though it did not leave the studio till 1870. As it is his
finest representation of intellectual beauty, and the Monna Vanna
of physical, so may the head of Mary Magdalene be said to be an ideal
of spiritual loveliness.

202 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

its steadfast inlooking eyes, looks full from the picture,
and lier long soft brown hair is drawn back, leaving
the clear forehead uncovered, but droops again with
the grace of vine tendrils down over the right shoulder.
She is clad in a deep lake-red robe, with white lawn
undersleeves, and a dark green veil round the back of
her head and below the neck, and trailing over the left
shoulder, and in her right hand she holds the palm
branch. Behind her is a round brazen vessel with
incense burning, and two butterflies (one golden yellow
and one reddish in hue) hovering above, and on her
right stands a curious antique lamp palely flaming.
But above any beauty of harmonious cxDlouring, tran-
scending any recognition of the thorough technique
throughout, is the impression given from the expression
of the Sibyl, so earnest, so concentrated, so superior to
the ordinary half-doubting gaze of humanity.

" Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath,

The sky and sea bend on thee, — which can draw,
By sea or sky or woman, to one law,
The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath."

It is doubtful if anything more strictly impressive ever
came from Eossetti's studio. The Beata Beatrix excels
in exquisite softness of subdued colour, the Blue Bower
lacks in equal significance, the Bride is perhaps lovelier,
Astarte Syriaca is more splendid, The Blessed Bamozel
is more marvellous in its depth and richness, Lilith
and Venus Verticordia more sensuously beautiful, but
none transcends in impressiveness the Silylla Palmi-
fera, the Proserpina alone, perhaps, equalling it in this
respect. The much-abused word " intense " is the fit-
ting epithet to apply to the expression of the faces in
these pictures. Besides a finished study in tinted

III. "/CZ/ C(EUR"—''MONNA ROSA," ETC. ' 203

crayons, there is a fine rendering in black chalk of
this noble design.

So early as 1867 Eossetti commenced the fine and
pathetic La Pia, not gone on with, or rather not com-
pleted until 1881, and his friend, Mr. L. E. Valpy,
possesses the fine first finished study in crayons be-
longing to this year or 1868 ; and also, in the same
year, was begun Mr. Leyland's Loving Cwp, already
described. In addition to these were two small oils
called Joli Co&ur and Monna Rosa. The first is a most
beautiful little work, equalling in exquisite delicacy
of painting LI Bamoscello ; and the latter represents
a lady clad in a dress of pale emerald with golden
fruit worked on it, standing and plucking a rose
from a tree planted in a blue jar and fixed in a
red earthen pot on a Japanese wooden flower-stand.
Gold and red are the keynotes of this picture, and are
perpetuated in various degrees in the twenty or more
roses on the tree, in the gold working on her dress,
the gold ornaments with which she is decked, the
golden auburn hair, the red pot in the flower -stand,
and the large peacock screen in the background, also
of a red purple. Except as a study in colour, it has
no special interest. Besides a small portrait of Mrs.
Vernon Lushington, two water-colours were also painted
at this time, one the finished study and one a replica
of Lady Lilith and the other the important drawing
entitled The Return of Tihullus to Delia, concerning
which I have been informed on good authority that an
oil replica exists.

The following year was a much more important
one, comprising as it does not only two water-colours
and some fine chalk drawings, but also Lady Lilith

204 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

and Venus Verticordia. Of the water-colours one is
called The Bose and the other is the replica referred to
when describing the Princess Sdbra drawing of 1862.
Amongst the chalks are A Stvdy (Mr. Ellis's), Lilith,
and Reverie, the first being a portrait in reddish crayons,
seated, and full face, with some roses in a glass jar behind;
the second, in a darker tone and with dark red-brown
background, seems like a study for the figure of Lilith,
in which case its date would be about the autumn of
1864, though it is, I understand, simply a chalk replica
of Lilith herself without the other surroundings of the
picture ; and the third. Reverie, is a beautiful study
for a picture, never carried out exactly, though finding
allied expression in the Day-Dream, and belongs to Mr.
Theodore Watts whose sonnet upon it is written on
the frame. A woman, young and with a beautiful
face, sits with her left arm on her knee and her face
leaning on her left hand, around her the long cool
sycamore leaves, which seem to be making a soft
rustling as she dreams through the noontide, her face
and eyes being transformed with the very spirit of
reverie. Mr. Morris possesses a magnificent replica
of this.

It will be remembered that in 1865 the first Venus
Verticordia was painted, and that reference was made
to a larger and more complete reduplication finished
three years later. This great picture and Lilith are
the two most sensuous paintings by Eossetti, the first
in its direct and imperious appeal, the second in its
subtler enticements. Yet with this it is not meant to
say that in any sense of the word they are seductive
beyond the just boundaries of art, that they are im-
moral because of unrefined representation. I am

III. MORALITY IN ART. 205

aware that the pictures are disliked by some, but
dislike may mean simply miscomprehension or wide
divergence in sympathy; but how the dislike may
mean objections on the score of morality I am wholly
at a loss to understand, except that I suppose there are
some people who would consider the nudity of Adam
and Eve shameful even before the Fall, and who would
look upon the sculptured purity of the Yenus of Milo
as mere exemplification of " harlotry " in stone. There
must always be people of this kind, and possibly their
antagonism may serve a good end. A marked instance
of the general appreciation of high art is afforded by
the way in which the magnificent and refined, though
not oi;er- refined, Ehryne at Eleusis, by Sir Frederick
Leighton, was looked at by visitors to last year's
Academy, — a comparatively small section, recognising
at once not only the hand of a master but one of the
chefs-d'osuvre of a master, a picture replete with all the
poetic insight and painter's craft that can make art-
work memorable ; a large number, perhaps the majority,
chiefly passing it by with a kind of vague curiosity
and subsequent indifference, or else hurrying on in case
they should be observed contemplating its nakedness ;
and a third section either passing with a frown and
averted eyes, or planting themselves firmly before it
with righteous countenances, determined not to be
abashed by any amount of " very objectionableness "
even by a President.

The sonnet Venus by the artist, will be remem-
bered by all who have read his poems, this sonnet
being the same as painted on the base of the frame of
the 1868 picture, the only difference between it and
the printed copy being in the last line —

206 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

" And her far seas moan as a single shell,
And through her dark grove strike the light of Troy,"

a rendering certainly not inferior, if not superior, to
the later version.

The Venus of this picture is no Aphrodite, fresh and
white and jubilant from the foam of Idalian seas, nor
is she Love incarnate or human passion ; but she is a
queen of love who loves not herself, a desire that is
unsatiable and remorseless, absolute, supreme, recking
nothing of death or sorrow, hearing and seeing sobs
and tears and supplications and after-curses, but heed-
ing none thereof, conscious of sovereignty, yet knowing
the vows and eternities of lovers to be as windblown
vanities, and the end of all dust and ashes, yet affectiag
not herself. She is the Lust of the Flesh that perisheth
not, though around her loves and lives and dreams are
evermore becoming as nought.

She is represented as a large, almost massively
made woman, and is nude to the waist, up to which
she stands amid thick-clustering honeysuckles, while
all around her are masses of roses with a luxuriance
like that of creepers and orchids in a Brazilian forest.
Her hair is of rich brown bordering upon dark auburn,
and its heavy tresses fall down her white shoulders and
past her full bosom; on her cheeks is the bloom of
absolute health, her mouth is small and beautiful, and
her eyes are of a penetrating hazel ; while from out the
hair itself there seems to radiate round the head an
aureole of fringed yellow light with pale -gold or
sulphur-coloured butterflies hovering in haunting dance
before its radiance. Behind the myriad rose-blooms is
the dark-green foliage of the mystic Venusian groves,
and across this sombre background a strange bird of

III. ''VENUS VERTICORDIA." 207

brilliant blue -green plumage wings its sudden way.
In her right hand Venus holds poised an arrow, curved
and fluent, with a pale -yellow butterfly delicately
clinging upon it midway, with wings erect and quiver-
ing, and in her left a ruddy apple with another sulphur-
hued butterfly alit on its scented rind — "Alas! the
apple for his lips, the dart that follows its brief sweet-
ness to his heart " — the left hand with the apple being
pressed against her right, while her full left breast
blooms like another flower over the rich honeysuckles
wherein she stands part shrouded. There is an ex-
quisite continuous gradation and interlapse of hue
between the silver-grays, the reddish-browns, and the
dull yellows of the honeysuckles, the ruddy apple, the
auburn tresses of Venus, her lips and eyes, the red
and pink roses, the yellow butterflies, and the dark-
green background. But, in common with the dozen
or so great paintings by Eossetti, the dominant charm
is due to the expression of the face; after the senses
are gratified with colour and form, the critical eye with
masterly workmanship, the spectator turns again to
that which is rendered with such exceptional effect,
the subtle and intensified expressiveness of the face.
The original picture differs from Mr. Graham's in the
face of Venus being more girlish and less sensuous,
and, if less forcefully significant, more humanly beau-
tiful; and in the soft light radiating from her hair
there are no butterflies hovering, while there is but one
poised upon the apple, pale sulphury yellow as before,
and almost transparent. The face is the same as that
of the chalk study specified some pages back.

"While Lady lAlith is as sensuous as Venus Verti-
cordia, it is in a different way, as differently almost as

208 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

a tigress is beautiful and a serpent is beautiful. The
one dominates the souls of men, the other wiles them
away. The Lilith legend is now fairly well known,
viz. that before the creation of Eve Adam had a
natural mate, as beautiful as the wife given him by
God, but a pure animal though gifted with immortal
womanliness ; and this imperishable being now exists
no longer as the Lilith of primal paradise but as a
beautiful woman, luring to herself many souls in every
generation of all the generations of men. This is the
form of the legend which appealed so strongly to Eos-
setti from the first, and which he subsequently per-
petuated both in verse and on canvas; but the
commoner acceptation of it is that Lilith is no witch,
mortal or immortal, but a poetic embodiment of the
principle of evil inherent in man, the animal that is
in such constant opposition to the mind, that has such
wily enticements and enchantments for the body if it
will but abjure the spirit.

It may with tolerable certainty be affirmed that
nine out of ten painters prior to Eossetti would have
represented Lilith as the legendary first wife of Adam
fUT et simple, and it shows the original and poetic bent
of his genius that he should have pictured her seated
in what might be a modern boudoir, and she herself
as a beautiful woman of this or any time, not in the
act of fascinating any son of Adam or preparing her
subtle wiles, but simply as rapt in the contemplation of
her own beauty, cognisant of her own voluptuous pas-
sions and those she can excite at will yet never carried
away by her ardours, permeated with the spirit of
insatiable desire yet alien to love, only wondering at
and never quite fathoming the secret of her being and

III. ''LADY LILITH:' 209

the depths of her influence, a perfect physical woman but
soulless as Lamia, yet animated by an immortal spirit —

"And still slie sits, young while the earth is old,
And, subtly of herself contemplative.
Draws men to watch the bright net she can weave,
Till heart and body and life are in its hold.
The rose and poppy are her flowers ; for where

Is he not found, 0 Lilith, whom shed scent
And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare 1 "

Before seeing the picture I had long known it from
description and from a photograph given me by
the artist, and even on these somewhat scanty
materials I was greatly impressed, and this im-
pression was certainly not weakened but intensified
when I at last saw the painting itself. Lilith is
seated in a luxurious boudoir, clad only in a white
underdress, leaving her bosom bare, and an ample
chamber-robe of white fur, which is heaped in snowy
folds around her, or, rather, on which she lies as if on
a snowdrift above yielding mosses ; on her knee rests
a pearl-flowered diadem strung on blue ribbon, and on
her wrist is a scarlet coral bracelet. In her left hand
she holds a small hand -mirror, pendent therefrom
being a tassel of brilliant carmine, and in this glass
she looks, " subtly of herself contemplative," regarding
there her wealth of golden hair, the low forehead, the
beautiful face with its half-closed eyes where passion
sleeps scarcely stirring, and where calm self-scrutiny
reigns, the lips curved amorously, the ivory neck rising
from the large and voluptuous bosom, the white arms,
and the hands whose caress is so cruelly fatal. At
her left side is a dark -green glass jar with a large
scarlet poppy in it, and on the oaken table or chest
where stands an antique mirror lies a pink foxglove,

P

210 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

while clustering all around her are white roses with
pink and red buds, the two dominant colours thus
being red and white, the former carried from shade
to shade in the coral bracelet, the carmine tassel, the
golden hair, the scarlet poppy, the pink and red rose-
buds, and the pink foxglove, the last with the rose
and poppy being a flower associated with Lilith ; while
in the latter there is the soft whiteness of the fur
robe, the delicate creaminess of the beautiful breast
and neck and complexion, and the white roses growing
in such profusion. In the large steel-clasped mirror
standing on the oaken chest is reflected a pleasant
glimpse of garden greenery, wherein the lights and
shades on the brown trunks and green leaves suggest
noontide and the coolness of forest spaces. Is this
reflection of outer nature meant as a hint of that
primal paradise where Adam and Lilith loved and bore

" Shapes that coiled in the woods and waters,
Glittering sons and radiant daughters " ? —

or is it intended to enforce by its suggestion of outer
life the intense self-contemplation and true spiritual
loneliness of this modern Lady Lilith — modern, yet the
same as she who dallied with Adam before the creation
of Eve, and who has ensnared ever since the souls of
those made subject to her, as she will continue to
ensnare till the end of time ? She may be a principle
of evil, she may be but the witch Lilith, immortal but
only individual, or she may be well known to man
under different names such as Cleopatra, or Lais, or
Helen. Whatever she is and howsoever she may be
known, she has in this painting had such pictorial
representation as assuredly no artist ever designed
before.

''PANDORAS 211

In 18691 can find no record of any important work
with the exception of the first chalk Pandora, indeed all
else that I have been able to record under this date is
comprised in a study in tinted crayons called Mosa
Triplex, of which four or five years later a replica was
made, and the first drawing in chalk of the fine picture
known as La Donna delta Finestra} In the chalk
study for this picture " the lady of the window "
was portraitured from Miss Graham, the daughter
of its owner, and the picture itself was completed ten
years later, in 1879, when it will be described. The
Pandora, one of Eossetti's finest creations, and several
times replicated by him in oil and chalk, was first
painted in oil about 1875 or 1876, and one of the finest
sonnets amongst his Sonnets for Pictures is that headed
Fandora. The large chalk drawing of 1 8 6 9 is executed
in a soft misty red, and though thus deprived of the
additional charm belonging to the finished oil it is per-
haps hardly less fascinating in its expressiveness, the
subject being such as Eossetti seems pre-eminently
suited for accomplishing with the utmost attainable
success. The picture consists almost entirely of the
figure of Pandora, who stands holding the mysterious
casket, on which are the significant words Ultima Manet
Spes, and from which issues a fiame-winged brood of
strange desires and passions of " ill-born things," " and
good things turned to ill," while a strange mysterious
trouble dwells upon the face of Pandora, and in her eyes,
tender as those of Venus, there is the regretful gaze

^ Since the above was written I have heard of several and seen two
or three compositions belonging to this period. Especially notable is
the beautiful portrait of Calliope Coronio (setat xii.) and the noble
Dante-portrait belonging to Mr. A. A. lonides.

212 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

of Proserpine. Eeaders of Mr. Swinburne's enthusiastic
essay upon The Poems of Dante Gahriel i^osse^^^ published
in 1870, may recollect the following passage bearing
upon both sonnet and design : — "Of the sonnets on the
writer's own pictures and designs, I think that on Pandora
to be the most perfect and exalted, as the design is
amongst his mightiest in its godlike terror and imperial
trouble of beauty, shadowed by the smoke and fiery
vapour of winged and fleshless passions, crowding from
the casket in spires of flamelit and curling cloud round
her fatal face and mourning veil of hair." {Essays and
Studies, p. 90.) As in Sibylla Palmifera and Froserpin/i,
the artist's intense power of rendering expression,
especially the expression of deep spiritual significance,
is felt to dominate what else goes to constitute its
beauty, that is to say, over and above mere artistic
recognition of its merits there is the sense of realisation
from expressive power strongly given.

Under this date I shall describe a very powerful
design for a picture which, however, may quite well
belong to an earlier but more probably to a later period,
the description being entirely given from a very fine
photograph in my possession, which, as the design was
in pencil, is remarkably truthful in every respect. I
refer to the drawing called The Death of Lady Macbeth,
first sketched in a pen-and-ink study and afterwards
highly finished in pencil, a design that if carried out
would certainly have ranked high amongst Eossetti's
historic conceptions, perhaps in its tragic significance
and accomplished presentment have equalled the great
design Cassandra. It will be remembered that the
actual death of the guilty queen takes place during the
fifth scene of the last act in Shakespeare's tragedy; but it

III. " THE DEATH OF LADY MACBETH:' 213

is not this event that is represented by Eossetti, but her
dying, as say shadowed forth at the close of Scene II.,
where Macbeth makes his often-quoted question to the
physician as to his power of ministering to a mind
diseased, and vainly asking for "some sweet obUvious
antidote " to cleanse the stuffed bosom of the perilous
stuff which weighed upon the heart of his wife. The
death, haunted by its dreadful memories and horrors,
takes place in bed, as the play decidedly means us to
infer despite Malcolm's remark on the rumour that
her life was taken by " self and violent hands." The
photographed pen-and-ink sketch I possess, though
exceedingly forcible, almost terribly so, was so much
improved on in the finished drawing that I need not
specially describe it. In the pencil drawing Lady
Macbeth is sitting up in the bed from which she is never
to rise, and from her haggard shoulders has fallen the
dishevelled nightdress; while with her left hand she rubs
feverishly and incessantly the back of her right hand, on
which she sees in fancy the blood spots of the murdered
Duncan. A physician bathes her head with water from
a basin held by a waiting- woman at the foot of the bed,
and at her left one of the Court ladies has swooned from
agitation and horror, holding in her drooping hands a
large feathered fan with a long handle ; at the foot of the
bed also kneels a friar or priest, engaged in ardent prayer,
behind whom stands a young novitiate holding a swing-
ing incense-burner, from which issues curling smoke, and
in the shadow of the heavy drawn-back curtains, on each
of which is embroidered the crown of Scotland, is the old
nurse watching eagerly the dyiQg agony and remorse of
Lady Macbeth. On a table behind the man of prayer
is an antique od-lamp with flame just about to expire,

214 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

symbolical of the passing life. In the open space left by
the drawn-back curtains the court of Dunsinane Castle
is seen with curious winding stairs reaching it from the
turreted walls, and down these stairs a motley company
passes, all catching sight of the mysterious gestures and
death-scene of her whose ambition was not checked by
the thanedoms of Glamis and Cawdor. The design
throughout is finely conceived, the urgent face of the
friar, that of the physician (not Shakespeare's "Doctor,"
however), and that of the eager old nurse, being especially
noteworthy, though it must be confessed the face of Lady
Macbeth more suggests madness than mere remorse and
the superstitious terrors of guilt, while the upright
female figure at the foot of the bed seems unnecessary,
thereby weakening the forcefulness of the composition.
The drawing as drawing is good, though again, as in
the case of the Hamlet and Ophelia, fault must be
found with the perspective of the stairways. There
is nothing that specially points to the royalty of state
in which the unfortunate woman dies, save the Scot-
tish crown woven in the texture of the curtains and
the carved crown headpieces of the bed-posts, the
rest of the room being plain to a degree remarkable
even in a Scottish castle of King Duncan's time.
There is no date on either pen-and-ink sketch or the
drawing, and in the latter only the title The Death of
Lady Macheth, written in the right lower corner ; but in
all probability the former was drawn about 1870, and
the latter early in the seventies.^

1 Since this was wi-itten I have seen the original again, and have
been assured that both were composed about 1874, and that the
finished pencil design was antecedent to the rough pen - and - ink
sketch.

III. CLASSICAL DESIGNS—'' SILENCE,'' ETC. 215

While referring to compositions whose date is un-
known to me, I may mention Circe and Diana, both
in chalk; but in the case of each I am acquainted
with no particulars save the fact of their existence.
Somewhere in the sixties was painted the magnifi-
cent Helen, which it has never been my privilege to
see, and which, therefore, I cannot describe further
than by copying Mr. Swinburne's brief reference to it
in his enthusiastic essay on the poetry of Eossetti, in
his Essays and Studies: — "Helen, with Parian face and
mouth of ardent blossom, a keen red flower-bud of fire,
framed in broad gold of widespread locks, the sweet
sharp smile of power set fast on her clear curved lips,
and far behind her the dull flame of burning towers
and light from reddened heaven on dark sails of lurid
ships."

In 1870 was executed amongst some five or six
other important chalk studies and portraits a fine chalk
drawing called /S^27e7icg, which was subsequently autotyped,
and of which proof-copies can still, I understand, be pro-
cured at the Autotype Company's Exhibition Eooms
in Oxford Street. With her right hand this figurative
Silentia slightly raises the heavy curtain which may
be considered significant of sleep, or of those places
whereinto no sound ever breaks, and above her hangs
upgathered a muffled bell. This drawing and a head
entitled Ferlascura, composed in 1878, are the only
two pictures by Eossetti that have ever been in any
public manner replicated. There is also a chalk draw-
ing of Silence, without, however, being entitled to the
name in anything save the similarity of face and figure,
as there is no background of curtain or bell, belonging
to 1870; and amongst one or two other minor crayons,

216 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

portraits, and others, a fine drawing called La Donna
della Fiamma, It is wrought in delicate tints of
reddish chalk, and is about half or two-thirds life-size ;
" la Donna " sitting with her face at a slight angle
from the spectator, while from her outstretched hand
sways upward a tongue of pure unburning flame,
wherein is fashioned a small but mature spirit or
figured dream, with clasped hands as though in suppli-
cation. It has not, as its name might possibly suggest,
any connection with the painting of 1878 called
Fianfimetta, or A Vision of Fiammetta; but if it is, as I
have been informed, the study for a more elaborate
picture, I know nothing of the latter, and can find
no corroboration of its having been even ever accom-
pKshed. Contemporaneously with Silence and La Donna
della Fiamma there was finished an important design
in black and white, belonging to Mr. Theodore Watts,
representing a girl reading a scroll, and illustrative of
a story by Mr. Watts. In the same year as these
drawings was painted the finest piece of portraiture
Eossetti ever executed, the picture, however, being
christened Mariana, not the Mariana of Tennyson's
Moated Grange, but the Mariana of Measure for
Measure. The scene, if definite enough to be specified,
is in a chamber in " the Moated Grange at St. Luke's,"
when the page sings to his mistress the lovely little
song beginning {vide Scene 1 Act iv.) —

" Take, 0, take those lips away,

That so sweetly were forsworn."

Mariana sits listening to the boy as he sings the sweet
words in a low voice to the tune lightly stricken from
his lute and has let fall some embroidery at which she

in. ''MARIANA ''—''DANTE'S DREAM." 217

has been working, partly to catch the meaning and the
strain of music and partly in reverie ; the boy looking
towards her as he leans over the soft red-covered couch
on which she rests. She is robed in a silken dress of
a deep and wonderful blue, full of the most exquisite
gradations, and in the circlet clasping her waist are
two roses, one red and one pink ; the figure is large
and luxuriously moulded, and the face beautiful, cer-
tainly not one whom Angelo would have discarded if
her "promised proportions had not come short of
composition " owing to the unfortunate wreck of the
dowry-bearing ship of her brother Frederick. The boy
will scarce have finished his repeated " sealed in vain,
sealed in vain," ere the disguised Duke will enter on
his certainly original scheme of " measure for measure,"
and Mariana bid the boy break off his song and haste
away. The gorgeous depth of blue here attained
constitutes a lasting charm in itself, and could have
been painted by no one not at least equalling the
great Venetian colourists.

It was early m this year that Eossetti commenced
his largest and by many considered his most important
picture, the magnificent Dante's Dream, the original
water-colour of which having, it will be remembered,
been painted in 1855. I need hardly again quote in
full the passage from the Vita Nuova which it illus-
trates, as though the version in Dante and his Circle
excels that descriptive of the early work, the general
tenor is of course the same. It will be recollected
that Dante in a vision is troubled with strange por-
tents leading on to the fatal goal of the death of
Beatrice, whom he sees lying in her chamber with
ladies covering her with a veil, the only relief to

218 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

his passionate sorrow being the prior vision of " a
multitude of angels who were returning upwards,
having before them an exceedingly white cloud ; and
these angels were singing together gloriously, and the
words of their song were these : ' Osanna in excelsis.' "
But to those not familiar with the Vita JSfuova, that
pathetic history of the great Florentine's love, the
following verses therefrom will prove a finer explana-
tion and introduction to the painting than any words
of mine could supply, these stanzas being the poetic
narration of what has been already told in prose : —

" I was a-thinking how life fails with us
Suddenly after such a little while ;

When Love sobb'd in my heart, which is his home.
Whereby my spirit wax'd so dolorous
That in myself I said, with sick recoil :

' Yea, to my Lady too this Death must come.*
And therewithal such a bewilderment
Possessed me, that I shut mine eyes for peace ;
And in my brain did cease

Order of thought, and every healthful thing.
Afterwards, wandering

Amid a swarm of doubts that came and went,
Some certain women's faces hurried by.
And shriek'd to me, ' Thou too shalt die, shalt die I '

" Then saw I many broken hinted sights
In the uncertain state I stepped into.

Meseemed to be I know not in what place,
Where ladies through the street, like mournful lights,
Ran with loose hair, and eyes that frighten'd you
By their own terror, and a pale amaze :
The while, little by little, as I thought,
The sun ceased, and the stars began to gather,
And each wept at the other ;

And birds dropp'd in mid-flight out of the sky ;
And earth shook suddenly ;

And I was 'ware of one, hoarse and tired out,

III. ''DANTE'S DREAMr 219

Who ask'd of me : ' Hast thou not heard it said \ . . .
Thy lady, she that was so fair, is dead.'

" Then lifting np mine eyes, as the tears came,
I saw the angels, like a rain of manna,
In a long flight flying back heavenward ;
Having a little cloud in front of them.

After the which they went and said, ' Hosanna ;'
And if they had said more, you should have heard.
Then Love said, ' Now shall all things be made clear :
Come and behold our lady where she lies.'
These 'wildering phantasies

Then carried me to see my lady dead.
Even as I there was led.

Her ladies with a veil were covering her ;
And with her was such very humbleness
That she appeared to say, ' I am at peace.' "

The first impression this great picture makes upon
the sympathetic spectator is of the extraordinary depth,
harmony, and beauty of the colour, a charm that grows
and grows with each renewed inspection, and which,
apart from every other merit of interpretive imagina-
tion and technical skill, would alone entitle its painter
to rank amongst the highest not only in England but in
any modern school in Europe. It is a great thing that
it has been secured for a public institution, for the ex-
ample of such work is needful to the rising generation
of artists in these days when, with much that is of true
worth and great importance, too much in the "slap-
dash " style is being copied from European, especially
French, cliques. The word now with many young
men in London, emulous of the cheap and ready-made
reputations gained in Paris, is that careful workman-
ship and artistic finish are signs of talent, but that
genius is best proved by slovenliness (which they call
" freedom ") and audacious parodyings of nature (which

220 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

they term " subtle but broad interpretations"); to such
an extent, indeed, has this come, that nothing more
absurd and utterly fatuous than some recent so-called
" aesthetic " productions by certain London artists it
would be impossible to surpass by the vulgarest and
silliest follies of the amateurish but pretentious young
gentlemen of Paris.

Eeturning to Dante s Bream, I may say that I have
heard more enthusiastic and disinterested praise of this
work than of any modern picture, — praise and delight
not alone in those acquainted with the painter or dis-
ciples of Eossettian and allied schools, but manifested
also by many whose art education has been amongst
the masterpieces of older art, and by one or two who
had disliked what little else they had seen by the
artist. But the following extract will be of especial
interest, being as it is a testimony from one of our chief
living artists and greatest draughtsmen. Sir Noel Paton ;
the letter from which it is taken being written to me
not long after the latter's last visit to Eossetti in July
1881:—

" I was so dumfounded by the beauty of that great picture
of Eossetti's, called Dante's Dream, that I was unable to give
any expression to the emotions it excited — emotions such as I
do not think any other picture, except the Madonna di San Sisto
at Dresden, ever stirred within me. The memory of such a
picture is like the memory of sublime and perfect music ; it
makes any one who fully feels it — silent. Fifty years hence it
will be named among the half dozen supreme pictures of the
world."

That this generous tribute was thoroughly appreciated
by the painter of Dante's Dream will be evident in the
following letter, which, though I have almost wholly

III. ''DANTE'S DREAMr 221

avoided at present making use of correspondence, either
addressed to myself or others, for reasons fairly obvious,
will be found alike interesting as proof of Eossetti's grati-
tude and as a testimony of the high and loyal regard in
which he held Sir Noel Paton. The letter reached me
during an autumn visit in Scotland, and I remember
the surprise I experienced when I saw " Cumberland "
at the head of the letter instead of " 1 6 Cheyne Walk,"
as I did not realise when I saw him in London shortly
before I left that he really contemplated a change,
a thing that had become foreign to his habits and
inclinations.

"Cumberland,
" Tuesday {September /SI).

" My dear Sharp — You see I have left London, but am rather
unsettled as to my movements, I was absolutely more gratified
and flattered than I can express by so warm and, I know, heart-
felt an expression of praise, nay, enthusiasm, from so truly great
and high-minded an artist as Sir Noel Paton. 1 trust you have
already given my love to him, — pray now couple it with my
brotherly thanks.

" I do not know whether you could prevail on yourself to
spare me so interesting a letter in the original autograph, — I
should value it most highly, and I will add that I believe such
a testimonial to the estimation of the picture in such a quarter
might greatly strengthen the confidence of the most -vigorous
and well-meaning men in Liverpool, who have accomplished its
purchase in the teeth of no small difficulties. I think this letter
to you might produce a more satisfactory effect than even one
addressed direct to w^yself^ which I should not otherwise hesitate
to request from Sir Noel. .....

Your affectionate, D. G. Rossetti."

The most striking individual characterisation in the
picture is that of Dante, which, though founded upon
the well-known portrait by Giotto, yet differs there-

222 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

from to a considerable degree, mainly in. the youthful-
ness of aspect. Giotto's Dante while a young man is
unmistakably of maturer years than Eossetti's; and
though the latter may be a truer concej)tion of the
Florentine as he appears to us in the Vita Nuova, the
brooding ecstatic lover, the representation of Giotto
more resembles what we would most naturally con-
ceive of him who could both worship an ideal love and
fight with manly valour upon the field of Campaldino.
In a word, Giotto's portrait is that of Dante, Eossetti's
that of Dante as seen through the medium of Eossetti's
spirit ; and though as a portrait the one possesses far
greater value and interest than the other, yet that of
the later painter is fitting under the circumstances of
the representation, indeed may be said to be more
fitting than Giotto's could well be. Certainly, if the
youth of Dante's Dream lacks certain qualities visible
in the Florentine wall-painting by the poet's great
contemporary, still less does it resemble the stern mask
taken after death, save in a certain ruggedness and
foreboding, as it were, of sorrowful manhood. Any
portraiture of Beatrice must of course be purely im-
aginary, for no authentic likeness of the daughter of
Folco Portinari exists; so that Eossetti's presentment
of her in this, as in others of his "Dante" pictures, will
be agreeable to the preconception of some and quite
the reverse to that of others.

Tlie chamber wherein she lies dead is as much a
portion of his imaginative conception as aught else.
It is a large room, not exactly of mediseval and still
less of modern aspect ; to the left and right of it being
winding stairs, that on the right of the picture winding
downwards, and that on the left upwards, both opening

III. ''DANTE'S DREAM." 223

upon the suulit but desolate Florentine streets. Over
the couch whereon she is laid of whom the people were
wont to say, " This is not a woman, but one of the
beautiful angels of heaven," is a lamp from which
issues an expiring flame ; and nailed to the rafters at
one end is a scroll bearing the inscription, Quomodo
sedet sola civitas plena populo I facta est quasi vidua
domina gentium ! only a portion of the sad lamenta-
tion of Jeremiah, however, being decipherable. Along
the frieze are roses and violets, flowers typical of the
beauty and purity of Beatrice, and on the floor are
strewn scarlet poppies, symbolical of sleep and death.
Winging upward and downward either stairway are two
crimson doves, typifying still further than his actual
presentment the presence of Love ; and through an
aperture in the roof is caught a glimpse of angelic
figures, each clad in rosy flame -coloured garments,
bearing with them in their upward flight a white
burthen which is supposed to be the soul of Beatrice.
On a couch in the centre of the composition rests, clad
in white robes, the mortality of her who was now sing-
ing "under the banner of the Blessed Queen Mary;"
her face is pale in death but beautiful as in life, and
over the pillow on which her head rests and adown
her shoulders flows her golden hair, while across the
virginal breast the delicate white hands are crossed, —

" And with her was such very humbleness,
That she appeared to say, * I am at peace.'"

At either end of the couch stands a lady, holding up
between them an outstretched pall or canopy of purple
colour, and both clad in varying green ; in the canopy
itself being sprays of fragrant Mav blossoms, signifi-

224 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

cant of the spring-time of life. The slightly stooping
figure of Dante is clad in black, with a lighter shadow
of pnrple here and there interfused, and between
him and the couch is the person of Love, a youth in a
garb of flame colour — the hue in which the personifi-
cation of love is almost invariably represented by Eos-
setti. With one hand Love leads Dante forward, the
latter advancing with reluctant gait and sorrowful but
awed mien, and with the other he clasps an arrow and
some apple-blossom sprays, at the same time stoop-
ing forward to take the kiss which he who was her
lover from nine years of age did not, even in death,
feel himself entitled to take.^ Fastening together his

^ In the Vita Nuova, Dante records the age of himself and Beatrice,
at their first meeting, in this quaint fashion : * ' Nine times already
since my birth had the heaven of light returned to the selfsame point,
etc. . . . She had already been in this life for so long as that, within
her time, the starry heaven had moved towards the eastern quarter one
of the twelve parts of a degree ; so that she appeared to me at the be-
ginning of her ninth year almost, and I saw her almost at the end of
my ninth year," the difference being about nine months. He further
records that "her dress, on that day, was of a most noble colour, a
subdued and goodly crimson, girdled and adorned in such sort as best
suited with her very tender age ; " the day being in May 1274, during
a festival given by her father Folco Portinari, and where the young
Dante accompanied his father Alighiero Alighieri. Exactly nine years
later the youthful lover again saw Beatrice Portinari, this being the
occasion of the famous first salutation, the hour thereof being the ninth
of the day ; but two or three years later Beatrice was married to Simone
de' Bardi, an event Dante never directly refers to. When only in her
twenty-fifth year she died, and here again Dante records at length the
fact of the significant number " nine " being in close alliance with his
lady Beatrice ; her death taking place in the first hour of the 9th
of June 1290, and the poet's record being, " I say, then, that accord-
ing to the division of time in Italy, her most noble spirit departed from
among us in the first hour of the ninth day of the month ; and accord-
ing to the division of the time in Syria, in the ninth month of the year ;
, . . also she was taken from among us in that year of our reckon-
ing ... in which the perfect number (viz. ten) was nine times multi-

III. ''DANTE'S dream:' 225

crimson garment at the shoulder is a scallop-shell,
typical of Love's wandering to and fro upon the earth.^
This dignified, solemn, and in every sense masterly
work was finished late in 1871, a notice in \hQAthen-
ceum of that date announcing "we have great satis-
faction in stating that it will be publicly exhibited by
itself in London in the spring," an event, however,
that never came off. It was purchased while still on
the easel by Mr. William Graham, but on its eventu-
ally being sent to the residence of that gentleman it
was found to exceed the agreed -on dimensions, so
much so that its hanging in a suitable room was
impracticable save by inconvenient and expensive
alterations. Considerably to the chagrin of the artist
it was on this score hung for some time on the stair-
case, and so it came about that Kossetti agreed to
exchange it for a smaller one. It was next pur-
chased by Mr. L. E. Valpy, who, on leaving town,
had to his great regret to take advantage of the
artist's generous offer to take it back. Ultimately, in
1881, it was purchased by the Corporation of Liver-
pool for the comparatively speaking moderate sum of
1500 Gs., and can henceforth be viewed by any one

plied within that century wherein she was born into the world ; which
is to say, the thirteenth century of Christians." He then goes further
into metaphysical and astrological speculations, the end of which is to
prove Beatrice a special creation, a separate miracle, "whose only root
is the Holy Trinity." It may be doubted if Dante's somewhat naive
after-statement would be challenged by any one, however " subtle : " —
" It may be that a more subtile person would find out for this thing a
reason of greater subtilty."

^ With regard to the youthful figure of Love it may be of interest
to know that the model Mr. Rossetti especially desired, and succeeded
in obtaining, was Mr. J. Forbes Robertson, who has since made such
a wide and deserved reputation on the stage.

Q

226 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

desirous of seeing it at the Walker Art Gallery in that
city. Subsequently a fine but mucli smaller dimen-
sioned replica (still a large picture, however) was made
for Mr. Graham, this painting being further distin-
guished by a predella in two partitions, the right re-
presenting Dante on his couch dreaming the portentous
dream in which occurs the vision which the picture
itself exemplifies, and the left that moment when he
wakes from his strange trance, and, attracted by his
sudden cry of anguish, certain ladies near at hand
come hastily in unto him to soothe and sympathise
with the bodily or spiritual malady that caused the
cry of suffering. In Dante's Dream Eossetti may be
said to have reached that lofty height the first ascent
towards which was made more than twenty years pre-
viously in the 1849 sketch for Dante and Beatrice.

In 1871, in addition to finishing the great picture
just described, the artist painted a water-colour replica
of the Beata Beatrix, in reality a second study towards
the large oQ replica of Lord Mount-Temple's picture
belonging to Mr. Graham, executed in 1872, and
already specified when describing the original of
1863-64. Also to 1871 belong Water Willow and
a finished chalk drawing, the latter being a fine study
for the dead Beatrice in Dante's Dream. The small oil
called Water Willow includes a view of the house in
Kelmscott, where Eossetti and his friend William Morris
lived for some time ; a beautiful little painting that
the artist valued highly, and which, for a long time, he
refused to part with. It was about 1872 that a third
replica of the Beata Beatrix w^as painted this time in
water-colour and much smaller; for the sensitive scruples
that so long prevented his acceding to the request by

III. ''VERONICA VERONESE." 227

a valued friend for a replica of the original were no
longer effectively existent. In this year also was
painted a picture which more than one fitting judge
has considered to be a masterpiece in harmonious effect,
the exquisite Veronica Veronese. On the frame is in-
scribed the passage in the Lettres de Girolama Bidolfi,
which contains the motif of the picture : — Se penchant
mvement, La Veronica jeta les premieres notes sur la
feuille vierge. Ensiiite elle prit Varchet du violon pour
rdaliser son rive ; mais avant de d4crocher V instrument
sicspendu, elleresta quelques instants immobile en icoutant
Voiseau inspirateur, pendant que sa main gauche errait
sur les cordes cherchant le motif suprS7ne encore eloignS.
C'6tait le mariage des voix de la nature et de Vdme, — Vauhe
cVune creation mystique. La Veronica is seated before
a kind of cabinet, and is clad in a dress of a beauti-
fully-shaded olive green, above it and around the neck
and shoulders trailing negligently a white neckerchief;
while the soft auburn hair is drawn wavily back from
the fair face, with its yearning spiritual expression, as
she rests quelques instants immohile en 4coutant Voiseau
inspirateur. The latter is a pure yellow canary, the
cage containing it being in the upper right corner of
the picture, and surmounted with a small fragment of
red worsted (painted, of course, for colour contrast),
and with some pale green worsel seed hanging from
it ; in the background is a patterned curtain of almost
similar pale green, falling in beautiful folds. The
chair on which she sits is of a dull red hue, and
the girdle round her waist is of reddish purple with
a gold tassel, pendent therefrom being a feather fan,
the feathers black, with orange bars, and having soft
white ;fluff at their ends ; while on the table or cabinet-

228 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

desk is a yellow daffodil and some pale yellow prim-
roses, and below it, on a stool in front of her knees,
a glass jar containing some seven or eight more daffo-
dils. Before her is the score of a musical composition,
one bar only being painted on the page opened out ;
while the dark brown violin, the strings of which she
stirs with the fingers of her left hand, hangs suspended
before her from the upper part of the cabinet, the bow
being held poised in her right. This picture is one the
loveliness of which is apparent at once and yet grows
more and more with acquaintance, a picture that seems
haunted with distant echoes of soft low music, such as
we discern again, though hardly so exquisitely, in La
Ghirlandata and The Sea-Spell, the harmony of colour
throughout being never disturbed and the listening
expectant attitude and rapt visionary outlook of the
dark blue eyes of La Veronica being more than fully
interpretive of the passage which it illustrates. Truly
le mariage des voix de la nature et de Vdme, — Vauhe
d'une creation mystique.

The year after La Veronica Veronese was painted
Eossetti finished another exceedingly fine and impress-
ive work, the acute note of which may also be said to
be music, the picture in question being the large oil
known as La Ghirlandata. It is so called signifying
one who is crowned or garlanded, or who sits amongst
natural garlands of twining flowers. There is a mag-
nificent sumptuousness of colouring in this picture
that entitles it to rank amongst the first of those
works which have already been compared to the
achievements of Titian and Giorgione; and if the
Mariana and The Blue Bower be specially considered
pictures with an exquisitely harmonious predominance

III. ''LA GHIRLANDATAr . 229

of blue, so may La Ghirlandata be considered pre-
eminently a painting of rich greens, whose depth and
variety are constantly brought out by blues of different
tones. The Lady of the Garlands sits in the midst of
a fragrant bower where the myrtle twines with the
green leaves of a spreading tree, and with one hand
she draws from the garlanded harp by her side such
melodies as make even the young angels or winged
cherubim of her sphere listen lovingly, and irradiates
her own face with a yearning look as though she heard
indefinitely sounds too sweet for their full significance
to be apprehended. At her right, near the rich dark
brown of the harp, trails a lovely tendril, and in front
are the brilliant blue blossoms of the aconite ; through
the dense green copse behind a blue bird flits like a
wandering streak of azure, and above the large harp
crowned with sweet-scented roses and honey-suckles,
and the intertwining myrtle and forest boughs, lean
the angelic heads of her heavenly listeners, as note
after note swells out on the fitful wind. The hour is
that when the sunset glory is really but a fading
memory, when the crimson cloudlet deepens into the
purple that is amethyst and the gold and pink into
dove ; so that beyond the clustering greenery there is
caught a glimpse of evening sky, of that depth and
absolute serenity which foretells windless and perfect
calm. The face of La Ghirlandata is spiritual and
beautiful, her deep blue eyes transfused with the secret
of the music, and around her head and neck a wealth
of rich dark-auburn hair. It is one of those great
pictures by Eossetti wliich could hardly ever become
really popular, for its appeal is not that of a repre-
sentation of the actual but of the ideal ; it deals not

230 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

with easily -understood domestic sentiment, but with
what has to a few special spiritual significance.
During this year Eossetti made a crayon portrait of
Dr. Gordon Hake, the author of Parables and Tales, a
fine head of the Wordsworthian, meditative type ; and
also a study of his friend Mr. George Hake, which though
not so successful as a portrait is, I have been told, very
remarkable as a study. In addition to these were three
chalk portraits, one of Lady Mount -Temple, one of
Mrs. William Eossetti,^ and one of Mrs. Coronio.

Subsequent to the commencement of La Ghirlan-
data was also begun' the fine picture entitled Dis
Manihus, but it was not finished till late in 1874.
Dis Manihiis represents a Eoman widow sitting on
the marble tomb of her husband, the occasion being
one of those that occurred two or three times in
the course of the year when mortuary rites had
to be celebrated. The picture is thus as often as
not called Tlie Roman Widow. She is clad in robes
of beautifully modulated silver and brownish grays,
and with either hand elicits low mourning music
from two harps, whose frames are of tortoise-shell
and crowned with a beautiful cluster of wild roses.
On the carved stone urn is written the funeral inscrip-
tion, of which the invariable first two words are the
title of the painting : —

" Dis Manibus

L. M\io Aquino

Marito Carissimo

Papiria Gemina

Fecit

Ave Domine * Vale Domine ; "

1 This fine portrait in tinted crayons was executed in 1874, the
year of Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Rossetti's marriage.

DIS MA NIB us:' 231

and beneath this urn is a wreath of gorgeous roses,
not the delicate pink of the wild roses round the harp
she plays with her left hand, but the glowing hues of
the heavy blooms of the garden. The girdle of solid
silver which she wore upon her wedding day is now
twined round the urn containing the ashes of the
beloved dead, pendent also from the carven stone
being a bronze lamp. Around her fair and expressive
but sorrowful face the soft hair is looped, and a white
veil falls in folds round her head and neck ; the soft
grays and whites throughout the picture being ex-
quisitely contrasted in the green marble seat on which
she rests, and the marble wall of similar hue curiously
veined and shaded which forms the background. In
none of his pictures has the artist shown greater mastery-
over the technique of his art than in Dis Manibus,
which, though not so rich in varied hue and depth of
colour as The Blue Boiver or La Bella Mano, equals either
of these technical masterpieces in exquisite finish.

In 1874 were also drawn two fine portrait-studies
in crayon, one in profile and the other in three-quarter
full face for the pitiful and gracious Donna clella Fin-
estra of the Vita Nuova ;^ and in the following year
two other drawings deserve special notice, the first, in
chalk, being an important Life-size portrait of Mrs.
Charles A. Howell, and the second a finely-finished
pencil portrait drawing dated loth February 1875.

1 Though the second finished study for La Donna della Finestra
this is a crayon picture complete in itself. Its titular lines are from
the second sonnet in the Vita Nuova on the Compassionate Lady —
Color d^amore e di pietd semhianti (rendered by Rossetti as " Love's
pallor and the semblance of deep ruth "). This fine composition I
find should be dated four years antecedent to its mention here, viz.
in 1870.

232 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

To return to 1874, there* were painted and finished two
or three important oils, one of which more than one com-
petent critic has declared to be in the very front rank of
the artist's conceptions, namely, the Proserpina. ; and in
addition to these a crayon drawing of the subject that
was mentioned under date 1869 with the title Rosa
Triplex, and two important drawings in chalk. One of
the latter is a portrait in tinted crayons of Mr. Theodore
Watts, the well-known writer and Eossetti's dearest
friend of late years, an admirable piece of work in itself
and ably interpretive of its subject, being indeed one of
the most successful direct portraitures the artist ever
accomplished ; and the other drawing is a full length
of Dante, executed in black chalk. TJu Bamosel of
the Sand Grail, a non-commissioned picture purchased
from the easel by Mr. George Eae, is a return to the
period wherein the cycle of Arthurian legend afforded
Eossetti frequent inspiration, is, indeed, the last Arthur-
ian picture he painted or designed. It illustrates the
lines from Mort cC Arthur : " Anon there came a dove,
and in her bill a little censer of gold, and therewithal
there was such a savour as if all the spicery of the
world had been there. So there came a damozel,
passing young and fair, and she bore a vessel of gold
between her hands." The damsel stands amidst clus-
tering vine -leaves, clothed quaintly in reddish gar-
ments and holding in her hands the golden cup, while
above her is the dove (with wings of such extent, it
may be mentioned, as no dove was ever gifted with
save on canvas) clasping in its bill the chain support-
ing the censer of gold, wherein abides a savour " as if
all the spicery of the world were there." Her left
hand is poised as if to enforce silence; the fair face

III. ''FLEURES DE MARIEP 233

beneath the auburn hair, which is here and there of
a bronzy red, seems spellbound, and in her eyes is the
dreamy listening look of one who sees farther than
the mere externals which are apprehended by any
casual gaze.

A richer-toned and much more advanced work is
the highly-finished Fleures de Marie, the title being
merely a title signifying nothing beyond the fact
that yellow, which may be said to be the key in which
this colour harmony is struck, is strongly marked in
the marigolds and yellow lilies in the centre of the
painting, supposedly Fleures de Marie. I understand
the picture is sometimes also called The Gardeners
Daughter, not necessarily, however, her of Tennyson's
idyl ; and certainly it is the more expressive of the two
titles despite the general irresemblance in her garments
and surroundings to one in the humble if poetic occu-
pation inferred. I have heard it spoken of as one of
his few modern paintings, but while not of necessity
belonging to any definite period it undoubtedly assimi-
lates much more to earlier epochs than the nineteenth
century ; though in description there is certainly no-
thing that would prevent its being a painting from life
and actual surroundings. Such could, perhaps, quite
well have been the case ; the impression it gives me,
however, is not that of being meant as a specifically
modern portraiture, though on the first occasion I saw
it I was of such an opinion. A lady of the true
Eossettian type is standing in a room where the chiar-
oscuric effects are particularly fine ; her face being in
profile, and her arms upraised as she places some yel-
low kingcups or marshmallows and yellow lilies in a
blue vase on the top of a high oaken sideboard or

234 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

cabinet. Her dress is of green-blue, of varying shades
throughout, over it being a sage-green apron ; and on
her head a close-fitting dark velvet cap or hood. I^ear
at hand, effective against the dark grain of the polished
oak, is a transparent tumbler containing water, and
leaning therefrom a spray of delicate green. It is one
of those works which the artist would twenty years
back have despaired of accomplishing, because the
mastery over chiaroscuro and depth and harmony of
colour here so noticeable was then hardly with the
severest labour even approximately attainable. Be-
yond this motif J if such term may be thus used, there
is nothing in the picture.

The Proserpina has been replicated five or six times
(with important variations as to drapery), attesting
thus not only the great impression it had made,
but also the high consideration in which the artist
held it himself, though latterly he used to say half
jokingly that of none of his paintings was he more
heartily sick, owing to the time he had altogether spent
at the easel over the different copies.

No reader could have failed to have noticed the.
fine sonnet, with its duplicate in Italian, printed in the
Ballads and Sonnets of 1881, wherein the unhappy
Queen of Hades speaks that which in the picture finds
utterance in her expression. The original oil is in the
possession of Mr. Leyland, and the replicas as follows :
—Mr. Turner's, 1877; Mr. Graham's, 1880; Mr.
Hutton's (water-colour), 1880; oil belonging to Mr.
Yalpy, 1881; and another, I think in tinted crayons,
belonging to Mrs. Morris.

Proserpina, painted life-size, stands in a corridor of
the palace of Pluto in Hades, where the sombre light

III. ''PROSERPINA:' 235

of the under regions prevails, and only a casual ray
from the moon, as it circles above the earth, penetrates
the surrounding gloom, and strikes with cold bluish
refulgence upon the wall. In this weird, bluish light
an ivy tendril on the wall is thrown into strong relief,
curved and pKant in shape, but with elsewhere upon
the wall the darkness of the unending night ; and
in the same transitory gleam the face and form of
the Sicilian is brought into perfect prominence.
She is clad in a robe of steel-blue colour and her
hair is of the deepest and darkest brown as it
falls in close and wavy masses from her bent head
and down her delicate shoulders ; in her hand
she holds the pomegranate, the (in her case) fatal
seed of which she has already eaten ; while before her,
in the lower right corner, the pale, thin smoke from
an incense-burner curls upward, more and more in-
definitely as it ascends and fades into the darkness
above. Her face is pale, and the eyes have in them
a light such as never shone from them while she wan-
dered amongst the flowers of Enna, and her full lips
have now no laughter upon them, nor are even languor-
ous, but are firm with the knowledge of her irremedi-
able evil. This is what we learn from the painting,
and the sonnet carries on the design by embodying the
inner speech that stirs her to the heart : —

" Afar away the hght that brings cold cheer
Unto this wall, — one instant and no more
Admitted at my distant palace-door.
Afar the flow^ers of Enna from this drear
Dire fruit, which, tasted once, must thrall me here.
Afar those skies from this Tartarean gray
That chills me : and afar, how far away,
The nights that shall be from the days that were.

236 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

Afar from mine own self I seem, and wing

Strange ways in thought, and listen for a sign :
And still some heart unto some soul doth pine,
(Whose sounds mine inner sense is fain to bring,
Continually together murmuring)
' ' Woe's me for thee, unhappy Proserpine !'"

Although somewhat repetitive of what has already
been said, the following extract from a letter by the
artist relative to the replica belonging, to Mr. Turner
will be read with interest : — " The figure represents
Proserpine as Empress of Hades. After she was con-
veyed by Pluto to his realm, and became his bride, her
mother Ceres importuned Jupiter for her return to
earth, and he was prevailed on to consent to this, pro-
vided only she had not partaken of any of the fruits of
Hades. It was found, however, that she had eaten
one grain of a pomegranate, and this enchained her to
her new empire and destiny. She is represented in a
gloomy corridor of her palace, with the fatal fruit in her
hand. As she passes, a gleam strikes on the wall be-
hind her from some inlet suddenly opened, and admitting
for a moment the light of the upper world ; and she
glances furtively towards it, immersed in thought. The
incense-burner stands beside her as the attribute of a
goddess. The ivy-branch in the background (a decora-
tive appendage to the sonnet inscribed on the label)
may be taken as a symbol of clinging memory." The
label referred to is a white scroll attached to the wall
in the upper left corner, bearing upon it the already
quoted sonnet in its Italian version with its woful
ending, " Oim^ per te, Proserpina infelice !" On the
base of the frame is written the quoted sonnet, and
there is also the inscription (at any rate on Mr. Ley-
land's, and one or two others) Dante Gabriele Rossetti

III. ''PROSERPINA:' 237

Ritrasse nel Capodanno del 1874. The central motif
of this great picture is the poetic idea, differing entirely
therefore from such work as The Blue Bower and Les
Fleures de Marie but uniting as it does the technical
mastery which distinguishes these works with the intel-
lectual emotion or spiritual insight of such compositions
as Sibylla Pahnifera, Pandora, Venus Verticordia, and
others similar ; it ranks with the highest of these latter,
and perhaps deserves a place in the elect supreme
trinity of Eossetti's works. In no one of his great
designs has he surpassed the Proserpina in absolute
impressiveness ; brooding eyes, sad and beautiful face,
dark massed hair, the almost unearthly light that the
moon casts for a few brief moments into the gloomy
corridors of Pluto's Palace, the thin film of curling
smoke from the incense-burner, the metallic steel-blue
of her robe, the ivy-branch in its abrupt relief, the fate-
ful pomegranate in her hand, — all these have their
inalienable place in the realisation of an impressive
conception, and each at the same time seems artistically
individual. Another painter might compose as beauti-
ful a design with the same subject, another painter
even might succeed in producing a like impressiveness,
but it is impossible to conceive of any artist save
Eossetti painting the Proserjpvaa which has just been
described. It is essentially original, essentially indi-
vidual. In the little artistic work Eossetti accom-
plished during the last few months of his life are to be
included the finishing touches to a replica of this
picture; his actually last worked -at design being a
replica in oil of the fine head and bust of Joan of Arc,
the original of which was painted in water-colours in
1864.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

In 1875 the most important achievement was the
painting of the splendid picture which has been akeady
mentioned as, from a strictly artistic point of view, one
of his masterpieces, excelling even in depth of tone
the equally highly-finished and lovely Veronica Veronese,
the latter, however, ranking higher because of its
greater significance. Za Bella Mano, the work in
question, is entirely a picture like The Blue Bower or
Les Fleures de Marie, in the fact that pictorial effect
was the only motif ; it is indeed meaningless as a
design and even incongruous, as in the introduction of
angels as servitors to a lady washing her hands.-^

The lady of The Beautiful Hand is represented life-
size, and is one of those voluptuously beautiful yet far
from sensual creations for which the pictorial genius
of Dante Eossetti seemed pre-eminently fitted. She
is standing with her face in partial profile, the deep
blue eyes, the fair exquisitely-moulded face, the golden-
auburn hair, and the white arms and rounded bosom
making such a portraiture as it is the lot of few to
meet with in real life : her dress is of a beautiful
mauve-purple, with over her right shoulder a robe or
cloak of soft carmine, and the scallop-shaped basin in
which she is washing her white hands is of golden
bronze, the water therein having a most exquisitely-

1 As I have once or twice met with the misunderstanding, I take this
opportunity of stating that there is no connection whatever between
either one of the Borgia drawings and the water-colour called Washing
Hands on the one hand, or between Washing Hands and La Bella
Mano on the other. The large and beautiful finished study in crayons
(without the accessories) for the latter, belonging to Mr. W. A. Turner,
is also sometimes called Washing Hands, This is one of the most
beautiful of all Rossetti's chalk drawings. Relative to the completed
picture, see the last sonnet in Ballads and Sonnets, called also La
Bella Mario.

III. ''LA BELLA MA NOP 239

painted yellow-gold reflection. Beyond the basin is an
angelic attendant, clothed in white and with scarlet
wings meeting behind her head ; in one hand holding
a small tray of lustrous rings and bracelets, and in
the other a single bracelet. This heavenly hand-
maiden, if she may be so called, has a lovely girlish
face, with soft dreamy brown eyes and soft brown hair,
contrasting with the rich and noble womanhood of her
who bears the name "La Bella Mano." Above the head
of the angel to the left is a green china vase contain-
ing a purple convolvulus ; below this is a globular
brazen vessel, surmounted by an ornamental bronze
trophy, containing water ; beyond this again, towards
the left margin, is a rack from which a white towel
comes down to just above the basin; and holding the
lower folds of the towel is another attendant angel,
clad likewise in a white garment slit down the arms and
showing also the delicate white limbs, and with similar
scarlet wing-plumes reaching from her head almost to
her feet, bringing into soft relief the fair face with its
tender hazel eyes under the shadow of her dark auburn
hair. Below the scallop-shaped brazen basin rests on
the floor a square green pot from which grows a lemon-
tree with its delicate foliage and fruit ; and on the table
behind " La Bella Mano " stands a green malachite jar,
and near it a golden vessel, out of the first leaning
some lucent hair-jewels ; beneath, against the white
cloth of the toilet-table, lies a brilliant scarlet poppy
and reaching up thereto the green leaves of a young
rose-tree. In the background is a large mirror con-
taining reflections of the red and yellow flames that
twine and flash in the unseen fire. Altogether it is
probably the picture that the greater number of fit

240 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

judges would select from his works if only one were
to be specified as excelling in all mastership of artistic
craft. The depth of tone and the richness and har-
mony of colour are such that the painting has in it
elements of endless delight, a delight altogether apart
from intellectual emotion but none the less thoroughly
well founded and potent.

Contemporaneously with La Bella Mano (1875)
are two studies or pictures relating to the Blessed
Damozel, the one belonging to Mr. William Graham
being the first study for the great picture. It con-
sists of the figure only, the face being singularly
spiritual and beautiful, transcending indeed in the
beauty of spirituality the Blessed Damozel of the
large oil paintings ; so noticeably, indeed, that it is ever
afterwards difficult to reconcile oneseK to the more
sensuous and, under the circumstances,' less fitting and
ideal representation, and to refrain from wishing that
the first conception — generally with Eossetti, in art at
least, the best — had been adhered to. The other picture
is an oil head, differing slightly both from the chalk
study and the completed painting, and belongs to
Lord Mount-Temple. It is painted against a gold
ground, and the garment is more of the same brilliant
colour and the hair more auburn than in the great
picture belonging to Mr. Graham. There is little to
add regarding the fine Pandora painted in this year to
what was written concerning the large chalk drawing
of 1869, except that it has all the impressiveness and
poetic insight which distinguished the latter and the
additional charm that comes from mastery over depth
of tone and harmonious richness of the dominant
colours. This was the painting that, as mentioned

III. ''THE question:' 241

early in the preceding chapter, was exhibited some five
or six years ago in the Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts
Exhibition. In 1875 were also executed a powerful
design for a picture to be called Desdemonas Death
Song, the highly -finished life-size study in tinted
crayons of Astarte Syriaca and a small equally finished
drawing in ink of the same, being the original design,
also separate chalk drawings of the angelic heads in
the same impressive picture, and in addition to
these the powerful and poetic composition called Tlie
Qicestion. This small drawing, sometimes also styled
The Unanswered Question and The Sphinx, has been
called the most original of Eossetti's designs, and
though this may be fuUy admitted as regards treat-
ment, it is, as the few intimate friends at this date are
aware, indebted for suggestion to the fine poem by Mr.
William BeU Scott called The Sphinx, where for the
first time, if I am not mistaken, questions are pro-
pounded to the Sphinx instead of the latter being the
mystic questioner in riddles. It is, however, thoroughly
original in its carrying out, and beyond doubt a re-
markable and interesting composition.

On a rocky ledge, amongst boughs covered with
strange fruit, sits the Sphinx or Fate. It has upward-
pointed wings like an eagle's, significant of human
aspiration becoming half diviae : the face is that of a
man, with a narrow headband on which is the badge
of the soul, and beyond the woman's bosom stretch the
firm arms and relentlessly retentive claws of a griffin
or dragon ; the thighs are those of a satyr, and the feet
of a lion or other fierce beast of prey — in all, signifying
life from the lowest to the highest. Beyond the stony
ledge in which, mysteriously silent and remote, sits

242 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

the strange Sphinx-like embodiment of Fate, stretches
a long narrow fiord or creek of the sea with precipitous
and unscalable cliffs shelving sheer down into its
depths, floating quietly upon the still waters of which
is a barque of antique build, that " which brought us
hither." As in life the spiritual skies are never dis-
cerned, though witness of their existence is ever attain-
able, so here no skies are visible, but in the clear
depths of the water the half-moon is mirrored as in
an under atmosphere. The human figures in the
design are three, typifying Youth, Manhood, and Old
Age : that symbolising Youth has fallen in death
beside the base of the Sphinx before he can even
ask aright the question of the mystery of life which
has entered into and saddened his being; in his right
hand still holding in his limp grasp a spear with point
turned towards the ground, while another has fallen
on the ground before him. The face is such as we
imagine for a Keats or a Shelley, and the expression
of death is finely given both therein and in the limp
and drooping attitude ; the symbolism not only being
that of the eager questioning into life's mystery which
is an accompaniment of sensitive youth, but also of
that other mystery, early death, with all its unfulfilled
possibilities. " Manhood " has not succumbed like
"Youth," but has reached the level of the ledge,
where he thrusts back the heavy intervening boughs
and with the strength and determination of his ful-
filled years presses right against the motionless Sphinx,
looking with unflinching eyes and set face into the
inscrutable gaze. He fears no answer he may ob-
tain, only an answer of some kind he is determined to
have, — whether it be that the mystery of pain becomes

III. ''THE QUESTIONS 243

clear in ultimate release or that pain is indeed the
very essence of life and as certain to environ our souls
on all sides as the atmosphere does our bodies : but
none the less he too fails in eliciting any response, for
though he fears nothing and flinches not in his gaze,
he finds the large far-seeing eyes still look beyond
him, heedless, comprehending not, answering not.
Behind " Manhood," toiling up the steep, comes " Old
Age," his eager gaze fixed upon the Fate-Sphinx to
read its riddle or ask the supreme question ; in one
hand grasping his staff, and with the other the ledge
over which he climbs, his gi^ay locks falling about his
face, and his eyes heedless of anything in life but the
end of it. In connection with this design it is an
interesting fact that within a day or two of his death
Eossetti, who was then much interested in a projected
miscellany to consist of poems and stories by himself
and Mr. Theodore Watts, wrote two fine sonnets de-
scriptive of this drawing which was to serve as frontis-
piece to the volume in question.

I do not think the artist intended it as a design
for a picture, nor, as far as I am aware, did he ever
even make a small replica of it in water-colour; and in
this he was right, for its success is in its Ttwtif, more than
in its artistic qualities, and it is almost certain that if
enlarged into a life-size or even smaller oil the difficulty
of preserving the just balance between impressiveness of
subject and thorough technique would not have been
overcome. But this does not militate against its value
and impressiveness as a pencil design, though even here
the trained eye will be arrested by that faulty drawing
which, more or less markedly, is wholly absent from
few pictures by Eossetti — notably, in this instance, in

244 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

the figure of Youth. It is one of those designs which,
like the How They Met Themselves and the Mary
Magdalene drawing and the Death of Lady Macbeth,
is as thoroughly complete and individually character-
istic, though of small size and in pencil or ink, as, on
the other hand, such paintings as the Proserpina or
such chalk drawings as Pandora.

In 1876, besides finishing the oil painting Pandora,
begun the previous year, Eossetti commenced two or
three pictures which with others were completed in
1877. This last year was a most important one in
the amount of work turned out, there being, besides
a superb crayon study belonging to Mr. Eae called
The Magdalene (one of the artist's most beautiful faces)
and a finished chalk drawing preliminary to the picture
called The Day Dream, the three great paintings, two
of them over life-size, known as Astarte Syriaca, TJie
Sea Spell, and The Blessed Damozel. These are each
poems on canvas, the poetic emotion having in each
instance been the origin of their creation ; in the case
of the two first readers will also recollect explanatory
sonnets, though The Blessed Damozel really illustrates
the poem and not the poem the picture. Astarte, the
Syrian Venus, is represented in full face and of heroic
size, and is as powerful and even more splendid a crea-
tion than the Venus Verticordia. She is standing in
a dusky twilight, with behind her the setting sun
almost of a gold that is blood-red, and on the other
side the rising moon, under whose less ardent but
weirder rays the rites of Venus' worship are to be held.
She is clad in a robe of brilliant pale green fitting
close to the massive limbs and abundant bosom, round
her waist is a silver girdle, the upper portion of

III. « VENUS ASTARTEy 245

which she clasps with one hand while the other rests
above her hip ; and above the imperial face, with its
strange, potent, fascinating eyes, is the densely clus-
tered black hair which has that electric lustre some-
times seen in the dark tresses of women of the South ;
again, palpitating thereover, shines the star of Venus,
tremulous with pale violet light. Behind, at either
shoulder, stand winged and worshipping ministers, each
clothed in pure emerald colour with wings of that
olive hue which we see in thick tongues of sea-weed
tide-swayed to and fro ; and each bears a torch from
whence the orange-yellow and deep-red flames and the
heavy curling smoke ascend towards the weird light
of the sky, where is neither night nor day, but the
contending sun and moon. Steadfast, almost stern in
her gaze, she looks forth with the same conscious
sovereignty as Venus Verticordia, but her eyes are not
as cold while amorous, not as relentless while enticing.
She is herself a dream, and a dreamer of dreams ; she
is the worshipped of the purple-mouthed, deep-breasted
Syrian girl and the supplicated queen of the lithe
bronze-skinned Syrian youth ; but she is not at the
same time wholly remote from them, incapable of
love's suffering, alien to passion. She too can love,
and with more than human intensity, and whether in
past or future vision her gaze is cognisant of some
supreme though not immediate joy, dreamful of one
who has or will yet tremble and flush and yield him-
self up wholly to the charm of those " love-freighted
lips and absolute eyes."

Lacking the irresistible charm of facial impressive-
ness, at least in comparison with Astarte Syriobca, TJie
Sea Spell is yet as attractive in its own way as, and even

246 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

excels in difficult workmanship successfully grappled
with, its larger companion — companion in the sense of
being finished about the same time in the same year,
though the Astarte was really commenced in 1875. If
the latter is an example of the artist's mastery over
chiaroscuro and depth of subdued colour, the former as
-well exemplifies his mastery over the most brilliant
tones and subtle contrasts of strong colours; thus techni-
cally one may prove as interesting as the other, though
judging from the impressiveness of the poetic motif
the palm must be given to Astarte, without thereby
disparaging unduly the poetic significance of The Sea
Spell. Eossetti could have charged this design with
as full a significance as impresses us in Lilith, Venus
Verticordia, and Astarte Syriaca, but though it is a
fine picture, both technically and poetically, he cannot
be said to have done so, and therefore, from the stand-
point chosen by himself, that of poetic painting, it
must be judged as not quite attaining the high standard
of impressiveness exemplified so markedly in the other
and kindred works. Any one thoroughly acquainted
with the artist's work would conceive The Sea Spell
to be one of his most impressive creations from the
perusal of the fine sonnet in the Ballads and Sonnets,
but though he would be more than gratified by the
masterly artistic power throughout, he would in all
probability find that the face, beautiful and expressive
as it is, yet lacked in that supremely significant and
spiritual expressiveness so characteristic of the artist
at his highest. This lovely design, permeated with
the very spirit of rich sensuous beauty, is more closely
allied to the Lady Lilith than to any other of the
artist's works. The beautiful Siren woman, who

III. " THE SEA-SPELL." 247

weaves her melodious spell of enchantment, sits under
a tree with dense green foliage and laden with ripe
and ruddy apples, through the branches of which,
and just above her head, flashes past in swift flight a
white sea-bird, tempted from the waves by the wild
notes of her irresistible music. She is clothed in a
silvery-grayish robe, leaving the bosom and left arm
bare, the luxurious white softness of the latter con-
trasting exquisitely with the almost metallic silver-
grayness of the dress ; and with her delicate hands
she plays a large and curiously-stringed lute which is
fastened by an iron circle and loop to a heavy inclined
branch or bole in front, beyond which is seen the
lovely blueness of a summer sea, on which sails nearer
and nearer the unseen ship which bears one who shall
not resist her spell —

" Till he, the fated mariner, hears her cry,
And up her rock, bare breasted, comes to die."

On her head, with its mass of golden auburn hair, is a
wreath of large pink wild roses, beautiful certainly,
but of such a dreamy " pinkness " as blooms in no
natural wayside roses ; and by her side grow the red
and pale crimson flowers of the Venus Fly-Trap, a
plant of the familiar snapdragon species, and here
having a symbolism made apparent in the name itself.
Her wealth of gleaming tresses trails on to the branches
behind, and on her knee rests the base of the two-
stringed lute whence issues under the magic touch of
her fingers the sea-spell that draws all things to her
influence, even the unwitting mariner who, lured from
weary seas by the ineffable melody, comes ashore only
to die without any rapturous embrace or happy ease : —

248 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

" Her lute hangs shadowed in the apple-tree,

While flashing fingers weave the sweet-strung spell
Between its chords ; and as the wild notes swell,

The sea-bird for those branches leaves the sea.

But to what sound her listening ear stoops she ?
What nether world gulf- whispers doth she hear.
In answering echoes from what planisphere,

Along the wind, along the estuary ?

" She sinks into her spell : and when full soon
Her lips move and she soars into her song,
What creatures of the midmost main shall throng

In furrowed surf-clouds to the summoning rune :

Till he, the fated mariner, hears her cry.

And up her rock, bare breasted, comes to die ?"

Of the Blessed Bamozel there are two important oil
paintings — one, the original, belonging to Mr. Graham ;
and one with the face of the damozel of a different
type, or rather expression, belonging to Mr. Leyland,
and with other divergences so marked as to make it
another painting and not a replica. The (on the
whole) finer of the two, Mr. Graham's, is that which I
shall refer to first.

There are many to whom the poems of Dante
Eossetti still remain nnread ; but even to the majority
of these one poem must surely be more or less familiar,
even if only in name — that, of course, called The
Blessed Damozel. This beautiful and intensely indi-
vidual lyric was amongst the first of the poet-painter's
compositions ; it is indeed more marvellous that this
should have been composed at the age of nineteen than
that the picture bearing the same title should have
been painted at the age of fifty. Indeed, it has been
used as the chief illustration to the statement, which
is greatly if not whoUy true, that Eossetti was horn a

III. " THE BLESSED DAMOZELr 249

poet and made himself an artist. There cannot be
said to be any story in the poem, but the animating
idea is that of a fair woman who has died in all the
pride of youth and beauty and who in heaven awaits
the coming of her lover, who still dwells on earth and
who in the poem speaks once or twice in interlusive
verses. The working out of the idea naturally involves
very materialistic treatment, as in the Blessed Damozel
leaning over a parapet in heaven and looking down
towards the earth ; yet notwithstanding this the general
effect is eminently spiritual, necessarily more so in the
poem than in the painting, owing to the greater inde-
iiniteness of words as a medium to any pictorial repre-
sentation. The poem is too long to quote in full, and
the verses throughout are too linked to bear separation
well, so that I can only give one or two verses here,
choosing those directly bearing upon the representation
on canvas.

" The blessed damozel leaned out

From the gold bar of Heaven ;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth

Of waters stilled at even ;
She had three lilies in her hand,

And the stars in her hair were seven.

" Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
No wrought flowers did adorn,
But a white rose of Mary's gift

For service meetly worn ;
Her hair that lay along her back
Was yellow like ripe corn.

" Herseemed she scarce had been a day
One of God's choristers ;
The wonder was not yet quite gone
From that still look of hers ;

250 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

Albeit, to them she left, her day
Had counted as ten years.

" It was the rampart of God's house
That she was standing on ;
By God built over the sheer depth
The which is Space begun ;

" It lies in Heaven, across the flood
Of ether, as a bridge.

" Around her, lovers, newly met
In joy no sorrow claims, ^
Spoke evermore among themselves
Their rapturous new names ;

"And still she bowed herself and stooped

Out of the circling charm,
Until her bosom must have made

The bar she leaned on warm.
And the lilies lay as if aslqep

Along her bended arm.

" Her voice was like the voice the stars
Had when they sang together.

" ' I wish that he were come to me,
For he will come,' she said.
' Have I not prayed in Heaven ? on earth
Lord, Lord, has he not prayed ?
Are not two prayers a perfect strength ?
And shall I feel afraid?'"

The figure of the Blessed Damozel is clad in a robe
of delicate blue, of which the folds are beautifully
shaded and painted, and its poise as she leans^with

^ Or, according to the later version,

'Mid deathless love's acclaims

III. " THE BLESSED DAMOZEW 251

her breast and one arm on the golden parapet is full
of subtle grace and charm. In the luxuriant golden-
auburn tresses of her hair shine with soft purplish-
pink light five or six of the stars mentioned in the
poem as her heavenly coronet ; and trailed loosely
round her neck is a scarf of silvery white suffused
with saffron tones ; while her dark-blue dreaming eyes
and yearning face realise (though not so successfully
as in the first studies or in Mr. Leyland's picture) the
painter's ideal conception. Above her a glimpse is
caught of the groves of Paradise, wherein, beneath the
shade of the spreading branches of a vast tree, the
newly-met lovers embrace and rejoice with each other
on separation over and union made perfect at last : all
clothed in deep -blue robes, looking almost like dark
flowers amid the deep-green foliage. Below the bar
on which she leans, with the three large white lilies
" asleep along her bended arm," the bar made warm
by the pressure of her bosom, are three angelic
ministers or watchers with heads surrounded by halos
of pale pink flame, and bearing green palms ; those
in the right and left clad in robes of vivid and
uniform azure, and the angel or seraph in the centre
in intense lucent sea-green. The expressions of all
are beautiful and varying, the central presence being
especially significant not so much of joy or pity, but
as of one who contemplated for ever the sadness of
long -deferred love and broken hopes ; that of the
others being tender and sympathetic, as though they
heard from their heavenly place the sobs of him who
on earth suffered grievously and almost with despair of
reunion. The golden parapet, so high that the sun
could scarce be seen and the earth seemed to spin far

252 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

below like a fretful midge, is covered over in part with
masses of full roses, painted with that almost tropical
luxuriance familiar to such as know the Venus Verti-
cordia, La Ghirlandata, and others. The figure of the
Blessed Damozel is over life-size, and the picture
altogether one of the largest Eossetti ever painted —
transcended only by Dante's Dream, and equalled only
by Astarte Syriaca if my memory serves me right.
There is a very fine predella, or lower partition,
attached to the picture, which is divided by two cross
bars of the frame into three divisions ; this predella
consisting of a twilight landscape, wherein, shadowed
by drooping boughs in some lovely glade, the lover lies
and dreams by the side of a murmuring stream that
glides softly through the dim darkness. The gleam
on the underside of some of the leaves, and the diffused
radiance of a wan though hidden moon upon the still,
wandering water is finely painted. On the other hand,
there is something to be said in favour of the objection
I have heard brought forward, that this predella rather
detracts from the idea sought to be given, at least in
the poem, of remoteness of the Blessed Damozel in her
high place in the heavenly spheres ; an objection, I
confess, which I cannot personally agree with but
which I can see mihtates against the full appreciation
of some. The artist himself considered that by his
predella he had greatly added to the effect of the
central portion of the picture, not only artistically but
emotionally, and in this judgment the majority will
doubtless acquiesce. Possessing as it does supreme
merit as a work of art, its great charm, after all, is in
its poetic meaning and its wonderful expressiveness.
The painting may practically be said to be the sug-

III. " THE BLESSED DAMOZEL'' {No. 2). 253

gestion of the artist's friend, Mr. William Graham;
for though he had at times in his early life thought of
transferring his conception to canvas he had never
hitherto done so, and latterly the intention seems to
have become wholly dormant ; but on Mr. Graham's
request and agreement to become the purchaser Eos-
setti, after a year or so of preliminary trial, at last
entered heartily into its composition, though he never
hesitated to say that of the two he had rather the
poem should survive.

In the painting of the same subject belonging to
Mr. Leyland (painted in 1879) the face and attitude
are alike somewhat different, the former being finer in
that it is more spiritual and the expression containing
more of patient love and constant yearning, it having
evidently been modelled more after the challi drawing
abeady" mentioned than the face in the original oil.
In this picture the background groups of lovers are
omitted, and the predella, though the same in detail
as that of 1877, is not quite so fine in its subtle
lights and shades. The wings of the angelic ministers
are of light reddish purple, the roses at the right side
are red and full, and the robe of the Damozel is of
pale green with white interfusions where the folds
bend and droop, instead of perfect azure as before ;
and behind her are cherubim with scarlet wings. A
beautiful picture indeed, and only inferior in com-
parison with that of 1877. In this year also, by-the-
bye (1877), was finished the fine oil replica of Proser-
pina, belonging to Mr. Turner, referred to in descrip-
tion some pages back.

The following year several drawings in chalk came
from the artist's easel, and two important oils were

254 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

finished — A Vision of Fiammetta and the replica of
Dante s Dream, with its double predella, described while
mentioning the original of 1870, also a fine replica in
water-colour of Proser^pina. To this date belongs Eos-
setti's only original water-colour of very recent years,
Bruna Brunelleschi — a study full of poetry and beauty.
Eegarding the fine painting A Vision of Fiammetta
readers of Dante and His Circle may recollect an able
translation of a sonnet by Boccaccio, Of His Last Sight
of FiamwMta, given on page 252: the only difference
between the printed one and that accompanying the
picture being in the first line, where " 'Mid glowing
blossoms and o'er golden hair " has been substituted for
" Eound her red garland and her golden hair." After
the completion of Fiammetta Eossetti commenced the
impressive Mnemosyne, which, however, he did not
finish till late in 1879 or early in 1880, under the
latter of which dates it will be described. Amongst
the chalk drawings, one is a replica, a Pandora;
another is a characteristic study of a female head, after
a well-known model, afterwards autotyped with the
title Perlascura ; and the third is a poetic composition
called The Spirit of the Bainlow. This belongs to
Mr. Theodore Watts, and illustrates a poem of his.
It represents a female figure standing in a gauzy circle
composed of a rainbow, and on the frame is written
the following sonnet (the poem in question by Mr.
Watts) : —

The Wood-Haunter's Dream.

The wild things loved me ; but a wood-sprite said : —
"Though meads are sweet when flowers at morn uncurl,

And woods are sweet of nightingale and merle,
Where are the dreams that flush'd thy childish bed ! —

III. " THE SPIRIT OF THE RAINBO W;' ETC. 255

The Spirit of the Rainbow thou would'st wed ! "

I arose, I found her — found a rain-drenched girl
Whose eyes of azure and limbs of rose and pearl

Coloured the rain above her golden head.

But standing by the Rainbow-Spirit's side,
I saw no more the holy Rainbow's stains : —

To her by whom the glowing heavens were dyed

The sun showed nought but dripping woods and plains.
" God gives the world the Rainbow — her the rains — "

The wood-sprite laughed : ^' our poet finds a bride !"

Eossetti meant to have completed the design with the
" woods and plains " seen in perspective through the
arc ; and the composition has an additional and special
interest from being the artist's only successful attempt
at the wholly nude, — the " Spirit " being extremely
graceful in poise and outline. A year or two previ-
ously Rossetti had executed another design founded
on a composition by Mr. Watts, a romantic little
Rosicrucian story. The drawing, which for the sake
of a name I will call Forced Music, represents a
nude half- figure of a girl playing on a mediaeval
stringed instrument elaborately ornamented. The face,
which is of a type unlike that of any other of the
artist's subjects, and extraordinarily beautiful, shows
beyond all question that the girl is in captivity and
supplying her music under compulsion.

In 1879 another replica in chalk of the Pandora
design was executed, the last and undoubtedly (with one
other) the finest of aU, alike in detail, clearness of out-
line, and expressive power ; this also belongs to Mr.
Watts. Mr. Valpy also has a Pandora equally com-
plete and elaborate in design, and equally powerful
and solemn in expression. In this year also, besides

256 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

the second Blessed Damozel already described, were
finished a drawing called Sanda Lilias and an oil named
La Donna della Finestra, while the painting entitled The
Day -Dream was begun, though not completed till
near the close of 1880. Kegarding this last fine
painting, a great favourite with the artist himself, a
descriptive sonnet will be found in the Ballads and
Sonnets ; the representation being that of a beautiful
woman rapt in some " day-dream spirit - fann'd,"
while she sits in the summer silence under " the
thronged boughs of the shadowy sycamore." The
brown branches, with their large and beautifully-painted
green leaves, make an ample shade for her to rest and
indulge in vague reverie, while from the green depths
of the sycamore the urgent music of a thrush thrills
upon the warm air. She has been reading, but her
thoughts have strayed far from the printed page, and
it lies listlessly on her lap, while from her hand drops
the blossom she had plucked for its fragrance ; and
" tow'rd deep skies, not deeper than her look, she
dreams." Like the chalk -drawing of 1868 entitled
Reverie this painting is permeated with the very spirit
of dreamful meditation.

The large drawing in crayons called Sancta Lilias
is one of those compositions where the spiritual expres-
sion of the female face is given with special success ;
in this instance the face as well as the expression being
very beautiful, and not of so mannered a type as many
of his later chalks. Bancta Lilias is the study for the
Virgin in an Annunciation which was never begun,
but whose loveliness certainly transcends the Mary of
the Girlhood picture, or hers of Ecce Ancilla Domini.
In the left upper corner of the composition is a white

III. ''LA DONNA BELLA FINESTRAr 257

scroll bearing the title, and on tlie white scarf, which
with one hand she unfolds from the tall Annunciation
lily she bears before her, are the words Aspice lilia ;
the haloed hair and face and simple drapery being
finely drawn. Some months before this, however,
Fiammetta was finished — that beautiful vision of
Boccaccio's lady-love. She is clothed in a beautiful
soft red, and with her left hand puts away from her
with exquisite grace the apple-tree branch with its
wealth of blossoms that encircles her. Her face is
beautiful, and behind the head is an effulgence of soft
light with the circled angel therein described in the
sonnet. The natural painting is lovely throughout,
the apple blossoms being especially fine, both those
unshaken and those falling from the branch she bends
above her with her right hand ; and above this branch
two butterflies of deep blue hover, and in the centre
of the upper portion of the picture an outspread-
winged and crested bird poises ere it takes flight.

It will be remembered that in 1869 Eossetti made
a chalk drawing which he entitled La Donna delta
Finestra ; but this was little more than a study for
the figure in the completed picture, if it was not indeed
simply a portrait in the first instance and during
composition subsequently labelled the compassionate
Lady of the Window.

Those who have read the Vita Nuova will recollect
that after the death of Beatrice Dante was one day so
overcome in his grief that even in the street it was
made manifest in his countenance ; and that, feeling
ashamed of observance, he looked hastily to see if any
were looking upon him, when he perceived only " a
young and very beautiful lady who was gazing upon

S

258 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

[him] from a window with a gaze full of pity, so that
the very sum of pity appeared gathered together in
her." It, moreover, so happened that whensoever there-
after he was seen of this lady, " she became pale and of
a piteous countenance, as though it had been with love."
It is this Lady of the Window who is supposed by some,
and by Eossetti himself (though in a footnote he refers
to the supposition as only " a passing conjecture "),
to be the Gemma Donati whom he afterwards married,
a year or more subsequent to the death of Beatrice.
On the frame of the picture is painted, as poetic illus-
tration, Dante's pathetic sonnet beginning Videro gli
occhi mici quanta pietate, and its English translation.
La Donna della Finestra sits beside an open window
in a large square-shaped and green-hued balcony, look-
ing out on the unseen Florentine street wherein, it may
be, at the very moment the great poet and sorrowful
mourner is passing by. Her hair is of a deep rich-
toned brown, close clustering to her head and forehead
in the true Eossettian style, and in her soft gray-blue
eyes there is the yearning pitiful look that so soothed
the grief of Dante ; her dress, only visible at the neck
and left sleeve, is of a rich green, with over it a white
robe which droops slightly over the window-sill as she
leans therefrom, lying upon a flat portion of it being a
pink rose from which delicate petals here and there
have fallen away. Below the window grow upwards
in clusters large and beautifully-painted fig-leaves, so
finely painted indeed as to deserve the praise of being
the finest individual bit of nature Eossetti ever painted,
as the most exact Preraphaelite would be unable to sur-
pass it in natural truth. Behind her are beautiful roses
and rosebuds, pink and red, with the short green leaves

III. DESIGN OF THE SONNET. 259

finely painted ; and to her right is a carven pillar,
beyond which and between others is seen the blue
Italian sky dappled with white and purplish clouds.
This is altogether an exceedingly fine composition,
both in drawing and exquisite harmony of colour and
arrangement of contrasts, and in nothing more so than
the already mentioned fig-leaves. In common with
La Bella Mano, it belongs to Mr. F. S. Ellis, a friend
of Kossetti and the publisher of his works.

In 1880, besides two large water-colour replicas of
Proserpina, there was begun a picture which he was
unable to paint regularly thereafter and which he
never lived to finish, although it was not far from
completion when, after the artist's death, it was trans-
ferred to the possession of Mr. Leyland, viz. the Salu-
tation of Beatrice. Early in the year was also finished
a painting at which Eossetti had been engaged at
different periods for some time previous, the fine and
impressive design Mnemosyne ; and in April he made
a drawing illustrative of the Sonnet on the Sonnet, a
highly-finished design in ink, and the same that forms
the frontispiece to this volume. This he painted in
Indian ink, as a frontispiece to a copy of Mr. David
Main's Treasury of English Sonnets, which he presented
to his mother on her birthday, in the floral design
along the lower right corner being the inscription,
" D. G. Eossetti, pro Matre fecit, 27:4:80;" a book
that he valued highly himself, and which was thus made
more valuable still. The Sonnet on the Sonnet, as it is
given in this design, differs only from the printed copy
in the use of the word " intricate " in place of " ardu-
ous " in the fifth line ; and only a portion of the sonnet
is illustrated. The figure is that of the animating

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL

spirit, or soul, as signified by the word " anima " written
in the upper corner ; the harp is the sonnet, with four-
teen strings for the fourteen lines of that form of
composition ; and the spreading branches of the tree
represent the all-embracing aspects of life which the
sonnet can apprehend and embody. The farther end
of the branches terminates in a split coin, on one side
of which is revealed the soul in its emblem the but-
terfly, and on the other the intertwined letters Alpha
and Omega. The design is highly interesting, not only
because of its correct drawing and novel style, but also
from the fact that it is a pictorial tribute towards what
Eossetti always considered his special vehicle in verse.
The painting called Mnemosyne, highly impressive
as it is, will always have the drawback of * non-
originality with any one who has first seen the Astarte
Syriaca, as not only are the contours of the face
and the arrangement of the hair very similar, but
so also is the colour of the robe in which she is clad.
Indeed, though I am not certain if I remember aright,
I fancy it was in the first instance commenced as a
replica of Astarte, but at any rate this idea was soon
dismissed, and the artist conceived the idea of utilising
it so far as it had been proceeded with towards an
ideal representation of memory; even with this new
^nd fine motif, however, he took comparatively little
interest in his picture, even going the length of refer-
ring to it as a kind of white elephant he did not know
how to manage himself or afterwards dispose of to
another. These fancies, mainly due as they were to
capricious if not already shattered health, did not,
however, interfere with the workmanship, and some
time after the painting left the easel Eossetti acknow-

III. MNEMOSYNE, 261

ledged that his half-real half-affected antipathy was
unfounded, and that he had seldom, if ever, better
succeeded in reaching his ideal of expressiveness. The
figure of Mnemosyne is clad in a robe of brilliant sea-
green with white lights throughout, leaving her olive-
hued neck and bust bare and unclothing the rounded
arms ; her face is olive-pale and rounded in its- con-
tours, the eyes of a mystical dreamy shade of gray,
and the black -brown hair with its metallic gleam
clusters close to the head and shoulders in thick
masses. In one hand she holds a bronze lamp from
which issues a faint blue and purple flame, and in the
other an antique oil cruse or chalice with delicate pur-
plish flames like wings also issuing, these having their
special symbolism as mentioned in the couplet inscribed
on the frame —

" Thou fill'st from the winged chahce of the soul
Thy lamp, 0 Memory, fire-winged to its goal."

Below these, on the bole of a tree, lie a fir-spray and
a yellow pansy, the significance of which is obvious ;
overhead lean the encircling branches of an olive-tree,
and beyond is seen the dark -blue sky with heavy
white and purplish clouds which have the subdued
hues of a quiet sunset reflected faintly upon them,
typifying the dreamy present with the far-off radiance
of the past softening and making strange with old
memories. In the eyes of Mnemosyne the past is
made evident to her ; she lives therein and in memories
once fragrant in their realities but now somewhat
bitter; she tastes again of dim pleasures long since
forgotten, hears voices now alien, and thrills with the
sound of low laughter long since stifled in unrecorded

262 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

death. She sees so far back, her gaze is so subtly
interpenetrative, that it may be she sees farther than
history can guide us, — the strange temples that were
upreared to unknown gods, the olive -skinned dark-
haired maidens singing in mystic rites, and white-
robed priests with eyes burning in strange ecstasy :
the ebb and flow of religions and human passions,
hopes, aspirations, and longings. The past is evermore
to her a dream that is reality, and she is the eternal
dreamer thereof, — Mnemosyne, she who holds the
secret of all things buried and forgotten.

In 1881 yet another replica was made of Proser-
pina, or rather begun, for it did not leave the studio
till the following year; but at last that picture was
finished, which mention was made of in 1867 as
having been commenced at least in design, the La
Pia. The story of her thus called will be re-
membered by those who have read the Purgatory of
Dante, the unfortunate youthful wife having been con-
fined by her husband, Nello dell' Pietra of Siena, to a
fortress in the Maremma where the noxious vapours
of that swampy district were most fatal. In his
visionary journey through Purgatory Dante meets her
spirit, and she says to him the words that are the motif
of the paintiQg : —

" Eicorditi di me che son la Pia.

Siena me fe', disfecemi Maremma ;
Salsi colui che inanellata pria
Disposando m'avea coUa sua gemma."

" Eemember me who am La Pia, me

From Siena sprung and by Maremma dead.
This in his inmost heart well knoweth he

With whose fair jewel I was ringed and wed."
II PurgatoriOy Canto V.

''LA PIA." 263

La Pia in the picture is represented sitting behind
the rampart of her prison fortress, looking forth upon
the desolate plain of the Maremma, where over stagnant
pools hover wan gray mists and poisonous vapours,
her gaze now fixed upon the dreary prospect, now
upon the ring with its oval cornelian with which upon
a certain ill-starred day she was wedded. Over a
dress of deep blue she wears a white transparent robe,
with behind her a veil of a faint purplish hue ; her
dark hair falls in masses from her low forehead and
sweeps backward down the shoulders, and her dark-
gray pathetic eyes are fixed upon the ring on her
wedding finger in sad contemplation. In front of her
lie her breviary and letters beside a bronze sundial,
with figured on it the angel of time wheeling the
sun; and beyond these are the battlemented walls
looking out upon the Maremma marshes, close under
the ramparts of which are laid the steel lances of her
husband's guards with his red banner lying upon them.
Behind her are finely-drawn and painted ivy-leaves in
clustering tendrils, and above her fig-leaves painted
with the same exquisite finish as those in the picture
of La Donna delta Finestra. On the ramparts a bell
is tolling in dismal funereal tones, sending its melan-
choly clang across the lifeless Maremma over which
and just above the mouldy battlements some black
ravens hover and sweep with ominous caws. The artist
has fully succeeded in his aim, that of charging the
composition with the insidious deathliness and de-
pressing gloom of the Maremma, and of impressing
upon the spectator that sense of indignant pity for the
young and beautiful La Pia which Dante experienced
when, with his guide Virgil, he passed through the.

264 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

shadows of Purgatory. In his own opinion this paint-
ing contained some of his best work from nature, as
in the ivy and fig leaves and the admirably -drawn
ravens, as also in the perspective of the wide-spreading
Maremmese marshes.

In 1882, the year when the exceptionally produc-
tive life of the artist -poet came to its untimely end,
the only finished work was a replica in oil of the
Joan D'Arc described under date 1864; but there are
two paintings still to describe, one nearly finished, the
Salutation of Beatrice, and the other the highly im-
portant but unfortunately still uncompleted Found,
which the artist had been at work on for more than
twenty years, or, to speak more correctly, which had
been commenced more than twenty years ago.

It will be remembered that in the Vita Nuova Dante
records his sensations at the exceeding grace of a
salutation vouchsafed to him by Beatrice, in a sonnet
commencing " My lady looks so gentle and so pure, when
yielding salutation by the way," and in the picture the
beautiful daughter of Folco Portinari is represented on
her way to morning devotions, clad as in the vision he
had of her nine years after their first childish meeting,
in pure white. Dressed thus simply, and with her pale
face (such as Dante tells us the face of Beatrice was
wont to be) shrouded by the dark hair parted low over
her forehead, the charm the painting exerts lies almost
wholly in her expression, which is very tender and
beautiful, albeit the mannerism of type is somewhat too
marked. As she proceeds on her way, full facing the
spectator of the painting, " crowned and clothed with
humility," she carries in her arms her breviary in its
yellowish cover ; passing on her right a rose-tree with

III. " THE SALUTA TION OF BE A TRICE:' 265

many of the red blooms upon it and contrasting with the
soft white of her dress, and on her left a large green
jessamine in full flower. Behind her at some distance
on the left is a stone balustrade, against a carved
tomb or seat on which Dante leans, clasped almost
round by the long scarlet wings of the figure of Love
whose whole body is of the same ardent flame-colour ;
the poet looking after the retreating Beatrice with a
mixture of awe and worship, almost indeed with a look
as of one dazed with excess of pure and sacred loveli-
ness. It must be remembered that this excess of
emotion is in thorough harmony with the spirit of the
Vita Nuova, and that Dante records in all sincerity that
" when she had gone by, it was said of many : This is
not a woman, hut one of the heautiful angels of Heaven ;
and there were some that said : This is surely a miracle ;
hlessed he the Lord, who hath power to work thus
marvellously." Some distance behind the figure of
Beatrice is an archway leading on to long corridors, but
these are so very unfinished in the painting that nothing
need be said of them beyond stating their existence, and
that the artist considered they would ultimately be his
best piece of architectural drawing, being especially free
from those defects of perspective which he never wholly
overcame. He took great care with this portion of the
picture, sometimes getting rather despondent over the
technical difiiculties, relying for his model, as he did,
chiefly upon architectural photographs of Siennese and
Florentine ecclesiastical corridors, courts, and arch-
ways.

It may be remembered that mention was made of a
water-colour drawing entitled The Farmer s Daughter
being exhibited in the Eoyal Scottish Academy's Ex-

266 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

hibition in Edinburgh in 1862, where it was sent for
sale by Eossetti from his then address in Chatham
Place, Blackfriars ; and that this drawing was referred to
as an early " trial " of the subject he had chosen for a
great painting of modern life, namely, the still unfinished
Found, based, as mentioned under date 1853, upon verses
in Mr. William BeU Scott's fine ballad called Mary Anne,
This painting the artist intended should be an exempli-
fication at once of his power to deal with a modem
subject in art, as in poetry he did in his poem caUed
Jenny, and to exhibit at a high point what he considered
the essentially dramatic bent of his genius. The subject
is the old familiar one of love ruined and gone astray,
and at last overtaken with the hardest of all retributions.
Against an ivy-covered graveyard wall, in the wan
light of a London dawn and the pale unreal gleam of
the still lighted lamps upon the bridge, cowers a girl
w^hose face is almost hidden by her dishevelled golden
hair and her shielding hands ; and in front of her stands
a countryman, of a somewhat too idealised type it may
be to impress with unmistakable reality, but still not
unv^dX, who clasps one of her arms in his hand and stoops
to lift her from the weary misery of her degradation. He
has come in from the sweet-smelling country, with the
fragrant hay and the roses and honeysuckles in the
hedges vying with each other for predominance, where
all was pure and still, life being yet present in the
innumerable larks in full song and in the linnets and
chaffinches in the beech and ash trees by the white road-
side, and the smoke from an early cottar's fire rising up
in curling blue films above the distant elms surrounding
some farai-house ; and having at last entered the town,
with his cart containing the calf he has brought for the

III. ''FOUNDr 267

market, he has crossed the Thames by one of its
numerous bridges and is arrested in his progress by
the sight of the unfortunate girl crouching before him.
He has not yet seen her face, but she has recognised in
him the man who loved her in what seems to her long
ago, and to whom she was betrothed ; but the sight of
her not only touches the manly pity and chivalry of his
nature but also strikes a chord of bitter but forgiving
memory in his heart when he thinks of one young
and beautiful like this poor girl, of whose fate he is
unaware. Persistent in his brotherly kindness, he
endeavours to raise the girl from her crouching position,
and at last with a despairing look she returns his gaze,
and in a moment the world seems dark to him again,
darker even than on that day when he first learned
that his betrothed had been unfaithful to him and had
fled with her betrayer. The sestet of the sonnet tells
us nothing further than that upon both hearts flashed
the sudden and bitter memory of those gloaming hours
when " under one mantle sheltered 'neath the hedge "
they pled to each other their mutual troth ; that he in
the agonising moment of recognition only knows he
holds her again, but alas, " what part can life now
take?" — while she in her misery can only with in-
audible lips sob out, "Leave me — I do not know you !"
As will be recognised at once, the subject is a highly
dramatic one, and it must be admitted that the artist
has succeeded in giving it a dramatic representation,
although the moment he has chosen for illustration is
not that of recognition on the man's part, but where he
stoops in pity over the golden-haired Magdalene. The
painting of the picture as far as it is finished is very
thorough, especially notable being the calf in the rough

268 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

country cart, the attitude of the cowering girl against
the ivy-covered brick wall, and the pale flaming of the
gas jets on the bridge against the cold wan blue light
of advancing dawn : indeed, these gas gleams turning
pale "in London's smokeless resurrection light" are
amongst the best technical work of the artist, recalling
a parallel passage in Jenny, where a natural truth is
happily expressed : —

" Glooms begin
To shiver off as lights creep in
Past the gauze curtains half drawn-to,
And the lamp's doubled shade grows blue."

It is greatly to be regretted that this work is still un-
finished, as a short period devoted to it entirely would
have accomplished all that was necessary ; but this was
not to be, for in a quiet churchyard near the sea rest
the fertile hand and mind of him who has so enriched
and ennobled English art as well as English literature.

With the picture of Found and the year 1882 ends
this record, not indeed quite exhaustive, but as complete
as is practicable so soon after the artist's death, and
under the circumstances of the wide and frequently
unrecorded distribution of the pictures, drawings, and
designs. If the amount of imaginative conceptions and
the general technical mastership have been rendered
realisable to the reader unacquainted with the work of
the great artist whose death we have all so recently
deplored, one of the main objects of this narration will
have been accomplished ; and it may be that it may
help towards the clearing away of false impressions in
the minds of some, towards enlarging and increasing
the sympathetic admiration of others, and serving

III. ROSSETTI THE ARTIST. 269

collectors and those interested in art as the substantial
basis of a possibly more complete and exact record.
One can infer and gather much from a literary record,
but one cannot judge from such alone ; but I am
certain that the majority of those who have read
the foregoing pages, and are at the same time in at least
some measure acquainted with the artist's work, will not
hesitate in believing one of the greatest names in the
history of English art to be that of Dante Gabriel
Eossetti.

{At the end of this volume will be found a Supplementary List giving
as accurately and exhaustively as I have found practicable the dates of
execution, subjects, mediums, states, and present owners of everything
mentioned in the foregoing record, with any others which for various
reasons I may not have been able to specify. No trouble has been
spared to make it as reliable and complete as lay in my power, with the
assistance of many concerned, to accomplish.)

270 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

ADDENDA TO CHAPTER III.

Amongst those designs and pictures which I have for different
reasons been unable to specify in the foregoing chapter are the
following, some of whose dates are still conjectural. I may as
well state here that if any difference be anywhere observable
between the text and the Supplementary List the latter is to be
taken as the correct information, it having undergone the closest
revision down to the final proof. Amongst other designs
executed for glass should have been mentioned that entitled
King Renfs Honeymoon, which is in Mr. Birket Foster's residence
in Surrey ; and amongst panel paintings one in a large cabinet
belonging to Mr. J. P. Seddon, representing a lady in blue play-
ing an organ and a youth clothed in red leaning thereover, prob-
ably a St. Cecily design. Amongst unfulfilled early designs for
pictures should have been mentioned one of Fra Angelico paint-
ing and one of Giorgioiie painting, both belonging to Mr. Madox
Brown, and an interesting study in pencil founded on the story
of Dorothy and Theophilus, in connection with which readers of
Mr. Swinburne's Poems and Ballads will recollect an enlarge-
ment of the theme in verse. Mr. J. P. Seddon has also several
other pencil sketches and studies, but the latter are too incom-
plete to specify. In 185.3 Rossetti executed a very fine pencil
head of his father, exactly a year before the latter's death, and
on this drawing a wood-engraving, which ajjpeared in a biogra-
phical series of eminent Italians published at Turin, has been
founded, but in a most unsatisfactory manner, giving no idea of
the delicacy and beauty as well as the detail of the original.
Llr. J. Mitchell has a highly -finished water-colour painted about
1863, regarding which the artist wrote: — "The drawing of
Brimfull had its origin merely from my seeing a lady stoop to
sip from a very full wine-glass before lifting it to her lips. The
reflection in the glass is intended for that of a gentleman dining
with her, who would be seated on the front side of the table

III. ADDENDA TO CHAPTER HI. 271

unseeii in tlie picture " — particulars of course only interesting
from a technical point of view. Amongst a number of crayon
studies belonging to Mr. F. R. Leyland, unmentioned in the
text, are specially notable a Venus Verticordiaj the study for the
picture of 1868, belonging to Mr. Graham, interesting from the
background arrangement, which in this study consists of trellis-
work with roses intertwined ; a Blessed Damozel, a study for his
own picture of that name but not so spiritual in expression, and
a Magdalene, fine indeed, but in no way equal to that of 1876.
In Mr. lonides' possession there is a picture in tinted crayons
called The Siren, a study indeed for the Sea-Spell, but differing
from the completed picture to such an extent that it could be
considered separately were the necessary space at my disposal ;
but I may mention that its imaginative charm is more remark-
able than its drawing. From the many interesting studies and
designs left by the artist and as yet undisposed of, I can only
now select the most interesting design called Orpheus and Eurydice
(1868) ; the Ricorditi di me che sou la Pia (1866), a most beau-
tiful crayon picture, and not a design for that called La Pia, as
the title would suggest, or at any rate the treatment is wholly
different ; and the splendid Desdemona's Death-Song, of which the
artist left so many states, and which he earnestly desired to carry
out on canvas, but as it is it must rank in the first class of
Rossetti's single-figure compositions. I have also forgotten to
mention the large and important design in oil monochrome. The
Bout of Love. But owing to late information frequently reach-
ing me at a great distance from the writer's residence, I am stUl
unable to include in this Supplementary Note such exhaustive
specification as will be found in the catalogue at the end of this
volume, which has been printed at the latest period practicable
in order to embrace, if possible, all the artist's more or less
finished designs and compositions.

CHAPTEE lY.

PROSE WRITINGS TRANSLATIONS DANTE AND THE

EARLY ITALLA^r POETS.

Those familiar with the writings of the largest and
noblest minded philosopher of our age may recollect a
passage in the essay on The Poet, wherein the author,
Ealph "Waldo Emerson, rightly remarks, " It is not
metres, but a metre-making arrangement that makes a
poem ; a thought so passionate and alive, that, like the
spirit of a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of
its own, and adorns nature with a new thing." This
sentence, or the same thought as therein expressed,
must have occurred to every sympathetic reader of,
amongst others, Sir Walter Ealeigh, Sir Thomas Browne,
Jeremy Taylor, Milton, De Quincey, Walter Savage
Landor, and Euskin ; for here and there in the works
of each of these great prose writers there are " thoughts
so passionate and alive," that the architecture in which
they are shrined is of necessity not prose but poetry,
albeit rhjrme and metre are absent. Leaving aside the
controversy as to whether prose writing can in justifi-
able sense of the word be called poetry, it will be gener-
ally admitted that in some instances the poetic emotion
seems of necessity to choose prose as its vehicle, and in
the result becomes unanswerable proof of the fittingness
of the choice. The borderland is indeed at times very

IV. THE LIMITS OF PROSE. 273

narrow ; and the following passages from Wordsworth's
'Excursion will show how an artificial metrical arrange-
ment almost alone determines whether emotional
diction shall be called poetry or prose, both being
written exactly as they stand in the poem.

/ luLve seen a curious child^ who dwelt upon a tract of
inland ground, applying to his ear the convolutions of a
smooth-lipped shell ; to which, in silence hushed, his very
soul listened intensely ; and his countenance soon hright-
ened with joy ; for from within were heard murmurings
wherein the monitor expressed mysterious union with its
native sea. Even such a shell the universe itself is to the
ear of Faith; and there are times, I doubt not, when to you
it doth impart authentic tidings of invisible things ; of
ebb and flow, and ever-during power ; and central peace,
subsisting at the heart of endless agitation. — (Book IV.) ^

Say what meant the woes by Tantalus entailed upon
his race, and the dark sorroivs of the line of Thebes ? . . .
Exchange the shepherd^ s frock of native gray for robes
with regal purple tinged; convert the crook into a sceptre;
give the pomp of circumstance ; and here the Tragic
Muse shall find apt subjects for her highest art. Amid
the groves, under the shadowy hills, the generations are
prepared ; the pangs, the internal pangs, are ready ; the
dread strife of poor humanity's afflicted will struggling
in vain with ruthless destiny. — (Book VI.)

Contrast these well-known and beautiful passages
with the following, and it would be hard to say why
the latter should not be termed poetry, not of course
the poetry of rhyme and metre, but that which is

^ See also Landor's well-known passage in Gehir, beginning — But I
have sinucms shells of pearly hue — the artificial construction of which
imperatively forbids unmetrical aiTangement.

T

274 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

animated by " thoughts so passionate and alive " as to
be far removed from ordinary prose.

0 eloquent, just, and mighty Death ! whom none could
advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou
hast done ; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou
only hast cast out of the world and despised ; thou hast
drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the
pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all
over with these two narrow vjords, Hic jacet! — (Sir
Walter Ealeigh, Hist, of the World.)

But the third sister [i.e. the third sister, or Madonna
of Sorrow, " Mater Tenebrarum "], who is also the
youngest — ! Hush I whisper whilst we talk of her ! Her
kingdom is not large, or else no flesh should live; hut within
the kingdom all power is hers. Her head, turreted like
that of Cyhele, rises almost heyond the reach of sight.
She droops not; and her eyes, rising so high, might he
hidden hy distance. But, heing what they are, they
cannot he hidden ; through the treble veil of crape which
she wears, the fierce light of a blazing misery, that rests
not for matins or for vespers, for noon of day or noon of
night, for ehhing or for flowing tide, rroay be read from
the very ground. She is the defkr of God. She is also
tlie mother of lunacies and the suggestress of suicides. —
(De Quincey, Suspiria.)

Or those war clouds that gather on the horizon, dra-
gon-crested, tongued with fire ; — how is their barbed
strength bridled ? what hits are these they are champing
with their vaporous lips ; fiinging off fiakes of black
foam ? Leagued leviathans of the sea of Heaven, out of
their nostrils goeth smoke, and their eyes are like the eye-
lids of the morning. The sword of him that layeth at
tJiem cannot hold the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon.

IV. THE LIMITS OF PROSE, llh

Where ride, tlie captains of their armies ! WTiere are
set the measures of their march ? Fierce murmurers,
answering each other from morning until evening — what
rebuke is this which has awed them into peace ? what hand
has reined them hack hy the way hy which they came ? —
(John Euskin, Cloud Beauty. Modern Painters.)

Hers [Lionardo da Vinci's Za Giocondci] is the head
upon which all " the ends of the world are come,'' and
the eyelids are a little weary. . . . She is older than the
rocks among vjhich she sits; like the Vampire, she has
been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the
grave ; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps
their fallen day about her ; and trafficked for strange
webs with Eastern merchants ; and, as Leda, was the
mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother
of Mary ; and all this has been to her but as the sound
of lyres and flutes. . . . — (Walter Pater, The Re-
naissance.

While these are unmistakably prose passages they
are far from being what is termed prosaic, and they
fulfil, there can hardly be a doubt, as well as artificially
poetic expression could, the emotion at the time influ-
encing the mind of each writer. If, then, the poetic
prose writer be not the same as the poet, his work is
at any rate sufficiently emotional to make it rank, even
if on a different platform, with that of the latter ; and
hence, after all, the saying that such and such a work
is a prose poem is not without justification. These
remarks have been called forth by statements I have
seen several times since the death of Dante Eossetti
refemng to his " prose poem Hand and Soul" by the
same author's great admiration of poetic prose as a
vehicle of intellectual emotion, and by remarks I recall

276 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

made by him as to the limitations of the two methods
of expression. But to speak of Eossetti as a prose poet,
as we have again and again ground for doing of Euskin,
for instance, is a mistake. In a sense, the " story" called
Hand and Soul may be called a prose poem, the greater
part of it consisting of exquisitely-balanced phrasing
permeated by strong poetic emotion ; yet it is not a
prose poem in the sense, for example, that De Quincey's
Three Sisters of Sorrow may be so called, lacking the
sustained white-heat lyricism of the latter. It has
indeed a central thought "so passionate and alive"
that it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature
with a new thing, yet, while it attains the summit of
perfect prose, it does not overstep the narrow border
line and become, as Mr. Masson said in speaking of a
portion of the Susjpiria, a lyrical prose phantasy. It is
poetic prose ; poetic emotion (imaginative meditation)
expressed in rhythmical but not lyrical cadence, and
without rhyme and metre. It is more a beautiful alle-
gory in exquisite prose than a prose poem. "With the
exception of Hand and Soul, and an unfinished nar-
rative of spiritual experience, Eossetti wrote nothing
else that can be strictly defined as poetic prose ;
finely balanced and rhythmical prose he did, indeed,
invariably commit to paper. His original prose writ-
ings, however, are so very slight in amount that it will
not be necessary to dwell at any length upon them.
Indeed, the bulk of his non-poetic literary work is
mainly comprised in his voluminous correspondence ;
otherwise, in adition to Hand and Soul and the
unfinished " romance " called St. Agnes of Intercession^
shown only to a very few friends, his original prose
writings are to be found in the introduction to Dante

IV. PROSE WRITINGS, 277

and His Circle (2 8 pp.) and preface ; some material
appearing in the late Mr. Gilchrist's valuable Life of
William Blahe, and in Mr. A. H. Palmer's most inter-
esting Biogra'phy of Samiiel Palmer ; in one or two
published letters and unpublished translations from
the French ; the appreciative and suggestive essay on
Maclise written early in 1871, and the two critiques
of Dr. Gordon Hake's poems ; and finally, the im-
portant and beautiful rendering into s^nnpathetic
English of the Vita Niiova. His interest in Blake
was from the first very great, and whatever he wrote
with reference to the strange mystic artist- poet was
with the highest appreciation and admiration; but,
if I am not mistaken, it was not till his youth was
past that he became acquainted with his work. So
that the influence of the author of Bongs of Innocence
could not directly have manifested itself, as has
been stated, in the early artistic and poetic work
of Dante Eossetti. In the preface to the late
edition of Blake's Life, Mrs. Gilchrist tells us that
Eossetti assisted in the bringing-out of the volume to
the extent of the choice and arrangement of a large
collection of Blake's unpublished and hitherto almost
equally inaccessible published writings, together with
introductory remarks to each section. He was also
the author of the supplementary chapter occupying
pages 413-431 inclusive ; Mr. Gilchrist having left a
memorandum to the effect that such a chapter was
intended, and having specified the list of topics to be
handled. Elsewhere in the book the hand of Eossetti
is also discernible. As specimens of his style in this
book r give the following few extracts, illustrative
also of his pictorially descriptive powers. " The tinting

278 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

of the ^ong of Los is not throughout of one order of
value ; but no finer example of Blake's power in ren-
dering poetic effects of landscape could be found
than that almost miraculous expression of the glow
and freedom of air in closing sunset, in a plate where
a youth and maiden, lightly embraced, are racing
along a saddened low-lit hill, against an open sky of
blazing and changing wonder." Again, " See, for
instance, in plate 8, the deep, unfathomable, green sea
churning a broken foam as white as milk against that
sky which is all blue and gold and blood- veined heart
of fire ; while from sea to sky one locked and motion-
less face gazes, as it might seem, for ever." In the
following occur lines which will at once strike as
familiar any one knowing well Mr. Eossetti's poems ;
"or plate 12, which, like the other two (8 and 9),
really embodies some of the wild ideas in Urizen, but
might seem to be Aurora guiding the new-born day,
as a child, through a soft-complexioned sky of fleeting
rose and tingling gray, such as only dawn and dreams
can show us." This at once recalls the poem called
Plighted Promise, where these lines occur —

" In a soft-complexioned sky,

Fleeting rose and kindling gray,
Have you seen Aurora fly
At the break of day."

Again, speaking of the Midsummer Night's Dream,
Eossetti writes, "for pure delightfulness, intricate
colour, and a kind of Shakespearian sympathy with all
forms of life and growth, as in the Midsummer Night's
Dream, let the gazer, having this precious book once in
his hands, linger long over plates 10, 16, 22, and 23.
If they be for him, he will be joyful more and more the

IV. ESS A V ON MACLISE. 279

longer he looks, and will gain back in that time some
things as he first knew them, not encumbered behind
the days of his life ; things too delicate for memory or
years since forgotten ; the momentary sense of spring
in winter sunshine, the long sunsets long ago, and
falling fires on many distant hills." And lastly, the con-
cluding sentence of the chapter and of vol. i. : — " Any
who can here find anything to love will be the poet-
painter's welcome guests, still such a feast is spread
first of all for those who can know at a glance that it
is theirs and was meant for them ; who can meet their
host's eye with sympathy and recognition, even when
he offers them the new strange fruits grown for himself
in far off gardens where he has dwelt alone, or pours
for them the wines which he has learned to love, in
lands where they never travelled."

From the essay on Maclise's Portrait-Gallery the
following brief extract relating to the finest of the
series will be read with interest : —

" But one picture here stands out from tlie rest in mental
power, and ranks Maclise as a great master of tragic satire. It is
that which grimly shows us the senile torpor of Talleyrand, as he
sits in after-dinner sleep between the spread board and the fire-
place, surveyed from the mantel-shelf by the busts of all the
sovereigns he had served. His elbows are on the chair-arms ;
his hands hang ; his knees, fallen open, reveal the waste places
of shrivelled age ; the book he read, as the lore he lived by,
has dropped between his feet ; his chap-fallen mask is spread
upward as the scalp rests on the cushioned chair-back ; the wick
gutters in the wasting candle beside him ; and his last master
claims him now. All he was is gone ; and water or fire for the
world after him — what care had he ? The picture is more than
a satire ; it might be called a diagram of damnation : a ghastly
historical verdict which becomes the image of the man for ever."

Of the two critiques on the Poems of Dr. Gordon

280 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

Hake, the first appeared in The Academy for February
1, 1873. It occupies some five or six columns and
is a good piece of critical writing, appreciative of the
many undoubted excellences in Madeline, with other
Poems and Parables, and at the same time discrimi-
nating as to the equally undoubted minor flaws in the
same. The second critique, on Dr. Hake's second
series, occupying with quotations six pages printed
in small type, appeared in The Fortnightly Review for
April 1873 and contains some very characteristic
writing in addition to the critical excellence manifest
in the earlier notice.

Sir Theodore Martin begins aright his introduction
to his admirable translation of the " Confessio Amantis "
of Dante by remarking that there is not in literature a
more notable contribution to the personal history of a
great man than the Vita Nuova ; and perhaps no living
Englishman is better qualified to speak on the sub-
ject than the well-known writer who so far back as
1845 published in Tait's Magazine some noteworthy
translations from the poems interspersed throughout
the New Life, and who early in 1861 gave to many
willing readers the first complete translation of the
whole work that had been made. No other writer of
English parentage had until then felt specially fitted
or called upon to undertake the work, but one who
was at once Italian by blood and English through
habitude had been at work for a considerable time
previous to 1861 on what he felt to be a labour spe-
cially suited to him, this second writer being, of course,
Dante Gabriel Eossetti. It was only a few months,
then, after the publication of Sir Theodore Martin's
scholarly translation that there also appeared TJie Early

IV. ''DANTE AND HIS CIRCLE." 281

Italian Poets of Kossetti, a contribution the value of
which can perhaps be hardly justly gauged without
some knowledge of the immense difficulties in the way,
and which the first-named author acknowledged in the
introduction to his second edition " as in all respects
worthy of his (Eossetti's) great reputation." It would
be difficult to imagine any more congenial translative
work for a man like Eossetti than that afforded by the
pathetic record of the great Florentine's ideal boyhood,
and certainly no one who could better catch and
adequately render again (in his own words) the strain
that is " like the first falling murmur which reaches
the ear in some remote meadow, and prepares us to
look upon the sea." The introduction to Dante and
Ms Circle (to the metrical portion of which the transla-
tion of the Vita Nuova is prefixed) is a good piece of
critical writing, and, dealing with facts and dates, yet
made generally interesting ; replete, moreover, with a
rich store of learning and patient study. After what
the reader feels to be an unnecessary apology for its
length, there is an explanation welcome to most re-
garding the advisability of not hampering the text
with endless notes, where the student "struggles through
a few lines at the top of the page only to stick fast at
the bottom in a slough of verbal analysis;" concluding
with the apt remark, " the glare of too many tapers is
apt to render the altar-picture confused and inharmon-
ious, even when their smoke does not obscure or deface
it." Without meaning any undue disparagement to
Sir Theodore Martin's accurate and graceful translation,
that of Eossetti is undeniably more fascinating in the
metrical portions, while the prose, equal in literality,
more sympathetically resembles the mediaeval style of

282

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

CHAP.

the original. Parallel passages taken at random will

best exemplify this : —

D. G. ROSSETTI.

Also, after I had recovered from
my sickness, I bethought me to write
these things in rhyme ; deeming it a
lovely thing to be known. Where-
of I wrote this poem : —

A very pitiful lady, very young,
Exceeding rich in human sympathies.
Stood by, what time I clamoured up-
on Death ;
And at the wild words wandering on

my tongue
And at the piteous look within mine

eyes
She was affrighted, that sobs choked
her breath.

Sir Theodore Martin.

When afterwards I recovered
from this sickness, I resolved to
embody this incident in verse, for-
asmuch as it seemed to me that it
would be a thing delectable to hear ;
and so I composed the following
canzone : —

A lady fair, compassionate and
young,

With all good graces bounteously
adorned.

Stood by, where, calling oft on
Death, I lay ;

When she beheld my face with an-
guish wrung,

And heard the wandering words
wherein I mourned,

She wept aloud, so sore was her
dismay.

¥or those who have not read the Vita Nuova either
in Eossetti's or in any other version the following
quotations may be of interest and also inducement to
the perusal of one of the world's most interesting books.
The first is from the translator's introduction to Dante
and his Circle, and the second is from The New Life
itself, describing Dante's vision of the death of Beatrice,
— the subject, it will be remembered, of one of the
artist's greatest pictures.

Lt may he Tioted here, however, how necessary a hnow-
ledge of the Vita Nuova is to the full comprehension of
the part home hy Beatrice in the Commedia. Moreover,
it is only from the perusal of its earliest and then undi-
vidged self- communings that we can divine the whole
hitterness of wrong to such a soul as Dante's, its poignant
sense of abandonment j or its deep and jealous refuse in

IV. THE ''VITA NUOVA:' 283

memory. Abom all, it is here that we find the first
manifestations of that wisdom of obedience, that natural
breath of duty, which afterwards, in the Commedia,
lifted up a mighty voice for learning and testimony.
Throughout the Vita Nuova there is a strain like the
first falling murmur which reaches the ear in some re-
mote meadow, and prepares us to look upon the sea.

A few dags after this [the death of Falco Porti-
nari, father of Beatrice], my body became afflicted
with a painful infirmity, whereby I suffered bitter
anguish for many days, which at la^t brought me unto
such weakness that I could no longer move. And I
remember that on the ninth day, being overcome with
intolerable pain, a thought came into my mind con-
cerning my lady : but when it had a little nourished
this thought, my mind returned to its brooding over
mine enfeebled body. And then perceiving how frail a
thing life is, even though health keep with it, the matter
seemed so pitiful that I could not choose but weep;
and weeping I said within myself: " Certainly it must
some time come to pass that the very gentle Beatrice
will die." Then, feeling bewildered, I closed mine eyes ;
and my brain began to be in travail as the brain of one
frantic, and to have such imaginations as here follow.

And at the first, it seemed to me that I saw certain
faces of women with their hair loosened, which called out
to me, ''Thou shalt surely die;'' after the ivhich, other
terrible and unknown appearances said unto me, " Thou
art dead." At length, as my phantasy held on in its
wanderings, I came to be I knew not wliere, and to behold
a throng of dishevelled ladies ivonderfully sad, wlw kept
going hither and thither weeping. Then the sun went

284 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

ovbt, so that the stars showed themselves, and they were of
such a colour that I knew they must he weeping : and it
seemed to me that the hirds fell dead out of the sky, and
that there were great earthqiiakes. With that, while I
wondered in my trance, and was filled with a grievous
fear, I conceived that a certain friend came unto me and
said : " Hast thou not heard ? She that was thine ex-
cellent lady hath been taken out of life." Then I began
to weep very piteously ; and not only in mine imaginxi-
tion, but with mine eyes, which were wet with tears.
And I seemed to look towards Heaven, and to behold a
multitude of angels who were returning upwards, having
before them an exceedingly white cloud ; and these angels
were singing together gloriously, ccnd the words of their
song were these : " Osanna in excelsis," and there was no
more thai I heard. Then my Tieart that vms so full of
love said unto me: "It is true that our lady lieth dead;"
and it seemed to me that I went to look upon the body
wherein that blessed and most noble spirit had had its
abiding-place. And so strong was this idle imagining,
that it made me to behold my lady in death; whose head
certain ladies seemed to be covering with a white veil ;
and who was so humble of her aspect that it was as
though she had said : " / have attained to look on the
beginning of peace!' And therewithal I came unto such
humility by the sight of her, that I cried out upon death,
saying: "Now come unto me, and be not bitter against
me any longer : surely, there where thou hast been, thou
hast learned gentleness. Wherefore come now unto me
who do greatly desire thee : seest thou not that I wear
thy colour already ?" And when I had seen all those
offices performed that are fitting to be done %into the dead,
it seemed to me that I went back imto mine own chamber.

IV. ''HAND AND SOUL:' 285

and looked up towards Heaven. And so strong vjos my
phantasy, that I wept again in very truth, and said luith
w,y true voice : " 0 excellent sold ! hoiv blessed is he that
now looTceth upon thee !"

Hand and Soul was first published in The Germ,
many years later in pamphlet form for private circula-
tion,— of the latter very few were printed, and copies
accordingly are very scarce, — and finally, with some
alterations in The Fortnightly Review. In the copy I
possess there is also a very pregnant marginal altera-
tion and addition on page 16, which will be specified
further on.^ This apparent narrative and real allegory
has misled many who read it in The Germ or The Fort-
nightly Review, not only as to the author's having been
in Italy but also as to the existence of such a painter
as Chiaro dell' Erma ; and since the author's death this
imaginative narrative has been the ba'sis of all the
assurances as to the truth of the former. Neither the
statement as to being in Florence in the spring of
1847, nor the full account of the Schizzo d'autore in-
certo in the Pitti Gallery, with the very deceptive
supplementary footiiote, nor the Dresden triptych and
two cruciform pictures, nor the zealous and enthusiastic
connoisseur Dr. Aemmster himself, have any foundation
in fact ; but it must be confessed the narration of
these facts is so circumstantial that it is not to be
wondered at when those who have read Hand and
Sold believed the author to have really visited Italy
after all, and to strongly desire to see the mythical
Figura niistica di Chiaro delV Erma under the mythical
number 161 in the mythical Sala Sessagona of the

1 An alteration from The Germ copy, but existent in The Fort-
nightly Review (1870).

286 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

Pitti Gallery. Originally there was no idea in the
author's mind of deception, the imaginary facts having
been added simply to enhance the reality of the whole,
as in a poem or in fiction one takes a certain scene and
adds to it other details thoroughly fittingly but still
not to be found therein ; but as time went on and he
saw the narrative was now and then taken au sdriemjc
Eossetti frequently to his own amusement allowed any
inferences to be drawn without contradiction from him-
self. I remember his greatly enjoying the somewhat
too-willing readiness of a lady determined to gratify
such a well-known artist, whom she had met for the
first time at a friend's house. Having first mentioned
liow she had read in The Fortnightly Eevieiv his " in-
tensely interesting account of that strange Italian
painter Chiaro dell' Erma," she added that she had
lately been in Florence and distinctly remembered
having seen the picture in question and that it was
worthy of all that he (Eossetti) had written regarding
it. The author of Hand and Soul expressed his
pleasure thereat, but his restrained amusement nearly
betrayed itself when she further stated that she agreed
with him entirely in considering the Figura Mistica
more beautiful and affecting than the cruciform pictures
and triptych at Dresden, despite these being unmis-
takably the work of a master, but that it w^as un-
fortunate they were placed in such a bad light ! Pre-
fatory to the narrative of Hand and Soul are some
applicable lines from Bonaggiunta Urbiciani, a poet
who dwelt in Lucca about 1250 : —

" Rivolsimi in quel lato
L^ onde venia la voce,
E parvemi una luce

IV. ''HAND AND SOULr 287

Che lucea quanto stella :
La mia mente era quella."^

The actual account of Chiaro di Messer Bello dell'
Erma is preceded by a few sentences on the very early
painters, those "who feared God and loved the art,"
in Lucca, Pisa, and Arezzo, before any knowledge of
painting was brought to Florence. " The pre-eminence
to which Cimabue was raised at once by his contem-
poraries, and which he still retains to a wide extent
even in the modem mind, is to be accounted for, partly
by the circumstances under which he arose, and partly
by that extraordinary purpose of fortune born with the
lives. of some few, and through which it is not a little
thing for any who went before, if they are even re-
membered as the shadows of the coming of such an
one, and the voices which prepared his way in the
wilderness. It is thus, almost exclusively, that the
painters of whom I speak are now known. They have
left little, and but little heed is taken of that which
men hold to have been surpassed; it is gone like time
gone, — a track of dust and dead leaves that merely
led to the fountain." However, as the writer points
out, of late years some signs of a better understanding
have become manifest, especially in one case, where
the " eloquent pamphlet of Dr. Aemmster has at length
succeeded in attracting the students." Then the
" narrative," occupying about fourteen pages, is proceeded
with. Chiaro dell' Erma is a young man of honour-
able lineage in Arezzo, animated by the instinctively

^ I tamed me to the side
Whence came the voice,
And there appeared to me a light
That shone bright as a star :
My own mind it was.

288 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

creative, artistic spirit, though almost for himself had
he conceived art, endeavouring "from early boyhood
towards the imitation of any objects offered in nature.''
This passionate desire of expression gained upon him
with his growth, and to such an extent that he grew
more in susceptibility than in strength, so that the
unpaintable glory of sunsets and the beauty of living
form in the figures of " stately persons " made him
feel faint with the knowledge of their perfectness
and his own inevitable deficiency in translation, be-
sides he suffered, as only such temperaments can suffer,
from the very excellence of their loveliness. In his
nineteenth year he hears for the first time of "the
famous Giunta Pisano," and determines to become his
pupil, at once full of admiration of what he has heard
of the painter, and envious of what had been given to
the master in such degree. In due time he arrives in
Pisa, and " unwilling that any other thiog than the
desire he had for knowledge should be his plea with
the great painter," he presented himself before the
master clothed in humble apparel and with the general
aspect of a poor student; but, after having been re-
ceived with courtesy and consideration, when admitted
to the studio a revulsion of feeling comes upon him,
the cause of this being a recognition of the fact that
with all his inexperience he has learned more from
nature in his own Arezzo than Giunta can teach him.
" The forms he saw there were lifeless and incomplete ;
and a sudden exultation possessed him as he said
within himself, ' I am the master of this man.' The
blood came at first into his face, but the next moment
he was quite pale and fell to trembling. He was able,
however, to conceal his emotion; speaking very little

IV. ''HAND AND SOUL^ 289

to Giunta, but when lie took his leave thanking him
respectfully." Chiaro's first resolve was one befitting
such a youth, the determination to select some one of
his conceptions and thoroughly work it out, so that his
name might be accepted among men and honour done
to the art he worshipped. But two things militated
against this determination, the first being the lesson he
had learned by the fame of Giunta, " of how small a
greatness might win fame, and how little there was to
strive against," and the second being his youth with its
natural susceptibility to pleasure in whatever shape,
for in Pisa, which was much larger and more luxurious
than Arezzo, there were beautiful pleasure gardens free
to all, where in the delicious evening sweet strains of
music thrilled upon the warm air and where after day-
fall and ere moonrise beautiful women passed to and
fro. Chiaro, " despite of the burthen of study, was
well-favoured and very manly in his walking," and
moreover there was upon his face a glory " as upon the
face of one who feels a light round his hair," so that it
is not to be wondered at that he was loved by women,
and that the young passionate-natured artist should
put away from himseK his thought and study and
claim " his share of the inheritance of those years in
which his youth was cast." Thus for a time his life
was given up to enjoyment and the alluring entice-
ments that beset youth as a tropic flower is surrounded
by countless lovely butterflies and gorgeous moths, but
deep in his heart there lay a protest against forsaken
purpose and a dormant discontent. Out of the too
pleasant spiritual sloth in which he dwells he is at
last startled, partly by that form of subtle jealousy
peculiar to the artistic temperament, and partly by an

290 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

awakened conscience ; for one evening, " being in a
certain company of ladies, a gentleman that was there
with him began to speak of the paintings of a youth
named Bonaventura, which he had seen in Lucca;
adding that Giunta Pisano might now look for a rival.
When Chiaro heard this, the lamps shook before him
and the music beat in his ears. He rose up, alleging
a sudden sickness, and went out of that house with
his teeth set. And, being again within his room, he
wrote up over the door the name of Bonaventura, that
it might stop him when he would go out." From this
time forth Chiaro resisted all temptations and worked
day and night almost at his art, only at times walking
abroad in the most solitary places he could find, so
rapt indeed in the thoughts and desires of the day
which held him in fever, that he hardly felt the ground
under him. The dwelling and working -place he had
chosen was away from the publicity of the streets and
looked out upon the gardens adjoining the Church of
San Petronio, and here and at this period, the author
tells us, were in all probability painted the Dresden
pictures, and the one of inferior merit now at Munich.
A graphic portrait of the young painter at this period
of earnest work and strange daring conceptions is given
in the words, " For the most part he was calm and
regular in his manner of study, though often he would
remain at work through the whole of a day, not resting
once so long as the light lasted ; flushed, and with the
hair from his face. Or, at times, when he could not
paint, he would sit for hours in thought of all the
greatness the world had known from of old." Three
years elapse, and Chiaro's patient endeavour brings him
success and fame, and as his name becomes more and

IV. ''HAND AND SOUL." 291

more honoured throughout Tuscany his work becomes
familiar in many a church and even in the Duomo
itself. These three years have brought him the fame
that of all things he most desired, but for this very
reason they have not brought him content, and the old
familiar weight of painful desire is still at his heart,
and the true spiritual yearnmg that can be met only
by the soul's acknowledgment, and not by the mere
applause of men. And now there came upon him that
time of perplexity and self-questioning and longing
for what has passed away that all emotional natures
bitterly experience at least once in their lives. In all
that he hath done in these three years, and to a great
extent in the boyish years preceding them, a feeling of
worship and service had ever been present in his work,
and again and again would come to him a vision of
that day when " his mystical lady (now hardly in her
ninth year, but whose smile at meeting had already
lighted on his soul),^ even she, his own gracious Italian
art, should pass through the sun that never sets, into
the shadow of the tree of life, and be seen of God and
found good. . . . This thing he had seen with the
eyes of his spirit ; and in this thing had trusted, be-
lieving that it would surely come to pass." But this
worship and service was not always wholly from the
heart but often a kind of peace-offering " that he made
to God and to his own soul for the eager selfishness of
his aim." So he has become at last aware, even in
the full tide of his successful pursuit of art, that he
has misinterpreted the craving of his own spirit, and

^ This was written in 1849-50, and it shows an intimate acquaint-
ance at that date with the Vita Nuova, wherein Dante uses almost
similar terms speaking of his first sight of Beatrice, with the same
mention of the mystic figure "nine."

292 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

that the worship he has striven to embody in his art is
often of the earth, earthy, and not of heaven; and
now, alas ! when he would willingly fall back on devo-
tion he finds to his grief " that much of that reverence
he had mistaken for faith had been no more than the
worship of beauty." Eecognising these issues of his
years he knows that his life and will are yet before
him, and he says unto himself that henceforth he will
have a definite aim in life; an aim that shall exist
even if faith should not be stable or the will sym-
pathetic, whose sole end shall be " the presentment of
some moral greatness that should influence the be-
holder." But any such resolution, if against natural
tendencies, is apt to bring its own ISTemesis ; for the
artist or poet who says I will do this instead of I
must do this, sins against his nature, and the expiation
is invariably sure. So that when Chiaro multiplies
abstractions, forgetting the beauty and passion of the
world, his pictures, when passing through towns and
villages to their destination, are no longer delayed by
the eager and admiring inhabitants, but are viewed
only with interest by coldly critical eyes ; for no
longer now does he touch the hearts and imaginations
of the people, his pictures being without emotion and
laboriously worked out only in handicraft, as he did
of old with his beautiful Holy Children, and Madonnas,
and wonderful Saints, " wrought for the sake of the
life he saw in the faces that he loved." And now no
more does he work in that fever of body and mind
which characterised him during the period that elapsed
after the memorable night when he returned to his
dwelling and wrote above the door of his room the
name of Bonaventura ; but he is as calm and pale as

IV. ''HAND AND SOUL:' 293

his works are cold and unemphatic, the latter " bearing
marked out upon them the measure of that boundary
to which they were made to conform." He now said
to himself that peace was at last his possession, but
his heart denied it, and in his inmost Kfe he felt the
same weight that had been with him from the first ;
yet he would not admit this, but worked the harder
so to drive out the necessity for thinking on that
which he was afraid to know.

At last occasion happened for a great feast to be
given in Pisa, and the Church and all the city guilds
and companies united to make it a time of rejoicing and
merry-making, " and there were scarcely any that
stayed in the houses, except ladies who lay or sat
along their balconies between open windows which let
the breeze beat through the rooms and over the spread
tables from end to end. And the golden cloths that
their arms lay upon drew all eyes upward to see their
beauty ; and the day was long ; and every hour of the
day was bright with the sun." Chiaro does not join
the rejoicings, but he cannot work, for his model
could not resist the pleasant sights, and so came not at
all to the studio of his employer; and as he cannot
work neither can he sit in idleness, as then his
" stealthy thoughts would begin to beat round and
round him, seeking a point for attack." He rises
therefore from before his easel and seats himself at a
window where he can look forth upon the people
coming and going through the porch of the Church of
San Petronio, and in his ears still echo as they have
done all morning the many diverse sounds from the
thronged street, now of festal music from the organ-
choirs, now processions with priests and acolytes

294 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

chanting hymns and prayers of peace and praise, and
now the sudden clamour of quick voices and clashing
of steel as rival factions meet and draw upon each
other until one side gives way. Shortly ere noon the
people began to come forth from San Petronio, pass-
ing out by the porch wherein were some tall narrow
pictures by Chiaro painted that year for the Church.
The author of Hand and Soid here gives a most strik-
ing picture of San Petronio filled with the chiefs and
adherents of the two greatest houses of the feud in
Pisa, met for once under one building : of how the
Gherghiotti left first but halted on the threshold,
there forming in ranks along either side so that their
ancestral enemies, the Marotoli, had to walk forth
between. The Gherghiotti stood with their backs
against the narrow frescoes of Chiaro, which presented
a moral allegory of Peace, and, as their feudal foes
came forth, " shrilled and threw up their wrists scorn-
fully, as who flies a falcon ; for that was the crest of
their house ; " while the Marotoli laid back their
hoods, showing the badge of their house upon their
close skull-caps, and gazed round them defiantly.
Still an encounter might have been prevented had it
not been for the insult a certain Golzo Ninuccio, the
youngest noble of the Gherghiotti faction, gave to the
Marotoli. This young man, on account of his debased
life surnamed by the people Golaghiotta, seeing that no
man on either side jostled another, drew from his foot
the long silver shoe he wore, and, while striking the
dust out of it upon the cloak of some adherent of the
Marotoli, tauntingly asked him, "How far the tides
rose at Viderza." The bitterness in this taunt lay in
the fact that at that place some three months previous

IV. ''HAND AND SOUL." 295

the Gherghiotti had driven the defeated Marotoli to
the sands, the combat continuing while the tide rose
and the sea came in, whereby many were drowned.
Ko sooner is the taunt given than the whole archway
becomes " dazzling with the light of confused swords;"
and in a moment the rival factions are oblivious to
everything but hate and death, till on a sudden long
streams of blood pour down the frescoes of Peace.^
At last the combatants leave the porch for the open
and the fight spreads from one end of the city to the
other, and tumult and bloodshed are the issues of the
festal rejoicings. But to Chiaro comes neither sym-
pathy with Gherghiotti or Marotoli nor the excite-
ment of witnessing such a terrible scene, but instead a
deep and bitter grief takes possession of him as he sits
with his face in his open hands. And his unshapen
thoughts tell him that first Fame failed him, and then
Faith, and now passes from him that hope in his
generation he had cherished, for even in that sacred
place wherein with his art he had written Peace, even
there had been cruel and unnecessary slaughter. His
blood is on fire and the long-trammelled passion of his
nature breaks out in wild self-accusation, till the fever
encroaches and he would fain rise but finds he cannot;
but suddenly he is filled with indefinite awe, and
through the painful silence he becomes conscious that
he is not alone though the doors have opened to no
visitor. Almost as much knowing it spiritually as
seeing it materially, he becomes aware of a woman
with joined hands and with a face solemnly beautiful,

^ This scene of the deadly meeting of factions at feud with one
another is evidently drawn from a passage in Giovanni Yillani's
History of Florence, which Eossetti himself gives a rendering of at p. 8,
Introd, to Part I. of Dante and His Circle.

296 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

in which the gaze is austere indeed but the mouth
supreme in gentleness, clad to the hands and feet in
soft green and gray raiment ; but this fair presence he
never mistook for any woman such as he had known
in Pisa, for in looking at her " it seemed that the first
thoughts he had ever known were given him as at first
from her eyes, and he knew her hair to be the golden
veil through which he beheld his dreams." Although
in such a separate personality, he feels her to be as
much with him as his breath, and when she speaks it
is by no visible motion of her lips but in some strange
way that is yet not unfamiliar, so that he is '* like one
who, scaling a great steepness, hears his own voice
echoed in some place much higher than he can see, and
the name of which is not known to him." And her
speech that is with him bears unto him the message,
" I am an image, Chiaro, of thine own soul within thee.
See me, and know me as I. am ; " and thereafter she tells
him that inasmuch as he has not laid his life unto
riches, though fame and faith had both proved Dead
Sea apples unto him, it is thus that it is not too late
for her to come into his knowledge. Then she re-
minds him that fame sufficed him not for the very
reason that he sought fame, while it ought to have
been the approval of his inmost conscience he looked
for ; and when she has thus spoken and further, Chiaro
sinks upon his knees, not indeed to her, for the speech
seemed as much from within as from without, — and
all around him "the air brooded in sunshine, and
though the turmoil was great outside, the air within
was at peace."

To this point in Hand and Soul I have kept close
to the narrative itself and have dealt with it in extenso,

IV. ''HAND AND SOUW 297

both because of its beauty as a creation by the subject
of this record and because of its thorough individuality;
but I will now quote at some length the important
passages that follow, valuable not only for their inher-
ent significance but also because of their specially
affecting the personality of Eossetti himself. In fact,
these passages may be regarded as directly personal
utterances applicable to himself as an artist, and this I
know from his own lips as well as from every natural
evidence ; so that I have no hesitation in transcribing
what amounts to an artistic confessio fidei, to Eossetti's
own convictions as to how an artist should work with
both " hand and soul " towards the accomplishment of
every conception. Their applicability to all imagin-
atively and emotionally creative work will be manifest
to many, and the central idea is certainly that which
it would be well if most persons besides those who
" create " would take to heart — that true life is the
truest worship and truest praise, "for with God is no
lust of godhead."^

But when he looked in her eyes, he wept. And she
came to him^'and cast her hair over him, and took her
hands about his forehead, and spoke again: —

" TJiou hast said that faith failed thee. This can-
not he. Hither thou hadst it not, or thou hast it. But
who hade thee strike the point betwixt love and faith ?
Wouldst thou sift the warm breeze from the sun that
quickens it ? Who bade thee turn upon God and say :

^ This is the phrase I referred to a few pages back as "being inter-
polated in autograph on the copy of JETaTid and Soul I possess. The
beauty of the idea and its essential truth can hardly fail to at once
come home to the reader ; and Eossetti considered this phrase, though
not so worded in the original in The Germ, to be to Hand and Soul
what the heart is to the body.

298 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

' Behold, my offering is of earth, and not worthy : thy
fire comes not upon it : therefore, though I slay not my
brother ivhom thou acceptest, I will depart before Thou
smite me' Why shouldst thou rise up and tell God He
is not content ? Had He, of His warrant, certified so to
thee ? Be not nice to seek out division ; but possess thy
love in sufficiency : assuredly this is faith, for the heart
must believe first. What He hath set in thine heart to
do, that do thou; and even though thou do it without
thought of Him, it shall be well done ; it is this sacrifice
that He asketh of thee, and His flame is upon it for a
sign. Tliinh not of Him ; but of His love and thy love.
For with God is no lust of godhead: He hath no hand to
boiv beneath, nor afoot, that thou shoiddst kiss it."

And Chiaro held silence, and wept into her hair
which covered his face : and the salt tears that he shed
ran through her hair upon his lips; and he toasted the
bitterness of shame.

Then the fair woman, that wets his soul, spoke again
to him, saying : —

" And for this thy last purpose, and for those unpro-
fitable truths of thy teaching, — thine heart hath already
put them away, and it needs not that I lay my bidding
upon thee. How is it that thou, a man, wouldst say
coldly to the mind what God hath said to the heart
warmly ? Thy will ivas honest and wholesorne ; but look
well lest this also be folly — to say ' I, in doing this, do
strengthen God among men.' Wlien at any time hath
He cried unto thee, saying, ' My son, lend me thy shoidder,
for I fall V Deemest thou that the men who enter God's^
temple in malice, to the provoking of blood, and neither
for His love nor for His wrath, will ahate their purpose, —
shall afterwards stand with thee in the porch, midway

IV. ''HAND AND SOULr ' 299

between Sim and themselves, to give ear unto thy thin
voice, which merely tJie fall of their visors can drown,
and to see thy hands, stretched feebly, tremble among their
swords ? Give thou to God no more than He asTceth. of
thee ; but to man also, that which is man's. In all that
thou doest, ivorh from thine own heart, simply ; for His
heart is as thine, when thine is vjise and humble ; and
He shall have understanding of thee. One drop of rain
is as another, and the sun's prism in all : and shalt thou
not be as he, whose lives are the breath of One ? Only
by making thyself His equal can He learn to hold com-
munion with thee, and at last own tliee above Him. Not
till thou lean over the water shalt thou see thine image
therein : stand erect, and it shall slope from thy feet
and be lost. Know that there is but this means whereby
thou mayest serve God with man : — Set thin^ hand and
thy soul to seii^e man with God."

And when she that spoke had said these words within
Chiaro's spirit, she left his side quietly, and stood up as
he had first seen her : with her fingers laid together, and
lier eyes steadfast, and with the breadth of her long dress
covering her feet on the floor. And, speaking again, she
said —

" Chiaro, servant of God, take now thine art unto thee,
and paint me thus, as I am, to know me : weak, as I am,
and in the weeds of this time ; only with eyes which seek
out labour, and with a faith, not learned, yet jealous of
prayer. Do this ; so shall thy soul stand before thee
always, and perplex thee no more."

And Chiaro did as she bade him. While he worked,
his face grew solemn with knxnuledge : and before the
shadows had turned, his work was done. Having finished,
he lay back wlure he sat, and was asleep immediately :

300 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

for the growth of that strong sunset was heavy ahout him,
and he felt weak and haggard ; like one just come out of
a dusk, hollow country, hewildered with echoes, where he
had lost himself, and who has not slept for many days
and nights. And when she saw him lie hack, the beau-
tiful vjoman came to him, and sat at his head, gazing,
and quieted his sleep with her voice.

Throughout all the day the tumult of the opponents
and the cries of the dying had not ceased, but Chiaro
heard nothing thereof ; and while he slept, the day that
was to have been a day of feasting and rejoicing came
to an end in a solemn mass sung at midnight in evety
church in Pisa for the many dead who encumbered
the streets. This painting, which, as mentioned above,
is the picture of his soul as the spirit appeared to him
in womanly guise, is that which the author of Hand
and Sold declares therein to be No. 161 in the Sala
Sessagona of the Pitti Gallery in Florence. After the
narration of the vision of Chiaro is finished, the writer
adds some supplementary pages, beginning with the
statement that he was in the last-named city in the
spring of 1847, and that he was much attracted by a
small picture hung below a Eaphael, but so hung evi-
dently out of all chronology ; the representation in the
picture being simply that of a woman clad in a green
and gray raiment of antique fashion, standing with
earnest outlooking eyes and hands held lightly together.
There was nothing on the picture to indicate its painter ;
in one corner of the canvas, however, being discoverable
on close examination the date 1239, and the words
Manus Animam pinxit. The following day Eossetti
states having again visited the picture, but this time
finds it surrounded by students, not, however, copying

IV. SAMUEL PALMER. 301

it but tlie painting by Eapbael beneath which it is
hung. The students are chiefly Italian (and of the
artistic powers of modern Italians Eossetti, it may be
mentioned in passing, had anything but a high opinion),
and they cannot understand the Englishman's evident in-
terest in the ScJiizzo d' autore incerto which indeed they
had not consciously noticed hitherto ; and in reply one
says to another a witticism that, with the rejoinder of
a third, raises a general laugh. Che so ? he says, look-
ing the time at the picture, roha mistica : 'st' Inglesi
son matti sul misticismo : somiglia alle Tiehbie di Idb. Li
fa pensare alia patria,

" e intenerisce il core
Lo dl cK han detto ai dolci amid adio.'^

La notte, vuoi dire, adds the third.

He who had quoted Dante turns to a French fellow-
student with the remark, Ut toi done ? — que dis-tio de ce
genre-la ? To which the latter replies, Moi ? Je dis,
man cher, que c'est une sp^cialiU dont je me fiche pas mat.
Je tiens que quand on ne comprend pas une chose, c'est
qu'elle ne signifie rien.

And Hand and Soul concludes with the words, " My
reader thinks possibly that the French student was
right."

A complete outhne has thus been given of Eos-
setti's chief prose production, short as it is in length ;
a composition as thoroughly individual and on its
own platform as beautiful as anything amongst his
poems.

;.^ Eegarding the late Samuel Palmer, many of whose
poetic and beautiful transcripts from nature were lately
exhibited in London, Eossetti wrote to Mr. L. E. Yalpy,
the esteemed acquaintance of both artists : " Such a

302 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

manifestation of spiritual force absolutely present,
though not isolated as in Blake, has certainly never been
united with native landscape power in the same degree
as Palmer's works display ; while, when his glorious
colouring is abandoned for the practice of etcliing, the
same exceptional unity of soul and sense appears again,
with the same rare use of manipulative material. The
possessors of his works have what must grow in influ-
ence, just as the possessors of Blake's creations are
beginning to find ; but with Palmer the progress must
be more positive, and infinitely more rapid, since, while
a specially select artist to the few, he has a realistic
side on which he touches the many, more than Blake
can ever do." As deeply as he did the genius, so did
he admire the personality of Samuel Palmer, and, from
what we can gather from Mr. A. H. Palmer's BiogTaphy,
that personal admiration was deserved to the utmost.

Eossetti as a translator has now to be briefly con-
sidered, and no better prefatory remarks to translative
work in general can be found than in his own words,
as such are to be found in his preface to Bante and His
Circle. As therein stated, the cardinal principle to be
kept in mind by every renderer of a poem from one
language to another is — that a good poem shall not be
turned into a bad one. " The only true motive for
putting poetry into a fresh language must be to endow
a fresh nation, as far as possible, with one or more
possession of beauty. Poetry not being an exact science,
literality of rendering is altogether secondary to this
chief law. I say literality, not fidelity, which is by no
means the same thing. When literality can be com-
bined with what is thus the primary condition of suc-
cess, the translator is fortunate, and must strive his

IV. ROSSETTI AS TRANSLATOR. 303

utmost to unite them ; when such object can only be
attained by paraphrase, that is his only path. . . . Often
would he avail himself of any special grace of his own
idiom and epoch, if only his will belonged to him ; often
would some cadence serve him but for his author's
structure — some structure but for his author's cadence ;
often the beautiful turn of a stanza must be weakened
to adopt some rhyme which will tally, and he sees the
poet revelling in abundance of language where himself
is scantily supplied. Now he would slight the matter
for the music, and now the music for the matter ; but
no, he must deal to each alike. Sometimes, too, a flaw
in the work galls him, and he would fain remove it,
doing for the poet that which his age denied him ; but
no, it is not in the bond. His path is like that of
Aladdin through the enchanted vaults : many are the
precious fruits and flowers which he must pass by un-
heeded in search for the lamp alone ; happy if at last,
when brought to light, it does not prove that his old
lamp has been exchanged for a new one, glittering
indeed to the eye, but scarcely of the same virtue nor
with the same genius at its summons."

That to such an ideal translator Eossetti approaches
closely, if he does not indeed fully attain the standard,
is beyond question, and though his masterpiece in trans-
lation is in the original old French of Villon, beautiful
in itself for all and in any time, yet his excellence in
this branch of literature is more markedly proved in
Dante and His Circle, and more especially in many of
the more involved and otherwise difficult sonnets and
canzonieri. Many of these, it is true, possess little
interest for the general reader, and some of them are
even devoid of any distinct poetic merit whatever ; yet

304 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

even with these drawbacks such possess a peculiar
attraction of their own, with their quaint reflections of
early Italian modes of thought and expression, civic
customs, and individual habits of life : — for instance,
the clever sonnets of Folgore da San Geminiano dealing
with the days of the week and the months of the year
as he would fain have them spent by his fellow scape-
graces of Siena. Altogether a goodly number of vessels
for the ocean of literature, some brave sloops and some
only slight but buoyant shallops, so that the translator
had no cause to minimise in his modesty the extent of
his achievement by speaking of merely "launching afresh
on high -seas busy with new traffic, the ships which
have been long outstripped and the ensigns which are
grown strange."

I referred a sentence or two back to Eossetti's master-
piece in translation, and this, one can have but little
hesitation in declaring, is the well-known and exquisite
rendering of Frangois Villon's Ballad of Dead Ladies,
combining, as it does literality, as in —

*'Biit where are the snows of yester-year" —
OH sont les neiges d'antan ?

with such individual excellence of rendering as —

" Tell me now in what hidden way is

Lady Flora tlie lovely Eoman ?
Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,

Neither of them the fairer woman ?

Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
Only heard on river and mere, —

She whose beauty was more than human ? . . .
But where are the snows of yester-year ?"

This famous ballad has been at least thrice well trans-
lated into our language, but while one of them certainly

IV. ROSSETTI'S TRANSLATIONS. 305

excels in uniform literality, that of Eossetti undoubtedly
ranks first. He had special faculties for rendering into
English verse the quaint metres and modes of thought
and sentiment of early literatures, whether French or
Italian, and, if such might not have detracted from the
amount of valuable artistic or poetic work of his own,
it is impossible not to regret that he did not do for the
early poetic literature of France that which he did
so ably for Italy. This Eossetti to a certain extent
recognised, and at one time he had indeed serious
thoughts of undertaking the task, and more than once
I have heard him refer to the possibility of its execu-
tion after all ; but the pressure of as many commissions
for pictures as he could find time to execute, and the
desire of original poetic creation, prevented little being
done.^ Yet, leaving aside the essentially creative bent
of Eossetti's genius, it is fairly manifest that such trans-
lative work as would deal with men like Eonsard,
Joachim du Bellay, Eemy Belleau, Etienne Jodelle, and
others of the "Pleiad" and the period, would not have
been a difficult task to him. At the same time, these
poets did not excite in him much beyond interest, feel-
ing as he did in their productions the lack of "backbone,"
of original gift worth possessing.

Eossetti's few published translations outside of
Dante and His Circle are to be found in his Poems,
while in the Ballads and Sonnets are two admirable
specimens of his powers of translating English into
Italian, namely, the sonnets Proserpina and La Bella
Mano ; both translations and not the originals of the
English versions. The former is especially beautiful,

^ Those interested in the subject will find some clever renderings in
the Ballads and Lyrics of Old France, by Mr. Andrew Lang.

X

306 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

and it is remarkable how the same effects are pro-
duced, not only in both versions, bnt even in corre-
sponding lines : two of the most marked examples will
suffice to show this, viz. the last three lines of the
octave and the fourth and fifth of the sestet —

" Afar those skies from this Tartarean gray-
That chills me : and afar, how far away,
The nights that shall be from the days that were."

Lungi quel cielo dal tartareo manto

Che qui mi cuopre : e lungi ahi lungi dhi quanta

Le notti die sardn dai di che furo.

" (Whose sounds mine inner sense is fain to bring
Continually together murmuring), —
* Woe's me for thee, unhappy Proserpine ! ' "

{Di cui mi giunge il suon da quando in quando,
Continuamente insieme sospirando), —
Oim^ per te, Proserpina infelice !

A further example will be found in A Last Con-
fession, if indeed the Italian is not there the original —
a supposition which seems to me decidedly the more
probable, judging from internal evidence.

In saying that Kossetti's published translations
outside of Dante and His Circle were to be found in
the Poems, I forgot to mention two fine sets of verses
from Niccolo Tommaseo, composed in 1874. They
were sent to the Athen/jeum shortly after the death
of the Italian writer, with a supplementary letter by
the translator remarking on the peculiarity " in those
dark yearning days of the Italian muse " of Tommaseo's
early lyrical poetry being in great part free from men-
tion or influence of public events and interests ; and
offering them to the editor on the ground that their
" delicate and romantic tone " might not be unaccept-

IV. ''THE YOUNG GIRLr 307

able to readers of the journal. As these have never
been reprinted, and as they have been much admired
by many good judges, I cannot do better than give
them both in full.

I. — ^The Young Girl.

Even as a child that weeps
Lulled by the love it keeps,
My grief hes back and sleeps.

Yes, it is Love bears up

My soul on his spread wings,
Which the days would else chafe out ■

With their infinite harassings.

To quicken it he brings
The inward look and mild
That thy face wears, my child.

As in a gilded room

Shines 'mid the braveries
Some wild-flower, by the bloom

Of its delicate quietness

Recalling the forest-trees
In whose shadow it was,
And the water and the green grass : —

Even so, 'mid the stale loves

The city prisoneth,
Thou touchest me gratefully,

Like nature's wholesome breath :

Thy heart nor hardeneth
In pride, nor putteth on
Obeisance not its own.

Not thine the skill to shut

The love up in thine heart,
Neither to seem more tender.

Less tender than thou art.

Thou dost not hold apart
In silence when thy joys
Most long to find a voice.

308 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Let the proud river-course,

That shakes its mane and champs,

Run between marble shores
By the light of many lamps,
While all the ooze and the damps

Of the city's choked-up ways

Make it their draining-place.

Rather the little stream

For me ; which, hardly heard,

Unto the flower, its friend,
Whispers as with a word :
The timid journeying bird

Of the pure drink that flows

Takes but one drop, and goes

II. — A Farewell.

I soothed and pitied thee : and for thy lips, —
A smile, a word (sure guide
To love that's ill to hide !)
Was all I had thereof.

Even as an orphan boy, whom, sore distress'd,

A gentle woman meets beside the road
And takes him home with her, — so to thy breast
Thou didst take home my image : pure abode !
'Twas but a virgin's dream. This heart bestow'd
Respect and piety
And friendliness on thee :
But it is poor in love.

No, I am not for thee. Thou art too new,

I am too old, to the old beaten way.
The griefs are not the same which grieve us two :
Thy thought and mine lie far apart to-day.
Less than I wish, more than I hope, alway
Are heart and soul in thee.
Thou art too much for me.
Sister, and not enough.

TRANSLATIONS. 309

A better and a fresher heart than mine

Perchance may meet thee ere thy youth be told ;
Or, cheated by the longing that is thine,

Waiting for life perchance thon shalt wax old.
Perchance the time may come when I may hold
^ It had been best for me
To have had thy ministry
On the steep path and rough.

The translations published in the Poems are nine
in number, all short, and comprise one from Sappho,
three from Italian, and five from old French. Of
these three are from Francois Villon, the Ballad of
Dead Ladies already referred to, To Death, of His
Lady, and His Mothers Service to our Lady, neither
of the two latter, however, being equal to the Dead
Ladies in the original or in translation. After these
foUow two styled Old French, — John of Tours and
My Father's Close, the first being one of those pathetic
but practically absurd and unreal ballads of Old France,
and which can now best be read in Gerard de Nerval's
rendering from the old time version, and the second,
with its musical repetitive " Fly away, 0 my heart,
away !" such a charming chanson as Eonsard or Eemy
Belleau would have delighted in.^ The sixth render-
ing is a combination from Sappho, in the original
Poems called 0ns Girl, subsequently in the Tauchnitz
edition and afterwards altered to Beauty ; two triplets
remarkable for their exquisite and refined grace of
expression. Youth and Lordship, a translation of the
Italian street song Gioventii e Signoria, The Leaf by
Leopardi, and a famous passage from the Inferno are

^ If this poem is simply in the style of the old French and really an
original composition, not improbably this burden was suggested by the
nightingale line in Franco Sacchetti's On a Wet Day, Piit bel ve\*
piii bel ve' — translated by Rossetti "Fly away, 0 die away !"

310 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

added to the 1881 reissue of the Poems. The last-
named is the most beautiful rendering of the episode
of Paolo and Francesca.

In such a collection of sonnets, canzonieri, and
hallata as is comprised in Dante and His Circle} it is
difficult to specify this or that translation as being
especially admirable where all are admirable ; and when
it is remembered that with only one or two exceptions
at the outside the translator kept literally to the original
metres throughout, and that the renderings are of such
uniform merit (reading more like original poems than
translations — herein being the true test of their excel-
lence after literality is proved) our admiration and
gratification are increased. From the most solemn and
pathetic Lines of Dante, the true feeling of Guido Ca-
valcanti, and the beauty of such a supreme love-poem
as the canzone on Angiola of Verona by Fazio Degli
Uberti, to the very indifferent recriminations of Forese
Donafi and the clever catches of Franco Sacchetti, there
'is an equal level of the highest merit from a translative
point of view. The list of authors is an imposing one,
consisting of over sixty in all, in the first part comprising,
besides the great name of Dante Alighieri, such names
as Guido Cavalcanti (represented by about 30 compo-
sitions), Cino da Pistoia (by 12), Dante da Maiano
(by 4), and Cecco Angiolieri (by 23); the composi-
tions throughout the volume being as follows : — In the
Sonnet form, 141; in the Canzone foTjn, 30 ; in the
Ballata, 1 5 ; in the Canzonetta, 8 ; and in Various
forms, comprising the Sestina, Sentenze, Cantica, Mad-
rigal, Dialogue, and BlanJc Verse, 16 — -in all, 210.

1 Originally issued in 1861 as The Early Italian Poets : revised, re-
arranged, and added to in 1874 under the title just quoted.

IV. ''DANTE AND HIS CIRCLE:' 311

Amongst those renderings specially admirable for
translative excellence and inherent poetic merit may-
be mentioned Dante Alighieri's carizone beseeching
Death for the life of Beatrice, the beautiful sestina
dealing (according to the translator's conjecture) Of tJie
Lady Pietra clegli Scrovigniy with its unmediseval-like
opening lines —

" To the dim light and the large circle of shade
I have clomb, and to the whitening of the hills,
There where we see no colour in the grass " —

and his bitter sonnet on fruitless love ; the caTizone A
Dispute with Death, of Guido Cavalcanti ; Cino's can-
zone on the death of Beatrice Portinari ; Lapo Gianni's
lallata for his Lady Lagia; Simone dall' Antella's
prolonged sonnet on the last days of the Emperor
Henry VII. ; Giovanni Boccaccio's three beautiful son-
nets, Nos. IV. V. and VI., the second {Of his Last Sight
of Fiammetta) being that subsequently painted on the
frame of Eossetti's A Vision of Fiammetta, with the
first line altered to

" Mid glowing blossoms and o^er golden hair ; "

CiuUo d'Alcamo's charming Dialogue between a Lover
and Lady ; the canzone by the Emperor Frederick 11. ;
Guido Guinicelli's canzone Of the Gentle Heart, and
that on his rashness in love ; Jacopo da Lentino's naive
sonnet Of his Lady in Heaven, and others ; Giacomino
Pugliesi's pathetically beautiful canzone on his dead
lady; Eolgore da San Geminiano's interesting and
picturesque seventeen sonnets on the months and week
days, already referred to ; Guido delle Colonne's can-
zone ; that of Prinzivalle Doria ; the highly picturesque
prolonged sonnet of Mccol6 degli Albizzi on the de-

312 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

feated troops entering Milan ; Fazio degli ^Uberti's
superb canzone on Angiola of Verona, which I shall
refer to again shortly; Franco Sacchetti's charming
hallata and amusing catches ; and finally a short lallata
by an anonymous poet, which I shall quote as a con-
clusion to this enumeration.

Ball ATA.

I Of True and False Singing.

A little wild bird sometimes at my ear
Sings his own little verses very clear :
Others sing louder that I do not hear.

For singing loudly is not singing well ;

But ever by the song that's soft and low
The master-singer's voice is plain to tell.

Few have it, and yet all are masters now,
And each of them can trill out what he calls
His ballads, canzonets, and madrigals.

The world with masters is so covered o'er.
There is no room for pupils any more.

Eegarding the canzone of Fazio degli Uberti — this
exquisite love -song appears in most editions of the
canzonieri of Dante, but there has been wide divergence
of opinion on the right of its being there. Of modern
commentators, Sir Theodore Martin in his introduction
to the Vita Nnova considers it a portrait of Beatrice
Portinari by the great author of the Commedia, but
only on very conjectural grounds; while Eossetti,
agreeing with such learned authorities as Ubaldini,
Monti, and Fraticelli, the evidence of the last-named
especially being of great moment, is of decided opinion
that it is by the talented exile who in old age wrote
the Dittamondo, or Song of the World. Whether by

IV. ''DANTE AND HIS CIRCLE:' 313

Dante or Fazio it is beautiful in a high degree; and
certainly it is difficult to commiserate the grandson of
that Farinata degli Uberti of whom Dante speaks in
the Inferno, if by his exile in Verona he indeed won
such a bride as Angiola is described to be, the excel-
lence of whose spiritual loveliness, we are told, is even
greater than that of her bodily beauty.

CHAPTEE y.

POEMS LYRICAL AND OTHERWISE.

To Eossetti's established position and strongly-marked
influence in literature reference has already been made
in the first chapter, and the scope of this chapter,
which must necessarily be brief, will be confined entirely
to a short consideration of the forty or fifty composi-
tions which belong neither to his sonnet nor his ballad
work, but which may be best classified as Poems, Lyrics,
and Songs. In referring to these I shall not attempt any
exact chronological arrangement as when describing the
pictures, for the reason that where once right I should
probably be twice wrong, there being only comparatively
few written out of the period mentioned in the author's
prefatory note (1847 — 1853) ; one or two are known
as his earliest productions, and one or two as his later,
and between the Alpha of The Blessed Damozel and the
Omega of the two sonnets for the design of The Ques-
tion (the sonnets he wrote for Mr. Theodore Watts's
volume a week or two before his death), there are few
poems bearing internal evidence of the exact date of
their composition. In the first chapter I referred to
three compositions, which, however, can find no place
in any account of his writings for the reason that one
is destroyed, one lost or destroyed, and one a boyish
experiment which the author wished to remain unde-

CHAP. V. ROSSETTI THE POET. 315

scribed, and from which it would, therefore, be unjust
to quote ; the first of these being the dramatic attempt
entitled The Slave, said to be written at the age of
five, or, according to his own statement, "somewhere
about five;" the second being a mature production
called The Wife's Tragedy, which only a very few have
seen, and which was based upon a fact of the author's
acquaintance ; while the third is Sir Hugh the Heron,
the only points of interest regarding which have been
already noted.

It has already been shown that at sixteen Eossetti
was strongly attracted to the poetry of Sir Walter
Scott and the border and ballad literature, and that to
this succeeded a strong admiration for that of Brown-
ing, as manifested about his twenty-first year in one
or two early water-colours and an attempted large oil
painting ; but before he came of age in the legal sense
of the term his influences were only the general ones
of circumstance, country, education, and temperament,
and a maturity of style was reached in The Blessed
Damozel and My Sisters Sleep which far exceeded that
attained by him in art at the corresponding date —
indeed, the young poet may be said to have reached
the platform of literary maturity while he was yet
learning the grammar of painting.

Decidedly the first two poems of the Poems that were
composed were The Blessed Damozel and My Sister's Sleep,
but it will be more convenient to refer first to the longer
compositions, these comprising (omitting Eden Bower,
Troy Town, Sister Helen, etc., as ballads). The Bride^s
Prelude, Dante at Verona, A Last Confession, Jenny, The
Burden of Nineveh, and Tlie Stream's Secret — these,
with the exception of the first-named, belonging to a

316 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

different style than that characteristic of The Blessed
Damozel and several of the earlier poems corresponding
to the " Preraphaelite " ^ period of the artist.

The Bride's Prelude, written before the author's
twenty-fifth year, was not published till 1881, though
it had been read by, or rather read to, many during the
long interval. It belongs unmistakably to the same
period wherein the artist found such fascination in
mediseval Italian and English Arthurian legend and
history, and is replete with that same glow of colour,
amounting to crude excess, characteristic of the years
wherein were produced the Roman de la Rose, La Belle
Dame sans Mercy, The Chapel hefore the Lists, and so
many other water-colour drawings similar in concep-
tion and execution. It was never finished, unfortu-
nately, and the author hesitated long whether he should
print it in his volume or keep it in manuscript till
inclination and time enabled him to complete it. On
no poem of Eossetti's were the opinions of his friends
as conflicting as on this. While Mr. Swinburne, for
instance, placed it almost at the head of his works,
and sent him some enthusiastic lines upon it, Mr.
Theodore Watts objected so strongly to its hardness
and rawness of execution that Eossetti went through
the poem line by line with the view of rectifying
this defect, and consequently th^ poem has undergone
very considerable changes since it used to be read
out to his friends. The poem has stiU faults, it is
true, — is even perhaps the most markedly immature
production appearing in the two printed volimies
by its author ; but it is yet charged with a richness

^ See remarks on page 71, ante, as to the misuse of this term as
applied to poetry.

V. " THE BRIDE'S PRELUDED 317

that suggests the influence of him who described so
inimitably the chamber of Madeleine in the Eve of St.
Agnes, and has a fascination pecuKar to the imaginative
medisevalism of the art-work of the author at this period.
TJie heavy scents coming from the perfumed gardens
beyond the " bride's " window, the rich heavy curtains
stifling sound that comes harshly and letting it pass
only in murmurs, and the ample sensuous descriptions,
have an effect upon the sensitive reader similar to that
of music of a dreamy kind heard through lemon or
palm tree boughs in some tropically rich but overheated
conservatory. For a time the sensation is delicious
or restful, but the imagination soon becomes morbid,
and the spiritual atmosphere unhealthy. Here and
there throughout the poem there are fine dramatic
touches, and once or twice highly picturesque side-
lights from nature, as this, where the " bride " with her
premonitions of death and disaster looks put upon the
"swarthy sea" —

" Night lapsed. At dawn the sea was there
And the sea-wind : afar
The ravening surge was hoarse and loud,
And underneath the dim dawn cloud
Each stalking wave shook like a shroud."

Of a very different style, both in conception and
execution, is Dante at Verona — a fine and noble piece
of work, and that which the author originally intended
should give the title to his first volume — Dante at
Verona, and other Poems — forming as it would therein
one of the chief compositions, at that time beyond doubt
the chief as regards sustained power. There is a fine
reticence, a fine reserve of power, manifest throughout,
and from first to last no false note jars upon the

318 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

reader with the suggestion that the impulse has some-
what flagged, or that the labour is not wholly con
amore. But certainly no one of Eossetti's poems was
written under truer obedience to that cardinal law of
creative art, the law of natural impulse, to which
Dante attributed his superiority to his contemporaries
in the lines —

" lo mi son un che quando
Amor mi spira, noto, ed in quel modo
Ch' ei detta dentro, vo significando."

It may be said to owe more to the almost unconscious
white-heat of. inspiration than to the direct exercise of
the artistic gift — ^n a word, it is , pre-eminently from
the heart of the poet in contradistinction to what might
simply be called " work of a poet ; " on this count,
therefore, ranking as pure poetry above much else
admirable work by the author, suffering as much
thereof frequently does from over -elaboration. It
may be taken for granted that had there been many
illustrations from nature amongst the stanzas they
would have been amongst the truest and least laboured
nature-lines he had written, but to Eossetti, except in
a few noteworthy instances, I doubt if nature was
ever much more than a picturesque accessory. He
certainly did not love it as a poet, — neither with the
passion of Shelley, the joy of Keats, the deep under-
standing of Wordsworth, nor the enthusiasm of Burns ;
and though lines here and lines there may be taken
from his poems replete with beauty and concise accu-
racy, yet they are markedly exceptions to the rule.
Where the heart is not the spirit does not care to
dwell, and, save only in what are most unmistakably
his moments of inspiration, natural images have ever

V. ''DANTE AT VERONAr 319

to be summoned and come not of themselves thronging
upon the mind. To give one instance, — the first that
comes to my mind, — one can no more imagine Eos-
setti having written Browning's beautiful and exactly
descriptive lines —

" Hark ! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms, and dewdrops — at the bent spray's edge —
That's the wise thrush ; he sings each song twice over
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture !"

than one can conceive Mr. Browning writing of the
same bird's sonsf —

" The embowered throstle's urgent wood-notes soar

. '>

not that the latter is not quite true and fine in its
way, but the first is the inspiration of a poet and
supremely fine, and the second is the elaborate diction
of one who yields to no " fine careless rapture."

To return to Dante at Verona, I may again call
attention to the fact that in this poem of eighty-five
stanzas there is not one that arrests readers by its
mediocrity, but each stanza is like a whole and perfect
link, inseparably part of the golden chain. Now and
again comes in a line that like a refrain gives the
central emotion of the poem, the significant phrase
from Dante's own lips, Emn /, emn I am Beatrice;
and there is at times a touch of that humanity which
makes us all kin, as in that exquisite thirty-second
verse wherein the great Italian's modern namesake
divines that often the sad exiled poet must have felt,
when pressing his forehead against the painted pane
of some window in Can la Scala's court which the

320 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

rain beat -upon, as it were the fingers of Beatrice with
cooling caressing touch upon his brow, while when
the sunlight poured therein it is as though her breath
warmed his face and hair. The only rhythmical break
there is in the whole length of the poem occurs some
further stanzas on, where the line "And where the
night-vigil was done " requires to be read with the
accent on the latter syllable of " vigil," a condemnable
affectation if conscious, which, however, I doubt, owing
to the writer's frequently deficient ear as to dissyllabic
words. !N"o exile ever sent a nobler reply to amnesty
on shameful terms than Dante sent to the Florentine
Eepublic from his Veronese refuge, and hardly is any
finer rendering of the spirit of that famous response
conceivable than that embodied in the following noble
lines : —

" That since no gate led, by God's will,
To Florence, but the one whereat
The priests and money-changers sat,
He still would wander ; for that still,
Even through the body's prison-bars,
His soul possessed the sun and stars."

A few stanzas further on are those terrible lines on
a Eepublic unfaithful to its noblest principles, lines
which could only have been written by the author's
having lost his own personality in that of the bitterly
indignant exile, lines which Eossetti never equalled
in scathing strength, save perhaps in the passionate
scorn of an unpubKshed sonnet on Tfie French Libera-
tion in Italy. The alterations that Dante at Verona
has undergone have been very slight, and are mostly
to be found in altered words here and there in the
1881 edition, though there an awkward misprint is to
be found in the first line of the fourth verse from the

V. ''A LAST confession:' 321

end, where instead of " He went and turned not " is
printed "He went and turned out." In the 1881
reissue was also added a third verse to those so bitterly
condemning the republic, which, as many will only
possess one of the earlier editions, it will be as well
to transcribe —

" Such this Republic ! — not the Maid

He yearned for ; she who yet should stand
With Heaven's accepted hand in hand,
Invulnerable and unbetray'd :

To whom, even as to God, should be
Obeisance one with Liberty."

A Last Confession is Eossetti's dramatic chef-d'ceuwe,
and at the same time exhibitive of his mastership over
the difficult medium of blank verse. The story is
throughout kept coherently in hand and every in-
cident has stamped upon it the unmistakable stamp
of veracity to country and circumstance ; and it is
difficult whether to admire most the representation of
the passionate love and devotion of the unfortunate
lover or t,he delicately beautiful passages descriptive of
the girl's loveliness, or those unfolding his dawning
love. I do not know in exactly what estimation the
author held it himself, but I remember his telling me
that about the best review he had ever had "spoke
with justice " of his three chief poems being A Last
Confession, Dante at Verona, and The Burden of Nine-
veh. If the influence of Browning is manifest at all
in Eossetti's poetic work it is manifested here, at the
same time it is not to be seen in style or even choice
of subject, but only in the masterly delineation of
character and the power of dramatic realisation. How
the speaker in the poem — the same who awaits abso-

Y

322 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

lution from God if not from the priest, and death from
the executioner — first meets the woman, whom he
afterwards killed to save her from further degradation,
as a little deserted orphan on the hill -slope is beauti-
fully told and also how he brought her up and how
she became the delight of his life, solitary as that life
had to be in the case of one who was called a patriot
by his countrymen but a rebel by the Austrian masters
of Italy : and that is a fine utterance which the con-
demned man makes when recalling his past life to his
confessor —

" Life all past

Is like the sky when the sun sets in it,

Clearest where farthest off."

The lines succeeding these describing the lover's dream
are such as would not read amiss in the Vita Nuova,
and their beauty possesses the same quaint fascination
as that characteristic of so many of the artist's pictures ;
and in the midst of them there is an imaginative touch
almost equal to the splendid simile of a like nature in
The Blessed Damozel, that, namely, where

" I thought our world was setting, and the sun
Flared^ a spent taper."

The incident of the early gift the hunted patriot
gave to the child he had taken under his care, that of
" a little image of a flying Love," is pathetically told,
while a deep and painful significance underlies its
destruction. And surely nothing more exquisite of
its kind has been done in English poetry than the
revelation of how she is a woman while he still
thought of her as a child, and how a love that had
hitherto been with him unconsciously surges in upon

V. "^ LAST confession:' 323

him overwhelmingly as a sudden tide upon an outly-
ing strand.

'O

" For now, being always with her, the first love
I had — the father's, brother's love — was changed,
I think, in somewise ; like a holy thought
Which is a prayer before one knows of it.
The first time I perceived this, I remember,
"Was once when after hunting I came home
"Weary, and she brought food and fruit for me,
And sat down at my feet upon the floor
Leaning against my side. But when I felt
Her sweet head reach from that low seat of hers
So high as to be laid upon my heart,
I turned and looked upon my darling there
And marked for the first time how tall she was ;
And my heart beat with so much violence
Under her cheek, I thought she could not choose
But wonder at it soon and ask me why ;
And so I bade her rise and eat with me.
And when, remembering all and counting back
The time, I made out fourteen years for her ^
And told her so, she gazed at me with eyes
As of the shy and sea on a gray day,
And drew her long hands through her hair, and asJced me
If she ivas not a woman; and then laughed :
And as she stooped in laughing, I could see
Beneath the growing throat the breasts half globed
Like folded lilies deep set in the stream"

Having quoted thus far I cannot refrain from quoting
further the passages describing the young girl's loveli-
ness, containing lines as exquisite as those I have
italicised above.

" She had a mouth

Made to bring death to life, — the under lip

Sucked in, as if it strove to kiss itself.

^ It must be remembered that this is not too immature an age for
an Italian peasant girl to be a woman.

324 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

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

TJiat face made wonderful with night and day.

Her voice was swift, yet ever the last words

Fell lingeringly ; and rounded finger-tips

She had, that clung a little where they touched

And then were gone o' the instant. 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."

On the other hand, I have never been able to admire to
the same extent that more than one well-known writer
lias done the third line of the above, " the under lip
sucked in as if it strove to kiss itself," in the first
place the phrase seeming to me the only overstrained
line in the whole description, and in the next it seems
to me to rather detract from the beauty of the girl
than add to it ; but the succeeding passages are beyond
doubt exquisite in the highest degree. Then what
delicate grace there is in the song beginning La hella
donna Piangendo disse, with its almost equally fine
English rendering, antecedent to the lovely picture as
the twain leave the Duomo and cross the public place,
where from the splashing fountains to "the pigeon-
haunted pinnacles " there seems nothing in the bright
air but sparkling water and winnowing wings, and
where all men's eyes are turned on the girl's beauty

V. "A LAST confess/on:' 325

as she passes with " clear-swayed waist and towering
neck and hands held light before her." Then the
dramatic and terrible close of his love, when there
came upon him as he stood, nigh hunted to death, for
the last time with her whom he loved upon the sand
at Iglio, as it were

" a fire
That burnt my hand ; and then the fire was blood,
And sea and sky were blood and fire, and all
The day was one red blindness ;"

and he knows nothing more till he finds her after her
taunting harlot laugh lying dead before him, with a
knife in her heart, and the sand scooped by her stiff
bodice into her bosom. An almost painful dramatic
effect is given frequently throughout the poem by the
mention of her laugh, from its first childish innocence
to its degraded later significance : and it is with the fear
of hearing that accusing laugh even before the throne of
God that the unhappy man goes to his death in horror.
The only material alterations in A Last Confession
are in the lines

" Within the whirling brain's eclipse that she
Or I or all things bled or burned to death,"

as now appearing in the Tauchnitz and 1881 editions,
superseding the former reading, " Within the whirling
brain's entanglement That she or I or all things bled
to death;" and again, in the later substitution of the
word steel for Made in the final line.

Regarding the noble poem called The Burden of
Nineveh even Mr. Swinburne hardly exaggerates in his
enthusiastic eulogy, it being characterised by lofty
thought and noble diction sufficient alone to base an
enduring reputation upon. The metre, as Mr. Swin-

326 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

burne pointed out at the time of publication (1870),
" is a new one for English hands ;" and in his en-
thusiastic and generous review-essay of that date he
interprets its spirit in words that in themselves form
the substance of a poem, two sentences from which,
being specially pregnant, I shall quote : " We hear in
it, as it were for once, the sound of Time's soundless
feet, feel for once the beat of his unfelt wings in their
passage through unknown places, and centuries without
form and void. Echoes and gleams come with it from
' the dark backward and abysm ' of dateless days ; a
sighing sound from the graves of gods, a wind through
the doors of death which opened on the early world."

To a greater extent than any other composition by
the poet, it fulfils Keats' dictum — " in all true poetry
there is an element of prophecy, an inner vision, the
scope of which is not, and ought not to be, compre-
hended at once."-^ It exhibits at once a wide sympathy,
deep spiritual insight, and that prophetic interpretation
of mystery that convinces at once of genius of a high
order. How bitter, too, is that verse which speaks of
the winged Bull-God which had the worship of genera-
tions offered before it, which beheld the lapse of time
and the birth and death of centuries, and which looked
on these ultimate fifteen days of devastating fire, wherein
" smouldered to a name Sardanapalus' Nineveh," exposed
to ignorant and foolish babblers —

" While school-foundations in the act
Of holiday, three files compact,
Shall learn to view thee as a fact
Connected with that zealous tract :

* Kome — Babylon and Nineveh.' "

Could they who dwelt in the far-off forgotten days, ere

1 Except or perhaps equally with Rose Mary and The King's Tragedy.

V. " THE BURDEN OF NINEVEH:' 327

" the glory mouldered and did cease from immemorial
Nineveh/' have dreamt of this humiliation — this which
was to them the visible habitation for a time of the
Lord of Life —

" Deemed they of this, those worshippers,
When, in some mythic chain of verse
Which man shall not again rehearse,
The faces of thy ministers

Yearned pale with bitter ecstasy ?"

But, the poet goes on to say, a day may come
" when some may question which was first, of London
or of Mneveh," and some habitant of Australian
civilisation in the dim future may in turn bear away
this winged god as a relic, not now of Nineveh but
London; or it may be that farther off still, when the
present will seem but the childhood of the human
race, some may find in the ruined waste that once
was London this sculptured form, and infer therefrom
that the perished race who dwelt in the great city
bowed before it as their God — idolaters, and walking
not in " Christ's lowly ways."

The Burden of Nineveh was written before the
author's twenty-fifth year, and was first published in
the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine (1856), with two
more verses than when issued in 1870, which latter
edition had also many important corrections. That the
author considered the latest version unimprovable is
evident from the fact that since 1870 no alteration of
any kind has been made in it. Parallel passages will
enable the reader unacquainted with the exceedingly
scarce Oxford and Camlridge Magazine of 1 85 6 to realise
that the poem was a fine one from the first, and also how
conscientious in alteration and deletion the author was —

328

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

CHAP.

1858.

Verse 1.

(First five lines out of harmony

with the rest. )

Kound those still floors I tramp'd,

to win
By the great porch the dust and din ;
And as I made the last door spin
And issued, they were hoisting in
A winged beast from Nineveh.

Verse 3.
Some colour'd Arab straw matting,
Half-ripp'd, was still upon the
thing

etc. etc.

(Not in original. ) -

(See last five lines of Verse 4 ■
below.)

Verse 4.

On London stones our sun anew.

The beast's recovered shadow threw;

No shade that plague of darkness
knew.

No light, no shade, while older grew
By ages the old earth and sea.

Oh ! seem'd it not — that spell once
broke

As though the sculptured warrior
woke.

As though the shaft the string for-
sook,

The cymbals clash'd, the chariots
shook
And there was life in Nineveh?

1870 et seq.
Verse 1.

Sighing, I turned at last to win
Once more the London dirt and

din ;
And as I made the swing-door spin,
And issued, etc.

Verse 3.
The print of its first rush-wrappingj
Wound ere it dried, still ribbed the
thing

etc. etc.

Verse 4.

Oh, when upon each sculptured court,

Where even the wind might not
resort, —

O'er which Time passed, of like
import

With the wild Arab boys at sport, —
A living face looked in to see : —

Oh, seemed it not — the spell once
broke —

As though the carven warriors woke,

As though the shaft the string for-
sook,

The cymbals clashed, the chariots
shook.

And there was life in Nineveh.

Verse 5.
On London stones our sun anew
The beast's recovered shadow threw.
(No shade that plague of darkness

knew,
No light, no shade, while older

grew

By ages the old earth and sea.)
Lo thou ! could all thy priests have

shown
Such proof to make thy godhead

known?
From their dead Past thou liv'st

alone ;
And still thy shadow is thine own
Even as of yore in Nineveh.

V.

" THE BURDEN OF NINEVEH:'

329

1858.

Verse 5.

On London stones its shape lay

scored,
That day when, nigh the gates, the

Lord

etc. etc.

Verse 6.

Here cold-pinched clerks on yellow

days
Shall stop and peer ; ^d in sun's

haze
Small clergy crimp their eyes to

gaze;
And misses titter in their stays

Just fresh from " Layard's
Nineveh."

Verse 7.

Here while the antique students

lunch,
Shall art be slanged o'er cheese-

and-hunch,
Whether the great K.A.'s a bunch
Of gods or dogs, and whether Punch

Is right about the P.K.B.
Here, etc.

Verse 8 (last two lines).

An elder scarce more unknown God
Should house with him from
Nineveh.

Verse 9.

Ah ! in what quarries lay the stone
From which this pigmy pUe has

grown,
Unto man's need how long unknown.
Since thy vast temple, court and

cone

Rose far in desert history ?

1870 e^ seq.
Verse 6.

That day whereof we keep record,

When near thy city gates the Lord

etc. etc.

Verse 7.
Or pale Semiramis her zones

Of gold, her incense brought
to thee,
In love for grace, in war for aid: . . .
Ay, and who else ? . . . till 'neath

thy shade
Within his trenches newly made
Last year the Christian knelt and
pray'd—

Not to thy strength — in Nine-
veh.

Now, thou poor god, within this

hall
Where the blank windows blind the

wall
From pedestal to pedestal.
The kind of light shall on thee fall
Which London takes the day
to be :
Here, etc.

Verse 9.
Another scarce more, etc.

Verse 10.

Ah ! in what quarries lay the stone
From which this pillar'd pile has

grown,
Unto man's need how long unknown.
Since these thy temples, court and

cone.

Rose far in desert history ?

330

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

CHAP.

1858.
Verse 10.

One out of Egypt to thy home,
A pilgrim. Nay, but even to some
Of these thou wert antiquity !
etc. etc.

Verse 14.
Delicate harlot, — eldest grown
Of eartlily queens ! thou on thy
throne

etc. etc.

Verse 15.
Then waking up, I turn'd because
That day my spirit might not pause
O'er any dead thing's doleful laws ;
That day all hope with glad ap-
plause

Through miles of London
beckoned me :
And all the wealth of Life's free

choice.
Love's ardour, friendship's equipoise
And Ellen's gaze and Philip's voice
And all that evening's curtain'd
joys

Struck pale my dream of Nine-
veh.

Verse 16.
Yet while I walk'd, etc.

1870 et seq^.
Verse 11.

One out of Egypt to thy home.
An alien. Nay, but were not some
Of these thine own " an-
tiquity"?

etc. etc.

Verse 15.
Delicate harlot ! on thy throne
Thou with
prone.

a world beneath thee

etc.

etc.

Verse 16.

The

. . . Here woke my thought.

wind's slow sway
Had waxed; and like the human

play
Of scorn that smiling spreads away,
The siiusiiiiie shivered off the day :
Tlie callous wind, it seemed to
me.
Swept up the shadow from the

ground :
And pale as whom the Fates astound.
The God forlorn stood winged and

crown'd :
"Within I knew the cry lay bound
Of the dumb soul of Nineveh.

Verse 17.
And as I turned, etc.

In each instance, it will be observed, the alteration
is an improvement, unless perhaps in the case of the
fifth line of the eleventh verse. To the earlier copy
there was prefixed the following line : —

' ^^ Burden. Heavy calamity ; the chorus of a song. — Dictionary.

And it may also be noted that as in only one of his
extant pictures {The Girlhood of Mary Virgin) did Eos-
setti use the initials of the " Brotherhood " after his

V. ''JENNY:' 331

name/ so the only instance of his referriQg to it in print
occurs in the fifth line of the seventh verse of the 1858
copy.

As an example of that strange critical incapacity
which in many instances greeted the first appearance
of the Poems may be mentioned an (unsigned) review
in the Atlantic Monthly by a writer of distinction on a
different platform, Mr. W. D. Howells, who in this hasty
and bald fashion disposes of the two last-mentioned
poems — " Dante at Verona makes no very impressive
figure, and The Burden of Nineveh rests heavily upon
the reader." Speaking of the ballads (Sister Helen,
Troy- Town, Eden Bower, etc.) in the Poems, the same
writer says, " These ballads are the poorest of Mr. Eos-
setti's poems . . . some of them are very poor indeed,
and others are quite idle," an assertion that will strike
most judges of poetry as somewhat startling.

The long poem called Jenny is undoubtedly, despite
all that has been urged against it, a very fine poem,
full of exquisite artistic touches and broad and trenchant
reflection, and with one especially very effective and
picturesque and noble passage ; but I can no more agree
with Mr. Swinburne's opinion of it — " above them all
in reach and scope of power stands the poem of Jenny ;
great among the few greatest. works of the artist . . .
a Divine pity fills it, or a pity something better than
Divine, the more just and deeper compassion of human
fellowship and fleshly brotherhood. Here is nothing
of sickly fiction or theatrical violence of tone," etc. etc.
— ^than I can with the wholesale condemnation in favour
with some. After reading it again and again, and ever
willing to think the fault must lie with myself, I have

1 Excepting the pen-and-ink sketch of Eesterim Rosa.

332 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

each time come to the same conclusion, that the pathos
Mr. Swinburne considers its distinctive quality is literary
pathos, and not sprung in the first instance from a
sorrowful heart or a deep personal sense of "the pity
of it, the pity of it,"^ and that, in consequence, " a Divine
pity " does not fill it. I am aware that such a judgment
will seem to many absurd, nevertheless I still consider
much of Jenny to be gather cold-blooded speculation,
and the poem itself .as a whole by no means entitled
to rank as " great among the few greatest works of the
artist." This does not prevent it from being, in my
opinion, still a fine poem, only I cannot admit what I
feel to be an exaggerated claim for it. There is a
literary pathos and there is a human pathos, a literary
pity and a human pity, a literary speculative faculty
and the deep yearning and insight arising from human
sympathy ; and thoughts clothed in the literary glamour
may be very true and very beautiful, but they do not
touch us so closely as those do wherein the loving human
heart throbs like a pulse.

The only alterations in Jenny, which was composed
in 1858 and recast later on, take place in the 1881
re-issue, where line 237 reads "with Eaffael's, Leon-
ardo's hand," instead of " with Eaffael's or Da Vinci's
hand," and where after ^ line 322 ("Your pier-glass
scrawled with diamond rings "), there are inserted three
new lines —

" And on your bosom all night worn
Yesterday's rose now droops forlorn,
But dies not yet this summer morn."

^ "The heart is the creator of the poetical world; only the atmo-
sphere is from the brain." — Walter Savage Landor's Works, vol. ii. p.
57(1846). *• The human heart is the world of poetry ; the imagination
is only its atmosphere." — W. S. L. Works, vol. ii. p. 213 (1846).

V. « THE STREAM'S SECRET:' 333

The inter-relation between Jenny and the large and
important though still unfinished picture Found has
already been pointed out in the description of the
the latter.

An American critic, Mr. E. C. Stedman, in a refer-
ence to The Streams Secret, remarked aptly that that
poem contained more music than any slow lyric he
could remember. There is a peculiar fascination about
it which is in reality due to the subtle music of the
metre, reflecting as it does in undertone the subdued
murmur of " wan water, wandering water weltering,"
and for the reason that the cause of its beauty is not
at first perceptible is doubtless how it grows more and
more with every reading, till, I am certain, with many
it becomes one of the chief favourites.

The "Stream" is the brown-pooled, birch -banked
Penwhapple, in Ayrshire, that gurgles and lapses from
slope to slope till it reaches Girvan Water, when it
speedily finds its goal in the sea that sweeps the sandy
coast-line without a break save for wave-washed Ailsa
Craig ; and in a little cavern closely overlooking the
" whispering water " as it flows through the grounds of
Penkill Castle (the residence of one of his chief friends,
Miss A. Boyd) Eossetti composed the greater portion
of The Stream's Secret. Published in 1870 it was
written so late as in the autumn of 1869, and Mr.
William Bell Scott has told me how he frequently used
to look for Eossetti as the dinner hour drew near, and
almost invariably found him lying in the little cavern
©r sprawling in the long grass and bracken along the
banks ; the latter, I should think, the poet must have
found much more conducive to composition as the cave
seemed to me rather damp, very confined, and " with

334 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

dreadful midges thronged and thirsty gnats," to parody
Milton's magnificent line. He considered it one of his
very best productions and it certainly cost him the
most labour, very probably his opinion being greatly
due to that fact as well as to its having been written
" direct from nature ;" but despite the labour and despite
the desire to write a poem containing as much of the
direct natural as the human element, there is little in
it that is otherwise than literary naturalism, i.e. little
that could not have been written as well in the studio
at 1 6 Cheyne Walk as by the banks of the Penwhapple.
Eossetti lacked that imaginative knowledge of nature
which is quite a different thing from literary knowledge,
that which remains with artistic or poetic minds very
susceptible to all natural aspects almost indelibly, con-
sciously or unconsciously, though now and again he
caught and retained some subtle note which, however,
really appealed to the painter's eye, not the poet's sus-
ceptibility : for instance, the accurate and beautiful
"touches" in Silent Noon, Autumn Idleness (wholly fine),
the line " How large that thrush looks on the bare thorn-
tree " in the sonnet called Winter, or —

" When the leaf-shadows at a breath
Shrink in the road,"

from The Portrait. Thus when finishing the poem in
question in London the author desired some truthful
unstereotyped aspect of nightfall, but could not draw
upon that which he had not — a store of impressions
gained through many years and much observation — h§
had to write for some hint that he might use, which he
did to Miss Boyd of Penkill as follows : —

" I meant to have asked you in my note yesterday

V. LYRICS AND SHORT POEMS. 335

whether you could bring to mind any feature or inci-
dent particularly characteristic of the Penkill glen at
nightfall. In my poem I have made the speaker towards
the close suddenly perceive that the night is coming on,
and have had to give a descriptive touch or two. I
expect a first proof in all probability to-morrow morn-
ing, so if I get a hint of any kind from you by next
day (Friday) it would be in time to insert before I sent
back the proof with revisions and possible additions."
This note shows how much he wished to give it the
character of a study from nature. It was the only poem
he composed in the open air, except perhaps Autumn
Idleness which, however, was not written out of doors.
In the eleventh verse the same sad note is struck that
throbs in the lyrics Parted Presence and Spheral Changey
and it may be noticed how much the twenty-sixth, with
its polysyllabic words, recalls some of the sonnets, par-
ticularly perhaps the sestet of the fifty-third {Without
Her) of The Souse of Life. There is no alteration in
The Stream's Secret save the substitution of " amulet "
for " love secret " as a terminal in the twenty-fifth verse,
a decided gain in musical expression if nothing else.

Amongst the lyrics and shorter poems of Eossetti
the first place for lyric beauty and imagination must
certainly be given to The Blessed Bamozel. Like
My Sisters Sleejp^ it is one of his very earliest mature
productions, not indeed the earliest, for there were
several short poems of considerable merit written before
it, two of which were indeed in the proofs of his first
volume but were withdrawn while these were being
passed for printing, viz. Music and Song and To Mary
in Summer. The Blessed Bamozel is indeed an extraor-
dinary production for a youth of nineteen to be the

336 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

author of, and to be the author of in a time when the
public and critical taste had no palate for anything new ;
and still more is it so when we consider that there is
nothing immature in the composition from first to last.
It has the vague, indefinite, but exquisite charm of such
a painting by the poet-artist as Veronica Veronese, deli-
cate music indescribable, beauty of a rare and subtle
kind like that of twilight gray vapours suddenly faintly
flushed with the rose of dawn, or a solitary star seen
pulsing fierily above a purple mist shrouding swarthy
headlands : it has this, and more, to a degree that the
painting bearing the same name, splendid as it is, has not
— for the reason that words can reach to higher heights
and deeper depths than can the painter's medium,
and that they can catch a music and hint a glory and
loveliness beyond the limits of the limner's brush. It
has been called archaic, quaint, unwholesomely mediae-
val, affected, etc., but the question is, is the form fitting,
do the emotion and the expression move fitly together,
as a beautiful song and beautiful music are as one when
we listen to a fine singer ? When all has been said
for and against it, the fact remains that it is one of the
most original lyrics in our language, with a loveliness
of wild free grace and human passion and sorrow of its
own that must ever have an endless charm and delight
for at least a few ; nay more, the essential humanity
of the poem ensures it a place in the hearts of the young
as long as love and death and sorrow and hope are
themes to inspire the poet and affect those who are
entering, those who have passed but still look lingeringly
back to the faery valley and charmed hills of early life.
Where there are so many beauties it is difficult to
specify, but at least I cannot refrain from mentioning

V. " THE BLESSED DAMOZELr 337

again what has frequently been mentioned before, the
imaginative grasp of the powerful and beautiful lines of
the sixth verse, and those from the ninth and tenth —

" From the fixed place of Heaven she saw
Time like a jpulse shake fierce
Through all the worlds. . . .

The sun was gone now ; the curled moon

Was like a httle feather
Fluttering far down the gulf ; " . . .

the natural beauty of

*' Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters still'd at even ;

(each of the three versions being heautiful).

" And the hhes lay as if asleep
Along her bended arm ;"

or the spiritual passion of —

" We two will stand beside that shrine,

Occult, withheld, untrod.
Whose lamps are stirred continually

With prayer sent up to God ;
And see our old prayers, granted, melt

Each Uke a little cloud ;"

(or as the two last lines almost as beautifully said
in the original) —

" And where each need, revealed, expects
Its patient period."

It has been suggested to me more than once that a
version of The Blessed Damozel as it was written by the
youth of nineteen would be very acceptable to many
to whom The Germ is unprocurable or un-get-at-able ;

z

338 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

SO I had the schedule drawn out of the variations
from the most widely known version which is printed
opposite this page. From this, of course, any one
wishing to have a copy of the famous lyric by the
Eossetti of nineteen can with a little trouble obtain
such. It will be observed that the seventh verse is
that which has been most altered ; that one verse, the
tenth, is absent from the original copy ; that three verses
from the original have been missed out in later editions ;
and that only the third, thirteenth, eighteenth, and
twentieth verses remain without alteration since 1848.
The final verse was to the last a thorn of indecision to
the author, he never quite agreeing as to whether " she
cast her arms along the golden barriers," or " she laid
her arms, etc.," was the better, ultimately choosing, ere
the proofs were returned, the earlier reading. Also in
this verse he thought of altering in the 1881 edition
the last four words, " I heard her tears " to " I felt her
tears," but refrained on the ground that where there
might be an apparent realistic gain there was spiritual
loss.

My Sister's Sleep, the earliest of the poet's published
compositions, is written in the now well-known metre
of In Memoriam, but, as the author explains in a foot-
note, " this little poem " was written about three years
antecedent to the Laureate's famous elegy; nor has it
therefore, as on more than one occasion has been
stated, any reference to a real circumstance in the
author's experience, his only deceased sister being
Maria Francesca who died at a much later period.
The pathos of the great mystery of death is here in-
deed, and an indefinite " something " that seems to
attract almost every one, perhaps the exquisite realism.

" THE BLESSED DAMOZEU

339

THE BLESSED DAMOZEL.

[In the following variations only those lines are given which differ from the most widely
knoAvn version (that of 1870 and the five almost uniform subsequent editions) : so that, for
instance, when a line is given as from T/ie Ge-rm, and its equivalent from the Oxford and Cam-
tyridge Magazine, it means that the rest of the verse is the same as that of 1870 et seq., as also,
of course, where unspecified that of the Tauchnitz and 1881 editions.]

Verse 1.
The Germ.

Her blue grave eyes were deeper much
Than a deep water even.

Ox. and Cam. Mag.

Her eyes knew more of rest and shade
Than waters stilled at even.

Verse 2.
The Germ.

But a white rose of Mary's gift

On the neck meetly worn,
And her hair, lying down her back
Was yellow like ripe com.

Ox. and Cam. Mag.

But a white rose of Mary's gift

For service meetly worn,
And her hair lying down her back

Was yellow like ripe com.

Verse 4.
The Germ.

. . . Yet now, here in this place
Surely she leaned o'er me.

Verse 5 (ith line).
The Germ.

In which Space is begun.

Verse 6 (1st line).
[The Germ.
\ It lies from Heaven across the flood —

il (Between Verses 6 and 7.)

rGerm.
But in those tracts, with her it was
The peace of utter light
[' And silence. For no breeze may stir
Along the steady flight
Of seraphim ; no echo there
Beyond aU depth or height.

Verse 7.
:The Germ.

i Heard hardly, some of her new friends
'■' Playing at holy games.

Spake, gentle-mouthed among themselves

Their virginal new names.
And the souls mounting up to God
Went by her like thin flames.

Ox. and Cam. Mag.

She scarcely heard her sweet new friends

Playing at holy games.
Softly they spake among themselves

Their virginal chaste names.

1870 Edit.

Heard hardly, some of her new friends

Amid their loving games
Spoke evermore among themselves

Their virginal chaste names.

Later Edit.

Around her, lovers, newly met

In joy no sorrow claims.
Spoke evermore among themselves
Their rapturous new names.

Tauchnitz Edit.

Around her, lovers, newly met
'Mid deathless love's acclaims.
1881 Edit.

Spoke evermore among themselves
Their heart-remembered names.

Verse 8.
The Germ.

And still she bowed herself and stooped

Into the vast waste calm.
Till her bosom's pressure must have made
The bar she leaned on warm.

Ox. and Cam. Mag.

And still she bowed above the vast

Waste sea of worlds that swam,
Until her bosom must have made

The bar she leaned on warm.

Verse 9.
The Germ.

From the fixt lull of heaven she saw

Time, like a pulse, shake fierce
Through all the worlds. Her gaze still
In that steep gulf, to pierce [strove,
The swarm : and then she spake as when
The stars sarig in their spheres.

Ox. and Cam. Mag.

The stars sung in their spheres.

Verse 10.
The Germ.

(Absent altogether.)
Ox. and Cam. Mag.

Had when they sung together (6th line).

340

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

CHAP

The Germ.

Verse 11.
(Absent altogether.)

Ox. and Cam. Mag.

(Printed as Verse 17), the last two lines
being : —

Was she not stepping to my side
Down aU the trembling stair ?

Verse 12 (3d and Uh lines).
The Germ.

Have I not prayed in solemn heaven ?
On earth has he not prayed ?

Verse 14 (3d and 'Uh lines).
The Germ.

Whose lamps tremble continually

With prayers sent up to God,
And where each need, revealed, expects
Its patient period.

Ox. and Cam. Mag.

(Same as the later versions, except " prayers "
for "prayer.")

Verse 15 {Uh line).
The Germ.

Sometimes is felt to be

Verse 16 {last 4 lines).

The Germ.

" The songs I sing here, which his mouth

Shall pause in, hushed and slow,

Finding some knowledge at each pause

And some new thing to know."

Verse 17 [llth (0. and C.)].
The Germ.

(Alas to her wise simple mind

These things were all but known
Before ; they trembled on her sense, —

Her voice had caught their tone.
Alas for lonely Heaven ! alas
For life wrung out alone.)

(Between Verses 17 and 18.)

The 17th in The Germ.
The Germ.

(Alas, and though the end were reached ?
Was thy part understood

Or borne in trust ? And for her sake
Shall this too be found good ? —

May not close lips that knew not prayer
Praise ever though they would ?)

Verse 19.
The Germ.

Circle-wise sit they with bound locks
And bosoms covered —

Verse 21 (3d line).
The Germ.

Kneel — the unnumber'd solemn heads —

Ox. and Cam. Mag.

Kneel — the unnumber'd ransom'd heads ■

Verse 22 (last 4 lines).
The Germ.

To have more blessing than on earth

In nowise ; but to be
As then we were, — being as then
At peace. Yea, verily.

Ox. and Cam. Mag.

Only to live as once on earth

At peace, — only to be
As then awhile, for ever now
Together, I and he.

(Between Verses 22 and 23.
The Germ.

Yea, verily ; when he is come

We will do thus and thus,
Till this my vigil seem quite strange

And almost fabulous ;
We two will live at once, one life ;
And peace shall be with us.

Verse 23 (5th line).
The Germ.

With angels, in strong level lapse.

Verse 24 (2d and Bd lines).
The Germ.

Was vague 'mid the poised spheres.
And then she cast her arms along

Ox. and Cam. Mag.

Was vague in distant spheres :
And then she laid her arms along—

M,

r

V. "MV SISTER'S SLEEP'' AND "AVE." 341

which is neither forced nor outrS, nor anything but
entirely natural and written with a touch of ex-
tremest delicacy and refinement. The fourth verse is
a fine piece of natural description, but the finest is
the tenth, with the deep suggestiveness of that which
those sitting and waiting the birth of Christmas Day
hearken in the stillness of the room above them, — a
sudden "pushing back of chairs." The poem, how-
ever, as it now stands, is not identical with that pub-
lished in The Germ in 1850, there being, in the first
place, several material differences, especially in the
first and fourth verses, while in the original are four
verses not to be found in later editions, viz. two be-
tween the sixth and seventh, and two between the
ninth and tenth — inferior to the rest certainly, except
that following immediately on the ninth verse, wherein
the mother has risen silently from her work, and says,
" Glory unto the newly Born."

" She stood a moment with her hands
Kept in each other, praying much ;
A moment that the sonl may touch
But the heart only understands."

The very beautiful hymn, if hymn it can be called,
entitled Ave was composed at the same period (about
1 8 5 8) -^ as the picture Mary in the Mouse of John, fully
described elsewhere — a poem the beauty of which
caused a leading review in America (not that already
referred to) to claim Eossetti as the greatest living poet
of the Catholic Church. The lines from the fourteenth
to the thu'ty-third are amongst the most beautiful the
poet has written, and are permeated with the same
almost indefinable beauty that characterises alike so

1 Ave must have been composed a good deal earlier.

342 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

many of the artist-poet's works in both mediums, and
in none more than these poems and pictures animated
by the religious spirit. The pathetic passage begin-
ning with the lines

" Mind'st thou not (when the twilight gone
Left darkness in the house of John),"

is that describing, or rather illustrated by the picture.
The only alteration in any printed copy is that in the
1881 edition, where the word " succinct " is substituted
for " arrayed," in the line " The Cherubim, arrayed, con-
joint." The Am concludes with a fine passage wherein
the poet speaks in his vision, content whichever way
it is since the result is there: —

" Soul, is it Faith, or Love, or Hope,
That lets me see her standing up
Where the light of the Throne is bright %
Unto the left, unto the right.
The cherubim, succinct, conjoint,
Float inward to a golden point.
And from between the seraphim
The glory issues for a hymn."

Lov^s Nodurn is a poem of much later composition
than its being placed next after the opening Blessed
Damozel might suggest, and is a good deal altered
from the original MS. Though unequal, parts of it
are full of charm and grace and it may be said to be
the poem of the author wherein the resemblance (apart
from the suggestion of the second title-word) is very
marked to some of the work of that Shelley of musi-
cians, Frederic Chopin ; but as that great, as well as
sometimes fantastically beautiful composer is still but
little understood, so may the comparison as well as the
charm of the verses themselves be caviare to many : —

V. ''LOVE'S NOCTURNE." 343

" Vaporous, unaccountable,

Dreamland ^ lies forlorn of light,
Hollow like a breathing shell.

" There the dreams are multitudes ;

Some whose buoyance waits not sleep.
Deep within the August woods ;

Some that hum while rest may steep
Weary labour laid a-heap ;

Interludes,
Some, of grievous moods that weep.

" Poets' fancies all are there :

There the elf-girls flood with wings
Valleys full of plaintive air ;

There breathe perfumes ; there in rings
Whirl the foam-bewildered springs ;

Siren there
Winds her dizzy hair and sings."

One more verse I shall quote, but not from any printed
copy. In nine cases out of ten a critic or biographer
(while he is entitled to refer to all printed matter —
matter at any time made public), has no right to disinter
from original MS., or copy thereof, that which an author
never chose to make public himself; but there are
cases where an author himself misjudges, and then,
when the matter is really worth the deed, it is desir-
able. That such an instance is to be found in the
following verse I think most will agree, if for nothing
else than the second and third lines which form one
of those phrases which once widely apprehended seldom

1 In the 1881 edition " dreamworld ;" as also the same substitution
in the last line of the twentieth verse. The fifth line above quoted
there reads "some that will not wait for sleep," and in the fifth line
of the seventeenth verse, the word " prayers " is inserted in place of
" words. "

344 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

pass again from a people's usage ; the stanza in ques-
tion comes, in the original, between the seventh and
eighth —

" As, since man waxed deathly wise,
Secret somewhere on this earth
Unpermitted Eden lies —

Thus within the world's wide girth
Hides she from my spirit's dearth,

Paradise
Of a love that cries for death."

When first The Staff and Scrip was committed to paper
the poem was considerably longer than we now know it,
though short of the latter by one verse in the Oxford
and Cambridge Magazine, where it first appeared and
where it has many minor points of difference from
later editions. Even if it had not been recognisable
as an early production from the fact of being published
in the Oxford and Cambridge, there would be little
doubt as to its being more or less contemporary with
The Brides Prelude, and the " romantic " period of the
artist's career. In the early reading there is one
verse, there the nineteenth, beginning, " So, arming,
through his soul there pass'd," — which it seems a
pity should have been afterwards omitted; in all,
there are some twenty variations, but as the poem is
not a specially important one, however interesting from
one point of view, it will be unnecessary to indicate
these.

Apart from . any other beauty characterising The
Portrait it is the poem which contains more natural
transcripts than any other of anything like equal
length by Eossetti. The pathetic first verse is as fine
as any — it and the first three lines of the seventh. It

V. " THE PORTRAIT "— " THE CARD-DEALER:' 345

seems to me — but I may be prejudiced — that the
following fine lines " from nature " are indirectly due
to Tennyson ; at least they, especially the three first,
are such as one would more readily attribute to the
Laureate than to the author of Tlie House of Life : —

"Dull rain-drops smote us, and at length
Thundered the heat within the hills.

The empty pastures blind with rain.

And as I stood there suddenly,

All wan with traversing the night,

Upon the desolate verge of light
Yearned loud the iron-bosomed sea."

On the other hand, the five lines concluding the ninth
verse are undoubtedly genuine observation, the same
that I have already quoted at least once and which
I have elsewhere -^ compared to one of Millet's most
successful " impressionist " night-pieces.

The Card-Dealer, though in the same metre as The
Blessed Damozel, is quite unlike any of the poems that
have yet been considered. It has a weird power and
significance, and may be said to be amongst Eossetti's
poetic work what How They Met Themselves is amongst
his designs. A New Year's Burden is a sad little song,
full of subdued feeling, the lament of the lover not
being for birth or death but " The love once ours, but
ours long ago ;" and the same sad strain runs through
An Old Song Ended and Even So, the latter being the
finer, though the former is a song, which Even So is not,
as any one attempting to set the third verse to music
for the purpose would discover. The fine eight or

^ The Portfolio (November 1882) — Pictorialism in Verse.

346 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

nine lines called Aspeda Medusa are all that remain,
embodied in type instead of on paper or canvas, of the
powerful but unfulfilled pictorial design wherein Andro-
meda beholds in safety " mirrored in the wave that death
she lived by."

At the end of the sonnets of The House of Life, as
they are placed in the 1870, five subsequent and
Tauchnitz editions, are eleven lyrics and songs, not one
of which is unworthy of special notice. The first is
the delicate Love Lily, followed by the less lyrical but
not less poetic First Love Rememhered, of which the
opening lines suggest the same motif as that of the
sonnet called Memorial Thresholds ; the third. Plighted
Promise, was originally called Moon Star (now the title
of the twenty-ninth sonnet in The House of Life), and
is the same already referred to in the last chapter when
speaking of Eossetti's work in Gilchrist's Life of Blake,
when I mentioned that the first four lines had been
used by the author as a prose sentence ; it is inferior
to the others. If Plighted Promise is inferior, this can-
not be said of Sudden Light, which is not only very
beautiful but the record of that which happens fre-
quently to many — the sense of antenatal circumstance,
or at any rate of actions once before done under similar
surroundings, of having seen the same place, seen the
same countenance, lived the same moment without hav-
ing, to one's knowledge, seen hitherto either place or
countenance, or experienced exactly the same environ-
ment.

" I have been here before,

But when or how I cannot tell :
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

V. ''LYRICS AND SONGS." 347

" You have been mine before, —
How long ago I may not know :
But just when at that swallow's soar
Your neck turned so+
Some veil did fall, — I knew it all of yore.

*' Has this been thus before ?

And shall not thus Time's eddying flight
Still with our lives our love restore
In Death's despite.
And day and night yield one delight once more ?"

Eeaders who only have seen or possess the 1870
edition of the Poems will notice the great improvement
in the third verse, or rather the substitution of the
present stanza for that previously in its place. The
tender and sorrowful A Little While recalls Even So
and A New Years Burden, but is even more sad and
regretful; but the sixth song, The Song of the Bower, has
the passionate exultation blent with the bitter fore-
knowledge of one who sees that the present joy of his
love will not also fill the future. The throbbing ful-
ness of the music makes it one of Eossetti's most
impetuous and most musical lyrics, next to if not equal-
ling what he himself considered his lyric masterpiece,
The Cloud Confines. Fenumhra is not a poem that will
attract so much at first, its significance not being im-
mediately apparent, but it grows upon the reader till
both the music and the meaning blend and become as
a strain of plaintive melody. The four so-called songs
• that follow are amongst the author's finest work —
Woodspurge, with its acute and (in poetry) newly noted
truth, coming first, succeeded by The Honeysuckle with
its natural beauty and deeper meaning than is at first
apprehensible. One line in the latter will "strike

t8 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

ome " any one who has wandered in summer morn-
igs through lanes where the hedges are fragrant with
le wild -rose and the trailing deliciousness of the
oneysuckle, and noticed, in the poet's words, the lat-
ir's " virgin lamps of scent and dew." A Young Fir
Vood is a fine lyric expression of a philosophic thought,
at The Sea Limits is such a production as only a poet
I a high order could be the author of. It has the
lysterious music of the sea in it, " Time's self made
idible," the echo of that sound which " since Time
as hath told the lapse of time " — a soft understrain
ke the quiet at the heart of the great universal sea,
le quiet which is not of death but of " the mournful-
3SS of ancient life." In the two latter stanzas the
Dices of nature echo "the same desire and mystery,"
id even as these so is all mankind at heart, " and
arth, Sea, Man are all in each." The best that has
3en said regarding the solemn music of The Sea Limits,
3rhaps the best that could be said, has been in the
ords of Mr. Swinburne {Essays and Studies). It " has
le solemn weight and depth in it of living water, and
sound like the speech of the sea when the wind is
lent." It is strange that this poem, than which for
lature grasp and beauty nothing by the author is finer,
lould in composition be almost coeval with The Blessed
hmozel, having been written about Eossetti's twenty-
icond year ; this early copy, it must however be ad-
litted, is by no means equal (as it appears in the Germ)
) that so widely known, nor is it of the same length.
:s early title is From the Cliffs : Noon. Another poem
I very early date, probably older than the last-named,
that published in The Germ as Pax Vohis, and in
le 1881 re-issue of The Poems as World's Worth,

V. ''LYRICS AND SONGS." 349

verses decidedly antecedent to such pictorial and akin
compositions as Fra Pace. There are many variations
in the later reading from the earlier, the chief gain
being in the terminal lines of each verse ; but at times
the earlier version seems to me superior, as in those
lines describing the desolate monotony of the bleak
northern sky as seen from the belfry windows of a
Flemish cathedral —

" Passed all the roofs unto the sky
Whose grayness the wind swept alone" —

though, on the other hand, it only requires the substi-
tution for the tone word "gray" for "stark" to make
the later reading the superior. The church is St.
Bavon in Ghent. Two other poems appear only in
the latest issue, namely, Down Stream and Wellingtons
Funeral. The first of these is a beautiful and pictu-
resque Thames lyric, but the ode on Wellington's
Funeral is as a whole undoubtedly the most unsatis-
factory printed poem by Eossetti.

In the Ballads and Sonnets are thirteen lyrical
pieces, all of great merit and one or two of something
more. The first of these. Soothsay, may be called,
without meaning either disparagement or the reverse,
the least Eossettian of the poet's compositions ; but not
so that which follows, which, however, as I drew atten-
tion to in a footnote early in this volume, is only to
be taken as an experiment in rhythmical echo with only
the frailest substratum of poetic motif ; as such and
nothing more is it successful. The beautiful lyrics
Spheral Change and Parted Presence have already been
referred to in connection with Even So and A New
Year's Burden, but the intermediary verses are not so

)0 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

Dod, defaced as they are by that which has now be-
)me wearisome to the last degree, a meaningless refrain
-all very well in its right place, which is not in a
odern poem. A great contrast to A Death Parting
Sunset IFings, with its fine natural painting, fine
3spite the making the caws of rooks resemble or
iggest " Farewell, no more, farewell, no more ; "
hile the succeeding 'verses are (with alterations)
lose intended for the first volume called Music and
mg. TJiree Shadows, Adieu, and Alas, so Long ! are
1 fine lyrics, the latter especially; and of a higher
•der is Lnsomnia, a poem that was certainly born

■ suffering from the dread scourge that attacks so
ten the supersensitive nature, and which shortened
le life of Eossetti — and in these stanzas is again used,
ith beautiful effect, the now familiar strain of " Ee-
ember and Forget." There are fine lines in Possession
id the series concludes with, in the author's opinion
is finest lyric, Tlie Cloud Confines. This beautiful
)mposition was first published in The Fortnightly
eview ; but fine as it is to read, only those who have
3ard its changing cadences half read half chanted by
le sonorous voice of the poet himself can know it at
s finest.-^

I will conclude this chapter on those poetical
)mpositions by Eossetti which belong neither to the
Dnnet nor the Ballad class, with some highly interest-
Lg though crude verses which were the outcome

■ the visit he paid to Belgium in his early days,
bey are really more interesting in connection with
16 artist than the poet, being written testimony to a
ell-known fact — his admiration of the realistic and

1 Vide Note at end of Chapter.

THE carillon:' 351

liighly-finished work of Memmeling and Van Eyck.
The verses are to be found in Tlu Germ.

The Carillon.

At Antwerp there is a low wall
Binding the city, and a moat
Beneath, that the wind keeps afloat.

You pass the gates in a slow drawl

Of wheels. If it is warm at all
The carillon will give yon thought.

I climbed the stair in Antwerp Church,
What time the urgent weight of sound
At sunset seems to heave it round.
Far up, the carillon did search
The wind ; and the birds came to perch '
Far under, where the gables wound.

At Antwerp harbour on the Scheldt
I stood along a certain space
Of night. The mist was near my face :

Deep on, the flow was heard and felt.

The carillon kept pause, and dwelt
In music through the silent place.

At Bruges, when you leave the train
— A singing numbness in your ears —
The carillon's first sound appears
Only an inner moil. Again
A little minute through — your brain
Takes quick, and the whole sense hears.

John Memmeling and John Van Eyck
Hold state at Bruges. In sore shame
I scanned the works that keep their name.
The carillon, which then did strike
Mine ears, was heard of theirs alike :
It set me closer unto them.

352 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap. v.

I climbed at Bruges up the flight

The Belfry has of ancient stone.

For leagues I saw the east wind blown ;
The earth was gray, the sky was white.
I stood so near upon the height

That my flesh felt the carillon.

{Note to page 350.)
Perhaps the Cloud-Confines (wTitten in 1871, and first published in
the Fortnightly for January 1882) was suggested by a fine poem by
Rossetti's friend George Meredith, which struck the former greatly on
its appearance in the Fortnightly for August 1870. This was entitled
In the Woods, and the concluding lines of the first '* division " are : —

** The pine-tree drops its dead ;
They are quiet under the sea.
Overhead, overhead,
Rushes life in a race
As the clouds the clouds chase ;
And we go
And we drop Uke the fruits of the tree,
Even we
Even so,"

i

CHAPTEK VI.

BALLADS.

It may well be doubted if it be possible to write a
genuine old-time ballad in these latter days, for the
ballad is a poem as much the result of circumstances
as an epic. Even if a Homer, a Milton, a Dante were
to appear with the regularity of third-rate poetic birth,
subjects fit for epic treatment would still be absent —
for the wide-embracing scope of the epic leaves little
room save for a select and supremely gifted few. Not
indeed that I would infer, what is so constantly preached
and perhaps believed now as ever since the flower of
poetry first sprang from the soil of rude speech, that
the day is past wherein it is possible to write a great
epic poem ; more than one great theme of ancient as
well as more than one of comparatively recent or con-
temporary times awaits the new Homer, Tasso, Ariosto,
or Milton, wherever such shall appear : iintil such
appearance it will of course remain the fashion to pre-
dict the impossibility. The phase through which our
minor poetical literature is passing is one wheiein all
attention is given to form, and form borrowed from
alien literatures, by far the greater portion of it exhibit-
ing an absence of individual and original gift, a mental
ennui and emotional lassitude that are the signs of the
relapse preceding the close of the brilliant Victorian

2 A

354 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

epoch. Enthusiasm is out of fashion : to have a
passionate devotion to nature, to great social or re-
ligious ideals, to anything except oneself and one's
personal regrets and peculiarly trying spiritual experi-
ences in general — or to trifles of slight if any import —
is " bad form." Pensive meditation on nothing particular
takes the place of clarified thought and deep spiritual
insight into great problems of life and nature ; which
after all is biit natural, when thought and insight are
beyond attainment. The next lustrum is not likely to
bring forth much of permanent importance, or even the
next decade ; but thereafter new voices will make
themselves heard, influences now sneered at will be at
work, the polished accomplishments of our contem-
porary minor verse will be generally forgotten, and a
larger, fresher, far more widely appealing poetic litera-
ture be ushered in with the new age.

As a great epic is not the product of any decade
but depends upon special circumstances for fitting pro-
duction, so a ballad meant to assimilate to the ballads
of old cannot well be naturally produced in an environ-
ment like that of the present. True ballads are essen-
tially the breath, the intenser life of a nation, and are
therefore as much the outcome of general as of indi-
vidual sentiment: and where ballad poetry is alien
from the daily life of a people, it may safely be taken
for granted that such poetry is literary and not born
of natural instinctive impulse. But because a ballad
of the present times cannot with propriety be given in
the form of a ballad of the past, it does not follow that
ballad literature of all kinds is out of harmony with
modern sympathies. It is mere affectation now to
write with an archaic diction which would have been

i

VI. THE TRUE BALLAD. 355

rough and crude in a crude and rough age, but the
simplicity of the old folk-lore can be retained, the
directness, impersonaKty, brevity of description, and
with these united with natural language and dramatic
ability, a true ballad can yet be written ; not indeed a
ballad full of the savour of lawless border times, but
ballads of such life and adventure as might happen to
any of us under suitable circumstances. This intensely
simple, intensely dramatic poem of the people may still
survive in that afterglow of cherished tradition which
is almost reality, may still thus survive in the north-
western districts and isles of Scotland and Ireland, in
Shetland, Iceland, and northern Scandinavia; but what-
ever else life in or in the neighbourhood of towns may
be productive of, it does not nourish the lawless actions
and wild freedom that were as breath to the nostrils of
our forefathers.

But having dissociated the name from the stirring
times of the past, the ballad can still remain a choice
form for expression in more than one direction : it can
be an historical or legendary poem treated with the
simple directness of the old method, or it can be a
dramatic lyric, dealing with imaginative creations in
place of real personalities and actual facts. In what-
ever way it be used it must be unindividual, in the sense
of betraying the writer's personality, and dramatic in
its motif, for the ballad belongs neither to lyric poetry
nor the drama, but has essential characteristics of
either : it partakes of the lyric form but is not a lyric,
inasmuch as the latter is the expression of individual
hfe, while a drama is that of the life of others. The
ballad then is the lyrically dramatic expression of
actions and events in the lives of others.

356 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

Of the seven published ballads by Eossetti, three
belong to the historical or legendary section, three to
the section of individual imaginative creation, and one
stands midway betwixt these two sections. The three
that more or less accurately conform to ballad require-
ments are Strait on Water, The King's Tragedy, and The
White Ship; those that are so strongly marked by
individual characteristics and by general style as to be
better embraced by the freer term dramatic lyrics or
lyrically dramatic poems, are Troy Town, Eden Bower
and Bose Mary, and the seventh is Sister Helen}

Eeference was made to the last-named splendid and
powerful poem in the first chapter, where it will be
remembered its date of composition was given as 1851,
and where the circumstances connected with its first
printed appearance in the Dusseldorf Magazine were
described. Eossetti at this time (1851) was only
twenty-three, yet Sister Helen has as firm a grasp and as
mature strength as anything from his pen in later life.
This powerful and intensely dramatic production differs
from any previous poem similar in form in having a
burden or refrain varying in slight degree with each
verse, the prevailing custom amongst later baUadists
having been an accompaniment charged with some
ominous natural note such as The willows wail in the
waning light, or else with some absolutely meaningless
rhythmical echo, in either case varying not oftener than
alternate occurrence. And in the case of Sister Helen,
it must be confessed a great part of the weird charm it
exercises is contained in the accompanying refrain of

1 To this enumeration should perhaps be added Dennis Shand, but
as it does not appear amongst the published poems, and as the author
in a sense discarded it, no notice of it will be taken.

VI. "SISTER HELEN." 357

two lines, varying as the latter does only in the first
words of the second line. The central idea of the
poem, that of a woman being able to charm away the
life of the man she loves or loved by melting a waxen
image of him, is not of course original, existing as the
legend does in many countries ; but in this ballad it
has found expression such as it had never hitherto had,
with an intensity of feeling, an instinctive grasp of
supernatural effect, and a sustained passion of diction
that will in all probability assure it its place of per-
manent unchallenged honour in our literature. To-
wards the supernatural Eossetti had a special leaning,
and in supernatural suggestiveness his poems afford
several markedly fine instances ; indeed, what I think
will yet come to be considered his two chief and
noblest compositions. Sister Selen and The Kings
Tragedy, are permeated with the supernatural element
which was so akin to the inborn mysticism of his own
nature. Finely conceived and worked out as was the
poem from the first, it has yet undergone great improve-
ment since its composition in 1851, the first decided
gain being in the addition of what is now the first
verse, which gives at once the clue necessary for im-
mediate understanding. There is no difference between
the 1870 and five subsequent editions of The Poems
and the Tauchnitz version, save that the latter in the
third line of the thirty-second verse reads But Keith of
Kwern's sadder still, instead of But he and I are sadder
still. The seventeenth verse (1870) is not in the
original copy. But very material alterations indeed
took place subsequent to its appearance in the Tauch-
nitz edition, additions which are of great gain in
every way, and which were incorporated in the 1881

358 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL

reissue. It is almost impossible that any one gifted
with a spark of imagination could fail to follow in
spirit the relentless and triumphant vengeance of the
woman who slowly works her lover's death by a gradual
melting of his image before a wood-fire's flames, intensi-
fied as the passion of such vengeance is by the innocent
questions of her little brother and the ominous echo of
the burden : carried along in suspense as every reader
must be, from the first suggestive lines to the weird
ultimate verse —

" Ah ! what white thing at the door has cross'd,
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 !)

It is scarcely necessary to remark for those who may
not have read this splendid and terrible ballad that the
first two lines throughout, with the intermediary " Sister
Helen," are spoken by the little brother, and that in
the third line of each verse is condensed each reply
of the ruthless woman. As many will only possess
the earlier editions, I will add the suggestive and
powerful new stanzas embodied in the issue of 1881,
pointing out first some minor alterations of the text as
it stands up to the latter date. The first four words
of the first line of the fourteenth verse are altered to
Three days and nights ; what is now the first word of
the last line of verse 1 9 ; the third line of the follow-
ing verse is changed to In all that his soid sees, there
am I, and the last line in the same to The sotd's one
sight ; the word joined takes the place of more in the

'' SISTER HELEN:' 359

last line of verse 2 1 ; and Not tvnce to give is the
reading of the last line of the stanza following : in each
instance, of course, these numbered verses meaning
those of the earlier copies. Between the thirteenth and
fourteenth verses the foUowins stanza is inserted : —

"t>

" Three days ago, on his marriage-morn,
Sister Helen,
He sickened, and lies since then forlorn."
"For degroom's side is the bride a thorn,

Little brother !"
(0 Mother, Mary Mother,
Cold bridal cheer, between Hell and Heaven !) —

an addition that adds point to the bitter mocking
response in the succeeding verse —

" Three days and nights he has lain abed,
Sister Helen,
And he prays in torment to be dead."

" The thing may chance, if he have prayed.

Little brother !"

The six succeeding stanzas are interpolated between what
were the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth verses : —

" A lady's here, by a dark steed brought,
Sister Helen,
So darkly clad, I saw her not."
" See her now, or never see aught,

Little brother !"
(0 Mother, Mary Mother,
What more to see, between Hell and Heaven !)

" Her hood falls back, and the moon shines fair,
Sister Helen,
On the Lady of Ewem's golden hair."
" Blest hour of my power and her despair.
Little brother !"
(0 Mother, Mary Mother,
Hour blest and bann'd between Hell and Heaven I)

360 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

" Pale, pale her cheeks that in pride did glow,
Sister Helen,
'Neath the bridal wreath three days ago."
" One moon for pride, and three days for woe.
Little brother !"
(0 Mother, Mary Mother,
Three days, three nights, between Hell and Heaven !)

*' Her clasped hands stretch from her bending head,
Sister Helen,
"With the loud wind's wail her sobs are wed."
• " What wedding strains hath her bridal bed.
Little brother ?"
(0 Mother, Mary Motlier,
What strains hut death's, between Hell and Heaven T)

" She may not speak, she sinks in a swoon.
Sister Helen,
She lifts her lips and gasps on the moon."
" Oh ! might I but hear her soul's blithe tune,
Little brother !"
(0 Mother, Mary Mother,
Her woe's dumb cry, between Hell and Heaven !)

" They've caught her to Westholm's saddle-bow.
Sister Helen,
And her moonKt hair gleams white in its flow."
" Let it turn whiter than winter snow.

Little brother 1"
(0 Mother, Mary Mother,
Woe-withered gold, between Hell and Heaven !)

To these succeed the stanzas beginning with that
which in the early editions would be numbered twenty-
nine —

" 0 Sister Helen, you heard the bell.

Sister Helen !" etc.,

with only one interpolation, namely that coming be-
tween verses 3 1 and 3 2 : —

VI. ''TROY town:' 361

" Flank to flank are the three steeds gone,
Sister Helen,
But the lady*s dark steed goes alone."
"And lonely her bridegroom's soul hath flown,
Little brother."
(0 Mother, Mary Mother,
The lonely ghost, between Hell and Heaven !)

The three ballads which I have preferred to charac-
terise as lyrically dramatic poems, Troy Town, Eden
Bower, and Rose Mary, were all written about the same
period, namely, between 1869 and 1872, though the
last named was both materially altered and added to
in later years.

Troy Town was composed in the autumn of 1869
while residing at Penkill Castle, where it will be remem-
bered Eossetti also wrote The Stream's Secret, and for
a long time it was one of the author's favourite ballads.
Of late, however, he certainly did not hold this opinion.
The poem is a fine one of its kind, the last five stanzas
especially ; but it seems to me to have been hitherto
overrated in importance. It is full indeed of the
passionate emotion which we would at once associate
with the prayer of Helen to Venus, but the passion is
of such a purely physical kind that the wanton abandon
of the wife of Menelaus has a somewhat unpleasant
savour of mere animalism. What is fitting in a Lilith
or a Lamia repels in the mother of Hermione. Phy-
sical passion in its right place is far from being either
undesirable or unartistic, but such a verse, for instance,
as the ninth of Troy Town has a fault very charac-
teristic of much of our contemporary poetry, namely,
a meaningless excess in expression. The burden of
this poem,

362 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

(0 Tro'^h down,
Tall Troy's on fire !)

is in thorough harmony with the motif, prophetic as it
is of the terrible outcome of the love of " heaven-born
Helen, Sparta's queen " for the wily son of Priam.

A much more powerful and notable ballad is that
called Uden Boioer. It deals with the well-known
legend of Lilith, the wife of Adam before the creation
of Eve ; a subject that had many years before the com-
position of the poem appealed powerfully to Rossetti's
imagination, and which it will be remembered he made
the central idea of one of his most striking pictures.
In a sense the painting is more original than the poem,
the artist having represented Lilith as no nude or witch-
like companion of Adam, but as a woman of our own
and all time, an embodiment of the animal nature in
man, ceaselessly craving and remorseless wherever its
fascination becomes all potent. In the picture we see
her, as described in the sonnet written for the design,
in her immortal youth, still as of yore drawing men
" to watch the bright net she can weave, till heart and
body and life are in its hold;" clothed in soft white
furs, and with a mirror before her in which she gazes
" subtly of herself contemplative." The pictorial con-
ception is an especially subtle and original one, and
one which only a great painter could have adequately
carried out ; and though the poem is in exact keeping
with the witch-legend, it is hardly less original. It is
not an invention, which Keats took to be the polar
star of poetry, but it is an old conception embodied
afresh, a general truth seen through the veil of in-
dividual insight and imagination.

Eden Bower was begun a week or so later than

VI. " EDEN BO IVER." 363

Troy Toion, and was thoroughly matured in the

author's mind before the first stanza was committed

to paper : like the latter, it was thought out and some

preliminary experimentive verses were written at

Penkill Castle. But the first fourteen stanzas, as they

now stand, were composed at the house of a friend

near Carlisle, at which Eossetti had to stay a day on

his return to London owing to being unable to get on

to London on a Sunday. The following note to Mr.

W. B. Scott at Penkill Castle is of interest as more

definitely fixing the date of its composition, the note

being written in the last week of September though

undated : —

"16 Cheyne Walk, Tuesday.

" Here I am since 9.30 last night after a very dragging
journey. On Saturday there was a stay of an hour and a half
at Ayr and I reached Carlisle about 7.30, and thence made my
way to Miss Losh's. I could not get forward on Sunday, so
stayed at Kavenside, and there wrote some fourteen stanzas of
my Lilith poem, which I think will be a good one. If not
falling so easy into shape as Troy Town, and turning out neces-
sarily rather longer, I nevertheless found it yield ample sug-
gestions for a central representative treatment of its splendid
subject. I call it Eden Bower, and will send you a copy if
finished soon, as I daresay it will be in a day or two. I sup-
pose I shall put it in print at once."

It is of greater length than the author evidently
anticipated, extending as it does to forty-nine stanzas.
The story of Lilith, of whom it is told,

" That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive,
And her enchanted hair was the first gold" —

has all the significance of that of Lamia, but it both
contains and is narrated with much more dramatic
effect. The portion of the legend chosen by Eossetti

364 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

is not that of the loves of Lilith and Adam before the
creation of Eve but subsequent thereto, and neither
the father nor mother of the human race are intro-
duced in the poem as speakers : the scene being some
grove outside of Eden, where unseen of our first
parents Adam's first wife tempts the Snake and exults
with the latter in fierce prospective joy of their own
love when Adam and Eve shall be fallen from their
high estate. Though once a snake herself, and the
fairest of all, she was changed after the creation of
Adam into the human shape,

" Not a drop of her blood was human,
But she was made like a soft sweet woman " —

so that she has all the passions that go to make life
hell or heaven. But after the creation of Eve she
was driven from Eden, and though she loves as pas-
sionately as Adam the snake who was her first mate,
she cannot forgive the more human loveliness called
Eve who has usurped her place : so, looking upon the
happiness of the latter and Adam from where she
stands on the skirts of Eden, she appeals to the Snake
to aid her and to accept again the gift of her passion,
an appeal blent with fierce and exultant memories of
her lost wifedom. It is at this point that Eden Bower
commences. But scarcely are her first passionate
words addressed to the Snake —

" Take me thou as I come from Adam :
Once again shall my love subdue thee ;
The past is past and I am come to thee " —

ere the bitter memory of past joys makes her recur
again to the days now lost to her for ever —

VI. '' EDEN BOWER.'' 365

" 0 but Adam was thrall to Lilitli !
All the threads of i«y hair are golden,
And there in a net his heart was holden.

" 0 and Lilith was queen of Adam !
All the day and the night together
My breath could shake his soul like a feather.

" What great joys had Adam and Lilith ! —
Sweet close rings of the serpent's twining,
As heart in heart lay sighing and pining.

" What bright babes had Lilith and Adam ! —
Shapes that coiled in the woods and waters,
Glittering sons and radiant daughters."

Then she makes a wild appeal to the Snake to help
her in her revenge, offering him in reward her eternal
love. And what she asks is that he will lend her his
shape if but for an hour, so that she may tempt and
destroy the human creatures to whom God forbade the
Tree of the Knowlege of Good and Evil. The verses
following are charged with intense and dramatic
feeling, verses wherein we are told how Lilith dwells
upon the deception which will prove successful, and
which culminate in an exultantly-remorseless address
to Eve —

" Know, thy path is known unto Lilith !
While the blithe birds sang at thy wedding,
There her tears grew thorns for thy treading.

" 0 my love, thou Love-snake of Eden !
0 to-day and the day to come after !
Loose me, love, — give breath to my laughter !

" With cries of * Eve ! ' and * Eden ! ' and ' Adam !
How shall we mingle our love's caresses,
I in thy coils, and thou in my tresses ! "

366 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

With the introduction of the prophetic element a
deeper and stronger note still is struck —

"Where the river goes forth to water the garden,
The springs shall dry and the soil shall harden.

" Yea, where the bride-sleep fell upon Adam,
None shall hear when the storm -wind whistles
Through roses choked among thorns and thistles.

" Yea, beside the east-gate of Eden,
Where God joined them and none might sever,
The sword turns this way and that for ever."

The poem concludes with Lilith's fierce and triumph-
ant promise to the Snake regarding the two children
of Adam and Eve —

" The first is Cain and the second Abel :
The soul of one shall be made thy brother,
And thy tongue shall lap the blood of the other ! "

More charged as it is with passionate feeling than
Troy Town, it seems to me in every way a finer poem,
the serpentine passion of Lilith being in thorough
harmony with the conception of Adam's witch wife,
and the abandon of the whole throughout having the
true naturalism of instinctive creation. The refrain,
varying alternately with each verse from Eden lowers
in flovjer to And 0 the hoiver and the hour ! is by no
means of such value as that accompanying the stanzas
of Sister Helen, yet it adds greatly to the effect of
lyrical emotion caused by the chant-like cadences of
Eden Boiver.

Rose Mary is one of the longest of Eossetti's poems,
and as a poem is not only full of beauty but also
thoroughly characteristic of the author's genius. But
it is not a ballad, either in simple directness of diction

ROSE MARY." 367

or clarity of outline. The form of verse chosen by
the author was one specially suited to the subject,
allowing as it does such scope for effective endings to
highly -wrought emotional passages, namely an octo-
syllabic couplet followed by an octosyllabic triplet
with one rhyme sound. The story hinges upon the
magic properties of a Beryl-stone, wherein passing and
coming events can be imaged to the man or woman
who looks therein if he or she be pure in heart and
life; but evil spirits can also enter into its sphere
through a Christian's sin, so that if one not pure in
life looks into it the Beryl becomes possessed by these,
and only the apparent semblance of truth is visible to
the seeker and the reverse of what ultimately happens
is imaged forth. Eose Mary is the name of her who
is. betrothed to Sir James of Heronhaye, and with her
mother awaits the coming of the knight; but the
mother has heard of an ambush to take away his life,
yet knows not the name of the secret foe or the time
or place. The poem opens with her calling her
daughter in from the gathering dusk, and bidding her
read again for her own need the Beryl-stone whose
mysteries her childish eyes had last deciphered ; and
while she tells Eose Mary that Sir James rides to
Holy Cross at break of day in order to find shrift for
some past sin ere the wedding take place, she breaks
also to her the rumour of the peril that awaits him.
A premonition of misfortune comes upon Eose Mary,
whose white lips mutter as she sinks at her mother's
feet, " The night will come if the day is o'er." But the
mother knows nothing of the secret that makes the
news of more bitter omen than any rumour of ambush,
the secret that none knows save Sir James of Heron-

368 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

haye and the girl who yielded to him all that she had
to give : so she tells her daughter to take heart for
she will yet be a bride even as she is now a maid,
and at the same time takes from her " jewelled zone "
the mystic Beryl " shaped to a shadowy sphere," of
which a beautiful description is given in the following
verses : —

" With shuddering light 'twas stirred and strewn
Like the cloud-nest of the wading moon :
Freaked it was as the bubble's ball,
Eainbow-hued through a misty pall
Like the middle light of the waterfall.

A thousand years it lay in the sea
With a treasure wrecked from Thessaly ;
Deep it lay 'mid the coiled sea-wrack,
But the ocean-spirits found the track :
A soul was lost to win it back."

She then relates to Eose Mary again how her lord
brought the stone from Palestine, and how after the
sacred sign of the cross was made over it all the
accursed multitude of evil spirits who haunted it as
a Moslem amulet were driven forth, never again to
enter it save by a Christian's sin : and how " all last
night at an altar fair " she had prayed for holy help
and burned strange fires of potent influence, till now
the spell lacked nothing save the sinless eyes of a
maiden. Eose Mary would fain not look, but at last
does so

" And stretched her thrilled throat passionately,
And sighed from her soul, and said, ' I see.'

" Even as she spoke, they two were 'ware
Of music notes that fell through the air ;

VI. ''ROSE MARY." 369

A chiming shower of strange device,
Drop echoing drop, once twice and thrice,
As rain may fall in Paradise.

" An instant come, in an instant gone,
No time there was to think thereon.
The mother held the sphere on her knee : —
* Lean this way and speak low to me,
And take no note but of what you see.' "

Eose Mary then narrates the vision imaged in the
Beryl-sphere, namely two roads that part in a waste
country, and a narrow glen running between dark
hill -slopes and opening on a river in whose marshy
margins the stiff blue sedge alone grows. Then the
mother asks if there is any roof in sight that might
shelter the treacherous foe, or if there is any boat
lurking amongst the reeds, but to these questions
Eose Mary replies that there is only a herdsman's
hut, and that the only boat is one oared by a peasant
woman and steered by a young child : but at last
with a shuddering cry the damsel clings close to her
mother's knees, for close to the broken floodgates of
a ruined weir she spies the glint of the spears, and on
forcing herself to look again she makes out eight men
hidden from the pathway by willow-boughs, and of a
sudden she makes out from the wind-stirred pennon
that the chief of these men is the Warden of Holy-
cleugh. This is so far good news to both watchers,
for now at least they know the name of Heronhaye's
foe and what the peril is that awaits him by Waris-
weir, but the mother fears that further ambush may
for deadlier certainty await the coming knight upon
the hill -track far above, so she tells Eose Mary to
look again : but the latter sees nothing that is sus-

2b

370 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

picious along the whole track from the hill-slopes to
tlie farthest hill-clefts beyond which the great walls
of the castle of Holycleugh loom like a cloud-shadow.
The mother then knows that all is well, as the one
danger can be averted ; so she replaces the Beryl-stone
in her robe, and as she does so a soft music " rained
through the room ;"

" Low it splashed like a sweet star-spray,
And sobbed Hke tears at the heart of May,
And died as laughter dies away."

Shortly after this the first part is finished, and between
it and the second comes the first of the three Beryl-
Songs. But the long- debarred evil spirits have entered
it, and their chant, though unheard of either mother
or daughter, makes the reader aware that the spell has
not only misled Eose Mary but is also therein the
cause of her death. With Part II. we soon discern
that the mother knows the daughter is not indeed the
sinless maiden she had thought, yet her love is not
dissipated thereby, and while Kose Mary looks to the
end of the three days when Sir James of Heronhaye
will come with saving love, she looks also to his
arrival as that which will result in the redemption of
her child's honour. There is a fine image following
upon those verses describing how the flood-gates of
restraint are broken down by mutual tears and love
and anxiety —

'* Closely locked, they clung without speech,
And the mirrored souls shook each to each.
As the cloud-moon and the water-moon
Shake face to face when the dim stars swoon
In stormy bowers of the night's mid-noon."

Then the mother tells her daughter how her sin had

VI. ''ROSE MARY." 371

prevented her seeing aright, and that the ambush lay
not by the ruined weir but in the last of the seven
clefts of the hill near Holycleugh where she had seen
but a faint mountain-mist, and that from thence the
dead had just been borne home. Then succeed the
powerful verses describing the shock and the grief
that overwhelm the unfortunate girl, how that the
ceaseless pulse of the ocean itself is calm

*^ To the prisoned tide of doom set free
In the breaking heart of Rose Mary."

She springs to her feet in sudden agony, as the heifer
springs when it feels the wolf's teeth at its throat, but
with a shriek falls back in an unconscious swoon : —

" In the hair dark-waved the face lay white
As the moon lies in the lap of night ;
And as night through which no moon may dart
Lies on a pool in the woods apart,
So lay the swoon on the weary heart."

After the mother has done what she can to restore
Eose Mary she bids the priest attend and comfort the
latter, and herself goes alone to the chamber where
lies the slain body of him whose name of Heronhaye
was in three days to have been her daughter's also,
and she finds him stretched on his bier with torn and
bloodied garments and with features still clenched in
the wrath of the fight. She looks upon the man who
has now brought shame as well as sorrow to her and
hers, but forgiving words come to her lips as she
murmurs to herself that if he had lived he would
have even yet been their " honour's strong security."
Hoping that Heaven may be as merciful despite his
having died without the shrift he sought, she stoops

372 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

to kiss the brow of Sir James, but in doing so notices,
half-hid in the riven vest, a packet dyed in the life-
blood that has clotted upon the pale skin of the dead
man. She lifts this, thinking it some betrothal gift
of her daughter, but on opening it she finds a written
paper and in it a lock of golden hair. The hair of
Eose Mary was dark, and a terrible doubt flashes
across the mother's mind. She reads the paper, which
is signed " Jocelind," whom she knows to be the sister
of the Warden of Holycleugh, and from which she
learns that Sir James of Heronhaye has been false to
Eose Mary. All the forgiveness, all the pity, have
gone now, and she only sees in the dead man the
cowardly and base betrayer of her daughter, and she
spurns his body with all the scorn and hate of a
wronged woman : —

" She lifted the lock of gleaming hair
And smote the lips and left it there.
* Here's gold that Hell shall take for thy toll !
Full well hath thy treason found its goal,
0 thou dead body and damned soul !"

Close upon this the second part concludes with the
priest hastening with word that Eose Mary has dis-
appeared and is nowhere to be found. Then comes
the second chorus of the Beryl- spirits, prophetic of
further sorrow still. The third part opens with some
beautiful stanzas descriptive of Eose Mary with the
clouded mind which is the result of the shock of her
great grief, clouded from the moment she awoke from
the swoon of that fatal night : —

" The dawn broke dim on Rose Mary's soul, —
No hill-crown's heavenly aureole,
But a wild gleam on a shaken shoal."

''ROSE MARY." 373

She passes in by the secret panel her mother had left
open by mistake, and comes at last to the underground
altar-cell, which is described with weird imaginative
richness; she. there pays no heed to what would at
another time be so strange and new to her, but pulls
aside the altar -veil, whereafter she sees the Beryl-
stone poised between the hollowed wings of an
unknown sculptured beast. The sight of the Beryl,
so fatal to her and him whom she had loved, is like
the lightning flash that disperses the darkness of the
night, and in a moment her mind is clear again, but
only clear to suffer the agonies that memory brings
in its train. At last she takes her father's sword, which
she spies near at hand, and cleaves the Beryl in twain
that it may work no more evil upon the earth. The
verses describing what follows are exceedingly fine, and
the indescribable horror and tumult of the dispersed
spirit's shrieks and wailings are splendidly suggested
in the antecedent stanzas, which conjure up terrible
imaginings of dreadful and ominous sound. But the
primal spirit of the Beryl is at hand, and speaks
saving words of comfort to Eose Mary ere her face
grows cold as well as pale in death. The poem
concludes with the parting wailing chorus of the Beryl-
spirits.

Altogether Rose Mary is a powerful and beautiful
poem, charged with that supernatural element so char-
acteristic of the author at his best and sustained
throughout at an equable pitch, only rising to intenser
notes with the urgent wave of emotion or passion of
dramatic climax. As a ballad it is not so fine as
The King's Tragedy, as a work of art it is superior ;
and its sonorous and strongly -coloured stanzas will

374 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

continue favourites with all lovers of poetry as long as
the name of Dante Gabriel Kossetti holds its place in
English literature. The least successful portions of the
poem are the Beryl-Songs, the rapid lyrical measures
of which are at once forced and unfitting ; but it is
doing no less than justice to this magnificent poem
and to its author to say that the Beryl-Songs were an
afterthought and an excrescence. A friend (Mr.
Theodore Watts), on reading through the entire volume
of Ballads and Sonnets previously to its being placed
in the printer's hands, made the remark that the story
of Eose Mary was not presented with sufficient sim-
plicity and clarity for the sluggish apprehension of the
general reader. Eossetti brooded as was usual over
any objection coming from that quarter, and on Mr.
Watts seeing him again after an absence in the
country Eossetti produced the Beryl- Songs (in type)
as being intended to knit the different portions of the
story together. Mr. Watts, though struck with the
ingenuity and novelty of their metrical structure,
declared against them, and used the unluckily dis-
paraging remark that " they turned a fine ballad into
a bastard opera." Eossetti was so much distressed
and depressed at this, and he was so ill at the time,
that his friend withdrew his objection, or at least
greatly modified it ; and the impression was struck off.
But, afterwards, Eossetti himself found that the songs
were a mistake and said that, in a future edition, he
should remove them from the body of the poem. I
am of opinion that this should be done now.

Of the three poems which most distinctively belong
to the Ballad class, Stratton Water is the most suc-
cessful as an experiment. Yet even this ballad, fine

VI. ''STRATTON WATER:' 375

as it is in itself and charged as it is with the old-time
flavour, is as unmistakably the work of a later as Burd
Helen is of an older balladist, and still more is this
the case in its present published form, materially
altered and, as a ballad, not improved as this is from
the original manuscript, and even from the first proofs
of 1869. It now extends to about forty verses, the
tenth, eleventh, and twelfth of which, amongst others,
were subsequent alterations. As I have had occasion
to remark in the third chapter, Eossetti very rarely
indeed improved any drawing or picture after any
interval of time, and though the reverse is as a rule
the case in his poetical compositions, there are several
instances in which the second or ultimate touch,
accompanied by the tendency to over-elaboration, has
detracted from rather than added to the value of the
work. And if this was the case with such thoroughly
individual compositions as some of the sonnets, still
more was it so in ballad- work : in a word, the value
of the first impulse is greater in the latter than the
former, and hence subsequent handling less likely to
be productive of advantage. I do not doubt if Eos-
setti had lived ten years longer, and a re -issue of the
Ballads and Sonnets were then to appear, that The
King's Tragedy would be found to have some very
material alterations, structurally and in additions,
which would be very unlikely to be improvements.
He himself considered Stratton Water successful only
in so far as any imitation of the old ballad can be
successful, but within this degree he believed it to be
as good as anything of the kind by any living writer ;
though he believed, what no doubt many will agree
with, that the poem in ballad form which contains

376 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

the most subtle essence of poetic beauty since Keats'
La Belle Dame sans Mercie and Coleridge's Ancient
Mariner, is that chef-d'oeuvre of Sydney Dobell, Keith
of Mavelston. Amongst other differences in the un-
published readings, one seems to me decidedly
superior : the fifth verse, it will be remembered, runs
thus —

*' What's yonder far below that lies

So white against the slope ?
' Oh it's a sail o' your bonny barks

The waters have washed up : ' "

while the earlier version is as follows —

" What thing is yon that shines so white

Against the hither slope ?
' 0 it's a sail o' your bonny barks
The waters have washed up.' "

The White Ship is as simply constructed as Stratton
Water, and perhaps on the whole may even be said to
transcend the latter as a ballad, though as an experi-
ment its form is not so successful. Looking on it as
the ballad of Berold, the butcher of Eouen, there are
one or two incongruities, i.e, individualisms of style of
which the author has been unable to divest himself;
such, for instance, as,

" the king was 'ware
Of a little boy with golden hair,
As bright as the golden poppy is
That the heach breeds for the surf to kiss ; "

but such are the exception, and the The White Ship
must take its place as one of the best constructed,
least laboured, and most direct of Eossetti's poems.
As a poem it is not equal to Bose Mary, as a poem and
ballad in one it does not attain the supreme level of

VI. " THE WHITE SHIP:' '677

The King's Tragedy ; but it is The White Ship, and as
The White Ship it must be taken into consideration
and judged, and not by this or that poem dealing with
more or less alien subjects. This ballad was written
in 1880, nominally for the children of Mr. and Mrs.
William Eossetti; and very probably most children,
as well as most of their elders, are familiar with the
story of King Henry I. going over to France to claim
the Norman allegiance, which accomplished, he and
the Prince and all with them arranged to return to
England in time for the Christmas festivities; and
how the Prince and Princess and three hundred others
embarked on the 25th of November in the year 1120
on the White Ship commanded by Fitz- Stephen,
the hereditary royal pilot ; and how the vessel sank
midway, and the English Prince and Princess and
their retinue and all the men-at-arms were drowned
out of sight of the rest of the fleet, which had started
many hours previously and safely arrived. The
narrative is told in the ballad by " the butcher of
Eouen, poor Berold," sole survivor out of the three
hundred who set sail so merrily from Harfleur. Mid-
way the vessel is pierced by a sunken reef and rapidly
settles into the trough of the short leaping waves.
Berold then relates how the prince, cruel and of ill-
conditioned habits in his life, dies like the man he had
not hitherto proved himself to be, and this in despite

" Of all England's bended knee,
And maugre the Norman fealty ! "

dies, because

" The sea hcUh no king but God alone ! "

The lines describing the shipwreck and the drowning

378 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

sensations of Berold are full of power and force.
Suddenly Berold finds his arms grasping the mainyard,
and upon it another like himself thus saved from
immediate death, and the next moment a third clutches
the saving spar. This last is Fitz-Stephen, whose first
question is for the Prince, and who, on hearing of his
fate, looses his hold and sinks back in the sea. At
last Berold's knightly companion feels his strength
gone, and, bidding farewell, falls back from the spar
and is seen no more ; while the butcher of Eouen
drifts alone upon the chill salt sea till he becomes un-
conscious, and wakes ^to find himself in a fisher-boat.
Then the narrative proceeds to relate how the news
was broken to the dreaded lord of England and Nor-
mandy—

" But this King never smiled again."

A poem, no one can doubt after perusal, that is
destined to have an honoured place in every future
selection of notable English ballads.

Not only ranking first amongst his ballad-work,
but also in the opinion of himself and many others,
Eossetti's magnum opus is also one of his latest com-
positions, a fact that adds greatly to the painful signi-
ficance of his early death, for those who knew bim
best knew how stored his mind was with subjects for
future use. Scottish history had a special fascination
for him, and shortly before he went for health's sake
in the autumn of 1881 to Cumberland he asked me
to find out for him any particulars as to Alexander
III. not mentioned in ordinary histories of Scotland.
It was either during the composition of The King's
Tragedy or when first hearing it read as a whole that

VI. ''THE KINGS tragedy:' 379

it flashed upon me what a splendid subject for Eossetti
the death-ride of Alexander III. would be ; and on my
suggesting this, and narrating to him the facts he had
forgotten, he expressed the determination to write a
ballad on the subject whenever he felt his strength
equal to the task. This and another famous incident
in Scottish history he frequently referred to, and
looked forward to chronicling in verse. He had a
great admiration for The King's Quliair, which he first
read in 1869 when staying at Penkill Castle in Ayr-
shire, where Mr. W. B. Scott was busy with the mural
decorations illustrative of the poem and which now
flank the double staircase ; and greatly as he adnm-ed
the famous poem he had a still greater admiration for
James of Scotland himself, whom he regarded as the
greatest prince these islands have seen but born out
of his due time. So it is not to be wondered at that
the task he had set himself to accomplish being a
labour of love he should have succeeded so well that
his principal ballad ranks also as his best poem.

The subject of The Kings Tragedy is so well known
that a recapitulation is hardly necessary. Eossetti's
ballad is supposed to be narrated by the Catherine
Douglas who, subsequent to the murder of James,
became known as Kate Barlass from the fact of her
having barred the door of the royal chamber with her
arm in lieu of the bolt that had been treacherously with-
drawn. She, now an old woman, is narrating to her
grandchildren, it may be, and their friends the famous
story which beseeching lips have won from her again
and again, and begins, as doubtless long accustomed,
by referring to the arm itself and what it has done in
outdoor sport and indoor gaiety, how it has been the

380 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

rest for a true lord's head and the cradle for many a
babe, and, chiefest honour of all, " bar to a king's
chambere." Having told her hearers all that led to
the raising of the siege of Eoxburgh Castle, the return
of the King to Edinburgh, and the first successful
quelling of the mutinous barons, she goes on to narrate
how the King commanded that at Christmastide a
solemn festival should be held in the Charterhouse of
Perth, and how he and all his household rode away
northwards for the purpose. At the end of the first
stage, and just as the wintry sun has disappeared,
they reach the Fife seaboard, and here an imminent
storm is well described, albeit the opening lines are
too " Eossettian," or rather too laboured for a poem
that was meant to emulate in simplicity and directness
of speech the ballads of old. Powerful and beautiful
as are the following lines —

" That eve was clenched for a boding storm,
'Neath a toilsome moon half seen ;
The cloud stooped low and the surf rose high ;
And where there was a line of the sky,
Wild wings loomed dark between."

they have not the simple directness of the noble old
ballad of ^ir Patrick Spens —

" I saw the new moon late yestreen,
Wi' the auld moon in her arm.

They hadna sailed a league, a league,

A league but barely three,
When the lift grew dark and the wind blew loud,

And giirly grew the sea."

It is the difference between art and nature. Follow-
ing upon this come some verses of great beauty

VI. ''THE KINGS tragedy:' 381

and weird imagination ; those, namely, describing the
haggard woman with the gift of the second sight.
They see something in the shadowy distance apparently
instinct with life and beside a rock on the black
beach —

" And was it only the tossing furze,
Or brake of the waste sea-wold ?
Or was it an eagle bent to the blast ? "

but on the King drawing nigh he discovers only an
old and haggard woman in tattered garments — old,
however, only in appearance, for on seeing James she
springs erect as though " her writhen limbs were wrung
by a fire within," and in the sudden light given by
the moon sailing clear of the cloud-rack she is seen to
be gaunt and stmng. The King seems known to her,
for she greets him at once in strange weird words.
Here was one of those opportunities for supernatural
effect which Kossetti could not have let slip and
which he has taken splendid advantage of: the fol-
lowing verses being steeped in the supernatural aura
as thunder-clouds are charged with electricity : —

" And the woman held his eyes with her eyes : —
* 0 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.

382 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

'' ' And j^et 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.

" ' 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, 0 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.' "

The King, however, refuses to turn back, but witli
noble and resigned resolve determines to pursue his
journey. The scene shortly after changes to tlie
Charterhouse of Perth, on a wind-wild eve in February ;
and some twenty-five verses are devoted to a beautiful
description of the twain who in marriage had not
ceased to be lovers. On the other hand, it seems to
me that nothing has been gained by the altered stanzas
of The King's Quhair as sung by James, the beauty
of the original being spoiled and the clipped version
unsatisfactory : it would have been better either to
have given the stanzas in their own shape, despite
that not being akin to the ballad form, or else to have
condensed them to four-line octosyllabic verses not in
quotation but by the writer. But the peace of the
King is broken by the news that the woman who had
prophesied to him on the bleak sea-shore demands to
see him again, yet he will not permit this for fear
he should alarm the Queen. After the royal lovers
retire the traitorous Robert Stuart removes the locks
and the bolts, but the waiting- women of the queen

VI. ''THE KINGS TRACED YP 383

notice nothing, though there is an eery wail in the
wind outside and something ominous in the way in
which

" The shadows cast on the arras'd wall
'Mid the pictured kings stood sudden and tall,
Like spectres sprung from the ground."

As the King and Queen lie together at rest they are
suddenly startled by a wild shrill voice crying
strange words under their chamber window, and they
recognise the voice as the same that once prophesied
to them by the Scottish sea. And now the King is
told it is too late, or almost too late, for the mystic
shroud she has watched year by year extending from
feet to arms covers his eyes and mouth, the pro-
phetic wail and appeal ending in the following magni-
ficent stanza, lines which no living or recent poet has
surpassed in weird imaginativeness and supernatural
effect : —

" For every man on God's ground, 0 King,
His death grows up from his birth
In a shadow-plant perpetually ;

And thine towers high, a black yew-tree,
O'er the Charterhouse of Perth ! "

But the repeated warning has come too late, and Sir
Kobert Graeme and his fellow -traitors have gained
access to the royal apartments. At the appeal of the
Queen and Catherine Douglas the unarmed and be-
trayed King springs down into a vault beneath, foul
and confined but the only possible refuge, and while
the Queen sees to the removing the traces of the torn
plank which had been displaced, Catherine Douglas,
as she herself is narrating, springs to the door as she
hears the tread of armed men approaching and in

384 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap. vi.

despair thrusts her arm through the stanchions that
had once held the iron bar. One crash, however, and
the arm is shattered and entrance gained. Then
follows the horrible tragedy of the King's murder,
after a brief space wherein the women thought to
have deceived the traitors, which indeed they might
have succeeded in doing had it not been for the traitor-
chamberlain, Kobert Stuart.

The narrator of the ballad goes on to tell how
vengeance was at last accomplished, and The KiTvg's
Tragedy concludes with the bitter thought of Queen
Jane, —

" That a poet true and a friend of man,

Should needs be born a king ! "

Brief as this account of the important ballad-
section of Eossetti's poetic work has been, it may serve
to show that his fame as a poet is not based alone
upon his sonnets, that indeed it comprises compositions
upon which his name will probably rest when many
of the sonnets have ceased to charm any save the rare
cultivated ear and the poetic student.

CHAPTEE YIL

THE SONNET SONNETS FOR PICTURES MISCELLANEOUS

SONNETS.

" Apart from all sanctions, the student of poetry knows that
no form of verse is a surer touchstone of mastery than this,
which is so easy to write badly, so supremely difficult to write
well, so full both of hindrance and of occasion in all matters of
structure and of style ; neither any a more searching test of
inspiration, since on the one hand it seems to provoke the
affectations of ingenuity, and on the other hand it has been
chosen by the greatest men of all as the medium for their most
intimate, direct, and overwhelming self-disclosures." — The West-
minster Review, 1871.

" Parmi les auteurs modemes de sonnets en Angleterre, M.
Eossetti a droit a la premiere place. Pour trouver les memes
qualites que dans ses ouvrages, il faut s'addresser aux sonnets
de Shakespeare, de Milton, ou de Wordsworth. L'influence des
modeles Italiens sur I'auteur se fait fortement sentir, et I'inten-
site de la passion se mele chez lui a une austerite qui vient
directement du Dante. Comme magnificence de langage, la
litterature Anglaise moderne n'a rien qui egale ces po^mes." —
Le Livre, 10 Decembre, 1881.

If it were practicable at this advanced stage to go
into detail on so interesting a subject as the Sonnet, I
should willingly have done so, both because of Eossetti's
connection with this form of literature and because a
markedly widespread interest has of late been re-
awakened and seems still increasing in sonnet-expres-
sion, but the exigencies of space imperatively forbid

2c

386 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

my doing so. A few prefatory remarks, however, seem
necessary.

The two quotations at the head of this chapter
strike the keynote of the remaining portion of this
book: that from the Westminster Review stating concisely
the position the sonnet holds as a vehicle of poetic
expression, and that from Le Livre the position Dante
Gabriel Eossetti occupies in sonnet-literature. It is
hardly necessary to call to mind that this form has
been a favourite one with poets for hundreds of years,
and that some of the greatest writers of our own and
other lands have chosen it for personal revelation in
preference to any other metrical arrangement : we at
once recall how Laura's memory and Petrarca's love
are embalmed in the three hundred and fifteen sonnets
comprised in the In Vita and the In Morte di M.
Laura; how the beautiful and unfortunate Gaspara
Stampa, whom Titian and Tintoretto and others of her
famous contemporaries considered the Italian Sappho,
enshrined in burning words her love for the Lord of
CoUalto ; how Shakespeare used the sonnet as a key to
unlock his heart and inner Life ; how Mrs. Browning
embodied in an imperishable series the passion and
devotion of a woman's love. Yet it is strange that
this form, so widely used in English literature alone
and known to be worthy by the guarantee of such
names as Spenser, Drummond, Shakespeare, Milton,
Wordsworth, Keats, Hartley Coleridge, Mrs. Browning,
Tennyson-Turner, Christina Eossetti, Dante Eossetti,
and others of the past and present, should be so httle
apprehended as to its externals and its essentials, by
the average reader of poetic literature, that it is doubt-
ful if even yet a majority of such readers would at

Yii. THE SONNET, 387

once be able to realise or to state that the sonnet
is a poem of invariably fourteen decasyllabic lines
with understood artificial rhyme -arrangement — still
more doubtful if such would at once apprehend the
differences between the Shakespearian structure, the
Miltonic, and the Petrarchan.

Yet differences so essential can be comprised
within this limited compass of fourteen lines, that
some authorities would go the length of denying the
name of sonnet to many poems so called altogether.
Before briefly specifying the points of divergence be-
tween the leading sonnet-structures I may state that
there seems to me but one cardinal law affecting the
sonnet, and that is that every sonnet must be the in-
tensified expression of one emotion or one thought,
and that whenever more than one thought or one
emotion is introduced, or whenever the expression is
not intensified to concise, direct, and immediate rela-
tion with the 7notif it ceases to be a sonnet. " The
sonnet is a moment's monument;" if it is not "a
moment's monument " it might as well be styled
" Lines," or " Quatrains," or a " Stanza." I confess
that if a sonnet satisfies me on this point its rhyme-
arrangement matters to me little, though I fully admit
that the sensitive ear recognises at once the value of
an octave with only two rhymes and a sestet with
three as a maximum. This latter musical and instinct-
ively agreeable rhyme-arrangement once accepted, it
seems to me there is but one material point of diver-
gence worth discussing — namely, whether, as a rule,
the dictum of Keats is the better —

" The sonnet, swelling loudly
Up to its chmax, and then dying proudly ;

388 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

or whether the Petrarchan form, as formulated by Mr.
Theodore Watts, is the more preferable. Personally,
I believe as much in the instinctive choice of emotion
as I do in poetic creation only on the stirrings of
strong impulse ; therefore, if the arrangement suits the
emotion, I am not offended by a concluding rhymed
couplet, or by the quatrains used to such purpose by
Shakespeare, Drayton, and Tennyson-Turner.^

The first recognisable aspect of the sonnet is that
it is invariably neither more nor less than fourteen
decasyllabic lines in length. It is needless at present
to inquire why this number of lines should be chosen
in preference to twelve, thirteen, or fifteen, or any
arbitrary election, why these lines should be deca-
syllabic, and why the octave should have only two
rhyme-sounds and the sestet two or three ; the answer
has already been given authoritatively in an authori-
tative review-essay known to be by Mr. Theodore
Watts, where it is stated that (whatever the reason)
there is pleasure in a sonnet conformiug to these pre-
scriptions, a pleasure owing partly to the ear's expecta-
tion of a recognised arrangement and partly to some
relativity to an absolute metrical law in these pre-

1 I see that Mr. Hall Caine, in his just published most interest-
ing Recollections of Rossetti, refers to the rhymed couplet at the
close of a sonnet as being equally offensive to his ear with the
couplets at the ends of acts in some Shakespearian plays. While
I think that a poor sonnet can be made still poorer by a rhymed
couplet-ending, I must otherwise wholly disagree with Mr. Caine. It
seems to me that his comparison is not at all fitting, for (in good
hands) there is as much difference between the rhymed couplet at the
close of a sonnet and the couplets uttered by the last speaker in an
act in an old play as between a culminating billow thundered upon
the shore aud the gurgling lapse of the tide as it retreats down a
pebbly strand.

yii. THE SONNET. 389

scriptions themselves, and that its structure has been
so effected as to produce better than any other number
and arrangement of lines a certain melodic effect upon
the ear, and an effect that can bear iteration and
reiteration in other poems similarly constructed. Ex-
perience has proved that fourteen lines constitute the
most suitable number, so that neither a poem of
thirteen lines nor one of fifteen would contain the
capabilities of such adequate expression as charac-
terises the poem of fourteen lines : such a production
as Coleridge's Worh without Hope though not structur-
ally a sonnet, while consisting of fourteen lines, has
all the capabilities of a sonnet of the first class save
that its structure would not bear reiteration in other
poems. It is certainly a matter of congratulation
that Coleridge did not write these famous and beauti-
ful lines in the artificial form, for there have been few
worse sonnet -writers than the great poet who wrote
the most imaginative poem in the language.

The most familiar and the most loved of English
sonnets are those with which Shakespeare " unlocked
his heart," and these are all characterised by a uniform
regularity, though a regularity unlike that of the
orthodox or Petrarchan sonnet, their metrical arrange-
ment consisting of three quatrains closing with a
rhymed couplet. While Shakespeare's sonnets are
indubitably sonnets, and of very noble and magnetic
quality, it is fairly certain that their form is -not so
desirable for common usage, not only on the ground
of musical expression but for artistic unity and force-
ful directness combined — of all known varieties of
the sonnet none being so hopelessly incapable in the
hands of the versifier. At its best the Shakespearian

390 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

sonnet (as in Drayton's supreme example) is like a
red-hot bar being moulded upon a forge till — in the
closing couplet — it receives the final clenching blow
from the heavy hammer ; but the Petrarchan, on the
other hand, is like a wind gatliering in volume and
dying away again immediately on attaining a culmin-
ating force. For the poem that is " a moment's
monument," the embodiment of one, emotion, one
thought, the Petrarchan sonnet is not only better than
the Shakespearian but than any other assimilative
arrangement ; in Mr. Watts's words, " for the carrying
of a single wave of emotion in a single flow and
return, nothing has ever being invented comparable to
the Petrarchan sonnet, with an octave of two rhymes
of a prescribed arrangement, and a sestet which is in
some sense free. And the reason is obvious : the
Petrarchan form of the octave is the only form that
can maintain the perfect solidarity of the outflowing
wave." The construction here referred to is an octave
with two rhyme -sounds ; the first, fourth, fifth, and
eighth lines, and the second, third, sixth, and seventh
having sympathetic terminals ; while the sestet con-
sists of two or three rhyme-sounds and admits of slight
variations in line-arrangement. It is generally ad-
mitted that no deviation must be made from this
octave -construction, yet he whom not only Eossetti
but Mr. Swinburne and others have declared to be the
chief living authority on the sonnet has pronounced
that possibly to the unbiassed ear unfamiliar with the
harmonies of the Italian sonnet the sixth and seventh
lines might terminate with different rhyme-sounds
from the second and third without breaking the
solidarity of the emotional wave, and that if such a

THE SONNET, 391

license were allowable it " would aid enormously the
free expression of the sonnet thought."

The cardinal feature of sonnets of Miltonic move-
ment lies in the continuous expression of the motif
without mental or structural break, though the
Petrarchan octave and sestet are still employed.
The emotion being highly and equably sustained
from first to last there is a power and dignity
and intensity in a Miltonic sonnet that is very
remarkable. Three of the most notable instances I
can call to mind are Milton's noble sonnet. On the
Late Massacre in Piedmont^ Mr. Lang's sonnet on
the Odyssey, and Mr. William Eossetti's Deynocracy
Downtrodden}

The sonnet form now considered the purest and
most orthodox is that with the Petrarchan rhyme-
arrangement, and at the same time obedient to the
natural law of flow and ebb, and it is on this natural
foundation that its probable permanency is based.
But because a wave of emotion with its ebb and flow
characterises many sonnets it need not characterise all,
and it should be borne in mind that Mr. Watts's sonnet,
in which this theory was first formulated, was a love-
sonnet and introductory to a collection of love-sonnets,
and that where the writer deals with intellectual
issues, as in Natura Benigna, he adopts the form
sought by Keats — " Swelling loudly Up to a climax,
and then dying prondly!' Absolute dicta as regards
artistic structure can hardly be productive of unmixed
good. Here is Mr. Watts's sonnet which gave rise to
the discussion, an example of the true sonnet according
to contemporary election. It appeared some time ago

1 Vide page 100, ante.

392 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

in the Athenoeum, and afterwards in the anthology so
ably edited by Mr. Hall Caine.

The Love-Sonnet.
{A metrical lesson hy the sea-shore.)

Yon silvery billows breaking on the beach

Fall back in foam beneath the star-shine clear,
The while my rhymes are murmuring in your ear

A restless lore like that the billows teach ;

For on these sonnet- waves my soul would reach

From its own depths, and rest within you, dear,
As, through the billowy voices yearning here

Great nature strives to find a human speech.

A sonnet is a wave of melody :

From heaving waters of the impassioned soul
A billow of tidal music one and whole

Flows in the " octave " ; then returning free,
Its ebbing surges in the " sestet " roll

Back to the deeps of Life's tumultuous sea.

Eossetti himself, though the greater number of his
published sonnets conform to the flow and ebb move-
ment, was thoroughly catholic on the subject. In
addition to recognising this writer as the chief authority
on sonnet-literature, and having a great admiration for
his (in great part unpublished) work, Eossetti (though
his own sonnets are, both in temper and in method,
the exact opposites of Mr. Watts's) quite agreed with
him as to the suitability, both on the score of
music and of effectiveness, of a sonnet metrically
arranged like those of Petrarch and responsive to the
emotional wave in its flow and ebb ; but he would
not strike his colours in defence of a much greater
freedom than would be possible with such a form
as the sole permissible one. The comparatively few

THE SONNET. 393

printed sonnets by Mr. Theodore Watts I have seen
(in the Athenceum occasionally, and in Mr. Hall Caine's
Sonnets of Three Centuries) are interesting from an
invariable use of an elision somewhere in octave or
sestet. This undoubtedly adds greatly to the sweep or
reflux of the emotional wave, but it is open to doubt
if such a practice invariably followed up would be
advisable. Mr. Watts seems on purpose to avoid deca-
syllabic uniformity and has declared that the English
iambic line is apt to become hard and thin and wiry
without occasional elisions of liquids or vowels ; and
on two occasions at least has introduced an original if
somewhat questionable precedent, the second being an
innovation, if not upon its " solidarity," at least upon
the orthodox sonnet scansion. As an amusing instance
of Mr. Watts's love of elision I remember that originally
the sixth line of Eossetti's own Sonnet on the Sonnet
stood thus " Carve it in ivory or ebony," and that it
was Mr. Watts who objected strongly to the line both
on account of " thinness " and " hiatus " and suggested
the change " Carve it in ivory or in ebony " — a change
which some will consider an improvement and some
the contrary. In the sestet of the second " Parable
Sonnet" {Sonnets of Three Centuries, page 221), the
twelfth and thirteen lines run —

" Filling the Bedouin's brain with bubble of springs,
And scents of flowers, and shadow of wavering trees ; "

and in the beautiful " Channel " Sonnet (No. 1)
written in Petit Bot Bay, Guernsey, there is the fol-
lowing sestet, where it will be observed that the
writer seeks a variety of csesuric effects hitherto only
attempted in blank verse, and that in the third line

^394 DANTE. GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

there are two elisions, and one in the fourth a,nd
fifth—

" And smell the sea ! No breath from wood or field,

No scent of may or rose or eglantine,

Cuts off the old life where cities suffer and pine.

Shuts the dark house where Memory stands revealed,

Calms the vext spirit, — balms a sorrow unhealed, —

Like scent of sea- weed rich of morn and brine."

The heave of the ebbing wave is finely represented
here ; but if structure is to be modified by emotion, as
in this instance, I fail to see why on instinctive pre-
ference the rhymed couplet-ending should not equally
be occasionally selected. To take an instance from
Rossetti's sonnet-work, who would wish to change the
noble and Shakespearian sestet concluding Her Heaven
{House of Life, p. 220) for a rhyme-arrangement that
would adapt itself to the Petrarchan model ?

" The sunrise blooms and withers on the hill
Like any hillfiower ; and the noblest troth
Dies here to dust. Yet shall Heaven's promise clothe
Even yet those lovers who have cherished still
This test for love : in every kiss sealed fast
To feel the first kiss and forbode the last."

About five-and-twenty of Rossetti's printed sonnets have
rhymed couplet-endings, and of these nineteen are to
be found in The House of Life.

In all, his printed sonnets amount to 152 in
number, which can be classed as follows : — Twenty-
seven Sonnets for Pictures, exclusive of two Italian
duplicates and of three embodied in The House of Life,
and inclusive of one unpublished sonnet on The Girl-
hood of Mary Virgin (No. 2);^ twenty-five miscellaneous,
including, besides seven unpublished in his collected

1 See page 130, ante.

VII. SONNETS FOR PICTURES. 395

work, his sonnet on the Sonnet ; and a hundred and
one,, constituting The House of Life.

While there seems to me but little doubt that his
supreme poems are Sister Helen, Bose Mary, and The
Kinfs Tragedy, there is as little doubt that the sonnet
was his special vehicle of expression, and that he has
used it in such a way that his name as a sonnet-writer
must always be associated with Shakespeare, Milton,
Mrs. Browning, and Wordsworth. The House of Life is
as much a revelation of the inner man as is the collec-
tion by the author of Hamlet ; and if Eossetti's sonnets
are not as a rule characterised by the imperativeness
of those of Milton, by the acute personal note of the
Bonnets from the Portuguese, or by the serene trans-
parence of the best of Wordsworth, they have these
qualities in less degree blended with other characteristics
that place them in the front rank of sonnet literature.
They have a luminous vision, an urgency of revelation,
that now and again become overwhelming, though they
seldom reach to the heights of intellectual passion,
seldom spring from aspiration, spiritual hope, or wide
human sympathy. In addition to this, they are in
general characterised by sonorous metrical and rhyth-
mical effects unparalleled in our language ; so much so,
that it may be doubted if any literature, even that of
Spain, could produce a poem or sonnet-sequence equal
in depth and volume of sound to Tlie House of Life.

There is still an idea amongst those not acquainted
with literary forms that the sonnet is a somewhat
trivial production, owing to its brief limit and single-
idea principle ; some wl:o follow the opinions of Dr.
Johnson, who surely ought now to be let alone with
his Dictionary and Lives. Although the learned if

396 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

portentously intellectual doctor spoke disparagingly
of this form when he compared sonnet -writing to
carving heads on cherry-stones, it must be remem-
bered on what occasion he made the remark, when
it will be evident he was no judge, or was at any
rate prejudiced ; for the phrase was drawn from him
not by the fanciful pieces of the period, but by the
noble sonnets of Milton. The author of Easselas
fully recognised that the genius of the author of
Paradise Lost was one fitted to " hew a Colossus out
of a rock," but not, he believed, for sonnet-writing
which he characterised as above. It would surprise
many to know how Eossetti, for one, dealt with motifs
thus expressed, how he weighed every word, balanced
the rhythmical movement, attuned the sonorous effect of
every line and polished to the utmost the (Jouble facet
of every sonnet he wrote. Though Keats declared sus-
tained invention to be the polar star of poetry, it is
not length that necessarily confers the crown of worth
to a poem and there are many instances in sonnet -
literature of "fourteen -line poems" which embrace all
needful to be said, and this with a concise force and
beauty impossible to any other metrical form. Such an
example is to be found in the following sonnet, which
is not only the most beautiful of all Eossetti's Sonnets
on Pictures, but (in my opinion) the most exquisite
of all the poems in this form he has written : —

A Venetian Pastoral.

By GlORGIONE.

Water, for anguish of the solstice : — nay,
But dip the vessel slowly, — naj'-, but lean
And hark how at its verge the wave sighs in

Reluctant. Hush ! Beyond all depth away

VII. SONNETS FOR PICTURES. 397

The heat lies silent at the brink of day :
Now the hand trails upon the viol-string
That sobs, and the bro^vn faces cease to sing,
Sad with the whole of pleasure. Whither stray
Her eyes now, from whose mouth the slim pipes creep
. And leave it pouting, while the shadowed grass
Is cool against her naked side 1 Let be : —
Say nothing now unto her lest she weep,
Nor name this ever. Be it as it was, —
Life touching lips with Immortality.

This lovely sonnet in its original form was composed
before the author's twenty-second year, and I will now
give it as it appeared in The Germ in 1850, not only
because of its great interest, as showing how much
even an exquisite poem can be altered for the better
by a loving craftsman, but also because of the almost
equal beauty by which its varying lines were from the
first characterised : —

Water, for anguish of the solstice, — -yea,

Over the vessel's mouth still widening

Listlessly dipt to let the water in
With slow vague gurgle. Blue, and deep away
The heat lies silent at the brink of day.

Now the hand trails upon the viol-string

That sobs ; and the brown faces cease to sing,
Mournful with complete pleasure. Her eyes stray
In distance ; through her lips the pipe doth creep

And leaves them pouting ; the green shadowed grass
Is cool against her naked flesh. Let be :
Say nothing now unto her lest she weep.

Nor name this ever. Be it as it was, —
Life touching lips with Immortality.

As will be seen, it is essentially the same sonnet, and
there are lines in it almost as exquisite as in the later
version, especially those (despite such rhymes as
" widening " and " in ") —

398 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

" Listlessly dipt to let the water in
"With slow vague gurgle."

The most important alteration lies in a single word,
namely, the substitution in the eleventh line of " side "
for " flesh," tlie artistic gain of which cannot but be at
once evident on a comparative reading.

Its fine companion sonnet on Andrea Mantegna's
Allegorical Dance of Women (companion in the sense
that they are placed side by side and that both are
addressed to pictures in the Louvre) also appeared in
The Germ, and with slightly different readings from
the later version. As already mentioned (page 99),
six sonnets appeared in the last number of that maga-
zine— the two just named, the two on Ingres' Buggiero
and Angelica, and two not since republished. The
second couple have hardly been altered at all, or so
slightly as not to require special notice, but in the
originals octave and sestet are not divided by a space,
and the title is Angelica Rescued from the Sea-Monster.
The two sonnets not since republished are both on
paintings by Hans Memmeling at Bruges ; but however
interesting as exhibitive of the undoubted high regard
he had in his youth for the Flemish master they are
so crude that Eossetti wisely omitted them from his
collected poems. One is on " A Virgin and Child " and
the other on " A Marriage of St. Katherine," but as the
author had evidently no desire for their resuscitation,
and as such would serve no good end, there is no
necessity for their being quoted. Another fine sonnet,
written in early life but not published till 1870, is
that on Leonardo da Vinci's Our Lady of the Rocks,
subtly interpretive and excellent in itself; and in the
Ballads and Sonnets are two others on the works of

VII. SONNETS FOR PICTURES. 399

old masters — one on The Holy Family of Micliael-
angelo in the National Gallery, and the other on
Sandro BotticelU's Spring in the Accademia of
Florence. Of the remaining Sonnets on Pictures only
one is on the work of a contemporary, viz. on Tlie
Wine of Circe, by Mr. Burne Jones, a beautiful and
powerful sonnet. Marys Girlhood, The Passover in tJie
Holy Family, Mary Magdalen at the Door of Simon the^
Pharisee, St. Luke, Lilith, Sibylla Palmifera, Venus, Gas-
Sandra, Found, A Sea Spell, Fiammetta, The Bay-Dream,
Astarte Syria^ca, Proserpina, and La Bella Mano, have
each been quoted or referred to in connection with the
pictures they were written for, and are so closely con-
nected therewith that they need not be again enlarged
upon, excepting a few brief remarks. Of those men-
tioned, Lilith and Sibylla Palmifera now form part of
The House of Life, appearing there under the respective
titles SouVs Beauty and Body's Beauty, and as No. 74
in the same sequence is the St. Luke sonnet. In the
powerful Venus sonnet there is a recurrence in the
last line in the 1881 edition to an earlier version ; all
antecedent readings gave

"And her grove glow with loveht fires of Troy,"

which is now altered to the original line, which is cer-
tainly more forceful —

" And through her dark grove strike the hght of Troy."

Pandora is almost as fine in words as in crayons, but
necessarily appeals most strongly to those who have
seen the noble design itself : the only alteration in the
latest version being the substitution of clench for hug in
the twelfth line.

400 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

Of the twenty-nine "miscellaneous" sonnets that
have been printed, twenty-four are included in the two
published volumes, and of these three have been included
in the completed House of Life, namely Autumn Idle-
ness, Farewell to the Glen, and The Monochord, where
they will again be referred to.

On Refusal of Aid between Nations is the most Mil-
tonic of all Eossetti's sonnets, and is as fine as it is
powerful a composition. In the octave the poet ex-
claims that the wrath of God is impendent over the
world, not so much because of all the wrong that is
evermore transpiring —

" But because man is parcelled out in men

Even thus ; because, for any wrongful blow,
No man not stricken asks, * I would be told
Why thou dost strike ;' but his heart whispers then,
' He is he, I am I.' By this we know
That the earth falls asunder, being old."

In the 1881 edition, the words to-day and thus are
substituted for "even thus " and "strike." On the Vita
Nuova is just such a sonnet as might have been expected
from one who so early apprehended and so ably trans-
lated Dante's famous love record ; but more interesting
is the personal utterance of Dantis Tenehrce, written
in memory of the poet's father. This pathetic and
beautiful sonnet is a gracious tribute to one who was
well and truly loved by his children, and it contains
lines aptly describing the mystic sides of the author's
genius—

" And did'st thou know indeed, when at the font
Together with thy name thou gav'st me his,
That also on thy son must Beatrice
Decline her eyes according to her wont,

VII. MISCELLANEOUS SONNETS. 401

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 ? "

Beauty and the Bird has nothing to recommend it to
special notice, and it is indeed more like a translation
from some mediaeval sonneteer than Eossetti's own work;
but A Watch with the Moon is clever and attractive,
though the alteration of " vapourish " to " liquorish " is
no gain in sound whatever it may be in sense.

There is a fine series of five sonnets on the same
number of English poets, viz. Chatterton, Blake, Cole-
ridge, Keats, and Shelley, in the second volume of poems.
The first of these, if I am not mistaken, was written
for Mr. Theodore Watts to embody in his paper on
Chatterton in Ward's English Poets; but for some
reason, perhaps from the fact that Mr. Watts could not
agree with the placing of Chatterton on a par with, or
at least next to, Shakespeare, it did not appear as in-
tended. The lines are generous and enthusiastic, but
it is difficult to realise that Eossetti could really hold
such an extreme opinion regarding Chatterton : perhaps
it was engendered by a late acquaintance and the en-
thusiasm that comes from the sense of having discovered
a treasure hitherto neglected, for I have heard Eossetti
state that his knowledge of the unfortunate poet's work
was of very recent growth and owing to the friend whose
name must so often occur in any record of the last ten
years of the poet-painter's life. The sonnet on Blake
is dedicated to Mr. Frederick Shields, a friend of twenty
years' standing and an artist whom Eossetti greatly
admired, and, like himself, an enthusiastic admirer of

2d

402 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

the visionary author of The, Songs of Innocence; the
subject being a sketch by Mr. Shields of Blake's room
in Fountain Court. The sestet of that on Coleridge
is very fine, full of regret yet thankful that at least six
out of the poet's sixty years were saved to noble work
in literature, only six years —

" Yet kindling skies
Own them, a beacon to our centuries."

There is a certain effort in the noble sonnet on Shelley,
but that on Keats is just what might have been expected
from the poet who regarded Keats with an untiring
loyalty of love and admiration : —

" Thou whom the daisies glory in growing o'er, —
Their fragrance clings around thy name, not writ
But rumour'd in water, while the fame of it
Along Time's flood goes echoing evermore."

The sonnet called Tiber, Nile, and Thames must have
cost the author a good deal of trouble, for I recollect
having heard at least three versions of it ; but the result
is not proportionately good. The reverse, indeed, is
the case, and I even doubt if it is entitled to rank as a
sonnet at all ; for, in the first place, the introduction
of three such unconnected motifs as the Tiber and
murdered Cicero and Fulvia, the Nile and Cleopatra, and
the Thames where Keats withered, Coleridge pined, and
Chatterton starved, is a great drawback to concise and
yet ample exemplification ; and, in the second place, the
octave and sestet have no artistic coherency. Besides
mention of Kome, of the Forum, and of the Tiber, there
are also seven names of persons — Cicero, Fulvia, Mark
Antony, Cleopatra, Keats, Coleridge, and Chatterton ;
altogether presenting such diverse lights that no sonnet-

VII. MISCELLANEOUS SONNETS. 403

lens could really well succeed in embracing them in
one focus. As an experiment of how much can be
got into fourteen lines it possesses great merit ; but it
is not a sonnet in the true sense of the word. The lines
printed opposite to it, and entitled The Last Three from
Trafalgar, are of a very different order, and constitute
not only one of Eossetti's most striking sonnets but
form also perhaps the most powerful utterance that has
been given in days when Trafalgar is beginning to seem
far off. Another fine composition is that on the late
Czar, Alexander the Second, and I may take this
opportunity of stating that Eossetti was not so in-
different to great political questions as is generally
supposed. Though a liberal in politics, his sympathies
(as he said) " were with the man who by liberating
forty million serfs brought upon himself the hatred of
those blood-thirsty agitators that are impeding Europe
in the march of progress." Words on the Window-
Fane is characteristic, but it is spoiled in music by the
fourth line — " scratched it through tettered carh ; " and
that on the Place de la Bastille is sympathetic with its
affecting subject. Winter and Spring are two very
beautiful " natural " sonnets, the former being especially
picturesque ; but the closing lines of Spring exhibit a
reversion from " natural " to literary poetry very cha-
racteristic of the author whenever attempting transcrip-
tion from nature.

The Church Porch was written about 1852 and was
the first of two sonnets with the same raison d'itre,
but the author did not wish the second to be printed :
it is representative of the reaction experienced in find-
ing a soulless service in the building wherein were ex-
pected to be found

404 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

" Silence, and sudden dimness, and deep prayer.
And faces of crowned angels all about."

Untimely Lost is a pathetic and beautiful tribute to the
memory of Oliver Madox Brown from whose genius
Kossetti, in common with many others, expected so
much good fruit, expectations that were so sadly and
prematurely disappointed.

Having now referred to nearly all the printed
pictorial and miscellaneous sonnets other than those
added to The House of Life, I will conclude this
chapter with two not to be found in either volume.^
The first appeared in the Academy for 15th February
1871 and is dated from Stratford-on-Avon, and is a
good example of Eossetti's humour and earnestness in
one; the second is addressed to Mr. Philip Bourke
Marston, the author of Song- Tide, etc., and a friend of
younger years whom Kossetti both loved and believed
in, and whose powers are all the more remarkable
from the terrible disadvantage of blindness.

On the Site of a Mulberry Tree ;
Planted by Wm. Shake^eare ; felled by the Rev. F, Gastrell.

This tree, here fall'n, no common birth or death

Shared with its kind. The world's enfranchised son,
Who found the trees of Life and Knowledge one.

Here set it, frailer than his laurel-wreath.

Shall not the wretch whose hand it fell beneath
Rank also singly — the supreme unhung ?
Lo ! Sheppard, Turpin, pleading with black tongue

This viler thief's unsuffocated breath !

^ For the fine sonnet Raleigh's Cell in the Tower, see Mr. Caine's
Sonnets of Three Centuries.

MISCELLANEOUS SONNETS. 405

We'll search thy glossary, Shakespeare ! whence almost,
And whence alone, some name shall be revealed
For this deaf drudge, to whom no length of ears
SuflS.ced to catch the music of the spheres ;
"Whose soul is carrion now, — too mean to yield
Some tailor's ninth-allotment of a ghost.

To P. B. Marston.

Sweet poet, thou of whom these years that roll

Must one day, yet, the burdened birthright learn,
And by the darkness of thine eyes discern

How piercing was the sight within thy soul,

Gifted, apart, thou goest to the great goal,

A cloud-bound, radiant spirit, strong to earn,
Light-reft, that prize for which fond myriads yearn

Vainly, light-blest, — the seer's aureole.

And doth thine ear, divinely dowered to catch

All spheral sounds, in thy song blent so well,
Still hearken for my voice's slumbering spell
With wistful love ? ah ! let the muse now snatch
My wreath for thy young brows, and bend to watch
Thy veiled, transfiguring sense's miracle.

CHAPTEK YIII.

THE HOUSE OF LIFE.

" Should lie (Rossetti) complete The House of Life upon its
original projection, he will leave a monument of beauty more
lasting than the tradition of his presence."

E. C. Stedman, Victorian Poets.

"Above all ideal personalities with which the poet must learn
to identify himself, there is one supremely real which is the
most imperative of all ; namely, that of his reader. And the
practical watchfulness needed for such assimilation is as much
a gift and instinct as is the creative grasp of alien character.
It is a spiritual contact hardly conscious yet ever renewed, and
which must be a part of the very act of production."

D. Q. Rossetti.

Both these quotations are very apropos to the sub-
ject, the first being a concise statement of a fact that
is almost beyond doubt, and the second an utterance
of peculiar significance in connection with the author
himself and with the famous Sonnet-Sequence called
The House of Life. The latter statement is a dictum
that Kossetti acted up to in the main, but which he by
no means invariably fulfilled : the greater part of the
House of Life does conform to the artistic requirement
that the sympathetic bond between poet and reader
must take precedence of ideal personalities, but not
infrequently is the reader arrested by obscurity of
expression, by a too subjective motif or treatment of

CHAP. VIII. « THE HOUSE OF LIFE:' 407

motif, and by an absence of certain qualities where
such might have been expected. While it is beyond
doubt that the poet has in this series left behind him
a monument of beauty that will last as long or longer
than the tradition of his presence, it must be ad-
mitted that it does not embrace one-half of what con-
stitutes the life of emotion, and that the title is a
misnomer in so far as it is meant to be an adequate
representation of the life spiritual. The House of
Life is too significant a name to be mainly limited
only to the expression of all the varying emotions
that accompany the passion of love, for nothing can
then be given to the passion of the intellect, little or
nothing to wider human hopes and fears, to the long-
ings and aspirations of the individual soul and of a
spirit sympathetic with the general life of humanity.
So that in the beautiful work of Dante Gabriel
Eossetti (for one work it is despite its composition
being of an hundred sonnets, as much as the collection
of lyrics called In Memoriam is a poetic unity), while
we find the most subtle shades of personal pain, regTct,
shadowy hope, remorse, spiritual agony, love, passion,
rapture, foreboding, despondency, frustration, we do
not in addition find the high hope of the soul that we
associate with Shelley or the joy in life so character-
istic of Keats. We pass through a shadowy land,
remote from the pathways of men,

" Nor spire may rise nor bell be heard therefrom " —

where seldom the wind rises from the " secret groves "
into wide, sweet, and passionate force, where the rust-
ling leaves are like regrets and sorrows, and the
flowers like remembered joys, and where the dull

408 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

monotone of a sailless sea haunts the margins as
though vague and doubtful hopes and sad despond-
encies were blent into environing sound. Here and
there we do indeed come upon a sonnet that has the
effect of a sudden trumpet-note, a startling individual
revelation that must affect every reader, a passionate
insight that, like a flash of lightning, lays bare some
new aspect of life ; and nothing finer or nobler of
their kind can well be imagined than such sonnets
as Known in Vain, The Heart of the Night, Stillborn
Love, Barren Spring, Vain Virtues, Lost Days, Newborn
Death, and others of like supremity, but those form a
small minority in a hundred. But the impression,
nevertheless, remains that the series is, in the main, a
record of individual emotions suggested by the pre-
sence and absence of embodied love and what such
absence and presence individually entail, a record of
such and little further, — a House, not of Life, but of
Love.

As the latter is it of more than great value, it is
almost as precious a gift or legacy as the life-sonnets
of Shakespeare or the love-record of Mrs. Browning.
When we look upon these poems, not as The House of
Life but as the revelations of the inner life of a great
genius, we feel that in our generation a heritage has
been bequeathed to posterity even more valuable than
that which was the due of all lovers of art, those
sonnets of Eafifaelle but once written out and irrevoc-
ably lost : and not only as the heritage of a great
artist or, in addition, that of one who was in the front
rank of the poets of his time, but one also who by his
magnetic personality influenced younger men of genius
in two arts to an extent even at present widely re-

VIII. ''THE HOUSE OF LIFE:' 403

cognised, and to whom is to be traced as to immediate
fount the wide-spread sesthetic movement (insistence
on a beautiful in place of an ugly or commonplace
environment) which has so affected and changed our
social life, the principle of which is still a potent
influence in the formation of a great school of poetic
art, and, though to a less degree, still guides or affects
our higher literature.

In stating that the hundred sonnets of E-ossetti to
which this chapter is devoted could more fitly be en-
titled The House of Love, it must not be understood that
sexual love only is meant, for this, though the main-
spring or the central influence of the series, is not the
sole motif. '■' I have loved the principle of Beauty in all
things," said Keats ; and to no man since Keats could
the phrase be more applicable than to the author of
The House of Life. Art in the abstract was a beautiful
dream to Rossetti ; in the concrete, it represented the
embodiment of dreams after the beautiful; in poetry,
the beautiful (with all its varying manifestations) was to
him as essential as foliage to a tree; in his own life we
know, as expressed in the Sibylla Palmifera sonnet.
Beauty was the shrine at which he worshipped, the ideal
which he pursued, the object of undivided and unfalter-
ing praise from voice and hand. And it is this beauty
that is celebrated in many of the sonnets, always in-
tensely individual as these are, yet not applicable to the
author alone. Their best possible title would have been
their present sub-title, A Sonnet-Sequetice ; this would
have been true, for the series is as much a poem of
interlinked stanzas as if the latter followed each other
without break of page in the manner of coherent verses ;
and it would also have been not only more exactly

410 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

descriptive than The House of Life, but even than Tlie,
House of Love, from the fact that whatever else is in
these sonnets touched upon — and we know how much in
its degree this is — there is but little of that inspiration,
either for good or evil, which makes love the greatest
factor in the evolution of individual lives and of nations.
These sonnets are the record of what a poet-soul has
felt, and we see that love meant with him a dream of
happiness while present, a dream of regret and a sense
of frustration when passed away, but not that it inspired
him to action or made his ideals more impersonal, or
gave his aspirations wings to escaj)e from the desolate
haunts of sorrow and despondency and vague half-real
hopes. Therefore it is not so much that Love was the
soul of his genius, as that his genius lived and had its
being in the shadow of Love.

" The quality of finish in poetic execution is of two
kinds. The first and highest is that where the work
has been all mentally ' cartooned,' as it were, beforehand,
by a process intensely conscious, but patient and silent
— an occult evolution of life." These are Eossetti's
own words, and none better could be chosen in which
to express the method of his own composition. Almost
invariably his work was mentally " cartooned " before-
hand, and though in actual committal of his conceptions
to paper he was not an " inspired " writer in the sense
that the " glory of words " came to him almost without
volition, the original " cartoon " was present in his mind
from the first, fulfilling literally his own dictum as to
the sonnet being " a moment's monument." His " con-
ception " seldom underwent modification from the ex-
• igencies of rhyme or limitations of the sonnet structure,
but though present in each sonnet in its entirety it

VIII. « THE HOUSE OF LIFE."" 411

occasionally was expressed so overweighted with sym-
bolism that its significance is by no means clearly car-
tooned for the reader — so uttered that its application
is not at first easily apprehended. The sonnet Love's
Redemption and those called Willowwood are instances
in point. In a brilliant essay on Physiognomic Poetry
a well-known writer has pointed out -^ that with the
truest poets inferences as to the men can be safely
inferred from their poems, that " from genuine poetry
we always get either the genuine physiognomy of the
poet's mind, or a reflex of the outer world, as genuine
as it can be, taking into account that the mirror is a
moving and a coloured one, like the amber-tinted stream
of a brook in autumn ;" and by this test an inferential
character may be drawn of Dante Gabriel Kossetti
from The House of Life. Judging thus inferentially,
those who had never met or seen him, or who had
never heard of his personality, would discern a man
with an acute, even painfully acute, sensibility, with a
passionate love of the beautiful, with a habit of morbid
introspection and a tendency to succumb to morbid
impulses, with an occasional passion and vehemence
startling in its suddenness, and, while of an essentially
spiritual nature, forced by bent of genius into poetic
expression wherein sensuous images and symbolism are
pre-eminent.

And this brings me to the point of the morality of
The House of Life. Attack after attack has been made
on certain sonnets by Eossetti ever since the publica-
tion of his first volume in 1870, and so late as a few
months ago one well-known " Eeview " achieved the

^ " Alfred de Musset and Physiognomic Poetry " (in the New Qiutr-
terly Magazine, 1878), by Theodore Watts.

412 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

unenviable distinction of having restored a style of
criticism long supposed to have been buried with Gifford
et hoc genus omne, of having indeed added to the old
Quarterly brutality a sowpqon of shameful inference and
foul imagery that lifts it to the summit of the dunghill-
Parnassus which was thought to have been rased to the
ground.

What constitutes poetic morality is not my province
at present to attempt to explain, nor have I space for
any such examination as would be requisite in the case of
a subject that has puzzled and misled many. But I am
confident that no impartial reader could find in Tlu House
of Life or elsewhere in Eossetti's poems the least breath
of licentiousness, that few would even discern an immor-
ality that was not volitional but due to self-sophistica-
tion. No true advocate of the genius of the man who
was so recently taken away from us would defend every
line he has written as it stands — but even for a moment
to take this ground, are there as many as a dozen lines
at the uttermost in The House of Life that could offend
the most fastidious critic or sensitive spirit ? It seems
to me that lines here and there, and sonnets sueh as
Love's Bedem'ption and Nuptial Sleep} are, however
" sincere " and spiritual in conception, mistakingly ex-
pressed, for the same reason that made the writer I last
quoted state " that art knows only aesthetical sanctions :
the doctrine of sincerity is a sophism." Yet Eossetti
held this latter opinion himself, and would have been
(as he sometimes experienced) more hurt by a charge
of animalism than can be well made realisable, for he

1 The first of these is very materially altered as it stands in the com-
pleted House of Life {Lovers Testament), and the second is omitted
altogether.

VIII. " THE HOUSE OF LIFE:' 413

considered his genius to be of an essentially spiritual
though mys£ical order. The reason of all the misunder-
standing such sonnets as those just mentioned have
given rise to, of the unjust attacks they have opened
the door to, and of the bitterness and disappointment
they caused their author, lies simply in the fact that
the sensuous expression of however spiritual a thought
seemed unavoidable, or at any rate but natural to him.
So that when at times this tendency carried away his
judgment he used expressions in clothing his thought
that caused great misunderstanding and even antipathy
to a wide number, and consequent pain and disappoint-
ment to himself ; but it was the former reason, and no
withdrawal from an artistic position, that led him to
materially alter Loves Redemption and a few lines here
and there elsewhere, and to omit Nuptial Sleep. But to
the last he maintained, what was indeed the case, that
they were written out of no mere physical emotion and
with no irreverence; that, personally speaking, he would
never have withdrawn them from the fitting chambers
they occupied in his House of Life, but that identifying
himself with his readers, as he considered it the impera-
tive duty of a poet to do, and finding that to the body
of these readers certain passages were stumbling-blocks
not so much because of immorality as what seemed an
unpleasant excess of realism of a kind not suitable for
an indiscriminate audience, he came to the conclusion
that it was right he should preclude Nuptial Sleep from
the collection, and that Loves Redemption, Vain Virtues,
and one or two others should be somewhat modified.
And in thus choosing there can be little doubt but that
Eossetti was right ; the omitted sonnet and the altered
lines were not integral parts of the whole, and the act

414 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

would entail on the one hand not only a larger circle
of readers but on the other no artistic loss in the sense
of leaving a hiatus in the complete Sonnet-Sequence.
He fully recognised that no such hiatus would be caused,
for on a friend's proposing that he could solve the diffi-
culty, if as a difficulty it still existed, by writing a
sonnet immediately akin to Nuptial Sleep, with or with-
out the same title and less realistically expressed, he
declined on the ground that the motif was unnecessary
to the main conception, and that it had therefore better
be let alone altogether. He was too true a poet to
indulge in the heresy underlying the doctrine of art for
art's sake ; a doctrine that he accepted and carried out
in so far as consistent with his instinctively or con-
sciously apprehended ethics of artistic creation, so far
and no farther. I once asked him how he would reply
to the asseveration that he was the head of the " Art
for Art's sake " school, and his response was to the effect
that the principle of the phrase was two-thirds absolutely
right and one-third so essentially wrong that it nega-
tived the whole as an aphorism. In the right sense of
the phrase no artist ever did more truly follow out the
principle of art for art's sake, but neither as artist nor
poet did he forget those limitations to reticence of in-
clination or experiment which true Art has ordained in
authentic if strictly unformulated command.

The sonnet on the Sonnet that is prefixed to the
completed House of Life is notable for its opening line
or lines, unnecessary again to quote ; but beyond this
I confess I can see in it no special merit as a sonnet,
still less as a sonnet on the sonnet ; indeed, on the other
hand, it seems to me to have an obscurity equalling the
most obscure passages Eossetti has composed elsewhere,

VIII. " THE SONNET ON THE SONNET'' 415

and as an explanatory poem to enlighten no farther
than the concise and admirable first, or, at the outside,
the first five lines. Comparing the fifth line as it stands ,
in the Ballads and Sonnets with the corresponding line
in the engraved design which forms the frontispiece to
this volume, it will be observed that the word arduous
has replaced intricate, a change that is open to doubt as
to being for the better. It is curious that so careful a
sonnet-writer, and one who was so v/ell able to criticise
obscurity in the style of another,^ could conclude the
octave of a sonnet meant to convey an instructional
idea with such rhetorical and absolutely meaningless
lines as — j

" ; and let Time see

Its flowering crest impearled and orient."

The sestet is almost as obscurely rhetorical as the
octave. To apply his own words to himself — "we
have to regret that even complete obscurity is a not
uncommon blemish, while imperfect expression seems
too often to be attributable to a neglect of means, and
this despite the fact that a sense of style is certainly
one of the first impressions derived from (his) writings.
But we fear that a too great and probably organic
abstraction of mind interferes continually with the
projection of his thoughts :" an application that, with
slight modification, is by no means exaggerated.

The author originally intended to call his Sonnet-
Sequence Sonnets and Songs of Love, Life, and Death,
but abandoned this title for the more epigrammatic
one it has become so widely known by ; and of the
fifty sonnets that appeared in the Poems of 1870, six-

^ The Academy, February 1, 1871.

416 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSEITI. chap.

teen only had ever been seen by others than a few
privileged acquaintances.-^ In the same volume, and
under the same general title, eleven lyrics were added,
but these were afterwards withdrawn from The House
of Life and printed separately.

The House of Life is divided into two parts, the
first of which consists of fifty-nine sonnets grouped
under the sub-title Youth and Change, and of which
twenty-six appeared in the Poems; the second part
embraces only fourteen new and twenty-eight formerly
printed sonnets, with the sub-title changed to Change
and Fate — in all, one hundred and one sonnets. The
opening lines are called Love Enthroned, and no more
fitting first sonnet to such a collection could well have
been composed, even by the poet himself ; we realise
at once that it is love indeed who is lord of this
House, and the serene height of his ideal personality
is brought home to us in fine lines. Truth, with
awed lips, and Hope, with eyes upcast, pass before the
poet's vision, then Fame and Youth —

" And Life, still wreathing flowers for Death to wear ; "
but in power and majesty Love transcends all these —

" Love's throne was not with these ; but far above
All passionate wind of welcome and farewell
He sat in breathless bowers they dream not of ;

Though Truth foreknow Love's heart, and Hope foretell,
And Fame be for Love's sake desirable,
And Youth be dear, and Life be sweet to Love."

^ Namely, those numbered in the completed House of Life
XXV., xixiX., XLVH., XLIX.-LIL, LXIIL, LXY., LXVIL,
LXXXVI., XCL, XCV., XCVIL, XCIX., C. Vide Fortnightly
Review for March 1869.

VIII. ''THE HOUSE OF LIFE:' 417

This prelude or introductory sonnet is followed by
one chronicling the Birth of Love, or Bridal Birth ; a
fine sonnet, but exhibiting that abrupt transition from
one concrete statement to another equally clear to
the author, necessitating swift apprehension on the
part of a reader to whom the train of thought too
suddenly or obscurely passes into a relative but differ-
ent groove. It has one alteration from all previous
versions, namely, the substitution of shadowed for
shielded in the ninth line. Number III. is the sonnet
that was previously called LovpJs Redemption, wherein
the imagery of Sacramental communion was made to
symbolise the giving up of one's life to another in
love ; the third and eighth lines being those that,
with the substitution of heart for lips in the second
line, have been materially altered. As Loves Testament
it is not so magnetic in its attractiveness as before,
but the author did not therefore decide unwisely when
he considered it best to make the slight but material
differences before re-incorporation with the completed
House of Life. The octave of Lovesight has the charm
that appeals to us so forcibly at times in the " Songs "
and " Preludes " of Schumann, Schubert, Chopin, and
others of later date but allied in expression of senti-
ment ; and in the sestet the first note is struck of
that foreboding which again and again comes in
throughout the sequence like some deep mournful
chord of Handel in a solemn music — a sense of in-
evitable loss, an anticipated regret, an anticipated
despair —

" O love, my love ! if I no more should see
Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
Nor image of thine eyes in any spring —
2 E

418 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope
The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,
The wind of Death's imperishable wing ?"

Heart's Hope is one of those lately added to The House
of Life, but whether of early or recent composition I
cannot say ; in either case it is not in the front rank
of Eossetti's sonnets, and to me the two final lines
seem to verge on bathos. An nndue weight of words
is given to a thought that is neither original nor
specially profound. The latter lines of the octave at
once recall the close of the lyric called Love Lily,

" Whose speech Truth knows not from her thought,
Nor Love her body from her ^oul."

The Kiss is a sonnet that exemplifies the over-elabora-
tion into which Eossetti's intensely artistic tempera-
ment sometimes betrayed him ; for illness or misfortune
we have "seizure of malign vicissitude;" for the
embrace of two lovers —

" For lo ! even now my lady's lips did play

With these my lips such consonant interlude !"

a style that is too laboured to be really artistic, too
artificially artistic to be poetry. Originally Nwptial
Sleep succeeded to The Kiss, but as it is omitted from
The House of Life there is no necessity to refer to it
again ; it is in every sense of the word a cancelled
poem, the author having refused it a place either in
The House of Life or elsewhere in his two published
volumes, and at the same time having refused to let it
stand as a separate entity on the ground that he would
never have written such a sonnet as an independent
composition, and that he regarded it now simply in the

VIII.

" THE HOUSE OF LIFE." 419

light of a deleted passage or cancelled verse. Supreme
Surrender, though strictly akin to Nuptial Sleep, has
nothing in it that can honestly be objectionable to any
sane man or woman ; it is splendid emotional music
as well as being a powerful sonnet. Its motif was
previously lyrically expressed by the author in the
twentieth and twenty-first verses of The Stream's
Secret, and in its earlier version (differing in the second
line only) it was superior to the substituted reading.
Love's Lovers exemplifies the difference between mere
surface-worship of love and the innermost shrines
wherein he dwells ; and the succeeding sonnet is a
beautiful presentation of the Passion of Love and
Love's Worship, one flame-winged and with a master-
ing music like the dominant sound of the sea, and one
"a white-winged harp-player" whose harp hath not
the rapturous tone of Passion's hautboy, but a softer,
purer music, a " cadence deep and clear." In the
Portrait, poet and painter both find utterance — the
former exulting in the knowledge that any one who
would in future years look upon the loveliness he has
perpetuated on canvas must come to him — that when
both have passed away from life each will yet live in
the other inseparable in the portrait he has made, she
the painted and he the painter ; and this sonnet is
followed by another personal one, wherein in vision
the poet sees the lady of his love bending over the
love-letter she is writing. The Lovei-'s Walk is a
beautiful sonnet that must appeal to all who have
loved, who like these lovers can recall June days when
they walked hand in baud through scented hedgerows,
when hearts at one in all things leaned against each
other —

420 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTl. chap.

" As the cloud-foaming firmamental blue
Eests on the blue line of a foamless sea " —

and as with The Lovers Walk, so with YoutJis An-
tiphony and Youth's ^jpring-Tribute, with the latter's
beautiful A'pril lines —

" On these debateable borders of the year

Spring's foot half falters ; scarce she yet may know
The leafless blackthorn-blossom from the snow ;
And through her bowers the wind's way still is clear."

The fifteenth sonnet touches a deeper chord, and uses
the simile of twin-birth to signify the bond between
two souls of nearer kindred than material relationship,
giving expression to the penetrating sense of spiritual
kinship —

" Known for my soul's birth-partner well enough !"

A Bay of Love takes high rank in The House of Life,
but Beauty's Pageant recalls a style of sonnet-writing
germane to that of the Elizabethan age with its de-
light in intricate and laboured imagery and quaint
affectation. Asking what in nature can vie with the
moods of varying grace characteristic of his lady's
beauty " within this hour, within this room," he speaks
of the " song full-quired, sweet June's encomiast" and in
the sestet compares each " fine movement " to " lily or
swan or swan-stemmed galiot."

Originally, A Bay's Love was succeeded by Love-
Sweetness, but besides Beauty's Pageant three other
sonnets are interpolated in the completed sequence,
namely, Genius in Beauty, Silent Noon, and Gracious
Moonlight. Each is beautiful ; and in the first is an
aphorism which though not strictly original is yet

VIII. « THE HOUSE OF LIFE.'' 421

thoroughly individualistic — " Beauty like hers is
genius;" in the second we have one of the most
beautiful natural utterances of Eossetti, so true that
the sonnet is apt to mislead as to his understanding
and love of nature, which has already been remarked
on as, speaking generally, strangely deficient; and in
the third we find lines as beautiful as in Silent Noon,
but defaced by the introduction of such stilted nomen-
clature as " Queen Dian " for the " moon." The octave
of this twentieth sonnet culminates sonorously with
suggestion of comparison —

" . . . Of that face
What shall be said, — which, like a governing star,
Gathers and garners from all things that are
Their silent penetrative lovehness ?"

And the sestet unfolds the comparison thus beautifully,
save for the exception I have remarked —

. " O'er water-daisies and wild waifs of Spring,

There where the iris rears its gold-crowned sheaf
With flowering rush and sceptred arrow-leaf.

So have I marked Queen Dian, in bright ring

Of cloud above and wave below, take wing

And chase night's gloom, as thou the spirit's grief."

The great gain not only the simile or the sestet but the
whole sonnet would achieve by some such reading of
the fourth sestet-line as the following must surely be
evident to every one —

" So have I marked the crescent moon in ring
Of cloud above and wave below, take wing," etc.

This is merely a suggestion, of course, and not put for-
ward as in itself anything beyond an example to the

422 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

point ; but let the reader go through the sonnet with
the suggested alteration, or any other image that comes
uppermost in his mind, and the essential gain to the
whole can hardly fail to be at once observable. As it
stands, the sonnet has the same effect upon me as if an
orator had begun his address with noble eloquence and
wound up his periods with some stilted and conven-
tional commonplace. No poet of nature would have
so written, but it is surprising that so careful an artist
as Eossetti should have written sequent words with such
unpleasantly accentuated assonance as Queen Dian, in
hright 7%ng, etc. As in Gracious Moonlight the reader
may discern the literary tendency of the author in
natural descriptiveness, so in the otherwise noble sonnet
Love Sweetness he may realise the intense abstraction of
the poet's mind from the necessity of expressed sequence
of imaginative thought. After describing all that is
beautiful in the loving ways of his lady, the poet goes
on to say —

" What sweeter than these things, except the thing
In lacking which all these would lose their sweet :
The confident heart's still fervour ; the swift heat

And soft suhsiderice of the spirit's wing,

Then when it feels, in cloud-girt wayfaring,

The breath of kindred plumes against its feet ?"

The first three lines of this sestet still continue the
direct description, but while the reader's mind is strictly
within the groove of the concrete images of these and
the forerunning octave, the mind of the author has pur-
sued a relative conception, and at once expressed it as
though in natural and unbroken sequence. It necessi-
tates some effort on the part of the reader to realise at
once, on having apprehended " the confident heart's still

VIII. ''THE HOUSE OF LIFE:' 423

fervour," the image of a humau spirit, v^eary " in cloud-
girt wayfaring," suddenly ceasing in solitary flight when
it feels against its feet " the breath of kindred plumes "
— in simpler terms, the sudden union of a soul that has
remained in solitary expectancy till the twin-soul that
was dearest to it on earth is suddenly released from its
bodily environment. Both the idea and the Hues ex-
pressing it are beautiful, yet the poet's absorption in
his conception is so great that he forgets the reader's
possible incapacity to keep mental pace with him with-
out warning; and though the lines are not obscure,
they are so worded that a vague uncertainty akin to
the effect produced by obscurity is apt to be the result.
Detailed reference to each sonnet is at this stage
impracticable, but silence as to the beauties of many
unable to be mentioned is the more excusable when
it is understood that there is a general excellence
throughout, that every or nearly every sonnet is good,
that a few are specially good, and that still fewer
really altogether distance their companions. The
series is indeed extraordinarily uniform in power, and
it is almost impossible to open Tlie, House of Life at
any page and not find something well worthy perusal.
In Winged Hours the same note of foreboding, of anti-
cipated sorrow, is struck as in the early Lovesight, but
in Mid-Ba'pture there is a passionate feeling that seems
to create a sufficiency of the present unto itself, a yield-
ing to the intense love and comfort of one " lovely and
beloved." Soul Light exhibits the genius of Eossetti
in its spiritual aspect, the love of the spirit transcending
the love of the body. In Last Fire there is another
instance of the author's literary presentment of natural
metaphors as well as of direct description of effects in

42'4 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

nature, literary in contradistinction to poetic — the lines,
namely, beginning This day at least, etc. ; but Her Gifts
is a beautiful sonnet from first to last, one of the most
beautiful, indeed, in the series of those that deal with
love. The Dark Glass is a noble sonnet, and I shall
quote the octave as an example of the sonorous music
Eossetti could draw from these artificially arranged
decasyllabic lines : —

"Not I myself know all my love for thee :

How should I reach so far, who cannot weigh
To-morrow's dower by gauge of yesterday ?
Shall birth and death, and all dark names that be,
As doors and windows bared to some loud sea,

Lash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray ;
And shall my sense pierce love, — the last relay
And ultimate outpost of eternity ?"

Sleepless Dreams has a special palhos when we know
how truly it is applicable to the poet's own bitter ex-
periences—

" 0 lonely night ! art thou not known to me,
A thicket hung with masks of mockery.

And watered with the wasteful warmth of tears."

Many noble sonnets immediately follow, Severed
Selves, Through Death to Love, wherein —

"... within some glass dimmed by our breath,
Our hearts discern wild images of Death,
Shadows and shoals that edge eternity ;"

the terribly pathetic Cloud and Wind (why so called it
is not easy to understand). Secret Parting, Parted Love,
and the exquisite Broken Music. The four entitled
Willowwood are full of symbolism and beauty, while,
from a technical point of view, the octave of the third

VIII. " THE HOUSE OF LIFE:' 425

is interesting from being the only irregular octave
amongst all the author's sonnets, not indeed irregular
in having more than two rhyme-sounds, but in the
second and third and sixth and seventh lines having
different instead of sympathetic terminals. It may also
be noted that the first and fifth rhyme-sounds nearly
constitute what is called a proper rhyme, "willowwood"
and "wooed," for though the former has a sharper accent-
uation, they are practically the same, especially as their
corresponding rhymes are " hood " and " food ; " and
again, in the twelfth line there is an unusual triple
assonance, " Btee^p deep the soul in sleep till she were
dead." Amongst the remaining sonnets of the first part
of The House of Life are the subtle and beautiful Still-
hoi-n Love, the noble three on True Woman, and Without
Her, the last of which I shall quote, both for its own great
beauty and because it gives the key-note of the whole,
the loss that succeeds youth and is the heart of change.
Henceforth there will be less passion, but deeper re-
gret, deeper despondency, deeper despair and a wearied
resignation, and with fewer occasional interludes. The
sonnet in question was no mere result of poetic emotion
but was the outcome of the poet's own most bitter per-
sonal sorrow, and it has hence an added significance
and pathos.

Without Her.

Wliat of the glass without her ? The blank gray
There where the pool is blind of the moon's face.
Her dress without her ? The tossed empty space

Of cloud-rack whence the moon has passed away.

Her paths without her ? Day's appointed sway
Usurped by desolate night. Her pillowed place
Without her 1 Tears, ah me ! for love's good grace,

And cold forgetfulness of night or day.

426 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

What of tlie heart without her ? Nay, poor heart,
Of thee what word remains ere speech be still %
A wayfarer by barren ways and chill.
Steep ways and weary, without her thou art.
Where the long cloud, the long wood's counterpart
Sheds doubled darkness up the labouring hill.

The first two sonnets of the second part (Change and
Fate) deal with the poetic personality ; but in the third,
The Soul's Sphere, the questioning spirit of doubt again
finds expression, while Inclusiveness has a specially subtle
treatment. The sonnet called Ardour and Memory fol-
lows the latter, and is that of which a facsimile from
the original is given opposite this page : it was written
in December 1880, and takes a beautiful illustration
from nature to express the " after-glow " that memory
inherits from youthful ardour — that of the rose-tree leaves
turning red in late autumn as with remembered crimson.
On the other hand, the sestet is very involved, the last
line reading either as a new sentence or as sequent to
the twelfth and thirteenth lines, in either case without
sense ; the meaning, of course, is that, when " flown all
joys," though through wintry forest-boughs —

" The wind swoops onward brandishing the light.
With ditties and with dirges infinite, —
Even yet the rose-trees' verdure left alone
Will flush all ruddy though the rose be gone."

Known in Vain, The Heart of the Night, The Land-
mark, and A Dark Day, are all specially noble sonnets,
full of the stern sadness that seems fitting to a poet
bearing the name of him who had seen the issues of
life, and "who had been in hell." Autumn Idleness
is perhaps on the whole the most flawless of all
Eossetti's " natural " poems, perfect from the flrst line to

f^^v^

>^y\'

I

I

mm

V

^ \

^

\^

>^

n

VIII. « THE HOUSE OF LIFE:' 427

the last ; and in Ttie Hill Summit there is noble usage
of tlie imagery of sunset, though the opening metaphors
are somewhat obscure and involved. The three called
The CJioice, beginning separately, Eat thou and drinh,
Watch thou and fear, Think thou and act, have a
width of application, an impersonality of utterance
not characteristic of the greater number of the author's
sonnets in The House of Life ; especially noteworthy
are the bitter lines closing the first, and the beautiful
sestet of the third which gives a greater idea of im-
measurable distance than any other passage I can
recollect : —

" Nay, come up hither. From this wave-washed mound
Unto the furthest flood-brim look with me ;

Then reach on with thy thought till it be drown'd.
Miles and miles distant though the last line be,

And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond,
Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there is more sea."

Under the heading of Old and New Art, a sonnet,
formerly printed amongst those for Pictures and called
^S'i^. LJiike the Painter, appears as No. LXXIV. in The
House of Life, followed by two under the same general
title, though not equalling the first ; and these are
followed by Soid's Beauty and Bodys Beauty, which
are respectively those written for Eossetti's splendid
paintings Sibylla Palmifera and Lady Lilith, and
which have already been referred to and used in illus-
tration of the latter.^ No. LXXIX., The Monochord, is
the sonnet that concluded Eossetti's first volume when
it began with. Is it the moved air or the moving sound,
and purported to be " written during music," and was
interpretive of those vague thoughts that dominate

1 Vide pp. 201 and 209 ante.

428 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap.

the mind during the strange, indefinite, and yearning
expressiveness of such melodies and harmonies as
we associate with the names of Beethoven, Handel,
Mozart, Schumann, Chopin, and others. It now
begins, Is it this shy's vast vault or oceans sound, an
alteration that may have greater significance, but I
confess to me has not, or rather has not in relation
to what follows. It was in its fitting place when
standing detached from aught else, but instead of being
a link in the chain of the hundred -and -one sonnets
making TJie House of Life it seems to me to be a
break in the sequence. Of the five following, two are
specially fine, Memorial Thresholds, with the terrible
suggestiveness of its closing lines, —

" Or mocking winds whirl round a chaff-strown floor,
Thee and thy years and these my words and me " —

and Barren Spring, which I shall quote as the most
beautiful record amongst Eossetti's poems of that deep
despondency that at times laid such a heavy hand
upon his life, turning friendship into emptiness, hope
into bitterness, and the loveliest things of nature into
premonitions of decay and death : —

Barren Spring.

Once more the changed year's turning wheel returns :
And as a girl sails balanced in the wind,
And now before and now again behind

Stoops as it swoops, with cheek that laughs and burns, -

So spring comes merry towards me here, but earns
No answering smile from me, whose life is twin'd
"With the dead boughs that winter stni must bind,

And whom to-day the spring no more concerns.

VIII. ''THE HOUSE OF LIFE:' 429

Behold, this crocus is a withering flame ;

This snowdrop, snow ; this apple-blossom's part
To breed the fruit that breeds the serpent's art.

Naj, for these spring-flowers, turn thy face from them,

Nor stay till on the year's last lily stem

The white cup shrivels round the golden heart.

The pathetic eighty-fourth sonnet was, like Autumn
Idleness, composed at Penkill Castle in 1869. It was
written on the 27th of September, and Rossetti left
next day, never again to revisit the place where in
1868 the rebirth of his poetic powers had gradually
taken place. Than Vain Virtues and Lost Days there
are no more terrible and impressive sonnets in our
language. In the latter the closing octave-lines that
previously ran —

" Or such spUt water as in dreams must cheat
The throats of men in hell athirst alway ; "

now read —

" Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat
The undying throats of hell, athirst alway ; "

and the alteration was made on account of the in
about midway in either line ; but though the two in's
do monotonise the modulation, the substituted reading
contains a tautological flaw in the use of undying and
alway, which imply each other. Uetro me, Sathana is
a noble sonnet of the Miltonic kind, opening with
magnificent imagery, and powerful also is Lost on
both Sides, though the culminating metaphor is too
laboured ; while in The Suns Shame (I.) we have one
of the most marked examples of the direct influence
of Shakespeare's sonnets upon the author of The House
of Life. There is an especial one of the former having

430 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL chap.

a strict resemblance to The Sun's Shame in all but the
two closing lines, — namely, the sixty-sixth, beginniDg
Tirdwith all these, for restful Death I cry, \>o\h. bringing
the same bitter charge against life, of evil and wrong
everywhere in the ascendant ; but although the senti-
ment of Eossetti's two last lines is more nobly con-
sistent with the scornful antecedent passages than the
couplet of Shakespeare's sonnet, its metaphor is too
laboured, has too much of Elizabethan affectation, to
read so naturally. No. XCYII. is very impressive : —

" Look in my face ; my name is Might-have-been ;
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell ;

" Mark me, how still I am ! But should there dart
One moment through thy soul the soft surprise
Of that winged Peace which lulls the breath of sighs,

Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart

Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart
Sleepless with cold commemorative eyes."

The two sonnets called New Born Death have that
flawless beauty which must outstand the stress of time,
the perfect workmanship with the clear poetic vision
of a truly great imaginative mind. The essential
spirit of the ideal personalities mentioned is divined
and embodied afresh with new loveliness, and we
behold Death as a young child. Life its mother as a
beautiful woman and the mother of Love that has
passed away ; of Song, whose hair " blew like a flame,
and blossomed like a wreath," and of Art, "whose eyes
were worlds by God found fair," and of these the poet
asks Life —

" And did these die that thou might'st bear me Death ? "

VIII. « THE HOUSE OF LIFE:' '431

With the succeeding sonnet, The One Hope, the
Sequence comes to a close, not in passionate clinging
to life or love, not in high resolve or winged aspira-
tion, or, on the other hand, not in absolute despair,

but with a sad and resigned Hope.

*
" When vain desire at last and vain regret

Go hand in hand to death, and all is vain,
What shall assuage the unforgotten pain
And teach the unforgetful to forget.

" Ah ! when the wan sonl in that golden air
Between the scriptured petals softly blown
Peers breathless for the gift of grace unknown —
Ah ! let none other alien spell soe'er
But only the one Hope's one name be there, —
Not less nor more, but even that word alone."

Thus ends the famous Sonnet -Sequence of the
greatest sonnet writer of our period, the record of a
strange and fascinating nature and the outpouring of
a dual life that will surely have an interest and delight
for posterity as long as posterity cherishes the sonnets
of Shakespeare, of Milton, of Mrs. Browning, and of
Wordsworth.

With The House of Life comes to an end this
record of the lifework in two arts of one of the cen-
tral figures of our age — a man whose far-reaching
personal influence it is not easy to measure, whose
poetic work has added new richness to our noblest
literature, and whose devotion to and pursuit of a
high ideal in art has resulted in paintings whose
splendour and depth of colour have inaugurated a new
era, while they have recalled a past glory such as the
noblest of the Venetian school alone possessed in like

432 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. chap. viii.

degree. In art we are not likely to have another
Turner, though we may yet have other great painters ;
in poetry we shall not have another record like the
Portuguese Sonnets, though we may have other greater
sonnet writers than the author of these ; and in like
manner neither we nor the generations who come after
us, whether we or they see greater or lesser artists,
greater or lesser poets, will see another Dante Gabriel
Eossetti.

APPENDIX

2 V

^

^

jS

<w

^^

bJ

,«

'J

•2

^

c3

i^

^

c8

<4i

1

o

O c3

rH r-l CO rH

i

o

"S <=' '^ 'C!
tJ 05 S> O

O 6

• O <N (N CO
^O Tji ■«* -^ -<t(
'CO ,-1 rH rH rH

■ -3^

6q

o fc^

<» 1^ ■— ' •«

: 1> c3 r-i oo ;a

: 02 cb "-I '» «

CO ?■

.S (§ .H- ^ g

bo . . . a

fe&

-e ^

P d

=» .s pq

li

si

O -Ph

-3 o^l 5^ a^ ool'^m CO
f3 ^Doa ^ .2 . .2 . fl P ^ J «• f^ (^

^ 03 kJ o

'fi^o

c- o
^ in

-s a

'S r=5 ^

i3 ^ O
^ 03 C!
O ^ 03

Ph CQ CU

03

o

« O 2
03 S *^

a^ i

3 <S 13

.2 S be a,

t> 1 ^ g

2P^

'^ffl

Sfi

^•g^

9 &c

H d

£-2-^ 3 03

T« '33 S cc O

.rH ^ ,— . O

Oo2S<i W

.=» § § s « .

03 o a ^F "^

bD O M £ -S -^^ •

a -in PC H -3 03 eg

o .S « :S g ^ g

.2 O -S O S^ O 03

o ■— '

o o

pq:: ::

^ 2

-2 43

r-H '-' 'O r-H V O

o

03

Cm

r Ada '.

03 Vi -t^

t-. 00

oo c»

OS

^ ~ ^^a>

rH<MC0^10*-Dt^00010rH(N(MCO-^iO«01:^

rH j^ ,-1

?0 O O t^

"-* t^ XO -*

rH <N i-H rH

CO O (M
I-H (N I— I

OS <N ,— ( <N

rHi.(M00<Mi^Oi?O

OO'^'^rHr-li— l"^r-H»— lj— I

CO

i'3

rt © -^

o^

^ « cc > ^ O

o 5r

o ,b

^^ s - '^ '■

bs s o ^

:3^

P CQ

Sil

EH02 5Z5

a> .

\^ a r-H

^ s^ «
o S Ph

(3 ,03

«^

8^
^'1

» 2 S ■

3 P^ M ^

I

X

o

6 61^

c

Ph « WW

5 rO

« o
OPh

C o
eSpq

2
o
o

fl.S

X c8
o ^

o o

^^

Ti

'?s

M

i^

W-g

O M

1

R-f?

"a OT

bD a

a> M

,w

a «

.^Pm

o

i^ a

"S '=^

o

M ^

S Oh

-3

^S

^ a
SO

Ci5 oo

c5 <»

-is a

« a

^ o

JZ2 fc<

° ° 2 a >.

a> o
■■^ « £

8 o

o ^^

p. p^ ■>"•

>> O oD O

.2 ,P ob i=!
•^ a "^ ^ -S m
ra CO ^ o ^ ^

2 a

bO'S

1^

! <5 S Ph
i eg 03 <»

^ tJ

r^ WW

M

&^Ph

" »H ra u a N

W l-q P Q PL, S [X. I

I

o

a

r^J >

02 g

i^lll

-O o

.S a <rf ^ -1^ -*3
02 E-l CQ P CO CO

r! ri«J

* pL,

-^o-

^ ^ I-H O

1^

:«« a

a *■
oj Ph
Ph

: a ^ =

6^

8"^

6

0

6

1

- ^ ^ ^ „ .s ^o

- "^ - -^ - - -c»

I— I

^ ^ ^ ^ ^lO ^ ^ ^ ^ ,.<© „ ^ >
^ ^ ^ ^ -OO ^ „ „ ^ ^^ ^ ^ .>

r-t 00
I-H

w

C<J<M(N(M(M(M<M(N

OrH(MCO-T*<vO«Ot^QOC550i-<(M'^00

COCOCCCOCOCOCOCOCOCO'*->*t-*cO^

OS O I— 1 (M CO -^

-* ko »« lo la xo

fi ^

bD

2

oo

!»S^^

'5 rH- .2

1o^

QJ Q

bo •
°3

bo

eS

c«i"

* 02

'^ bO tl >-» El

g S S -rj .bp 2

o 2o

'-5(2

;=! o TS S o5 <u
^^ o o -s 1=1
<D o o .5 o

SPh

bog
o S

g<1 fe

o <u

So o

:3 'Ti
*-• ^

O ~

-S g 2

H? S S H Q

la s

■^p

PI
O

M O

Ph'

!=1
O

a
+5 M

_ o

S O

-3 ft

0 eS -*^

1 bo3^

!S

ll s ga

<u

a bo

"S '« -E O -3

" bo c3 bO

<D ce rj a> C3 rt ^

t^ s £ ^ ;^ s .s

(!■> f-< ri- tU fc- P »H

^•cm

o o

>>5 -S

o

g cs Wm 2

^ ® ^^P5 CS

03 C O ?3 05 t*

'2

P£3 t- S S .-§

o o ;3 o

o'r bfl^«

dhj

O ,13

•So 2 -3 0

^-^0 o^ O Ja
W cS ^ c3 1

^ O "o ,-H 'o

^ Ph P^

Oi

r-l I— (I— If-it^ I— I I— ii— I

t--. . 00 OS \0 i-H . O .00

t^ •*-- t-<.O00 ~-oo ^-t^
»— I ■ i-l 1— 1 rH i-H ' i-t • I— I

o oo

>, p

.ho;
w 5

: s d 2 s
• ^ Iz '-^ ®

r^ I— I

• 3

^ ^ be O

)^^ C3 «
02 02 E^

'^3 2 -S

ri m eS »C~

« s o -g 1:5
: ^ ^ 'I o ^ ^

. S 3 ^ -S ^

=S -S •- S !^ S

;:3 -S > sh <» K §
P^.SP o -g ^ S ^
(^ O ^ 3 M

^

P 'St

<i:z;

o .

0 13

I

l: tio

-e „" d d S §

«-> 5 Si t- 2i

PQ ^ o "rf 0) d
^. • be cu bCQ

^fi

2KO '^^zG fe*^ ddOH^o §

'2

^ '3

^

o-g

^P

'^ f-

^

S ii
3 =*

ra
aue

saniond
s Daugh

1

tych fo
T. Wei
Borgia

03 Q. ^

ssand
rdAl
ir Ro
rmer'

g|gw|

'Sb S «3 S w

5m^fS

c^;^^^^

.

^

"o

^ 0

-Mrs 9

so =i

0

2

Oil
Penci
at.-C

^^

0

^

_ *^^ PI ^
-« « e^ C j^^

13 -^ ^"^'^^

5 5=2 2 § =3 ?3

^ -S 3 <2 g - .S
S r3 ® 'B o ^-i

g - I 2^ ^ I J
I-:? 02 <J W H W H

W^

bO

w O

S £.2

«w

o o^

■go

11

a iS-s

ai i5 « ^ o o a>

^ O

^ o o

•30 ^ O

-O ©^
P-O

CO t^O . r-t Ot^COO

;0O OO t^ -OS ;;05 CO -* OS

i-H J— ICN "rH T— li— li— li— I

(N 05 V] OO

;Oi 00 OO O

C3i

d CO

fl j2 o "43

(U c

OJ o

02 Ph

^>oO

2

^ o

(V <v ci d
■ -^ rfl .3; 1;:?-

£ S f^ c»

lies

.S co" «cr

' X s s

f^ CO 02

6

^ CO

>->

o

^

o^

5

n

m

i=! '-'

T)

o

ei 05

a;

rt

r-<

i-i

'c«

6

1^'S

a

^

!z;f^fefx,rt

O Sh

a

'o o Ph

•r-f ^

(T O «

g C S
O E-i .^

rr} rfl >>

fees

f^ rC ^

. o o

a>

: 03 o

_ - o

S o

<1

^•2

a; ^ w ^

Pl O) £3 d

O PU O O

=g Q ^ <j p^ »; 02

42 >, S

^.SPhPh

-;^H^p^•S<Ij^^O

M <w " —

.2 ^

•^ o §

- 03

P3

O

'3 °

^^

Oh W ft^

<» ^ o f^ *-> ^

'S^ o

Oj ^^ •'-' iZj .3 r^H O — .«

p; t:

|iH>

^

.

.

^

cr '^

^•

s

O

§9

O

o

9 rG

o

9':3

rnO

^O

Oil
t.-C
Oil

rnO

-mO

~

i?J.-

S

%

:: :^

O-M

=

S

^

^^J

= J?o

0^5 ^

1

6^

Ph

^

..

$

^S

^

«« n

o . o

(N CO

"*

i

_gS:g

<r> «©

^

K •>

^

^

^<»

. ^

,

,

,

^ ^ ^

^ ^ ^

^ ^ ..

S"|

CO 00

-oo

rH i-H

^

A

i-H (N CO

'^ O <»

l~^Q0asOrH(NC0'*k0«0t^000SOi-l(NC0-*OO

^

1—1 i—l
>— 1 rH

r-^

t-H rH T-H

rH

rH

rH rH
r-l I-H

C^(N<M(M<N<N(N(N<N<NCOCOCOCOCO00CO

-* «0 O j-H o
;05 O O O o
^ i-H <N (N (N

.00
O 00

*^ • 00

is -^

1^

CO ^^ fl
° CO ,£3

:;3 " r^

r-l 'S '2

1^

II

O O .CO

00*^00
00^00

e^^ .^ OD _

;^ -^ ,M t»H .2

O ,^ I— I .2 03

^^

P^ ^

eg

llll

SI

sis

1^

_^ ^ « o ® . • W)

^^

s I ^ d :§ ^

(-5 S fe H,

<^ = O ^ w g

<2i

«d

OT3

G -§

ft -S 2.2

5(5-2

g-e &cp5

bop

.aft

2 «^

a.t>

w Eb

5'i

T3

QQ Ph << !> E-i E-i H5

J Js g ^ O -ti =0 § ^O

O =S Oi 03 o3 Qj J;

tsj '.

to

0 ^ ^

W

00

ss:;rrsss

to - -

00

r-t

t^oO Oi

CO CO CO

1— ( T-( I— 1

OT-ICNCO-^OtOt^'Or-ICNCO
rHi— Ii-<i-Ht-I7-(i-(j-I^i-(i-<i-(i— 1

1-i I-l

U3

t-t

«Ot^OOO>OT-l(MCO
Oi0i000«0«0«0

eo (M CO r-H t^ c<j CO
o :;os o «D t^ 05 o

(N i-l C<J r-l T-l rH (N

■^ (N '^
O ' O
(M ■^ <M

"*
6

«4-l

o
o

: <N

I
I 5

^ eo ""•

6 s o) =*

M W CG Ph O!

i^' CO

-^.O^v

1^

?^« &

En

iS PhP.

MQnq pcip^

_. " C3

o ;q Q "^^ ^o

Eh

^ o o

02 H

> «

O .03 Q.

O ^ e8

;ch" >>

I 02

>'^6<

fl o
o «

13 4j

(§ ^' ^* 3

02 =

. S a

a P

K-^S

Pi

I ^

a °3

^^,0)

'C Ja

.2 ^^.

1.11°

.2 S-ck;

^^

W o S
5^ a

«2

'm'fe

h^h^i

.C3 rC S

O)

M c3 ^Q c^-^

c« Q !h E -^

cS ^

^ o g ~ .a

r:3 w O c3 k:

4'o

CO o

O OJ ,

Q ^

- S o

:; a >>

.§^

2 -.

^ ::>> -

1866-
1868

-^irieob-ooosO"— t<^^cO'*»r5eo^-.oooiO^-l(^^co.>*lfi«o^»oooi

O i-H
OiOi
T-l rH

§1

t-i TS
M O -J
<i &W -*^

.xato i-KO

CO

t^

CO tH O

• T-l .-H CO (M

•>

oo

• (N

.

C<J t^ CO

• (M <N (N (N

• <M

oq (N (N

s

<I)

T-l

s

M

CO

oo

<o

6

^.^

P3Pm

• C <I) o -— >
n^J 0* c3 CO

« S a>

^ ^

-S * .

M - — »

_ 03 CO

" -^^^

53 o <^'

^5

-I

Cl, O
tS O

n3 'So

•r3 ft

ft

^ O § n ^ ^ rn §

CL J-" o; rt

^ ^ T3 5 O ?3

^s

^* <i ^' -< ^ 5 W I o 3 ^" W ^ ^

-^1

. o >;

I S J ^

s

S .2

^ 2 §
'3 T ^

t-t rr^ pLi

K^ en o

o

lis

8 ^'z .p «*

a" -1 P o " «

v^O <^ aiP-* P-c/ja!
* *

"a o
PH

.2 '^ fe:§

^ J? tj b da ^

•^ Ti cs s 5 (2 °

bo

<o o

•c

tT bo aJ

« X X 2

■02

rt g'"^p:3-4J-4-i-»jf>

i « > ? ^ I ? p^

OJ OJ <J3

o

O c3
^ eJ ^

PI a> fl

»H ^3 eS
PSh^

-ePP

o

1-

-

s

r

=

=8|

Pencil
Crayons
Bl.&Wh.
Crayons

Oil

Wat.-Col.

Oil
Crayons

Oil
Wat.-Col.

Oil
Crayons

- S =

£

s

o

r

=

:: :: =

- = =

,-( <N CO

s s r

OO
CO-«*<»0?Ot~~CXD040TH(NCO-*U^<r>'

oso>ojcft050i05oooooooj::r

OSOi-H<NCO-*VO«Ot-»00050r->(M
07-<i-(i-l.-lrH,-lr-l,-lrH,-(<N(M(M
(M<N<N<N(M<M<N<N(M(NG<I<N(M<N

(N <N (M

O O <N CO ^ <M
t-» CO CO CO CO CO
<N C<J (N <M <N <N

«0 T-H

. (N .

. O .

CO VO oo

00 o

T-H CO

• CO •

• CO •

rH 7-1 CO

CO ^

<M <M

• (M •

•CN •

o; c<j CM

(N <N

1

1

lO
I— (

CO

^

1

^

o

l-H

a

'g

CO

S

ft:J

Oi

c^

OS

pi

(M

' '

CN

en

6

g

d

g

o

o

o

(M

1

^■3

o

1

1

<

02

6^6

^

«oo o

Cl CM P4

5:1 aj

tnmO

2 d
S 02

-|j m CO

•4-3 O

o g

<1

o .i3 o *^
!z; -g ^ >;>

O) « !U p(

(U o a; -u
CQ 02 CO CO

-"-^ '^ •+^ ^

^ Ph

o

-. S 2 s

f^"^ ..

^^^ ;£^P^^c!^K^*Qg

o3

CO n

ft

g^i^l

1

3 ^" hi ^' Q

a

CO ®

'O I— I
•+J CO

's

d Damo
us
ex
Marie

Mr. W
the San
igure St
udy, in
le Head

Blesse

Manib

Tripl

res de

roserpina
ortrait of
amsel of
length F
ortrait St
wo Fema

^.2 1 s

Bh Q p^ Pq p^ Ph Q «VPh Eh

^P^'l

CO

^ o ® o ^

P Ph |I| Pli iJ

o

rJ:;

w s

,2 a^

3m

-: f:'^ P^
pq ^

<» £^

SJg >>

f-j o

<x>t^ooo50r-icqc0'*i0?o^' a>Oi-i<Mco

.(MtNCMCMCOCOCOCOCOCOCO^rCO'*-*-*-'*
(N(M(MCNC<)<N0^(M(M<N<Ng5<N(M<NG<»(M

-<*< in «0 t>. 00 OS O rH (N CO
<N<N<M (N(M <N(M<N<NO<

4^ c^

— . '^

2 «

cS^s

^^

S '-^

<t>

•s^S

s

•2 >-.;^

^

rd -S C^

^

^^

® ^

,o

N 22

,=; 6

'S ^

•S -g ^2;

,r3

M

1

« «2 ^

02

^V «

. CO Jz; «

CQ in CO

S O

o-co
^ 6

o a>

^ o

^ S ^'

Izi'S;?

. o ®

P^ a e3 .ii c3

o g

<v o

frJQ

-2

° ° Lid >> ^

dS

•-I3

QQfi

fl C a^

«

o

O CO

w

I 1

o d

o '^ -3

«2bO

ell

twiligli
f Fiami

«« g

.J?HrcJ O

ii< *-•

o ^

Sea-S
re an
ision

0^

II

2 S)>

r2"S

-t-3

°<
to

© (B "C 02 W a^
(U 4) cs ii

o
^ o o

■•SSI

^ o

^

.p-l

CO

-fj

s

o

'Ti

Ph

5

eS

;^

O

^

.if;

O

-(J

a)

o

r/>

£^

;h

1

2
S

o ^

«0 J^ 00 Oi o

urs o ko lo CO

(N C^ (N <M CM

CO -* »o

?0 ?0 CO
<N (M (N

t^^ <M CO -* VO
S Ca (N <N (N

00 05 O T-l <N
t^ t^ OO OO QO
(N <M (M (N (N

(1h :

"^ t>. t^ CO -* -*

irs 1— I ko lo lo CO

<N (M <N (N (N (M

. OO <r> CO CO '^ . i-H

• U3 ic iO lo uii • t^

• C<» CI (M (N (N ■ C<1

o =2 d ?3

rC CO

' !7 o b

4)

PL,
CO (D

a>

<i3 '^3

>,CC

" >■ O

'^ S ^ ^

4J r^ O O _N

S'd W

^ '^ JS &"fe .t2 =*= :S -- -S

'00 O • -ri be <»
^^ ?3 03 ><! cS (3

o

00 .«

o :r5

CO ^

sis

rrt IS t>»

E^ 0-, a?

" 03

Ǥ5

O) 03 03 O

o R 5

.1.1 .1 i^^ f^ o

S £ E u:: E-i

5»

"i^ [^ ^

ip4i

03 P"

O o

IS

^^^^^s ^

O '^ fl Ph CO

i^ -§ -^ ^ *:S
- 'S S I ^

• ^ ;r W 6 o' d 6 o'

§ go

03 ^ '«
S g =i

kS i* -►^
^ Ph M

* *

a 3

-.1 a J

ci *^ p 03

5 CO o c3 "^ a.

CO o

di

-^^ a

03 '© CC 03 '-' ^

03 ;r^ O :ci3 t^

_, e3 c5 rf

^ a's a

-oQ^loggQ.ggl^aoa

?/2 P^ E-i <j Pi h-5

ft T3

r^ ,i3 O ® ^ 03

;hSp.<JQWQ

1

Crayons
>>
>>

-o

Crayons

Wat. -Col.

Crayons

Pen & Ink

Oil

Crayons

Oil

Crayons

Oil
Crayons

r

r = r

Date of
Com-
position

1876-7
1878

:: ::

o

X I :

OS

j-t^, " " •- -^
OO -•-••-

1—1

r - :: ::

-

''' 11

6

CO -* lO

oo oo oo
(N (M (M

CO t^ 00 05 O >-l
oo 00 OO oo OJ 05
(M C<J (M (M (M (M

(NCO-^VOCOl^OOOSOi— l(MCO-*»OCDt^OO 1
05 OS OS 05 J^ 05 OS 05 O O O O O O O O O 9
<MC<J(M(MC<>(N(N(MCOCOCOCOCOCOCOCOCO ■

)

! O -* -* 05 CO (M -*

Cft«0

Oi

io

. . . o

' to CO ^ ^a oo ^D CO

QO V>

c»

T-l

"^ .« • ■ •

• • t^

) C>4 C<J (M <N rH (N CO

i-t (N

f-l

(M

• • <M

IJ 00

1

a5

CO

i-l

T-t

ler

olume
Replica No.

gton in 1 J

o

CO

as

•2

o

a

1

o

i
1

1 :-« >^ a

fO

^

r-3

oo

:

:

6— sm
ished
to this
eatric(
867
Birch
32, 27

s

'^ §

o

1

I— 1

1

p.

' '-g "

:

:

: c4

Replica of 27
Not quite fin:
Frontispiece i
(The Dying B
First begun 1
Finished at

Ol

^:i

cS'^

>^

a

J

^

. o

►2^

i

II
1 3

11

g1

3

I

a

o

"El

1

s

>>

w

1

-1

go

o

>

ci U

1 g^ ^

1— • <o

*

d

Leyland
s H. Hut
, Leyland
Rossetti s
ard R. Va

Leyland
ard R. Va

.J

: "S d d d d d d d c> S S

fe ►^ &; ^ ^ fe' J

s

o O

•-5

a

^02

-

^

<

^

^<^-

c3 -u

^^

§§

bO^

(U >

Female Head

do.
udy of a Lady

Ti

"TJ

Christina Rossetti
dell Balcone
's Honeymoon

8

of Beatrice
the Sonnet
rix

o

2 =«

IS

2 0)
5 S

OS

I
o

1

ing Figure
f a Female Hea
do.

^ig.sl §

^

•S5

.3

g

^ .^

03

o^l

Mnemos

Proserpi

Salutati(

Design t

Beata B

LaPia

Proserpi

•-5 Pm

MS

Diana
Study o
Do.
Portrait

la
1

CZ2

A Stoop

Study 0

Do.

Portrait
La Bion
King Rt

-

2

* * »

* *

* * *

♦

^

^- -«

-i-^^-:,

g.

6

o

=si

o a

ojo «o = =

r i^

■s

OS

— "§^ = =;;•« 1

1

"^6

II

O .-H

<N

«o

t^ CO CO

00 . » .. «oo •>
oo *• ~ " "oo "

oo ~
oo

»

e— p-

0^. e^. <s.. :

^ «^.

C-. e^. e-

t^ «o «o

oo oo GO

1-» J-t

i-H

f-( I— 1 i-H

0> O r-t CN CO -Tl* lO

«0 CO

t^

00 OS

Oi— <(Nco-«*<»rs«ot^ooosoi-i 1

O »-H r-l 1— I i-l 1— t ,-1

7-H I— 1

<NCO(M(M<M(N(N(MC<J

(M CO CO

CO CO CO CO CO CO CO

CO CO

CO

CO c;

CO CO CO CO CO CO

■ro CO CO CO 00 CO

J_. 00=^

O cc 1— '

•e . (N •'-' ^

f3 03

a

13

a-S^

02

ii-p

o „

;„tS afCC

. 00 «

c3 c3 o -+^ ■ — ■
3 ^^ S X

^2-

ri^b

°° -^ ^' 05

- o i o Q

•_s ^

X 't:

o ««

2 5^ .a

-^

O O)

I ^ -I g ^ i

ft S3 ^ -TJ Pm ^

1

t.'i^

-e

Tr.^

^^

0

^1

^

1^

>>!

o

I
II

"*"< Eh o o' 6 d

eS .

o o

.s § ::^

w

II

sa

rtO-r-

m-s

o •• o

g' o

g

a

s

0

a

-M

f^'i

CS

^i

^
0

£-.1

o
X o

bCTS

a ^

'^ S 'o
^ o

bo "

CO '-'

« -2

|wJ

^ eSpiH
g|«

2|1

^ CO r«

^ .2 .2

3ss

.. « +s X
t^ 13 o S t« rl

^ W5-

t-50

S02

as ^

S Ph CO

-*^ 2 i^ g

3
1^

Glass
Crayons

^O

Wat. -Col.
Oil

Crayons

'0

0

0

Crayons
Pencil
Crayons

Oil
Nat. -Col.
1 Crayons

Date of
No. 1 Com-
iposition

1864
e. 1870

: 00

CO
to «D

I— t

00 00

I-H I— 1

1869
1868

1874

332
333-4

CO CO
CO CO

t^ 00 05 0 i-l (N

CO CO CO -* -* ^
CO CO CO CO CO CO

CO '^
CO CO

iO to

CO CO

t^ 00 oi 0

'tJH -1* ^# \0

CO CO CO CO

CO CO CO oa

O g t>D2

^ o s :;3

® to "$ a

S^ S =* --^

fl^ f-i f-i .«

, ^ O -§ .2

o t"

o 2

'-sb|^->^

- o

ep « .a
Eh CQ OQ

^ "S ^

.Is

?^ S 03 O O O

*-< b in! 'Ti -^ -w '^

'^^'^

^ ^ ^ tu as ^
M Eh W W W

0 o

^ H

s ^ - o

'*3 ^ -

pi :2 2

o o

° >

bo O) O) O

c3

ei c« 3 =* <S <S F"

® 03 aj fco
K K W M

4f ci q

'd t; T3 St;

•c3cSc3rrtc3^^-trro
■'®cD<U*-'(l)OOa)

f§

o o o o

fifi

o o o o

o o o

ppfi

o o o o

f§

I*

1^,

-2 >.

w Won

«3

W .2

o

a.

03 bC

6« CI

Wo

O) c3 o

o o <q

O ITS t'-.'T^

13

bO

I

o

di

p= ^ '^ ;Z

^ o -^ >j
_r 'uO'^ 's

W r=! '-S -^

g = 9

VO OS

(1^

CO CO

00 10 kO 00 ?o

i-H 00 00 i-H 00

00 CO 00

CO 10 10 VO

CO 00 CO 00

00 r-l rH I-H

(M CO
CO O CO
00 CO CO
r-l I-H CO

o

©

00 00 OS O 1-1
VO »0 10 CO CO

CO CO CO CO CO

(MCO MfiOCOt^ COOSO rHCQCO'*
COCO CO CO CO CO CO CO t-- t^t^t^t^

coco COCOCOCO COCOCO COCOCOCO

.5 ®

■5 g«

l§1g
O i-( eg '■r!

o -- a =3
o t^ 43 cs

; o e3 43

. O 00

o ee ^ .2

O ^ 6 rC

t^ Q >^

^ rS -S ^ .,

02 !^ j»

<M 5 -^ d

!=i c a m
a c3 "5

2 S? f-l rl

; -* a

a

'T-' o ^ cj a
=<-i t; ^ +3 J3 -S -^

> <=* S -^ § S; fl =*

;2i ph^<i

■^ ■►^ "^ ^

+3 03 « a

o r-i "S ca

en

^^

a 'T3 - p. .^ .

.5 a --H ^ o «•

■S ,w « r£3 a W)

=a g §^ ^ «

-* OS CO

OT rq oo

M w

pa o o

o o o

ppfi

o o

« S

a ^

6 £ 6 6 d ^. O

<^ o

a
g

^

"S

'rt

a

bn

a

&D

a

S

a oO

bCT3 ^

^ a

o) a

b -r! -53 -^^

'^'S o fe g

J>>^ « o tS

-g a|0 2

O CO bp

a eg (u

03 O «3
Ph PkQ

O "^

a c>

CO OO

CO o
OO :;00

>o «o t^

CO CO CO

PP Ah

OO 05

O »« CO CM

OO OO lO 1^

J— I F— I OO OO

00 o> O T-t
t^ t^ OO OO

CO CO CO CO

00 CJS
'OO OO

(N CO -*
00 00 OO

CO CO CO

o <o

OO OO

CO CO

t>. 00 OS O .-H (M CO
00 00 00 OS OS OS 04
CO CO CO CO CO CO CO

a

'C

^

a

S

S

1

OS

n

•s

^

^

eS

;3

K

ZD

H

oo

t^

o

«o

oo

oo

'"'

I-l

""^

\c>

Oi

OS

CO

CO

Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.

THE HUMAN INHERITANCE ; THE NEW HOPE ;

AND OTHER POEMS.

By WILLIAM SHARP.

LONDON: ELLIOT STOCK. 1882.

" Strikingly original." . . . Athenceum.

J

-7

S-.