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THE LIBRARY OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF

NORTH CAROLINA

AT CHAPEL HILL

ENDOWED BY THE

DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC

SOCIETIES

PR5246.
.A51

This book is due at the WALTER R. DAVIS LIBRARY on
the last date stamped under "Date Due." If not on hold it
may be renewed by bringing it to the library

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Rev. 1184

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

VOL. I.

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2012 with funding from

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

http://archive.org/details/dantegabrielross01ross

By Himself.

1855.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

V, \

Dante Gabriel Rossetti /"£«■

HIS FAMILY-LETTERS

WITH A MEMOIR

WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI

WAN US ANIMAM PINXIT

VOL. I.

BOSTON

ROBERTS BROTHERS
1895

DEDICATED TO

MY FOUR CHILDREN

WITH A FATHER'S HOPE
THAT RELATIVES OF

DANTE AND CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

AND DESCENDANTS OF

GABRIELE AND FRANCES ROSSETTI

WILL UPHOLD THE CREDIT OF

THEIR PATRONYMIC.

■? r 518880

v. /

PREFACE.

IN his Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1882) Mr.
Hall Caine has informed us : " It was always known to
be Rossetti's wish that, if at any moment after his death it
should appear that the story of his life required to be written,
the one friend who, during many of his later years, knew him
most intimately, and to whom he unlocked the most sacred
secrets of his heart, Mr. Theodore Watts, should write it,
unless indeed it were undertaken by his brother William."
Dante Rossetti died on 9 April 1882; and after the lapse
of a few months I decided to put his Family-Letters into shape
for early publication. Mr. Watts acquiesced in the wish
which I then entertained, and which I should still entertain,
that he, rather than myself, should be the biographer, writing
a Memoir to accompany the Letters. Doubtless he saw
reason for not producing his Memoir so soon as I had been
expecting it ; therefore, after a rather long interval of years,
I resolved in July 1894 that the Letters must now come
out, and, as they could not be unlinked with a Memoir, that
I myself would write it. The result is before the reader.
If he would have preferred a Memoir from Mr. Watts, I
sympathize with him, but the option had ceased to be mine.
There are several reasons why a brother neither is nor can
be the best biographer. Feeling this, I had always intended

X PREFACE.

not to write a Life of Dante Rossetti. But circumstances
have proved too strong for me, and I submit to their
dictate.

Had the book been published towards 1883, the Letters
would have extended very little beyond those addressed to
my Mother and to myself. There were then also a couple
to my Father, and a very few to my Sister Christina. I am
now enabled to add some to my Grandfather Gaetano
Polidori, my Uncle Henry Francis Polydore, my Aunt
Charlotte Lydia Polidori, and my Wife Lucy Madox
Rossetti ; also some others to Christina which, as they
contain expressions of approval with regard to her writings,
she had herself with-held. No letters to other members of
the family appear to be in existence, though several must
have been written.

The technical arrangement of the printed correspondence
can easily be understood. The letters are all thrown into a
single sequence, according to the order of date : they are
lettered from A to H, for the persons respectively addressed,
and each sub-division is progressively numbered within its
own limits. In every case where a letter seems to require
any explanatory note or observation, I have supplied this
in a few preliminary words. The dates, when not written
by my brother himself, were in most cases jotted down at
the time by the recipient : in a few instances, where this was
omitted, the dates now given are approximate. Addresses
are also frequently inserted in like manner. I have preserved
(and must ask the reader to pardon my mentioning so minute
a point) one instance of each form of subscribed name ; and
have also reproduced the name in other cases where it seems
more apposite to do so. In contrary instances I omit both
the name and the words of subscription which precede it.
Some other Family-Letters exist, addressed to the same

PREFACE. xi

persons ; but these are such as even a brother cannot suppose
to be of any public interest. From those here collected
some passages are omitted which, on one ground or another,
are considered to be unsuited for printing; but on the whole
I have been sparing of excisions. Of the items admitted,
several are indeed short and scrappy ; I have not however
included anything which appears to me to be entirely unin-
teresting to persons interested in Dante Rossetti. Some
letters, otherwise slight, fix the date of a picture or poem ;
others show some trait of character, or contain some pointed
or diverting expression.

The letters, such as they are, shall be left to speak mainly
for themselves. Their language is constantly unadorned,
often colloquial ; the tone of mind in them, concentrated ;
the feeling, while solid and sincere, uneffusive. Their
subject-matter is very generally personal to the writer,
without discursiveness of outlook, or eloquent or picturesque
description ; yet the spirit is not egotistical or self-assertive.
If I am wrong in these opinions, the reader will decide the
point for himself.

My brother was a rapid letter-writer, and on occasion a
very prompt one, but not negligent or haphazard. He always
wrote to the point, without amplification, or any effort after
the major or minor graces of diction or rhetoric. Multitudes
of his letters must still presumably be extant in private
hands : a representative collection of them might be found
to confirm the impression which I should like to ensue from
the present series — that as a correspondent he was straight-
forward, pleasant, and noticeably free from any calculated
self-display. " Disinvolto " would be the Italian word.

Some persons may approve, others will disapprove, of the
publication of these Family-Letters. I print them because
the doing so commends itself to my own mind. At a very

xii PREFACE.

childish age I was familiar with the old apologue of the Man
and his Son and the Donkey : it impressed me as equally
true and practical. I have always been conscious that
opinions will be as numerous as readers, and prefer to suit
the opinions of those who happen to agree with myself.

Recently I have had a painful reason for realizing to
myself a very pleasurable fact — that of the high estimation
in which my brother, himself no less than his work, is now
publicly held, some thirteen years after he passed away. The
death of my beloved sister Christina, on 29 December 1894,
called forth a flood of not undeserved but assuredly very
fervent praise ; and in the eulogies of her were intermixed
many warm tributes to my brother — I might say, without a
dissentient voice.

As regards my Memoir, I, having large knowledge and
numerous materials, have not consulted a single person
except Christina, who, during the earlier weeks of my under-
taking, gave me orally the benefit of many reminiscences
relating chiefly to years of childhood, and often kept me right
upon details as to which I should have stumbled. On her
bed of pain and rapidly approaching death she preserved a
singularly clear recollection of olden facts, and was cheered
in going over them with me.

Some readers of the Memoir may be inclined to ask me —
" Have you told everything, of a substantial kind, that you
know about your deceased brother ? " — My answer shall be
given beforehand, and without disguise : " No ; I have told
what 1 choose to tell, and have left untold what I do not
choose to tell ; if you want more, be pleased to consult some
other informant."

One word in conclusion. In case the present book should
find favour with the public, I should be disposed to rummage

PREFACE. Xlll

among my ample stock of materials, and produce a number
of details relating not only to my brother, but also to other
members or connexions of the family. But at the age of
sixty-five a man finds the horizon of his work narrowed, and
rapidly narrowing ; and possibly this will not be.

W. M. ROSSETTI.

St. Edmund's Terrace, London.
April 1895.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Dedication vii

Preface ix

Memoir 3

BIRTH.

Dante Rossetti's birth in London, 1828— His Godfathers 3

II.

PARENTAGE.

Gabriele (Father of Dante) Rossetti — His birth in Vasto— His Parents
and Brothers — His drawings, studies, and writings, in Italy —
His political lyrics and exile — Malta and John Hookham Frere —
Life in London — His death — His character, opinions, person, etc. —
His writings in England on Dante, etc. — Carducci's opinion of
his poetry — The centenary of his birth, Vasto — Descriptions of
him by Bell Scott and Frederic Stephens — Mrs. Gabriele Rossetti,
her life, character, and person — Some versicles of hers ... 3

III.

RELA TIVES.

Dante Rossetti's Great-grandfathers — His maternal Grandfather, Gae-
tano Polidori, Secretary to Alfieri, and Italian teacher in London —
Anecdotes of the Frencli Revolution and of Alfieri — Polidori's
person, character, and writings — Mrs. Polidori — Her Father,
William Pierce — Connexions of the Pierce family, Mrs, Bray,

xvi CONTENTS.

PAGE

etc. — Mrs. Polidori's closing years — Her sister and children —
Dr. John William Polidori and his writings — Teodorico Pietro-
cola-Rossetti — Extinction of the Rossetti family in Vasto —
Instances of longevity ......... 24

IV.

CHILDHOOD.

The four children of Gabriele Rossetti — Houses in Charlotte Street — ■
Dante Rossetti and his Sister Maria — Walks about London, etc. —
Pet animals — Sights and entertainments in London — Singing,
card-playing, illness, etc. — First attempt at drawing, and resolve
to be a painter — Theatrical and other prints . . . . .36

ACQUAINTANCES IN CHILDHOOD.

The Potters and other British friends — Numerous Italian friends of
Gabriele Rossetti — Pistrucci, Sangiovanni, etc. — Protestantizing
Italians — Mazzini and Panizzi — Talks on politics — John Stuart
Mill on Continental and English Life 44

VI:

CHILDISH BOOK-READING AND SCRIBBLING.

Dante Rossetti's early training — The Bible, Shakespear, Gothe, Walter
Scott, etc. — Childish drawings from Henry VI. — Rossetti's opinion
of Scott's novels, 1871 — Books of prints and the National Gallery
— Dante's poems read later on — Childish drama, The Slave, etc.- —
Childish drawings— Dante Rossetti fortunate in his family
surroundings ........... 57

VII.

SCHOOL.

Dante Rossetti's first school, Mr. Paul's, 1836 — School-life not favour-
able to his character — To King's College School, 1837 — The Cayley
brothers — What Dante Rossetti learned — His various Masters,
including John Sell Cotman the painter — Mr. Caine's account of
Rossetti's school-life discussed — Parallel with Edgar Poe's school-
life — School-fellows — School-exercise on China, and Christina
Rossetti's verses thereon ........ 68

CONTENTS. XV11

VIII.
HOME-LIFE DURING SCHOOL— SIR HUGH THE HERON.

PAGE

Polidori's country-house at Holmer Green, and his house in London —
Accident with a chisel — Boyish drawings from the Iliad — Dante
Rossetti reads Byron, Dickens, Brigand Tales, French novels, etc.
— He writes a prose tale, Roderick and Rosalba, and a ballad-
poem, Sir Hugh the Heron, which is privately printed, also
William and Marie — His note on Hugh Heron — Boyish draw-
ings— Studies German under Dr. Heimann — Intimacy with the
Heimann family . . . . . . 79

IX.

STUDY FOR THE PAINTING PROFESSION— CARY'S AND
THE R.A.

Dante Rossetti leaves school, 1842, and goes to Cary's Drawing
Academy — His American friend, Thomas Doughty, and his family
— Charley Ware, and his portrait-group — Bailey's Festus, and
verses The Atheist — Studies and habits at Cary's — Sonnets from
the Italian, and Bouts-rimes sonnets — The Westminster Hall
cartoon-competitions — Proceeds to the R.A. antique school, 1846
— Disinclination to any obligatory study or work — Millais, Hol-
man Hunt, Stephens — The Ghiberti Gates — Hunt on Rossetti's
appearance and demeanour — A fellow-student's reminiscence — ■
Rossetti's immethodical habits — Theatre-going . . . .88

STUDENT-LIFE— SKETCHING, READING, AND WRITING.

Rossetti's early sketches influenced by Gavarni — Lithographed play-
ing-cards, etc. — Designs to Christina Rossetti's Verses, 1847 —
His first uncompleted oil-picture, Retro me Sathana — Reads
Shelley, Charles Wells, Maturin, Thackeray, etc., and with great
predilection Browning — No solid reading — His prose tale, Sor-
rentino, 1843 — Translations from the German, The Nibelungen-
lied, Henry the Leper, etc. — Translations from the Vita Nuova,
and lEarly Italian Poets — Tennyson's opinion of these — The
printed opinions of Swinburne and Placci — Writes The Blessed
Damozel, 1847 — Admiration of Edgar Poe — Other poems, My
Sister's Sleep, Ave, Dante at Verona, Jenny, etc. — The unpublished
Ballad, Jan van Hunks, now begun, and finished on his deathbed
■ — Political burlesque poem, unprinted — Purchase of the MS.
book by Blake — Rossetti's work, towards 1862, on Gilchrist's
Life of Blake .......... 97

VOL. I. b

xviii CONTENTS.

XI.

FRIENDS TOWARDS 1847.

PAGE

Major Calder Campbell, Alexander Munro, William Bell Scott — Meets
Ebenezer Jones — Rossetti's first letter to Scott, 1847 — Observa-
tions on his poems — Rossetti sends The Blessed Damozel, and
other Songs of the Art Catholic, to Scott — His turn of mind in
religious matters — Scott's first visit — Rossetti writes to Browning
about Pauline, and knows him afterwards . . . . .110

XII.

MADOX BROWN, HOLM AN HUNT, MILLAIS.

Letter to Madox Brown, 1848, asking to be allowed to study painting
under him — Rossetti's relation to the course of study at the R.A. —
Details about Brown, and his first call on Rossetti — Rossetti set
to still-life painting, etc. — He calls on Hunt, and consults him as
to further painting-work — His design of Gretchen in the Church —
The Cyclographic Society — Opinions of Millais and Hunt on the
Gretchen — Rossetti's indifference to perspective, in which Stephens
gives him some lessons — Forwards some poems to Leigh Hunt,
who (letter quoted) praises them, but dissuades him from trusting
to literature as a profession — Head of Gaetano Polidori, June 1848
— Rossetti adopts Holman Hunt's advice as to painting, and
shares a studio with him in Cleveland Street — Stephens's descrip-
tion of it — Hunt takes Rossetti round to Millais in Gower Street. 1 1 5

XIII.

THE PRAZRAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD.

Lasinio's engravings from the pictures in the Campo Santo of Pisa
lead on directly to the Prseraphaelite movement, 1848 — Remarks
on Millais, Hunt, and Rossetti, in this connexion — The British
school of painting in 1848, and the term Prasraphaelite — The
three inventors of the movement equally concerned in bringing
it to bear — Rossetti's letter to Chesneau on this point — -Their
close attention to detail subsidiary to other objects in the move-
ment— Madox Brown's relation to the Brotherhood — Four other
members of it — Details as to Woolner, Collinson, Stephens, and
myself— Great intimacy among the P.R.B.'s. — Hunt on Rossetti's
literary attainments — The aims of the Brotherhood discussed —
Not a religious movement, nor directly promoted by Ruskin —
Rossetti, in later life, disliked the term Praeraphaelite — Diary of
the P.R.B. kept by me as Secretary — Defaced by Dan-te Rossetti

CONTENTS. XIX

PAGE

— Details from this Diary as to election of Deverell, etc. — The
P.R.B., as an organization, dropped in January 185 1 — Christina's
sonnet The P.R.B, — " The Queen of the Praeraphaelites " — Rules
adopted 1851 — The pictures of Millais, Hunt, and Rossetti,
exhibited in 1849 — Rossetti's Girlhood of Mary Virgin — Three
sonnets of his bearing on the movement — His portrait of Gabriele
Rossetti, 1848 125

XIV.
FIRST EXHIBITED PICTURE, 1849.

Rossetti sends The Girlhood of Mary Virgin to the Free Exhibition —
The works of the Praeraphaelites favourably received by critics
and others in 1849, but very adversely afterwards — The Athenaeum
notice of Rossetti's first picture quoted — Sale of the picture, and
its general success — -Treatment in this book of his pictures etc.
in later years, and reference to another book, Dante Gabriel
Rossetti as Designer a?id Writer . 144

XV.

THE GERM.

Rossetti bent upon starting a magazine, July 1849 — Proposed titles
and publisher — He writes the prose story Hand and Soul —
Meeting at his studio, and choice of the title The Germ — Contents
of No. 1, and its sale — Nos. 3 and 4 appear under the title Art
and Poetry — Notices of the magazine — Debt upon its issue —
Anecdotes relating to Hand and Soul — Rossetti makes an etching
(destroyed) for this story, and begins another story An Autopsy -
chology (or St. Agnes of Intercession} — His various contributions
to the magazine — Verses by John L. Tupper on its expiry . .149

XVI.

PAINTINGS AND WRITINGS, 1849-53.

Trip with Holman Hunt to Paris and Belgium — Paintings and
Designs— Rossetti's attainments in draughtsmanship, etc. — Details
as to Ecce Ancilla Domini — Press-criticism of this picture, and
other Prseraphaelite works of 1850 — Extract from the Athenaeum
— The Queen and Millais's Carpenter 's Shop — Details as to
Giotto painting Dante's Portrait, Head of Holman Hunt, Mary
Magdalene at the Door of Simon the Pharisee, and Found —

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Discussion as to the statement that Found is an illustration of
Bell Scott's poem Rosabell — Rossetti's sonnet to Woolner in
Australia — Collinson's picture of St. Elizabeth of Hungary —
Sketching-club proposed in 1854 — Poems, Dante at Verona,
Burden of Nineveh, Sister Helen, etc. — Rossetti desultory in
youth, and sometimes at odds with his Father — He drops writing
poetry, 1852 — Project of his becoming a telegraphist on the
railway — Notion of renting No. 16 Cheyne Walk — His studios
in Newman Street and Red Lion Square — Brown paints Rossetti's
head as Chaucer — Rossetti settles in Chambers in Chatham
Place, 1852 157

XVII.

MISS SID DAL.

Rossetti falls in love with Miss Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, 1850 —
Walter H. Deverell first sees her as assistant in a bonnet-shop —
Her appearance — Deverell gets her to sit for the head of Viola
in his picture from Twelfth Night — She also sits to Hunt and
Millais — Her family — She sits to Rossetti for Rossovcstita, and a
subject from the Vila Nziova, and many other paintings — An
engagement between Miss Siddal and Rossetti dating towards
1851 — Her tone in conversation, etc. —Her paintings and verses
— Swinburne's estimate of her quoted, also her poem A Year
and a Day — Her extreme ill-health — She is introduced to the
Howitt family — Rossetti as a lover — Death of Deverell, 1854 . 171

XVIII.

JOHN RUSK IN.

Ruskin not connected with the Prseraphaelite movement when first
started — In 1851 Patmore suggests to him to write something
on the subject, and he sends a letter to the Times — In 1853
MacCracken calls his attention to Rossetti, and Ruskin praises two
of his water-colours— Ruskin calls on Rossetti, April 1854 — Their
intimacy begins, partly interrupted by the death of Gabriele
Rossetti, and the absence of Dante Rossetti at Hastings, and of
Ruskin abroad — Affectionate and free-spoken relations between
Ru~kin and Rossetti — Madox Brown's dislike of Ruskin, who
becomes the chief purchaser for a while of Rossetti's works —
Rossetti ceases to exhibit — Ruskin's opinion of Rossetti after his
decease — Extracts from Ruskin's letters, 1854-7 — His high regard

CONTENTS. XXI

PACE

for Miss Siddal — He settles on her ^150 a year, taking her
paintings in proportion — Cessation of this arrangement, 1857 —
She goes abroad with Mrs. Kincaid, 1855, returning 1856 — Decline
of her health — My own acquaintance with Ruskin — Rossetti
admires him as a lecturer— Letter from Rossetti to MacCracken,
Extract . . . . . .178

XIX.

WORK IN 1854-5-6.

Water-colours from Dante, etc. — Paolo and Franccsca, Passover in
Holy Family, Head of Browning, Dante s Dream, Designs from
Tennyson, etc. — The Seed of David, Triptych in Llandaff Cathe-
dral— General characteristics of Rossetti's style at this period — -
Troubles with the Tennyson designs, and Tennyson's own views
of them — Sketches of Tennyson reading Maud — The Seddon^
and the Triptych — The Elite Closet, water-colour, and William
Morris — The Wedding of St. George — James Smetham, and his
remarks hereon 187

XX.

OXFORD MEN AND WORK—BURNE-JONES, MORRIS,
SWINBURNE.

Friends of Rossetti between 1847 and 1855 — Burne-Jones calls upon
him, June 1856, and is advised by Rossetti to adopt painting as
a profession — Afterwards Rossetti knows Morris and Swinburne
— The architect of the Oxford Museum, Woodward, invites
Rossetti in 1855 to undertake some decorative work there— He
does not do this, but in 1857 begins painting in the Union Debat-
ing-Hall from the Morte d' Arthur — Morris co-operates — Details
as to the Union-work — In 1856 Rossetti publishes The Burden of
Nineveh and some other poems in the Oxford and Cambridge
Magazine — Ruskin on The Burden of Nineveh — Other painters
in the Union Hall — Ultimate spoiling of the work — Swinburne's
introduction to Rossetti — Rossetti and his friends see in Oxford
Miss Burden, who becomes Mrs. Morris, and from whom Rossetti
paints many heads — The Praeraphaelite Exhibition in Russell
Place, 1857 — Miss Siddal's ill-health takes Rossetti to Bath, etc.
— Proposal, not carried out, for a " College," in which he and
other artists would settle — Miss Siddal's dissent — Hunt's state-
ment as to an " offence " by Rossetti . . . . . . 193

xxii CONTENTS.

XXI.

WORK IN 1858-59.

PAGE

Water-colour of Mary in the House of John, oil-picture Bocca Baciata,
etc.— Bell Scott's reference to the sitter for Bocca Baciata — Miss
Herbert — Poems, Love's Noctum, and The Song of the Bower —
The Hogarth Club, 1858, and paintings there exhibited . . 202

XXII.

MARRIAGE.

Reasons for postponing marriage — Mr. Plint and other purchasers of
Rossetti's pictures — Extreme ill-health ofMissSiddal at Hastings,
April i860 — Marriage, 23 May — Wedding-trip to Paris— Enlarge-
ment of Rossetti's views of pictorial art — His designs in Paris,
How They Met Themselves, etc. — He returns with his wife to
the Chambers, afterwards enlarged, in Chatham Place . . . 204

XXIII.

MARRIED LIFE.

Bell Scott on Rossetti's unsuitableness for married life — Remarks
hereon — Mrs. Rossetti intimate with the Brown, Morris, and
Burne-Jones families — Ruskin on drawings made by Rossetti from
her — Rossetti's intimacy with Swinburne — also with Meredith,
Sandys, Gilchrist, etc. — Death of Gilchrist, 1861 — Mrs. Madox
Brown's offer to help during his illness — Mrs. Rossetti's infirm
health, and birth of a stillborn infant — Death of Mrs. H. T. Wells
— Rossetti speaks of " getting awfully fat and torpid " . . . 208

XXIV.

WORK IN 1860-61— THE EARLY ITALIAN POETS— THE
MORRIS FIRM.

Death of Plint, and embarrassment ensuing to Rossetti, i860 — The
Plint sale — Water-colours of Lttcrezia Borgia and of Swinburne,
design of Cassandra, oil-picture of Fair Rosamund, etc. — Pre-
parations for publishing The Early Italian Poets — Opinions of
Ruskin and Patmore — Published by Smith and Elder, with some
subsidizing from Ruskin — Favourable reception of the book, and
result of its sale — Proposed etchings to it not produced — Rossetti

CONTENTS. XXlll

I'AOF.

shows some original poems to Ruskin, with a view, unsuccessful,
to publication in The Cornhill Magazine — -He announces a volume,
Dante at Verona and other Poems, not actually published —
Foundation in i860 of the firm, Morris, Marshall, Falkner, & Co.
— Seven members, including Rossetti — Details as to Webb,
Marshall, and Falkner — Money ventured on the firm — Good-
fellowship of Rossetti and his partners— Methods of business,
more especially of Morris as leading partner and manager—
Warrington Taylor — Rossetti's designs for stained glass, etc. . 213

XXV.

DEATH OF MRS. DANTE ROSSETTI.

Her illness, phthisis and neuralgia — The last painting for which she
sat — 10 February 1862, she dines at an hotel with her husband
and Swinburne — My contemporary note as to her death next
morning from taking over-much laudanum — Dr. John Marshall —
Newspaper-paragraph, showing inquest, and verdict of accidental
death — Rossetti's sorrow and agitation— Ruskin calls, and exhibits
a change in religious opinion — The funeral — Rossetti consigns to
the coffin his book of MS. poems — Caine's account of this incident
— Rossetti's letter to Mrs. Gilchrist on his wife's death . . . 220

XXVI.

SETTLING IN CHEYNE WALK.

Rossetti resolves to leave Chatham Place, and proposes to combine
with his family and Swinburne in getting a new house — He fixes
on No. 16 Cheyne Walk — Relinquishes the proposal as to the
family — His water-colour, Girl at a Lattice, and crayon-head of
his Mother — Takes chambers provisionally, 59 Lincoln's Inn
Fields — New arrangement for Cheyne Walk, Dante Rossetti as
tenant, with Swinburne, Meredith, and myself, as sub-tenants —
Condition of Cheyne Walk in 1862 — Caine's account of the house
in 1880 — Further details as to the drawing-room etc. — Taking
possession of the house, October 1862 — Rossetti not constantly
melancholy after his wife's death — Meredith and Swinburne as
sub-tenants for the first two or three years — Meredith's opinion
of Rossetti — Extracts from letters from Ruskin and Burne-Jones,
1862 — Rossetti makes acquaintance with Whistler and Legros —
His art-assistant Knewstub — Advance in Rossetti's professional
income ..,.,.....,. 227

XXIV CONTENTS.

XXVII.
WORK FROM 1862 TO 1868.

PAGE

Oil-pictures, Joan of Arc, Bcata Beatrix, The Beloved, Lilith, Venus
Verticordia, Sibylla Palmifera, Monna Vanna, Mrs. Morris, etc.
— Water-colours, Paolo and Fra?icesca, Return of Tibullus to
Delia, Tristram and Yseult, etc. — Designs, Michael Scoff s Wooing,
Aurea Catena, etc. — Details as to most of these works, also Helen
of Troy, Aurelia, The Boat of Love, The Blue Bower, II Bamo-
scello, La Pia, Heart of the Night, Washing Hands, Socrates
taught to Da?ice by Aspasia, Aspecta Medusa — Erroneous impres-
sion that Rossetti painted only from Mrs. Morris — Other sitters
named, Christina Rossetti, Lizzie Rossetti, Mrs. Hannay, Mrs.

Beyer, Mrs. H , Miss Wilding, Miss Mackenzie, Keomi, Ellen

Smith, Miss Graham, Mrs. Stillman, Mrs. Sumner, etc. — Remarks
on Mrs. Morris as his type — His letter to the Athenceum as to
his being a painter in oils — Shields on Rossetti's use of com-
pressed chalk — Purchasers of his works, Leathart, Rae, Graham,
Leyland, Valpy, Mitchell, Craven, Lord Mount-Temple, Colonel
Gillum, Trist, Gambart, Fairfax Murray — Insufficiency of Rossetti's
studio, and its ultimate alteration — Dunn succeeds Knewstub as
his art-assistant — Large income made by Rossetti in 1865 and
other years — His friendly relations with purchasers — His work
1862-3, in connexion with Gilchrist's Life of Blake . . . 238

XXVIII.

INCIDENTS, 1862 TO 1868.

Rossetti's animals at Cheyne Walk — His notions about ghosts — The
wombat, woodchuck, and zebu — Attempts to communicate with
his deceased wife by table-turning — The Burlington and other
Clubs — The Bab Ballads — Rossetti houses Sandys for a while,
and George Chapman — Other friends — Charles Augustus Howell,
who becomes Ruskin's secretary — Bell Scott and Woolner —
Intimacy with Ruskin comes to an end — Extracts from Ruskin's
letters in 1865 — Rossetti collects works of decorative art, especially
blue china and Japanese prints — Buys a picture by Botticelli . 251

XXIX.

BEGINNINGS OF ILL-HEALTH— PENKILL CASTLE.

Rossetti generally healthy in youth— 1866, a complaint requiring
surgical treatment — 1867, insomnia, and failure of eyesight —

CONTENTS. XXV

PACE

Doctors consulted — Trip to Warwickshire in 1868, and stay at
Penkill Castle, Ayrshire, with Miss Boyd, Miss Losh, and Bell
Scott — The Leeds Exhibition of Art — Loan made by Miss Losh
— Return to Cheyne Walk, and details as to eyesight — Resumes
art-work in December ... . . . . . . . 264

XXX.

PREPARATIONS FOR PUBLISHING POEMS.

Rossetti re-visits Penkill, 1869 — Urged, in 1868, by Scott to "live
for his poetry" — Sonnets previously published in 1868, others
in 1869 — Estimate for printing — Poems written at Penkill, 1869
— Alleged impulse towards suicide — Fancy about a chaffinch — " A
curiously ferocious look " — Poems printed, not for immediate
publication — -The unburying of the MS. deposited in his wife's
coffin — Arrangement with Ellis as publisher — Rossetti's com-
bination of self-reliance and self-mistrust — He is anxious to
secure a favourable critical reception of the Poems at starting
— Extracts on this point from my Diary and from Scott's book
— Rossetti's habits as to drinking — Death of Michael Halliday
— Acquaintance with Nettleship, Hake, and Hueffer — Hake's esti-
mate of Rossetti's character ........ 270

XXXI.

ART-WORK FROM 1869 TO SUMMER 1872.

Oil-pictures of Pandora, Mariana, Dante's Dream, Veronica Vero-
nese, etc. — Water-colour of Michael Scott — Designs of Penelope,
Dr. Hake, etc. — Details as to some of these works, especially
Dante's Dream — W. A. Turner becomes a purchaser . . . 282

XXXII.

THE POEMS, 1870— CHLORAL— KELMSCOTT MANOR-HOUSE.

The Poems forthcoming — Sojourn at Scalands — Rossetti's American
friend Stillman, who recommends chloral as a soporific — Rossetti's
excess in chloral-dosing, washed down by whiskey, and the bad
effects resulting — Publication of the Poems, April 1870 — Rapid
sale — Swinburne's review, extracts — Other reviews, The Catholic
World, etc. — Letters from acquaintances — Adverse criticism in
Blackwood's Magazine, coolly received by Rossetti— Republica-

xxvi CONTENTS.

PAGE

tion of the Italian translations as Dante and his Circle, 1873 —
Rossetti in 1871 at Kelmscott Manor-house, which he shares with
the Morris family — Philip Bourke Marston and Edmund Gosse on
Rossetti — Turguenieff — Poems written at Kelmscott . . .285

XXXIII.

THE FLESHLY SCHOOL OF POETRY.

Robert Buchanan, as Thomas Maitland, publishes in the Contemporaiy
Review an attack thus entitled on Rossetti's Poems, October 1871
— His previous attack on Swinburne, 1866, and my Criticism —
Review of my edition of Shelley, 1870 — The Fleshly School en-
larged and re-issued as a pamphlet — Extracts from it — Rossetti
not much troubled by the review-article— A dinner at Bell Scott's
— Rossetti replies, publishing, in the Athenceum, The Stealthy
School of Criticistn, and writing a pamphlet, which is withheld —
Aggravated imputations in the pamphlet form of The Fleshly
School — Buchanan's retractation, 188 1-2, extracts — Summary of
the facts — Quitter's article The Art of Rossetti, 1883, extract . 293

XXXIV

HYPOCHONDRIA AND ILLNESS.

Dividing line in Rossetti's life, spring 1872 — He is perturbed by The
Fleshly School of Poetry in its book-form, and has fancies of a
conspiracy against him — Other adverse critiques — Evidences of
mental unsettlement on 2 June — Browning regarded with sus-
picion— Rossetti not insane, but affected by hypochondria, result-
ing largely from chloral — Physical delusions — Mr. Marshall and
Dr. Maudsley — Extract from the Memoirs of Eighty Years, written
by Dr. Hake, who takes Rossetti off to his house at Roehampton
— Scott's remarks — Attempt at suicide by laudanum on the night
of 8 June — Mistake as to serous apoplexy — I fetch my Mother
and Sister Maria, Christina being ill — Brown calls-in Marshall,
who, along with Hake, saves Rossetti's life — Mental disturbance
continues, and Rossetti moves into Brown's house, followed by
three houses in Perthshire— Hemiplegia — Rossetti's companions in
Perthshire — Extracts from Scott and Hake — Resumption of paint-'
ing, and gradual recovery — Surgical treatment — Money-affairs
— Sale of the collection of china, and removal of pictures to Scott's
house .,....,,..,. 303

CONTENTS. XXV11

XXXV.

STAY AND WORK AT KELMSCOTT, 1872-4— THEODORE
IV A TTS.

PAGE

Rossetti, with George Hake, returns from Scotland, and re-settles at
Kelmscott Manor-house — His health and spirits at first good,
afterwards re-injured by chloral — Personal details — -Knows Theo-
dore Watts as a lawyer, and soon as an intimate literary and
personal friend — Fixes upon Howell as his professional agent —
Advantages accruing from this connexion — J. R. Parsons, Howell's
partner — Rossetti paints Proserpine, also La Ghirlandata, The
Bower Maiden, The Blessed Damozel, Dante's Dream (smaller
replica), The Roman Widow — Re-publishes Dante and his Ciixle
— Nonsense-verses — Recurrence of gloomy fancies— Scott's cheque
for ^200 — Quarrel with anglers — Rossetti leaves Kelmscott in
July 1874, and never returns thither . . . . . .321

XXXVI.

LONDON AND ELSEWHERE, 1874-8.

Discussion of Bell Scott's statements about Rossetti's seclusion, his
desertion by old friends, George Hake, Browning, his new friends,
his want of candour — Rossetti's condition of health and mental
tone — Theodore Watts — Rossetti goes to Aldwick Lodge, Bognor
— Libel-case, Buchanan v. Taylor — Goes to Broadlands — The
Mount-Temples and Mrs. Sumner — "Deafening" of Rossetti's
studio — Mesmerism — Surgical operation, as narrated by Watts —
Stay at Hunter's Forestall — Disappearance of letters — Details as
to chloral — Brown ceases to see Rossetti for some months —
Renewal of lease in Cheyne Walk — Death of Oliver Brown, and
Rossetti's impression as to his posthumous writings — Death of
Maria F. Rossetti 331

XXXVII.

INCIDENTS AND TRANSACTIONS, 1874-81— HALL CAINE.

Dissolution of the Partnership, Morris, Marshall, Falkner, & Co., 1874
— Rossetti obtains possession of the portrait of him painted by
G. F. Watts, R.A.- — He drops his connexion with Howell, 1876,
and the reasons for this — Drawings falsely attributed to Rossetti
— Fluctuations in his income — Funds for the families of James
Hannay and J. L. Tupper, and exertions to benefit James Smetham
— Declines to exhibit in the Grosvenor Gallery, 1877 — An excep-
tion, for the benefit of an art-institution, to his system of not

XXV111 CONTENTS.

PAGE

exhibiting — Unfounded report as to a visit from the Princess
Louise — Rossetti's correspondence with Hall Caine begins, 1879
— Extract from Caine's Recollections as to his first visit to Rossetti,
1880 — Reference to various details given by Caine as to Rossetti's
opinions, etc. — His view debated as to Rossetti's natural irresolu-
tion and melancholy — -Friends who arranged to visit Rossetti from
day to day — Continued activity in painting, along with poetry,
and the re-edition of Gilchrist's Life of Blake .... 346

XXXVIII.

PAINTINGS AND POEMS, 1874-81.

Pictures of The Blessed Damosel, Dante's Dream (replica), La Pia, La
Bella Mano, Venus Astarte, The Sea-spell, Mnemosyne, Beata
Beatrix (finished by Madox Brown), A Vision of Fiammetta, La
Donna delta Finestra, The Daydream — Designs of The Sphinx,
The Spirit of the Rainbow, Perlascura, Desdemonds Death-song,
Sancta Lilias, The Sonnet — Water-colour, Bruna Brunelleschi —
Details as to The Sea-spell, Vision of Fiammetta, Daydream —
Scott's narrative as to The Sphinx — Details as to Desdemona's
Death-song and Bruna B? unelleschi — Haydon's Etching of Hamlet
and Ophelia — Caine's account as to how Rossetti resumed poetical
composition towards 1878 — Sonnet on Cyprus — Other Sonnets —
The historical ballads, The White Ship and The King's Tragedy —
The Beryl-songs in Rose Mary ....... 362

XXXIX.

DANTE'S DREAM— BALLADS AND SONNETS.

In July 1881 Hall Caine becomes an inmate of Rossetti's house — His
somewhat trying position there — Dunn leaves the house — Dante's
Dream returned to Rossetti, at his own wish, by Valpy, who
is to receive other works in exchange — Caine suggests to the
authorities of the Walker Gallery, Liverpool, the purchase of this
picture — Alderman Samuelson favours the proposal — Mr. R. and
his proceedings in the same matter — Purchase carried out for
,£1,650, September 1881 — Recognition by Rossetti of the friendli-
ness of Caine and Samuelson — Transactions with Valpy and
Graham — March 1 88 1, Rossetti contemplates bringing out a new
volume, Ballads and Sonnets, and re-issuing, in a modified form,
the Poems of 1870 — Publishing-arrangements, and rapid sale of
Ballads a?id Sonnets in October — Proposed ballads on Joan of
Arc, Abraham Lincoln, and Alexander III. of Scotland— Critics
favourable to the new volume— Rossetti derives little pleasure
from these successes .,.,-..,,. 369

CONTENTS. XXIX

XL.

CUMBERLAND AND LONDON— FINAL ILLNESS.

PAGE

Rossetti's state of health : blood-spitting, etc. — He goes with Caine to
the Vale of St. John, Keswick, September 1881 — Returns worse
than he went — "Absolution for my sins": Scott's narrative, and
observations on Rossetti's opinions upon religion — Paintings :
Salutation of Beatrice, duplicates of Proserpine and of Joan of
Arc, Donna delta Fincstra— Visit from Dr. and Philip Marston —
Quasi-paralytic attack and discontinuance of chloral — Account by
Caine, and extracts from my Diary — Scott and Morris on the
same subject — The Medical Resident Henry Maudsley, and the
Nurse Mrs. Abrey — Rossetti, with Caine and Miss Caine, goes to
Birchington-on-Sea — Scott's remarks on Rossetti's later years —
Miss Caine's reminiscences ........ 375

XLI.

B1RCHINGTON-ON-SE. 1 .

Birchington and Westcliff Bungalow — Rossetti's condition there — He
is joined by his Mother and Sister — Other friends — Paintings of
Proserpine and of Joan of Arc, and sketches of his Father for
Vasto — Ballad oijan van Hunks, and Sonnets on The Sphinx —
Novel-reading — Correspondence with Joseph Knight and Ernest
Chesneau — Extracts from Mrs. Rossetti's Diary .... 390

XLII.

DEATH AND FUNERAL.

My visit to Birchington, 1 April 1882 — Extracts from my Diary, show-
ing Dante's very grave condition of health — Extracts from Mrs.
Rossetti's Diary, 4 to 9 April — Rossetti's death, 9 April— My
memorandum of it — His will — Arrival of Lucy Rossetti and
Charlotte Polidori — The funeral, further extracts from Mrs.
Rossetti's Diary, and letter from Judge Lushington — The tomb-
stone, stained-glass window, and monument in Cheyne Walk . 395

XLIII.

PERSONAL DETAILS— EXTRACTS.

Rossetti's character — Canon Dixon's statement — Remarks by Knight,
Patmore, and Watts — His appearance — His feeling as to the

X CONTENTS.

PAGE

beauties of Nature — His views on politics — Various remarks of
his on fine art, literature, and other matters, along with observa-
tions by Hunt, Caine, Sharp, Oliver Brown, and myself . . 404

XLIV.

ROSSETTI AS PAINTER AND POET— EXTRACTS.

Decision not to offer my own criticism on this matter — Extracts : upon
Fine Art, Leighton, Royal Scottish Academy, Hunt, Stephens,
Ouilter, Ruskin, Smetham, Shields, Hake, Rod, Mourey, Sartorio
— Upon Literature, Swinburne, Watts, Caine, Forman, Knight,
Hueffer, Sharp, Mrs. Wood, Patmore, Myers, William Morris,
Pater, Madame Darmesteter, Skelton, Sarrazin, Gamberale —
other Translators and Critics named ...... 423

LIST OF PORTRAITS.

VOL. I.

I. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1855. By Himself . Frontispiece
II. Gabriele Rossetti, 1853. By D. G. Rossetti . To face p. 20

III. Gaetano Polidori, 1848. By D. G. Rossetti . „ 123

IV. Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal (Rossetti), 1854. By

Herself „ 1 75

V. Christina G. Rossetti, 1848. By D. G. Rossetti „ 342

ERRATA.

Vol. I.

;e xxi, line 12 from bottom, for Morte read Mort
14, line 1 1, for dark-speaking read dark speaking
54 „ 8, for Rufini read Ruffini
59 >< 6) for Fitz-Eustace read De Wilton
119, lines 14, 15, for I have not the least recollection of what it was read the

Study in the manner of the Early Masters
135, line $,for Fuhrich read Steinle
166 ,, 11, for never read hardly

199 ,, 17 etc., for I do not know — etc. to end of paragraph, read These ex-
pressions occur in a letter to Mr. Skelton
235 11 I9ifor the earlier days of 1864 read August 1863
254 ,, 21, for perhaps in 1863 read in 1864

274 „ 17 etc., for I cannot say — down to prominent among them read Two of
these friends were Mr. Scott and Mr. Howell ; perhaps also Mr.
Henry Virtue Tebbs — down to Doctors' Commons
290 ,, 6 from bottom, for forgot read forget
304 ,, 16, for while read wile
336 ,, 22, for public read published
359 ,, 4 from bottom, for latter read former
401 ,, 21, /or if not read and indeed
409 „ last, /or XXX read IX
418 ,, 17, for Ikely read likely
436 11 2, for reputations read reputation,
11 11 9> for object read objects

MEMOIR

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI.

Be sure that Love ordained for souls more meek
His roadside dells of rest.

VOL. 1.

BIRTH.

GABRIEL CHARLES DANTE ROSSETTI, com-
monly known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was born on
12 May 1828, at No. 38 Charlotte Street, Portland Place.
London. This house is the last or most northerly house,
but one,1 on the right-hand or eastern side of the street, as
you turn into it to the left, down Weymouth Street, out of
Portland Place. Charlotte Street, beyond No. 39, forms a
cul-de-sac. The infant was baptized at the neighbouring All
Souls' Church, Langham Place, as a member of the Church
of England. From his father he received the name Gabriel ;
from his godfather the name Charles ; and from poetical and
literary associations the name Dante. His godfather was Mr.
Charles Lyell, of Kinnordy, Kirriemuir, Forfarshire ; a keen
votary of Dante and Italian literature, a helpful friend to
our father, and himself father of the celebrated geologist, Sir
Charles Lyell. Some living members of the Lyell family
continue to be well known to the present generation.

II.

PARENTAGE.

Our parents were Gabriele Pasquale Giuseppe Rossetti
(always called Gabriele Rossetti), and Frances Mary Lavinia

1 No. 39 is now to the right hand of No. 38. It appears to me that this
was not the case when we lived in No. 38, but that that was then the last
house of all. The closed-up end of the street has been wholly altered
since my boyish days.

4 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Rossetti, nee Polidori ; and, before proceeding further with
my narrative, I shall give some particulars about them, and
about other members of the family.

Gabriele Rossetti was born on 28 February 1783, in the
city of Vasto, named also (by a corruption from Longobard
nomenclature) Vasto Ammone, in the Province of Abruzzo
Citeriore, on the Adriatic coast of the then Kingdom of
Naples. Vasto is a very ancient place, a municipal town
of the Romans, then designated Histonium. We are not
bound — though some enthusiasts feel themselves permitted —
to believe that it was founded by the Homeric hero Diomed :
its patron saint is the Archangel Michael. Gabriele was
the youngest son of Nicola Rossetti, and his wife Maria
Francesca, nee Pietrocola. Nicola Rossetti was a Black-
smith, of very moderate means ; x a man of somewhat severe
and irascible nature, whose death ensued not long after the
French-republican invasion of the Kingdom of Naples in
1799. The French put some affront upon him — I believe
they gave him a smart beating for failing or neglecting to
furnish required provisions ; and, being unable to stomach
this, or to resent it as he would have liked, his health declined,
and soon he was no more. His wife belonged to a local
family of fair credit : but, like other Italian women of that
period, she received no scholastic training ; she could not
write nor even read. The name Rossetti might be trans-
lated into " Ruddykins " or " Redkins " as an English

1 A Vastese connexion of mine, Signor Giuseppe Marchesani, favoured
me, early in 1895, with a number of mortuary and other inscriptions which
he had composed to various members of the family. I will give here
the one relating to Nicola Rossetti, who probably remains otherwise
unrecorded, unless by some " forlorn hie jacet." Of course anything
written in a lapidary style reads less well in my English than in Marche-
sani's Italian. "Nicola Rossetti, Blacksmith poor and honourable, lovingly
sent in boyhood to their first studies his sons, carefully nurtured in
childhood. If Fortune neglected him, provident Nature ultimately dis-
tinguished, in the obscure Artizan, the well-graced Father, who, to the
strokes of his hammer on the battered anvil, sent forth the sonorous and
glorious echo, beyond remote Abruzzo, into Italy and other lands."

PARENTAGE. 5

equivalent. My father used to say that the Rossetti race
was an offshoot of the Delia Guardia family, well known and
still subsisting in Vasto ; and that at some date or other
certain children of the Delia Guardia stock were noted for
florid complexion and reddish hair, and thus got called " the
Rossetti," in accordance with the Italian hobby for nicknames,
and that this name gradually stuck to them as a patronymic.

Nicola and Maria Francesca Rossetti had a rather large
family, four sons and three daughters, and three of the sons
earned distinction. There was Domenico, who was versed
(as a local historian records) " in medical science, in civil and
canonical law, and in theology," writing in Italian, Latin,
French, and to some extent Hebrew, and was " the first
among mortals who daringly descended into the Grotto of
Montecalvo near Nice." On this theme he wrote a poem
in three cantos, besides other poems (two volumes, printed
in Parma) and prose : he was besides an Improvisatore.
Born in 1772, he died comparatively young in 18 16. There
was also Andrea, the eldest brother, who became a Canon
of San Giuseppe in Vasto ; and thirdly, Gabriele, whom I
may be excused for regarding as a more important writer
than even the polyglot Domenico. I might include, as
showing that verse-writing ran in the family, the fourth son,
Antonio, who exercised the humble calling of a wig-maker
and barber : he likewise versified in an off-hand popular
manner, and was of some note to his fellow-townsmen.

Gabriele Rossetti came into the world well endowed for
the arts. As it turned out, he took to poetry and other
forms of literature ; but he might equally have excelled in
drawing or in vocal music. I have before me as I write
three MSS. containing specimens of his early skill as a
draughtsman, done when he was twenty years old or there-
abouts. The drawings are illustrations to poems (juvenile
enough) of his own composition, and are surprisingly precise
and dainty in execution. One would have little hesitation
in calling them copper-engravings ; but they are, in fact,
pen-designs done with sepia, which he himself extracted

6 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

from the cuttlefish or " calamarello," so dear to Neapolitan
gourmands. An ornamental headpiece, two decorative title-
pages, and two landscapes founded on traditions of Claude
or Gaspar Poussin, are his own inventions. One drawing is
a group of two women after Mignard ; and two or three
others may also be copies. From my earliest childhood I
have looked with astonishment on these performances as
pieces of manipulation ; and, after a lifetime spent among
artists, I hardly know what to put beside them in their own
limited line of attempt. Then, as to music, Gabriele had
a beautiful tenor-voice, sweet and sonorous in a high degree.
It received no regular cultivation, but was such that he was
more than once urged to train himself for the operatic stage
— a mode of life, however, for which he had no sort of
inclination.

The local magnate was the Marchese del Vasto, of the
great historic house of D'Avalos, into which the famous
Vittoria Colonna married. He was feudal Lord of the
Vastese, and they acknowledged themselves his " vassals,"
though this state of things, in the epoch of a Robespierre
and a Napoleon, was not destined to continue long. The
attention of the Marchese was soon called to the uncommon
promise of his growing-up vassal Gabriele Rossetti, and, after
some well-conducted schooling in Vasto, the youth was sent
in 1804, under the patronage of this nobleman, to study in
the University of Naples. His education here was cut short
after a year and a month, and consequently had not a very
wide range. In middle life he read Latin with ease, and
retained some remnant of geometry and mathematics, but
of Greek he had no knowledge. In French he was well
versed, speaking the language with great fluency and an
amusing assumption of the tone of a Frenchman. English
he acquired by practice in Malta and in this country, and
could both read and talk it tolerably enough, though he
never did so when he had the option of Italian.

Rossetti was just twenty-three years of age when the
Bourbon king, Ferdinand I., was turned out of his con-

PARENTAGE. 7

tinental dominion, and had to retire into Sicily, and Joseph
Bonaparte reigned in his stead. With Ferdinand vanished
the Marchese del Vasto, who was his Court-Majordomo. Thus
all the years of Rossetti's early manhood were passed in
association with a Napoleonic and not a Bourbon order of
ideas. As a sequel to his first volume of poems, published
in 1807, he obtained an appointment as librettist in the
operatic theatre of San Carlo, writing three or more opera-
books, one of them named Giulio Sabino. He was kept in
hot water, however, by the exigencies of managers and
vocalists, and got transferred to the Curatorship of Ancient
Marbles and Bronzes in the Museum of Naples. He figured
in the Academy of the Arcadi as " Filidauro Labidiense."
There used to be a catch, —

" Rossini, Rossetti,
Divini, imperfetti " ;

but whether my father was ever linked with Rossini in any
operatic production I am unable to say. Rossetti was well
received at the Court of King Joachim (Murat), the successor
of Joseph. I have heard him say that he knew some-
thing of almost all the Bonapartes, except only the great
Napoleon. I possess a slight portrait of him done by the
Princess Charlotte Bonaparte ; and another of the family,
Lady Dudley Stuart, acted as godmother to his daughter
Christina. In my own time Prince Pierre Bonaparte (too
notorious as the homicide of Victor Noir) was frequently in
our house ; occasionally also Prince Louis Napoleon, the
unduly glorified and duly execrated Napoleon III., of whom
my father would emphatically declare that he could never
trace in him one grain (iieppure un* ombrd) of Liberalism.
King Joachim fell in 181 5, and King Ferdinand was restored
to his capital city, Naples ; a state of things not likely to be
much to the taste of Gabriele Rossetti— who in 181 3 had
acted as Secretary to that part of the provisional government,
sent by Joachim to Rome, which looked after public instruc-
tion and the fine arts. He did not, however, under the

8 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

restored Bourbon, lose his post in the Museum. An agitation
ensued for a constitution similar to that which the Spaniards
established in 1819 — the secret society of the Carbonari, in
which Rossetti was a member of the General Assembly, being
especially active in this direction. In 1820 there was a
military uprising, and Ferdinand had to grant the consti-
tution— probably with a fixed intention of revoking it at the
first opportunity. Rossetti's ode to the Dawn of the Con-
stitution-day, " Sei pur bella cogli astri sul crine " (" Lovely art
thou with stars in hair "), was in every Neapolitan mouth.
In 1821 the king, then sojourning in Austria, abolished the
constitution, and suppressed it with the aid of Austrian
troops. Carbonarism was made a capital offence, and the
leading constitutionalists were denounced and proscribed,
among them Rossetti. He is said to have been viewed by
the king with especial abhorrence, partly because various
writings, not really his, were attributed to him, and partly
because one of his lyrics contained the lines —

" I Sandi ed i Luvelli
Non son finiti ancor,"

(Sands and Louvels are not yet extinct.) The reference,
it will be perceived, is to the political assassination of
Kotzebue by Sand, and of the Due de Berri by Louvel,
with a suggestion that a like fate might easily befall King
Ferdinand. Rossetti did not say that it ought to befall
him ; but the king was not inclined to take a good-natured
view of the matter, or to construe the phrase rather as a
loyal warning than as an incitement to a deed of blood.
The peccant poet lay concealed in Naples for three months,
beginning in March 1821 ; finally the British admiral, Sir
Graham Moore, pressed by his generous wife who knew and
liked Rossetti, furnished him with a British uniform, got him
off in a carriage to the harbour, and shipped him to Malta. I
have before me a printed proclamation of King Ferdinand —
the original document, dated 28 September 1822 — granting
an amnesty to persons concerned in the revolutionary or

PARENTAGE. 9

constitutional movement, with the exception of thirteen men
expressly named. My father is the thirteenth. In Malta
he remained about two years and a half, holding classes (as
indeed he had previously done in Naples) for instruction in
the Latin and Italian languages and literature, and most
liberally befriended by the English poet and diplomatist, John
Hookham Frere, the translator of Aristophanes : their ami-
cable relations continued after distance had separated them.
Deep indeed were the affection and respect which Rossetti
entertained for Frere. One of my vivid reminiscences is of
the day when the death of Frere was announced to him,1 in
1 846. With tears in his half-sightless eyes and the passionate
fervour of a southern Italian, my father fell on his knees, and
exclaimed, " Anima bella, benedetta sii tu, dovunque sei ! " 2

Rossetti had long been a noted Improvisatore, as well as
a poet in the accustomed way (he continued to improvise
to some extent for a while, even after coming to London),
and this, with his other gifts, made him popular in Maltese
society. After a while, however, he was harassed by the
spies or other emissaries of the Bourbon Government, which
embittered his position so much that he resolved to have
done with Malta, and settle in England. Here he arrived
in January or February 1824, and fixed himself in London.
He soon made acquaintance with the Polidori family, and a
mutual attachment united him in marriage with the second
daughter, Frances Mary Lavinia, in April 1826. He subsisted
by teaching Italian, and held perhaps the foremost place in
that vocation. In 183 1 he was appointed Professor of Italian
in King's College, London. This professorship was not a
sinecure ; but the students were few, and became fewer from
about 1840 onwards, when the German language began
decidedly to supersede the Italian in public favour. My

1 The person who announced it was Mr. Edward Graham, the associate
of Shelley in early youth. He had taken to the musical profession, and
was a man of uncommonly handsome presence : his bodily were superior
to his mental endowments.

2 " Noble soul, blessed be thou wherever thou art."

10 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

father made at the best a very moderate income ; yet this
sufficed for all the requirements of himself, and his wife and
four children, and no man could be more heartily contented
with what he got — more strenuous and cheerful in working
for it, or more willing " to cut his coat " (he never turned it)
" according to his cloth." The British religion of " keeping up
appearances " was unknown— thank Heaven — in my paternal
home ; my father disregarded it from temperament and foreign
way of thinking and living, and my mother contemned it
with modest or noble superiority. The tolerably thriving
condition of our household declined with my father's decline
in health, which began towards 1842 : interruption of pro-
fessional work, waning employment, inability to take up such
employment as offered, necessarily ensued. In 1843 (having
hitherto had uncommonly keen eyesight) he suddenly lost
one eye through amaurosis, and the other eye was greatly
weakened and in constant peril, though he was never bereft
of sight totally. A real tussle for the means of subsistence
now arose, but by one method or other all was tided over.
Our scale of living, if somewhat more threadbare and dingy,
did not materially dwindle from its unassuming yet comfort-
able average ; and no butcher nor baker nor candlestick-
maker ever had a claim upon us for a sixpence unpaid. In
his closing years my father had more than one stroke of
paralysis. Some of these were of a formidable kind ; yet he
got over them to a substantial extent, lived on in a suffering
state of body, and with mental faculties weakened, though
not impaired in any definite and absolute way, and continued
diligent in reading and writing almost to the last day of his
life. His sufferings, often severe, were borne with patience
and courage (he had an ample stock of both qualities), though
not with that unemotional calm which would have been
foreign to his Italian nature. For nearly a year before his
death he lived, with his wife and daughter Christina, at
Frome Selwood in Somerset ; but finally he returned to
London, and died at No. 166 Albany Street, Regent's Park,
on 26 April 1854, firm-minded and placid, and glad to be

PARENTAGE. 1 1

released, in the presence of all his family. His young cousin,
Teodorico Pietrocola-Rossetti, was also there. He lies buried
in Highgate Cemetery.

Gabriele Rossetti was a man of energetic and lively
temperament, of warm affections, sensitive to slight or rebuff,
and well capable of repelling it, devoted to his family and
home, full of good-nature and good-humour, a fervent patriot,
honourable and aboveboard in all his dealings, and as pleasant
and inspiriting company as one could wish to meet. Though
sensitive as above stated, he was not in the least quarrelsome,
and never began a conflict about either literary or personal
matters : this disposition he transmitted to his son Dante
Gabriel. For some years after settling in London he went
a good deal into society, and was welcomed in several houses.
This had diminished at the date of my earliest reminiscences,
and soon it had wholly ceased. He could tell an amusing
story most capitally — I have hardly known his equal at that
— with good dramatic "take-off"; and, though his ordinary
speech was, to the best of my judgment, very pure Italian,
he could readily throw himself back, when he liked, into the
Neapolitan dialect, or the Abruzzese, which is not a little
provincial.1 He always spoke Italian in the family, never
English ; and his children from the earliest years, as well
as his wife, answered in Italian. Apart from domestic
simplicity or sportiveness, his conversation was always high-
minded, implying a solid standard of public and private
virtue : nothing about it mean or sly or worldly, or tampering
with principle. There was indeed a certain tinge of self-
opinion or self-applause in his temperament ; he rather liked
" to ride the high horse " (as I have heard my brother phrase

1 I possess two good books showing the dialect of Vasto, sent to me by
the courtesy of their authors: the Vocabolmio dell Uso Abruzzese, by
Gennaro Finamore, and the Fujf Ammesche, by Luigi Anelli. The latter
volume is a series of sonnets, which appear to me highly excellent of their
popular kind. When I say that the Vastese words "Fujj' Ammesche"
represent the Italian words "Foglie Miste," my English reader will be
able to judge whether Vaatese is a pure or impure form of Italian.

12 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

it) ; but this was quite free from envy or disparagement of
others, and did no one any harm. Of what one calls " personal
vanity " he had a plentiful lack, and was indeed very careless
(like many other Italians) in all matters of the outer man.
As a father he was most kind, and would often allow his four
children to litter and rollick about the room while he plodded
through some laborious matter of literary composition. He
always retained, however, a perceptible tone of the patria
potestas. Rossetti was a splendid declaimer or reciter, with
perfect elocution. He put his heart into whatsoever he
did. His MSS. are models of fine and minute penmanship,
and show enormous pains in the way of revision and re-
casting.

He was an ardent lover of liberty, in thought and in the
constitution of society. In religion he was mainly a free-
thinker, strongly anti-papal and anti-sacerdotal, but not
inclined, in a Protestant country, to abjure the faith of his
fathers. He never attended any place of worship. Spite of
his free-thinking, he had the deepest respect for the moral
and spiritual aspects of the Christian religion, and in his
later years might almost be termed an unsectarian and undog-
matic Christian. As a freethinker, he was naturally exempt
from popular superstitions — did not believe in ghosts, second
sight, etc. ; and the same statement holds good of our mother.
In this respect Dante Gabriel, as soon as his mind got a
little formed, differed from his parents ; being quite willing
to entertain, in any given case, the question whether a ghost
or demon had made his appearance or not, and having indeed
a decided bias towards suspecting that he had. One point,
however, of popular superstition, or I should rather say of
superstitious habit, my father had not discarded. A fancy
existed in the Abruzzi (I dare say it still exists) that, if one
steps over a child seated or lying on the ground, the child's
growth would be arrested ; and I have more than once seen
my father divert his path to avoid stepping over any one of
us. In politics he belonged more to the party of constitu-
tional monarchy than to that of republicanism, but welcomed

PARENTAGE. 1 3

anything that told for freedom. He always advocated the
unity of Italy, long before that aspiration was considered a
very practical one ; indeed, I have seen him described, on
good authority, as the first apostle of unity, but am not
clear that this is strictly accurate.

In estimating Rossetti's work as a national or patriotic poet,
and his general attitude of mind in matters of politics, or of
government in State and Church, we should remember the
conditions (already referred to) under which his life had been
passed. He was born under the feudal and despotic system of
the Neapolitan Bourbons ; his youth witnessed the more open-
minded but still despotic Napoleonic rule; the Bourbon restora-
tion brought-on a constitution sworn to by the sovereign,
who soon after perjured himself in suppressing it ; lifelong-
exile ensued to Rossetti and other constitutionalists. Then he
lived through many abortive insurrections against the temporal
and ecclesiastical dominators of Italy ; through the brilliant
promise and the retrogression of Pope Pius IX. (whom at
first he acclaimed with unmeasured fervour) ; through the
high deeds, glorious prospects, and dolorous collapse, of the
revolutionary years 1848-49, and through the fuliginous
beginnings of the Neapolitan King Bomba ; followed by a
genuinely liberal government in Piedmont under Victor
Emmanuel and Cavour, by the coup d'etat of Napoleon III.,
and by general stagnancy of political thought and act
throughout Europe. He died five years before 1859, which
produced the alliance between France and Piedmont, the
expulsion of the Austrians from Lombardy, and the com-
mencement of the unification of Italy. When he died in
1854 the outlook seemed extremely dark; yet heart and
hope did not abate in him. The latest letter of his which
I have seen published was written in September or October
1853, and contains this passage, equally strong-spirited and
prophetic —

" The Arpa Evangelica . . . ought to find free circulation through
all Italy. I do not say the like of three other unpublished volumes,
which all seethe with love of country and hatred for tyrants. These

14 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

await a better time — which will come, be very sure of it. The
present fatal period will pass, and serves to whet the universal desire.
. . . Let us look to the future. Our tribulations, dear madam,
will not finish very soon, but finish they will at last. Reason has
awakened in all Europe, although her enemies are strong. We shall
pass various years in this state of degradation ; then we shall rouse
up. I assuredly shall not see it, for day by day, nay hour by hour,
I expect the much-longed-for death ; but you will see it."

In person Gabriele Rossetti was rather below the middle
height, and full in flesh till his health failed ; with a fine brow,
a marked prominent nose and large nostrils, dark-speaking
eyes, pleasant mouth, engaging smile, and genuine laugh.
He indulged in gesticulation, not to any great extent, but of
course more than an Englishman. His hands were rather
small — not a little spoiled by a life-long habit of munching his
nails. As to other personal habits, I may mention free
snuff-taking without any smoking ; and a hearty appetite while
health lasted, with more of vegetable diet than Englishmen
use. In his later years teeth and palate had failed, and all
viands " tasted like hay." Fermented liquors he only touched
seldom and sparingly. He had liked the English beer, but
had to leave it off altogether in 1836, to avoid recurrent
attacks of gout. In fact, he liked most things English — the
national and individual liberty, the constitution, the people
and their moral tone, though the British leaven of social
Toryism was far from being to his taste. He certainly pre-
ferred the English nation, on the whole, to the French, and had
a kind of prepossession against Frenchwomen, which he pushed
to a humorous over-plus in speech — saying for instance that,
if a Frenchwoman and himself were to be the sole tenants
of an otherwise uninhabited island, the human race on that
island would decidedly not be prolonged into a second genera-
tion. My father also took very kindly to the English coal-
fires, and was an adept in keeping them up ; he would
jocularly speak of " buying his climate at the coal-mer-
chant's." In all my earlier years I used frequently to see
my father come home in the dusk rather fagged with his

PARENTAGE. 1 5

round of teaching, and after dining he would lie down flat
on the hearthrug close by the fire, and fall asleep for an hour
or two, snoring vigorously. Beside him would stand up our
old familiar tabby cat, poised on her haunches, and holding
on by the fore-claws inserted into the fender-wires, warming
her furry front. Her attitude (I have never seen any feline
imitation of it) was peculiar, somewhat in the shape of a
capital Y — "the cat making the Y" was my father's phrase
for this performance. She was the mother of a numerous
progeny ; one of her daughters — also long an inmate of our
house — was a black-and-white cat named Zoe by my elder
sister Maria, who had a fancy for anything Greekish ; but
Zoe never made a Y.

Rossetti had produced a tolerable amount of verse in Italy,
also the descriptive account (which passes under the name
of Cavalier Finati) of the Naples Museum ; but all his more
solid and voluminous writing was done after he had settled
in London. The principal works are as follows : 1826 —
Dante, Commedia (the Inferno alone was published), with a
Commentary aiming to show that the poem is chiefly political
and anti-papal in its inner meaning. A great deal of con-
troversy was excited at the time by this work, and by others
which succeeded it. 1832 — Lo Spirito Antipapale che pro-
dusse la Riforma (The Anti-Papal Spirit zvhich produced the
Reformation), following up and extending the same line
of thought. An English translation was also published.
1833 — Iddio e I'Uomo, Salterio {God and Man, a Psaltery),
poems. The two last-named books have the honour of being
in the Pontifical Index Librorum Prohibitorum, edition
1838, and perhaps others are there now. 1840 — // Mistero
delV Amor Platonico del Medio Evo {The Mysterious Platonic
Love of the Middle Ages), five volumes ; a book of daring
and elaborately ingenious speculation, enforcing the analogy
of many illustrious writers, as forming a secret society of
anti-Catholic thought, with the doctrines of Gnosticism and
Freemasonry (Rossetti was himself a Freemason). This book
was printed and prepared for publication, but was withheld

1 6 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

(partly at the instance of Mr. Frere) as likely to be accounted
rash and subversive. 1842— La Beatrice di Dante, contending
that Dante's Beatrice was a symbolic personage, not a real
woman. 1846—// Veggente in Solitudine {The Seer in
Solitude), a poem of patriotic aim, in a discursive and rhap-
sodical form, embodying a good deal of autobiography and
of earlier material. It circulated largely though clandestinely
in Italy, and a medal of Rossetti was struck there in com-
memoration. 1847 — Versi (miscellaneous poems). 1852 —
LArpa Evangelica {The Evangelic Harp), religious poems.

As regards my father's writings on Dante and other
authors — the outcome of an immense amount of miscellaneous,
often curious and abstruse, reading — I may be allowed to
say that I regard his views and arguments as cogent, without
being convincing. They affect one more in beginning one
of his books than in ending it. He certainly made some
mistakes, and urged some details to a wiredrawn or futile
extreme, and in especial he was not sufficiently master of
the happy instinct when to leave off, so that his longest
and most important book, the Mistero deW Amor Platonico,
becomes cumbrous with subsidiary matter. In his poems
also he was over-fond of amplifying and loading, being too
unwilling to leave a composition as it stood ; though he wrote
with great mastery and ease, and a brilliant command of
metre, rhythm, and melody. Many snatches of his verse
are forcible and moving in a high degree, and rouse a con-
tagious enthusiasm. He has left in MS. a versified account
of his life, written between 1846 and 1851. It is not long,
nor yet very short, and is about the completest as well as
the most authentic account that exists of his career. I should
like to translate it some day, and publish it in England.

To give some idea of Rossetti's poetry, I cannot do better
than extract here one of the remarks upon it made by the
pre-eminent Italian poet of our own day, Giosue Carducci,
in a selection from Rossetti which he edited in 1861.
Carducci, after contrasting him with some of his contemporary
writers, terms him —

PARENTAGE. 1 7

"The singer who, notwithstanding his defects, conforms the most
to the poetic taste and the hacmonic faculty of the Italian people.
No plethora of murky inventions, and of recondite and strange
forms, and of versified disquisitions, and of nebulous swathings ; but
a daring and serene fancy, impetus of emotion, plenteousness and
sometimes superabundance of colouring, facility, harmony, melody,
make these poems truly Italian, make them singable. Singable, I
say; and I know that this praise may, in the opinion of some,
amount to blame, now that for the most part singable poetry is
of the worst."

Not in Vasto alone, but in all Italy, Rossetti's reputation
as a patriotic poet stood high — more perhaps among the
men of action and the ardent youth than among the critical
assessors of literary merit. A proposal was made to transfer
his remains to a sepulchre in Italy, as an act of national
recognition. My mother having demurred, an inscription
was set up to him in the Florentine cloister of Santa Croce,
which counts as the Italian Walhalla or Westminster Abbey.
In Vasto the centenary of his birth was celebrated in 1883
with much evidence of enthusiasm. The principal Piazza
(del Pesce, as first entitled) and the Communal Theatre are
named after him ; and it has long been proposed — though
perhaps rather half-heartedly — to erect his statue, and to
purchase for the town the house in a part of which he was
born — an ancient and somewhat stately-looking though
plain edifice, battered by time and neglect. I am tempted
to extract here a few of the many eulogiums pronounced
upon Rossetti at the centenary — not unconscious, however,
of the caution with which any utterances on such an occasion
are to be received.

From the speech of Professor Francesco di Rosso : —

" He then conceived that love of his oppressed country, and that
indignation against the oppressors, which were to be (as I may say) the
religion of his entire life, and were to dictate to him the most beautiful
strains, and make him the Tyrtaeus of the battles of the Italian
liberty, unity, and independence, the poet sacred to Italy and Europe
labouring under tyranny, under political and religious re-action."

VOL. I. 2

1 8 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

From the speech of the sub-prefect Cavalier Domenico
Fabretti : —

" Many were the public-spirited poets of Italy : but none con-
jectured the cycle of her evolution, shadowed forth its agents, designed
its forms, with the forecasting precision, the exact intuition, of your
Rossetti. He was not only the sweet poet of the Arcadian stylus,
was not only the studious and elegant verse-writer, was not only the
fervent patriot, but was the seer of the Italian re-arising."

From a pamphlet by signor Adelfo Mayo,1 addressed to
the workmen of Vasto : —

" You, citizens and workmen, will deserve well of your country if
you will imitate the domestic and civil virtues of that great man,
if you strive with all your efforts to preserve intact the sacred deposit
of the Italian liberties under the sceptre of the Kings of Savoy, and
if you also co-operate, as best you may, in raising a worthy monument
to one who, conferring honour upon our city, has honoured likewise
the Abruzzi and the entire peninsula."

In England very little has got into print showing Gabriele
Rossetti " in his habit as he lived." There are, however, two
recent books which give an idea of him in his later years, and
in each instance the idea is a true one as far as it goes. Mr.
William Bell Scott's Autobiographical Notes (1892) contain
the following passage, relating to the close of 1847 or
beginning of 1848 : —

" I entered the small front parlour or dining-room of the house
[50 Charlotte Street], and found an old gentleman sitting by the
fire in a great chair, the table drawn close to his chair, with a thick
manuscript book open before him, and the largest snuff-box I ever
saw beside it conveniently open. He had a black cap on his head
furnished with a great peak or shade for the eyes, so that I saw his
face only partially. . . . The old gentleman signed to a chair for

1 With this fine-minded and cultivated gentleman, well meriting his
high position in the Vastese community, I have had the pleasure of
keeping up some correspondence ever since the date of the centenary
meeting.

PARENTAGE. 1 9

my sitting down, and explained that his son was now painting in the
studio he and a young friend had taken together : this young friend's
name was Holman Hunt.1 . . . The old gentleman's pronunciation
of English was very Italian ; and, though I did not know that, both
of them — he and his daughter [Christina] — were probably at that
moment writing poetry of some sort, and might wish me far enough,
I left very soon."

The second portrait of my father, and a very good one it
is, is traced by Mr. Frederic George Stephens in his mono-
graph named Daiite Gabriel Ross&tti ( 1 894) : it shows a
memory highly retentive of characterizing details : —

" As might be expected of one possessing so many accomplish-
ments, and whose career had been marked by so much courage, the
Professor was a man of striking character and aspect ; so that, when
I was introduced to him in 1848 [some few months perhaps after
Mr. Scott's first visit to our house], and his grand climacteric was
past, and (as with most Italians) a life of studies told upon him
heavily, I could not but be struck with the noble energy of his
face, and by the high culture his expression attested, while a sort
of eager, almost passionate resolution seemed to glow in all he said
and did. To a youngster, such as I was then, he seemed much
older than his years ; and, while seated reading at a table with two
candles behind him, and (because his sight was failing) with a wide
shade over his eyes, he looked a very Rembrandt come to life.
The light was reflected from a manuscript placed close to his face,
and, in the shadow which covered them, made distinct all the
fineness and vigour of his sharply moulded features. It was half
lost upon his somewhat shrunken figure wrapped in a student's
dressing-gown, and shone fully upon the lean, bony, and delicate

1 According to Mr. Scott, this was his first call at No. 50 Charlotte
Street, and the interview took place "about Christmas 1847-48." I
consider that the correct date of his first call was in December 1847 or
January 1848. But Mr. Scott's memory must have been entirely wrong as
to his then hearing about the studio shared by Holman Hunt and Dante
Rossetti, for there was no such sharing of any studio until late in August
1848, and the words put into our father's mouth, if spoken at all, must
have been spoken later than " about Christmas 1847-48." Ex tiuo disce
multos.

20 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

hands in which he held the paper. He looked like an old and
somewhat imperative prophet, and his voice had a slightly rigorous
ring, speaking to his sons and their visitors."

I am not sure that the word " rigorous " would here convey-
quite the right impression. My father's address in such cases
was clear and emphatic, and as if no dissent were expected
to ensue ; but it was not marked by anything hard or
brusque.

Good-natured and indulgent' though he in fact was, and
animated with the most resolute desire to do his very best for
the present and future of his children, our love nevertheless
was chiefly concentrated upon our mother — and never did
mother deserve it better. This preference may have been
rather less marked in my elder sister Maria than with the
rest of us. Frances Mary Lavinia Polidori was born in
London, 42 Broad Street, Golden Square (the same street in
which William Blake had been born forty- three years before),
on 27 April 1800. Thus she was seventeen years younger
than her husband. Of her parents I shall say something in
my next Section. She was brought up with a view to her
becoming a governess ; and at the early age of sixteen she
took charge of her first pupil, the adopted daughter of Mr.
Thomas Dickins, of Vale Lodge, Leatherhead, Surrey. I
have heard my mother say that in this house she used to see
from time to time John Shelley, the brother of the poet. He
was a very handsome youth, aged then some thirteen or four-
teen, and all mention of the name of that world-abandoned
rebel, the versifying atheist, was strictly forbidden. Hence
my mother passed into the families of Mr. Justice Bolland
(whom she highly respected), and of Sir Patrick Macgregor.
One of her pupils, Miss Georgina Macgregor, became the
second godmother of my sister, Christina Georgina. A brother
of Sir Patrick, a Colonel, fell not a little in love with Miss
Polidori. Whether this highly estimable gentleman (as such
he was always represented to me) would have made up his
mind to " proposing for the governess " I am unable to say ;
but anyhow he was forestalled by the Neapolitan refugee

By D. G. Rossetti.

Gabriele Rossetti.

PARENTAGE. 21

Rossetti, who rapidly won the damsel's heart, and was
promptly accepted. The marriage proved a truly happy one,
spite of narrow circumstances, and the harrassing troubles
of my father's long illnesses and decay. On his side there was
deep unwavering affection, and the most absolute esteem and
confidence ; on hers, affection and confidence in no less
measure, and a cordial admiration for his uncommon gifts
and attainments.

Mrs. Rossetti was well bred and well educated, a constant
reader, full of clear perception and sound sense on a variety
of subjects, and perfectly qualified to hold her own in society ;
a combination of abnormal modesty of self-estimate (free,
however, from the silliness or insincerity of self-disparage-
ment), and of retirement and repose of character, and of
devotion to home duties, kept her back. The idea of " making
an impression " never appeared to present itself to her mind —
still less the idea of outshining or rivalling any one else. I
doubt whether in the whole course of my life I once saw her
go out to an ordinary " evening party." Perfect simplicity of
thought, speech, and manner, characterized her always ; I
venture to think that it was dignity under another name. For
conscientiousness, veracity, the keeping confidences inviolate,
the utter absence of censoriousness or tittle-tattle, she was an
absolute model : all this came so natural to her that it passed
almost unnoticed, or seemed a matter of course. Day and
night she attended to the household — doing needlework,
teaching her girls, keeping things in order, etc. In all the
central years of her life there was only one servant in the
house. She was deeply but unpretentiously religious, a
member of the Church of England, very constant in church-
attendance. In my earlier years she might be regarded as
belonging rather to the " Evangelical " branch of the Church,
but later on her associations grew to be of the " high church "
kind. This only made a difference of habitude, not of
essentials. She took a reasonable interest in matters of
politics, her sympathies being on the Liberal side. She wrote
correctly in prose, and some few times even in verse ; but

22 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

without having, at any time of her life, any notion of doing
aught for publication. I have heard that in youth she was
considered rather a " quiz " (as the phrase then ran), or a
person with a sharp eye for 'the ridiculous in others. Of this
I myself remember few symptoms or none ; but certainly she
knew a pretender or a humbug when she saw one, and could
express her perception by clear word of mouth. With all
the reserve of her character, her total want of forwardness,
her mostly unspoken scorn of semblances which have not
realities behind them, there was nothing about her of the
merely stolid or negative ; her feelings were warm, and even
her temper might have been less unruffled than it was, but
for a life-long practice of moderating self-control. She was
just, liberal, kind, forgiving, steadfast. A son who has any
evil to say of his mother might feel embarrassed until he had
managed to say it mildly : I am spared any such embarrass-
ment. To sum up — she was one of the most womanly of
women.

My mother once said — it may have been towards 1872 or
1873 : " I always had a passion for intellect, and my wish was
that my husband should be distinguished for intellect, and
my children too. I have had my wish [and this she might
well say in reference to her elder son and her younger
daughter, not to bring the remaining two into question] ; and
I now wish that there were a little less intellect in the family,
so as to allow for a little more common sense." I have
always set store by that utterance of my mother, as equally
sound and characteristic.

Frances Rossetti was of an ordinary female middle height,
or a trifle less than that,1 with a full-sized head, fresh com-
plexion, features more than commonly regular, shapely

1 Miss Hall Caine, in her pleasant article A Child's Recollections of
Rossetti, in the New Review for September 1894, describes my mother
as "very little." This is a mistake. Miss Caine only saw my mother in
the early part of 1882, when the latter was nearly eighty-two years of
age. Her figure had then fallen in, and she looked short ; but the state-
ment in my text is the correct one.

PARENTAGE. 23

Madonna-like eyelids, and an air of innate composure. Her
general aspect was English, not Italian. Her eyes were grey,
her hair in youth abundant and pretty, worn then in long
ringlets, of a full-tinted brown. It altered colour but little,
even in her extreme old age ; and she always looked to me —
and I believe to others— some five or six years younger than
she was. Her voice was extremely clear and uniform, excel-
lent for reading. There is a good likeness of her in one of
Sir John Millais's pictures — the Departure of the Crusaders,
painted towards 1856.

After the definite failure of my father's health, or from
about 1844 until his death in 1854, the chief support of the
family devolved upon my mother — the eldest child, Maria,
being in 1844 only seventeen years of age. My mother
made great and most laudable efforts — going out to teach
French and Italian (both of which she knew and spoke
perfectly well) and other things, and afterwards holding
precarious day-schools — at No. 38 Arlington Street, Morn-
ington Crescent (our residence for a year or two beginning
in 1 851), and at Frome Selwood. The schools produced no
income of any account ; and my mother's small 'expectations
(from the property left by her maternal grandfather), and
then her small capital, had to be trenched upon. After her
return however from Frome, in 1854, it no longer became
necessary for her to exert herself ; she continued living with
me and my two sisters, and in 1876 removed with Christina
to another house, 30 Torrington Square. In her later years
her hearing was imperfect, though by no means gone, and
her general strength abated considerably. Her mind remained
always clear, but necessarily less strong with the inroads of
age. She died, rather of gradual decline than of anything
else, on 8 April 1886, the very day which completed four
years after the death of Dante Gabriel. Had she lived a few
more days, she would have been eighty-six years of age. She
rests by her husband's side in Highgate Cemetery.

I have observed that my mother " wrote correctly in prose,
and some few times even in verse." It has lately been my

24 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

melancholy task to hunt through drawers, pigeon-holes, etc.,
in the house (30 Torrington Square) occupied by my sister
Christina — of memory gracious to many — up to the date of
her death, 29 December 1894. I came upon a little red
writing-case, given by Dante Rossetti to our mother in 1849 >
in the writing-case were these verses of her composition.
They are dated 1876, the year when my sister Maria Francesca
died ; after Dante's death in 1882 a final couplet was added.
To me the lines, recording a succession of family losses, are
pathetic ; they come from a heart full of affection. Perhaps
the reader will think it ridiculous that I should print them ;
at worst, the ridicule will apply to me alone, and not to the
writer, who in youth and age kept all such things very much
to herself.

" No longer I hear the welcome sound

Of Father's foot upon the ground ;

No longer see the loving face

Of Mother beam with kindly grace ;

No longer hear ' how I rejoice '

At sight of me, from Sister's voice ; '

No more from Husband loved will be a

' Cara Francesca, moglie mia ' ;

And from dear Daughter sore I miss

'My dearest Dodo,'2 and her kiss: —

I never more shall hear him speak,

The dearly loved who called me ' Tique.' " 3

III.

RELATIVES.

FRANCES ROSSETTI was the daughter of Gaetano Polidori,
and of Anna Maria Polidori, nee Pierce.

My maternal great-grandfathers were both born an immense
time ago ; Agostino Ansaldo Polidori in 17 14, and William
Pierce in 1736: strange to think of. Even my maternal

1 This was Margaret, who died in 1867.

2 A pet name much used by Maria for her mother.

3 Dante Gabriel was addicted to calling his mother, in her later years,
"the Antique," or simply " Antique," shortened sometimes into " Tique."

RELATIVES. 2$

grandfather dates as far back as 1764, and my grandmother
as far back as 1769. The year 17 14 witnessed the accession
of George I. to the British throne ; 1736, the death of Prince
Eugene; 1764, the death of Hogarth; 1769, the publication
of the first Letter of Junius.

The name Polidori is of course Greek, not Italian ; but of
any Greek ancestry which there may possibly have been I
know nothing. The Polidori family, so far as I ever heard
of it, was Tuscan, the profession of medicine being customary
from father to son ; authorship was also frequent in the race,
at any rate in the later generations. Agostino Ansaldo,
author of two poems, Tobias and Osteology (the latter has been
privately printed), was a Doctor settled at Bientina near
Pisa : here was born his son Gaetano. There was also a
brother of Agostino, named Francesco. He produced a poem
entitled Losario (privately printed), more or less in the vein
of Ariosto. Gaetano was intended. for the law, which he
studied in the University of Pisa. In 1785, however, he deserted
the law, and, on the recommendation of the Abate Fassini,
became secretary to the famous tragedian Conte Alfieri, with
whom he stayed at Brisach, Colmar, and Paris. Naturally
he saw, along with Alfieri, the Countess of Albany, whose
husband, "the Young Pretender," was then still living.
Polidori was in Paris at the taking of the Bastille in July 1789 ;
and a little anecdote which he relates of that day may deserve
reproduction here : —

" I was passing by the Palais Royal while the populace were
running to assault the fortress ; and, having encountered a highly-
powdered wig-maker, with a rusty sword raised aloft, I, not expecting
any such thing, and hardly conscious of the act, had the sword
handed over to me, as he cried aloud — ' Prenez, citoyen, combattez
pour la patrie? I had no fancy for such an enterprise ; so, finding
myself sword in hand, T at once cast about for some way to get rid
of it ; and, bettering my instruction from the man of powder, I stuck
it into the hand of the first unarmed person I met ; and, repeating,
' Prenez, citoyen, combattez pour la patrie] I passed on and returned
home."

26 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Polidori (as he intimates) had no taste for political
convulsions, and little for politics of any sort. Almost
immediately afterwards Alfieri got put out at finding that
on a single occasion his secretary was not at home when
summoned, and the Count wrote him a note, asking him " to
change his style, or else his dwelling." Polidori, one of the
least pliable of mortals, closed at once with the second alter-
native, and determined to clear out of France, and repair to
England to teach Italian. He asked for and readily obtained
three letters of introduction from Alfieri and the Countess of
Albany. These were addressed to Mrs. Cosway, the painter,
Captain Masseria, a relative of Napoleon, and the famous
Corsican General De' Paoli. The last remained up to his
death on intimate terms with Polidori, and left him a mourning
ring, which I now possess. In 1791 Alfieri, then in France,
wished to get Polidori back as his secretary ; but the latter
declined with thanks, preferring conservative England very
much to revolutionary France.

In February 1793 Polidori married -Miss Anna Maria
Pierce, who had acted as a governess. He taught Italian for
a great number of years, retiring in 1836, after having made
a fair moderate competence. He then lived for a while wholly
in Buckinghamshire — Holmer Green, near Little Missenden,
in a house which he had purchased years before for personal
and family convenience — but in 1839 he returned to London,
Park Village East, Regent's Park. There he died of apoplexy
in December 1853, aged eighty-nine.

My anecdote about the wig-maker and the sword is taken
from a little narrative which Polidori wrote, as an appendix
to one of his privately printed books ; for he kept a printing-
press in Park Village East, and there he produced, with some
aid from practical hands, several volumes of his own works,
and a few others. Dante Rossetti's boyish poem Sir Hugh
the Heron, and Christina's Verses, were among these — printed
respectively in 1843 and 1847. Another was the poem by
Erasmo di Valvasone, L Angeleida .; with passages extracted
by Polidori from Milton's Paradise Lost, presumably founded

RELATIVES. 27

more or less upon this Italian poem. The personal narrative
above mentioned relates chiefly to Alfieri, and contains
several particulars of some interest. I give here a few of the
general observations upon him : —

" Curious and strange was the character of that singular man :
proud as Milton's Satan, and more choleric than Homer's Achilles.
He esteemed himself far beyond his real worth, and very few were
the poets or men of letters for whom he had any regard. He was
proud of his reddish hair, which he always wore studiously curled
and tended ; of his fine and speckless apparel, and especially of his
uniform as a captain in the Piedmontese Infantry, which he donned
for more solemn occasions ; of his pure gold buckles for shoes
and breeches, as then worn ; of his handsome English horses, of
which, counting together saddle and carriage horses, he had sixteen ;
and of his fine and elegant phaeton, which he generally drove four-
in-hand, and went in pomp, taking the air in city and high-road.
Yet, amid many defects, Count Alfieri had some good qualities :
that of paying his debts most punctually, of limiting his outlay so
that at the end of the year some money remained over, rather than
be indebted for a penny, and of being just, when justice was clear to
him. As I never had to dispute with him, in four years that I was
in his house, save with the reason on my side, and, whenever we
had disputed, he, upon recognizing that he was in the wrong, had
confessed it and taken the blame to himself, I esteemed and loved
him [various anecdotes had been previously given in the narrative,
amply confirming this statement as to disputes between Alfieri and
his secretary]. . . . In 1789 began the French Revolution, in which
he exulted, and I saw him leap with joy upon the ruins of the
Bastille."

It is matter of notoriety, however, that after a while Alfieri
entirely altered his view of French affairs, and became a
Gallophobist of prime virulence.

Polidori was a man of good stature and very vigorous
build ; his health was strong, and his faculties not seriously
impaired by age. He liked almost any occupation — writing,
reading, cabinet-work (he produced many pretty boxes,
tables, etc., in wood-mosaic, after the Florentine manner),

28 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

and miscellaneous country work. He was a man of the most
sturdy and independent character, a sworn enemy to pretence
and frivolity of all sorts ; for instance, he would not allow any
of his daughters to learn dancing. He always remained
nominally a Roman-catholic, but without taking any part in
religious observances of whatsoever kind. For his son-in-
law Rossetti he had a sincere liking, and owned his great
superiority to himself as a poet. But the divergence between
them was frequently marked in little things : Polidori solid,
unbending, somewhat dogged ; Rossetti not any less earnest
in essentials, but vivacious, facile, with more grace of manner
and feeling, and comparatively mercurial. As a grandfather
Polidori was both kind and tolerant, and was looked up to
by us with much warmth of regard.

Gaetano Polidori had all the habits and likings of a literary
man, and was more decidedly bookish than my father.
Like the latter, he was a member of the Academy of the
Arcadi, and bore the high-sounding designation of " Fileremo
Etrusco." I possess his Arcadian diploma, a curious docu-
ment. He wrote a large number of things in prose and verse,
both published, privately printed, and unprinted. His first
work was a poem, U Infedelta Punita {Faithlessness Punished).
Among the others are — Novelle Morali {Moral Tales) ;
Grammaire de la Langue Ltalie?me ; A Dictionary in three
v61umes, Italian with French and English, French with
Italian and English, and English with Italian and French —
a very handy little book, and no doubt no small labour to
its compiler ; Translation of all Milton's Poems ; Trans-
lation of Lucan's Pharsalia. with a sequel of his own ;
Tragedie e Drammi. Unprinted is a Life of Boccaccio,
written in English, which my grandfather knew and spoke
well. This MS. I possess ; likewise an Italian Life of
General de Paoli, up to his return to Corsica during the
French Revolution — a work which, considering Polidori's
intimacy with his hero, might be of some worth.

As I have already said, the wife of Gaetano Polidori was
Anna Maria Pierce ; and I will now give some few particulars

RELATIVES. 29

about the Pierce family, which is, as will be perceived, the
only source from which Dante Gabriel Rossetti had any
English blood in his veins.

I know nothing of the Pierces beyond Richard Pierce, my
great-great-grandfather, who was a schoolmaster in Burlington
Gardens, London. He had a son, William, a writing-master,
who maintained himself from the age of sixteen onwards,
married twice, and had ten children. William Pierce (I
referred to this at the beginning of the present Section) was
born as far back as 1736 ; and it would appear that the
vocation of a writing-master must in his prime have been far
more lucrative than it is at present, for he made a very com-
fortable competence (the chief source of whatever money
there has been in the family since his time), and "kept his
carriage." Possibly his first marriage (which seems to have
been into a grade somewhat above his own) had to do with
this result. He was always represented to me as a curiously
well-preserved specimen of " the old school " ; formal, precise,
upright, rather formidable to a younger generation, yet kind
too in his way. Among his grandchildren he had a special
predilection for my mother ; though like a good British Tory
as he was, he thought it " very odd " that, after his daughter
Anna Maria had married one foreigner, his grand-daughter
Frances should marry another foreigner. It looked like flying
in the face of the blessed shades of a Chatham, Wolfe, Nelson,
and George III., and truckling to the far from blessed shades
of a Voltaire, a Mirabeau, and a Bonaparte, not to speak of
the Pope of Rome. Mr. Pierce had in fact a strong feeling
against marriages with foreigners, as his favourite sister had
made a marriage of this kind which proved very unhappy
He died in 1829, aged ninety-three, shortly before my birth ;
and after him I was named William. His ten children, other
than Mrs. Polidori, shall not concern us here ; except to say
that one of his sons, Frederick, became a Brigadier-General,
and was highly esteemed, I believe, in the Army of India.
I will also observe in passing that, through the first wife of
William Pierce, Jane Arrow, and a brother and sister of hers,

30 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

the present generation of Rossettis are some sort of cousins
to that distinguished cleric, the Rev. J. E. Kempe, of St.
James's Church, London, and also to the late Mrs. Eliza
Anna Bray, whose first husband was a son of the painter
Thomas Stothard. She published a Life of Stothard, various
romances, tales of Devonshire life, an Autobiography, and
other works. My uncle Henry Polydore once took the pains
of drawing out a scanty pedigree of the Pierce and Arrow
families ; and I find in it, as connected by marriage, the
surnames Wrather, Hunter, Maunsell, Le Mesurier, Jump,
Lester, Porter, Hutchins, Mose, Kitchener, Austin, Cooper,
Sandrock, and Brown (nothing to do with Madox Brown).
These surnames — except Wrather, Austin, and Brown — repre-
sent nothing to my memory. Of the Austins I have some
direct or collateral knowledge. There was a Bishop Austin
in the West Indies, and an Austin Governor of Honduras ;
and in 1887 at San Remo I met a very pleasant young lady,
Miss Burrows (now Mrs. Martin), who informed me that she
was some connexion of mine — I believe through the Austin
family.

As I have said, my great-grandfather, William Pierce,
married a Miss Jane Arrow. My own knowledge of the
Arrow family is of the scantiest ; but I find it mentioned in
Mrs. Bray's Autobiography that James Arrow, the father
of Jane, belonged to an old race, much damaged in the cause
of Charles I. He had a small landed estate in Berkshire, and
married an Irish lady, Elizabeth Jerdan, " related to the
Whartons." She died at the age of ninety-nine !

To return to Anna Maria Pierce, Mrs. Polidori, whom, as
she lived on to May 1853, I remember perfectly well. Before
my recollection begins she had already become an invalid,
owing to an internal complaint, and she never left her bed-
room, and not often her bed. Her youngest daughter, Eliza
Harriet, was her constant and devoted attendant, sacrificing
for this purpose all the pleasures and interests of youth.
Mrs. Polidori was a fine old lady, with very correct features,
and an air which, in spite of her age and infirmity, was

RELATIVES. 3 1

comely as well as reverend. Her bed-room had to me
all the dignity of a presence-chamber, which I entered at
sparse intervals with a certain awe. She was, like several
others of her race, a high Tory, and an earnest member of
the Church of England ; and the arrangement made at her
marriage was that any daughters should be brought up in
that Church, while any sons should belong to the Roman
communion. It comes apposite to say here that in the
Rossetti family the understanding was different, and all the
children were trained in their mother's faith. Mrs. Polidori
had attained her eighty-fourth year at the date of her death.
The only other member of her generation of the Pierce family
whom I knew was her elder sister Harriet, who, though
unmarried, was always in my time styled Mrs. Pierce, and
we children were admonished to term her " Granny." After
passing many years as governess in the family of the Earl
of Yarborough, she spent the evening of her life in nice
apartments in London, which she made a model of spick-and-
span comfort, not unmixed with elegance. I have just now
said that she was unmarried ; but there ran a rumour, not
totally uncorroborated, that Lord Yarborough had in fact
wedded her without publicity. He had become a widower
in i8i3,and lived on to 1846. This rumour I of course in no
sort of way avouch. " Granny " was the liberal purveyor of
many a serviceable household-present to my mother, her
favourite niece. She inherited all the faultless precision and
imposing decorum of her father, and was the most nitid little
old lady you could easily pick out in London. She died
in 1849 — the first time that I looked upon the visible face
of death.

The Polidoris had a family of four daughters and four sons
— one of the latter dying in infancy. In my notes to my
brother's letters sufficient details will be given about three
of these — Charlotte Lydia, Philip Robert, and Henry Francis
(the latter modified his surname into Polydore). There
remain the eldest daughter, Maria Margaret, and the youngest
(whom I have just now mentioned), Eliza Harriet. Maria

32 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Margaret — or Margaret, as she was always called — was in
her youth a governess, but retired pretty early, and lived with
her family, and finally in my house, 166 Albany Street,
where she died in 1867. She was much affected with nervous
tremor, and troubled by hysterical fits, in which she would
fall into peals of long-continued quasi-laughter, which rang
over the house— more like the vocal gymnastics of a laughing
hyena than like anything else I know. No other symptom
of the hyena appeared about my aunt, who, apart from a
touchy temper, was a good old soul, much addicted to " daily
service" twice a day in church. The youngest daughter,
Eliza Harriet, had always a housekeeping managing turn,
without any literary leanings. In 1854, the year succeeding
her mother's death, she determined to make her knowledge
of nursing useful to the nation, and went out with Miss
Nightingale to the Crimean expedition, being then about
forty-five years of age. To her disappointment no actual
nursing was assigned to her, but she had the supervision of
the hired nurses, and the management of bedding-stores
etc., at the Barrack Hospital, Scutari, and rendered excellent
service, which was recognized by the bestowal of a Turkish
medal. I remember that after her return to England some
case relating to the nursing transactions came into a London
police-court, and she had to give evidence ; and we were
amused at finding her, in the newspaper reports, designated
as " Miss Polly Dory." The Crimean affair was about the
only " adventure " of her long life. She died in London in
1893, aged nearly eighty-four. Eliza was the last of the
English Polidoris ; some of the name are still in Florence.

Only one other Polidori has to be accounted for in my
narrative — Dr. John William Polidori, who lives faintly in
some memories as the travelling physician of the famous Lord
Byron. He was born in London on 7 September 1795,
educated at some Catholic schools and at the Benedictine
Ampleforth College near York, and took his degree as M.D.
in Edinburgh at the singularly youthful age of nineteen. He
was only twenty when, on the recommendation of, Sir Henry

RELATIVES. 33

Halford, he became the travelling physician of Byron, who
on 24 April 18 16 left England for the last time. They
went along the Rhine to Geneva, where Polidori made
acquaintance also with Shelley and his two companions,
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (the second Mrs. Shelley) and
Clare Clairmont. Polidori, who had poetical and literary
ambitions of his own, took too much upon him to suit Byron
for long ; so on 16 September the two parted company,
and the young Doctor travelled on alone to Pisa, and then
returned to England. He became one of the physicians in
the Norwich Hospital ; but soon gave up medicine, partly
because he would not have been allowed to practise in
London before completing twenty-six years of age, and he
began studying in London for the Bar. It has been said that
in Norwich Miss Harriet Martineau was somewhat in love
with him ; and this would not be unlikely, as Polidori — apart
from his intellectual gifts, which were by no means so flimsy
as some people seem now to suppose — was a noticeably fine
young man, of striking feature and presence. In August 1821
the end came in a melancholy way : he committed suicide
with poison — having, through losses in gambling, incurred a
debt of honour which he had no present means of clearing off.
A coroner's jury was summoned ; the jurors took, probably
through good-nature towards the family, no steps for eliciting
requisite evidence, and returned a verdict of " Died by the
visitation of God." His death was a grievous blow to his
father, all whose leading hopes centred in this son. Gaetano
Polidori, to the end of his long life, a lapse of thirty-two years,
was never equal to hearing any mention of him, and we
children of a younger generation were strictly warned not
to name him, however casually, in our grandfather's presence.

John Polidori published two volumes of verse : Ximenes,
a Tragedy, and Other Poems, 18 19 ; and The Fall of the
Angels, 1 821. It may at once be admitted that his poetry
was not good. Two prose tales are much better — Ernestus
Berchtold, and The Vampyre, both published in 18 19.
The Vampyre has continually been misascribed to Byron,

VOL. I. 3

34 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

who in reality wrote the mere beginning of another tale
(quite different in its incidents) named likewise The Vampyre.
Polidori left some other writings, both published and un-
published. The latter include a diary, partly detailed and
partly mere jottings, of his sojourn with Byron and Shelley,
and his subsequent tour. It was commissioned by Murray
for publication at no less a price than £525, and contains
some particulars of substantial interest.1

I have now finished all that I need say about the relatives
of Dante Rossetti on the mother's side. The only relative
on our father's side whom we have personally known — with
some others I have corresponded — was Teodorico (or properly
Teodoro) Pietrocola, who adopted the compound surname of
Pietrocola-Rossetti. He was a Vastese, and studied medicine
to some extent. In 1851, being then about twenty-four years
of age, he came to London, hoping to find an opening of
some kind ; but found nothing except semi-starvation, which
he bore with a cheerful constancy touching to witness. In
1856 or thereabouts he returned to Italy, practised for a
moderate while medicine as a Homceopathist, married a
Scotch lady (originally Miss Steele, now Mrs. Cole, an amiable,
accomplished, and admirable woman), and, with her co-opera-
tion, devoted himself to preaching evangelical Christianity,
somewhat of the Vaudois type, in Florence and elsewhere.
He died very suddenly in 1883, just as he was giving out
a hymn or text to his small congregation. He published
a few things — among others, a biography of my father, a
translation of Alice in Wonderland, and one of Christina
Rossetti's- poem, Goblin-Market, A man of more native
unselfish kindliness, of stricter morals, or of nicer concientious-
ness, never breathed.

Since writing the above, I have observed in the book of
Mr. W. G. Collingwood, The Life and Work of John Ruskin,
a reference to Pietrocola-Rossetti which is of so much interest

1 On the details about Shelley in this diary I wrote a few years ago, and
delivered to the Shelley Society, a lecture which has not as yet been
printed.

RELATIVES. 3 5

to me, and in itself so noticeable, that I extract it here ; it
relates to the year 1882 : —

"Miss [Francesca] Alexander . . . was as friendly, not only in
society but in spiritual things, with the worthy village priest as with
T. P. Rossetti, the leader of the Protestant ' Brethren,' whom she
called her pastor — a cousin of the artist, and in his way no less
remarkable a man. It is hardly too much to say that he did, for
evangelical religion in Italy, what Gabriel Rossetti did for poetical
art in England : he showed the path to sincerity and simplicity.
And Mr. Ruskin, who had been driven away from Protestantism by
the Waldensian at Turin [this refers to an incident in the year 1858],
and had wandered through many realms of doubt, and voyaged
through strange seas of thought alone, found harbour at last with
the disciple of a modern evangelist, the frequenter of the poor little
meeting-house of outcast Italian Protestants."

If this statement is literally accurate, it would appear that
the latest development of Mr. Ruskin's religious opinions was
mainly influenced by Miss Alexander, who was not a little
influenced by Pietrocola-Rossetti : a matter worth remember-
ing for many a day to come.

I have often reflected how utterly different this cousin of
mine was from the ordinary English notion of a Southern
Italian. My father also was very different from that notion ;
my grandfather, a Central Italian, quite the reverse of it.
Peace be with the honoured and honourable memory of all
three.

The Rossetti family in Vasto became extinct while I was
composing this Memoir : the latest survivor was Vincenzo
Rossetti, who died, aged forty, on 11 November 1894. "With
him," so runs a billet de /aire part which was sent to me,
" was lost the last germ of so glorious a stem in Italy."
I presume, but cannot say for certain, that in the female line
the race of Nicola and Maria Francesca Rossetti may still
subsist.

The reader may have observed, in the course of my
family narrative, several instances of longevity in the races
of Arrow, Pierce, and Polidori. I have under my eye a list

36 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

of nine persons, among whom the lowest age was eighty-
three, the highest ninety-nine — average eighty-eight. Nothing
of the sort appears in the Rossetti race, though my father
attained a not inconsiderable age — seventy-one. It may also
be noted that in the three lines from which Dante Rossetti
came — Polidori, Pierce, and Rossetti — the work of tuition
held a very large place. Hence perchance he inherited a
certain readiness at linguistics, and at seeing literary matters
from a literary point of view ; but there was little or nothing
in him of the man born to teach by ordinary teaching
methods.

IV.

CHILDHOOD.

My mother, marrying on 10 April 1826, had four children-
there were never any more — in four successive years : Maria
Francesca, born on 17 February 1827 ; Gabriel Charles
Dante, 12 May 1828 ; William Michael, 25 September
1829; and Christina Georgina, 5 December 1830. The
famous Surgeon and Physician, Dr. Locock — afterwards Sir
William Locock, the Queen's accoucheur — ushered, I believe,
all of us into the world ; for our father — though a man of
thrift, and in personal expenses heedfully sparing — grudged
no cost needed for the well-being of his household. To
Gabriel Charles Dante I shall here generally apply the name
" Dante," which he adopted as if it had stood first in order ;
in his own family, however, he was invariably termed Gabriel
— or, by our sister Maria, " Gubby," a pet name which other
members of the household did not affect.

Our house, No. 38 Charlotte Street, was a fairly neat but
decidedly small one : it is smaller inside than it looks viewed
from outside. I can remember a little about it, but not
much. Towards 1 836 the family had outgrown it, and removed
to No. 50 in the same street — a larger but still far indeed
from being a spacious dwelling. This house is now the office
of a Registrar of births, deaths, and marriages; and, singularly

CHILDHOOD. 37

enough, when I had to record in 1876 the death of my
sister Maria, I found that the place for doing this was the
very house in which she had so long resided. Soon after
Gabriele Rossetti settled in Charlotte Street it began to go
down in character, and at times it became the extreme reverse
of " respectable." Dante Rossetti in his early childhood was
a pleasing spirited-looking boy, with bright eyes, auburn hair,
and fresh complexion. He remembered in after-years nothing
distinctly earlier than this : That there used to be a Punch
and Judy show which came at frequent intervals to perform
just before our house, but for the delectation of our opposite
neighbours, so that he himself only saw the back of the show.
This was not at all what he wanted ; so he motioned to go
out into the street, and turn round and see the front of the
Punch and Judy (there was no Dog Toby in those distant
days), but was wofully disconcerted at being told that such
a proceeding would be infra dig, and not to be condoned.
Dante shared with Maria the ascendency over his two juniors :
but Maria, in these opening years, was not easily to be
superseded — being of a very enthusiastic temperament and
lively parts ; and indeed she always remained the best of the
four at what we call acquired knowledge. In her fifth year
she could read anything in either English or Italian, and
read she did with tireless persistency. Our early years
were passed wholly at home in London, with occasional visits
to our grandparents at Holmer Green, our Aunts Margaret
and Eliza, and our Uncle Philip, being continuously there as
well. Our daily walks were with our mother in and about
Regent's Park, which was opened to the public much towards
the date of my birth. I can still recollect how palatial I
used to consider the frontage of the Terraces facing the Park,
and how our mother would explain to us which of the
columns or pilasters was Ionic, which Corinthian, and so on.
The Colosseum, a big Exhibition building pulled down
towards 1870, was then in existence, and was occasionally
visited by us. It comprised a Camera Obscura, in which we
viewed with wonder the groups of people disporting them-

38 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

selves in the Park. Primrose Hill was ascended every now
and then. It led immediately on into fields (how different
from now !) which brought one into the rural village of
Hampstead, to which our father escorted us at rare intervals.
Railways were just beginning not far from Regent's Park ;
to see the puffs of their steam as the trains rolled onward
appeared little short of magic.

Two of my childish reminiscences of my brother relate to
animals. Some one gave him a dormouse, which he named
" Dwanging," and, on the approach of winter, he shut it up
in a drawer to hibernate. In its long sleep he looked at it
from time to time, but was careful not to disturb it ; and his
glee was proportionate when the little creature revived in the
spring. Later on there was a hedgehog, to whom Dante's
conduct was not equally correct. The hedgehog was wont
to trot about on the table in our dining and sitting room, or
" parlour " as we mostly termed it (the drawing-room was
little used, save by our father in his literary work, or occa-
sionally with a pupil) ; and one day my brother insisted on
leaving upon the table some beer for his prickly favourite.
The latter freely partook of the beverage, and his unsteady
gait evinced the effects of it. Our mother forbade the repeti-
tion of any such experiments ; and I think Dante himself had
no wish to recur to them, for at no period of his life did he
relish the sight of anything repellent or degrading. One of
my brother's first books was Peter Parley's Natural History,
which he enjoyed, both text and cuts. We went pretty often
to the Zoological Gardens, then a very recent foundation, and
would run shrieking through its tunnel, to rouse the echo.
The animals were at that date much fewer than now, yet still
numerous — their housing very inferior. There was a striated
monkey, whose designation was explained to us (I have not
seen any such animal of late years) ; also a singsing antelope,
of whom my father would say (in English), " Sing, sing,
antelope ; antelope, sing, sing ; but he never sang." Arma-
dilloes, and a sloth walking with his head downwards, were
among our favourites — not to speak of screaming parrots,

CHILDHOOD. 39

bears, lions, tigers, and elephants. A collared peccary gave
Christina a vicious bite, which came to nothing. No wombat
figured at that early date ; but several dogs used to be there,
more or less domestic, which were tethered in a rather
dejected and yell-abounding file. They were afterwards
abolished, on the ground that such a treatment of them was
not far remote from cruelty.

Another amusement, as Dante progressed in childhood,
was the Adelaide Gallery, close to St. Martin's Church, now
occupied by Gatti's Restaurant. It was a semi-scientific enter-
tainment, exhibiting inter alia fearsome microscopic enlarge-
ments of the infusoria in a few drops of water. The Adelaide
Gallery was succeeded by the Polytechnic Institution in
Regent Street, with a more varied programme of like kind —
diving-bell, electric shocks, dissolving views, chemical demon-
strations, etc. This also is now gone, the present Polytechnic
being quite a different sort of establishment. The Soho
Bazaar, and more especially the Pantheon Bazaar in Oxford
Street (now Gilbey's liquor stores), were often our resort.
The Pantheon exhibited many pictures from time to time,
including Haydon's Raising of Lazarus. Astley's Riding
Circus, with dramatic entertainments (such as Mazeppd), we
saw once or twice, but in childhood we hardly at all entered
a regular theatre. To pay for going to the Italian Opera
(the building near Charing Cross, now gone) was what we
could not afford. Occasionally, however, the great singer
Lablache, whom my father had known in Naples, would
give us a ticket for that house, and we enjoyed the perform-
ance vastly. My recollections carry me back to the first (or
may-be the second) London season of the celebrated Madame
Julia Grisi, whom I saw in the Gazza Ladra. The appear-
ance of her husband Mario was a matter of some years later
on. I remember also the first season of Madlle Rachel,
who was acting Chimene in the Cid of Corneille. There
was likewise a ballet, The Daughter of the Danube, with
various " fiends " in it. This hit our fancy uncommonly, and
we made at home some kind of pretence at " the Blue Demon "

40 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

and other of its characters in 1838. My first (and for years
it must have remained my sole) pantomime is also a lively
reminiscence. There was a race run by jockeys on pigs, and
each touch of the whip raised a shower of sparks out of the
porcine steeds, to my uncontrollable laughter and delight.
My brother must have been with me, but I forget his
demeanour.

Beyond an opera or a concert at rare intervals, we heard
little music as children ; except that our father, with his rich
voice and fine declamation, would at times, unaccompanied,
strike up a stave of some glorious chant of the French
revolutionary epoch —

"La Victoire en chantant nous ouvre la barriere" —

or (sung to the same spirit-stirring air) —

" Romain, leve les yeux. La fut le Capitol,"1

or the Marseillaise. Another customary song of his was a
popular and rather long grotesque tirade about a Jewish
wedding, Bdruccaba, from which he sang several snatches.
Our mother also would frequently play on the pianoforte, for
our delectation, The Battle of Prague, with the " groans of the
wounded," and other less lugubrious details. She had an
agreeable voice for singing ; but it had received no sort of
cultivation, as singing was, like dancing, one of the worldly
vanities which my grandfather discountenanced. In my first

1 This Lyric must belong to the year 1798, when the French army
entered Rome, and set up a short-lived Republic ; perhaps it is now a
curiosity. I can recall the opening lines — being all, 1 think, that my father

sang : —

' ' Romain, leve les yeux. La fut le Capitol :
Ce pont fut le pont de Codes :
La Brutus immola sa race :
Et C6sar dans cette autre place
Fut poignarde' par Cassius.
Rome, la Liberte' t'appelle ;
Sache vaincre ou sache perir :
Un Romain doit vivre pour elle,
Pour elle un Romain doit mourir. "

CHILDHOOD. 41

years I often heard her sing these lines, and the tune still
lingers with me : —

" The sun sets by night and the stars shun the day,
But glory remains when their lights fade away :
Begin, ye tormentors, your threats are in vain,
For the sons of Alnomuk shall never complain.

"Remember the arrows we shot from our bow,
Remember the chiefs by our hatchets laid low:
Now, the flames rising fast, we exult in our pain,
For the sons of Alnomuk shall never complain."

Where do these mediocre lines come from ? My mother
(it seems to me) associated them with the story of Guatimozin
and the Spaniards under Cortes, but that does not look
correct.

I hardly think that I ever saw my father touch a pack of
playing cards ; he played pretty often at chess. My mother
would at times take part in a family game without any stakes.
Upon us children nothing was more strongly impressed than
a horror of gambling, which had led to the death of Dr. John
Polidori : but we were allowed to play at simple games ;
Patience, and Beggar my Neighbour, and (what I never hear
of now) The Duchess of Rutland's Whim. The last I asso-
ciated in my mind with the notion of arithmetical subtraction,
as contrasted with addition, which the other two games might
be held to represent. Later on there came Whist, and the
Italian game of Tre Sette. We identified ourselves in a sort
of way with the four suits of cards ; and clubs were thus made
the appurtenance of Maria, hearts of Dante, diamonds of
Christina, and spades of myself. I may here say that the
dislike to the idea of gambling clung to us through life ; and
neither Dante nor any other of us ever played for money, in
any sense worth naming. Besides cards, a rocking-horse, a
spinning-top, a teetotum, ball, ninepins, blindman's buff, and
puss-in-the-corner, used to amuse us — hardly anything else
in the way of games. Even marbles we never rightly learned,
nor efficient kite-flying, still less anything to be called athletics.
As to mental games, we were much addicted to what is called

42 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

" animal, vegetable, or mineral " ; and there must occasionally
have been some " capping verses," but this (which seems odd
under the circumstances) was quite infrequent.

Of events in the opening years of Dante Rossetti I find
none to record ; unless it be that, at the age of five, he
suddenly became weak on his legs, and, after the celebrated
surgeon Sir Benjamin Brodie had been consulted, he had to
wear splints for a longish while — say three or four months.
I can recollect the look of him, carried, or afterwards hobbling,
upstairs. One day he thought he would try how he could
do without the splints ; he did very well, and the affair was
at an end. He was a sprightly little fellow, and liked to
play a trick or two. One trick he played more than
once was walking in the street in a huddled-up attitude, as
if he were crippled or almost hunchbacked. When a pas-
senger looked at him sympathetically, the limbs suddenly
straightened, and perhaps an impish laugh accompanied the
change of form. In our unluxurious household he was regarded
as rather " dainty " in his diet ; inclined to eat such things as
he liked, and doing without those he disliked. For beer he
had a marked distaste ; there was no wine going to speak of,
so he stuck to water. Meat also he would scarcely touch
until turned of eight years.

I believe the first attempt at drawing made by the future
painter of Beata Beatrix was on this wise. At the age of
about four he stationed himself in the passage leading to the
street-door, and with a pencil of our father's began drawing
his rocking-horse ; later on in his childhood and boyhood he
seldom made any attempt at drawing from any real object,
but only " out of his own head." A milkman came in at the
moment, and was not a little surprised : " I saw a baby
making a picture," he said to the servant. I have here
mentioned " the age of about four," because that is the age
which my brother himself named to me one day in April 1 872
when we were talking over our earliest reminiscences. I still
possess a drawing by him of the rocking-horse, on which our
mother has marked the date 1834, when he was at least five

CHILDHOOD. 43

years of age. I could believe this to be that very first
drawing of all, were it not that the performance comes so
near to being pretty tolerably good that I find some difficulty
in conceiving that he had never before taken pencil in
hand.

Having once begun, Dante never dropped this notion of
drawing — of handling a pencil or a brush ; and I cannot
remember any date at which it was not understood in the
family that " Gabriel meant to be a painter." He, and also I,
were incessantly buying sheets of slight engravings of actors
and actresses in costume — " Skelt's Theatrical Characters "
was the name of one leading series of them. I do not think
any such engravings are now produced, which seems strange
in this period of dramatic activity. There was a good-natured
little stationer named Hardy, perhaps in Clipstone Street,
from whom we bought these things ; and another named
Marks, in Great Titchfield Street, who was a trifle less accom-
modating, and on one occasion nonplussed us both by
insisting that we should ask for the required " characters "
by the number printed on the sheet, and not by the title
of the play or the personage. The quantity of these figures
which Dante and I coloured is marvellous to reflect upon — he
in chief, but I was a good second ; our sisters counted for
little. We also " tinselled " the figures, but this was com-
paratively rare. Now and then we made some attempt at
acting a play with such personages on a toy-stage ; but, as
none of us had the least manual or mechanical dexterity, this
came to nothing. I seem to recollect The Miller and his
Men and Der Freiscliutz. In colouring our taste was all
for bright hues — red, blue, yellow, etc. Neither of us had the
least of a colourist's sympathy for fused, subdued, or mottled
tints.

In those days another amusement was current, which has,
I fancy, died out entirely. It might well be revived. " Magic
Shadows " was the name of it. One bought full-sized sheets of
paper, on which heads, figures, or groups, were rudely printed,
in coarse outline, and with numerous half-formless splotches

44 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

of black. One had to cut out a figure etc. along its outline,
and to cut out also the splotches of black ; and then one held
up the figure between a candle and the wall, so that the
shadow of the unexcised portions was cast on to the wall.
This shadow looked surprisingly neat and expressive in
comparison with the original aspect of the printed figures.
We all — but principally myself — enjoyed this ocular amuse-
ment, and practised it diligently for various years.

V.
ACQUAINTANCES IN CHILDHOOD.

Mr. Hall CAINE has cited from one of Dante Rossetti's
letters the phrase, " Our household was all of Italian, not
English, environment." This is wholly correct.

The only English family that we used to see pretty
frequently was that of Mr. Cipriani Potter, the Pianist, and
Principal of the Royal Academy of Music. He was one of
my godfathers, and had children of much the same age as
ourselves ; an excellent undersized man, with a somewhat
saturnine expressive face, an abundance of shrewd sense,
and a bantering habit of talk. Mr. Charles Lyell, though
intimate with my father, was seldom in London. There was
also Mr. Thomas Keightley, the historian, and author of The
Fairy Mythology — a book which formed one of the leading
delights of our childhood. He likewise was in London only
occasionally — a scholarly, shortsighted Irishman, of a high
sense of honour, rather easily nettled now and again. He was
a great believer in my father's views concerning Dante. At
a much later date, towards 1849, Mr. Keightley settled in a
suburb of London ; and his nephew and adopted son, Mr.
Alfred Chaworth Lyster, became, and still remains, one of my
most affectionate friends. Two of the families in which my
father taught Italian — those of Mr. Swynfen Jervis, and of
Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid — had a particular regard for him,
and on some high occasions we children were inside their

ACQUAINTANCES IN CHILDHOOD. 45

doors. Mr. Jervis, a relative of Lord St. Vincent, took some
minor part in verse-writing and Shakespearean comment.
He was father of Mrs. George Henry Lewes, and I remember
her well before her marriage, but never saw her afterwards ;
her unfortunate story shall not here be touched upon. To Sir
Isaac Goldsmid, one of the wealthiest Hebrew stockbrokers in
London, I may record my obligation, which proved to be a
life-long one. He it was who, when my father, in failing health
and waning employment, was looking out for some career into
which I could be introduced, spoke a word in season to one
of his colleagues on the Council of the London University,
Mr. John Wood, then Chairman of the Board of Excise — and
Mr. Wood lost no time in giving me employment there
which, though temporary at first starting, lasted in fact from
February 1845 to August 1894. These seem to be about the
only English people whom I need mention in this connexion,
allowing besides for the English family of an Anglo-Italian
music-master, Signor Rovedino. This family, like that of
Mr. Potter, comprised children of our own age. With Mrs.
Rovedino resided an aunt, whom I mention for the sake of
her sounding old Saxon name, Miss Waltheof, which was
always pronounced Walthew.

We knew in childhood a perfect specimen of the " Poor
Relation," who used to call upon our mother at regular
intervals for purposes easily surmisable. She was named
Miss Sarah Brown — a middle-aged spinster tending to the
elderly, of that order of faculty which is termed " weak-minded."
At a very early age we became, in some casual way, familiar
with Charles Lamb's excellent little essay called Poor Relations,
containing the words (as near as I remember them) : —

"There is one person more embarrassing than a male Poor
Relation, and that is a female Poor Relation ; no woman dresses
below her station from caprice."

I used to ponder these words in regard to Sarah Brown, and
to think, " Is it or is it not true that no woman dresses below
her station from caprice ? "

46 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

If English acquaintances were at a minimum with us,
Italian acquaintances were at a maximum. It seems hardly
an exaggeration to say that every Italian staying in or pass-
ing through London, of a Liberal mode of political opinion,
sought out my father, to make or renew acquaintance with him ;
not to speak of numerous relays of tatterdemalions, who came
principally or solely for alms. If they made the Masonic
knock at the door, or a Masonic digital sign on entering,
they were immediately relieved, as an act of obligation on
the part of my father as a Freemason ; and many were
relieved who had no claim of that particular kind. There
were two terms which I have heard my father apply — how
often ! — to persons of this class : " un cercatore " was an appli-
cant or beggar, " un seccatore " was an intrusive person, or bore.
Others, to whom these designations did not relate (though
some of these also were manifest seccatori, and perhaps on
occasion cercatori as well), would come evening after evening,
and almost all evenings, to our house — in various instances,
for months or years together. My father, as the offspring of
a blacksmith in a country town, was not entitled to have any
caste-prejudices, and in fact he had none. To be an Italian
was a passport to his good-will ; and, whether the Italian was
a nobleman, a professional gentleman, a small musical hanger-
on, a maccaroni-man, or a mere waif and stray churned by the
pitiless sea of expatriation, he equally welcomed him, if only
he were an honest soul, and not a spia (spy) — the latter being
a class of men much rumoured of among the Italian refugees
and Londoners, and abhorred with a loathing indignation.
Hardly an organ-man or plaster-cast vendor passed our street-
door without being interrogated by my father, " Di che paese
siete?" ("What part of Italy do you come from?") The
plaster-cast vendor is seen no more in London streets, but
the organ-man remains. The natives of the Sunny South
who frequented our house seemed all to be indifferent —
singularly indifferent, in British eyes — to any form of social
entertainment ; what they came for was talk — chiefly on
political topics, mingled at moments with a little literature,

ACQUAINTANCES IN CHILDHOOD. 47

and constantly with a liberal sprinkling of my father's poems,
which were received with sonorous eulogy, founded at least
as much on political or national as on literary considerations.
Gabriele Rossetti's noble declamation, taken along with his
subject-matter, was indeed enough to carry any sympathizer
away on the wave and whirl of excitement. I seldom heard
him read any of his prose-writings on such occasions. His
auditors hardly appeared to have any fleshly appetites. Such
a thing as a solid supper was never in question, neither did
they ever propose to smoke. They would come into our small
sitting-room, greet the " Signora Francesca " and their host,
and sit down, as the chance offered, amid the whole family,
adult and semi-infantine. A cup or two of tea or of coffee,
with a slice of bread and butter, was all the provender wont
to be forthcoming.

It would be difficult to give an idea of the atmosphere of
thought and feeling in which Dante Rossetti grew to boyhood
and to youth, unless I were to say something about the
foreign visitors. I shall endeavour to be reasonably brief.
Some he remembered a little, but I, his junior, scarcely or not
at all. Such were Angeloni, a literary purist,1 who became
blind in his last years ; General Michele Carrascosa, who was
my second godfather ; the famous prima donna Giuditta
Pasta ; Guido Sorelli, who maligned in a book the character
of Italian women, and was gibbeted by my father in a sonnet ;
Dragonetti, a leading violoncellist at the Italian opera ;
Petroni, compiler of a dictionary. The celebrated author Ugo
Foscolo was barely known to my father in London ; well known
was the not less celebrated violinist Paganini. There was a
Conte Faro, who took, I believe, to coal-dealing. " Faro "
means in Italian " I will do" ; and my father (possibly

1 Purism in the use of the Italian language was a great controversy
among Italians in all those years. The purists insisted upon recurring to
the standard of literary diction, mainly the Tuscan of the fourteenth
century, to the exclusion of everything modern, provincial, or imported
from abroad. Gabriele Rossetti cared little for such niceties, but was
willing to write much as he thought and spoke. Polidori was stricter, yet
not a purist.

48 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

without any reason beyond the purport of the name) used to
call him " Faro, faro, e nonfard mai niente " (" I will do, I will
do, and never will he do anything "). One curious character,
fearfully addicted to drawing the long bow, was named the
Marchese Moscati, who actually persuaded the very eminent
physician, Dr. Elliotson, that Moscati had a double stomach,
and was a ruminating animal. Elliotson introduced him to
Rossetti, and was (I may take this opportunity of saying) our
accustomed family doctor, resolutely refusing — for he was a
most kind and generous man — to accept any fees for his
valuable advice. Thackeray dedicated Pendennis to him.
After a while my father left Moscati to ruminate by himself,
and they -became avowed enemies.

Among Italians well remembered by me, some are men-
tioned in my Notes to Dante Rossetti's letters : — Filippo
Pistrucci (I recollect also, though faintly, his brother Benedetto
the eminent medallist, who designed our " George-and-the-
Dragon " coinage) ; Sangiovanni, the clever modeller in clay,
the most picturesque figure of all, who had, I believe, " knifed "
somebody in early youth, and had later on (chiefly after the
suppression of the Neapolitan constitution in 1821) had many
a romantic adventure in the kingdom, as captain of a band for
the suppression of brigandage, which bore a partly politico-
reactionary character ; the Cavalier Mortara ; Baron Calfapietra.
Other intimates in our early childhood were — Janer (he subse-
quently called himself Janer-Nardini), a Tuscan, scholarly and
courteous, keen in politics, and of a very biting tongue ; Cici-
loni, a teacher of Italian, of high character in all respects, who
took up Rossetti's work at some times when the latter was laid
aside, and especially during his very severe illness in 1843 \
Foresti, who had been in China ; Sarti, the plaster-cast vendor;
De' Marsi, a teacher ; Ferrari, an aged musician whom blindness
had overtaken ; Sir Michael Costa, the musician and conductor,
and his brother Raffaele, both of whom we saw occasionally ;
Count Carlo Pepoli, a good-looking, cultivated Bolognese of
high honour and ancient family, regarded in our retired
household as rather a dandy — he had been addressed in a

ACQUAINTANCES IN CHILDHOOD. 49

striking poetical epistle by the great poet Leopardi, and
eventually an English lady of some fortune " proposed to
him," and he married her, returned to Italy when liberal
politics prevailed there, and died a Senator of the realm ;
Rolandi, the bookseller, a very worthy man of small stature ;
Count Giuseppe Ricciardi, a South Neapolitan, an ardent
patriot of the revolutionary-republican type. I remember
seeing once or twice in our house a handsome stately lady,
rather advanced in years, who called herself, I think, Ida
Saint Elme. She was the daughter of a Hungarian nobleman,
Leopold de Tolstoy, had led an agitated and far from correct
life, and was authoress of the Memoires d'une Contem-
poraine, published in Paris in 1827. Two old friends passed
some days in my father's house, vaguely remembered by me —
Dr. Curci, and Smargiassi, the latter a Vastese, and a land-
scape-painter of considerable name in the Neapolitan kingdom.
Curci had quite a passionate attachment to my father, and I
believe visited England for the express purpose of seeing him
once again. Later on were Cornaro, a descendant (and I
think I was told the sole remaining descendant) of the great
Venetian family — a noticeable man, in early middle age, with
long nose and reddish hair — he was said to be an inveterate
gambler, and he died accidentally by drowning ; Parodi, a
dancing-master, who gave us lessons in dancing, in return for
Italian lessons imparted to his son by my father — he was a
man not wanting in good sense, but uninstructed in a marked
degree, and spoke the most curious lingo that I ever heard —
French, German, and English, grafted on to his native Italian ;
Aspa, a vigorous Sicilian, pianoforte-tuner in Broadwood's
house ; Gallenga, the political and miscellaneous writer, as
expert in the English as in the Italian tongue ; Dr. Maron-
celli, brother of a well-known exile who suffered a rigid
imprisonment ; the musician Sperati ; Signora Monti (after-
wards Monti-Baraldi), to whom some of Rossetti's latest
letters were written. Dr. Maroncelli gave him some medical
advice towards 1843 ; and later on another doctor, Gilioli,
seemed to have some partial success in treating his eyesight.
VOL. 1. 4

50 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Of one of these Italians, Sangiovanni, I will say a few words
further, as he and his had more to do with our early family life
than any of the others ; Pistrucci came next Sangiovanni
was a tall gaunt man, with an air of having gone through
a deal of wearing work, aged about fifty-two when I first
remember him. It is rather a curious fact that two Spanish
painters, having to depict St. Joseph, adopted a type of
visage not at all unlike Sangiovanni's, but in each instance
(especially the second) less strained and rugged. I refer
to the pictures in our National Gallery, The Adoration of
the Shepherds, by Velasquez, and The Holy Family, by
Murillov Of school knowledge Sangiovanni had little, but
plenty of intelligence ; of religious belief (I should say)
nothing ; but in this respect he was on a par with a large
proportion of his London compatriots. My father once
narrated to him the story of the Patriarch Joseph, from the
Book of Genesis, which came perfectly new to him, and
interested him extremely. In 1833 he went over to America,
on business proper to Achille Murat, to look after an estate
and its slave-labourers. In the United States he saw an
Anglo-American young woman whom he liked ; he proposed
for her, and brought her back to England as his wife. She
became the mother of an ailing boy, Guglielmo. Sangiovanni,
as a husband, was not unkind in his way, but had all the
jealousy (perfectly gratuitous in this instance) and the
dominance of a Southern Italian ; and his wife was almost
a prisoner in her dingy tenement, Nassau Street, Marylebone,
where her spouse carried on his clay-modelling art. My
mother, with some of us children, often looked in upon her
solitude, and held her in deserved esteem. After some years
she came to understand (I know not how) that Sangiovanni
was already a married man, having a wife still living in Italy.
This was, I suppose, true ; and not less true that Sangiovanni
had heard nothing of his first wife for many years, and had
genuinely believed her to be no more. About the same time
our Mrs. Sangiovanni got to know something about the
Mormons ; so one day she vanished with her son to Mormon-

ACQUAINTANCES IN CHILDHOOD. 5 1

land, and was never again traced. This may have been in
1846. Sangiovanni, after much agitated inquiry, resumed his
ordinary work, and he died at Brighton in 1853.

Other names and reminiscences crowd upon me as I
write. There was an odd personage, Albera, whom we con-
sidered not entirely sane. He was a great believer in one
of the professing Dauphins of France, Louis XVII. — I think
this one was the so-called Naundorf — and he insisted
upon taking my father to see him, and believe in him too.
My father saw him, but did not believe in him ; though he
allowed that Naundorf looked very like a Bourbon,1 and had
a daughter resembling Marie Antoinette. After a while Naun-
dorf took to a sort of religious revelation, as well as to
Gallic royalty, and my father, regarding him as a decided
impostor, visited him no more. Then came a little snuffy
senile Frenchman, the Comte de Neubourg, who was, I sup-
pose, a Legitimist or Carlist. If his linen was not spotless,
his manners were exquisitely polite. He had a mania for
puns ; and, when my father was conversing on some subject
with his usual energetic zest, the Comte would at times both
embarrass and exasperate him by interjecting something
which, on reflection, proved to have no raison d'etre beyond
punning. Another singular person was the " Babylonish
Princess " (introduced into our house by Cavalier Mortara),
" Maria Theresa Asmar, daughter of Emir Abdallah Asmar,"
who published her Memoirs in two volumes in 1844. She
was a small, very dark woman, of middle age and subdued
manners, and decidedly plain. A Vastese named Rulli
appeared in our house towards 1842, and made some pretence
at bringing Dante Rossetti on in his artistic studies. I believe
his instruction was limited to propounding to the youth, for
copying, a drawing or engraving of an architectonic ram's

1 This question of Naundorf, or of other persons who claimed to be
Louis XVII., has of late acquired added importance, as it seems to be
established, by the investigation ordered by the French Government, that
the remains which were produced and medically inspected in 1795 as being
those of the deceased Louis XVII, cannot really have been his.

52 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

head. Rulli appeared to us an unmeaning and not easily
intelligible sort of character ; he had something in him, how-
ever, for he died in a battle for Italian liberation. An
Avvocato Teodorani adopted, and even wrote or lectured on,
some of Rossetti's ideas concerning Dante and other Italian
poets ; and a cultivated gentleman, De' Filippi, saw a good
deal of his closing years. A native of the Kingdom of Naples
was generally to be known (apart from dialect or physiog-
nomy) by his addressing my father as " Don Gabriele "—for
that mode still subsists from the old days of the Spanish
occupation. To other Italians my father was " Signor
Rossetti," or (if on a formal footing, which was not wont to
last long) " Signor Professore."

The determined character of some of these men may be
illustrated by a passage from a letter written by Gabriele
Rossetti in April 185 1. I can hardly have failed to see the
Galanti here mentioned, but I do not remember his person.

" Hither had fled from Naples, after the infamous treason of
15 May 1848, a man of great talent, the Avvocato Giacinto
Galanti, who piqued himself on a spirit of prophecy. At that time
our national affairs were flourishing ; but he foresaw disasters which,
since then, have come but too true. One evening he called to read
me a writing of his entitled The Three Years, 1848 (it was just in
June of that year), 1849, an<^ 1850. The first of these three years
he defined as a Year of Roses and Thorns (and you will take note
that the thorns had not yet begun) ; the second, Year all Thorns ;
and the third, Year of Death. And such, haplessly, they all turned
out. He arraigned the Roman Popedom as the principal cause of
all the reverses which he foresaw ; and Pius IX. was, at that date, still
enacting the comedy which he afterwards turned into a tragedy.
On hearing that writing I was staggered ; and yet, not being able
then to give credence to it, I smiled incredulously, and, shaking my
head, I called Galanti a bird of ill omen and a visionary. He rose
incensed, and exclaimed : ' You will see whether I speak the truth,
and you will confess it ; but not to me, for I will not await the
direful time that is coming upon us.' Saying this, he departed,
returned to his house, not far from mine, and cut his throat. This
terrible event produced the deepest impression on me ; and soon

ACQUAINTANCES IN CHILDHOOD. 53

afterwards began our disasters. The days of Novara, Verona, and
Mantua, ensued ; and then the flight of the Impius who is called
Pius, and so to the roses succeeded the thorns. Of the other two
years I do not speak ; you know what they were."

Towards the close of my father's life various protestantizing
Italians, most of them ex-Catholic priests, got about him, and
worked the anti-papal side of his opinions and writings.
They started a review called the Eco di Savonarola. We
did not relish them much, though we thought Crespi and
Di Menna (the latter a' very feeble-minded personage) honest
in their views. There were also Ferretti and Mapei — the last
little to our taste. I cannot recollect that we ever saw Gavazzi,
the admired pulpit orator, but we certainly did see Dr. Achilli
— whose character came much bespattered out of his action
against Cardinal Newman for libel — a heavy beetle-browed
man, who looked fit for most things evil.

I have not yet named the two foremost London-dwelling
Italians of my boyhood, Mazzini and Panizzi. That great
man, Mazzini, was naturally well known to my father, and
highly esteemed by him — a feeling which Mazzini recipro-
cated. They dissented however, to some extent, as to what
should be regarded as practical aims to work for, and practical
means of working. Mazzini was, of course, for a republic,
and for any number of revolutionary attempts, even though
manifestly destined to present failure ; whereas Rossetti was
fundamentally for a unified constitutional monarchy, and for
a plan of action which would preserve rather than sacrifice
valuable lives. Mazzini was perhaps, of the two, the more
nearly in the right ; for it seems as if the result would not,
without his ceaseless incitements, have been attained nearly
so soon as it was. I do not think that I ever set eyes on
Mazzini in my father's house ; but I well remember seeing
him, towards 1842, at a meeting attended by a number of
poor Italians, organ-grinders and others, for whom a school
was being started. He spoke after my father ; and the noble,
simple utterance of the word with which he began his address
— " Fratelli " — still sounds upon my ear. As to Panizzi, my

54 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

father knew him likewise in the early years ; but he under-
stood (I believe correctly) that Panizzi was the writer of an
adverse and partly sneering critique on his theories concerning
Dante and other writers ; this he resented, and they met no
more. Garibaldi and Saffi, who came into fame when my
father was declining and withdrawn from society, he never
saw ; nor do I think he saw the patriot-assassin Felice Orsini,
nor Rufini, author of the admired tale Doctor Antonio.
General Guglielmo Pepe he had known very intimately in
Naples, and they kept up some correspondence to a late date,
when Pepe was acting as one of the heroic defenders of
Venice, 1848-49 ; but the General, so far as I am aware, never
came to England.

The bete noire of the political Italians whom we so con-
stantly saw was the King of the French, Louis Philippe, or
Luigi Filippo, as they called him. He was more abhorred,
because more powerful for good or for evil, than even the
Pope, the King of Naples, or the pettier tyrants of Italy. Of
course too he was regarded as a traitor, having come to the
throne by a popular revolution, and then reinforced the cause
of retrogression and coercion. There were also the Austrians
— " Gli Austriaci " — and their hell-hound Metternich. The
number of times' I have heard Luigi Filippo denounced would
tax the resources of the Calculating Boy. My mind's eye
presents a curious group, though it seemed natural enough at
the time. My father and three or four foreigners engaged in
animated talk on the affairs of Europe, from the point of
view of patriotic aspiration, and hope long deferred till it
became almost hopeless, with frequent and fervent recitations
of poetry intervening ; my mother quiet but interested, and
sometimes taking her mild womanly part in the conversation ;
and we four children— Maria more especially, with her dark
Italian countenance and rapt eyes — drinking it all in as a
sort of necessary atmosphere of the daily life, yet with our
own little interests and occupations as well — reading, colouring
prints, looking into illustrated books, nursing a cat, or what-
ever came uppermost. The talk was essentially of a serious

ACQUAINTANCES IN CHILDHOOD. 55

and often an elevated kind, but varied with any amount of
lively banter, anecdote, or jest, and with those familiar reminis-
cences of the old days and the old country so poignantly
dear to the exile's heart. . As has already been partly indicated,
no period passed, even in our infancy, at which we were much
less capable of following a conversation in Italian than in
English ; and we could pick out tolerably something of
French in talk, even before being set to learn the language
grammatically. Italian grammar we — with the exception of
Maria — hardly looked into at all as a matter of system, and
English grammar was counted as pretty well explaining itself.

I regard it as more than probable that the perpetual excited
and of course one-sided talk about Luigi Filippo and other
political matters had something to do with the marked aliena-
tion from current politics which characterized my brother in
his adolescent and adult years. He was not of a long-suffering
temper, and may have thought the whole affair a considerable
nuisance at times, and resolved that he at least would leave
Luigi Filippo and the other potentates of Europe and their
ministers, to take care of themselves.

I find some remarks in John Stuart Mill's Autobiography
(1873) which appear well worth attention ; here I quote them
as indicating the kind of intellectual savour which we absorbed
in childhood, and which I conceive to have been eminently
well adapted for ripening the faculties and keeping the
feelings undebased. Mill, it will be perceived, is speaking of
French (as contrasted with English) society, but what he
says would apply in a general way to those Italians whom we
were in the habit of seeing ; though it must be allowed that
several of them were commonplace persons in the fullest sense
of the term. Mill says, speaking of the fifteenth year of his
life — I abridge the passage here and there : —

" The greatest perhaps of the many advantages which I owed
to this episode in my education was that of having breathed for
a whole year the free and genial atmosphere of continental life.
Having so little experience of English life, and the few people
I knew being mostly such as had public objects, of a large and

56 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

personally disinterested kind, at heart, I was ignorant of the low
moral tone of what in England is called Society ; the habit of, not
indeed professing, but taking for granted in every mode of implica-
tion, that conduct is of course always directed towards low and
petty objects. I could not then know or estimate the difference
between this manner of existence, and that of a people like the
French, whose faults, if equally real, are at all events different;
among whom sentiments, which by comparison at least may be
called elevated, are the current coin of human intercourse, both in
books and in private life ; and, though often evaporating in pro-
fession, are yet kept alive in the nation at large by constant exercise,
and stimulated by sympathy, so as to form a living and active part
of the existence of great numbers of persons, and to be recognized
and understood by all. Neither could I then appreciate the general
culture of the understanding which results from the habitual exercise
of the feelings, and is thus carried down into the most uneducated
classes of several countries on the continent, in a degree not equalled
in England among the so-called educated, except where an unusual
tenderness of conscience leads to a habitual exercise of the intellect
on questions of right and wrong. I even then felt, though without
stating it clearly to myself, the contrast between the frank sociability
and amiability of French personal intercourse, and the English mode
of existence, in which everybody acts as if everybody else (with few
or no exceptions) was either an enemy or a bore. In France, it is
true, the bad as well as the good points, both of individual and of
national character, come more to the surface, and break out more
fearlessly in ordinary intercourse, than in England ; but the general
habit of the people is to show, as well as to expect, friendly feeling
in every one towards' every other, wherever there is not some
positive cause for the opposite."

I will add here one word or two on the contrary side.
I think that the base passion of envy is more common among
Italian than among English people ; likewise a certain penu-
rious or stingy habit, which may however — among the
Italians I knew in boyhood — have been chiefly due to the
much greater expense of living which they found in England,
beyond what they had known in Italy. To spend a pound
sterling wore, in their eyes, a different aspect from what it

CHILDISH BOOK-READING AND SCRIBBLING. 57

does in a Londoner's. As to what is commonly called
" morality," those Italians (so far as I can review them now)
look to me, as a class, quite up to the British level ; but of
course the point could not be estimated by me in boyhood,
and since the close of my father's life my knowledge of
Italians in England is practically a blank ; and the same was
the case with my brother.

VI.
CHILDISH BOOK-READING AND SCRIBBLING.

Dante Rossetti's earliest education was conducted by our
mother ; little or not at all by our father, apart from the
general mental incitement (and this assuredly counted for a
good deal) which his conversation, his using the Italian
language, and his readings of his poems, supplied. I may
say in this connexion that my own education — allowing
for the moderate difference of age — proceeded pari passu with
my brother's ; and that my two sisters owed everything in the
way of early substantial instruction to our mother. To school
they never went at all. Thus all four of us were constantly
together in infancy and childhood. Wherever one was, there
the other was — and that was almost always at home. In
what I have next to say I shall aim at confining myself to
Dante Gabriel, but it will be understood that what is true
of him applies mainly to the other three children as well.

Of course our religious mother gave Dante some rudiments
of Christian knowledge, from the Bible and the " Church
Catechism," and at a suitable age took him to church. He
got to know the whole Bible fairly well, and necessarily
regarded it with reverence as one of the greatest and
sublimest books in the world. Job, Ecclesiastes, and the
Apocalypse, were the sections of the Scripture which, before
he attained manhood and ever afterwards, he viewed with
peculiar interest and homage. He must have been able to
read currently, and to write with moderate neatness, soon

58 DANTE GABRIEL R0SSETT1.

after completing five years of age. His early reading seems
to have been all in English ; although, as he spoke Italian,
for ordinary household purposes, about as readily as English,
and as the reading process in Italian is incomparably the
easier of the two for a beginner, no reason is apparent to me
why this was the case.

I lately came across two letters addressed by my father to
my mother, August and September 1836, which give a clear
indication as to the knowledge of Italian then possessed
by Dante, in his ninth year. The first expresses some
surprise at finding that Dante and his two juniors (Christina
was not yet six) had perfectly understood a letter in Italian
from their mother, read out to them. In his second letter,
my father says that Dante and I, having received notes from
Maria, chanted aloud, with great demonstrations of glee, the
following stave : —

" L'amabile Maria
Ringraziata sia
De' due biglietti suoi
Mandati ad ambi noi." 1

This extemporized effusion must, I suppose, have been the
performance of Dante Gabriel. These seem to be the first
rhymes he ever concocted, and, if so, he rhymed in Italian
earlier than in English. My father of course smiles over
verses of such a calibre — which are, nevertheless, correct in
rhyme and rhythm, and not (I should say) wrong in diction.

I think that the very first book my brother took to with
strong personal zest was Shakespear's Hamlet — i.e., certain
scenes of Hamlet, giving a fairly complete idea of the story,
which were printed to accompany the outlines to that tragedy
engraved after the then universally celebrated German artist,
Retzsch. Both outlines and scenes interested him vastly
at the age of five, or it may be even of four ; and soon a
relative (probably one of our aunts) gave him a Bowdler's
Shakespear, in which he read numerous plays — and indeed

1 Thanks to good-natured Maria for her two notes sent to both of us.

CHILDISH BOOK-READING AND SCRIBBLING, 59

he read, unchecked, in un-Bowdlerised editions as well. A
little incident serves to fix my memory as to dates etc. in
this matter. Before T was six years of age, and therefore
before the close of September 1835, I had a dangerous gastric
illness ; and, while I was recovering from that, Dante pro-
duced for my diversion, " out of his own head," a little series
of drawn and coloured figures of the leading personages in
the three parts of Henry VI. I need not say that these
were childish performances in the most absolute sense. He
can then have been at the utmost seven years and four months
old, and was, I fancy, some months younger. The trilogy
of Henry VI. was a great favourite with all of us ; but,
by the time when Dante was familiar with that drama, he
was not less versed in several other plays of Shakespear. I
might with confidence specify The Tempest, Midsummer
Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Henry IV.,
Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and there were
others as well. Of four of these we had outline-books
similar to that of Hamlet — the designs by Retzsch, or by
a less prominent German artist, Ruhl. There were also
Retzsch's famous outlines to Gothe's Faust. Through these,
with their accompanying text in English, my brother got to
know, and to admire, something of Faust, not very long after
Hamlet. Here was, at any rate, a good beginning for taste
in poetry. Two other books with similar outlines were
Fridolin, translated from Schiller (which we thought feeble
stuff), and the Dragon of Rhodes.

The next immense favourite was Walter Scott. Some rela-
tive presented a pocket-edition of Marmion to Dante Rossetti
at a very childish age. He ramped through it, and recited
whole pages at a stretch — the death of Constance, the battle
and death of Marmion, etc. Fitz-Eustace was regarded as a
tame and correct-minded character rousing no interest. The
Lay of the Last Minstrel and The Lady of the Lake excited
fully as much delight as Marmion ; The Lord of the Isles and
Rokeby only a little less. I can still recollect that one after-
noon the junior master at our first school, the younger Mr.

60 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTl.

Paul, called at our house for some purpose, and found us all
four racing and tumbling about the floor, repeating in semi-
drama the Battle of Clan Alpin, from The Lady of the Lake,
Dante was then just about nine years of age. Along with
Scott's poems the Arabian Nights went on at a great rate ;
the old English translation after Galland, and not long after-
wards Lane's very different version. TJie Waverley Novels
ensued pretty soon after the poems — Ivanhoe (the prime
favourite), Kenilworth, Quentin Durward, etc. It may perhaps
be as well to give here the opinion which, at a mature age,
Dante Rossetti entertained of Walter Scott's novels. It is
expressed in a letter of October 1871, addressed to Mr.
William Bell Scott :—

" I have read several of Scott's novels here, and been surprised
both at their usual melodramatic absurdities of plot, and their
astounding command of character in the personages by whom all
these improbabilities are enacted. The novels are wonderful works,
with all their faults. Guy Mannering and St. Ronarts Well —
neither of which I knew before — delighted me extremely. Another
I read is The Fair Maid of Perth ; which is on a level with the
Victoria drama in some respects, but, in some points of conception
and vivid reality in parts, can only be compared to the greatest
imaginative works existing."

These books — Shakespear, Faust, Scott, and the Arabian
Nights — and, along with these, Keightley's Fairy Mytho-
logy (mentioned in a previous section), Monk Lewis's verse-
collection Tales of Wonder {Alonzo the Brave, etc.), and the
stirring ballad of Chevy Chase — may certainly be regarded
as the staple and the fine fieur of what Dante Rossetti
revelled in up to the close of his tenth year or there-
abouts. He always discerned the difference between the
"Ghost in Hamlet" and a ghost by Monk Lewis. Other
things are present to me as well : Carleton's Traits and
Stories of the Irish Peasantry, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver,
Gay's Fables, Pascal Bruno (a tale translated from Dumas)}
Fitzgreene Halleck's short poem of Marco Bozaris, an in-

CHILDISH BOOK-READING AND SCRIBBLING. 6 1

cident of the Greek War of Independence. Of Burns he
had a kind of idea, through looking into an edition sparsely
illustrated by Westall ; but the dialect was a bar to his
taking very kindly to the poems. Lamb's Tales from
Shakespear he skimmed and slighted. Of directly "funny"
things I remember only John Gilpin and some jocosities
of Hood in a Comic Annual. Naturally, too, there were the
old nursery-rhymes in infantine years, and The Peacock at
Home ; and the old Fairy-tales, such as Puss in Boots, Blue-
beard, Cinderella, Jack the Giant-Killer, Beauty and the
Beast, etc. Our mother kept us adequately supplied with
books having a directly religious or didactic aim — stories
about " good little boys and girls," or the alternative naughty
ones, and other such matter ; but she, like a sensible woman,
did not tie us down to liking them, in case we happened to
dislike them — which we generally did. There were some
of Miss Edgeworth's stories for children, such as Frank ;
Day's Sandford and Merton ; The Fairchild Family, by Mrs.
Sherwood, which last we were far from relishing. The one
which I recollect as best esteemed was The Son of a Genius,
by Mrs. Hofland ; a companion story was The Daughter of a
Genius. A minute edition of Stories from English History,
by James Mill, was very frequently in our hands, with prints
— the Druids burning victims in wicker cages to their gods,
Queen Margaret and the Robber, and so on.

Illustrated books and engravings were not very numerous
in our house, but still in fair quantity. One that Dante and
the rest of us looked at continually, beginning well nigh in
infancy, was an old-fashioned little book (1700) in the Dutch
language, named Metamorphosis Naturalis, by a painter
(Goedaerdt), with coloured prints of insects and their trans-
formations. Blank wonderment, with much of stimulating
pleasure and something of repulsion, was the result. Later
on, and never tired of, came Martin and WestaWs Illus-
trations of the Bible ; and to his last day Dante would have
told you that Martin was an imaginative pictorial genius of
no mean power. Afterwards some one gave him a book of

62 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

rather large outline engravings from Scripture, after the Old
Masters — emptyish-looking things which he frequently in-
spected, with little real sympathy. I have always thought
that his indifference to the respectable conventions of Old-
Masterhood, leading on to the Praeraphaelite movement, had
something to do with this book. Our grandfather had at
Holmer Green some engravings after Rubens, the subjects
from the story of Achilles. They met his fancy in a certain
way, but he did not like their fleshy forms and florid manner.
Also (belonging probably to Eliza Polidori) a book of English
engravings from Raphael's Cartoons, with highly laudatory
descriptions. Another of our grandfather's possessions was
a fine large edition of Ariosto, with French engravings of
last century. These were an endless delight to Dante, from
the age of eleven or so onwards. He owned much earlier, as
a present from the same relative, a little book of French or
Flemish woodcut-illustrations to Bible history, dating towards
1580. They were probably artistic things of their kind, and
he enjoyed their arbitrary treatment and unreasonable
costumes. Among our father's books were a Poliphili
Hypnerotomachia ; Gombauld's Endymion, in English, with
engravings, dated 1639 ; and a volume of pagan mytho-
logy with startling woodcuts of about the early seventeenth
century- — I presume it to have been the De Naturd Deorum
of Boccaccio. All these Dante inspected from time to time}
with some gusto not unmingled with awe — each book being
pronounced by our father to be a " libro sommamente mistical"
according to his system of interpretation of mediaeval and
renaissance literature. In his opening years no prints were
more frequently in Dante's hands than a series of litho-
graphs from Roman history, the work of Filippo Pistrucci
(there was also a different series, coloured allegorical designs) ;
not very superior efforts of art, but far from being amiss in
treatment of the subjects. At one time, after Dante had
passed out of mere childhood, some one brought into our

1 Book in the highest degree mystical.

CHILDISH BOOK-READING AND SCRIBBLING. 6$

house Pinelli's outlines from Roman history. These we
admired most heartily, and I suppose with good reason.
Some of Pinelli's subjects of Italian peasant and street life
we knew already. Various other prints and drawings occur
to my mind ; but somewhere I must stop, and I stop here.
Occasionally — it seems to me by no means often — he went
to the National Gallery in childhood. Mr. Frederick J.
Shields has recorded an interesting point that he heard from
Dante Rossetti, who mentioned it to show the sound direction
which, in many instances, his mother gave to his taste. On
his first visit to the National Gallery — he may, I suppose, have
been then just ten years of age 1 — he was inclined to admire
the big, showy, and (to an untrained eye) somewhat telling
picture by Benjamin West, Christ Jiealing the Sick ; but his
mother, who made no pretence to technical knowledge in art,
at once set him right by remarking that it was " common-
place and expressionless." What two epithets could go closer
to the root of the thing ?

It has often been said, by writers who know nothing very
definite about the matter, that Dante Rossetti was, from
childhood or early boyhood, a devoted admirer of the
stupendous poet after whom he was christened. This is a
mistake. No doubt our father's Dantesque studies saturated
the household air with wafts and rumours of the mighty
Alighieri ; therefore the child breathed Dante (so to speak),
but he did not think Dante, nor lay him to heart. On the
contrary, our father's speculations and talk about Dante —
which, although he highly valued the poetry as such, all took
an abstruse or theoretic turn — rather alienated my brother
than otherwise, and withheld him from " looking up " the
Florentine, to see whether his poems were things readable,
like those of Shakespear, Scott, or Gothe. With all of us
children the case was the same. I question whether my

1 The National Gallery, in its present building, opened to the public in
April 1838. The first nucleus of the collection had previously been
housed in Pall Mall, but I surmise that none of my family ever went
there.

64 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

brother had ever read twenty consecutive lines of Dante until
he was some fifteen or sixteen years of age ; no doubt after
that he rapidly made up for lost time. Our father, when
writing about the Comedia or the Vita Nuova, was seen
surrounded by ponderous folios in italic type, " libri mistici"
and the like (often about alchemy, freemasonry, Brahminism>
Swedenborg, the Cabbala, etc.), and filling page after page of
prose, in impeccable handwriting, full of underscorings, inter-
lineations, and cancellings. We contemplated his labours with
a certain hushed feeling, which partook of respect and also of
levity, but were assuredly not much tempted to take up one
of his books, and see whether it would " do to read." The
Convito was always a name of dread to us, as being the
very essence of arid unreadableness. Dante Alighieri was a
sort of banshee in the Charlotte Street houses ; his shriek
audible even to familiarity, but the message of it not
scrutinized.

As to all this, a passage in my brother's Preface to his
book Dante and his Circle ought to have prevented any
misapprehension concerning the supposed constant reading of
Alighieri in very childish years. He says : —

"The first associations I have are connected with my father's
devoted studies, which, from his own point of view, have done so
much towards the general investigation of Dante's writings. Thus,
in those early days, all around me partook of the influence of the
great Florentine ; till, from viewing it as a natural element, I also,
growing older, was drawn within the circle."

There was an English artist named Seymour Kirkup,
domiciled in Florence. He was made a Barone of the Italian
Kingdom, and must be remembered by many persons now
living, as he only died towards 1879, aged ninety-two or
thereabouts. He was an enthusiast for Dante, and was a
profound believer in my father's scheme of Dantesque inter-
pretation. He began corresponding with my father towards
1837, and kept this up for several years. It was in 1839 that he
took a leading part in discovering the portrait of the youthful

CHILDISH BOOK-READING AND SCRIBBLING. 65

Dante, by Giotto, in the Bargello of Florence, long lost under
whitewash. He made at once a good full-sized coloured
drawing of this invaluable portrait (now, sad to say, no longer
in a perfectly authentic state), and sent the drawing as a
present to my father ; from him it came to my brother, and
was only disposed of in the sale of his effects which followed
his death in 1882. The receipt of this portrait probably put
the mind and feelings of Dante Rossetti as much en rapport
with the Florentine poet as any incident which had preceded
it ; but even so he did not take any immediate steps for
acquainting himself with the poems.

My brother's first " poem " — his almost solitary drama x—
was written in his own handwriting, towards the age of five.
He may have been just six, rather than five, but I am not
certain. It is entitled The Slave, and it lies before me at
this moment. Why he wrote The Slave, or what he sup-
posed himself to mean in writing it, is not clear to me. One
can, however, form one safe inference — that his inspiration
derived from seeing, passim in Shakespear, the words "Slave,
Traitor, Villain," and what not. The Slave consists of three
Scenes in two " Acts " ; it only fills nine small pages of large
writing. The writing begins by imitating print, but goes on
into an ordinary (very childish) cursive hand. Probably
Dante Gabriel learned how to write cursively while the drama
was in course of composition. It surprises me to note that the
spelling is strictly correct : the blank verse (when it occurs,
for some parts are in truncated verse, or practical prose) is
also correct enough — as here : —

"Ho, if thou be alive, come out and fight me!"

" Down, slave, I dare thee on ! Coward, thou diest ! "

"But yet I will not live to see thee thus."

This matter of versification correct in accent and number of
feet, however puerile in other respects, may to some readers
seem stranger than it does to me ; for I cannot, with reference

1 I say "almost solitary," because I possess another trifle in the dramatic
form— a mere piece of grotesque banter — of a late date, 1878,
VOL. I. 5

66 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

to any one of us four, remember any time when, knowing
what a verse was, we did not also know and feel what a
correct verse was. The early reading of really good poetry,
and perhaps quite as much the constant hearing of our
father's verses recited with perfect articulation and emphasis,
may account for this.

The Dramatis Personcz of The Slave are set down
thus : — " Don Manuel, a Spanish Lord ; Traitor, an Officer ;
Slave, a Servant to Traitor; Mortimer, an. English Knight;
Guards, Messengers, etc." No plot is apparent, only constant
objurgation and fighting. The utmost stretch of conjecture
as to a plot would amount simply to this : Don Manuel is
entitled to the allegiance of Traitor, who has deserted him,
and sides with Mortimer ; Slave is viewed with suspicion by
all three ; Traitor, getting the worst of it in a fight, kills him-
self ; Mortimer, as an act of condolence for Traitor, kills
himself ; Slave is killed by Don Manuel, who is left surviving,
faute de mieux. It will be observed that there is no " female
interest " in the The Slave ; and in fact the " gushing or
ecstatic female " was, to all us infants, a personage less provo-
cative of sentiment than of mirth. Often and fatuously did
we laugh over Coleridge's poem of Love [Genevieve) — the
very poem which, in an edition of Coleridge that I possess,
my brother, in one of his latest years, marked with the word
" Perfection."

In the same minute paper-book which contains The Slave
Dante followed on, in a rather less rudimentary handwriting,
with The Beauties of Shakespeare. These consist singly of
Portia's speech, " The quality of mercy is not strained."
Then comes Aladdin, or The Wonderful Lamp, by Gabriel
Rossetti, Painter of Play-Pictures (this refers to his constant
industry in colouring prints of stage-characters). Aladdin
is in prose, and only a few lines were written, totally
uninteresting. The sole amusing point about it is the List
of Personages, which are assigned to such minor performers
as " Mrs. Siddons, Mr. Kemble, Mr. Kean," and others whose
names he got no doubt from his theatrical prints. The three

CHILDISH BOOK-READING AND SCRIBBLING. 6y

above named were already dead at the time. Mrs. Siddons,
and more particularly Kemble (John Philip), had been well
known — I may here observe — to Gaetano Polidori. After
Aladdin, a few pages of the book are filled with drawings
(of a kind). One is Guy Fawkes, with lantern and dagger.
He is done in heavy ink-silhouette, which is blotted down
upon the page that faces him.

And so much for The Slave and its adjuncts ; which I
might barely have mentioned, but for the fact that this
" drama " has been adverted to in print before now, and it
seemed desirable to settle once for all what it amounted to.

I must say a little more about infantine drawings — some
in pencil, most in pen and ink, many of them coloured. Two
represent his dormouse " Dwanging " ; and, as Dwanging (so
it appears to me) hardly existed at a date later than the
completion of Dante's sixth year (12 May 1834), these
must be extremely early affairs, not wholly unlike the look
of the animal. To 1834 belongs also (as I have said) a
portrait of his rocking-horse. These three are so far tolerable
as to show that it was a pity he did not draw a little oftener
from actual objects, but almost always mere inventions
(such as they were), prompted to a large extent by his
theatrical-character prints, with straddling legs and irrational
pretences at costume. One that seems to my memory very
early indeed is Macbeth contemplating the aerial dagger.
A little book of childish drawings exists, chiefly from various
plays. I will only name one subject from each play, as
marked in our mother's handwriting — a pretty good indica-
tion that Dante himself was barely competent to write neatly
at the time. These comprise Talbot rescuing his son John
from Orleans (Shakespear's Henry VI.); Buckingham and
Catesby presenting the crown to RicJiard ; Prince Henry throw-
ing Falstajfs bottle of sack at him ; Combat between Macbeth
and young Siward ; Casca stabbing Ccesar ; Rolla carrying off
the Child (from Sheridan's Pizarro).

In concluding this account of Dante Rossetti's earliest
years, I must observe that he was certainly fortunate in his

68 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

family surroundings. His father was a poet and man of
letters, his grandfather the same ; his mother had a good
appreciation of literary matters ; his sisters and brother all
watched with interest and seconded with zest whatever he
did as a beginning at writing and at drawing. He had also
the vast advantage of speaking two languages, of which one
served as a direct introduction to Latin. In no quarter did
he encounter anything to thwart his inclinations, to divert
his steps, or to throw cold water on his small performances.
He was not wilfully spoiled nor absurdly petted, nor was any
difference made between him and the other children ; but he
felt himself to be encouraged as well as loved, and in most
matters he had his own way. This, with the temper which
was innate in him, he would perhaps have got anyhow ; as
things went, he got it unenforced. Naturally this favourable
condition of family relations continued to grow with his
growth.

VII.
SCHOOL.

It must have been after the midsummer holidays of 1836
that Dante Rossetti first went to school ; I followed him
after the Christmas holidays. The school was that of the
Rev. Mr. Paul, in Foley Street, Portland Place — a day-
school for most of the pupils, or perhaps all. There was, I
think, only one assistant master, Mr. Paul's son. The pupils
were not numerous — say twenty-five to thirty-five. They
must chiefly have been sons of local tradesmen. I remember
one set of boys — three brothers^of gentle birth and breeding,
the Cummings ; also Aikman, who (I have an impression)
became an officer of some distinction in the Indian army.
We were instructed in some rudimentary matters — writing,
arithmetic (Dante Gabriel was always bad at this, and to the
end of his days I fancy he would have been at fault here and
there in the multiplication table), English grammar, geography,

SCHOOL. 69

history, and the first steps in Latin. We also had to do
a " theme " once or twice — a composition upon some given
subject ; 1 and we received some little drawing tuition from
a French Master, M. Abeille, whom we considered deft in
his touch of foliage. We liked the younger Mr. Paul ;
to the elder we had — and ought to have had — no objection,
but I remember little of him. One of my few individual
recollections of the school is that of hearing there the tolling
bell which announced the death of King William the Fourth.
Among our school-books was a volume of selections, prose
and poetry, named The Rhetorical Class-book, containing such
pieces as Campbell's LochieVs Warning, and his Last Man,
with marginal directions as to the proper tone, inflexion,
gesture, etc., for reciting them. We enjoyed a great deal of the
text in this book, and giggled over the directions — having
always had in our father, and indeed in our mother too,
models that would have bettered that form of instruction.

An English school such as that of Mr. Paul (and I must
say the same of King's College School, to which we went
afterwards) is not an academy of good manners, nor yet of
high thinking ; and it would be too true to acknowledge that
Dante Rossetti rapidly deteriorated here. I would add the
same very emphatically of myself, but that I am not exactly
in question, and need not intrude my small personality. At
home he had witnessed nothing but resolute and cheerful
performance of duty, and heard nothing that was not pure
right, high-minded, and looking to loftier things. School first
brought him face to face with that which is " common and
unclean." There is always some nasty-thinking boy to
egg-on his juniors upon a path of unsavouriness. A certain

1 If the reader would like a laugh, he may perhaps get it out of the
following. One of the schoolboys (I do not mean either Dante or myself)
was told to do a theme on Candour, His theme — I have never forgotten
it — was in the following words, as near as may be : " My dear father — -I
want to write to you on the subject of Candour. He is a most benevolent,
candid, honourable, sordid, and surly young man. His friends love him
dearly."

yo DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

A. (his initial shall stand instead of his name), who sat next
to Dante Gabriel, beset him with promptings of a worse than
useless kind. One thing was pointing out phrases in the Bible
which he held to be vastly amusing, but which little Dante did
not want to be teazed with. Dante mentioned the matter to
his father, who conferred with Mr. Paul ; and A. was ordered
to take a different seat in the school, and stick to it. This is
nearly all that I remember in a definite way about Mr. Paul's
school. Dante was a ready learner, and a willing one enough.
The last performance, as the school was breaking up for the
holidays, was an evening of recitations in the presence of
parents and friends. Dante delivered (from Shakespear's
Julius CcEsar) the speech of Antony over the body of Caesar, and
I the speech of Brutus. We were clapped to our heart's content.
As a Professor in King's College, Gabriele Rossetti was
entitled to send one son to the day-school there free of charge,
and a second son at reduced fees. It had therefore always
been intended that we boys should go to that school as soon
as a little preliminary instruction had been gained at Mr.
Paul's establishment ; and thither accordingly we went after
the midsummer holidays of 1837. Dante was rightfully ad-
missible, having attained the regulation age of nine ; I was
not so, being not quite eight, but was allowed to pass muster.
As this is a day-school (although a few pupils were housed
as boarders), we went daily to and fro. At first we took the
route by Regent Street and the Strand to Somerset House,
but afterwards preferred the more plebeian, and to us more
amusing, shops of Tottenham Court Road and St. Giles's
(no New Oxford Street then existed). The Head Master
was the Rev. Dr. Major, of whom, in Dante Gabriel's time,
we saw little. The Principal was Dr. Lonsdale, Bishop of
Lichfield. The school was then, as it is now, of strict Church-
of England principle, and most of the masters were clergymen.
On one or two occasions I saw prizes distributed by the
Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Howley — a little old man,
still wearing the episcopal white wig, of the gentlest manner
and address, almost apologetic to the students (so it seemed)

school. yi

for so far putting himself forward. He was — in regard at least
to aspect and demeanour — anything but one of those vescovi
pettorati (bishops high in flesh) who were frequently in my
father's mouth ; for the latter disliked the worldly well-being
and brow-beating respectability of the Anglican clergy only
a little less than the arrogant bigotry of their Roman com-
peers. The great prize-receiver in those days was Arthur
Cayley, the pre-eminent Cambridge Mathematician, who
would come up for three or four successive prizes in one
afternoon. His younger brother, Charles Bagot Cayley, was
one of my father's pupils in Italian, and learned the language
admirably, as shown by his fine translations of Dante and
Petrarca — a most estimable scholarly man, without a taint
of mundane self-seeking. I forget how many languages he
knew. If he did not know one, he only had to learn it.
He was once asked, by some missionary or other society,
to translate the Gospels for the Iroquois. He went to the
British Museum Library, looked up an Iroquois grammar or
two, and, at the end of six weeks or so, he undertook the
task, and performed it.

My brother and myself entered King's College School in
the lowest class — the Lower First — of which the Rev. Mr.
Hayes was the Master. Some schoolboy called him " Ban-
tam," from his red complexion and facial angle ; and every
other schoolboy followed suit. To us he was kind ; and he
perhaps stretched a point by returning our " characters," in
the first quarterly report, as "in every respect satisfactory " for
Dante, and for myself " in the highest degree commendable."
Some other good reports of us may have followed, but
certainly none so flowery as that.

Dante Rossetti's school-life at King's College lasted just
five years, from the autumn of 1837 to the summer of 1842.
He had no further schooling of any kind, except some German
lessons taken at home, and his instruction for the pictorial
profession. When he left school, he wrote an excellent hand ;
knew Latin reasonably well, up to Sallust, Ovid, Virgil, etc. ;
had the beginning of a knowledge of Greek, but I can hardly

72 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

say whether, after a few years' interval, he could even read
the Greek characters with any readiness ; understood French
well — well enough to begin forthwith, which he did, reading
any number of French novels for himself; and had some
inkling on subjects of history, geography, etc. He always
saw easily into linguistic and grammatical matters, so far as
he cared to pursue them. He had also been brought on a
little in drawing, of a more or less sketchy kind. In the
classes generally (but not in the drawing-class) the boys had
to be seated in the order of their proficiency, one of them
" taking the place " of another as occasion arose ; and Dante
was usually pretty near the head of a class. Of anything
even distantly tending to science — algebra, geometry, etc. —
he learned nothing whatever. The religious instruction at
King's College School counted for little : there were some
prayers and a chapter of the Bible in the morning. But all
this time he continued going to church en famille, without
much liking or any serious distaste. In early childhood came
Trinity Church, Marylebone Road ; then St. Katharine's,
Regent's Park ; then Christ Church, Albany Street.

I will run over a few other particulars — I hope, with due
brevity. The Upper First Class was conducted by the Rev.
Mr. Cockayne, who became — or possibly then was — a good
scholar in Early English. The Second, by the Rev. Swinburne
Carr, author of a serviceable History of Greece. The Third,
by the Rev. Mr. Hodgson, an ungainly little man whom the
boys did not like. I cannot say that Dante or myself had
any reason to complain of him. There was a legend that he
knew very little about the matters on which he instructed
the boys, and that he had to prepare his own lessons over-
night. As to this I of course know nothing. In the Fourth
Class, the last which Dante Gabriel entered, the Master was
the Rev. Mr. Fearnley. Of him also a legend was current,
purporting to account for a seam visible in his throat. It
was really, I presume, a seam of a scrofulous nature ; but the
legend ran that he had once cut his throat with suicidal inten-
tion, and had only been saved at the last gasp. Mr. Fearnley,

SCHOOL. 73

a large stalwart man, was considered severe, and the boys
were not very fond of being promoted into his class — which
may be a reason why some one concocted the legend. Each
of these classes numbered some thirty boys, more or less ;
perhaps one or two of them attained to forty.

There were also the Writing and Arithmetic Masters, the
French Masters, and the Drawing Masters. Mr. Allsop, the
Head Writing Master, was a great adept in his craft, and
would at times come round to one class or another displaying
a chef cTceuvre of caligraphy, full of the most astonishing
flourishes. He was odd, and left the school not long after we
entered it ; and I fear that the story I was told, that he had
gone out of his mind, was a true one. His successor was a
small old man, Mr. Hutton, of venerable grandfatherly aspect,
with white hair. He was easily put out, and some of the boys,
being as pitiless as other boys, put him out when they could.
Dante held aloof from this indignity. The French Masters
were Mm. Gassion and Wattez, and Professor Brasseur, all
very competent men ; the first two considerate to their pupils,
and the third, who could be sarcastic as well as considerate,
a scholar of some rank. He was afterwards French Preceptor
to the Prince of Wales, and died at a recent date, aged, I
think, about ninety. The Drawing Master was the most
interesting personage of all — the celebrated member of the
Norwich School of Painting, John Sell Cotman. He was
aged fifty-five when Dante Rossetti entered King's College
School — an alert, forceful-looking man, of moderate stature,
with a fine well-moulded face, which testified to an impulsive
nature somewhat worn and wearied. He seemed sparing of
speech, but high-strung in whatever he said. In fact, the
seeds of madness lurked in this distinguished artist, although,
apart from a rather excitable or abrupt manner in ruling his
bear-garden, I never noticed any symptoms of it. Pretty soon
he left the school, and, just as Dante also was leaving it, in
July 1842, he died insane. Mr. Cotman's course of instruc-
tion did not extend far beyond giving us pencil-sketches,
often of his own, to copy — fisher-folk, troopers, peasants,

74 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

boating, etc. Dante's copies were, I suppose, considered to
count among the more satisfactory, but I am not aware that
Cotman ever fixed particular attention upon him. As
Drawing Master he was succeeded by his son, Miles Edward
Cotman. The latter died in 1858, aged only forty-seven ; and
I fancy that he also, though perfectly quiet and collected in
manner, was a little peculiar.

In Mr. Hall Caine's book — Recollections of Dante Gabriel
Rossetti, 1882 — there is a passage which deserves quotation
here : —

" He is described, by those who remember him at this period, as
a boy of a gentle and affectionate nature, albeit prone to outbursts of
masterfulness. It is said that he was brave and manly of tempera-
ment, courageous as to personal suffering, eminently solicitous of the
welfare of others, and kind and considerate to such as he had claims
upon. This is no doubt true portraiture ; but it must be stated
(however open to explanation, on grounds of laudable self-depre-
ciation) that it is not the picture which he himself used to paint
of his character as a boy. He often described himself as being
destitute of personal courage when at school, as shrinking from the
amusements of school-fellows, and fearful of their quarrels — not
wholly without generous impulses, but in the main selfish of nature,
and reclusive in habit of life. He would have had you believe that
school was to him a place of semi-purgatorial probation."

All this is put in a very fair spirit by Mr. Caine, and it
merits a little reflection. No one now alive perhaps, except
myself, could, with any clear knowledge and recollection, say
whether Dante Rossetti was " destitute of personal courage
when at school." I do not consider that he was by any means
thus destitute. I have seen him fight with a proper degree
of tenacity when the occasion arose ; but it is strictly true
that he was " fearful of the quarrels " of schoolfellows, in the
sense that he totally disliked that loutish horse-play and that
scrambling pugnacity which are so eminently distinctive of
the British stripling. The meaningless defiance, the bullying
onset, and the mauling scuffle, looked to him ugly, base,
detestable, and semi-human. If he was mistaken, I should

SCHOOL. 75

like to know wherein. The bull-dog propensity to pin some-
body by the muzzle, whether deserving to be so pinned or
not, was not any part of his character, inborn or acquired.
Neither had he any liking for being set up by his school-
fellows, without quarrel of his own, to fight a boy two or
three inches taller than himself, and with half as much again
in thews and sinews. That he was " in the main selfish of
nature " is true when the statement is properly understood,
but it might easily be misconstrued. He was selfish, in the
sense of self-centred. His own aims, his own opportunities,
the working-out of such faculty as he found within himself
— these were always his chief concern. To term him " self-
willed " — which he most eminently was from first to last- —
would give a much more correct idea than to term him
" selfish." He was not selfish in the sense of being dull in
affection to others, indifferent to their welfare, or unwilling
to exert himself to do them a benefit. He had a theory,
which I have heard him express at various periods of life,
that men who have an originating gift — or, in a broad sense,
what we call men of genius — are all selfish in that same mood
of being self-centred. He would say it of such poets as
Dante, Milton, Gothe, Wordsworth, Shelley, or of Shake-
spear if the facts of his life were adequately known — of such
painters and sculptors as Titian, Cellini, Rembrandt, Blake,
and Turner. And here again I apprehend that he was remote
from being wrong. That " school was to him a place of
semi-purgatorial probation" is, I dare say, nearly true. It is
a fact however that, if in reality he felt this at the time
deeply, be passed it off lightly ; for to me, who was his
daily colleague and confidant, he never, so far as I can
remember, unbosomed himself to any such effect. That
contact with school-life did the reverse of good to the
character of the boyish Rossetti is what I have already
avowed. His regard for veracity, the strictness of his sense
of honour, his readiness to brave inconvenience for principle,
were subject to daily undermining ; for the moral atmosphere
around reeked too perceptibly of unveracity, slipperiness, and

j6 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

shirking. His temper too, which was always an arbitrary and
peremptory one, did not improve ; but he retained unimpaired
two valuable qualities — an easy good-nature, and a facility at
forgiving and forgetting. From infancy onwards he was
always a great favourite with servants, shoe-blacking men,
organ-grinders, and people of the like class. Brightness of
parts and brightness of manner ensured this.

I have not yet referred to the statement reported by
Mr. Caine about " shrinking from the amusements of
schoolfellows." This is entirely true, if " shrinking " means
" abstaining." He cared nothing for rough pastimes — though
he would race about in the scanty playground with others,
bear a hand in snowballing, and so on ; but anything which
would derive from personal liking, and would require time,
pains, and practice — such as skating, fishing, or cricket — he
left entirely aside. He did not want it ; therefore he did not
pursue it. To learn swimming, boating, and riding, would,
no doubt, at school and after school, have been a benefit to
him — a benefit which the habits and circumstances of the
family and his own indifference withheld.

I was interested lately at finding, in a little Memorial
Volume on Edgar Allan Poe, a poet of my brother's marked
predilection, an account of that singular genius as a schoolboy
which might almost have been penned for Dante Rossetti.
The volume was published at Baltimore in 1877, and cannot
be widely known on this side of the Atlantic. The writer
of the passage is Poe's schoolfellow at Richmond, Virginia,
Colonel J. T. L. Preston. He says : —

" Poe, as I recall my impressions now, was self-willed, capricious,
inclined to be imperious, and, though of generous impulses, not
steadily kind or even amiable."

For Rossetti, the last clause should rather run — " not
definitely amiable, nor even always steadily kind."

The punishments in King's College School were of a mild
character. There was no flogging. Now and again an
irritated master would cuff a boy, or give him a bang on the

school. 77

head with a book. This was an extempore, and I suppose an
unsanctioned, performance. An offender was made to stand
out in the middle of the room, or to stand upon a form for
a while ; or he was " kept in " during playtime ; or he had to
do an " imposition," such as copying out the same line from
Virgil fifty times over. An ingenious boy would brace
together two or three pens at a proper gradient, and thus
write two or three lines with one turn of the hand.

There was no schoolfellow with whom Dante Rossetti
contracted an intimate acquaintance, far less a life-long friend-
ship ; but two or three were in our house at times, or we in
theirs. One of these was young Lockhart, a grandson of Sir
Walter Scott, aged about thirteen when Dante was nine ;
a handsome, slim, straight-built youth, with very correct
features. He was a great hand at cutting out little models of
boats. He became the Lieutenant Walter Scott Lockhart-
Scott, owner of Abbotsford, and died in 1853, aged only
twenty-seven. Another boy was a son of William Westall
the Landscape-painter (brother of the Richard Westall so
well-known to Dante Rossetti through Martin and WestalPs
Illustrations of the Bible, a painter of some note in his day,
who gave instructions to the Princess Victoria). This boy had
a brother of weak mind and sometimes rather dangerous (not
in King's College School), who went by the undignified name
of " Sillikin." Another boy was Geldart Evans Riadore, who
became a clergyman, and (I believe) Domestic Chaplain to
the Duke of Buccleuch, a lad of good parts and refinement,
son of a Doctor. Also the Wrays, sons of a deceased Colonial
Judge ; Boys, son of a leading printseller ; Capper, whose
father was a coal-merchant ; Charles Anderson, who became
a clergyman, doing good service in the East End of London ;
and the Willoughbys, sons of a legal gentleman living in
Lancaster Place, close to King's College. Their family had
the entree to the Terrace of Somerset House overlooking the
river ; and we would sometimes join them on a half-holiday
or holiday, taking possession of a little lodge there, burning
shavings in an empty grate, and making an amount of noise

78 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

which was not kindly taken by the Government Clerks whose
windows opened on to the Terrace. These several boys are
about all I could specify. I make no mention of a very few
others who were little or not at all known to my brother in
his schooldays, but only to myself while my schooling was
prolonged beyond his.

Dante Rossetti had a certain faint repute among his class-
fellows as being addicted to drawing or sketching — making,
on an exercise-book or the margin of a school-book, some-
thing that was understood to figure a knight, cavalier, trooper,
brigand, or what not — or as buying and colouring theatrical
characters, illustrated serials, and the like. To this small
extent, therefore, he was noted as a little uncommon ; and of
course his foreign name and comparatively unschoolboy-like
habits counted for something. I suppose also — though I do
not recollect precise instances in point — that he was known for
reciting verses. A certain schoolfellow, probably after Dante
had left, handed over to me three or four poetical compositions
which he himself had produced, one of them beginning with
the words, " I would I were a smiling bird." Dante laughed over
the term, and made a portrait of the bird in the act of smiling.

The year 1842, when he quitted school, was the year of
the Anglo-Chinese Opium War. He and I were told by
a Master to make an original composition on the subject of
China, and I think the composition had to be in verse. What
he or I wrote I have totally forgotten : seemingly each of us
must have produced some lines. Christina saw us at work,
and chose to enter the poetic lists. She was then eleven years
of age. She indited the following epical lines, which must
(I apprehend) have been nearly the first verses she ever
wrote.1 Will the reader pardon my printing them ?

1 There was a neat couplet which may have been earlier : — -

" ' Come cheer up, my lads, 'tis to glory we steer ! '
As the soldier remarked whose post lay in the rear."

Two stanzas, dated 27 April 1842, for our mother's birthday (our grand-
father printed them on a card) were, I consider, earlier also. The original
MS. — of a very childish aspect — is now in the British Museum.

HOME-LIFE DURING SCHOOL — SIR HUGH THE HERON. 79

THE CHINAMAN.

" ' Centre of Earth ! ' a Chinaman he said,
And bent over a map his pig-tailed head, — ■
That map in which, portrayed in colours bright,
China, all dazzling, burst upon the sight :
' Centre of Earth ! ' repeatedly he cries,
' Land of the brave, the beautiful, the wise ! '
Thus he exclaimed ; when lo his words arrested
Showed what sharp agony his head had tested.
He feels a tug — another, and another —
And quick exclaims, ' Hallo ! what's now the bother ? '
But soon alas perceives. And, ' Why, false night,
Why not from men shut out the hateful sight ?
The faithless English have cut off my tail,
And left me my sad fortunes to bewail.
Now in the streets I can no more appear,
For all the other men a pig-tail wear.'
He said, and furious cast into the fire
His tail : those flames became its funeral-pyre."

VIII.
HOME-LIFE DURING SCHOOL— SIR HUGH THE HERON.

I HAVE already said that Dante Rossetti (as well as the rest
of us) used in early childhood to get some countrifying at
our grandfather's house, Holmer Green in Buckinghamshire.
There he loitered about a little, doing nothing particular. His
chief amusement was to haunt a pond in the grounds, and
catch frogs. It concerned him to notice that, if he held a
frog any considerable while in his hand, the skin of the
amphibian's throat, lacking its proper quota of moisture,
would split across. This did not cure him of catching frogs ;
but he was fain to hope that his captive, on being restored
to its pond, would find its throat "sewing itself up again."
All his life he liked most animals (though he had little ado
with dogs, and none with horses), and was not ill-natured
to any. Even a black beetle was regarded with a certain
indulgence ; it was an animal, much like another.

So DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTl.

These little and never frequent country excursions came
to an end in 1839, when our grandfather resettled in London ;
and then Dante Rossetti, for two or three years, went out
of London not at all, for our father had not the habit of
making any annual seaside or rural trip. Dante's holidays,
when school closed, were "spent at home in London, varied
by casual walks up to Hampstead, or the like. He painted
theatrical characters, read books, and amused himself as the
chance offered ; and now he had at least the resource of going
to his grandfather's house near Regent's Park whenever he
felt so inclined. The house contained many books. It had,
at the back, a moderate-sized garden, sloping down towards
Regent's Canal ; and in this garden a shed or summer-house
sheltered the private printing-press which Polidori used.
The fact — such I believe it to be — that Dante never once
tried what he could do as a compositor is one more symptom
of his great inaptitude at anything of a mechanical or directly
practical kind. The workaday world was not his world.

In this house occurred a small incident which Mr. Caine
has related — not with perfect accuracy. It did not take place
when Dante was " rather less than nine years of age," for he
was already eleven when our grandfather entered the house.
The incident may really belong to his twelfth, or possibly
his thirteenth, year. He did not deliberately set-to at reciting
the closing scene of Othello ; but, taking up a chisel, he play-
fully motioned to strike Christina with it. As Maria had
sense enough to object that it might hurt, he insisted that
it would not ; and (then for the first time speaking a few
lines from Othello, ending —

" I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him thus")

he struck the chisel forcibly against his chest. Naturally
there was an incision, but not a serious one. Sangiovanni
probed it, and pretty soon it was healed. The small matter
is hardly worth adverting to, but may as well be set right.
Another small matter, a little more symptomatic as to the

HOME-LIFE DURING SCHOOL — SIR HUGH THE HERON. 8 1

boyhood of Rossetti, is the following. Maria was, as pre-
viously intimated, of an uncommonly enthusiastic temper,
which eventually settled down into religious devotion. As
she read very early and very constantly, her enthusiasms
developed in divers directions : British tars, Napoleon, English-
men versus Scotchmen (in relation to Walter Scott's writings),
Grecian mythology, and the Iliad. Pope's translation alone
was known to her. When Dante and I began learning Greek
she resolved to learn some too, partly to help us in our
lessons ; and she made her way into the Greek New Testa-
ment, and could in her later years still read it fairly with the
aid of a dictionary. While the Iliad fit was at its height,
Dante, to please her, undertook to do a series of pen-and-ink
designs for the epic, on a small scale, one design to each
Book. This was in February 1 840, when he was eleven years
of age. These drawings— they still exist — are not in any
tolerable degree good, nor even distinctly promising ; but
they may count for something as showing the lad's ambitious
temper in design, and his willingness to take up any attempt
that offered, however ludicrously inadequate his means for
coping with it. I may add that Dante at this time, although
he had not that glowing love of the Iliad which his sister
entertained, liked it highly, and read it much. In later years
he knew, and he also preferred, the Odyssey.

From the Iliad I pass to other books read by Dante in
his school-days, as a sequel to the details previously given
relating to a still earlier period. The poet who superseded
Walter Scott as prime favourite (always allowing for Shake-
spear, who was never superseded though he may have been
less constantly read) was Byron. The Siege of Corinth came
first in the boy's esteem, and next Mazeppa and Manfred,
with The Corsair and others to follow. Childe Harold he
read, but without special zest ; in fact, throughout his life,
the poetry of sentimental or reflective description had a very
minor attraction for him. Of Dickens's Pickwick, which came
out in 1836, he seems to me to have known comparatively
little ; but Nicholas Nickleby, 1838-9, was very potent with

VOL. I. 6

82 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

him, followed by Oliver Twist, The Old Qiriosity Shop,
Barnaby Rudge, etc. An illustrated serial named Tales of
Chivalry (but chivalry is not more prominent in its pages than
some other things) was constantly read, and its woodcuts
inspected and coloured ; also another serial, of earlier date,
called Legends of Terror, full of ghosts, fiends, and magic,
in prose and verse. There was likewise The Seven Champions
of Christendom, abounding in dragons, enchanters, and other
marvels of pseudo-chivalry. Hone's Every -day Book, with its
amusing woodcuts, and the Newgate Calendar, were marked
favourites. The mere thieves in the last-named repertory
excited but a languid interest, but the murderers, and their
" last dying speeches and confessions," were conned with
decided gusto. Of highly-reputed romances there were
Bulwer's Rienzi and Last Days of Pompeii, and, of minor
romances, three serials — Robin Hood and Wat Tyler, both
by Pierce Egan the younger, and Ada the Betrayed, or The
Murder at the Old Smithy, by some obscure author whose
name did not transpire. Gil Bias and Don Quixote were
enjoyed, though not in any extreme degree. But perhaps
in his earlier school-days — or from the age of nine to eleven —
nothing delighted Dante quite so much as a small-sized
series entitled Brigand Tales, with coloured illustrations.
A subsequent series appeared, which he relished somewhat
less, whether because he was growing out of them, or on
account of their being more forced and worked up in incident
The opening series comprised Moriano the Outlaw, or the
Bandit of the Charmed Wrist ; Beauty and the Bear, or The
Bandits Stratagem ; The Female Brigand, or The Lover's
Doom; and a number of others : with such illustrations as
Desperate Encoitnter between Benedetto the Brigand and
Jeronymo Arondini ; Guillen Martino plundering the Monks of
the Abbey of San Lsidor ; Pietro d'Armorelli, Captain of Ban-
ditti, refusing to stay the Execution of his own Son, etc., etc.
This publication was followed by Dramatic Tales, a set of
narratives from popular plays, contemporary or antecedent.
These also were highly appreciated by Dante Rossetti. By

HOME-LIFE DURING SCHOOL— SIR HUGH THE HERON. 83

the time he left school — turned of fourteen — he had devoured
numerous novels, poems, and dramas, apart from those here
specified, almost all of. them being in English. In Italian
there was little beyond Ariosto ; in French, it may be that
Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris preceded the close of his
schooling, but I am not sure. At any rate this, and many
other works of Hugo, both prose and verse, fascinated him
hugely very soon afterwards ; and French novels by a
variety of authors were greatly in the ascendant for two or
three years. It may be feared there was no solid reading
— whether history, biography, or anything else — irrespectively
of the few and fragmentary things that he had to get up
as a part of the school course. His intellectual life was
nurtured upon fancy and sympathy, not upon knowledge or
information.

Dante Rossetti did not write much in boyhood, but he
wrote something. I question whether The Slave and Aladdin
had any successor until in 1840 a grand scheme was started
that every one of us four should write a romantic tale. I
suppose each made a beginning, but I cannot affirm that any
one of the quartette made an ending, unless it was Dante.
His tale alone has been preserved, and it is so far completed
as to bring a single set of incidents to a climax, without
implying that anything else remains to be added. The tale
is named Roderick and Rosalba, a Story of the Round Table.
Its first chapter is headed, The Knight, the Messenger, the
Departure, the Hostelry, the Quarrel ; and it begins with the
following sentence : —

" It was a dark and stormy night in the month of December when
a figure, closely wrapped in the sable folds of his cloak, and mounted
on a jaded steed, was seen hurrying across a bleak common towards
a stately castle in the distance, whose lofty towers and time-worn
battlements frowned over the wide expanse beneath."

This may suffice ; with the bare addition that the tale nar-
rates how a lady was captured by a " marauder " who wanted
to wed her perforce, and how she was rescued by her affianced

84 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

knight. At some later date — it was 1843, or possibly just
afterwards — Dante took up his old MS., and evidently regarded
it as much behind the time. He altered its title to The Free
Companions, a Tale of the Days o'f King Stephen, cut it
down freely, revised the phraseology of several remaining
passages, and added a concluding sentence.

Rossetti's first printed " poem," Sir Hugh the Heron, a
Legendary Tale in Four Parts, seems to have been begun and
nearly completed much about the same time as Roderick and
Rosalba, or not later than May 1841. It is founded on a
prose story by Allan Cunningham, which Rossetti had read
in the Legends of Terror, and I think elsewhere as well.
His zest in writing this ballad-poem waned, and he laid it
aside : but later on his grandfather Polidori told him that, if
he would finish it, the luxury of print should be his at the
private printing-press. So it was wound up, and printed
in 1843, when Dante was either fourteen or fifteen years
of age. The title-page is marked " for private circulation
only " ; and even private circulation was more than com-
mensurate, to the merit of Sir Hugh the Heron. The story
is substantially that of a knight who quits England for a
foreign war, leaving his betrothed to the care of his cousin.
While abroad, he discovers, by a vision in a magic mirror,
that the cousin has betrayed his trust, and is offering violence
to the lady. The knight hastens home, slays the aggressor,
and recovers his bride. The ballad is versified with ease and
correctness, in three or four different metres, and is not wholly
destitute of spirit in its boyish way ; but the way is boyish
in the fullest sense, and the poem cannot be said to show
any express faculty or superior promise. Rossetti, when
he grew up, hated to hear this puerile attempt alluded to.
I used to have a large remainder-stock of Sir Hugh the
Heron ; but at his particular request, somewhere towards 1875,
I rather reluctantly destroyed the whole impression, with
the exception of a very few copies, and the ballad exists
only for a dozen or so of curious collectors here and there, and
for readers in the British Museum Library. My brother left

HOME-LIFE DURING SCHOOL— SIR HUGH THE HERON. 85

behind him a little memorandum (the handwriting indicates a
date towards 1881), which runs as follows : —

" I make this note after a conversation with a friend who had
been reading in the British Museum a ridiculous first attempt
of mine in verse, called Sir Hugh the Heron, which was printed
when I was fourteen, but written (except the last page or two) at
twelve — as my family would probably remember. When I was
fourteen my grandfather (who amused himself by having a small
private printing-press) offered, if I would finish it, to print it. I
accordingly added the last precious touches two years after writing
the rest. I leave this important explanation, as there is no knowing
what fool may some day foist the absurd trash into print as a
production of mine. It is curious and surprising to myself, as
evincing absolutely no promise at all — less than should exist even
at twelve. When I wrote it, the only English poet I had read
was Sir W. Scott, as is plain enough in it."

This last statement is not wholly correct. There had been
Shakespear, and I am sure, before my brother was twelve,
a good deal of Byron as well.

I have by me a MS. of an effusion, William and Marie,
shorter than Sir Hugh the Heron, written when my brother
was fifteen, in a style which is compounded of Walter Scott
and the old Scottish ballads ; it may also present some trace
of Burger's Lenore. This may be accounted a trifle inferior
even to the performance denounced by its author in such
vigorous terms. It narrates how a wicked Knight slew a
virtuous one, hurled into a moat the virtuous one's lady-love,
and got killed by an avenging flash of lightning. This my
brother offered for publication to the Editor of some magazine
— I fancy Smallwood's Magazine — along with an outline
design to illustrate it. The outline, not so greatly amiss, is
adapted from a group in one of Filippo Pistrucci's lithographs
from Roman history, the Rape of the Sabines. The Editor
was too sensible to publish either poem or design. It will be
perceived that this small transaction belongs to a date a little
later than that when Rossetti left school ; but it is mentioned

86 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

here so as to close my references to these very early efforts
in verse. There may possibly have been a few others, but I
fail to recollect any. The reader may have noticed that the
times of chivalry always furnished his boyish inspiration ;
in fact, he thought of little else about this date. Neither the
antique nor the modern exercised the least sway over his
fancy.

A few words more may be bestowed upon childish draw-
ings ; I mention such only as I find inscribed with a distinct
date. Two are coloured designs, October 1836 (age eight),
from Monk Lewis's thrilling drama of The Castle Spectre.
One is Percy and Motley, the other Osmond and Kenrick, each
personage being in full face, which may suggest that little
Dante hardly knew how to set about a profile. In 1838 he
produced a scene of school-life from his " Lower First " class.
It is lettered Bantam battering {i.e., pummelling a boy) ;
Lower Division — Upper Division. These two Divisions of the
schoolboys are represented as indulging in a free fight. The
design is not quite so bad as might be expected, the actions
having a certain degree of natural spirit and diversity. Then
comes, 1840, an illustrated title-page, forming a neat and
rather prettyish decorative combination, for the four juvenile
stories of which Roderick and Rosalba was one. Anyhow he
got a great deal into the small space of a page of note-paper.
There are four circular half-figures of armoured knights, and
four oblong compositions exhibiting incidents in the tales.
The four knights are inscribed thus : A Romance of the 14th
Century, Sir Aubrey de Metford; Roderick and Rosalba, Sir
Roderick de Malvon ; Raimond and Matilda, Sir Raimond de
Meryl ; Retribution, Sir Guy de Linton. And the four compo-
sitions thus: Sir Aubrey killing Herman Rudesheim ; Sir
Roderick rescuing Rosalba de Clare; Sir Raimond conquering
Sir Richard; Sir Guy finding the letter of AH. Next are
three small designs, 1840, from the Arabian Nights — The
Genius about to kill the Princess of the Lsle of Ebony, and two
others. Three largeish separate figures from Bulwer's Rienzi,
May to July 1840, come next; done with pen and ink in a

HOME-LIFE DURING SCHOOL— SIR HUGH THE HERON. 87

painstaking manner, though not with anything, in character
or costume, above the types which Dante derived from his
beloved theatrical characters. November 1840 witnessed the
production of Earl Warenne (dictating, it would seem, the
signing of Magna Charta). This is a companion-drawing to
the Rienzi trio, but perceptibly better. Last we find a
modern subject of a patriotic turn, taken, I assume, from a
little volume of naval anecdotes which Maria used to cherish.
Its theme is inscribed as follows : —

" ' As you are not of my parish,' said a gentleman to a begging
sailor, ' I cannot think of relieving you.' 'Sir,' replied the tar with
an air of heroism, ' I lost my leg fighting for all parishes.'"

This is dated August 1841, and certainly shows some
increased degree of facility in putting a couple of figures
together so as to form a group and tell a story.

It must have been, I think, just before Dante Rossetti left
school that he began learning German. He learned it well up
to a certain point, yet not so as to read freely ; and I suppose
that, by the age of twenty-five to thirty, he may have for-
gotten four-fifths of what he had acquired. One day Dr.
Adolf Heimann, the Professor of German at University
College, presented himself in our house, saying that he
wished to learn Italian from our father, and would be pre-
pared in recompense to teach German to the four children.
He was a German-Jew, an excellent little man of considerable
acquirements, and as kind-hearted, open, genial a person as
any one could wish to know. The arrangement was assented
to ; and Dante, with the rest of us, set to at German, learning
the grammar and pronunciation, reading the Sagen und
Mdhrchen (folk-stories), some easy things in Schiller, etc.
For several years after this date — or up to 1848 or there-
abouts— we saw more of the Heimann family than of any
other. The Doctor married towards 1843, and soon there
were children in his house.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

IX.

STUDY FOR THE PAINTING PROFESSION— CARY'S AND

THE R.A.

DANTE ROSSETTI now — summer of 1842— craved to launch
into the definite study of pictorial art. Of ordinary schooling
he supposed himself to have had about as much as would
serve his turn. Our father's health was already so far broken
as to give cause for serious anxiety ; he therefore concurred
with Dante in holding that the sooner artistic studies were
undertaken the better. My brother did not return to King's
College School after the summer vacation, but looked out for
an Academy of Art.

Gabriele Rossetti had known the Rev. Mr. Cary, the trans-
lator of Dante, whose son, F. S. Cary, a painter of no great
mark, kept at this time that well-reputed drawing academy
which was termed " Sass's," in Bloomsbury Street, Bedford
Square. To this institution my brother betook himself —
perhaps as soon as he left King's College School, but at all
events not long afterwards. Our father's acquaintance in the
world of art was far from extensive. He knew pretty well
Mr. Eastlake, afterwards Sir Charles Eastlake, P.R.A., Mr.
Severn the friend of Keats, and Mr. and Mrs. Bartholomew
the flower-painters ; he also saw once or twice John Martin,
and Mr. Solomon Hart, R.A., but this latter may have been
at a date rather after that of which I am now speaking.
These appear to have been all.

Of what my brother did at Cary's, and whom he knew
there, I can give but a meagre account ; his Family-letters
throw a little, but only a little, light on the subject. He and
I were still always together in the evening ; but in the day,
while he was at the drawing academy, I continued in attend-
ance at King's College School, up to February 1845, and
then I went to the Excise Office in Old Broad Street. He
drew from the antique and the skeleton, with immense liking
for the profession of art, but with only moderate interest in

STUDY FOR THE PAINTING PROFESSION. 89

these preliminaries. He also studied anatomy in some books,
but never, I think, in the actual subject, human or animal.
Of his class-fellows we saw little. I can vaguely recollect
Sintzenich, a youth whose sympathies were shared between
painting and music, and who finally took to the latter. There
was also a youth named Thomas Doughty, son of a self-
taught American Landscape-painter, who had come over to
London in quest of fortune, which did not smile upon him.
I cannot say with certainty that the younger Doughty was
a student at Cary's rather than the Royal Academy, but I
am pretty sure that so he was. For a year or two he was
my brother's chief intimate. I have not unfrequently accom-
panied Dante to drink tea and spend the evening in the
house of the Doughtys, a small semi-villa residence close to
Gloucester Gate, Regent's Park. The father was a rather
convivial plain-spoken man ; the mother a pleasant bright-
mannered little lady, who had, I dare say, more than enough
of domestic disquietude. The intimacy with young Doughty
may have begun early in 1846, and, lasting through-
out 1847, was brought to a close by the return of the
family to America — presumably before the middle of 1848.
We saw them off on their ship. Thomas Doughty must
have been two years or more older than my brother, and
had seen a good deal more of " life." I recollect he introduced
us to two odd characters. One was a semi-artistic working
shoemaker, living near Westminster Bridge. The other was
a quick-witted lively young American, Charley Ware, leading
a harum-scarum kind of life in lodgings off Leicester Square.
I will not here tread rashly into his domestic penetralia.
He had literary likings, much concerned with Edgar Poe,
which was a bond of sympathy with my brother ; and he
was the first person to reveal to the latter the glories of
Bailey's Festus (which Dante read over and over again for
a while) by reciting the sublime opening —

" Eternity hath snowed its years upon them ;
And the white winter of their age is come,
The world and all its worlds, and all shall end."

90 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Charley Ware had some hankerings also after pictorial art,
without any training. He produced a little oil-picture of a
queer kind. I would give something to see it now, but pre-
sume it has long since " ended " among the " world and all its
worlds." It represented the Devil, with Ware himself, Doughty,
and Dante Gabriel ; possibly one or two others. They were
either playing whist at Ware's lodgings, or enjoying a light
symposium. Each head was a tolerably characteristic like-
ness. Mr. Ware returned to America, perhaps before the
Doughtys. I have often been rather surprised that, in all
my miscellaneous readings, I never came across the name of
him as doing something or other — for his sharpness of faculty
was a good deal beyond the average. Thomas Doughty, I
believe, remained in America quite undistinguished. I take
him to be dead for many years past.

It may have been through the Doughty connexion that my
brother got to see, in an American journal, a little copy of
verses whose monumental imbecility delighted him beyond
measure. It is named The Atheist, by Flora M elver. Often
and to many an auditor have I heard my brother repeat The
Atheist, and I suppose he could have done so to his dying
day. " The idea," he would say, " of a confirmed Atheist who
has never yet considered whether or not a flower was made
by a God ! " I am tempted to extract the poem here ; it may
perhaps again excite some of that glee with which I have
often seen it greeted aforetime.

" The Atheist in his garden stood
At twilight's pensive hour ;
His little daughter by his side
Was gazing on a flower.

" ' Oh pick that blossom, Pa, for me,'
The little prattler said ;
' It is the fairest one that blooms
Within that lowly bed.'

" The father plucked the chosen flower,
And gave it to his child ;
With parted lips and sparkling eye
She seized the gift, and smiled.

STUDY FOR THE PAINTING PROFESSION. 9 1

" ' Oh Pa, who made this pretty flower,
This little violet blue ?
Who gave it such a fragrant smell
And such a lovely hue ? '

" A change came o'er the father's brow,
His eye grew strangely wild ;
New thoughts within him had been stirred
By that sweet artless child.

" The truth flashed on the father's mind,
The truth in all its power ;
' There is a God, my child,' he said,
1 Who made that little flower.' "

This matter of Thomas Doughty and his circle has led me
somewhat out of my track of date. I now return to the days
of Cary's Academy, which lasted for my brother from about
July 1842 to July 1846. As to what he did there I am unable
to distinguish much between the earlier and the later years.
In Mrs. Esther Wood's book, Dante Rossetti and the Prce-
rapliaelite Movement (1894),1 some anecdotes are given upon
the authority of a fellow-student, Mr. J. A. Vinter. They
speak of waywardness as a pupil, irregular attendance, " a
certain brusquerie and unapproachableness of bearing," com-
bined with warm affection and generosity, fondness for
practical jokes, boisterous hilarity, loud singing, especially of
a song about Alice Gray, the sketching of caricatures of
antiques, and attractive outlining produced by a process con-
trary to his master's precepts. Some of these points I know,
and others I readily surmise, to be correct ; am not however
so sure about " practical jokes." A practical joke played off
by one young student upon another is usually something

1 This book has been loudly and widely praised, and also severely criti-
cized. It is very laudatory of Rossetti, a fact which I cannot view without
some favourable bias towards the book. In other respects I may perhaps
be permitted to say that Mrs. Wood, having commendably lofty ideals and
ideas of her own, reads these (in my opinion) far too freely into the per-
formances of the so-called Praeraphaelite painters and poets, and has not
much notion of the sort of thing that comes uppermost with a painter when
he sets to work.

92 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

which either mortifies the victim, or traverses his work in a
troublesome and annoying way ; and to jokes of this sort I
should say that Dante Rossetti was not at any time given,
but rather noticeable for shunning and censuring them.
However, Mr. Vinter ought to know best, and I am sure that
he does not mean to lead to any mistaken inference ; more-
over, one practical joke is clearly traceable in my Letter B. 8.
At home my brother never played any such jokes ; neither
was he addicted to them at school, nor in the slightest degree
at any period of his fully adult life. For singing he had
naturally a more than tolerable voice ; but, apart from mere
juvenile outbursts, he never cared to use it, still less to train
it, and was even put out if the subject was alluded to.

One of the principal anecdotes developes the following
dialogue. Cary : Why were you not here yesterday ? Ros-
setti : I had a fit of idleness — this reply being succeeded by
the distribution among the students of" a bundle of manuscript
sonnets." Mr. Vinter (or else Mrs. Wood) assumes that these
sonnets were juvenile affairs, which Rossetti, at a later date,
would have been sorry to see forthcoming. To the best of
my recollection, Rossetti, up to July 1846 when he left Cary's,
did not produce any sonnets of his own — unless possibly (and
even these seem to me to have begun rather later) sonnets
written to bouts rimes, of which at one period he rattled off
a very large number. The Vinter sonnets may perhaps have
been some of his translations from Dante and other Italian
poets ; these commenced as early as 1845. They were, from
the first, good work — indeed excellent work — of which he
would not at any date have been ashamed ; although it is true
that at starting the youthful translator indulged in some
mannerisms and quaintnesses which he corrected before the
versions appeared in print in 1861.

Apart from the direct course of his studies, the greatest
artistic event to Dante Rossetti during his time at Cary's was
the opening of the Exhibitions, at Westminster Hall, of
Cartoons, prior to the pictorial decoration of the new Houses
of Parliament. These d isplays took place in 1843, '44> ar>d '45-

STUDY FOR THE PAINTING PROFESSION. 93

His letter of 7 July 1843 bears testimony to the extreme
interest he took in the first of these Exhibitions ; the second
was a still more marking event in his career, as it made known
to him, by the Cartoons of Wilhelmus Conquistator (the Body
of Harold brought to William of Normandy), and Adam and
Eve after the Fall, the genius of Mr. Ford Madox Brown ;
the third contained the Cartoon of Justice and some examples
of fresco-painting by the same artist.1 Rossetti also saw at
an early date two of Brown's oil-pictures, The Death-bed of
the Giaour, and Parisina.

In July 1 846, having sent-in the requisite probation-drawings,
Rossetti was admitted as a student in the Antique School
of the Royal Academy, and Cary's knew him no more. Mr.
George Jones, R.A., was the Keeper of the Antique School ;
a rather aged painter, noted as resembling, on a feeble scale,
the great Duke of Wellington, whose costume he imitated.
Towards this date he chiefly exhibited sepia-drawings of
scriptural or military subjects. A gradual and reasonable
amount of progress was made in the Academy School, but
only (I apprehend) on the same general lines as in the initial
stages at Cary's ; in other words, Rossetti worked with a
genuine sense of enthusiasm as to the end in view, but with
something which might count as indifference and laxity with
regard to the means dictated to him as conducing to that end.
He once said to me — it may have been towards 1857 or later —
" As soon as a thing is imposed on me as an obligation, my
aptitude for doing it is gone ; what I ought to do is what I
can't do." This went close to the essence of his character,
and was true of him through life. As the years rolled on,
what he ought to do was very often what he chose and liked
to do, and then the difficulty vanished ; but in his student
days it consisted in attending assiduously to matters for
which, in themselves, he cared little or not at all, and a real
obstruction was the result. As his gift for fine art was indis-
putably far superior to that of the great majority of his fellow-

1 I believe I am correct as to these several dates ; far wrong I cannot be.

94 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

students, and as his drawings from the antique etc. were (I
presume) in reasonable proportion to his gift, I know of no
reason why he did not rapidly complete his course in the
Antique School, and proceed to the Life and the Painting
Schools — which he never did — except this same : — That the
obligation which lay upon him was to fag over the antique
and cognate first steps in art, and that, being obliged, he
found the will to be lacking. A resolute sense of duty, firm
faith in his instructors, and a disposition to do what was
wanted in the same way as other people, might have furnished
the will. But all these qualities were also at that time lack-
ing, or present in a scanty degree. He liked to do what he
himself chose, and, even if he did what some one else pre-
scribed, he liked to do that more or less in his own way.

We are now approaching, though we have not yet reached,
the period when the " Praeraphaelite idea " developed itself
in the minds of three Academy students — John Everett
Millais and William Holman Hunt, each of whom had
already exhibited some pictures of his own, and Dante
Gabriel Rossetti, who had not exhibited. It will be well
therefore that I should guide my narrative of Rossetti's
student-days, as far as manageable, by the details published
by Mr. Hunt, and also by another of the original Praeraphael-
ites, Mr. Stephens.1 Rossetti preceded Hunt as an Academy
student. Up to May 1848, as Mr. Hunt says,—

" I had only been on nodding-terms with him in the school. He
had always a following of noisy students there, and these had kept
me from approaching him with more than a nod, except when once
I found him perched on some steps drawing Ghiberti, whom I also
studied ; that nobody else did so had given us subject for five
minutes' talk."

The statement that Rossetti was " drawing Ghiberti "

1 Mr. Hunt's contribution consists of three articles in The Contemporary
Review for 1886, The Praraphaelite Brotherhood. Mr. Stephens's mono-
graph has been already referred to. Mr. Hunt has also published an
able article Praraphaelitism, in Chambers's Encyclopaedia.

STUDY FOR THE PAINTING PROFESSION. 95

means, of course, that he was drawing from a cast of
the famous Florentine bronze doors, Ghiberti's work in the
early fifteenth century. I remember that he used to speak
to me with great fervency of the grace of motive, the
abundance of artistic invention, and the fine handling, of
the doors ; and Mr. Hunt's statement on this small point
is of substantial interest, as showing that both he and
Rossetti had gravitated towards this mediaeval work at a
date possibly a full year before Praeraphaelitism took any
sort of definite shape.

I will also extract (with a few comments) Mr. Hunt's
description of Rossetti's person and manner. It is better —
at any rate, in some respects — than any which I could supply,
and will moreover be more readily believed in by the public.

"A young man of decidedly foreign aspect, about 5 feet 7!
in height, with long brown hair touching his shoulders [this is
strongly shown in the pencil drawing by Rossetti now in the
National Portrait Gallery, but it did not continue long], not taking
care to walk erect, but rolling carelessly as he slouched along,
pouting with parted lips, staring with dreaming eyes — the pupils not
reaching the bottom lids — grey eyes, not looking directly at any
point, but gazing listlessly about; the openings large and oval, the
lower orbits dark-coloured. His nose was aquiline but delicate,
with a depression from the frontal sinus shaping the bridge [a very
observable point] ; the nostrils full, the brow rounded and prominent,
and the line of the jaw angular and marked, while still uncovered
with beard [the angularity departed or diminished with advancing
years]. His shoulders were not square, but yet fairly masculine in
shape. The singularity of gait depended upon the width of hip,
which was unusual. Altogether he was a lightly built man [later
on he was often decidedly but varyingly fat], with delicate hands
and feet : although neither weak nor fragile in constitution, he was
nevertheless altogether unaffected by any athletic exercises. He
was careless in his dress, which then was, as usual with professional
men, black and of evening cut [this matter of black evening dress
altered very soon; and indeed, from 1851 or thereabouts, my
brother ceased to be, in any noticeable way, careless or odd in
attire, and at times was even rather particular about it]. So superior

96 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

was he to the ordinary vanities of young men that he would allow
the spots of mud to remain dry on his legs for several days. His
overcoat was brown, and not put on with ordinary attention ; and,
with his pushing stride and loud voice [I feel some doubt as to the
loud voice — should call it emphatic and full-toned rather than loud],
a special scrutiny would have been needed to discern the reserved
tenderness that dwelt in the breast of the apparently careless and
defiant youth. But any one who approached and addressed him
was struck with sudden surprise to find all his critical impressions
dissipated in a moment; for the language of the painter was refined
and polished, and he proved to be courteous, gentle, and winsome,
generous in compliment, rich in interest in the pursuit of others,
and in every respect, so far as could be shown by manner, a culti-
vated gentleman. ... In these early days, with all his headstrong-
ness and a certain want of consideration, his life within was untainted
to an exemplary degree, and he worthily rejoiced in the poetic
atmosphere of the sacred and spiritual dreams that then encircled
him, however some of his noisy demonstrations at the time might
hinder this from being recognized by a hasty judgment."

Mr. Stephens, quoting from " a fellow-student," says that —

" Fame of a sort had preceded " Rossetti from Cary's to the
Academy School. Other Caryites had talked of him " as a poet
whose verses had been actually printed [this can only mean Sir
Hugh the Heron], and as a clever sketcher of chivalric and satiric
subjects, who in addition did all sorts of things in all sorts of
unconventional ways. His rather high cheek-bones were the more
observable because his cheeks were roseless and hollow enough to
indicate the waste of life and midnight oil to which the youth was
addicted." He, on his first appearance in the Academy School,
" came forward among his fellows with a jerky step, tossed the falling
hair back from his face, and, having both hands in his pockets, faced
the student-world with an insouciant air which savoured of defiance,
mental pride, and thorough self-reliance."

The reference here to " waste of midnight oil '' is quite
true. My brother had already acquired habits, which stuck
to him through life, of not going to bed until he happened
to be so disposed, often at two or three in the morning, and

STUDENT-LIFE— SKETCHING, READING, AND WRITING. 97

of not getting up until necessity compelled or fancy suggested.
" Always wilful, never methodical, and the consequences to
take care of themselves," might have been his motto. It is
true, however, that in mature life he settled down into habits
of the utmost day-by-day regularity in professional work.

Rossetti went a great deal to the theatre towards 1845, and
for some six or seven years ensuing, and again about 1861 ;
little at other dates, and after 1 868 or so not at all. He liked
— in its way — almost any theatre, and almost any piece that
was either genuinely poetical, or exciting, or entertaining ;
nothing of a dull or stuck-up kind. Miss Woolgar (Mrs
Mellon) at the Adelphi, and afterwards Miss Glyn at Sadler's
Wells, were two of his favourite actresses. If Shakespear or
John Webster was not "going," an Adelphi drama by Buck-
stone or a burlesque of the Forty Thieves would do perfectly
well. He was also much amused at thoroughly bad drama and
acting, such as could be seen at the Queen's Theatre near
Tottenham Court Road (afterwards Prince of Wales's Theatre).

STUDENT-LIFE— SKETCHING, READING, AND WRITING.

As we have just seen, Dante Rossetti was known at Cary's
Academy for sketching " chivalric and satiric subjects." There
must have been great numbers of these, proper both to the
Cary period and to the Royal Academy period. Possibly
some still exist, in the hands of his companions of those days ;
I myself know of but few. There is nothing in them tending
to what we call Praeraphaelitism.

The early letters of Rossetti show that no artist delighted
him more intensely than Gavarni (Guillaume Sulpice
Chevalier), the French designer for lithographs and woodcuts.
Among his series are Les Artistes, Les Coulisses, Le Carnaval,
Les Enfants Terribles, Les Etudiants de Paris, Les Lorettes,
Fourberies de Femnies en mature de Sentiment etc. He was
a designer of supreme facility, with much of elegance and

vol. 1. 7

98 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

esprit, and in his way a master ; but naturally the way does
not tend towards anything castigated or ideal. It will be
observed in the Letters that in 1843 and 1844 my brother
spent some time in Boulogne with the Maenza family. This
served to fix his attention still further upon Gavarni and
other French designers of a vivacious and picturesque kind ;
though not wholly to the exclusion of British artists, among
whom he greatly (and indeed permanently) admired Sir
John Gilbert as a woodcut-draughtsman, and soon afterwards
as a painter. In some pen-and-ink designs by Dante Rossetti,
of the close of 1844 and on to September 1846, I trace much
of what he saw in Gavarni, and tried to reproduce in his own
practice. They are sketchy, and rather rough or unrefined
in execution, but not wanting in spirit — the work now of an
artist, though only of an artist at the beginning of his career.
One is termed Quartier Latin, the Modem Raphael and his
Fornarina. To April 1846 belongs a half-figure of Mephis-
topheles at the door of Gretchen's cell. The malignant expres-
sion is telling. Undated, but belonging 1 suppose to 1847, is
a drawing, clever in its way, of a man seated, and reaching
towards a flitting ghost ; two other figures are evidently
unconscious of the apparition. Lady Anne BotJiwell 's Lament,
from Percy's Reliques, is a drawing, not fully completed, of
some sentiment and some picturesqueness. At one time,
I suppose 1845, he tried his hand at lithographing, and pro-
duced a figure of Juliette, from Frederic Soulier's novel (a
prime favourite with him in these days) Les Memoires du
Diable. This is poor enough, yet not destitute of a certain
cliique. He also lithographed a set of humorous playing-
cards — Ireland as the Queen of Clubs, Shakespear as the
King of Hearts, Death as the King of Spades, etc. They
have some fancy and point, with pleasing arrangement here
and there, and might perhaps have been popular if published.
He thought of trying for a publisher, but I doubt whether
he ever took any practical steps for this end. Death is
represented as a Grave-digger, wearing a pair of baggy
breeches, and standing in a grave. One sees only a part of

STUDENT-LIFE— SKETCHING, READING, AND WRITING. 99

his leg-bones. These may perhaps be meant for his thigh-
bones ; but it seems quite as likely that they are intended for
the bones of the lower leg. If so, it is worthy of remark that
Rossetti gave this skeleton only one bone to each of his
lower legs, instead of the normal two, and his anatomical
knowledge could thus have been small indeed towards 1845.
Strange to say, Holbein, in his Dance of Death, knew no
better. Of more present interest is an illustrated copy of
the little privately-printed volume, Verses by Christina G.
Rossetti, 1847. I possess the copy of this volume bearing the
inscriptions, " Frances Mary Lavinia Rossetti, from her loving
daughter Christina, 24 July 1854," and then " Fratri Soror,
C.G.R., Sept. 25, 1890" (my sixty-first birthday). It contains
five pencil drawings by Dante, all of them produced, I should
say, before the year 1847 nad closed. The frontispiece is
a profile portrait of Christina, carefully and delicately done.
The illustrations are to the poems, A Ruined Cross, Tasso
and Leonora, The Dream, and Lady Lsabella (who was Lady
Isabella Howard, a daughter of the Earl of Wicklow, and
a pupil of our Aunt Charlotte Polidori). These designs,
though inferior to the portrait, are also handled with nicety
and good taste. The last-named must have been produced
a little later than the others, as it is not bound into the
volume. A noteworthy point about the designs is the total
absence of any feeling for costume. There are clothes, but
of that nondescript kind which, in the male figures, is evi-
denced by little more than a slight line at the throat, and two
others at the wrists. Tasso and Leonora might be anybody
or nobody.

Before Praeraphaelitism came at all into question my brother
began an oil-picture of good dimensions. It was named
Retro me Sathana, and formed a group of three mediaeval-
costumed figures — an aged churchman and a youthful lady,
and the devil slinking behind them baffled. He was a human
being with a tail. This must have been undertaken in 1847,
when my brother had no practice with pigments, and was
continued for some three or four months. It was not, I

100 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

apprehend, altogether amiss ; at what date it was destroyed
I hardly know. He had begun the colouring, and showed the
work privately to Sir Charles Eastlake, who did not encourage
him to proceed with any such subject. Soon after this it
was abandoned.

Rossetti's taste for reading, in all the days of his youth,
was never stationary ; it continued shifting and developing.
Having drunk deep of one author, he went on to another. In
1844 some one told him that there was another poet of the
Byronic epoch, Shelley, even greater than Byron. He bought
a small pirated Shelley, and surged through its pages like a
flame. I do not think that he ever afterwards read much of
Byron ; although, as his mind matured, he was not inclined to
allow that the poet of such an actuality as Don Juan could
be deemed inferior to the poet of such a vision as Prometheus
Unbound. (Not indeed that he approved of Don Juan, as
regards the spirit in which it is written. Early in 1880 he
went so far as to tell me that he considered it a truly immoral
and harmful_ book.) Keats followed not long after Shelley,
in 1846, or perhaps 1845. My brother considered himself to
have been one of the earliest strenuous admirers of Keats,
but this can only be correct in a certain sense. The Old
British Ballads and Mrs. Browning were read with endless
enjoyment ; also Alfred de Musset (I have previously men-
tioned Victor Hugo), Dumas (dramas, and afterwards novels),
Tennyson, Edgar Poe, Coleridge, Blake, Sir Henry Taylor's
Philip van Artevelde, Thomas Hood — more especially some of
his serious poems, such as Lycus the Centaur and The Haunted
House, and the semi-serious Miss Killi nans egg and her Precious
Leg, though some of his roaring jocularities were also much
in favour. As to Dr. Hake's nebulous but impressive romance,
Vates, some details will appear elsewhere. Hoffmann's Contes
Fantastiques (in French), and in English Chamisso's Peter
Schlemihl, and Lamotte-Fouques Undine and other stories,
represented the Teutonic element in romance and legend.
It may have been towards 1846 that my brother came upon
the prose Stories after Nature of Charles Wells, and his poetic

STUDENT-LIFE— SKETCHING, READING, AND WRITING. IOI

drama of Joseph and his Brethren. These works, already half-
forgotten at that date, were enormously admired by Rossetti,
and the ultimate outcome of his admiration, transfused through
the potent faculty and pen of Mr. Swinburne, was the republi-
cation of the drama about 1877. Earlier than most of these —
beginning, I suppose, in 1844 — was the Irish romancist
Maturin, who held Dante Rossetti spellbound with the
gloomy and thrilling horrors of Melmoth the Wanderer. He
and I used often to sit far into the night reading the pages
one over the other's shoulder ; and, if to stir the imagination
of an imaginative youth is one aim of such a romance as
Melmoth, no author can ever have succeeded more manifestly
than Maturin with Dante Rossetti. There was another grim
romance of his, named Montorio, which we thought a splendid
pendent to Melmoth ; not to speak of Women, The Wild Irish
Boy, and The Albigenses ; Maturin's once-celebrated verse-
drama of Bertram, and some other poems of his, were eagerly
inspected, but without any genuine result to correspond. Two
other English novels which he read in these years with keen
enjoyment were the Tristram Shandy of Sterne, and the
Richard Savage of Charles Whitehead ; and in French, by
Reybaud, Jerome Paturot a la recherche d'une Position Sociale,
and, by Eugene Sue, the Mysteres de Paris, the JuiJ Errant,
and Mathilde. In Dickens my brother's interest may have
been on the wane when Dombey and Son began in 1846,
though I suppose he also read David Copperfield, 1849. In
his last days he was much struck with the Tale oj Two Cities.
To Dickens succeeded Thackeray, who was most highly
appreciated : his early tales in Frasers Magazine, such as
Fitzboodle" s Conjessions and Barry Lyndon, and The Paris
Sketchbook (even before Vanity Fair appeared in 1 846), also
The Book oj Snobs. Later on, a novel ascribed to Lady
Malet, Violet or the Danseuse, was a great favourite ; and
he had a positive passion for Meinhold's wondrous Sidonia
the Sorceress (translated), which he much preferred to the
Amber Witch of the same phenomenal author.

At last — it may have been in 1847 — everything took a

102 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

secondary place in comparison with Robert Browning.
Paracelsus, Sordello, Pippa Passes, The Blot on the Scutcheon,
and the short poems in the Bells and Pomegranates series,
were endless delights ; endless were the readings, and end-
less the recitations. Allowing for a labyrinthine passage here
and there, Rossetti never seemed to find this poet difficult
to understand ; he discerned in him plenty of sonorous
rhythmical effect, and revelled in what, to some other
readers, was mere crabbedness. Confronted with Browning,
all else seemed pale and in neutral tint. Here were passion,
observation, aspiration, medisevalism, the dramatic perception
of character, act, and incident. In short, if at this date
Rossetti had been accomplished in the art of painting, he
would have carried out in that art very much the same range
of subject and treatment which he found in Browning's
poetry ; and it speaks something for his originality and self-
respecting independence that, when it came to verse-writing,
he never based himself upon Browning to any appreciable
extent, and for the most part pursued a wholly diverse path.
It should not be supposed that, in glorifying Browning,
Rossetti slighted other poets previously the objects of his
homage. He valued them at the same rate as before, though
he thought Browning a step further in advance. I need
scarcely add that Shakespear and Dante are to be excepted,
for at no time would he have denied or contested the
superiority of these, even to the poet of Sordello. The time
of Dante had come some three years before that of Browning
began, and the current of Rossetti's love for the Florentine
flowed wider and deeper month by month.

It may be noted that (as in a previous instance) I have
not specified any books of a so-called solid kind — history,
biography, or voyages. Science and metaphysics were totally
out of Rossetti's ken. I do not believe that he read any such
books at this period — very few at any later period, among
the few BosweWs Jolmso7i holding a high place. In current
talk Rossetti did not appear to be much behind other persons
when history or biography was referred to ; but I hardly

STUDENT-LIFE— SKETCHING, READING, AND WRITING. 103

know what historical volumes he opened, other than Carlyle's
French Revolution, Merivale's Roman Empire, and something
of Plutarch and of Gibbon. The great Duke of Marl-
borough's English History came out of Shakespear's plays ;
Rossetti's English and other history derived largely from the
same source, supplemented by those adust chroniclers, Walter
Scott, Bulwer, Victor Hugo, and Dumas. This was not to
our father's liking. I have more than once heard him say,
" When you have read a novel of Walter Scott, what do you
know? The fancies of Walter Scott."

Rossetti had commenced some prose story before he left
King's College School in the summer of 1842. I am not
certain whether that story was or was not the same thing
as Sorrentino. At any rate, a prose tale named Sorrentino
was in course of composition in August 1843. I remember
something of it, but not in clear detail. The Devil (a per-
sonage of great predilection with my brother ever since his
early acquaintance with Gothe's Faust, which drama he
read and- re-read afterwards in Filmore's translation) was
a principal character. There was a love-story, in the course
of which the Devil interfered in a very exasperating way
between the lover and his fair one. He either personated
the lover, or conjured-up a phantom of the lady, and made
love to her, and was seen by the lover in the act- -or
something of this kind. There was also a duel in which
he intermixed. Rossetti wrote some four or five chapters
of this story, on the scale of chapters in an ordinary novel,
and he contemplated offering Sorrentino for publication.
Finally he abandoned it, and I dare say he had destroyed
the MS. before he was of age. I have always rather
regretted the disappearance of Sorrentino. To my boyish
notion, it was spirited, effective, and well told ; and I fancy
that, were it extant, it would be found by far better than
his previous small literary attempts. That he entered fully
into the spirit of a story of diablerie is certain ; and, having by
this time some moderate command over his pen, he may have
been not incapable of doing something in that line himself.

104 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTl.

His next literary incentive arose out of his German studies
— which began, as already mentioned, towards the earlier
part of 1 842. Dr. Heimann brought him so far on in German
that Dante Rossetti made a verse-translation of Burger's
Lenore, perhaps in 1844. This likewise has perished. I
suppose it was much on a par with most other versions of
the ballad. I can recollect two stanzas (and might, were
there a little prompting, recollect others as well), one close to
the beginning of the poem, and the other at its end : —

"The Empress and the King,
With ceaseless quarrel tired,
At length relaxed the stubborn hate
Which rivalry inspired."

And

" Patience, patience, while thy heart is breaking —
With thy God there is no question-making ;
Of thy body thou art quit and free —
Heaven keep thy soul eternally ! "

From Lenore he proceeded to a more ambitious adventure
— no less than a translation of the Nibelungenlied. This
mighty old poem seized hold upon him with a vice-like
clench ; yet I do not suppose he ever read the whole of it,
his knowledge of German, unaided, being hardly sufficient for
such an effort. Neureuther's illustrated edition, combined
with Dr. Heimann's explanations, showed him the course of
the narrative. The translation was begun in October 1845,
and went on to the end of the 5 th Geste, or thereabouts,
where Siegfried first sees Kriemhild. No trace of it remains.
Speaking from long-past memory, I should say that this was
really a fine translation, with rolling march and a sense of
the heroic. The merits of the next translation are not matter
of conjecture, for it got finally printed in Rossetti's Collected
Works, 1886. It is from the Anne Heinrich of the twelfth-
century poet Hartmann von Aue, and belongs probably to
the year 1846. For simplicity, vigour, perception of the
character of the original, and tact in conveying this along

STUDENT-LIFE— SKETCHING, READING, AND WRITING. 10$

with a certain heightened and spontaneous colouring of his
own, this version could not easily be excelled. My brother
put some finishing touches to the translation in 1871. Pro-
bably he cut out some juvenilities, but it remains substantially
and essentially the performance of his adolescence.

Even before the Anne Heinrich Rossetti's translations
from the early Italian poets must have begun. The dates of
most of these range from 1845 to 1849. Glowing from the
flame-breath of Dante Alighieri, Dante Rossetti made con-
tinual incursions into the Old Reading-room of the British
Museum, hunting up volumes of the most ancient Italian
lyrists, and also volumes of modern British poets, and maybe
of French as well. No doubt this pursuit involved some
partial neglect of his artistic studies. When he found an
Italian poem that pleased him he set-to at translating it. He
had soon got together a good deal of material, and gradually
the idea of collecting all into a book, including a version of
Dante's Vita Nuova, grew into shape. Almost all the trans-
lations from Dante may have been done at home, where of
course the youth had ready access to his writings, and to
those of several other old Italians. I cannot say which branch
of the subject may have been undertaken first ; possibly the
version of the Vita Nuova, prose and poetry, had been made
before any researches at the British Museum commenced.
This version was shown in November 1850 to Tennyson, with
whom my brother and others of our circle had made some
acquaintance through Mr. Coventry Patmore. He returned
the MS., saying that it was very strong and earnest, but
disfigured by some cockney rhymes, such as " calm " and
" arm." Rossetti at once determined to remove these. The
book of The Early Italian Poets did not appear in print until
1 86 1, and meanwhile my brother had often gone over his
first MSS., revising, improving, and suppressing crudities or
quaintnesses. Still (as in the case of the Anne HeinricJi)
the published translations are, in main essentials, the same
which Rossetti wrote down in these juvenile years — the
impulse and the savour of them are the same ; and any praise

106 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTl.

deserved by and awarded to the man who issued the book in
1 86 1 appertains rightfully to the youth who worked upon it
in 1845 and the few following years. The translations have
been very generally recognized as first-class work of their
order — re-castings of poems into another language such as
could only be accomplished by a poet in his own right.
Instead of expressing any opinion of my own, I will repro-
duce two verdicts by writers of exceptional competence from
their respective standpoints. Mr. Swinburne, the most
lavishly generous of critics when he finds something that he
can have the luxury of praising, says in that review of the
Poems of Rossetti which he published in 1 870 : " All Mr.
Rossetti's translations bear the same evidence of a power not
merely beyond reach but beyond attempt of other artists in
language." My other authority is Signor Carlo Placci of
Florence, who, immediately after Rossetti's death in 1882,
produced a brochure entitled Dante Gabriele Rossetti. The
testimony of a native Italian well versed in English may carry
with it a weight hardly inferior to that of the greatest con-
temporary master of English verse. I quote it with the more
pleasure as it does justice also to Mr. Swinburne's own
powers as a translator : —

"The collection of the Poets of Italy of the first centuries is a
work undoubtedly extraordinary. The diverse styles, the opposite
turns of sentiment, the various and complicated forms, the difficult
allegories, the intricate rhymes, all is rendered in a surprising way ;
and the very spirit of our language seems reflected, with all its
poetry and its pictorial aspect, in these translations — which certainly
do not yield to the best version of a foreign poet done in our days,
I mean that of Villon executed by Swinburne. Like him, Rossetti
has been able not only to enter into that life so different from the
English, and steal the spark proper to another idiom, in such wise
as to astound even those who know the original thoroughly; but,
preserving all the grace and elegance and candour of his model, he
has sought, and successfully, to re-fashion, without visible effort,
their metres and repeated rhymes, and all the devices of alliteration,
assonance, and repetition, which are certainly not less difficult in

STUDENT-LIFE— SKETCHING, READING, AND WRITING. 107

the canzoni of our thirteenth-century men than in the daring ballades
of Francois Villon. In the case of both poets this has been not
merely a masterpiece, but a true struggle crowned with success,
especially when we reflect on the intrinsic difference which exists
between the Teutonic and the Latin families of language."

Not as a translator only but also as an original poet,
Rossetti's faculty was fully developed by 1847. One proof of
this suffices — that he wrote The Blessed Damozel before 12
May of that year, or while still in the nineteenth year of his
age. By saying that his faculty was now fully developed, I
do not mean to imply that it did not afterwards ripen — which
assuredly it did — in several important respects ; but that he
had now ideas of a memorable kind to express, and could
and did express them in verse wholly adequate for their
embodiment. He meant something good — he knew what
he meant — and he knew how to convey it to others. The
Blessed Damozel was written with a view to its insertion in a
MS. Family-magazine, of brief vitality. In 1881 Rossetti
gave Mr. Caine an account of its origin, as deriving from his
perusal and admiration of Edgar Foe's Raven. " I saw "
(this is Mr. Caine's version of Rossetti's statement) " that Poe
had done the utmost it was possible to do with the grief of
the lover on earth, and I determined to reverse the conditions,
and give utterance to the yearning of the loved one in
heaven." Along with The Raven, other poems by Poe —
Ulalume, For Annie, The Haunted Palace, and many another
— were a deep well of delight to Rossetti in all these years.
He once wrote a parody of Ulalume. I do not rightly
remember it, nor has it left a vestige behind.

The poem named My Sister's Sleep was, I think, even
earlier than The Blessed Damozel; The Portrait and Ave very
little later, also all the opening portion of Dante at Verona,
A Last Confession, and The Bride's Prelude. Jenny (in its
first form, which had none of that slight framework of
incident now belonging to the poem) was begun almost as
soon as The Blessed Damozel; only some fifty lines of the
original draft are retained. The sonnet Retro me Sathana

Io8 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

must belong to 1847, being intended to pair with his picture
of the same name ; and the trio of sonnets named The Choice
appertain to the same year, or perhaps to an early date in
1848. This trio is important, as indicating Rossetti's youthful
conception of life as a moral discipline and problem. He
propounds three theories — 1, Eat thou and drink, to-morrow
thou shalt die ; 2, Watch thou and pray ; 3, Think thou and
act. Each sonnet exhibits its own theme, without any direct
reference to the themes of the other two. It is manifest,
however, that Rossetti intends us to set aside the " Eat thou
and drink" theory of life, and not to accept, without much
reservation, the " Watch thou and pray " theory. " Think
thou and act " is what he abides by.

There was another very early poem, begun perhaps in
1846 rather than 1847, and nearly completed at the time. It
then remained wholly neglected, until, on his deathbed, my
brother took it up, and supplied the finishing touches. Its
final name is Jan van Hunks. For this long ballad-poem
Rossetti found his main subject (but by no means all his
incidents) in a prose story, Henkerzvyssel's Challenge, printed
in his old favourite, the Tales of Chivalry. The ballad relates
how a Dutchman, celebrated for his prowess in smoking,
treated certain members of his family with callous cruelty,
and was then challenged by the Devil in human form to
engage in a smoking-duel. Of course the Devil's capabilities
at such an exercise exceeded even the Dutchman's ; so Van
Hunks, dying of over-smoking, was marched off to hell, where
his carcass was converted into a pipe for the devil's accus-
tomed use. The ballad is humorously grim, treated with
great force and no compromise, and is a pleasant piece of
unpleasant reading. It is most fully deserving of publication ;
but has not been included in Rossetti's Collected Works,
because he gave the MS. to his devoted friend Mr. Theodore
Watts, with whom alone now rests the decision of presenting
it or not to the public.

I may mention yet another " copy of verses," belonging to
March 1848. It is named The English Revolution of 1848,

STUDENT-LIFE— SKETCHING, READING, AND WRITING. 109

and ridicules the street-spoutings of Chartists and others in
that year of vast continental upheavals. It is more than
tolerably good in its burlesque way, but is not likely to be
published. My brother had some feeling for political ideals
and great movements, but none, except one of annoyance
and disdain, for noise and bluster. It may well be that he
did not always appreciate correctly the distinction between
the noise and the ideals.

A small incident, of literary and artistic bearing, proved
to be hardly less important in Rossetti's career than the
composition of an original poem. He was already a hearty
admirer of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience.
One day, while attending at the British Museum Reading-
room on one of his ordinary errands, he received, from an
attendant named Palmer, the offer of a MS. book by Blake,
crammed with prose and verse, and with designs. This was
in April 1847. The price asked was ten shillings. Dante's
pockets were in their normal state of depletion, so he applied
to me, urging that so brilliant an opportunity should not be
let slip, and I produced the required coin. He then proceeded
to copy out, across a confused tangle of false starts, alternative
forms, and cancellings, all the poetry in the book, and I did
the like for the prose. His ownership of this truly precious
volume certainly stimulated in some degree his disregard or
scorn of some aspects of art held in reverence by dilettanti
and routine-students, and thus conduced to the Praeraphaelite
movement ; for he found here the most outspoken (and no
doubt, in a sense, the most irrational) epigrams and jeers
against such painters as Correggio, Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt,
Reynolds, and Gainsborough— any men whom Blake regarded
as fulsomely florid, or lax, or swamping ideas in mere
manipulation. These were balsam to Rossetti's soul, and
grist to his mill. The volume was moreover the origin of all
his after-concern in Blake literature ; as Alexander Gilchrist,
when preparing the Life of Blake published in 1863, got to
hear of the MS. book, which my brother then entrusted to
him, and, after Gilchrist's premature death, Rossetti did a

110 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

good deal towards completing certain parts of the biography,
and in especial edited all the poems introduced into the
second Section. He again did something for the re-edition
dated 1880. At the sale of my brother's library and effects
the Blake MS. sold for ;£iio. $s., so that the venture of ten
shillings turned out a pretty good investment.

XI.

FRIENDS TOWARDS 1847

BESIDES the families which I have already mentioned — Dr.
Heimann and his wife, a very pretty pleasant young English
Jewess, whose maiden name was Amelia Barnard, and the
American Doughtys — Dante Rossetti knew, as he grew up
towards manhood, two persons more particularly, of whom I
ought here to give some account. They were Major Calder
Campbell and Mr. William Bell Scott.

To Major Campbell Rossetti was, I think, introduced by
an affectionate friend, a year or two older than himself, the
sculptor Alexander Munro — an Inverness man who had come
to London under the patronage of the Duke and Duchess of
Sutherland, and who, being ingenuous and agreeable in
manner, and of graceful gift as a sculptor, made some way
both in society and in art. He died abroad towards the
beginning of 1871. Calder Campbell was a retired officer
from the Indian army, a bachelor turned of fifty. He took
to my brother most heartily ; was a firm believer in his
future, and watched with the kindliest interest his actual
stage of development. He was the author of a large number
of verses, tales, and sketches, in Annuals and other fleeting
forms of publication, and from time to time produced a
volume as well. To pretend that he was an author of high
mark, or capable of something greatly better than what he
gave forth, would be futile ; but he was a lively writer in a
minor way, an amusing chatty talker, who had seen many
things here and there, and knew something of the publishing

FRIENDS TOWARDS 1 847. Ill

world, and a straightforward, most unassuming gentleman,
whose society could do nothing but good to a youth like
Rossetti. For a couple of years or so my brother and I
used to pass an evening weekly at his lodgings in University
Street, Tottenham Court Road. Tea, literature, and a spice
of bantering scandal, were the ingredients for a light-hearted
and not unimproving colloquy. Mostly no one else was
present. On one occasion — to please Dante Rossetti, who
took a great deal of interest in a rather eccentric but certainly
able volume of poems entitled Studies of Sensation and Event
— Major Campbell secured the attendance of its author,
Ebenezer Jones. He was a well-grown, thin, pale man, still
young, with decayed teeth and a general air of shaky health,
which brought him to his grave before many years had
passed. He seemed pleased in a way, but without any ease
of manner or flow of spirits. We never saw him again.
Dante did not, however, lose his interest in Ebenezer Jones.
As late as February 1870 he made some emphatic observa-
tions upon this poet in Notes and Queries ; and his remarks
led ultimately to a re-publication of the Studies, and to a
good deal of printed matter about Jones in the Athenceum.

Rossetti was quite inclined now to make a little way in
the literary world, if he could find an opening. Major Camp-
bell was more than willing to assist him, and he showed
My Sister's Sleep to the editress of the Belle Assemblee, a
philandering magazine which had seen better days. The
editress expressed great admiration of the poem, but did not
publish it. Perhaps payment was wanted, and funds were at
a low ebb. This may have been before the year 1848 was far
advanced. I cannot recollect that my brother made any
further endeavour for publication. Pretty soon The Germ
was projected, and was to be the medium for introducing to
the public the writings of himself and others.

Mr. Bell Scott has narrated {Autobiographical Notes) the
origin of his acquaintance with Dante Rossetti. On
25 November 1847 the latter took the first step by sending
to Mr. Scott, then Master of the Government School of

112 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Design in Newcastle-on-Tyne, a letter of which the Autobio-
graphist gives an abstract. I condense still further.

"A few years ago," said Rossetti, "I met for the first time, in
a publication called The Story-teller, with your two poems, Rosabell
and A Dream of Love. So beautiful, so original, did they appear
to me, that I assure you I could think of little else for several days ;
and I became possessed by quite a troublesome anxiety to know
what else you had written, and where it was to be found. Seeing
that the two poems were extracted from The Monthly Repository, I
went to the Museum, where I found a set of that magazine, but met
only with a paper on Art. ... At the beginning of the present year
I fell in with a most inadequate paragraph, in the Art-Union Journal,
which informed me of the publication of The Year of the World.
I was about to bid you imagine my delight, but that would not be
easy. I rushed from my friend's house where I had seen the
announcement (for the wretched thing was no more), and, having
got the book, fell upon it like a vulture. You may be pretty certain
that you had in me one of those readers who read the volume at
a single sitting. A finer, a more dignitous,1 a more deeply thoughtful
production, a work that is more truly a work, has seldom indeed
shed its light upon me. To me I can truly say that it revealed

' Some depth unknown, some inner life unlived.' "

This is the first line of The Year of the World. — Rossetti
proceeded to say that he was aware of the existence of
another poem by Scott named Hades or the Transit ; and,
being unable to light upon this or other works by the same
author, he ventured to enquire at headquarters.

It may be questioned whether readers of the present day
know very much about Mr. Scott's poems. I will therefore
say a few words about Rosabell and The Year of the World.
Rosabell — afterwards reissued under the name of Mary Anne —
is a poem, in irregular form and various metres, about an
innocent country-girl who becomes a gentleman's mistress,

1 So in Mr. Scott's book. My brother was not fond of such strained or
affected words, and was much more likely to write " dignified." Still I
suppose that the printed word is correct, and that he was misled for a
moment by the analogy of the Italian adjective dignitoso.

FRIENDS TOWARDS 1 847. 113

and finally sinks into the lowest depths of shame and destitu-
tion. Though deficient in some executive respects, it reads
an impressive lesson in impressive and poignant terms, and
deserves to live. The Year of the World is a much longer
poem in blank verse. The subject extends (to use the
author's own words) (< from the golden age of the Garden
of Eden, the period of instinct and innocence, to the end of
the race, when, all the adverse powers of Nature subjugated,
Man will have attained a happy and quiescent immortality."
I have read this ambitious and remarkable poem several times,
but not of late years. I will, however, undertake to say that
it contains a large amount of strong thought mixed with ideal
aspiration ; that it comprises many lines of true poetry, and
many passages of majestic scope ; and that, if a reading
public who do not greatly want such productions would con-
sent to read the work, they would find in it much to reward
their pains, and to uphold the claims of its author as a poet
of a high standard, and of some veritable though not uniformly
realized attainment. I do not coincide with some critics of
the present day (and of past days as well) who hold that
Scott's executive touch is so uncertain, and the instances
where he falls short of his aim so numerous, as to disentitle
him altogether to the name of poet. On the contrary, I can
and do still admire his work to a large extent, although far
from unconscious of its too frequently obvious, and sometimes
almost unaccountable, blemishes.

Mr. Scott, now aged thirty-six, naturally had not the least
idea who " Gabriel Charles Rossetti " might be, beyond what
appeared in his letter as to his being a student of painting,
etc. He made some sort of reply, and soon received a further
letter enclosing a number of verse MSS., which included
The Blessed Damozel, My Sister's Sleep, and (as Scott
expresses it) " many other admirable poems, marshalled
under the title of Songs of the Art Catholic!' I hardly think
that my brother had by this date completed " many " poems,
unless translations are to be reckoned in. There may easily,
however, have been a round half dozen of original composi-
vol. I. 8

114 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

tions, comprising, in all probability, Ave — also the beginnings
of some others, such as The Bride's Prelude (which at this
time was called Bride-Chamber Talk). My brother's general
title of Songs of the Art Catholic is worth a moment's
attention. By " Art " he decidedly meant something more
than "poetic art." He meant to suggest that the poems
embodied conceptions and a point of view related to pictorial
art — also that this art was, in sentiment though not neces-
sarily in dogma, Catholic — mediaeval and un-modern. He
never was, and never affected to be, a Roman-catholic, nor
yet an Anglican-catholic. All the then excited debates
concerning " Puseyism," Tractarianism, and afterwards Ritual-
ism, passed by him like the idle wind. If he knew anything
about "the Gorham Controversy," it was only that Carlyle
coupled " prevenient grace " with " supervenient moonshine."
Indeed, by this date — so far as opinion went, which is a very
different thing from sentiment and traditional bias — he was
already a decided sceptic. He was never confirmed, professed
no religious faith, and practised no regular religious observ-
ances ; but he had (more especially two or three years after
this) sufficient sympathy with the abstraqt ideas and the
venerable forms of Christianity to go occasionally to an
Anglican church — very occasionally, and only as the inclina-
tion ruled him.

Not long after this letter-writing (I have already expressed
the opinion that it was about the new year of 1848) Mr.
Scott called in 50 Charlotte Street, and saw Dante and other
members of the family. I well remember his first appear-
ance, in the evening. He was then a handsome and highly
impressive-looking man ; of good 9tature, bony and well-
developed but rather thin frame, pondering and somewhat
melancholy air, and deliberate low-toned utterance. His
hair (which he lost entirely some years afterwards) was
blackish, and of free abundant growth, his eyebrows bushy,
his eyes of a very pale clear blue. This hue must have been
too cold and steely for a southern sympathy ; for, when he
and I were travelling in Italy in 1862, a Pisan female fellow-

MADOX BROWN, HOLMAN HUNT, MILLAIS. 1 1 5

traveller felt disconcerted under its influence, and whispered
to me that he certainly had " the evil eye." We in Charlotte
Street did not think so, but took very warmly indeed to Mr.
Scott, and found him not only attractive but even fascinating.
Some time after he had written to Mr. Scott — it seems to
have been in the summer of 1850 — Dante Rossetti wrote
likewise to Robert Browning. In the British Museum he
had come across an anonymous poem entitled Pauline. He
admired it much, and copied out every line of it. He ob-
served one or two verses which he already knew in Browning's
avowed poems. From this circumstance, and from general
internal evidence, he came to the conclusion that the author
of Pauline could be no other than Browning, and he wrote to
the poet at a venture to enquire whether his inference was
correct. Browning was at that time in Venice. He replied
in the affirmative ; and, being two years afterwards back in
London, he made the acquaintance of Rossetti, who called
upon him companioned by the poet William Allingham.

XII.

MADOX BROWN, HOLMAN HUNT, MILLAIS.

A CERTAIN day in March 1 848 — I don't know which day —
formed one of the most important landmarks in the career
of Dante Rossetti. It was on that day that he wrote to
Mr. Ford Madox Brown, personally quite unknown to him,
asking whether he could become Brown's pupil in the practical
work of painting. He thus commenced the most intimate
friendship of his life; and the letter led on to his familiar
companionship with Holman Hunt, and hence to the Prsera-
phaelite movement, and all subsequent developments of his art.
It may be questioned — Why did Rossetti look out for
private instruction in painting, when he might, with moderate
exertion, have advanced from the Antique School of the
Royal Academy to the Life School and the Painting School,
and might, in the last-named section, have obtained, from

Il6 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

accredited painters, all the training that he could want ? My
recollections on this point do not supply me with any very
precise information. Some data are however clear enough
to me. Few young men were more impetuous or more
impatient than my brother, or more ambitious to boot. He
had now been an art-student for nearly six years, and he
wanted to be a student no longer, but a practising painter,
testing by actual performance the faculty that was within
him, and the recognition which the public might be willing
or compelled to accord thereto. His study in the Academy's
Antique School had not yet lasted two years. Fully as much
might still be needed before he would get into the Painting
School, and, when there, he might find little to respect in
his instructors (for he had no belief in an R.A., merely as
such), and little furtherance in that particular line of work
which attracted him. He had plenty of ideas. What he
needed was such an immediate knowledge of brush-work as
would enable him to cover a canvas. I do not say — to cover
it well or ill ; for the idea of doing the thing ill would at this
time, as at all others, have been most repugnant to him. He
wanted to cover the canvas, and to do it as well as his
utmost endeavour would permit. These considerations were
amply sufficient to impel him to look out for a prompt
training in painting elsewhere than by the graduated processes
of the Royal Academy. As he was not yet twenty years
of age, it could not be held that he was at all belated, if only
now he could make a real beginning.

The letter to Mr. Brown is so important from all points of
view that I think well to transcribe it here verbatim.

"March 1848.
"50 Charlotte Street, Portland Place.

« Sir,—

"lama student in the Antique School of the Royal Academy.
Since the first time I ever went to an exhibition (which was several
years ago, and when I saw a picture of yours from Byron's Giaour)
I have always listened with avidity if your name happened to be
mentioned, and rushed first of all to your number in the Catalogue.

MADOX BROWN, HOLMAN HUNT, MILLAIS. WJ

The Parisina, the Study in the Manner of the Early Masters, Our
Lady of Saturday-night, and the other glorious works you have
exhibited, have successively raised my admiration, and kept me
standing on the same spot for fabulous lengths of time. The
outline from your Abstract Representatation of Justice which appeared
in one of the Illustrated Papers constitutes, together with an en-
graving after that great painter Von Hoist,1 the sole pictorial
adornment of my room [this was a room, originally our father's
dressing-room, quite at the top of the house 50 Charlotte Street.
Small and bare and uncared-for it was, but how many hours, which
in retrospect seem glorious hours, have I not passed in it with my
brother ! how many books have we not read to one another,
how many bouts-rimes sonnets have we not written, over its scanty
fireplace !]. And, as for the Mary Queen of Scots, if ever I do
anything in the art, it will certainly be attributable in a great degree
to the constant study of that work [this was a very large painting,
The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots, now in the possession of
Mr. Boddington. My brother had seen it in the Pantheon Bazaar,
where it hung for years rather than months].

" It is not therefore to be wondered at if, wishing to obtain some
knowledge of colour (which I have as yet scarcely attempted), the
hope suggests itself that you may possibly admit pupils to profit by
your invaluable assistance. If, such being the case, you would do
me the honour to inform me what your terms would be for six
months' instruction, I feel convinced that I should then have some
chance in the Art.

" I remain, Sir, very truly yours,

"Gabriel C. Rossetti."

It is somewhat remarkable that, apart from his allusion
to a print of the Justice, my brother did not here refer to
Madox Brown's three Cartoons in Westminster Hall — works
which he assuredly and very rightly admired as much at
least as any of the paintings specified, and more than most

1 Von Hoist is not much remembered now. He was an Anglo-German
painter, greatly addicted to supernatural subjects, which he treated with
imaginative impulse and considerable pictorial skill — Lord Lyttelton and
the Ghost, Faust and Mephistopheles in the Wine-cellar, The Death of
Lady Macbeth, etc, He died towards 1850, in early middle age.

Il8 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

of them. Apparently he dwelt on paintings alone, because
his immediate object was to obtain guidance in the use of
colour.

Mr. Brown, born on 16 April 1821, was close upon twenty-
seven years of age when he received this letter, or about seven
years older than Rossetti. He was a vigorous-looking young
man, with a face full of insight and purpose ; thick straight
brown hair, fair skin, well-coloured visage, blueish eyes, broad
brow, square and rather high shoulders, slow and distinct
articulation. His face was good-looking as well as fine ; but
less decidedly handsome, I think, than it became towards the
age of forty. As an old man — he died on 6 October 1893 —
he had a grand patriarchal aspect ; his hair, of a pure white,
being fully as abundant as when first I knew him, sup-
plemented now by a long beard. Born in Calais of English
parents, and brought up chiefly abroad, he was the sort of
man who had no idea of being twitted without exacting the
reason why. Such profuse praise as he now received from
his unknown correspondent was what fortune had not accus-
tomed him to, and he suspected that some ill-advised person
was trying to make game of him. From his studio in Clip-
stone Street, very near Charlotte Street, he sallied forth with
a stout stick in his hand. Knocking at No. 50, he would not
give his name, nor proceed further than the passage. When
Dante came down, Brown's enquiry was, "Is your name
Rossetti, and is this your writing ? " An affirmative being
returned, the next question was, " What do you mean by it ? "
to which Rossetti rationally replied that he meant what he
had written. Brown now perceived that after all the whole
affair was bona fide ; and (as the Family-letters show) he not
only consented to put his neophyte in the right path of paint-
ing, but would entertain no offer of payment, and made
Rossetti his friend on the spot — a friend for that day, in the
spring of 1848, and a friend for life.

For these details I have relied chiefly on the book of Mr.
Bell Scott, who relates the interview in the words (such they
purport to be) of Rossetti himself in conversation with Scott.

MADOX BROWN, HOLMAN HUNT, MILLAIS. 119

Mr. Stephens gives a similar though briefer narrative, on the
authority of Brown's anecdotic discourse, which was often
of a very amusing kind, and replete with minute particulars.
For truth's sake I will say that I cannot remember having
ever heard either Brown or my brother refer to these minor
incidents of the stout stick, etc. ; but I am bound to believe
Mr. Scott and Mr. Stephens, and I do believe them.

After paying a visit or two to the studio of Madox Brown
— who was then engaged on his important picture of Wiclif
and John of Gaunt (or possibly it was Cordelia watching the
bedside of Lear) — Rossetti was informed by his instructor that
he should set-to at copying a picture, and at painting some
still-life — pickle-jars or bottles. According to Mr. Holman
Hunt, he copied the picture (I have not the least recollection
of what it was), but his aspiring soul chafed sorely against
the pickle-jars. This, however reasonably enjoined by Mr.
Brown, was the very sort of drudgery which, in applying to
him, Rossetti had hoped to avoid. The pickle-jars were
nevertheless painted. The study remained in the hands of
Mr. Madox Brown, and, at the sale which was held at his house
in May 1894, it turned up, and was purchased by Mr. Herbert
H. Gilchrist. My brother made also many original drawings
or slight paintings under Brown's eye. These I no longer
remember ; but I have lately seen one, which is said to be
the first of all, and which was presented by Brown, only a few
days before his death, to the young lady who is now Mrs.
Ford M. Hueffer. It is a drawing of long narrow shape, in
body-colour barely a little tinted, with a plain gilt ground ;
and represents a young woman, auburn-haired, standing with
joined hands. The face seems to be a reminiscence of
Christina, but the nose is unduly long ; the drapery is deli-
cately felt and done, and the whole thing has a forecast of the
" Prseraphaelite " manner. Without being exactly good, the
work shows distinct promise for a youth, almost a novice
at handling the brush.

From the pickle-jars ensued the second stage in this
pictorial progress, and the beginning of my brother's close

120 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

intimacy with Hunt, who was about thirteen months his
senior. Just towards the date when Dante was getting
adequately, or more than adequately, disgusted with his still-
life probation, the annual Exhibition of the Royal Academy
opened at the commencement of May. He saw there Hunt's
picture — an uncommonly fine one for so youthful a painter —
of Tlie Eve of St. Agnes (escape of Madeline and Porphyro
from the castle). He " came up boisterously " (says Mr. Hunt),
" and in loud tongue made me feel very confused by declaring
that mine was the best picture of the year." It seems that
the like had occurred in 1847, when Hunt's exhibited picture
was from Walter Scott's Woodstock. " Rossetti frankly asked
me to let him call upon me." When he did call,1 he bewailed
the pickle-jars or bottles, and sounded Hunt as to whether
he need do any more of them. Hunt, without detracting
from the general correctness of Brown's scheme of training,
opined that Rossetti might permit himself to select for
painting some composition of his own, and might begin on
the canvas with the still-life proper to such a composition ;
and then this accessory part of the subject would no longer
be repulsive, for it would be the mere adjunct or preparation
for the interesting part. No advice could possibly have been
more reasonable, considering on the one hand the tempera-
ment and aspirations of Rossetti, and on the other his great
inexperience in the use of pigment. Mr. Hunt recommended
that he should at once select for his picture a design recently
contributed to a Sketching Society, and approved by Millais.
This design must have been either La Belle Dame sans
Merci, from Keats, or the scene of GretcJien in Church, from
Faust ; in all probability the latter. The Belle Dame seems

1 Mr. Hunt says that the encounter at the Academy exhibition was on
the opening day (first Monday in May), and the visit to his studio "in a
few days more." Considering the date when the Gretchen design (men-
tioned by me in this context) was sent round and criticized, July 1848, and
the date, 20 August, when Rossetti was finally settled with Hunt in a
studio, I incline to think that the visit in question must have been about
a couple of months later than the writer puts it.

MADOX BROWN, HOLMAN HUNT, MILLAIS. 121

to have passed out of observation, though 1 suppose not out of
existence. At any rate, the Gretchen exists, and was exhibited
in 1883 in the Burlington Club collection of my brother's
works.

A word or two must be given to the Sketching Society
here in question. It was termed the Cyclographic Society.
Each member produced a design, and sent it round to col-
leagues in a portfolio, to be inspected and criticized. The
members, besides Millais and Rossetti, were Hunt, John ■
Hancock the sculptor, William Dennis, N. E. Green, J. T.
Clifton, Walter Howell Deverell, J. B. Keene, T. Watkins,
James Collinson, Richard Burchett, F. G. Stephens, Thomas
Woolner, and J. A. Vinter. As Sir John Millais's criticism
on the Gretchen is interesting on every ground, and especially
in this connexion, I give it here : —

"A very clever and original design, beautifully executed. The
figures which deserve the greatest attention are the four figures
praying to the left. The young girl's face is very pretty, but the
head is too large ; the other three are full of piety. The Devil is
in my opinion a mistake ; his head wants drawing, and the horns
through the cowl are commonplace, and therefore objectionable.
The right arm of Margaret should have been shown, for, by hiding
the Devil's right hand (which is not sufficiently prominent), you
are impressed with the idea that he is tearing her to pieces for a
meal. The drawing and composition of Margaret are original, and
expressive of utter prostration. The greatest objection is the figure
with his back towards you, who is unaccountably short ; the pleasing
group of lovers should have occupied his place. The girl and child
in the foreground are exquisite in feeling, the flaming sword well
introduced and highly emblematic of the subject, which is well
chosen, and, with a few alterations in its treatment, should be
painted. Chairs out of perspective."

I can easily believe this last item ; for Rossetti never paid
any attention, worth speaking of, to perspective, and indeed
— so far as his own interest in matters of art was concerned —
was at all times almost indifferent to the question whether

122 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

his works were in perspective or out of it. Mr. Stephens
did something to arrange the perspective of Rossetti's picture
(1849-50) of The Annunciation, now in the National Gallery,
and in 1850 gave him a few lessons — and would not have
minded giving many more — in this bugbear science. The
reader will not fail to note the thoroughly practical and well-
balanced tone of Millais's remarks in all other respects. The
Cyclographic Society did not last long, as may be gathered
from Rossetti's letter of 30 August 1848. I think the more
progressive artists among its members got tired of association
with some others, and hastened its dissolution. I can remember
attending one or two meetings of the Society ; though why I
was admitted — unless it be that Dante sic voluit, sicjussit —
I fail to see.

At the interview of which I have been speaking Rossetti
(according to Holman Hunt) gave the latter to understand
that, being oppressed by the pickle-jars, he had written to
Leigh Hunt (whom he did not know), submitting some of
his poems, original and translated, for courteous perusal,
and asking whether it might seem feasible for him to
trust to literature rather than fine art as a profession.
A copy of Leigh Hunt's letter in reply is still extant.
The date (it will be perceived) is 31 March, and it was
written " at length " — i.e., some good while after he had
received the poems. Rossetti's letter to Brown was only
sent at some date in March ; and, looking to these dates,
I rather question whether his communication to Leigh Hunt
could have been consequent upon his affliction over the
pickle-jars. Here is the veteran poet's very kind and con-
siderate letter to a youth in all ways totally unknown : —

"Kensington, March 31, 1848.
"My dear Sir, —

" I have at length had the pleasure of reading your manu-
scripts, but am still forced to be very brief. I hope the agreeableness
of my remarks will make amends for their shortness, since you have
been good enough to constitute me a judge of powers of which you
ought to have no doubt. I felt perplexed, it is true, at first, by

'•"

By D. G. Rossctti.

Gaetano Polidori.

tS48.

MADOX BROWN, HOLMAN HUNT, MILLAIS. 1 23

the translations, which, though containing evidences of a strong
feeling of the truth and simplicity of the originals, appeared to me
harsh, and want correctness in the versification. I guess indeed
that you are altogether not so musical as pictorial. But, when I
came to the originals of your own, I recognized an unquestionable
poet, thoughtful, imaginative, and with rare powers of expression.
I hailed you as such at once, without any misgiving ; and, besides
your Dantesque heavens (without any hell to spoil them), admired
the complete and genial round of your sympathies with humanity.
I know not what sort of painter you are. If you paint as well as
you write, you may be a rich man ; or at all events, if you do not
care to be rich, may get leisure enough to cultivate your writing.
But I hardly need tell you that poetry, even the very best — nay,
the best, in this respect, is apt to be the worst — is not a thing for
a man to live upon while he is in the flesh, however immortal it
may render him in spirit. — When I have succeeded in finding
another house, I hope you will give me the pleasure of your
acquaintance : and meantime I am, Dear Sir, with hearty zeal in
the welfare of your genius,

"Your obliged and faithful Servant,

"Leigh Hunt.

" P.S. — You will see some pencil-marks at the side of the passages
I most admired."

I possess a portrait done by my brother in pencil in June
1848, representing our grandfather, head and shoulders. It is
excellently good ; and so strongly and exactly realistic as to
prove to demonstration that Rossetti, a short while before the
Prseraphaelite scheme began, required no further prompting
from outside as to the artistic virtues inherent in a scrupulous
fidelity to Nature. Mr. Brown had no doubt impressed this
upon him, if he had not already found it out for himself. In
one way or another he had laid the lesson thoroughly to heart,
and was more than a mere apprentice to Truth. My reader
can judge for himself of this portrait, as it is here reproduced.

Rossetti closed eagerly with Holman Hunt's suggestion as
to beginning a picture, to combine practice in still-life and
accessory with more palatable work ; and he asked to be

124 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

allowed to become joint-tenant of a studio which Hunt was
about to take. To this his new friend acceded ; and nothing;
surely could have been more serviceable to my brother as a
beginner in the painting-art. The studio selected was a back-
room on the first floor at No. 7 (now 46) Cleveland Street,
Fitzroy Square, close to Howland Street. Mr. Stephens has
given an amusingly cheerless account of this establishment.
I will borrow a few sentences from him ; though my own
reminiscences of the place, tinted as they are by the light-
heartedness of youth, do not present quite so gloomy a
picture.

"Dans un grenier qu'on est bien a vingt ans ! "

And indeed I was not fully nineteen when my brother
entered upon his studio at No 7 Cleveland Street, his living
and sleeping rooms being still at No 50 Charlotte Street.

" It was even then a dismal place, the one big window of which
looked to the East, and through which, when neither smoke, fog,
nor rain, obscured the unlovely view, you could see the damp
orange-coloured piles of timber a neighbouring dealer in that
material had, within a few yards of the room, piled in monstrous
heaps upon his backyard. Nothing could be more depressing than
the large gaunt chamber, . . . where the dingy walls, distempered
of a dark maroon which dust and smoke stains had deepened,
added a most undesirable gloom. The approach to it was by a
half-lighted staircase up which the fuss and clatter of a boys'-school
kept by the landlord of the house . . . frequently arose."

And now we come to the third link in this chain of
acquaintanceship — namely, to Rossetti's close fellowship with
Millais. Brown had indirectly led on to Hunt, and Hunt led
on directly to Millais. The latter, born in the summer of
1829, was Rossetti's junior by more than a year, but vastly in
advance of him as an artist. I need not enter here upon the
early career of this great painter ; his quite singular promise
in mere boyhood, his conspicuous successes in his first youth.
Miliais was the pattern — the unattainable pattern — for all

THE PR^RAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD. 125

Academy-students, and was by this date an exhibiting
painter of some performance and any amount of promise.
My brother could not but know him by sight long before
now, and must have exchanged speech with him more than
once both at the Royal Academy and at the Cyclographic
Society. With Millais however he was not as yet on a
footing of friendship, which Hunt was. " The companionship
of Rossetti and myself," says Mr. Hunt, " soon brought about
a meeting with Millais, at whose house one night we found
a book of engravings of the frescoes in the Campo Santo at
Pisa." The house was that at which Millais lived with his
parents, No. 83 (now 7) Gower street, having a long rather
shed-like studio, built out on the ground-floor along the line
of a narrow turning. The juncture was a momentous one
for all the three young painters.

XIII.
THE PR^RAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD.

Mr. HOLMAN Hunt considers, and I would be willing to
confirm his view if it needed any confirmation, that it was
the inspection of the Campo Santo engravings, " at this
special time, which caused the establishment of the Praera-
phaelite Brotherhood." They are not engravings doing
justice to the works represented — indeed, Ruskin has some-
where termed them " Lasinio's execrable engravings." But
they give some idea of the motives, feeling, and treatment,
of the paintings of Gozzoli, and of those ascribed to Orcagna
and other mediaeval masters. It seems that Rossetti was not
quite prepared beforehand to believe in these very olden
painters, and Brown specially cautioned him not to undervalue
them. I well recollect the enthusiasm with which, subse-
quently to seeing the engravings, Dante spoke to me on the
subject, and soon afterwards I was allowed an opportunity of
examining the prints for myself. Most things, whether books
or ideas, were in common, at this time and for years after-

126 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

wards, between my brother and myself, and whatever one
of us lighted upon was rapidly imparted to the other.
Mr. Hunt makes some valuable observations on the direction
of mind which started the Prseraphaelite idea, and on the
respective contributions which the very diverse temperaments
and gifts of its three initiators brought to the common stock.
I will not take the liberty of borrowing his remarks en bloc ;
but, bearing them needfully in mind, I will say what I can
on the subject from my own standing-point.

The Lasinio incident may be proper to the month of
August or of September 1848, when Hunt was twenty-one
years of age, Rossetti twenty, and Millais nineteen. They
had thus barely ceased to be big boys ; but Hunt and Millais
were already very capable and recognized painters, and
all three were enthusiasts— enthusiasts with a difference.
Millais perceived within himself powers which far exceeded
those of most of the acknowledged heads of his profession,
but which had been exercised as yet without any inbreathing
of new and original life ; Hunt was not only stubbornly
persistent, but eagerly desirous of developing something at
once solid and uncommon ; Rossetti, a beginner in the art,
was fired with inventive imaginings and a love of beauty,
and was just as anxious as his colleagues to distinguish
himself, though as yet not equally certain to do so. All three
contemned the commonplace anecdotical subjects of most
British painters of the day, and their flimsy pretences at
cleverness of execution, unsupported either by clear intuition
into the facts of Nature, or by lofty or masculine style, or by
an effort at sturdy realization. There were of course excep-
tions, some distinguished and some noble exceptions ; but
the British School of Painting, as a school, was in 1848 wishy-
washy to the last degree ; nothing imagined finely, nor
descried keenly, nor executed puissantly. The three young
men hated all this. They hated the cant about Raphael and
the Great Masters, for utter cant it was in the mouths of such
underlings of the brush as they saw all around them ; and
they determined to make a new start on a firm basis. What

THE PR/ERAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD. 1 27

was the basis to be? It was to be serious and elevated
invention of subject, along with earnest scrutiny of visible
facts, and an earnest endeavour to present them veraciously
and exactly.

This does not fully account for their calling themselves
Praeraphaelites. Mr. Hunt says — and he must be correct —
that the word Praeraphaelites " had first been used as a term
of contempt by our enemies " ; founded, it would seem, more
upon the talk of the young men than upon anything (apart
from such minor matters as the study of the Ghiberti Gates)
which they had actually done. Hunt's pictures as yet had
no distinctively Praeraphaelite quality, Millais's were quite in
the contrary line, and Rossetti was not known to have painted
at all. But they saw, in the Italian painters from Giotto to
Leonardo, and in certain early Flemish and German painters
so far as they knew about them (which was little), a manifest
emotional sincerity, expressed sometimes in a lofty and solemn
way, and sometimes with a candid nai'vetd ; they saw strong
evidences of grace, decorative charm, observation and defini-
tion of certain appearances of Nature, and patient and loving
but not mechanical labour. In the language of art there is,
or ought to be, a certain distinction between the terms " con-
ventionalism " and "conventionality." Of conventionalism —
an adherence to certain types, traditions, and preconceptions
— there is assuredly a vast deal in these early masters ; but
of conventionality, as a lifeless application of school-precepts,
accepted on authority, muddled in the very act of acceptance,
and paraded with conceited or pedantic self-applause, there
is, in the men who carried the art forward from point to
point, no defined trace. Each of them did his best as he
best could, and handed on the art to be bettered by his
successor.

It was with this feeling, and obviously not with any idea
of actually imitating any painters who had preceded Raphael,
that the youths adopted as a designation, instead of re-
pelling as an imputation, the word Praeraphaelite. The word
" Brotherhood " was, it seems, Rossetti's term, put forward as

128 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

being preferable — which it most clearly was — to any such
term as Clique or Association. And thus was the Praeraphaelite
Brotherhood constituted as the autumn of 1848 began.

Some writers have said that Rossetti was the originator
of Praeraphaelitism. This ignores the just claims of Hunt
and Millais, which I regard as co-equal with his. Rossetti
had an abundance of ideas, pictorial and also literary, and
was fuller of " notions " than the other two, and had more
turn for proselytizing and " pronunciamentos " ; but he was
not at all more resolute in wanting to do something good
which should also be something new. He was perhaps the
most defiant of the three ; and undoubtedly a kind of
adolescent defiance, along with art-sympathies highly de-
veloped in one direction, and unduly or even ignorantly
restricted in others, played a part, and no small part, in
Prseraphaelitism. But Hunt, if less strictly defiant, was still
more tough, and Millais was all eagerness for the fray —
" longing to be at 'em," and to show his own mettle. The
fact is that not one of the three could have done much
as an innovator without the other two. A bond of mutual
support was essential, and an isolated attempt might have
fizzed off as a mere personal eccentricity. As it was,
Prseraphaelitism proved to be very up-hill work. It was
more abused, as being the principle of a few men in unison,
than it would have been if exemplified by one of them only ;
but the very abuse was the beginning of its triumph. Any
one of them, if acting by himself, might have been recognized
as a man of genius ; he would hardly have become a power
in art. If the invention of " the Praeraphaelite Brotherhood "
was a craze, it was a craze spiced with a deal of long-
headedness. Some method in that sort of madness.

But, on these points as to his own relation to other Praera-
phaelite painters, Dante Rossetti has himself given a very
distinct explanation. It appears in a letter which he ad-
dressed on 7 November 1868 to M. Ernest Chesneau,
consequent on the publication of that able critic's book Les
Nations Rivales dans I' Art. The passage which I here quote

THE PR/ERAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD. 1 29

is printed in Professor Edouard Rod's volume, Etudes sur le
Dix-neuvieme Steele, 1888, and the Professor leaves unaltered
Rossetti's " incorrections de langue " : —

" En ce qui concerne la qualification de ' Chef de l'Ecole Pre-
raphaelite' que vous m'attribuez d'apres vos renseignements, je dois
vous assurer le plus chaudement possible qu'elle ne m'est nullement
due. Loin d'etre ' Chef de l'Ecole ' par priorite ou par merite, je
puis a peine me reconnaitre comme y appartenant, si le style du
peu que j'ai fait en peinture venait a etre compare avec les ouvrages
des autres peintres nommes Preraphaelites. Ainsi, quand je trouve
un peintre si absolument original que l'est Holman Hunt decrit
comme etant mon ' disciple,' il m'est impossible de ne pas me sentir
humilie en face de la verite, et de ne pas vous assurer du contraire
avec le plus grand empressement. Les qualites de realisme, emoti-
onnel mais extremement minutieux, qui donnent le cachet au style
nomme Preraphaelite, se trouvent principalement dans tous les
tableaux de Holman Hunt, dans la plupart de ceux de Madox
Brown, dans quelques morceaux de Hughes, et dans l'ceuvre ad-
mirable de la jeunesse de Millais. C'est la camaraderie, plutot que
la collaboration reelle du style, qui a uni mon nom aux leurs dans
les jours d'enthousiasme d'il y a vingt ans."

The charge that the Prseraphaelite trio applied themselves
slavishly to mere copyism, microscopic detail, and the like,
has been so often alleged that it had better be dealt with
here at once. Mr. Hunt puts the matter plainly, and is a
final authority upon it. I will therefore extract a few of his
words : —

" It may be seen that we were never, what often we have been
called, ' Realists.' I think the art would have ceased to have the
slightest interest for any one of the three painters concerned, had
the object been only to make a representation, elaborate or un-
elaborate, of a fact in Nature. ... In agreeing to use the utmost
elaboration in painting our first pictures, we never meant more than
that the practice was essential for training the eye and the hand of
the young artist. We should never have admitted that the relinquish-
ment of this habit of work by a matured painter would make him
less of a PrEeraphaelite."

VOL. I. 9

130 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

To add anything to Mr. Hunt's dictum on this matter is
almost an impertinence. I will nevertheless confirm it, as
being a point of which I also was cognizant — and indeed the
like view was expressed in a kind of declaration of principles
of the Brotherhood which I drew up at the beginning of 185 1,
but which seems to be lost this long while. I will however
concede thus much to the antagonist — that, although it is
certainly true that the Prseraphaelites looked upon elaboration
of detail as being rather a discipline for students than a
necessary practice for proficients, they were not always
sufficiently careful to affirm this, but, in the heat of con-
troversy, would sometimes seem to imply that such elabora-
tion was really requisite, as well as admissible and useful.

I will advert briefly to one other point. It has been
said that Madox Brown declined to join the Prasraphaelite
Brotherhood (and that he did decline is true) on the ground
partly that he had no faith in coteries, and partly that the
Praeraphaelites insisted upon copying from a model exactly
as he or she stood, and without permitting any modification
of visage, etc., to suit the picture. The objection to coteries
was, I believe, made by Brown, and was far from unreason-
able ; but, as for the objection to not deviating from the
model, I entertain considerable doubt. Some such rule as
a theory may perhaps have been in some degree of favour
with the Brotherhood at one time or other ; but I am certain
it was not acted upon even in their first fervid year. The
head of Lorenzo, in Millais's picture of 1848-9, Lorenzo and
Isabella from Keats's poem, was painted from me, but the
hair was made golden, whereas mine was black. The head
of the Virgin Mary, in Rossetti's picture of the same year,
was painted from our sister Christina, and here again the
hair was made golden instead of dark brown. From Hunt's
picture I have no doubt that some similar detail might be cited.
All this 1 say without implying that that notion of strictest
adherence to the model has no value. I think it has some, as
conducing to a general air of genuineness and vvaisemblance,
though it should not be pushed to a pragmatical extreme.

THE PRAERAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD. 131

The three youths who founded the Praeraphaelite Brother-
hood did not aim at confining it to themselves, supposing
that other eligible men could be discovered and enlisted.
This was done with four young men — Thomas Woolner the
sculptor, James Collinson a painter, Frederic George Stephens,
an Academy-student of painting, and myself. I hardly
know whether any of the three former had been sounded
before the Lasinio evening, and the consequent formation of
a Praeraphaelite Brotherhood consisting of Millais, Hunt, and
Rossetti. I presume not. Mr. Stephens was a particular ally
of Mr. Hunt, who must, I apprehend, have been his introducer
into the Brotherhood. Mr. Woolner was probably known
to all three, and I could not affirm to which of them most —
maybe Mr. Millais. Mr. Collinson, and of course myself,
were nominated by my brother. I will say a little about three
members of the Praeraphaelite Brotherhood, or " P.R.B." ; the
" P.R.B.'s," as they called and for a while signed themselves.
I omit Millais and Hunt, as being living men of renown with
whom I need not meddle.

Thomas Woolner was a Suffolk man, born in December
1825, and was therefore about two years and a half older than
Rossetti. He studied under the sculptor Behnes, and had
already exhibited some few works before the P.R.B. was
formed. Ultimately he became an R.A., and he died in
October 1892. 3HIe produced some ideal works of superior
quality, but became chiefly known as a portrait and bust
sculptor. In this branch of the art, an energetic insight into
character, and scrupulous skill in modelling and finish, were
his leading merits. He was a genial manly personage, full
of gusto for many things in life ; a vigorous believer in himself
and his performances, and (it may be allowed) rather dis-
inclined to admit the deservings of any rivals in his art.

James Collinson, born in May 1825, was a small thick-
necked man, chiefly a domestic painter, who began with
careful and rather timid practice ; in demeanour, modest and
retiring. He had been a steady church-goer in the Anglican
communion ; but, about the date of the formation of the

132 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Brotherhood, he became a Roman-catholic, and after a while
saw fit, as a religionist, to resign his position as a P.R.B. He
did not rise to distinction in the pictorial art, and died in the
spring of 1881.

Frederic George Stephens, a little older than Hunt, ex-
hibited a very few pictures in the early years of Praera-
phaelitism ; but, while still young, he relinquished painting
as a definite profession, and became an Art-critic, capable
and influential. He had — or rather still has — an uncommonly
well-moulded and picturesque face ; painted by Millais as
Ferdinand in the early picture Ferdinand lured by Ariel, and
by Madox Brown soon afterwards as Jesus in the admirable
work, now in the National Gallery, of Jesus washing Peter's
Feet. It is a fact, and a melancholy one, that Dante Rossetti,
as the years progressed, lost sight of all his " Praeraphaelite
Brothers " except only of Stephens at sparse intervals — " dear
staunch Stephens, one of my oldest and best friends," as he
wrote to Mr. Caine towards 1879.

Mr. Stephens had a great liking for the early schools of
art, Italian and other. Possibly his knowledge of them ex-
ceeded that of any other P.R.B. , and so far he might reason-
ably be called a " Praeraphaelite." As to Woolner and
Collinson, neither of them, from natural inclination or from
course of study and practice, went at all in that direction ; a
fact which confirms the true view of the matter — that the
Praeraphaelites had no notion of recurring to or imitating old
art, but simply aimed at pursuing the art in that spirit of
personal earnestness and modesty, both as to the treatment
of ideals and as to the contemplation of natural truths, which
had animated the earlier Old Masters, and had faltered or
failed in the later ones, and of which, in the current British
School, the traces were few and far between. For myself, I
obviously was, and I remained, an outsider, so far as the
practice of fine art goes. I was made Secretary of the
Brotherhood ; and pretty soon I became an Art-critic- — in
The Critic (a weekly paper something like the Athenceuni)
from the summer of 1850, and in The Spectator from

THE PR.ERAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD. 1 33

November in the same year. I sometimes ponder with
astonishment the fact that the first of these papers allowed
me to instruct its public on matters of fine art before I was
twenty-one years of age, and the second immediately after-
wards. It is true that The Germ had appeared before I wrote
in The Critic.

As soon as the Praeraphaelite Brotherhood was formed it
became a focus of boundless companionship, pleasant and
touching to recall. We were really like brothers, continually
together, and confiding to one another all experiences
bearing upon questions of art and literature, and many
affecting us as individuals. We dropped using the term
" Esquire " on letters, and substituted " P.R.B." I do not
exaggerate in saying that every member of the fraternity
was just as much intent upon furthering the advance and
promoting the interests of his " Brothers " as his own. There
were monthly meetings, at the houses or studios of the various
members in succession ; occasionally a moonlight walk or a
night on the Thames. Beyond this, but very few days can
have passed in a year when two or more P.R.B.'s did not fore-
gather for one purpose or another, The only one of us who
could be regarded as moderately well off, living en famille on
a scale of average comfort, was Millais ; others were struggling
or really poor. All that was of no account. We had our
thoughts, our unrestrained converse, our studies, aspirations,
efforts, and actual doings ; and for every P.R.B. to drink a
cup or two of tea or coffee, or a glass or two of beer, in the
company of other P.R.B.'s, with or without the accompani-
ment of tobacco (without it for Dante Rossetti, who never
smoked at all), was a heart-relished luxury, the equal of which
the flow of long years has not often presented, I take it, to
any one of us. Those were the days of youth ; and each man
in the company, even if he did not project great things of his
own, revelled in poetry or sunned himself in art. Hunt, to
my thinking, was the most sagacious talker ; Woolner the
most forceful and entertaining ; Dante Rossetti the most
intellectual. Such men could not be mere plodders in con-

134 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

versation : but all — to their credit be it spoken — were perfectly
free-and-easy, and wholly alien from anything approaching
to affectation, settled self-display, or stilted " tall talk." And
this holds good of every member of the Brotherhood. Mr.
Hunt has done more than ample justice to Rossetti's literary
acquirements, saying of him, at the, date when he entered
upon the studio in Cleveland Street : —

" Rossetti had then perhaps a greater acquaintance with the poetical
literature of Europe than any living man. His storehouse of treasures
seemed inexhaustible. If he read twice or thrice a long poem, it
was literally at his tongue's end ; and he had a voice rarely equalled
for simple recitations. . . . Sordello and Paracelsus he would give
by forty and fifty pages at a time. . . . Then would come the
pathetic strains of W. B. Scott's Rosabell. . . . These, and there
were countless other examples, all showed a wide field of interest
as to poetic schools."

Had the Praeraphaelite Brotherhood any ulterior aim be-
yond that of producing good works of art ? Yes, and No.
Assuredly it had the aim of developing such ideas as are
suited to the medium of fine art, and of bringing the arts
of form into general unison with what is highest in other
arts, especially poetry. Likewise the aim of showing by con-
trast how threadbare were the pretensions of most painters
of the day, and how incapable they were of constituting or
developing any sort of School of Art worthy of the name.
In the person of two at least of its members, Hunt and
Collinson, it had also a definite relation to a Christian, and
not a pagan or latitudinarian, line of thought On the other
hand, the notion that the Brotherhood, as such, had anything
whatever to do with particular movements in the religious
world — whether Roman Catholicism, Anglican Tractarianism,
or what not — is totally, and, to one who formed a link in
its composition, even ludicrously, erroneous. To say that
Praeraphaelitism was part of " the ever-rising protest and
rebellion of our century against artificial authority," as in
the cases of " the French Revolution " and Wordsworth and

THE PR^ERAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD. 1 35

Darwin, etc.,1 is not indeed untrue, but is far too vague to ac-
count for anything. Again, the so-called German Praeraphael-
ites — such as Schnorr, Overbeck, and Cornelius — were in no
repute with the young British artists. They did, however,
admire very much certain designs by-Fu-kri-eh from the Legend 5"e Inl e
of St. Genevieve. Neither was Ruskin their inciter, though
it is true that Hunt had read and laid to heart in 1847 the
first volume of Modern Painters, the only thing then current
as Ruskin's work. I do not think any other P.R.B. (with
the possible exception of Collinson) had, up to 1848 or
later, read him at all. That the Praeraphaelites valued moral
and spiritual ideas as an important section of the ideas
germane to fine art is most true, and not one of them was
in the least inclined to do any work of a gross, lascivious, or
sensual description ; but neither did they limit the province
of art to the spiritual or the moral. I will therefore take it
upon me to say that the bond of union among the Members
of the Brotherhood was really and simply this — 1, To have
genuine ideas to express ; 2, to study Nature attentively, so
as to know how to express them ; 3, to sympathize with
what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to
the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parading
and learned by rote ; and 4, and most indispensable of all,
to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues.

After the first fervour of youth was past, Rossetti was
somewhat impatient of the terms Praeraphaelitism and Praera-
phaelite. In 1880 he said to Mr. Caine something which that
author records in the following words : " As for all the
prattle about Praeraphaelitism, I confess to you 1 am weary
of it, and long have been. Why should we go on talking
about the visionary vanities of half-a-dozen boys? What
you call the movement was serious enough, but the banding
together under that title was all a joke." And Mr. William
Sharp says that, to a lady enquiring whether he was the
Praeraphaelite Rossetti (perhaps towards 1870), he replied,

1 See Mrs. Wood's Dante Rossetti and the Prceraphaelite Move?ne?it, p. 9.

136 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

" Madam, I am not an ' ite ' of any kind ; I am only a painter."
These statements I accept; but it is not the less true that
in 1848 and for some years afterwards he meant a good deal
by calling himself Praeraphaelite, and meant it very heartily.

I will complete here a few details about the Brotherhood,
although these will lead me some way beyond the date
which we have as yet reached, the autumn of 1848. In
May 1849 it was settled that I, as Secretary to the Brother-
hood, or its only non-professional member, should keep a
Diary of the proceedings of the Society, and of the art-work
of the several P.R.B.'s so far as that came within my
cognizance. This I proceeded to do ; and up to 8 April 1850
I kept the Diary without the omission of a day. Afterwards
I was less regular ; but still, allowing for several intervals, the
Diary goes on to 29 January 1853. In my hands it con-
tinues ; but I am sorry to say that at some date — possibly
about 1855 — Dante inspected the MS. when I was not by ; and,
finding some entries which, for one reason or another, he did
not relish, he tore the pages up freely here and there — a
summary proceeding quite in his style. I surmise that he saw
some particulars about Miss Siddal (shortly to be mentioned) ;
certainly nothing invidious about her, but he may have
decreed in his own mind that her name should not appear in
the record at all. Nevertheless a great deal still remains ;
and furnishes a very authentic, if also an unentertaining,
account of what the seven Prseraphaelites were doing in those
now remote years. There is a copy of Collinson's letter,
May 1850, withdrawing from the Brotherhood — a step which
he attributes to religious considerations as a Roman-catholic,
though these are not defined with any extreme clearness.
After this, in the autumn of the same year, is an entry pur-
porting that Walter Howell Deverell " has worthily filled up
the place left vacant by Collinson " — his nominator (I have
no doubt, speaking from memory) being Dante Rossetti. But
it appears that this election was considered not entirely valid
by some other member or members, and, at a meeting of
9 February 1851, it was ruled that any such new member

THE PRAERAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD. 1 37

must be subjected to annual re-election. At a previous
meeting, 13 January, Millais expressed a doubt whether the
name P.R.B. should be continued, as being liable to miscon-
struction ; and a resolution was passed that each member
should put down in writing what meaning he attached to the
name, these declarations to be submitted to the next ensuing
meeting. I feel considerable doubt whether any member,
except myself, gave practical effect to the resolution. At any
rate, the Diary shows nothing further about the matter. These
were last dying efforts at a continuance of regular meetings,
which, as recorded on 2 December 1850, had then already
become " thoroughly obsolete." With virtuous intentions,
new and stringent rules about meetings, etc., were adopted
on 13 January 1851 ; but they were forthwith disobeyed, and
the Praeraphaelite Brotherhood, as a practical working organi-
zation, and something more than a mere knot of friends, may
be regarded as from that date sinking into desuetude. For
this there was at the time no sort of real reason ; only that
the several members were developing each in his own proper
direction, were hard at work and scattered in local position,
and found that any inclination for assembling together was
subject to too many interruptions and obstacles. I fancy
that Mr. Stephens and myself were the two members who
most sincerely regretted this disruption. And so, as a definite
scheme in the art- world, ended the Praeraphaelite Brother-
hood. The members got to talk less and less of Praera-
phaelitism, the public more and more ; and the name still
subsists in a very active condition — which is also a very lax
and undefined one, and in many instances wholly misapplied.
In Rossetti's letter to his sister, dated 8 November 1853,
a quotation may be observed, consequent upon the election
of Millais as an Associate of the Royal Academy —

" So now the whole Round Table is dissolved."

And so it proved to be — if indeed the dissolution is not
to be reckoned as dating earlier, which for most practical
purposes it did. Christina hereupon, 10 November, wrote

138 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

a sonnet, neat though irregular, to which I will give a niche in
my narrative : —

THE P.R.B.

"The P.R.B. is in its decadence:

For Woolner in Australia cooks his chops,
And Hunt is yearning for the land of Cheops ;

D. G. Rossetti shuns the vulgar optic ;
While William M. Rossetti merely lops

His B's in English disesteemed as Coptic ;
Calm Stephens in the twilight smokes his pipe,
But long the dawning of his public daj' ;
And he at last the champion great Millais,
Attaining Academic opulence,

Winds up his signature with A.R.A.
So rivers merge in the perpetual sea;

So luscious fruit must fall when over-ripe ;
And so the consummated P.R.B."

This sonnet had wholly lapsed from my recollection until
I happened to light upon it during the progress of the present
Memoir. The only point in it which in our time seems
rather obscure is the reference to myself — which must mean
that I, in my press-criticisms, made light of my P.R.B. col-
leagues (which is joke, not fact), and that my utterances met
with no public regard (which is partial but not entire fact ;
for these criticisms, appearing in a paper of such high repute
as The Spectator, and being, in 1850 to 1852, nearly the only
press-reviews which upheld the Prseraphaelite cause; did
excite some attention, and I suppose some anger. Mr.
Stephens, who succeeded me on The Critic, must have
co-operated). I will take this opportunity of saying that the
statement, which has been constantly repeated in recent
months, that Christina went among us by the name of " the
Queen of the Praeraphaelites," is, to the best of my knowledge
and remembrance, a mere invention. It was first put forward,
I apprehend, by Mrs. Tooley, in an article on Christina which
she published, in the autumn of 1894, in a serial entitled The
Young Woman. I knew nothing of such an appellative ;
Christina, to whom I mentioned it, knew nothing also ; and

THE PR^RAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD. 1 39

Mr. Stephens, who has a long memory on all such details,
neither knows nor believes anything of it.

I am minded — and I hope not to the reader's serious dis-
gust— to insert here those Rules of the Brotherhood which, as
aforesaid, were adopted on 13 January 185 1, and were never
carried into effect. They show or suggest not only what
we then intended to do, but a great deal of what had been
occupying our attention since the autumn ©f 1848. The day
when we codified proved also to be the day when no code
was really in requisition. The document, which is of course
in my handwriting, runs as follows : —

"P.R.B. — Present, at Hunt's, himself, Millais, Stephens, and
W. M. Rossetti, 13 January 1851.

" In consideration of the unsettled and unwritten state of the
Rules guiding the P.R.B., it is deemed necessary to determine and
adopt a recognized system.

"The P.R.B. originally consisted of seven members — Hunt,
Millais, Dante and William Rossetti, Stephens, Woolner, and another •
and has been reduced to six by the withdrawal of the last. It was
at first positively understood that the P.R.B. is to consist of these
persons and no others — secession of any original member not being
contemplated ; and the principle that neither this highly important
rule nor any other affecting the P.R.B. can be repealed or modified,
nor any finally adopted, unless on unanimous consent of the members,
is hereby declared permanent and unalterable.

"Rule 1. That William Michael Rossetti, not being an artist, be
Secretary of the P.R.B.

" 2. Considering the unforeseen vacancy as above stated, Resolved
that the question of the election of a successor be postponed until
after the opening of the year's art-exhibitions. This Rule to be
acted on as a precedent in case of any future similar contingency.

" 3. That, in case a new election be voted, the person named as
eligible be on probation for one year, enjoying meanwhile all the
advantages of full membership, except as to voting.

"4. That, on the first Friday of every month, a P.R.B. meeting,
such as has hitherto been customary, be held.

"5. That the present meeting be deemed the first in rotation
under the preceding Rule; and that the future meetings be held

140 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

at the abodes of the several members, in order as follows — Millais,
Dante Rossetti, William Rossetti, Stephens, Woolner.

" 6. That, in the event of the absence of the Member at whose
house any meeting falls due, or other obstacle — to be allowed as
valid by the others — the Secretary be made aware of the fact ; and
that the Member next in rotation act for the absent Member : the
ensuing meetings to follow as before provided.

" 7. That unjustified absence under such circumstances subject
the defaulter to a fine of 5^.

" 8. That a Probationary Member be not* required to take his
turn in this rotation.

" 9. That at each such monthly meeting the Secretary introduce
any business that may require consideration — to the exclusion of
other topics until such business shall have been dispatched.

" 10. That any Member unavoidably absent be entitled to send
his written opinion on any subject fixed for consideration.

"11. That, failing full attendance at a meeting, or unanimously
expressed opinion, the members present may adopt Resolutions, —
to remain in force until a dissenting opinion shall be made known.

"12. That any member absent from a meeting without valid
excuse — to be allowed by the others — shall forfeit zs. 6d. ; and that
no engagement with any other person whatever be held to supersede
the obligation of a P.R.B. meeting.

" 13. That the January meeting of each year be deemed the
Anniversary Meeting.

" 14. That the application of fines accruing as before specified
be determined, by majority of votes, at each such annual meeting.

" 15. That at each annual meeting the conduct and position of
each P.R.B. during the past year, in respect of his membership,
be reviewed; it being understood that any member who shall not
appear to have acted up to the best of his opportunities in furtherance
of the objects of the Brotherhood is expected, by tacit consent, to
exert himself more actively in future.

"16. That the Secretary be required, as one chief part of his
duty, to keep a Journal of the P.R.B.

"17. That the Journal remain the property of the Brotherhood
collectively, and not of the Secretary or any other individual
member ; that it be considered expedient in ordinary cases to read
the Journal at each meeting at the Secretary's residence ; and that

THE PR^ERAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD, 141

any member have the power to require its production whenever he
may think fit.1

"18. That any election which may be hereafter proposed be
determined by ballot.

" 19. That any such election be renewable annually by vote of
the six original members.

" 20. That any member considered unworthy to continue in the
Brotherhood cease to be a P.R.B. on the unanimous vote of his
peers — i.e., of those in the same class, as regards date of election,
as himself.2

"21. That the fines be received by the Secretary.

"22. That the 23rd of April be kept sacred annually to
Shakespear, as an obligation equally binding as that of a P.R.B.
meeting.

"23. That, in case any P.R.B. should feel disposed to adopt
publicly any course of action affecting the Brotherhood, the subject
be in the first instance brought before the other members."

Having now disposed of the Praeraphaelite Brotherhood
as an organization, I must revert to the doings of Dante
Rossetti in the studio which from the latter end of August
1848 he shared with Mr. Hunt. It seems that the idea at
starting was that Hunt, Millais, and Rossetti, should each
produce an etching from Keats's Isabella, and thus show forth
to the public their close connexion in purpose and in work.
This intention however did not take effect. Millais, in lieu
of an etching, proceeded to paint his celebrated picture from
Isabella ; Hunt undertook Rienzi swearing Revenge over his

1 Up to this point the Rules are written out by me in a clear deliberate
script, being evidently a recast, done at leisure, from my first hasty jottings.
The subsequent Rules are written hurriedly, and must have reached me
in some different way: I forget the details. The restrictive clause, 17,
as to the Journal, was proposed by myself. It was not a precautionary
measure against me taken by some one else.

2 No doubt this must be imperfectly expressed. The real intention
must be that, whereas an original P.R.B. could only be discarded by the
votes of the other original members, a subsequently elected P.R.B. could
be discarded by the votes of the original members, and also of any
members of his own standing in point of date.

142 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Brother s Corpse ; and Rossetti chose as his subject The
Girlhood of Mary Virgin, painted on panel, 33 inches by
25. I have no clear recollection of any details leading up
to this selection. He must have thought that the subject
was one particularly worthy of a " Praeraphaelite " painter ;
and perhaps the consideration that he could treat it without
any strained or difficult actions, and without any plethora
of accessory, and with a certain reserve of style rather than
energetic realism in this his first attempt, may have weighed
with him. Of course however the plan was to paint all parts
of the picture carefully from Nature, and this he did not fail
to do. Hunt was of much use to him as an adviser, and
Madox Brown frequently came in to inspect and control.
Rossetti, according to Mr. Hunt, displayed "unchecked
impatience at difficulties " ; and I can remember something
of this. A remonstrance from Hunt had a good effect, and
the young painter managed to curb himself somewhat.
" When he had once sat down," says Mr. Hunt, " and was
immersed in the effort to express his purpose, and the
difficulties had to be wrestled with, his tongue was hushed,
he remained fixed, and inattentive to all that went on about
him ; he rocked himself to and fro, and at times he moaned
lowly or hummed for a brief minute, as though telling off
some idea." He found time also for sitting to Hunt for the
head of Rienzi, and to Brown for that of the Fool of King
Lear in the picture (previously mentioned) of Cordelia watching
the Bedside of Lear. Both of these are good likenesses, and
must remain of the highest interest to sympathizers with
Rossetti as showing what he appeared in the birth-year of
Praeraphaelitism. Moreover he painted in oils a head of
Christina, which must thus be the very first finished painting
he produced.

Perhaps Rossetti had never been forestalled in representing
an ideal scene of the home-life of the Virgin Mary with her
parents ; certainly not in the particular invention which this
picture embodies. The Virgin, aged about seventeen, is
shown working at an embroidery under the eye of her mother

THE PRyERAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD. 143

St. Anna. The embroidery represents a lily, the emblem of
purity, which she copies from a plant watered by a child-
angel. The father St. Joachim l is behind, trailing up a vine.
The Holy Ghost, in the form of a dove, is also present. The
head of the Virgin was painted from Christina Rossetti, that
of St. Anna from our mother : both very faithful likenesses.
The vase containing the lily is mounted upon six large
volumes lettered with the names of virtues, Charity being
the uppermost. There are numerous other details, each with
a symbolic or spiritual meaning ; and I will venture to say
that every one of the meanings is well conceived and rightly
indicated. For the frame of the picture my brother had a
slip of gilt paper printed (I still possess a copy of it) con-
taining two sonnets of his composition — the first setting forth
the general purport of the work, and the second its individual
symbols. The sonnets have been reproduced elsewhere, and
with some reluctance I omit them here ; but may observe
that the leading conception of the picture is expressed in the
close of the second sonnet —

" She soon shall have achieved
Her perfect purity ; yea God the Lord
Shall soon vouchsafe His son to be her son."

This picture is painted in rather bright but not crude colours —
a love for the primary hues, so much affected by painters of
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, being a very marked
trait in the practice of the Praeraphaelite Brotherhood at its
inception. The handling is delicate and finished, aiming at
nicety rather than strength, but it should hardly perhaps
be called timid ; the surface is rather thin. If I remember
right, the only medium used was copal, for the P.R.B.'s had
a horror of thick and cloggy vehicles. There is certainly not
the least bravura in the work, neither did its painter wish
that there should be any ; but it is very far from being

1 Mr. Bell Scott says " St. Joseph," and laughs at his being occupied
otherwise than as a carpenter; but, the personage being mis-stated, the
laugh is misapplied.

144 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

incompetent, and, considered as the first painting of a youth
of twenty, it may claim to be highly remarkable. There is
(or was) some gilding in the hair of the Virgin and in the
nimbus round the Dove. The forms are pure and simple,
but not ascetic, and of course with no sort of copyism from
archaic art. The point most approaching to rigidity is the
straight contour-line formed by Mary's legs, running parallel
to the embroidery-frame. This would have been improved
by some modification.

There are three sonnets by Rossetti which belong to the
early days of Praeraphaelitism, and which well deserve to be
considered by persons who would like to understand that
movement, and the temper in which Rossetti viewed it.
They now form a portion of The House of Life, and are
named collectively Old and New Art. The second and third —
bearing the titles Not as These, and The Husbandman — were
written in 1848 ; the first, St. Luke the Painter, in 1849 ; and
this was intended to illustrate a picture (never painted) of
Luke preaching, having beside him pictures, his own work,
of Christ and the Virgin Mary. These three sonnets testify
to a highly religious (not necessarily dogmatic) view of the
function of the Art, to love of the old painters, and revolt
against the more modern ones, and to a modest and yet
resolute desire to aid in reinstating the Art in its legitimate
place. The spirit which animates the sonnets is that of a
man destined to dare and do, and to overcome.

Another painting — his second oil portrait — was produced
by Dante Rossetti towards the close of 1848 — the likeness
of our father, half-length life-size, commissioned by Dante's
godfather Mr. Lyell. Both as a likeness and as a picture
this work is creditable and interesting, without being excellent.

XIV.

FIRST EXHIBITED PICTURE— 1849.

As this is a Memoir of Rossetti, and not a Monograph on the
Praeraphaelite Brotherhood, I shall not apply myself to

FIRST EXHIBITED PICTURE — 1 849. 145

following out the course of the several members ; but will
only say that the three chief painters, Millais, Hunt, and
Rossetti, were ready with their pictures in time for the
Exhibiting-season of 1849. Millais and Hunt sent to the
Royal Academy, Rossetti to the so-called Free Exhibition
near Hyde Park Corner. This was the second year of that
Exhibition as a Picture Gallery. Its first year, 1848, had been
distinguished by the display of Madox Brown's highly
interesting and important painting, Wiclif reading his
Translation of the New Testament to John of Gaunt ; a
painting which, in its bright but rather pale colouring, light-
ness of surface, and general feeling of quietism, x had beyond a
doubt served in some respects to mould the ideas and beacon
the practice of the P.R.B.'s. The Free Exhibition was not
really free. The exhibiting artists had to pay for their space,
and a percentage upon sales, and the public had to pay for
admission. I suppose that it professed to be free on the
very ground that all artists were free to hang pictures there
if only they would pay for the space ; and I further suppose
that this was a principal incentive to my brother for betaking
himself to that gallery rather than the Royal Academy. Mr.
Brown's example (for he again exhibited here in 1849) must
also have influenced him. My brother was proud, and in his
way prudent as well ; and he must have contemplated with
revulsion the mere possibility of being rejected at the
Academy — an institution which (apart from any crudities
or peculiarities in his first picture) might perhaps view him
with some disfavour as having abandoned the Academy
course of instruction, and learned from an outsider how
to handle pigments and brushes. Next year, 1850, the
Free Exhibition quitted Hyde Park Corner, and went to
Regent Street near Langham Place, and was there entitled
the National Institution, or Portland Gallery. It continued
for some years, dying out towards 1855. The Girlhood oj

1 I have not seen this picture in late years ; have some idea that it was
re-worked upon, and strengthened in tint and tone.

VOL. I. 10

146 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Mary Virgin was signed " Dante Gabriele Rossetti, P.R.B.," *
and the same initials appeared on the pictures of Millais and
Hunt, and also of Collinson. This year the initials passed
without exciting~any definite notice.

It is a fact that the paintings of our three Prasraphaelites
were well received by press and public, and Millais and Hunt
were more than tolerably well hung in the Academy. This
becomes a remarkable fact when we consider the storm of
disapprobation, rage, and contumely, which the pictures of
the same men — certainly showing an advance in pictorial
quality — encountered in the exhibitions of 1850. The reason
for this differing treatment is obvious enough, and not less
discreditable than obvious. In 1849 the pictures were judged
on their merits, as three independent productions of young
and promising men. In 1850 the initials P.R.B. were under-
stood ; the young men were discovered to be working on
a common principle, in antagonism more or less decided to
established rules and current reputations ; and the floodgates
of virulence were let loose, not because the pictures were
bad — they are now well known to be good — but because their
authors were regarded and detested as pestilent heretics. It
is a humiliating retrospect, but not for the P.R.B.'s.

The Free Exhibition opened at the end of March 1849, the
Academy of course at its usual date, the first Monday in
May ; and thus, of all the Praeraphaelites, Rossetti happened
to be the first to challenge a public verdict. As I have
already intimated, it proved a favourable one. I cannot say
how many papers criticized him. I have before me five
extracts, and possibly these — along with The Builder, which
was also laudatory — were all. They come from the Art
Journal, Literary Gazette, Morning Chronicle, Observer, and
Athenaeum. In all of them there is high praise, intermixed
with blame, more or less mild. Soon after that date I came
to know something of Art-critics, their ways and means ; and

1 So Mr. Sharp says. This seems to be the earliest instance in which
Rossetti used "Dante" as his first christian name. In the printed
Catalogue the name stands " G. D. Rossetti."

FIRST EXHIBITED PICTURE — 1 849. 147

I can safely say that in my youth — I will go no further than
that — they knew, as a body of men, only a very moderate
proportion of what they talked about. But clearly Dante
Rossetti had no reason to complain at this period. The critics
were more than courteous to a youth as yet totally unknown.
I will give here the notice from the Athenaeum, being the
most elaborate of the five. In 1850 it was generally under-
stood by the Prseraphaelites — -and I believe correctly so — that
Mr. Frank Stone the painter was the Art-critic of the
Athenceum. He was then highly abusive. Whether he was
the same writer who had sounded a very different note in
1849 I do not profess to know.

" It is pleasant to turn from the mass of commonplace, the record
of mere fact or the extravagant conceits exhibited in the illustra-
tions of some of our most cherished writers, prose and poetic, to a
manifestation of true mental power, in which Art is made the
exponent of some high aim, and what is ' of the earth, earthy,' and
of the Art, material, is lost sight of in a dignified and intellectual
purpose. Such a work will be found here; not from a long-
practised hand, but from one young in experience, new to fame,
Mr. G. D. Rossetti. He has painted The Girlhood of Mary Virgin
(368) ; a work which, for its invention and for many parts of its
design, would be creditable to any exhibition. In idea it forms a
fitting pendent to Mr. Herbert's Christ subject to his Parents at
Nazareth. A legend may possibly have suggested to Mr. Rossetti
also the subject of his present work [I am sure this was not the
fact]. The Virgin is, in this picture, represented as living amongst
her family, and engaged in the task of embroidering drapery — to
supply possibly some future sacred vestment [no such intention].
The picture, which is full of allegory, has much of that sacred
mysticism inseparable from the works of the early masters, and
much of the tone of the poets of the same time. While immature
practice is visible in the executive department of the work, every
allusion gives evidence of maturity of thought — every detail that
might enrich or amplify the subject has found a place in it. The
personification of the Virgin is an achievement worthy of an older
hand. Its spiritualized attributes, and the great sensibility with
which it is wrought, inspire the expectation that Mr. Rossetti will

148 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTT.

continue to pursue the lofty career which he has here so successfully
begun. The sincerity and earnestness of the picture remind us
forcibly of the feeling with which the early Florentine monastic
painters wrought ; and the form and face of the Virgin recall the
words employed by Savonarola in one of his powerful sermons :
'Or pensa quanta bellezza avea la Vergine, che aveatanta santita
che risplendeva in quella faccia della quale dice San Tommaso che
nessuno che la vedesse mai la guardb per concupiscenza, tanta era
la santita che rilustrava in lei.' Mr. Rossetti has, perhaps un-
knowingly, entered into the feelings of the renowned Dominican,
who in his day wrought as much reform in Art as in morals. The
coincidence is of high value to the picture."

The whole transaction with The Girlhood of Mary Virgin,
considered as a first picture, was a most encouraging success.
Rossetti hung it at his own discretion ; he was complimented
by the press ; his sonnets passed not unnoticed, Sir Theodore
Martin in especial being singularly struck by them ; and he
sold the painting promptly for his own price of £%o. The
purchaser was the Marchioness Dowager of Bath, in whose
family our aunt, Charlotte Polidori, was governess, and after-
wards companion. The Marchioness after a while presented
the picture to her daughter Lady Louisa Feilding. With this
lady the work remained until a recent date. Who the present
owner may be I know not. After getting it back from
the exhibition Dante painted a fresh head to the girl-angel.
By 25 August he despatched her purchase to Lady Bath.
Perhaps the best success of all was that, in 1864, receiving the
picture for re-framing, he found it to be " a long way better
than he thought." " It quite surprised me (and shamed me
a little) to see what I did fifteen years ago," is an expression
in one of his letters.

It has appeared to me no other than requisite to dwell at
some length on the early years of my brother — his family
surroundings, his beginnings in drawing and writing, his
sympathies for painters and authors, his studies, and the com-
mencement of his professional practice. We have now reached
the point where he is an exhibiting and well-accepted painter,

THE GERM. 1 49

and a poet of considerable though as yet not public per-
formance. Were I to pursue with equal minuteness his
doings from year to year in art and in literature, I should
exceed the bounds which I contemplate — should perhaps
exceed any reasonable bounds. Many matters remain which
will require copious and free treatment ; but I do not propose
to turn this Memoir into an accurate — still less an exhaustive —
record of all the pictures and designs, and all the writings,
which he continued to produce from year to year. Some
things stand out as landmarks or milestones in his career, and
these will receive due consideration ; others will be- passed
over or summarized. Besides, I have already produced a
book, Dante Gabriel Rossetti as Designer and Writer} giving
in chronological order a great number of details, major and
minor, about his performances, their sales and purchasers, etc.
etc. ; and some readers of the present narrative, feeling any
interest in those particulars, can supplement, by reference to
that volume, anything which they may hold to be deficient
in this. My present scope is wider and more personal. The
things which Dante Rossetti produced will indeed be of
primary importance to it ; but rather as being a symptom
and outcome of his personality — a portion of his life — than as
forming my main subject-matter.

XV.

THE GERM.

If Dante Rossetti cannot rightly be credited (in derogation
of Hunt and Millais) with inventing the Praeraphaelite move-
ment and Brotherhood, a very significant enterprize, he
certainly can be credited with inventing The Germ. He was
eager to distinguish himself in literature, no less than painting,
and wanted to have some safe vehicle both for ushering his
writings before the public, and for diffusing abroad the Prasra-
phaelite principles in art. I feel pretty sure that at first every

1 Published by Cassell & Co., 1889. It is now out of print.

150 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

one of his colleagues regarded the enterprize as rash, costly,
foredoomed to failure, and an interruption to other more
pressing and less precarious work. But Rossetti was not to
be denied. The magazine was enacted in his mind ; it was to
be, and was to enlist the energies of all the P.R.B.'s, and of
some other persons as well. With varying degrees of reluct-
ance his friends yielded. As the project progressed, some of
them seem even to have yielded with willing assent. Among
these, Hunt, Woolner, and myself, may have stood foremost.

The " P.R.B. Diary" shall be my chief guide in relating the
history- of The Germ; several relevant details will be found
also in the Family-letters. The first entry which I find bearing
upon this subject is dated 13 July 1849, and runs as follows : —

" In the evening Gabriel and I went to Woolner's with the view of
seeing North (whom however we did not find at home) about a
project for a monthly sixpenny magazine, for which four or five of
us would write, and one make an etching — each subscribing a
guinea, and thus becoming a proprietor. [As to North — a very
familiar figure in those days with Woolner, Dante, and myself, but
scarcely so with the other P.R.B.'s — some particulars will be found
in my note to Letter C 8.] The full discussion of the subject is
fixed for to-morrow at Woolner's."

The title first thought of was Monthly Thoughts in Litera-
ture, Poetry, and Art; and it was immediately projected to
increase the magazine to forty pages, two etchings, and a
price of one shilling. On 23 September, being in the Isle of
Wight, I received a letter informing me that I was appointed
Editor, " as difficulties in keeping back the ardour of our new
proprietors [not all of them P.R.B.'s] began to rise up " ; and
a prospectus had been sent off to the printer's, with the title
altered to Thoughts towards Nature, which was Dante's idea.
Messrs. Aylott & Jones, of Paternoster Row, were selected
as publishers. Soon afterwards a different title was proposed,
The P.R.B. Journal; but to this I objected, partly on the
ground that some of the writers, and even of the proprietors,

THE GERM. 1 51

would not belong to the Brotherhood. In November we
resolved to do no advertizing, owing to the expense. This
decision was almost, yet not absolutely, adhered to. There
was some small amount of ordinary advertizing ; and in May
placards were posted and carried about in front of the
Academy exhibition.

We now come to December, the month which was to be
devoted to the printing of our opening number, so that it
might appear at the close of that month, or the beginning
of January. On 17 December Rossetti resumed writing his
prose story Hand and Soul, for our No. 1 ; on the 21st he
was at it all day and all night,1 and finished the nar-
rative— the epilogue remaining over till the following day.
Meanwhile, on the 19th, there had been a meeting of no
small moment to us at his studio — which was, since 10 October,
No. 72 Newman Street, the rent £26 per annum. We had
finally to decide upon the title of our magazine ; and the
company consisted not only of the seven members of the
Brotherhood, but also of the painters Madox Brown, Cave
Thomas, and Deverell, the sculptor Hancock, and two
brothers Tupper. One of these, George, was a partner in
the Firm which had undertaken to print the magazine. The
other, John Lucas, who had been an Academy-student well
known to Hunt, and aiming at sculpture rather than painting)
was now Anatomical Designer at Guy's Hospital, and later
on he became Drawing-master at Rugby School, where he
died in 1879 — a very capable conscientious man, quite as
earnest after truth in form and presentment as any P.R.B.,
learned in his department of art, and with a real gift for
poetry, which received partial expression, and as yet, it may
be feared, next to no recognition.2 The title Thoughts towards

1 So stated in the P.R.B. Diary; Dante Rossetti, in my Section 43, gives
a slightly different account.

2 I believe he has left a large quantity of unprinted verse and prose.
Some of it ought to be published. He issued anonymously a noticeable
book, 1869, entitled Hiatus, the Void in Modem Education, by Outis
There was a little lyric of Tupper's on the Garden of Eden in ruinous

152 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Nature was not viewed with much predilection. Mr. Cave
Thomas had some while before proposed The Seed] and he
now offered (with others) two new names, The Scroll, and
The Germ. The last was ultimately approved by a vote of
six to four.

The Germ No. I appeared on or about I January 1850.
I do not propose to go minutely into the contents of the
magazine — still less into its merits and demerits ; but, as
regards No. 1, I may perhaps as well recite the full contents.
No authors' names were here given (a point contrary to my
liking) ; but in subsequent numbers some names, and also
some pseudonyms, were supplied on the wrappers. No. 1
opens with Woolner's poem My Beautiful Lady, and Of my
Lady in Death, accompanied by an etching by Hunt, con-
sisting of two separate compositions. Then come — The Love
of Beauty, sonnet, by Madox Brown ; The Subject in Art,
No. 1, by J. L. Tupper ; The Seasons, by Coventry Patmore
(known first to Woolner, and by this time to most of us) ;
Dreamland, by Christina Rossetti ; My Sister's Sleep (being
No. 1 of Songs of one Household), by Dante Rossetti ; Hand
and Soul, by the same ; a Review, by myself, of Clough's
poem, The Bothie of Toper na Fuosich ( Toper-na- Vuolich in
later issues) ; Her First Season, sonnet, also by myself; A
Sketch from Nature, by J. L. Tupper ; and An End, by
Christina Rossetti. On the first page of the wrapper was
a sonnet, my performance, intended to indicate the point
of view from which the Prseraphaelites contemplated the
expression of ideas, and the record of appearances, whether
in literature or in art. The last page contained a slight pro-
gramme of what the nature of the contents of the magazine
generally would be. I cannot say that it is effectively done,
nor do I now remember who did it. I incline to think that
Dante Rossetti made the first draft, which, being freely over-
decay, of which Dante Rossetti thought very highly. He compared it to
Ebenezer Jones's lyric, " When the world is burning" ; and said that, had
it been the writing of Edgar Poe, it would have enjoyed world-wide
celebrity.

THE GERM. I 53

hauled by others, got muddled more or less. It contains the
following deliverance regarding Fine Art — a deliverance
which shows to a certain extent the principle of the P.R.B.,
but in a very meagre and stunted condition : —

"The endeavour held in view throughout the writings on Art will
be to encourage and enforce an entire adherence to the simplicity
of Nature ; and also to direct attention, as an auxiliary medium, to
the comparatively few works which Art has yet produced in this
spirit."

A different programme — which was not however much
more than a topsy-turvy of the original one — appeared on
the wrappers of Nos. 3 and 4, which were less directly under
the control of myself as editor, or of the other members of
the Brotherhood.

The issue of No. 1 of The Germ was 700 copies, for No. 2
only 500. About 100 of No. 1 were sold by the publishers,
besides nearly or quite as many through our own exertions
among friends and sympathizers ; No. 2 went off even less
well than this. There was a' fancy in our circle for speaking
of the magazine as " The Gurm." I am not quite sure how
this originated, but believe that some outsider, seeing the
magazine in a shop, and not realizing to himself what the
title meant, asked for it in that form of pronunciation. For
Nos. 3 and 4, which were brought out at the risk of our
friendly printing-firm, a new title, Art and Poetry, was in-
vented by a member of the firm, Mr. Alexander Tupper. I
hardly know how these numbers sold, but am sure it was very
little. With No. 4, issued towards the close of April 1850,
the magazine came to an end. If not before, it was behind,
its time. There were some laudatory notices of the various
parts — in The Dispatch, John Bull, The Guardian, The Critic,
Howitt's Standard of Freedom ; a faintly patronizing one in
the Art Journal, which disappointed us, as the editor, Mr. S.
Carter Hall (whom Madox Brown was wont to call " Shirt-
Collar Hall," as designating the high respectability of his
exterior) had previously written to one of us speaking of our

154 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

band as " the future great artists of the age and country " ;
others in The Morning Chronicle, The Spectator, and else-
where. After balancing receipts and expenditure, we had to
meet a printer's bill of ,£33 odd. This seems now a very
moderate burden ; but it was none the less a troublesome one
to all or most of us at that period. In course of time it was
cleared off, with the result — perhaps a salutary one — that
none of us ever again made any proposal for publishing a
magazine. For many years past The Germ has been a
literary curiosity, fetching high fancy-prices ; and more
publishers than one have made proposals for re-printing it,
but, owing to the dissent of one or other contributor, these
proposals have had to be set aside. Even a single contribu-
tion to The Germ — the Hand and Soul of Dante Rossetti, as
privately re-printed towards 1869 — has been priced at no less
than six guineas.

I will add here a couple of anecdotes about Hand and Soul,
which is, from all points of" view, a very interesting specimen
of my brother's early work. The motto on my title-page is
taken from it, and seems to me very appropriate, both to my
brother's intrinsic quality as painter and poet, and to the
material of these volumes. Readers of this tale may
remember that it relates to a supposed Italian painter of the
thirteenth century, Chiaro dell' Erma, who in 1239 saw his
own soul in a visible female form, and painted her ; a matter,
by the way, which shows that Rossetti's knowledge of art-
history was at this period extremely slight (unless indeed he
voluntarily chose to go wrong, in the interest of his idea for
the story), as it is totally impossible that, at so remote a date
as 1239, any painter whatever should have produced a work
at all corresponding with the details given concerning this
picture. The Epilogue to the tale is written in a highly
realistic tone, and contains many particulars about the picture,
purporting for instance that it is to be found in the Pitti
Gallery of Florence (had Rossetti known more about the
likelihoods of such a case, he would have substituted the
Accademia). There was a young lady of some fortune in

THE GERM. I 55

Worcestershire — Kidderminster, I think — who became the
first wife of the landscape-painter Mr. Andrew McCallum ;
one of the prettiest and pleasantest little women I ever saw,
with a most beaming splendid pair of eyes. She read Hand
and Soul in The Germ, admired it, and believed it to be
substantially true. Either before or after her marriage she
was in Florence, and enquired at the Pitti for this picture,
and was grievously disconcerted to find that nobody knew
anything about it. In Mr. Sharp's book there is a story of
some other lady who, at a much later date, professed to
Rossetti that she had actually seen the picture at the Pitti,
adding other relevant but not rigidly veracious details. This
story also may be true ; but I know (or at any rate remember)
nothing about it, whereas I do know the story about Mrs.
McCallum to be correct. My second anecdote relates to an
etching which my brother undertook to do for The Germ.
It has been more than once stated in print that this etching
was to illustrate a different tale which he began writing,
called An Autopsy chology, suggested to him by an image of
his own introduced into his poem The Brides Prelude. The
tale was not finished, but its beginning appears in his
Collected Works, under the title St. Agnes of Intercession.
The fact is that Millais offered to do for The Germ an etching
for The AutopsycJiology ; and he did it, and prints from the
etching are still in existence. But the etching which Dante
contemplated was for Hand and Soul, to be published in a
number of The Germ later than that in which the tale itself
had appeared. This etching — representing Chiaro in the act
of painting his Soul — he drew in March 1850, and he got it
bitten-in by Mr. Shenton the engraver ; but, upon seeing a
print of it on 28 March, he was so displeased with the result
that, in his vehement mood, he tore up the impression, and
scratched the plate over. I hardly think that I ever saw the
design ; would gladly do so now, were that but possible.

Though I do not want to dwell at any further length upon
The Germ, I will specify the contributions of Dante Rossetti
to Nos. 2, 3, and 4. They are — The Blessed Damozel, The

156 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTl.

Carillon, From the Cliffs — Noon, Pax Vobis, and six Somiets
for Pictures (Memling, Mantegna, Giorgione, and Ingres).1
The Blessed Damosel, as I have said, had been written in his
nineteenth year. Of that first form of the poem no copy
appears to be now extant. Before printing it in The Germ
he added four stanzas. I might make some guess as to
which they are ; but it would only be a guess, and it shall
not here trouble my readers.

Perhaps some of them might be amused to hear the dirge
of The Germ, as it was chanted at the time by Mr. John
Tupper.

" Dedicated to the P.R.B. on the Death of ' The Germ,' otherwise
known as ' Art and Poetry.'

" Bring leaves of yew to intertwine

With ' leaves ' that evermore are dead,
Those leaves as pallid-hued as you

Who wrote them never to be read :

And let them hang across a thread
Of funeral-hemp, that, hanging so,
Made vocal if a wind should blow,

Their requiem shall be anthemed.

" Ah rest, dead leaves ! — Ye cannot rest

Now ye are in your second state ;

Your first was rest so perfect, fate
Denies you what ye then possessed.
For you, was not a world of strife,

And seldom were ye seen of men :
If death be the reverse of life,

You never will have peace again.

" Come, Early Christians, bring a knife,

And cut these woful pages down :

Ye would not have them haunt the town
Where butter or where cheese is rife !

No, make them in a foolscap-crown
For all whose inexperience utter

Believes High Art can once go down
Without considerable butter.

1 Mr. W. M. Hardinge published, in Temple Bar, a very suggestive
article on these sonnets.

PAINTINGS AND WRITINGS, 1 849— 53. I 57

" Or cut them into little squares

To curl the long locks of those Brothers

Prseraphaelite who have long hairs —

Tremendous long, compared with others.1

As dust should still return to dust,
The P.R.B. shall say its prayers
That come it will or come it must — a

" A time Sordello shall be read,

And arguments be clean abolished,
And sculpture punched upon the head,

And mathematics quite demolished ;
And Art and Poetry instead

Come out without a word of prose in,
And all who paint as Sloshua did

Have all their sloshy fingers frozen."3

XVI.
PAINTINGS AND WRITINGS, 1849—53.

From the early autumn of 1849 to the late spring of 1850
was a busy time with Dante Rossetti. Besides all the
eagerness of planning and the flurry of working for The
Germ, there was his small continental trip with Holman
Hunt in the autumn, along with the production of a new
picture for exhibition. Of the continental trip his Family-
letters bear ample record in prose and verse. It was a

1 This, I suppose, is a hit at my brother and Stephens, rather than
other members of the P.R.B. The after reference to abolishing arguments
and mathematics, and disliking sculpture, would also relate principally to
my brother. He did not really dislike sculpture, but he much preferred
painting.

2 A line seems to be wanting in this stanza. I am copying from a
transcript made at the time by myself, but I don't think the oversight
can be mine.

3 I have noted elsewhere that "slosh" was a term much in vogue with
the Praeraphaelites in their early days, to indicate a hasty, washy, in-
determinate manner in painting, neglectful of severe form and accurate
detail, and lavish of unctuous vehicle. "Sloshua" was Sir Joshua
Reynolds (!)

I 58 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

valuable experience to him, but not one which he unreservedly-
enjoyed. He liked England and the English better than
any other country and nation ; and he never crossed the sea
without severe discomfort, or contemplated the crossing of
it without repulsion. The few acquaintances that he made
abroad played no part in his after-life. Strange to say, this
small trip to Paris and Belgium was the longest, in point of
duration and space combined, that he ever undertook.

I shall give here a brief account of the painting and design-
ing work of Rossetti between the date in 1849 when he
exhibited his first picture, and the date in 1854, 13 April,
when Mr. Ruskin became personally known to him ; followed
by a similar summary of his writing-work between the same
dates. I name both in order of time as nearly as I can.

There was the beginning of a large oil-picture, with
numerous figures, from a song in Browning's dramatic poem
Pippa Passes, entitled Hist, said Kate the Queen. It was not
finished, but a water-colour of the full composition exists.
A pen-and-ink drawing, 1849, given to Millais, of Dante
drawing an Angel in Memory of Beatrice — quite a different
design from the subsequent water-colour, 1853, of the same
subject. This pen-and-ink drawing is perhaps more decidedly
marked by the " Prasraphaelite " peculiarities of that date
than anything else which Rossetti produced ; it is likewise
his earliest subject taken from the Vita Nuova, to which he
so frequently recurred afterwards. The Laboratory (from
Browning's poem), which may be called his first water-colour.
The pen-and-ink design Hesterna Rosa, with a motto from
a song in Henry Taylor's Philip van Artevelde. The oil-
picture, his second exhibited work, Ecce Ancilla Domini (or
The Annunciation), now in the National Gallery. The land-
scape of trees etc. which he painted at Sevenoaks, while
Mr. Hunt was in the same neighbourhood, in the very rainy
autumn of 1850. I cannot recollect what was to have been
the subject of this oil-picture. Long afterwards, 1872, he
completed it under the title of The Bower-meadow. A water-
colour, Beatrice at a Marriage-feast denies Dante her Salutation,

PAINTINGS AND WRITINGS, 1 849 — 53. I 59

exhibited. The pen-and-ink design, How they met Themselves
— a lover and his lady encountering their own wraiths in a
forest, an incident ominous of approaching death. A crayon
portrait of William Bell Scott. An exhibited water-colour,
Giotto painting the Portrait of Dante. The scene, water-
colour, from Dante's Purgatorio, where Beatrice says, " Guar-
dami ben, ben son ben son Beatrice " He repeated this
subject more than once, but always, I think, in varying
compositions. A very interesting attempt at the beginning
of 1853, not long persisted in, being an oil-picture in two
compartments, life-sized half-figures, representing Dante's
resolve to write the Comedia in memory of Beatrice. A
pencil-head of Holman Hunt. The elaborate pen-and-ink
design (begun in 1853, but not finished till 1858) of Mary
Magdalene at the Door of Simon the Pharisee. The beginning
of the oil-picture named Found.

These are the chief, but by no means the only, products
of the years of which we are speaking. They show a con-
siderable range in choice of subject and mode of treatment.
Regarding execution, it may be said in general terms that
Rossetti continued to progress, both in force and in facility,
but did not evince any great disposition for attaining strenuous
mastery in draughtsmanship, or resource in the management
of perspective, or of architectural or landscape accessory.
As to draughtsmanship of human and animal form, he of
course always recognized the high importance of this, whether
he fully achieved it or not. But for the other matters he
retained till the last a large measure of personal indifference,
though necessarily conscious — none more so — that these also
are required in order to make a picture conformable to the
modern standard. The fact is that he preferred the tone of
mind which governed the treatment of such elements of the
subject in Olden art. That they should convey their message
in a suggestive way he thought fully requisite ; that they
should be rigorously realized by scientific rule or naturalistic
presentment he did not care ; and, if under a system of that
sort they usurped the place of the main idea or of human

l60 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

emotion and expressional force, he wished them well away.
I do not aver that he was right in this view — the reader
may judge for himself — but only that his view it assuredly
was.

As to five of these works I may add a few details.

For Ecce Ancilla Domini Rossetti began a sketch on 25
October 1849. To supplement this picture of the Annuncia-
tion he intended to execute a companion-subject, the Death of
the Virgin. The latter he never even began, having come to
the conclusion that such themes were " not for the market."
Both pictures were to be chiefly white in hue. For the
Annunciation — " The Virgin," so he told me, " is to be in bed,
but without any bedclothes on, an arrangement which may
be justified in consideration of the hot climate ; and the
Angel Gabriel is to be presenting a lily to her." This last
point connects the picture with The GirlJwod of Mary Virgin ;
and the remark as to bedclothes testifies that, even in so ideal
a subject as this, Rossetti was not unheedful of the Prae-
raphaelite doctrine that the treatment should be consistent
with probable facts. More persons than one sat for the head
of the Angel — two models named Maitland and Lambert, and
myself, at any rate ; for the Virgin's head, Christina, and also
a Miss Love, who was I suppose a model. The head
resembles Christina sufficiently to be accounted a likeness,
but it is less like her than the head in The Girlhood of Mary
Virgin. Rossetti had all along purposed sending this picture
to the Royal Academy ; but at the last moment he altered
his mind, and recurred to the National Institution (Free
Exhibition). Its price was .£50, but it remained unsold until
the opening of 1853 ; when Mr. Francis McCracken, a ship-
owner or packing-agent of Belfast, prompted by a friendly
suggestion from Holman Hunt (from whom and from Madox
Brown he had already bought some works), became the
purchaser. At the end of 1850, on receiving the picture back
from the National Institution, my brother again worked upon
it, improving it materially by showing the Angel's left hand —
for at first the Angel, like the Virgin herself, had only one

PAINTINGS AND WRITINGS, 1 849— 53. 161

hand visible. He did some further work when Mr. McCracken
settled to buy the picture ; and to him he despatched it on
29 January 1853, altering the Latin title into The Annunciation,
as a precaution against any charges (then equally rife and
gratuitous) of " popery." " The blessed white eyesore " and
" the blessed white daub " had come to be his terms for this
now national possession, so long left on his hands. But his
real sentiment on a question of art-work may have received
truer expression in one of his Family-letters (September 1853)
— " I shall never, I suppose, get over the weakness of making
a thing as good as I can manage." Even as late as 1874
something was again done to the " white daub," but I think
very little. He wrote : " It is best left alone, except just for
a touch or two. Indeed, my impression on seeing it was that
I couldn't do quite so well now ! "

I have already referred to the very different reception which
the Praeraphaelite pictures of 1850 encountered from artists,
press, and public, from that which had been accorded to the
works of 1849. The pictures were still signed " P.R.B. " ; and
my brother had explained to his friend the sculptor Alexander
Munro the meaning of those mysterious initials, which were
not intended to be unduly pressed upon the attention of
Academicians. Munro, a man of easy access to all sorts of
people, divulged the matter to a brother-Scotchman, Angus
Reach,1 who was a light writer of those days ; and the latter
published it in the Illustrated London News. Hence much of
the fluster, and much of the virulence. When Ecce Ancilla
Domini appeared in the National Institution, prior to the
opening of the Royal Academy, the Athenmim came down
upon it on 20 April, in the following terms — and even these

1 I need scarcely say that I bear no sort of grudge against Mr. Reach,
who died a great number of years ago ; but, to give my reader a moment's
amusement, I will here retail a joke of Douglas Jerrold's which had, so far as
I know, not yet got into print. Reach is a Gaelic name, properly pronounced
as a dissyllable, Ree-ach ; but naturally Londoners were wont to read it
as a monosyllable, Reech. Jerrold, being admonished to pronounce the
name accurately, rejoined — " He is Ree-ach if you hear him, but Reech
[retch, spue] if you read him."

VOL. I. II

l62 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

were mild in comparison with what befell the Christian
Missionary persecuted by the Druids of Holman Hunt, and
the so-called Carpenter's Shop of Millais : —

" But what shall we say of a work hanging by the side of Mr.
Newenham's historical picture — which we notice less for its merits
than as an example of the perversion of talent which has recently
been making so much way in our school of art, and wasting the
energies of some of our most promising aspirants ? We allude to
the Ecce Ancilla Domini of Mr. D. G. Rossetti (225). Here a
certain amount of talent is distorted from its legitimate course by a
prominent crotchet. Ignoring all that has made the art great in the
works of the greatest masters, the school to which Mr. Rossetti
belongs would begin the work anew, and accompany the faltering
steps of its earliest explorers. This is archaeology turned from its
legitimate uses, and made into a mere pedant. Setting at nought all
the advanced principles of light and shade, colour, and composition,
these men, professing to look only to Nature in its truth and sim-
plicity, are the slavish imitators of artistic inefficiency. Granted
that in these early masters there is occasionally to be seen all that
is claimed for them of divine expression and sentiment, accompanied
by an earnestness and devotion of purpose which preserved their
productions from oblivion — are such qualities inconsistent with all
subsequent progress in historical excellence, or do these crotchet-
mongers propose that the art should begin and end there? The
world will not be led to that deduction by such puerilities as the one
before us ; which, with the affectation of having done a great thing,
is weakness itself. An unintelligent imitation of the mere tech-
nicalities of old art — golden glories, fanciful scribblings on the
frames, and other infantine absurdities — constitutes all its claim. A
certain expression in the eyes of the ill-drawn face of the Virgin
affords a gleam of something high in intention, but it is still not the
true inspiration. The face of the Angel is insipidity itself. One
arm of the Virgin is well drawn, and there is careful though timid
workmanship in the inferior and accessorial part of the work, but
this is, in many places, where it would have been better left out.
Yet with this we have exhausted all the praise due, in our opinion, to
a work evidently thrust by the artist into the eye of the spectator
more with the presumption of a teacher than in the modesty of a
hopeful and true aspiration after excellence."

PAINTINGS AND WRITINGS, 1 849— 53. 1 63

It is a pity that the authorities of the National Gallery
have not yet seen their way to purchasing " Mr. Newenham's
historical picture" (which represented The Princes in the
Tower) ; the British public would then have the opportunity
of realizing to themselves its marked superiority over Ecce
Ancilla Domini. — The Times wrote in a tone partially resem-
bling that of the Athenceum, but on the whole agreeable,
recognizing the picture as " the work of a poet."

There is a little anecdote of this year which has never, I
believe, been recorded, but which I understand to be indis-
putably true. About the time of the opening of the Academy-
exhibition the Duke of Connaught had been born, and Queen
Victoria could not visit the gallery ; but, noticing all the
hullaballoo in the newspapers about Millais's Carpenter's
Shop, she required to have the picture sent to the Palace for
her inspection. Whether Her Majesty liked it or not I have
no idea.

As for the other four works which I have specified, the
water-colour of Giotto painting the Portrait of Dante is in
itself a noticeably complete invention, illustrating Dante's
relation to painting and to poetry, present and future, and his
love for Beatrice. But it was intended to be only the centre
in a triptych, one wing representing Dante, as Priore in
Florence, banishing the chiefs of both contending factions,
and the other wing the exiled Dante and the Jester at the
Court of Can Grande della Scala (the incident introduced
into Rossetti's poem Dante in Verona}. Rightly executed,
this picture would have been his greatest work. The pencil
head of Holman Hunt was done on 12 April 1853, when the
Praeraphaelites met together at Millais's house to produce
portraits of one another, to be presented to their absent
brother Woolner, who in July 1852 had gone to Australia;
Millais doing Stephens and myself, and Hunt doing Millais
and Dante Rossetti (I now possess the last). The design of
Mary Magdalene was begun as a large picture towards i860.
This proceeded not very far, and was ultimately laid aside for
good, nor do I know what became of the painted com-

164 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

mencement. A moderate-sized oil-sketch was completed
about a year later. The oil-picture Found was a source of
lifelong vexation to my brother, and to the gentlemen — some
three or four in succession — who commissioned him to finish
it. This work was nearly completed, but not quite, towards
the close of Rossetti's life. An oil-monochrome, produced in
May 1879, and showing the full composition, is extant. So
far as the painting is concerned I will not here enter into
further detail, but may spare a few words to a question
often mooted — whether Rossetti did or did not take the
subject of the picture from Mr. Bell Scott's poem of Rosabell.
The facts are these.

Scott's poem relates to a country-girl, Rosabell (afterwards
named Mary Anne), who, having gone to town as a milliner's
assistant, becomes the mistress of a gentleman, Archer, and
afterwards of another gentleman, Thorn, who supplies her
with every luxury. Eventually he leaves her, and she goes
from bad to worse, and dies a human wreck in a hospital.
Before Thorn had left her, and therefore while she was still
in high prosperity, her old rustic lover saw her. This scene is
not introduced into the poem at all, but it is hinted at in an
interview which the lover has with Rosabell's parents. One
may surmise that the young man saw her flaunting in the
Park or some such place, and did not so much as speak
to or accost her. Now what does Rossetti's picture repre-
sent ? It represents a rustic lover, a drover, who finds his
old sweetheart at a low depth of degradation, both from vice
and from penury, in the streets of London. He endeavours to
lift her as she crouches on the pavement. This is an incident
wholly diverse from Scott's incident. It may be said — If
Rossetti had never read Scott's poem, he would not have
thought of any such subject for his own picture. This may
or may not be correct — I see no reason for thinking it correct ;
but at all events he has not taken his subject out of Rosabell.
Mr. Scott's account of this matter, in his Autobiographical
Notes, is highly inaccurate. He thinks that Rossetti trifled
with him in June 1853 (the date of my brother's first visit to

PAINTINGS AND WRITINGS, 1849 — 53. 165

Mr. Scott in Newcastle) by professing an intention of there-
after painting this subject as coming from Rosabell (which it
does not) ; whereas (says Scott) he had already begun the
picture, and had already painted the drover's cart and calf.
The truth is that he had not then begun the picture, and did
not paint the cart and calf until the end of 1854 ; but he had,
I fancy, designed the subject towards 1852, if not earlier.
To sum up — Rossetti did not borrow his subject from Scott,
and did not mislead Scott as to any details pertaining to the
subject or the picture.

I was referring just now to the departure of Mr. Woolner
to Australia in July 1852, and to the meeting of his Prsera-
phaelite Brothers, in April 1853, to draw portraits of one
another as a gift to him. Intermediate between these dates
was a sonnet addressed by Dante Rossetti to Woolner. It
has never yet been published, but deserves to find a place
among his poems, and I give it here.

TO THOMAS WOOLNER.
First Snow, 9 February 1853.

Woolner, to-night it snows for the first time.

Our feet know well the path where in this snow
Mine leave one track : how all the ways we know

Are hoary in the long-unwonted rime !

Grey as their ghosts which now in your new clime
Must haunt you while those singing spirits reap
All night the fields of hospitable sleep —

Whose song, past the whole sea, finds counter-chime.

Can the year change, and I not think of thee,
With whom so many changes of the year

So many years were watched — our love's degree

Alone the same ? Ah still for thee and me,
Winter or summer, Woolner, here or there,

One grief, one joy, one loss, one victory.

I find in Mrs. Wood's book a statement on another point,
not better founded (so far as I am aware) than Mr. Scott's
allegation. She says that Rossetti seceded from " sacred art "
because he was repelled by the morbid character of a picture

1 66 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

of religious bearing by James Collinson, St. Elizabeth of
Hungary. I do not know from whom Mrs. Wood derived
this information, nor have I the least recollection of any such
fact. My impression is that the prolonged lack of any
purchaser for the Annunciation picture had much more to do
\vith his resolve.

A letter from Rossetti, dated 24 February 1854, and
printed by Mr. Scott, is of some interest as showing a certain
cohesion between the Praeraphaelite Brothers at that compara-
tively late time. Millais is here mentioned as the prime
mover in a plan — which never came to anything — to get up
a sketching-club on much the same system as that of the
long-defunct Cyclographic Society. There were to be four
Praeraphaelite members — Millais himself, Hunt, Stephens,
and Rossetti ; also their close allies — Madox Brown, Charles
Collins, Scott, Arthur Hughes, and Munro. In addition to
these came the landscape-painters, Mark Anthony (a fine
genius, not adequately valued now), Inchbold, and Carrick ;
the renowned designers Leech and Richard Doyle ; the
excellent animal-painter Wolf ; the painter-amateur Michael
Halliday ; and two ladies, the Marchioness of Waterford and
the Honourable Mrs. Boyle (known as E.V.B.). I was to be
secretary. " The two ladies " — said Rossetti, and with good
reason — " are both great in design."

The writings of most importance belonging to this period
are — The Bride's Prelude, Dante at Verona, A Last Con-
fession, Jenny, Dennis Sband (a ballad of a rather light kind,
not published), The Burden of Nineveh, Stratton Water,
Wellington's Funeral, The Staff and Scrip, Sister Helen.
Some of these however were not finished so early as the
beginning of 1854. For instance, Jenny appears to have
reached substantial completion about 1858, and something
further was done to the poem in 1869, soon before its
publication. Sister Helen, which may have been written in
185 1 or early in 1852, was first printed in a Magazine —
German, with an English issue supervised by Mrs. Mary
Howitt, whom Rossetti now knew well — named The Dussel-

PAINTINGS AND WRITINGS, 1 849 — 53. 167

dorf Artists' Annual — I believe, the Part for 1854. It
appeared with the initials H.H.H. (the letters stamped upon
lead pencils of exceptional hardness), because, as once jotted
down by Rossetti, " people used to say that my style was
hard " — surely a stricture which does not come very near
the mark, and has not been confirmed by a later generation
of readers. Dr. Gordon Hake the poet has termed Sister
Helen " the strongest emotional poem as yet in the language."
The sonnet Known in Vain

("As two whose love, first foolish, widening scope")

was written in January 1853, and presents the conception
(to repeat my own words used elsewhere) " of a man who
in youth has been feeble in will, indolent and scattered,
but who, when too late, wakes up to the duty and the
privileges of work." This must be more or less autobio-
graphical. It may be as well to say here that my brother
was, in the years of his studentship and first practice as
a painter, very much what is defined by the word " de-
sultory" (a word which figures in this very sonnet); partly
because he disliked routine-work and plodding application,
and partly because he was divided between literary and
pictorial interests, and often wanted to write when, to all
appearance, he ought to have been drawing. I say " to all
appearance," because it is now only reasonable to admit that
in the long run his readings and writings in these early years
proved to be of no less import in his career than drawing-
work could have been. This state of things was irritating to
our invalided and anxious father, who every now and then
found occasion to reprehend Dante sharply, and even se-
verely ; and to reprehension my brother was at all times more
than sufficiently stubborn. These rifts in cordial family-
affection were always distressing when they occurred, though
they soon healed over again. My brother, more than our
father, was in the wrong ; yet not so much in the wrong as
at first sight he seemed. He grieved over the matter of our
father's displeasure to his dying day.

168 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Among letters addressed by Rossetti to Madox Brown,
the latest which bears the cipher P.R.B. on the envelope is
dated before March 1853. It has been stated that in this
same year he first definitely decided to adhere to painting as
his profession, to the comparative neglect of poetry. Perhaps
it was before this, for the phrase " I have abandoned poetry "
appears in a Family-letter dated 13 August 1852. An
article in the Atliencsum, 15 September 1894, mentions the
fact that at one time he was near to undertaking the work
of Telegraphy on the North- Western Railway, owing to his
indifferent prospects, some while after the Praeraphaelite
movement began, of making a subsistence as a painter. This,
which I had never previously seen stated in print, is correct.
I do not remember much in detail about the matter, nor the
exact date, which, but for the statement about Praeraphaeli-
tism, I should have fixed in a still earlier year. Perhaps it
was in 1 851, or the later part of 1850, when the want of any
customer for the " white daub " was becoming irksome. If so,
it is curious that the very same picture which first represented
Rossetti in the National Gallery had gone nigh to ousting
him from the profession. Of course the very straitened
money-condition of the family generally was the main con-
sideration. In 1 85 1 there was our father incapacitated; our
mother and Christina fagging over an unremunerative attempt
at a day-school ; Maria giving lessons in Italian etc., at two
or three houses ; myself with a small salary in the Excise-
office, and another smaller stipend from the Spectator. I
can recollect that Dante Rossetti went round once to some
suburban station to see what a telegraph was like. The sight,
and the moderate amount of information given to him,
afforded him no satisfaction ; but, feeling the family diffi-
culties, he did not refuse to entertain the project. For one
reason or another, and luckily for all parties concerned —
including maybe the railway passengers — it very rapidly
came to nothing.

Another curious circumstance is that in October 1849
Rossetti and his associates were pretty near settling in the

PAINTINGS AND WRITINGS, 1 849 — 53. 1 69

house, 16 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, which he did actually rent
from Michaelmas 1862 onwards. Mr. Hunt and Mr. Stephens,
along with Rossetti, looked over the house, and were much
taken with it. The idea was that some P.R.B.'s and one or two
of their closest friends — such as Munro and Deverell — should
jointly tenant the house, and set up studios. To inscribe
P.R.B. somewhere or other on the premises' seemed a sine
qua non. A suggestion of mine that it might be written near
the bell-pull, and interpreted by the uninitiated as " Please
Ring Bell," was hailed as an opportune solution of the pro-
blem. The rent required was singularly low, £jO ; but we
were so far impecunious that even this was regarded as
beyond our conjoint means, and the idea of taking the house
only lasted two or three days. It is moreover a fact that
the building contained not a single good studio.

This reference to the studio which Rossetti did not take
after leaving the one which he shared with Hunt in Cleveland
Street leads me on to speaking of those which he did take.
As I said, he was first at No. 72 Newman Street, a house
where the ground-floor was occupied as a Dancing- Academy.
The Dancing- Master failed to pay his rent; and, according
to the oppressive system of those days, the goods of his sub-
tenant Rossetti were seized to make good the default. The
landlord was Mr. McQueen, a Printer in Tottenham Court
Road. Dante and I carried away a considerable number of
books, and I suppose some other things as well. This was
probably not strictly legal — although, as regards the books,
they were in fact as much mine as his, for all books were in
common between us. Anyhow, the bulk of Dante's small
belongings was confiscated, and appeared to his eyes no
more. He then took a studio at No. 74, next door but
one. It had a sort of slanting skylight, and few places were
dismaller when a brisk rain came down pattering upon the
glass. My brother was in this studio (still sleeping at No. 50
Charlotte Street) in October 1850, and perhaps for some
while previously. At the beginning of 185 1 he took, along
with Deverell, the first floor at No. 17 Red Lion Square, a

1 70 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

house which happened to belong to Mr. North, the father of
our eccentric literary crony. In May he gave notice to
leave this apartment ; and he accepted Madox Brown's
obliging offer to accommodate him for a while in his own
large studio, which was now in the house in Newman Street,
No. 17, occupied by the sculptor Baily. Here he sat to
Brown for the head of Chaucer in the very large picture —
now in the museum of Sydney, Australia — of Chaucer reading
to the Court of Edward 3 the Legend of Custance. The head
was painted in one night, 1 1 P.M. to 4 A.M., and was never
afterwards touched upon. This is recognizably like Chaucer,
and is also a very fair portrait of Rossetti. It is held by
some writers that Rossetti at this time resembled Chaucer ;
by others that he was like the Stratford bust of Shakespear ;
while Mr. Joseph Knight (who knew him later on) considers
that the nearest affinity was to the great Italian actor Salvini
— and I am more disposed to acquiesce in this last opinion.
It was, I gather, on 23 November 1852 that Rossetti finally
removed into Chambers of his own, and thus ceased to
belong to the household at Charlotte Street, or rather then
at Arlington Street. These Chambers were on the second
floor of No. 14 Chatham Place, Blackfriars Bridge, a line of
street demolished now many years ago. He had a very fine
outlook on the river, and remained in this house until after
the death of his wife in February 1862. There were a
spacious painting-room, a commodious living-room, a small
but well-lighted bedroom, and a little dusky passage-room
between these two, chiefly used for storing books. In these
Chambers I very frequently passed the evening with my
brother, going thither from my office at Somerset House.
Not seldom, up to the date of his marriage in i860, I passed
the night there as well.

MISS SIDDAL. 171

XVII.
MISS SIDDAL}

Dante ROSSETTI — though there was nothing of the Puritan
in his feelings, nor in his demeanour or conversation — had
no juvenile amours, liaisons, or flirtations. In 1850 he fell
seriously in love.

Outside the compact circle of the Prseraphaelite Brother-
hood there was no man he liked better than Walter Howell
Deverell, a youthful painter, son of the Secretary of the
Government Schools of Design — artistic, clever, genial, and re-
markably good-looking. One day — early in 1850, if not late
in 1849 — Deverell accompanied his mother to a bonnet-shop
in Cranborne Alley (now gone— close to Leicester Square) ;
and among the shop-assistants he saw a young woman who
lifted down a bandbox or what not. She was a most beautiful
creature, with an air between dignity and sweetness, mixed
with something which exceeded modest self-respect, and
partook of disdainful reserve ; tall, finely formed, with a
lofty neck, and regular yet somewhat uncommon features,
greenish-blue unsparkling eyes, large perfect eyelids, brilliant
complexion, and a lavish heavy wealth of coppery-golden hair.
It was what many people call red hair, and abuse under that
name — but the colour, when not rank and flagrant, happens
to have been always much admired by Dante Rossetti, and
I dare say by Deverell as well. All this fine development,
and this brilliancy of hue, were only too consistent with a
consumptive taint in the constitution. Her voice was clear
and low, but with a certain sibilant tendency which reduced
its attractiveness. Deverell got his mother to enquire whether
he might be privileged to have sittings from this beauty, and
the petition was granted. He painted from her the head
of Viola in the picture, which he exhibited in the early spring
of 1850, from Shakespear's Tivelfth Night, The Duke with

1 My brother always spelled the name thus. Some members of the
family wrote " Siddall."

172 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Viola listening to the Court Minstrels ; he also drew from her
the head of Viola in the etching of Olivia and Viola which
appeared in the final number of The Germ. In the oil-picture
Rossetti sat for the head of the Jester. It is a fair likeness,
but rather grim.1 I may as well add here that Hunt, not
long afterwards, painted from the same damsel the Sylvia
in his picture from the Two Gentlemen of Verona, and
Millais his drowning Ophelia — but I fancy that both these
heads, or at any rate the first, have been a good deal altered
at a more recent date. This milliner's girl was Elizabeth
Eleanor Siddal. When Deverell first saw her, she was, I
believe, not fully seventeen years of age.2

The father of Miss Siddal was a Sheffield Cutler (Mr.
Stephens says a watchmaker, but I hardly suppose that to be
correct), who had removed to the neighbourhood of Newington
Butts. His wife was alive in 1850, but not I think himself.
I never saw her ; but I did see once or twice Elizabeth's
younger sister, a pleasing unmarried woman, and once her
brother, who seemed a sensible well-conducted man, perhaps
a trifle hard in manner. There was also a younger brother,
said to be somewhat weak-minded. I find it stated that
Mrs. Siddal. had in some way been intimately associated with
Madox Brown's second wife, a Miss Hill. This must have
promoted a more than common cordiality which (after
Elizabeth Siddal had, through a different train of circum-
stances, come into the artistic circle) subsisted between
Mrs. Brown and herself, and only terminated with death.
A neighbouring tradesman in Newington Butts, in Miss
Siddal's infancy or early childhood, was named Greenacre.

1 This picture, a large one, belonged, some while after Deverell's death,
to Mr. Bell Scott. He sold it not very long before his decease, and I do
not know who may be its present possessor.

2 My brother, when his wife died on 11 February 1862, believed her to
be twenty-nine years old ; but I can distinctly recollect that her younger
sister (whom they were wont to call " the Roman," from her aquiline nose,
quite different from the rather noticeably rounded one of Elizabeth Eleanor)
told him in my presence that the correct age was twenty~eight.

MISS SIDDAL. 173

To the British public he is a murderer, more than commonly
execrable, and duly hanged. To Miss Siddal he was a good-
natured neighbour, who would on occasion help her toddling
steps over a muddy or crowded crossing. Such is the difference
in " the environment." Miss Siddal — let me say here once
for all — was a graceful lady-like person, knowing how to
behave in company. She had received an ordinary education,
and committed no faults of speech. In our circle she was
always termed " Lizzie," and I shall sometimes speak of her
under that name.

Not long after Miss Siddal had begun to sit to Deverell,
Dante Rossetti saw her, admired her enormously, and was
soon in love with her — how soon I cannot- exactly say. She
had a face and demeanour very suitable indeed for a youthful
Madonna ; but I presume the head of the Virgin in the
Annunciation picture had been painted before he knew her —
and, under any circumstances, he would perhaps have taken
this head from Christina, to keep the work in harmony with
The Girlhood of Mary Virgin. The first painting in which
I find the head of Miss Siddal is the rich little water-colour
of 1850 (presented to Madox Brown) called Rossovestita (Red-
clad). This is not greatly like Lizzie, but it can hardly have
been done from any one else. Soon followed a true likeness
in the water-colour, Beatrice at a Marriage Feast denies Dante
her Salutation, which was exhibited in the winter of 1852-53.
Here the Beatrice is Miss Siddal, and every other Beatrice he
drew for some years following is also, I think, from her — like-
wise the Virgin in a water-colour of The Annunciation, 1852.
She is here represented bathing her feet in a rivulet, and the
composition bears of course no analogy to that of the oil-
picture.

I do not know at what date a definite engagement existed
between Miss Siddal and my brother — very probably before
or not long after the close of 185 1. That she was sincerely
in love with him — he being most deeply and profusely in love
with her — is readily to be presumed. Her character was
somewhat singular — not quite easy to understand, and not

174 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

at all on the surface. Often as I have been in her company
— and yet this was less often than might under the conditions
be surmised — I hardly think that I ever heard her say a single
thing indicative of her own character, or of her serious under-
lying thought. All her talk was of a " chaffy " kind — its tone
sarcastic, its substance lightsome. It was like the speech of
a person who wanted to turn off the conversation, and leave
matters substantially where they stood before. Now and again
she said some pointed thing, which might cast a dry light,
but ushered one no further. She was not ill-natured in talk,
still less was she scandal-mongering, or chargeable with
volatility or levity personal to herself; but she seemed to
say — " My mind and my feelings are my own, and no out-
sider is expected to pry into them." That she had plenty
of mind is a fact abundantly evidenced by her designs and
water-colours, and by her verses as well. Indeed, she was a
woman of uncommon capacity and varied aptitude. In what
religious denomination she had been brought up I know not.
Of her own, I fancy she had no religion. I should feel the
more confident of this, were it not that Dante Rossetti, un-
defined as his faith was, had no sort of liking for irreligion
in women. He had even a certain marked degree of prejudice
against women who would not believe.

When one wants chivalrous generosity, one goes to
Algernon Swinburne for it. This is what he once said of
Miss Siddal1:—

"It is impossible that even the reptile rancour, the omnivorous
malignity, of Iago himself, could have dreamed of trying to cast a
slur on the memory of that incomparable lady whose maiden name
was Siddal and whose married name was Rossetti. To one at least
who knew her better than most of her husband's friends the memory
of all her marvellous charms of mind and person — her matchless

1 In The Academy, 24 December 1892. Mr. Swinburne is here writing
about Bell Scott's Autobiographical Notes, and about an interpretation —
more or less fanciful — which had been put upon a couple of phrases in
that book.

By Herself. EuzABETH ELEANOR SlDDAL (RoSSETTl).

1853-

MISS SIDDAL. 175

grace, loveliness, courage, endurance, wit, humour, heroism, and
sweetness — is too dear and sacred to be profaned by any attempt at
expression. The vilest of the vile could not have dreamed of trying
£ to cast a slur on her memory.' "

In these years, 1850 to 1854, Dante Rossetti was so
constantly in the company of Lizzie Siddal that this may
even have conduced towards the break-up of the P.R.B. as
a society of comrades. He was continually painting or
drawing from her, and pretty soon his example and incite-
ment brought her on to designing and painting for herself.
He gave her some instruction ; but, of systematic training
of the ordinary kind, she appears to me to have had scarcely
any. Certain it is that she had a gift very superior, in its
quality if not in its actual outcome, to that which belongs
to most female debutantes. The tone of her work was
founded on that of Rossetti, with much less draughtsmanship,
limper forms, and cruder colour. His own was partly crude,
as well as brilliant, in the water-colours to which he chiefly
confined himself in these years. On the other hand, she had
much of sweet and chastened invention, and an ingenious
romantic turn in it as well, and a graceful purity is stamped
upon everything she did. One of her first productions was,
I think, We are Seven, from Wordsworth's poem. It is
mentioned in a letter dated 12 January 1853. Then came
a pen-and-ink design, rather large, of Pippa and the Women
of loose Life, from Browning's drama, one of Miss Siddal's
best drawings, and in essence a very good one ; the water-
colour of the Wailing Ladies on the Seashore from the old
ballad of Sir Patrick Spens ; another from St. Agnes' Eve,
by Tennyson ; another from the same great poet's Lady
Clare ; and not a few more. Her portrait was painted by
herself in 1853-4. It is an absolute likeness, and the readers
of this book may judge whether it is a laudable work of art.
" Lizzie," said my brother, writing to Madox Brown on
25 August 1853, "has made a perfect wonder of her portrait,
which is nearly done, and which I think we shall send to the
Winter Exhibition." But this, I take it, was not carried out.

1/6 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

And again, in 1854 : " Her fecundity of invention and facility
are quite wonderful — much greater than mine." This may
have been a lover's exaggeration, but it was not mere non-
sense. She continued designing and painting for some years,
not perhaps to any very large extent beyond 1857. Ill-health
interfered, and stopped the settled practice. She did some-
thing however even after marriage ; for a letter from Rossetti
to Mr. Alexander Gilchrist, 18 June 1861, says: "She has
been working very hard these few days, and made a beautiful
water-colour sketch."

Of her verse — which is but scanty in quantity, so far as
any traces remain to me — I will present one specimen.
Possibly it had never yet been read by any one out of my
family.

A YEAR AND A DAY.

Slow days have passed that make a year,

Slow hours that make a day,
Since I could take my first dear love,

And kiss him the old way:
Yet the green leaves touch me on the cheek,

Dear Christ, this month of May.

I lie among the tall green grass

That bends above my head,
And covers up my wasted face,

And folds me in its bed
Tenderly and lovingly

Like grass above the dead.

Dim phantoms of an unknown ill

Float through my tiring brain;
The unformed visions of my life

Pass by in ghostly train ;
Some pause to touch me on the cheek,

Some scatter tears like rain.

The river ever running down

Between its grassy bed,
The voices of a thousand birds

That clang above my head,
Shall bring to me a sadder dream

When this sad dream is dead.

MISS SIDDAL. 177

A silence falls upon my heart,

And hushes all its pain.
I stretch my hands in the long grass,

And fall to sleep again,
There to lie empty of all love,

Like beaten corn of grain.

The letter from which I lately quoted, 25 August 1853,
contains the first reference that I find to Miss Siddal's ill-
health. It says, following the praise of her portrait, " she
has been very ill though lately." The consumptive turn
of her constitution became apparent ; and from this time
forth the letters about her are shadowed with sorrow which
often deepens almost into despair. In a letter of March
1854 it is stated that Dante had introduced Lizzie to the
Howitts — William and Mary Howitt, with their daughter
Anna Mary (the painter, who afterwards became Mrs. Alfred
Alaric Watts), then living in Highgate Rise ; and that the
Howitts were quite fond of her, and admired her pro-
ductions. He had also introduced her to Christina ; but
was at times a little put out with the latter, thinking that
her appreciation of Lizzie was not up to the mark. The
Howitts had got her to see Dr. Wilkinson (the distinguished
Homceopathist and writer), who pronounced that there was
curvature of the spine, and the case was an anxious one,
but not at all hopeless. From one of the Family-letters,
June 1853, it will be observed that she was then painting in
the Chatham Place Chambers, while Dante was in Newcastle.

My brother was a lover of boundless enthusiasm and
fondness. He made no secret of his condition in the close
circle of his nearer intimates. To all other persons he
wrapped himself in impenetrable silence, not without some
defiant tone ; and he employed pet names for his fair one,
of which Guggum, Guggums, or Gug, was the most frequent,
if not the most euphonious. His Family-letters bear adequate
marks of all this, but more especially his correspondence
with Mr. Madox Brown. I observe, from some of her very
few still extant letters, that Lizzie also addressed Rossetti

VOL. I. 12

178 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

as " Gug." Possibly she invented the term, using it as a
sort of short for " Gabriel."

I will here finish up with our lovable friend Deverell.
He died on 2 February 1854, having for some months
previously been a victim to Bright's disease. His age appears
to have been only twenty-six. Had he lived a few years
longer, he would not have failed to distinguish himself.
Dante Rossetti was his chief intimate, but he was a favourite
with all of our circle, and deserved to be so. He painted
himself as the Duke in the Twelfth Night picture ; Mr.
Brown painted him finely as the gallant page in the Chaucer
subject ; and Mr. Holman Hunt made a very careful drawing
of his handsome, head. 1 cannot remember that my brother
ever did the like.

XVIII.

JOHN RUSKIN.

The relation of Mr. Ruskin to the Praeraphaelite Brother-
hood has often been misunderstood or mis-stated. It has
been alleged — and this, in substance, I have already denied —
that the young artists who called themselves Praeraphaelites
were prompted to their enterprise by reading some writing
of Ruskin's ; also that he encouraged them from the first.
This is an error. There is nothing to show that he paid the
least attention to their works while these were on exhibition
in 1849 and 1850: in 1849, praised for the most part; in
1850, greeted with little other than extreme and envenomed
abuse.

In 1 85 1 Rossetti did not contribute to any of the Exhibi-
tions. Sir John Millais sent to the Royal Academy three
oil-pictures — The Woodman's Daughter (from a poem by
Coventry Patmore), The Return of the Dove to the Ark, and
Mariana (from Tennyson). Mr. Holman Hunt sent thither
Valentine rescuing Sylvia from Proteus. It appears that
Mr. Ruskin's father (a wealthy wine-merchant, whom I

JOHN RUSKIN. 179

remember well) liked The Return of the Dove to the Ark,
and was minded to purchase it ; but the picture was already
sold. Mr. Patmore suggested to John Ruskin to write some-
thing about Millais and Hunt. Ruskin complied ; and on
13 May a letter of his appeared in The Times, and was no
doubt of very high service to the Prseraphaelite cause.
Neither this letter, nor the pamphlet PrcerapJiaelitism published
in the same year, referred in any way to the pictures of
Rossetti exhibited in the two preceding years. It may be
worth observing here that Mr. Ruskin, who was at that time
a very earnest Protestant Christian, had had a vague idea,
fostered by public rumour, that the Prseraphaelites were
leagued in some Puseyite or Roman-catholic propaganda.
This error was now dispelled from his mind.

The first trace which I find of Ruskin in connexion with
Rossetti comes in a letter which my brother addressed to
Madox Brown on 1 March 1853. He here speaks of Mr.
McCracken, the Belfast Packing-Agent who had bought
the Annunciation picture, and who was a profound believer
in " the Graduate " (as he constantly termed Ruskin) ; and
Rossetti refers to " those sketches now exhibiting " — which
were the Giotto painting the Portrait of Dante, the Beatrice
at a Marriage-feast denies Dante Ji&r Salutation, and the
Rossovestita. He then proceeds : —

" Ruskin has written him some extravagant praises (though with
obtuse accompaniments) upon one of them — I cannot make out
which— and McCracken seems excited, wanting it."

I presume the water-colour in question was most probably
the Beatrice subject. Afterwards McCracken bought from
my brother the water-colour (now in the Fine-Art Gallery
of Oxford) named Dante drawing an Angel in Memory of
Beatrice ; and the sequel was this, as noted in another letter
to Brown, 14 April 1854 : —

"McCracken of course sent my drawing to Ruskin, who the
other day wrote me an incredible letter about it, remaining mine
respectfully (! !), and wanting to call. I of course stroked him down

l8o DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

in my answer, and yesterday he called. His manner was more
agreeable than I had always expected. . . . He seems in a mood
to make my fortune."

Ruskin was then thirty-five years old, while my brother
was not quite twenty-six. He called again very soon after-
wards ; and my brother was dining with him en famille on
25 April at Denmark Hill, Camberwell, when he had to be
summoned away to attend the death-bed of our father, who
expired on the 26th. These were days of great trouble to
Dante Rossetti. Immediately after our father's funeral he
found it necessary to run down to Hastings for a while, to
join Miss Siddal, who was in a very suffering state of health.
They were also days of trouble to Mr. Ruskin, for a different sort
of reason, on which I need not dwell here. He went abroad
much about the same time when my brother left for Hastings,
and for three or four months they met no more, but inter-
changed some letters.

Mr. Ruskin took keen delight in Rossetti's paintings apd
designs. He praised freely, and abused heartily, both him
and them. The abuse was good-humoured, and was taken
good-humouredly ; still it was enough to nettle many a nature
more enduring than that of Rossetti. Mr. Ruskin found
him over-confident in the use of unsafe pigments, capricious
in his character and his products, and careless of his sur-
roundings : his room was never orderly. Dante Rossetti,
like most artists of any inventive genius, was at bottom
scornful of art-critics. He was not in the least self-satisfied
as to his own performances — on the contrary, he looked upon
most of them with a good deal of disfavour, as being inade-
quate expressions of the adequate idea which was within
him ; still he considered that an artist generally knows what
he is about much better than an outsider can instruct him.
Besides, the idea, and the method of presenting it, were his
own, and, for better for worse, his own they must remain.
I consider that in these years there was no irritation what-
ever between Ruskin and Rossetti. They were heartily

JOHN RUSKIN. l8l

friendly, and indeed heartily affectionate, and took in good
part, with mutual banter and amusement, whatever was
deficient or excessive in the performances of the painter,
or in the comments of the purchaser and critic. The only
counteraction to their entire cordiality lay in the fact that
Madox Brown soon got to hate the very name of Ruskin.
He considered himself both slighted and damnified by the
absolute silence which that pre-eminent and most influential
art-critic, in all his published writings, preserved as to Brown's
works, while lauding some other painters who might be
deemed fully equal to himself, and several who were most
manifestly inferior. Rossetti, who was zealous in friendship,
endeavoured to bring about a different condition of things,
but did not succeed ; so he had, in some degree, to steer a
middle course between his warm feelings for Brown on one
side and for Ruskin on the other. Ruskin and Rossetti saw
each other constantly, and kept up an active correspondence
as well. The letters of the former are still rather numerous,
and are full of diverting " digs " at Rossetti's designs and
paintings. Rossetti's responses are not within my cognizance,
but, if they did not " give as good as he got," I have mis-
apprehended his character, and his settled habits of mind
and act.

From an early date in their acquaintance Mr. Ruskin
undertook to buy, if he happened to like it, whatever
Rossetti produced, at a range of, prices such as the latter
would have asked from any other purchaser, and up to a
certain maximum of expenditure on his own part. If he did
not relish a work, Rossetti could offer it to any one else.
I cannot imagine any arrangement more convenient to my
brother, who thus secured a safe market for his performances,
and could even rely upon not being teazed to do on the nail
work for which he received payment in whole or in part. In
this respect Ruskin appears to have been always friendly and
accommodating, and Rossetti not unduly troublesome. He
availed himself of Ruskin's easy liberality, without abusing
it. In fact he was made comfortable in his professional

1 82 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

position ; though it should be understood that his prices were
very moderate, and his income was small in proportion, and
he was often enough in straits to meet some current demand.
He now ceased to exhibit in any of the ordinaiy galleries,
and to this system he ever afterwards adhered. The arrange-
ment with Mr. Ruskin set him free to consult his own likings
in the matter, and may have had much to do with his
resolve.

Ruskin's permanent opinion of Rossetti as a painter appears
in the following words : —

" I believe Rossetti's name should be placed first on the list of
men, within my own range of knowledge, who have raised and
changed the spirit of modern art; raised in absolute attainment,
changed in direction of temper."

And again : —

" Rossetti was the chief intellectual force in the establishment of
the modern Romantic School in England."

I will extract here a few passages from the letters which
Mr. Ruskin wrote to my brother. They are scrappy, but
tend to show how the two very diverse natures were getting
on together ; and here and there comes a touch of that tender
and exquisite amiability which has made Ruskin (if his genius
had not done it for him) a man apart. He hardly ever dated
his letters ; but I shall add dates which are nearly enough
right for the present purpose.

(October 1854) " I forgot to say also that I really do covet your
drawings as much as I covet Turner's ; only it is useless self-
indulgence to buy Turner's, and useful self-indulgence to buy yours.
Only I won't have them after they have been more than nine times
rubbed entirely out — remember that." — (24 April 1855) " It may be
as well that you should keep this letter, if you can keep anything
safe in that most disreputable litter of yours." — (June 1855) "At the
eleventh hour I am going to put off my lesson of to-morrow [i.e., a
little friendly instruction, pretty frequently repeated, which, at Mr.
Ruskin's request, Rossetti gave him in the use of water-colour. I

JOHN RUSKIN. 183

think the instruction extended not much beyond the attendance of
Ruskin at times when my brother was in the act of painting, with
question and answer as to the why and wherefore of his modes of
work] ; for I find my eyes to-day quite tired with an etching I
expected to have finished, and haven't. But, as you have that
drawing to finish, you will still be kept in town now ; so I may have
my lesson when this nasty etching is done."— (July 1855) "Can you
dine with us on Thursday at 6? (and not be too P.R.B., as Stanfield
is coming too !). But I've no other time for a chat." — (November

1855) "Please oblige me in two matters, or you will make me ill
again. Take all the pure green out of the flesh in the Nativity
I send, and try to get it a little less like worsted-work by Wednes-
day. I want The Passover in such a state as it may be in, and the
sketch of Passover." — (November 1855) "It's ail your own pride,
not a bit of fine feeling, so don't think it. If you wanted to oblige
me, you would keep your room in order, and go to bed at night. All
your fine speeches go for nothing with me till you do that." — (May

1856) "I forgot to say to you when I saw you that, if you think
there is anything in which I can be of any use to Miss Siddal, you
have only to tell me. I mean, she might be able, and like, as the
weather comes finer, to come out here sometimes to take a walk in
the garden, and feel the quiet fresh air, and look at a missal or two ;
and she shall have the run of the house. And, if you think she
would like an Albert Durer or a photograph for her own room,
merely tell me, and I will get them for her. And I want to talk to
you about her, because you seem to me to let her wear herself out
with fancies, and she really ought to be made to draw in a dull way
sometimes from dull things." — (January 1857) " I was put out to-day,
as you must have seen, for I can't hide it when I am vexed. I don't
at all like my picture now [possibly the oil-picture of St. Katharine
— a mediaeval painter painting a lady as this saint]. The alteration
of the head from the stoop forward to the throw back makes the
whole figure quite stiff and stupid ; besides, the off-cheek is a
quarter of a yard too thin. That Magdalene is magnificent to my
mind in every possible way; it stays by me." [This is the design of
The Magdalene at the Door of Simon the Pharisee.]

In one of these passages the reader will have observed the
reference to Miss Siddal. Soon after Ruskin had returned

184 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

to London from his visit to the Continent in 1854, Rossetti
brought him acquainted with Miss Siddal, and with the
designs and water-colours she was producing. Ruskin admired
her much, and liked her intensely ; and he took a most hearty-
interest and pleasure in the refinement and feeling displayed
in her designs, although far from blind (as will have been
perceived) to their executive shortcomings. A letter from
Rossetti to Madox Brown, 13 April 1855, says that she and
he had been spending a day at the house of the Ruskin
family : —

" All the Ruskins were most delighted with Guggum. John
Ruskin said she was a noble, glorious creature, and his father said
by her look and manner she might have been a Countess."

Immediately afterwards Mr. Ruskin committed one of
those unnumbered acts of generosity by which he will be
remembered hardly less long than by his vivid insight into
many things, and his heroic prose. He wanted to effect
one of two plans for her advantage— either to purchase all
her drawings one by one, as they should be produced, or
else to settle on her an annual ^150 — he taking in exchange
her various works up to that value, and retaining them, or
(if preferred) selling some of them, and handing over to her
any extra proceeds. This latter plan was carried into actual
effect by 3 May. It will easily and rightly be supposed
that Rossetti used to find funds for Miss Siddal whenever
required ; but his means were both small and fitful, and
Ruskin's scheme was of some relief and of great satisfaction
to him. How long it continued I am not sure. There is a
letter from Mr. Ruskin, dated I fancy in or about 1857, con-
taining the following passage, which I need only preface by
saying that he constantly applied the fancy-name "Ida" to
Miss Siddal, taking it no doubt from Tennyson's Princess : —

" I shall rejoice in Ida's success with her picture, as I shall in
every opportunity of being useful either to you or her. The only
feeling I have about the matter is of some shame at having allowed

JOHN RUSKIN. 185

the arrangement between us to end as it did ; and the chief pleasure
I could have about it now would be her simply accepting it as she
would have accepted a glass of water when she was thirsty, and never
thinking of it any more."

From this I infer that Miss Siddal had then discontinued
delivering her designs or paintings to Mr. Ruskin — probably
because her very frail state of health prevented her pro-
ducing them with any regularity ; and that, being thus unable
to fulfil her part in the scheme, she, and also my brother as
her adviser, renounced the money-benefit hence accruing to
her.

Meantime, for health's sake, she had been abroad. I have
already referred to the medical opinion obtained from Dr.
Wilkinson. Towards June 1855 another opinion was obtained
from Dr. Acland of Oxford, to whom Ruskin recommended
her. The Doctor and others, including a lady of the Pusey
family, received her with great attentions. He opined that
her lungs were nearly right, the chief danger consisting in
" mental power long pent up, and lately overtaxed." He
advised her to leave England before cold weather set in ; and
this she did towards the latter end of September, having as
companion a Mrs. Kincaid, a cousin of ours, who knew some-
thing of French and Continental life. This lady was only
recently known to us. She had (I think) been discovered by
my uncle Henry Polydore as being a member of the Pierce
family, at a time when, in consequence of an informality in
the will of my grand-aunt Harriet Pierce (who died in 1849),
it became requisite to ferret out her various next of kin. I
remember Mrs. Kincaid pretty well towards 1855 — a matronly
sort of person, aged forty or upwards ; her husband much
better, a sharp-looking solicitor. He took a decided fancy to
Dante Rossetti, and haunted not a little his studio and his
dinner-hour — his dinner, while he tenanted his Chambers in
Chatham Place, being almost invariably taken at some eating-
house. Miss Siddal with Mrs. Kincaid went to Nice ; she
was also for a while in Paris, and Dante, with his friend

1 86 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Munro, saw her there in connexion with the Great Exhibition
of that year, he returning in October. For some reason or
other — I am not sure that I ever understood it well — she lost
her liking for Mrs. Kincaid. Dante of course sided with
Lizzie, and we saw the married couple no more. It may
have been in the late Spring of 1856 that Miss Siddal returned
to London, without any such material renovation of health
as had been hoped for. From this time onward variations
occurred at intervals ; but as a whole it must be said that
there was a continual decline of vital force, and often she was
distressingly ill.

I may here add that my own first sight of Mr. Ruskin was
on 25 November 1854, when he was delivering a lecture at
the Architectural Museum. I afterwards saw him pretty
frequently, often in company with my brother, and I regarded
him with warm liking and respect both as man and as writer
and critic. As a public speaker, Ruskin was a subject of
highest admiration to my brother, who never, I think,
addressed a general audience at all. That Rossetti wholly
avoided and shrank from any such form of self-display is
certain. It is not by any means equally certain to me that,
if he had chosen to make the attempt, he would not or could
not have succeeded. His address was good, his voice excellent,
his manner adapted for exciting sympathy and warmth, his
ideas were clear and well to hand, and he could converse
extremely well whenever he liked.

Some years ago a copy of a letter from my brother to
Mr. McCracken, 15 May 1854, came into my hands. It shows
so clearly the opinion which he entertained upon various
questions of art, about the time when he first knew Ruskin,
that I shall here introduce a few sentences of it : —

" I believe colour to be a quite indispensable quality in the highest
art, and that no picture ever belonged to the highest order without
it ; while many, by possessing it — as the works of Titian — are raised
certainly into the highest class, though not to the very highest grade
of that class, in spite of the limited degree of their other great
qualities. Perhaps the only exception which I should be inclined to

WORK IN 1854-55-56. 187

admit exists in the works of Hogarth, to which I should never dare
to assign any but the very highest place, though their colour is
certainly not a prominent feature in them. I must add however
that Hogarth's colour is seldom other than pleasing to myself, and
that for my own part I should almost call him a colourist, though
not aiming at colour. On the other hand, there are men who,
merely on account of bad colour, prevent me from thoroughly
enjoying their works, though full of other qualities. For instance,
Wilkie, or Delaroche (in nearly all his works, though the Hemicycle
is fine in colour). From Wilkie I would at any time prefer a
thoroughly good engraving — though of course he is in no respect
even within hail of Hogarth. Colour is the physiognomy of a
picture ; and, like the shape of the human forehead, it cannot be
perfectly beautiful without proving goodness and greatness. Other
qualities are its life exercised ; but this is the body of its life, by
which we know and love it at first sight. ... I have once seen a
small picture by the H. Wallis you ask about, and should venture
to say that any work of his must have some degree of value, if not a
very high one — at any rate something preferable to any Mill by any
Brandard, to any ' vacant ' thing whatever by John Bridges, or even
to anything I could suppose likely to fall under Redgrave's notice
while ' returning from church.' "

XIX.

WORK IN 1854-55-56.

In these years the painting-work of Rossetti had its source
principally in Dantesque or in general romantic themes, with
some sacred subjects interspersed, and his method was
water-colour. He produced a triptych of Paolo and Francesca ;
The Passover in the Holy Family ; a portrait of himself ;
Launcelot and Guenevere at the Tomb of Arthur; a head of
Browning, a fine likeness, doing justice to so great a sitter ;
The Chapel before the Lists ; Dante's Dream ; the five
designs to Tennyson's Poems ; Eliza Polidori (oil-portrait) ;
The Blue Closet ; The Wedding of St. George ; Bonifa.zws
Mistress ; The Tune of Seven Towers ; and several other

1 88 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

works. Some of them were prolonged into the year 1857.
He also made the water-colour preparatory to his oil-triptych
for Llandaff Cathedral — The Seed of David. Mr. Ruskin
became the owner of a good proportion of these productions —
by no means of all.

Rossetti's invention was fertile, and — according to the
varying and sometimes merely fanciful themes — appropriate ;
his colour high and brilliant, and, though at whiles a little
over-positive, not forced. Allowing himself very free scope
in his treatment of the subjects, he yet seldom if ever painted
a figure without taking it from Nature. Miss Siddal was his
model for all the leading female personages. Of thoughtfully
considered or elaborately realized light and shade, or of
diversified planes in the composition, there is very little in any
of these works. Rossetti's sympathies did not go in such
directions, and he was never an adept at these highly impor-
tant processes of the art — and at this period still less an
adept than he became later on.

To some of the above-named works a few details may here
be spared.

The Paolo a?id Francesca triptych, begun as a design in
October 1849, shows the Lovers' Kiss, and their souls in Hell,
and in the centre Dante or some other figure. He repeated
these compositions more than once. Mr. James Leathart, of
Gateshead-on-Tyne, owns the best version of them, and a
very fine example it is of Rossetti's power in pathos and in
colour. The Passover in the Holy Family, a prime favourite
with Mr. Ruskin, had also been invented as far back as July
1849. This likewise was intended to be part of a triptych;
the other subjects were to be — The Virgin planting a Lily
and a Rose, and The Virgin in the House of JoJin. The
central subject remained uncompleted, though moderately
advanced ; the second was (I think) never done ; the third
was eventually treated as a separate water-colour painting,
one of his very best. The portrait of Rossetti himself, in
Indian ink executed with pen or brush, is dated 20 September
1855, and is now the property of Mr. Charles Fairfax Murray.

WORK IN 1854-55-56. 189

I think it superior to all other renderings, and, by Mr. Murray's
obliging permission, it forms our frontispiece. The Dante s
Dream, which was purchased by Miss Heaton of Leeds (who
died at Christmas 1894), is the same subject as the large oil-
picture now in the Walker Gallery of Liverpool, but not at
all the same composition.

The Tennyson designs, which were engraved on wood, and
published in the Illustrated Tennyson in which Millais, Hunt,
Mulready, and others, co-operated, have in the long run done
not a little to sustain my brother's reputation with the public.
At the time they gave him endless trouble, and small satisfac-
tion. Not indeed that the invention or the mere designing
of these works was troublesome to him. He took great pains
with them, but, as what he wrought at was always something
which informed and glowed in his mind, he was not more
tribulated by these than by other drawings. It must be said
also that himself only, and not Tennyson, was his guide. He
drew just what he chose, taking from his author's text
nothing more than a hint and an opportunity. The trouble
came in with the engraver and the publisher. With some
of the doings of the engraver — Dalziel, not Linton whom
he found much more conformable to hrs notion — he was
grievously disappointed. He probably exasperated Dalziel,
and Dalziel certainly exasperated him. Blocks were re-
worked upon, and proofs sent back with rigour. The
publisher Mr. Moxon was a still severer affliction. He called
and he wrote. Rossetti was not always up to time, though
he tried his best to be so. In other instances he was up to
time, but his engraver was not up to his mark. I believe that
poor Moxon suffered much, and soon afterwards he died ;
but I do not lay any real blame upon my brother, who
worked strenuously and well. As to our great poet Tennyson
— who also ought to have counted for something in the whole
affair- — I gather that he really liked Rossetti's designs when
he saw them, and he was not without a perceptible liking and
regard for Rossetti himself, so far as he knew him (they had
first met at Mr. Patmore's house in December 1849); but

190 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

the illustration of St. Cecilia puzzled him not a little, and he
had to give up the problem of what it had to do with his
verses. If I may be allowed to express my opinion of so
great a man as Tennyson — whom I met on several occasions,
and who honoured me by much freedom of converse — I
should say that he had not any particular insight into matters
of pictorial art as such, although he appreciated and prized
the art as one of the forms in which the mind of man
expresses beautiful ideas. I did not observe him to be at all
a " connoisseur." Rossetti put this affair of the wood-blocks
in entertaining terms in a letter to Mr. Bell Scott dated
February 1857 : —

" I have designed five blocks for Tennyson, some of which are
still cutting and maiming. It is a thankless task. After a fortnight's
work my block goes to the engraver, like Agag delicately, and is
hewn to pieces before the Lord Harry.

" ADDRESS TO THE DALZIEL BROTHERS.

"O Woodman, spare that block,
Oh gash not anyhow !
It took ten days by clock;
I'd fain protect it now.

" Chorus — Wild Laughter from Dalziel's Workshop."

As I am here speaking of Tennyson, I take occasion to
mention two sketches of him which my brother made ; not
of superior import as works of art, yet from all points of view
highly interesting. It was on 27 September 1855 that the
Brownings, being then for a while in London, invited two or
three friends to the house they were occupying, 13 Dorset
Street, to meet Tennyson, who had undertaken to read aloud
his poem of Maud, recently published. The audience was a
small one, the privilege accorded to each individual all the
higher : Mr. and Mrs. Browning, Miss Browning, my brother,
and myself, and I think there was one more — either Madox
Brown, or else Hunt or Woolner. The latter had returned to
London from Australia in the autumn of 1854. Tennyson,

WORK IN 1854-55-56. IQI

seated on a sofa in a characteristic attitude, and holding the
volume near his eyes (for he was decidedly short-sighted,
though one would hardly think so from his descriptive poems),
read Maud right through. My brother made two pen-and-ink
sketches of him, and gave one of them to Browning. So far
as I remember, the Poet Laureate neither saw what Dante
was doing, nor knew of it afterwards. His deep grand voice,
with slightly chaunting intonation, was a noble vehicle for
the perusal of mighty verse. On it rolled, sonorous and
emotional. Rossetti, according to Mr. Hall Caine, spoke of
the incident in these terms : " I once heard Tennyson read
Maud; and, whilst the fiery passages were delivered with a
voice and vehemence which he alone of living men can
compass, the softer passages and the songs made the tears
course down his cheeks." I remember that on a later occa-
sion Tennyson told me that he knew no one so well-fitted
as himself for reading Milton aloud ; as he had a deep chest
and long-drawn breath, and could finish the weighty periods
of many lines together without a second inhalation. After
Tennyson and Maud came Browning and Fra Lippo Lippi
— read with as much of sprightly variation as there was in
Tennyson of sustained continuity. Truly a night of the
gods, not to be remembered without pride and pang.

The Seed of David was an important matter in my brother's
professional life. The Cathedral at Llandaff was in 1856
undergoing a complete restoration. One of the Architects
employed was Mr. John P. Seddon, who had already become,
and always continued, a very steady friend to Rossetti, alert
in promoting his interests whenever he could. A painting
was wanting for the reredos of the renewed Cathedral ; and
Mr. John Seddon, seconded by his elder brother Thomas the
painter, bethought himself of Rossetti. Mr. Thomas Seddon
had lately been abroad in the East with Mr. Holman Hunt,
and had painted, among other things, an admirably faithful
view of Jerusalem, which is now in the National Gallery,
consigned thither by a public subscription in which my brother
bore an active part. This subscription took place after the

192 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

melancholy death of Mr. Seddon in Cairo, to which city he
had gone in the autumn of 1856. There he died of dysentery
very soon after his arrival, and a life full of brightness, and
a career full of high promise, were suddenly cut short at the
early age of thirty-five. In March 1856, prior to starting for
Egypt, Mr. Thomas Seddon brought round to Rossetti's
studio a Member of Parliament connected with Llandaff, Mr.
Henry Austin Bruce (the late Lord Aberdare) ; and it was
agreed that my brother should undertake the painting of the
reredos for a sum of ^400. The subject — named by himself
The Seed of David, though other titles have often been applied
to it — had to take the form of a triptych. In the centre is
the Infant Christ adored by a Shepherd and a King ; on one
side His ancestor the shepherd David standing forth to battle
with Goliath ; on the other side, the same ancestor as King
harping to the glory of Jehovah. The work was completed
in 1864, and continues to occupy its place in the Cathedral.

The water-colours of The Blue Closet, The Wedding of St.
George, and The Tune of Seven Towers, bring us into a
different relation of life and work. They may be referred
to that phase of Rossetti's painting which more especially
fostered his connexion with certain young men — now of
world-wide fame — at Oxford University, and which led to
his own pictorial experiments in Oxford. One of these
young men, William Morris, took from Rossetti, as titles for
poems, the first and the third of these titles for pictures :
the poems however are not founded on the pictures in any
material degree. Both pictures and poems are pure phantasies,
and independent phantasies.

To some eyes Rossetti's chivalric-romantic inventions are
mere knell-echoes of chivalry, or mere fleeting suggestions of
romance. It is interesting to observe what was one quarter
in which they were very differently construed. There was
a deeply devout Methodist, James Smetham, who was also a
painter. Painting was his profession and his enjoyment ;
religion was his life. He produced many works, not of large
dimension, full of fine threads of imagination, and of refined

OXFORD MEN AND WORK. 1 93

though not powerful art. He is at present better known by
his remarkable Letters, published in 1892. He appears to
have seen something of Rossetti in 1 843, at Cary's Academy ;
again after 1851 ; and more especially from 1863 through all
the ensuing years, until his own mental and physical break-
down, owing to overstrained religious notions, withdrew him
from all society. This, expressed in a letter of December
1865, is what he thought of Rossetti's works of the class
referred to : —

" Your St. Georges and Sir Galahads are almost the only modern
pictures of heroes that reach the Christian ideal, in my judgment, as
to expression. Not to be invidious in naming artists, the modern
knight is a proud, vain, truculent rascal. Yours are ' renewed in the
spirit of their minds ' — couldn't do a mean or wrong thing — fear
nothing and nobody ; but would not hurt a fly or strike an un-
necessary blow. So I greatly esteem and respect them."

An earlier letter, September i860, relates in detail to the
water-colour lately mentioned of The Wedding of St. George : —

"One of the grandest things, like a golden dim dream. Love
' credulous all gold,' gold armour, a sense of secret enclosure in
'palace-chambers far apart ' ; but quaint chambers in quaint palaces,
where angels creep in through sliding-panel doors, and stand behind
rows of flowers, drumming on golden bells, with wings crimson and
green. There was also a queer remnant of a dragon's head which
he had brought up in a box."

As to writing, there was not in these years anything of
such importance as to claim record here. Dante Rossetti
adhered faithfully to his resolve that he would for the present
be a painter and not a poet.

XX.

OXFORD MEN AND WORK—BURNE-JONES, MORRIS,
SWINBURNE.

The circle of Rossetti's intimacies had gradually changed,
and by the middle of 1856 a new and stimulating environ-
VOL. 1. 13

194 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

ment was his. I will go back upon my steps a little, prior
to going forward again.

As friends towards the year 1847 I specified the Heimanns,
Munro, Major Calder Campbell, and Bell Scott. Then came
Madox Brown, Hunt, and Millais ; and, in the train of the
last two, the other Praeraphaelites — Collinson, Woolner, and
Stephens, along with Deverell and the Tuppers, or more
especially John L. Tupper. There were also — William
North; James Hannay; the Seddons, with the portrait-painter
Lowes Dickinson, and the glass-painter John R. Clayton ; the
Howitts and Miss Barbara Leigh Smith (Mrs. Bodichon) ;
the Patmores, along with the Orme family (Mrs. Orme being
sister to Mrs. Patmore), and the Irish poet William Ailing-
ham ; the painters George Price Boyce and Arthur Hughes ;
and the Brownings. Then came Ruskin and his connexion —
including the Working Men's College, in which my brother
took a drawing-class for two or three years, ending towards
the close of 1858. Madox Brown then conducted it for
a while ; yet Rossetti's link with the College was not
entirely broken, and he was still doing something there in
February 1862.

Some of these were now dead : Deverell, North, and
Thomas Seddon. Major Campbell and the first Mrs. Patmore
did not long survive. Others, for one reason or another, had
passed wholly or chiefly out of my brother's ken — Millais,
Collinson, and the hospitable Orme family. Hannay, the
brilliant novelist, writer, and talker, was now or soon after-
wards settled in Edinburgh, with his beautiful and admirable
wife (highly valued by Rossetti), and his young family. The
Brownings were mostly in Florence, John Seddon in Wales,
Allingham in Ireland, and Scott in Newcastle. Hunt, owing
to his absences in the East and other circumstances, was not
very often seen ; nor yet the Heimanns, Stephens, Tupper,
Dickinson, Clayton, the Howitts, Miss Barbara Smith, or
Patmore. There remained Madox Brown and Ruskin con-
stantly but separately ; Munro, Woolner, and Boyce, pretty
frequently. Of course there were others as well, but hardly

OXFORD MEN AND WORK. 195

any who counted as more than casual and pleasant acquaint-
ances. Robert Brought, Charles Bagot Cayley, Whitley
Stokes, and George Augustus Sala, were among these.

The first mention which I find of Burne-Jones — the Sir
Edward Burne-Jones of our present day — is in a letter from
my brother to Brown, dated 6 June 1856. This young
Oxford student — a Birmingham man destined for the Church,
but with a strong bias towards art, which found vent at this
time in romantic pen-and-ink designs of remarkable richness
and quality — had conceived a high idea of Rossetti's powers.
He called upon him, showed a design or two, and was forth-
with recognized by Rossetti — with an instinctive power, in
which he had few rivals, of seeing at a glance what is
intrinsically excellent, as well as what is predestined to remain
second-rate — as a born artist of quite exceptional faculty, and
capable of doing consummate work. He urged Mr. Jones to
become a professional painter. Jones obeyed .the external,
and also the internal, monitor, and the world is the richer for
his decision.

Through Burne-Jones my brother soon came to know
William Morris, and soon afterwards — but this I think was
only in Oxford — Algernon Charles Swinburne. It is a
natural temptation to say something in detail about these
three most highly distinguished men — their looks in youth,
their character, demeanour, and attainments. I shall however
forbear. Their personality, along with their work, forms part
of the annals of England, and indeed of Europe, in the
nineteenth century, and my hand might prove infirm to limn
them as they were and are.

Prior to his knowledge of Burne-Jones, my brother had
already been invited to take some part in art-work in Oxford.
In 1855 the Oxford Museum was in course of erection, much
under the influence of Mr. Ruskin, and his theories in archi-
tecture and decoration ; and the architect, Mr. Benjamin
Woodward, in July 1855, asked Rossetti to do some of the
designing-work in connexion with it. Mr. Woodward was
an Irishman, of excellent ability and highly refined taste.

196 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

He was the very reverse of what Irishmen are currently
assumed to be, and was (without any exception, unless it be
that of Mr. Cayley, the translator of Dante, Petrarca, and
Homer) the most modest, retiring, and shyly taciturn man
of noticeable talent whom it has ever been my fortune to
meet. He was of handsome and rather stately presence,
eminently gentle and courteous. His health was poor, and
he died in 1861, when he had barely attained middle age.
Among other edifices, he built a very elegant Insurance-
office, in Venetian Gothic, almost opposite my brother's
Chambers in Chatham Place. It has long been demolished,
and London contains perhaps nothing equal to it in its own
way. I do not think that my brother did anything for the
Oxford Museum, to which some of his friends contributed
statues— Woolner being the sculptor of Lord Bacon, Munro
of Galileo, and John Tupper of Linnaeus, a work of observably
faithful naturalism. Rossetti however soon undertook some
work for another Oxford structure with which Mr. Woodward
was concerned, the Union Debating-rooms. The proposal
was Rossetti's own. He had accompanied Mr. Woodward to
the building at the outset of the Long Vacation of 1857, and
he thought the bays of the Debating-room would be suitable
for wall-paintings, and suggested that they should be covered
with tempera-pictures from the Romance of King Arthur.
Thfs was not a specially appropriate theme, but Rossetti had
not at that time any very clear notion of the purpose which
the room was to serve. Malory's Morte (T Arthur is a book to
which, so far as memory serves me, he had not paid any
marked attention in earlier years. Perhaps Mr. Morris, rather
than his self-directed readings, had impressed its interest upon
him, and Morris, at the same time as Rossetti, offered to
paint something in the Union Room. At any rate my
brother was now in a vigorously Arthurian mood, which
lasted some years, and never left him entirely.

Mr. (Lord) Bowen was then the President of the Union,
and took an active part in bringing the project to bear.
Rossetti gave his work gratis, lasting for several months,

OXFORD MEN AND WORK. 197

beginning in that Long Vacation, and so did the other
artists who co-operated with him ; but all costs, including
travelling expenses and the living of the artists (or of those
who were not Oxford residents), were borne by the Society ;
and I have understood that — as the young men made them-
selves much at their ease — these charges finally amounted to
a heavy sum, more very possibly than would have been
demanded and paid as mere commissions for painting.

Rossetti's work in the Union Building was done after he
had contributed something to a monthly publication, The
Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, in which Morris was a
leading writer. This serial, under the editorship of the Rev.
William Fulford, was started in January 1856, and lasted a
year. Towards the summer of 1856 Rossetti published here
The Burden of Nineveh, and The Staff and Scrip ; he also
re-printed The Blessed Damozel, slightly altered from the
form which it bore in The Germ. Most readers may agree
with me in thinking that all these three poems are among
the very best that Rossetti ever produced. The Burden of
Nineveh was begun, and probably completed, in the autumn
of 1850; The Staff and Scrip may date in 1852. The
Nineveh struck Ruskin most forcibly, and he wrote the
following letter : —

" Dear Rossetti, —

" I am wild to know who is the author of The Burden of
Nineveh, in No. 8 of Oxford and Cambridge. It is glorious. .
Please find out for me, and see if I can get acquainted with him."

The uncertainty here expressed appears, from the con-
cluding phrase, to be genuine, but it was hardly needful.
Rossetti must of course have written back that he was the
author ; and I fancy that a very large " Bravo ! " which forms
the commencement of another letter from Mr. Ruskin may
be the response to this avowal. The word is shaped out of
a series of notes of admiration.

For the painting-work at the Union Rossetti associated
several young painters with himself besides Morris — Burne-

198 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Jones, Arthur Hughes, Valentine Prinsep (whom he got to
know about this time, visiting at the pleasant and fashionable
residence of his parents, Little Holland House), Spencer
Stanhope, and J. Hungerford Pollen. He asked Bell Scott
to join, but this did not take effect. Munro carved in stone,
from a design by Rossetti, the bas-relief of the tympanum,
King Arthur and the Round Table. Rossetti undertook a
large subject, Sir Launcelot before the Shrine of the Sangrael ;
and, at a later date, a second, Sir Galahad receiving the
Sangrael. Some good work was done in the room, and some
other work which, without being exactly good, was at least
interesting and noticeable ; but the whole affair ended in
material failure. Not one of these artists knew much —
hardly one of them anything — about wall-painting. They
worked with reckless self-confidence, and one might almost
say upon a mere system of " happy-go-lucky." The walls
were new, and not properly prepared — not even flattened.
The tempera-process adopted was little more than water-
colour painting, and of course the pictures flaked off — be-
coming a phantom, and then a wreck. After a while things
did not go entirely smooth with the Union Committee. Most
of the pictures — including the two by Rossetti — were not
brought to completion. In 1869 Mr. Thursfield renewed
negociations. They were entertained with some good-will,
but came to nothing. Before this, a local painter had been
called in, and tried his hand. That also proved to be in
vain ; and for many years past the painted surface of the
Union walls has been a confused hybrid between a smudge
and a blank.

There is a letter from my brother to Madox Brown, which
forecasts one of the morals of this enterprise. He says that
he is doing the work in a more painstaking method than he
had anticipated. " It is very jolly work in itself, but really
one is mad to do such things."

If I am not mistaken, it was while Rossetti was painting in
the Union room that an under-graduate, looking equally
youthful and brilliant, came forward, and was introduced to

OXFORD MEN AND WORK. 199

the painter, or possibly introduced himself. This was
Algernon Charles Swinburne. So my brother's sojourn in
Oxford had at least one good result — that of bringing him
into personal contact, and soon into very intimate friendship,
with the greatest figure in our poetical literature since the
advent of Tennyson and of Browning. Mr. Swinburne
dedicated to him his first volume, The Queen Mother, and
Rosamund ; Mr. Morris the like with The Defence of Guenevere,
and other Poems. In fact Rossetti was now in the position of
what the French term a Chef d 'E 'cole. He had not only borne
a leading part in founding and guiding the Praeraphaelite
movement, but he had formed a totally different group of
believing admirers in the very diverse centre of Oxford
University. It has been stated that Rossetti called Mr.
Morris " the greatest literary identity of our time," and Mr.
Swinburne " highest in inexhaustible splendour of execution."
I do not know where these expressions occur ; but can
believe that they intimate exactly, or pretty nearly, what he
felt on the subject.

Another incident of importance took place in Oxford. 1
give some details which I find in Mr. Scott's book, and
I regard them as correct. The Union artists, or some of
them, went to the Oxford Theatre one evening, and saw, in
the front box above them, a very youthful lady whose aspect
fascinated them all. My brother was the first to observe her.
Her face was at once tragic, mystic, passionate, calm,
beautiful, and gracious — a face for a sculptor, and a face for
a painter — a face solitary in England, and not at all like that
of an Englishwoman, but rather of an Ionian Greek. It was
not a face for that large class of English people who only
take to the " pretty," and not to the beautiful or superb.
Her complexion was dark and pale, her eyes a deep pene-
trating grey, her massive wealth of hair gorgeously rippled,
and tending to black, yet not without some deep-sunken
glow. Soon she was traced to be Miss Burden, daughter of
a business-man in the University-city. My brother obtained
the privilege of painting from her, and several of his paintings

200 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

and designs in Oxford bear trace of her countenance. In later
years hers was the ideal face which speaks to you out of very
many of his principal works. Others among the Oxford
band of painters secured the like privilege ; and soon Miss
Burden became Mrs. William Morris. If Rossetti had done
nothing else in painting (and some people seem to suppose,
most erroneously, that he did little else) except the ideal, and
also very real, transcription of this unique type of female
beauty, he might still, on that ground alone, survive in the
chronicles of the art.

In 1857 a semi-public exhibition, which came to be
termed " the Prasraphaelite Exhibition," was got up at No. 4
Russell Place, Fitzroy Square (now embodied in Charlotte
Street). My brother contributed to it the water-colours of
Dante s Dream, Dante drawing an Angel in Memory of
Beatrice, Mary Nazarene (which is I suppose the Annunciation
water-colour previously mentioned), and The Blue Closet ;
along with Hesterna Rosa, and The Magdalene at the Door
of Simon the PJiarisee — being presumably the pen-and-ink
designs — and photographs of the Tennyson designs, taken
before the engraving process. This small display, by himself
and his colleagues, excited a considerable amount of atten-
tion, more among those critics and visitors who were well-
disposed towards the school than among those who were
hostile. It served to confirm the impression that something
was still going on in the country very different from what
could be seen in the ordinary picture-shows. Other con-
tributors were Messrs. Millais, Hunt, Brown, Hughes, Inch-
bold, Collins, Brett, William Davis, and Windus, with the
late Thomas Seddon.

Miss Siddal's health continued a subject of great anxiety
in these years, and she repaired to' one or another health-
resort from time to time — Dante Rossetti joining her there.
In one instance they were in Bath (I think towards the end
of 1856) ; in a second instance, 1857-8, at Matlock, where
they made a stay of several months, getting on towards a
year. In February 1857 there was a scheme of a sort of

OXFORD MEN AND WORK. 201

joint establishment, or " College," for various artists. Burne-
Jones and Morris entered into the project, and at least one
other painter was proposed, besides Rossetti, who was under
the impression that, before the plan could take actual effect,
he and Lizzie would be married. He found however, on
speaking to her, that she was decidedly indisposed to enter
into any plan which would domicile her in the same place
with the third painter here referred to ; and Rossetti himself,
writing to Madox Brown, said — " I do not think he has lately
acted as a friend towards me in her regard." These are
circumstances which I need not speak of further, and indeed
they are not clearly within my knowledge or recollection.
The project never came to anything ; nor was it perchance,
in itself, a very feasible one.

Those readers who have perused Mr. Bell Scott's book
with diligence will have observed in it a letter from Mr.
Holman Hunt written within a few days after the close of
my brother's life. It contains the following passage :—

" Rossetti's death is ever in my mind. ... I had long ago for-
given him, and forgotten the offence, which in fact, taken altogether,
worked me good rather than harm. Indeed, I had intended in
recent times to call upon him. . . . Our talk over the past is
deferred until our meeting in the Elysian Fields, when ... we may
talk over back history as having nothing in it not atoned for and
wiped out long ago, and as having value only as experience which
has done its work in making us both wiser and better."

I understand perfectly well what it is that Mr. Hunt terms
" the offence," but will not dwell upon any details ; only
remarking that, if my reader chooses to ask the old question
" Who was the woman ? " he will not be far wrong, though
his query may chance to remain for ever unanswered. She
was not any person whose name occurs in these pages. The
incident belongs to the year 1857. It behoves me to add
that Mr. Hunt was wholly blameless in this matter ; not so my
brother, who was properly, though I will not say very deeply,
censurable. This transaction left no trace in his after career.

202 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

XXI.

WORK IN 1858-59.

The tale of work in these years is not very extensive ;
but naturally some things were going on which have been
previously mentioned — more especially the Triptych for
LlandafT Cathedral. There were — the pen-and-ink design
of Hamlet and Ophelia ; the water-colour Mary in the House
of John ; Salutatio Beatricis, representing Dante meeting
Beatrice in Florence, and in the Garden of Eden, painted in
oil in a week on a door in Mr. Morris's residence, The Red
House, Upton, near Bexley Heath, Woolwich ; a water-colour,
A Christmas Carol, in which a lady is shown chaunting as her
hair is combed out ; and a small oil-picture, Bocca Baciata.
Some other examples can be here passed over ; though I
might specify the very beautiful head, Indian ink, of Mrs.
Morris, before her marriage, entitled Queen Guenevere, and
now in the Dublin National Gallery.

" Bocca Baciata " is a phrase occurring in Boccaccio,
meaning " kissed mouth," or " a mouth that has been kissed."
This picture, a very complete and elegant specimen of the
skill which Rossetti had by this time, the autumn of 1859,
attained in the painting-art, is a bust fancy-portrait of a
woman, with a number of marigolds. The sitter was the
one whom Mr. Bell Scott describes in the following terms : —

" The paradoxical conclusion that women and flowers were the
only objects worth painting was brought about by the appearance
of other ladies besides Miss Siddal coming within his [Rossetti's]
orbit. Among these the most important was one who must have
had some overpowering attractions for him, although I never could
see what they were. He met her in the Strand. She was cracking
nuts with her teeth, and throwing the shells about. Seeing Rossetti
staring at her, she threw some at him. Delighted with this brilliant
naivete, he forthwith accosted her, and carried her off to sit to him
for her portrait."

I knew this person extremely well, and shall call her Mrs.

WORK IN 1858-59. 203

H- , which was the correct initial at, or soon after, the time

when my brother first met her. I cannot recollect ever
hearing anything about the nuts, but do not contest Mr.
Scott's statement on that point. I do contest the allegation
that my brother concluded that " women and flowers were the
only objects worth painting," and several of his works, executed
later than 1859, are there to confute it. That he often did
paint beautiful women with floral adjuncts is however quite
true. The gentlemen who commissioned or purchased his
pictures are chiefly responsible for this result ; as he, on the
contrary, would in several instances have preferred to carry
out as paintings some of his more important designs, includ-
ing sometimes numerous figures of both sexes. If Mr. Scott

" never could see " what were the attractions of Mrs. H ,

his eyesight must have differed from that of many other
people. She was a pre-eminently fine woman, with regular
and sweet features, and a mass of the most lovely blonde hair
— light-golden or "harvest yellow." Bocca Baciata, which is
a most faithful portrait of her, might speak for itself. If

Mr. Scott meant not so much to deny that Mrs. H was

" fair to see," but rather to intimate that she had no charm
of breeding, education, or intellect, he was right enough.
Another lady of whom my brother saw a great deal in 1859,
and for some little while after, was Mrs. Crabb, known as an
actress by the name of Miss Herbert. He greatly admired
her refined and stately classical face, was pleased with her
company, and got her to favour him with sittings in various
instances.

In the way of verse, I think Love's Nocturn and The Song
of the Bower belong to 1859 — two lyrics of passion, and in
the former case of fancy as well, which stand at about the
summit of Rossetti's lyrical performance. TJie Song of the
Bower I regard as relating to Miss Siddal. Circumstances
had kept him more apart from her than had been the case
in earlier years, and he gave voice to his feelings in this poem.
So at least I regard it.

In 1858 Rossetti and some other artists, along with a few

204 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

amateurs or outsiders (myself one of them), promoted the
formation of a body called the Hogarth Club — quite a differ-
ent body from the one which now bears the same name.
One object was to hold exhibitions of works by members.
These exhibitions, being visited by card of admission, and
thus not strictly public, were convenient to such members as
did not want to run counter to a rule of the Royal Academy
whereby any works previously exhibited in public are ex-
cluded from the Academy shows. The first meeting of the
Club was in July 1858, at No. 178 Piccadilly; later on the
meetings were at No. 6 Waterloo Place, and the Club con-
tinued until April 1861. There were two or three exhibi-
tions, to which my brother contributed. He was not much
contented with these displays, being of opinion that some
of the artists elected into the Club, and sending works of
their own, were not partakers in the pictorial aims, nor in
harmony with the style, of himself and his leading associ-
ates, such as Madox Brown and Burne-Jones. I hardly
know now why the Club was dissolved, or allowed to drop.
Perhaps its chief promoters found that it did not fully answer
their expectations, and that the endeavour to "keep things
coins " cost them more trouble than it was worth.

XXII.
MARRIAGE.

My brother, as I said before, was in love with Miss Siddal as
far back as 1850, and soon after that year there had been
a definite engagement between them. Nevertheless we have
now come up to the year i860, and they remained as yet
unmarried. There were two principal reasons for this delay.
First and foremost came her deplorable ill-health, which was
often such as to prevent either of them from entertaining the
idea of matrimony at a time when other circumstances would
have been propitious to it. She looked delicate, and to a
skilled eye probably very ill, but had not in the least degree

MARRIAGE. 205

lost her beauty, nor even her comeliness. Second, his money-
position, though by no means so bad orjwith so little outlook
as that of many another young painter, continued for some
while precarious ; his receipts small, his habits, if not exactly
extravagant, unthrifty to the extent of improvidence, his
purse often empty, and needing to be replenished by some
expedient or other apart from that of the regular day's work.
A pawnbroker was a frequent resource — necessarily a very
scanty one, and ultimately on the losing side. Besides all
this, it may be true that, when a moment came for making
the plunge, he hesitated, temporized, and lost it ; and this
would be only natural for a man immersed in pictorial and
partly in literary projects and doings, to whom every hour
was precious and bespoken, and who moreover — such was my
brother's case — was very difficult to be stirred out of his daily
groove of habit and association.

By the beginning of i860 Rossetti's position, as regards
commissions and consequent income, had improved ; though
it was still far from being so prosperous and secure as it
became some years later. The Triptych for Llandaff was
going on. The arrangement with Mr. Ruskin had probably
come to an end, or was proceeding languidly and intermit-
tently. Mr. Boyce remained an occasional purchaser, and
Colonel Gillum, who first came to my brother with an intro-
duction from Browning, and who is now well known as a
zealous philanthropist, the founder and director of a " Boys'
Home." Mr. Leathart of Newcastle-on-Tyne took several
specimens of Rossetti's art ; and more particularly Mr.
Thomas E. Plint, of Leeds, a stockbroker and prominent
Nonconformist leader. He began purchasing towards the
end of 1856, and seemed ready to acquire, on terms more
than tolerably liberal, almost anything that the painter had
to offer him. I do not remember how he first came into this
particular artistic circle. He bought from several so-called
Praeraphaelite painters, and possibly Mr. Holman Hunt, as
having exceptional hold on the religious world, may have
come foremost. Rossetti, with his constant alertness for his

206 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

friends' interests, got Mr. Plint to purchase from Madox
Brown, Burne-Jones, and Morris. This professional advan-
tage however was not to continue long, for in the course of
i860 Mr. Plint died very suddenly, leaving Rossetti's affairs
with his estate much embroiled, what between payments made
and pictures due but not yet brought to completion.

In April i860, and also in May, my brother was down
with Lizzie at Hastings. The reader of these Family-letters
will observe one addressed to me on 17 April, showing the
very alarming condition of her health at that time, as well as
the fact that he had then in his possession an ordinary license
for marriage. A letter to Madox Brown, 22 April, is couched
in still stronger terms, saying that Lizzie " has seemed ready
to die daily, and more than once a day." At last however
the moment arrived, and on 23 May they were married at
St. Clement's Church, Hastings. It is pleasant to observe,
from the note which Rossetti addressed to Brown on this
very day, that he had beforehand paid his bride the little
attention of getting her initials, E. E. R., stamped in cipher
on the notepaper.

They went away at once on a wedding-trip by Folkestone
and Boulogne to Paris — a city which had in previous instances
seemed favourable to Lizzie's health. At Boulogne Rossetti
saw again his good old friends the Maenzas, and his bride
viewed them both, but more especially Signor Maenza, with
great predilection. Her constitution rallied to some extent,
and they stayed in Paris until near the close of June, my
brother continuing there to do something in the way of his
profession. His ideas on matters of art were now considerably
different from what they had been when he visited Paris with
Holman Hunt in 1849. He had shed the prejudices — a
compound between the juvenile, the half-informed, the wilful,
and the humoursome — of P.R.B'ism, and no longer scampered
through the Louvre until he found some picture of the less
fully matured period of art which hit his fancy. In i860 he
pronounced the gorgeous Paul Veronese of The Marriage in
Cana to be " the greatest picture in the world." This again,

MARRIAGE. 207

if free from clear perversity, was rash for a pictorial student
and practitioner whose " world " of art consisted only of
London, Paris, and Belgium, to the exclusion of all those
masterpieces of which one knows nothing solid until one
has been elsewhere — more especially in Italy. And later on,
1 87 1, he had got to think Veronese (and also Tintoret)
" simply detestable without their colour and handling " ; but,
as the colour and handling are in the Marriage of Cana
picture, he must have retained a very vivid admiration for
that.

As I have said, Rossetti did some amount of art-work in
Paris. He brought into its present form the pen-and-ink
design named How they met Themselves, and designed, if he
did not partly paint, the subject of Dr. JoJinson and tJie
MetJwdistical Young Ladies at the Mitre Tavern. As he
was not a little superstitious, and sensitive to ill omens, I
am somewhat surprised that he took up the former of these
drawings. Here the lady — studied from Lizzie, and very
like her — is represented swooning away as she encounters
her own wraith — not to speak of her lover or husband, who
grasps his sword on seeing the wraith of himself. To meet
one's wraith is ominous of death, and to figure Lizzie as
meeting her wraith might well have struck her bridegroom
as uncanny in a high degree. In less than two years the
weird was wofully fulfilled.

From Paris the bride and bridegroom returned to the old
quarters in London, 14 Chatham Place — enlarged later on
by breaking through the wall of an adjoining house, and
adding some apartments on the same floor. With this
addition the domicile became compact, comfortable, sightly,
and fully sufficient for all present wants. They also took
for a while part of a house in Downshire Hill, Hampstead,
where they were near the Madox Browns. This was princi-
pally or wrholly with a view to Lizzie's health.

208 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

XXIII.

MARRIED LIFE.

Mr. Bell Scott has expressed the opinion that Rossetti
was not well adapted for married life. He terms marriage
" an even way of life the most unlikely possible to suit his
late development." By the phrase " his late development "
Mr. Scott means apparently that Rossetti, not having in-
dulged in any juvenile amours or entanglements, had in the
process of years become more susceptible to influences of
that character. On this point I have already had my say,
and have made my reader aware that Rossetti was in love
with his future wife as far back as his twenty-third year,
and had deferred marriage for reasons all of them intelligible,
and some cogent. I do not, however, dissent from Mr.
Scott's opinion that my brother, at the age of thirty-two,
was less likely to settle down into the ordinary habits of
married life than many other men would have been.

His poetical and artistic temperament, his devotion to the
ideas and practice of an artist and poet, his now rooted
bachelor-customs of working when he could or when he liked,
of keeping any hours or no recognized hours, of living in
chambers without a regular home-dinner, of seeing any people
he chose just as they happened to come, most of them men,
of eschewing the minor observances of society in the way of
visiting and dressing, etc. — and in short his propensity for
doing whatever he liked simply because he liked it, and
without any self-accommodation to what other people might
like instead — all this made it improbable that he would prove
a complaisant or well-matching husband on the ordinary lines
of complaisance. He was not what I should call " Bohemian "
— he neither drank nor gambled nor betted nor smoked nor
amused himself in any rough-and-ready manner ; but certainly
he did not belong to the tribe of those decorous citizens whose
highest ambition seems to be that they should demean them-
selves the one like the other, and all in some conformity to

MARRIED LIFE. 200,

" the upper classes." Besides, he had long been inured to
having things his own way, and to a certain ungrudgingly
conceded leadership even among the men of genius who
formed his inner circle. 'He might have modified Iago's
phrase, and said, " For I am nothing if not dominant." It is
to be remembered that his wife was perfectly accustomed to
his habits, had much of tendency and feeling in the same
direction as himself, and, from her constant and severe ill-
health if from no other cause, was very little in the way of
polite visiting or elegant sight-seeing.

Two families she did very frequently visit with — the Madox
Browns and the Morrises ; and I suppose in a minor degree
the Burne-Joneses, for Mr. Jones had married (Miss Georgina
Macdonald) very soon after my brother's wedding. The
Macdonalds were a rather numerous family, all or most of
whom were in some degree known to my brother, and were
probably not unknown to his wife. Two of the sisters are now
Mrs. Poynter, wife of the Director of the National Gallery,
and Mrs. Kipling, mother of Mr. Rudyard Kipling. With
the Brown and Morris families Mrs. Rossetti stayed every
now and then along with her husband, and at some other
times without him. The Ruskins they saw occasionally, but
not so regularly as might have been expected. For one
reason or another I happen to have witnessed very little of
my brother's married life. We lived at opposite ends of the
town — he by Blackfriars Bridge, and I, with my mother and
sisters, near Regent's Park (166 Albany Street), and each of
us had his separate unavoidable occupations.

There is a pretty little letter from Mr. Ruskin, congratulating
Dante and Lizzie on their marriage. It is dated 4 September
i860, as he had been away at a prior date. I extract the
postscript : —

" I looked over all the book of sketches at Chatham Place yester-
day [the book of sketches was a large handsome volume given to
Rossetti by Lady Dalrymple, a most obliging friend of his, sister
to Mrs. Prinsep. He inserted into its commodious leaves a great

VOL. I. 14

2IO DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

number of pencil and other drawings, many of which remained
undisposed-of up to the date of his death. Mr. Ruskin, it is to be
inferred, had called in Chatham Place on some day when the
Rossettis were staying at their lodgings at Hampstead]. I think
Ida should be very happy to see how much more beautifully, per-
fectly, and tenderly, you draw when you are drawing her than when
you draw anybody else. She cures you of all your worst faults when
you only look at her."

These drawings of Lizzie, very considerable in number from
first to last, were made some before and some after marriage.
There is a substantial measure of truth in what Mr. Ruskin
said as to their quality, pure and exquisite in a high degree,
as pitted against even the finest drawings which my brother
made from other sitters at any period of his pictorial career.

After allowing for the three married couples whom I have
named, there was not, I think, any person whom Rossetti
saw, during his wedded life, so constantly and so delightedly
as Mr. Swinburne. This poet's first volume — the two dramas
of The Queen MotJier and Rosamund — came out in the only
completed year, 1861, of my brother's marriage. It did not
create any particular stir, but Rossetti knew perfectly well
what to think of the volume, and of its author and his future.
Mr. Swinburne's brilliant intellect, his wide knowledge of
poetry and astonishing memory in quotation, his enthusiasm
for whatsoever he recognized as great, his fascinating audacity
and pungency in talk, and the singular and ingenuous charm
of his manner to any one whom he either liked or respected,
made him the most welcome of comrades to Rossetti. For
what this archimage of verse thought of Mrs. Rossetti I may
refer back to a previous section, XVII. At this time my
brother came also into habits of some intimacy with Mr.
George Meredith the celebrated novelist, and with Mr.
Frederick A. Sandys the painter — of whom Rossetti had'
heard something in 1857, when Mr. Sandys published a
caricature of Millais's picture Sir Isumbras at the Ford,
containing figures of Millais himself, along with Hunt and
Rossetti, but intended chiefly as a pasquinade against Ruskin,

MARRIED LIFE. 2 1 I

Another person who was often in Rossetti's apartments was
Mr. James Anderson Rose, a solicitor and art-collector,- who
continued on easy and pleasant terms with my brother for
several years, though the latter eventually (whatever the
cause) preferred to lose sight of him. Yet another was Mr.
Alexander Gilchrist, author of The Life of Etty, who was at
this time engaged in writing his most praiseworthy Life of
Blake. For Gilchrist the feeling of Rossetti, who first met
him in the spring of 1861 in relation to the Blake work, was
one of genuine friendliness. He liked the writer and his
writings, and had a high regard for his insight as a critic of
art. Few of the events occurring at any time of his life seem
to have affected Rossetti as a more staggering blow than the
sudden death of Gilchrist from scarlet fever,1 at the age of
only thirty-three, on 30 November 1861. While his short
and fierce illness lasted, Rossetti wrote to Mrs. Gilchrist
offering that either himself or I would keep up the invalid's
current literary work ; and he made another nearly similar
offer immediately after Gilchrist's death. But soon a far
crueller blow was to strike him.

Let me repeat here, from The Life of Anne Gilchrist — her-
self a noble-natured woman, whom my brother knew and
appreciated from 1861 until his life closed in 1882 — a trait
which does honour to a lady occasionally mentioned in my
pages, the second Mrs. Madox Brown. It should be under-
stood that scarlet fever was then raging in the Gilchrist
household — not only Gilchrist himself, who succumbed, but
also two of his children, who recovered, being dangerously
attacked : —

" In the tragedies of life there seem to be among our fellow-
beings always one or two with a dash of heroism in their natures.
Mrs. Madox Brown offered to come and help. Anne Gilchrist, even
then, remembered that Mrs. Brown possessed children — a thought
which made her decline the noble offer."

1 Several letters from Rossetti, on this subject and others, are in the
book Anne Gilchrist, Edited by Herbert H, Gilchrist. Unwin, 1887.

212 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Married life cannot be exactly happy when one of the
spouses is perpetually and grievously ill. Affectionate and
tender it may be, but not happy ; indeed the very affection
bars the possibility of happiness. I hardly think that at any
time in her brief period of marriage was Lizzie Rossetti quite
so alarmingly ill as she had been just before it commenced ;
but health was irrecoverably gone, and sickness, more or less
serious, was her constant portion. She was compelled — no
doubt under medical advice — to take laudanum or some opiate
continually, and stimulants alternated with opiates. On
2 May 1861 she was confined of a stillborn female infant —
Dr. Babington, the Head Physician of the Lying-in Hospital,
being called in, as well as another doctor. Immediately before
this occurrence Rossetti had written, " She has too much
courage to be in the least downcast herself " ; and she rallied
from the confinement rapidly enough.

In the summer of 1 861 another of Rossetti's friends had
passed away — Mrs. Wells, the sister of Mr. Boyce, and wife
of the R.A. Portrait-painter. Pier age may have been under
thirty. She was herself an exhibiting painter of exceptional
talent, from which my brother and many more hoped much.
He took a portrait of her as she lay in death ; and Gilchrist,
so soon to follow her to the grave, wrote an obituary-notice
of her, highly and deservedly eulogistic.

A phrase in one of my brother's letters to Madox Brown,
2 December 1861, may be worth observing : he professes to be
"getting awfully fat and torpid." In early youth he was slim
and rather attenuated. This had now for some while ceased
to be the case ; and the phrase which he used, though ex-
aggerated, was not repugnant to fact. After this date he
was sometimes (as for instance in 1873) still fatter than then,
but with marked variations from time to time. In his closing
years he might be considered thin again.

WORK IN 1 860-6 1. 213

XXIV.

WORK IN 1860-61— "THE EARLY ITALIAN POETS"— THE
. MORRIS FIRM.

At no period of his life was my brother more busily employed
than during his brief term of marriage, May 1 860 to February
1862. He was much engaged in painting, in a literary
project, and in a general scheme of art-work.

The death in i860 of the then principal purchaser of his
paintings, Mr. Plint, has been previously mentioned. This,
at the very outset of married life, was a most serious mis-
fortune and embarrassment to him — and a sorrow as well, for
he entertained a cordial liking for this liberal and estimable
man. Mr. Plint had paid him in advance no less a sum than
£714., for three pictures not yet completed, perhaps hardly
begun ; and Rossetti had to execute and send in the works
without so far neglecting other employment as to wrong
surviving buyers, or to deprive himself and his wife of the
means of subsistence from month to month. The details appear
to some extent in his Family-letters. Some pictures probably
were completed without any great delay, and my brother re-
paid also a part of the purchase-money. In 1865 the whole
of Mr. Flint's collection of art was sold off. It included five
works by Rossetti : the small oil-picture named Burd Alane,
and the water-colours of The Lovers (called also Carlisle Toiver),
The Bower-garden, The Wedding of St. George, and Dr. Johnson
with the Methodistical Young Ladies at the Mitre Tavern.
Another small oil-picture of his had belonged to Mr. Plint —
The Queen of Hearts (or Regina Cordiuni), being a portrait
of Lizzie Rossetti ; but this, as the sale was determined upon
very soon after Lizzie's death, was, out of consideration for
the painter's feelings, withdrawn from the auction under some
arrangement. There were also paintings by Turner, Etty,
Burne-Jones, Madox Brown, Millais, Holman Hunt, Hughes,
Wallis, Windus, Brett, Alfred Hunt, William Hunt, Lewis,
Holland, Oakes, Hook, Edouard Frere, Leys, and various
others. This seems a sufficiently tempting list ; but for some

214 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

reason or other (possibly, but I cannot affirm it, there was
a combination of picture-dealers inimical to the new school)
the sale proved a very great failure — so far, at any rate, as
pictures of the " Praeraphaelite " order were concerned. Scarcely
any even tolerable prices were realized save by Rossetti's
pictures, and for these the prices were much less than Mr.
Plint had not extravagantly given. For years afterwards, or
indeed for the remainder of his life, my brother mistrusted the
chances of auction-sales, and did his best to shut out from
them any works of his own.

Among the productions of Rossetti in these two years were
— the water-colour of Lucrezia Borgia (preparing a poison-
draught) ; the finished oil-sketch of the old Magdalene
subject ; the crowded pen-and-ink design of Cassandra
(prophesying the death of Hector) ; The Annunciation, painted
in oil on a pulpit in the Church of St. Martin-on-the-Hill,
Scarborough ; a water-colour head of Mr. Swinburne, I suppose
the most vigorous and finished record of his youth which
posterity will have to cherish ; a red-chalk life-sized head of
Ruskin ; the oil-picture Fair Rosamund; and an oil-picture
named Dautis Amor, of symbolical character. The same
design appears in a pen-and-ink drawing. There were also
the two designs for Christina Rossetti's volume (published in
1862) Goblin Market, and other Poems. The Magdalene
stands very fully described in a letter which my brother in
1865 addressed to the wife of the purchaser, Mr. Clabburn
of Norwich. This is printed in the Pall Mall Gazette of
16 January 1891. The Cassandra is one of the most important
among all my brother's inventions. Many a time did he wish
to set-to at painting it, but something always interfered — chiefly
the constant run of commissions for pictures of a less exacting
and less costly kind. It was certainly one of his lifelong re-
grets that this subject remained only a design, and not a picture.

The time had now come for Rossetti to appear before the
public as author of a volume — The Early Italian Poets. I
have already spoken at some length about this very interesting
series of translations, the work almost entirely of his

WORK IN 1 860-6 1. 215

eighteenth to his twenty-second year ; and I will avow my
belief that there was not in the United Kingdom another man
who could have done them half as well — with half the insight
into the poetic motives and character of the originals, or half
the personal power of poetic transfusion, which he brought to
the task. Self-reliant though he was when he made the
translations, and still more so when he was preparing to
publish them, and, by his innermost nature, immutably biassed
in certain directions and not in others, he was nevertheless
extremely ready to consult well-qualified friends as to this
book, and to take some practical advantage of the advice
which they might offer him. In this way he showed his MS.
to Mr. Allingham, Mr. Ruskin, Mr. Patmore, Count Aurelio
Saffi (then in Oxford, once the noble Triumvir of Rome along
with Mazzini and Armellini), and no doubt to Mr. Swinburne
and some others as well. To myself he committed the MS.
of the Vita Nuova, asking me to introduce any change of
diction, etc., which I might judge expedient.

Ruskin liked the translations, but urged that crudities (and
there must have been many in MSS. going back to that
remote period of youth) should be removed. Patmore wrote
a letter of so much generous elan, and so stringently ex-
pressed, that I will not scruple to re-produce it here : —

" 21 May 1861.

" My dear Rossetti,

" A thousand thanks for what I see at a glance is one of the
very few really precious books in the English or any other language.
It seems to me to be the first time that a translator has proved him-
self, by his translations alone, to be a great poet. Your book is so
exquisitely to my taste that I almost dread to read it — as one dreads
other great enjoyments which will diminish with enjoyment. How
I envy the iron muscle and the electric nerve which appears every-
where in your poetic diction ! It would be absurd to wish you
success after such intrinsic success as the book itself is.

" Yours ever,

" Coventry Patmore.

" I am rejoiced to hear of your wife's health."

2l6 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Mr. Ruskin's good-will to The Early Italian Poets was not
confined to words. After another publisher had been con-
sulted without definite upshot, the MS. was offered to
Ruskin's publishers Messrs. Smith and Elder, and they
agreed to undertake the risk, subject (it would seem) to an
advance or guarantee of .£100 by Ruskin. The book came
out in 1 86 1, and was extremely well received. I might even
say it was received with general acclaim, so far as a work of
poetical translation ever can be welcomed and applauded in
England. By 1869 about 600 copies of it had sold ; and the
profits covered the £100 of Mr. Ruskin, and a minute dole of
less than £9 to Rossetti. A few copies, 64, still remained
on hand. It has been stated that Mr. Ruskin subsidized
Rossetti in bringing out not only The Early Italian Poets,
but also the volume of original Poems, 1870. But this is quite
erroneous.

My brother had intended to produce some etchings to
illustrate the volume. He made a graceful design of two
lovers kissing,1 which was engraved, and formed the founda-
tion of his water-colour entitled TJie Rose-garden. Even as
late as 18 June 1861 he thought of doing the etchings,
and giving them in gratis if the publishers would not com-
pensate him. At last this project was abandoned, and the
book appeared without any designs.

At some time — it may have been before 1861 — Rossetti
showed a number of his original poems to Ruskin, with a
direct view to the publication of some of them in the Corn hill
Magazine, issued by Messrs. Smith and Elder, and then
edited by Thackeray (the latter must have been known to
my brother by sight, but I question whether they ever
interchanged a word). Ruskin admired the poems to a large
extent, but raised objections to one and another, and no
magazine-publishing ensued. Rossetti however was still bent

1 To my surprise, I lately saw, in an American journal, this design,
modernized in costume, adopted to bedeck the advertisement of some
tradesman for his "washing-powder" — a queer phase of metempsy-
chosis.

WORK IN 1 860-6 1. 217

upon bringing the poems out ; and the volume of The Early
Italian Poets contained an intimation that Dante at Verona,
and other Poems, would shortly be printed. This also, as will
soon be seen, came to nothing.

It was, I believe, in i860 that an enterprise which has
proved to be of no less than national importance was set on
foot. I mean the foundation of the Decorative Firm which,
known at first as " Morris, Marshall, Falkner, and Co.," is now
named " Morris and Company." One may note it as rather
curious that this Firm consisted of the same number of men,
seven, as the Praeraphaelite Brotherhood. The Brotherhood
introduced into painting something that might well be called
a revolution, and the Firm introduced into decoration some-
thing still more revolutionary for widespread and as yet
permanent effect. Rossetti was prominent in both adventures.

The seven members of the Firm — I will name them in
what appears to me to be the approximate order of chei*'
importance in bringing this scheme into working-order —
were William Morris, Madox Brown, Burne-Jones, Rossetti,
Philip Webb, Peter Paul Marshall, and Charles Falkner.
Mr. Webb is an architect of much originality of view, and
practical attainment and skill. He built, among other things,
the Red House at Upton tenanted by Mr. Morris. He
has also marked ability in designing for stained glass and
other forms of decoration, especially in the way of animal
life. Mr. Marshall was the first originator of the idea of
such a Firm. He is an engineer (now for many years settled
in Norwich), son-in-law to Mr. John Miller, the merchant and
picture-collector in Liverpool, and is besides a capable painter
who might, under differing circumstances, have passed out
of the amateur into the professional stage of work. I believe
Rossetti was the first person to whom he broached his idea ;
he eagerly caught at it, and imparted it to others. Mr.
Falkner, an Oxford Mathematician and close friend of Mr.
Morris, took no part in the practical work of the Firm, but
gave it his willing support ; and I suppose that he, like each
of the others, put a modicum of money into it. What this

218 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

modicum was — in my brother's or in any case — I do not
know. As to Rossetti, at any rate, I presume it to have been
decidedly small. Mr. Morris was on a different footing in
this respect. He ventured something very substantial, and,
but for him, it may be safely said that the Firm would not
have been constituted at all. They set up in the secluded
but decorous quarters of Queen Square, Bloomsbury ; or I
think, first of all, in Red Lion Square.

They were all young men — the senior, Madox Brown,
being aged thirty-nine in i860; and there was a deal of
jollity among them. Indeed there was always jollity where
Rossetti was present — not to speak of Morris and Brown,
who were the heartiest of the hearty, or of any of the other
members ; for nothing is more contrary to fact, or more
absurd to the reminiscence of those who knew him in the
old days, than the current notion that Rossetti was a vague
and gloomy phantasist, combined of mysticism and self-
opinion, who was always sunk in despondency, or fizzing
with affectation, or airing some intangible ideal. I must
apologize to his loved memory for even alluding to such
a trumpery misconception. Winged was the jest and loud
and contagious the laugh from his full lips. Had there been
no one else to keep his colleagues in heart and humour,
his own resources would have sufficed. To some of these
highly distinguished colleagues it would be unjust to say
that Rossetti was primus inter pares ; but certainly he was
nidli secundus. Nature had endowed him in ample measure
with one of her most precious secrets — that of dominance,
leadership, and comradeship, each in its proper place. No
more downright and no more unpretentious man existed
within the four seas. How long his vigorous temperament
continued to scintillate into high spirits we shall see as we
proceed. There were flashes of it till the last.

The more one reflects upon it, the more surprising it seems
that three youths, almost boys, started, in great lightness of
heart and disregard of externals, if also with a most resolute
purpose at the core, so serious a movement as that of

WORK IN 1 860-6 1. 219

Praeraphaelitism ; and that, with some assistance from the
same quarter, other youths — I mean more especially Morris
and Jones — founded, in very much the same temper of mind,
so vast a recasting and reform of decorative art as is
identified with the name and the fortunes of " Morris,
Marshall, Falkner, and Co." Clearly, without reality of genius,
of insight, and of labour, neither of these enterprises would
have made the least headway. A puff of wind, a treacherous
sand-bank, a sunken reef, or a rock-bound coast — and more
than enough of all these were at hand — would have made
short work of the whole craft.

Light or boisterous chaff among themselves, and something
very like dictatorial irony towards customers, were the
methods by which this singular commercial firm was con-
ducted, and was turned, after a longish period of uncertain
probation, into a flourishing success. There was no com-
promise. Mr. Morris, as the managing partner, laid down
the law, and all his clients had to bend or break. Frequent
meetings — of the least business-like aspect of business, and
yet thoroughly efficient, as the event proved — were held ; and
the only designation for the undertaking which passed current
with the partners or their intimates was " the Shop." From
the first the Firm turrjed out whatever any one wanted in the
way of decorative material — architectural adjuncts, furniture,
tapestries, embroideries, stained glass, wall-papers, and what
not. The goods were first-rate, the art and the workmanship
excellent, the prices high. No concession was made to indi-
vidual tastes or want of taste, no question of abatement was
entertained. You could have the things such as the Firm
chose that they should be, or you could do without them.

A detailed history of the Firm of Morris, Marshall,
Falkner, and Co., or Morris and Company, would by this
time be an interesting thing ; but it is not my affair to
write one, nor indeed have I any means of doing so, even if
the inclination served. I must limit myself to a few particu-
lars regarding my brother's work in this connexion. As I
have before implied, he was not the leading spirit in the Firm.

220 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Mr. Morris came much the foremost, not only by being
constantly on the spot, to work, direct, and transact, but also
by his abnormal and varied aptitude at all kinds of practical
processes. Mr. Madox Brown had always taken a more than
common interest in decorative art as applied to household-
requirements ; and his activity, as well as that of Mr. Burne-
Jones, in designing for stained glass and other such matters,
far exceeded any that Rossetti was called upon to display.
Mr. Webb must likewise have done a solid amount of work.
Towards the beginning of 1865 an acquaintance of my
brother, Mr. Warrington Taylor, was brought into the busi-
ness as a manager and accountant. He did excellent service
in keeping things straight and safe ; but this only lasted a
few years, as he died young of consumption. He had very
good perceptions in various matters of art, especially music.

My brother was entitled to a certain proportional share in
the profits of the partnership, and besides he was paid at a
regulated rate for such designs as he produced. With few
exceptions, these were for stained glass. For St. Martin's,
Scarborough, he designed two lights — Adam and Eve in
Paradise. There were also seven glass-cartoons of The
Parable of the Vineyard (very able compositions, with plenty
of dramatic character) ; six of St. George and the Dragon ;
and The Last Judgment, nine subjects within a circle. At a
later date, 1869, he drew The Sermon on the Plain, for a
window in Christ Church, Albany Street, in memory of our
Aunt Margaret Polidori. These are the only designs for the
Morris firm (besides the pulpit-painting, previously specified,
of The Annunciatioii) which appear to be known to me.
There may perhaps be others in a set of glass-cartoons now
in the possession of Mr. Theodore Watts.

XXV.
DEATH OF MRS. DANTE ROSSETTI.

ROSSETTI'S married life lasted from 23 May i860 to 11
February 1862. The essence of his wife's illness was, I

DEATH OF MRS. DANTE ROSSETTI. 221

apprehend, phthisis, with the accompaniment of a great deal
of acute and wearing neuralgia. It was for the neuralgia that
she had been medically authorized or directed to take frequent
doses of laudanum. The phthisis had not as yet brought on
any noticeable degree of emaciation ; but it was running its
course, and he would have been a sanguine person who, at
the beginning of [862, could anticipate for her more than
some five or six years of life at the utmost. Though she was
often kept within-doors by illness, her habits were not those
of a recluse, and she frequently accompanied her husband to
dinner at some public dining-room or other. She had very
little of a housewifely turn. She often sat to him — and did
this, only a few days before her last, for the figure of the
Princess Sabra in the water-colour which is called either
St. George and the Princess Sabra, or St. George and the
Dragon. She is shown holding the knight's helmet, filled with
water to lave the bloodstains of his recent conflict. This
was the latest occasion on which Lizzie sat for any head.

On 10 February 1862 Rossetti and his wife, with Mr.
Swinburne, dined at the Sabloniere Hotel in Leicester Square.
She was not less well than usual, and joined in the talk with
animation. She returned with her husband to their home
in Chatham Place. He went out again, and was back late. I
will quote here the few words which I jotted down on the
following day, as a memento for my own use. It is of the
scantiest, but must serve for our present purpose : —

"February 11. Death of poor Lizzie, Gabriel's wife. Coming
home last night past it from the Working Men's College, he
found her almost gone from the effects of laudanum; and, spite
of the efforts of four doctors, she died towards 7! this morn-
ing. [One of the doctors was Mr. John Marshall, at that time
a Surgeon, finally M.D. He became Professor of Anatomy to the
Royal Academy, and President of the Royal College of Surgeons.
He was intimate with Madox Brown, and hence with Rossetti, who
very frequently consulted him on his own account in after years.]
I was called from Somerset House about 12^ [by Mrs. Birrell,
the housekeeper of the Chambers 14 Chatham Place, who had

222 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

been there during the entire duration of my brother's stay]. Brown,
whom Gabriel had called on before 5 in the morning, was there
[his residence was then near Highgate Rise], and told me the
circumstances. Lizzie and Gabriel had dined at a Hotel with
Swinburne that afternoon. The poor thing looks wonderfully calm
now and beautiful.

" ' Ed avea in se umilta. si verace

Che parea che dicesse, Io sono in pace.'1

I could not but think of that all the time I looked at her, it is so
exactly like."

The only further particulars I find in any book regarding
Mrs. Rossetti's death are given by Mr. Bell Scott, who must
apparently have heard them from the widower. He simply
says that Rossetti, after taking her back to Chatham Place,
" advised her to go to bed " ; and " on his next and final
home-coming he had to grope about for a light, and called to
her without receiving a reply."

Of course there was an inquest, of which I shall proceed to
give the only newspaper account which I possess. It may
come from the Daily News, but I am not sure. I do not
think that any other newspaper account, in the least degree
detailed, appeared — a fact which sufficiently shows that to the
great bulk of the British public the name of Dante Gabriel
Rossetti continued practically unknown at the beginning of
1862. I was present at the inquest, but omitted to keep
any record of it. My brother braced himself manfully to

1 This couplet comes from Dante's Vita Nuova, the poem which relates
his prevision of the death of Beatrice. In my brother's translation it is

rendered thus : —

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

This subject had been already painted by Rossetti as a water-colour, and
it forms the theme of his largest oil-picture, Dante's Dream, now in the
Walker Art-gallery of Liverpool. In neither of these works was his wife
represented as Beatrice. Mrs. Hannay sat in the first instance, and Mrs.
Morris in the second.

DEATH OF MRS. DANTE ROSSETTI. 223

the painful effort of giving evidence ; and his deposition was
followed (though not so shown in the newspaper) by those of
Mr. Swinburne, and of Mrs. Birrell who testified to uniformly
affectionate relations between the husband and wife.
The following is the newspaper-paragraph : —

"Death of a Lady from an Overdose of Laudanum. — On
Thursday Mr. Payne held an inquest at Bridewell Hospital on the
body of Eliza Eleanor Rosetti, aged twenty-nine, wife of Dante
Gabriel Rosetti, Artist, of No. 14 Chatham Place, Blackfriars, who
came to her death under very melancholy circumstances. Mr.
Rosetti stated that on Monday afternoon, between six and seven
o'clock, he and his wife went out in the carriage for the purpose of
dining with a friend at the Sabloniere Hotel, Leicester Square [the
term ' the carriage ' seems to suggest that my brother kept a carriage
of his own, which was most assuredly not the fact]. When they had
got about halfway there his wife appeared to be very drowsy, and
he wished her to return. She objected to their doing so, and they
proceeded to the Hotel, and dined there. They returned home at
eight o'clock, when she appeared somewhat excited. He left home
again at nine o'clock, his wife being then about to go to bed. On
his return at half-past eleven o'clock he found his wife in bed, snoring
loudly and utterly unconscious. She was in the habit of taking
laudanum, and he had known her take as much as 100 drops
at a time, and he thought she had been taking it before they
went out. He found a phial on a table at the bedside, which had
contained laudanum, but it was then empty. A doctor was sent
for, and promptly attended. She had expressed no wish to die, but
quite the reverse. Indeed she contemplated going out of town in
a day or two, and had ordered a new mantle which she intended
wearing on the occasion. He believed she took the laudanum to
soothe her nerves. She could not sleep or take food unless she
used it. — Mr. Hutchinson, of Bridge Street, Blackfriars, said he had
attended the deceased in her confinement in April with a stillborn
child. He saw her on Monday night at half-past eleven o'clock,
and found her in a comatose state. He tried to rouse her, but could
not, and then tried the stomach-pump without avail. He injected
several quarts of water into the stomach, and washed it out, when
the smell of laudanum was very distinct. He and three other

224 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

medical gentlemen stayed with her all night, and she died at twenty
minutes past seven o'clock on Tuesday morning. — The jury returned
a verdict of Accidental Death."

Our mother and sisters and myself were constantly with
Dante during those harrowing days which intervene between
a death and a funeral. His anguish was keen, but his mind
clear. He was not prostrated in that kind of way which
makes a man incapable of self-regulation. Brown was often
there, and the sister of Lizzie playfully nicknamed " the
Roman." I recollect a moment of great agitation, when my
brother, standing by the corpse, was crying out, " Oh Lizzie,
Lizzie, come back to me ! " With a woman's kindly tact the
sister felt that this was an instant when emotion should be
seconded, and not controlled ; and she reminded him of some
old touches of sportive and now pathetic affection, to give
the freer flow to his tears. Mr. Ruskin called one day, and
saw the rest of us, but not Dante. He spoke with his usual
tenderness of feeling, and I then for the first time became
aware of the great change which had taken place in his views
on religion. On the second or third day after death Lizzie
looked still lovelier than before, and Dante almost refused
to believe that she was really dead — it might be a mere
trance consequent upon the laudanum. He insisted that
Mr. Marshall should be called in to decide — with what result
I need not say.

The day of the funeral came. On this also I have a very
brief note : —

"February 17. The funeral. Grave 5779, Highgate [the same
grave in which my father lay buried — my mother is now there too,
and, even since I wrote this very sentence, my dear sister Christina].
Gabriel put the book of his MS. poems into the coffin."

I remember this incident. There were some friends as-
sembled in one of the rooms in Chatham Place ; the coffin,
not yet close-shut, was in another. My brother, unwitnessed,
deposited the MS. in the coffin. He then joined his friends,

DEATH Of MRS. DANTE ROSSETTf. 22$

and informed Madox Brown of what he had done, saying —
" 1 have often been writing at those poems when Lizzie was
ill and suffering, and I might have been attending to her,
and now they shall go." Brown disapproved of such a
sacrifice to a mere impulse of grief or of self-reproach, and
he appealed to me to remonstrate. I replied — " Well, the
feeling does him honour, and let him do as he likes." The
sacrifice was no doubt a grave one. Rossetti thus not only
renounced any early or definite hopes of poetic fame, which
had always been a ruling passion with him, but he also
abandoned a project already distinctly formulated and noti-
fied ; for, as we have seen, a forthcoming volume of his
original poems was advertised in The Early Italian Poets.

Mr. Caine relates this matter somewhat differently. I do
not know from whom he obtained his details ; where they
may be considered incompatible with my reminiscence, I
abide by my own. He says : —

" The poems he had written, so far as they were poems of love,
were chiefly inspired by and addressed to her. At her request he
had copied them into a little book presented to him for the purpose ;
and on the day of the funeral he walked into the room where the
body lay, and, unmindful of the presence of friends, he spoke to his
dead wife as though she heard, saying, as he held the book, that the
words it contained were written to her and for her, and she must
take them with her, for they could not remain when she had gone.
Then he put the volume into the coffin between her cheek and
beautiful hair, and it was that day buried with her in Highgate
Cemetery."

Probably very few letters from Rossetti are extant written
immediately after and relating to his wife's death. With his
closest friends he was in personal communication, and to
others he would be by no means expansive on such a topic.
There is, however, one letter in print, addressed to Mrs.
Gilchrist, and I think it as well to reproduce it here. In
the opening paragraph he refers to the fact that he had so
recently had to condole with Mrs. Gilchrist on her husband's
death, and now she was condoling with himself on his wife's.

VOL. I. 15

226 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

"45 Upper Albany Street,1 2 March 1862.

" My dear Mrs. Gilchrist, —

" I thank you sincerely in my turn for the words of sorrow
and sympathy which, coming from you, seem more terribly real than
any I have received. I remember clearly the mistrustful feeling of
insufficiency with which I sat down to write to you so short a time
ago, and know now what it is both to write and to receive even the
sincerest words at such a time.

" I have now to be thankful for obligations connected with my
work which were a source of anxiety before ; for without them it
seems to me that I could never work again. But I already begin to
find the inactive moments the most unbearable, and must hope for
the power, as I feel most surely the necessity, of working steadily
without delay. Of my dear wife I do not dare to speak now, nor to
attempt any vain conjecture whether it may ever be possible for
me, or I be found worthy, to meet her again.

" I am staying at my mother's just now, and hope that some of my
family, if not all, may join with me in seeking a new home together,
as in any case I cannot any longer bear to remain in the old one.
I have thoughts of coming if possible to Chelsea,2 and have already,
in the impossibility I find of remaining inactive, been seeking for
fresh quarters in that and other directions. Your photograph [of
Alexander Gilchrist] I still have, and hope to send you some result
from it, if I find such possible [he was thinking of drawing some
likeness of Gilchrist, founded partly on the photograph, but in this
he did not succeed]. Whenever it may be necessary to be thinking
about the Life of Blake I hope you will let me know, as my
brother is equally anxious with myself, and perhaps at the present
moment better able, to be of any service in his power.

" While writing this, I have just read your letter again, and again
feel forcibly the bond of misery which exists between us, and the
unhappy right we have of saying to each other what we both know
to be fruitless. Pray believe that I am not the less grateful to you,
at least for the heartfelt warmth with which it is said."

1 This was the residence of my mother and sisters and myself. Later
on it was called 166 Albany Street.

2 The joint home of Mr. and Mrs. Gilchrist had been in Chelsea, close to
Carlyle's house. Mrs. Gilchrist was now just about removing into the
country, Shottermill near Haslemere.

SETTLING IN CHEYNE WALK. 227

XXVI.
SETTLING IN CHEYNE WALK.

THE letter just cited has shown two points : that Rossetti,
after his bereavement, did not feel equal to continuing to
reside at Chatham Place — I hardly believe that he slept there
even a single night after his wife's funeral — and that he
thought, upon settling in some new house, of obtaining the
companionship of some or all of the members of his family.
These were our mother, our two sisters, myself, and our
rather aged aunt, Margaret Polidori, now considerably in-
valided, and living a very secluded life in my house
166 Albany Street. My brother also particularly wanted
to have Mr. Swinburne in the same house with himself,
thinking, not unreasonably, that, in his own depressed state
of mind, he needed some inspiriting association such as he
could scarcely obtain from mere family-life, and that he could
procure this better from Mr. Swinburne than from any other
available person. The Chambers in Chatham Place were,
after Rossetti's departure, tenanted by Mr. Boyce, who
remained there until 1868, shortly preceding the final demoli-
tion of the building.

The various members of the family did in fact entertain the
proposal raised by Dante ; the only serious difficulty arising
in relation to our sister Maria, who went out giving lessons
in Italian etc., and for whom any such locality as Chelsea —
then more suburban than it is now — would have been a very
remote centre for such purposes. This obstacle was, however,
set aside ; and, my brother having pretty soon fixed upon
No. 16 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, termed Tudor House, as his
future home, we were all prepared to join there with him and
with Mr. Swinburne. But this arrangement did not take
effect. Before the time came for actually removing to Cheyne
Walk my brother reached the conclusion — a sound one — that
that would not be the most apposite of homes for his female
relatives, who therefore remained in Albany Street ; glad to

228 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTl.

house with and look after Dante, if that had been his ultimate
wish, and glad also, when the wish was relinquished, to abide
where they were.

At first Dante stayed with us in the Albany Street house,
and he was also at times with Madox Brown. It is stated by
Mr. William Sharp that the earliest thing which he painted
after his wife's death was done at Brown's residence — "a
small but richly toned water-colour, known simply as Girl at
a Lattice" pourtrayed from a person he saw in this position.
I think, however, that a crayon head of our mother, which
bears the date February 1862, may have preceded even the
Girl at a Lattice. It remains in my possession, and used con-
stantly to hang in my brother's little breakfast-room in Cheyne
Walk. Next, pending a definite settlement as to a house, he
took Chambers, by himself, on the first floor of No. 59 Lin-
coln's Inn Fields. The first distracting shock of his calamity
being past, he found himself capable of working and acting
like other men, and the Chambers proved to be quite suitable
for his requirements ; so much so indeed that, when he had
to leave them and take up his engagement in Cheyne Walk,
he almost regretted that he had assumed so serious, and for
him so novel, a responsibility, with all the upset (to which he
was always highly disinclined) of removal and re-settling.
The die was cast, however, and nothing remained but to meet
its chances as they came.

For the Cheyne Walk house a new plan had meanwhile
been determined. Rossetti was to be the tenant, paying a
rent (assuredly a very moderate one) of ;£ioo a year, besides
— if I remember right — a premium of .^225 upon entering.
As his sub-tenants for defined portions of the building there
were to be three persons — Mr. Swinburne, Mr. George Mere-
dith, and myself. Of course each of us three was to pay
something to Dante ; though the latter did not wish me,
and in fact did not allow me, to continue any such payment
after affairs had got into their regular course. We were all
to dine together, if present together in the house. Mr.
Swinburne was generally present, Mr. Meredith much less

SETTLING IN CHEYNE WALK. 229

constantly. I came on three fixed days of the week, but
not on any others unless some particular occasion arose.
Swinburne, and I think Meredith, had their respective separate
sitting-rooms, in which they received their personal visitors.
I had, and required, a bedroom only. Dante Rossetti was
by this time familiar with Mr. Meredith, whom he had seen
increasingly for some three years past, and whose talents and
work he seriously, though not uncritically, admired ; familiar,
yet by no means so much so as with Mr. Swinburne.

Tudor House got not slightly altered in external appear-
ance— not perhaps in structural essentials — soon after my
brother's death. When he entered it, neither Cheyne Walk
nor any part of London had a Thames Embankment ; in
front of the house there were all the boating bustle and
longshore litter of the old days : there was also no Cadogan
Bridge, and across the river no Battersea Park. Cremorne
Gardens, at a moderate distance to the West, were still open
as a place of demi-reputable entertainment — dancing, music,
fireworks, and assignations, with all their accompaniments
and sequels. The look of things was far more picturesque
than now — less of decorum and of stateliness, more of noise
and movement. The house itself was a fine old solid edifice,
without anything peculiar or showy in external aspect. Inside
it was old-fashioned, many-roomed, homelike, and comfortable,
with any number of wall-cupboards, and needing nothing
beyond good furniture and proper keeping-up to be a highly
enjoyable residence. Furniture was supplied by my brother
— even from the first, but more especially as years went on —
with profuse abundance and distinguished gusto for whatso-
ever was good and appropriate. Before going into the house
he had found out in Buckingham Street, Strand (through
Mr. Allingham), a retired old gentleman named Minister,
who had a deal of antiquated and capital furniture, and from
him he bought largely with a free hand. As to the keeping-
up of the house, Rossetti did not take the like interest and
pains ; but still, for several years after his tenancy began,
there was no defined ground of complaint.

23O DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Mr. Hall Caine has given several particulars about the
residence and its garden, and I shall take leave to borrow
some of them. He has had experience in an Architect's office,
and knows what he is talking about in matters of this sort.
It will be understood that he never saw the premises until
1880; and many of his details indicate a state of neglect
and gloom which did not exist in 1862, and still less towards
1865 and for a few years onwards, when Rossetti had accu-
mulated large quantities of handsome and out-of-the-way
furniture, blue china, and other articles of curiosity and
virtu. A great store of such things remained in the house
in July 1882, when, consequent upon his death, they came
to the hammer. But even these were but a moderate pro-
portion of what he had introduced and used from time to
time. Much had been already sold, much given away or
otherwise dispersed. Mr. Caine says, and I interpolate a
remark here and there : —

" It was called Tudor House when he became its tenant, from
the tradition that Elizabeth Tudor had lived in it [the statement
which I always heard as current was that the house had been used
as a nursery for the children of Henry VIII. ; but this, if true at
all, can only apply to some previous house on the same site, for the
existing structure must belong to the Georgian time, or at earliest
to that of Queen Anne] : and it is understood to be the same that
Thackeray describes in Esmond as the home of the old Countess
of Chelsey. A large garden, which recently has been cut off for
building purposes, lay at the back, . . . dotted over with lime-trees,
and enclosed by a high wall [the garden, about four-fifths of an
acre in extent, was partly, but not wholly, cut off towards 1881 : it
contained a very prolific mulberry -tree, called Queen Elizabeth's
mulberry-tree]. . . . Old oak then became for a time his passion ;
and, in hunting it up, he rummaged the brokers' shops round
London for miles, buying for trifles what would eventually (when the
fashion he started grew to be general) have fetched large sums. . . .
No. 16 . . . seems to be the oldest house in the Walk; and the
exceptional proportions of its gate-piers, and the weight and mass
of its gate and railings, suggest that probably at some period it stood

SETTLING IN CHEYNE WALK. 23 I

alone, and commanded as grounds a large part of the space now
occupied by the adjoining residences. . . . Rossetti's house had to
me the appearance of a plain Queen Anne's erection, much mutilated
by the introduction of unsightly bay-windows [I cannot but think
this rather hard on the bay-windows — to me, and to my brother
also, always a pleasant feature of a house to live in] ; the brickwork
seemed to be falling into decay ; . . . the angles of the steps, and
the untrodden flags of the courtyard, to be here and there overgrown
with moss and weeds. . . . The hall had a puzzling look of equal
nobility and shabbiness. . . . Three doors led out of the hall, one
on each side and one in front, and two corridors opened into it ;
but there was no sign of staircase, nor had it any light except such
as was borrowed from the fan-light that looked into the porch [the
door to the right led into the small dining-room ; that to the left,
into the sitting-room first used by Mr. Swinburne, and ultimately by
Mr. Caine himself; the one in front, into the studio, which, for
an ordinary tenant, would have been the dining-room]. . . . The
changes which the building must have undergone since the period
of its erection had so filled it with crooks and corners as to bewilder
the most ingenious observer to account for its peculiarities. . . . The
studio was a large room, probably measuring thirty feet by twenty,
and structurally as puzzling as the other parts of the house. A
series of columns and arches on one side suggested that the room
had almost certainly been at some period the site of an important
staircase with a wide well ; and on the other side a broad mullioned
window, reaching to the ceiling, seemed certainly to bear record
of the occupant's own contribution to the peculiarities of the edifice
[this window had been enlarged, but not constructed, at Rossetti's
instance some while after he entered the house]. . . . [Also] a
window at the side, which was heavily darkened by the thick foliage
of the trees that grew in the garden beyond. . . . [Rossetti's bed-
room, which was on the first floor] was entered from another and
smaller room which he said that he used as a breakfast-room [many
a breakfast have I eaten in it, but almost invariably without the
company of my brother, who rose much later than I did]. The
outer room was made fairly bright and cheerful by a glittering
[coloured porcelain] chandelier (the property once, he told me, of
David Garrick), and, from the rustle of trees against the window-
pane, one perceived that it overlooked the garden ; but the inner
room was dark with heavy hangings, around the walls as well as

232 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

the bed, and thick velvet curtains before the windows. . . . An
enormous black-oak chimney-piece of curious design [it was Rossetti's
own design, and constructed out of decorated slabs, etc., picked up
here and there by himself], having an ivory crucifix on the largest
of its ledges, covered a part of one side, and reached to the ceiling. . . .
When I reached the room that I was to occupy during the night
[it is on a landing between the ground-floor and first-floor], I found
it, like Rossetti's bedroom, heavy with hangings, and black with
antique picture-panels, with a ceiling (unlike that of the other rooms
in the house) out of all reach or sight; and so dark from various
causes that the candle seemed only to glimmer in it. ... I strolled
through the large garden at the back of the house. ... A beautiful
avenue of lime-trees opened into a grass-plot of nearly an acre in
extent [it is the grass-plot which, allowing for a small strip retained,
was afterwards built over ; the avenue continues to be attached to
the house]. The trees were just as Nature made them, and so was
the grass, which in places was lying long, dry, and withered, under
the sun — -weeds creeping up in damp places, and the gravel of the
pathway scattered upon the verges."

A few words should still be added to Mr. Caine's expres-
sive description of the house. On the basement there were
spacious kitchen-rooms, and an oddly complicated range of
vaults, which perhaps had at one time led directly off to
the river-side. The two ground-floor sitting-rooms looked
out to the front and the river ; the studio had a second door
opening on the hinder part of the corridor, and conducting,
down a few steps, into the garden-avenue. Though not
apparent to Mr. Caine from the front hall, there were two
staircases, to the right and to the left of the entrance-door
of the studio. I may here take occasion to give an emphatic
denial to a statement which Mr. Val Prinsep (writing in
The Art-Journal about the picture-collection of his father-in-
law Mr. Leyland) made with regard to the studio or painting-
room — that it " was a sanctum unvisited by the housemaid."
It was constantly visited, and adequately attended to, by
the housemaid ; and a housemaid who might have neglected
it in a serious degree would not have remained long on the

SETTLING IN CHEYNE WALK. 233

premises. Mr. Caine makes no mention of the chief feature
of the house — the unusually long and sightly drawing-room
on the first floor, running the whole length of the large
frontage, and presenting from its three spacious bay-windows
a most enjoyable view of the river, and of the big old trees
which yield umbrage to Cheyne Walk. On the second floor
were a large number of rooms used as bed-chambers, hardly
less than a dozen, and some of them very pleasant and com-
modious. There may also, but my recollection is not clear
as to this, have been two or three lofts under the roof. On
the roof was a great deal of lead ; and, at one time during
my brother's occupancy, some thieves attempted to make
free with it. Mr. Herbert Gilchrist produced a very good
drawing of the studio before the sale had finished in 1882 ;
Mr. G. T. Robinson favoured me with a water-colour of the
drawing-room ; and three rooms were pourtrayed by Mr.
Henry Treffry Dunn (of whom more anon), and photographs
were taken from his designs.

It was on 24 October 1862 that Rossetti first took posses-
sion of Tudor House. His three sub-tenants were there on
the same day, or immediately afterwards. On 3 November he
wrote to Madox Brown, " I have reclaimed my studio from
the general wilderness, and got to work."

Some writers have supposed that Rossetti was constantly
mournful and dejected after his wife's death. If it were so,
I would be the first to confirm the statement, and to put
forward reasons partially if not wholly justifying him for such
a tribute to sentiment, and such a revolt against the irre-
versible will of Fate. But the fact was not so, and, as a
faithful biographer, I shall not pretend that it was. He had
too much energy of mind and character, too many interests
in the world of thought and art, too many ideas of his own,
too earnest a desire to turn these into realized work, to be
perpetually dwelling upon the grievousness of the past, or
moping over what once had been, and could never be again.
He found himself capable of living in the ties and associations
of the present, applied himself vigorously to his professional

234 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

occupations, and developed much eagerness — of which there
had been few symptoms in earlier days — in the collection of
works of decoration or curiosity. To live in the company
of such men as Meredith and Swinburne, and of many other
friends older and newer, was not the basis for a life of morbid
gloom and piteous unavailing retrospect. Certainly many
tender and some dreadful memories haunted him ; but it
would be useless to fancy or to suggest that he was at this
time, or for some years to come, a personation of settled
melancholy. As we proceed, we shall see what new gusts
assailed him, and in what mood he encountered them.
Christina has put into print a few apt words 1 upon the general
subject. She says : —

" Family or friendly parties used to assemble at Tudor House,
there to meet with an unfailing affectionate welcome. Gloom and
eccentricity, such as have been alleged, were at any rate not the sole
characteristics of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. When he chose he became
the sunshine of his circle, and he frequently chose so to be. His
ready wit and fun amused us ; his good-nature and kindness of heart
endeared him to us."

Though my proper date for the present is only that when
Rossetti started upon his tenancy of Tudor House, I will
finish here what has to be said of Mr. Meredith and Mr.
Swinburne as inmates of the same dwelling. Mr. Meredith
and Rossetti entertained a solid mutual regard, and got on
together amicably, yet without that thorough cordiality of
give-and take which oils the hinges of daily intercourse. It
would have been difficult for two men of the literary order of
mind to be more decisively unlike. The reader of their works
— not to speak of the student of Rossetti's paintings— will
not fail to perceive this. Rossetti was not at all a mere
recluse, incapable of taking very good care of himself in the
current transactions of life ; he had, on the contrary, a large

1 The article, a very brief one, is named The House of Dante Gabriel
Rossetti, with a woodcut of the house. It appeared in some magazine, but
I forget which. The date was some little while after my brother's death.

SETTLING IN CHEYNE WALK. 235

share of shrewdness and of business aptitude, and a quick eye
for " the main chance " in all contingencies where he chose to
exercise it. He understood character, and (though often too
indulgent to its shadier side) he knew how to deal with it,
and had indeed a rather marked distaste for that inexpert
class of persons who waver on the edge of life without ever
throwing themselves boldly into it, and gripping at the facts.
But Mr. Meredith was (or I should rather say, is) incom-
parably more a man of the world and man of society, scrutini-
zing all sorts of things, and using them as his material in the
commerce of life and in the field of intellect. Even in the
mere matter of household -routine, he found that Rossetti's
arrangements, though ample for comfort of a more or less
off-hand kind, were not conformable to his standard. Thus it
pretty soon became apparent that Mr. Meredith's sub-tenancy
was not likely to stand much wear and tear, or to outlast the
temporary convenience which had prompted it. I could not
now define precisely how long it continued — perhaps up to
the earlier days of 1864. It then ceased, without, I think, any
disposition on either side that it should be renewed. Friendly
intercourse between the two men continued for some few
years, and gradually wore out without any cause or feeling
of dissension. In Mr. Joseph Knight's pleasant Life of Dante
Gabriel Rossetti I find some observations made by " a friend,
himself a poet," which I unhesitatingly (let me hope not
rashly) attribute to our pre-eminent novelist. I quote them
here less as throwing light on the character of Rossetti —
highly deserving though they are of attention in that regard
— than as pointing to the sort of relation which subsisted
between the two during their joint sojourn in Cheyne
Walk:—

" I liked him much, though I was often irritated by his preju-
dices, and his strong language against this or that person or subject.
He was borne too, somewhat, in his interests, both on canvas and in
verse, and would not care for certain forms of literature and life
which he admitted were worth caring for. However, his talk was
always full of interest and of rare knowledge; and he himself, his

236 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

pictures, and his house, altogether, had I think an immense influence
for good on us all, and on English art and work — being not insular
yet not un-English, and bringing into our world new and delightful
subjects, and a personal character very striking and unusual and
loveable."

Mr. Swinburne remained in Tudor House for some con-
siderable while after Mr. Meredith had left. He composed
there the stupendous drama of Atalanta in Calydon, and
wrote or finished Chastelard, and much of the Poems and
Ballads (first series), and of William Blake, a Critical Essay.
I hardly remember whether he was still in the house when
the Poems and Ballads were published, 1866, and (amid the
leers and the yells of British respectability) immediately
withdrawn. If not then resident in the house, he was con-
tinually looking in there, and (I need not say) was received
with all the welcome of long-standing friendship, and of
admiration for astonishing genius and attainment. Ultimately
it suited both himself and Rossetti that his quarters should
be fixed elsewhere. One element in the case was that the
painter's professional income continued to augment from year
to year, and he no longer found any advantage in getting
friends to share the expense of the house.

In the summer of 1862 both Ruskin and Burne-Jones
were abroad in Italy. Ruskin was out of health and out
of spirits owing to vexations with his studies in Political
Economy. In July he wrote to my brother from Milan : —

" I do trust that henceforward I may be more with you, as I am
able now better to feel your great powers of mind, and am myself
more in need of the kindness with which they are joined. I've
been thinking of asking if I could rent a room in your Chelsea
house."

I cannot say what answer my brother returned to this
friendly, and in some respects attractive, proposal. Clearly
the house was sufficiently full as it was ; and, so far as I
recollect, no more was heard of Mr. Riiskin as a possible
inmate.

SETTLING IJN CHEYNE WALK. Itf

Mr. Jones wrote to Rossetti from Venice : —

" The other day I saw a letter of Titian's. The handwriting was,
absolutely, exactly like yours, as like as a forged letter of yours could
be ; the whole writing a little bit bigger, I think, but the shapes of
the letters as exact as could be." x

In a letter written by my brother soon before he left
Lincoln's Inn Fields for Cheyne Walk, 21 August, I find
the first mention of a painter with whom he soon became
very familiar, Mr. Whistler. For several years ensuing they
were on terms which, partaking of real friendliness, were
more especially of great good-fellowship. This must have
continued till 1872, when there was a wide gap in Rossetti's
London associations. After that date the two saw little —
and at last nothing — of one another. Through Mr. Whistler,
Rossetti after a while came to know the distinguished painter
from Dijon, Alphonse Legros, who later on held the office of
Slade-Professor in the London University for some years.
This also was an intimate connexion, but terminated earlier
than that with Whistler himself. Another letter belonging
to 1862 shows that my brother was then about to engage a
professional assistant, Mr. W. J. Knewstub, who housed with
him for a year or two, preparing duplicates of pictures, and
aiding him in various ways. Mr. Knewstub's chief tendency
at this time — not of direct service to Rossetti — was as a
sketcher of comic or humorous subjects, for which he had a
ready gift ; later on, as a painter chiefly in water-colours, he
developed marked colourist talent. He and Rossetti were
always on pleasant terms together.

A painter who seeks the help of an assistant must be
supposed to be in good employ. Such was already the case
with Rossetti, as soon as he began to settle down after his

1 If Sir E. Burne-Jones formed a correct opinion as to this letter from
Titian, the handwriting of it must have differed entirely from that of
another letter by the great painter which I saw in the Venetian Exhibition
in London in 1895. In this last-named letter the writing is singularly pre-
cise and sharp, presenting no zoxt of resemblance to Rossetti's.

238 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

wife's death. He produced a good deal, and whatever he
produced, if not previously bespoken, was soon sold. It is
true he still was not always in command of ready money
when this was in requisition, and he continued at times to
have recourse to a convenient pawnbroker, or an accommo-
dating relative or intimate. But he was prospering, and
he prospered more and more, and might soon be regarded
as one of those (not too numerous) painters who make a
steady and very sufficient income. What he received he
liked to spend. Money never clung to his fingers, nor rested
in his pocket, and he never either accumulated or invested.
A letter of his, dated in June 1867, shows that even then
he had no banking account, which seems surprising enough.
How soon afterwards he began one I am not sure, but it
was well before 1872. Had the will been there, the power
of adding money to money would easily have come. It
should in justice be added that, if he was indulgent to
himself, he was also liberal and even generous to others.

XXVII.

WORK FROM 1862 TO 1868.

I HAVE lumped together here no less than seven years, when
my brother's powers — though somewhat less developed than
they afterwards became in the direction of abstract style —
■ were truly at their best. The dates extend from the beginning
of his widowerhood to the time when, from various causes, a
rather serious decline in his health set in. I shall name the
several works (and there were of course many others) under
the headings of Oil-pictures, Water-colours, and Designs, each
class in order of date, and shall append a few details, such
as my plan admits of.

Oil-pictures. — Joan of Arc (kissing the sword of deliverance) ;
Helen of Troy; Beata Beatrix; Aurelia (called also Fazio's
Mistress, but this title was finally rejected by Rossetti as
inapposite) ; The Beloved, or The Bride (from the Song of

WORK FROM 1862 TO 1 868. 239

Solomon) ; The Boat of Love (monochrome — from a sonnet
in the Vita Nuovd) ; Lilith ; Venus Verticordia ; The Blue
Bower ; 7/ Ramoscello (or Bellebuond) ; Portrait of his Mother ;
The Loving-cup ; Sibylla Palmifera ; Manna Vanna (called
also Belcolore) ; Mrs. William Morris ; La Pia (from Dante's
Purgatorid).

Water-colours. — Paolo and Fraucesca, triptych (the best
version of this subject, belonging to Mr. Leathart) ; Heart of
the Night (or Mariana in the Moated Grange) ; Monna Pomona ;
The First Madness of Ophelia ; Socrates taught to dance by
Aspasia ; Washing Hands ; The Return of Tibullus to Delia ;
Tristram and Yseult drinking the Love-potion ; La Bionda del
Balcone ; Rosa Triplex.

Designs. — Designs for Christina Rossetti's poem, The
Prince s Progress ; Portrait of Christina (head poised on ,
hands) ; Michael Scott's Wooing ; Aspecta Medusa ; Head of
Madox Brown ; Aurea Catena (has sometimes been incor-
rectly named La Pia) ; Orpheus and Eurydice.

Nothing that my brother produced was, to my mind, more
thoroughly satisfactory than the [o an of Arc — the oil-picture
which was sold to Mr. Anderson Rose, and by him re-sold
not many years afterwards. It is somewhat singular that
this head was painted from a German (not a French) woman —
named, if I remember right, Mrs. Beyer. She had one of the
most classically correct and strongest profiles that one could
see anywhere. Something of the same kind might be said of
the English original of Helen of Troy — a face less heroically
but not less exactly moulded. Beata Beatrix — a reminiscence
of the painter's lost wife, pourtrayed with perfect fidelity out
of the inner chambers of his soul — is now in the National
Gallery, the gift of Lady Mount-Temple. It was less well re-
peated on commission more than once, but always reluctantly.
Though I have called this a " reminiscence " of his wife, it is I
believe a fact that some preparation for the picture had been
made during her lifetime, perhaps as far back as 1856. Aurelia,
a small half-figure of a lady at her toilet, is one of the most
finished specimens of Rossetti's execution. The Beloved is

540 t)ANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTf.

by many persons accounted his very best work. I would not
call it the best in the sense of being better than any other ;
but, in balanced brilliancy of colour, sweetness and variety
of facial type, and first salient and not the less permanent
impression of manifest and triumphant beauty, it certainly
yields to none. Monna Vanna (belonging to the same
purchaser, Mr. George Rae) has also and deservedly been
a great general favourite. The Boat of Love, now in the
Birmingham Art-Gallery, was a preparation for a full-coloured
picture, never executed, owing partly to fast-and-loose pro-
ceedings on the part of an intending purchaser in these same
years. The Blue Bower, a female half-figure done with more
than wonted rapidity, is perhaps the most forcible piece of
colour and handling that Rossetti ever produced (or may
share that praise with La Bella Mano), as the Ramoscello is
in all respects one of the most delicate. The Portrait of
Mrs. Morris, in a gown of sumptuous blue, rivals The Blue
Bower for vigour, and far exceeds it in tone of feeling. Lilith
and Sibylla Pahnifera are both works of thought as well as
matured skill, and stand recorded in the painter's sonnets as
Body's Beauty and Soul's Beauty. L.a Pia was only begun
in 1868. It was then set aside for several years, and not
completed until 1881.

Among the water-colours I may specify as exceptionally
successful the Paolo and Francesca ; the Heart of the Night,
which is the same design as in the Tennyson woodcut ; and
the Tristram and Yseult. The Return of Tibullus to Delia
is also one of Rossetti's best considered and most energetic
designs. Washing Hands — a lady, with her lover no longer
favoured — is noticeable as being one of the very few subjects
which he treated in the costume of the eighteenth century.
The Dr. Johnson group seems to be the only other such
coloured work that is known to me. Equally out of his
ordinary line is Socrates taught to dance by Aspasia. I recall
very well a sketch made of this subject, and a very sprightly
one it was, but I doubt whether I ever saw the water-colour.

The design of Michael Scott's Wooing was frequently in

WORK FROM 1862 TO 1 868. 24I

Rossetti's head, and every now and then tried by his hand
in different compositions. Aspecta Medusa (Perseus allowing
Andromeda to contemplate, reflected in a tank, the severed
head of Medusa) was also designed more than once. But the
courage of the proposing purchaser failed him — he thought
the subject too " horrid " — and this again swelled the over-
long list of paintings which my brother did not do.

In Section XX., speaking of Mrs. William Morris, I
have referred to the equally frequent and erroneous assertion
that this lady constituted Rossetti's one sole type of facial
beauty. This allegation is not only absurdly incorrect, but
it amounts to a depreciation of his art. It implies that he was
far more monotonous than he really was, and also that he had
little or no discrimination as to the type which would be the
most suitable according to diversity of subject and treatment.
I have elsewhere1 said something on that ill-understood or
ill-reported matter ; and I will now, without re-producing my
previous words, enter rather more at large upon the same
topic. This furnishes, besides the direct object, an oppor-
tunity of saying something collectively about various persons
who ought not to pass unmentioned. I shall confine myself
chiefly, yet not rigidly, to oil-pictures.

Rossetti began painting in 1848 ; and it is of course impos-
sible that in the early years of his practice he should ever
have painted from Mrs. Morris, whom he did not see until
late in 1857. We have noticed before that his sister Christina
sat for Mary in The GirlJiood of Mary Virgin, and in Ecce
Ancilla Domini ; his wife for Beatrice in a number of instances,
and for Princess Sabra — and for very many other figures as
well ; Mrs. Hannay for Beatrice in the water-colour of Danle's
Dream ; Mrs. Beyer for Joan of Arc; Mrs. H. for Bocca
Baciata. The latter also sat for the woman in Found,
Aurelia, The Blue Bower, and The Loving Cup, and in the
first instance for Lilith ; but another head — that of Miss Alexa
Wilding, soon to be mentioned — was, after an interval of

1 In the Art-Journal lox June 1884 — Article, Notes on Rossetti and his
Works.

VOL. I. 16

242 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

years, substituted in Lilith, and, to my thinking, very dis-
advantageous^ so.

I proceed to other sitters not as yet mentioned. For The
Magdalene at the Door of Simon the Pharisee, and for Helen
of Troy, an Englishwoman sat, remarkable for beauty, but
not for depth of expression. Her head appears also in the
water-colour, just mentioned, of Dante's Dream. In The
Beloved the chief head is from a young woman who was in
much request at that time among various artists. She had
a Scotch name, I think Mackenzie. This is one of the very
few instances in which my brother painted an important head
from a professional model, and, as an exceptional case, the
experiment was conspicuously successful. The dark woman
to the spectator's right is a pure-blooded gipsy, named
Keomi, who became known to my brother through Mr.
Sandys. To the left is a pretty face, of an espiegle rather than
an exalted order — Ellen Smith, whom Rossetti pourtrayed
several times, beginning not long after he first knew Mr.
Boyce. With Sibylla Palmifera we come to Miss Alexa
Wilding, a damsel of respectable parentage whom he saw
casually in the street, in April 1865, and whom he at once
determined to paint from, were it at all possible — which it
proved to be. Having thus found a head of fine and rather
peculiar mould, eminently strong in contour and also capable
of much varying expression, which he regarded as almost a
sine qua non, Rossetti resolved to secure Miss Wilding to his
own canvases, and with this object he paid her a regular
annual salary, which went on for a long time. He was more
than commonly indisposed, and many artists are to some
extent the same, to share his discovery with any others, even
of his intimates. Her face re-appears in Regina Cordium (ot
which I have seen an unsuccessful woodcut — the same title
was bestowed upon two or three other pictures from different
sitters), in Monna Vanna, Rosa Triplex, the oil-painting of
Dante's Dream (the lady at the foot of the bed), Veronica
Veronese, The Blessed Damozel, La Ghirlandata, The Roman
Widow, La Bella Mano, and The Sea-spell. The last six of

WORK FROM 1862 TO 1 868. 243

these works were executed at a date beyond the latest, 1!
which is properly covered by my present section ; but, for
our immediate purpose, that cannot be helped. It will be
observed that Rossetti did not see Miss Wilding until several
years after he had known Mrs. Morris ; and this large
number of paintings from the former — not to speak of a
number of minor productions with or without colour — is of
itself enough to show that he was far from confining his
pictorial study to the wife of the poet of The Earthly Para-
dise. Venus Verticordia was painted from yet another person
— a remarkably handsome cook whom he met in the street ;
Monna Pomona from a Scotch girl, Jessie — a damsel of no
rigid virtue who had a most energetic as well as beautiful pro-
file, not without some analogy to that of the great Napoleon.
// Ramoscello is a portrait of a daughter of one of his best
purchasers and friends, Mr. William Graham, M.P. for Glas-
gow. Mrs. Stillman — a celebrated beauty, and the most
cordial, accomplished, and amiable of ladies, herself a very
elegant painter, daughter of Mr. Spartali, Consul-General for
Greece — appears in the figure at the bed's head in the oil-
painting of Dante s Dream, and in the Vision of Fiammetta.
I seem to see also, in The Roman Widow, almost as much of
her head as of Miss Wilding's. Mrs. Stillman had a rather
younger sister, Christine (who became the Countess Edmond dc
Cahen). She also was a beauty, but in a way less sympathetic
to Rossetti, who did not, I think, ever draw from her. The
sisters became known to him through Brown, who super-
intended the artistic studies of the elder Miss Spartali. Mrs.
Sumner, a daughter-in-law of a late Archbishop of Canterbury,
was the original of the oil-painting (left unfinished) of
Domizia Scaligera, and of some other heads produced
towards 1876. The ideal women of Rossetti were, as a rule,
always tall and stately persons, and with Mrs. Sumner this
was especially the case. The pleasant simple picture called
Fleurs de Marie was done from the niece of the gardener at
Kelmscott Manor-house — a dwelling to be mentioned in the
sequel.

244 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

I have here specified no fewer than seventeen female sitters
from whom important heads were painted, some of them
known before Mrs. Morris, and some afterwards. One of
them, Miss Wilding, seems to have sat at least as often as
Mrs. Morris for coloured, and barely less often for uncoloured,
works. To read this account of the facts, and to persist
afterwards in saying that Rossetti had only one model and
one ideal, would be a case of wilful uncandour. In affirming
this, I do not wish at all to derogate from the widespread
belief that, in the extraordinarily impressive — the profound
and abstract — type of beauty of Mrs. Morris, he found an
ideal more entirely responsive than any other to his aspira-
tion in art. It seemed a face created to fire his imagination,
and to quicken his powers — a face of arcane and inexhaustible
meaning. To realize its features was difficult ; to transcend
its suggestion, impossible. There was one fortunate circum-
stance— if you could but represent its appearance, you stood
thereby already high in the region of the typical or symbolic.
For idealizing there was but one process — to realize. I will
not conceal my opinion that my brother succeeded where few
painters would have done other than fail ; he did some
genuine justice to this astonishing countenance.

As we have seen, Miss Burden — -before she became Mrs.
Morris — obliged Rossetti by sitting for several heads while
he was working in Oxford in and about 1857. In her earlier
married days she sat also for the Madonna in the Llandaff
Triptych, and for one or two heads of Beatrice. At the
beginning of 1862 Rossetti was bereft for ever of another
exquisite type of beauty — the pure loveliness and self-with-
drawn suavity of his wife's face, as little matchable, in its
very different way, as that of Mrs. Morris. Still an interval
of years ensued ; and (so far as I trace) it was only in 1868
that Mrs. Morris re-commenced to favour him with sittings.
To this year appertain the oil portrait of her, and La Pia,
and the crayon heads named Aurea Catena and Reverie.
Numerous other examples followed. Some of the crayon
heads or half-figures are unsurpassed amid Rossetti's work,

WORK FROM 1862 TO 1 868. 245

both as consummate likenesses, and as achievements in art ;
but I will only name the oil- pictures — Pandora, Mariana
(with the Page singing), Dante s Dream (the head of Beatrice),
Proserpine, Water-willow (which is practically a portrait),
Venus Astarte, Mnemosyne (which was originally intended for
Hero, with her signal-lamp for Leander), La Donna della
Finestra, The Daydream, and The Salutation of Beatrice (left
rather less than completed at my brother's death).

It is apparent that Rossetti — although, as previously
demonstrated, he did not by any means confine himself to
the head of Mrs. Morris as his type — found this countenance
available for subjects of very diverse kinds. And so indeed it
is. For a Pia, Pandora, Mariana, Proserpine, Venus Astarte, or
Mnemosyne, there was hardly such another head to be found
in England. For a Madonna, a Beatrice, a Daydream, or a
Donna della Finestra (from the Vita Nuova — the same per-
sonage as " The Lady of Pity," so designated in some other
works by Rossetti), a different head might have been equally
appropriate in essence, and, to some eyes and from some
points of view, even more appropriate : but, as apprehended and
treated by Rossetti, both the mould of face and the expres-
sion educed from it seem to be " in choral consonancy " with
the personages, and to leave nothing at which a reasonable
mind can cavil. The works are there to tell their own tale.
Any one who dissents from my view will abide undis-
turbed in his own. Of course I am not here speaking of any
executive merit or demerit in the pictures, but only of the
selection and application of the type.

As to male sitters — professional hired models — Rossetti
considered that those of Italian nationality were, as a rule,
preferable to all others. He used an expression to Christina
which I have often heard her quote with a laugh : " An
Italian comes to your studio, and he looks to you very like a
Guy Fawkes ; but, when you set about drawing him, you find
that he is much more like the Antinous."

These considerations about sitters for my brother's works
have led me a long way beyond our present limit of date,

246 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

and indeed on to the very end of his life. I must now recur
to matters proper to the years 1 862-68.

For Dante Rossetti to figure as the correspondent of any
newspaper was a rare thing. An occasion did however arise
on 15 October 1865, when he wrote to the Athenaeum to
correct a misapprehension into which that paper had fallen,
as to his being practically a water-colour painter who only
at times worked in oils. He considered it to be " of great
professional importance to him " that the point should be
rightly understood ; and explained that, having originally
appeared as an oil-painter, and never having abandoned that
medium although he had sometimes worked in water-colour,
he had " now, for a good many years past," reverted to oil
for " all his chief works."

Another matter of technical practice is brought out in an
interesting way in a paper which my brother's intimate friend
Mr. Frederick J. Shields, the distinguished painter, contributed
to The Century-Guild Hobby-Horse (No. 18). Mr. Shields
may have been known to Rossetti before 1864, but I cannot
fix the precise year. My brother always valued much the
works of this artist, and held him in the highest esteem as a
devout-natured man of the strictest principle and the warmest
feeling ; the bond between the two friends being singularly
close in the last four or five years of my brother's life, when
Shields became his frequent and unflagging visitor, sparing
no effort to keep him in heart and hope. Mr. Shields, it
seems, had towards 1864 lit upon a certain French "com-
pressed charcoal," which he approved, and showed to
Rossetti. The latter at once adopted this material alone for all
his larger studies, which were altogether very numerous, and
as high in quality as anything he produced, and many of them
done in varying tints. When the Franco-German war broke
out in 1870 — "this truly atrocious and insufferable war," as
Rossetti called it in writing to Shields — that chalk became
unprocurable, and it has never again been in the market.
Fortunately Rossetti had previously laid-in a large stock of it,
which he continued using, and even at his death it was not

WORK FROM l862 TO 1 868. 247

nearly exhausted. Mr. Shields describes with some minute-
ness the method adopted by Rossetti in the execution of his
crayon-drawings — crayon-pictures several of them might
deservedly be called ; and he remarks that these works can
easily be marred if taken out of their protecting glass. Mr.
Shields's particulars are well worthy of the attention of
artists ; and, were my Memoir more closely concerned with
details of technique, they should here be summarized.

In these years, lasting up to 1868, the circle of the
purchasers of Rossetti's works got pretty nearly completed.
Ruskin was no longer among them, nor yet Boyce ; Anderson
Rose ceased for the time to be in a position to continue ;
McCracken and Plint, both of them for a while mainstays of
my brother's fortunes, were dead. I have heretofore had
occasion to mention Mr. Leathart of Newcastle (afterwards
of Gateshead), Mr. Rae of Birkenhead, and Mr. Graham of
Glasgow and London. These three were kind and pleasant
friends, as well as steady liberal purchasers. They all proved
to be discerning judges of works of art, and my brother could
safely commit to their hands anything that he produced —
satisfied that, if he himself had ground to be fairly content
with it, their sympathy would rival or even exceed his own.
The same may be said of Mr. Frederick R. Leyland, a wealthy
ship-owner of Liverpool, and of Mr. L. R. Valpy, a London
solicitor, both of whom seem to have begun commissioning
towards the middle of 1867. Mr. Graham came later — about
the close of 1868. There were also Mr. Mitchell of Bradford,
who bought the Venus Verticordia ; Mr. Craven of
Manchester, who bought the Tibullus and Delia, and a large
number of other works ; Lord Mount-Temple, owner of the
Beata Beatrix ; Colonel Gillum, for water-colours and drawings ;
Mr. Trist, a wine-merchant at Brighton ; Mr. Gambart, the
great picture-dealer, who, after surmounting some tiffs over
the affairs of the Plint estate, took several of Rossetti's works ;
and some others as well, whom I do not stay to particularize.
In course of time the principal collections of Rossetti's art
came to be those of Leyland, Graham, and Rae. The former

248 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTl.

two have now been dispersed. With the exception of Mr.
Rae and Mr. Leathart, I am not certain that there is now any-
single person owning a large number of the paintings. In the
way of studies and sketches Mr. Charles Fairfax Murray, of
London and Florence, is well provided.

My brother had not been long settled in Cheyne Walk
before he began to find that his studio was below the range
of his requirements. As a room it was commodious and
ample, but it was not properly a studio. He cast about for
various expedients, consulting his friend the architect Mr.
Philip Webb. At one time an iron studio in the large garden
was thought of; at another, a more solid structure in the
same space ; at another, the resumption of a biggish set of
cab-stables which formed part of the property, and their
conversion into a studio. Finally all these more speculative
projects were given up, and my brother was contented to
carry out a fair amount of alteration in the lighting etc. of
his existing studio-apartment. This was in 187 1. It served
his turn reasonably well, though never quite satisfactory ;
and, in spite of occasional schemes of a total change of
residence, he went on upon this plan up to the close of his
life.

Rossetti's art-assistant, Mr. Knewstub, left him after a
while, to try his own independent fortunes as a painter ; and
Mr. Henry Treffry Dunn (who became known to my brother
through Mr. Charles Augustus Howell, to be hereafter named)
was engaged in his stead. Mr. Dunn had1 a good deal of
artistic experience and aptitude, and proved to be of no
small service to Rossetti, both in matters of art, and also,
as he was a steady-going man of business, in the general
management of the house. He ceased to be an inmate in
1 88 1, but remained in communication with my brother.

The money-affairs of Rossetti, having once become pro-

1 I speak of Mr. Dunn in the past tense, but not as implying that he is
no longer alive. I believe him to be alive ; but regret to say that, from
the year 1884 or thereabouts, I have not seen and have seldom heard
of him.

Work from 1862 to 1868. 249

sperous, continued to be so increasingly for many years ; and
indeed, notwithstanding some interruptions from ill-health or
the fluctuations of the picture-market, they never declined
seriously up to the last. He earned what may be called a
large income. From notes made at the time I find that in
1865 he realized about £2,050 ; in 1866, upwards of £1,080 ;
in 1867, little or not at all less than £3,000. At this last
date he still owed about £1,000 in one quarter or another.
In one of the Family-letters, 29 April 1876, it will be seen
that he had made £3,725 in the preceding twelvemonth, and
that he regarded this as about his then average. I surmise,
however, that it was seldom if ever reached again. For a
non-exhibiting painter, selling his works in a somewhat close
circle of friends, and (though he was not at all a recluse until
a late date in his life) mixing little in general society, this
was really a surprising success. It could not have been
attained if he had been other than an exceedingly discerning
man in the conduct of his professional affairs. Eulogist and
detractor alike confess that there was no better hand at a
bargain. I incline to think that, on the principle of " diamond
cut diamond," this was one of the reasons why Rossetti was
in such special favour with Mr. Leyland, of whom Mr. Prinsep
testifies " it was the one real friendship of his life." No
keener man of business existed than Leyland ; and he may
have relished — and partly disrelished — finding in Rossetti a
foeman or a friend worthy of his steel. My brother under-
stood how far he could go — so far he went ; and, having
fixed the terms, he knew how to stick by them, unregardful
of dubiety or demur. He was abundantly popular, as well
as most warmly admired, not only by Mr. Leyland, but
generally within his own circle. His naturalness, heartiness,
and good-humour were a standing passport to cordiality ;
and to these endowments, combined with nous, something
was probably conceded which would have been denied to the
mere trafficker in paint. A business-man who is a picture-
buyer — and for the last half-century almost all our picture-
buyers have been business-men — has his weak side, and, so

250 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

far as his relation to art goes, he feels it a privilege to be
made free of the art-precincts, and promoted into the intimacy
of a great or a distinguished painter. He is apt to find the
world of art much more entertaining than the world of
commerce ; and, while pluming himself upon having converse
with persons whose names are in all men's mouths, he can
still feel that, in a certain sense, he himself " rules the roast,"
as all these fine performances would collapse without a
purchaser to sustain them. No one knew this better than
Rossetti. His net was spread in the sight, but not too
obviously in the sight, of several birds. Of the least tinge
of servility he was by his very nature — but this I need hardly
say — incapable.

Of literary product in these times there was but little.
The poems lay buried in Highgate Cemetery, and for some
years no more were written, and no .thoughts of poetic
publicity entertained. So far as I observe, the first fresh
verses which he wrote were for his design, Aspecta Medusa
— eight lines — in 1865. In January 1868 he wrote a
sonnet for his picture of Venus Verticordia, followed by
a Latin distych for his Portrait of Mrs. Morris, and in
December by his sonnets named Willozv-wood (and he then
declared that he ought never to have been a painter,
but rather a poet), and by the sonnet Newborn Death. In
prose, as far back as 1862-63, he had done a good deal of
work upon the Blake book which Alexander Gilchrist had
left not quite completed. The amount of what he wrote for
insertion in the text of the Life has sometimes been over-
rated. Its sum-total appears in his Collected Works. Besides
this, he edited, with a great deal of pains as well as of insight,
the poetical compositions of Blake. I will extract, from the
volume Anne Gilchrist, two of Rossetti's utterances, both
quite characteristic : —

" I am working closely this morning at the concluding chapter, in
hope of sending it off to-night, or, if not, certainly to-morrow. I was
delayed by the necessity I found of going to the Print-room [of the

INCIDENTS, 1862— 1868. 251

British Museum] to study Blake's coloured works there, as all I
could think of was to dwell on some of these. Facts, and descrip-
tions of facts, are in my line ; but to talk about a thing merely is
what I could never well manage.

" I really found it impossible to know what to say more of the
poems, individually ; but am sincerely of the opinion I express in
the text as to the uselessness of doing so. The truth is that, as
regards such a poem as My Spectre, I do not understand it a bit
better than anybody else ; only I know, better than some may know,
that it has claims as poetry apart from the question of understanding
it, and is therefore worth printing."

XXVIII.

INCIDENTS, 1862— 1868.

It has often been stated that my brother, at Cheyne Walk,
kept from time to time a large number of animals. This is
entirely true. Being fond of " beasts," and having a large
garden, with plenty of space for accommodating them either
in the open or in corners partitioned off, he freely indulged
his taste. He had no particular liking for an animal on the
mere ground of its being " pretty " — his taste being far more
for what is quaint, odd, or semi-grotesque. Dante's specimens
of fauna however were often very sightly, as also often
funny and out-of-the-way. I will name some, as they happen
to come ; others have passed from memory into the limbo of
oblivion.

There were a Pomeranian puppy named Punch, a grand
Irish deerhound named Wolf, a barn-owl named Jessie,
another owl named Bobby (described by Christina as "a
little owl with a very large face and a beak of a sort of egg-
shell green "), rabbits, dormice, hedgehogs, two successive
wombats, a Canadian marmot or woodchuck, an ordinary
marmot, armadilloes, kangaroos, wallabies, a deer, a white
mouse with her brood, a racoon, squirrels, a mole, peacocks,
wood-owls, Virginian owls, Chinese horned owls, a jackdaw,
laughing jackasses (Australian kingfishers), undulated grass-

252 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTt.

parrakeets, a talking grey parrot, a raven, chameleons, green
lizards, and Japanese salamanders.1

Persons who are familiar with the management of pets will
easily believe that several of these animals came to a bad
end. Punch the puppy would get lost ; one or other bird
would get drowned ; the dormice would fight and kill one
another, or would eat up their own tails, and gradually perish ;
Wolf the deerhound could get no adequate exercise, and was
given away ; the parrakeets were, neglected at some time that
Rossetti was absent from home, and on his return they were
found dead. Other animals, owing to their burrowing or
reclusive habits, disappeared. An armadillo was not to be
found ; and the tale went — I believe it to be not far from true
— that, having followed his ordinary practice of burrowing,
he turned up from under the hearthstone of a neighbour's
kitchen, to the serious dismay of the cook, who opined that,
if he was not the devil, there was no accounting for what he
could possibly be. The racoon, as winter set in, made up his
mind to hibernate. He ensconced himself in a drawer of a
large heavy cabinet which stood in the passage outside the
studio-door. The drawer was shut upon him, without his
presence in it transpiring, and after a while he was supposed
to be finally lost to the house. When spring ensued, many
mysterious rumbling or tramping or whimpering noises were
heard in the passage, or in the studio as coming from the
passage. My brother mentioned them to me more than once,
and was ready to regard them as one more symptom, by no
means the first or only one, that the house was haunted. At
last, and I think by mere casualty, the drawer was opened,
and the racoon emerged, rather thinner than at his entry.
What the other stories of ghosts about the old mansion

1 Some years ago two or three amusing and authentic articles on
Rossetti's "beasts" appeared in some journal — I forget its name. I have
the articles somewhere, but have not succeeded in laying hands upon
them, to be consulted for my present purpose. I think it manifest that
the author of them must be my brother's art-assistant, Mr. Henry Treffry
Dunn.

INCIDENTS, 1862 — 1868. 253

amounted to I have mainly forgotten, but am aware that a
servant, a sufficiently strong-minded young woman, saw a
spectre by a bed-room door in November 1870. The ghost,
according to Miss Caine, " was a woman, and appeared some-
times at the top of the second flight of stairs. She retreated
to the room overlooking the Embankment." My brother
never beheld any such miscellaneous ghosts, nor did the
idea of them disturb him in any sort of way, although in
this and other instances he was not at all hostile to the
notion that they might possibly be there. I will not here
start the question whether a belief in ghosts is in itself
evidence of unreason ; but I will say that, after making
allowance for belief in their possibility, my brother's attitude
of mind on the subject was not unreasonable, as he thought
that, assuming their existence, they are just as much a part
of the scheme of Nature and the Universe as any other part,
and therefore not to be regarded with mere panic. A disem-
bodied spirit is the same, mutatis mutandis, as an embodied one.
The beasts upon which Dante's affections were prodigalized
were the first wombat and his successor the woodchuck.
The second wombat, having died immediately, counts for
little. No more engagingly lumpish quadruped than the
first wombat could be found, and none more obese and
comfortable than the woodchuck. They were both tame,
especially the woodchuck ; and Dante would sit with either
in his arms by the half-hour together, dandling them paunch
upward, scratching gently at their cheeks or noses, or making
the woodchuck's head and hind-paws meet. With the wombat
ho such operation was possible. Each of them was his house-
mate for some time, and each expired without premonition. I
do not assume that my brother wept over them, but certainly
" his heart was sair." For the wombat (not having yet seen
it) he wrote from Penkill Castle the following quatrain : —

" Oh how the family affections combat
Within this heart, and each hour flings a bomb at
My burning soul ! Neither from owl nor from bat
Can peace be gained until I clasp my wombat."

2 54 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

The matutinal screeching of one or more of Rossetti's
peacocks proved so afflictive to his neighbours that Lord
Cadogan, the Ground-landlord, afterwards introduced into
all Cheyne Walk leases, as has been stated on good authority,
a clause to the effect that the tenants were not to keep any
peacocks. Here, extracted from my Diary for December
1 87 1, is a curious anecdote about the peacock, which may
perhaps deserve a moment's attention : —

" The deer that Gabriel used to have, now dead, one day saw the
peacock making a great display of his train. . . . The deer followed
him about ; and, though not displaying any peculiarly marked ill-will,
systematically trampled out all his train feathers, one after the other.
Shortly after this, Gabriel gave the peacock away."

There was one of Rossetti's animals — a zebu, or small
Brahmin bull — as to which some burlesque particulars have
got into print. Mr. Knight relates the story, giving as his
authority Mr. Whistler, who is just the man (and so Mr.
Knight puts it) for a few humorous embellishments. Mr.
Prinsep also relates it to nearly the same effect, and he gives
Rossetti himself as his authority. The zebu was seen by
my brother and myself, perhaps in 1863, m a beast-show held
in Cremorne Gardens. He was a beautiful animal, not larger
than a pony of small size. My brother wanted to buy him
for some £20, and I co-operated. All that I remember about
the subsequent circumstances is the following. The zebu
was brought to Tudor House, and charged at a fine pace
through the passage into the garden. There he was tethered
to a tree by Rossetti's man-servant. My brother, after a day
or two, was engaged in inspecting him, when the zebu, more
or less irritated by confinement, went in a hostile mood
towards the painter, who naturally dodged round the tree-
trunk. As this experience showed that the zebu was not
a convenient tenant for the garden, Rossetti re-sold him, and
he departed in peace. I question whether the animal " tore
up by the roots the tree to which it was attached," though it
did display a large amount of physical strength ; or that it

INCIDENTS, 1862 — 1868. 255

" chased its tormentor round the garden," in any sense rightly-
belonging to these words. I was not however present on the
occasion, and cannot aver that I even saw the zebu after he
had once entered the premises.

I have just been referring to the superstitious or semi-
superstitious traits in my brother's character, which were
very clearly marked. " Thirteen at table " was a contingency
which did not escape his notice. In a letter of his to Madox
Brown, dated in 1864, he authorizes his friend to bring, with
others, his younger daughter to a dinner, if Brown does not
mind the result of thirteen at table— and he was about the
last person to mind it. A later dinner was planned for
fourteen, which number was reduced to thirteen by a defec-
tion at the last moment, and Rossetti hurried away his
servant to catch a fourteenth somewhere or other. Mr. Bell
Scott says that " he began to call up the spirit of his wife by
table-turning," and relates an incident of the kind happening
in 1866; and he adds that "long before that year" my
brother had "gone into spiritualism." I cannot say with
accuracy how soon such attempts began. I myself witnessed
some in 1865, '66, '68, and '70. I will not enter into details,
but will only say that now and again demonstrations occurred
(especially some in which a Mr. Bergheim was concerned)
which astonished me not a little, and for which I was and
am unable to account ; at other times there were mere
confusion and cross-purposes. Although Rossetti was, as I
have already said, not plunged into monotonous gloom by
the death of his wife, the idea of her was in these years very
constantly present to him. Poignant memories and painful
associations were his portion ; and he was prone to think
that some secret might yet be wrested from the grave.

With the family of his deceased wife my brother did not
keep up any close personal relations, yet he did not entirely
lose knowledge of them. I observe that in August 1867 he
was sending ;£io to her brother Harry ; and evidence of like
kind goes on as late as 1878.

His general habits were social enough. He became a

256 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

member of the Garrick Club before 1865 ; afterwards of the
Arundel Club ; and, upon its foundation early in 1 866, of
the Burlington Fine Arts Club. This last membership he
(and also I) relinquished at the end of 1867, owing to the
expulsion — which was contrary to his sense of fair play, and
also to his individual liking — of a fellow-member, a painter
of much distinction. I do not give the name, nor other
particulars. The other memberships died out in course of
time — with no special reason except a change in habits and
interests on his part. At the Arundel Club he used to meet
Mr. Knight, Mr. Rose, and others with whom he was on very
easy terms. Here also he met Mr. W. S. Gilbert, who has
become the inexhaustible purveyor of laughter to two
continents. He did not take to Mr. Gilbert personally ; but,
when the Bab Ballads began appearing in Fun in 1867,
Rossetti was enormously tickled with their eccentricities of
humour and gymnastics of the ludicrous, and I have heard
him recite many of these examples of " excellent fooling "
in all sorts of companies. He was never tired of them, and
loud and contagious guffaws attested that neither were his
auditors tired. I mention this small matter, not so much for
its own sake as because it illustrates my brother's alacrity at
doing profuse justice to the talents even of a writer for whom
he neither professed nor felt the least predilection. Besides
his general sociality in these years — evidenced by liking to
see his friends about him, whether to dinner or otherwise,
and by going out to dine not unfrequently, which was
perhaps principally towards 1869 — my brother was really a
good-natured and even an accommodating host to some of
his familiars, when it served their convenience. Thus Mr.
Sandys became an established inmate of the house for about
a year and a quarter, terminating in the summer of 1867 ;
and another painter, Mr. George Chapman, who was in
serious ill-health and otherwise " out of luck," was there for
a shorter period, some three or four months. He died before
attaining middle age ; viewed by my brother with consider-
able regard for his facility of invention and grace in

INCIDENTS, 1862 — 1868. 257

portraiture, though his loose and haphazard methods of work
were often the subject of some amicable remonstrance.
Other friends of this period were Mr. and Mrs. Spartali and
their beautiful daughters ; some other members of the Greek
community in London, especially the Dilberoglues, and
various branches of the Itmides family ; Mr. Dodgson (the
" Lewis Carroll " of Alice in Wonderland), who, being a good
amateur photographer, took some few excellent likenesses
of Rossetti ; and Mr. Charles Fairfax Murray, who, when
a mere youth, became known to my brother as an artistic
aspirant, and who developed into a painter of good standing,
and a vendor and collector of works of art.

There was another young man who, at one time or other,
played a considerable part in Rossetti's life, and of whom it
may behove me here to say something definite. His name
was Charles Augustus Howell. He survived my brother, but
has been dead now some few years. It was in or about 1856
that I casually met a man of some twenty-five years of age,
of gentlemanly address, who had once been in the army.
I will designate him by his initials, J. F. H. (the name is not
Howell). Through me, and through his own rather pushing
ways, he became known to various members of my circle,
including my brother ; who, being kind-heartedly anxious to
help him out of circumstances of great money-embarrassment,
promoted his interests to the best of his power. J. F. H.
made acquaintance with Mr. Howell, an Anglo-Portuguese
young gentleman about seventeen years of age, and intro-
duced him to us ; a very well-grown, pleasant-spoken,
sprightly youth, looking some few years older than he then
was. After a while, but not until some mischief had been
done in attempts to serve him, J. F. H. was found by Howell
to be a very disgraceful character. Howell gave us notice
of this, and J. F. H. was abandoned to his fate — which
proved to be an equally dismal and well-deserved one. This
disclosure may have been towards the end of 1857. Mr.
Howell knew something (we did not) of the Italian patriot
Felice Orsini, who figures in most memories as more assassin

VOL. I. 17

258 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

than patriot, but in fact he was both ; and Howell was in
some way (but I am sure without any conscious connivance)
mixed up with the procuring or the dispatching of the
infernal machine or machines which in January 1858 Orsini
exploded against Napoleon III. ^Before the explosion took
place Howell had quitted England, and returned to his
family in Portugal. In 1864 ne was back in London ; and
he sought out my brother and myself, who had always liked
him, and felt much indebted to him for unmasking J. F. H.,
and so preventing us from continuing to countenance the
latter in any way.

London can have contained in 1864 few more agreeable
young men than Charles Augustus Howell. He united the
attractions of youthfulness and of aplomb. His face was
handsome though rather outre ; not a little like that of King
Philip IV. in the magnificent full-length by Velasquez in the
National Gallery, but superior in manliness, the expression of
talent, and hair which, being dark chestnut in tint, was free
from the vapid effeminacy which marks the flaxen locks of
Philip. Howell had seen a good deal of the world, had many
accomplishments and a ready insight in fine art, and was
a capital and most entertaining talker. He had not any
artistic faculty of his own ; but was nevertheless an excellent
facsimilist (and as such acknowledged by Ruskin) of water-
colours and the like. Throughout Rossetti's circle he at once
became a prime favourite. He thus formed the acquaintance
of Mr. Ruskin, who engaged him as his secretary, and who,
I believe, cherished him extremely for some while, and placed
the most implicit confidence in him. I am neither required
nor qualified to enter into an account of the relations between
Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Howell. I know that they came to a
close towards the end of 1870 ; and my impression is that a
highly distinguished friend of Rossetti, one who liked Howell
enormously at first, and disliked him intensely afterwards,
had something to do with this result. This change of feeling
put Rossetti into a position of embarrassment, between the
friend who wanted him to cut Howell, and Howell himself,

INCIDENTS, 1862— 1868. 259

who as yet continued to be much to his taste. Mr.
Collingwood, in his book on Ruskin,1 makes some statements
disadvantageous to Howell, impugning his honesty. As I
know nothing about the details, I will leave them as they
stand, and will also for the present leave Howell, who will
more than once re-appear as we proceed.

Mr. Bell Scott and his wife, leaving Newcastle-on-Tyne,
settled in London in 1864, and from this date forward
Rossetti saw his old friend frequently, and continued to value
him highly. He had visited Scott in Newcastle at the end of
1862, and then sat (to Mr. Downey) for that photograph
which is the best known of all his portraits — a standing
figure, three-quarters length, in an Inverness cape (or Tyneside
wrapper, as the garment was then frequently called). In the
autumn of 1863 he revisited with me a few Belgian cities ;
and in 1864 he was in Paris for a short while — I think, the
very last of his small foreign trips. Towards the same time
when Scott settled in London, another old friend, Thomas
Woolner, dropped out of Rossetti's circle — a matter which I
always deeply regretted. I cannot say that my brother was
to blame, although a person much more tolerant or much
meeker than he might have deserved commendation for
adopting a different course. He once gave me a very explicit
account of the facts, to the following effect. He was among
friends, talking of Woolner with his accustomed cordiality,
when one of them — the same whom, in referring to Howell, I
designated as " highly distinguished " — said to him, " I am
rather surprised to hear you speaking of Woolner in such
terms, for he, to my knowledge, speaks of you in very different
terms." This staggered Rossetti, who, pursuing the point,
became convinced that Woolner, not on one occasion only but
as the general tone of his speech when the subject arose,
talked of him in a way quite inconsistent with genuine regard,
or even with considerate allowance. That my brother had
his faults is amply true, and it is quite possible that what

1 Vol. ii., pp. 59-61, 115.

260 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Woolner commented upon with asperity were real faults,
and not vamped-up imputations ; but to Woolner himself
Rossetti had given no cause of complaint at any date, recent
or remote. My brother hereupon ceased to see Woolner ; he
got to regard him with antipathy, and sometimes to speak
of him with bitterness. The sculptor indeed was well known
for his biting tongue, and there were perhaps few of his
acquaintances who, present or absent, were not at some time
subjected to its sharpness. Some while afterwards — in 1868
— my brother dropped in to see me one evening, quickly
followed by Woolner (for I never myself was at variance with
him, although in the course of later years we drifted apart).
I viewed the encounter with some alarm ; but it passed off
without anything unpleasant, each of the two now sundered
friends treating the other with ease which faintly simulated
good-will. I was then in hopes that they might become
reconciled ; but no steps were taken by either with such an
object, and I imagine they never met again. Woolner did
indeed call at my brother's house in the summer of 1870; but
the latter on that day was " not at home " to any one, and he
did not hear of the visit until his once intimate comrade had
quitted his threshold.

From Mr. Ruskin also there was a most unfortunate
severance. The two men liked one another — at one time I
am sure they even loved one another— but ominous dis-
crepancies began to appear not very long after Rossetti had
settled in Cheyne Walk, and gradually these became irre-
mediable, or at any rate they remained unremedied. There
is a certain fatal divergence between an autocratic Mentor
who tells a painter what he ought and ought not to do, and
the painter himself, who, having an ardent invention, and
a decided opinion as to the range and the limitations of his
own powers of work, is expected to conform to the critic's
notions instead. It is notorious moreover — and therefore I
need not scruple to say it — that Mr. Ruskin's opinions as to
what is right or wrong, to be or not to be recommended, in
artistic execution, have differed very much at different times ;

INCIDENTS, 1862— 1868. 26l

and that, with characteristic but embarrassing candour, he
has unsaid in one year several things which he had said in
previous years. This may have suited himself, but cannot
be supposed to have suited the living subjects of his comments.
I have by me four letters from Mr. Ruskin to my brother,
proper to the summer of 1865 ; the fourth alone is dated —
18 July 1865. They must all have been consequent upon
his seeing, in the painter's studio, the picture of Venus
Verticordia, with its foreground of roses and honeysuckles.
They are somewhat long, and I only extract a few sentences
(not always consecutive in the letters themselves) to show
how matters stood : —

" (1) It is very good and pretty of you to answer so. You are, it
seems, under the (for the present) fatal mistake of thinking that you
will ever learn to paint well by painting badly — i.e., coarsely. But
come back to me when you have found out your mistake,, or (if you
are right in your method) when you can do better. I am very glad,
at all events, to understand you better than I did, in the grace and
sweetness of your letters. — (2) I purposely used the word ' wonder-
fully ' painted about those flowers. They were wonderful to me,, in
their realism ; awful — I can use no other word — in their coarseness.
Come and see me now, if you like. — (3) Please come now the first
fine evening — tea at seven. —(4) I am very grateful to you for this
letter, and for the feelings it expresses towards me. You meant
them — the first and second — just as rightly as this pretty third ; and
yet they conclusively showed me that we could not at present — nor
for some time yet— be companions any more, though true friends, I
hope, as ever. I do not choose any more to talk to you until you
can recognize my superiorities as / can yours. You simply do not
see certain characters in me. A day may come when you will be
able ; then — without apology, without restraint, merely as being
different from what you are now — come back to me, and we will be
as we used to be."

Two things are clear from these extracts : 1, That the tone
of Rossetti's letters was such as Ruskin did not, and probably
could not, complain of; 2, That Ruskin, after encouraging
Rossetti to call upon him at once, stringently forbade him

262 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

to do so. I will in no wise discuss whether Ruskin was right
or wrong in all this ; but of one thing we may be tolerably
certain — that Rossetti did not call upon him. I assume that
he did not in any way reply to the last letter.

The only sequel that I know of to this correspondence
of 1865 is that on 4 December 1866 I dined with Mr.
Ruskin and his family, by invitation, and a very pleasant
evening did I spend in the house. Ruskin expressed to me
a wish to resume seeing my brother, and I suggested whether
he would call in Cheyne Walk, and, if he did so, would be
cautious in avoiding any topic of possible irritation. On the
following day Ruskin did, in the friendliest spirit, make the
visit. I was not present, but learned that " all went off most
cordially — Ruskin expressing great admiration of the Beatrice
in a Death-trance " (Beata Beatrix), on which my brother was
then engaged. I am afraid however that this call was not
followed up in any sort of way. Rossetti, very likely, did
not return the visit — partly from general indisposition to any
such regulated performance, and partly apprehending that
some new cause of difficulty or dissension might arise. He
had better have risked the chance, and gone without delay.
I think that the very last occasion when the old friends met
was in September 1868. Ruskin then called on Rossetti,
and raised some question whether the latter would not join
him in efforts for social ameliorations on a systematic scale ;
but this was not the painter's line, and he did not take any
practical steps about it. After this, there was, to the best of
my belief, no further personal meeting. In August 1869 Mr.
Ruskin was elected Slade Professor of Fine Art in Oxford
University ; and his time was at first shared between London
and Oxford, and ultimately he settled in the latter city.
Anyhow a sad ending had come to a friendship which had
once been so affectionate, and which, in the annals of art,
might some day almost count as historical. At least, their
parting was not in anger. Moreover, up to 1870 or there-
abouts, my brother continued to hear a good deal about
Mr. Ruskin, as Mr. Howell remained as yet his secretary :

INCIDENTS, 1862— 1868. 263

and there is a letter from Ruskin to Rossetti, as late as
August 1870, perfectly amicable, and including a reference to
the Poems then published.

In these years Rossetti developed a kind of passion for
collecting curious objects of art — chairs and tables, cabinets,
hangings, looking-glasses (he had a special fancy for convex
mirrors), pictures in a very minor way, and most particularly
Japanese prints and oddities, and blue china, whether Japanese
or Chinese. With the European he never concerned himself.
He built up elaborate fireplaces in his house, with old carved
oak, antiquated Dutch tiles, and the like. He also raised in
his garden a large tent or marquee, in which we often dined
in the summer, beginning with 1868. A friendly rivalry
subsisted between Mr. Whistler and him, especially as to
China and Japan. There must of course have been in London
some fine collections of " blue china " before Rossetti's time.
Mr. Huth's collection was one ; but my brother's- zeal and
persistence were such as to send up prices in the market.
The well-known Art-dealers, Messrs Marks, acted for him in
many cases. One of his earliest purchases was that of the
whole collection of blue china formed by the retiring Italian
Ambassador, the Marquis d'Azeglio. Its cost to my brother
was I think ^"200. In March 1867 he bought of Messrs.
Marks two hawthorn-pots (Rossetti invented this name)
which, with their covers, cost him ^120. He paid in the form
of a picture, not of money down. In fact, what between free
expenditure and good taste in choice, he formed a very fine
display of blue china, which made his big sunlit drawing-
room a sight to see. As to " the Japanese mania," which has
by this time half-revolutionized European art of all kinds, I
hardly know what Londoner preceded Mr. Whistler and my
brother. They made bids against each other in Paris as well
as in London, and were possibly a little nettled to learn in
Paris that there was another painter — the renowned Tissot —
who outstripped them both in acquisition. Rossetti gave a
deal of time as well as energy to the collecting of china etc.
I have seen him come home late, rather fagged from his

264 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTl.

eager pursuit, with a cargo of blue either actually in hand
or ordered to arrive ; and, as he dropped into an easy-chair,
he called out " Pots, pots ! " with a thrilling accent. It spoke
at once of achievement and of despondency. Such may have
been the tone of Alexander of Macedon when he deplored
that there were no more worlds to conquer.

In the way of pictures his most notable purchase was a
moderate-sized Botticelli, obtained at Colnaghi's sale in
March 1867 for the small sum of £20 (towards 1880 he re-
sold it to a friend for £3 15) — a half-length figure, highly
characteristic of its painter, of a young woman in whitish
drapery, in a close architectural background. Botticelli was
little or not at all in demand at that now remote date. If
my brother had not something to do with the vogue which
soon afterwards began to attach to that fascinating master,
I am under a misapprehension.

In October 1869 I made a jotting : " The collecting-passion
seems extinct in Gabriel these several months." I cannot say
that it had not any recurrences from time to time ; but its
force was now spent, and never afterwards returned to a
like level.

XXIX.

BEGINNINGS OF ILL-HEALTH— PENKILL CASTLE.

DANTE ROSSETTl had naturally a strong constitution. His
muscular strength was only moderate, but neither in this
respect nor in others was he a weakling. He was not con-
stantly ailing, on and off, nor frequently laid aside from work
because the state of his health would not admit of his
attending to it. He had some decided illnesses, and every
now and then he was " out of sorts " — an indigestive or
feverish attack, a violent cold, or what not. On the whole
he was a healthy child and boy, and, up to the autumn of
1866, when his age was thirty-eight, a healthy man. Neither
should it be supposed that after that date he was continually

BEGINNINGS OF ILL-HEALTH — PENKILL CASTLE. 265

ill. In various respects he remained well ; and there were
intervals when one could hardly say that anything distinct
was amiss with him. He as yet bore attacks of illness well
enough — impatiently, as was his bent, but not querulously
nor faint-heartedly.

Towards the autumn of 1866 he became subject to a com-
plaint (I do not care to define it) which required surgical
treatment from time to time. The first instance was in August
1868. He minded this not at all ; and I have seen him resume
painting within five minutes of one of the slight operations.
But there was worse in store for him.

Insomnia began in 1867. Why did it begin? I consider
that painful thoughts, partly but not wholly connected with
his wife and her death, were at the root of it. Rossetti was
one of the worst men living to cope with this fell antagonist.
No doubt there must be some persons of a sedate or phlegmatic
temperament who will make up their minds to do with little
sleep if they cannot get much, and will wile away the sleepless
hours in some quiet occupation, such as reading ; or they may
even fully submit to the inconvenience, and simply make their
working day all the longer for the privation. Rossetti was
not one of these, unhappily for himself. His active imagina-
tion gave him no respite ; and to be sleepless was to be
agitated and miserable and haggard as well. Haunted by
memories, harried by thoughts and fantasies, he tossed and
turned on the unrestful bed.

Towards the end of the summer of 1867 his eyesight began
to fail. Sunlight or artificial light became increasingly pain-
ful to him, producing sensations of giddiness etc. Even the
gas-lamps in the streets affected him distressingly. He
consulted the famous oculists, Sir William Bowman and Dr.
Bader. They both assured him that his eyes were not organi-
cally wrong, but that the weakness of sight depended upon
general overstrain and nervous upset. He also consulted Sir
William Gull and Mr. Marshall, and later on (1870) Dr.
Critchett, who confirmed the same opinion. Dr. Critchett's
view was that the eyes were naturally more than duly fiat ;

266 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTl.

and that unconscious muscular power, which had, when in
full health, been exerted to counteract this, was now no longer
at the patient's command in equal measure. All this was
well, so far as it went ; yet it was hardly capable of re-assuring
a painter who found himself impeded in painting, and who
too well remembered that his father had become nearly blind.
He began using strong spectacles, often two pairs one over
the other ; and, as the years progressed, he scarcely ever took
the spectacles off, persisting in wearing them even when he
was merely seated in talk with friends. In September 1868
he went with Mr. Dunn on a brief trip to Stratford-on-Avon,
Warwick, and Kenilworth ; and late in the month he again
left town for Penkill Castle, Ayrshire, visiting on the way
Leeds, where a large art-collection had been got up. With
the authorities of this exhibition he had already had some to-
do, as they had accepted from the owners certain pictures by
Rossetti, which he wanted to be withheld, and to this require-
ment they reluctantly yielded. He did not like that any of his
productions, possibly of secondary merit, should ever appear
here and there in a scattered sort of way, but wished to reserve
himself for any time — if ever this should come — when he might
collect a number of his best works, to be viewed in their proper
relation one with another. Such a time never did come, though
it was often kept in his mind's eye.

Penkill Castle is the seat of Miss (Alice) Boyd, a Scotch
lady then verging on middle age, who was on terms of very
intimate friendship with Mr. Bell Scott. She had been known
to my brother for some few years. Mr. Scott was then
staying at the Castle ; and both Miss Boyd and he did a
great deal to cheer and divert Rossetti. A lady of sweeter
character and temper than Miss Boyd, or of more delicacy
and liveliness of address, does not exist. Her intellectual
power is high, and her gift for painting noticeable. The
Family-letters show a few details as to this in some respects
most pleasant sojourn. At a rather later date, in writing to
Mr. Shields, the term which Rossetti used for Miss Boyd was
" a rarely precious woman."

BEGINNINGS OF ILL-HEALTH— PENKILL CASTLE. 267

Besides Miss Boyd and Mr. Scott, there was a second lady-
staying in 1868 in Penkill Castle — Miss Losh, who was a
cousin of Miss Boyd, but much older, sixty-seven years of
age. Miss Losh took an extraordinary liking for my brother
— in whose manner, not to speak of his genius, there was
something singularly fascinating to many and to very diverse
persons. Mr. Scott, in his Autobiographical Notes, shows that
he himself had no great predilection for Miss Losh, saying
that she

"had somehow or other taken a jealous dislike to me, thinking I
had too much influence over her younger cousin, who entertained
me so much, and who lived with us in London in the winter. She
had therefore looked forward to Rossetti's appearance, fully intending
to play him off against me, which accordingly she did in the most
fantastic way."

Mr. Scott approved as little of Rossetti's dealings with
Miss Losh as of that lady's dealings with Rossetti. His
narrative continues as follows : —

" The old lady's admiration had culminated in an offer of a loan
of money to any amount, to prevent him using his eyes in painting,
or in any other trying occupation. He would get better and repay
her, but till then he might depend on her. . . . She intended indeed
that this plan should be a secret one between them ; but no sooner
had we [Scott and Rossetti] started on our daily constitutional than
he entrusted it to me [his impulsive nature was far from good at
keeping secrets] with much effusion and gratitude, at the same time
protesting he would never think of availing hinuelf of her kindness.
This determination I strenuously encouraged ; and we heard no
more of the matter until after the old lady's death, when the
evidences to the contrary were all too clear."

These "evidences to the contrary" consisted of an I.O.U.,
or some such document, which Rossetti gave to Miss Losh,
and which was found after her death, and was destroyed (in
my brother's interest) by a friendly hand — I will not say
whose. The kind, generous Miss Losh died suddenly in

268 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

March 1872, after an operation, seemingly quite successful,
for cataract. That Mr. Scott entertained a very bad opinion
of my brother in connexion with this whole transaction I
know as a fact ; for, very soon after Dante's death, he narrated
the circumstances to me, in a tone and in terms of acrimony
which startled me not a little. But there may be two sides to
this affair, as to most others. In my Diary for 3 November
1 868 I find the following passage : —

" Gabriel came back to-night from Penkill. He says his eyes are
decidedly not better, though on the whole I think he seems a little
less despondent about their essential condition. Miss Losh, the
aunt [should be cousin] of Miss Boyd, has been at Penkill all this
time. She pressed Gabriel (whom she had never known before)
most urgently to accept a loan of ,-£1,000, to keep his affairs in a
comfortable condition in case of his having to intermit work. He
had much ado to stave off this offer ; and she has positively made
him accept ^"ioo loan, for which the cheque is to reach him
directly."

This is of course my brother's own account of the matter.
There is no corroboration of it known to me. Perhaps it
needs none. At all events, to my own mind, it is transparently
and absolutely true. I would not dispute that he ought, at
some time before the death of a benefactress who would take
no denial, to have made an opportunity for repaying the
loan ; but her death, as I have said, was sudden, and between
November 1868 and March 1872 there may have been
communications passing between the two, unknown both to
Mr. Scott and to myself.

At Penkill Rossetti's sleeping, though not his eyesight,
had improved. Returning to London on 3 November,1 he
was unable to paint until the beginning of December ; a
tolerable proof, were any needed, that his notions about
failure of sight were not mere fancy. My Diary, 6

1 "The end of September" as mentioned in Mr. Scott's book, vol. ii.,
p. no, is decidedly a mistake.

BEGINNINGS OF ILL-HEALTH. — PENKILL CASTLE. 269

November, contains the following details, which I may as well
extract : —

" Gabriel says his eyes are certainly rather worse than better, in
comparison with what they were when he left for Penkill. At the
same time, they are by no means now so bad as his apprehensions
some little while ago had foreboded. His mind seems more quies-
cent on the subject altogether. He says the state of the eyes is now
in detail this :— Objects close by he can only see fairly well with
spectacles. This however is nothing new, and he has not found it
needful to adopt spectacles of such high power as some medical
advice had suggested. Objects a little way off, or distant, he sees
completely enough ; but invariably as if with a veil interposed,
which he describes as like a combination of the curling of smoke
and the effervescing of champagne. By experience he now believes
that this interposed veil is in fact the spectrum of the last preceding
object he had been looking at ; for he sees all spectra with extra
distinctness — would, for instance, after looking at Brown's profile,
and then at a blank wall, see the profile there distinctly enough
to know it as Brown, or to know the difference between such a
spectrum-profile of Brown and a like spectrum-profile of me. The
uncertainty of objects in a room, to his eyes, is sufficient to make
him keep on spectacles continually. In painting for a longish time,
the sight does not get worse at the end than the beginning ; but the
accumulated irritation of the weak sight makes him leave off."

About a month after this date, or at the opening of
December 1868, my brother was so far improved as to be
able to resume art-work. He began by doing some crayon-
heads of Mrs. Morris, one of them representing her as
Pandora. The state of his eyesight continued to give him
much serious anxiety from time to time. I question whether
it ever became quite so bad as in the autumn of 1868, unless
maybe in the spring of 1870.

From this account of the facts one sees that, long before
the year 1868 came to a close, and even before it began,
Rossetti had two formidable foes to his well-being and his
power of work ; not to speak of the surgical matter, though
that also was far from bein«; a mere trifle. If we reflect

270 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

what it must be to a man of high-strung nerves and restless
imagination to be unable to sleep at night, and what it must
be to a painter to be wholly or partially unable to paint by
day, we shall discern some reason for sympathizing with this
hard-bested artist, and may perhaps be inclined to reject with
some impatience the notion, put forward in one or other
book, that there was " nothing whatever the matter with
him." To suggest that a more or less uneasy conscience
was at the bottom of it all does not improve the case. This
only adds a shadowy insinuation of wrongdoing to a direct
imputation of fractious or pusillanimous fancies.

XXX.

PREPARATIONS FOR PUBLISHING POEMS.

In August 1869 my brother went back on a visit to Penkill,
first spending a day or two at Ravenshill near Carlisle, with
Miss Losh. Both Miss Boyd and Scott received him again
at Penkill.

Mr. Scott, in his Autobiographical Notes, has given some
pages to the two Scotch visits, and I must follow him into
a few details. He considers that it was himself who, on the
occasion of the first visit, seconded as he was by Miss Boyd
and Miss Losh, re-aroused the interest of Rossetti in his
poetry, past and prospective. When Rossetti was downcast
about the condition of his eyes and other things, Scott said,
" Live for your poetry " ; and this exhortation, he considers,
had a marked effect. My brother, being disabled for a while
from painting, would perchance of himself have bethought
him to some purpose of his other and not less important
faculty, that of a poet ; but of course I raise no objection to
what Mr. Scott here puts forward as a statement of fact.
Mr. Scott however writes as if he were quite unaware of
what is also a fact — namely, that in the spring of 1868
Rossetti had already made an appearance in public print as
a poet ; introducing, into a pamphlet-review of pictures of

PREPARATIONS FOR PUBLISHING POEMS. 27 1

that year, three sonnets recently written for paintings of his
own — Lady Lilith, Sibylla Palmifera, and Verms Verticordia.
The two former have since been entitled Body's Beauty and
Soul's Beauty. This pamphlet-review was the joint work
of Mr. Swinburne and myself, and the sonnets were inserted
in Mr. Swinburne's section of the publication. I can re-
member that the issuing of these sonnets was done with
some definite idea of following them up by other public
appearances in verse, and therefore the conception of " living
for his poetry " was decidedly in Rossetti's mind before he
went to Penkill in September 1868. The publication in the
spring of 1868 was a sort of feeler, leading on to the printing
of several sonnets in the Fortnightly Review for March 1869.
In this latter year, soon before starting for Penkill, he
obtained a Printer's estimate for the printing of various
poems — those old compositions of which some copies remained
in his hands after the consignment of his chief MS. to his
wife's coffin, and some few others of later date. At Penkill
on this second occasion he wrote several other poems — the
ballad of Troy Town, part of Eden Bower, the beginning
of the long lyric of The Stream's Secret, The Orchard-pit
(prose synopsis for poem), etc. For The Stream's Secret he
appropriated bodily the felicitous title which Scott had already
bestowed upon a sonnet of his own. Scott was very properly
annoyed at this ; but Rossetti would have it so, and so it
was. The " stream " in this poem is (as Mr. Sharp says)
" the brown-pooled, birch-banked Penwhapple in Ayrshire,
that gurgles and lapses from slope to slope till it reaches
Girvan Water " ; and some of the verses were written down
in a cave going by the name of a Covenanter of the seven-
teenth century, Bennan's Cave. It has generally been stated
that The Stream's Secret was composed wholly at Penkill.
One of the Family-letters shows this to be a mistake, as the
great majority of the poem was only produced in March 1870,
at Scalands, Sussex.

Proceeding with his narrative for the year 1869, Mr. Scott
relates, not indeed an attempt at suicide on Rossetti's part,

272 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

but what he regarded as a manifest impulse towards suicide.
I will give his own words, which are vivid enough : —

" Miss Boyd sometimes drove us about the country, instead of
leaving us to take those long walks I found so trying in the previous
year. One day she took us to the Lady's Glen, a romantic ravine
in which the stream falls into a black pool round which the surround-
ing vertical rocks have been worn, by thousands of years of rotating
flood, into a circular basin, called, as many such have been desig-
nated, the Devil's Punchbowl. We all descended to the overhanging
margin of the superincumbent rock; but never shall I forget the
expression of Gabriel's face when he bent over the precipice, peering
into the unfathomed water dark as ink, in which sundry waifs flew
round and round like lost souls in hell. In no natural spectacle had
I ever known him to take any visible interest ; the expression on his
pale face did not indicate such interest ; it said, as both Miss Boyd
and I at the same moment interpreted it, ' One step forward, and I
am free ! ' But his daily talk of suicide had not given him courage.
The chance so suddenly and unexpectedly brought within his grasp
paralysed him. I advanced to him — trembling, I confess, for I
could not speak. I could not have saved him. We were standing
on a surface slippery as glass by the wet green lichen. Suddenly he
turned round, and put his hand in mine, an action which showed
he was losing self-command, and that fear was mastering him.
When we were safely away, we all sat down together without a word,
but with faces too conscious of each other's thoughts. . . . The
feeble-minded English law declares the suicide to be of unsound
mind, whereas he is anything but that. It is the privilege of man
alone, the only reasoning suicidal creature in the world."

I am not sure that I ever heard this matter in any way
mentioned during my brother's lifetime, or until the appear-
ance of Mr. Scott's book (1892). The only serious question
arising in connexion with it is this — Did Rossetti really
contemplate suicide ? This I think quite possible, but by
no means evident. Dismissing the rather unkind remarks
that certain talk " had not given him courage," and that
" fear was mastering him," I must observe that a man who
was " standing on a surface slippery as glass," on the brink

PREPARATIONS FOR PUBLISHING POEMS. 273

of a " precipice," above an " unfathomed water dark as ink,"
might very well put his hand into that of a friend, to be
assisted backwards, without having at the previous moment
projected self-destruction. For the rest, Mr. Scott seems, by
the last sentence in my extract, to consider that suicide is,
under certain conditions, a very rational act — an opinion in
which I take leave to agree with him. He is of course wrong
in saying that the " English law declares the suicide to be of
unsound mind " ; for there is no law whatever to this effect,
but only, in numerous instances, the opinion or the good-
nature of a Coroner's Jury.

Mr. Scott's next anecdote purports that Rossetti found in
a country road a chaffinch which he picked up, and which
he supposed at the time to be the spirit of his wife. I will
not give the details, but am fully satisfied that they are in
all essential respects perfectly true. I question however
whether, at one moment of this odd transaction, Rossetti's
face wore a " curiously ferocious look." To the eye of that
particular old friend — a friend, in the summer of 1869, already
of twenty-one years' standing * — there may have been a look
so describable. For myself, I knew my brother's face pretty
well. It was a fine face, with " looks " often varying. Most
of those known to me I should call noble, and not any of
them " curiously ferocious." Much about the date of the
"curiously ferocious" incident, or on 27 August 1869,
Rossetti was writing to Mr. Shields about Scott in the
following terms : " the best of philosophic and poetic natures,
a man of the truest genius, and one of my eldest companions."
" Look here upon this picture, and on this."

The printing of my brother's poems was now going on
actively, and he received and revised proofs at Penkill Castle.
His idea (as I had noted just before he started for the North)

1 I gather, from certain statements in Mr. Scott's book, that this was
chiefly written in 1877, and on to 1882, the year of my brother's death.
Scott himself died in 1890. So he was at that time, when he left his work
ready for publication, a friend of forty-two years' standing to my brother,
living and dead.

VOL. I. lS

2^4 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSET TX.

was to have them " printed for future use in any way he may
like " ; or (to use his own words written from Penkill), " my
object is to keep them by me as stock for a future volume."
The prevalent notion appears to be that he wanted to diffuse
the poems in a limited circle as a privately printed volume.
This is but partially correct. He wanted to have the poems
by him in a convenient form, and therefore a printed form,
and, when he had so got them, to settle what might best be
done with the sheets. But the whole affair of the privately
printed copies soon became obsolete.

For some while past some friends had urged Rossetti to
recover the MS. buried in his wife's coffin, and thus to obtain
possession, not only of copies of several poems completer than
the copies (made up from scraps and reminiscence) which
were already in his hands, but also of some compositions
of which he retained no example whatever. The chief among
these was the important production named Jenny. I cannot
say with precision who these friends were. The facts seem
to mark Mr. Henry Virtue Tebbs (John Seddon's brother-in-
law), who was then a Proctor at Doctors' Commons, and Mr.
Charles Augustus Howell, as prominent among them. From
this suggestion Rossetti hung back for a while, but ultimately
he assented. The feelings which impelled him to hang back,
and those which induced him to assent, will be manifest to
any thoughtful and feeling mind. The subject, in all its
bearings, is a painful one, and I shall not dilate upon it.
I will only say that, when my brother finally wrote to me
explaining what had been done, I replied expressing the
opinion — to which I adhere — that he had acted aright. The
disinterment of the MS. was effected towards 10 October 1869.
My brother had returned from Penkill on 20 September.
Mr. Tebbs managed some legal business ; Mr. Howell was
present in the cemetery along with the workmen at the
moment of unearthing the MS. Along with Howell was, I
suppose, Dr. Llewellyn Williams, of Kennington, who imme-
diately afterwards undertook the disinfecting of the papers ;
not any one else, so far as I recollect. Though this affair was

PREPARATIONS FOR PUBLISHING1 POEMS. 275

conducted in all privacy, some gossip about it commenced
pretty soon, as I observe by a letter, dated in June 1870, from
Lord Aberdare, the Home Secretary, well known to my
brother ever since the first project of the Llandaff Triptych,
from whom it had been necessary to obtain a faculty for
opening the grave. Mr. Hall Caine's brief account of the
matter — no other details seem to have appeared in print — is
as follows : —

" At length preliminaries were complete ; and one night, seven
and a half years after the burial, a fire was built by the side of the
grave, and then the coffin was raised and opened. The body is
described as perfect upon coming to light. Whilst this painful work
was being done, the unhappy author of it was sitting, alone and
anxious and full of self-reproaches, at the house of the friend who
had charge of it. He was relieved and thankful when told that all
was over."

So now at last Rossetti was in possession of the correct
form of his old poems ; and he proceeded to get these, along
with some new ones, published in the ordinary mode. In
copying them out he was actively assisted by Mr. Fairfax
Murray. He thought of Mr. John Murray as publisher, and
some one else thought of Messrs. Blackwood, who indeed made
a direct proffer of their own ; but neither of these schemes came
to anything, and the publisher with whom an arrangement
was effected was Mr. F. S. Ellis, then of King Street, Covent
Garden, more generally known as a leading bookseller. Mr.
Ellis afterwards removed to the old-established book-shop,
No. 29 New Bond Street (Shelley's friend Mr. Hookham
had once been there). Here Mr. Ellis carried on business
with more than one successive partner, and the firm is now
represented by Messrs. Ellis (nephew of F. S. Ellis) and
Elvey, the publishers of the present volumes. My brother,
for some few years before 1 869, had been a customer of Mr.
F. S. Ellis for books, and their relation had become one of a
very friendly character ; and no one could have managed the
publishing business for Rossetti with more judicious zeal, or

276 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

in a more thoroughly liberal and confiding spirit, than Mr.
Ellis — a man of very good literary taste and acquirements,
as proved of late years by various performances of his own.

My brother was in some respects a singular compound of
self-reliance and self-mistrust. He relied on himself so far
as the working-impulse and the actual work were concerned.
He mistrusted himself with regard to the effect of his work
upon other minds. No man was prouder, or more resolved
to have his way, and make his way as well. Few men were
more entirely free from vanity — although indeed, in his
latest years, there was more of a fusion between vanity and
pride than there had been in all his boyhood, youth, and
mature manhood. Owing to pride present, and vanity absent,
he was the most natural of men. You could take him, or
you could leave him alone ; but, if you took him, you had
to take him such as he intrinsically was, without any attempt
on his part at adjusting the mutual relationship by concession,
compromise, half-measures, or a veneering of attributes not
his own. With most people he was easy, open, and hearty ;
with many, tolerant ; with others, intolerant ; with all, he was
himself. Intellectually he was so frank that it might almost
be said he blurted himself out. As to poetry, he was perfectly
conscious of having a special faculty, and of having done some
good work. In fact, he considered (and I think justly) that his
executive attainment in verse was riper and surer than in
painting. To most of us it might appear that a man of this
description would care next to nought for anything but the
work produced ; would abide in his own knowledge of where
he had succeeded to the full, and where he had faltered ;
and would view with solid or stolid indifference the opinions
entertained on the subject by other people. Yet this was
not the case. It was here that his self-mistrust as to the
effect of his work upon other minds came in. That he had
cordial admirers he knew very well ; but he thought he might
also have cordial detractors. As soon as he had decided to
publish, he became solicitous that persons well-affected to
the book should give expression to their views in print. I

PREPARATIONS FOR PUBLISHING POEMS. 277

have no sort of recollection of the exact steps which were
taken ; but am sure that something was done, with his cogni-
zance, so that certain editors might entrust the book to
certain writers for reviewing, or certain writers might bespeak
it of certain editors. My diary for 1 1 October 1 869 contains
the following passage : —

" Gabriel called, and talked about his intended publication of
poems in the Spring. He thinks it desirable to make sure of the
reviewers as far as possible, and thinks he can count upon handsome
notices in various reviews. His plan therefore would be to send the
book first to two or three papers that he can count on, and that are
of leading importance ; wait for the appearance of the critiques in
these ; and only then send the book to other papers, which it would
reach, having already a considerable prestige about it. This is
skilful scheming ; but for my own part (as I told Gabriel) I would
not diplomatize at all, but just leave the book to take its chance, and
feel pretty confident of the result into the bargain."

I have been treating this matter with great plainness, and

openly showing that, in my opinion, my brother's feeling

and his line of action, in relation to public criticism, were

other than they should have been. I am therefore all the

better entitled to confute over-statements on the same subject

which appear elsewhere. Mr. Bell Scott (who has gone

further than other writers in this direction, and has served

as authority for some repetitions of the allegation) expresses

himself thus : —

" He to the last moment would work the oracle, and get all his

friends to prepare laudatory critical articles to fill all the leading

journals."

No reflective person will believe this averment about "all
his friends " and " all the leading journals." It bears on the
very face of it exaggeration, and exaggeration with a motive
the reverse of friendly. But I will go further, and express
my serious doubt whether Dante Rossetti did " get " any one
of his friends to prepare a critical article, laudatory or other-

278 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

wise. He had several ardent admirers who were also friends
or acquaintances ; and some of these were connected with
" leading journals," or could easily, in virtue of their own
eminence, obtain admission for articles of their writing1 into
such papers. The names of five who are still living occur
to me at once — Messrs. Swinburne, Morris, Skelton, Colvin,
and Knight. I will not insult any one of these gentlemen
by raising an express question whether he was " got " by
Rossetti to write an article — in any sense which can, in this
connexion, be reasonably attached to that word " got." My
firm belief is that most or all of them volunteered — and
volunteered, not just because they liked Rossetti personally
(Mr. Skelton had only a slight knowledge of him), but because
their critical judgment avouched his poems to be good. And
I know as a fact that Mr. Swinburne's splendid outburst of
generous yet sincere eulogy contained at first some passages
which, while laudatory of my brother, might be considered
unwelcome to some other writers, and that it was my brother
who, by not a little pressure, " got " him to retrench these.
It is not all critics who think, with Mr. Scott, that the mass
of Rossetti's earlier poems, except Jenny and Sister Helen,
are " comparatively boyish and worthless."

Mr. Scott, in a very friendly tone as regards myself, next
proceeds to quote some words of mine, which (as he puts it)
I " said," but I fancy that in fact I wrote them, in the year
1872. I abide by them to the letter; but I do not repeat
them here, as I have no wish to thrust myself constantly
forward, and what I said or wrote to Scott appears, more
precisely defined, in the note already given from my Diary.
Then, after speaking of Rossetti's sensitiveness to adverse
criticism when ultimately it came, Mr. Scott says : —

" He had felt that such would be the effect of adverse strictures,
and feared them ; else why the reluctance to publish, the desire to
issue his privately-printed volume when we had prevailed upon him
to take up poetry again, and why the disagreeable expenditure of
energy in working the oracle, to furnish all the ordinary channels of
criticism with articles ready-made under his own eye ? "

PREPARATIONS FOR PUBLISHING POEMS. 279

These questions seem a little captious. We have already
seen that " the reluctance to publish " arose from the fact
that, prior to the exhuming of the MS., Rossetti was not in
possession of some poems at all, nor of the final and best
form of other poems, and that, immediately after the exhum-
ing, he set about publishing ; also that " his privately-printed
volume " was prepared with a view quite as much to eventual
publication as to merely private issue. We have also seen
how far it was " we " — i.e., Mr. Scott, Miss Boyd, and Miss
Losh — who " had prevailed upon him to take up poetry
again." The phrase " articles ready-made wider his own eye "
can only be termed erroneous (unless we were to substitute a
stronger expression). An article ready-made under his own
eye must mean an article which Rossetti regulated, controlled
and more or less dictated. Whether those articles really were
so concocted is a question which some eminent living men
could answer if they deigned to do so.

I will sum up by saying : The articles were written by
competent men (some of them about the most competent in
the country) who considered the critical opinions expressed
in them to be true ; Rossetti was not part and parcel in the
writing of them ; they were published under the ordinary con-
ditions governing critical reviews. But it would have been all
the better if Rossetti had not cared and had not known who was
writing or not writing, or who was publishing or not publishing.

This matter of the critiques which were printed belongs
properly to a date after the poems themselves had been
published ; but I have dealt with it here because some steps
with regard to the critiques had been taken in anticipation,
and it seemed very requisite to discuss whether those steps
were underhand or aboveboard. I now go on to some par-
ticulars about Rossetti's health and his friends.

In speaking of my brother's first visit to Penkill Castle in
the autumn of 1868, Mr. Scott observes : —

" He never got up till near mid-day ; my difficulty every evening
being to leave him after we had emptied endless tumblers of the
wine of the country in the shape of whisky-toddy,"

28o DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

" Endless tumblers " is, as the newspaper men say, " a large
order " ; but, giving a reasonable interpretation to the term,
I suppose Mr. Scott's statement to be correct. The fact is
that my brother was, by nature and habit, one of the most
temperate of mortals. He from the first disliked beer, and
drank it hardly at all ; spirits he drank very little, and I
dare say a month or two would often pass without his so much
as touching them ; wine he liked well, and would drink in
moderation on and off, as the occasion happened. He had
not a bad head for drinking, and could dispose of a fair
ordinary quantity of liquor without its affecting him in any
degree whatever. I know that at Penkill he found some
whisky which he relished ; he would speak of it under the
name of the local purveyor, McKechnie. I think it probable
that from this time forward a certain increase in the readiness
to drink was perceptible in him. In 1869, after returning to
London, troubled by profuse perspirations and by nervous
symptoms — as well as by weakness of sight, which again
interrupted his painting at times — he consulted Sir William
Jenner, who prohibited spirits and opiates altogether, and
ordered bedtime not later than midnight, and a country-life
with but little work for a half-year to come. Rossetti wrote to
Mr. Shields as to this on 24 December, saying that doctors

" speak most warningly as to hours, exercise, and abstinence from
spirits — for which, Heaven knows, I have no taste, but had, for a
year and a half past, fallen into the constant habit of resorting to
them at night to secure sleep. I have now relinquished them
entirely."

In June 1869 Rossetti lost a very friendly acquaintance,
always glad to do him a good turn — Mr. Michael Halliday,
who was a Clerk in the House of Lords, and also a painter ;
at first an amateur painter, but after a while almost pro-
fessional. He died immediately after attending the funeral
of a brother-in-law. He was a well-dressed small man, very
manly in his ways — with high shoulders not much unlike
a hump. Soon before this, December 1868, my brother had

PREPARATIONS FOR PUBLISHING POEMS. 28 1

made the acquaintance of Mr. Nettleship, well known now as
a painter of wild animals. He was then a young man, but
rather beyond the usual age for starting in the pictorial
career ; a great enthusiast for ideal and abstract forms of art,
such as that of William Blake, and a hardy inventor in the
like line. In October 1869 Dr. Thomas Gordon Hake
appeared in my brother's studio. In Section X. I have
made a brief reference to a romance published anonymously
by this gentleman, named Vates, much beloved by Rossetti
towards 1844. Its full title is Vates, or The Philosophy of
Madness ; or, in a later issue, Valdarno, or The Ordeal of Art-
worship. It appeared as a serial publication of large size,
with strange wild etchings by Thomas Landseer, very
stimulating to a boy's imagination. Vates seethed in my
brother's head, and towards i860 he took some steps for
ferreting out the author ; learning that his name was Hake,
and writing to him, but without any prompt result, as the
Doctor was then abroad. At last however they met, and
Rossetti found his visitor to be a poet as well as romancist.
This was in October 1869 (Dr. Hake, in his Memoirs of
Eighty Years, has inadvertently given the date as 1871). The
Doctor was then sixty years of age — a man of more than
common height, lithe and straight, with very self-possessed
gentle manners, and clear deliberate utterance. My brother
took to him at once, and cultivated his company ; and soon
he had reason to know him for a real friend. Rossetti found
Dr. Hake's poems singular, but very interesting and to a large
extent excellent. Only a few specimens had been published
at the date of the meeting in 1869.

Dr. Hake had attained a great age when— quite recently,
in January 1895 — his nTe came to a close. His Memoirs
contain several details about Rossetti — often eulogistic, but
not monotonously nor uncandidly so. I will extract a few
sentences — proper to this opening period of their acquaint-
ance : —

" When I saw Rossetti in his prime, a healthy man, he was the
noblest of men, and had a heart so good that I have never known a

282 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

better — seldom its equal. . . . He had a very just mind. When an
author was discussed, whatever might be said against him, he would
insist on his merits being remembered. From rivalship and its
jealousies he was absolutely free, and his hospitality was without
limit. Above all, he was ready at all times to serve a friend, and to
exert his influence to that end."

Another person who saw a great deal of Rossetti, beginning
towards 1869, was Franz Hueffer, Ph.D., a German from
Mtinster who talked excellent English — a man of learning
and great talent, equally accomplished at the pianoforte and at
Schopenhauer. He was a prominent leader in the Wagnerian
movement, and became musical critic of the Times. In 1872
he married Madox Brown's younger daughter, Cathy. He
edited the Tauchnitz issue of Rossetti's poetical writings,
and died rather suddenly in January 1889, aged only forty-
three ; a severe loss to some musical and literary causes,
and to all persons who were closely connected with him.

XXXI.

ART-WORK FROM 1869 TO SUMMER 1872.

My brother's principal works of art of this period were the
oil-pictures of Pandora, Mariana, Dante's Dream, Water-
willow, Beata Beatrix (duplicate), and Veronica Veronese ;
the water-colour of Michael Scott ; and the designs of Penelope,
The Death of Lady MacbetJi, Silence, La Donna del la Fiamma,
and Dr. Hake. Of some of these works I have already
spoken briefly in Section XXVII., in reference to the question
of my brother's types of feminine beauty. A few further
observations will now be apposite.

The Mariana represents Shakespear's Mariana in the
Moated Grange, with the Page singing to her the song
" Take oh take those lips away." It was originally schemed
as simply a portrait of Mrs. Morris, with an idea of music
annexed to it. This was to have been supplied by intro-
ducing a nightingale, to which the lady was listening.

ART-WORK FROM 1 869 TO SUMMER 1 872. 283

Gradually the conception of the picture was modified or
expanded, and it assumed its present shape, the head of the
Page being painted from William Graham, the son of the
purchaser. Dante's Dream, now in the Walker Art Gallery
of Liverpool, was also executed for Mr. Graham, and is much
the largest painting that Rossetti ever produced. Its price
was £i,S75- Mr. Graham only wanted a picture of the size
of 6 feet by 3I, his house in Grosvenor Place not containing
available spaces adapted to works of a really great size ; but
Rossetti was bent upon doing a magnum opus, and he set-to
upon a canvas fully 10 feet by 7. As in so many another
case, he had his way, the purchaser being truly friendly and
admiring, and, spite of not a little well-grounded demur,
submissive. My brother had an abortive idea about this
picture, which is worth recording in his own terms, as con-
tained in a letter to Mr. Scott : —

" I should like to try and lithograph myself that big picture of
mine. If one could do something of this sort with one's inventions
(much the best quality I have as a painter), one might really get
one's brain into print before one died, like Albert Durer, and
moreover be freed perhaps from slavery to 'patrons' while one
lived."

The inconvenience which Mr. Graham had foreseen ensued
as of necessity. The picture, begun in 1869 and finished
towards the close of 1871, could only be hung on a staircase.
Afterwards it was transferred, throi.gh the painter's own
hands, from Mr. Graham to Mr. Valpy. The latter gentle-
man after a while quitted London, settling in Bath. Rossetti,
who could not bear the notion that this important example
of his art should be hidden away in a country-town, took
it back ; and, after a rather tedious delay, succeeded in
disposing of it to the Corporation of Liverpool in 1881. In
anticipation of this sale he again, with his constant desire
to do the very best for his art and his purchasers, worked
upon the picture. In some respects he certainly improved
it ; but I cannot help thinking that he made a serious mistake

284 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

in altering the colour of Beatrice's hair, from the very dark
tint proper to the sitter, Mrs. Morris, to a golden hue, which
is besides not wholly exempt from a pinkish' tendency. Far
be it from me however to undervalue, in essential respects,
a picture which may be fairly, and not by a brother alone,
called great as well as large. The Queen's Limner in
Scotland, Sir Joseph Noel Paton, is probably quite as
competent to estimate a painting as the majority of press-
critics. His opinion of Dante's Dream (which he saw in
Rossetti's studio in 1881 shortly before its being dispatched
to Liverpool) is expressed in a letter addressed to Mr. William
Sharp, which contains, among other enthusiastic utterances,
the following : " Fifty years hence it will be named among
the half-dozen supreme pictures of the world." This praise
may be somewhat excessive ; it is at any rate delightfully
generous.

The duplicate of Beata Beatrix was undertaken for Mr.
Graham, who delighted in the original to a singular degree.
Rossetti felt the greatest reluctance for this effort — chiefly,
as may well be surmised, on account of the painful asso-
ciations of the work with his dead wife. However, he
yielded, and proceeded with the duplicate at intervals, highly
dissatisfied with it in all respects. It was made to differ
from the first version by the addition of a predella, was
completed late in 1872, and was at last viewed by its author
with less disfavour than at most stages of its progress.
Veronica Veronese (an imaginary lady, touching a violin to
the note lilted by a canary) embodies, to my mind, some of
his more abstract ideas as to the relation between Nature
and Art. It might also seem that he put the subject into
this form after he had transmuted the old nightingale-subject
into a Mariana. The Veronica was sent to a London ex-
hibition in 1894, and was then received with loud acclaim as
a work of exceptional beauty — which indeed it is.

As to the water-colour of Michael Scott, I cannot recollect
ever seeing any such coloured work ; but I believe there was
one, the property either of Mr. Leyland or of Mr. Frederick

THE POEMS, 1870— CHLORAL. 285

Craven of Manchester, who owned several of Rossetti's pictures.
I used to be very familiar with a cartoon-design named The
Wooing of Michael Scott, which my brother intended to paint.
It was one of his most fantastic, and in a sense one of his
most arbitrary, inventions.

The designs of Penelope and of Silence rank high among
the works in tinted crayons. Both the Silence and the Donna
delta Fiannna are from Mrs. Morris. The Portrait of Dr.
Hake, done in the same medium, may count as the best male
portrait ever produced by Rossetti, if one excepts — and I
incline to do so — a head of Mr. Theodore Watts, executed in
1874. It has been lately stated — and, as it happens, by Mr.
Watts — that the expression given to Dr. Hake is too heavy.
It never struck me to that effect, but there has been a lapse
of several years since I saw the portrait.

In January 1872 Rossetti first came into correspondence
with. Mr. W. A. Turner of Manchester, who later on became
the purchaser of some of his pictures — A Vision of Fiammetta,
a Proserpine, etc. Their relations were always very cordial.
The Vision of Fiammetta is not to be confounded with a
head named Fiammetta which Rossetti had ere now sold to
Mr. Gambart. This was in fact the head of " Kate the Queen,"
excised from the large canvas on which a picture from
Browning had been begun towards 1850.

XXXII.

THE POEMS, 1870— CHLORAL— KELMSCOTT MANOR-HOUSE.

TOWARDS the close of 1869 and beginning of 1870, Rossetti's
attention was chiefly concentrated upon his forthcoming poetic
volume — the one which is known as Poems, 1870. This date,
1870, should be borne in mind by any amateurs of Rossetti's
work; for the volume named Poems of 1 881, though partly
a re-issue of the book of 1870, is very far from being identical
with it. At a recent date, 1894, I found that even the

286 DANTE GABRtEL ROSSETTl.

authorities of the British Museum Library had allowed this
fact to slip their observation, and were not in possession of
any copy of the Poems, 1881, having assumed it to be a mere
reprint of the volume of 1870 ; and thus one of the author's
longest compositions, the (unfinished) Bride's Prelude, did
not then exist in that Library in any form printed during his
lifetime — not to speak of other and far from unimportant
alterations.

My brother's health continued to be not good, and his eye-
sight bad; and in the spring of 1870 he went down to an
estate belonging to his kind friend of old standing, Mrs.
Bodichon, who placed it quite at his disposal for a while —
Scalands, near Robertsbridge, Sussex. Here, after a period
of much depression, he at last revived considerably ; and,
when he came back to town in May, I found him much thinner
than he had been for years (which was a decided advantage),
and also much better. By March 1871 he was easier, as to
both health and eyes, than for some years preceding.

At Scalands Rossetti was joined by an American acquaint-
ance of his, a friend more especially of my own — Mr. William
J. Stillman, who not very long afterwards married Miss
Spartali. Mr. Stillman was originally a landscape-painter,
then a literary man and journalist ; and lately he had been
American Consul in Crete, during the vigorous insurrection
of that island against Turkish oppression. He openly sided
with the Cretans ; and, after suffering there many troubles
and a great domestic calamity, settled in London in the
autumn of 1869. He has now, for several years past, been
domiciled in Rome, holding a very important post in jour-
nalism. Few men could have been better adapted than Mr.
Stillman — -none could have been more willing — to solace
Rossetti in his harasses from insomnia and other troubles ;
but it is a fact that a remedy worse than the disease was the
result of his friendly ministrations. Chloral, as a soporific,
was then a novelty. In England little was known of it, and
not much elsewhere. It was supposed to produce no ill
effects worth taking into consideration. Mr. Stillman had

WiE POEMS, 1870— CHLORAL. 287

heard of its potency in procuring sleep — possibly he had
himself tested this — and he introduced the drug to Rossetti's
attention. My brother was one of the men least fitted to
try any such experiment with impunity. With him it was
a case of any expedient and any risk to escape a present
evil ; and sleeplessness was no doubt, to such a temperament
as his, an evil of prime magnitude. He began, I understand,
with nightly doses of chloral of 10 grains. In course of
time it got to 180 grains ! So at least Rossetti supposed ;
but I have sound reason for thinking, with much thankful-
ness, that in this he was greatly mistaken. His doctor,
Mr. Marshall — knowing with whom he had to deal — would
not, save in some instances of crisis, prohibit the drug
altogether, but he took care that the chemists should dilute
it to a degree of which my brother was kept severely in
ignorance ; and, when he fancied that his dose was 180
grains, I dare say it was barely half of this, or maybe barely
a third. Even after the chloral entered his house elaborate
and clandestine precautions of further dilution were taken
by Mr. Dunn, Mr. George Hake, and others. It is rather
surprising to me that my brother never found this out ; for,
with all his extreme carelessness in many matters of daily
routine, he was observant, and grew to be suspicious — the
outcome, I believe, to a very large extent, of the chloral
itself. Notwithstanding all this dilution, the dosing with
chloral remained not less monstrous than the effects of it
were deplorable. " I am told " (says Mr. Edmund Gosse)
" that no case has been recorded in the annals of medicine
in which one patient has taken so much, or even half so
much, chloral as Rossetti took." I am fain to hope that this
estimate applies, not to the real doses taken, but to the nominal
doses as supposed by Rossetti himself. " Deep melancholy
and weakness of will " are set down as two of the detrimental
results of chloral. Too surely my brother did become at
times deeply melancholy, and his will — naturally so strong,
prompt, and indeed overbearing — did get enfeebled — I may
say, chronically enfeebled ; though there were many intervals

288 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTt.

and many contingencies when it reasserted itself in its olden
vigour.

Even the chloral was not the whole of the harm done.
My brother found it nauseous, and after a while not so effica-
cious as he wanted. Therefore, strictly as he had been warned
by the best medical advice against any tampering with spirits,
he took to drams of neat whisky in immediate sequence to
=v the chloral ; not, I think — unless in the most exceptional
instances — at any other period in the twenty-four hours. I
regret to say that I have more than once seen him take his
dose of chloral, and then forthwith toss down his throat a
brimming wineglass of the neat whisky, which was gone
almost in a gulp. Remonstrance was imperative, and also
futile. I have often surmised that this misuse of spirits was
at least as noxious to him as the chloral itself. But, while
he was at Scalands, and for some months ensuing, things had
no doubt not come to this pass.

Whatever may have been the evil they wrought in him,
my brother had good reason for believing in the chloral,
supplemented by the alcohol, as an opiate. Yet he would
not admit that they afforded him real natural sleep. Many
a time have I heard him declare that the so-called sleep could
only be called a trance. It gave unconsciousness, without
adequate repose and refreshment. Still, the drug counteracted
insomnia ; and who shall say what his condition would have
been if insomnia had persisted with him from week to week
and from month to month, totally uncounteracted ? How long
would his brain — how long would his life — have continued to
struggle on ?

The volume of Po'ems was published on 25 April 1870, or
thereabouts. Some advance copies had been sent to leading
reviews, so that there might be no delay in an expression of
opinion. The book was a great success. The first issue
consisted of a thousand copies ; of these, eight hundred were
sold by 3 May, and the remainder about the 20th. Two
hundred and fifty out of the thousand went to America. The
profit to the author was to be a quarter of the published price,

THE POEMS, 1 870— CHLORAL. 289

paid as soon as the copies were put on sale, without waiting
for actual purchase ; and by the end of July Rossetti had thus
realized ^450. This rate of sale could not, in the nature of
things, last very long, and two events brought it to an early
conclusion — although later issues of the book (there were six
in all) continued going off for some while later. Dickens died
on 9 June, and the sale declined. France declared war on
Prussia in the middle of the summer, and the sale almost
ceased. These occurrences seemed to be, and probably were,
in the nature of cause and effect. Such are the odd and
extraneous chances affecting a book about Dante at Verona,
The Blessed Damozel, and The House of Life. A Tauchnitz
edition of the volume came out in 1873, with a preface by
Hueffer.

The chorus of praise for the Poems was eager, loud, and
prolonged ; and certainly any steps which Rossetti may have
taken for " working the oracle " (to recur to Mr. Scott's
favourite phrase) were not wholly responsible for this — far
from it. Mr. Swinburne led the van with what may well be
called a paean in the Fortnightly Review. Now Mr. Swinburne
is tolerably well known for three qualities : 1, supreme com-
petence for expressing an opinion on poetic art in general,
and on particular poems ; 2, gorgeous munificence of praise
where he sees it to be due ; and 3, rigorous silence as to what
he deems below the requisite standard, or on occasion resolute
denunciation of it. I will extract two passages from his
verdict upon Rossetti : —

" It [Rossetti's poetry] has the fullest fervour and fluency of
impulse, and the impulse is always towards harmony and perfection.
It has the inimitable note of instinct, and the instinct is always high
and right. What he would do is always what a poet should, and
what he would do is always done."

And next upon some matters of detail : —

" The influence which plainly has passed over the writer's mind,
attracting it as by a charm of sound or vision, by spell of colour or
of dream, towards the Christian forms and images, is in the main

VOL. I. 19

29O DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

an influence from the mythologic side of the creed. Alone among
the higher artists of his age, Mr. Rossetti has felt and given the
mere physical charm of Christianity with no admixture of doctrine
or of doubt. . . . [And then as to poems in the old-ballad form,
such as Rossetti's Stratton Water] On this ground Mr. Morris has
a firmer tread than the great artist by the light of whose genius and
kindly guidance he put forth the firstfruits of his work, as I did
afterwards."

Mr. Colvin spoke of " personal passion " as a leading
element in Rossetti's poetry. Mr. Buxton Forman held him
to be remarkable for transfusing Italian blood into a newly
opened vein of English verse. I could extend my list of
writers and their encomiums very largely, were I minded to
do so ; but will content myself with observing that no critique
afforded the author more marked satisfaction than one which,
after a lengthened interval, appeared in an American paper,
The CatJwlic World. This naturally dealt more especially
with Rossetti's poems in their relation to Christian or Catholic
ideals, and was regarded by my brother as singularly dis-
cerning, on the part of a total stranger. One or other name
was suggested to him as that of the probable author, but he
did not succeed in obtaining any positive knowledge as to
this point. The article is now ascribed to Mr. J. J. Earle.

Among those who wrote letters to him in a laudatory strain
were Tennyson, Sir Henry Taylor, Dr. Marston (who also
published a review), Mrs. Lewes, Browning, George Meredith,
Sir Theodore Martin, Mr. Frank A. Marshall, Munro, Charles
Wells (of Joseph and his Brethren), Professor Charles Eliot
Norton, Miss Spartali, and Mrs. Gilchrist.

In those early days of publication there was, I believe, only
one review of a more or less distinctly unfavourable kind —
that in Blackwood's Magazine. I forgot what was said in
it, or possibly never knew. I will not suggest that the
publishers or conductors of this magazine were sore because
(as previously mentioned) Rossetti had not closed with their
offer of producing the volume ; but one may safely surmise
that, had that offer been accepted, the tone of the critique

THE POEMS, 1870 — CHLORAL. 29 1

would have been different. My brother was not so absolutely-
thin-skinned about reviews as some people have supposed
and proclaimed — although it is too true that in one instance,
to be hereafter commented on, he took the matter to heart in
a most exaggerated and unreasonable degree. When the
Blackwood critique appeared, he wrote to his friend Shields
(August 1870) that he was surprised "to find such things
producing a much more transient and momentary impression
of unpleasantness than he would have expected — indeed he
might almost say none at all." Of course, in the real essence
of the matter, he was always and in all relations quite
indifferent to criticism, knowing well for himself what he
could do, and the worth of it, and what he could not do.
But this did not exempt him from being sensitive on the
score of personal attack, or in view of the effect which adverse
notices might produce upon the minds of others.

The great success attending the Poems induced my brother
to think at once of re-publishing his Early Italian Poets. This
scheme was in his head as soon as May 1870, but there-publi-
cation did not actually ensue till 1873, when the book came
out, through Mr. Ellis, with a change in the order of its con-
tents, and an altered name, Dante and his Circle. He preferred
now to give the first prominence to Alighieri, and to relegate
the preceding poets to a secondary position in the volume.
Mr. Ellis issued the book at his own cost, and halved with
Rossetti such profits as accrued.

Before the end of May 1871 Mr. William Morris for himself
and his family,, and Rossetti on his own behalf, were intending
to rent a house in the country — Kelmscott Manor-house in
Oxfordshire. The nearest town was Lechlade in Gloucester-
shire, famous through an early poem by Shelley. The nearest
having tolerable resources in the way of provisions etc. was
Farringdon in Berkshire. The rent was only £j^. Here
Rossetti stayed for many weeks, beginning towards the middle
of July 1871. There are in the Family-letters several details
about this picturesque and pleasurable old house, and my
brother's vivid enjoyment of it ; and I need not enlarge upon

292 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

the subject here. The building appears painted in the back-
ground of his small picture entitled Water-willow. Dr. Hake j
gives a few descriptive particulars : —

" It is an old place, with its seven, or rather twelve, gables — such
a sample of antiquity as you don't meet with often. The windows
are square casements with stone mullions, and the walls very thick.
The garden has its yew-tree hedges, cut into fantastic shapes. The
river is flooded like a lake, so that old Thames don't know itself
again. It is a most primitive village that surrounds the place — a
few scattered freestone habitations, some ivy-covered. There are no
neighbours to interfere with the liberty of the subject."

In my brother's letters to Scott there are amusing references
to a storied tapestry, one of the old-world house-properties at
Kelmscott. I combine passages from two different letters : —

" The subject of the tapestries is the history of Samson, which
is carried through with that uncompromising uncomfortableness
peculiar to this class of art-manufacture. Indeed I have come to
the conclusion that a tapestried room should always be much
dimmer than this one. These things, constantly obtruded on one
in a bright light, become a persecution. ... I am getting used a
little now to the tapestry ; though still the questions — Why a
Philistine leader should have a panther's tail, or Delilah a spike
sticking out of her head, or what Samson, standing over a heap of
slain, has done with the ass's jawbone — will obtrude themselves at
times between more abstract speculations."

I have already had occasion to mention Mr. Sidney Colvin
and Dr. Westland Marston in connexion with my brother's
Poems. He saw about this time a good deal of both these
gentlemen, and also of Mr. Marston's family, including his
blind poet-son Philip Bourke Marstorr; whose natural gift
Rossetti accounted genuine, and his attainment in the poetic
art, considering his mournful privation,' a matter for fervent
praise, and even astonishment. Another friendly acquaintance
was Mr. Gosse, who first met Rossetti towards Christmas
1870; and in 1871 the great Russian novelist Turgenieff
was introduced to the Cheyne Walk house by Mr. William

THE FLESHLY SCHOOL OF POETRY. 293

Ralston, and he dined there once or twice, preserving a very-
pleasant recollection of his visits. Mr. Gosse's opinion of my
brother has been expressed in print in the handsomest
terms : —

" He was the most prompt in suggestion, the most regal in giving,
the most sympathetic in response, of the men I have known or
seen ; and this without a single touch of the prophetic manner, the
air of such professional seers as Coleridge or Carlyle."

Still more impulsive and indeed quaint in his enthusiasm
was Philip Marston, who in 1873 wrote thus in a private letter
to his youthful friend Oliver Madox Brown : —

" What a supreme man is Rossetti ! Why is he not some great
exiled king, that we might give our lives in trying to restore him to
his kingdom ? "

At Kelmscott Rossetti wrote a large amount of new poetry :
Cloud Confines (which he termed " my very best thing "),
Dozvn Stream (first called The River's Record, which was
written in a punt on the Thames), the beginning of Soothsay
(originally entitled Commandments), some thirty fresh sonnets
for The House of Life, Sunset Wings, and Rose Mary, which
was finished towards 13 September 1871. He began by
writing a prose synopsis of this poem, which did not as yet
contain the Beryl-songs. These had better not have been added,
and so he himself thought eventually. The Cloud Confines,
and also the old prose story of Hand and Soul, were published
in the Fortnightly Review. There was also a grotesque ballad
about Mr. Robert Buchanan, consequent upon the review-
article to be next mentioned. This slumbers in manuscript.

XXXIII.
THE FLESHLY SCHOOL OF POETRY.

In the Contemporary Revieiv for October 1871 an article
appeared entitled The Fleshly School of Poetry — Mr. D. G.

294 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTl.

Rossetti — and signed Thomas Maitland, For the purpose of
this article Thomas Maitland was non-existent, and the real
author was the verse- writer — or let us say the poet — Robert
Buchanan. Some skirmishing in the press rapidly ensued,
not free from confusion and self-conflicting. Its main upshot
was this — that Mr. Buchanan had intended to write an
anonymous attack upon Rossetti, and the publisher of the
Contemporary Review turned it into a pseudonymous attack.
One poet who assails another anonymously, in a magazine
where anonymity is in no degree the rule, does not occupy
a very graceful position ; and the publisher who pseudony-
mizes his anonymous and aggressive contributor occupies, I
apprehend, an ungraceful position. I have very positive
grounds for affirming (and I will produce them if wanted)
that Mr. Buchanan was from the first strongly urged, and this
by a person who had every right to intervene, not to be
anonymous, and a fortiori not pseudonymous. I shall not
repeat — what was said in some papers at the time — that
there was plain mendacity in some of the explanations offered.
But it seems to behove me to say a little about the antecedents
of The Fleshly School of Poetry — Mr. D. G. Rossetti, and to
take to myself any blame which may properly or plausibly
belong to me ; for I have more than once been told by friends
that the animus against my brother, apparent in the article of
Mr. Robert-Thomas Buchanan-Maitland, should be regarded
as a vicarious expression of resentment at something which I
myself had written. Thus then.

Mr. Swinburne's volume of Poems and Ballads having
excited a fluster in 1866, a burlesque poem appeared in the
Spectator for 1 5 September 1 866, named The Session of the
Poets. It was anonymous ; but rumour — since then confirmed
by himself — ascribed it to Mr. Buchanan. It contained the
following lines : —

" Up jumped, with his neck stretching out like a gander,

Master Swinburne, and squealed, glaring out through his hair,
' All virtue is bosh ! Hallelujah for Landor !
I disbelieve wholly in everything ! There ! '

THE FLESHLY SCHOOL OF POETRY. 295

" With language so awful he dared then to treat 'em,

Miss Ingelow fainted in Tennyson's arms ;
Poor Arnold rushed out, crying ' Saecl' inficetum ! '

And great bards and small bards were full of alarms :
Till Tennyson, flaming and red as a gipsy,

Struck his fist on the table, and uttered a shout :
' To the door with the boy ! Call a cab ! he is tipsy ! '

And they carried the naughty young gentleman out.

" Then ' Ah ! ' cried the Chairman, ' this teaches me knowledge :
The future shall find me more wise, by the Powers !
This comes of assigning to younkers from college
Too early a place in such meetings as ours.' "

About the same time I was writing for an American quarterly
a review of Mr. Swinburne's poems. It was eventually
published, not in America, but as a brochure in England,
under the name of Swinburne 's Poems and Ballads, a
Criticism, by William Michael Rossetti, 1866. Bearing in
mind Mr. Buchanan's — as I thought it — gratuitous and in-
solent attack upon a poet already so illustrious as Mr.
Swinburne, and entertaining the opinion that much more
than commensurate laudation had been bestowed by reviews
upon the volume (or volumes) of verse which Mr. Buchanan
had up to that time published, I opened my Criticism with
the following sentence : —

" The advent of a new great poet is sure to cause a commotion of
one kind or another ; and it would be hard were this otherwise in
times like ours, when the advent of even so poor and pretentious
a poetaster as a Robert Buchanan stirs storms in teapots."

When my first edition of Shelley appeared in 1870 it was
severely condemned in the Athenceum, in a criticism which I
was informed was written by Mr. Buchanan. Whether this is
correct I cannot affirm. At any rate, Mr. Buchanan considered
that to be " the worst edition of Shelley which has ever seen
the light," for so he has told us in The Fleshly School of
Poetry, adding one or two other partially relevant " digs " at
me. Somewhat later in 1870 than the Athenmcm article

296 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTl.

my brother's volume of Poems came out. It remained un-
criticized by Mr. Buchanan (so far as I am aware) until
October 1871, when the article in the Contemporary Review
appeared.

This article was (to use no other expression) severe against
Rossetti. It was afterwards considerably enlarged, and its
severity, direct and implied, was increased, and it was reissued
as a pamphlet- volume of about 100 pages — The Fleshly School
of Poetry, and other Phenomena of the Day, by Robert
Buchanan (Strahan & Co., 1872). I will give some extracts,
showing what opinion Mr. Buchanan entertained of Rossetti's
performances. These extracts come direct from the pamphlet,
and are (practically speaking) verbatim ; but it should be
understood that the " Thomas Maitland " article was in full
general conformity with them.

The Poems (we are told) exhibit morbid deviation from
healthy forms of life. Nothing is virile, nothing tender,
nothing completely sane. There is thorough nastiness in
many pieces. A sickening desire is evinced to reproduce the
sensual mood. Rossetti has not given us one rounded and
noteworthy piece of art. He is fleshly all over, from the roots
of his hair to the tips of his toes. There is bad blood in all
the poems, and breadth of poetic interest in none. Bad
rhymes become the rule, and not the exception. The burden
of Sister Helen is repeated with little or no alteration through
thirty-four verses (as a fact, it is repeated with invariable and
essential alteration, and Mr. Buchanan misquotes its close
"between Hell and Heaven," changing this into "between
Heaven and Hell," and so spoiling the cadence). Sister
Helen and Eden Bower are affected rubbish. The House of
Life is a very hotbed of nasty phrases. Sonnets 11 to 20 are
one profuse sweat of animalism. Sonnets 29, 30, and 31, are
very, very silly.1 The Last Confession positively reeks of morbid

1 The thirteen Sonnets thus characterized are the following : The
Birth-Bo?id (Have you not noted in some family) ; A Day of Love
(Those envied places which do know her well) ; Love Sweetness (Sweet
dimness of her loosened hair's downfall) ; Love's Baubles (I stood where

THE FLESHLY SCHOOL OF POETRY. 297

lust. In Rossetti's poetry there is a veritably stupendous
preponderance of sensuality and sickly animalism. He and
Mr. Swinburne merely echo what is vile. I see in Rossetti
no gleam of Nature, not a sign of humanity. [On a passage
from The Portrait] Was ever writing so formally slovenly
and laboriously limp? [Then, in general] Treatment, down
to the tiniest detail, frivolous, absurd, and reckless. As
shapeless and undigested as chaos itself.

On such abuse as this, wholesale and retail, I will not
express any view of my own, nor solicit the verdict of the
reader. About twenty-four years have elapsed since Mr.
Buchanan wrote. If public opinion in that interval has ratified,
or gone near to ratifying, his dicta, I remain under a mistake.
If public opinion at the present date should avouch that the
man who could thus express himself must have had in view
some object extraneous to the fair and moderate expression
of a candid conviction, I should be far from astonished.

According to my recollection of the facts — of which I had
adequate personal knowledge at the time — my brother was
but little troubled, and not downcast at all, by the article
such as it appeared in the Contemporary Review. He had all
along expected that some one or other would make a point
of assailing him. He knew himself to be above such an
assault as was now delivered, and felt moreover that the fact
of the pseudonym, and the ambiguities which had accompanied
it, gave him a considerable advantage as a defendant. Mr.
Scott — with an inaccuracy as to date which is very habitual
to him — relates how, "as midsummer 1872 was drawing on,"
he gave a dinner-party which Rossetti attended ; and how

Love in brimming armfuls bore) ; Winged Hours (Each hour until we
meet is as a bird) ; Life in Love (Not in thy body is thy life at all) ; The
Love-Moon (When that dead face bowered in the furthest years) ; The
Morrow's Message (Thou Ghost, I said, and is thy name To-day ?) ; Sleep-
less Dreams (Girt in dark growths yet glimmering with one star) ; Secret
Parting (Because our talk was of the cloud-control) ; Lnclusiveness (The
changing guests each in a different mood) ; Known in Vain (As two
whose love, first foolish, widening scope) ; The Landmark (Was that the
landmark ? what, the foolish well).

298 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTl.

the latter shouted out the name of Robert Buchanan, whom
" he had discovered to be the writer of the article," and how
" from this time he occupied himself in composing a long
reply." It is certain (as one of the Family-letters shows) that
my brother had been informed about Mr. Buchanan towards
the middle of October 1871, and that soon after that time he
undertook a reply for publication. Mr. Scott's date is there-
fore quite erroneous. To his other statements I raise no
demur, but he seems to think the whole incident more note-
worthy than I can. My brother was impulsive and outspoken ;
and, being (it is to be supposed) among friends well known
to him, and known to be on his side of any such controversy,
he may very likely — and very harmlessly — have been a trifle
more vociferous than those drawing-room and dining-room
manners for which Dickens gave the formula of " prunes and
prisms " would dictate.

It is certainly true that he set-to at writing a reply to Mr.
Buchanan — a fact which is in no wise inconsistent with what
I have just been saying about his comparative coolness
under the Contemporary attack. He was vehemently, not to
say virulently, assailed ; and this more on the ground of
imputed moral obliquity than of poetic or literary short-
comings. To be ridiculed was what he did not like ; to be
vilified as writing from impure motives and as an incentive
to public impurity was what he disliked extremely. It
would have been much better — and I told him so at the
time — to take no part in the controversy, and to allow the
anonymo-pseudonymous attack to die out of itself, leaving
perhaps little general memory of its unsavoury existence,
and little warning to any one except the parties directly
concerned ; who would probably have found out that a " poet "
who abuses another poet under the shield of anonymity had
better not be loaded, by himself or another, with the thicker
shield of pseudonymity. However, my brother did not adopt
my well-meant advice. He wrote a pamphlet, and sent the
more serious parts of it to the AtJienceum, where these were
printed with his name appended, and under his own title,

THE FLESHLY SCHOOL OF POETkY. 299

The Stealthy School of Criticism.1 To me The Stealthy School
of Criticism appears a very sound and telling piece of self-
vindication. It rectifies some positive mis-statements con-
tained in Mr. Buchanan's article, and sets the whole question
in a much more correct light than the latter had succeeded
in casting upon it, or perhaps had been minded to supply.
The pamphlet itself, including this extracted portion, was put
into print, with a view to its being published by Mr. Ellis ;
but on consideration it was held to be such as might lay the
author or the publisher open to an action at law— possibly on
the ground, " the greater the truth, the greater the libel " —
and it was withheld, and ultimately destroyed. I heard it at
the time ; but long ago I had quite forgotten its treatment
and details — which were assuredly not scurrilous, but I dare
say sarcastic and stinging enough, for my brother was the
reverse of a bad hand at that sort of thing when he chose
to take it up. He was displeased, indignant, and perhaps
incensed, and disposed to " give as good as he got " ; but still,
as I have said, not seriously wounded nor deeply mortified, so
far as the Contemporary article went. I can even remember
that he was frankly amused at some remarks by Mr. Buchanan
upon certain rhymes in his volume — such as " wet " rhyming
with " Haymarket " ; and he thought that Mr. Buchanan
had made a very neat travestie of them as follows : —

" When winds do roar and rains do pour,
Hard is the life of the sailor :
He scarcely, as he reels, can tell
The side-lights from the binnacle :
He looketh on the wild water," etc.

And at a later date, hearing that the anonymously published
poem, St. Abe and his Seven Wives, was the work of Mr.
Buchanan, he told me that he had found it to be a production
of considerable force and spirit. He was indeed (and Dr. Hake
has told us so), though sufficiently downright in denouncing
works which he disrelished, whether in literature or in fine

1 Naturally, it is included in Rossetti's Collected Works.

300 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

art, always inclined to say a good word for such points in
them as he thought deserving of this.

Mr. Buchanan, having made one envenomed attack upon
Rossetti, was not to be appeased until he had made another
much more envenomed ; and in the spring of 1872 he issued (as
I have said) his pamphlet-volume, being a greatly extended,
more systematic, and more denunciatory version of the
original review. He here more definitely identified Rossetti,
as well as some other poets, with a supposed movement for
the propagation of whatsoever is most foul in vice, and most
disgusting in vicious display. Possibly this production, like
its predecessor, is only very partially remembered by the
living generation of readers. The sooner it is totally for-
gotten, the better for all concerned, and more especially for
Mr. Buchanan himself.

I can say this without any unfair bias towards my brother's
side. It must likewise be the opinion of Mr. Buchanan, for
whose feelings in the matter it is not my business to entertain
or express any especial concern. At the same time I willingly
acknowledge that, when at last he did retract, he retracted
straightforwardly, and in a spirit to which my brother might
perhaps have openly responded, had he then been less near
his grave. Mr. Buchanan, in 1881, dedicated to Rossetti, as
to " An Old Enemy," his romance entitled God and the Man ;
and, besides some other retractation (especially a phrase in TJie
Academy, 1 July 1882, " Mr. Rossetti, I freely admit now,
never was a Fleshly Poet at all "), he addressed to Mr. Hall
Caine, soon after Rossetti's death, a letter containing the
following phrases. I only extract some expressions relating
to Rossetti : others which show persistent rancour against
other people are best left in oblivion : —

" While admitting freely that my article in the Contemporary
Review was unjust to Rossetti's claims as a poet, I have ever held,
and still hold, that it contained nothing to warrant the manner in
which it was received by the poet and his circle [the poet's only
overt act, it will be remembered, was to write that very moderate
self-vindication called The Stealthy School of Criticism}. Well, my

THE FLESHLY SCHOOL OF POETRY. 3OI

protest was received in a way which turned irritation into wrath,
wrath into violence. I was unjust, as I have said ; most unjust when
I impugned the purity, and misconceived the passion, of writings too
hurriedly read, and reviewed currente calamo [but several months
had elapsed between the publication of the review-article and that
of the pamphlet]. I make full admission of Rossetti's claims to the
purest kind of literary renown ; and, if I were to criticize his poems
now, I would write very differently."

There is another phrase which seems to go near to admit-
ting that Mr. Buchanan — in 1871, and also in 1872 — abused
Rossetti just because other critics had praised him :—

"At the time it [the review-article] was written, the newspapers
were full of panegyric. Mine was a mere drop of gall in an ocean of
eau sucree."

But even this is not quite apposite to the facts. The
" newspapers " had had their say about Rossetti's Poems
towards April and May 1870, whereas Mr. Buchanan's
pseudonymous article appeared in October 1871.

Let me sum up briefly the chief stages in this miserable,
and in some aspects disgraceful, affair. 1. Mr. Buchanan,
whether anonymously or pseudonymously — being a poet,
veritable or reputed — attacked another poet, a year and a
half after the works of the latter had been received with
general and high applause. 2. He attacked him on grounds
partly literary, but more prominently moral. 3. After he
had had every opportunity for reflection, he repeated the
attack in a greatly aggravated form. 4. At a later date he
knew that the author in question was not a bad poet, nor a
poet with an immoral purpose. The question naturally arises
— If he knew this in or before 1881, why did he know or
suppose the exact contrary in 1871 and 1872? Here is a
question to which no answer (within my cognizance) has
ever been given by Mr. Buchanan, and it is one to which
some readers may risk their own reply. That is their affair.
If Mr. Robert Buchanan concludes that Mr. Thomas Maitland
told an untruth, it is not for me to say him nay.

302 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Not long after Rossetti's death an article named The Art
of Rossetti was written by Mr. Harry Quilter, and it was
published in that same Contemporary Review which had
reviled the man during his lifetime. It is laudatory, but
very far from being exclusively so. Some of the observations
in this article appear to me to be among the best and most
acute which have been spoken on that question of " fleshli-
ness," and I will give them here. I will only premise that,
while I regard it as a gross calumny to say that Rossetti was
in any marked sense an adherent of any " Fleshly School of
Poetry " (if such there was), I do not contest that there are
some things in his writings to which a puritan or a purist
may, from his own point of view, legitimately take exception.
The real question is not whether Rossetti, as a man or as
a poet, was " fleshly," but whether certain subjects, and
certain modes of treatment and forms of expression, are to
be admitted into poetry as a wide domain, or excluded from
it as a narrow domain. To this question perhaps the simplest
and the most sufficient answer is that all or nearly all the
greatest poets, in all countries and ages of the world, have
admitted them ; and I will go a step further, and (without
presuming to rank Dante Rossetti with those greatest poets)
will say that very few of them have admitted so little as he
did of those subjects, modes of treatment, and forms of
expression. I now cite from Mr. Quilter : —

" It was said once, by a writer anxious to make out a case against
the Prseraphaelite school of modern poetry, that one of the chief
characteristics of Rossetti's verse was its sensuality, and certain
quotations were given to prove this. Time has effectually disposed
of that charge, and the misrepresentations on which it was founded
have been adequately confuted ; but it has hardly been sufficiently
noticed that the real ground of the accusation is due to the fact of
the poet-painter being unable to dissever his pictorial from his
poetic faculty. He habitually thought (if such an expression is
allowable) in terms of painting. He could not dissever his most
purely intellectual ideas from colour and form ; and it is the intrusion
of these physical facts into his poetry, in places where they are

HYPOCHONDRIA AND ILLNESS. 303

unexpected and unnecessary, that gives, to hasty readers and super-
ficial critics, such a wrong impression. And, in the same way as he
charges a poem with more colour and form than it can well bear
with reference to its special subject, so does he charge his pictures
with a weight of idea which their form and colour scarcely realize ;
and in both he calls upon the spectator to be at once the witness
and the interpreter of his work. From this there results in his
poetry the following effect — that he is at his finest when he has to
tell some plain story, or exemplify some comparatively simple thought,
the insertion into which of physical facts will heighten the meaning
rather than jar upon it ; or in verses which treat intellectual ideas
from a purely sensuous basis, such for instance as in those sonnets
which are concerned with the passion of love. When however he
seeks to treat either a purely intellectual or a purely spiritual subject,
he fails almost inevitably, and that apparently in painting as well as
in poetry. Like Anteus, if he is held off the earth too long his
strength fails him. It is this painter-like quality which makes his
verse so puzzling ; for in idea it is, almost without exception, of a
singularly pure and intellectual character. Turn from his verse to
his painting, and the same curious contradiction is forced upon our
attention. We find continually, in his pictures where the painter's
individuality is most manifest, that the reproduction of the sensuous
part of his subject is, so to speak, interfered with by the strange,
half-refining, half-abstract quality of his intellect. . . . All the other
physical peculiarities to be traced in his works are all due to the
passionately sensuous but equally passionately intellectual nature of
Rossetti. They are the record of a man whose sense of beauty was
always being disturbed by his sense of feeling."

XXXIV.

HYPOCHONDRIA AND ILLNESS.

We have now reached what may be called "the parting
of the waters" in Dante Rossetti's life. In earlier years he
had had his tribulations : difficulties in his professional career,
the ill-health of his loved Lizzie, with ensuing harasses in
relation to their engagement, and to their matrimonial life ;
her early and shocking death, with troublous memories

304 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

attending it, and anxieties and self-conflicts ensuing ; partial
failure of eyesight ; insomnia, only combated by perilous
palliatives. Still, on the whole, as he stood at the middle
of 1 87 1, and even on to the spring of 1872, he was a
moderately healthy man, and in many respects a thriving
if not exactly a happy one. For happiness some fair measure
of contentment is essential ; and Rossetti, a man of restless
imagination and vehement desires, better satisfied with his
surroundings than with himself and his performances, was
never contented, and therefore never, in a right sense, happy.
His aspirations, though to some extent assuaged, were by
no means soothed into serenity ; but this I need not say,
for no aspirations, properly to be thus called, will be so in
the little life which is rounded with a sleep. Nature had
endowed him with an ample stock of high-heartedness and
high spirits. These served to while the time for his external
self and for his friends, while moody distaste, and something
like a surging mist of gloom, were often active within. He
was a successful man : successful and admired as a painter
— necessarily in a small circle, as he would not exhibit ; still
more successful and acclaimed as a poet, and by a much
wider public. Achievement in art and in poetry he had
always longed for, for these he had passionately worked ;
to general recognition he was not indifferent. Fortune had
thrown in a more than wonted share of her capricious favours.
Loving and beloved by his family, warmly cherished by his
friends, acknowledged by his intellectual compeers, sought
out by strangers as a man of renown, he seemed to have
attained a singularly enviable position. It was indeed one
of those positions which Destiny begrudges to men, and
determines to reverse.

This was Dante Rossetti viewed from the outside in 1871.
" But I have that within which passeth show." Mental
trouble and a too active and unappeased imagination had
long ago brought on insomnia ; insomnia had brought on
chloral ; chloral had brought on depression, agitation, and a
turmoil of fantasies. I think it clear, judging from results,

HYPOCHONDRIA AND ILLNESS. 305

that my brother — being " put out," though not gravely per-
turbed, by the Contemporary article, and by the announcement
that it would soon be enlarged and re-published separately —
must have got even worse sleep than usual, and must have
exceeded more than usual in his chloral-dosing and its con-
comitant of alcohol. Certain it is that, when the pamphlet-
edition appeared (which was towards the middle of May
1872), with its greatly enhanced virus of imputation and
suggestion, he received it in a spirit very different from that
with which he had encountered the review-article, and had
confuted it in The Stealthy School of Criticism. His fancies
now ran away with him, and he thought that the pamphlet
was a first symptom in a widespread conspiracy for crushing
his fair fame as an artist and a man, and for hounding him
out of honest society. Most of his friends, myself included,
combated these ideas. I question whether his closest con-
fidant, Madox Brown, did so with adequate energy, for he
himself, though reasonable and clear-headed, was of a very
suspicious temper in professional matters, and held himself
and his immediate circle to be not a little ill-used. My
brother's notions were, as I have said, fancies, and fancies
bred, not of a temperate consideration of facts, but of the
constitutional and mental upset caused by a noxious drug.
Still, it is manifest, upon the face of his booklet, that the
charges brought forward and reinforced by Mr. Buchanan
were by no manner of means light ones. They Were sufficient
— if believed, which I suppose they very scantily were — to
exclude Rossetti from the companionship of virtuous and
even of decent people ; and it was no fault of this " accuser
of sins" (to use Blake's expression) if such a result did not
ensue.

I do not remember, and do not wish to remember, all the
details about Mr. Buchanan's performances, and their reception
by the press. He had of course his supporters — not perhaps
extremely numerous. I don't suppose that a single poet of
renown was among them. Tennyson (as I have reason to
know positively) was one of the first to object to the attack

vol. 1. 20

306 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

that it was by no means a fair appraisement of Rossetti,
much of whose work he rated extremely high, the sonnets
especially. In January 1872, midway between the Con-
temporary article and the pamphlet, there was a critique in
the Quarterly Review (I have heard it ascribed to Mr.
Courthope) which was unfavourable to Rossetti, and more
especially to Mr. Morris, less so to Mr. Swinburne. Mr.
Hall Caine has spoken of other adverse articles in the
Edinburgh Review and the British Quarterly. Their dates
and other details, if ever known to me, have slipped my
recollection. I can dimly recall a leading article in the
Echo, one word in which, " coward " or " cowards," disturbed
my brother unduly. This article — possibly without the least
reason — has been ascribed to Mr. Buchanan himself. So
overstrained was the balance of his mind at the time that
my brother seriously consulted me as to whether it might
not be his duty to challenge the writer or the editor to a
duel. I need hardly record my reply — that duels in this
common-sensible country are equally illegal and risible. Mr.
Buchanan's own preface to his pamphlet makes use of the
same offensive word. After referring to " Mr. Rossetti's
defence, and the opinion of Mr. Rossetti's friends," he is
pleased to say (and to this also my brother greatly objected)
— " I have only one word to use concerning the attacks upon
myself. They are the inventions of cowards, too spoilt with
flattery to bear criticism, and too querulous and humoursome
to perceive the real issues of the case." It does not seem
to have occurred to Mr. Buchanan to ponder whether the
term " coward " applies more properly to a verse-writer who
anonymously (not to say pseudonymously) assails another
verse-writer, intermingling questions of morals with those
of poetry — or rather to the man who, being thus assailed,
defends himself under his own name, or to friends (or it may
be outsiders) who, with or without their names, retort on the
assailant.

I am sorry to dwell at so much length upon this really
contemptible, and by its very author discarded, affair of The

Hypochondria and illness. 307

Fleshly School of Poetry ; but, as a biographer, I could not
from this point onward tell a word of truth unless I gave
it prominence. In my brother's life it was deplorably
prominent, though in itself of hardly more importance than
some one's bad breath passing across a looking-glass and
slurring it for a moment. The whole matter grieved me
exceedingly at the time, and will always continue to grieve
me in reminiscence or record. It is a simple fact that, from
the time when the pamphlet had begun to work into the
inner tissue of his feelings, Dante Rossetti was a changed
man, and so continued till the close of his life. Difficult
though it may be to believe this of a person so self-reliant
in essentials as Rossetti — one who had all his life been doing
so many things just as he chose, and because he so chose,
and whether other people liked them or not— it is nevertheless
the truth, as I know but too well.

On 2 June 1872 I was with my brother all day at No. 16
Cheyne Walk. It was one of the most miserable days
of my life, not to speak of his. From his wild way of
talking — about conspiracies and what not — I was astounded
to perceive that he was, past question, not entirely sane. I
went round for Mr. Scott, then living at No. 92 Cheyne
Walk ; and he (so I noted in my Diary), " as usual, acted
in a spirit of the truest and kindest friendship." This seems
to be the occasion of which Mr. Scott speaks in his Auto-
biographical Notes. He says that " Mr. Marshall and Dr.
Hake were there," but my own impression is that that was
on a slightly later day. It is a rather curious coincidence
that, on this same 2 June, my brother completed the sale
of the picture of which he had painted the background as
far back as 1850 at Sevenoaks (see Section XVI.), and which
he had recently completed under the name of The Bower-
meadow. Messrs. Pilgeram and Lefevre bought it for the
large price of £735. When Mr. Lefevre entered, Rossetti
was in a state of nervous agitation, possessed with the delusion
that all sorts of people were set against him, and trying to
undervalue him ; and I can recollect the stare of surprise

308 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTl.

with which the picture-dealer received Rossetti's suggestion
that, if the picture were not considered good value for its
price, the agreement might be cancelled. Indeed such a sugges-
tion was not less strange as coming from Rossetti, the paragon
of artists at making a bargain, than as addressed to a picture-
dealer (Gambart's successor) who was no novice at taking
care of himself.

Another most unfortunate circumstance happened about
the same time — I think a day or two later. Browning had
just published his singular poem Fifine at the Fair, and he
sent (as in previous instances) a presentation-copy to my
brother. The latter looked into the book ; and, to the
astonishment of bystanders, he at once fastened upon some
lines at its close as being intended as an attack upon him,
or as a spiteful reference to something which had occurred,
or might be alleged to have occurred, at his house. In a
moment he relented, with an effusion of tenderness to this old,
attached, and illustrious friend ; but in another moment the
scarcely credible delusion returned. Browning was regarded
as a leading member of the " conspiracy " ; and, from first
to last, I was never able to discern that this miserable bug-
bear had ever been expelled from the purlieus of my brother's
mind. He saw no more of Browning, and communicated
with him no more ; and on one or two occasions when the
great poet, the object of Rossetti's early and unbounded
homage, kindly enquired of me concerning him, and expressed
a wish to look him up, I was compelled to fence with the
suggestion, lest worse should ensue — no doubt putting myself
in a very absurd and unaccountable position. Whether
Browning ever knew that Dante Rossetti had conceived a
real dislike of him, or supposed himself to have motive of
definite complaint, I am unable to say. He was certainly
far too keen to miss seeing that there was something amiss,
and something which was kept studiously unexplained.
Another extravagant fantasy took hold of my brother's
mind at this or some other time — namely, that the wildly
grotesque verses of Mr. Dodgson (whom he knew fairly well)

HYPOCHONDRIA AND ILLNESS. 309

called The Hunting of the Snark were in fact intended as
a pasquinade against himself. So Mr. Dodgson was another
member of the conspiracy.

Thus then on 2 June I was dismayed to find my brother
an actual monomaniac. I, who had known him from infancy,
had never before seen or surmised the faintest seed of
insanity in him. Wilful indeed he always was, but, so far
from being mad, his strong idiosyncrasy had never trenched
even upon what can be called the eccentric. He was
eminently natural, as very many Italians are ; and in this
quality he followed, to my thinking, rather the Italian model
than the English, which latter derives more from sturdy
straightforwardness than from direct temperament. He was
easy, abrupt when he liked, and transparently intelligible
— except in so far as a high and subtle mind baffles
one of a dull or conventional order. On that fatal 2 June,
and for many days and months ensuing, I was compelled
to regard my brother as partially insane, in the ordinary
sense of that term. It was only after an interval of time,
and as I had opportunity to compare and consider the
opinions expressed by medical men and others well qualified
to judge, that I came to the conclusion that he never had
been and never became thus insane at all, but was on the
contrary the victim of chloral, acting upon strained nerves,
mental disquiet, and a highly excitable imagination — all these
coupled with a grievous and fully justified sense of wrong.
For many years past my conviction has been that hypo-
chondria, consequent upon the over-dosing with chloral and
alcohol — this, and not anything dependent upon constitutional
unsoundness of mind — was the real secret of my brother's
frenzied collapse. Mr. Caine, speaking according to his
observation, which began in 1880, has expressed a like
opinion.

From this point onward I shall assume in good faith (and
my reader can part company with me if he chooses) that
my brother's fantasies were those of a hypochondriac, not
a madman ; and that the hypochondria was directly due to

310 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

the chloral, but without leaving out of account those other
incentives of which I have just spoken. Meanwhile, whatever
the cause, his mind was truly not a sound one. He not only
supposed things contrary to reason, but he had actual physical
delusions or hallucinations. I cannot remember — then or
afterwards — any visual delusions ; but there were auditive
delusions, as I shall have over-much occasion to specify.

Mr. Marshall was called in ; and by his directions I
summoned also Dr. Maudsley, the great authority on mental
diseases. My brother, in his perverse mood, did not like
Dr. Maudsley, and even went so far as to say that he was
probably no doctor, but some one foisted upon himself for
a sinister purpose. Of course I left the room during the
medical inspection and consultation ; nor can I affirm with
accuracy what was the precise opinion that Dr. Maudsley
formed of the case.1 He agreed with Mr. Marshall that great
care was requisite, and a cessation from all work and excite-
ment.

Dr. Hake, in his Memoirs of Eighty Years, has written
with much good feeling about these matters, and with that
scrupulous reserve which marks an honourable medical man
in any reference to a patient. He was the earthly Providence
of the Rossetti family in those dark days. I shall borrow
some of his observations, and supplement them. He says*: —

" One morning [I consider that this must have been Friday
7 June] I visited him [Dante Rossetti] at Cheyne Walk, when I saw-
that the restlessness of the past night had pursued him into daytime.
Qualifying his request with an expression of great regard, he asked
me not to stay. His medical attendants were consulting in another
room. I joined them there, and told them that my house at
Roehampton was open to Rossetti, if they decided that he needed
change. [A very pleasant roomy house it was, with a large well-
kept garden.] On the same evening, in company with his brother
and Mr. Madox Brown [I suppose Dr. Hake is correct with regard

1 As to exact dates and details my Diary, which has sometimes stood
me in good stead, assists me no longer hereabouts. I gave it up in
despair on 5 June 1872, and did not resume it until 3 November,

HYPOCHONDRIA AND ILLNESS. 311

to Brown, though I do not now realize to myself his presence], he
came to Roehampton ; and I remember well his saying, as he sat
in my quiet drawing-room, that he was enjoying what he had so long
ceased to feel, and that was peace."

I recollect that dismal cab-journey from Chelsea to
Roehampton. It brought out the state of physical delusion
besetting my brother as to sounds ; for he insisted, several
times during the transit, that a bell was being rung on the
roof of the cab, to his annoyance ; and, at the moment of
dismounting at Dr. Hake's door, he tartly apostrophized the
cabman with the words, " Why did you ring that bell ? "
The cabman looked blank, as might be expected. He had
often been called for my brother from a neighbouring rank ;
and it is probable that, on getting back there, he imparted
his opinion that " there must be something queer with Mr.
Rossetti."

Dr. Hake's next phrase (which" I shall proceed to quote
anon) is " He sat up late in conversation " etc. ; but to me
it seems that he here mixes up the transactions of two different
evenings. We arrived at Dr. Hake's house quite after dark,
perhaps towards 10 P.M. ; and little, I should say, was done
beyond settling down for the night. The next day— Saturday
by my reckoning — happened to be a very untoward one for
my brother's retirement. It was the day preceding Whit-
Sunday (or some such holiday-time) ; and, when we walked
out under Dr. Hake's pleasant escort, we found any number
of gipsy-vans and other vehicles encumbering the high-road.
Rossetti's roaming ideas being still in the ascendant, he
fancied that this might be a demonstration got up in his
disparagement ; and he was with difficulty restrained from
running after some of the conveyances, and interchanging a
wordy war with their drivers. Our walk was abridged ; we
returned to Dr. Hake's house, and the rest of the day passed
in comparative quiet. However, after dinner some reading
was proposed. Merivale's Roman Empire was handed to me,
and I began reading aloud where I was told ; and, as ill-

312 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

luck would have it, this passage detailed some of the tiger-
monkey pranks played by Caligula or Domitian, to drive
his submissive senators half out of their senses. The scenes
depicted bore a perilous analogy to the grotesque encum-
brances of my brother's brain. I came to a full stop, though
greatly urged by him to proceed, as he wanted to know the
too-appetizing details. I now recur to Dr. Hake : —

" He sat up late in conversation with his brother on various
family-matters ; but his night was the most troubled one that he had
hitherto passed through."

The Doctor's laudable reticence as to this matter is partly
followed by Mr. Bell Scott, who, in his Autobiographical Notes,
says : —

" A cab was brought at once. We all thought it strange to see
him [Rossetti] so willing to go ; but that night it was too evident he
wanted to be secluded, and for three days he lay as one dead, and
only by a treatment invented for the moment by Professor Marshall
was he cured."

It will be perceived that Mr. Scott shares the mistake of
Dr. Hake in mixing up the occurrences of Friday evening
and night with those of Saturday night ; nor is it clear why
Dante Rossetti should have been more " secluded " in the
house occupied by Dr. Hake, with one or more of his sons,
and with my company to boot, than in his own house, in
which he could command solitude if it so pleased him.

Putting together the statements made by these two writers,
the reader may readily infer that something of a very excep-
tional kind took place in that night, really the night of
Saturday. Rather than leave the matter open to dubious
conjecture — which may possibly have been indulged in at
large ever since the appearance of Scott's book in 1892 — I
will speak out, and relate the facts. In these, to a large
extent, I took part at the moment ; others I heard from my
brother soon afterwards.

Having gone to bed on the Saturday night, my brother

HYPOCHONDRIA AND ILLNESS. 313

heard (this was of course a further instance of absolute
physical delusion) a voice which twice called out at him a
term of gross and unbearable obloquy — I will not here repeat
it. He would endure no longer a persecution from which he
perceived no escape. He laid his hand upon a bottle of
laudanum which, unknown to us all, he had brought with him,
swallowed its contents, and dropped the empty bottle into a
drawer. Of course his intention was suicide ; but it was
a case in which suicide was prompted not only by generally
morbid and fallacious ideas but by a real hallucination, and
one therefore in which the constant verdict of " unsound
mind " would have been both admissible and necessary.
How he had obtained the laudanum I never knew. Maybe
he had long had it about him as an opiate, even before he
began the nightly course of chloral.

The Sunday opened calmly and hopefully. The fact that
my brother did not appear at the family-breakfast was only
conformable to his ordinary habits. Dr. Hake went up in
two or three instances, and always found him sleeping with
extreme placidity. He encouraged me to hope that this
might be the beginning of a new lease of natural sleep, and
that Dante would soon be taking a marked turn for the
better. At last — this may have been towards four o'clock
in the afternoon — he came down again, with an exceedingly
grave face. He told me that such unusually prolonged sleep
did not seem natural ; that my brother's appearance was no
longer satisfying to a medical eye ; and that the symptoms
might almost point to serous apoplexy. I ran out for a
neighbouring doctor, who came at once. His name has now
lapsed from my recollection. He looked at Rossetti, and at
once confirmed our worst fears. It was an evident case of
" effusion of serum on the brain," and the sufferer was already
past all hope. He added that, if by chance he should survive
at all, his intellect would be irrecoverably gone — a sentence
far worse than death.

It became my harrowing duty to go to town as fast as a fly
would carry me, and fetch my mother and my sister Maria,

314 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

to whom Dr. Hake forthwith proffered the hospitality of his
house. Christina could not possibly accompany them. She
was bed-ridden, and had been so to a great extent ever since
April 1 87 1, when an illness of great rarity attacked her — one
of the most distressing in its symptoms I have ever witnessed
— termed " Exophthalmic Bronchocele," or " Dr. Graves's
Disease." This illness stuck to her until the earlier months
of 1873, and all that while her life hung upon a thread. In
fact some marks of the malady clung to her until, from a
different cause, she died on 29 December 1894. Mr. George
Hake, the doctor's youngest son, came up with me from
Roehampton to Endsleigh Gardens. He was then an Oxford
student, but some trouble with his eyes had compelled him to
interrupt the collegiate course — a particularly manly, frank,
kind-natured young man. Too well do I remember some of
the incidents of that dreadful drive across London, and of
my interview with members of the family ; these I suppress.
The family had advisedly been left uninformed of the sad
condition of mind and body into which Dante had fallen for
the last several days, although they knew that he was now at
Roehampton, and that I had been much along with him of
late. It is a singular fact that my mother — who was not at
all a woman of presentiments and panics — had, some half-
hour or so before I reached the house, been suddenly smitten
with a sense that something grievous was occurring or
impending, and with an eager desire to speed to Roe-
hampton, and make enquiry.

Hurriedly we packed a few necessaries, and returned to the
fly — all of us convinced that Dante must have ceased to live
before we could reach Roehampton. An aunt of mine, Eliza
Harriet Polidori, occupied separate apartments in the Ends-
leigh Gardens house, and engaged to look affectionately after
Christina. At the residence of Madox Brown, 37 Fitzroy
Square, I got out, and announced the crushing calamity.
Brown, the warmest and most helpful of friends, refused to
regard the case as absolutely desperate, and ran off at once
for Mr. Marshall, in Savile Row. And so — after nightfall in

HYPOCHONDRIA AND ILLNESS. 3 I 5

early June, or towards nine in the evening — we started again,
and rolled onward to Roehampton.

Arriving, we learned that Dante was still alive. Dr. Hake
had stationed himself at his bed-head, and held to his nostrils
a large bottle of strong ammonia, which staved off his sinking
into total lethargy ; and I have little doubt that this wise
precaution was the first and indispensable stage in the process
which saved my brother's life. Very soon the Doctor took
me quietly aside, and produced an empty bottle which he had
found in a drawer. It was labelled " Laudanum — Poison."
We exchanged few words, but were quite at one as to the
meaning of this bottle ; and now we could at least dismiss
the horrible idea of any such mortal illness as serous apoplexy,
or of idiocy as its alternative, and could address ourselves to
what was needed to counteract laudanum-poisoning. I will
here add that the affair of the poisoning was never, from first
to last, intimated to my mother, my sisters, or any other
member of the family. They finished their days in ignorance
of the facts.

Pretty soon Mr. Marshall arrived. He ordered strong
coffee as the recognized antidote, which Dr. Hake himself
prepared and administered, and then, to give no handle to
prying curiosity, cleared away all the dregs. I do not see
how Mr. Scott can be correct in regarding this treatment as
" invented for the moment " by the distinguished surgeon ;
but certain it is that all his measures were equally simple and
efficient. Beyond the coffee, he did little or nothing except
to keep the necessary functions of the body in exercise.
When he left, our spirits were already considerably revived ;
for my brother showed no sign of going from bad to worse,
but something like a steady increase of vitality. His con-
sciousness returned in the course of Monday, and for some
hours he seemed free from any serious agitation. Mr. Scott
therefore is mistaken in saying that " for three days he lay as
one dead." The lethal trance only lasted from some hour in
the night between Saturday and Sunday to some hour in the
afternoon or even forenoon of Monday.

316 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Unfortunately, when his bodily powers rallied a little, the
gloomy and exasperating fantasies of his mind recurred as
well, and by the evening of Tuesday things seemed in this
respect worse than ever. What to do was a difficult problem.
Dr. Hake's friendliness would have been equal to almost any
strain that could be put upon it ; but to propose to leave
Dante with him indefinitely was what we could not do. To
return for any length of time to Cheyne Walk, with all its
distressful memories of the last few weeks, was a notion
repugnant to my brother, and rejected by Mr. Marshall. In
my own house, with Christina on a bed of sickness, perhaps
of death, three other female inmates (not to speak of servants),
and myself daily called away to a Government-office, Dante
would just then have caused the most wearing anxiety.
Ominous colloquies were held as to the benefit which Dr.
Hake had known as ensuing from treatment in a private
asylum. But in a day or two the difficulty was solved by
the friend of friends, Madox Brown. Dante knew all the
Brown family most intimately ; Brown understood him at
least as thoroughly as did any member of the Rossetti house-
hold ; the house in Fitzroy Square was large and central.
So on the Thursday my brother, not so greatly out of health,
and in a state of mind passive, despondent, but no longer
keenly excited, quitted Hake's residence, and was escorted to
Cheyne Walk: on Monday 17 June to Brown's. In one
respect his physical state was very disheartening. He suffered
from hemiplegia, or partial paralysis in the region of the
hip-joint, brought on, as Mr. Marshall said, by his remaining
so long in a recumbent position, under the benumbing influ-
ence of the laudanum. He was in fact quite lame of one leg,
and could only walk by the help of a stick. This continued
very perceptible for some five or six months, and was not
wholly overcome for another year or so. At last it was sub-
dued— either entirely, or so greatly as not to raise any further
notice. At Brown's house — though extremely dejected for
the most part, and wholly unable to do any sort of work — my
brother proved manageable enough. He caused no trouble

Hypochondria and illness. 317

other than what devoted friendship was cheerfully prepared
for.

I have given these painful details at some length, but
shall not pursue with equal minuteness the course of Rossetti's
troubles up to the date when his health and spirits took a very
decided rally. He remained at Brown's house not more than
some six or seven days, and was then, on 20 June, got off to
Scotland to recruit. Mr. William Graham, M.P., who had
bought the Dante s Dream and other pictures, placed at his
unreserved disposal for a while, with great kindness and
liberality, two mansions which he rented in Perthshire — first
Urrard, and then Stobhall. It was not considered desirable
that I should accompany my brother — partly because of my
official ties, and partly because I might be (and assuredly
should have been) depressed, and therefore depressing.
Brown and George Hake took him down to Urrard, where he
remained, I think, but a few days ; then they removed with him
to Stobhall, where Scott very considerately joined the party,
relieving Brown, and, soon before Scott left, arrived Dr. Hake.
Thus the company came to consist of the two Hakes along
with Rossetti. After a while, early in September, the Doctor
departed — from a farmhouse to which they had meanwhile
removed at Trowan near Crieff — and Mr. Dunn then came
down. My brother had by that time revived considerably,
and had resumed painting — completing towards the middle of
September the long-pending duplicate of Beata Beatrix for
Mr. Graham. I will give a few details of the Scotch sojourn
from Mr. Scott's book, and from Dr. Hake's. A very few
more appear in the Family-letters ; and, from letters addressed
by my brother's friends to me at the time, I could largely
increase them, but prefer to limit myself to these general
outlines of a great downbreak, seething troublous fancies, and
gradual but at last very marked recovery. Mr. Scott, who
preceded Dr. Hake, writes as follows (I extract some par-
ticulars, and omit others) : —

" The place where we lived — Stobhall, by the Tay near Perth —
was, two centuries ago, one of the houses of the ancient family of

jl8 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTi.

the Drummonds, the head of which— the Duke of Perth, as the
Jacobites called him — lost everything in the Rebellion of 17 15.
It was originally a peel-tower, with a very uncommon appendage, a
chapel of the same early date as the tower; and now it had one of
the most charming old gardens I have ever seen, with Irish yews
and hollies, trained by long years of careful shaping into straight
columns 25 feet high, and roses almost reaching to the same
height, supported on poles. The part we lived in was more
modern. He could not take much walking-exercise. He could not
bear reading, nor would he join us in the old game [whist]. I
cannot help feeling that his malady was unique— different from other
maladies, as he himself was different from other men. His de-
lusions had a fascination, like his personality. In a few months his
amazing power of resuscitation brought him back to health. He
still continued to assert that we were under delusions, and not he
himself, as to the number of his enemies ; and it was difficult to
make him own he had been ill at all."

He had in fact not been exactly " ill," apart from the
laudanum-poisoning, the merely local hemiplegia, the malady
treated surgically, and the mental disturbance resultant from
chloral-dosing. And now for Dr. Hake : —

" It was not long before Rossetti's occupation of the place
[Stobhall] came to a close. He was fast improving in health. He
took long walks, but without any enjoyment of the scenery, which
was made romantic by waterfall and splashed leaves ever fresh, the
elastic boughs bending under the weight of a torrent. So far
recovered, he desired to remain in Perthshire, but still craved for
the utmost solitude. In search of such a home, I took the train
to Perth, visited St. Andrew's, returned to Perth, and proceeded
to Crieff, where I remained for some days, and scoured the environs.
At last it occurred to me to call on the leading practitioner, Dr.
Gairdner, and was directed by him to a farmhouse two or three miles
from the town, on the riverside. The house had every requirement,
and was kept by a lady-farmer, whose manner and person had every
agreeable trait. We drove to the new home. It was a pleasant
spot, with a walk into Crieff by the riverside, down to a wilderness
of waters. There was plenty of mountain-scenery in view. Rossetti
rapidly improved in health, stumping his way over long areas of

HYPOCHONDRIA AND ILLNESS. 319

path and road, with his thick stick in hand, but holding no inter-
course with Nature. It was not long before he summoned his
assistant [Mr. Dunn], with the implements of his art, and he was
once more happy. At this time he made a chalk drawing of me,
and one of my son. As a domestic trait, I would mention that
Rossetti was very hearty at all times over his meals. He would
wear out three knives and forks to my one ; and to me, whose
breakfast seldom exceeded one cup of coffee, his plate of bacon,
surrounded by eggs that overlapped the rim, was amazing. [My
own experience of my brother's breakfasts corresponds with this.
It should be understood however that he only ate two meals in a
day. In London he wholly eschewed every sort of lunch, and I
dare say at Trowan as well. He| breakfasted copiously towards ten
or eleven ; then set-to at painting, his ordinary allowance of which
was every ensuing scrap of daylight ; then, more or less late accord-
ing to season, but often as late as nine in the evening or even
afterwards, he dined, with abundance of appetite.] I may further
truly say that he, not being a believer in physiological things, did
not regard tea as possessing the attributes of totality. [Clearly, by
this facetious phrase, the doctor means that Rossetti was much the
reverse of a teetotaller. A teetotaller he never was ; but in youth
he was abstemious to a very unusual degree, and I question whether
I ever once saw him exceed in wine or other stimulants at table.
As to whisky-drams washing-down chloral, and now and then at
some other time of the day, I have already spoken.] By a careful
treatment of him I procured him good nights ; effecting this object
chiefly by remaining at his bedside, and draining my memory of
every anecdote I had ever heard, and relating to him every amusing
incident that I had encountered during life in my intercourse with
the world. Finding him so well recovered, I left him in the hands
of his assistant and of my son, after an absence of many weeks."

Here I may as well say that that malady requiring surgical
treatment of which I made mention in Section XXIX., and
which was ordinarily attended to by the eminent surgeon
Mr. Durham (an old acquaintance), troubled my brother a
good deal about this period ; and, soon after his arrival in
Scotland, it was even thought that Mr. Marshall might have
to go down to relieve him. Ultimately, however, a local

3^0 DANTE GAfeRIEL ROSSETTI.

surgeon was employed, and with entire success for the
time.

Dante Rossetti was one of those men whose money -affairs,
however prosperous in a general sense, would be sure, at any
moment of crisis or disablement, to present difficulties and
complications ; one salient reason for this being that, upon
undertaking any commission for a picture, he received in-
stalments of payment to keep him going while the work was
in progress, and thus, if the work came to a standstill, he
owed money for paintings undelivered and undeliverable.
When the great upset of 1872 took place, followed by some
three months of enforced idleness, with an indisposition,
amounting to incapacity, for attending to any details of
business, the care of his money-matters devolved upon me.
Mr. Scott's reference to this minor affair is highly erroneous.1
He thinks that I was " so prostrated with anxiety that F. M.
Brown took all business-matters out of my hand." Nothing
of the sort was done. I was not prostrated, though I as-
suredly was afflicted, and, had I not been so, the more shame
to me. My brother's money was removed from his own
bank, and placed in Brown's bank (I had no bank of my own
until two or three weeks later) in the joint names of Brown
and myself. We drew joint cheques for my brother's occa-
sions at first. After a very short time, a different arrangement
was made, and I myself banked the money, and alone drew
the cheques ; and, as matters rapidly righted themselves, no
sort of inconvenience ensued to my brother, his creditors, or
any one else. One of the first things done, to raise convenient
funds in hand, was to sell-off Rossetti's beautiful collection
of blue china. I alone transacted this business, and secured
an offer of £650. I informed my brother by letter, and he
replied by letter on 4 July, ratifying the arrangement. Here
again Mr. Scott was either much misinformed, or else he
wrote from some mere supposition of his own — speaking of

1 I said as much in a letter which I got published in The Academy
towards the close of 1892, soon after the appearance of Mr. Scott's
volumes.

STAY AND WORK AT KELMSCOTT, 1 872-4. 32 i

" the disposal, without his [Dante Rossetti's] knowledge, of
this assemblage of pots and dishes." On another point Mr.
Scott is of course right — namely, that, when Dante quitted
his Cheyne Walk house for Brown's or for Scotland, " it was
thought proper to have all his pictures, finished or in progress,
removed elsewhere. They were accordingly taken to my
[Scott's] house, which was conveniently near, among them
the huge Dante's Dream." We were naturally very glad to
get these works out of Rossetti's house, left with no regular
tenant, and much obliged to Mr. Scott for storing them.
They were deposited in a large kind of brick-and-glass
structure which stood in his back-garden, and which he
himself used at times as a studio.

XXXV.

STAY AND WORK AT KELMSCOTT, 1872-4.—
THEODORE WATTS.

TRAVELLING southward from Scotland in the company of
Mr. George Hake, Rossetti reached Kelmscott Manor-house
on 24 September 1872 ; and, allowance being made for his
partial lameness, he seemed healthy, robust, full of working-
energy, and on the whole calm-minded, and even for the
most part in excellent spirits. The reader will recollect that
the Manor-house was occupied by Mr. Morris and his family
jointly with Rossetti. They were not always there ; but one
or other member of the family, sometimes all of them to-
gether, were present very frequently ; and thus my brother
was usually supplied with plenty of congenial society, even
apart from other friends of his from London who often ran
down for some days. Mr. George Hake also was permanently
with him, assisting him in secretarial and other work, at
which he was equally expert and obliging. I saw my brother
at Kelmscott for a week or so towards the end of October,
and found him in very good trim, although occasionally
something showed in his mind some trace of lurking suspicion
VOL. I. 21

322 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

or prejudice. He continued taking chloral. In one instance
at least, January 1874, I attended, under Mr. Marshall's
directions, to getting the drug, before its being dispatched to
Kelmscott, diluted, so that its strength was only half what
my brother was left to suppose. At Kelmscott he abandoned
shaving, and grew whiskers and beard all round — as some
people thought, to the detriment of his appearance ; mous-
taches he had worn for a long succession of years, though
not in his very earliest youth. Having once begun a beard,
he never left it off again. He continued keeping very late
hours. According to Oliver Madox Brown — his old friend's
son, then a youth of nineteen, who showed astonishing pre-
cocious faculty both in painting and in novel-writing, and
who visited him in March 1874 — the dinner-hour was 1*0 P.M. ;
and, according to Rossetti himself, on the occasion of a short
visit from Mr. Howell, " 3 A.M. gave place to 5 A.M. as bed-
time before the house was clear of him." What could be
expected for a man of forty-five, recovering from a fearful
state of nervous prostration and enfeebled health, who, dining
at 10, went to bed at 3 or 5, and dosed himself with chloral
and alcohol before hoping for a wink of sleep ? From these
unnatural conditions a natural consequence had to ensue,
and, after a longer interval than might have been counted
upon, it did ensue.

It is in the opening days of this Kelmscott sojourn that
I find the first trace of Mr. Theodore Watts in my brother's
correspondence. As a solicitor, Mr. Watts, a friend of Dr.
Hake, advised Rossetti in adjusting a provoking matter about
a forgery which had recently been committed upon him, and
of which the Family-letters exhibit something. As we all
know, however, Mr. Watts is much else besides being a
solicitor — a man of letters, poet, and critic ; and very soon
my brother found that this gentleman's converse and sym-
pathy in literary matters were quite as welcome to him as
his mastery of the law. As years went on, Mr. Watts became
by far the most constant companion and mainstay of Rossetti,
whether in relation to literary work, to business-affairs, or

STAY AND WORK AT KELMSCOTT, 1 872-4. 323

to daily intercourse — daily, and indeed nightly as well. This
unweariable friend was by him in all his requirements ; and
it is difficult to conjecture how Rossetti would, without him,
have passed his closing years — certainly in some guise and
under some arrangements very different from those which
actually obtained. A letter from my brother to Madox
Brown — dating, it may be, early in 1873 — contains the follow-
ing words, which he had occasion to repeat inwardly, if not
outwardly, times out of number : —

" Watts left yesterday. He is a first-rate companion and a first-
rate fellow — few equal to him in sterling qualities and cultivation."

Mr. Charles Augustus Howell was a man of many
activities, and into all of them he threw himself with great
vivacity, enterprise, and push. He had ere now ceased to be
Ruskin's secretary, and had become a speculator and dealer
in works of art of many kinds. For the last year or two my
brother had lost sight of him mostly or wholly. The latter
had settled down at Kelmscott, an out-of-the-way place of
great seclusion, because he deemed it necessary for his health
and comfort, and for the avoidance of some of the worry and
harass which in London seemed certain either to beset him,
or to be regarded by himself as besetting him ; and he had
resumed painting with all zest and energy — equal at least to
what had marked him in any earlier years. His style was
now larger than aforetime, and his tone of mind for pictorial
work more tense, though certainly not more inventive, nor
so much a denizen of the realms of romance. With his
acute eye for business, he soon saw that his isolation on
the borders of four shires — Oxford, Gloucester, Berks, and
Wilts — was not exactly adapted for confirming or improving
his professional success. He had a few attached and steady
purchasers — chiefly now Leyland and Graham ; but these
and others could not be continually running after him, to
see what work was in hand, and to commission it if falling-in
with their tastes. Rossetti therefore, soon after housing
at Kelmscott, determined that he would have an agent in

324 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

London, to transact the sale of uncommissioned work and
any other business on hand ; and he decided that Howell
was his man for such purposes. Howell acquiesced with
great alacrity. Whatever his faults, he was a man of lively
feelings, capable of regarding a confiding friend with pre-
dilection, and even affection ; and I am satisfied that from
first to last there was a very warm corner in his heart for
Dante Rossetti. As a salesman — with his open manner, his
winning address, and his exhaustless gift of amusing talk,
not innocent of high colouring and of actual blague — Howell
was unsurpassable ; and he achieved for Rossetti, with ease
and also with much ingenious planning, many a stroke of
most excellent professional business, such as other men, less
capable of playing upon the hobbies or weaknesses of their
fellow-creatures, would have found arduous or impossible.
His very voice, with a scarcely perceptible foreign twang
in it, was a gift of Nature which no art could have rivalled.
He had a good footing in society, and in the world of art
many ins and outs of connexion. Howell and Rossetti
kept up at Kelmscott a very active correspondence ; and
the painter entrusted to his agent several works, which he
found to go off very much to his satisfaction. To all this
there was a less pleasing side, which developed in course of
time ; but I will here say with emphasis that my brother,
long after he and Howell had parted company, assured me
more than once that he had materially benefited in purse
from Howell's exertions, had at no other time experienced
equal facilities in disposing of his works, and had never been
conscious of the least direct unfairness towards himself in
the dealings of the highly resourceful Anglo-Portuguese. As
my brother (though in some ways extremely heedless and
lax in spending money) was always keenly alive to his own
interests in acquiring it, and not at all the man to be long
hoodwinked by anybody, and was in his later years more
than duly suspicious of various persons, this testimony to the
fair dealing of Mr. Howell — considerably decried in life and
after death — should in justice not be lost sight of.

STAY AND WORK AT KELMSCOTT, 1 872-4. 325

It may be as well to add (without entering into many
details) that, at the beginning of the business-connexion
between Howell and Rossetti, the former had a partner or
quasi-partner, Mr. John R. Parsons, who was a relative of
our old family friends the Keightleys. Mr. Parsons, a very
pleasant young gentleman, had a financial backer who re-
mained unknown to both Howell and Rossetti, and, owing
to some dispute, mainly fomented or dictated by this backer,
about an early Proserpine picture which my brother had
forwarded for sale, the transactions with Mr. Parsons came
to an end pretty soon, but left quite unaffected the transactions
with Mr. Howell individually.

Very few things produced by Rossetti came so near to
satisfying him as the Proserpine, in those two versions (not
including the one just mentioned) which, in my other volume,
Dante Gabriel Rossetti as Designer and Writer, I have termed
Nos. 3 and 4. The latter was sold to Mr. Leyland, and the
former to Mr. W. A. Turner. Mrs. Morris, the ideal sitter
for such a subject, posed for the head. Proserpine, in perfect
beauty shadowed with doom, is represented holding the
pomegranate of which she had eaten in Hades, thereby
unknowingly sentencing herself to the immortality of the
nether world. A gleam of light from the outer sky strikes
upon the background. Rossetti, as in several other instances,
wrote a sonnet for this picture. It was first in Italian, and
then in English. Great were the tribulations of the Proserpine
canvases — seven in all, besides crayon-drawings. The first
three were rejected ; the fourth had ill-success with Mr.
Parsons. Then my so-called No. 3 had its glass twice
smashed and renewed, and twice it was lined to prevent
accidents. Then No. 4 had its frame smashed twice, its glass
once ; it was nearly spoiled while under transfer to a new
strainer ; and, in transit to the purchaser, the glass was again
much damaged, and some other things as well. Luckily there
was only a scratch on the neck and cheek.

Other works proper to this Kelmscott period are : in oils,
La Ghirlandata, a composition of three figures, in which

326 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

music is again, as in the Veronica Veronese, a principal
element ; The Bower-Maiden (or Fleurs de Marie), a pleasing
picture without ideal quality ; The Blessed Damozel (begun
in 1873, or even in 1871, but chiefly the product of succeeding
years on to 1877); Dante's Dream — the smaller, but still
large, replica for Mr. Graham, after that gentleman had parted
with the original work— was planned out by Mr. Dunn at
Chelsea while Rossetti was at Kelmscott, but all the painter's
own work upon this canvas belongs to a later date — a double
predella is added to the replica only ; The Roman Widow
(or Dis Manibus), a lady in a mortuary chamber, playing
on two harps. In water-colour there was nothing of leading
importance. In crayons or coloured chalk, Ligeia Siren,
a portrait of Mr. Theodore Watts, and that (one of our
illustrations) of my wife Lucy Brown, to whom I was
married in March 1874. Some of these works have been
mentioned before in another connexion. I will now only
say that La Ghirlandata is, more obviously than usual, a
picture having some symbolic intention, which different
minds may be disposed to interpret differently ; and that
The Roman Widow seems to me quite unsurpassed, amid
my brother's work, for pathetic sweetness and beautiful
simplicity. If he painted one supremely loveable picture,
it is, I think, The Roman Widow — even in preference to the
Beata Beatrix or The Beloved.

As to poetry, Rossetti produced scarcely anything in this
term of about two years. I could only name the sonnets on
the Proserpine and on Winter. Painting kept him busy, along
with correspondence, and sometimes personal colloquy, rela-
ting to the painting affairs. He brought out the re-cast of his
old Italian translations, Dante and his Circle ; thought, at the
beginning of 1873, of publishing a new volume of original
poems, but finally decided that these were not as yet suffi-
ciently numerous ; and projected a translation of all Michel-
angelo's poems, but never made a real commencement with
this. Some one has invidiously said that Rossetti was " snuffed
out by an article." Byron used this phrase erroneously,

STAY AND WORK AT KELMSCOTT, 1 872-4. 327

though at that date excusably, about Keats ; but in relation
to Rossetti it is obviously untrue. We here see that, within a
few months after the Contemporary article had been re-issued
as a pamphlet, he was seriously thinking of publishing a new
volume of poems, and he did in fact publish one in 1881.
The author of The White Ship and The King's Tragedy was
not exactly snuffed out, whether critically or morally, whether
by an article or by a libel.

I will add a word or two here about certain " Nonsense-
verses " scribbled, or more generally extemporized and recited,
by Rossetti. A few of them must have got into print here
and there. In Mr. Scott's book four or more are inserted (one
at least of these being pitiably mauled by a hand and ear less
correct at rhythm than Rossetti's). Mr. Scott remarks as
follows : —

" The habit of making satirical rhymes like these [two staves by
Hueffer which had been cited] was an outcome of the appearance
of Lear's Book of Nonsense. D. G. R. began the habit with us, the
difficulty of finding a rhyme for the name being often the sole
inducement. Swinburne assisted him, and all of us ; and every day
for a year or two they used to fly about."

This practice may have commenced with Rossetti, I
suppose, towards 1864 or 1865, and may have lasted up to
1874, but hardly beyond that. He produced scores of these
Nonsense-verses, with the greatest ease ; many of them just
about as good as such things can be made. Now and again
one or other of them flits fitfully through my mind. If
nobody preserved a goodish string of them, it is a pity.
Possibly Mr. Swinburne's miraculous verbal memory, if he
cared to exercise it on such a trifle, would recover many of
Rossetti's stanzas, and also of those which other nimble-
witted heads produced, his own included. My brother was,
I think, the best of all for odd ear-catching spontaneity.
One of those given by Mr. Scott is a curious rhyming ingeni-
osity. It relates to a young poet (his name by this date better
remembered than his works) whom Rossetti knew and liked

328 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

well, and whose abilities he esteemed ; so of course the rhyme,
for all its grotesqueness, is not in the least ill-natured in
intention. I cite the lines as they appear in Mr. Scott's book,
but (even apart from the meaningless substitution of the
word " checkboard " for " chessboard ") am not sure of their
entire verbal accuracy :• —

" There's the Irishman Arthur O'Shaughnessy —
On the chessboard of poets a pawn is he ;
Though bishop or king
Would be rather the thing
To the fancy of Arthur O'Shaughnessy."

In another instance a lady's Christian name, Olive, was
named to my brother, and he was defied to rhyme to that.
Quick as lightning came the response, much to the following
effect : —

" There is a young female named Olive —
When God made her he made a doll live " etc.

But Rossetti admitted that this was just a rhyme, and not
an accurate description of the lady, to him (it may or may
not be) unknown.

Though my brother was on the whole extremely well
when he settled at Kelmscott in 1872, and only a little beset
— hardly perturbed— by those fanciful ideas of widespread
animosities and conspiracies etc. which had been so marked
at the close of the spring and during the summer, he relapsed
after a while, and I assume that chloral was again mainly
conducive to this unfortunate result. In May 1874 Dr. Hake
told me that, according to his son George, Rossetti exhibited
signs of faintness sometimes after a walk or any exertion.
When my wife and I visited him for a few days in the early
summer of that year, we perceived that he was once more
troubled with suspicions of servants and other persons, and
by no means exempt from disquieting symptoms. Mr. Scott
has seen fit to publish an anecdote relating to a slightly
earlier date, arid I will here extract it ; —

STAY AND WORK AT KELMSCOTT, 1 872-4. 329

"On 19 April 1874 I received these words by post: 'My dear
Scotus, I am likely to be needing ,£200 in a few days, and
happen unluckily at this moment to be run rather dry. Could
you manage to lend it me ? and if so to oblige me with a cheque at
once ? ' Knowing his affairs to be prosperous at the time, I could
not view this request with composure. He was living quietly at
Kelmscott ; but I came to the conclusion that it was my duty as his
friend to keep his mind easy. Accordingly by next post the cheque
was dispatched. By next again it came back to me in a note, saying
he had 'just received some money, and he returned my cheque no
less thankfully than if he had needed it.' He had by that time lost
nearly every old friend save myself. Did he now suspect that I was
among his enemies, and had he done this to try me ? I fear this
semi-insane motive was the true one."

Throughout April 1874 I was abroad, and necessarily I
knew nothing of what was happening between Scott in
London and my brother at Kelmscott. Even had I been in
London, I might probably have remained alike uninformed.
I cannot therefore elucidate this matter unless by conjecture.
To me it seems abundantly probable that at some time in
April my brother found occasion for some such amount as
,£200, and had it not at his immediate disposal ; and that he
acted bond fide in asking Scott for the sum, which Scott very
liberally, though as he shows reluctantly, sent. My brother,
it seems, returned the cheque forthwith, on the alleged ground
that he had meanwhile received money from another quarter.
This was, in itself, an unobjectionable and even a laudable
proceeding. Moreover the alleged ground seems so likely
that one might hardly have expected a different surmise to
be put forward in reference to a " dear friend." And again,
if the dear friend was really so stricken as to be " semi-
insane," his conduct might have been construed more in
sorrow than in anger. That Rossetti had then " lost nearly
every old friend " save Mr. Scott is a gratuitous and an
incorrect statement. There were Brown, Stephens, Hughes,
Seddon, Boyce, Lowes Dickinson, Tebbs, John Marshall,
Jones, Morris, Peter Paul Marshall, and Howell — not to cast

330 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

about for others. But it may well be that Scott was more
likely than some of these to have ready money available, and
he was the oldest friend of all.

Mr. Scott — I have more than once had occasion to say and
to prove it — was extremely shaky in his dates. If it so
happens that not 19 April, but 9 or 10 April, was the real
date of Rossetti's first letter, there is a coincidence regarding
money which seems to come particularly pat. On 10 April
Mr. Leyland (I possess his letter) sent Rossetti a sum of
£200 on account of The Roman Widow ; and this sum must
(assuming my conjecture to be accurate) have reached him just
about the same time as Scott's cheque for the like amount.
Of course I cannot affirm that Mr. Scott made here any such
mistake as to the date, but I can scarcely help regarding it as
the reverse of improbable.

Immediately after detailing this matter of the cheque
Mr. Scott proceeds as follows : —

" A very short time after, he suddenly left Kelmscott for altogether,
having got into a foundationless quarrel with some anglers by the
river, unnecessary to describe."

This is correct. I never knew with much precision the
details of the quarrel referred to, but understand it to have
been much on this wise. My brother was taking a riverside
stroll along with George Hake, and saw a party of three or
four anglers. He fancied that they called out to him in an
insulting way ; which was either a morbid mis-hearing of
something which they really said, or perhaps an actual
physical delusion. Ireful, impetuous as usual, and now totally
reckless of probable consequences, Rossetti ran up to the
anglers, and with vigorous abuse retorted upon the supposed
insult. Mr. Hake had to follow as fast as he could, and,
offering whatever explanation came uppermost, parted the
antagonists. The anglers could not fail to be astonished ;
rumours of the strange outburst began to circulate ; and
Rossetti found that Kelmscott had ceased to be a place of
comfort for him, and had become or would rapidly be

LONDON AND ELSEWHERE, 1 874-8. 33 1

becoming a hotbed of discomfort. So he returned to London
and Cheyne Walk towards the latter end of July. He never
again set his foot in Kelmscott Manor-house.

XXXVI.

LONDON AND ELSEWHERE, 1874-8.

I AM now getting on towards the end of the life of that man
of astonishing genius, ardent initiative, vigorous and fas-
cinating personality, abundant loveableness, many defects,
and in late years overclouded temperament and bedimmed
outlook on the world, whom it was once my privilege to call
brother. I wish to present a true picture of him to the
reader. This, not an easy task even in the case of a far more
ordinary man, is truly difficult when one has to deal with so
complex a personage — one who, with so much height and
depth, combined so many excesses of feeling, inequalities of
impression, and discords of act. In some previous instances
Mr. Bell Scott's book has served to determine what is the least
favourable light in which the proceedings of Dante Rossetti
can be viewed. I will again have recourse to it for opening
the present Section, which will chiefly concern my brother's
condition of health mental and physical, and his demeanour
in that connexion.

No sooner has Mr. Scott disposed of the incident of the
anglers at Kelmscott than he continues in the following
terms : —

" He sent for me [on re-settling in Cheyne Walk]. I found him
quiet and taciturn. He only said the change would do him good.
From that time, till now that I write this, he has lived within the
house, never even going into the street, never seeing any one."

This turn of phrase makes it obvious that Mr. Scott was
writing at some date during Rossetti's lifetime ; and the
ensuing reference to Mr. George Hake suggests that the date
was not very long after the parting of my brother, January 1877,

332 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

from that gentleman. Now it is totally untrue that Rossetti,
between July 1874, when he returned to London from
Kelmscott, and some time in 1877, never went into the street.
It is quite correct that he did not go to and fro in the streets,
in a casual sort of way, to any extent worth mentioning ; but
he went out constantly — I believe only occasionally missing
a day — in the late evening. His habit was to enter a fly from
his own door with George Hake, and drive up to some airy
spot, very often the Circles of Regent's Park. There he got
out, took a longish walk with his companion, and then re-
entered the fly, and drove home. I am far from saying that
this was a wholly rational proceeding, or that it did not bespeak
a certain exaggerated craving for seclusion ; but it is a very
different thing from " living within the house, and never going
even into the street." Besides, as we shall see, there were
three absences in the country, two of them of considerable
duration, in 1875, 76, and 77. Mr. Scott's addendum, "never
seeing any one," is, in its literal sense, at least as incorrect as
the other statement about house and street. I suppose how-
ever that the real meaning is that Rossetti never went now to
other people's houses to see them. Even this is not absolutely
accurate ; but it approaches towards accuracy, and with this,
from our present author, we may count ourselves content.

It deserves some consideration moreover that the habit of
walking out in the late evening, and not in the day, was not
altogether a novelty with Rossetti, brought on by that general
change of feeling which resulted from the Buchanan pamphlet
of 1872. There is a letter of his to Mr. Shields, 24 Decem-
ber 1869 (published in The Century-guild Hobbyhorse, No. 16),
which says that he was then, in fine weather, in the practice
of taking long walks in Battersea Park, " whereas my habit
had long been to walk only at nights, except when in the
country." This habit, bad as it was in hygiene, can easily be
accounted for. He rose late ; painted all day as long as light
served him ; then dined ; and, whether winter or summer, all
was darkness tempered by gaslight or moonlight by the hour
he left the house.

LONDON AND ELSEWHERE, 1 874-8. 333

Scott proceeds : —

" Holman Hunt, Woolner, and other artists, had left him long
ago ; now Swinburne and Morris were not to be seen there. Even
Dr. Hake deserted him, feeling aggrieved by his patient and long-
suffering son George being driven away after several years' sacrifice.
The old Doctor would see him no more."

About Hunt and Woolner I have already said something ;
but to speak of " other artists " who " had left " Rossetti,
without referring to Madox Brown, who continued to see him
with all the olden affection and much the same as the olden
frequency (so far as his calls in Cheyne Walk were concerned),
is, to say the least, an omission. There were others also —
especially Shields when in London- — and other details could be
added substantially diminishing the force of what Scott says
about artists ; but I need not enlarge upon this, nor upon the
poets Swinburne and Morris, who best know what line of con-
duct they did or did not adopt. The allegation that Dr. Hake
" deserted him," and " would see him no more," is not accurate.
He held aloof for a while ; but in October 1878 he himself
told me that he had then recently written to my brother,
intimating the continuance of his friendly feelings ; and it was
only because Rossetti replied in a tone which (although respon-
sive in cordiality) appeared to the Doctor like a farewell, that
he abstained from taking further steps for renewing the inti-
macy. I think his re-appearance would have been a satisfac-
tion, and am sure it would have been a benefit, to my brother.
In December 1878 they exchanged other friendly notes.

About Mr. George Hake there might be a good deal to
say. I don't know what his " several years' sacrifice "
amounted to. He was a young man without a profession,
and without (so far as I ever saw or heard) any definite
expectation of employment of whatsoever kind. My brother,
at the opening of their connexion, liked him much, found
him extremely pleasant and accommodating, and ready to
do whatever came to hand, and engaged him as secretary
at a salary which I suppose to be highly adequate if not

334 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL

liberal, and which was punctually paid. Moreover the
residence at Kelmscott was quite convenient to Mr. George
Hake — the place being very near Oxford, where he com-
pleted his academical course during that interval of time.
I will openly say that from first to last I never witnessed
any solid ground of complaint given to my brother by Mr.
Hake ; but Dante did at times, as the connexion wore on,
mention circumstances to me which he clearly believed to
be true, and which, under that belief, he was warranted in
taking into account. That he was fanciful in these chloralized
years is plain ; and that he could at all times of his life get
more angry on a sudden than beseems a philosopher, and
comport himself with more of abruptness and vehemence,
is also allowed. For some while before the parting came,
he thought it had better come pretty soon, yet continued to
temporize. At last there was an outburst, and the parting
ensued. I, scanning the matter from my own point of view,
regretted this upshot not a little. After a while irritation
abated, and my brother met his late secretary again — at
any rate in August 1880. — But all this about Mr. George
Hake is really a private affair, and would not have appeared
in my pages at all, but that Mr. Scott saw fit to give it
prominence as derogatory to my brother.

Mr. Scott next adverts to that matter, proper to the year
1872, about Browning's Fifine at the Fair. It is noticed in
Section XXXIV. Scott's reference to it is exaggerated in
expression, but that need not detain us. One sentence is the
reverse of the fact — viz., " Browning, as his manner was,
had never acknowledged Rossetti's presentation-copy of his
Poems, and now this confirmed him to be among the enemies."
Browning did acknowledge that presentation-copy, and
acknowledge it with praise. I have said so in Section XXXII.,
and I still possess his letter. Why did Mr. Scott make this
allegation ? Apparently because he misremembered a state-
ment, occurring in a letter from my brother, August 1871,
that Browning had not acknowledged the volume of 1861,
The Early Italian Poets. This statement (as its context

London and elsewhere, 1874-8. 335

Shows) merely illustrates the thesis that Browning was hostile
to all translating work ; but one phase of Mr. Scott's inner
consciousness certified him that his " dearest of friends and
most interesting of men " * was a remarkably flabby creature,
and so he introduced this random assertion. It might indeed
be contended that the allegation that Browning did not reply
as to the Poems does not convey any imputation upon
Rossetti ; but it conveys, and appears aimed to convey,
the imputation that Rossetti's delusive notion about Browning
and Fifine was the outcome of wounded vanity, occasioned
by the non-acknowledgment of the recent volume.
I continue quoting : —

" Only two quite new men were now to be seen about him. One
was William Sharp, a poet to be ; the other, Theodore Watts, who,
being professionally a lawyer, managed everything for him, and who
was just then beginning to write criticisms in the weekly papers, so
was looked upon by poor D. G. R. as doubly important. Happily
Watts has been invaluable since then in many ways ; fascinated by
Rossetti, ill as he was, and always ready and able to serve him."

In this passage Madox Brown — not to speak of any one
else — is again ignored. The designation of date comes in
the word " now " in the opening sentence, and one does
not know what the " now " may have been. The suggestion
that Mr. Sharp was frequently with Rossetti by the date
when Mr. Watts " was just beginning to write criticisms in
the weekly papers " appears to me erroneous. But, consider-
ing that " poor D. G. R " is duly pitied by Mr. Bell Scott, and
Mr. Watts duly praised, one may excuse this.

Then comes the conclusion of this chapter of the Autobio-
graphical Notes : —

" For myself, Rossetti had been the last of a succession of men
I had loved, and had tried to make love me. For each of them I
would have given all but life, and I was again defeated by destiny.
Equal candour and confidence he never had to give ; but now his

1 Scott's Illustrations to the King's Quair, p. 19.

336 bANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

singular manias made ordinary friendly intercourse impossible to
him. After having been both his banker and his nurse, I could not
depend upon him either in action or word. Still I remained faithful
to the old tie, and Miss Boyd agreed in doing so also. We con-
tinued our occasional visits, either morning or evening, the only two
of all his old circle."

All this seems (so far as its diction is concerned) to
relate to the same period when Mr. Watts was "just begin-
ning " etc. ; and, if so, it is monstrous to say that Miss Boyd
and Scott, to the exclusion of Brown, were " the only two of
all his old circle." It is however true that Brown did not
see Rossetti for some while at the close of 1877, and during
1878 and a part of 1879 ; and in August 1881 he settled in
Manchester, and the two old friends could barely meet again
some two or three times. Mr. Scott disparages Rossetti's
" candour and confidence " at all times of their intimacy, and
later on " could not depend upon him either in action or
word." As to the candour and confidence, I question whether
Rossetti showed any deficiency in these. He was cordial, out-
spoken, and in fact far too communicative of matters which,
affecting others as well as himself, he ought to have kept
locked up in his own breast. His public letters to Mr. Scott
have an air of great frankness and bonhomie joined with
affection. And, as to the statement that Mr. Scott " could
not depend on him either in action or word," I may observe
that Scott's letters to Rossetti, of which several belonging to
this period are extant in my hands, do not indicate any want
of such dependence — they have the external marks of free
interchange of thought and information upon such subjects
as came uppermost. It is indeed true that my brother
continued liable to morbid fancies and needless suspicions,
and, in relation to these, he must often have propounded as
fact something which was only supposition on his part, and
unfounded supposition.

I have now done with this passage in Scott's book ; and
can only regret having had to point out so much of mis-
statement and over-statement in the writing of a thoughtful

LONDON AND ELSEWHERE, 1 874-8. 337

man, of many fine gifts and feelings, upon his " dearest of
friends," whom he knew moreover to be in some respects an
invalid, and thus one to whom indulgence might have been
an acquaintance's duty and an old familiar's prerogative.

In these years the state of my brother's health, his spirits,
and his mental impressions upon particular points, was
frequently unsatisfactory, though there were rallies in respect
both of physical well-being and of cheerfulness. Mr. Watts
was certainly much oftener with him than any one else,
serving to keep him in tone, and endlessly helpful in a variety
of ways. I regret to say that I myself saw my brother but
little— living at the other end of London, occupied with
official work all day, and commonly with literary work in the
evening, recently married, and with growing family-ties of my
own. Towards the end of 1875 Rossetti felt a great need of
changing from London and its associations. He went to
Bognor, renting a house named Aldwick Lodge, and here he
remained till about the end of June 1876. He was constantly
occupied in painting at Aldwick Lodge, and received there
several friends, and most of the members of his family. No
doubt my wife and I would have gone likewise at some time,
but there was a baby, and also a nurse ; and my brother
expressly said (the question arose in November 1875) that he
would not house the nurse. Dr. Hake speaks of the Lodge as

" a commodious villa and grounds, in a lane west of the town,
and near to the roughest bit of beach on the Sussex coast. The
villa had good rooms. Upstairs was a gallery, with bedchambers on
both sides, and ending in a large apartment which became a studio."
In the afternoons Rossetti " took a violent walk [his pace was
always a resolute and rather quick one] over the boulders by the sea
towards Selsey Bay, among the ruined wooden groynes which had
become sea-weed gardens, hideous of aspect, as if invented and laid
out by fish made man."

Dr. Hake holds that Rossetti took no heed of the scene ;
whereas another writer1 (I cannot say an authority) assumes

1 Mrs. Wood.
VOL. I. 22

338 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

that he now first took pleasure in the sea and sea-walks. I
hardly know why this should be affirmed — he had from of old
known such places as Boulogne, Hastings, and Clevedon —
but it is true that, whether at Bognor or elsewhere, he indulged
in sea-trips scarcely at all. As he was a very qualmy sailor,
sea-sickness assailed him with great virulence and perti-
nacity.

During Rossetti's stay near Bognor a libel-case was going
on in London, Mr. Buchanan suing Mr. Peter Taylor, then
proprietor of The Examine}'. Rossetti was not in the faintest
degree concerned in writing or prompting any of the matter
charged as libellous ; but this matter involved in part an
attack upon the conduct of Mr. Buchanan in relation to
his article in the Contemporary Review. My brother was
extremely desirous of avoiding all sort of intermixture
in this trial, and that may, I think, have been one reason
why his stay at Aldwick Lodge was so prolonged. He
returned to Chelsea almost as soon as the trial was over.
Let me add, in fairness to Mr. Buchanan, that the jury
agreed with him in considering he had been libelled, and they
gave him damages to the amount of ^150. Whether they
were right or wrong is a question I can leave alone.

Hardly had my brother returned to London when he went
to Broadlands in Hampshire, staying there for the better part
of the month of August. Broadlands was the seat of the
Right Honourable William Cowper-Temple and his wife (soon
afterwards Lord and Lady Mount-Temple). The husband
had some years previously become the owner of Rossetti's pic-
ture of Beata Beatrix, now in the National Gallery. Of the pro-
fuse kindness which he received in this mansion, and of his
ardent admiration of his host and hostess, more especially the
latter, his Family-letters bear ample record. Here he met
Mrs. Georgina Sumner, a lady mentioned in Section XXVII.
Mrs. Sumner also became a greatly attached friend of his, and
favoured him in London with sittings for some of his works.
Rossetti was not at all well at Broadlands ; suffering from
pains in the limbs (which recurred at intervals afterwards),

LONDON AND ELSEWHERE, 1 874-8. 339

and from " nights of utter unrest." His spirits however
improved. I apprehend that this flitting to Broadlands —
highly satisfactory though it proved in some respects — would
not have been undertaken, but for the fact that my brother
was now having some alterations effected in his studio. He
heard — or imagined — objectionable noises from an adjoining
house ; and he got the room-wall near the fireplace doubled,
and the space filled in with thick wadding. Mr. Watts and
Mr. Dunn attended to this cumbrous job, while Rossetti along
with George Hake was at Broadlands. The adjoining house
was occupied by a musician, Mr. Malcolm Lawson, and some
members of the family — Malcolm being a brother of the
distinguished young landscape-painter Cecil Lawson. I
have always had reason to suppose that the Lawsons and
their associates were perfectly well affected to my brother,
and would indeed have been proud to cultivate intercourse
with him ; but he did not think so, and fancied that there
was a large and frequent amount of unnecessary noise from
that house and its small grounds, audible both in his studio
and in his garden, and annoying, and intended to annoy, him.
I remember there was once a thrush hard by, which, to my
hearing, simply trilled its own lay on and off. My brother
discerned a different note, and conceived that the thrush
had been trained to ejaculate something insulting to him.
Such is perverted fantasy — or I may rather infer such is
an outcome of chloral-dosing.

Returned from Broadlands, Rossetti was constrained by
medical orders to face two nights without any chloral at
all ; and soon he tried mesmerism, with a result of better
nights and no pain in the limbs. A Miss Chandos appears
to have been the mesmerist, associated with Mr. Chandos
Leigh Hunt, a relative of the poet-essayist.

I must now recur to that matter which I have mentioned
before (Sections XXIX. and XXXIV.) of an inconvenience
from which my'brother suffered requiring surgical treatment.
This malady — which I surmise had not been at all attended
to since the late summer of 1872 — came to a severe crisis in

340 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

the middle of June 1877. It is referred to in an article which
Mr. Theodore Watts published in February 1895,1 and I
could not perhaps do better than borrow his clear account of
the incident : —

" I cannot refrain from saying here a word about a certain occasion
in the year 1877 when he was extremely ill — not from the effects of
insomnia, but from a different cause altogether. He had for years
been subject to a certain organic disturbance which, though under
timely and skilful treatment it is not considered to be dangerous,
will become full of peril, and will indeed end fatally, if, in certain of
its developments, it is neglected or treated unskilfully. In 1877 this
ailment took a somewhat serious form. Yet our friend the eminent
surgeon John Marshall was not greatly alarmed, knowing that,
should it occur that the symptoms did take an aggravated turn, he
had but to perform a surgical operation in order to give relief.
This operation however was one of great delicacy, and the aggra-
vated symptoms necessitating it were apt to come on suddenly.
Marshall therefore left instructions with the housekeeper that, should
Rossetti seem to be suffering from an accession of illness, she was to
take a cab, and go at once to him at Savile Row. The symptoms
did come on quite suddenly ; but, as Rossetti was determined that
he would undergo no operation save in my presence, the house-
keeper, obeying his commands (which were always given with a
Napoleonic imperiousness), came to me at Putney, instead of going
straight to the doctor. On reaching Cheyne Walk, and seeing (as
I thought) that a serious rupture of internal blood-vessels had taken
place, I went to Marshall, and at once, and fortunately found him
in. My description of the state of things alarmed him. We called
for a chloroformist, and drove off to Cheyne Walk as fast as possible.
The operation was performed with all Marshall's usual skill, but
afterwards Rossetti fell into a state of the greatest weakness. I sent
for his unfailing friend Madox Brown to consult with Marshall, who
advised that Rossetti should be taken to the seaside. Heme Bay,
as being near to London, was the place selected, and thither he was
taken by Brown — or rather to a little place called Hunter's Forestall.
In a very little time Mrs. Rossetti, Christina, and myself, went down
to Heme Bay, and found Gabriel in a lamentable state of depression."

1 Recollections of Christina Rossetti, printed in The Nineteenth Century.

LONDON AND ELSEWHERE, 1 874-8. 34I

I have only a few remarks to make in amplification of this
narrative. Although it is entirely true that this upset had no
direct connexion with insomnia, still Mr. Marshall informed me
at the time that the heavy doses of chloral retarded recovery
from the operation, and he once more urged that they should
be reduced ; and at the seaside they gradually were reduced,
standing at 30 or 40 grains instead of 180. But the notion of
leaving it off entirely was what Rossetti would not entertain.
He wrote to Brown, and not without a certain show of reason :

" The fact is that any man in my case must either do as I do, or
cease from necessary occupation, which cannot be pursued in the
day when the night is stripped of rest altogether."

The "Napoleonic imperiousness" is a good descriptive phrase
of Mr. Watts ; yet it should be understood that there was
always about as much of good-nature as of command in my
brother's address to servants and dependants, and he was
throughout life a prime favourite with all such people. They
would have done for him much more through liking than
for most other men through subservience. Two full months,
with a hired nurse in the house, elapsed between the operation
and the departure from London ; and it was only on 16 August
that Brown and I succeeded in almost forcing Dante into
Brown's house, and thence on the following day he proceeded
with his old friend to Heme Bay itself — Hunter's Forestall,
as being more peaceful and retired, coming two or three days
afterwards. The nurse remained with him all the while, only
leaving when my brother returned to town on 8 November.
Even after reaching his seaside retreat (at which Mr. Shields
also was a visitor for a time) Rossetti was for a good while
incapable of doing a stroke of designing-work, and greatly
feared that he would never be a painter again. At last the
power and the determination returned simultaneously ; he
drew an admirable crayon-group (head and shoulders) of our
mother and sister, two others equally good of the latter, and
yet another of our mother. Weather had been favourable,
spirits and energy revived, and he came back to town nerved

342 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

once more for the battle of art and of life. Mr. Marshall
declared that he looked ten years younger. It may be noted
that, in a letter to Brown from Hunter's Forestall, my brother
said : —

" I attribute any possible improvement to my having greatly
diminished my wine; I now may almost say that I take none in
daytime/and much less at night."

It must have been during my brother's stay at Hunter's
Forestall that he wrote a note to Mr. Dunn asking him to
collect together all the letters lying about in various receptacles
in the studio at Chelsea,

" and lock them in the iron safe outside the studio. The unaccount-
able wholesale disappearance of large batches of letters some time
back renders this more advisable."

This is an odd detail ; and gives me occasion to say that,
though my brother was, in his later years, unreasonably sus-
picious of various persons and things, some matter did never-
theless really occur now and again which suggested serious
tampering with his concerns, and called for corresponding
vigilance. I do not recollect — possibly I never heard — about
the " wholesale disappearance " etc. My brother, all through
his life, received very large numbers of letters, and at his death
comparatively few were to be found, belonging chiefly to his
last eight or nine years. I think that on leaving Chatham
Place he burned almost all the then extant correspondence.
In a later instance, which may have been towards 1 871, he got
Christina to destroy huge bundles of letters which had again
accumulated. This was quite in her line, for she always
burned, with the fewest exceptions, every scrap of writing that
she ever received. I cannot but regard with great regret the
loss of all the early correspondence of the P.R.B. days, which
would serve towards setting in its true light that movement
of not less than historical importance in the British School of
Art.

I must recur a little to the pitiable subject of chloral. Mr.

By D. G. Rossetti.

Christina G. Rossetti.

LONDON AND ELSEWHERE, 1 874-8. 343

Marshall, Rossetti's principal medical adviser, was not one of
those doctors who think it desirable to traverse beyond a
certain point the wishes and settled habits of their patients ;
although it is most true that he earnestly and repeatedly
endeavoured to check and diminish the chloral-dosing. A
letter of his, in July 1876, intimates that Sir William Jenner
then tried to reduce Rossetti's chloral to 20 grains a night ;
but Marshall thought this too restrictive, and sanctioned 36,
or in exceptional cases even 48, grains. In April 1878 Mr.
Dunn informed me that my brother was then taking about
50 grains, besides keeping his usual late hours, and limiting
his walking to his own garden — a practice which may I think
have begun soon after his return from Hunter's Forestall, and
which continued with hardly any interruption ever afterwards.
In January 1879 the chloral was 92 grains, and had recently
been even more. In November of the same year Mr. Marshall
wrote that Messrs. Bell & Co., the chemists, had protested
against supplying twelve bottles of chloral every eight or nine
days ; on the previous day they had sent two bottles, and
would henceforth make it only one per day. In this decision
Mr. Marshall concurred ; and he pointed out to Rossetti that,
as Mr. Dunn had then temporarily left the Chelsea house, and
his regulating influence was thus withdrawn, it became all the
more imperative to limit the supply of the drug. My brother
obtained chloral chiefly from two firms, Messrs. Bell and
Messrs. Dinneford. At his death their outstanding bills came
in to me. I forget the exact amounts, but am probably not
far wrong in saying that the two together reached well on
towards ,£100 ! This was for some months, ending in the
middle of December 1881. Chloral was then, at length, totally
abolished, and was never resumed.

The episode of Hunter's Forestall produced one unfortunate
result — a passing interruption to the intimate personal
relations between Madox Brown and Rossetti. Brown
thought that Rossetti was extravagant and heedless in house-
hold matters ; and so he was, though he made various
attempts at control and retrenchment, in which Mr. George

344 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Hake, and more especially Mr. Dunn, seconded him to the
best of their power. Brown therefore, at the seaside, recom-
mended Rossetti to dismiss his two female servants. There
had recently been also a man named Albert (succeeding
various other men of earlier years), but he, I fancy, had left
soon after the nurse came. My brother reflected upon
Brown's advice, and came to the conclusion that his then
female servants suited him well enough (which was also my
own opinion), and he therefore declined to part with them.
Brown took this in some dudgeon, and determined not again
to call in Dante's London house while those servants were
there. He told me he "would not be made the laughing-
stock of all London " — which I could not but regard as a
very exaggerated view of the interest which Londoners would
or could take in any phase of the incident ; but my honoured
father-in-law was at all times rather sensitive to the actual or
supposed opinion of " the world." Brown therefore, upon my
brother's return to London, re-appeared for a while no more.
Ultimately those servants were gone, and others re-placed
them. This may have been towards August 1879 ; and it was
only then that he offered to return — receiving the cordial
response, " You would of course have been most welcome all
along, and will be simply the same now." No further
coolness ensued between the two old friends, and I am clear
that in this instance my brother had not put himself in the
wrong.

For some time past — ever since his health revived in
Scotland in 1872 — Rossetti had been entertaining projects
of leaving his Chelsea house, and finding accommodation <
somewhere else in the outskirts of London. He required
premises of good size, with a proper studio, spacious grounds,
retired situation, and none the less convenient access to and
from the heart of London. House after house was pro-
pounded and inspected — generally by Dunn or George Hake.
None of them met all the rather exceptional requirements.
So at last, in January 1878, Rossetti determined to renew his
tenancy of Tudor House, though at double his original rent —

LONDON AND ELSEWHERE, 1 874-8. 345

i.e., at ,£200 per annum, and with the warning that sooner
or later his fine garden would for the most part be built over.
Even £200 was in fact not a very high rent, considering the
great rise in the value of property in that neighbourhood.

In the years 1874 and 1876 two deaths occurred which
afflicted my brother very sensibly.

The first, 5 November 1874, was the decease of Oliver
Madox Brown, not yet aged twenty. Rossetti had for years
entertained the highest opinion of the genius and the future
of this surprising youth, whether as painter or as novelist,
and even in part as poet. Pyaemia attacked him from some
unascertained cause, and he died after several weeks of acute
suffering. I need scarcely say that my brother was foremost
among those who came forward to soothe, so far as might, be,
the anguish of the heart-stricken father and family. I can
recollect that, on receiving a few lines of sympathy from my
brother in the first hours of bereavement, Brown said to me,
" It is always Gabriel who speaks the right word."

It is however an untoward fact that, when Oliver's
posthumous writings were published in 1876, Rossetti, then
at Aldwick, received such a " painful impression " from some-
thing he read in them that he laid the book aside altogether.
He must have thought that some character or incident in the
work was intended to animadvert upon himself. What this
was I never knew. To press my brother upon such a topic
was not judicious; "the less said the better." I doubt
whether there is in the book anything even distantly involving
my brother. There might have been, for Oliver did avowedly
base one or two of his personages upon individuals of his
acquaintance. Whatever his feelings about the young
novelist's performance, or about the spirit in which he had
written, my brother did not cease to speak highly of his
gifts. This is apparent in Mr. Hall Caine's book.

• The second death was that of our sister Maria, on
24 November 1876, aged forty-nine. Maria was intensely
devotional — I think more warmly and spontaneously so than
any other person I have known. She had long contemplated

346 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

finishing her days as a member of an Anglican sisterhood —
the All Saints' Home in Margaret Street, Regent Street.
When my approaching marriage was notified in the summer
of 1873, she, considering herself to be thus freer than before
from family-ties, announced that she would no longer defer
her project. She became a novice, and later on a professed
sister. She had before this, in 1871, published one book
of no little merit and repute, A Shadow of Dante, considered
very mainly from the religious point of view. In the Home
she was treated with all kindness and consideration, and
she delighted beyond measure in the religious life ; but her
health soon grew uncertain, and by the middle of September
1876 it became apparent that she was not long to survive.
There was an internal fibroid tumour, with dropsical com-
plications. Her severe sufferings were borne with more than
resignation and fortitude — almost with rapture, for to her
the promises of religion were the most assured certainties —
the only perfectly assured ones. With Dante, and also
with myself, she had more than one earnest colloquy on
religious subjects as the end approached. On 29 November
we all attended her funeral, as a " Sister of the Poor," in
Brompton Cemetery. This was, since the death of my father
in 1854, the first gap in the Rossetti household. The next
was to be the death of Dante himself in 1882, followed by
my mother in 1886, and by Christina in 1894. There were
also my own losses — an infant son in 1883, and in 1894 my
wife. Between 1854 and 1876 there had been three deaths
in the Polidori family — Philip in 1864, Margaret in 1867,
Henrietta Polydore (my uncle's daughter) in 1874.

XXXVII.

INCIDENTS AND TRANSACTIONS, 1874-81.— HALL CAINE.

After my brother's return from Kelmscott to London in 1874
one of the first matters which engaged his attention was the
dissolution of the partnership, Morris, Marshall, Falkner,
& Co. The firm was by this time fully established as of

INCIDENTS AND TRANSACTIONS, 1 874-8 1. 347

high mark, but it was not yet a flourishing commercial con-
cern. Mr. Morris, as I have said from the first, was in every
sense the leading partner, the one who devoted most time
and energy to the work, and the one who had invested most
money in it. He now thought that he would like to be sole
master in the house ; not indeed discarding his old associates
so far as they might see fit to continue furnishing appropriate
work for pay, but no longer dividing with them the actual
profits of the firm. All the others had their own professions,
and consequent incomes. Mr. Morris had no other definite
profession — only his admirable work as a poet. In this view
of the affair most of his partners concurred — Burne-Jones,
Webb, Falkner, and my brother. Peter Paul Marshall might,
after the first impulse of irritation, be regarded as nearly
neutral. Madox Brown however was a determined opponent.
He saw no reason why he should forego advantages already
secured to him. He was getting on in years, with a wife and
son to support ; he had always calculated upon the firm as
an important eventual accession to his professional earnings ;
and he had no notion either of retiring voluntarily, or of being
bought out unless under compulsion. Circumstances were
too strong for him, and he was bought out, receiving a
handsome sum. The affair, both at the time and for some
years ensuing, was a painful one to the friends of Brown and
of Morris. I am glad to leave it undetailed, apart from the
one point which immediately concerns my narrative — and that
is that my brother's attitude was always one of conciliation,
and a wish to adjust contending claims, had that but been
possible. He himself retired from the firm without desiring
any compensation for his own benefit. A sum was however
assigned to him. He laid it apart for the eventual advantage
of a member of the Morris family, but, ere his death, circum-
stances had induced him to trench upon it not a little.

There is a small matter, detailed in Mr. Bell Scott's book,
which I would rather not have seen in print at all,1 but which,

1 Professor Minto, the Editor of Mr. Scott's book, rightly and necessarily
asked me, before going to press, whether I would authorize the insertion

348 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL

being in print, must not be left unnoticed here. Mr. Scott
summarizes a letter which my brother, being then at Aldwick
Lodge, addressed to Miss Boyd on 3 November 1875. The
letter relates to various topics having no connexion with that
which appears in its postscript, and which is thus put by
Mr. Scott:—

" In a postscript he says he is forced to reopen his letter to tell
what he designates a wondrous tale. Some four years ago G. F.
Watts, R.A., painted a head of him, for which he only gave that
artist two sittings, and which remained unfinished. His impression
of it was appalling (though possibly from the exactness of its like-
ness), and people have ever since kept telling him it was horrible.
Accordingly he executed a coup de main. He finished a spare
chalk-drawing, and sent Dunn with it to Little Holland House
[Mr. Watts's then residence], sending also a note saying that he
should be very much obliged if Watts would make an exchange,
as he wanted the picture, not for himself, and that the bearer would
call next day at same time for it, to save trouble. ' This resulted,"
he continues, ' in my getting the picture next day, though Watts's
note with it showed plainly that it was even as a tooth out of his

of certain letters by my brother. He sent me copies of the letters, which
I read attentively. I cancelled a few sentences or phrases, and returned
the copies to Professor Minto, fully assenting to the publication of what
remained. When the published book reached me, I was surprised to
see in it this statement by my brother about his portrait painted by
Mr. G. F. Watts. It appeared to me that one of two things was certain :
first and most probable, that this passage had not been included in the
copy-letters sent to me ; second, that, if it had been so included, I must
have marked it for excision. The fact is that this is one of the instances
in which Mr. Scott does not quote a letter verbatim, but summarizes the
contents of a letter, merely citing between inverted commas two or three
of its clauses. He thus cites, for instance, the clause beginning " This
resulted in my getting" etc. I infer therefore that Professor Minto did
not regard this as a letter over which I had copyright authority, and so
did not send me a copy of it — failing to reflect that I had such authority
over (at any rate) those passages which are cited between inverted commas.
Admitting this explanation, the Professor (on whose memory I would not
willingly cast any reproach) only committed a venial oversight. On any
other assumption, his error would be a somewhat grave one.

INCIDENTS AND TRANSACTIONS, I 874-8 1. 349

jaws.1 Now that I have got it, I really think it very fine, and am
quite ashamed to have played him such a trick.' "

My brother's contrition may count for something in ex-
tenuation of his trick — which consisted in obtaining from the
highly-distinguished painter a portrait (in reality painted
towards the summer of 1870) which, I presume, had been
all along intended by its author to stand as Rossetti's property
in case he liked to claim it, and in tendering as equivalent
a chalk-drawing, which one may suppose to have been of
considerably less commercial value. Most likely the reader,
in perusing this item of Mr. Scott's book, infers also that my
brother told a positive lie in saying that " he wanted the
picture, not for himself? This however is not the case. It
is within my express knowledge that my brother did not
retain the portrait beyond a certain interval, but consigned
it to the person whom I have heretofore designated as
Mrs. H. It never returned to his own possession, and formed
no part of the estate which passed under his will. In 1883,
after my brother's death, it was exhibited at the Royal
Academy, not by any member of the family ; and the
exhibitor afterwards sold it to Mr. Leyland, with whose
collection it was, I assume, disposed of some years later. I
heartily wish that my brother had not " played such a trick,"
prompted by the erroneous impression that the portrait did
him very scanty justice ; but one must not imagine that the
trick was a veritable fraud. It was something between sharp
practice and a boyish prank.

My brother's business-connexion with Mr. Howell became
less necessary after his return to London ; towards the close
of the summer of 1876 it ceased, and all acquaintance with
the vivacious Anglo-Portuguese ceased at the same time.
Dante spoke to me on this subject more than once. His
grounded complaint against Mr. Howell was not that the
latter had directly wronged him in any money-transaction,

1 This seems to be a humorous exaggeration. I possess Mr. Watts's
letter, and do not discern in it what my brother speaks of.

350 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

but that he played fast and loose with his name in a manner
which my brother found exceedingly embarrassing, and which
might easily produce complications of a formidable kind.
Howell would go to a person known both to himself and to
Rossetti, and would obtain funds from that person, offering as
security or equivalent certain drawings by Rossetti which,
according to Howell, were already due to him for money
disbursed. Mr. Valpy was more particularly affected by these
Howellian manoeuvres, and Mr. Clarence Fry, who became
the purchaser of my brother's picture named Venus Astarte.
Rossetti thus found himself liable to be called upon by the
third party to hand in drawings which he had never engaged
to the applicant, which he had no wish to deliver to him, and
which perhaps were not due, as individual specimens, even
to Howell himself. Such a position of risk and uncertainty
was intolerable to Rossetti, who liked to have full control
over his own affairs. There was also, in February 1876, a
most vexatious affair in which a Mr. Levy intended to sue
Howell for some matters, including a dress which (for artistic
purposes) had passed into Rossetti's hands ; and Rossetti,
though wholly uninvolved in the real cause of action, chose,
rather than appear in the witness-box, to pay a sum of £\o
to Levy. Soon afterwards he parted company with Howell,
and, spite of some pleadings from his old acquaintance, and
some remains of good-will on his own part, he adhered
unwaveringly to this resolve. They met no more.

In August 1878 my brother found that a drawing attributed
to him had been bought at the shop of a London pawnbroker
and art-dealer, and that other drawings of like character were
obtainable at the same place. The first-named work was
submitted to him for verification. He saw it to be spurious,
and wrote to the Times to say so. There were other instances,
both during his lifetime and after his death, in which pro-
ductions to which he had never lifted a finger were put
forward as being his. I will not lay any blame on Mr.
Howell which is not proved to pertain to him — -he is no
longer here to defend himself; but it is a fact (previously

INCIDENTS AND TRANSACTIONS, 1 874-8 1. 35 I

stated) that he was an ingenious facsimilist, and there was a
lady of his acquaintance, known to my brother likewise, who
was a capable artist ; and many persons have, within my
knowledge, formed and expressed the opinion that the imita-
tion-Rossettis had their origin in that quarter. Certain it
is that a good deal of misdirected activity was displayed by
some person or persons working in this line.

I have more than once referred to the handsome scale of my
brother's professional earnings. In 1879 and 1880 the picture-
market was depressed, as well as some other markets ; and
these were two of his least successful years. He told me
that in 1879 his income had been .£1,030, whereas, two or
three years before, it might be estimated at £3,000 per
annum. However, even £1,030 is far from being greatly
amiss ; and he took such fluctuations placidly, without allow-
ing them to add in any serious degree to his general tone of
disquietude.

The death of two friends, and the painful condition of a
third, engaged his sympathy and attention. James Hannay,
his old intimate towards 1850, died suddenly, as British
Consul at Barcelona, in 1873 (this was indeed while Rossetti
was settled at Kelmscott) ; and a subscription was got up for
the advantage of the family, and more especially the educa-
tion of the children. My brother was one of the most liberal
contributors, and was anxious to exert himself outside the
limits of the subscription. John Lucas Tupper, the friend of
the P.R.B. and Germ days, died in 1879, as Master of the
Drawing-classes in Rugby School. Here again Rossetti came
forward. James Smetham, from being the most industrious
as well as the most devout of painters, sank into a state of
religious monomania, and was totally withdrawn, not only
from the pursuit of his profession, but from almost every form
of human intercourse. This lasted for several years, until
death came to his relief. Rossetti took endless pains in
promoting the sale of his pictures, and succeeded in adding a
substantial sum to the funds needed by the highly estimable
and woe-stricken family. It is no more than justice to my

352 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

brother to say that in any matter of this description his
conduct was marked by sympathetic open-handedness in the
first place, and — hardly less valuable — by genuine delicacy of
method and by the most thorough good-nature. Long ago
did the character of the " cheerful giver " obtain the highest
form of praise.

Rossetti was urgently invited to become an exhibitor in
the first year of the Grosvenor Gallery in Bond Street, 1 877.
He reflected on the proposal, conferred with Madox Brown
and Burne-Jones, and finally declined. Brown likewise de-
clined ; Burne-Jones, as we all know, assented, and rapidly and
rightly established a splendid reputation. Rossetti was now a
painter of eminent performance and repute, about whom there
was a great deal of public curiosity, and on these grounds
of course had the invitation been based. He replied in a tone
of great modesty, as shown by a draft-letter now before me : —

"What holds me back is simply the lifelong feeling of dissatis-
faction which I have experienced from the disparity of aim and
attainment in what I have all my life produced as best I could."

He found occasion to write a letter to the Times in the
same strain, 27 March 1877. There might be a good deal
to say on this general subject. It is undoubtedly true that
Rossetti, being a painter with high ideals in art, and an
earnest desire to work in conformity to those ideals, was
not contented with what he actually produced, He knew
it to be good and skilful up to a certain point ; but there
was a loftier point to which his ideal and his conception
reached, and which his hand had not reached. Few successful
men would so ingenuously confess this to themselves, still
less to others. Dissatisfied with the result himself, Rossetti
thought that some other people would be dissatisfied also,
and would make some ado in proclaiming their dissatisfaction ;
and, having undergone, with profound disrelish and permanent
ill-effect, the inconveniences of a hullabaloo in relation to
his poetry, he had no wish to encounter the like in relation
to his painting. The fact is (as I have already intimated)

INCIDENTS AND f RANSACTioNS, 1874-81. 35J

that Rossetti had, along with a great deal of pride, only a
very small modicum of vanity or self-conceit, and, until his
closing years, I might almost say not any. On his aspirations
he relied implicitly; on his performances — such as they were,
and seeing that no better they might be — he rested. Fame
he cherished ; for notoriety he cared not. That his name
and his doings should be champed in the mouths of men w^s
not among his desires. He apprehended that, while any
shortcoming would be made much of by critics and spectators,
the intrinsic and somewhat esoteric deservings of the work
would be overlooked or belittled. Nor should it be forgotten
that in all his later years he had a serious though fitful
intention of collecting together on exhibition such specimens
of painting and designing as he considered to come nearest
to doing justice to his powers. He was a man who thought
a great deal about " policy " in all such contingencies ; and
very generally his views of policy were sound, as the event
proved. In such a relation he did not regard anything as
trivial, or deserving to be left to chance. It may be as well
to add that, whenever any question arose of his exhibiting
under fair or advantageous conditions, my own wish was
that he should consent.

Not only with the Grosvenor Gallery, but in all instances
when he was invited and pressed to exhibit, sometimes by
owners of his pictures, my brother steadily refused. There
was however one exception, perhaps only one. Mr. Turner,
the purchaser of one of the two leading versions of the
Proserpine subject, was, in the spring of 1878, a member of
a Committee in Manchester for promoting the Art Schools
Building-fund. He asked whether my brother would sanction
the including of the Proserpine in an exhibition which was
being organized for the Fund ; and my brother acquiesced,
taking into consideration " the public object in view, one of
the greatest importance to all interested in Art." A few
other cases in which his works were exhibited did from time
to time occur ; but this was without his authority, and
contrary to his liking. Even a letter from Sir Noel Paton— ■

VOL. 1. 2;

354 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTt.

whom, more than almost any other man, he would have liked
to oblige — could not extort assent.

Another of my brother's not frequent communications to
newspapers was made on 28 December 1878. The matter
is really a very small one, notwithstanding the great rank and
the personal charm of the lady concerned. It is recorded in
Mr. Caine's Recollections, and perhaps it should not be left
without some brief notice here. Some newspaper— I believe
The World — chose to say that the Princess Louise, having
called at Rossetti's house with a view to seeing his pictures,
had been " rebuffed with a ' not at home,' and an intimation
that he was not at the beck and call of Princesses." I cannot
think that my brother was (as Mr. Caine says) " deeply
moved by the imputation " ; but he very properly considered
that, being publicly charged with such ridiculous clownishness,
he ought not to leave the falsehood undenied. So he wrote
to the Times explaining that the Princess had never presented
herself at his house ; though she had, on two occasions at
some years' interval, indicated an inclination to do so, and
had in the second and quite recent instance been assured,
by Mr. Theodore Watts, to whom she was speaking, that
Rossetti would feel " honoured and charmed to see her."
Rossetti concluded his letter by saying :—

" It is true enough that I do not run after great people on account
of their mere social position, but I am, I hope, never rude to them ;
and the man who could rebuff the Princess Louise must be a
curmudgeon indeed."

This remark defines very correctly his feeling in relation
to such questions. He had a real liking, for the ease and
amenity which ordinarily go with birth and breeding, and
to these he could respond with proportionate ease,, and with
an openness from which amenity was not excluded ; but to
take any trouble in hunting up social di-gnitaries, or in
humouring them when found, was not at all his way. Mrs.
Glasse's famous though perhaps legendary recipe did not
define Rossetti's attitude towards the British aristocracy.

Incidents and transactions, 1874-81. 355

He neither caught his hare first, nor put it into his jug
afterwards.

To his account of this incident of the visit which was not
made, and the rebuff which was not administered, Mr. Caine
adds : —

" At the very juncture in question Lord Lome was suddenly and
unexpectedly appointed Governor-General of Canada, and, leaving
England, Her Royal Highness did not return until Rossetti's health
had somewhat suddenly broken down, and it was impossible for
him to see any but his most intimate friends."

I question whether this is wholly accurate. It seems to me
that Lord Lome had been appointed some months before
28 December, the date of Rossetti's letter to the Times, and
that the Princess was already in Canada before that date.
She appears to have remained well-affected to Rossetti's
memory, as a newspaper paragraph in December 1893 Pur_
ported that she had sent to a sale of ladies' work "a
book-cover for a volume of Rossetti's Poems, in green satin,
with a design of clusters of pomegranates worked in shaded
pinks and yellows," — the title being in silver thread.

It was apparently towards the beginning of 1879 that a
new intimacy of Rossetti's began — that with Mr. Hall Caine —
which proved of great moment for his closing years. I might
have more to say about it, but that Mr. Caine has himself
given so many and such precise details in his Recollections
of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1882). It seems that Mr. Philip
James Bailey, the author of Festus, was the person, casually
encountered by Mr. Caine, who first roused in him an active
interest in Rossetti's poetry. Mr. Bailey met my brother
years previously, perhaps at Mrs. Gaskell's, but there was not
at any time any real acquaintance between the two. Mr.
Caine lectured twice or thrice in Liverpool, where he then
resided, on the Poetry of Rossetti ; and after a full year sent
him the printed discourse, with which my brother was very
much pleased, more especially on the ground of the lecturer's
recognition of the moral or spiritual tone marking the poems.

356 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTt.

A great deal of correspondence ensued, chiefly on poetic and
other literary topics. The first personal meeting was in the
autumn of 1880, when Mr. Caine came for a few days to
London, and called by appointment in Rossetti's studio. He
had been warned that he would " recognize the hole-and-
cornerest of all existences in this big barn of mine." Since
the time when he met my brother, and since that when he
published his Recollections, Mr. Caine has had many a literary
triumph ; and my readers will probably be well pleased if I
reproduce here his account of the impression which Rossetti
gave him. I condense and interpolate at will.

" Very soon Rossetti came to me through the doorway in front,
which proved to be the entrance to his studio. Holding forth both
hands, and crying ' Hulloa,' he gave me that cheery hearty greeting
which I came to recognize as his alone perhaps, in warmth and
unfailing geniality, among all the men of our circle. It was Italian
in its spontaneity, and yet it was English in its manly reserve ; and
I remember with much tenderness of feeling that never to the last
(not even when sickness saddened him, or after an absence of a few
days or even hours) did it fail him when meeting with those friends
to whom to the last he was really attached. Leading the way into
the studio, he introduced me to his brother, who was there upon
one of the evening visits which, at intervals of a week, he was at
that time making with unfailing regularity [at that time, and at all
times afterwards while both Dante and I were in London, until his
final departure for Birchington-on-Sea early in 1882 : the practice
began in October 1879, consequent upon some few days of great
prostration which affected him after an overdose of chloral]. I
should have described Rossetti at this time as a man who looked
quite ten years older [this is wholly contrary to my own view] than
his actual age, which was fifty-two ; of full [slightly low] middle
height and inclining to corpulence ; with a round face that ought,
one thought, to be ruddy, but was pale ; large grey eyes with a steady
introspecting look, surmounted by broad protrusive brows, and a
clearly pencilled ridge over the nose, which was well cut', and had
large breathing nostrils. The mouth and chin were hidden beneath
a heavy moustache and abundant beard, which grew up to the ears,
and had been of a mixed black-brown and auburn, and were now

INCIDENTS AND TRANSACTIONS, 1 874-8 1. 357

streaked with grey [my brother's beard was of a darkish auburn —
not I think at all black-brown, though that might, in mature age, be
called the colour of his other hair]. The forehead was large, round,
without protuberances, and very gently receding to where thin black
curls, that had once been redundant, began to tumble down to the
ears. The entire configuration of the head and face seemed to me
singularly noble, and from the eyes upwards full of beauty. He
wore a pair of spectacles, and, in reading, a second pair over the
first ; but these took little from the sense of power conveyed by
those steady eyes, and that ' bar of Michelangelo.' x His dress was
not conspicuous, being however rather negligent than otherwise,
and noticeable, if at all, only for a straight sack-coat buttoned at the
throat, descending at least to the knees, and having large pockets
cut into it perpendicularly at the sides. This garment was, I
afterwards found, one of the articles of various kinds made to the
author's own design [and a most comfortable one it was]. When he
spoke, even in exchanging the preliminary courtesies of an opening
conversation, I thought his voice the richest I had ever known any
one to possess. It was a full deep baritone, capable of easy modula-
tion, and with undertones of infinite softness and sweetness, yet,
as I afterwards found, with almost illimitable compass, and with
every gradation of tone at command, for the recitation or reading of
poetry. I perceived that he was a ready, fluent, and graceful talker,
with a remarkable incisiveness of speech, and a trick of dignifying
ordinary topics in words which, without rising above conversation,
were so exactly though freely enunciated as would have admitted
of their being reported exactly as they fell from his lips. Dinner
being now over, I asked Rossetti to redeem his promise to read one
of his new ballads. He responded readily, and, taking a small
manuscript volume out of a section of the bookcase that had been
locked, read us The White Ship. It seemed to me that I never
heard anything at all matchable with Rossetti's elocution. His
rich deep voice lent an added music to the music of the verse. It
rose and fell, in the passages descriptive of the wreck, with some-

1 This Tennysonian phrase evidently applies to the continuous eyebrow
of Michelangelo. Mr. Caine must apply it either to the "broad protrusive
brows " [eyebrows] of Rossetti, which were not however continuous, or
to the " clearly pencilled ridge over the nose." In either case it does not
seem to be quite accurately applied.

358 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

thing of the surge and sibilation of the sea itself. In the tenderer
passages it was soft as a woman's, and in the pathetic stanzas with
which the ballad closes it was profoundly moving."

I shall resist the temptation — though it is considerable —
to extract in full, and discuss, various points raised in Mr.
Caine's account of my brother — such as his views on several
of his own poems ; his "grudging Wordsworth every vote
he gets " ; his deference to Theodore Watts's opinions on
questions of poetical execution ; his enormous admiration
of Chatterton (this was only in his last years, and I regarded
it as not merely excessive but a trifle fanciful) ; his favourable
opinion of William Watson as a poet then just beginning,
and his kindly feeling, both literary and personal, to Joseph
Skipsey the coal-miner poet, and his good friend Thomas
Dixon the cork-cutter ; his somewhat too copious contempt
for some old-fashioned poets, " Addison, Akenside, and the
whole alphabet down to Zany and Zero " ; his axiom that
" in painting there is, in the less important details, some-
thing of the craft of a superior carpenter " (quite sound, I
think, though liable to be misconstrued) ; his praise of sonnets
by Theodore Watts and by Bell Scott. There are a multi-
tude of other details, all stimulating to any biographer coming
into the field after Mr. Caine.

I cannot agree with that gentleman in his strong averment
that " irresolution with melancholy lay at the basis " of Dante
Rossetti's character. That Mr. Caine witnessed in him
chronic melancholy and frequent irresolution is indeed indis-
putable ; but that these qualities really were " at the basis
of his character " I, from lifelong experience, am far from
thinking. They developed in his later years, from a train
of untoward circumstances, viewed through the fumes of
chloral ; but I cannot imagine that anyone who knew Rossetti
either throughout his career, or up to and a little after the
age of about forty, would have said that he was marked by
irresolution or severely tainted with melancholy. In all his
earlier years, and beyond them too, he had that sort of

INCIDENTS AND TRANSACTIONS, 1874-81. 359

resolution which fashions a man's life upon his own lines,
and not in subjection to the dicta or the promptings of any
one else. He was imperative, dominant, self-sustained, and
stiff-necked, and went straight to his mark. The sort of
irresolution which Mr. Caine noticed was concerned with
minor details — whether the terms of an appointment should
be varied, whether he should adhere to a project of going
out of town, and much of the like kind. No doubt, as his
nerves and spirits were unstrung, so was his will seriously
weakened in these years ; still I should not call him even
then exactly what is meant by an irresolute man. As to
melancholy, this also was not uppermost in his less advanced
years. In any company in which he found himself he was
generally the leading spirit, full of " go," fertile in bracing
and diverting sallies, and even jovial not infrequently. True,
he was always to some extent moody, and liable to the over-
cloudings of gloom. He had a sufficiency of mauvais quarts
d'keure, and was an initiate in the " nebular hypotheses " of
life. Yet this did not amount to a character of which the
basis was melancholy. The essential quality of his verse and
of his art is, I conceive, not melancholy but poignancy.
Certainly, by the time when Mr. Caine knew him personally —
a period altogether of about a year and a half — these tend-
encies to sadness had ceased to be mere tendencies, and had
merged into a settled habit of mind — settled, yet not un-
broken ; for in appropriate company my brother could still
command a variety of conversation, show cheerfulness, and
make himself highly agreeable. Many a pleasant evening
did I pass with him between the autumn of 1879 and that
of 1 88 1 ; I alone mostly, but my wife was often with me,
especially towards the beginning of the last-named year, and
he enjoyed her conversation — sensible, practical, and coloured
by high thought and sympathy in the pictorial and the
poetic arts. In the latter she was herself a considerable
adept. Dante also was often full of kindly reminiscences
from the old days, even those of our very early childhood.
The appropriate company, I am thankful to say, was not

360 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

wanting to him. Our mother and Christina took care to
leave him not long unvisited ; and he never dropped the habit
of calling at times upon them in the evening — these being
now the only occasions when he left his house, with its large
garden, which gave him some moderate amount of daily
exercise after he had abandoned going out otherwise. This
strict limitation to his house and garden may have begun
(as I have already said) upon his return to London from
Hunter's Forestall near the close of 1877, or possibly as soon
as George Hake had left him, early in the same year. After
Mr. Hake had departed there was Mr. Dunn in the. house ;
and, Dunn eventually ceasing to be. a regular inmate, there
was Mr. Caine. The latter, upon thus entering the Cheyne
Walk house in July 1881, did indeed induce my brother to
walk out with him in the evenings ; but this only lasted
a week; Rossetti was naturally of a sociable turn. He liked
to be in the company of persons for whom he had either a
serious regard or a casual predilection ; and, reclusive though
he became (after his return in 1874 from Kelmscott to
London) under the influence of chloral, with its exaggerated
fancies and morbid perturbations, he never enjoyed being
alone. He grew to dislike and shun it extremely.

" Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased —
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow —
Raze-out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart ?

" Therein the patient
Must minister to himself."

But this was a patient who could not to himself minister
any oblivious antidote — rather, grievous thought after thought,
supposition after supposition of disquiet, and a nightmare of
waking dreams. It became highly desirable therefore that
his friends — and they were still by no means few, though
Mr, Scott appears to have supposed that so they were —

INCIDENTS AND TRANSACTIONS, 1874-81. 361

should give him the mainstay of their frequent intercourse. I
myself, in writing to Dante in August 1 876, suggested whether
he would not get his intimates, now one and now another, to
call upon him, so that each evening might be provided with
its friendly converse; and, when I began in October 1879
my regular series of weekly visits, I found that this plan was
in steady operation. Besides myself, Mr. Watts had his
appointed evening (and he very frequently saw my brother
in other instances as well), and ao had Mr. Shields. The
other settled visitors were at that time — if my memory serves
me — Mr. William Sharp, Mr. S. J. B. Haydon, and perhaps
Mr. Scott. Mr. Sharp first came to my brother with a letter
of introduction from Sir J. Noel Paton. This ensured him a
welcome, which his own cordial pleasant ways, and his gift
for poetry and other literary work, amply confirmed. In his
visits to Rossetti he was accompanied every now and then
by Philip Bourke Marston. Mr. Haydon had, towards 1850
to 1855, been slightly known to Rossetti as a sculptor. He
was now a dealer in engravings and other works of art ; and
my brother met him on terms of much familiarity, finding a
good deal to gossip over in the ins-and-outs of British art,
present and past. Mr. Brown did not, I think, at any time
take part in this settled once-a-week plan, but he saw Rossetti
as opportunity allowed. He could not at any rate have joined
in the plan after August 1881, as he then left London, and
resided in or near Manchester, to attend to the very important
commission which he had received — and for which he was
better qualified, to my thinking, than any other man in the
country — to paint the historico-local pictures in the Man-
chester Town Hall, I have here mentioned six persons who
provided Dante with company for six days out of the seven.
I do not remember that there was any seventh person regularly
bespoken, but there may have been, or the vacant evening
might very often be filled up by some engagement made for
the purpose — as for instance with Boyce, Seddon, Tebbs,
Burne-Jones, Hueffer, or Leyland. Another gentleman who
rather frequently saw my brother, and was always welcomed.

362 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

was Mr. William Davies, the author of The Pilgrimage of the
Tiber, and other works, and of numerous dainty etchings. He
was not however a constant resident in London. In 1893
Mr. Davies very kindly presented to me the letters which he
had received from my brother, forming a small bound volume.
That Dante Rossetti appreciated his friend's poetry appears
from a letter (December 1873) in which he terms two of the
compositions " full-toned and complete things," a third
" charming in structure," a fourth and fifth " quite lovely and
sustained poems."

And so my brother jogged along, more than sufficiently
depressed in his own mind and feelings, but cheered by
friendly conversation and attentions, and always (it must be
remembered) as diligent in his art-work as he had ever been.
Moreover, early in 1880, his literary activity revived. He paid
not a little attention to the new edition of Gilchrist's Life of
Blake, and produced some of his very best poetical work. In
brief, chloral had little or no power over that part of his mind
which was purely intellectual or inventive, but only over that
other part which was emotional, and was applied to the
construing of himself and his surroundings.

XXXVIII.

PAINTINGS AND POEMS, 1874-81.

In Section XXXV. I have referred to two of the pictures
which occupied Rossetti in these years — The Blessed Damozel,
and the replica of Dante's Dream for Mr. Graham, on a scale,
though not small, considerably less large than the original
work ; La Pia, begun several years earlier than these, was
also brought to completion. It is probably true, as stated by
Mrs. Wood (though I am not clear where she got the infor-
mation), that the predella of The Blessed Damozel, where the
heart-stricken lover is represented in a sylvan scene, was
painted from the beechwoods near Broadlands. This, the
principal version of The Blessed Damozel composition, was

PAINTINGS AND POEMS, 1 874-8 1. 363

owned by Mr. Graham. A somewhat less elaborate version
was eventually purchased by Mr. Leyland. The double pre-
della of the reduced Dante's Dream was designed and painted
without actual recourse to the living model ; my brother —
whose views upon some questions of art modified as he grew
older — having come to the conclusion that the treatment
would thus possess more unity and self-consistency of design.
The year 1875 produced La Bella Mano, a lady washing
her hands, attended by boy-Cupids ; and, in point of forcible,
rich, and harmonious execution, this may be regarded as
one of the very best of Rossetti's paintings. The Venus
Astarte (or Astarte Syriaca) was going on from 1875 to 1877
— a good deal of the work being painted at Aldwick Lodge.
It is obviously one of my brother's most rapt and abstract
works, and he considered it (not without fair grounds) nearly
or quite the best ; but popular taste has pronounced other-
wise, and the picture is regarded as somewhat strained, and
gloomy in ideal and in colouring. Of all his productions,
it was the greatest money-success. Mr. Howell the not
easily resistible secured for it a commission from Mr. Clarence
Fry (of the Photographing Firm) at the large price of £2, 100.
Another of his vigorous strokes was getting Mr. Valpy to
buy, at its original price of £i,S7S> the larger Dante's Dream,
after this had been resigned by Mr. Graham. It might almost
be said that Howell " planted " the spacious canvas upon
Valpy, who shortly protested that so considerable a venture
did not suit his purse-strings ; but the thing was done, and
was not to be undone. In the same years, 1875 to 1877, was
painted for Mr. Leyland T/ie Sea-spell, for which the title
first proposed had been Coleridge's couplet —

" A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw."

Later on came the Mnemosyne (called also La Ricordanza,
or The Lamp of Memory) ; a duplicate Beata Beatrix, left
unfinished by Rossetti, and after his death completed by
Madox Brown (it is now in the Art Gallery of Birmingham) ;

364 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

A Vision of Fiammetta, for which Mrs. Stillman was so good
as to sit; La Donna delta Finestra (or The Lady of Pity,
from the Vita Nuovd), bought, as was also La Bella Mano,
by Mr. F. S. Ellis ; and The Daydream, a lady musing, seated
in the fork of a sycamore-tree. This, like the Venus Astarte,
was one of Rossetti's largest pictures, purchased by an ac-
quaintance of several years' standing, Mr. Constantine Ionides.

There were also some crayon and pencil drawings — The
Sphinx (pencil), where three men, a youth, a full adult, and
a greybeard, are shown as coming to consult the Sphinx on
the mystery of existence — the youth dies ere he can put
his question (the premature doom of Oliver Brown was in
the artist's mind as to this point) ; The Spirit of the Rainbow,
which belongs to Mr. Watts, and illustrates (so Mr. Sharp
says) a sonnet written by Watts himself ; Perlascura, which
was autotyped ; Desdemona's Death-song ; Sancta Lilias ;
a portrait of Mr. Leyland, as a wedding-present to his
daughter, Mrs. Hamilton ; and the design of The Sonnet,
illustrating a sonnet of my brother's on that form of poetical
composition, so often treated by himself. Only one water-
colour seems to call for mention — Bruna Brunelleschi, which
was a head of Mrs. Morris, 1877.

A few special remarks may be needed regarding these
various works. The Sea-spell was to serve as a pendant to
the Veronica Veronese, already owned by Mr. Leyland, and
it presents an inverse to the motive of that picture. Veronica
finds in the note of a canary an incentive to a musical
invention ; whereas the Siren of the The Sea-spell charms
a bird into the magic of her lay. The Vision of Fiammetta
exhibits Boccaccio's lady, with her head encircled (as in that
writer's text) by a mystical flame, and parting with her hand
the bloom-laden boughs of an apple-tree. This brilliant
joyous picture has proved a great favourite among Rossetti's
works. In 1888 it sold by auction for .£1,207, although its
purchaser, Mr. Turner, had obtained it for £840. The Day-
dream was painted with the most conscientious attention and
effort. After my brother had completed the head so as to

PAINTINGS AND POEMS, 1874-81. 365

satisfy most eyes, he decided that it was not good enough
for himself. He painted it out entirely, and did it over again.
Mr. Shields, who was very constantly in Rossetti's studio at
this period, goes so far as to say that he changed a full half
of the picture. The pains were not misbestowed, for this —
the latest of his considerable works that was fully completed
— ranks also among the best.

As to the drawing of The Sphinx I must once again have
recourse to Mr. Scott's book. As my reader will perceive,
this takes us to a date rather more advanced than that which
my narrative has yet reached.

" When our time came for returning to town [I understand the
date indicated to be towards the middle of November 1881 — at
any rate between 17 October and n December], I was shocked to
find the dear old Gabriel prostrate on the old sofa we had so often
in the earlier times seen filled with the most genial friends. He
was, it now appeared to me, going down fast ; but I tried to keep
up the usual deception we apply to invalids. I had gone alone,
thinking it best to make this first visit so ; but he was by himself,
no one attending or trying to cheer the man whose spirits were down
to zero. [Under ordinary circumstances Mr. Caine would have been
in the house, but he may have been casually absent, lecturing in
Liverpool.] When he and I were alone [this phrase seems odd, for
the previous statement is that they two had been alone from the
first], he wept and complained, and made unkind speeches, or
showed me things he thought would wound me ; as when he made
his servant lay before me a large chalk sketch he called Questioning
the Sphinx. [I think the fixed title of the design was simply The
Sphinx, or else The Question : I know it as a pencil drawing, rather
fully elaborated, and have not any recollection of a chalk sketch.]
This wounded me, because it happened that I had made an illustra-
tion, in my first issue of The Year of the World (that juvenile ' poem
with a purpose '), of the hero traveller leaning on an augural staff
with his ear to the mouth of a Sphinx, which I called by that name,
and which the beloved D. G. R. of that early time used to make game
of, as if I had mistaken the ancient fable in which the Sphinx was
the questioner, not the questioned. [This seems to me to exhibit
a very strange state of feeling on Mr. Scott's part. He was

366 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTl.

"wounded" because Rossetti produced to him in 1881 a drawing,
executed in or about 1875, bearing in subject-matter some, though
not any very direct, analogy to a little woodcut design which Scott
had published in 1846, and had not even reproduced in a later issue
of his poem.] I had besides written a poem called To the Sphinx
considered as the Symbol of Religious Mystery [yes, and a very fine
poem it is in essentials; but why the writing by Scott of such a poem,
published in 1854, should in any way debar Rossetti from producing
towards 1875, and showing to his old friend in 1881, a design
containing a Sphinx, remains to me almost as great a mystery as the
Sphinx itself].1 Lying on the sofa dying as he was, I saw that
singular expression of ferocity [see Section XXX.] that used to
take possession of his face if he surmised a quarrel was coming. I
laid the sketch aside, but he kept staring at me. I refused to take
up the gauntlet, and I could not venture to speak of the sketch
itself, the style of drawing being so bad as to show his illness was
destroying his work." [The style of drawing — the treatment of the
nude — in this design (which is tolerably well-known in a photo-
graphed form, and which, as aforesaid, was produced not late in
1881, when "illness was destroying his work," but some six years
earlier) does certainly not display the learned energy of a Michel-
angelo or a David, nor the suave accomplishment of a Leighton. If
one were to pit it against Mr. Scott's little " illustration of the hero
traveller " etc., the verdict might go in the contrary direction.]

I leave it to the reader to judge whether the spirit shown
in the foregoing extract is or is not such as might have been
expected from its author with regard to his " dearest of friends
and most interesting of men," whom he well perceived to be
then "dying," and who was dead long before the Aatobio-

1 Mr. Sharp was perhaps prompted by Mr. Scott to say (p. 241 of his
book on Rossetti) that my brother's design " is, as the few intimate friends
at this date are aware, indebted for suggestion to the fine poem by Mr.
William Bell Scott called The Sphinx, where — for the first time, if I am
not mistaken — questions are propounded to the Sphinx, instead of the
latter being the mystic questioner in riddles." This statement is wholly
fallacious. In Mr. Scott's poem not a single question of a substantial kind
is propounded to the Sphinx, and only one question by way of rhetorical
device.

PAINTINGS AND POEMS, 1874-81. 367

graphical Notes were put into form for publication. Curious
indeed are the lurking-places and blind corners in the heart
of man. Expressions occur in this extract which seem
dictated by genuine affection, and so I believe they were, for
Scott was a man capable of true friendship, as no one knows
better than myself ; and other expressions which look as if
they were incompatible with anything save a resolute desire
to disparage and besmirch. But I will for the present leave
" dear old Gabriel prostrate on the old sofa — going down fast
and dying " — and resume what has to be said about his works
of art up to the earlier portion of 1881.

Desdemonds Death-song was a subject highly germane to
my brother's sympathies and his powers. He was greatly
bent upon making a picture of it, and designed it in two or
three varying compositions ; and it seems more than likely
that, had he succeeded in producing the painting, the public
liking of it would have surpassed that for almost any of his
other works. But he was not destined to make a beginning
in colour. Bruna Brunelleschi was his last water-colour
(except a Proserpine replica), and was also one of his best.

To this record of Rossetti's art-work I may add that
Mr. Haydon made towards 1880 an etching of the old design
of Hamlet and Ophelia, doing it with skill and with great
fidelity, but rather heavy-handedly. My brother preferred
that if should not be published, and the copper remains in
my hands. After all this lapse of years it might be quite as
well to publish the etching some day.

Mr. Caine gives a rather singular account of how Rossetti
was induced to resume poetical composition, of which he had
done nothing considerable since 1871. The friend of whom
he speaks is clearly Mr. Theodore Watts. I cannot remember
having heard of the circumstances otherwise than through
Mr. Caine's narrative, but this I assume to be substantially
correct : —

"After one of his most serious illnesses, and in the hope of
drawing-off his attention from himself, and from the gloomy fore-
bodings which in an invalid's mind usually gather about his own

368 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

too absorbing personality, a friend prevailed upon him, with infinite
solicitation, to try his hand afresh at a sonnet. The outcome was
an effort so feeble as to be all but unrecognizable as the work of the
author of the sonnets of The House of Life; but, with more shrewd-
ness and friendliness (on this occasion) than frankness, the critic
lavished measureless praise upon it, and urged the poet to renewed
exertion. One by one, at longer or shorter intervals, sonnets were
written ; and this exercise did more towards his recovery than any
other medicine, with the result besides that Rossetti eventually
regained all his old dexterity and mastery of hand. Encouraged by
such results, the friend went on to induce Rossetti to write a ballad ;
and this purpose he finally achieved by challenging the poet's ability
to compose in the simple, direct, and emphatic style which is the
style of the ballad proper, as distinguished from the elaborate,
ornate, and condensed diction which he had hitherto worked in
[it would be more correct to say " which he had generally hitherto
worked in," for there were instances to the contrary — such as
Stratton Water]. Put upon his mettle, the outcome of this second
artifice practised upon him was that he wrote The White Ship, and
afterwards The King's Tragedy"

Perhaps the incident of the ill-concocted sonnet belongs to
the year 1878, when Rossetti did in fact write some verses —
I presume a sonnet — about Cyprus, of all places in the world.
He knew and cared nothing about Cyprus, nor about Lord
Beaconsfield's supposed stroke of policy in securing in that
year the administration of the Island, and the sonnet could
thus hardly escape being a bad one. Mr. Watts undertook
to send the sonnet to the Athenceum, but withdrew it on the
alleged ground that the Pall Mall Gazette contained another
poem on the same theme — a reason which always looked to
me odd, and which may now yield to the more cogent reason
that the sonnet was a visibly bad one. My brother did after-
wards write several good sonnets — as for instance, in April
1880, The Song-throe (" By thine own tears thy song must
tears beget"), and, in February 1881, the sonnet for his picture
named Found. He sent two others in January 1881 to
Christina, with the dismal message—" With me, sonnets mean

DANTE'S DREAM — BALLADS, AND SONNETS. 369

insomnia." I think the trio of sonnets entitled True Woman
may have been the very latest of his printed works, produced
before 15 September 1881. On his death-bed he finished (as
I mentioned before) his old ballad of Jan van Hunks, and
produced two sonnets on the Sphinx subject. These three
compositions, which he presented as a gift to Mr. Watts,
remain as yet unpublished.

The important ballad of The White Ship was composed
chiefly in 1880; it was finished towards the end of April in
that year. Some scraps of it had however been written " long
ago," as my brother told me. The still more important — but
I think certainly not superior — ballad of The King's Tragedy
may have been completed before the spring of 1881 had well
begun. This also had been undertaken some while before
the writing of it was attended to with regularity. The work
strained him severely. " It was as though my own life ebbed
out with it," he said to Mr. Caine.

XXXIX.

DANTE'S DREAM— BALLADS AND SONNETS.

Mr. Hall Caine was destined to be the last house-mate of
Dante Rossetti in Cheyne Walk. In the spring of 1881 he
spent a week with him by invitation ; and in July of that
year he took up his regular abode in the house. This was
naturally at my brother's urgency. Mr. Caine, from the
experience which he had now had of Rossetti's habits, low
spirits, and fitful impressibility, viewed the adventure not with-
out some apprehension ; and it would be vain to deny that,
spite of his sincere admiration of Rossetti's intellect and its
products, and his warm personal regard, he found the position
a somewhat trying one. He had free quarters and board in
the house, and was not bound to look after my brother other-
wise than as friendship and kind feeling should dictate. He
had now launched out on the literary profession, and neces-
sarily wanted to have the majority of his time at his own
VOL, I. 24

370 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI,

disposal. But Rossetti's gifts and his temperament always
made him a leader in any associateship, and now his infirmities
reinforced the claim ; and Mr. Caine was soon drawn within
a vortex from which escape — unless he had decided to escape
from the house altogether — was not easily manageable. His
own work got impeded ; his days and evenings were cut up
by numerous and miscellaneous attentions paid to his highly
sensitive and not seldom morbidly wayward friend and host.
If he looks back upon the months from July 1881 to April
1882 as a period of strain and self-sacrifice, he may at least
console himself with the reflection that he did a great deal to
soothe and tend a man of eminent genius and wide renown,
and that he amply earned the gratitude of those members of
the family who survived Dante Rossetti.

When the arrangement for Mr. Caine's settling in the house
was definitely fixed, Rossetti gave notice to Mr. Dunn — then
in his native city of Truro — that he would not again be
required as an inmate ; and Mr. Dunn, on returning to
London, took lodgings of his own in Chelsea. He still
received some artistic employment from Rossetti ; and, after
the death of the latter, he accommodated me by taking
charge of the house and keeping things straight until the
sale of the numerous effects was held in July, and for some
little while afterwards.

The year 1881 was really one of conspicuous success and
even triumph for Rossetti, as both painter and poet ; but not
all this availed to " minister to the mind diseased " — or
"dis-eased," as we might more appropriately write the word
for the immediate purpose. He sold his large picture of
Dante's Dream to the Public or Municipal Gallery of Liver-
pool, the Walker Art-Gallery ; and he produced, amid lavish
applause, his new volume of poetry, Ballads and Sonnets, as
well as a modified reissue of his old volume named Poems.
The Dante's Dream had now for some while been back in my
brother's studio, owing to the decision of its second purchaser,
Mr. Valpy, to leave London and reside in Bath ; and Rossetti
induced Valpy to re-consign it to him, with an undertaking

DANTE'S DREAM— BALLADS AND SONNETS. 37 I

that he would eventually supply other works to an equal
and indeed a higher money-value. I have made some pre-
vious brief allusion to this affair.

Whatever credit may be due for the first suggestion of
the sale-and-purchase transaction with Liverpool has to be
assigned to Mr. Caine, followed up by his friendly and zealous
good-offices, and his tact in conducting a sometimes rather
thorny negotiation. He it was who, in December 1880,
wrote to Rossetti, from Liverpool, saying that, as Alderman
Samuelson had then succeeded another gentleman — whom
I shall term Mr. R. — as director of the gallery, a chance
seemed to have opened for bringing the sale to bear.
Alderman Samuelson did in fact prove a steady and even
strenuous friend to the project. In March 1881 he proposed
to call on Rossetti, and look at the picture. But it so hap-
pened that Mr. R. was to be in his company ; and this was
supremely distasteful to Rossetti, for a reason which he
notified thus in a letter to Mr. Samuelson : —

" Mr. R. thought fit some time ago to express himself, when
presiding at a public lecture, in the worst possible form of disparage-
ment respecting me and my art." And, as to his proposing to enter
the house, " I need hardly say that no question of interest could
induce me to waive such an objection."

This affair of Mr. R.'s observations at the lecture was for
a long while a sore point with Rossetti, who understood that
the remarks in question had involved a recurrence to the old
" Fleshly School " imputations upon his morale in the arts.
He may have taken an exaggerated view of the facts, or may
have felt unduly touchy concerning them ; but many persons
would probably agree with me in commending his high spirit,
which would neither bend nor break, and which made him
count as dross the coin which — in a business affair that he
had very much at heart on various grounds — might have
been earned with some tarnish to his self-respect.

Alderman Samuelson was thus brought to a standstill for
a time ; but he proposed anew to make a call, accompanied

372 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

by two other members of the committee, Mr. Bower and
Mr. Galloway. This was done, and all three were of one
mind, in favour of the purchase. Still Mr. R. had to be
dealt with, for his was an influential voice, without which
nothing could be securely effected. In July, after seeing and
admiring the smaller Dante s Dream in the house of Mr.
Graham, he wrote to my brother, saying that his remarks at
the lecture had been misunderstood or misreported, and that
he would like the purchase to come off, and would yet call
if authorized to do so. After such a disclaimer, any further
obstruction on Rossetti's part would have been an act of
mingled obduracy and weakness — and indeed he was bound
to accept, as a gentleman, the denial of fact tendered to him
in a gentlemanly spirit. So he made an appointment for
Mr. R. to call. The call was made, and Mr. R. also pro-
nounced in favour of the purchase. My brother, in view of
the probable sale, had already made some modifications in
the picture. He positively declined however to send it to the
annual exhibition in Liverpool, unless on the clear under-
standing that it was, to all intents and purposes, sold to the
permanent Art-Gallery, and could not under any conditions
be returned on his hands. At one time, in the beginning of
August, he concluded that this understanding had failed ; but
it was immediately renewed. The picture was sent off on the
16th of the month, and at the private view it stood marked
as sold. The price he wanted was his own old price, £i,$7$.
To allow of his receiving this sum unabated, the amount was
fixed at ^"1,650, thus providing for the usual commission to
the exhibiting body upon a work sold out of the Exhibition.
Mr. Caine would no doubt have been too high-minded to urge
any claim of his own on account of his first suggestion, and
the great pains he had taken in the matter ; but Rossetti, at
an early date, proposed to compensate him with a sum of
£150, and this I presume was done. He also got Alderman
Samuelson to accept a crayon-study for the head of Dante
in the painting — one of his finest works of this class.

Thus, with marked success, terminated the sale of Rossetti's

dante's dream— ballads and sonnets. 373

largest picture, which continues to form one of the principal
features of the Walker Art-Gallery. The purchase being
now effected, it became incumbent on my brother to see
about executing and delivering the various works which he
had undertaken to hand over to Mr. Valpy after the purchase,
as an equivalent for the Dante s Dream. He made no delay
in setting to work upon them. But his health was rapidly
failing, only some months of shattered life remained to him,
and the tale of work was far from being completed at the
date of his death. Mr. Valpy had of course a claim for a
solid money-payment instead, and this was made in due
course. The like was the case with Mr. Graham, in relation
to the still unfinished picture Found, begun as far back as
1854. It may be as well to add that this picture would
undoubtedly have been brought to completion some months
before Rossetti's death, but for an unfortunate demur on the
part of Mr. Graham himself, who wanted to cumulate upon
the Found certain payments in advance which he had made
partly upon that work, and partly upon another work not
yet begun in colour but only schemed out in monochrome,
The Boat of Love (from the Vita Nuovd). He now wished
to abandon The Boat of Love altogether. To this Rossetti
was entitled to object, and he did object ; though, in the
instance of so old and proved a friend, with very great
reluctance.

My brother's volume of 1870, the Poems, went through
six editions. Towards the beginning of 1879 it was out of
print, and no further issue of it appeared. He made about
£700 by it altogether. By March 1881 he had determined
to re-print the Poems in a somewhat altered form ; and to
follow it up by a separate volume, containing Rose Mary,
The White Ship, The King's Tragedy, The House of Life
in a completed form, and various other compositions. But
very soon afterwards he decided to reverse the process, and
bring out first the new Ballads and Sonnets, and then in
close sequence the revised Poems. Into the latter — to com-
pensate for the removal of the original and unfinished House

374 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

of Life — some fresh work was introduced ; especially the
uncompleted yet rather long poem, chiefly of very early
years, named The Bride s Prelude. Before the end of March
the copy for Ballads and Sonnets was sent to the printer, to
be published by Messrs. Ellis & White. This liberal firm
offered for it the same terms as for the volume of 1870 — a
royalty of 25 per cent, to be paid down as soon as the book
should be published, without waiting for actual sale. For
the re-issued Poems the terms were to be a like royalty, but
only accruing in proportion as sales were effected. As in
the previous instance, I assisted my brother with the proofs.
The Ballads and Sonnets, very properly dedicated to Mr.
Watts, were fully in print by 16 September, and various
copies were distributed. The full publication ensued on
17 October. The book was a thorough success, for by the
25th of the latter month the first edition of 1,000 copies
was exhausted ; and before the end of November 2,000
copies altogether had been issued and paid for. Rossetti
wished to write two other historical ballads : foau of Arc,
for which he took some preparatory steps ; and the Death
of Abraham Lincoln, which was intended to include a tribute
to another great American, John Brown, the " faithful unto
death " ; also, according to Mr. Sharp, The Death Ride of
Alexander ILL of Scotland (1286). Of this I remember
nothing, nor does the subject seem to supply much material
for a ballad. The Poems, in their revised form, came out
likewise in 1881. This volume sold of course less rapidly,
but continuously until some while after my brother's
decease.

Critics were laudatory, some of them enthusiastic ; and,
so far as memory serves me, there was no repetition of abuse at
all resembling The Fleshly School of Poetry, or even following
on the same lines. " Live it down " is a very sound axiom.
My brother had lived it down, and might from the first have
been sure that he would do so. But, unhappily for himself and
all others concerned, he had supposed that the influence of
detraction and fallacy is much greater than it really is, and

CUMBERLAND AND LONDON — FINAL ILLNESS. 375

the votaries of those powers much more numerous than in
fact they are.

Painful to say, no scintilla of pleasure or of cheerfulness
seemed to come to Dante Rossetti from his double achieve-
ment in 1881. He was of course, in a faint way, gratified that
his leading picture was sold to a public institution, and that
his poetry was, by a renewed experiment, recognized as an
honour to our period. He sometimes expressed to me — and
he did so particularly in February 1880 — a much higher
value for his poetical than for his pictorial work. But the
curtains were drawn round his innermost self, and the dusk
had closed over him, and was fast darkening into night. Not
for the applause of a big or a little crowd had he worked all
his life long, rather for adequate self-expression and attain-
ment in art. The work was done, but — except in a remote
or abstracted sense — it did not prove to be its own exceeding
great reward.

XL.

CUMBERLAND AND LONDON— FINAL ILLNESS.

THAT Dante Rossetti's health was really and very seriously
undermined in and before 1881 is a fact now too palpable for
discussion, for his life came to an end in April 1882. People
who thought that it was " all fancy," or the nervous appre-
hensions of a hypochondriac, were under a mistake. But it
is true that his uneasy imagination did at times suggest to
him — at any rate in his later years — that something particular
was going wrong, when in fact there was little or no solid
cause for disquietude. I have heard of more than one instance
in which, on hearing about the symptoms of a disease affecting
some one else, he forthwith proceeded to suppose that he him-
self was subject to the same malady. Mr. Caine relates a
curious circumstance, which deserves a little reflection.

It appears that at some time in 1879, before Mr. Caine had
made personal acquaintance with Rossetti, some troublesome

376 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

attack of ill-health befell Mr. Caine himself, then in Liverpool.
He wrote of it to Rossetti, and the latter, never deficient in
sympathy, replied as follows : —

" I was truly concerned to hear of the attack of ill-health you
have suffered from, though you do not tell me its exact nature. I
hope it was not accompanied by any such symptoms as you men-
tioned before. I myself have had similar symptoms (though not so
fully as you describe), and have spat Dlood at intervals for years ;
but now think nothing of it — nor indeed ever did — waiting for
further alarm-signals which never came."

Mr. Caine then says of Rossetti (apparently in 1881) that

" Upon the periodical recurrence of the symptom, he never failed
to become convinced that he spat arterial blood, and that on each
occasion he had received his death-warrant. Proof enough was
adduced that the blood came from the minor vessels of the throat."

This, especially as contrasted with Rossetti's own quoted
words, seems a little exaggerated in expression ; but on that
I need not dwell. Mr. Caine next proceeds to state that
" during the two or three weeks preceding our departure for
Cumberland in the autumn of 1881, during the time of our
residence there, and during the first few weeks after our return
to London, Rossetti was afflicted by a violent cough," which
our author regarded as aggravated " by a conscious giving
way to it." I remember at that period, and at one or two
others, this matter of the cough ; and I am quite at one with
Mr. Caine in thinking that it could have been considerably
controlled by my brother if he had chosen ; but for one reason
or another he appeared to me to prefer giving it the freest
course. Then comes Mr. Caine's narrative of a particular
incident, which probably pertains to about the middle of
November : —

" He told me that during the night of my absence, in the midst
of one of his bouts of coughing, he had discharged an enormous
quantity of blood. ' I know this is the final signal,' he said, ' and
I shall die.' I did not " (adds Mr. Caine) " hold the promise I gave

CUMBERLAND AND LONDON— FINAL ILLNESS. $17

him as to secrecy sufficiently sacred, or so exclusive, as to forbid my
revealing the whole circumstance to his medical attendant. I may
add that from that moment the cough entirely disappeared."

All this about the blood-spitting " at intervals for years " —
not to speak of the superabundant coughing — sounds odd,
and perhaps some of my readers will suppose it was mere
fantasy or semi-conscious imposture on Rossetti's part. And
yet I believe it was real in its degree. As far back as
November 1871 (which was some months before the appear-
ance of the Buchanan pamphlet, and therefore before any
obvious disturbance of his mental equilibrium) he told me that
he had brought up blood that day, and had done so earlier
in the year at Kelmscott, which was prior to the appearance
even of the article in the Contemporary Review ; and he made
a similar statement at the beginning of April 1872. However,
I have not the least reason to think that his lungs were, from
first to last, otherwise than sound.

The departure for Cumberland, mentioned by Mr. Caine,
took place on 17 September 1881. Mr. Caine was thoroughly
familiar with the Vale of St. John, near Keswick ; and, as it
seemed highly desirable that Rossetti should have some break
in the monotonous course of his existence, and rouse himself
from habitual and increasing dejection, he was prevailed upon
to join Caine in an expedition to the Cumberland solitude,
at the Legberthwaite end of the Vale. As the Family-letters
show, this change seemed, at the first blush, not a little
beneficial ; but soon, under the malign influence of chloral,
with its accompanying whiskey, " the last state of that man
was worse than the first." Mr. Caine has given some
depressing details, which I need not draw upon here — the
sum of the whole being that the change proved visibly
harmful. Rossetti at last expressed a wish to return to
London. He was back on 17 October. As he re-entered his
now gloomy but accustomed and still cherished house, he
exclaimed, as Mr. Caine has recorded — " Thank God ! home
at last, and never shall I leave it again." He was indeed to

378 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

leave it once more, but only as the latest stage towards his
final resting-place.

On 24 October I received his letter saying that he was
" very ill." I went round, and found him in much the same
state as in October 1879. A nurse was called in, who left
him towards the beginning of November. On the 27th of that
month another nurse came, and none too soon, and one rule
strictly enforced was that my brother should go to bed
by nine o'clock. By 21 November I observed him to be
somewhat less shaken in health, but deeply melancholy.
Matters of very old as well as more recent date agitated his
mind ; even so old as the year 1847 or 1848, when his desultory
habits of work, or lack of filial deference, used to annoy our
father, and elicit some severe expressions from him. It must,
I think, have been immediately after 21 November that an
incident occurred, related at some length by Mr. Bell Scott.
It is singular in itself, and highly symptomatic of my brother's
then condition of mind and spirits, and I shall extract the
passage as it stands, only omitting some observations which,
without being irrelevant, are not quite to the immediate
purpose.

" A new idea had taken possession of his mind, which caused us
painful agitation [" us " would be Scott and Miss Boyd, and I
suppose some others, especially Shields and Watts : I cannot affirm
however that Miss Boyd was present on the occasion referred to,
nor who else was either present or in fact painfully agitated]. He
wanted a priest to give him absolution for his sins ! I mention this
hallucination [I cannot see that it was a hallucination, though it
may have been a weakness] as I have related previous ones ; for
example, that of the chaffinch on the highway so long ago as 1869
[see Section XXX.]— not loving him the less but the more,
sympathizing with him almost mesmerically. But the aesthetic side
of anything was his exclusive interest. In poetry and in painting the
mediaeval period of history was necessary to him [this, in its primary
sense, is remote indeed from the fact]. At first no one took any
notice of this demand for a confessor. We thought his mind
wandering, or that he was dreaming. But on its earnest repetition,

CUMBERLAND AND LONDON — FINAL ILLNESS. 379

with his eyes openv I for one put him in mind of his not being a
papist, and of his extreme agnosticism. ' I don't care about that,'
was his puzzling reply. ' I can make nothing of Christianity, but
I only want a confessor to give me absolution for my sins.' This
was so truly like a man living or rather dying in a.d. 1300 that it
was impossible to do anything but smile. Yet he was serious, and
went on : ' I believe in a future life. Have I not had evidence of
that often enough ? Have I not heard and seen those that died
long years ago ? What I want now is absolution for my sins, that's
all.' 'And very little too,' some outsider in the room whispered,
as a gloomy joke [I have no idea who this outsider could have
been : did Mr. Scott possibly mean Mr. Caine ? It is exceedingly
unlikely that, during such a conversation as this, my brother would
have had in the room any person whom he himself regarded as an
outsider]. None of us, the deeply interested few who heard him,
could answer a word."

To this narrative — to the general authenticity of which I
lend full credence — I must add yet a few observations. On
the occasion to which I lately referred, 21 November, when
I was alone with my brother, he certainly showed very great
trouble of mind — the kind of trouble which, had he been a
Roman Catholic, he would at once have imparted to a priest
in confession, receiving in return admonition, advice, and
probably some large amount of consolation. He must then
have raised — or gone very near to raising — this question of a
Catholic priest. I say Catholic, because, although he had
been trained in the Anglican Church, such Christian sym-
pathies as he had went entirely in the direction of Catholicism,
and not in the least of Protestantism. Whatever may have
been the precise terms in which he spoke to me, my reply
was that, if he really felt any strong inclination that way, I,
were I in his place, would assuredly act upon it ; but that it
would be no use seeing a priest unless he were firmly
resolved to do what the priest should tell him to do, in the
nature of religious observance, penance, and aught else.
Were it possible for the like circumstances to arise again, I
would still give the like advice ; the question being, not what

380 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

my opinions are — and, as a fact, their current is totally
opposite — but what a man can rationally do who feels a
personal need of religious solace. If after this talk my
brother still wanted " absolution for his sins," the only really
surprising thing is that he did not take steps for soliciting
and procuring it. Here the other phase of his mind — that
which regarded the mysteries of the universe as inscrutable —
must have exercised the predominance.

Mr. Scott, it seems, urged upon Rossetti " his extreme
agnosticism." But Mr. Scott, in conceiving Rossetti to be an
extreme agnostic, only took count of one half of his mind,
often — it is true — in evidence. My brother was unquestion-
ably sceptical as to many alleged facts, and he disregarded
formulated dogmas, and the practices founded upon them.
For theological discussions of whatsoever kind he had not the
faintest taste, nor yet the least degree of aptitude. On the
other hand, his mind was naturally prone to the marvellous
and the supernatural, and he had an abiding and very deep
reverence for the person of Christ. I recollect that one
evening — it may have been late in 1879 — he wound up a
conversation with me on this subject by saying, in a tone of
decisive conviction, " Certainly He was something more than
man." To pass from the belief of something superhuman in
Christ to the admission of some more than human authority
in a minister of Christ is a not very unaccountable step.

It will be seen that I am not here arguing that my brother
was either reasonable or self-consistent in wishing to get
" absolution for his sins " — he was not a man of self-consistency
in either opinion or act ; but only that, if one understands
both sides of his mind, one can see how the notion arose,
whereas, if one erroneously supposes him to have been simply
and solely an "extreme agnostic," there is no traceable line
of connexion. When all is said, it must be added that the
" absolution " had quite as much to do with chloral as with
creed.

As to my brother's reported assertion " I believe in a future
life," this was partially true at all periods of his career, and

CUMBERLAND AND LONDON — FINAL ILLNESS. 381

was entirely true in his closing years.1 It depended partly
upon what we call " spiritualism," <on many of whose mani-
festations he relied, while ready to admit that some others
have been mere juggling. In November 1879 I found that
his mind was much occupied with spiritualism, and that he
was then fully convinced, or re-convinced, of immortality ;
and I am sure that from this belief he never afterwards
receded. I cannot say with any accuracy what he supposed
immortality to consist of. To all appearance his own surmises
were but vague. I have little doubt however that, in the case
of persons so faulty as he knew and acknowledged himself
to be, yet not ignoble in faculty or aim, he credited neither
immediate bliss after death nor irrevocable " damnation," but
rather a period of purgation and atonement, with gradual
ascent, comparable more or less to the purgatory of Roman
Catholics. On this momentous subject I never saw him to
be agitated, timorous, or mentally harassed. He seemed
willing to accept his fate, such as some eternal decree might
impose it.

Mr. Scott states also that Rossetti said — " Have I not
heard and seen those that died long years ago ? " Perhaps
this is even verbally accurate ; though I cannot recollect
having myself ever heard my brother allege that he had seen
a spiritual appearance, or what we term a ghost.

Perhaps the reader thinks that I have paid more attention
than was needed to this transitory craving for " absolution
for sins " ; but, at some point or other of my narrative, it
seemed requisite to say something about my brother's opinions
— or I might rather say feelings — on questions of religion, and
here the opportunity offered. His opinions on the subject
were highly indefinite ; his utterances often negative, some-
times positive ; his interior and essential feelings, a mixture

1 In my book entitled Dante Gabriel Rossetti as Designer and Writer
(p. 261) I have called attention to twelve sonnets in The House of Life
which bear upon the question of the destiny of the soul. Of these,
eight indicate a belief in immortality ; three a sense of uncertainty ; one
does not point clearly to anything.

382 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

of the two, coloured by passion and imagination, hazily
distinguishable by himself, and by no means to be neatly
ticketed by others. There is a very efficient phrase in Mr.
Swinburne's review of Rossetti's Poems of 1870 which comes
home to me as observably true : " Nor has he ever suffered
from the distemper of minds fretted and worried by gnatstings
and fleabites of belief and unbelief till the whole lifeblood
of the intellect is enfeebled and inflamed." Or take Rossetti's
own utterance in his short but well-pondered poem Soothsay
(published in 1881) : —

" Let lore of all Theology-
Be to thy soul what it can be ;
But know — the Power that fashions man
Measured not out thy little span
For thee to take the meting-rod
In turn, and so approve on God
Thy science of Theometry."

Mr. Caine regarded Rossetti as, " by religious bias, a monk
of the middle ages." To this I only very partially assent.
He may indeed have been so by " bias," but clearly not by
implicit belief. If we could imagine " a monk of the middle
ages" whose mind was in a mist as to religious doctrines,
who conformed to no religious rites, practised no monastic
austerities, and in profession and act led an anti-monastic life,
we might obtain some parallel to Dante Rossetti. But such
a personage would be very little of a monk, of the middle
or of any ages. It would be more admissible to say that
Rossetti was intrinsically a man of the middle ages, who, by
innate bias and by the course of circumstances, might not
unnaturally have been led to turn himself into a monk. In
that condition he would have painted a great number of
missals, written a verse-chronicle beginning with the Garden
of Eden or the " earth without form and void," indited
hymns as rapturous as those of Jacopone da Todi, exceeded
in austerity, exercised a vast influence over his penitents, and
perchance have become a Cardinal or a Pope — not indeed a

CUMBERLAND AND LONDON — FINAL ILLNESS. 383

" pagan Pope," but still one who thought his own thoughts
under the cincture of the triple tiara.

From these large speculations I must return into the
hushed atmosphere of 16 Cheyne Walk, and mention what
were the latest art-productions of my brother.

In May 1881 his picture of The Salutation of Beatrice,
commissioned by Mr. Leyland, was in progress. For this
picture he hesitated for a while between the gracious type
of Mrs. Stillman and the intense type of Mrs. Morris.
Eventually he adhered to the latter. Spite of his shaken
health, the work proved very fully up to his mark. It was
not far from completed when he had to abandon the palette.
After the great crisis of illness of which I shall next have
to speak he resumed painting, though only to a minor extent,
early in January 1882. For Mr. Valpy he nearly or quite
finished a duplicate Proserpine, and brought well forward a
duplicate Joan of A re. There was also (but not so late as
these) a Donna della Finestra, with magnolia-blossoms, which
remained uncompleted.

No one had hailed the volume of Ballads and Sonnets with
more energetic or more acceptable praise than Rossetti's
friend now of long standing, Dr. Westland Marston. The
evening of 1 1 December was fixed for this poet, and his
blind poet-son Philip, to visit my brother. The only fourth
person present was Mr. Caine, who relates the facts as
follows : —

" For a while he [Rossetti] seemed much cheered by their bright
society ; but later on he gave those manifestations of uneasiness
which I had learned to know too well. Removing restlessly from
seat to seat, he ultimately threw himself upon the sofa in that rather
awkward attitude which I have previously described as characteristic
of him in moments of nervous agitation. Presently he called out
that his arm had become paralysed, and, upon attempting to rise,
that his leg also had lost its power. We were naturally startled ;
but, knowing the force of his imagination in its influence on his
bodily capacity, we tried playfully to banish the idea. Raising him
to his feet however, we realized that, from whatever cause, he had

384 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

lost the use of the limbs in question, and in the utmost alarm we
carried him to his bedroom, and hurried away for Mr. Marshall.
It was found that he had really undergone a species of paralysis — •
called, I think, loss of co-ordinative power. The juncture was a
critical one ; and it was at length decided, by the able medical
adviser just named, that the time had come when the chloral, which
was at the root of all this mischief, should be decisively, entirely,
and instantly cut off. To compass this end, a young medical man,
Mr. Henry Maudsley, was brought into the house as a resident, to
watch and manage the case in the intervals of Mr. Marshall's visits.
It is not for me to offer a statement of what was done, and done so
ably, at this period. I only know that morphia was at first injected
as a substitute for the narcotic the system had grown to demand ;
that Rossetti was for many hours delirious whilst his body was
passing through the terrible ordeal of having to conquer the craving
for the former drug ; and that, three or four mornings after the
experiment had been begun, he awoke calm in body and clear in
mind and grateful in heart [this favourable result seems to me a
little ante-dated]. His delusions, and those intermittent suspicions
of his friends which I have before alluded to, were now gone, as
things in the past of which he hardly knew whether in actual fact
they had or had not been."

I will add here a few extracts from my own Diary. There
are some others relating to my brother at this period, but of
less import : —

" Wednesday, December 14. Called again to see Gabriel, having
seen him also on Monday [the day following the attack]. He is
in bed, suffering from a numbness along the left side generally —
what might be regarded as paralytic numbness, but Marshall has
assured Watts that it is not really paralytic. To me also Marshall
spoke on Monday, partly in the same sense, but (to my thinking)
less positively. [Then follow a few details, forestalled by Mr.
Caine's narrative.] Of course Gabriel is not a little dispirited.
Marshall is now very anxious to get rid of the chloral [it would
appear therefore that chloral was not, as might be inferred from that
narrative, abolished on the very night of the attack], and he proposes
to inject morphia as a substitute. He was to have come to-day for
the purpose, but did not. He also wants to put a young medical

CUMBERLAND AND LONDON — FINAL ILLNESS. 385

man in charge, to take care that his plan is fully carried out. Watts
is with Gabriel almost every day. This evening Jones also came,
and was very affectionate, and promises to return as often as he may
be wanted. On coming home I found Shields.

"Monday, December 19. Called on Gabriel. A young medical
man, Maudsley, nephew of the celebrated doctor, is now in the
house, and the system of injecting morphia near the wrist has been
begun. The chloral is wholly discontinued, and the whiskey which
accompanied it reduced to about a wineglass a day. Under this
system Gabriel gets a fair moderate amount of sleep ; but it is
perturbed by painful opium-dreams, and the same impressions
remain with him when awake. This was markedly the case to-day.
Throughout the evening he was under all sorts of delusions of a
more or less unpleasant character — seeing writings and printed
sheets where none existed, replying to questions which were not
asked, etc. Maudsley says that the real cause of these hallucina-
tions is not the morphia but the cessation of the chloral, which
seems to me odd. He re-affirms what Marshall said — that the
numbness of the left side of the body is not really paralysis. This
numbness seems slightly abated now, especially so far as the arm
and hand are concerned.

"Thursday, December 22. Called round at Gabriel's, and spoke
to Watts, Maudsley being absent at the time. Watts says that
Gabriel was sleepless on Monday and Tuesday nights ; but on
Wednesday night, without either chloral or morphia administered,
he got some five or six hours' sleep, and was this morning sensibly
better ; knew Watts, and conversed sensibly for the most part.
The numbness may have diminished a little. I was not minded to
see Gabriel, surmising that the best thing for him is to be left as
quiet as possible ; and in this Watts agreed with me."

Between the above date in my Diary, 22 December
1 88 1, and the next ensuing date, 6 January 1882, I shall
interpolate a professional memorandum by Mr. Maudsley,
which I found among my brother's papers after his death.
It is worded as follows : —

"Thursday, December 15-16. — 90 grains of chloral and | pint
of brandy in 2 doses, at intervals of 4 hours, 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. —
Friday [16] 4 minims of morphia at 9 p.m. ; sleep 4 hours; restless

VOL. I. 25

386 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

and craving for whiskey and chloral till 3 a.m. ; i| whiskey at 5 a.m.
— Saturday [17] restless, but condition much better. At 9 p.m.
5 minims of morphia ; dozing and sleep for one hour, and quiet
until 12. At 1 a.m. craving for whiskey and chloral; 3 minims of
morphia. At 2 a.m. doze for a short time ; then restless, craving
for whiskey; 2 oz. of whiskey at 4 a.m. — Sunday [18] horrible
dreams ; restless until 9 a.m., then sleep for 2 hours ; delusions
towards evening. — Monday [20] 9 a.m., 6 minims of morphia;
quiet sleep till 12. 1 a.m., restless, violent, and irritable;
delusions etc. ; 2 minims of morphia. Restless with delusions all
day; delusions etc., night. — Tuesday [21] 4 minims of morphia;
restless, no sleep, but quiet ; delusions. No chloral or whiskey. —
Wednesday [21] ether and bromine; quiet, delusions. No morphia;
sleep 8 hours. — Thursday [22] 3 minims of morphia at 9 p.m. ; sleep
quiet ever since."

My own Diary now resumes : —

"Friday, January 6, 1882. In the evening I went to Gabriel's.
He has for some days past been down in his studio, and the numb-
ness in the left leg is now greatly diminished ; in fact he walks about
the studio without any sort of assistance, and very much as before
the attack. The left arm he still regards as in the same state and
much the same degree of numbness. I suspect however that, by
a proper exertion of will, he would find it not so very much amiss.
Maudsley urges him to set his palette to-morrow, and see what he
can do. Gabriel's spirits are still extremely low — the uncertainty as
to his being able to resume his profession as a painter weighing
painfully upon him. I saw (copied out by Sharp) the verses ' To
an Old Enemy,' which Buchanan has prefixed to his latest novel
God and the Man. They are generally, and I think correctly,
assumed to be addressed to Gabriel, and they certainly form a
handsome retractation of past invidious attacks. Gabriel thinks the
verses may really be intended for Swinburne [but I don't believe that
he long persisted in any such supposition].

"Friday, January 13. Evening with Gabriel. He can now
make a little use of his left hand for helping himself at meals etc. ;
and during the greater part of the evening he was conversible and
fairly cheerful, though always much depressed when he speaks of his
blighted professional prospects etc.

CUMBERLAND AND LONDON — FINAL ILLNESS. 387

" Monday, January 23. Evening with Gabriel. He is now, I
think, somewhat better, in body and mental tone combined, than at
any time since his return from Cumberland ; yet his spirits are still
low, and his left arm partially numbed. Morphia — water." [This
last jotting means that by this date the injections of morphia had
been so far reduced that at last mere water was substituted ; but
my brother was not allowed to know that fact.]

Mr. Scott, in speaking of this attack of quasi-paralysis,
says : " He was carried upstairs to bed, and never came down
again." This, as will be seen from my Diary, is one more
instance of a rooted habit of inaccuracy. My brother was
carried upstairs on 11 December. He was down " some
days " before 6 January (it was in fact on 29 or 30 December),
and he continued coming down. Not only this, but he called
in our mother's house, in Torrington Square, Bloomsbury,
no less than four times between 14 January and I February.
A fair inference from Mr. Scott's statement is that he can
never have gone round from his own house in Cheyne Walk
to that of my brother after the close of 188 1 or so. He says
also that Mr. Morris asked him " if I really thought Rossetti
so ill, or was he only acting, to keep those about him in
suspense." It would be for Mr. Morris to say whether he
has here been correctly reported. I am not myself aware of
any reason he could have had for conjecturing that Rossetti
might be " acting," though he had, like other old friends,
sufficient cause for knowing that the invalid was fanciful.
But, as Mr. Caine has told us, Rossetti ceased even to be
fanciful when the origin of the fancies, the chloral-dosing,
had ceased, and my own experience of the facts mainly
confirms Mr. Caine's.

Mr. Maudsley, his beneficial work being done, finally
quitted my brother's house on 27 January. The nurse, Mrs.
Abrey, still remained, and she continued with the patient till
his dying^ day, always efficient, kindly disposed towards him
and others, and cheerful-tempered. As Mr. Marshall con-
sidered that my brother ought now to get change of air,
I suggested to the latter that a desirable place might be

388 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Birchington-on-Sea, near Margate — a new marine health-
resort where our excellent and long-tried friend Mr. John
P. Seddon had built a number of bungalows, or one-storied
residences. Dante liked the idea. He wrote to Mr. Seddon,
and received a prompt response that a bungalow would be
placed at his disposal, and even, by sanction of the owner
Mr. Cobb, free of expense. This last item was really not
needed. Still, it was, from all points of view, pleasing, and
my brother gratefully accepted the offer. Mr. Caine, ever
ready to accommodate him, went down to Birchington at
the end of the month to make requisite arrangements, and
on 4 February he and Rossetti travelled thither in company.
There was also Caine's sister, a nice girl of thirteen, now an
actress of repute. As my brother's letter of 3 February shows,
he had hoped that our mother and Christina could come as
well ; but both were in a risky state from colds, and the
family-doctor, Mr. Stewart, would not for the present allow
it. The house was at that time named Westcliff Bungalow
— now Rossetti Bungalow, in Rossetti Road ; and I might
add here that the houses built along my brother's old garden-
space in Cheyne Walk are termed Rossetti Mansions. Mr.
Scott must surely be mistaken in saying that " the young
Doctor " (Mr. Maudsley) was along with Rossetti on his road
to Birchington.

Mr. Scott gives another sentence — but not quite his final
one — to Rossetti.

" The picture I have drawn had been a painful one to witness in
the original, and has been only less so to indicate in narrative, even
carefully omitting the most repulsive elements of the scene."

What these " most repulsive elements of the scene " may
have been I confess myself unable to surmise. To me it
seems that Mr. Scott was at some pains to make the scene
more repulsive than in fact it was. But, if he found " the
picture a painful one to indicate in narrative," a very obvious
question arises — Why did he indicate it ? He was professing
to write " Autobiographical Notes," and the doings or mis-

CUMBERLAND AND LONDON— FINAL ILLNESS. 389

doings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti — apart from the aid which
he most constantly and determinately lent to this friend's
reputation as poet and painter, among acquaintances and
with the pubfic — formed no part of the Autobiography of
William Bell Scott.

Let me briefly recur to Miss Lily Hall Caine, and her
published reminiscences of my brother. These are only, it
is true, the reminiscences of a child ; but they are evidently
vivid, and I recognize in them several points which I know
to be accurately put. They bear strong testimony to the
fact that Dante Rossetti, even in the closing months of his
life, was very far other than harsh or morose, or so much as
invariably gloomy and despondent. Miss Caine was first
introduced to him in Cheyne Walk, shortly before the
departure for Birchington. She says, inter alia : —

" He chatted quite gaily [at the first introduction] until dinner
was ready. I had never met a man so full of ideas interesting and
attractive to a child ; indeed, now that I look back on it, I feel that
Mr. Rossetti was wondrously sweet, tender, and even playful, with a
child. . . . On this journey [for Birchington] from Cheyne Walk to
the Station he talked all the way, and had tales to tell me of every
conspicuous object that came into view. We travelled by the
London, Chatham, and Dover Railway, and, as the porter was
labelling the luggage, Mr. Rossetti took me by the hand. We were
interested in the porter's operations, and Mr. Rossetti was amused
at the Company's initial letters — ' L. C. D. R.' ' Why, Lily,' said he,
' they knew we were coming. That stands for Lily Caine and Uante
Rossetti.' " x

1 As regards the house in Cheyne Walk Miss Caine makes a statement
which I do not well understand. She says that somewhere in the house
(one might infer in the studio) there was a very large and bad picture, " as
vulgar as a signpost " (signboard must be meant), which Rossetti, when
" a student of art," had bought for ^3, although the upset-price ironically
demanded was ,£3,000. I cannot recollect any picture corresponding to
this description. There was, however, in the dining-room (not the studio),
a well-sized picture, which my brother bought some while after he had
settled in Cheyne Walk ; and as to the purchase of some picture or other
(I believe it was this one) he used to tell an amusing story not much unlike

390 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

XLI.

BIRCHINGTON-ON-SEA.

The village or " ville " of Birchington, in the Isle of Thanet,
is an ancient locality, traceable into Saxon times. I see the
name recorded in a map of Kent dated 1645. The oldest
portions of the church belong to the later twelfth century.
As a seaside resort however the place is very recent — little
having been done for tourist or residential purposes until
Mr. Seddon took the work in hand. The Bungalow which
Rossetti tenanted is a good-looking wooden erection, without
being a beautiful one. Its interior is conveniently laid out
for an invalid — "a long corridor, and rooms on either side.
At the further end was the drawing-room, running the width
of the house." It stands conveniently near the railway-
station, yet not so close as to interfere with habits of retire-
ment. Here Rossetti, spite of some wayward distaste at the
first alighting, settled down, without (I should say) any
troublesome craving to get away again.

" The sands are numbered that make up my life :
Here must I stay, and here my life must end."

At Birchington my brother at first took some short walks ;
and he continued free from delusions, though not always, I
consider, from some rather fanciful or oblique impressions.
These may have been due to the morphia which he took to
a moderate extent — no longer injected, but as a dose.
Digestive inconveniences which now gave him a great deal
of harass are likely to have depended largely on the same
cause. The weather was not severe for the season, but at
times there was a great deal of wind ; and this wind, a most
untoward circumstance, constantly blew from the land, so

the above. It was a well-painted picture, though hard — Flemish or Dutch,
towards 1600; the subject being a woman (with two or three other figures)
making gaufres or hearth-cakes. At the sale of Rossetti s effects it fetched
fifty guineas.

BIRCHINGTON-ON-SEA. 391

that Rossetti got no restorative sea-breezes. His health, it
is manifest, was really always going from bad to worse. Yet
this was not so clearly apparent from day to day as might
have been expected. The local physician, Dr. Harris, proved
attentive and discerning, and he acted in concert with written
advice received from Mr. Marshall. After a while (more
especially, I believe, from indications to which Christina had
called his notice) he pronounced that kidney-disease had
supervened. From the middle of March my brother had to
keep his bed to a great extent, though not by any means
without intermission.

On 2 March our mother and Christina, being at length
under medical leave to do so, went down to Birchington,
and there they stayed until all was over. Our mother was
now not far from eighty-two years old. Christina, aged fifty-
one, was always more or less an invalid in these years.
The effort therefore on their part was a somewhat serious
one, willingly, or rather gladly, as it was undertaken. It
would be superfluous for me, and only derogatory to them,
to speak of the devotion with which they ministered to the
beloved son and brother. Mr. Caine was almost always there ;
his sister left not long before the end ; Mr. Watts went from
time to time, and was more than welcome ; Mr. Shields also
once or twice, and Mr. Sharp ; Mr. Leyland, who was spending
the time on and off at Ramsgate, was also an assiduous and
a highly sympathizing visitor. " Watts is a hero of friend-
ship " was, according to Mr. Caine, one of my brother's last
utterances, easy enough to be credited.

Rossetti continued painter and poet to the last. At Birch-
ington he went on with the pictures for Mr. Valpy, Proserpine
and Joan of Arc, but I doubt whether this can have been
persisted in beyond the month of February. Possibly the
very last thing he produced in art was a sketch or two
aiming to show the characteristic aspect of our father ; for
some such memento was asked for, through Teodorico
Pietrocola-Rossetti, from Vasto, with a view to the designing
and erection of a statue (a project not yet actually carried

392 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

out), and Dante would not entirely neglect the request,
though he knew that he could no longer do justice to it. I
possess the slight sketches — not wholly unlike, but too
shakily done for any practical service. As to poetry, he
finished at the end of March his old grotesque ballad Jan
Van Hwtks ; and even later than that, 5 April, he dictated
to Caine two sonnets relevant to his design of The Sphinx.
I have always considered that his taking up on his deathbed
that extremely grim and uncanny though partly bantering
theme of Jan Van Hunks — a fatal smoking-duel with the
devil, who trundles soul and body off to hell — furnished
a strong attestation of the resolute spirit in which my
brother contemplated his own end, rapidly approaching
and (by himself still more than by any others) clearly fore-
seen ; for a man who is in a panic as to his own prospects in
any future world would be apt to drop any such subject like
a hot coal. He enjoyed immensely writing the ballad, so
Miss Caine says, " and laughed with us as he read it bit by
bit every night." At some other times also, according to this
lady, he was in high spirits ; and on one occasion he told her
some tales from the Arabian Nights, which he saw her
reading, and other amusing stories. It is only too obvious
however that at some other times his spirits were low — as
low as his sorely obstructed energies, and his life fast
flickering to extinction.

He read various books at Birchington, or got them read
to him by Christina — most or all of them novels — Miss
Braddon's Dead Men's Shoes, Dickens's Tale of Two Cities,
Wilkie Collins's Dead Secret, and others.

Two of the last things my brother did consisted in holding
a little correspondence with his old and highly genial friend
Mr. Joseph Knight (afterwards his biographer),1 and with the

1 In his Life of D. G. Rossetti, p. 109, Mr. Knight says that the letter
which he received from my brother was " the last letter ever written by
Rossetti, dated 5 April 1882": but on p. 179 he quotes the letter
verbatim, giving its date as " 5 March '82." I have no doubt that
" March " is correct. In that case, it might still be that this was the last

BIRCHINGTON-ON-SEA. 393

French art-writer, M. Ernest Chesneau. Mr. Knight had
published, in the French serial Le Livre, a very handsome
article on Rossetti's Ballads and Sonnets. My brother wrote
in cordial acknowledgement on 5 March, signing with the
pathetic phrase — " With love from all that is left of me, yours
affectionately." With M. Chesneau the correspondence
opened with a letter from that very accomplished writer
and worthy gentleman (whom I knew personally later on) at
some date in February, and concluded with his letter of
2 April, only a week prior to my brother's death. As far
back as 1868 M. Chesneau had sent to Rossetti his book
Les Nations Rivales dans I'Art, and had received a reply at
some length, from which a quotation is made in Section XIII.
He was now bringing out another book, La Peinture
Anglaise, and sought some information from Rossetti, not
only about his own works in painting, but generally about
the Prasraphaelite movement. My brother furnished several
details in answer ; and, being favoured with a copy of
Chesneau's remarkable romance named La Chimere, bearing
a striking frontispiece by Gustave Moreau, he wrote to the
French author expressing a very high opinion of the inventive
and artistic value of this design. I think it must have been
the first thing of Moreau's that he ever saw ; for, in or about
1880, having heard Moreau spoken of as a man of mark, he
had enquired of me what his paintings were like, and I
replied that they had something of the quality of Burne-
Jones intermixed with that of the Flemish painter Wiertz.
This, his last letter to Chesneau, was (I assume) his last letter
in this world, and, save for the two sonnets on The Sphinx,
about the latest thing he did at all except to resign himself
into the arms of Death. There is some pleasure in reflecting
that he was thus true till the end to one of his most con-
spicuous qualities — that of praising with eagerness and energy

letter written by Dante with his own hand, though I hardly suppose so ;
but it was certainly not the last which he composed and dictated. The
last of this kind (for 1 cannot assume it to have been holograph) was to all
appearance the one which M. Chesneau acknowledged on 2 April.

394 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

the work of such contemporaries as he at all valued, were
they painters or poets.

Our mother in these years kept a short Diary. From the
opening days of 1881 it stands in Christina's handwriting.
Its terms are neither much detailed nor strongly emotional,
but it furnishes some particulars not uninteresting in this
connexion. I extract here and there : —

" 2 March, Thursday. I and Christina went to Westcliff Bunga-
low, Birchington-on-Sea (a large one-storied commodious residence
lent by Mr. John Seddon), to visit Gabriel, who is staying there with
his trained nurse Mrs. Abrey, and Mr. Hall Caine, and his sister
Lily (thirteen years old), endeavouring to gain health and strength,
and in particular to recover the use of his left hand. But I was
grieved indeed to find him much wasted away, suffering, and in a
measure depressed, though making us most welcome, and chatty
enough on general subjects.

" 4 March, Saturday. Fuller particulars from Mrs. Abrey about
poor Gabriel's very ailing state. Mr. Watts came down.

" 6 March, Monday. Gabriel complains of something new in his
foot, which Mr. Watts confidently pronounces a touch of gout. In
the evening Mr. Martin, our very kind and helpful neighbour,
looked in. He is a builder in connexion with Mr. John Seddon,
and also keeps the Westcliff Hotel and Boarding-house close by.

" 7 March, Tuesday. Gabriel, suffering from his foot, kept his
bed nearly all day, and so doing was fairly comfortable.

" 10 March, Friday. Lily Caine returned home to Liverpool.

"18 March, Saturday. Mr. John Seddon, and his brother Major
Seddon, called ; Mr. Sharp came down.

" 24 March, Friday. Gabriel consulted Dr. Harris, who says
there is no paralysis, and nothing he judges irremediable, but a
serious condition of nerves. He prescribed at once, and will
communicate with Mr. Marshall. He resides near the Birchington
Railway-station, and was highly spoken of by Mr. Alcock [the
Rector].

" March 26, Sunday. Christina went to Holy Communion.
While in church, the wind rose so that she got home with difficulty,
helped by a good-natured man, three times taking refuge in cottages,
and at last taking a fly. Mr. Leyland called.

DEATH AND FUNERAL. 395

• " March 28, Tuesday. Mr. Watts came down ; Gabriel rallied
marvellously."

This is the last cheerful item which it is allowed me to
record concerning my brother ; I am glad that it stands
associated with the name of Theodore Watts.

XLII.

DEATH AND FUNERAL.

The final sentence in my brother's Family-letters runs, " It is
quieter now." It was soon to be still quieter for him, and
that for ever.

On 25 March, the day after I had returned to London from
a little lecturing at Wolverhampton, I received from Christina
a letter giving decidedly bad news of our brother. I deter-
mined to go to Birchington on Saturday, I April, and mean-
while I consulted Mr. Marshall. What followed was set
down by me in terms dismal enough : —

" Saturday, April 1. Went to Birchington. Found Gabriel in a
very prostrate condition physically, barely capable of tottering a few
steps, half blind, and suffering a good deal of pain. At least he
feels all this, whether it is or is not dependent on a morbid state of
the perceptions. In spirits he is not worse than might be expected ;
talks with reason, though not with animation, on any subject that
offers. He is writing some tale, but I don't know details [I have
since learned that he had taken up anew his old story St. Agnes of
Intercession, but he did not finish nor even progress with it] ; has
not attempted any painting-work for some weeks.

" Sunday, April 2. Gabriel, feeling a sensation (I believe delusive)
of oppressed breathing, sent round for the local doctor, Harris, who
has attended him various times. I was present at the conference,
and afterwards spoke at some length to Harris in private. His
opinion — as had before been intimated to me — is that the brain is
affected, probably some degree of softening of the brain, consequent
upon abuse of chloral etc. He regards this as the one nucleus of
all the symptoms — bad sight, moveless arm, etc. — which are in

396 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

themselves delusions, but not at all delusions as being impressions
deriving from the wrong condition of the brain. He thinks — as
we all do — that the great thing would be to get Gabriel occupied;
but how to attain this point is the unsolved problem. Thinks also
that some such treatment as that of a physician at Malvern, among
other patients, would be better than the dull seclusion of Birching-
ton. But, when I explained Gabriel's detestation of new faces etc.,
he admitted this to be an obstacle. He thinks it quite possible that
Gabriel may again do good intellectual work, but of course the
tendency of the disease is to weaken the mind. All this is very
disheartening — not to me surprising. I shall probably soon speak
again to Marshall on the subject. Left Birchington about 7 — all of
us sufficiently low-spirited."

I came away from the Bungalow with a firm conviction
that my brother had not long to live, coupled with the feeling
(I do not scruple to admit it) that, rather than that so luminous
an intellect should be reduced to feebleness or torpor, it were
far better to die. My Diary shows a few other particulars,
as especially that there was an idea of calling in Sir Andrew
Clarke for consultation ; but it aids me little now, as I only
kept it on with regularity to 5 April, and then broke it off till
9 August. In leaving Birchington on 2 April, 1 had settled
to return for some days beginning on the 7th, which was
Good Friday. I did so, Mr. Watts bearing me company.
Mr. Marshall also had undertaken to attend, for the case was
then known to be urgent, as too clearly shown by the following
brief extracts from my mother's Diary : —

" April 4, Tuesday. After Gabriel had passed a very suffering
day in his own room, Christina sat up till about 1 o'clock, reading to
him. Dr. Harris came twice.

"April 5, Wednesday. Dr. Harris, after investigation, gives a
most serious opinion of poor Gabriel's state.

" April 6, Thursday. Gabriel so drowsy and sinking that William
and Mr. Watts were telegraphed to. I sat up till about midnight,
when Christina took my place till past six in the morning.

" April 7, Good Friday. The drowsiness continues. William in
great grief, and Mr. Watts, arrived. Mr. Leyland called, affectionately

DEATH AND FUNERAL. 397

concerned at the unforeseen alarm. In consequence of Gabriel's
having one night expressed to Mrs. Abrey some inclination to see
Mr. Alcock, the Rector, having been informed of this, called late in
the evening, and prayed with him — I and Mr. Watts uniting.

" April 8, Saturday. Kind Mr. Martin had an awning put up to
keep the sick-room cool. Mr. Shields hurried down, but could not
see Gabriel at once, and slept here. Mr. Marshall arrived ; met Dr.
Harris in consultation ; declared all the present urgent symptoms to
point clearly to uraemia (blood-poisoning from uric acid) ; and took
instant vigorous measures to expel, if possible, the poison from the
system. To produce perspiration, Gabriel was wrapped in a hot
sheet, and made very hot in bed, besides medicine being adminis-
tered. The blessed result ensued of his regaining a more natural
appearance, and rallying to a less inert general condition. Food,
heat, and medicine (though no solid food), were kept up through the
night, the greater part of which Christina passed keeping Nurse
company at the bedside. Mr. Marshall missed his up-train, and so
remained on the spot for the night. Mr. Alcock called, and read,
and we think prayed, alone with Gabriel, exhorting him to simple
trust in God and our Saviour.

" April 9, Easter-day. Mr. Marshall left soon after 9 o'clock,
leaving word for me (I was not yet up) that Gabriel continued to
hold his own. He also says that, as soon as manageable, Gabriel
ought to quit Birchington as being too cold for him, and had best
simply return to Chelsea. I gather that the illness is very serious,
but not hopeless. Christina missed church, after sitting up towards
seven in the morning. Mr. Leyland came ; Mr. Alcock paid Gabriel
a short bedside visit.1 — We had arranged to sit up, I till 10, William
till 2, Christina last ; when suddenly, just after nurse and Mr.
Watts together had put a poultice on Gabriel's back (Mr. Watts
had but just left the room, nurse was attending to the fire, I was
by the bed, rubbing Gabriel's back), Gabriel, who was sitting, fell
back, threw his arms out, screamed out loud two or three times close
together, and then lay, breathing but insensible. Nurse raised the
alarm. Mr. Watts hurried back, and, one on each side, they held
Gabriel down ; but there was not the slightest struggle or return of

1 These preceding words for 9 April must have been written at some
moderately early hour of that day ; what follows was evidently written on
10 April.

398 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

consciousness. All assembled round the bed. Mr. Shields flew for
Dr. Harris, and in the shortest time returned with him. Gabriel
still breathed, but that was all. Dr. Harris once or twice said he
still lived — then said he was dead. This took place shortly after
nine o'clock p.m. Gabriel had scarcely breathed his last when Lucy,
having travelled all day from Manchester, arrived. The instant cause
of death, assigned by Dr. Harris, was that the urasmic poison touched
the brain ; and he afterwards assured us that there was no pain."

I also, on the evening of 10 April, jotted down an account
of our great loss. It runs as follows : —

" Marshall, having stayed over Saturday night, saw Gabriel along
with Dr. Harris ; but I did not see Gabriel until after Marshall had
left Birchington. Went in to Gabriel soon afterwards, and sat with
him a considerable while — the nurse Mrs. Abrey in and out of the
room. His complexion was much more natural and less livid than
the previous day, but the lips not a good colour ; less wheezing
than on Friday, and not more than on Saturday; eyes somewhat
clearer. He talked but little at any time of the day. Did not seem
extremely melancholy, but languid, and not roused to any serious
effort of attention ; utterance indistinct (same on two previous days).
He said twice during the day to me, " I believe I shall die to-night,'
in a calm voice, not emotional. Also said, ' Yesterday I wished to
die, but to-day I must confess that I do not.' I replied that he
ought not to wish to die, but rather to continue working with
energy, and producing fine things. Every now and then he would
sit up and forward on the bed, and I — sometimes nurse — rubbed
his back with a circling motion of the hand. I was in and out of
the room various times, with Leyland once or twice. Went up on
the roof with Caine, to remedy the flapping of a tarpaulin which lay
along there, being part of an awning which Martin had on previous
day erected outside Gabriel's window. I asked more than once to
read to Gabriel (intending to propose Ecclesiastes), but he did not
wish it ; said ' Perhaps later.' \Ecclesiastes had been profoundly
impressive to my brother in boyhood and early youth ; and this
book, along with the more moving and spiritual portions of
the Gospels — I say nothing of dogmatic matter deducible from
the Epistles — may be said to have formed the staple of his religious
faith, such as it was.] Towards 5 I assisted nurse to put on his

DEATH AND FUNERAL. 399

loins a large linseed-and-mustard poultice, and his drawers were put
on at same time — -both processes much against his will, as he
disliked and dreaded the heat in bed. He often demanded to have
both off; but this was wrong, and could not be granted. Nurse
and I both reasoned with and coaxed him on the subject. I was
called to dinner towards 7 ; and, lingering afterwards in talk
with friends, did not re-enter Gabriel's room till (say) 10 minutes
to g — my mother, Watts, and nurse, then with him. The poultice
had by that time been renewed, but I was not aware of the fact.
He was drowsy, and not taking any particular part in what was
going on. My mother having said that she was to leave the room
at ro, and Christina to succeed her through the night, I said I
would come at 10, and stay till 2, and then Christina could succeed
me; and meanwhile I would lie down till 10. Entered drawing-
room just about 9, lay down on sofa, and pretty soon dozed. Was
roused towards 9.20 by Shields rushing into the room, and loudly
summoning me to come at once to Gabriel. Found him with head
leaning over towards right, eyes starting but nearly closed, mouth
open and twitching. He drew hard breaths at intervals. Shields
ran for Dr. Harris, who came in towards 9.30. On entering he
replied to our enquiries that Gabriel was still alive. He then
proceeded to use the stethoscope, but it did not give the indication
of breathing, and Harris pronounced Gabriel dead. Gabriel had,
just before Shields entered the drawing-room for me, given two
violent cries, and had a convulsive fit, very sharp and distorting the
face, followed by collapse. All this passed without my personal
cognizance. He died 9.31 p.m.; the others — Watts, mother,
Christina, and nurse, in room ; Caine and Shields in and out ;
Watts at Gabriel's right side, partly supporting him."

To these details — painful to write, to remember, and to
transcribe — I am only disposed to add that on the evening
of Good Friday my brother had, under the guidance of Mr.
Watts, made his will, and I fancy he had never done the
like before. He left all his property in equal shares between
Christina and myself. Christina, being at once apprised of
this, absolutely refused to have her name, rather than that
of our mother, in the will. It was explained to her that this
had been done merely as the more convenient practical

400 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

arrangement of the two — the mother and daughter being
inseparably united in life, and the daughter being the more
probable survivor. But Christina was immoveable in her
resolve, and so the name of our mother was immediately
substituted for Christina's in the will. As to any money-
details arising out of the will, I limit myself to saying that,
after paying off my brother's debts (chiefly sums due to
Mr. Valpy and Mr. Graham in relation to pictures unfinished),
and after the sales of his household and decorative effects and
of his remaining works of art, there was a substantial sum
divisible between the legatees. Two exhibitions of his paint-
ings and designs, covering the whole of his career, were held,
but not under the control of the family ; one being at the
Royal Academy's winter exhibition of 1883, and the other at
the Burlington Fine-Arts Club in the same year ; there was a
third, a private speculation, called the Rossetti Gallery, in
Bond Street.

As mentioned in my mother's Diary, my wife arrived at
Westcliff Bungalow almost as soon as Dante had drawn his
latest breath. She had been on a visit to her father in
Manchester ; but, receiving my intimation of the precarious
and almost desperate condition of her brother-in-law, she
hurried southwards. On 13 April also Charlotte Polidori,
the aunt to whom some of the Family-letters are addressed,
and who had so often established a claim to Dante's gratitude,
joined the mourners in the Bungalow. These arrivals were
a great boon to all of us ; my wife's of course to me more
especially, and Charlotte's to my mother — for the dear tie of
sisterhood between these two had always been peculiarly
close.

I proceed with some extracts from my mother's Diary : —

"April 10, Easter Monday. A telegram sent by William brought
from London a man from Brucciani's to take a cast of Gabriel's
face and hand [these casts were taken with no less skill than that
which the Brucciani firm always command ; but it is a fact that the
head proved extremely disappointing to all of us, and seems barely
to suggest what my brother was like]. Gabriel looked quite peaceful,

DEATH AND FUNERAL. 401

with a tendency towards a smile. Mr. Shields made a drawing of
him [this was done at my request, and it was a truly self-sacrificing
act of Shields, the most high-strung and susceptible of men, and my
brother's devoted friend, to whom such a task was a wrench indeed :
I possess the drawing, and the artist afterwards made a copy of it,
presented to Christina]. Lucy went with Christina and William to
the Rectory, for the purpose of meeting Mr. Alcock, who accom-
panied the three to the churchyard, where a spot was chosen for the
dear grave. Mr. Martin, with his usual kindness, undertakes to
make arrangements for the funeral.

"April 12, Wednesday. Mr. Sharp arrived, bent on having a
last look.

" April 14, Friday. Mr. Alcock performed the funeral simply and
solemnly. Besides myself, Christina, William, Lucy, and Charlotte,
there were present — Messrs. Graham, Leyland, Watts, Caine, Hueffer,
John Seddon, Stephens, Boyce, Aldam Heaton,1 Martin, Sharp,
Philip Marston, and Shields, and Dr. Harris. Herbert Gilchrist and
two others attended spontaneously [the two others were Judge
Vernon Lushington, and Mr. Murray Marks, the art-dealer : the
former had been an admirer and genial acquaintance of my brother
ever since, if not before, the days of the Oxford and Cambridge
Magazine]. In the evening, Charlotte, William, Lucy, Christina, and
Mr. Shields, returned to the churchyard, to place on the grave
(already closed and peaceful, under a turf mound) a most beautiful
wreath of flowers which we believe was the one sent by Lady
Mount-Temple, and brought by Mr. Graham. A number of floral
decorations were contributed by different friends. Philip Marston
presented a wreath of bay ; the Leylands, wreaths and a lovely
white cross ; Mr. Sharp, a cross of primroses. I placed on the grave
a bunch of simple flowers, among which were woodspurge [this was
of course in memory of Dante's poem The Woodspurge] and forget-
me-nots. Christina had gathered these in the grounds and con-
servatory."

1 Mr. John Aldam Heaton, now well known as p. Decorative Artist in
London, had, while settled at Bradford in Yorkshire, known my brother on
an intimate footing from about 1861 to 1874. A serious difference then
arose between them. My brother had right on his side, but he showed
more of permanent resentfulness than should be unreservedly approved.
We at all events were glad to make peace with Mr. Heaton over the
open grave.

VOL. I. 26

402 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Besides the persons above mentioned as attending the
funeral, some others had been asked, but, for one reason or
another, could not attend — Mrs. Hueffer, Eliza Polidori,
Burne-Jones, Bell Scott, Swinburne, Dunn, Dr. Hake, John
Marshall, Tebbs, and Valpy. Madox Brown was known to
be unavoidably so engrossed with his painting-work in Man-
chester that it would only have been unkind to ask him. He
had been in London towards Christmas, and had then seen
my brother two or three times with his unfailing affection.

I take leave to borrow from Mr. Scott's book the feeling
letter which Judge Lushington wrote to him on this occasion.
The few words given to the church and the churchyard
realize the scene well.

"14 April.

" Dear Mr. Scott,

" I think you will like to hear how your dear friend Gabriel
Rossetti was buried, so I will tell you — for, thanks to your kind
telegram, I was there. I had hoped to see you there, and was
grieved to hear that you were prevented by illness.

" The church at Birchington stands back about three-quarters of
a mile from the sea, on slightly rising ground which looks over the
open land and the sea. It is of grey country flint, built in the twelfth
or thirteenth century, and restored a few years ago — I thought,
simply. It is nicely kept, and to-day was full of Easter flowers. It
has an old grey tower, and grey shingle spire, which went up, as I
noticed during the ceremony, into a pure blue sky. The church-
yard is nicely kept too ; it was bright with irises and wallflowers in
bloom, and close to Gabriel's grave there was a laurestinus and a
lilac. The grave is on the south side, close to the porch. It was cut
so clearly it seemed carved out of the chalk. Altogether it was a
sweet open spot, I thought.

" At the graveside, wonderful to say, was the old mother, supported
by William on one side and Christina on the other — a most pathetic
sight. She was very calm, extraordinarily calm, but whether from
self-command or the passivity of age I do not know — probably from
both j but she followed all the proceedings with close interest. Then
around was a company of about fifteen or twenty • many of them
friends of yours, and several whom I did not know. The service was

DEATH AND FUNERAL. 403

well read by the Vicar. Then we all looked into the resting-place
of our friend, and thought and felt our last farewells. Many flowers,
azaleas and primroses, were thrown in. I saw William throw in his
lily of the valley. This. is all I have to tell you. Sad it was, very
sad, but simple and full of feeling, and the fresh beauty of the day
made itself felt with all the rest. I shook hands with William, and
came away with Mr. Graham. Dear Gabriel, I shall not forget him.
" I hope you are getting better. Pray remember me to Mrs.
Scott."

There are three commemorations of Dante Rossetti — his
tombstone in Birchington churchyard, the stained-glass in
the church itself, and the fountain-and-bust monument out-
side his house in Cheyne Walk.

The tombstone, an Irish Cross, was designed by Madox
Brown, and is a work of observable excellence. It bears
three bas-reliefs — the Temptation in the Garden of Eden,
the Spiritual Marriage of Dante and Beatrice, and the Death
of St. Luke, the patron of painters. The inscription, which
is mine, is thus worded : —

" Here sleeps Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti, honoured, under
the name of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, among painters as a painter,
and among poets as a poet. Born in London, of parentage mainly
Italian, 12 May 1828. Died at Birchington, 9 April 1882. This
Cruciform Monument, bespoken by Dante Rossetti's mother, was
designed by his lifelong friend Ford Madox Brown, executed by
J. and H. Patteson, and erected by his brother William and sister
Christina."

The stained-glass window, near the font, was commissioned
by my mother, and carried out by Shields. It has two lights,
the first being Rossetti's own design of The Passover in the
Holy Family, and the second by Shields himself, Christ leading
the Blind Man out of Bethsaida.

The monument in Cheyne Walk was erected by a sub-
scription of friends and admirers, my wife being the chief
subscriber. The fountain is the design of John Seddon ;

4^4 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

the bust of Rossetti was executed by Madox Brown in all its
details, and cast in bronze.

And so Dante Rossetti rests for ever, in the quiet Kentish
churchyard, within sight and distant rumour of the waves.

" Consider the sea's listless chime ;
Time's self it is, made audible —
The murmur of the earth's own shell.
Secret continuance sublime

Is the sea's end : our sight may pass
No furlong further. Since time was,
This sound hath told the lapse of time.
* # # #

"As the world's heart, of rest and wrath,
Its painful pulse is in the sands.
Last utterly, the whole sky stands,
Grey and not known, along its path."

XLIII.

PERSONAL DETAILS— EXTRACTS.

So much has been said about Dante Rossetti's character in
the preceding pages, here and there, and he comes out so
transparently himself in the Family-letters, that I do not feel
it necessary to attempt any elaborate portrait of him in
conclusion. Still, a few words of condensed summary may
be desirable.

My brother was essentially a man of the artistic, not the
ethical, type. From day to day and from year to year his
mind was occupied much more with ideas of art — and in
especial how to paint good pictures, and write good poems,
in both of which efforts he was as fastidious in execution as
he was free and energetic in invention — than with rigid or
nice considerations of morals or conduct. None the less, his
moral sense was just, if somewhat elastic. He prized rectitude,
disliked and shunned meanness, and understood, and mostly
conformed to, the fine impulses of honour. He appreciated
the generous far more than the regulative virtues. It may
indeed be said that he was replete with generosity of mind,

PERSONAL DETAILS— EXTRACTS. 405

feeling, and act. The very core of his character was self-will,
which easily shelved into wilfulness. As his self-will was
sustained by very high powers of intellect and of performance,
he was not only a leader but a dominator all his life long.
On that footing he was easy and agreeable ; any other footing
would have been troublesome to himself, and not long to be
pursued by others. He would do and say odd things,
unreasonable things, and wrongful things. This was in his
nature — and, until he was reduced to subjection (not a facile
performance, nor accomplished by any one), he would persist
in this, car tel est won vouloir. In thought, deed, manner,
and speech, there was nothing of the precisian about him
If there had been somewhat at times, that would have been
all the better. Not scrupulosity was his, nor moveless fixity
of principle ; but warmth and breadth of feeling and of
perception. He was impetuous and impatient, but by no
means difficult to get on with if one approached him from
the right side. He could be managed too, but not driven.
Nothing in him stands clearer to my mind than his total
freedom from pretence, pretension, attitudinizing, and " tall
talk." He impressed you certainly as a man of genius, but
not in the least as one who made his genius his stalking-
horse. People of all kinds liked him, and, on seeing him
close, loved him. And I could not fix upon one who
genuinely disliked him, though there were assuredly several
who got ruffled and angry, and of these some may even, on
occasion, have dogged him with a certain animosity.

I have sometimes heard it suggested that Dante Rossetti
was " a spoilt child " ; but on this score I must acquit our
parents of blame. He was reasonably and heedfully trained
to whatsoever is of good report. His tendencies, for good
or evil, were innate, and developed according to the circum-
stances of his life. His faults were his own. He neither
would nor could be a leopard without leopardine spots. To
avoid being a jackal or a hyaena was what he could do, and
that he did.

No better portrait of my brother has been given, I think,

406 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

than that by the Reverend Canon Richard Watson Dixon,
which appears in Mr. Caine's book — possibly a too fully
laudatory portrait. Rossetti, writing to Caine towards 1880,
described the Canon as " an admirable but totally unknown
living poet. His finest passages are as fine as any living man
can do." The Canon is now not " totally unknown " as a
poet, but still is less known than he ought to be. I will
extract from his narrative what serves my present purpose.

" My knowledge of Dante Gabriel Rossetti was begun in connexion
with the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, a monthly periodical
which was started in January 1856. Rossetti contributed to it The
JBtirden of Nineveh, The Blessed Damozel, and The Staff and Scrip.
The Staff and Scrip is, in my judgment, the finest of all Rossetti's
poems, and one of the most glorious writings in the language.
It exhibits in flawless perfection the gift that he had above all
other writers — absolute beauty and pure action. I saw Rossetti
for the first time in his lodgings over Blackfriars Bridge. It was
impossible not to be impressed with the freedom and kindness of
his manner, not less than by his personal appearance. His frank
greeting, bold but gentle glance — his whole presence — produced
a feeling of confidence and pleasure. His voice had a great charm,
both in tone and from the peculiar cadences that belonged to it. I
chink that the leading features of his character struck me more at
first than the characteristics of his genius ; or rather that my notion
of the character of the man was formed first, and was then applied
to his works, and identified with them. The main features of his
character were, in my apprehension, fearlessness, kindliness, a
decision that sometimes made him seem somewhat arbitrary, and
condensation or concentration. He was wonderfully self-reliant.
These moral qualities, guiding an artistic temperament as exquisite
as was ever bestowed on man, made him what he was — the greatest
inventor of abstract beauty, in form and colour, that this age,
perhaps that the world, has seen. They would also account for
some peculiarities that must be admitted in some of his works —
want of Nature, for instance. I heard him once remark that it was
' astonishing how much the least bit of Nature helped if one put it
in ' ; which seemed like an acknowledgment that he might have
gone more to Nature. Hence, however, his works always seem

PERSONAL DETAILS — EXTRACTS. 407

abstract, always seem to embody some kind of typical aim, and
acquire a sort of sacred character.

" I saw a good deal of Rossetti in London, and afterwards in
Oxford during the painting of the Union Debating-room. I saw
him occasionally almost to the time of his lamented death. My
recollection of him is that of greatness, as might be expected of one
of the few who have been ' illustrious in two arts,' and who stands
by himself and has earned an independent name in both. His work
was great ; the man was greater. His conversation had a wonderful
ease, precision, and felicity of expression. He produced thoughts
perfectly enunciated with a deliberate happiness that was indescri-
bable ; though it was always simple conversation, never haranguing or
declamation. He was a natural leader because he was a natural
teacher. When he chose to be interested in anything that was
brought before him, no pains were too great for him to take. His
advice was always given warmly and freely, and, when he spoke of
the works of others, it was always in the most generous spirit of
praise. It was in fact impossible to have been more free from
captiousness, jealousy, envy, or any other form of pettiness, than
this truly noble man. The great painter who first took me to him
[Burne-Jones, I have no doubt] said, ' We shall see the greatest
man in Europe.' I have it on the same authority that Rossetti 's
aptitude for art was considered amongst painters to be no less
extraordinary than his imagination. For example, that he would
take hold of the extremity of the brush, and be as certain of his
touch as if it had been held in the usual way ; that he never painted
a picture without doing something in colour that had never been
done before ; and in particular that he had a command of the
features of the human face such as no other painter ever possessed.
I also remember some observations by the same assuredly competent
judge to the effect that Rossetti might be set against the great
painters of the fifteenth century [rather perhaps the sixteenth ?], as
equal to them though unlike them ; the difference being that, while
they represented the characters whom they painted, in their ordinary
and unmoved mood, he represented his characters under emotion,
and yet gave them wholly. It may be added perhaps that he had a
lofty standard of beauty of his own invention, and that he both
elevated and subjected all to beauty. Such a man was not likely
to be ignorant of the great root of power in art ; and I once saw
him very indignant on hearing that he had been accused of irreligion,

408 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

or rather of not being a Christian. He asked with great earnestness,
' Do not my works testify to my Christianity ? ' "

This last detail is interesting. I should like to know what
date it applies to. That my brother was a strict doctrinal
Christian is not a fact ; but he had an earnest reverence for a
Christian ideal, and a delight in Christian legend and symbol,
and an antipathy to mere arid or disputatious negation. If
he had been " accused of not being a Christian," in such a
sense as to imply that he reviled the religion, and dissociated
himself from it root and branch, I can well understand that
he may have gone rather to an opposite extreme in repelling
the imputation. On the general bearings of this matter I
have already had something to say.

Mr. Joseph Knight aptly observes, " To be his friend was
in a sense to be his disciple." He found Rossetti " essentially
virile and robust, a little stubborn, and dogmatic in tone —
joyous if not absolutely mirthful." 1 question however
whether the epithet " dogmatic " hits the mark exactly. I
should prefer " determined," or even " peremptory." Rossetti
was always wont to deal in concretes, and not in theoretic
system. " In his youth especially," says Mr. Coventry
Patmore, "he had the sweet and easy courtesy peculiar to
his nation " — i.e., the Italian nation. This I think correct ;
and in fact I must always regard my brother — spite of some
ultra-John-Bullish opinions and ways — as more an Italian
than an Englishman— Italian in temper of mind, in the quasi-
restriction of his interest to the beautiful and the passionate,
in disregard of those prejudices and conventions which we
call " Philistine," in general tone of moral perception. And
yet he was mentally very far from being like his Italian father,
and was wholly unlike his Italian grandfather.— And now for
a few words from Mr. Watts x : —

" Even at the time Mr. Caine depicts, when Rossetti was ill, his
intellectual brilliance showed as little real abatement as did his

1 From his article The Truth about Rossetti, in The Nineteenth Century,
March 188^.

PERSONAL DETAILS— EXTRACTS. 409

genius. Late in the night, when the exhaustion of production was
recovered from, he would, even to the last, brighten up into his old
self— a self that had hardly a match, I should imagine, among his
contemporaries. The rapidity of his perceptive powers was some-
times bewildering. Before his interlocutor had well begun his
sentence, Rossetti had taken in the idea, and was ready with his
answer ; an answer clothed always in language so apt and so perfect
that no after-revision could have improved it. His wit, though not
abundant and not of ' the rarest water,' was quite unique. It
always had an intellectual basis, and seemed a singular combination
of those real analogies sought by the logician and the superficial and
fanciful analogies which are the quest of the mere wit."

To my brother's appearance I have referred casually in
some preceding pages, and I shall add but little now. As in
mind, so in body, he looked to me rather Italian than English,
though many persons entertained a contrary notion. Mr.
Knight (as we have seen) thinks that he was fairly like
Salvini, and so do I ; and I remember that Hueffer, on
returning from an Italian trip towards 1872, told me that,
rather to his surprise, he had found the type of my brother's
face to be a very usual, almost a commonplace, one in Italy —
an opinion to which I assent, with a certain demur. My
brother became eventually — not in boyhood and youth —
something like our father, yet not in such a way as would
have struck an ordinary eye. His complexion,1 clear and
warm, was also dark — not dusky or sombre. The hair was
dark, and somewhat silky ; the full-sized eyes blueish-grey ;
the brow grandly spacious and solid ; the mouth moderately
well-shaped, but with a rather thick and unmoulded under-
lip ; the chin unremarkable ; the line of the jaw, narrow and
rather tapering in youth, was, after youth had passed, full,
rounded, and sweeping ; the ear well-formed, and rather small

1 Some of these items of description are repeated, without much modifica-
tion, from my Preface to Dante Rossetti's Collected Works; being true
there, they must be equally true here, and I need not beat about the bush
to vary them. Other telling details were given by Mr. Holman Hunt, as
in Section XXX.

4 TO DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

than large. His bands and feet were small ; the hands quite
in character for an artist or author — white, delicate, plump,
and soft as a woman's. Miss Caine correctly notices that he
had a rather fidgeting habit of nicking (she says " cracking,"
but I think that less accurate) his right thumb-nail with the
nail of the first finger ; also a habit of shaking very rapidly,
and for long whiles together, the foot of one leg crossed over
the other. His general aspect was compact and determined,
with the facial expression of a fiery and dictatorial mind
concentrated into repose. Some people regarded him as
eminently handsome, and no one could call him other than
a well-looking noticeable man. In habit of body he was more
than sufficiently indolent and lounging (" lolling about, and
behaving like a seal on a sandbank," as Smetham expressively
worded it), disinclined to any prescribed or trying exertion,
yet not at all wanting in active promptitude whenever it
suited his liking. He often seemed merely unoccupied,
especially of an evening ; the brain continued busy enough.
A reader, to be sure, he was, but not a great reader.

" Unto the man of yearning thought
And aspiration, to do nought
Is in itself almost an act, —
Being chasm-fire and cataract
Of the soul's utter depths unsealed.
Yet woe to thee if once thou yield
Unto the act of doing nought."

Various writers will have it that Rossetti cared nothing for
the beauties of Nature — was indifferent to scenery etc. I
think this an exaggeration. Italians however are not, as a
rule, so minute in observation of scenery, so full of " gush "
over hills and trees, so Wordsworthian in co-ordinating
phenomena and emotion, as some English people have
become : the Italians are open rather to the total impression
of a scene — whether it is cheerful, gloomy, homely, sublime,
or what not. In this relation again I consider my brother to
have been much more Italian than English. To the beauties
pf Nature he was not insensitive, but he was incurious, and

PERSONAL DETAILS — EXTRACTS. 4II

he valued them more as being so much fuel to the fire of the
soul than as being objects of separate regard and analysis.
For him the Human Being was always the Lord of Creation
— the recipient and transformer and transmitter of the natural
influences. That he cared very little for descriptive poetry is
perfectly true — and just on that account ; that it exhibits and
extols objects instead of turning them into the " medium
of exchange " between the material world and the soul. Still
he saw for himself several things in Nature, both in mass and
in detail ; and his work in painting and in poetry testifies
no less.

Rossetti took no part, and belonged to no party, in politics.
He had ideas, and applied them to national as well as other
problems ; but he paid no attention at all to the hourly and
yearly scuffle over questions of practical legislation and
administration, whether in this country or in others. He
liked enlightenment, justice, and mercy, in public affairs ; he
disliked obtuseness, oppression, injustice, and ruthlessness.
I cannot call him either Liberal or Conservative, in the
current acceptation of those terms. He could see that there
was right in liberty, and right in conservation. In British
politics he was neutral ; in Italian politics — apart from a
general conviction that there was no reason why Austrians
should, as in the days of his youth, be lording it over Italians
— he was neutral also. And so in relation to other nations.
I can recollect one instance — there may have been others, but
certainly few — in which he expressed a decided opinion upon
a foreign national transaction. It was when all the hubbub
arose as to the shooting of Maximilian, the so-called Emperor
of Mexico. He asked me what it was all about ; and I feel
pretty sure that the whole affair came new to him. I ex-
plained to him that Maximilian was an Austrian prince whom
Napoleon III., for reasons of his own, had imposed upon the
Mexican Republic as an Emperor ; that Maximilian, in this
character, made military expeditions against Mexican Re-
publicans, and shot them when caught ; and that the ousted
Mexican President, Juarez, finally caught Maximilian, and

412 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

shot him as well. My brother replied, " I think it was just,"

an opinion which entirely coincided with my own. Mr.
Caine's impression is that "It would be wrong to say that
he was wholly indifferent to important political issues, of
which he took often a very judicial view." And indeed I
think that, if Rossetti had been at the pains of forming and
formulating opinions on current questions of policy, they
would frequently have been found correct after the lapse of
a few years.

1 shall now proceed to give from various sources some of
his most marked observations on divers subjects. It would
perhaps be of little use to classify them, beyond a rough
division into those which relate respectively to fine art, to
literature, and to other topics. My extracts are of course
faithful, but they are frequently much curtailed.

Fine Art. — Mr. Holman Hunt says with regard to the early
days in the Cleveland Street studio : —

" We spoke of the improvement of design in household objects —
furniture, curtains, and interior decorations — and dress ; of how we
would exercise our skill, as the early painters had done, not in one
branch of art only, but in all. For sculpture, Rossetti in private
expressed little regard. He professed admiration for the minds of
many men engaged in it ; but he could scarcely understand their
devotion to work which seemed, in modern hands, so cold and
meaningless, and which was so limited in its power of illustration.
He confessed however that so far he had not thought of it enough.
Music he regarded as positively offensive " [and I regret to allow
that he never much receded from this narrowness of view in relation
to abstract or elaborate music, though he could enjoy an opera, or a
simple tuneable song].

Mr. Caine reports : —

" I asked if his work usually took much out of him in physical
energy. ' Not my painting, certainly,' he replied, ' though in early
years it tormented me more than enough. Now I paint by a set of
unwritten but clearly-defined rules, which I could teach to any man
as systematically as you can teach arithmetic' "

PERSONAL DETAILS— EXTRACTS. 413

In Paris, in 1864, he was much delighted with the paintings
of Millet, who was not then of the world-wide fame which he
afterwards attained ; and he spoke of this name, in writing to
Mr. George Rae, as " curiously identical with that of our best
English painter."
. Mr. Sharp says : —

" 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 correct, and one-third so essentially wrong that it negatived
the whole as an aphorism."

From letters to Mr. Scott, 1871 : —

" Your sorrows in connexion with that infernal word quaint recall
my own. Only quite lately I had it revived by a friendly critic on
my work, though a lapse of years had occurred since I last heard
it in such relation, and I had hoped it and I had parted company.
However, it will be ' in at the death ' with both of us. Good God,
I cannot see the faintest trace of this adjective in either of your
etchings which you mention. By the bye, on this point I have
always meant, and always forgotten, to ask if you noticed an
astounding controversy raised in Notes and Queries about a wretched
little daub of mine called Greensleeves. Bad the thing is, probably
enough ; but how it should suggest to any human mind the maniacal
farrago conjured up in these letters is incomprehensible, except as
revealing to one the degree to which the world considers oneself
insane.1 On reading them my brain whirled, and I sent to Agnew

1 The utterances in Notes and Queries about Greensleeves are certainly
surprising enough. They begin on 3 June 1871. A lady, M. M. C, had
seen the picture in Messrs. Agnew's Exhibition in Manchester. She was
fascinated by it, but could not make it out, as one hand of the personage
seemed to be living, and the rest of her figure dead. She got a friend to
write on the subject to Notes and Queries. He conjectured that the living
hand must be touching emblems of the lady's lover, while the rest of her
figure indicated a state of suspended vitality. In a later number, 29 July,
Mr. William Chappell opined that as a "Greensleeves" was, in Tudor
times, a sort of demirep, the lady pictured by Rossetti was meant to have
" one side fair, and the other on the verge of the grave."

414 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL

for the thing, to see if it bore any internal explanation with it. It
seemed a poor daub when examined, but certainly innocent of the
special enormities charged to it. However, once having laid hands
on it, I gave it a good daubing all over, and transmogrified it so
completely (title and all) as to separate it for ever, I hope, from this
Bedlam correspondence — which, by-the-bye, I find revived this
week, to end God knows when or where. ... It would really be
worth your while one day, if you keep Notes and Queries, to look
back at the first of these Greensleeves letters : it would enlarge your
ideas as to the gaping astonishment and perverse misconstruction
of which we were writing lately."

Again, 1871 : —

"Your article on Leys takes, I think, quite the true view, and is
equal to its important theme. However, I am not sure that you
dwell quite strongly enough on the fascination which Leys's intensity
as antiquarian and colourist gives him even to the most ideal class
of poetic minds— though, as you say, it be quite questionable
whether there were any absolute poetry in his springs of action. I
am much concerned to find that you have alluded in no way
whatever to Wiertz, whose works I never saw (with one large excep-
tion, quite noteworthy enough to increase curiosity), but who, I am
sure, must have been the greatest mental genius (except Leys in his
very different walk) whom they [the existing Belgian school] have
had yet."

Phrases reported by Mr. Shields : — ■

" The man who, on seeing a work with claims to regard, does not
perceive its beauties before its faults, is a conceited fool. I am
ashamed to belong to a profession in which the possession of
intellect is rather a disqualification than an advantage. The men
of imagination in England have always been as a persecuted sect."

Literature. — From a letter to Mr. Caine : —

1 ' Surely you are strong enough to be English pure and simple.
I am sure I could write ico essays (I once did project a series
under the title, Essays written in the Intervals of Elephantiasis,
Hydrophobia. a?id Penal Servitude) without once experiencing
the ' aching void ' which is filled by such words as myt/wpceic and

personal details — extracts. . 415

anthropomorphism. I do not find life long enough to know in the
least what they mean. They are both very long and very ugly
indeed — the latter only suggesting to me a Vampire or Somnam-
bulant Cannibal. To speak rationally — would not 'man-evolved
Godhead ' be an English equivalent ? [This shows that my brother
did really not accurately know what anthropomorphism means.]
Simple English, in prose-writing and in all narrative poetry (how-
ever monumental language may become in abstract verse), seems to
me a treasure not to be foregone in favour of German innovations."
[The context relieves Rossetti from the suspicion that he could have
supposed the two impugned words to be of Teutonic stock.]

From another letter to Mr. Caine : —

" I wrote the tale of Hand and Soul (with the exception of an
opening page or two) all in one night in December 1849, beginning
I suppose about 2 a.m., and ending about 7. In such a case a
landscape and sky all unsurmised open gradually in the mind — a
sort of spiritual Turner, among whose hills one ranges and in whose
waters one strikes out at unknown liberty. But I have found this
only in nightlong work, which I have seldom attempted, for it leaves
one entirely broken ; and this state was mine when I described the
like of it at the close of the story, how long ago ! "

Mr. Caine observes : —

" ' The three greatest English imaginations,' he would sometimes
add, ' are Shakespear, Coleridge, and Shelley.' I have heard him
give a fourth name, Blake. He thought Wordsworth was too much
the high-priest of Nature to be her lover." [Shelley has implied
much the same in his admirable Peter Bell the Third — a poem
which my brother read for the first time in 1880; and he then
expressed to me his astonishment at its brilliant handling of a theme
so little Shelleyan.]

Again from letters to Mr. Caine : —

" You must take care to be on the right tack about Chatterton.
I am very glad to find the gifted Oliver Madox Brown already an
embryo classic, as I always said he would be ; but those who com-
pare nett results in such cases cannot know what criticism means.
Oliver was the product of the most teeming hotbeds of art and

416 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

literature. Moreover Chatterton, at his death, was two years
younger than Oliver ; a whole lifetime of advancement at that age
frequently — indeed always, I believe, in leading cases. ... I must
protest finally about Chatterton that he lacks nothing, because lack-
ing the gradual growth of the emotional in literature which becomes
evident in Keats— still less its excess, which would of course have
been pruned, in Oliver. In the matter of Oliver (whom no one
appreciates more than I do), remember it was impossible to have
more opportunities than he had, or on the other side fewer than
Chatterton had."

I recur to Mr. Caine's narrative : —

" Reverting to my enquiry as to whether his work took much out
of him, he remarked that his poetry usually did. ' In that respect,'
he said, ' I am the reverse of Swinburne. For his method of pro-
duction inspiration is indeed the word. With me the case is
different. I lie on the couch, the racked and tortured medium,
never permitted an instant's surcease of agony until the thing on
hand is finished.' It was obvious that what Rossetti meant by
being racked and tortured was that his subject possessed him.
Assuredly impulse was, to use his own phrase, fully developed in his
Muse. [I fancy my brother's very strong expressions were a little
overstrained, partly to give glory to Mr. Swinburne by contrast. I
never witnessed such " agony," nor heard him speak of it. His
sonnet The Song-throe however proves how deeply impressed he
was with the conviction that, in order to move his reader, the poet
must himself be moved.] ' One benefit I do derive,' Rossetti
added, ' as a result of my method of composition. My work becomes
condensed. Probably the man does not live who could write what
I have written more briefly than I have done. All poetry, that is
really poetry, affects me deeply, and often to tears. It does not
need to be pathetic or yet tender to produce such a result.' "

From letters from Rossetti to Caine, in reference to that
gentleman's proposed volume, Sonnets of Three Centuries : —

" Sonnets of mine could not appear in any book which contained
such rigid rules as to rhyme as are contained in Watts's letter.
[Rossetti was afterwards satisfied that Watts had not intended the
degree of rigidity here supposed.] I neither follow them, nor agree

PERSONAL DETAILS— EXTRACTS. 417

with them as regards the English language. Every sonnet-writer
should show full capability of conforming to them in many instances ;
but never to deviate from them in English must pinion both
thought and diction, and (mastery once proved) a series gains
rather than loses by such varieties as do not lessen the only absolute
aim — that of beauty. The English sonnet, too much tampered
with, becomes a sort of bastard madrigal ; too much, invariably,
restricted, it degenerates into a shibboleth. I would not be too
anxious, were I you, about anything, in choice of sonnets, except
the brains and the music. It would not be at all found that my
best sonnets are always in the mere form which I think the best.
The question with me is regulated by what I have to say. You
have much too great a habit of speaking of a special octave,
sestett, or line. Conception, my boy, fundamental brain-work — that
is what makes the difference in all art. Work your metal as much
as you like, but first take care that it is gold and worth working.
A Shakespearean sonnet is better than the most perfect in form
because Shakespear wrote it."

From a letter (apparently) addressed by Rossetti to Mr.
William Sharp : —

" 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. . . . The quality of finish in
poetic execution is of two kinds. The first and highest is that when
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."

From a letter to Scott, 1853 : —

"The Life-drama [of Alexander Smith] has nothing particular
to say, except that it seems to bear vaguely towards the favourite
doctrine that scoundrelism is a sacred probation of the soul. But I

VOL. I. 27

41 8 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

find this everywhere. I am reading Wilhelm Meister, where the
hero's self-culture is a great process, amusing and amazing one.
On one page he is in despair about some girl he has been the death
of; in the next you are delighted with his enlarged views of
Hamlet. Nothing, plainly, is so fatal to the duty of self-culture as
self-sacrifice, even to the measure of a grain of mustard-seed. The
only other book I have read for more than a year is St. Augustine's
Confessions, and here you have it again. As soon as the Saint is
struck by the fact that he has been wallowing, and inducing others
to wallow, it is all horrible together, but involves no duty, except
the comfortable self-appeasement of getting out of it for himself.
As for the women, no doubt they are nascent for hell."

From another letter to Scott, 1871 : —

" Browning's poem, Balaustion's Adventure, looks alarming before-
hand. I have written to have it sent me, when out. However, no
doubt there will be plenty to admire and enjoy. Browning seems
Ikely to remain, with all his sins, the most original and varied mind,
by long odds, which betakes itself to poetry in our time."

Again, 1871 : —

" Another happy man, after all, seems to be Allingham, for all
his want of 'success.' Nothing but the most absolute calm and
enjoyment of outside Nature could account for so much gadding
hither and thither on the soles of his two feet. Fancy carrying
about grasses for hours and days from the field where Burns ploughed
up a daisy ! Good God, if I found the daisy itself there, I would
sooner swallow it than be troubled to carry it twenty yards. ... I
hardly ever do produce a sonnet except on some basis of special
momentary emotion. But I think there is another class admissible
also, and that is the only other I practise — viz., the class depending
on a line or two clearly given you, you know not whence, and
calling up a sequence of ideas. This also is a just raison d'etre
for a sonnet ; and such are all mine when they do not in some
sense belong to the ' occasional ' class. As for Commandments
[the poem now called Soothsay], the three verses came into my
head during a walk, and I think of carrying it further probably —

PERSONAL DETAILS— EXTRACTS. 419

only such-like verses do not interest me much. ... I had some
painting task-work to do, and have set about a little, not task-work,
also ; and these have kept me from the other Muse, who, I believe,
after all is my true mistress. I am sure, when one has once got used
to brush-work, one cannot somehow do without it."

To Mr. Gosse, 1873 :—

" It seems to me that all poetry, to be really enduring, is bound
to be as amusing (however trivial the word may sound) as any other
class of literature ; and I do not think that enough amusement to
keep it alive can ever be got out of incidents not amounting to
events, or out of travelling-experiences of an ordinary kind, however
agreeably, observantly, or even thoughtfully treated. I would
eschew in writing all themes that are not so trenchantly individu-
alized as to leave no margin for discursiveness."

Oliver Madox Brown, writing to his father from Kelmscott
in 1874, reports : —

" Rossetti seems in a wonderfully good temper at present. He
has had several long discussions with me on the subject of novel-
writing, from which I see plainly that he has great facility of ex-
pression, but that he would be a dangerous preceptor. Thackeray
he will hardly hear the name of; George Eliot is vulgarity personi-
fied ; Balzac is melodramatic in plot, conceited, wishywashy, and
dull. Dumas is the one great and supreme man, the sole descendant
of Shakespear."

These are slightly surprising utterances, and I am sure they
lost nothing, in the way of downrightness, at the hands of
their reporter. That my brother, in his maturer manhood,
read Dumas with vastly more zest than the other three
novelists named, is decidedly true : that he here made a
mistake is, to some others besides myself, by no means
obvious. Thackeray, I consider, he always valued within
certain limitations ; perhaps he hardly read him at all after
1855 to 1858 or thereabouts. I scarcely know why — or
whether — he regarded George Eliot as " vulgarity personified."

420 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

He may have thought that there was in her a considerable
infusion of the commonplace tempering the stuck-up ; and
I remember that, when Romola first appeared, he spoke of
it to me as totally misapprehending the moral temper of
those times — which (but I never read the romance) is probably
true. Balzac he most highly admired from certain points
of view, and he certainly rated him as one of the most
intellectual and deep-probing men of our age : yet he may,
in a one-sided mood, have been prepared to apply to his
writings the epithets set forth by Oliver Brown, with the
possible exception of " wishywashy."

From a letter to James Smetham, consequent on his review
of Alexander Smith (in the London Quarterly Review), 1868 : —

" I was equally delighted with what you say about DobelPs
Keith l of Ravelston — not only because you have so flatteringly
lugged-in my name in connexion with it, but because I have always
regarded that poem as being one of the finest, of its length, in any
modern poet — ranking with Keats's La Belle Dame sans Merci,
and the other masterpieces of the condensed and hinted order
so dear to imaginative minds. What a pity it is that Dobell
generally insists on being so long-winded, when he can write like
that ! There is a snatch of sea-song (about the Betsy Jane) in
Balder which is fifty times as good as anything in Dibdin, who
is nevertheless not contemptible."

Two notes from my Diary, May 1869 and December
1879:-

" Gabriel has written several new sonnets. His practice with
poetry is first to write the thing in the rough, and then to turn over
dictionaries of rhymes and synonyms so as to bring the poem into

1 Some persons seem to suppose that Rossetti took his surname
" Keith" in Sister Helen from Dobell's Keith of Ravelston (in which, had
he done it, there could be no harm) ; but in fact Sister Helen was written
— I think it was even published — before Dobell s admirable ballad was
in print.

PERSONAL DETAILS — EXTRACTS. 421

the most perfect form. . . . Gabriel's view of the subject-matter of
my Lectures, The Wives of Poets, is that those poets who have
been happy with their wives were, although truly poets in perform-
ance, personally of an unpoetic character, conventionally compliant
etc. — such as Wordsworth and Walter Scott."

General Subjects. — From letters from Rossetti to Caine,
following an offer from the latter to dedicate to him a
Lecture On the Relation of Politics to Art :• —

" I must admit, at all hazards, that my friends here consider me
exceptionally averse to politics ; and I suppose I must be, for I
never read a Parliamentary Debate in my life. At the same time
I will add that, among those whose opinions I most value, some
think me not altogether wrong when I venture to speak of the
momentary momentousness and eternal futility of many noisiest
questions. However, you must simply view me as a nonentity in
any practical relation to such matters. You have spoken but too
generously of a sonnet of mine, in your Lecture just received
[this must be the sonnet On Refusal of Aid between Nations]. I
have written a few others of the sort (which by-the-bye would not
prove me a Tory), but felt no vocation — perhaps no right — to print
them. I have always reproached myself as sorely amenable to the
condemnations of a very fine poem by Barberino, On Sloth against
Sin, which I translated in the Dante volume. Sloth, alas, has but
too much to answer for with me ; and is one of the reasons (though
I will not say the only one) why I have always fallen back on
quality instead of quantity in the little I have ever done. Volition
is vain without vocation ; and I had better really stick to knowing
how to mix vermilion and ultramarine for a flesh-grey, and how
to manage their equivalents in verse. To speak without sparing
myself — my mind is a childish one if to be isolated in Art is child's
play. ... I have been thinking yet more on the relations of politics
and art. I do think seriously on consideration that not only my
own sluggishness, but vital fact itself, must set to a great extent
a veto against the absolute participation of artists in politics. When
has it ever been effected? True, Cellini was a bravo, and David
a good deal like a murderer ; and in these qualities they were not
without their political use in very turbulent times."

422 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

To Mr. Scott, apropos of the poem Cloud Confines, 1871 : —

" I cannot suppose that any particle of life is extinguished,
though its permanent individuality may be more than questionable.
Absorption is not annihilation ; and it is even a real retributive
future for the special atom of life to be re-embodied (if so it were)
in a world which its own former identity x had helped to fashion for
pain or pleasure."

To Mr. Smetham, 1865 : —

" I am afraid you will think no better of me for pronouncing the
commonplace verdict that what you lack is simply ambition — i.e.,
the feeling of pure rage and self-hatred when any one else does
better than you do. This, in an ambitious mind, leads not to envy
in the least, but to self-scrutiny on all sides, — and that, to some-
thing, if anything can. You comfort yourself with other things,
whereas Art must be its own comforter, or else comfortless."

To Alexander Gilchrist, 1861, relative to the death of
Benjamin Woodward, the Architect of the Oxford Museum, —
also in 1862 to Mrs. Gilchrist on her husband's death : —

" I must have been the last friend who saw Woodward in
England, as he called here [14 Chatham Place], after we had long
been unseen by each other, on his way to the Station, going this
last time to Paris. I am sitting now in the place, and I think in the
chair, he sat in — to write this. If I am ever found worthy to meet
him again, it will be where the dejection is unneeded which I
cannot but feel at this moment ; for the power of further and better
work must be the reward bestowed on the deserts and checked
aspirations of such a sincere soul as his. . . . What can be done
except to trust to what is surely a natural instinct in all ? — that is,
that such terrible partings from love and work must be, unless all
things are a mere empty husk of nothing, a guide to belief in a
new field of effort, and a second communion with those loved and
lost."

1 The word stands printed " ideality " ; but surely that is a mistake.

ROSSETTI AS PAINTER AND POET — EXTRACTS. 423

XLIV.

ROSSETTI AS PAINTER AND POET— EXTRACTS.

THROUGHOUT the writing of my Memoir no question has
been more present to my mind than this — whether it would
or would not behove me to offer in concluding some remarks
of my own upon the general measure of attainment of Dante
Rossetti as painter and poet, and upon the quality and value
of his work in the two arts. Having been a critic of fine
art and of poetry all my life, I could address myself to the
task with some degree of self-confidence ; and I can safely
say that my praise would be less extreme, and my strictures
not less frank, than those of some other writers on the subject.
But finally I have decided to abstain altogether, and to leave
readers to surmise for themselves the opinions which one
brother, of very minor pretensions, entertains of another who
has made a considerable figure in the records of his time.
I shall limit myself to extracting a few observations from the
large amount of writing of which Dante Rossetti has been
the subject — writing done in some instances by the men who
themselves stand foremost as painters or as poets. Of opinions
unvouched by the author's name I shall take no count,
though some of these also are well known, to myself and to
others, to emanate from persons of the highest qualifications.
I do not, in my extracts, omit some comments much less
than eulogistic ; but I do omit such abuse as that of Mr.
Robert Buchanan (long ago recanted by himself), and such
theoretic depreciation as that of Herr Max Nordau.

Fine Art. — From the speech of Sir Frederick Leighton,
P.R.A., at the banquet of the Royal Academy, 1882 : —

" The other [he had already said something about John Linnell,
then also recently deceased] 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 [at all
periods might well have been said] a considerable influence in the

424 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

world of Art and Poetry — Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painter and
poet. A mystic by temperament and right of birth, and steeped l in
the Italian literature of the middle age, his works in either art are
filled with a peculiar fascination and fervour, which attracted to him,
from those who enjoyed his intimacy, a rare degree of admiring
devotion."

The Royal Scottish Academy passed the following resolu-
tion, 1882. Probably Sir Noel Paton could say of its terms,
" Quorum pars magna fui " : —

" The Council have heard with much regret of the death, on
Sunday last, of Mr. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 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 profession.
From his super-sensitive 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 regarded as a heavy loss to
art and literature."

Holman Hunt — with regard to Rossetti at the outset of
Prseraphaelitism : —

" Rossetti, with his spirit alike subtle and fiery, was essentially
a proselytizer, sometimes to an almost absurd degree, but possessed,
alike in his poetry and painting, with an appreciation of beauty of
the most intense quality."

Frederic G. Stephens : —

"Excepting one or two later works of the master, where sentiment
of a more exalted sort, as in Proserpina, inspired the designs, The
Beloved appears to me to be the finest production of his genius.
Of his skill, in the high artistic sense, implying the vanquishment

1 Thus printed. But perhaps it ought to run- — " A mystic by temperament,
and by right of birth steeped in the Italian literature " etc.

ROSSETTI AS PAINTER AND POET — EXTRACTS. 425

of prodigious difficulties — difficulties the greater because of his
imperfect technical education — there cannot be two opinions as
to the pre-eminence of Mr. Rae's magnificent possession. It in-
dicates the consummation of Rossetti's powers in the highest order
of modern art, and is in perfect harmony with that poetical inspira-
tion which is found in every one of his more ambitious pictures.
This example can only be called Venetian, because of the splendid
colouring which obtains in it. The intensity of Venetian art is
exalted (if that term be allowed) in a modern strain ; while its
form, coloration, and chiaroscuro, are most subtly devised to
produce a whole which is thoroughly harmonized and entirely self-
sustained. Of how few modern instances could this be said !
Rossetti's Beloved is in English art what Spenser's gorgeous and
passionate Epithalamiam is in English verse, and, if not more
rapturous, it is more compact of sumptuous elements."

Harry Ouilter : —

"In an age when painters have few beliefs, and hold those very
lightly, this man scarcely stirred a step in art except in obedience
to his own inspiration, and was strong enough, despite all his fail-
ings, to modify the practices, if he did not actually change the
creeds, of half the artists of his time. To him Millais owed his
poetical inspiration, and his most beautiful pictures were painted
under that influence ; to him Holman Hunt was even more indebted
[this I think highly disputable, or indeed erroneous] ; from him,
though soon able to strike out a line for himself, sprang Mr. Burne-
Jones, fully equipped for the fight, like a second Minerva from the
brain of a second Jove ; to his early friendship with William Morris
at Oxford we probably owe the determining influence [also disputable]
which set the author of The Earthly Paradise on the road to that
decoration which has changed the look of half the houses in London,
and substituted art for ugliness all over the kingdom ; and to him
probably, if we could trace it back, we owe, almost equally with
Ruskin who defended him, the growth of the feeling that art was
more than a mere trade, and that an artist has duties to himself
and his art, as well as to his pocket and his public. In the minds
of hundreds of young men who never even saw him there lurked
a satisfaction that down at Chelsea a man was living, painting, and

426 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

writing, without caring a brass farthing what any one thought of his
works ; and, though I do not mean to defend the morality or the
wisdom of such indifference, I do mean to assert that it is the
one temper that produces good artistic work. The place of his
painting is even harder to determine [than that of his poetry].
Many artists would tell us that it is not painting at all, and from
one point of view they would be right. But is this really the
question ? Who shall decide what is and what is not painting,
if we once leave the broad track of beautiful colour applied to
a canvas so as to produce a beautiful result ? And, if the decision
can be made so as to exclude the work of which we are talking,
we should have to consider whether, if this be not painting, it is
not something else than painting which we require. It is at all
events — Art. There is no doubt of that ; and in the best examples
it possesses three qualities, which it is excessively rare to find in
combination. It is at once passionate, poetical, and refined, and
defies the spectator to associate it with ideas of manufacture.
Such as it is, the work has evidently grown from its author's cha
racter, like a flower from the earth, and bears scarcely a trace of
another's influence. As poems in colour, the world has seen
nothing finer since the days of Titian."

In this passage Mr. Quilter has spoken strongly of the
influence produced by Rossetti upon painting and the deco-
rative forms of art. His influence upon poetry was hardly
or not at all less considerable. Our two greatest living poets,
Swinburne and William Morris, allow this ; and I am fully
of opinion that his early preaching-forth of Browning counted
in the long run for a great deal. And so with blue china,
Japanese art, and the modern taste in bookbinding. It may
to some seem absurd — and yet I believe it to be quite true —
that he modified for some years the British taste in female
beauty ; promoting the possessors (or the imitators) of auburn-
golden hair, those who wore the hair low down on the
forehead, and the owners of strong-set profiles — rich lips, and
vigorous chiselled sweep of jaw and chin — also stateliness of
height and tall throats. " No Roman noses need apply."
Along with all this went fashions of dress. But of course

ROSSETTI AS PAINTER AND POET— EXTRACTS. 427

fashions are fleeting, and there is a new generation which
" knows not Joseph." It may be said, and I think truly,
that the actual style of his paintings has not, since his death,
left any such traces on the British School as might by his
upholders have been looked for. But Burne-Jones remains
in the ascendant (long may he so continue !) — and this
betrays the vestiges of Rossetti.

Ruskin wrote, in a letter to Rossetti dating probably early
in 1855 :—

" It seems to me that, among all the painters I know, you on the
whole have the greatest genius ; and you appear to me also to be —
as far as I can make out — a very good sort of person. I see that
you are unhappy, and that you can't bring out your genius as you
should. It seems to me then the proper and necessary thing, if I
can, to make you more happy ; and that I shall be more really
useful in enabling you to paint properly, and keep your room in
order, than in any other way."

James Smetham, towards 1871 :—

" In two different ways I see and admire the stern toil of Ford
Madox Brown and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. No one knows what
work costs these men, and how profitable it is to see their example."

Frederick J. Shields : —

" The mere sum of work often accomplished in a day was
astounding ; for, when once he grappled with his picture, he never,
when in health, let go his grip till daylight failed him."

Dr. Hake :—

" The Manor-house [at Kelmscott] was adequately furnished ; but
some exquisite chalk-drawings — one especially — of female heads
gave it a charm. I thought that no one ever could paint a woman's
eyes like Rossetti. There was a softness, a delicacy, a life, a soul,
in them, never seen elsewhere but in living beings, and that how
rarely ! "

428 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Professor Edouard Rod : —

"Je ne crois pas qu'on trouverait dans l'histoire des arts un cas
plus curieux que cette retraite d'un artiste tout jeune, celebre avant
l'age, doue des facultes les plus exceptionnelles, et qui, pendant plus
de trente ans, inconnu de la foule, exerca sur une partie conside-
rable de l'elite intellectuelle de son pays une sorte d'occulte royaute.
Rossetti a ce trait commun avec les grands peintres de la Renais-
sance italienne, qu'il s'attache plus a la peinture de Phomme qu'a
celle de la nature. Mais — et voici ou il est bien du Nord — ce n'est
pas l'homme physique qui l'attire, 1'animal humain (comme dit
M. Taine), c'est l'homme interieur. Aussi, dedaigneux des belles
jormes du corps, ne recherche-t-il que l'expression, et le genre de
beaute qui peut le mieux la faire ressortir. Ce qu'il y a de religieux
en lui ce n'est done pas la foi au surnaturel, l'ideal transcendental,
le besoin d'etablir la vie sur des bases fixes : c'est une disposition
toute subjective, une faculte tres moderne, l'extase. Ses figures ont
une immobilite, un silence, une attitude presque suspendue, une
hesitation lente dans leurs rares mouvements, qui les font ressembler
a ces figures de reve qui demeurent comme posees devant l'imagina-
tion, sans cependant se preciser entitlement. Parfois il se plait a, les
entourer de brillants accessoires, sans que pour cela elles perdent un
instant leur apparence surnaturelle, le je ne sais quoi qui montre
qu'elles n'ont pas d'existence reelle — que, meme fixees sur la toile,
elles sont encore en union profonde et discrete avec Fame de l'artiste.
Religieux, profanes, mythologiques, les sujets ne sont pour Rossetti
que des pretextes. Sous des formes diverses, il n'exprime jamais
que son reve : les attitudes, les traits, les couleurs, changent — et
c'est toujours lui. Rossetti, d'un bout a l'autre de son oeuvre,
demeure un pur poete. Son dessin est souvent mediocre, avec des
fautes evidentes. Presque toutes ses femmes ont des mains trop
grandes : tres souvent les etoffes qui les drapent paraissent reveler
d'etranges imperfections physiques — un bras trop court ou une
epaule rentree. Mais le coloriste fait pardonner les negligences du
dessinateur. L'art du peintre demeure intact, en dehors de la
technique, dans cette intensite supreme d'expression qu'il parvient
a donner a ses figures, sans le secours de grands gestes ni de mouve-
ments violents. C'est la, me semble-t-il, qu'est la valeur artistique
des toiles de Rossetti, dont la haute valeur poetique ne supporte

ROSSETTI AS PAINTER AND POET— EXTRACTS. 429

aucun doute : il a compris qu'en une epoque toute intellectuelle la
peinture elle-meme devait obeir au courant general, et poursuivre
un autre ideal que celui de la forme pure, et que cet ideal ne
pouvait etre que /'expression. II a vu que l'attitude la plus calme et
le geste le plus lent sont parfaitement compatibles avec la plus
grande intensity de la vie interieure ; et il a rendu a Fart des qualites
qu'il avait perdu depuis la Renaissance."

Gabriel Mourey : —

" Au sortir de mes longues haltes devant la divine Beata Beatrix
et l'enchanteresse Rosa Triplex [both in the National Gallery], apres
tant de visites a travers tant de galeries privees recelant quelque chef-
d'oeuvre signe destrois initiales benies [D. G. R.], toujours je me suis
senti oppresse par le sentiment de Fineluctable impuissance des
mots a traduire la complexity des sensations, les extatiques vertiges,
ou venait de me ravir l'irresistible magie de ce genie exceptionnel
et radieux. Quel poete en effet, quel artiste, parla langage plus
profond, plus passionne ? Art plein de mystere et d'ardeur, debor-
dant de melancolie ; art mi-religieux, mi-profane ; art qui atteint les
limites dernieres de l'expression verbale ou plastique par la seule
valeur de Fame qu'il reflete (en dehors meme de toute realisation
technique, parfois incomplete ou avortee) ; art inquietant de com-
plexite, qui mele, a Finspiration renouvele du plus grand visionnaire
des temps, Dante, avec telles reminiscences de Fantiquite et d'un
paganisme lumineux, les inquietudes, les exasperations vers Fideal,
de Fhomme moderne ; art qui se cree a la fois d'images simples,
presque na'ives, jaillies d'un cour primitif, voiles de mystere septen-
trional, parmi la fougue epanchee d'un pur sang latin, et les
obscurites subtiles d'une nature raffinee d'Anglo-Saxon."

The following is by G. A. Sartorio, a very capable painter,
writing in the Italian magazine // Convito. Signor Sartorio
(so I gather from his article) has seen not many of the
pictures of Dante Rossetti, but judges of him partly from
photographs, books, and narratives. I should have regretted
to omit from my selection some utterance by a fully qualified
Italian upon his semi-compatriot Rossetti, considered as an
artist : —

430 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

"The struggle arose in the Exhibition of 1850. The picture
which Rossetti contributed was The Annunciation, now in the
National Gallery. The figure of the Virgin, the true gem of the
picture, is a very refined figure of a modern Virgin, of child-like
garb, painted with rare and loving perfection of form. I incline to
trace the ideal descent of this pure physiognomy, of impeccable
expression, from the early Flemish paintings, and notably from the
works of Memling. Just at that period Dante Gabriel had carried
out his tour in Flanders, and had written his sonnets in The Germ
on Memling and Bruges ; and, as I find in the art of the Nether-
lands a considerable portion of the inspiration, not only of the
Prseraphaelites but of much English art in general, I conceive
that the almost feminine nature of the genius of D. G. Rossetti
must necessarily have coalesced with the sentiment of Memling.
Rossetti, in all his subsequent works, shows himself imbued with
such sentiment — windows from which are to be seen belfries, close
gardens, silent canals, fruit-laden plants in damp orchards. The
turn of such compositions has no precedents in the English School ;
and the paintings of Rossetti, with veiled and calm light, with a
pious atmosphere which almost brings into the silence of the
dwellings the odour of candle and incense, show a clear filiation
from the sentiment divined from Memling. . . . While Millais
and Hunt were seeking, in the landscape of Surrey or of Palestine
copied in the open air, strong but not dusky tones, Rossetti obtained
them by daring essays in his studio through improvised overlayings
and continual experiments with the palette, animated by the
recollection of the brilliant pictures observed in Flanders and in the
Louvre. From that period began in him the personal evolution.
Rather than search for his design in the fact, he finds it in his own
idealisms. Hence, if Hunt may be called the fervid and constant
adherent of the first [Praeraphaelite] ideal, the evolution in Rossetti,
who developed his originality by working his brain in pursuit of his
dreams and his passion, penetrates into the laws of the cinquecento,
defers to the eclectic of Leonardo, and he becomes (in a strict sense
of the word) a Raphaelist. Looking to his successive changes of
style, one can easily perceive how rooted in the artist was a tendency
to overload his pictures with symbols. The myths and legends
are outlived by an aesthetic and moral significance, all the deeper
and more human the more it is devoid of self-regarding creed.

ROSSETTI AS PAINTER AND POET — EXTRACTS. 43 I

Painter and poet, he animates the plastic product with an intimate
psychological sense ; and his effort, crowned with achievement, has
greater depth than a continuous and personal perfecting of the

Literature. — A poet praised by the Author of Atalanta in
Calydon must have something of the same sensation as a king
diademed by an emperor ; a fair-minded man — and Dante
Rossetti was one — loaded and almost assailed by the sublime
rage of generosity of Algernon Swinburne, may perhaps have
felt the consciousness of his own blemishes more keenly than
that of his powers. At any rate his brother can, on his
behalf, feel something of that. Here are a few words
extracted from the 29 large pages in which Mr. Swinburne
testified of the Poems of 1870: —

"In all great poets there must be an ardent harmony, a heat
of spiritual life, guiding without constraining the bodily grace of
motion, which shall give charm and power to their least work ;
sweetness that cannot be weak, and force that will not be rough.
There must be an instinct and a resolution of excellence which will
allow no shortcoming or malformation of thought or word. There
must also be so natural a sense of right as to make any such
deformity or defect impossible, and leave upon the work done no
trace of any effort to avoid or to achieve. It must be serious,
simple, perfect ; and it must be thus by evident and native impulse.
In all these points the style of Mr. Rossetti excels that of any
English poet of our day. Much of Mr. Rossetti's work is so intense
in aim, so delicate and deep in significance, so exuberant in offshoot
and undergrowth of sentiment and thought, that even the sweet
lucidity and steady current of his style may not suffice to save it
from the charges of darkness and difficulty. He is too great a
master of speech to incur the blame of hard or tortuous expression ;
and his thought is too sound and pure to be otherwise dark than
as a deep wellspring at noon may be, even where the sun is strongest
and the water brightest. Colour and sound are servants of his
thought, and his thought is servant of his will. The subject-matter
of his work is always great and fit; nothing trivial, nothing illicit,
nothing unworthy the workmanship of a master-hand, is to be swept

432 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

up from any corner of the floor. There is no misuse or waste of
good work on stuff too light or hard to take the impression of his
noble style. Among English-speaking poets of his age I know of
none who can reasonably be said to have given higher proof of the
highest qualities than Mr. Rossetti — if the qualities we rate highest
in poetry be imagination, passion, thought, harmony and variety
of singing-power."

From Theodore Watts, who is here writing as much about
Rossetti's fine art and his personality as about his poetry : —

" In permanence of the romantic feeling, in vitality of belief in
the power of the unseen, Rossetti stands alone. Even the finest
portions of his historical ballad The King's Tragedy are those which
deal with the supernatural. In all matters of taste Rossetti's in-
fluence has been immense ; it is doubtful whether any other Victorian
poet has left so deep an impression upon the poetic methods of his
time. . . . To eliminate asceticism from romantic art, and yet to
remain romantic ; to retain that mysticism which alone can give
life to romantic art, and yet to be as sensuous as the Titians who
revived sensuousness at the sacrifice of mysticism — was the quest,
more or less conscious, of Rossetti's genius. Throughout his life
he had taken an interest in only four subjects — poetry, painting,
mediaeval mysticism, and woman. But then how passionate and
how deep had been his interest in all these ! There is not one
love-sonnet in his book which is a merely literary production. He
was the slave of his own imagination — an imagination of a power
and dominance such as I have never seen equalled. Of its vividness
no artistic expression of his can give any notion. He had not the
smallest command over it."

Hall Caine : —

"Rossetti's sonnets are of varied metrical structure; but their
intellectual structure is uniform, comprising in each case a flow and
ebb of thought within the limits of a single conception. In this
latter respect they have a character almost peculiar to themselves
among English sonnets. Rossetti was not the first English writer
who deliberately separated octave and sestett ; but he was the first
who obeyed, throughout a series of sonnets, the canon of the

ROSSETTI AS PAINTER AND POET— EXTRACTS. 433

contemporary structure requiring that a sonnet shall present the
twofold facet of a single thought or emotion. 27ie House of Life
touches many passions, and depicts life in most of its changeful
aspects. It would afford an adequate test of its comprehensiveness
to note how rarely a mind in general sympathy with the author
could come to its perusal without alighting upon something that
would be in harmony with its mood."

Harry Buxton Forman : —

" It is a great treat to come upon a volume bearing a weight of
earnestness in every page, and a burden of bestowed care in every
line ; and such a book must every reader of intelligence find Mr.
Rossetti's to be, even in a first skimming perusal. From title-page
to imprint no trivial thing is to be found ; and from first to last
word of each poem, be it never so small or modest, no syllable can
be detected standing in its present position without the deliberate
sanction of the authors thoughtful consideration visibly stamped
upon it. The whole collection is of that rare order that commands
immediate admiration, in the occult way wherein an admirable person
commands it. . . , An artist whose ideas are thus cut out as it were
with a red-hot blade on his very heart cannot always pick and choose
his subject; he must often be chosen by his subject; but, whatever
that be, we may feel sure of large affluent handling, and true human
tendencies, and just and masculine views of life."

Joseph Knight : —

"Taken as a whole, this series of sonnets [The House of Life]
constitutes, in its class, the greatest gift that poetry has received
since the days of Shakespear. Individual sonnets as fine as any in
The House of Life are to be found in Milton, Wordsworth, Mrs.
Browning, and some other poets. A series such as this — which is
in fact a life's utterance and a life's story — modern literature does
not possess. That passages are obscure, and that the sequence of
idea is not always to be traced, is true. The same however holds
good of every poem written under similar conditions, and in an
approximately similar form."

VOL. I. 2S

434 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Franz Hueffer : —

" Rossetti has been called a Literary Poet — a poet writing for
poets ; and this is true in the sense that his work is never likely
to become popular, as Mr. Tennyson's work is, and Byron's was,
popular. For that purpose he lacks the immediate rapport with
contemporary feeling, and that broad human sympathy which Mr.
Tennyson alone among living English poets combines with the
highest degree of literary refinement. Rossetti, as a rule, takes
refuge among the idealized men and women of a remote age, whose
thoughts he has fathomed, and whose very language has to some
extent become his own. Hence the tone of the popular mediaeval
ballad struck with rare power in The -King's Tragedy. Even Rossetti's
warmest admirers would hardly have given him credit for the power
to grapple with a historical subject displayed in this remarkable
work — perhaps his masterpiece in narrative poetry, even as Cloud-
Confines is his highest effort in the field of contemplative, not to
say philosophic, verse. The defects of 'literary poetry,' in the
sense above alluded to, are most apparent in the lyrical portion of
the present volume, more especially in the sonnets. The poet is
supposed to utter his individual feelings ; and our faith in the
genuineness of those feelings is somewhat severely shaken if we find
that they are clad in a mode of expression which a poet of Dante's
age might have used if he had been able to read Shakespear."

William Sharp : —

"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. The ballad is the lyrically dramatic expression
of actions and events in the lives of others. Of the seven published
ballads by Rossetti, three belong to the historical or legendary
section, three to the section of individual imaginative creation, and
one stands midway between these two sections. The three that
more or less accurately conform to ballad-requirements are Stratton
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

ROSSETTI AS PAINTER AND POET— EXTRACTS. 435

lyrically dramatic poems, are Troy Town, Eden Bower, and Rose
Mary; and the seventh is Sister Helen."

Mrs. Esther Wood :—

" No other English poet has resolved the breadth and simplicity
of the Gothic, and the depth and intensity of the Italian, habit of
expression, into such distinctive poetic vehicles. But at the same
time few have blended the diverse elements of the modern English
tongue into the harmony and sonority with which Rossetti's music
thrills when he tempers the sharper Saxon with a deep undertone
of polysyllabic song, or stirs the languorous pulses of a sonnet with
some swift cadence of familiar words. . . . Jenny perhaps, being
cast in a more meditative form, lacks the poignancy and fervour of
the utterance which comes, in A Last Confession, from the lips of
the sinner himself, instead of from the spectator merely ; but it
surpasses all contemporary studies of its kind in its bold and masterly
handling of a difficult theme. . . . Nor is the effect of Rossetti's
universal preference for assonance over rhyme — a special charac-
teristic of romantic poetry — identical in the ballads, sonnets, and
monologues, just quoted." %

I am not quite sure which are the poems to which Mrs.
Wood here more especially refers ; but I understand that
The Brides Prelude, the sonnets Pandora, Fiammetta, Found,
Astarte Syriaca, and Mary Magdalene, Jenny, and the trans-
lated song in A Last Confession, are at all events some of
them. Feeling a little startled at the notion that my brother
evinced a " universal preference for assonance over rhyme,"
I looked through the sonnets and the song, and through the
first three pages of The Bride's Prelude and of fenny. The
result is that I find 91 instances of true rhyme, and only 26
instances of what can, even by a stretch of phrase, be called
assonance. I concluded by quoting to myself the words in
Hamlet, "The lady doth protest too much me-thinks." If
she had limited herself to saying that, in his various classes
of composition, Rossetti showed a liking for mingling as-
sonance amid rhyme, no exception could be taken to that
statement.

436 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Coventry Patmore writes : —

" In Rossetti, as in several other modern poets of great reputations
we are constantly being pulled up, in the professedly fiery course
of a tale of passion, to observe the moss on a rock or the note of
a chaffinch. High finish has nothing to do with this quality of
extreme definiteness in detail ; indeed, it is more often exercised by
the perfect poet in blurring outlines than in giving them acuteness.
It must be admitted however that Rossetti had an unusual temptation
to this kind of excess in his extraordinary faculty for seeing object,
in such a fierce light of imagination as very few poets have been
able to throw upon external things. He can be forgiven for spoiling
a tender lyric by a stanza such as this, which seems scratched with
an adamantine pen upon a slab of agate —

' But the sea stands spread
As one wall with the flat skies,
Where the lean black craft, like flies,

Seem wellnigh stagnated,

Soon to drop off dead.'

In much of his work there is a rich and obscure glow of insight
into depths too profound and too sacred for clear speech, even if
they could be spoken; a sort of insight not at all uncommon in the
great art of past times, but exceedingly rare in the art of our own."

F. W. H. Myers:—

" He is not a prophet, but an artist ; yet an artist who, by the
very intensity of his artistic vision, and by some inborn bent towards
symbol and mysticism, stands on the side of those who see in
material things a spiritual significance, and utters words of universal
meaning from the fullness of his own heart."

William Morris : —

"It is certainly to be wondered at that a master in the supremely
difficult art of painting should have qualities which enable him to
deal with the other supremely difficult one of poetry; and to do
this not only with the utmost depth of feeling and thought but also
with the most complete and unfaltering mastery over its material ;
that he should find in its limitations and special conditions, not
stumbling-blocks or fetters, but just so many pleasures, so much

ROSSETTI AS PAINTER AND POET — EXTRACTS. 437

whetting of invention and imagination. In no poems is the spon-
taneous and habitual interpenetration of matter and manner, which
is the essence of poetry, more complete than in these. Among
pieces where the mystical feeling is by necessity of subject most
simple and most on the surface, The Blessed Damozel should be
noticed ; a poem in which wild longing, and the shame of life, and
despair of separation, and the worship of love, are wrought into a
palpable dream, in which the heaven that exists as if for the sake
of the beloved is as real as the earthly things about the lover, while
these are scarcely less strange, or less pervaded with a sense of his
passion, than the things his imagination has made. ... I think
these lyrics, with all their other merits, the most complete of their
time. No difficulty is avoided in them — no subject is treated vaguely,
languidly, or heartlessly. As there is no commonplace or second-
hand thought left in them, to be atoned for by beauty of execution,
so no thought is allowed to overshadow that beauty of art which
compels a real poet to speak in verse and not in prose. Nor do
I know what lyrics of any time are to be called great if we are to
deny that title to these."

Walter Pater : —

"The reader of to-day may observe already, in The Blessed
Damozel written at the age of eighteen, a prefigurement of the chief
characteristics of that [Pra^raphaelite] school. Common to that
school and to him [Rossetti], and in both alike of primary signifi-
cance, was the quality of sincerity — a perfect sincerity, taking effect
in the deliberate use of the most direct and unconventional ex-
pression for the conveyance of a poetic sense which recognized no
conventional standard of what poetry was called upon to be. Here
was certainly one new poet more, with an accent which might count
as the very seal of reality on one man's proper speech — as that
speech itself was the wholly natural expression of certain wonderful
things he really felt and saw. The lovely little landscapes scattered
up and down his poems — glimpses of a landscape not indeed of
broad open-air effects, but rather that of a painter concentrated upon
the picturesque effect of one or two selected objects at a time —
attest, by their very freshness and simplicity, to a pictorial or
descriptive power, in dealing with the inanimate world, which is
certainly still one half of the charm in that other, more remote and

438 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

mystic, use of it. For with Rossetti this sense of (after all, lifeless)
Nature is translated to a higher service in which it does but in-
corporate itself with some phase of strong emotion. A sustained
impressibility towards the mysterious conditions of man's every-day
life, towards the very mystery itself in it, gives a singular gravity to
all his work. For Rossetti the great affections of persons to each
other — swayed and determined, in the case of his highly pictorial
genius, mainly by that so called ' material ' loveliness — formed the
great undeniable reality in things, the solid resisting substance in
a world where all beside might be but shadow. One monumental
lyrical piece, Soothsay, testifies — more clearly even than the Nineveh
— to the reflective force, the dry reason, always at work behind his
imaginative creations, which at no time dispensed with a genuine
intellectual structure. His characteristic, his really revealing, work
lay in the adding to poetry of fresh poetic material, of a new order
of phenomena — in the creation of a new ideal."

Madame Darmesteter (Miss Mary Robinson) : —

" A very few weeks after publication [of the Poems, 1870] he was
generally admitted to be one of the greatest of living English poets.
In passing, I would point out the chief features of this work by a
poet of great imaginative penetration who had the signal good
fortune to express his subtle and rare ideas with the vivid presentation
of the painter. Even the descriptions of unearthly phenomena
convey a sense of actual vision. The solemn pity and tenderness
of Jenny ', the angelic beauty of The Blessed Damozel, the tragic force
of Sister Helen, are qualities that only great poets possess. But
more solemn, more beautiful, more full of a finer force, than these
poems, are the unrivalled sonnets which build-up The House of Life.
Here, for the first time since Milton, the English language is used
with a sonority and power rivalling the natural harmonies of Italian
or Greek. A singular value is given to the motive of these sonnets
by the poet's belief in the eternal effect and continual existence
of the thoughts and deeds of man."

James Skelton : —

" Mr. Rossetti is never desultory nor garrulous. His poems
display the highest concentration of the poetic faculty. They are
terse as epigrams. Mr. Rossetti seldom uses a metaphor. There

ROSSETTI AS PAINTER AND POET— EXTRACTS. 439

is little or no colour in his poems. He never indulges in elaborate
portraiture. But the pure idea is presented to us with surpassing
clearness. He realizes the emotion in the most absolute way. The
fire of his imagination is a spiritual flame which consumes whatever
is not essential."

Gabriel Sarrazin : —

"Voici done qu'elle reparait, mais plus endolorie et comme
rajeunie d'alanguissement tout moderne, l'antique extase de Dante.
De longues visions claires, d'une plastique achevee, ou de courtes
exaltations, d'une quintessence de reve presque nebuleuse, nous
en deroulent les mystiques peripeties. A une epoque ou l'idee de
l'amour s'est appauvrie ou materialisee, ou l'invasion des mille petits
besoins de l'esprit bourgeois, s'implantant sur la ruine totale des
deux ou trois grands instincts de l'esprit chevaleresque, a tue pour
jamais les passions dont vivaient les amoureux de la Renaissance ;
dans un age, en outre, ou l'amour platonique n'est plus qu'une
affectation, ou qui ' veut faire l'ange fait la bete ' ; dans cet age-la
Rossetti est un des seuls (avec Lamartine) a oser rearborer, en
parfaite sincerite de cceur, le grand Amour extatique des moines et
des chevaliers. Non pas qu'il n'y ait dans son ceuvre des adorations
teintees de sensualite : il y en a, et la plus exquise pudeur y preside.
Mais dans les grandes pieces, dans les pieces tout a fait significatives,
dans celles ou Fame travaille a se detacher des entraves terrestres
qui l'empechent d'atteindre au divin, e'est a dire a l'lmmateriel,
on sent qu'elle dchappe, vers par vers, a ses tyrans, et qu'un dernier
effort va liberer son vol."

Luigi Gamberale, who has translated into Italian verse
Rossetti's Last Confession, Jenny, and some other composi-
tions, expresses himself thus with regard to Mr. Swinburne's
criticism, already cited in this section : —

"This is simply the reasoned impression of a great poet, who
sees realized the ideal which he had conceived of a perfect writer.
And, since the ideal is very high, and the critic bears the name of
Swinburne, we may securely rest upon the truth and the soundness
of his judgment. Yet in some points he has gone beyond the mark.
I too fancy that I have sometimes observed the obscurity of Rossetti ;

440 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

and, if Swinburne explains and excuses it with his image of the
' wellspring,' it might perchance, following that same image, be
remarked that no eye in the world can without blinking scan a deep
water which glisters in the rays of a meridian sun."

There are other translations of Rossetti's works to which
I ought to spare a word of acknowledgment : into Italian,
The Blessed Damozel, by Signor Ettore Ciccotti ; into French,
The House of Life, by Madame Clemence Couve ; into Danish,
some sonnets by Herr Adolf Hansen. And assuredly these
are not all. I should have liked moreover to quote some-
thing, about either pictures or poems, from Messrs. Comyns
Carr, Symonds, Ashcroft Noble, Hardinge, Colvin, and
Frederick Cooper, Professor Dowden, and Dr. Westland
Marston ; but considerations of space have admonished me
to the contrary.

Here I close. I have tried to pay my fraternal debt to
the memory of Dante Gabriel Rossetti ; a memory and a
name honoured throughout and beyond the precincts of the
two noble lands of his origin.

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