When I reached the room that I was to occupy during the night, 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--indeed to add to the darkness

by making it felt. Mr. Watts, as Rossetti told me, was entirely

indifferent to these eerie surroundings, even if his fine subjective

intellect, more prone to meditate than to observe, was ever for an

instant conscious of them; but on myself I fear they weighed heavily,

and augmented the feeling of closeness and gloom which had been creeping

upon me since I entered the house. Scattered about the room in most

admired disorder were some outlandish and unheard-of books, and all

kinds of antiquarian and Oriental oddities, which books and oddities I

afterwards learnt had been picked up at various times by the occupant in

his ramblings about Chelsea and elsewhere, and never yet taken away by

him, but left there apparently to scare the chambermaid: such as old

carved heads and gargoyles of the most grinning and ghastly expression,

Burmese and Chinese Buddhas in soapstone of every degree of placid

ugliness, together, I am bound by force of truth to admit, with one

piece of carved Italian marble in bas-relief, of great interest and

beauty. Such was my bed-chamber for the night, and little wonder if it

threatened to murder the innocent sleep. But it was later than 4 A.M.,

and wearied nature must needs assert herself, and so I lay down amidst

the odour of bygone ages.

Presently Rossetti came in, for no purpose that I can remember, except

to say that he had enjoyed my visit I replied that I should never forget

it. “If you decide to settle in London,” he said, “I trust you ‘ll come

and live with me, and then many such evenings must remove the memory

of this one.” I laughed, for I thought what he hinted at to be of the

remotest likelihood. “I have just taken sixty grains of chloral,” he

said, as he was going out; “in four hours I take sixty more, and in four

hours after that yet another sixty.”

“Does not the dose increase with you?”

“It has not done so perceptibly in recent years. I judge I’ve taken

more chloral than any man whatever: Marshall says if I were put into a

Turkish bath I should sweat it at every pore.”

There was something in his tone suggesting that he was even proud of the

accomplishment. To me it was a frightful revelation, accounting entirely

for what had puzzled and distressed me in his delusions already referred

to. And now let me say that whilst it would have been on my part the

most pitiful weakness (because the most foolish tearfulness of injuring

a great man who was strong enough to suffer a good deal to be discounted

from his strength), to attempt to conceal this painful side of

Rossetti’s mind, I shall not again allude to those delusions, unless

it be to show that, coming to him with the drug which blighted half his

life, they disappeared when it had been removed.

None may rightly say to what the use of that drug was due, or what was

due to it; the sadder side of his life was ever under its shadow; his

occasional distrust of friends: his fear of enemies: his broken health

and shattered spirits, all came of his indulgence in the pernicious

thing. When I remember this I am more than willing to put by all thought

of the little annoyances, which to me, as to other immediate friends,

were constantly occurring through that cause, which seemed at the moment

so vexatious and often so insupportable, but which are now forgotten.

Next morning--(a clear autumn morning)--I strolled through the large

garden at the back of the house, and of course I found it of a piece

with what I had previously seen. A beautiful avenue of lime-trees opened

into a grass plot of nearly an acre in extent. 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. This neglected

condition of the garden was, I afterwards found, humorously charged upon

Mr. Watts’s “reluctance to interfere with nature in her clever scheme of

the survival of the fittest,” but I suspect it was due at least equally

to the owner’s personal indifference to everything of the kind.

Before leaving I glanced over the bookcase. Rossetti’s library was by

no means a large one. It consisted, perhaps, of 1000 volumes, scarcely

more; and though this was not large as comprising the library of one

whose reading must have been in two arts pursued as special studies,

and each involving research and minute original inquiry, it cannot be

considered noticeably small, and it must have been sufficient. Rossetti

differed strangely as a reader from the man to whom in bias of genius

he was most nearly related. Coleridge was an omnivorous general reader:

Rossetti was eclectic rather than desultory. His library contained a

number of valuable old works of more interest to him from their plates

than letterpress. Of this kind were _Gerard’s Herbal_ (1626), supposed

to be the source of many a hint utilised by the Morris firm, of which

Rossetti was a member; _Poliphili Hypnerotomachia_ (1467); Heywood’s

_History of Women_ (1624); _Songe de Poliphile_ (1561); Bonnard’s

_Costumes of 12th, 13th, and l4th Centuries; Habiti Antichi_ (of

which the designs are said to be by Titian)--printed Venice, (1664);

_Cosmographia_, a history of the peoples of the world (1572); _Ciceronis

Officia_ (1534), a blackletter folio, with woodcuts by Burgkmaier;

_Jost Amman’s Costumes_, with woodcuts coloured by hand; _Cento Novelle_

(Venice, 1598); Francesco Barberino’s _Documenti (d’Amore_ (Rome, 1640);

_Décoda de Titolivio_, a Spanish blackletter, without date, but probably

belonging to the 16th century. Besides these were various vellum-bound

works relating to Greek and Roman allegorical and mythological subjects,

and a number of scrap-books and portfolios containing photographs from

nearly all the picture-galleries of Europe, but chiefly of the pictures

of the early Florentine and Venetian schools, with an admixture of

Spanish art. Of Michael Angelo’s designs for the Sistine Chapel there

was a fine set of photographs.

These did not make up a very complete ancient artistic library, but

Rossetti’s collection of the poets was more full and valuable. There was

a pretty little early edition of Petrarch, which appeared to have

been presented first by John Philip Kemble to Polidori (Rossetti’s

grandfather) in 1812; then in 1853 by Polidori to his daughter,

Rossetti’s mother, Frances Rossetti; and by her in 1870 to her son. A

splendid edition (1552) of Boccaccio’s _Decamerone_ contained a number

of valuable marginal notes, chiefly by Rossetti, the first being as

follows:

This volume contains 40 woodcuts besides many initial letters. The

greater number, if not the whole, must certainly be by Holbein. I am

in doubt as to the pictures heading the chapters, but think these most

probably his, only following the usual style of such illustrations

to Boccaccio, and consequently more Italianised than the others. The

initial letters present for the most part games of strength or skill.

There were various editions of Dante, including a very large folio

edition of the _Commedia_, dated Florence, 1481, and the works of a

number of Dante’s contemporaries. Besides two or three editions of

Shakspeare (the best being Dyce’s, in 9 vols.), there were some of the

Elizabethan dramatists. Coming to later poetry, I found a complete

set of Gilfillan’s _Poets_, in 45 vols. There was the curious little

manuscript quarto (much like a shilling school-exercise book) labelled

_Blake_, and this was, perhaps, by far the most valuable volume in the

library. The contents and history of this book have already been given.

There were two editions of Gilchrist’s _Blake_; complete (or almost

complete) sets of the works of William Morris and A. C. Swinburne,

inscribed in the authors’ autographs--the copy of _Atalanta in Calydon_

being marked by the poet, “First copy; printed off before the dedication

was in type.” It may be remembered that Robert Brough translated

Béranger’s songs, and dedicated his volume in affectionate terms

to Rossetti. The presentation copy of this book bore the following

inscription:--“To D. G. Rossetti, meaning in my _heart_ what I have

tried to say in print. Et. B. Brough. 1856.” There were also several

presentation copies from Robert Browning, Coventry Patmore, W. B. Scott,

Sir Henry Taylor, Aubrey de Vere, Tom Taylor, Westland Marston, F.

Locker, A. O’Shaughnessy, Sir Theodore Martin; besides volumes bearing

the names of nearly every well-known younger writer of prose or verse.

Five volumes of _Modern Painters_, together with _The Seven Lamps of

Architecture_ and the tract on _Pre-Raphaelitism_, bore the author’s

name and Rossetti’s in Mr. Ruskin’s autograph. There was a fine copy in

ten volumes of Violet-le-Duc’s _Dictionnaire de l’Architecture_, and

also of the _Biographie Générale_ in forty-six volumes, besides several

dictionaries, concordances, and the like. There was also a copy of

Fitzgerald’s _Calderon_. Rossetti seemed to be a reader of Swedenborg,

as White’s book on the great mystic testified; also to have been at one

time interested in the investigation of the phenomena of Spiritualism.

Of one writer of fiction he must have been an ardent reader, for there

were at least 100 volumes by Alexandre Dumas. German writers were

conspicuously absent, Goethe’s _Faust_ and Carlyle’s translation of

_Wilhelm, Meister_, being about the only notable German works in the

library. Rossetti did not appear to be a collector of first editions,

nor did it seem that he attached much importance to the mere outsides of

his books, but of the insides he was master indeed. The impression left

upon the mind after a rapid survey of the poet-painter’s library was

that he was a careful, but slow and thorough reader (as was seen by the

marginal annotations which nearly every volume contained), and that,

though very far from affected by bibliomania, he was not without pride

in the possession of rare and valuable books.

When I left the house at a late hour that morning Rossetti was not yet

stirring, and so some months passed before I saw him again. If I had

tried to formulate the idea--or say sensation--that possessed me at the

moment, I think I should have said, in a word or two, that outside the

air breathed freely. Within, the gloom, the mediaeval furniture, the

brass censers, sacramental cups, lamps; and crucifixes conspired, I

thought, to make the atmosphere heavy and unwholesome. As for the

man himself who was the central spirit amidst these anachronistic

environments, he had, if possible, attached me yet closer to himself by

contact. Before this I had been attracted to him in admiration of his

gifts: but now I was drawn to him, in something very like pity, for

his isolation and suffering. Not that at this time he consciously

made demand of much compassion, and least of all from me. Health was

apparently whole with him, his spirits were good, and his energies were

at their best. He had not yet known the full bitterness of the shadowed

valley: not yet learned what it was to hunger for any cheerful society

that would relieve him of the burden of the flesh. All that came later.

Rossetti was one of the most magnetic of men, but it was not more his

genius than his unhappiness that held certain of his friends by a spell.

CHAPTER VIII.

It was characteristic of Rossetti that he addressed me in the following

terms probably before I had left his house: for the letter was, no

doubt, written in that interval of sleeplessness which he had spoken of

as his nightly visitant:

I forgot to say--Don’t, please, spread details as to story of _Rose

Mary_. I don’t want it to be stale or to get forestalled in the

travelling of report from mouth to mouth. I hope it won’t be too long

before you visit town again,--I will not for an instant question that

you would then visit me also.

Six months or more intervened, however, before I was able to visit

Rossetti again. In the meantime we corresponded as fully as before: the

subject upon which we most frequently exchanged opinions being now the

sonnet.

By-the-bye [he says], I cannot understand what you say of

Milton’s, Keats’s, and Coleridge’s sonnets. The last, it is

true, was _always_ poor as a sonnetteer (I don’t see much in

the _Autumnal Moon_). My own only exception to this verdict

(much as I adore Coleridge’s genius) would be the ludicrous

sonnet on _The House that Jack built_, which is a

masterpiece in its way. I should not myself number the one

you mention of Keats’s among his best half-dozen (many of

his are mere drafts, strange to say); and cannot at all

enter into your verdict on those of Milton, which seem to me

to be every one of exceptional excellence, though a few are

even finer than the rest, notably, of course, the one you

name. Pardon an egotistic sentence (in answer to what you

say so generously of _Lost Days_), if I express an opinion

that _Known in Vain_ and _Still-born Love_ may perhaps be

said to head the series in value, though _Lost Days_ might

be equally a favourite with me if I did not remember in what

but too opportune juncture it was wrung out of me. I have a

good number of sonnets for _The House of Life_ still in MS.,

which I have worked on with my best effort, and, I think,

will fully sustain their place. These and other things I

should like to show you whenever we meet again. The MS. vol.

I proposed to send is merely an old set of (chiefly)

trifles, about which I should like an opinion as to whether

any should be included in the future.

I had spoken of Keats’s sonnet beginning

To one who has been long in city pent,

with its exquisite last lines--

E’en like the passage of an angel’s tear

That falls through the clear ether silently,

reminding one of a less spiritual figure--

Kings like a golden jewel

Down a golden stair.

After his bantering me, as of old he had done, on the use of long and

crabbed words, I hinted that he was in honour bound to agree at least

with my disparaging judgment upon _Tetrachordon_, if only because of the

use of words that would “have made Quintillian stare.”

I further instanced--

“Harry whose tuneful and well-measured song;” and

“Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,”

as examples of Milton at his weakest as a sonnet-writer. He replied:

I am sorry I must still differ somewhat from you about

Milton’s sonnets. I think the one on _Tetrachordon_ a very

vigorous affair indeed. The one to Mr. H. Lawes I am half

disposed to give you, but not altogether--its close is

sweet. As to _Lawrence_, it is curious that my sister was

only the other day expressing to me a special relish for

this sonnet, and I do think it very fresh and wholesomely

relishing myself. It is an awful fact that sun, moon, or

candlelight once looked down on the human portent of Dr.

Johnson and Mrs. Hannah More convened in solemn conclave

above the outspread sonnets of Milton, with a meritorious

and considerate resolve of finding out for him “why they

were so bad.” This is so stupendous a warning, that perhaps

it may even incline one to find some of them better than

they are.

Coming to Coleridge, I must confess at once that I never

meet in any collection with the sonnet on Schiller’s

_Robbers_ without heading it at once with the words

“unconscionably bad.” The habit has been a life-long one.

That you mention beginning--“Sweet mercy,” etc., I have

looked for in the only Coleridge I have by me (my brother’s

cheap edition, for all the faults of which _he_ is not at

all answerable), and do not find it there, nor have I it in

mind.

To pass to Keats. The ed. of 1868 contains no sonnet on the

Elgin Marbles. Is it in a later edition? Of course that on

Chapman’s _Homer_ is supreme. It ought to be preceded {*} in

all editions by the one _To Homer_,

“Standing aloof in giant ignorance,” etc.

which contains perhaps the greatest single line in Keats:

“There is a budding morrow in midnight.”

* I pointed out that it was written later than the one on

Chapman’s Homer (notwithstanding its first line) and

therefore should follow after it, not go before.

Other special favourites with me are--“Why did I laugh to-

night?”--” As Hermes once,”--“Time’s sea hath been,” and

the one _On the Flower and, Leaf_.

It is odd that several of these best ones seem to have been

early work, and rejected by Keats in his lifetime, while

some of those he printed are absolutely sorry drafts.

I had admired Coleridge’s sonnet on Schiller’s _Robbers_ for

the perhaps minor excellence of bringing vividly before the

mind the scenes it describes. If the sonnet is

unconscionably bad so perhaps is the play, the beautiful

scene of the setting sun notwithstanding. Eventually,

however, I abandoned my belligerent position as to Milton’s

sonnets: the army of authorities I found ranged against the

modest earth-works within which I had entrenched myself must

of itself have made me quail. My utmost contention had been

that Milton wrote the most impassioned sonnet (_Avenge, O

Lord_), the two most nobly pathetic sonnets (_When I

consider_ and _Methought I saw_), and one of the poorest

sonnets (_Harry, whose tuneful_, etc.) in English poetry.

At this time (September 1880) Mr. J. Ashcroft Noble

published an essay on _The Sonnet in England_ in _The

Contemporary Review_, and relating thereto Rossetti wrote:

I have just been reading Mr. Noble’s article on the sonnet.

As regards my own share in it, I can only say that it greets

me with a gratifying ray of generous recognition. It is all

the more pleasant to me as finding a place in the very

Review which years ago opened its pages to a pseudonymous

attack on my poems and on myself. I see a passage in the

article which seems meant to indicate the want of such a

work on the sonnet as you are wishing to supply. I only

trust that you may do so, and that Mr. Noble may find a

field for continued poetic criticism. I am very proud to

think that, after my small and solitary book has been a good

many years published and several years out of print, it yet

meets with such ardent upholding by young and sincere men.

With the verdicts given throughout the article, I generally

sympathise, but not with the unqualified homage to

Wordsworth. A reticence almost invariably present is fatal

in my eyes to the highest pretensions on behalf of his

sonnets. Reticence is but a poor sort of muse, nor is

tentativeness (so often to be traced in his work) a good

accompaniment in music. Take the sonnet on _Toussaint

L’Ouverture_ (in my opinion his noblest, and very noble

indeed) and study (from Main’s note) the lame and fumbling

changes made in various editions of the early lines, which

remain lame in the end. Far worse than this, study the

relation of the closing lines of his famous sonnet _The

World is too much with us_, etc., to a passage in Spenser,

and say whether plagiarism was ever more impudent or

manifest (again I derive from Main’s excellent exposition of

the point), and then consider whether a bard was likely to

do this once and yet not to do it often. Primary vital

impulse was surely not fully developed in his muse.

I will venture to say that I wish my sister’s sonnet work

had met with what I consider the justice due to it. Besides

the unsurpassed quality (in my opinion) of her best sonnets,

my sister has proved her poetic importance by solid and

noble inventive work of many kinds, which I should be proud

indeed to reckon among my life’s claims.

I have a great weakness myself for many of Tennyson-Turner’s

sonnets, though of course what Mr. Noble says of them is in

the main true, and he has certainly quoted the very finest

one, which has a more fervent appeal for me than I could

easily derive from Wordsworth in almost any case.

Will you give my thanks to Mr. Noble for his frank and

outspoken praise?

Let me hear of your doings and intentions.

Ever sincerely yours.

Three names notably omitted in the article are those of Dobell, W. B.

Scott, and Swinburne.

The allusion in the foregoing letter to the work on the Sonnet which

I was aiming to supply, bears reference to the anthology subsequently

published under the title of _Sonnets of Three Centuries_. My first

idea was simply to write a survey of the art and history of the

sonnet, printing only such examples as might be embraced by my critical

comments. Rossetti’s generous sympathy was warmly engaged in this

enterprise.

It would really warm me up much [he writes] to know of

_your_ editing a sonnet book You would have my best

cooperation as to suggesting examples, but I certainly think

that English sonnets (original and exceptionally translated

ones, the latter only _perhaps_) should be the sole scheme.

Curiously enough, some one wrote me the other day as to a

projected series of living sonneteers (other collections

being only of those preceding our time). I have half

committed myself to contributing, but not altogether as yet.

The name of the projector, S. Waddington, is new to me, and

I don’t know who is to publish.... Really you ought to do

the sonnet-book you aspire to do. I know but of one London

critic (Theodore Watts) whom I should consider the leading

man for such a purpose, and I have tried to incite him to it

so often that I know now he won’t do it; but I have always

meant _a complete_ series in which the dead poets must, of

course, predominate. As to a series of the living only, I

told you of a Mr. Waddington who seems engaged on such a

supplementary scheme. What his gifts for it may be I know

not, but I suppose he knows it is in requisition. However,

there need not be but one such if you felt your hand in for

it. His view happens to be also (as you suggest) about 160

sonnets. In reply to your query, I certainly think there

must be 20 living writers (male and female--my sister a

leader, I consider) who have written good sonnets such as

would afford an interesting and representative selection,

though assuredly not such as would all take the rank of

classics by any means. The number of sonnets now extant,

written by poets who did not exist as such a dozen years

ago, I believe to be almost infinite, and in sufficiently

numerous instances good, however derivative. One younger

poet among them, Philip Marston, has written many sonnets

which yield to few or none by any poet whatever; but he has

printed such a large number in the aggregate, and so unequal

one with the other, that the great ones are not to be found

by opening at random. “How are they (the poets) to be

approached?--” you innocently ask. Ye heavens! how does the

cat’s-meat-man approach Grimalkin?--and what is that

relation in life when compared to the _rapport_ established

between the living bard and the fellow-creature who is

disposed to cater to his caterwauling appetite for

publicity? However, to be serious, I must at least exonerate

the bard, I am sure, from any desire to appropriate an

“interest in the proceeds.” There are some, I feel certain,

to whom the collector might say with a wink, “What are you

going to stand?”

I do not myself think that a collection of sonnets inserted at intervals

in an essay is a good form for the purpose. Such a book is from one

chief point a book of instantaneous reference,--it would only, perhaps,

be read _through_ once in a lifetime. For this purpose a well-indexed

current series is best, with any desirable essay prefixed and notes

affixed.... I once conceived of a series, to be entitled,

<center>

THE ENGLISH CASTALY: A QUINTESSENCE:

BEING A COLLECTION OF ALL THAT IS BEST IN ALL ENGLISH POETS,

EXCEPTING WORKS OF GREAT LENGTH.

</center>

I still think this a good idea, but, of course, it would be an extensive

undertaking.

Later on, he wrote:

I have thought of a title for your book. What think you of

this?

<center>

A SONNET SEQUENCE

FROM ELDER TO MODERN WORK,

WITH FIFTY HITHERTO UNPRINTED SONNETS BY

LIVING WRITERS.

</center>

That would not be amiss. Tell me if you think of using the

title _A Sonnet Sequence_, as otherwise I might use it in

the _House of Life_.... What do you think of this

alternative title:

<center>

THE ENGLISH SONNET MUSE

FROM ELIZABETH’S REIGN TO VICTORIA’S.

</center>

I think _Castalia_ much too euphuistic, and though I

shouldn’t like the book to be called simply still I have a

great prejudice against very florid titles for such

gatherings. _Treasury_ has been sadly run upon.

I did not like _Sonnet Sequence_ for such a collection, and relinquished

the title; moreover, I had had from the first a clearly defined scheme

in mind, carrying its own inevitable title, which was in due course

adopted. I may here remark that I never resisted any idea of Rossetti’s

at the moment of its inception, since resistance only led to a temporary

outburst of self-assertion on his part. He was a man of so much

impulse,--impulse often as violent as lawless--that to oppose him merely

provoked anger to no good purpose, for as often as not the position

at first adopted with so much pertinacity was afterwards silently

abandoned, and your own aims quietly acquiesced in. On this subject of a

title he wrote a further letter, which is interesting from more than one

point of view:

I don’t like _Garland_ at all C. Patmore collected a

_Children’s Garland._ I think

<center>

ENGLISH SONNET’S

PRESENT AND PAST, WITH--ETC.,

</center>

would be a good title. I think I prefer _Present and Past_,

or _of the P. and P.,_ to _New and Old_ for your purpose;

but I own I am partly influenced by the fact that I have

settled to call my own vol. _Poems New and Old_, and don’t

want it to get staled; but I really do think the other at

least as good for your purpose--perhaps more dignified.

Again, in reply to a proposal of my own, he wrote:

I think _Sonnets of the Century_ an excellent idea and

title. I must say a mass of Wordsworth over again, like

Main’s, is a little disheartening,--still the _best_

selection from him is what one wants. There is some book

called _A Century of Sonnets_, but this, I suppose, would

not matter....

I think sometimes of your sonnet-book, and have formed

certain views. I really would not in your place include old

work at all: it would be but a scanty gathering, and I feel

certain that what is really in requisition is a supplement

to Main, containing living writers (printed and un-printed)

put together under their authors’ names (not separately) and

rare gleanings from those more recently dead.

I fear I did not attach importance to this decision, for I now knew my

correspondent too well to rely upon his being entirely in the same mind

for long. Hence I was not surprised to receive the following a day or

two later:

I lately had a conversation with Watts about your sonnet-

book, and find his views to be somewhat different from what

I had expressed, and I may add I think now he is right. He

says there should be a very careful selection of the elder

sonnets and of everything up to present century. I think he

is right.

The fact is, that almost from the first I had taken a view similar to

Mr. Watts’s as to the design of my book, and had determined to call the

anthology by the title it now bears. On one occasion, however, I acted

rather without judgment in sending Rossetti a synopsis of certain

critical tests formulated by Mr. Watts in a letter of great power and

value.

In the letter in question Mr. Watts seemed to be setting himself to

confute some extremely ill-considered remarks made in a certain quarter

upon the structure of the sonnet, where (following Macaulay) the critic

says that there exists no good reason for requiring that even the

conventional limit as to length should be observed, and that the only

use in art of the legitimate model is to “supply a poet with something

to do when his invention fails.” I confess to having felt no little

amazement that one so devoid of a perception of the true function of the

sonnet should have been considered a proper person to introduce a great

sonnet-writer; and Mr. Watts (who, however, made no mention of the

writer) clearly demonstrated that the true sonnet has the foundation

of its structure in a fixed metrical law, and hence, that as it is

impossible (as Keats found out for himself) to improve upon the accepted

form, that model--known as the Petrarchian--should, with little or no

variation, be worked upon. Rossetti took fire, however, from a mistaken

notion that Mr. Watts’s canons, as given in the letter in question,

and merely reported by me, were much more inflexible than they really

proved.

Sonnets of mine _could not appear_ in any book which

contained such rigid rules as to rhyme, as are contained in

Watts’s letter. I neither follow them, nor agree 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.

Dante’s sonnets (in reply to your question--not as part of

the above point) vary in arrangement. I never for a moment

thought of following in my book the rhymes of each

individual sonnet.

If sonnets of mine remain admissible, I should prefer

printing the two _On Cassandra to The Monochord_ and _Wine

of Circe_.

I would not be too anxious, were I you, about anything in

choice of sonnets except the brains and the music.

Again he wrote:

I talked to Watts about his letter. He seems to agree with

me as to advisable variation of form in preference to

transmuting valuable thought. It would not be afc 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. But in truth, if I have a distinction as a

sonnet-writer, it is that I never admit a sonnet which is

not fully on the level of every other.... Again, as to this

blessed question, though no one ever took more pleasure in

continually using the form I prefer when not interfering

with thought, to insist on it would after a certain point be

ruin to common sense.

As to what you say of _The One Hope_--it is fully equal to

the very best of my sonnets, or I should not have wound up

the series with it. But the fact is, what is peculiar

chiefly in the series is, that scarcely one is worse than

any other. You have much too great a habit of speaking of a

special octave, sestette, or line. Conception, my boy,

_fundamental brainwork_, 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 Shakspearean

sonnet is better than the most perfect in form, because

Shakspeare wrote it.

As for Drayton, of course his one incomparable sonnet is the

_Love-Parting_. That is almost the best in the language, if

not quite. I think I have now answered queries, and it is

late. Good-night!

Rossetti had somewhat mistaken the scope of the letter referred to,

and when he came to know exactly what was intended, I found him in warm

agreement with the views therein taken. I have said at an earlier stage

that Rossetti’s instinct for what was good in poetry was unfailing,

whatever the value of his opinions on critical principles, and hence I

felt naturally anxious to have the benefit of his views on certain of

the elder writers. He said:

I am sorry I am no adept in elder sonnet literature. Many of

Donne’s are remarkable--no doubt you glean some. None of

Shakspeare’s is more indispensable than the wondrous one on

_Last_ (129). Hartley Coleridge’s finest is

“If I have sinned in act, I may repent.”

There is a fine one by Isaac Williams, evidently on the

death of a worldly man, and he wrote other good ones. To

return to the old, I think Stillingfleet’s _To Williamson_

very fine....

I would like to send you a list of my special favourites

among Shakspeare’s sonnets--viz.:--

15, 27, 29, 30, 36, 44, 45, 49, 50, 52, 55, 56, 59, 61, 62,

64, 65, 66, 68, 71, 73, 76, 77, 90, 93, 94, 97, 98, 99, 102,

107, 110, 116, 117, 119, 120, 123, 129, 135, 136, 138, 144,

145.

I made the selection long ago, and of course love them in

varying degrees.

There should be an essential reform in the printing of

Shakspeare’s sonnets. After sonnet 125 should occur the

words _End of Part I_. The couplet-piece, numbered 126,

should be called _Epilogue to Part I._. Then, before 127,

should be printed Part II. After 152, should be put End of

Part II.--and the two last sonnets should be called Epilogue

to Part II. About these two last I have a theory of my own.

Did you ever see the excellent remarks on these sonnets in

my brother’s _Lives of Famous Poets?_ I think a simple point

he mentions (for first time) fixes Pembroke clearly as the

male friend. I am glad you like his own two fine sonnets. I

wish he would write more such. By the bye, you speak with

great scorn of the closing couplet in sonnets. I do not

certainly think that form the finest, but I do think this

and every variety desirable in a series, and have often used

it myself. I like your letters on sonnets; write on all

points in question. The two last of Shakspeare’s sonnets

seem to me to have a very probable (and rather elaborate)

meaning never yet attributed to them. Some day, when I see

you, we will talk it over. Did you ever see a curious book

by one Brown (I don’t mean Armitage Brown) on Shakspeare’s

sonnets? By the bye, he is not the source of my notion as

above, but a matter of fact he names helps in it. I never

saw Massey’s book on the subject, but fancy his views and

Brown’s are somewhat allied. You should look at what my

brother says, which is very concise and valuable. I hope I

am not omitting to answer you in any essential point, but my

writing-table is a chaos into which your last letters have,

for the moment, sunk beyond recovery.

I consider the foregoing, perhaps, the most valuable of

Rossetti’s letters to me. I cannot remember that we ever

afterwards talked over the two last sonnets of Shakspeare;

if we did so, the meaning attached to them by him did not

fix itself very definitely upon my memory.

In explanation of my alleged dislike of the closing couplet,

I may say that a rhymed couplet at the close of a sonnet has

an effect upon my ear similar to that produced by the

couplets at the ends of some of the acts of Shakspeare’s

plays, which were in many instances interpolated by the

actors to enable them to make emphatic exits.

I must now group together a number of short notes on

sonnets:

I think Blanco White’s sonnet difficult to overrate in

_thought_--probably in this respect unsurpassable, but easy

to overrate as regards its workmanship. Of course there is

the one fatally disenchanting line:

While fly and leaf and insect stood revealed.

The poverty of vision which could not see at a glance that

fly and insect were one and the same, is, as you say, enough

to account for its being the writer’s only sonnet (there is

one more however which I don’t know).

I’ll copy you overpage a sonnet which I consider a very fine

one, but which may be said to be quite unknown. It is by

Charles Whitehead, who wrote the very admirable and

exceptional novel of _Richard Savage_, published somewhere

about 1840.

Even as yon lamp within my vacant room

With arduous flame disputes the doubtful night,

And can with its involuntary light

But lifeless things that near it stand illume;

Yet all the while it doth itself consume,

And ere the sun hath reached his morning height

With courier beams that greet the shepherd’s sight,

There where its life arose must be its tomb:--

So wastes my life away, perforce confined

To common things, a limit to its sphere,

It gleams on worthless trifles undesign’d,

With fainter ray each hour imprison’d here.

Alas to know that the consuming mind

Must leave its lamp cold ere the sun appear!

I am sure you will agree with me in admiring _that_. I quote

from memory, and am not sure that I have given line 6 quite

correctly....

I have just had Blanco White’s only other sonnet (_On being

called an Old Man at 50_) copied out for you. I do certainly

think it ought to go in, though no better than so-so, as you

say. But it is just about as good as the former one, but for

the leading and splendid thought in the latter. Both are but

proseman’s diction.

There is a sonnet of Chas. Wells’s _On Chaucer_ which is not

worthy of its writer, but still you should have it. It

occurs among some prefatory tributes in _Chaucer

Modernised_, edited by E. H. Home. I don’t know how you are

to get a copy, but the book is in the British Museum Reading

Room. The sonnet is signed C. W. only.

The sonnet by Wells seemed to me in every respect poor, and

as it was no part of my purpose (as an admirer of Wells) to

advertise what the poet could not do, I determined--against

Rossetti’s judgment--not to print the sonnet.

You certainly, in my opinion, ought to print Wells’s sonnet.

Certainly nothing so disjointed ever gave itself the name

before, but it ought to be available for reference, and I do

not agree with you in considering it weak in any sense

except that of structure.

There is a sonnet by Ebenezer Jones, beginning “I never

wholly feel that summer is high,” which, though very jagged,

has decided merit to warrant its insertion.

As for Tennyson, he seems to have given leave for a sonnet

to appear in Main’s book. Why not in yours? But I have long

ceased to know him, nor is any friend of mine in

communication with him.... My brother has written in his

time a few sonnets. Two of them I think very fine--

especially the one called _Shelley’s Heart_, which he has

lately worked upon again with immense advantage.... You do

not tell me from whom you have received sonnets. The reason

which prevents my coming forward, in such a difficulty, with

a new sonnet of my own, is this:--which indeed you have

probably surmised: I know nothing would gratify malevolence,

after the controversy which ensued on your lecture, more

than to be able to assert, however falsely, that we had been

working in concert all along, that you were known to me from

the first, and that your advocacy had no real

spontaneity.... When you first entered on the subject, and

wrote your lecture, you were a perfect stranger to me, and

that fact greatly enhanced my pleasure in its enthusiastic

tone. I hope sincerely that we may have further and close

opportunities of intercourse, but should like whatever you

may write of me to come from the old source of intellectual

affinity only. That you should think the subject worthy of

further labour is a pleasure to me, but I only trust it may

not be a disadvantage to your book in unfriendly eyes,

particularly if that view happened to be the proposed

publisher’s, in which case I should much prefer that this

section of your work were withdrawn for a more propitious

occasion.... I am very glad Brown is furthering your sonnet-

book--he knows so many bards. Of course if I were you, I

should keep an eye on the mouths even of gift-horses; but

were a creditable stud to be trotted out, of course I should

be willing; as were I one among many, the objection I noted

would not exist. I do not mean for a moment to say that many

very fine sonnets might not be obtained from poets not yet

known or not widely known; but known names would be the

things to parry the difficulty.

Later he wrote:

As you know, I want to contribute to your volume if I can do

so without fear of the consequences hinted at in a former

letter as likely to ensue, so I now enclose a sonnet of my

own. If you are out in March 1881, you may be before my new

edition, but I am getting my stock together. Not a word of

this however, as it mustn’t get into gossip paragraphs at

present. _The House of Life_ is now a hundred sonnets--all

lyrics being removed. Besides this series, I have forty-five

sonnets extra. I think, as you are willing, I shall use the

title I sent you--_A Sonnet Sequence_. I fancy the

alternative title would be briefer and therefore better as

<center>

OUR SONNET-MUSE

PROM ELIZABETH TO VICTORIA

</center>

I could not be much concerned about the unwillingness to give me a new

sonnet which Rossetti at first exhibited, for I knew full well that

sooner or later the sonnet would come. Not that I recognised in him the

faintest scintillation of the affectation so common among authors as

to the publication of work. But the fear of any appearance of collusion

between himself and his critics was, as he said, a bugbear that

constantly haunted him. Owing to this, a stranger often stood a better

chance of securing his ready and open co-operation than the most

intimate of friends. I frequently yielded to his desire that in anything

that I might write his name should not be mentioned--too frequently

by far, to my infinite vexation at the time, and now to my deep and

ineradicable regret. The sonnet-book out of which arose much of the

correspondence printed in this chapter, contains in its preface and

notes hardly an allusion to him, and yet he was, in my judgment, out of

all reach and sight, the greatest sonnet-writer of his time. The sonnet

first sent was _Pride of Youth_, but as this formed part of _The House

of Life_ series, it was withdrawn, and _Raleigh’s Cell in the Tower_

was substituted The following hitherto unpublished sonnet was also

contributed but withdrawn at the last moment, because of its being out

of harmony with the sonnets selected to accompany it:

ON CERTAIN ELIZABETHAN REVIVALS.

O ruff-embastioned vast Elizabeth,

Bush to these bushel-bellied casks of wine,

Home-growth, ‘tis true, but rank as turpentine,--

What would we with such skittle-plays at death %

Say, must we watch these brawlers’ brandished lathe,

Or to their reeking wit our ears incline,

Because all Castaly flowed crystalline

In gentle Shakspeare’s modulated breath!

What! must our drama with the rat-pit vie,

Nor the scene close while one is left to kill!

Shall this be poetry % And thou--thou--man

Of blood, thou cannibalic Caliban,

What shall be said to thee?--a poet?--Fie!

“An honourable murderer, if you will”

I mentioned to you [he says] William Davies, author of

_Songs of a Wayfarer_ (by the bye, another man has since

adopted his title). He has many excellent sonnets, and is a

valued friend of mine. I shall send you, on his behalf, a

copy of the book for selection of what you may please.... It

is very unequal, but the best truly excellent. The sonnets

are numerous, and some good, though the best work in the

book is not among them. There are two poems--_The Garden_,

and another called, I think, _On a dried-up Spring_, which

are worthy of the most fastidious collections. Many of the

poems are unnamed, and the whole has too much of a Herrick

air. . . .

It is quite refreshing to find you so pleased with my good

friend Davies’s book, and I wish he were in London, as I

would have shown him what you say, which I know would have

given him pleasure. He is a man who suffers much from moods

of depression, in spite of his philosophic nature. I have

marked fifty pieces of different kinds throughout his book,

and of these twenty-nine are sonnets. Had those fifty been

alone printed, Davies would now be remembered and not

forgotten: but all poets now-a-days are redundant except

Tennyson. ...

I am this evening writing to Davies, who is in Rome, and

could not resist enclosing what you say, with so much

experimental appreciativeness of his book, and of his

intention to fill it with moral sunshine. I am sure he ‘ll

send a new sonnet if he has one, but I fancy his bardic day

is over. I should think he was probably not subject to

melancholy when he wrote the _Wayfarer_. However, he tells

me that his spirits have improved in Italy. One other little

book of Herrickian verse he has written, called _The

Shepherd!s Garden_, but there are no sonnets in it. Besides

this, he published a volume containing a record of travel of

a very interesting kind, and called _The Pilgrimage of the

Tiber_. This is well known. It is illustrated, many of the

drawings being by himself, for he is quite as much painter

as poet. He also wrote in _The Quarterly Review_ an article

on the sonnet (I should think about 1870 or so), and, a

little later, one which raised great wrath, on the English

School of Painting. These I have not seen. He “lacks

advancement,” however; having fertile powers and little

opportunity, and being none the luckier (I think) for a

small independence which keeps off _compulsion_ to work,

though of willingness he has abundance in many directions.

There is an admirable but totally unknown living poet named

Dixon. I will send you two small vols, of his which he gave

me long ago, but please take good care of them, and return

them as soon as done with. I value them highly. I forgot

till to-day that he had written any sonnets, but I see there

are three in one vol. and one in another. I have marked my

two favourites. He should certainly be represented in your

book. If I live, I mean to write something about him in some

quarter when I can. His finest passages are as fine as any

living man can do. He was a canon of Carlisle Cathedral, and

at present has a living somewhere. If you wanted to ask him

for an original sonnet, you might mention my name, and

address him at Carlisle with _Please forward_. Of course he

is a Rev.

You will be sorry to hear that Davies has abandoned the hope

of producing a new sonnet to his own satisfaction. I have

again, however, urged him to the onslaught, and told him how

deserving you are of his efforts.

Swinburne, who is a vast admirer of my sister’s, thinks the

_Advent_ perhaps the noblest of all her poems, and also

specially loves the _Passing Away_. I do not know that I

quite agree with your decided preference for the two sonnets

of hers you signalise,--the _World_ is very fine, but the

other, _Dead before Death_, a little sensational for her. I

think _After Death_ one of her noblest, and the one _After

Communion_. In my own view, the greatest of all her poems is

that on France after the siege--_To-Day for Me_. A very

splendid piece of feminine ascetic passion is _The Convent

Threshold_.

I have run the sonnet you like, _St. Luke the Painter_, into

a sequence with two more not yet printed, and given the

three a general title of _Old and New Art_, as well as

special titles to each. I shall annex them to _The House of

Life_.

Have you ever read Vaughan? He resembles Donne a good deal

as to quaintness, but with a more emotional personality.

I have altered the last line of octave in _Lost Days_. It

now runs--

“The undying throats of Hell, athirst alway.”

I always had it in my mind to make a change here, as the

_in_ standing in the line in its former reading clashed with

_in_ occurring in the previous line. I have done what I

think is a prime sonnet on the murdered Czar, which I

enclose, but don’t show it to a soul.

Theodore Watts is going to print a very fine sonnet of his

own in _The Athenæum_. It is the first verse he ever put in

print, though he wrote much (when a very young man). Tell me

how you like it. I think he is destined to shine in that

class of poetry.

I knew you must like Watts’s sonnets. They are splendid

affairs. I am not sure that I agree with you in liking the

first the better of the two: the second (_Natura Maligna_)

is perhaps the deeper and finer. I have asked Watts to give

you a new sonnet, and I think perhaps he will do so, or at

all events give you permission to use those he has printed.

He has just come into the room, and says he would like to

hear from you on the subject.

From one rather jocular sentence in your note I judge you

may include some sonnets of your own. I see no possible

reason why you should not. You are really now, at your

highest, among our best sonnet-writers, and have written two

or three sonnets that yield to few or none whatever. I am

forced, however, to request that you will not put in the one

referring to myself, from my constant bugbear of any

appearance of collusion. That sonnet is a very fine one--my

brother was showing it me again the other day. It is not my

personal gratification alone, though that is deep, because I

know you are sincere, which leads me to the conclusion that

it is your best, and very fine indeed. I think your

Cumberland sonnet admirable. The sonnet on Byron is

extremely musical in flow and the symbolic scenery of

exceptional excellence. The view taken is the question with

me. Byron’s vehement directness, at its best, is a lasting

lesson: and, dubious monument as _Don Juan_ may be, it

towers over the century. Of course there is truth in what

you say; but _ought_ it to be the case? and is it the case

in any absolute sense? You deal frankly with your sonnets,

and do not shrink from radical change. I think that on

Oliver much better than when I saw it before. The opening

phrases of both octave and sestette are very fine; but the

second quatrain and the second terzina, though with a

quality of beauty, both seem somewhat to lack distinctness.

The word _rivers_ cannot be used with elision--the v is a

hard pebble in the flow, and so are the closing consonants.

You must put up with _streams_ if you keep the line.

You should have Bailey’s dedicatory sonnet in _Festus_.

I am enclosing a fine sonnet by William Bell Scott, which I

wished him to let me send you for your book. It has not yet

been printed. I think I heard of some little chaffy matter

between him and you, but, doubtless, you have virtually

forgotten all about it. I must say frankly that I think the

day when you made the speech he told me of must have been

rather a wool-gathering one with you.... I suppose you know

that Scott has written a number of fine sonnets contained in

his vol of _Poems_ published about 1875, I think.

I directed the attention of Mr. Waddington (whom, however, I

don’t know personally) to a most noble sonnet by Fanny

Kemble, beginning, “Art thou already weary of the way?” He

has put it in, and several others of hers, but she is very

unequal, and I don’t know if the others should be there, but

you should take the one in question. It sadly wants new

punctuation, being vilely printed just as I first saw it

when a boy in some twopenny edition.

In a memoir of Gilchrist, appended now by his widow to the

_Life of Blake_, there is a sonnet by G., perhaps

interesting enough, as being exceptional, for you to ask for

it; but I don’t advise you, if you don’t think it worth.

I have received from Mrs. Meynell, a sister of Eliz.

Thompson, the painter, a most genuine little book of poems

containing some sonnets of true spiritual beauty. I must

send it you.

This book had just then been introduced to Rossetti with

much warmth of praise by Mr. Watts, and he took to it

vastly.

This closes Rossetti’s interesting letters on sonnet literature. In

reprinting his first volume of _Poems_ he had determined to remove

the sonnets of _The House of Life_ to the new volume of _Ballads and

Sonnets_, and fill the space with the fragment of a poem written in

youth, and now called _The Bride’s Prelude_. He sent me a proof. The

reader will remember that as a narrative fragment it is less

remarkable for striking incident (though never failing of interest

and picturesqueness) than for a slow and psychical development which

ultimately gained a great hold of the sympathies. The poem leaves behind

it a sense as of a sultry day. Judging first of its merits as a song

(using the word in its broad and simple sense), the poem flows on the

tongue with unbroken sweetness and with a variety of cadence and light

and shade of melody which might admit of its pursuing its meanderings

through five times its less than 50 pages, and still keeping one’s

senses awake to the constantly recurring advent of new and pleasing

literary forms. The story is a striking one, with a great wealth of

highly effective incident,--notably the episode of the card-playing,

and of the father striking down the sword which Raoul turns against the

breast of the bride. Almost equally memorable are the scenes in which

the lover appears, and the occasional interludes of incident in which,

between the pauses of the narrative, the bridegroom’s retinue are heard

sporting in the courtyard without.

The whole atmosphere of the poem is saturated in a medievalism of spirit

to which no lapse of modernism does violence, and the spell of romance

which comes with that atmosphere of the middle ages is never broken, but

preserved in the minutest most matter-of-fact details, such as the bowl

of water that stood amidst flowers, and in which the sister Amelotte

“slid a cup” and offered it to Aloyse to drink. But the one great charm

of the poem lies in its subtle and most powerful psychical analysis,

seen foreshadowed in the first mention of the bride sitting in the

shade, but first felt strongly when she begs her sister to pray, and

again when she tells how, at God’s hint, she had whispered something of

the whole tale to her sister who slept

The dread introspection pictured after the sin is in the highest degree

tragic, and affects one like remorse in its relentlessness, although

less remorse than fear of discovery. The sickness of the following

condition, with its yearnings, longings, dizziness, is very nobly

done, and delicate as is the theme, and demanding a touch of unerring

strength, yet lightness, the part of the poem concerned with it contains

certain of the most beautiful and stirring things. The madness (for it

is not less than such) in which at the sea-side, believing Urscelyn to

be lost, the bride tells the whole tale, whilst her curse laughed within

her to see the amazement and anger of her brothers and of her father,

is doubtless true enough to the frenzied state of her mind; but my

sympathies go out less to that part of the poem than to the subsequent

part, in which the bride-mother is described as leaning along in thought

after her child, till tears, not like a wedded girl’s, fall among her

curls. Highly dramatic, too, is the passage in which she fears to curse

the evil men whose evil hands have taken her child, lest from evil lips

the curse should be a blessing.

The characterisation seemed to be highly powerful, and, so far as it

went, finely contrasted. I could almost have wished that the love for

which the bride suffers so much had been more dwelt upon, and Urscelyn

had been made somehow more worthy of such love and sacrifice. The only

point in which the poem struck me, after mature reflection, as less

admirable than certain others of the author’s, lay in the circumstance

that the narrative moves slowly, but, of course, it should be remembered

that the poem is one of emotion, not incident. There are most magical

flashes of imagery in the poem, notably in the passage beginning

Her thought, long stagnant, stirred by speech,

Gave her a sick recoil;

As, dip thy fingers through the green

That masks a pool, where they have been,

The naked depth is black between.

Rossetti wrote a valuable letter on his scheme for the completion of

_The Bride’s Prelude_:

I was much pleased with your verdict on _The Bride’s

Prelude_. I think the poem is saved by its picturesqueness,

but that otherwise the story up to the point reached is too

purely repellent. I have the sequel quite clear in my mind,

and in it the mere passionate frailty of Aloyse’s first love

would be followed by a true and noble love, rendered

calamitous by Urscelyn, who then (having become a powerful

soldier of fortune) solicits the hand of Aloyse. Thus the

horror which she expresses against him to her sister on the

bridal morning would be fully justified. Of course, Aloyse

would confess her fault to her second lover whose love

would, nevertheless, endure. The poem would gain so greatly

by this sequel that I suppose I must set to and finish it

one day, old as it is. I suppose it would be doubled, but

hardly more. I hate long poems.

I quite think the card-playing passage the best thing--as a

unit--in the poem: but your opinion encourages my own, that

it fails nowhere of good material. It certainly moves slowly

as you say, and this is quite against the rule I follow. But

here was no life condensed in an episode; but a story which

had necessarily to be told step by step, and a situation

which had unavoidably to be anatomised. If it is not

unworthy to appear with my best things, that is all I hope

for it. You have pitched curiously upon some of my favourite

touches, and very coincidently with Watts’s views.

Early in 1881, he wrote:

I am writing a ballad on the death of James I. of Scots. It

is already twice the length of _The White Ship_, and has a

good slice still to come. It is called _The King’s Tragedy_,

and is a ripper I can tell you!

The other day I got from Italy a paper containing a really

excellent and exceptional notice of my poems, written by the

author of a volume also sent me containing, among other

translations from the English, _Jenny, Last Confession_,

etc.

I have been re-reading, after many years, Keats’s _Otho the

Great_, and find it a much better thing than I remembered,

though only a draft.

I am much exercised as to what you mention as to a _Michael

Scott_ scheme of Coleridge’s. Where does he speak of it, and

what is it? It is quite new to me; but curiously enough, I

have a complete scheme drawn up for a ballad, to be called

_Michael Scott’s Wooing_, not the one I proposed beginning

now--and also have long designed a picture under the same

title, but of quite different motif! Allan Cunningham wrote

a romance called _Sir Michael Scott_, but I never saw it.

I have heard from Walter Severn about a subscription

proposed to erect a gravestone to his father beside that of

Keats. I should like you to copy for me your sonnet on

Severn. I hear it is in _The Athenæum_, but have not seen

it. I was asked to prepare an inscription, which I send you.

Nothing would be so good as Severn’s own words.

I strongly urge you to go on with your book on the

_Supernatural_. The closing chapter should, I think, be on

the _weird_ element in its perfection, as shown by recent

poets in the mess--i.e. those who take any lead. Tennyson

has it certainly here and there in imagery, but there is no

great success in the part it plays through his _Idylls_. The

Old Romaunt beats him there. The strongest instance of this

feeling in Tennyson that I remember is in a few lines of

_The Palace of Art_:

And hollow breasts enclosing hearts of flame;

And with dim-fretted foreheads all

On corpses three months old at morn she came

That stood against the wall.

I won’t answer for the precise age of the corpses--perhaps I

have staled them somewhat.

CHAPTER IX.

It is in the nature of these Recollections that they should be personal,

and it can hardly occur to any reader to complain of them for being that

which above all else they purport to be. I have hitherto, however, been

conscious of a desire (made manifest to my own mind by the character of

my selections from the letters written to me) to impart to this volume

an interest as broad and general as may be. But my primary purpose is

now, and has been from the first, to afford the best view at my command

of Rossetti as a man; and more helpful to such purpose than any number

of critical opinions, however interesting, have often been those

passages in his letters where the writer has got closest to his

correspondent in revealing most of himself. In the chapter I am now

about to write I must perforce set aside all limitations of reserve if

I am to convey such an idea of Rossetti’s last days as fills my mind; I

must be content to speak almost exclusively of my personal relations to

him, to the enforced neglect of the more intimate relations of others.

About six months after my first visit, Rossetti invited me to spend

a week with him at his house, and this I was glad to be able to do. I

found him in many important particulars a changed man. His complexion

was brighter than before, and this circumstance taken alone might have

been understood to indicate improved bodily health, but in actual fact

it rather denoted in his case a retrograde physical tendency, as being

indicative chiefly of some recent excess in the use of his pernicious

drug. He was distinctly less inclined to corpulence, his eyes were less

bright, and had more frequently than formerly the appearance of gazing

upon vacancy, and when he walked to and fro in the studio, as it was

his habit to do at intervals of about an hour, he did so with a more

laboured sidelong motion than I had previously noticed, as though the

body unconsciously lost and then regained some necessary control and

command at almost every step. Half sensible, no doubt, of a reduced

condition, or guessing perhaps the nature of my reflections from a

certain uneasiness which it baffled my efforts to conceal, he paused for

an instant one evening in the midst of these melancholy perambulations

and asked me how he struck me as to health. More frankly than

judiciously I answered promptly, Less well than formerly. It was a

luckless remark, for Rossetti’s prevailing wish at that moment was to

conceal even from himself his lowered state, and the time was still to

come when he should crave the questionable sympathy of those who said he

looked even more ill than he felt. Just before this, my second visit,

he had completed his _King’s Tragedy_, and I had heard from his own lips

how prostrate the emotional strain involved in the production of the

poem had first left him. Casting himself now on the couch in an attitude

indicative of unusual exhaustion, he said the ballad had taken much out

of him. “It was as though my life ebbed out with it,” he said, and in

saying so much of the nervous tension occasioned by the work in question

he did not overstate the truth as it presented itself to other eyes.

Time after time while the ballad was in course of production, he had

made effort to read it aloud to the friend to whose judgment his poetry

was always submitted, but had as frequently failed to do so from the

physical impossibility of restraining the tears that at every stage

welled up out of an overwrought nature, for the poet never existed

perhaps who, while at work, lived so vividly in the imagined situation.

And the weight of that work was still upon him when we met again. His

voice seemed to have lost much in quality, and in compass too to have

diminished: or if the volume of sound remained the same, it appeared to

have retired (so to express it) inwards, and to convey, when he spoke,

the idea of a man speaking as much to himself as to others. More than

ever now the scene of his life lacked for me some necessary vitality: it

breathed an atmosphere of sorrow: it was like the dream of a distempered

imagination out of which there came no welcome awakening, to say it was

not true. On the side of his intellectual life Rossetti was obviously

under less constraint with me than ever before. Previously he had seemed

to make a conscious effort to speak generously of all contemporaries,

and cordially of every friend with whom he was brought into active

relations; and if, by force of some stray impulse, he was ever led to

say a disparaging word of any one, he forthwith made a palpable, and

sometimes amusing, effort so to obliterate the injurious impression

as to convey the idea that he wished it to appear that he had not said

anything at all. But now this restraint was thrown aside.

I perceived that the drug by which he was enslaved caused what I may

best characterise as intermittent waves of morbid suspiciousness as

to the good faith of every individual, including his best, oldest,

and truest friends, as to whom the most inexplicable delusions would

suddenly come, and as suddenly go. He would talk in the gravest and most

earnest way of the wrongs he had suffered at the hands of a dear friend,

and then the moment his eloquence had drawn from me an exclamation of

sympathy for him, he would turn round and heap upon the same individual

an extravagance of praise for his fidelity and good faith. And now,

he so classed his contemporaries as to leave no doubt that he was

duly sensible of his own place amongst them, preserving, meantime, a

dignified reticence as to the extent of his personal claims.

His life was an anachronism. Such a man should have had no dealings with

the nineteenth century: he belonged to the sixteenth, or perhaps the

thirteenth, and in Italy not in England. It would, nevertheless, be

wrong to say that he was wholly indifferent to important political

issues, of which he took often a very judicial view. In dismissing

further mention of this second and prolonged meeting with Rossetti,

it only remains to me to say (as a necessary, if strictly personal,

explanation of much that will follow), that on the evening preceding my

departure, he asked me, in the event of my deciding to come to live in

London, to take up my quarters at his house. To this proposal I made no

reply: and neither his speech nor my silence needs any comment, and I

shall offer none.

A month or two later my own health gave way, and then, a change of

residence being inevitable, Rossetti repeated his invitation; but a

London campaign, under such conditions as were necessarily entailed

by pitching one’s tent with him, got further and further away, until

I seemed to see it through the inverse end of a telescope whereof the

slides were being drawn out, out, every day further and further. I

determined to spend half a year among’ the mountains of Cumberland,

and went up to the Vale of St. John. Scarcely had I settled there when

Rossetti wrote that he must himself soon leave London: that he was

wearied out absolutely, and unable to sleep at night, that if he could

only reach that secluded vale he would breathe a purer air mentally

as well as physically. The mood induced by contemplation of the

tranquillity of my retreat over-against the turmoil and distractions

of the city _in_ which, though not _of_ which, he was, added to the

deepening exhaustion which had already begun when I left him, had

prevailed with him, he said, to ask me to come down to London, and

travel back with him. “Supposing,” he wrote, “I were to ask you to come

to town in a fortnight’s time from now--I returning with you for a while

into the country--would that be feasible to you?”

Once unsettled in the environments within which for years he had moved

contentedly, a thousand reasons were found for the contemplated step,

and simultaneously a thousand obstacles arose to impede the execution of

it. “They have at length taken my garden,” he said, “as they have long

threatened to do, and now they are really setting about building upon

it. I do not in the least know what my plans may be.” And again: “It

seems certain that I must leave this house and seek another. Is there

any house in the neighbourhood of the Vale of St. John with a largish

room one could paint in (to N. or NE.)?” The idea of his taking up his

permanent abode so far out of the market circle was, I well knew, just

one of those impracticable notions which, with Rossetti, were abandoned

as soon as conceived, so I was not surprised to hear from him as

follows, by the succeeding post: “In what I wrote yesterday I said

something as to a possibility of leaving town, but I now perceive this

is not practicable at present; therefore need not trouble you to take

note of neighbouring houses.” Presently he wrote again: “Bedevilments

thicken: the garden is ploughed up, and I ‘ve not stirred out of the

house for a week: I must leave this place at once if I am to leave it

alive.” {*}

* It is but just to say that, although Rossetti wrote thus

peevishly of what was quite inevitable,--the yielding up of

his fine garden,--he would at other times speak of the great

courtesy and good-nature of Messrs. Pemberton, in allowing

him the use of the garden after it had been severed from the

property he hired.

“My present purpose is to take another house in London. Could you not

come down and beat up agents for me? I know you will not deny me your

help. I hear of a house at Brixton, with a garden of two acres, and only

£130 a year.” In a day or two even this last hope had proved delusive:

“I find the house at Brixton will not do, and I hear of nothing else....

I am anxious as to having become perfectly deaf on the right side of

my head. Partial approaches to this have sometimes occurred to me and

passed away, so I will not be too much troubled at it.” A little later

he wrote: “Now my housekeeper is leaving me, her mother being very ill.

Can you not come to my assistance? Come at once and we will set sail

in one boat.” I appear to have replied to this last appeal in a tone

of some little scepticism as to his remaining long in the same mind

relative to our mutual housemating, for subsequently he says: “At this

writing I can see no likelihood of my not remaining in the mind that,

in case of your coming to London, your quarters should be taken up here.

The house is big enough for two, even if they meant to be strangers to

each other. You would have your own rooms and we should meet just when

we pleased. You have got a sufficient inkling of my exceptional habits

not to be scared by them. It is true, at times my health and spirits are

variable, but I am sure we should not be squabbling. However, it seems

you have no intention of a quite immediate move, and we can speak

farther of it.” I readily consented to do whatever seemed feasible

to help him out of his difficulties, which existed, however, as I

perceived, much more in his own mind than in actual fact. I thought

a brief holiday in the solitude within which I was then located would

probably be helpful in restoring a tranquil condition of mind, and as

his brother, Mr. Scott, Mr. Watts, Mr. Shields, and other friends in

London, were of a similar opinion, efforts were made to induce him

to undertake the journey which he had been the first to think of.

His oldest friend, Mr. Madox Brown (whose presence would have been as

valuable now as it had proved to be on former occasions), was away at

Manchester, and remained there throughout the time of his last illness.

His moods at this time were too variable to be relied upon three days

together, and so I find him writing:

Many thanks for the information as to your Shady Vale, which

seems a vision--a distant one, alas!--of Paradise. Perhaps I

may reach it yet.... I am now thinking of writing another

ballad-poem to add at the end of my volume. It is romantic,

not historical I have a clear scheme for it and believe your

scenery might help me much if I could get there. When you

hear that scheme, you will, I believe, pronounce it

precisely fitted to the scenery you describe as now

surrounding you. That scenery I hope to reach a little

later, but meantime should much like to see you in London

and return with you.

The proposed ballad was to be called _The Orchard Pits_ and was to be

illustrative of the serpent fascination of beauty, but it was never

written. Contented now to await the issue of events, he proceeded to

write on subjects of general interest:

Keats (page 154, vol. i., of Houghton’s Life, etc.) mentions

among other landscape features the Vale of St. John. So you

may think of him in the neighbourhood as well as (or, if you

like, rather than) Wordsworth.

I have been reading again Hogg’s Shelley. S. appears to have

been as mad at Keswick as everywhere else, but not madder;--

that he could not compass.

At this juncture some unlooked-for hitch in the arrangements then

pending for the sale of the _Dante’s Dream_ to the Corporation of

Liverpool rendered my presence in London inevitable, and upon my arrival

I found that Rossetti had fitted out rooms for my reception, although

I had never down to that moment finally decided to avail myself of an

offer which upon its first being broached, appeared to be too one-sided

a bargain (in which of course the sacrifice seemed to be Rossetti’s) to

admit of my entertaining it. In this way I drifted into my position as

Rossetti’s housemate.

The letters and scraps of notes I have embodied in the foregoing will

probably convey a better idea of Rossetti’s native irresolution, as it

was made manifest to me in the early part of 1881, than any abstract

definition, however faithful and exact, could be expected to do.

Irresolution was indubitably his most noticeable quality at the time

when I came into active relation with him; and if I be allowed to have

any perception of character and any acquaintance with the fundamental

traits that distinguish man from man, I shall say unhesitatingly (though

I well know how different is the opinion of others) that irresolution

with melancholy lay at the basis of his nature. I have heard Mr.

Swinburne speak of a cheerfulness of deportment in early life, which

imparted an idea as of one who could not easily be depressed. I have

heard Mr. Watts speak of the days at Kelmscott Manor House, where

he first knew him, and where Rossetti was the most delightful of

companions. I have heard Canon Dixon speak of a determination of purpose

which yielded to no sort of obstacle, but carried its point by the sheer

vehemence with which it asserted it. I can only say that I was witness

to neither characteristic. Of traits the reverse of these, I was

constantly receiving evidence; but let it be remembered that before I

joined Rossetti (which was only in the last year of his life) in that

intimate relation which revealed to my unwilling judgment every foible

and infirmity of character, the whole nature of the man had been

vitiated by an enervating drug. At my meeting with him the brighter

side of his temperament had been worn away in the night-troubles of his

unrestful couch; and of that needful volition, which establishes for

a man the right to rule not others but himself, only the mockery and

inexplicable vagaries of temper remained. When I knew him, Rossetti was

devoid of resolution. At that moment at which he had finally summoned

up every available and imaginable reason for pursuing any particular

course, his purpose wavered and his heart gave way. When I knew him,

Rossetti was destitute of cheerfulness or content. At that instant,

at which the worst of his shadowy fears had been banished by some

fortuitous occurrence that lit up with an unceasing radiation of hope

every prospect of life, he conjured out of its very brightness fresh

cause for fear and sadness. True, indeed, these may have been no more

than symptoms of those later phenomena which came of disease, and

foreshadowed death. Other minds may reduce to a statement of cause and

effect what I am content to offer as fact.

Upon settling with Rossetti in July 1881, I perceived that his health

was weaker. His tendency to corpulence had entirely disappeared, his

feebleness of step had become at certain moments painfully apparent,

and his temper occasionally betrayed signs of bitterness. To myself,

personally, he was at this stage as genial as of old, or if for an

instant he gave vent to an unprovoked outburst of wrath, he would far

more than atone for it by a look of inexpressible remorse and some

feeling words of regret, whereof the import sometimes was--

I wish you were indeed my son, for though then I should still have no

right to address you so, I should at least have some right to expect

your forgiveness.

In such moods of more than needful solicitude for one’s acutest

sensibilities, Rossetti was absolutely irresistible.

As I have said, the occupant of this great gloomy house, in which I had

now become a resident, had rarely been outside its doors for two years;

certainly never afoot, and only in carriages with his friends. Upon the

second night of my stay, I announced my intention of taking a walk on

the Chelsea embankment, and begged him to accompany me. To my amazement

he yielded, and every night for a week following, I succeeded in

inducing him to repeat the now unfamiliar experience. It was obvious

enough to himself that he walked totteringly, with infinite expenditure

of physical energy, and returned in a condition of exhaustion that left

him prostrate for an hour afterwards. The root of all this evil was soon

apparent. He was exceeding with the chloral, and little as I expected or

desired to exercise a moral guardianship over the habits of this great

man, I found myself insensibly dropping into that office.

Negotiations for the sale of the Liverpool picture were now complete;

the new volume of poems and the altered edition of the old volume had

been satisfactorily passed through the press; and it might have been

expected that with the anxiety occasioned by these enterprises,

would pass away the melancholy which in a nature like Rossetti’s they

naturally induced. The reverse was the fact, He became more and more

depressed as each palpable cause of depression was removed, and more

and more liable to give way to excess with the drug. By his brother, Mr.

Watts, Mr. Shields, and others who had only too frequently in times past

had experience of similar outbreaks, this failure in spirits, with

all its attendant physical weakness, was said to be due primarily to

hypochondriasis. Hence the returning necessity to get him away (as

Mr. Madox Brown had done at a previous crisis) for a change of air and

scene. Once out of this atmosphere of gloom, we hoped that amid cheerful

surroundings his health would speedily revive. Infinite were the efforts

that had to be made, and countless the precautions that had to be taken

before he could be induced to set out, but at length we found ourselves

upon our way to Keswick, at nine p.m., one evening in September, in

a special carriage packed with as many artist’s trappings and as many

books as would have lasted for a year.

We reached Penrith as the grey of dawn had overspread the sky. It was

six o’clock as we got into the carriage that was to drive us through the

vale of St. John to our destination at the Legberthwaite end of it. The

morning was now calm, the mountains looked loftier, grander, and yet

more than ever precipitous from the road that circled about their base.

Nothing could be heard but the calls of the awakening cattle, the rumble

of cataracts far away, and the rush and surge of those that were near.

Rossetti was all but indifferent to our surroundings, or displayed only

such fitful interest in them as must have been affected out of a kindly

desire to please me. He said the chloral he had taken daring the journey

was upon him, and he could not see. At length we reached the house that

was for some months to be our home. It stood at the foot of a ghyll,

which, when swollen by rain, was majestic in volume and sound. The

little house we had rented was free from all noise other than the

occasional voice of a child or bark of a dog. Here at least he might

bury the memory of the distractions of the city that vexed him. Save

for the ripple of the river that flowed at his feet, the bleating

of sheep on Golden Howe, the echo of the axe of the woodman who was

thinning the neighbouring wood, and the morning and evening mail-coach

horn, he might delude himself into forgetfulness that he belonged any

longer to this noisy earth.

Next day Rossetti was exceptionally well, and astounded me by the

proposal that we should ascend Golden Howe together--a little mountain

of some 1000 feet that stands at the head of Thirlmere. With never a

hope on my part of our reaching the summit, we set out for that purpose,

but through no doubt the exhilarating effect of the mountain air, he

actually compassed the task he had proposed to himself, and sat for an

hour on that highest point from whence could be seen the Skiddaw range

to the north, Haven’s Crag to the west, Styx Pass and Helvellyn to the

east, and the Dunmail Raise to the south, with the lake below. Rossetti

was struck by the variety of configuration in the hills, and even more

by the variety of colour. But he was no great lover of landscape beauty,

and the majestic scene before us produced less effect upon his mind than

might perhaps have been expected. He seemed to be almost unconscious of

the unceasing atmospheric changes that perpetually arrest and startle.

the observer in whom love of external nature in her grander moods has

not been weakened by disease. The complete extent of the Vale of St.

John could be traversed by the eye from the eminence upon which we sat.

The valley throughout its three-mile length is absolutely secluded: one

has only the hills for company, and to say the truth they are sometimes

fearful company too. Usually the landscape wears a cheerful aspect, but

at times long fleecy clouds drive midway across the mountains, leaving

the tops visible. The scenery is highly awakening to the imagination.

Even the country people are imaginative, and the country is full

of ghostly legend. I was never at any moment sensible that these

environments affected Rossetti: assuredly they never agitated him, and

no effort did he make to turn them to account for the purposes of

the romantic ballad he had spoken of as likely to grow amidst such

surroundings.

Being much more than ordinarily cheerful during the first evenings of

our stay in the North, he talked sometimes of his past life and of the

men and women he had known in earlier years. Carlyle’s _Reminiscences_

had not long before been published. Mrs. Carlyle, therein so

extravagantly though naturally belauded, he described as a bitter

little woman, with, however, the one redeeming quality of unostentatious

charity: “The poor of Chelsea,” he said, “always spoke well of her.”

“George Eliot,” whose genius he much admired, he had ceased to know long

before her death, but he spoke of the lady as modest and retiring, and

amiable to a fault when the outer crust of reticence had been broken

through. Longfellow had called upon him whilst he was painting the

_Dante’s Dream_. The old poet was Courteous and complimentary in

the last degree; he seemed, however, to know little or nothing about

painting as an art, and also to have fallen into the error of thinking

that Rossetti the painter and Sossetti the poet were different men; in

short, that the Dante of that name was the painter, and the William the

poet. Upon leaving the house, Longfellow had said: “I have been glad to

meet you, and should like to have met your brother; pray, tell him how

much I admire his beautiful poem, _The Blessed Damozel_” Giving no

hint of the error, Rossetti said he had answered, “I will tell him.” He

painted a little during our stay in the North, for it was whilst

there that he began the beautiful replica of his _Proserpina_, now the

property of Mr. Valpy. I found it one of my best pleasures to watch a

picture growing under his hand, and thought it easy to see through

the medium of his idealised heads, cold even in their loveliness,

unsubstantial in their passion, that to the painter life had been a

dream into which nothing entered that was not as impalpable as itself.

Tainted by the touch of melancholy that is the blight that clings to the

purest beauty, his pictured faces were, in my view, akin to his poetry,

every line of which, as he sometimes recited it, seemed as though it

echoed the burden of a bygone sorrow--the sorrow of a dream rather than

that of a life, or of a life that had been itself a dream. I also then

realised what Mr. Theodore Watts has said in a letter just now

written to me from Sark, that, “apart from any question of technical

shortcomings, one of Rossetti’s strongest claims to the attention of

posterity was that of having invented, in the three-quarter-length

pictures painted from one face, a type of female beauty which was akin

to none other,--which was entirely new, in short,--and which, for

wealth of sublime and mysterious suggestion, unaided by complex dramatic

design, was unique in the art of the world.”

On one occasion the talk turned on the eccentricities and affectations

of men of genius, and I did my best to-ridicule them unsparingly, saying

they were a purely modern extravagance, the highest intellects of other

times being ever the sanest, Shakspeare, Cervantes, Goethe, Coleridge,

Wordsworth; the root of the evil had been Shelley, who was mad, and in

imitation of whose madness, modern men of genius must many of them

be mad also, until it had come to such a pass-that if a gifted man

conducted himself throughout life with probity and propriety we

instantly began to doubt the value of his gifts. Rossetti evidently

thought that in all this I was covertly hitting out at himself, and

cut short the conversation with an unequivocal hint that he had no

affectations, and could not account himself an authority with respect to

them.

With such talk a few of our evenings were spent, but too soon the

insatiable craving for the drug came with renewed force, and then all

pleasant intercourse was banished. Night after night we sat up until

eleven, twelve, and one o’clock, watching the long hours go by with

heavy steps; waiting, waiting, waiting for the time at which he could

take his first draught, and drop into his pillowed place and snatch a

dreamless sleep of three or four hours’ duration.

In order to break the monotony of nights such as I describe I sometimes

read from Fielding, Richardson, and Sterne, but more frequently induced

Rossetti to recite. Thus, with failing voice, he would again and again

attempt, at my request, his _Cloud Confines_, or passages from _The

King’s Tragedy_, and repeatedly, also, Poe’s _Ulalume_ and _Raven_. I

remember that, touching the last-mentioned of these poems, he remarked

that out of his love of it while still a boy his own _Blessed Damozel_

originated. “I saw,” he said, “that Poe had done the utmost it was

possible to do with the grief of the lover on earth, and so I determined

to reverse the conditions, and give utterance to the yearning of the

loved one in heaven.” At that time of the year the night closed in as

early as seven or eight o’clock, and then in that little house among

the solitary hills his disconsolate spirit would sometimes sink beyond

solace into irreclaimable depths of depression.

It was impossible that such a condition of things should last, and it

was with unspeakable relief that I heard Rossetti express a desire to

return home. Mr. Watts, who at that time was at Stratford-upon-Avon, had

promised to join us, but now wrote to say that this was impossible. Had

it been otherwise, Rossetti would willingly have remained, but now he

longed to get back to London. His life had lost its joys. The success of

his Liverpool picture was almost as nothing to him, and the enthusiastic

reception given to his book gave him not more than a passing pleasure,

though he was deeply touched by the sympathetic and exhaustive criticism

published by Professor Dowden in _The Academy_, as well as by Professor

Colvin’s friendly monograph in _The World_. At length one night, a month

after our arrival, we set out on our return, and well do I remember the

pathos of his words as I helped him (now feebler than ever) into his

house. “Thank God! home at last, and never shall I leave it again!”

Very natural was the deep concern of his friends, especially of his

brother and Mr. Shields, at finding him return even less well than he

had set out. With deeper reliance on past knowledge of the man, Mr.

Watts still took a hopeful view, attributing the physical prostration

to hypochondriasis, which might, in common with all similar nervous

ailments, impose as much pain upon the victim as if the sufferings

complained of had a real foundation in positive disease, but might

also give way at any moment when the victim could be induced to take

a hopeful view of life. The cheerfulness of Mr. Watts’s society, after

what I well know must have been the lugubrious nature of my own, had at

first its usual salutary effect upon Rossetti’s spirits, and I will not

forbear to say that I, too, welcomed it as a draught of healing morning

air after a month-long imprisonment in an atmosphere of gloom. But I

was not yet freed of my charge. The sense of responsibility which in the

solitude of the mountains had weighed me down, was now indeed divided

with his affectionate family and the friends who were Rossetti’s friends

before they were mine, and who came at this juncture with willing

help, prompted chiefly, of course, by devotion to the great man in sore

trouble, but also--I must allow myself to think--in one or two cases by

desire to relieve me of some of the burden of the task that had fallen

so unexpectedly upon me. Foremost among such disinterested friends was

of course the friend I have spoken of so frequently in these pages,

and for whom I now felt a growing regard arising as much out of my

perception of the loyalty of his comradeship as the splendour of his

gifts. But after him in solicitous service to Rossetti, at this

moment of great need, came Frederick Shields (the fine tissue of whose

highly-strung nature must have been sorely tried by the strain to which

it was subjected), Mr. W. B. Scott, whose visits were never more warmly

welcomed by Rossetti than at this season, the good and gifted Miss Boyd,

and of course Rossetti’s brother, sister, and mother, to each of whom he

was affectionately attached. Strange enough it seemed that this man who,

for years had shunned the world and chosen solitude when he might have

had society, seemed at last to grow weary of his loneliness. But so it

was. Rossetti became daily more and more dependent upon his friends

for company that should not fail him, for never for an hour now could he

endure to be alone. Remembering this, I almost doubt if by nature he was

at any time a solitary. There are men who feel more deeply the sense of

isolation amidst the busiest crowds than within the narrowest circle of

intimates, and I have heard from Rossetti reminiscences of his earlier

life that led me to believe that he was one of the number. Perhaps,

after all, he wandered from the world rather from the dread than with

the hope of solitude. In such pleasant intercourse as the visits of the

friends I have named afforded, was the sadness of the day in a measure

dissipated, but when night came I never failed to realise that no

progress whatever had been made. I tried to check the craving for

chloral, but I could as easily have checked the rising tide: and where

the lifelong assiduity of older friends had failed to eradicate a

morbid, ruinous, and fatal thirst, it was presumptous if not ridiculous

to imagine that the task could be compassed by a frail creature with

heart and nerves of wax. But the whole scene was now beginning to have

an interest for me more personal and more serious than I have yet given

hint of. The constant fret and fume of this life of baffled effort,

of struggle with a deadly drug that had grown to have an objective

existence in my mind as the existence of a fiend, was not without a

sensible effect upon myself. I became ill for a few days with a low

fever, but far worse than this was the fact that there was creeping over

me the wild influence of Rossetti’s own distempered imaginings.

Once conscious of such influence I determined to resist it, but how to

do so I knew not without flying utterly away from an atmosphere in which

my best senses seemed to stagnate, and burying the memory of it for

ever.

The crisis was pending, and sooner than we expected it came. A nurse

was engaged. One evening Dr. Westland Marston and his son Philip Bourke

Marston came to spend a few hours with Rossetti, For a while he 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 realised that from whatever cause,

he had 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. 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. Christmas Day was now nigh at hand, and, still

confined to his room, he begged me to promise to spend that day with

him; “otherwise,” he said, “how sad a day it must be for me, for I

cannot fairly ask any other.” With a tenderness of sympathy I shall not

forget, Mr. Scott had asked me to dine that day at his more cheerful

house; but I reflected that this was to be my first Christmas in London

and it might be Rossetti’s last, so I put by pleasanter considerations.

We dined alone, but, somewhat later, William Rossetti, with true

brotherly affection, left the guests at his own house, and ran down

to spend an hour with the invalid. We could hear from time to time the

ringing of the bells of the neighbouring churches, and I noticed that

Rossetti was not disturbed by them as he had been formerly. Indeed, the

drug once removed, he was in every sense a changed man. He talked that

night brightly, and with more force and incisiveness, I thought, than he

had displayed for months. There was the ring of affection in his tone as

he said he had always had loyal friends; and then he spoke with feeling

of Mr. Watts’s friendship, of Mr. Shields’s, and afterwards he spoke of

Mr. Burne Jones who had just previously visited him, as well as of Mr.

Madox Brown, and his friendship of a lifetime; of Mr. Swinburne, Mr.

Morris, Mr. Stephens, Mr. Boyce, and other early friends. He said a word

or two of myself which I shall not repeat, and then spoke with emotion

of his mother and sister, and of his sister who was dead, and how they

were supported through their sore trials by religious resignation. He

asked if I, like Shields, was a believer, and seemed altogether in a

softer and more spiritual mood than I remember to have noticed before.

With such talk we passed the Christmas night of 1881. Rossetti recovered

power in some measure, was able to get down to the studio, and see the

friends who called--Mr. F. E. Leyland frequently, Lord and Lady Mount

Temple, Mrs. Sumner, Mr. Boyce, Mr. F. G. Stephens, Mr. Gilchrist, Mr.

and Mrs. Virtue Tebbs, Mrs. Stillman, Mrs. Coronio, and Mr. C. and Mr.

A. Ionides occasionally, as well as those previously named. A visit

from Dr. Hueffer of the _Times_ (of whose gifts he had a high opinion),

enlivened him perceptibly. But he did not recover, and at the end of

January 1882 it was definitely determined that he should go to the

sea-side. I was asked to accompany him, and did so. At the right

juncture Mr. J. P. Seddon very hospitably tendered the use of his

handsome bungalow at Birchington-on-Sea, a little watering-place four

miles west of Margate. There we spent nine weeks. At first going out he

was able to take short walks on the cliffs, or round the road that winds

about the churchyard, but his strength grew less and less every day

and hour. We were constantly visited by Mr. Watts, whose devotion never

failed, and Rossetti would brighten up at the prospect of one of his

visits, and become sensibly depressed when he had gone. Mr. William

Sharp, too (a young friend of whose gifts as a poet Rossetti had a

genuine appreciation, and by whom he had been visited at intervals

for some time), came out occasionally and cheered up the sufferer in

a noticeable degree. Then his mother and sister came and stayed in the

house during many weeks at the last. How shall I speak of the tenderness

of their solicitude, of their unwearying attentions, in a word of their

ardent and reciprocated love of the illustrious son and brother for whom

they did the thousand gentle offices which they alone could have done!

The end was drawing on, and we all knew the fact. Rossetti had actually

taken to poetical composition afresh, and had written a facetious ballad

(conceived years before) of the length of _The White Ship_, called _Jan

Van Hunks_, embodying an eccentric story of a Dutchman’s wager to smoke

against the devil. This was to appear in a miscellany of stories and

poems by himself and Mr. Watts, a project which had been a favourite one

of his for some years, and in which he now, in his last moments, took a

revived interest strange and strong.

About this time he derived great gratification from reading an article

on him and his works in _Le Livre_ by Mr. Joseph Knight, an old friend

to whom he was deeply attached, and for whose gifts he had a genuine

admiration. Perhaps the very last letter Rossetti penned was written to

Mr. Knight upon the subject of this article.

His intellect was as powerful as in his best days, and freer than ever

of hallucinations. But his bodily strength grew less and less. His sight

became feebler, and then he abandoned the many novels that had recently

solaced his idler hours, and Miss Rossetti read aloud to him. Among

other books she read Dickens’s _Tale of Two Cities_, and he seemed

deeply touched by Sidney Carton’s sacrifice, and remarked that he would

like to paint the last scene of the story.

On Wednesday morning, April 5th, I went into the bedroom to which he had

for some days been confined, and wrote out to his dictation two sonnets

which he had composed on a design of his called _The Sphinx_, and which

he wished to give, together with the drawing and the ballad before

described, to Mr. Watts for publication in the volume just mentioned.

On the Thursday morning I found his utterance thick, and his speech from

that cause hardly intelligible. It chanced that I had just been reading

Mr. Buchanan’s new volume of poems, and in the course of conversation

I told him the story of the ballad called _The Lights of Leith_, and

he was affected by the pathos of it. He had heard of that author’s

retractation{*} of the charges involved in the article published ten

years earlier, and was manifestly touched by the dedication of the

romance _God and the Man_. He talked long and earnestly that morning,

and it was our last real interview. He spoke of his love of early

English ballad literature, and of how when he first met with it he had

said to himself: “There lies your line.”

* The retractation, which now has a peculiar literary

interest, was made in the following verses, and should, I

think, be recorded here:

To an old Enemy.

I would have snatch’d a bay-leaf from thy brow,

Wronging the chaplet on an honoured head;

In peace and charity I bring thee now

A lily-flower instead.

Pure as thy purpose, blameless as thy song,

Sweet as thy spirit, may this offering be;

Forget the bitter blame that did thee wrong,

And take the gift from me!

In a later edition of the romance the following verses are

added to the dedication:

To Dante Gabriel Rossetti:

Calmly, thy royal robe of death around thee,

Thou Bleekest, and weeping brethren round thee stand--

Gently they placed, ere yet God’s angel crown’d thee,

My lily in thy hand!

I never knew thee living, O my brother!

But on thy breast my lily of love now lies;

And by that token, we shall know each other,

When God’s voice saith “Arise!”

“Can you understand me?” he asked abruptly, alluding to the thickness of

his utterance.

“Perfectly.”

“Nurse Abrey cannot: what a good creature she is!”

That night we telegraphed to Mr. Marshall, to Mr. W. M. Rossetti, and

Mr. Watts, and wrote next morning to Mr. Shields, Mr. Scott, and Mr.

Madox Brown. It had been found by the resident medical man, Dr. Harris,

that in Rossetti’s case kidney disease had supervened. His dear mother

and I sat up until early morning with him, and when we left him his

sister took our place and remained with him the whole of that and

subsequent nights. He sat up in bed most of the time and said a sort of

stupefaction had removed all pain. He crooned over odd lines of poetry.

“My own verses torment me,” he said. Then he half-sang, half-recited,

snatches from one of Iago’s songs in _Othello_. “Strange things,” he

murmured, “to come into one’s head at such a moment.” I told him his

brother and Mr. Watts would be with him to-morrow. “Then you really

think that I am dying? At _last_ you think so; but _I_ was right from

the first.”

Next day, Good Friday, the friends named did come, and weak as he was,

he was much cheered by their presence. The following day Mr. Marshall

arrived.

That gentleman recognised the alarming position of affairs, but he was

not without hope. He administered a sort of hot bath, and on Sunday

morning Rossetti was perceptibly brighter. Mr. Shields had now arrived,

and one after one of his friends, including Mr. Leyland, who was at the

time staying at Ramsgate, and made frequent calls, visited him in his

room and found him able to listen and sometimes to talk. In the evening

the nurse gave a cheering report of his condition, and encouraged by

such prospects, Mr. Watts, Mr. Shields, and myself, gave way to good

spirits, and retired to an adjoining room. About nine o’clock Mr.

Watts left us, and returning in a short time, said he had been in the

sickroom, and had had some talk with Rossetti, and found him cheerful.

An instant afterwards we heard a scream, followed by a loud rapping at

our door. We hurried into Rossetti’s room and found him in convulsions.

Mr. Watts raised him on one side, whilst I raised him on the other; his

mother, sister, and brother, were immediately present (Mr. Shields had

fled away for the doctor); there were a few moments of suspense, and

then we saw him die in our arms. Mrs. William Rossetti arrived from

Manchester at this moment.

Thus on Easter Day Rossetti died. It was hard to realise that he was

actually dead; but so it was, and the dreadful fact had at last come

upon us with a horrible suddenness. Of the business of the next few

days I need say nothing. I went up to London in the interval between the

death and burial, and the old house at Chelsea, which, to my mind, in my

time had always been desolate, was now more than ever so, that the man

who had been its vitalising spirit lay dead eighty miles away by the

side of the sea. It was decided to bury the poet in the churchyard

of Birchington. The funeral, which was a private one, was attended by

relatives and personal friends only, with one or two well-wishers from

London.

Next day we saw most of the friends away by train, and, some days later,

Mr. Watts was with myself the last to leave. I thought we two were drawn

the closer each to each from the loss of him by whom we were brought

together. We walked one morning to the churchyard and found the grave,

which nestles under the south-west porch, strewn with flowers.

The church is an ancient and quaint early Gothic edifice, somewhat

rejuvenated however, but with ivy creeping over its walls. The prospect

to the north is of sea only: a broad sweep of landscape so flat and so

featureless that the great sea dominates it. As we stood there, with the

rumble of the rolling waters borne to us from the shore, we felt that

though we had little dreamed that we should lay Rossetti in his last

sleep here, no other place could be quite so fit. It was, indeed, the

resting-place for a poet. In this bed, of all others, he must at length,

after weary years of sleeplessness, sleep the only sleep that is deep

and will endure. Thinking of the incidents which I have in this chapter

tried to record, my mind reverted to a touching sonnet which the friend

by my side had just printed; and then, for the first time, I was struck

by its extraordinary applicability to him whom we had laid below. In its

printed form it was addressed to Heine, and ran:

Thou knew’st that island far away and lone

Whose shores are as a harp, where billows break

In spray of music and the breezes shake

O’er spicy seas a woof of colour and tone,

While that sweet music echoes like a moan

In the island’s heart, and sighs around the lake

Where, watching fearfully a watchful snake,

A damsel weeps upon her emerald throne.

Life’s ocean, breaking round thy senses’ shore,

Struck golden song as from the strand of day:

For us the joy, for thee the fell foe lay--

Pain’s blinking snake around the fair isle’s core,

Turning to sighs the enchanted sounds that play

Around thy lovely island evermore.

“How strangely appropriate it is,” I said, “to Rossetti, and now I

remember how deeply he was moved on reading it.”

“He guessed its secret; I addressed it, for disguise, to Heine, to whom

it was sadly inapplicable. I meant it for _him_.”

THE END.