come into my head yesterday, entitled _For the General Oppression
of the better by the worse Cause in July 1849_.... Hunt has been
making the designs for the _Morning_ and _Evening_ commissioned
by Cottingham, which he intends to complete to-morrow morning and
present to him. He says it is his intention, after leaving his
present lodging (which he will do some three weeks hence), to go for
a fortnight into the country, and work on the landscape of his Early
Britons picture, and from there to Paris for about three months to
paint the commissions.
Wednesday, September 12th.--After writing a letter to Woolner[173]
I sat down to think as to a subject for a poem, and without much
trouble invented one, but it is as yet very incomplete and meagre. I
composed 21 lines of it in blank verse....
Thursday 20th.--I had letters from Woolner and Gabriel. Woolner ...
says that he is to receive the money for _Euphrosyne_ from Cottingham
to-day; and that Cottingham has actually advised him to execute in
marble the figure of St. Luke which Gabriel designed some time back
for the picture he contemplated doing of St. Luke preaching, with
pictures of Christ and the Virgin[174].... Gabriel writes that a
printer named Haynes, a friend of Hancock,[175] has introduced him
to Aylott and Jones the publishers, who are quite willing to publish
the _Monthly Thoughts_, on condition of a percentage of ten on the
sale; and that Deverell is making enquiries as to the equity of this
demand....
Sunday 23rd.--A letter arrived from Woolner, informing me that, as
difficulties in keeping back the ardour of our new proprietors begin
to rise up, he and Gabriel have determined on at once making me
Editor, and that the prospectus has been sent off to the printer’s
with my name accordingly, and the title altered to _Thoughts
towards Nature_ (Gabriel’s idea), to obviate the many objections
that have been made to the old title; that he was to dine to-day
with Patmore,[176] who had read his poems, and praised them so
much that he won’t tell me what he said; that he has just returned
unsuccessfully from Cottingham; and that he doubts whether he and
Gabriel will join me here, considering the heavy travelling-expenses.
I answered him, pointing out several reasons why I think the proposal
of publishing my name as Editor should be well reflected on before
being carried out....
Tuesday 25th.--I had a letter from Gabriel in answer to my last to
Woolner. He says that the words “Conducted by Artists,” recently
proposed to be inserted in the title of our magazine, are now to
be left out; and that therefore, as he thinks, there is no further
ground for arguing the question of my name being published as Editor;
that a definite agreement has been made with Aylott and Jones, the
publishers, and that the prospectus is now being printed; that the
1st No. will not appear till December; that he wrote the preceding
night to W. B. Scott, requesting his co-operation; and that Patmore
has seen and appears much pleased with the prospectus, and has given
us a little poem named _The Seasons_ for our 1st No., but with the
proviso that his name shall not transpire, as he means to keep it
back in all instances till the appearance of his new volume. He
praised Woolner’s poems immensely, saying however that they were
sometimes slightly over-passionate, and generally “sculpturesque”
in character.... Gabriel and Hunt are to start shortly for the
continent....
Wednesday 26th.--... Another letter from Gabriel, saying that, as
further delay in starting would inconvenience Hunt, they are to
set off for France and Belgium to-morrow; and that they will, if
possible, pass through Brittany, either going or returning, to see
Charles Wells[177]....
Tuesday 27th.--I had a letter, with a message from Gabriel in
answer to my enquiries, that the table of contents for No. 1 of the
_Thoughts_ remains as before settled, with the addition of Patmore’s
poem and Stephens’s paper on Early Art ...; also that several
are proposing to alter the title of the magazine to _The P.R.B.
Journal_, and desiring me to write my opinion on the subject to
Stephens. This I did accordingly, representing many objections which
appear to me quite decisive, especially connected with the share in
the magazine of some who are not P.R.B.’s. I also wrote Gabriel in
the same sense, requesting his and Hunt’s views of the matter. In
these letters I brought up an old proposal to get “P.R.B.” printed
somewhere on the wrapper--a course to which the same objections do
not apply. I did 116 lines more of my poem....
Friday 28th.--Gabriel left yesterday morning with Hunt for the
continent....
Monday, October 8th.--Collinson, to whom I went in the evening, is
getting on with his _Emigrant’s Letter_; he has done a considerable
part of the window and its adjuncts, finishing up the trees outside
to a pitch of the extremest minuteness; he is advanced with the heads
of the boy writing, and the girl. He has made a sketch in colour for
the picture, and has introduced another boy looking over the one
writing....
Wednesday 10th.--A letter came from Gabriel, who gives me an
elaborate criticism of my blank-verse poem, and sends me five sonnets
he has written--the first suggested by hearing the bells while
ascending to the summit of Notre Dame; the second written leaning
against the July Column, and musing on the Place de la Bastille; the
third concerning “the rate of locomotion which the style of the Old
Masters induces in Hunt and himself at the Louvre”; the fourth on a
picture by Giorgione, of two naked women and two men with musical
instruments; the fifth excited by the disgust he experienced at
witnessing the cancan at Valentino’s. In reference to this last
scene, he declares Gavarni to be “a liar and the father of it.” He
has been to see the working of the Gobelins tapestries, which has
so altered his ideas concerning the matter that he says he shall
probably make an entirely new design for Kate the Queen,[178] when he
is prepared to paint the subject....
Saturday 13th.--At Stephens’s I saw Hunt’s and Gabriel’s letters. The
former says that they are to leave Paris on Saturday for Brussels.
The latter sends three sonnets--the first, _Whilst waiting for
the train to Versailles_, being imitated from the introduction to
Tennyson’s _Godiva_, the second, _On the road to and in the Garden of
Versailles_; the last, _On a Dance of Nymphs by Mantegna_....
Sunday 14th.--I read through _Joseph and his Brethren_, which is
a glorious work, but, in passages, decidedly too full of images,
laboured description, &c. From my old schoolfellow Nussey--to whom I
went in the evening, and who is to subscribe to the _Thoughts_, and
get as many subscribers at Oxford as he can--I heard some particulars
of the poet Clough,[179] who had been Tutor in the College to which
he (Nussey) belongs....
Monday 15th.--I called at Millais’s house, and was told that the
period of his return is quite undecided. He is now at the house of a
Mr. Wyatt,[180] having left Mr. Drury’s some weeks ago--who offered
to fit up for him a suite of apartments where he might establish
himself and work.--Ford Brown, to whose study I went in the evening,
and Cave Thomas whom I met there, will subscribe....
Thursday 18th.--Woolner ... has begun a medallion portrait of
Patmore, who has given him three sittings, beginning on Sunday, and
who says he thinks he may probably induce Tennyson, when in London,
to sit to him likewise.... Being alone together (with Hunt, Millais,
and Gabriel, out of hearing), we had some conversation concerning
republicanism, universal suffrage, &c....
Thursday, 1st November.--In the morning Gabriel called on Millais,
and saw a design he has made of the Holy Family. Christ, having
pricked his hand with a nail (in symbol of the nailing to the
cross), is being anxiously examined by Joseph, who is pulling his
hand backwards, while he, unheeding this, kisses the Virgin with
his arm round her neck. Millais thinks of painting this for the
Exhibition[181]....
Friday 2nd.--Woolner’s “character” was sent him by Donovan.[182]
It embodies generally the observations he made at the time of the
consultation, and ascribes to him a large amount of caution, which
Woolner considers to be a correct judgment. In some points, however,
he appears decidedly mistaken. After discussing this, we went
together to Coventry Patmore’s. The first thing we heard was that his
doctor had forbidden him to write in the evening for some time. He is
now about to read up for two articles on Russia he intends to write
for _The North British_ and _The British Quarterly_ respectively.
He says he has some doubt whether one of the little poems he has
given us for the _Thoughts_--which of them he is not certain--did
not appear in some musical magazine. We had an argument as to
whether Browning would be _the_ man some twenty years hence, Patmore
expressing an adverse opinion. He remarked that Browning appears to
him like a chip from a very perfect precious stone; intense, but not
broad in range of subject, nor sufficiently finished. He considers
_A Soul’s Tragedy_ to be a splendid title spoiled (!). _Sordello_ he
has never read. _Paracelsus_ he admires with a reservation. Two of
the short pieces he particularly remembers with pleasure are _How
they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix_, and _Saul_.... He does
not place Browning so high as Tennyson. I saw Tennyson’s MS. book of
elegies on young Hallam, which are to be published some day....
Tuesday 6th.--Looked over a house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea,[183] with
which they, and Stephens who was with them, were greatly taken. It is
capable of furnishing four good studios, with a bedroom, and a little
room that would do for a library, attached to each. There is also
an excellent look-out on the river. The rent, £70. In the evening,
we all (except Millais) congregated at Woolner’s, and discussed
the matter. Gabriel, Hunt, and myself, think of going at once, and
Stephens and Collinson would join after April. We think likewise of
getting Deverell. “P.R.B.” might be written on the bell, and stand
for “please ring the bell” to the profane. Among other subjects,
we spoke of not admitting anything at all referring to politics or
religion into our magazine, and decided on cutting out the sonnets
_For the Things of these Days_[184] we have hitherto intended to
insert in the first number....
Wednesday 7th.--This was the evening fixed for Millais’s and
Gabriel’s introduction to Patmore, at Woolner’s study. Gabriel and
I went, and Patmore came, but Millais appeared not. We conversed a
good deal of Woolner’s poems, which Patmore says are so good that he
is surprised they should not be much better. He insists strongly on
the necessity of never leaving a poem till the whole of it be brought
to a pitch of excellence perfectly satisfactory; in this respect
of general equality, and also in regard to metre, he finds much to
object to in Woolner’s poem of _My Lady_, and considers that these
defects are far less prominent in some passages of _Friendship_[185]
that were read to him. Henry Taylor, he says, ought to devote ten
more years to _Philip Van Artevelde_, and it would then be qualified
to live. He himself spent about a year (from the age of sixteen to
seventeen) on _The River_, with which, and _The Woodman’s Daughter_,
he is contented in point of finish. _Lilian_ and _Sir Hubert_ were
written in a great hurry for the Publisher. He read Gabriel’s sonnets
on Ingres’s picture of _Roger and Angelica_, and was much struck with
the character they possess of being descriptive of a painting....
Thursday 8th.--Deverell will manage to join us at once in the house
at Chelsea; but on reflection the expense begins to look rather
formidable. I called on Millais, to ask him to Patmore’s.... I saw
his design of Christ in his childhood, to be painted for the next
Exhibition, and the calotype made of his last picture.... Patmore,
talking of Philip Bailey, remarked that he seems to be “painting on
clouds, not having his foot on reality.” Burns he considers more
perfect than Tennyson. Gabriel wrote three stanzas of _Bride-Chamber
Talk_. At Patmore’s we heard of the reported death of Edgar Poe,
concerning which some suspicions of suicide exist.
Friday 9th.--... As the feasibility of taking the Chelsea house looks
very questionable now, considering the expense, Gabriel and Hunt
spent all the early part of the day looking for lodgings and studios
about Chelsea, Brompton, etc.
Saturday 10th.--Gabriel found a studio at No. 72 Newman Street. The
rent asked is £30, but he succeeded in bringing it down to £28. He
is to see further about it to-morrow. He wrote to Hunt to ask whether
he can join him in his tenancy....
Sunday 11th.--I went to Millais in the morning, and find that he has
altered the position of the legs of Ferdinand. Last night he wrote
some stanzas of his poem, of which he says he has now done certainly
upwards of a hundred lines--perhaps much more, as he has never
counted. In the afternoon Gabriel came, and read all the poetry he
wrote abroad. He had been to Newman Street, and decided on taking the
study. We went to Harris’s[186] in the evening, and were told that
he had occupied the same study some time at a rent of £40, whereas
Gabriel has made the landlord accept £26....
Monday 12th.--... Woolner has been hard at work these two days on
his new figure in sculpture, which he has blocked out in clay.
Patmore called on him yesterday, and talked of my poem,[187] in
which he finds a most objectionable absence of moral dignity, all
the characters being puny and destitute of elevation. He means
nevertheless to read it through again, that he may be able to judge
of it in detail without looking so much to the scope--or want of
scope. These are very much the objections that we had all foreseen,
and acquiesce in....
Thursday 15th.--Gabriel got the paper stretched for of his study. He
and I saw Hunt, who has suited himself somewhere in Bayswater....
Thursday 15th.--Gabriel got the paper stretched for the nude cartoon
he intends to make for his picture of the Passover, and began drawing
the figure of Christ from a little boy whom Collinson discovered
some time ago, and whom he has painted in his _Emigrant’s Letter_.
Gabriel wrote to Miss Atwell to come to-morrow, as he wants her
for the figure of the Virgin. We went in the evening to Calder
Campbell,[188] who offers his services for our Magazine, and will
hunt up subscribers....
Sunday 18th.--Gabriel began at his design for _Paolo and Francesca_,
but did scarcely anything. We therefore read away at Browning,
Tennyson, Lowell, and the _Stories after Nature_.
Monday 19th.--Gabriel was occupied about his design.... To-night was
a P.R.B. meeting at Millais’s, at which we were all present with
the exception of Woolner.... Millais means to make the spirits in
the air[189] half human and half like birds. His brother has begun
painting a little from still life etc., and Millais intends to get
him to do landscape-pieces. Hunt has gone on with his etching.
Stephens is still engaged during the day at the Museum. He offers
to draw-in the perspective scale in Gabriel’s picture.... We
discussed two or three points concerning the magazine. First, that of
advertising; and it was unanimously considered that, as anything of
the kind would, to be effective, swallow up some £10 or £15 without
doubt, it will be as well to drop it altogether. In the second place,
as regards the big “P.R.B.” printed at the head of the prospectus.
To this Hunt now most strenuously objects[190].... After our return
Gabriel continued making sketches for his design. He intends that
the picture should be in three compartments. In the middle, Paolo
and Francesca kissing; on the left, Dante and Virgil in the second
circle; on the right, the spirits blowing to and fro....
[Illustration: (Alfred Tennyson, sketch by Dante Gabriel Rossetti)]
Thursday 22nd.--Patmore, Cross, Millais, Gabriel, and myself, were
at Woolner’s; Hunt did not appear. A long argument was maintained
concerning poetry--Patmore professing that Burns is a greater poet
than Tennyson, in which opinion Tennyson himself fully concurs.
Patmore instanced, as a line of unsurpassable beauty, “With joy
unfeigned brothers and sisters meet,” from _The Cottar’s Saturday
Night_. He says that Tennyson is the greatest _man_ he ever came in
contact with, far greater in his life than in his writing--perfectly
sincere and frank, never paying uncandid compliments. Browning takes
more pains to please, and is altogether much more a man of the world.
Patmore thinks that Browning does not value himself at so high a
point as he is rated by Gabriel and me. Patmore holds the age of
narrative poetry to be passed for ever, and thinks that probably
none such will again appear; he considers _Peter Bell_, though most
vexatiously imperfect, to be the opening of a new era. He looks on
the present race of poets as highly “self-conscious” in comparison
with their predecessors, but yet not sufficiently so for the only
system now possible--the psychological. The conversation taking a
religious turn, he said that the devil is the only being purely
reasoning and analytic, and _therefore_ is the devil; and he would
have every man hold to the faith he is born in, as, if he attempts
to get beyond its bounds, he will be far more likely to be a rebel
than a seeker after truth,[191] and should not attempt to pull down
without having something to build anew. He thinks Millais’s picture
far better than anything Keats ever did,[192] and that he is adapted
to usher in a new style which will eventually educate the people
into taste, and make his works some day as popular and saleable as
Barraud’s _We Praise Thee, O God_.[193] One of the chief curses of
the day he considers to be that every one is critical. Of the poets
of this and the last generation he says that they are “all nerves
and no hearts.” He fraternized with Cross, in whom he sees some
resemblance to David Scott, the recently dead brother of W. B.... We
had some talk of ghosts, to a belief in which Patmore does not see
any obstacles. Millais related a singular story on the subject he
heard at Oxford, and Woolner some experiences of his own immediate
relations and friends. Millais, as we walked home, unburdened himself
of his observations and conclusions, and declared that, if he had
seen Patmore’s hand alone cut off, he could have sworn to it as that
of a man of genius. His sayings concerning Burns, Keats, Tennyson,
etc., are bitter in his belly as wormwood. Gabriel and I sat up to
read the _Cottar’s Saturday Night_, and failed to realize to our
apprehensions its extraordinary excellence....
Saturday 25th.--Gabriel began making a sketch for _The Annunciation_.
The Virgin is to be in bed, but without any bedclothes on, an
arrangement which may be justified in consideration of the hot
climate; and the angel Gabriel is to be presenting a lily to her. The
picture, and its companion of the Virgin’s Death,[194] will be almost
entirely white. At Stephens’ two Tuppers only were present. John
Tupper read his poem, which is exceedingly clever:[195] it borders
nevertheless on the ultra-peculiar.... Hunt, who came late in the
evening, is getting on with his etching, of which there remains now
not much to be done....
Friday, December 7th.--... Just as Tennyson was leaving, Patmore
fixed him, and made him promise to sit to Woolner.... Millais has
redesigned the subject of _Christ in Joseph’s Workshop_; the picture
of _Ferdinand_ is not very far from finished.
Saturday 8th.--Gabriel had Maitland to sit to him for the angel
Gabriel in _The Annunciation_. He has recently written various new
stanzas of _Bride-Chamber Talk_. Woolner came in the evening,
when Gabriel read _The Princess_ through to him, and both of them
pronounced it the finest poem since Shakespeare, superior even to
_Sordello_. To this latter opinion I demur....
Monday 10th.--... Collinson, after he shall have finished his
paintings for this year, means to set to work on the subject of _St.
Elizabeth of Hungary_ taking off her crown before the crucifix. We
talked about the magazine, and are quite unanimous in considering
that the first number must appear; but all except Stephens and myself
are somewhat inclined to drop it after that, whether successful or
not. We are also disposed to abide by the title _Thoughts towards
Nature_, notwithstanding Cave Thomas’s proposal of _The Seed_.
We debated the propriety of having an article explanatory of the
principles in Art of the P.R.B.; but, as so many papers in the first
number are to treat of Art, and as the point will necessarily be
brought forward incidentally, it is not thought needful.
Thursday 13th.--... Patmore was at Woolner’s last night, and read
him Poe’s tales to his own great satisfaction. He considers Poe the
best writer that America has produced. He is in a state of some
indignation at a book that has been lately published in America by
Thomas Powell; wherein himself, Tennyson, Browning, and others with
whom he is not conscious of Powell’s having ever met, are spoken of.
Gabriel showed him _My Sister’s Sleep_, which he approves in respect
of sentiment, but says that it contains several lines that will
not scan, and that it is too self-conscious in parts, as in the “I
believe” of the first stanza, and in “I think that my lips did not
stir.” Among the new things Tennyson is putting into _The Princess_
are, I was told, passages to show where one person leaves off and
another takes up the story; the alterations will be not in abridgment
but in extension. He is to leave London shortly for a little while,
and to return about Christmas, close upon which the new edition of
_The Princess_ will be published....
Saturday 15th.--... We settled to print the magazine with George
Tupper. An objection was raised by Stephens to the publication of
his name, and it was arranged that the question should be submitted
to the arbitration of the P.R.B.... On making out a list of the
materials actually at our disposal, we find that we have enough
for the second and half of the third numbers, by making a somewhat
different arrangement from that at first contemplated; as there is
some fear of Gabriel’s being unable, through press of time as regards
his picture, to get the _Bride-Chamber Talk_ finished for number
two.... Woolner was prevented from coming to Stephens’ by having a
sitting from Tennyson for to-night....
Sunday 16th.--... Gabriel ... drew a little on the design of _Giotto
painting Dante’s Portrait_, which he is finishing up for Stephens.
Millais dropped in, and says he has been again to the Carpenter’s
shop for the picture of Christ in his childhood, and that he will
begin at it on Thursday.... In the evening Stephens came to Gabriel’s
study to do his perspective....
Monday 17th.--... Gabriel ... resumed writing at his tale, _Hand and
Soul_, and did some little in continuation. Woolner ... is to have a
sitting again to-night from Tennyson....
Tuesday 18th.--Woolner not having made his appearance, I went
again to try my chance of finding him, and at last succeeded. His
delay has arisen from the second part of his poem not having yet
been copied out or considered for final revision. The former task
I performed, and the latter was achieved by our joint exertions.
His medallion of Tennyson is well forward, the head requiring but
little more: the hair, however, is only begun. It will have to be
suspended for a short time, as Tennyson has left town, and will not
be back till about Sunday, when he thinks of remaining for a month
or so longer. His poem of King Arthur is not yet commenced, though
he has been for years past maturing the conception of it; and he
intends that it should occupy him some fifteen years. His poem, “Thou
might’st have won the poet’s name,” was, he says, written in a fit
of intense disgust after reading Medwin’s book about Byron. He has
seen the poem I have reviewed in our first number, _The Bothie of
Toper-na-fuosich_, and considers it to be execrable English. He likes
Woolner’s bas-relief of _Iris_, but says he cannot understand the
_Puck_.[196] Gabriel began to paint the head of the Virgin in his
picture of _The Annunciation_.