By Ford Madox Brown: "On the Mechanism of a Historical Picture": Part
1, the Design. It is by this time a well-recognized fact that Brown
was one of the men in England, or indeed in Europe, most capable of
painting a historical picture, and it is a matter of regret that "The
Germ" came to an end before he had an opportunity of continuing and
completing this serviceable compendium of precepts. He had studied
art in continental schools; but I do not think he imported into his
article much of what he had been taught,--rather what he had thought
out for himself, and had begun putting into practice.
By W. M. Rossetti: "Fancies at Leisure." The first three of these
were written to _bouts-rimés_. As to No. 1, "Noon Rest," I have a
tolerably clear recollection that the rhymes were prescribed to me by
Millais, on one of the days in 1849 when I was sitting to him for the
head of Lorenzo in his first Praeraphaelite picture from Keats's
"Isabella." No. 4, "Sheer Waste," was not a _bouts-rimés_
performance. It was chiefly the outcome of an early afternoon spent
lazily in Regent's Park.
By Walter H. Deverell: "The Light Beyond." These sonnets are not of
very finished execution, but they have a dignified sustained tone and
some good lines. Had Deverell lived a little longer, he might
probably have proved that he had some genuine vocation as a poet, no
less than a decided pictorial faculty. He died young in February
1854.
By Dante G. Rossetti: "The Blessed Damozel." As to this celebrated
poem much might be said; but I shall not say it here, partly because
I wrote an Introduction to a reprint (published by Messrs. Duckworth
and Co. in 1898) of the "Germ" version of the poem, which is the
earliest version extant, and in that Introduction I gave a number of
particulars forestalling what I could now set down. I will however
take this opportunity of correcting a blunder into which I fell in
the Introduction above mentioned. I called attention to "calm" and
"warm," which make a "cockney rhyme" in stanza 9 of this "Germ"
version; and I said that, in the later version printed in "The Oxford
and Cambridge Magazine" in 1856, a change in the line was made,
substituting "swam" for "calm," and that the cockneyism, though
shuffled, was not thus corrected. In "The Saturday Review," June 25,
1898, the publication of Messrs. Duckworth was criticized; and the
writer very properly pointed out that I had made a crass mistake.
"Mr. Rossetti," he said, "must be a very hasty reader of texts. What
is printed [in 'The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine'] is 'swarm,' not
'swam,' and the rhyme with 'warm' is perfect, stultifying the
editor's criticism completely." Probably the critic considered my
error as unaccountable as it was serious; and yet it could be fully
accounted for, though not fully excused. I had not been "a very hasty
reader of texts" in the sense indicated by "The Saturday Review." The
fact is that, not possessing a copy of "The Oxford and Cambridge
Magazine," I had referred to the book brought out by Mr. William
Sharp in 1882, "Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Record and a Study," in
which are given (with every appearance of care and completeness) the
passages of "The Blessed Damozel" as they appeared in "The Germ,"
with the alterations printed in "The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine."
From the latter, the line in question is given by Mr. Sharp as "Waste
sea of worlds that swam"; and I, supposing him to be correct (though
I allow that memory ought to have taught me the contrary), reproduced
that line to the same effect. "Always verify your references" is a
precept to which editors and commentators cannot too carefully
conform. Many thanks to the writer in "The Saturday Review" for
showing that, while I, and also Mr. Sharp, had made a mistake, my
brother had made none.
By W. M. Rossetti: "Review of the Strayed Reveller and other Poems,
by A." As we all now know, "A." was Matthew Arnold, and this was his
first published volume; but I, at the time of writing the review,
knew nothing of the identity of "A.," and even had I been told that
he was Matthew Arnold, that would have carried the matter hardly at
all further. I remember that, after I had written the whole or most
of this admiring review, I found that the volume had been abused in
"Blackwood's Magazine"; a fact of sweet savour to myself and other
P.R.B.'s, as we entertained a hearty detestation of that magazine,
with its blustering "Christopher North," and its traditions of
truculency against Keats, Shelley, Leigh Hunt, Tennyson, Ruskin, and
some others. I read "A.'s" volume with great attention, and piqued
myself somewhat upon having introduced into my review some reference
(detailed or cursory) to every poem in it. Possibly (but I hardly
think so) the critique was afterwards shortened, so as to bereave it
of this merit.
By Madox Brown (the etching) and by W. M. Rossetti (the verses):
"Cordelia." For the belated No. 3 of "The Germ" we were much at a
loss for an illustration. Mr. Brown offered to accommodate us by
etching this design, one of a series from "King Lear" which he had
drawn in Paris in 1844. That series, though not very sightly to the
eye, is of extraordinary value for dramatic insight and energy. We
gladly accepted, and he produced this etching with very little
self-satisfaction, so far as the technique of execution is concerned.
Dante Rossetti was to have furnished some verses for the etching; but
for this he did not find time, so I was put in as a stopgap, and I am
not sure that any reader of "The Germ" has ever thanked me for my
obedience to the call of duty.
By Patmore: "Essay on Macbeth." In this interesting and
well-considered paper Mr. Patmore assumes that he was the first
person to put into writing the opinion that Macbeth, before meeting
with the witches, had already definitely conceived and imparted the
idea of obtaining the crown of Scotland by wrongful means. I have
always felt some uncertainty whether Mr. Patmore was really the
first; if he was, it certainly seems strange that the train of
reasoning which he furnishes in this essay--forcible, even if we do
not regard it as unanswerable--should not have presented itself to
the mind and pen of some earlier writer. The Essay appears to have
been left incomplete in at least one respect. In speaking of "the
fifth scene," the author refers to "postponement of comment" upon
Macbeth's letter to his wife, and he "leaves it for the present." But
the comment never comes.
By Christina Rossetti: "Repining." This rather long poem, written in
December 1847 on a still broader scale, was never republished by the
authoress, although all her other poems in "The Germ" were so. She
did not think that its deservings were such as to call for
republication. I apprehend that herein she exercised a wise
discretion: none the less, when I was compiling the volume of her
"New Poems," issued in 1896, I included "Repining"--for I think that
some of the considerations which apply to the works of an author
while living do not remain in anything like full force after death.
By Dante G. Rossetti: "The Carillon, Antwerp and Bruges." These
verses, and some others further on in "The Germ," were written during
the brief trip, in Paris and Belgium, which my brother made along
with Holman-Hunt in the autumn of 1849. He did not republish "The
Carillon"; but he left in MS. an abridged form of it, with the title
"Antwerp and Bruges," and this I included in his "Collected Works,"
1886. The only important change was the omission of stanzas 1 and 4.
By Dante G. Rossetti: "From the Cliffs, Noon." Altering some phrases
in this lyric, and adding two stanzas, Rossetti republished it under
the name of "The Sea-limits."
By W. M. Rossetti: "Fancies at Leisure." The first four were written
to _bouts-rimés_: not the fifth, "The Fire Smouldering," which is, I
think, as old as 1848, or even 1847.
By John L. Tupper: "Papers of the MS. Society; No. 1, An Incident in
the Siege of Troy." This grotesque outburst, though sprightly and
clever, was not well-suited to the pages of "The Germ." My attention
had been called to it at an earlier date, when my editorial power was
unmodified, but I then staved it off, and indeed John Tupper himself
did not deem it appropriate. It will be observed that "MS. Society"
is said not to mean "Manuscript Society." I forget what it did
mean--possibly "Medical Student Society." The whole thing is replete
with semi-private _sous-entendus_, and banter at Free Trade, medical
and anatomical matters, etc. The like general remarks apply to No. 4,
"Smoke," by the same writer. It is a rollicking semi-intelligible
chaunt, a forcible thing in its way, proper in the first instance (I
believe) to a sort of club of medical students, Royal Academy
students, and others--highly-seasoned smokers most of them--in which
John Tupper exercised a quasi-privacy, and was called (owing to his
thinness, much over-stated in the poem) "The Spectro-cadaveral King."
No. 5, "Rain," is again by John Tupper, and is the only item in "The
Papers of the MS. Society" which seems, in tone and method, to be
reasonably appropriate for "The Germ."