n 5";?3f P^3 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND ;th^' (sil^ -o^: -•. Henirg W. Sage 1891 Adl3ill J. mMM 18 My 27 DATE DUE «ff"^^ il|5W^^^^&^ F '^*w*.. ■;■ • l;!^ Cornell University Library PR 5238.B43 Christina Rossetti; a biographical and cr 3 1924 013 541 242 The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013541242 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI BY THE SAME AUTHOR. SPRING'S IMMORTALITY, ^ND OTHER POEMS. Third Edition, completing 1,500 copies. Cloth, gilt, $1.25. The Athen^UM. — Has an unquestionable charm of its own. The Daily News.— Throughout a model of finished work- manship. THE BOOKMAN. — His verse leaves on us the impression that we have been in company with a poet. CHARLBS WHITEHEAD; A FORGOTTEN GENIUS. A Monograph, with Extracts from Whitehead's Works. New Edition. With an Appreciation of Whitehead by Hall Caine. Cloth, $1.35. THE TIMES, LONDON.— It is strange how men with a true touch of ifenius in them can sink out of recognition ; and this occurs very rapidly sometimes, as in the case of Chcurles Whitehead. Several works by this writer ought not to be allowed to drop out of English * literature. . . . Mr. Mackenzie Bell's sketch may consequently be welcomed for reviving the interest in Whitehead. The Globe, London. — His monograph is carefully, neatly, and sympathetically built up. THE PALL Mall Magazine. — Mr. Mackenzie Bell's fasci- nating monograph. — Mr. I, ZangiuUl. CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. Reproduced from the chalk drawing by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1866. CHRISTINA ROSSETTI A BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL STUDY BY MACKENZIE BELL AUTHOR OF 'spring's IMMORTALITY, AND OTHER POEMS' AND 'CHARLES WHITEHEAD, A BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL MONOGRAPH ' WITH SIX PORTRAITS AND SIX FACSIMILES BOSTON ROBERTS BROTHERS 1898 eg A'W^Mr 11 \ Copyright, 1898 By Roberts Brothers John -Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. TO MY FRIEND WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI I DEDICATE A BOOK WHICH WITHOUT HIS UNCEASING KINDNESS AND DEEP INTEREST IN IT COULD HARDLY HAVE BEEN WRITTEN PEEFACE. The writing of this book has given me peculiar pleasure. But far greater than the pleasure of its composition has been that of considering the various aspects of Christina Eossetti's work, and of contem- plating her character as revealed therein. Perhaps my study may serve to some readers as an introduc- tion to the writings of Christina Eossetti both as a poet and as a prose writer. Eemembering this I have for the most part relinquished the functions of a critic and assumed the easier functions of an exponent. Whatever are the shortcomings of my book — and none can feel these shortcomings more than myself — it may at least claim to be correct as to biographical fact, and further to be a useful guide to Christina Eossetti's voluminous writings, for it contains, in a series of chapters, a detailed analysis of all her books of poetry and prose. In these days of hurry and high pressure the work of a writer, however eminent, who, like Christina Eossetti, has produced no fewer than fourteen separate books (irrespective of the privately printed 'Verses' of 1847, and of her 'New Poems' viii CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. and ' Maude,' both published posthumously, in 1896 and 1897), almost necessarily fails to command atten- tion proportionate to its merit, if for no other reason than that readers do not allow themselves time to examine it thoroughly. In the case of Christina Eossetti there are reasons why such considerations should have especial weight. If, therefore, my vol- ume be the means of increasing the knowledge of those whose acquaintance with her work is now imperfect, or of drawing the attention of readers for the first time to her depth of thought (the fruit of a rare experience), and to her beauty of expression (the fruit of a rare spiritual strength), one of its chief purposes will be gained. My task could hardly have beein accomplished with- out the unwearied sympathetic co-operation and un- varying kindness of my friend, Mr. William Michakl Eossetti, Christina Eossetti's literary executor ; and I take this the earliest opportunity of expressing my deep and abiding sense of gratitude to him. I have also to thank him warmly for having thrice read my study through with that care which he gives to every- thing. I have availed myself freely of his written replies to my numerous inquiries as to many points in his sister's life, or concerning her opinions, about which I sought enlightenment from his fuller know- ledge. Thus many autobiographical allusions, especi- ally in ' Time Flies ' and ' The Face of the Deep,' have been made clear. Very often, to insure greater accu- racy, I have quoted his actual words. PREFACE. ix At his suggestion I have, whenever occasion arose for mentioning the poet-painter, usually referred to Dante Gabriel Eossetti as Dante Gabriel. The biographical material has generally been used in order of date, though sometimes, when such a course seems more desirable, it has been arranged rather as to subject. Christina Eossetti rarely dated her letters fully. Indeed it is often by internal evi- dence alone that the date can be inferred. Fortunately it has appeared unnecessary to follow the chronologi- cal order absolutely, though whenever such an order seemed to conduce to clearness, or to serve any other good purpose, it has been adopted when possible. Some of the letters included may be deemed by some readers too slight for publication ; my endeavour has been however not to exclude anything slight if it seems to possess personal or other interest or to have felicity of phrase. Her punctuation has been carefully preserved. I am indebted to Mr. Feedeuic Shields for much assistance, and I am under obligations to the late Wil- liam Morris, Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton, Mr. HoLMAN Hunt, the Bishop of Durham, Mr. Arthur Hughes, Mr. John E. Clayton, Dr. Charles J. Hare, the Eev. Dr. Grosart, Messrs. Macmillan, Messrs. James Parker & Co., the Society for Promoting Chris- tian Knowledge, Mrs. George Hake, Dr. Eichard Garnett, Mr. William Sharp, the Eev. J. J. Glen- dinning Nash, the Eev. Alfred Gurney, Mr. Thomas Webster, Mr. John H. Ingram, Mr. Garrett Horder, X CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. Mr. Fairfax Mukeay, Mr. and Mrs. Patchett Mae- tin, Mr. Sydney Morse, Mrs. Weight, and others, to all of whom I tender my heartiest thanks. I am grateful also to Mr. John P. Andeeson of the British Museum for the exhaustive bibliography, appended to my volume, to which I have added some items. MACKENZIE BELL. London, January, 1898. CONTENTS. CHAPTEE I. BIOGRAPHICAL. (Mainly 1830-1853.) The Eossetti family and environment — Christina's godmothers, Princess Christina Bonaparte (Lady Dudley Stuart), and Miss Georgina Macgregor — Poem by Gabriele Eossetti on his daughters — Childhood — Italian refugees — Holmer Green — Oil on troubled waters — Religious Training — Education — Early characteristics and reading — Early verses — Chris- tina joins drawing-class conducted by Ford Madox Brown — Early portraits — Sits for her brother's ' Girlhood of Mary Virgin ' — Sits for ' Ecoe Ancilla Domini ' — Mr. John B. Clayton — Sits to Mr. Holman Hunt for his ' Light of the World ' — Delicate health — ' Maude,' a story — Dr. Hare — Affection for her grandfather — Christ Church, Albany Street — 50 Charlotte Street — Family circumstances — Frome Selwood — Dr. Crellin — Sits to Ford Madox Brown — Sir William Jenner — First offer of marriage .... CHAPTEE IL BJOGBAPHICAL — continued. (Mainly 1854-1876). Eetnms to London — Death of Gabriele Eossetti — Straitened circumstances — Miscellaneous writings — Literary income up to 1890 — Hastings — Newcastle-on-Tyne — Brookbank, Shottermill, Haslemere — Cheltenham — Second offer of marriage — Foreign travel — Switzerland — Italy — Dr. Gor- don Hake — Kev. Dr. Littledale — Chalk drawing by Dante Gabriel, 1866 — Penkill Castle, Ayrshire — Remoyal to 56 XU CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. PAOX Euston Square, now 5 Endsleigh Gardens — Serious illness — Meads, Eastbourne — Devotion to her family — Her Sister's ' Shadow of Dante ' — Her own papers on Dante — Dante's Lucifer and Milton's Satan contrasted — Her sister's influence upon her in religious matters — Her sister and Mr. John Ruskin 35 CHAPTER III. BIOSRAPHICAL — COTltiniied. (Mainly 1874-1886.) Kelmscott Manor House — Removal to 30 Torrington Square — Chey ne Walk — Bognor — Hunter's Forestall — Death of her sister Maria — Letters to her brothers — Walton-on-the-Naze — Mr. Frederic Shields — Discnsses religious problems — Her opinion of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Adelaide Procter, and Anne Radclilfe — Autobiographical allusions ' Time Flies ' — Memorial window to Dante Gabriel at Birchington, de- signed by Mr. Shields, and correspondence with Mr. Shields about it — Her suggestions for decoration of chapel at Eaton Hall — Interest in social questions — Correspondence with Mr. Shields respecting her mother's last illness and death — Mr. Watts-Dunton on her mother's influence on Christina, and Christina's influence on her elder brother ... 71 CHAPTER IV. BIOGRAPHICAL — continued. (Mainly 1886-1893.) Letters to Mrs. W. M. Rossetti — Correspondence with the Rev. Alfred Gurney — Her humour in a letter to Mr. Frederic Shields and in letters to Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Rossetti — Poem on the death of the Duke of Clarence — Article on Tudor House in 'Literary Opinion' 130 CHAPTER V. BiOGRAPH ic AL — amtimited. (Mainly 1893-1894.) Her appearance — Wishes to remove to neighbourhood of Regent's Park — Reminiscences of London — Mr. Watts- CONTENTS. xiii Dunton's and Mr.W. M. Eossetti's remarks respecting her atti- tude towards animals — Description of 30 Torrington Square — Habits of work — Her handwriting — Her books — Her drawing-room — The garden of Torrington Square — Mr. Shields as artist — His Good Shepherd — Mrs. Gamett, Miss Lisa Wilson — Her goddaughter, Miss Ursula Hake — Her opinion as to cremation — Her political proclivities — Her con- ) sciousness of evils in our social system — Her practical habits — Her appreciation of poetry — Her reading of poetry — Her admiration of Augusta "Webster's drama 'The Sentence,' and of Jean Ingelow — Personal habits — Her voice — Her house- hold — Prayers — Her attitude towards music — Christ Church, Wobum Square — Increasing illness — Relinquishes attendance at church — Dr. Stewart — Dr. Abbot Anderson — Closing days — Her aspect after death — Spiritual disquietude towards the end — Widespread regret occasioned by her death — Letter from the Bishop of Durham to Mr. W. M. Eossetti — Her funeral — Preliminary service, Christ Church, Wobum Square — Highgate Cemetery — Mr. Theodore Watts [-Duu- tonj's 'Two Christmastides' — Memorial service. . . 151 CHAPTER VI. GENERAL POEMS. ' Verses ' 1847 — Italian Poems — ' Death's Chill Between ' and ' Heart's Chill Between ■ ('Athenseum' 1848) — 'The Germ' — ' Goblin Market and other Poems ' — ' The Prince's Pro- gress and other Poems ' — 'A Pageant and other Poems ' — New Poems,' edited by Mr. William Michael Rossetti, 1896, (containing ' A Triad,' ' Cousin Kate,' and ' Sister Maude ' reprinted from 'Goblin Market and other Poems') — Italian Poems 213 CHAPTER VII. DEVOTIONAL POEMS. From ' Annus Domini ' — ' Called to be Saints ' — ' Time Flies ' — ' The Face of the Deep ' — ' Goblin Market and other Poems ' — ' The Prince's Progress and other Poems ' — 'A Pageant and other Poems' — 'Verses' (1893) — 'New Poems ' — List of poems, mainly devotional, included neither in her general ' Poems,' nor in her religious ' Verses '(1893) 267 xiv CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. CHAPTER VIII. PAGE children's books and prose stories. ' Sing-Song ' — Speaking Likenesses — ' Commonplace, and other Short Stories' — 'Maude' 290 CHAPTER IX. DEVOTIONAL PROSE. ' Annus Domini ' — ' Seek and Find ' — ' Called to he Saints ' — ' Letter and Spirit ' — ' Time Flies ' — ' The Face of the Deep' 317 CHAPTER X. CRITICAL SURVEY. Remarks respecting'various aspects of Christina Eossetti's work, and reasons why it is likely to retain its value . . . 355 Bibliography 377 List of Portraits 391 Index 393 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PLATES. Christina Rossetti Frontispiece From tM Chalk Drawing iy Dante Gabriel Bossetti^ 1866. In the possession of Mr, W, M. EossetH, Head of Christina Kossetti To face p, 17 Pencil drawing by Dante Gabriel JRossetHf 1848. In the possession of Mr. Sydney Morse. Portrait of Christina Rossetti " 18 From the oil paifntmg by James ColUnson^ 1849, in the possession of Mr. W. M, Rossetti and reproditced here for the first time, Christina Rossetti " 30 From the pencil drawing by Dante Gabriel Rossetti^ Oc' tober, 1852. Now i/n the possession of Mr. W. M. Rossetti. Reproduced here for the first time. Christina Eossetti and her Mother '* 150 From a photograph by * Lewis Carroll^ (Rev. Charles I/uiwidge Dodgson) tak&a in the garden of Tudor Souse, 16 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, towards 1863. Zn She posses- sion of Mr. W. M, Rossetti. ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT. PAGE Facsimile of Poem by Gabriele Eossetti .addressed to his Daughters Maria and Christina 8 Portrait of Christina Eossetti 9 Reproduced direct from the water-colour by FUippo Pistrucci, 1838, in the possession of Mr. W. M. Rossetti, XVI CHEISTINA EOSSETTI. FAGE Facsimile op a Cobeeotbd Pboof of the Two Sonnets Taint, YET PUESaiNG,' WITH AuTHOkJs COEEECTIONS . 147 By permission of Messrs. MacmUlan & Co. Facsimile of the MS. op the Sons 'When I am Dead, MY Dbaeest' 163 By permission of Messrs. Macmillan & Co. Facsimile of the Title-page of 'Verses,' 1847 .... 214 Facsimile op p. x of a Copy of ' Annus Domini ' showing AN Inseeted Stanza in Manusceipt 269 By permission of Messrs. James Fwrker & Co. Facsimile op a Manuscript Page op one op Christina Kossetti's Devotional Woeks 328 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. CHAPTEE I. BIOGEAPHICAL. (Mainly 1830-1853.) The Eossetti family and environment — Christina's godmothel-s, Princess Christina Bonaparte (Lady Dudley Stuart), and Misa Georgiua Macgregor — Poem by Gabriele Eossetti on his daughters — Childhood — Italian refugees — Hohner Green — Oil on troubled waters — Eeligious Train- ing — Education — Early characteristics and reading — Early yerses — Christina joins drawing-class conducted by Ford Madox Brown — Early portraits — Sits for her brother's 'Girlhood of Mary Virgin ' — Sits for ' Ecoe Ancilla Domini ' — Mr. John E. Clayton — Sits to Mr. Holman Hunt for his ' Light of the World ' — Delicate health — ' Maude,' a story — Dr. Hare — Affection for her grandfather — Christ Church, Albany Street — 50 Charlotte Street — Family circumstances — Frome Selwood — Dr. Crellin — Sits to Ford Madox Brown — Sir William Jenner — First offer of marriage. 'N'evee does a writer feel so keenly how weak are words — at the best inadequate makeshifts for express- ing conceptions or for conveying impressions — as when he strives to show to others in some measure the sweetness and irresistible fascination of such a person- ality as that of Christina Eossetti — a personality whose unique charm is well-nigh untranslatable into words. Time, skill in word-painting, and, above all, much preparatory thought are needed before any sue- 2 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. cess, however small, can be attained in such an en- deavour. And the difficulty is no less great when I turn to another aspect of my present undertaking. One evening when I was in the company of Christina Eossetti's intimate friend, Mr. Frederic Shields, the painter, the talk turned on the relative merits of two other poets and Dante Gabriel Eossetti, and I ventured to point out certain respects in which these poets ex- celled the last named. At first my companion de- murred entirely to the opinions I put forward, and maintained that Dante Gabriel Eossetti surpassed those with whom he was being compared in all the particu- lars I had mentioned. Suddenly, however, he turned to me and exclaimed : ' You may be right — it is so hard to criticise when one loves.' ' It is so hard to criticise when one loves ! ' Ah, thought I, that expresses exactly my chief feeling as I attempt a critical study of Christina Eossetti's work. It is always hard to criticise adequately the work of any poet for whom we have personally a feeling akin to affection. And, if this is true as a general rule, it is particularly true in relation to Christina Eossetti, whom to know at all personally was almost to love. Her life was outwardly uneventful : it is, however, possible to put too much emphasis on this. Very rarely has a life so lacking in incident as hers been passed amid such noteworthy surroundings, and in such constant touch with eminent persons. When we think of the families who, as families, have enriched English literature during the present century, we prob- THE ROSSETTI FAMILY. 3 ably think first of the Tenuysons. The late Laureate, who, by his commanding genius, has conquered and dominated the English-speaking people in a way which has been equalled by no other writer of the century, with the possible exception of Sir Walter Scott, is largely responsible for this. It seldom happens that a family which has produced so illustrious a poet as the late Laureate should include among its members such poets as Mr. Frederick Tennyson and the late Charles Tennyson-Turner, both of whom are admirable in their degree ; while Mr. Frederick Tennyson shares with Landor the almost unparalleled distinction of having produced a volume of fine poems at the venerable age of eighty-eight. In the case of the BrontSs also we see conspicuous gifts ; we see the genius of Charlotte BrontS, and the more limited genius of her sister Emily. Nevertheless, much might be said in favour of the assertion that the Eossetti family are in some respects well-nigh unexampled. Sufficient time has now elapsed since the death of Dante Gabriel to enable us to realise in a large measure the legacy of memorable work which he has left to the world both as a poet and as a painter ; Maria Francesca showed in 'The Shadow of Dante,' and elsewhere, rare powers; William Michael, by a life of scholarly labour, has won for himself a notable place among contemporary critics ; while the present volume is designed to ex- hibit the many excellences of Christina as a writer in poetry and in prose, as well as to give a survey of her life. 4 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. Unquestionably, the natural endowments of Chris- tina Eossetti were very great, but her powers were largely developed by the remarkable training she re- ceived, and her character largely influenced by her circumstances. Her father, we are told by his younger son, ' always spoke Italian in the family, never Eng- lish ; and the children from the earliest years, as well as his wife, answered him in Italian.' Though some prominent critics have held a Con- trary opinion, I clearly trace in her writings the effect of her descent and youthful environment. It has enriched her vocabulary and increased that underlying sensuousness which is so marked a characteristic of all her poetical achievement. She was an exquisite lyrist, but she was not dramatic in the sense that some great lyrists — for example, such as Burns (who, though he lived in peaceful domestic times, has given us ' Scots wha hae,' one of the supreme war-songs of the world) — were dramatic. Much of her finest work both in verse and prose is the veiled expression of her own individu- ality. She was deeply religious, and carried her con- victions into every detail of life, and her clearly-defined religious opinions gave a special interest to her religious verse. Hers was emphatically a character that it was needful to know personally in order to understand : I doubt if anyone who had not the privilege of knowing her can understand in its fulness, in all its sweetness, in its profundity, and in its fascination, her personality, and the effect of that personality both on her poems and on her prose. She conformed her life to a high standard GABRIELE EOSSBTTI. 5 of duty and conduct, and in the serene atmosphere where her soul dwelt she was unsullied by the petty meannesses, and, in her later years at least, almost incapable of being ruffled by the petty worries of exist- ence. But she was intensely human and full of sturdy common sense. Her habitual serenity had not come to her naturally ; it had been acquired by constant, though perhaps partly unconscious effort. And this was one reason why the study of her personality became so interesting. Christina Georgina Eossetti, the younger daughter and youngest child of Gabriele and Frances Mary Lavinia Eossetti, was born on December 5, 1830, at 38 Charlotte Street, Portland Place, London, where her parents then resided, their other children being Maria Prancesca, born in 1827 ; Gabriel Charles Dante, bom in 1828 ; and William Michael, born in 1829. Gabriele Eossetti was eminent in more than one respect. Besides winning repute as a poet, and as a student of Dante, he was an ardent reformer, and, owing to his support of Liberal ideas, he became, when still young, obnoxious to the then Government of Naples, where at the time he lived. He fled from the city under romantic circumstances. Eventually he settled in London, where he became a leading teacher of Italian, and also Professor of Italian at King's Col- lege. In 1826 he married Prances Mary Lavinia Polidori, sister of that Dr. Polidori so well known as physician to Lord Byron. Christina Eossetti manifested and evidently felt the 6 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. deepest love and reverence for both her parents, but the ties of affection which bound her to her mother were peculiar and passionately strong. All of Chris- tina's books, except two, were dedicated to her mother. Mrs. Eossetti was more than usually gifted in telling stories to her children, and this is commemorated in Christina's dedication of 'Speaking Likenesses.' To My DEAREST MOTHER, in geatefui. kembmbeanoe of the Stories with which she used to entertain heb children. Mrs. Eossetti survived until April, 1886, and during fifty-six years Christina was rarely absent from her. Christina Eossetti, on her father's side, was wholly of Italian extraction, but her mother was English on the maternal side. Her father, educated as a Eoman Catholic, did not in England 'openly abjure' that creed. Nevertheless, according to his son William, ' in religion he was mainly a freethinker, but tending in his later years towards an undogmatic form of Chris- tianity.' His attitude towards Christianity in the later years of his life is shown by the interesting and touching volume of Italian religious poems, called L'Arpa Uvangelica (' The Evangelic Harp '), which he published in 1852, two years before his death. His wife was a devout adherent of the Church of England, and brought up all her four children as Protestants. POEM BY GABRIELE ROSSBTTI. 7 Her younger daugliter's godmothers were Lady Dudley Stuart and Miss Georgina Macgregor. Lady Dudley Stuart was one of the Bonaparte family, several mem- bers of which family, particularly Prince Pierre Bona- parte, and occasionally even Prince Louis Napoleon, afterwards Napoleon III., were visitors in the Eossetti household. Mr. W. M. Eossetti has given me some interesting information about Lady Dudley Stuart: My knowledge of Lady Dudley Stuart is not minute, but the following is more or less correct. She was a daughter of one of the brothers of the great Napoleon — Lucian — and must originally have been called Princess Christina Bonaparte. She married a Swedish Count, Arvid de Poss6, and subsequently Lord Dudley Stuart. My father knew her well, and, I think, liked her : she, I suppose, offered to be godmother to the infant born on December 5, 1830, and he assented. She died in 1847. Miss Georgina Macgregor was the daughter of Sir Patrick Macgregor, to whose children Mrs. Eossetti had been governess until the latter's marriage. The names of Christina and Georgina were given to the child in compliment, respectively, to her first and sec- ond godmother. The touching little poem by Gabriele Eossetti, repro- duced on the next page in facsimile with a line-by-line translation from the Italian by his younger son, was sent to me by the latter with the following remarks : The enclosed verses by my Father about Maria and Christina ... are very pretty in their simple way, espe- 8 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. cially in sound. Their date would, I suppose, be towards 1834, when C[hristina] was three years of age. Christina and Maria, '^e/ My dear daughters. Are fresh violets ^J&^e^a/^'jfcr. OP-datdawn. . * O •/. / They are roses nurtured iTen^ ToyioftJ ^t/lJ They are lovely turtle-doves Otu m'eu "FAINT, YET PURSUING." p^ ^ Beyond this shadow and this turbulent sea, ^ Shadow of death and turbulent sea of death, >a Lies all we long to have or long to be : — ^S Take heart, tired man, toil on with lessening breath,^ I/ay violent hands on heaven's high treasury, ^ Be what yon long to be thro' life-long scathe : 1^ A little while hope leans on charity, ^ A little while charity heartens faith. ,j A little while ; and then what further while ? jS /I For ever new whilst evermore the same : All things made new bear each a sweet new name ; Man's lot of death has turned to life his lot, And tearful charity to love's own smile- Press onward, quickened souls, who mounting move. Press onward, upward, fire with monntiog fire : Oatbering volume of untold desire Press upward, homeward, dove with mounting dove. Point me the excellent way that leads above ; Woo me with sequent will me too to aspire ; /^ With sequent heart to follow higher and higher. To follow all who follow on to lov^ /7y Up the high steep, across the goJBen |iU, ^/ Up out of shadows into very light, / Up out of dwindling life to life aglow, I watch you, my beloved, out of sight ; — Sight fails me, and my heart is watching still . My heart lails, yet I follow on to know. Chbistiki G. Rosscrri. [Facsimile of Pboof of Sonnets 'Faint, Yet Pursuing'] 148 CHRISTINA EOSSETTL ' My 2 ' alludes of course to the two sonnets ' Faint, yet Pursuing' mentioned above. Miss Margaret Thomas, who illustrated the article by a woodcut, is best known by her bust of Henry Fielding at Taunton. The extracts immediately succeeding, from letters addressed to Mr. Patchett Martin, written in May, 1892, refer to the article on Tudor House. The 'bracketed clause ' was the Italian poem, beginning ' Uommi- batto,' given below: Please do not delay the woodcut on my account : the trifle I hope to submit to you will I trust be in your hands next week, very possibly on Monday. If you can supersede it by something better, pray do. For I feel myself not the right person to write ' Eossetti ' articles, only this matter of the house seemed unobjectionable. So many portraits of D. Gr. E. have appeared that I know not whether you would easily find a fresh one. I wonder if a sketch of the Drinking Fountain associated with Tudor House might sufficiently interest some of your readers ? Here is the slight sketch we projected, in case you may judge it to be worth appending to the drawing. You will notice that I have conspicuously bracketed one clause : possi- bly it is too irrelevant to the matter in hand, or possibly space will run short: in either event it can be excised by merely concluding what precedes it by a *. It is such a long time since I last saw Tudor House that perhaps my hints as to its actual outside appearance are no longer cor- rect : Miss Thomas will oblige me if she considers this point. I think my note of Saturday answered other suggestions in your last kind letter, and I should not wonder if in truth you agreed with me that I am not the fit person for a Eossetti tome. ARTICLE ON TUDOR HOUSE. 149 An extract from Christina's remarks descriptive of Tudor House during Dante Gabriel's tenancy may suit- ably be reproduced here, more especially as the article has not been reprinted. ' There were, as has often been stated, various creatures, quaint or beautiful, about the house and grounds, some of them at liberty. I particularly recall Bobby — a little owl with a very large face and a beak of a sort of egg-shell green ; a woodchuck, a deer, and a wombat, nameless, or of name unknown to me. Gabriel (his family never called him Dante, Gabriel being indeed his first Christian name), was amused by some lines I wrote on that wombat : — Uommibatto Agil, giocondo, Che ti sei fatto Liscio e rotondo! Deh non fuggire Qual vagabondo, Non disparire Torando il mondo : Pesa davvero D'un emisfero Non lieve il pondo. But far from " liscio " the wombat turned out rough, and I altered 1. 4 to: — " Irsuto e tondo." 'With such inhabitants, Tudor House and its grounds became a sort of wonderland; and once the author of. " Wonderland" photographed us in the garden. It was our aim to appear in the full family group of five ; but whilst various others succeeded, that particular negative was spoilt by a shower, and I possess a solitary print taken from it in which we appear as if splashed by ink. 150 CHEISTTOA ROSSETTL ' Allowing for long lapse of years and consequent possiljle defects of memory, such as these are my recollections of happy days when family or friendly parties used to assemble at Tudor House there to meet with an unfailing affectionate welcome. Gloom and eccentricity such as have been alleged were at any rate not the sole characteristics of Dante Gabriel Kossetti: when he chose he became the sunshine of his circle, and he frequently chose so to be. His ready wit and fun amused us ; his good nature and kindness of heart en- deared him to us.' By the kindness of Mr. W. M. Eossetti, a photograph of Christina and her mother taken by ' Lewis Carroll ' (Eev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), one of those which ' succeeded ' as mentioned above, is reproduced to face this page. CHRISTINA ROSSETTl AND HER MOTHER. From a photograph, now in the possession of Mr. W. M. Rossetti, taken by ' Lewis Carroll ' (Rev, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) in the garden of Tudor House, x6 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, towards iS63> \Tofacep. 150.] CHAPTEE V. BIOGRAPHICAL — (continued^. (Mainly 1893-1894.) Her appearance — Wishes to remove to neighbourhood of Eegent's Park — Reminiscences of London — Mr. Watts-Duntoa's and Mr. W. M. Ros- setti's remarks respecting her attitude towards animals — Description of 30 Torrington Square — Habits of work — Her handwriting — Her books — Her drawing-room — The garden of Torrington Square — Mr. Shields as artist — His Good Shepherd — ■ Mrs. Gamett, Miss Lisa Wilson — Her goddaughter, Miss Ursula Hake — Her opinion as to cremation — Her political proclivities — Her consciousness of evils in our social system — Her practical habits — Her appreciation of poetry — Her reading of poetry — Her admiration of Augusta Webster's drama 'The Sentence,' and of Jean Ingelow — Personal habits — Her voice — Her household — Prayers — Her attitude towards music — Christ Church, Wobum Square — Increasing illness — Relinquishes attendance at church — Dr. Stewart — Dr. Abbot Anderson — Closing days — Her aspect after death — Spiritual disquietude towards the end — Widespread regret occasioned by her death — Letter from the Bishop of Durham to Mr. W. M. Ros- setti — Her funeral — Preliminary sendee Christ Church, Wobum Square — Highgate Cemetery — Mr. Theodore Watts (-Dunton's) 'Two Christmastides ' — Memorial service. I SHALL never forget Christina Eossetti's appearance when first I called upon her. She gave me the im- pression of heing tall: I thought then, as I do still, that none of her portraits sufficiently indicate the commanding breadth of her brow. She looked un- questionably a woman of genius, and it is not every woman or man of genius that so looks. Her voice attracted me at once : never before had I heard such a 152 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. voice. It was intensely musical, but its indefinable charm arose not alone from that cause ; it arose in a large measure from what Mr. Watts-Dunton has aptly called her 'clear-cut method of syllabification,' — a peculiarity which he thinks, no doubt rightly, attribu- table to her foreign lineage. Indications of her foreign lineage were very noticeable on the occasion I am de- scribing. Not of course that it was discernible in accent, nor even in mere tone or inflexion of voice, certainly it was not markedly observable either in her modes of speech or in her ideas. It was something as- suredly there, but, like many of the things we perceive with life's subtler perceptions, it eluded precise defini- tion. Perhaps the nearest approach to an illustration of my meaning would be to say that the effect produced was as though a highly educated foreigner, thoroughly acquainted with the grammar and the vocabulary of the English language, were to speak English, and con- tinue to do so for years, although English was not his mother tongue. No one, I think, can fully understand Christina's many-sided personality without taking into account that foreign origin, and there can be no doubt that under some circumstances the blending of races has much to do with the possession of certain gifts. Demurely attired in a black silk dress she wore no ornaments of any sort, and the prevailing sombre tint was only relieved by some simple white frilling at the throat and wrists. Her hair, still abundant, had by this time a hue which was almost black, and the inter- mingled grey strands, though visible, were not conspic- HER APPEARANCE. 153 uous. Her cap, of some dark material, was extremely- plain and unobtrusive. It has often struck me that one of the great tests of genius is whether the writer or speaker deals with ordinary subjects in such a manner as to reveal his or her own personality. For both in literature and con- versation the manner is much. And if this be true, then both on the day to which I am at present allud- ing, and on every subsequent occasion when I saw her, Christina Eossetti talked like a woman of genius. Naturally at our first meeting the conversation was on ordinary subjects. Yet it lives with me still because of her incomparable manner and the distinction of her phraseology. I may add that she conversed in that calm measured way which, I fancy, often conceals real shyness. In Mr. Sharp's able article before referred to he describea vividly his first meeting with her at an earlier date than that to which I allude : — ' In some ways she reminded me of Mrs. Craik, the author of " John Halifax, Gentleman''; that is, in the Quaker-like simplicity of her dress, and the extreme and almost demure plainness of the material, with, in her mien, something of that serene passivity which has always a charm of its own. She was so pale as to suggest anaemia, though there was a bright and alert look in her large and expressive azure-gray eyes, a colour which often deepened to a dark, shadowy, velvety gray ; and though many lines were imprinted on her features, the contours were smooth and young. Her hair, once a rich brown, now looked dark, and was thickly threaded with solitary white hairs, rather than sheaves of gray. She was about the medium height of women, though 154 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. at the time I thought her considerably shorter. With all her quietude of manner and self-possession there was a certain perturbation from this meeting with a stranger, though one so young and unknown. I noted the quick, alighting glance, its swift withdrawal; also the restless, intermittent fingering of the long, thin double watch-guard of linked gold which hung from below the one piece of colour she wore, a quaint, old-fashioned bow of mauve or pale purple ribbon, fastening a white frill at the neck.' In one of his family letters Dante Gabriel expressed much surprise that his mother and sister would continue to reside in Torrington Square at a rental of 100 guineas per annum,^ which he regarded as exceptionally high, when they could elsewhere obtain at a less rental, even in London or in the immediate vicinity, a house more convenient, and probably with a garden. And I cannot but think that, in making this remark, the poet- painter gave a proof of that strong practical common- sense which, when allied to great imaginative power, is itself an evidence of genius. In truth the house seemed hardly the most suitable for his sister. She herself came to think so, even in the last year of her life, and when I called upon her so late as June 5, 1894, she told me with her usual cheerfulness of manner that she had determined to leave it at the following Michaelmas. She remarked further, that when she had come to live at 30 Torrington Square eighteen years before, there had been ' quite a large family,' and now there was only herself, and the house was ' mostly I Vide Dante (fabriel Rossetti: His Fa/mily Letters, with a Memoir, p. 343. 30 TOEEINGTON SQUARE. 155 shut up.' Her intention, as stated to me, was then to take a little house in or near the Eegent's Park, if possible with a garden, and in close proximity to No. 3 St. Edmund's Terrace, as she wished to see more of her brother and of his family. In relation to this project her brother informs me : • After Lucy's [Mrs. W. M. Eossetti's] death on April 12 1894 there was some suggestion on my part, that C[hristina] sh* become an inmate of my house 3 St. Edmund's Terrace, but that did not seem really feasible — I then proposed to her whether she would like to take the house No. 1 [St. Edmund's Terrace] vacated by Madox Brown's death.' In response to this ' suggestion ' Christina wrote to him on a postcard, postmarked 'April 21. 1894': ' Thank you for your post card received yesterday, but short of the solace of amalgamating with yourself, such a house would be both too large & too expensive.' On my calling again, shortly after June 5 of the same year, she told me that her physician. Dr. Stewart, imperatively forbade any project of removal with its inevitable attendant inconveniences in her present state of health. So it came about that the project was abandoned, and that her last days were spent in Torrington Square. Sometimes in conversation she would give me vivid reminiscences of the changed aspect of London. Once, I remember, she gave me a full account of a walk she had taken in early days — I think about 1852-3 — to visit Mr. and Mrs. Coventry Patmore then living in 156 CHRISTINA ROSSETTL Kentish Town in a house they had taken over from her uncle, Mr. Henry Polydore. Kentish Town was then still rural, and the stroll quite partook of the character of a country walk, though perhaps it ought to be added that (as I am informed by Mr. William Eossetti) their residence was in a district of Kentish Town a ' long way up which might almost be termed Highgate Else.' When Kentish Town was reached, other friends were met, and there was a further walk in the fields, Mr. (now Dr.) Eichard Garnett being of the party. She had clear recollections of Eegent's Park as it was in earlier days before it was railed in as at present. There was one nook in it presenting to her childish eyes some of the features of a cavern, of which she was especially fond. She also remembered wild flowers in a secluded place close to where there is now a railway tunnel. Miss Proctor, in her interesting brochure entitled 'A Brief Memoir of Christina G. Eossetti,' tells us that the impulse for the beautiful lines beginning I wonder if the spring-tide of this year Will bring another spring both lost and dear; came to her when walking in the outer circle of Eegent's Park, and to the last her memories of that locality seemed always pleasurable — a fact not to be wondered at. For even yet there are spots in it which present as much quiet, almost sylvan beauty as is to be found in any part of London. Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton has well said about HER LOVE OF ALL ANIMALS. 157 Christina that she spoke of wild animals ' sometimes as though they were human beings and sometimes aa though they were fairies.' Indeed there is no doubt that her attitude towards animals had something very remarkable in it. I think she had a predilection for all animals — even mice not being thought of with disfavour. But any animal which was closely asso- ciated with her seemed to be viewed, in some sense, as a friend by her. She was much attached to 'Muff,' her cat, and when she found that I was not unsym- pathetic in this matter she talked to me a good deal respecting ' Muff's ' habits, revealing keen observation in everything she said. She was gratified when I saluted ' Muff,' and used to exclaim : ' How condescend- ing you are to that pussy.' Once she remarked : ' Like ourselves, creatures have their friends.' I remember that Christina once said to me in her gentle way, 'Perhaps you go into the country in August to kill something ? ' 'I never go into the country to kill anything,' I answered. I shall not cease to remember what pleasure she showed in my avowal. It was as though she had been inclined to take back the gift of her friendship had she found that I really went ' into the country to kill something,' and was relieved to find that she was not obliged to do so. Number thirty Torrington Square, Bloomsbury, where Christina had lived since 1876, in no wise differed in external aspect from many thousands of 158 CHRISTINA KOSSETTI. other houses in the same part of London. Torrington Square is really oblong in shape, and according to Mr. Sharp, Dante Gabriel used to call it 'Torrington Oblong.' Probably the ordinary dull-coloured clay bricks used for so many London houses were employed for the erection of Christina's home. But Time, weather, and soot had so completely done their work that it was impossible to know precisely what the original colour had been. The house, of three storeys above the ground floor, appeared even higher than it was on account of its narrowness. The small windows were of a usual shape. The front door, slightly raised above the level of the square, was approached by stone steps. There was the inevitable area (which, however, served one useful purpose in giving apparently excellent light to a pleasant-looking kitchen window), and the hardly less inevitable verandah, opening from the first floor. The entrance-hall was narrow, and had on the left the room which had once been the dining-room and concerning which I am about to speak more fully. The staircase was not steeper than was to be antici- pated in such a house. From a window on the half landing (the small yard space behind could hardly be termed a back garden) a glimpse was obtainable of one or two plane-trees. Several pieces of old furniture, some of it Chippendale, were scattered through the rooms. The drawing-room, immediately over the dining-room, was comparatively spacious, and always struck me as being not only the largest, but, by far. HEE DINING-ROOM. 159 the most cheerful room in the house. It also had a bedroom behind it. There were no other sitting-rooms. The narrow entrance-hall, with decoration and wall paper somewhat faded in appearance, calls for no especial mention. The plainness and simplicity — almost the bareness of the furniture and appointments in the dining-room were however relieved by one or two objects of interest, such as a letter-weight de- signed by Benedetto Sangiovanni mentioned pre- viously. There were also several family pictures, but not of such importance as those in the drawing-room to be mentioned hereafter. At the time of which I speaJi the little room behind the dining-room was arranged as a bedroom, though, somewhat earlier, it had been Christina's sitting-room. The bareness of furniture ia the dining-room was accounted for by the fact that the room had ceased to be used for dining. In or about 1887 it had become the bedroom of Miss Eliza Polidori, who from that date was mostly bed-ridden. On that lady's death in June, 1893, (subsequent to which date my description of the house must be understood to apply) it was arranged once more as a sitting-room. But, as a matter of fact, it was un- used except by the servants who were allowed by their mistress to use it whenever convenient to themselves. I have always felt that when houses are inhabited by persons of marked idiosyncrasy, or, it may be of genius, they acquire in some inexplicable way some of the char- acteristics of their occupants. And in using the word characteristics, I mean something far more subtle and 160 CHRISTINA ROSSETTL indefinable in words than can be brought about by any mere material arrangements which are of course en- tirely dictated by the convenience or by the caprice of the inhabitants. And never has this feeling come upon me more strongly than in respect to Christina Kossetti's residence. About much of her best work there is a quietude, a controlled and well-ordered sadness (gloom would not be the correct term), and I trust I shall not be deemed unduly fanciful when I say that I seemed to feel a like atmosphere whenever I entered her abode. I forgot the prosaic character of my external surround- ings ; I forgot the whirl of the streets ; I forgot even the comparative lack of silence in the square itself. I seemed to have passed into an atmosphere of rest and of peace. Her work with all its noble — its unsurpassed qualities, with all its faults, too, was her own. It was original, it was unborrowed. She was too great a writer even to be ' bookish.' Her impulse to write was spontaneous, it came from the deeps of her own soul, it was not derived even in the most perfectly justifi- able and noblest sense from the achievements of others. Hence it was probably that, though none valued really great books more than she, books were not conspicuous in her home. She did not require them as tools. She had no room set apart and arranged for a study. I am told by an intimate friend that in her mother's lifetime she did much of her writing — wrote many of her lovely poems descriptive of Nature — in the small upper back bedroom whose only outlook was to the tall dingy walls of adjacent houses. Afterwards, as METHOB OF LITERAEY WORK. 161 Mr. W. M. Eossetti informs me, she wrote whatever she wrote in her drawing-room. In truth her inner vision was so keen that she was well-nigh independent of external influences. She was always reticent respecting her habits of work or methods of composition, and even to her inti- mate friends sought to avoid reference even to her published work. Earely has there been an instance of high poetic genius so spontaneous in character. As will be seen by examples I cite in subsequent chap- ters she did occasionally recast passages. Neverthe- less the statement about her work which I am about to quote from Mr. Glendinning Nash, her friend and clergyman, is substantially correct. Mr. Nash says in a private letter to me, which I am permitted to quote : ' Christina Eossetti told me that there were times when the power to write had apparently passed away, and at others she wrote for hours with no mental effort or fatigue. The poetic flow was spontaneous and often she wrote on themes which she had not previously decided to write on. She seldom revised her work.' Her brother William has himself written about her in this connection : •Christina's habits of composition were eminently of a spontaneous kind. I question whether she ever once deHb- erated with herself whether or not she would write some- thing or other, and then, having thought out a subject, proceeded to treat it in regular spells of work. Instead of this, something impelled her feelings, or " came into her head, " and her hand obeyed the dictation. I suppose she 11 162 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. scribbled tbe lines off rapidly enough, and afterwards took whatever amount of pains she deemed requisite for keeping them right in form and expression — for she was quite con- scious that a poem demands to be good in execution, as well as genuine in impulse ; but, (strange as it may seem to say so of a sister who, up to the year 1876, was almost con- stantly in the same house with me), I cannot remember ever seeing her in the act of composition. (I take no count here of the bouts rimes sonnets of 1848.) She consulted nobody, and solicited no advice, though it is true that with regard to her published volumes — or at any rate the first two of them — my brother volunteered to point out what seemed well adapted for insertion, and what the reverse, and he found her a very willing recipient of his monitions.' Since Christina's death Mr. Shields has told me that he thinks, before she wrote a poem, she shut her eyes, and called up all the scene — especially all the nat- ural objects in it. She began to compose verses, as we have seen, in April, 1842. From that time until about 1866, when she published her 'Prince's Progress and Other Poems,' her pieces were copied into note-books by her sis- ter Maria until November 17, 1847, and thencefor- ward by herself, the date of composition being given in each case. These note-books, small and very neat, are variously bound in green, red, and black leather. From 1866 she discontinued the practice of writing in note-books and afterwards generally wrote on ruled blue paper, often quarto size. Christina's handwriting is an interesting study. At the age of eighteen (as will be observed from the fac- 'WHEN I AM DEAD, MY DEAREST.' 163 ^C yMZ jS^t.t.C'fT' d^.'A^ ^y^^-»<^ ^^mj Vt^^Tt' A^^ -^^^.>i>*W- [Facsimile of the MS. or the Sons ' When I am Dead, MY Dearest.'] 164 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. simile of the original MS. of the lovely song ' When I am Dead, my Dearest ' appearing at p. 163) it was clear and small, but essentially characterless. Subse- quently, while continuing equally legible, it became strong and full of character, and did not, like the handwriting of so many literary workers, deteriorate. Mr. Shields, when conversing with me, once advanced the plausible theory that Christina's handwriting^ grew in evidence of strength as gradually she became conscious of her own powers. Certainly it remained strong and full of character even after her last illness had become serious, as two examples in my own pos- session, written as late as August, 1894, clearly show. Then it became shaky, and probably about the end of September, 1894, she ceased to write, her last attempt to sign a cheque, made towards November 10th of that year, being quite illegible. On entering the room which had once been the dining-room one saw to the left and near the window a small bookcase of some plain inexpensive wood. It contained only a few books. Many were novels, and these were mostly English classics, Scott and Maria Edgeworth, for instance, and Dickens. In a sympathetic essay, contributed to ' The Book- man' soon after her death, Katherine Tynan (Mrs. Hinkson), after saying how fond Christina was of Mrs. Gaskell's ' Cranf ord,' goes on to tell how 1 111 hia work on the philosophy of handwriting Mr. John H. Ingram has given a careful analysis of her calligraphy based on a minute examina- tion. HER DRAWING-ROOM. 165 • when she found I had not read it she pressed upon me her own copy, an old one bound in the original hrown cloth, and with an inscription, " from her affectionate uncle." ' In the drawing-room (the only sitting-room used by Christina Eossetti after the death of Eliza Polidori) there were two bookcases. Many of the volumes were religious and devotional, though by no means all ; but it should be understood, as her brother informs me, that ' Christina's library consisted scarcely at all of books of her own choosing — certainly not one volume in twenty — they were principally her mother's books.' The drawing-room, lit by two cheerful large windows overlooking the square, always impressed one as the most agreeable room in the house. On entering it one saw in the centre of the wall on the left hand the chalk drawing of Christina by Dante Gabriel, done in 1866, elsewhere referred to. Opposite to it at the other side of the room, and over the chimney-piece, was a most beautiful portrait of her mother also by Dante Gabriel. This picture was flanked on either side by portraits of Dante Gabriel and William, while on the same wall, but hanging further from the window, was a portrait in oils of that Dr. Polidori who was Byron's physician. This picture is now in the National Portrait Gallery. On the table was an Empire enamel and ormolu ink- stand of delicate workmanship which had been in her family for three generations. After her death it was given by her brother to Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton as a fitting memorial of old friendship. 166 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. Close to one of the windows, and opposite to the door, was a miniature glass-house containing ferns. These particular ferns were especial favourites, and as long as she was able to do anything, she saw to them herself. Doubtless due to the care lavished upon them they were excellent specimens when their somewhat artificial mode of existence is borne in mind. They have now passed into the possession of her brother, who hopes to be as successful as his sister in their cultivation. Unlike her friend, the late Dr. Littledale, who, though passionately fond of flowers in the abstract, was compelled by a curious physical disability — he turned faint in any room with flowers — to banish them from his chambers, she was not only fond of flowers but much appreciated their presence in the rooms she inhabited. In a letter quoted by Miss Proctor, Christina says : — ' As I no longer go to the country from time to time, I may say the country very graciously comes to me, for friends send or bring me flowers.' She expressed always particular pleasure in receiv- ing flowers from her friends, often remarking when I brought some : ' It is delightful to get flowers which one knows have not been bought, which are from a garden, and therefore really fresh.' As a centre picture, on the wall facing the drawing- room window, was the copy of the autotype of Mr. Shields's lovely drawing which, under the circumstances HEE DBA WING-ROOM. 167 previously alluded to, had been given by the artist to her mother. On either side were photographs of Dante G-abriel's ' Hamlet ' and Ophelia ' and ' Cassandra.' It will be remembered that to bring out the significance of the last named, Dante Gabriel wrote two sonnets. Christina Eossetti's couch (on which she usually lay during the last year of her life, scarcely rising even when visitors were announced) was generally placed near to, and in full view of ' The Good Shepherd,' by Mr. Shields. Often, however, on summer evenings, it was wheeled closer to the windows which, facing the west, admitted the afternoon sun. Mr. W. M. Eossetti reminds me that ' one of the features of the drawing-room was a rather elabo- rate glass chandelier for candles — bought by Gabriel, — say towards 1864, and given to his mother, I suppose in 1876 — When there was a strong low sun the pendants of this chandelier made extremely vivid prism reflections on the walls and door.' Sometimes, when the warmth of the weather per- mitted the opening of the windows, when the noise in the square was hushed, and the deepening shadows of twilight obscured the too near view of the houses opposite while bringing into yet stronger relief the out- lines of several graceful trees in the foreground of the garden of the square, the outlook from her drawing- 1 ' Hamlet and Ophelia ' and ' Cassandra ' are fully described by Mr. Sharp at pp. 198-9 and 171, respectively, of his exhaustive monograph Dante Gabriel Eossetti, a Record and a Study. 168 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. room became attractive, almost picturesque. Thus it ■was, I remember, when once I called, somewhat later than my wont, to take her some flowers, and the mem- ory of that evening lingers particularly in my mind because of her especial kindness to me. The weather was warm, and she was reclining on the sofa by the open drawing-room window. She spoke to me anew about the effect the garden at Holmer Green had had on her young imagination. She talked also of her uncle. Dr. PoMori, and told me how disappointed his parents were when he announced his intention to travel with Lord Byron. They thought that in adopt- ing this course, he was doing badly for himself; he ought instead to have taken up a practice that offered at Norwich. A few minutes before seeing Christina Eossetti I had left a somewhat large literary 'at home,' and though this was far from being unenjoy- able in its own way, I was struck more than usually by the contrast of the scene I had just quitted, and the serenity, the assured peace, which seemed to dwell around her. Under ordinary conditions the garden of Torrington Square, enclosed in its prim and somewhat sooty iron railings, looked by no means inviting. It is therefore worth remarking, as an additional instance of Chris- tina's habitual contentment even under circumstances which many people would have deemed depressing, that more than once (when no longer able to walk further) she expressed to me the satisfaction she had felt in walking for a few minutes in this garden sup- TORRINGTON SQUARE. 169 ported on the arm of hei nurse, Miss (generally styled Mrs.) Eead. One afternoon in the summer of 1894 I called at Torrington Square. I saw by her appearance and learnt incidentally from her words (she never, except on one occasion to be named hereafter, directly alluded to her sufferings), that in all respects she'was worse in body than I had ever before seen her, although her cheerful composure was entirely unshaken. The con- versation turned upon Mr. Shields and his work, arising, if my remembrance be correct, from my having praised ' The Good Shepherd.' She said what pleasure she felt at my praise of her friend, adding : ' That is the only representation of the subject I ever saw which brings to my mind at all adequately my conception of it.' Then, with the warmth of appreciation not un- frequently her wont in speaking of those who formed her inner circle, she spoke with affection of Mr. Shields, gave utterance to her high opinion of his genius as a painter — especially as a religious painter — and ended: 'You see he does not treat sacred themes merely as an artist ; they are part of his life. They are part of his life in a way that I have never known them to be of any other artist, and that is one cause of his marvellous power.' I remarked that the contempla- tion of such a picture must solace her in hours of pain and weariness, and she said it did. Christina, in spite of her being somewhat of a re- cluse, or perhaps the more so because she was somewhat of a recluse, was a keen judge of character. Her own 170 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. character, if sweetened and purified by the discipline of life, was also strengthened. Although she never used a harsh word about anyone, she was well able to discriminate between those she liked and those for whom she did not care. Probably the best piece of character-drawing in all her writings is to be found in the brief poem called ' A Sketch ' which first appears in her ' New Poems ' : The blindest buzzard that I know Does not wear wings to spread and stir; Nor does my special mole wear fur, And grub among the roots below : He sports a tail indeed, but then It 's to a coat ; he 's man with men : My blindest buzzard that I know My special mole, when will you see 1 Oh no, you must not look at me, . . since your eyes are blind, you 'd say, ' Where ? What ? ' and turn away. 15 August 1864. Her sympathy in the highest sense of the term was universal, for she was quick to perceive the good in all. But it never degenerated into the maudlin weak- ness which is the attendant danger of sympathy. Gentleness was a quality she admired much, and of one friend, Mrs, Garnett, whose ministrations she val- ued greatly in her last illness, she said to me once : ' I like her, she is so gentle.' Christina Eossetti was also very grateful for the frequent presence during the 'TIME FLIES.' 171 same period of Miss Lisa Wilson,^ the ' Fior-di-Lisa ' of her lovely poem with that title. Her analysis of motives — ■ her discernment between the apparent and the real is well brought out in her little essay in ' Time Flies ' under date of May 22 re- specting an English traveller in Sicily who is every- where treated with great hospitality and courtesy. At one mansion however, although waited upon with every politeness by a ' depressed staff of domestics,' he • arrived ' and ' departed ' ' un welcomed ' by the family. ' He lacked nothing save a welcome.' ' This treatment left upon him a gloomy impression. How should meat, drink, shelter sufi&oe and solace an unwelcomed guest ? ' Yet afterwards he saw cause to revise and reverse his estimate, becoming aware that the undemonstrative family who had harboured him laboured at that very time under the anxiety of a bitter grief. Rejoice with him they could not, burden him with a share of their own misery they would not; all that they had to give they gave, and hid from their guest an irremediable sorrow. 'How often we judge unjustly when we judge harshly. The fret of temper we despise may have its rise in the agony of some great, unflinching, unsuspected, self-sacrifice, or in the sustained strain of self-conquest, or in the endurance of unavowed, almost intolerable pain. ' Whoso judges harshly is sure to judge amiss.' Touching this quotation from 'Time Flies' her brother tells me that 1 Since Christina Rossetti's death Miss Lisa Wilson has published a volume of Verses dedicated to 'her sweet and gracious memory ' which con- clusively establishes Miss Wilson's own right to rank among lyrical poets. 172 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. ' the allusion must be to Edward Lear (author of " Book of Nonsense " etc.) who travelled in Calabria, and who, in his book about the travels makes some statement of the kind — Christina liked hia book much towards 1855, finding it full of genial Italian character-drawing and amusement.' He adds, about another topic : ' I do not consider that C[hristina] was particularly fond of children — In early youth certainly not. As she advanced in years she enjoyed them and their pretty or quaint ways, but still not to any extent comparable to what marks a multi- tude of women.' Writing to her brother William under date of March 10, 1887, from Torquay, she says : ' The George Hakes have a little son and it is said that my small Ursula [her goddaughter] on seeing him said "Guy, Guy."' And again, at a later date from London : In talking the other day I never recollected to speak of little Ursula's Bible. If without its being troublesome you could and would oblige me by procuring it at the S.P.C.K. shop, Northumberland Avenue, I should be much pleased. I want a good print one with references and Apocrypha, really well bound ; and for such a child should prefer a cheer- ful binding (red for instance) if there is a choice, but this is of no consequence. So when (D. V.) I see you next Wednesday if you have not seen about it I will set you free from the request ; for although I should in itself prefer your selection, I can get the Bible otherwise. Apropos of a friend's funeral she wrote to her brother William: ' It was a relief to me to infer from the newspaper report that cremation had been forborne,' THE EVILS OF OUR SOCIAL SYSTEM. 173 and in elucidation of the above remark the same gen- tleman has written to me : ' There seems to be an unmeaning superstition among strict Church-people (I found it so once when speaking to my Mother) that cremation is a device of anti-Christians, to discredit " the resurrection of the body." C[hristina] must have shared this prejudice more or less.' In relation to his sister's political proclivities he has vrritten as follovirs : ' My sister knew and cared next to nothing about party politics (apart from questions having a religious bearing) ; in all her later years, however, her feeling leaned more towards the Conservative than the Liberal cause.' She felt most keenly as to some of the evils in our social system, and wrote thus eloquently in ' The Face of the Deep ' on Eevelation xviii. 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19 : • " 15. The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing. • " 16. And saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls ! ' " 17. For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off," * This desolation which we have not yet seen must one day be seen. Meanwhile we have known preludes, re- hearsals, foretastes of such as this: so that looking back 174 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. through the centuries we may take up our lamentation and say: — ' Alas Sodom once full of bread ! From empty fulness, good Lord, deliver us. 'Alas Tyre whose merchants were princes! From riches but not toward God, good Lord, deliver us. ' Alas the man whose barns sufficed not ! From heart and hands shut close, good Lord, deliver us. 'Alas Dives clothed in purple and fine linen ! From remediless destitution, good Lord, deliver us. ' And looking forward we may say : — 'Alas any whom the unknown day and hour find un- prepared ! From the folly of the foolish virgins, good Lord, deliver us. ' And looking around us trembling we needs must say : — ' Alas England full of luxuries and thronged by stinted poor, whose merchants are princes and whose dealings crooked, whose packed storehouses stand amid bare homes, whose gorgeous array has rags for neighbours! From a canker in our gold and silver, from a moth in our garments, from blasted crops, from dwindling substance, from righteous retribution abasing us among the nations, good Lord, deliver us. Amen. ' " i8. And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying. What city is like unto this great city! " ' If any shipmasters and crews, sailors and sea-traders, have yet to lament and quake, well may arrogant England amid her seas quake and lament betimes. ' " What city is like unto this great city I " — Like what she was, like what she is: her present tallying with her past. ' For purposes of probation height and depth are at once distinguishable and continuous: man, the probationer set midway between these extremities, has it within his option THE EVILS OE OUR SOCIAL SYSTEM. 175 to reclaim either from the other. Probation over, height and depth, whilst still of two aspects, will yet form one evidently undivided sequence; to the summit or to the base of which consummated man has worked his way. And why not all the baptised to the summit 1 " Ye did run well ; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth 1 " ' " ig. And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness ! for in one hour is she made desolate." ' To cast dust on the head with penitence attests death unto sin. To cast dust on the head with impenitence pre- figures the second death. ' Sin conducts all to one goal. The land sinner finds dust in plenty ; the seafaring sinner shall inherit dust enough. ' Thank God, ample provision is stored for every penitent wheresoever and whatsoever : dust, ashes, are ready to hand for all. ' Lord, array us in spiritual sackcloth, that by penitence we may bear witness to Thy goodness.' Miss Proctor writes as follows respecting Christina's interest in practical work among the poor : ' In 1886 and 1887 I was engaged in parish work in Eatcliff. My mission was to go on Monday nights to the Factory Girls' Club, London Street, under the special care of the vicar, Eev. E.. K. Arbuthnot. Here congregated many of Bryant and May's workers, but rope-makers, satchel-makers, jam-makers, and all the industries of the East End were represented. Many were of Irish parentage and Eoman Catholics. The object was to try and interest them in something, and get them into the club after work was over. Miss Eossetti took a deep interest in the welfare 176 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. of these young people, and would herself have liked to become a working member of the club, had her nursing duties allowed it; but at that time she had two aunts, invalids, to tend. 'In returning home, which I never did before eleven o'clock p.m., many incidents struck me on the route. I was accustomed to relate all to Miss Eossetti, who specially wished to hear how the evening had been passed. At one time it was the tiny children returning home alone, their part being over at the Theatre, that excited her commisera- tion, and she said : — " London makes mirth, but I know God hears The sobs in the dark, and the dropping of tears. " ' Sometimes my tales were ludicrous scenes at the suppers given, and presided over by Mr. (now Sir) Walter Besant. She^was very sympathetic with young people.' A brief extract may here be raade from a letter placed at my disposal as showing her thoughtfulness when even a remote chance occurred of being useful to others : ' Will you kindly add Mr. 's No. on the enclosed card, & then allow it to be posted. I had an opportunity of mentioning him to an old-established watchmaker this morning, — tho' I fear nothing will ensue.' She was never what would be commonly termed an active woman of affairs ; yet she was not unpractical, and her methodical and carefully arranged account- books of household expenditure were models of neatness. 'THE FACE OF THE DEEP.' 177 In 'Time Flies' under date of May 31 she speaks admirably about time and its employment. ' What is meant by '' want of time " 1 What do I mean by the words] ■It seems that I must mean one of two things : either that I lack time for duties because I devote it to non-duties, or that, devoting it to duties, I feel discontented at lacking leisure for non-duties. ' Non-duties may be attractive ; they may even appear on occasion heroic or self-devoted : but we may be sure they are not duties so long as there honestly is not time for them. ' On the contrary, taking the place of duties, they would degenerate into offences.' She held that possibly we might be near the end of the world and wrote as follows in 'The Face of the Deep': — • And at the present day when so open-mouthed an antag- onism has set in against Christ and Itevelation ; and when so many " devout and honourable" persons (if following the Inspired text I dare call them so) are arrayed against the truth as it is in Jesus; and when signal virtues of philan- thropy, with self-spending and alacrity in being spent, take the field like Goliath the Giant in defiance of the armies of the Living God; I think the pseudo- Christ-like aspect of error becomes prominently urged upon our gravest considera- tion : especially as of necessity we know not how close upon us may already be the actual personal Antichrist in whom human wickedness appears to culminate; that Antichrist who wUl, it seems, be a foul human agent and copy of the old original Evil one. Let us pause a moment to face this last great adversary, who not as our open enemy but as one of ourselves, will do this dishonour.' 12 178 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. Quaintly and characteristically she enforces the desirability of a sublimated form of courtesy, and under date of May 24 she writes in ' Time FKes ' : — ' A certain Englishman sojourning in the East, and by mishap breaking a valuable pipe, the property of his enter- tainer, felt abashed, when his host took up the word: " In a stranger the destruction of so costly an article might cause displeasure, but in a friend every action has its charm. " 'One friend I once possessed who would, I think, on occasion have been capable of such graciousness. But why (if so it be) have I known one such only ? And why am I (alas !) not myself the second 1 ' The 'friend' referred to above. Dr. Adolf Heimann, was Professor of German in University College, London. With a touch almost of humour she tells in ' Time Flies,' under date of October 12, how ' a good unobtru- sive Christian of my own intimate circle ' — the ' good unobtrusive Christian ' was her aunt Eliza Polidori — found comfort in the recollection that no day lasted longer than twenty-four hours. And there is a real but not an affected humility in the entry in ' Time Flies ' under date of December 4, where she sets before her- self and others, as an example worthy of imitation, the truth conveyed in the remark of 'an exemplary Christian ' (her Aunt Charlotte Polidori) that she was never blamed without perceiving some justice in the charge. As might be anticipated Christina had the deepest love of the masterpieces of English poetry. But, even HER READING OF POETRY. 179 when dealiag with masterpieces, she was by no means indiscriminate in her praise. Sometimes, indeed, she admired passages in great poets which are not univer- sally selected for commendation. An example of this is seen in her liking for Milton's sonnet ' To Lawrence ' mentioned by her brother in a letter to Mr. Hall Caine. She was an exquisite reader of poetry. Mr. Sharp has told us ( vide p. 62) how finely she read to him South- well's 'Burning Babe,' as well as her own work, and from personal knowledge I can confirm the truth of his remarks. Nothing was more delightful than to hear her repeat snatches of poetry, and she was equally able to bring out the subtler rhythm of English prose. I do not think she had ever been taught elocution, and probably she had never even studied it consciously, yet unconsciously its higher rules came to her naturally. Her reading was by no means extensive, but then it was always of the best ; and she could distinguish between verse, however melodious, and poetry. She was gen- erous in her praise of contemporaries — especially when that praise was well merited — as in the case of Augusta Webster's striking drama 'The Sentence.' In the article ('Athenaeum,' No, 3,641, August 7, 1897) already referred to appears a letter to Dora Greenwell, dated December 31, 1863, in the course of which Christina says : ' What think you of Jean Ingelow, the wonderful poet ? I have not yet read the volume, but reviews with copious extracts have made me aware of a new eminent name having arisen among us. I want to know who she is, what she is 180 CHKISTINA ROSSETTI. like, where she lives. All I have heard is an uncertain rumour that she is aged twenty-one, and is one of three sisters resident with their mother. A proud mother, I should think.' And in a letter to Anne Gilchrist, of date 1864, she wrote : ' My acquaintance with Jean Ingelow's poems to which you kindly introduced me, has heen followed by a very slight acquaintance with herself. She appears as unaffected as her verses, though not their equal in regular beauty: however I fancy hers is one of those variable faces in which the variety is not the least charm.' Christina Eossetti's personal habits were of the simplest. She rose early, and dined at one or two o'clock, taking a third meal in the evening. Usually she retired to rest early, though never, I am informed by her brother and others, without passing some time, probably half an hour, in prayer. One day, when at Torrington Square soon after her death, her brother showed me an old-fashioned prie-dieu. Even before her last illness she had found the mechanical exertion of kneeling somewhat difficult, and had used this prie-dieu as an assistance. The simplicity and regularity of her life was prob- ably the cause of the considerable recuperative power which frequently surprised her physician, Dr. Stewart, during her last illness. She took Holy Communion twice weekly — on Thursday and Sunday. Probably admirers of her devotional work will recollect her little homilies for special occasions which close ' Time ON FASTING. 181 Flies.' The ' holy man ' named by her in the first of these — that for Ember Wednesday, as suggesting a new motive for joining in the service of ' Churching of Women ' — was the late Canon Burrows, for- merly rector of Christ Church, Albany Street. She was invited to write his life, and wished to do so, only relinquishing the idea owing to the state of her health. She favoured moderate fasting for religious purposes, and in ' The Face of the Deep ' speaks as follows con- cerning it : ' God accepts dues as gifts. Man receives gifts as dues,' characteristically and somewhat naively adding, though without mentioning the ' eminent phy- sician ' by name : ' An eminent physician [Sir William Jenner] once told me that there are people who would benefit in health by fasting : a secondary motive, yet surely not an unlawful one. To perform a duty from a motive which is not wrong may prove a step towards performing it from the motive which is right. To leave it unperformed seems the last contrivance adapted to result in its performance.' Even in the last year of her life, amid constant suf- fering and much weakness, she was always cheerful and frequently bright, and though a recluse she never spoke to me as such. Here may be introduced some words from Mr. Sharp in a communication to myself : ' A fine phrase of hers that I remember was : " The blithe cheerfulness which one can put over one's sadness like a veil — a bright shining veil. Cheerfulness I consider a fimda- mental and essential Christian virtue.'" 182 CHKISTINA EOSSETTI. What follows, an extract from a letter to Mrs. Patch- ett Martin dated November 2, 1891, may be quoted here as describing her ways at a somewhat earlier date. The ' den ' was the little back sitting-room mentioned at p. 159 : ' It is not altogether unsociability which holds me aloof. I live with a quite aged Aunt permanently invalided, and house arrangements and many points have to subserve her convenience. So now friends are very kind in coming to see me without expecting my return visit; and they take me just as they find me, which in all probability is receiving them into "my den."' The very tones of her voice, in their slow distinct intonation, were pleasant to hear. Her humorous sonnet-epitaph on the Prseraphaelite Brotherhood will be remembered, and also her amusing lines in ' New Poems ' ' On Albina ' and ' Forget Me Not ' written respectively in June, and on August 19, 1844. And as late as June, 1894, 1 recollect her laughing heartily on hearing that a French translation of ' David Copperfield,' which, on a visit to Paris, I had picked up second-hand a few days before, on one of the bookstalls on the Qiiais which line the Seine, was entitled ' Le Neveu de ma Tante.' At all times she was willing to chat about her favourite authors, and her knowledge of literature — even of the J3y-ways of literature in unexpected quarters — was considerable. For instance, I recollect her tell- ing me on one occasion that though she herself had never read a line of Charles Whitehead, she remembered well her elder brother speaking to her with warm ap- CHRIST CHURCH, "WOBURN SQUARE. 183 preciation concerning him, and pointing out to her that probably Whitehead had influenced Dickens's early- style. During the illness of her last surviving aunt, Miss Eliza Harriet Polidori, Christina had secured the services as nurse of Mrs. Eead. Finding on the death of her aunt, that she herself required the services of a nurse, and being satisfied in every way with Mrs. Eead, she asked her to remain. Two other servants — a cook and a housemaid — had always been kept. In the morning, and once more towards nine o'clock in the evening, Christina Eossetti gathered the ser- vants around her, reading for a few minutes a passage of Scripture, and then a suitable prayer from the An- glican Prayer-Book, and frequently the Collect for the day. She continued the practice of household devotion twice daily till nearly the close of her life, and when too weak to conduct it herself, she directed what was to be read, and Mrs. Eead undertook the duty in her presence. Hymns were never sung on these occasions. For nearly twenty years she had been a constant wor- shipper at Christ Church, Woburn Square. A friend informs me that towards the close of her life Christina always sat in the very front pew in church. She re- mained until the very last before leaving the building, and it was evident from her demeanour that even then she strove to avoid ordinary conversation, evidently feeling that it would disturb her mood of mind. For certain years previous to 1894 she had suffered from a heart ailment, accompanied by dropsical symp- 184 CHRISTINA KOSSETTI. toms, and in May, 1892, she was operated on for cancer, successfully it was thought at the time. Early in June, 1892, with her brother and a hospital nurse, she went to Brighton, and appeared to gain much benefit from the change. One of her pleasures when there was to hear him read aloud the 'Autobiography of Isaac Williams,' the poet and divine, the friend of John Henry Newman and of Edward Bouverie Pusey, and author of more than one of the ' Tracts for the Times.' She had a great regard for Isaac Williams, who was in some sense a poet of the Tractarian Move- ment. Dante Gabriel had also a high opinion of this writer's sonnets. Eeaders of the Prefatory Note to her 'Seek and Find' will recollect her expres- sions of indebtedness to Williams's ' Harmony.' The letter ensuing shows how she came to read his ' Autobiography ' : To Mr. Patchett Martin. 30 Torrington Square — 'W.C. Thursday. [May 12, 1892.] First I thought I would not write till I had something unselfish to write about, but now I feel as if it may look ungracious and ungrateful not to acknowledge your kind- ness in offering me an occasional book to read. I shall be very thankful for such a loan when a book is lying abso- lutely idle, and the particular work you propose (Eev. Isaac Williams) is one I should pick out. Very truly your obliged Cheistina G. Eossetti. What follows, in a note to Mrs. Patchett Martin, written on June 18, 1892, alludes to the same subject : 'DEAN CHDRCH.' 185 Please hand the enclosed receipt [for 21. 12s. 6d. in pay- ment of articles contributed to ' Literary Opinion '] to Mr. Martin with my thanks and with particular thanks for the books he so obligingly lends me. I hope to enjoy all three. Thank you also for missing me at Church: I hope to refill my seat in a few Sundays. To Mr. Fatchett Martin. I took the liberty of taking your loan out of town with me. Now on my return I send back with my grateful thanks two of the volumes, venturing to retain 'Dean Church ' as I have not finished reading it. Mr. Henley's ' Hospital ' is grim but interesting ; ' Isaac Williams ' much to my taste. Truly your obliged Chbistina G. Eossetti. •Dean Church' means Dean Church's village ser- mons preached at Whatley, near Frome ; ' Mr. Henley's " Hospital " ' refers to the set of poems in Mr. W. E. Henley's ' Book of Verses.' Ahout the same date her vrork had begun to attract attention on the Continent, for her brother tells me that 'Henri Jacottet wrote some articles about C[hristina], 1893 or 1894, in a Swiss review. In Mr. Eossetti's opinion these articles are really good. He has also written to me regarding Christina's attitude tovrards music — an attitude made interesting psycho- logically from Dante Gabriel's dislike of elaborate music : 186 CHRISTINA BOSSETTI. • I don't consider that Christina had any dislike of music : would even say that in a certain sense she liked and admired it — But she had no sort of musical gift of her own, and (sensibly enough) did not cultivate an art towards which she had no vocation.' There was no piano or musical instrument of any kind in her house, and I never heard her allude in talk in the faintest degree to the pleasure derivable from music. Towards March or April of 1893 a renewed manifes- tation of cancer showed itself along her left shoulder and" arm, and now any hope of permanent recovery was abandoned. Her sufferings were great, but her forti- tude was even greater. I often saw her showing visi- ble traces of pain, but never, save once, did she directly allude to it. On this occasion she said to me, with an inexpres- sibly pathetic look in her eyes : ' In the letter you vrrote to me a little while ago' (she referred to a letter of sympathy I had written to her on the death of a near relative of her own), ' you showed me you believed in prayer. Will you now promise me to put up one short prayer for me ; I have to suffer so very much ? ' I promised to comply with her request not once, but many times, and I kept my word. I shall never cease to remember her glance of gratitude. For the volume entitled 'Verses,' published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in 1893, and consisting of poems reprinted from her 'Called to be Saints,' 'Time FHes,' and 'The Face of HER LAST ILLNESS. 187 the Deep,' she was at the trouble to copy all the poems out afresh, and to arrange them under separate headings, thus forming one of the most curious and attractive of her manuscripts. Her brother said to her: 'Why do you take the trouble of copying the poems ? ' She answered : ' I have plenty of leisure.' In her brother's judgment she copied the poems partly because she liked the mere mechanical art of writing, and partly — and perhaps this was the chief reason — be- cause she was anxious to save all possible expense to the Society. A friend called upon her about ten days after the first large edition of these ' Verses ' appeared, and told her it was sold out. Whereupon she ex- claimed: 'I'm so glad for the sake of the Society. You know that it gets all the profits for the promotion of its work.' During her last illness and for some time previously, her medical adviser had been Dr. Stewart. In August> 1894, owing to serious increase of pain with its result- ing weakness, she ceased to attend the public services at Christ Church. Her friend, the Eev. J. J. Glendin- ning Nash, the incumbent of Christ Church, came to see her weekly, however, usually on the morning of Mon- day, and held a brief religious service in her room, administering Holy Communion whenever her state permitted. During his absence on a brief holiday his place was taken by the Eev. T. N. Talfourd Major, curate of Christ Church. Mr. Glendinning Nash informs me that until her 188 CHEISTINA EOSSETTI. last illness she was present at nearly all the -weekly services at Christ Church, and received Holy Com- munion every Sunday and Thursday. ' She took,' he says, ' the deepest interest in Christ Church, its schools, and its district. She subscribed generously, and nearly every Sunday during her illness sent money for the offertory.' At a late stage of her illness, when her bodily con- dition necessitated her remaining constantly in bed, her doctor advised her removal into the drawing-room from the bedroom at the back of the drawing-room she had occupied up to that time. The chief purpose of this removal was to obtain the advantage of the greater amount of air, which the increased size of the drawing-room afforded. The appointments of the drawing-room were altered as little as might be, com- patible with the change. To a friend who saw her a few days before her death she said, with a touch of her old contentment, she was so glad to be in bed as she was so ' restful ' there. She further expressed a marked preference for the small bed on which she lay because it was the bed whereon her mother had died. She also said it gave her pleas- ure to think she used the same sheets and pillows as her mother had used. In spite of the greater conven- ience of the drawing-room in many respects, it had its disadvantages as a sick room. Chief among these was the fact that it overlooked the square, and that conse- quently the noise was considerable. I recollect, for instance, calling to inquire after Christina's state on HER LAST ILLNESS. 189 one sultry afternoon in the summer of 1894. As a needful measure, no doubt, the windows were thrust open, and the discordant noise from no fewer than three piano-organs within hearing would, indeed, have been trying to many a sufferer. It is re-assuring, therefore, to learn from her brother, as I have done, that she was not wont to be inconvenienced in the slightest degree by such matters. Several of her old and most intimate friends have told me that, after she ceased to be able to see them, she sent them very special messages on their calling to inquire after her. Even in my own case, when no longer able to see me, she liked me to call to make inquiries, and liked also to be informed when I called, preferring that I should wait to hear if there was a message. Sometimes she sent me a delicately worded message of thanks, occasionally, though by no means always, making definite inquiries about my own health or other matters requiring a reply. Whenever she sent messages to me they were always couched in dif^ ferent words, but invariably with a pretty turn of expression. Once, I remember, she was 'helped by my sympathy.' Her brother has said to me, and wishes me to men- tion, that about a ' couple of years * before her death Dr. Stewart told him 'she was very liable to some form of hysteria.' For a while in her final illness, though appreciably less in her last fortnight of life, such symptoms were apparent, particularly during semi-consciousness, chiefly manifesting themselves in 190 CHRISTINA EOSSETTL cries, not so much, as far as could be observed, 'thro' absolute pain' as 'thro' some sort of hysterical stim- ulation.' One of the visits I paid to Torrington Square during the last year of her life (a visit on which I did not see Christina Eossetti) especially lives in my recollec- tion, because of the most memorable conversation I then had with Mr. W. M. Eossetti in the dining-room. Then it was I first came to see, what I have since been very fully conscious of, namely, that beneath his calm, almost judicial manner, there lies a depth of real feel- ing, and an almost passionate affection for those he loves, qualities not always apparent to those who cas- ually observe his demeanour. After speaking with deep distress of the sufferings of his sister, he told me, (as he has subsequently related in the Preface to the memoir of his brother), that Christina, near to death as she was, had kept him right in many details of the early years, her reminiscences of her childhood being still vivid and accurate. Under date December 23 in 'Time Flies' there appears this autobiographical allusion: ' One day I caught myself wishing what I felt convinced would not be the case, — that a certain occupation at once sad and pleasant and dear to me, and at that very moment inevitably drawing towards a close, could have lasted out through the remainder of my lifetime. ' Perhaps no harm in the instinctive wish, — none, I hope : yet what fallacies lay at its root ! ' At least two.' COPIES FAMILY LETTEES. 191 My readers ■will be interested to learn that the ' occupation ' here referred to was the copying out during 1883 for the second volume of the memoir of Dante Gabriel just mentioned, the letters addressed by him to his mother and to Christina herself. In the characteristically written and vivid note by the editor to her posthumous Poems he tells us how, even up to and beyond October, 1894, 'she was often extremely conversable.' One day she repeated to him the amus- ing lines ' In my cottage near the, Styx ' which are thus preserved to us. Concerning these lines he has written to me as follows : ' I regard it as a jocular outcome of a state of mind which was more dreary than jocular — for C[hristina] did not at all rejoice in her semi-banishment to Frome.' Despite the marked differences of temperament and of opinion between herself and her brother William, it must have been evident to anyone who had heard her mention him, how deep was her love for him ; and how real was also the respect in which she held him, both on account of his intellectual gifts and because he had been for so long not only the family prop, but, in some sense, the custodian of the family papers and traditions. She evinced this respect in the most practical manner in her power by leaving all her material means to him, and by entrusting to his keeping without reservation of any kind all her manuscripts and papers of whatever sort. I have his authority for stating that about three 192 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. months before her death she told him in the course of confidential talk that some few years previously, -when she had comparatively little to leave, she had made her will in his favour. She added ' that now, being much better off,' she would, if he assented, wish to provide 2,000^. for religious purposes — but this only in case of his children being, in his opinion, sufficiently well provided for at his death to make this arrange- ment seem proper to him. He has assented fully to his sister's wish, and has, in his own will (drawn up soon after that interview with his sister), provided for that 2,000Z. on such conditions regarding his children as make it, in his view, ' practically certain that the 2,000Z. will go to the uses ' mentioned above. Even in the last days of her life she did acts of kind- ness. Not long before her death she gave instructions that a copy of her volume ' Sing-Song ' should be sent on New Year's Day as her New Year's gift to the children of Mr. Eobert W. Dibdin, one of the church- wardens of Christ Church, and at the appointed time the touching little present duly reached them. In the late autumn of 1894 Dr. Stewart's own health required that he should quit England for the south of France. This was a source of deep regret both to him- self and to his patient, as in the circumstances, the parting had the aspect of being final, and Christina had a warm attachment for him — an attachment heartily reciprocated. Dr. Stewart left her in charge of Dr. Abbot Anderson who did all in his power to relieve her. It was of course well known that the end was fast HER LAST HOURS. 193 approaching, and could not in any event be much longer delayed. Nevertheless, her rallying powers had so often before proved remarkable, that when I reached 30 Torrington Square about half-past one on the after- noon of Saturday, December 29, 1894, it was with an even greater degree of that curious involuntary surprise which we generally experience at the presence of Death, however expected he may be, that I noticed the blinds were drawn down. Mrs. Eead informed me, that about 7 A.M. on the morning of Friday the 28th, Christina had become very deadly cold, and with a purple look on the face. She feared the end had come ; but, using restora- tives, she sent for Dr. Abbot Anderson. On his arrival he had found his patient better, and, during the whole of that day, Friday, little change had been apparent, Christina Eossetti continuing restful, seeming to suffer little pain, and taking nourishment. She passed a quiet night, and about 5 a.m. on the morning of December 29, when Emma, the housemaid, who took part of the watching, came as usual into the sick room to relieve Mrs. Eead, the latter remarked to her that she thought her mistress's voice (which had grown nearly inaudible) was returning in some measure. Between 6 and 7 a.m. Christina's lips were seen to be moving perpetually in prayer (that it was prayer was shown, though of course the words were unheard, by the frequent inclination of the head as at the name of Jesus) and, as far as could be observed, she was per- fectly conscious. At 7.25 A.M., by the watch on the table, the only person actually in the room with her 13 194 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. being Mrs. Eead, Christina somewhat suddenly gave a faint sigh, and died before her brother "William, whose constant and loving ministrations had so often soothed her during the long and weary hours of her last illness, could be summoned. Mrs. Eead asked me to go upstairs, saying her mis- tress, with characteristic if extraordinary thought- fulness, had told her that, should I call after her (Christina's) death at any time when it was still pos- sible, I was to be taken to see her. I was touched profoundly by this last and quite unexpected proof of my friend's regard for me, and availed myself at once of the privilege offered to me. As I entered what had formerly been Christina's drawing-room I thought how unchanged yet how changed was the room. All the pictures, and well-nigh all the pieces of furniture, even to the miscellaneous articles which stood usually on the large drawing-room table, were in the same places as I had been in the habit of observing them. This, paradoxical as it may seem at first sight to say so, added vastly to the sense of impressiveness, just as the contrast between the commonplace — almost the prosaic — details, and the supernatural element indissolubly enlinked with the poem, adds to the impressiveness of that lyric by Christina which her brother Gabriel named for her 'At Home.' The small, narrow, curtainless bed was standing im- mediately below Mr. Shields's ' Good Shepherd.' With HER APPEARANCE AFTER DEATH. 195 the sharpening of the perceptive faculties that comes to us sometimes, at moments like these, I thought I had never before seen Dante Gabriel's large chalk drawing of his sister — that drawn in 1866 — appear so lovely. Mrs. Eead reverently uncovered the dear face, and as I looked once more upon it, I saw that, though slightly emaciated, it was not greatly changed since the last time I had beheld it in life. Perhaps I was hardly so much struck with the breadth of her brow — I mean in regard to its indication of intellectual quali- ties — as I had been often when conversing with her, but on the other hand I was struck more than ever before both by the clear manifestation of the more womanly qualities and by the strength of purpose shown in the lips. Some white flowers on a table near at hand gave a sense of relief. There was pathos, there was solemnity in the aspect of the room, there was no gloom. My spirit was moved by the contrast I felt between the holy — almost the saintly atmos- phere of the house and its commonplace surroundings. I remained for a few moments in the room, while her nurse told me in a subdued voice the incidents of the past day or two, and how Christina had often remarked to her of late (very characteristic was the utterance) : ' This illness has humbled me. I was so proud before.' I felt how applicable were Christina's own words : ' Weep not; friends, we should not weep; Our friend of friends lies full of rest; No sorrow rankles in her breast, Fallen fast asleep.' 196 CHEISTINA EOSSETTI. Throughout the remainder of that day I did every- thing with the presence of that darkened room ever before me. To those of us who believe in the blessedness of spiritual assurance — who believe that such an assur- ance continued up to the latest moments of earthly life is an unspeakable boon — it is always sad to hear of instances where this trust has been lessened or destroyed, or may seem to have been lessened or de- stroyed, even though by merely physical conditions. Yet even these distressing instances, when they occur, have their aspects of comfort. When we find that some of the most spiritually minded, some of the most holy men and women whom this world has known, have suffered depression, nay even gloom, in their dying moments, we are shown more clearly that our spiritual state does not depend on our own feelings or moods of mind — another useful illustration is thus given us of the constant antagonism between the apparent and the real. I have been led to these reflec- tions because, after much consideration, I have deter- mined to print a communication made to me by Mr. W. M. Eossetti respecting his sister's spiritual condi- dition in the last days of her life. He had been good enough to read over the MS. of an article I had written concerning her for one of the periodicals, and it was as to a word or two therein, that he wrote to me as follows : ' In the last three months or so of her [Christina's] life, she was most gloomy on the subject [of her spiritual state], LAST LETTER TO MR. SHIELDS. 197 some of her utterances being deeply painful. This of course was beyond measure imreasonable but so it was. I believe the influence of opiates (which were indispensable) had something to do with it. ' Assuredly my sister did to the last continue believing in the promises of the Gospel, as interpreted by Theologians j but her sense of its threatenings was very lively, and at the end more operative on her personal feelings. This should not have been. She remained firmly convinced that her mother and sister are saints in heaven, and I endeavoured to show her that according to her own theories, she was just as safe as they : but this — such was her humility of self esti- mate — did not relieve her from troubles of soul. If there is any reality in the foundations of her creed, she now knows how greatly she was mistaken.' Her long and intimate friendship with Mr. Shields continued to the last. I have seen a short letter to him, dated September 5, 1894, which is pathetic both on account of its contents, and because of the hand- writing grown shaky. It is of too sacred a character to be given here. I may mention, however, that, after thanking Mr. Shields for the privilege of his friendship, she ends by an almost passionate expression of personal humility couched in a phrase, which, in another, would have appeared exaggerated, even forced, but, in her, seemed only natural. Much sorrow was felt at her loss, and this was coupled with much praise of her gifts. Seldom indeed has praise been so widespread, never has it been more sincere. As an instance of this a reference here may fittingly be made to what was said about her by two 198 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. highly distinguished, and, though widely different, very representative men — the first a great poet, the second a great Anglican theologian. In one of the most touching of his recent elegiac poems Mr. Swinburne wrote : A soul more sweet than the morning of new-born May Has passed with the year that has passed from the world away. A song more sweet than the morning's first-born song Again will hymn not among us a new year's day. Kot here, not here shall the carol of joy grown strong Eing rapture now, and uplift us, a spell-struck throng, From dream to vision of life that the soul may see By death's grace only, if death do its trust no wrong. Scarce yet the days and the starry nights are three Since here among us a spirit abode as we. Girt round with life that is fettered in bonds of time. And clasped with darkness about as is earth with sea. And now, more high than the vision of souls may climb. The soul whose song was as music of stars that chime. Clothed round with life as of dawn and the mounting sun, Sings, and we know not here of the song sublime : while Dr. Westcott, Bishop of Durham, sent the fol- lowing letter to Mr. W. M. Eossetti : — From The Right Bev. the Bishop of Durham To Mr. W. M. Eossetti. Auckland Castle Bishop Auckland Kew Year's Day 1895. Dear Sik, — It may be presumptuous for a stranger to intrude on your solemn quiet, but my debt to Miss Eos- LETTER EEOM THE BISHOP OE DURHAM. 199 setti encourages me to believe a friend who tells me that the simplest expression of sympathy with your loss might not be unwelcome. It happened that last Christmas Day at our evening gathering I chose ' Goblin Market ' to read, and that wonderful story of the power of a sister's love in the temp- tations of life touched all hearts. On that very day too the friend (Miss Heaton of Leeds) to whom I owe almost a personal knowledge of Miss Kossetti, was called to her rest. Not a week passes, I think, when I do not find some fresh pleasure from fragments of your sister's works. And my experience is, I am sure, that of very many. Those who so teach us and reveal themselves to us cannot be lost. However hard it is to realise as yet that the fact that they pass out of sight makes them unchangeable, at least I know — this house with its Chapel tells me so every day — that some of the friends who are dearest to me and help me most have entered on a fuller life. May you feel the consolation of this eternal companionship which knows no break in the presence of God. Forgive me if I have been too bold, and believe me to be Yrs most faithfully, B. F. DUNELM. W. M. Rossetti, Esq. etc. etc. In writing to myself under date of Feb. 13, 1896, the Bishop, after remarking 'it will be a very great pleasure ' to him if I make ' use ' of Ms letter, goes on to say that he entertained for Christina Eossetti a 'reverent admiration' which it could not 'adequately express.' During the night previous to Christina Eossetti's funeral, widch took place on January 2, 1895, there had been a slight fall of snow, and the air in the early 200 CHRISTINA EOSSETTL morning had in it just that suggestion of winter appro- priate to the season. A preliminary service was held at Christ Church, conducted by Mr. Glendinning Nash, assisted by his curate, the Eev. T. N. Talfourd Major. The service was attended by her brother, his four children (the Misses Olivia, Helen, Mary, and Mr. Arthur Eossetti) who with Mr. Theodore Watts-Dun- ton, Miss Lisa Wilson, and Mrs. Eead were the occu- pants of the mourning coaches. Among many others present were Mr. John E. Clayton, Mr. and Mrs. F. G. Stephens, Mr. Arthur Hughes, Mr. Frederic Shields, Dr. Abbot Anderson, the Countess Hugo (who married a nephew of the great French writer), Mrs. Garnett, Mrs. Hueffer, Mrs. Virtue Tebbs, Sister Eliza, formerly of St. Margaret's Home, Mrs. Percy Bunting, Mr. William Sharp, Professor Wyndham Dunstan, F.E.S., Mr. Forbes Eobertson, Mr. Eobert W. Dibdin, Mr. Eobert Porter (Superintendent of the eleventh United States census) and Mrs. Porter, Mr. G. A. Garrett, and Mrs. E. T. Cooke ; while among those who sent wreaths were Lady Lindsay, The Countess Hugo, Miss Ursula Christina Gordon Hake, her goddaughter, Sister Eliza, and Dr. Abbot Anderson. When I entered Christ Church I was struck by the beauty of the edifice — a solemn quiet beauty specially suited to such an occasion. The coffin, brought in a closed hearse from Torrington Square, was met at the western door of the church by the clergymen and the surpliced choir, and, covered by many wreaths of HER FUNERAL. 201 flowers, was solemnly borne to its place in front of the chancel while ' rest in the Lord ' was played on the organ. ' Ahide with me ' having been sung, Mr. Nash proceeded with the burial service. After that mag- nificent passage (1 Cor. xv. 20) ' Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept' had been read, some stanzas from Christina's poem ' Advent,' beginning The Porter watches at the gate, and ending With Jesus Christ our best, were sung to the tune of St. Ann. Subsequently her Lord, grant us grace to mount by steps of grace, set to tasteful and appropriate music composed ex- pressly for the occasion by Mr. F. T. Lowden, organist of Christ Church, was sung. Then, as the coffin was raised from beneath the chancel steps and slowly carried down the aisle, the Dead March in Saul was played impressively, while many of the congregation waited a moment or two outside the church door, with every token of respect, to see the funeral cortege depart. Her brother, in a letter to Mr. Nash, a word or two of which I am privileged to quote, suitably gave utterance to the general feeling concerning the service held at Christ Church when he spoke of its ' unflawed harmony of manner with its sacred matter.' It was indeed one of those services which will live in the memory of those who took part in it as almost symbolical of the 202 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. person commemorated. Moreover, as one of Christina Eossetti's most attached friends said to me afterwards, ' there was nothing gloomy about it.' As far as I am aware, with the exception of one or two persons unknown to me and whom I had not observed at Christ Church, only her brother and his children accompanied by Mr. Nash, Mr. Watts-Dunton, Miss Lisa Wilson, Mrs. Eead and myself were present at the interment at Highgate. Her brother, however, informs me that Mr. Sydney Martin attended of his own accord and took some photographs, also that Alice Bloomfield (formerly a housemaid in the service of Christina Eossetti) and a male relative of hers, were there. The family grave of the Eossettis, where Christina was buried with her father and mother and Elizabeth Eleanor, wife of Dante Gabriel, is in the old portion of Highgate Cemetery. Standing near a path- way on a portion of high ground it is not unpicturesquely situated. A sprinkling of snow had remained on the ground, and, as the closing words of the burial service were being read by Mr. Nash, the winter sunshine, gleaming through the leafless branches of some trees to the right, revealed all their delicate tracery, while a robin sang. Then, after some wreaths from those peculiarly dear to her had been placed on the coffin, and the last look had been taken, we left the cemetery. I shall close my narrative of Christina's funeral by quoting my friend Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton's beau- tiful sonnets descriptive of it, entitled 'The Two ME. WATTS-DiraTON'S 'TWO CHEISTMASTIDES.' 203 Christmastides.' ^ The reference in the closing line of the sestet of the last sonnet is to an incident which took place during her visit to Bognor at Christmas of 1875, a visit mentioned in Chapter III. THE TWO CHEISTMASTIDES. I. On Winter's woof, ■which scarcely seems of snow, But hangs translucent, like a virgin's veil. O'er headstone, monument and guardian-rail, The New Year's sun shines golden — seems to throw Upon her coffin-flowers a greeting glow Prom lands she loved to think on — seems to trail Love's holy radiance from the very Grail O'er those white flowers before they sink below. Is that a spirit or bird whose sudden song From yonder sunlit tree beside the grave Recalls a robin's warble, sweet yet strong, Upon a lawn beloved of wind and wave — Recalls her ' Christmas Robin, ' ruddy, brave, Winning the crumbs she throws where blackbirds throng 1 II. In Christmastide of Heaven does she recall Those happy days with Gabriel by the sea. Who gathered round him those he loved, when she ' Must coax the birds to join the festival,' And said, ' The sea-sweet winds are musical With carols from the billows singing free Around the groynes, and every shrub and tree Seems conscious of the Channel's rise and fall ' 1 1 Originally printed in The Aihenceum for January 12, 1895. 204 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. The coffin lowers, and I can see her now — See the loved kindred standing by her side, As once I saw them 'neath our Christmas bough — And her, that dearest one, who sanctiiied With halo of mother's love, our Christmastide, And Gabriel too — with peace upon his brow. On January 6, 1895, the second Sunday after Chris- tina Eossetti's death, a suitable memorial sermon was preached by Mr. Nash at the morning service of Christ Church from the text 'Her own works praise her,' Prov. xxxi. 31, in the presence of a large and sympa- thetic congregation. Her death was also fittingly alluded to elsewhere by Dr. Clifford and by others. Her interest in Christ Church, even in the last days of her life, is strikingly shown by a characteristic request which she made concerning it to her brother William. The following extract of a letter from him to Mr. Nash, dated January 2, 1895, wiU sufficiently explain to what I refer : 'My sister left a written memorandum worded thus: "The 3 rings on my wedding finger are to be put into a Church offertory unless you, dear William, like to put 11. into the offertory instead of that one of the 3 which is evi- dently our mother's wedding rmg. " I shall of course make the substitution; and, if you will allow me, convert the 11. into 10^., which will in due course be forthcoming along with the remaining 2 rings. I have not as yet looked these out, but the matter will not be long delayed.' The tombstone of the grave wherein Christina Eos- setti lies buried is of Portland stone painted white; and on the neatly kept surface of the grave, strewn INSCRIPTION ON TOMBSTONE. 205 with cocoa-nut fibre, when I visited it on September 17, 1896, were laid some beautiful chrysanthemums and autumnal leaves arranged in the form of a cross, the freshness of the flowers showing they had not long been where I saw them. There is no space left for further lettering on the original headstone, so the words about Christina Eossetti are carved on the slant- ing face of an additional slab placed across its base, and the initials of the persons interred, and the dates of the interments appear on the back of the foot- stone. Tlie inscription in its entirety is as follows : TO THE DEAK MEMOKT OE MT HUSBAND GABEIELE EOSSETTI, BOEN AT VASTO AMMONE IN THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES 28th FEB. 1783, DIED IN LONDON 26tH APKIL 1854. He shall retxim no more to see his native country. Jeremiah xxii. 10. Now they desire a hetter country, that is, an heavenly. Hebrews xi. 16. Ah Dio — Ajutami Tu. ALSO OF FEANCES MAEY LAVINIA, BELOVED WIFE OF THE ABOVE NAMED GABEIELE EOSSETTI, BOEN APEIL 27th, 1800, DIED APEIL 8th, 1886. ' Our Saviour Jesus Christ . . . hath abolished death.' ' Friend go up higher.' 206 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. ALSO TO THE MEMORY OP ELIZABETH ELEANOE, WIFE OP THEIR ELDBE SON DANTE GABRIEL EOSSETTI, WHO DIED FEB. IItH, 1862 AGED 30 TEAKS. ALSO OP CHEISTINA GEOEGINA EOSSETTI DAUGHTER OF GABEIELE AND FEANCES EOSSETTI BORN 5th DECEMBER, 1830. DIED 29th DECEMBER, 1894. Volsersi a me con salutevol cenno. Give me the lowest place : or if for me That lowest place too high, make one more low There I may sit and see My God and love Thee so. About the inscription Mr. W. M. Eossetti writes to me thus : ' " Ah Dio ajutami Tu " [Ah God, do Thou help me] was one of the last exclamations of my Father in his dying moments: I think the last; "Volsersi a me con salutevol cenno [They turned to me with an act of salutation], a line in Dante's Purgatorio, I put on C[hristina]'s tombstone as suggesting (but not with such a degree of definiteness as I do not personally believe) the reunion of the other tenants of that grave with C[hristina] in the spiritual world.' In the grave adjoining are buried the wife of Ford Madox Brown and Michael Ford Madox Eossetti, the infant son of Mr. W. M. Eossetti, who died in 1883. POEM ON THE DEATH OF HER NEPHEW. 207 Christina Eossetti's touching poem on the death of this little child is well known. Of its four stanzas this is perhaps the most original : Brief dawn and noon and setting time ! Our rapid-rounding moon has iled; A black eclipse before the prime Has swallowed up that shining head. Eternity holds up her looking-glass : — The eclipse of time will pass, And all that lovely light return to sight. The motto on the grave is : • And — if thou wilt — remember.' ' Christina had the quiet simplicity of real greatness, and this simplicity was doubtless in itself an evidence of genius. In intercourse with her one lost conscious- ness of being in the presence of a distinguished poet, because one became conscious of being in the presence of a woman distinguished in the more noble womanly qualities. Nature evidently had endowed her not only with the gifts proper to a poet, and these in a lavish degree, but also with choicest gifts of the heart and soul. But if this was so, it was equally true that she had herself matured and perfected her natural gifts by that sublimest education of all — the education of the soul. Personally she was warmly attached to the Church of England. Eespecting it she said in ' The Face of the Deep ' : ' To myself it is in the beloved Anglican Church of my Baptism : a living branch of that one Holy Catholic Apos- 208 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. tolio Church which is authoritatively commended and endeared to every Christian by the Word of God.' But she had too noble a soul to he narrow. A single practical example of the truth of this remark, out of many that might be cited, will suffice here. An intimate friend of hers said to me soon after her death, ' The fact of my being a Wesleyan made no difference to Christina.' But, indeed, Christina Eossetti's own writings confirm this view of her character. In ' The Face of the Deep,' while deprecating needless schism, she writes : — 'Strength attaches to union, resource to multiplicity. The kingdom of death (notwithstanding that death is disso- lution) retains strength while it coheres ; for our Lord Him- self declared that were Satan divided against himself his kingdom could not stand. How much more would the kingdom of life, which is the Church Catholic, wax invin- cibly strong if all Christendom were to become as at the first of one heart and one mind! Alas ! for the offences of former days and of this day, for our fathers' offences and our own, which have torn to shreds Christ's seamless vesture. ' Nevertheless inasmuch as multiplicity is allied to resource, let us, until better may be, make capital even of our guilty disadvantage. Let us be provoked to good works by those with whom we cannot altogether agree, yet who many ways set us a pattern. Why exclusively peer after defects while virtues stare us in the face ? Cannot we — I at least can learn much from the devotion of Catholic Rome, the immu- tability of Catholic Greece, the philanthropic piety of Quak- erism, the zeal of many a " Protestant." And when the Anglican Church has acquired and reduced to practice each virtue from every such soiirce, holding fast meanwhile her EELIGIOUS TOLERATION. 209 own goodly heritage of gifts and graces, then may those others likewise learn much from her : until to every Church, congregation, soul, God be All in all.' And again, in the same volume, she writes in her commentary on the text ' His eyes were as a flame of fire/ &c. (Eev. xix. 12) : ' Moreover in the surpassing rapture of that day recogni- tion will not be all : discovery likewise (please God !) awaits us. As one has strikingly suggested : some that glanced at afar ofif appear stones, when viewed close at hand may turn out to be sheep. God all along has beheld them as sheep, and sheep they were : the misapprehension (thank God) was ours. ' To-day I read " Samaria" ; to-morrow I may re-decipher the selfsame letters as " S*. Maria." Passing away the bliss, Glean past away the sorrow, The anguish passing The pleasure brought back to away : stay: Thus it is Thus and this To-day. To-morrow.' In an article contributed to 'The Athenaeum' of February 15, 1896, on her ' New Poems ' — an article referred to already — Mr. Watts-Dunton, with his accustomed keen penetration and delicacy of touch, gives the following admirable analysis of certain aspects of her character : 'Mr. W. M. Eossetti speaks of "the very wide and exceedingly strong outburst of eulogy " of his sister which appeared in the public press after her death. Yet that out- burst was far from giving adequate expression to what was 14 210 CHEISTINA ROSSETTI. felt by some of her readers — those between whom and her- self there was a bond of sympathy so sacred and so deep as to be something like a religion. It is not merely that she was the acknowledged queen in that world (outside the arena called "the literary world") where poetry is "its own exceeding great reward, " but to other readers of a different kind altogether — readers who, drawing the deepest delight from such poetry as specially appeals to them, never read any other, and have but small knowledge of poetry as a fine art her verse was, perhaps, more precious still. They feel that at every page of her writing the beautiful poetry is only the outcome of a life whose almost unexampled beauty fas- cinates them. ' Although Christina Eossetti had more of what is called the unconsciousness of poetic inspiration than any other poet of her time, the writing of poetry was not by any means the chief business of her life. She was too thorough a poet for that. No one felt so deeply as she that poetic art is only at the best the imperfect body in which dwells the poetic soul. No one felt so deeply as she that as the notes of the nightingale are but the involuntary expression of the bird's emotion, and, again, as the perfume of the violet is but the flower's natural breath, so it is and must be with the song of the very poet, and that, therefore, to write beautifully is in a deep and true sense to live beautifully. In the volume before us, as in all her previously published writings, we see at its best what Christianity is as the mo- tive power of poetry. The Christian idea is essentially feminine, and of this feminine quality Christina Eossetti's poetry is full. In motive power the difference between classic and Christian poetry must needs be very great. But whatever may be said in favour of one as against the other, this at least cannot be controverted, that the history of lit- erature shows no human development so beautiful as the ideal Christian woman of our own day. She is unique, in- HEE CHARACTER. 211 deed. Men of science tell us that among all the fossilized plants we find none of tho lovely family of the rose, and in the same way we should search in vain through the entire human record for anything so beautiful as that kind of Christian lady to whom self-abnegation is not only the first of duties, but the first of joys. Yet, no doubt, the Christian idea must needs be more or less flavoured by each personality through which it is expressed. With regard to Christina Eossetti, while upon herself Christian dogma imposed in- finite obligations — obligations which could never be evaded by her without the risk of all the penalties fulminated by all believers — there was in the order of things a sort of ether of universal charity for all others. She would lament, of course, the lapses of every soul, but for these there was a forgiveness which her own lapses could never claim. There was, to be sure, a sweet egotism in this. It was very fasci- nating, however.' She never obtruded her piety, yet I felt instinctively that I was in the company of a holy woman. In a copy of her ' Verses,' given to me, she wrote in her own clear handwriting — handwriting firm until four months before the end — Faith is like a lily lifted high and white; and throughout life she no more doubted the existence of a state of coming blessedness than the traveller doubts the existence of the place for which he is bound, when setting out on a journey ; to her the persons and things of the future life were realities. Probably this confidence, together with the conviction that God's angel Death would soon release her from pain, was the reason of her wonderful — her heroic endurance of 212 CHKISTINA ROSSETTI. suffering; wMle (except during the brief period of melancholy mentioned previously) she cherished an earnest hope of heaven for herself in spite of her vivid sense of her own shortcomings. I shall always feel proud and glad that I knew personally one of the most lovable women who ever lived. CHAPTEE VI. GENEBAL POEMS. 'Verses' 1847 — Italian Poems — 'Death's Cliill Between' and 'Heart's Chill Between ' ('Athenseum ' 1848) — ' The Germ ' — ' Goblin Market and other Poems' — ' The Prince's Progress and other Poems' — 'A Pageant and other Poems' — 'New Poems,' edited by Mr. William Michael Eossetti, 1896, (containing ' A Triad,' ' Cousin Kate,' and ' Sister Maude ' reprinted from ' Goblin Market and other Poems ') — Italian Poems. In my account of Christina Eossetti's poems I shall in most cases adhere to the order in which she herself placed them in the various volumes of her verse, reserv- ing the consideration of the devotional poems in her respective volumes, ' Goblin Market and other Poems,' ' Prince's Progress and other Poems,' ' A Pageant and other Poems,' and her posthumous ' New Poems,' to my chapter on her devotional verse. Christina Eossetti's first verses, addressed to her mother on her birthday, were written on April 27, 1842, and from that date she wrote verse frequently. By 1847 a considerable quantity of poetry had accumulated, and in that year her grandfather, Gaetano Polidori, printed privately a small volume of her compositions under the title of ' Verses,' all of the poems being dated. The book consists of sixty-six pages, 12 mo. size, and when first printed, it had only some slight 'paper cover;' the various recipients therefore bound their copies in 214 CHRISTINA ROSSETTL accordance with their individual taste. As the volume is now very rare, and becoming increasingly valuable, it may be of interest to reproduce the type of the title- page in facsimile : — VERSES BY CHRISTINA G. EOSSETTI DEDICATED TO SEB MOTHER. JPerohe temer degg' io ? Son le mie voci Inesperte, lo so : ma il primo omaggio D' accetiarne la madre Percib non sdegnerd, ; ch' anzi assai meglio Quanto a lei grata io sono JJ umil dira semplicita del dono, Metastasio. PRIVATELY FEINTED AT G. POLIDORl's, NO. 15, PARK VILLAGE EAST, regent's park, LONDON. 1847. GENERAL POEMS — 'VERSES' 1847. 215 Next comes ' A Few Words to tlie Eeader,' signed ' Gr. Polidori/ in which that gentleman, after remarking that the contents of the volume had been ' composed from the age of twelve and sixteen,' says: ' As her maternal grandfather, I may be excused for de- siring to retain these early spontaneous efforts in a perma- nent form, and for having silenced the objections urged by her modest diffidence, and persuaded her to allow me to print them for my own gratification at my own private press ; and though I am ready to acknowledge that the well- known partial affection of a grandparent may perhaps lead me to overrate the merit of her youthful strains, I am still confident that the lovers of poetry wiU not wholly attribute my judgment to partiality.' The foregoing words are dictated by commonsense, and it is noteworthy that Gaetano Polidori, affectionate grandparent as he undoubtedly was, did not lack criti- cal discrimination on occasion. Dante Gabriel, with the nlature judgment of fourteen, in a letter to his mother, called two of Christina's pieces, 'Kosalind' and 'Corydon's Eesolution,' composed at the age of twelve, ' very good.' Gaetano Polidori did not insert these pieces, however. Christina's grandfather was justified in printing her early verses for other reasons than merely grand- fatherly predilection, for these early poems show in a quite unusual degree, when we recollect the author's age, the qualities which individualised subsequently aU her work, but more especially all her work in verse. They have distinct originality of conception and of presentation, a certain indefinable aloofness from the 216 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. objects described, while, at the same time, they mani- fest a remarkable clearness in the delineation of these objects, conjointly with sumptuousness of imagery. ' The Dead City,' the opening poem, dated April 9, 1847, runs to ten pages, and has all the qualities just enumerated. The following are the first five stanzas : Once I rambled in a wood With a careless hardihood, Heeding not the tangled way ; Labyrinths around me lay, But for them I never stood. On, still on, I wandered on, And the sun above me shone ; And the birds around me winging With their everlasting singing Made me feel not quite alone. In the branches of the trees Murmured like the hum of bees The low sound of happy breezes. Whose sweet voice that never ceases Lulls the heart to perfect ease. Streamlets bubbled all around On the green and fertile ground. Through the rushes and the grass, Like a sheet of liquid glass. With a soft and trickling sound. And I went, I went on faster, Contemplating no disaster ; And I plucked ripe blackberries, But the birds with envious eyes, Came and stole them from their master. GENEEAI, POEMS — 'THE DEAD CITY.' 217 Here it may be notecj that the word ' master/ per- haps unconsciously introduced for rhyme purposes, shows the uncertain touch of the beginner. But how beautiful are the stanzas that quickly succeed, how charged with foreshadowings of her later, her more mature, style! Happy solitude, aud blest With beatitude of rest; Where the woods are ever vernal, And the life and joy eternal, Without death's or sorrow's test. most blessed solitude I O most full beatitude ! Where are quiet without strife And imperishable life, Nothing marred, and all things good. And the bright sun, life begetting Never rising, never setting, Shining warmly overhead, Nor too pallid nor too red. Lulled me to a sweet forgetting^ Sweet forgetting of the time j And I listened for no chime, Which might warn me to begone; But I wandered on, still on, 'Neath the boughs of oak and lime. Equally poetic, and perhaps more remarkable, as its author was only thirteen at the time it was written, is ' The Water Spirit's Song,' dated 1844, where are these lines : 218 CHRISTINA EOSSETTL In the silent hour of even, When the stars are in the heaven, When in the azure cloudless sky The moon beams forth all lustrously; When over hill and over vale Is wafted the sweet scented gale ; When murmurs thro' the forest trees The cool refreshing evening breeze ; When the nightingale's wild melody Is waking herb and flower and tree From their perfumed and soft repose To list the praises of the rose ; When the ocean sleeps deceitfully ; When the waves are resting quietly; I spread my bright wings, and fly far away To my beautiful sister's mansion gay : I leave behind me rock and mountain, I leave behind me rill and fountain. And I dive far down in the murmuring sea Where my fair sister welcomes me joyously ; For she's Queen of Ocean for ever and ever, And I of each fountain and still lake and river. ' Summer,' belonging to 1845 — her fifteenth year — and dated December 4, is more conventional in concep- tion and treatment, yet none but a poet could have written such a line as Bound her float the laughing hours. Less satisfactory is ' The Euined Cross,' appertaining to her sixteenth year, and dated April 22, for it shows traces of the influence of Felicia Hemans and Laetitia Landon in their worst — their most sentimental moods. More successful is 'Love Ephemeral' (dated February •DIVINE AND HUMAN PLEADING.' 219 25, 1845), while Dante Gabriel was of opinion that 'Mother and Child' (dated January 10, 1846), — so touching in its mingled simplicity and sweetness — might have been written by Blake. The somewhat minute analysis of emotion in ' Love Attacked ' and 'Love Defended,' (dated respectively April 21, and April 23), is very striking when we recollect that the two poems were produced in 1846 when the poet was only fifteen. 'Divine and Human Pleading,' belonging also to 1846, and dated February 8 — March 30, is very noticeable if we remember its author's age. A ' trem- bling contrite man ' pleads ' wearily ' : I would the Saints could hear our prayers 1 If such a thing might be, blessed Mary Magdalene, I would appeal to thee ! Presently he has a vision of Mary Magdalene, and after some fine lines of description, the poem proceeds : Long time she looked upon the ground; Then raising her bright eyes, Her voice came forth as sweet and soft As music when it dies : O thou who in thy secret hour Hast daied to think that aught Is faulty in God's perfect plan. And perfect in thy thought ! Thou who the pleadings wouldst prefer Of one sin-stained like me, To His who is the Lord of Life, To His who died for thee ! 220 CHRISTINA EOSSETTL In mercy I am sent from heaven : Be timely wise, and learn To seek His love who waits for thee, Inviting thy return. Afterwards, in some stanzas, vigorously worded, though somewhat unsatisfactory in metre, Mary Mag- dalene tells her own experience, ending: In hope and fear I went to Him, — He broke and healed my heart; No man was there to intercede. As I was, so thou art. As we have seen, the young Rossettis, during child- hood, read eagerly the best English fiction and poetry of their day, and two of the poems here, ' Sir Eustace Grey,' descriptive of Crabbe's character of that name, and ' Eva ' from Maturin's novel ' Women ' (dated respectively October 14, 1846, and March 18, 1847) are very vivid transcripts by Christina of the sup- posed emotions of two widely different personages. Probably the best known of the poems contained in the 'Verses 'of 1847 is the sonnet entitled ' Vanity of Vanities.' 'Vanity of Vanities' has received much and deserved praise from competent critics. Personally I recognise to the full its poetic merit. Nevertheless, and I express the opinion with diffidence, it appears to me slightly morbid and insincere. It must be re- membered, however, that it only purports to be what 'the Preacher saith,' and may not therefore convey what the author really felt. GENERAL POEMS — 'LOVE ATTACKED.' 221 As might have been expected occasional instances of imperfect workmanship occur in these immature efforts. Here and there also are examples of unusual phrasing, very natural in the case of English poems written at so early an age by one accustomed from infancy to hear Italian spoken, and who very often spoke it her^ self. ' Love attacked ' (dated April 21, 1846) ends with this stanza : In answer to my crying, Sounds like incense Kose from the earth, replying, ' Indifference.' An English girl would in all likelihood have been pre- vented from using ' incense ' as a rhyme word with accent on the second syllable by a recollection of its other significance. In the line Flowers soon must fade away ('Love Ephemeral,' dated March 18, 1847,) the opening word becomes a dissyllable. But we must not forget that this tendency was common among versifiers of the period. There are two Italian poems in the book — ' Amore E Dovere' ('Love and Duty') and 'Amore E Dis- petto ' (' Love and Scorn '), inscribed respectively ' Be- gun February 25, 1845,' and ' Foliestone, August 21, 1846.' Both are tuneful, and, as Christina Eossetti's metrical essays in the language of her ancestors, deeply interesting. 222 CHRISTINA EOSSBTTI. Here may be introduced, on account of their in- trinsic merit, two poems, ' Death's Chill Between ' and 'Heart's Chill Between.' They appeared in 'The Athenaeum' of October 14 and 21, 1848. 'Heart's Chill Between ' does not seem to have been reprinted ; and ' Death's Chill Between ' has not appeared since its publication, in 1853, in a book called 'Beautiful Poetry.' HEART'S CHILL BETWEEN. I did not chide him, though I knew That he was false to me, Chide the exhaling of the dew, The ebbing of the sea, The fading of a rosy hue, — But not inconstancy. Why strive for love when love is o'er? Why bind a restive heart 1 — He never knew the pain I bore In saying: ' We must part; Let us be friends and nothing more.' — Oh, woman's shallow art! But it is over, it is done, — I hardly heed it now ; So many weary years have run Since then, I think not how Things might have been, — but greet each one With an unruffled brow. What time I am where others be, My heart seems very calm — GENEEAL POEMS— 'HEART'S CHILL BETWEEN.' 223 Stone calm ; but if all go from me, There comes a vague alarm, A shrinking in the memory Prom some forgotten harm. And often through the long, long night, Waking when none are near, I feel my heart heat fast with fright. Yet know not what I fear. Oh how I long to see the light. And the sweet birds to hear ! To have the sun upon my face. To look up through the trees, To walk forth in the open space And listen to the breeze, — And not to dream the burial-place Is clogging my weak knees. Sometimes I can nor weep nor pray, But am half stupefied : And then all those who see me say Mine eyes are opened wide And that my wits seem gone away : — Ah, would that I had died ! Would I could die and be at peace. Or living could forget ! My grief nor grows nor doth decrease. But ever is : — and yet Methinks, now, that all this shall cease Before the sun shall set. 224 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. DEATH'S CHILL BETWEEN. Chide not; let me breathe a little, For I shall not mourn him long ; Though the life-cord was so brittle, The love-cord was very strong. I would wake a little space Till I find a sleeping-place. You can go, — I shall not weep; You can go unto your rest. My heart-ache is all too deep. And too sore my throbbing breast. Can sobs be, or angry tears, Where are neither hopes nor fears 1 Though with you I am alone And must be so everywhere, I will make no useless moan, — None shall say ' she could not bear ' : While life lasts I will be strong, — But I shall not struggle long. Listen, listen ! Everywhere A low voice is calling me. And a step is on the stair. And one comes you do not see. Listen, listen! Evermore A dim hand knocks at the door. Hear me ; he is come again, — My own dearest is come back. Bring him in from the cold rain ; Bring wine, and let nothing lack. Thou and I wiU rest together. Love, until the suany weather. GENERAL POEMS — ' DEATH'S CHILL BETWEEN.' 225 I will shelter thee from harm, — Hide thee from all heaviness. Come to me, and keep thee warm By my side in quietness. I will lull thee to thy sleep With sweet songs : — we will not weep. Who hath talked of weeping? — Yet There is something at my heart, Gnawing, I would fain forget, And an aching and a smart. — Ah ! my mother, 't is in vain. For he is not come again. Christina Eossetti's surviving brother furnishes me with some information ahout these poems : 'The former was first called The Last Hope, 22 Sept. [18] 47; the latter, Anne of Warwick, 29 Sept. [18] 47. The 2 titles printed in the Athenaeum must have heen adopted with a view to giving the poems, when printed, a certain flavour of interdependence (Gab[riel]'s suggestion perhaps).' 'The Germ,' vrhere Christina Eossetti's verse next appeared in print, has received already so much atten- tion elsewhere that much space need not be devoted to it here ; while the facts concerning this magazine, now famous, though it attracted little attention on its first appearance, may be summarised briefly. It ran for two numbers only under the title of ' The Germ,' subsequently appearing for two more numbers as ' Art and Poetry,' and then ceasing to exist. 'The Germ' was the organ of the Praeraphaelite Brotherhood, a band of young, some of them very young men, and 15 , 226 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. most of them destined to be celebrated. Four things are chiefly remarkable about the periodical. First, that so many of its contributors became eminent ; sec- ondly, the high character of its contents both from the artistic and the literary point of view ; thirdly, — although perhaps this is what might have been ex- pected — its lack of immediate success ; and fourthly, that in spite of the extreme youth of some of its lit- erary contributors, they had already Vritten and con- tributed to it work that might now almost be called classic. As instances of this may be named Dante Gabriel's ' My Sister's Sleep,' (there entitled ' Songs of One Household,' and marked No. 1), ' The Blessed Damozel,' and his vivid prose story ' Hand and Soul ' ; William Michael's sonnet ' The Evil under the Sun,' since called 'Democracy Downtrodden'; and Chris- tina's songs ' Dream Land,' and ' Oh roses for the flush of youth.' It is noteworthy that in Before in the old time, the last line of this exquisite song, not only is the stress laid upon the article ' the,' but the accentuated word is followed by a vowel whereby a hiatus occurs, which renders the line almost immetrical and unscan- nable. The first number of ' The Germ ' appeared in January, 1850, when Dante Gabriel had not completed his twenty-second year ; William Michael, acting as editor, and also as a large contributor, was little more than twenty, and Christina only nineteen. The names of the GENERAL POEMS — 'THE GERM.' 227 contributors to 'The Germ' were not published in the text of the magazine, but, beginning with the third number, were printed on the outside wrapper. Con- cerning Christina's pseudonym in 'The Germ' of ' Ellen AUeyn,' Mr. William Eossetti has written to me: My impression is that C[hristina] placed her poems at the disposal of G[abriel], to be used (whether with or without real name) much as G[abriel] chose. He invented and inserted the name ' Ellen AUeyn,' and only after he had done this did C[hristina] know anything about it. The last stanza of the poem called ' Dream Land ' runs thus in ' The Germ.' Eest, rest, for evermore Upon a mossy shore, Rest, rest, that shall endure, Till time shall cease ; — Sleep that no pain shall wake, Night that no morn shall break, Till joy shall overtake Her perfect peace, while in Christina Eossetti's ' Goblin Market and other Poems ' and her collected ' Poems ' it stands as : Eest, rest, for evermore Upon a mossy shore ; Eest, rest at the heart's core Till time shall cease : Sleep that no pain shall wake, Night that no morn shall break, Till joy shall overtake Her perfect peace. 228 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. The lyric can hardly be said to be improved, however, by the substitution of Rest, rest at the heart's core for Eest, rest, that shall endure. Among Christina's other contributions to 'The Germ ' are her powerful poem ' A Testimony ' founded on Ecclesiastes ii. 1, 2, and perhaps better known by its opening line I said of laughter it is vain ; 'An End'; and 'A Pause of Thought.' ' Goblin Market and other Poems ' was published in 1862 by Messrs. Macmillan. It contained two designs drawn on wood-blocks by her brother Dante Gabriel, both illustrative of lines in the title- poem. The wood- cut of the first of these designs, facing the title-page, and illustrating ' Buy from us with a golden curl,' was, it has often been said, cut by William Morris, and was his first experiment as a wood engraver. This is an error, however, for "William Morris himself told me that the design was cut not by him, but by the late Charles Joseph Paulkner, formerly Fellow and Tutor of University College, Oxford. Mr. Paulkner was at the time a partner in the artistic firm of Messrs. Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. The firm's initials, M. M. F. & Co., appear on the design, and William Morris thought that this was why it had been sup- posed, mistakenly, that he had himself cut the design. GENERAL POEMS — 'GOBLIN MARKET.' 229 Dante Gabriel's second design forms the title-page, the centre of it illustrating the words ' Golden head by golden head ' ; as it has been described at considerable length^ I shall not further refer to it here beyond saying that the wood-block was cut by Mr. W. J. Linton. ' Goblin Market and other Poems ' at once achieved success, and established its author's position as a poet, though it must be remembered that poems like ' Up- hill,' ' A Birthday,' and ' An Apple Gathering,' all of which had previously appeared in ' Macmillan's Maga- zine,' had already done much to attract attention to Christina Eossetti as a poet of both marked per- formance and promise. It does not always happen that contemporary criticism respecting a volume of poems has qualities of abiding truth, but the verdict on these poems in ' The British Quarterly Eeview ' has, as her brother William points out, ' stood the test of time.' That organ of critical opinion said: ' All [the poems] ... are marked by beauty arid tender- ness : they are frequently quaint, and sometimes a little capricious.' ' Goblin Market ' was received immediately into especial favour, and perhaps remains to this day the most genuinely popular of all Christina Eossetti's writings. Mrs. Norton, soon after its appearance, com- pared it to Coleridge's 'Ancient Mariner.' 'Goblin 1 See Mr. Sharp's Dante Oaiyiiel Rossetti : a Record and Study, p. 106. 230 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. Market ' — the title was suggested by Dante Gabriel — may be described briefly as the story of two sisters, Laura and Lizzie, who are besought by 'Goblin merchantmen ' to partake of their fruits. One sister refuses, while the other sister eats. The goblins — ' malignant spirits ' — by the law of their temptation do not appear again to anyone who has once partaken of their fruits. The person who thus partakes is doomed irrevocably, for this first taste wastes him or her down to the grave in the longing for a second taste, which alone can bring restoration to well-being. In this story the girl who would not herself eat, meets the goblins once more for the sake of her dying sister, and some juices from their ' goblin fruits ' restore that dying sister to health. James Ashcroft Noble, in a penetrative essay called 'The Burden of Christina Eossetti' in his subtly- wrought volume, 'Impressions and Memories,' after pointing out that 1862 witnessed also the publication of the ' Last Poems ' of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, says that ' Goblin Market ' may be 'read and enjoyed merely as a charming fairy -fantasy, and as such it is delightful and satisfying ; but behind the simple story of the two children and the goblin fruitsellers is a little spiritual drama of love's vicarious redemption, in which the child redeemer goes into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, that by her painful conquest she may succour and save the sister who has been vanquished and all but slain. The luscious juices of the gobhn fruit, sweet and deadly when sucked by selfish greed become bitter and medicinal when spilt in unselfish conflict.' GENERAL POEMS — 'GOBLIN MARKET.' 231 This is admirable, and eloquently put, but it may be questioned whether the critic has not perhaps some- what overstated the case for didacticism in the poem. ' Goblin Market' was written in April, 1859, and the MS. was entitled originally ' A Peep at the Goblins — To M. F. K,' thus showing the close connection in the author's mind with her sister, ' M. F. R' being of course Maria Francesca. Concerning the poem her surviving brother writes to me : ' I don't remember that there were at that time [the date at which the poem was written] any personal circumstances of a marked kind : but I certainly think (with you) that the lines at the close. "There is nothing like a sister," etc., indicate something : apparently C[hristina] considered her- self to be chargeable with some sort of spiritual backsliding, against which Maria's iniluence had been exercised benefi- cially. I have more than once heard C[hristina] aver that the poem has not any profound or ulterior meaning — it is just a fairy Story : yet one can discern that it implies at any rate this much — That to succumb to a temptation makes one a victim to that same continuous temptation; that the remedy does not always lie with oneself ; and that a stronger and more righteous will may prove of avail to restore one's lost estate.' As the design illustrative of the words ' Buy from us with a golden curl ' has been dealt with fully by Mr. Sharp in his monograph recently mentioned, it is need- less to discuss it here at great length. One aspect of the design demands however a moment's comment Not infrequently I have heard the artist censured because he had made the goblin animals of hideous 232 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. aspect, whereas vice is usually made seductive at least in appearance. But such an observation comes from misconception of the facts, for, as the artist's younger brother remarked very properly when I told him of these cavils: 'It is C [hristina] who says what the Goblins were like — wombat, ratel, etc., etc. — Gabriel figures a cat, an owl, and a cockatoo — 3 beautiful animals — and figures them properly; also a wombat and a rat, which are animals far from ugly. Between wombat and cockatoo comes a speckled animal, not exactly pretty, nor meant to be so : it is a sun- fish which belonged to my brother, and the like of which, (gilded) is at this moment hanging above my head — C [hris- tina] does not tell us that the animals were seductive in aspect, nor is there any reason why they should be (rather the contrary) — but that theii fruits were seductive.' I suggested to the same gentleman that perhaps the great fondness of Dante Gabriel for all animals, and not less for animals with something grotesque or eccentric about them, might have caused his sister, when arranging in her mind what forms her ' goblin merchantmen ' were to assume, to recollect the strange animals, such as the wombat and the ratel — which, had it not been for her brother's predilection, prob- ably would never have come under her notice — and to give to her 'goblin merchantmen' some of their characteristics. But he answered immediately : ' It would be a mistake to think that C[hristina] caught from Gabriel a fancy for odd-looking animals — She had it equally herself — She knew Wombat and Eatel at the GENERAL POEMS — ' GOBLIN MARKET.' 233 Zoological Gardens: Gabriel never possessed a Eatel, nor a Wombat until several years after C[hristina] wrote "Goblin M[arket]." — It was C[hristina3 and I who jointly dis- covered the Wombat in the Zoological Gardens — From us (more especially myself) Gabriel, [Sir Edward] Burne- Jones, and other wombat enthusiasts, ensued, such is my reminiscence and belief.' In 1893 Messrs. Macmillan issued 'Goblin Market' separately in 8vo. form, illustrated by Mr. Laurauce Housmann. Thus presented, it makes a dainty little volume in its green and gold cover, and, though the illustrations have not the unique interest belonging to the two illustrations Dante Gabriel did for the poem, they are not without interest of their own. The title-page of this edition is noteworthy. In the centre, and above,, we see the goblin merchantmen, who display -their wares, invitingly, while at the foot of the picture Laura and Lizzie are seated. Laura looks at the fruit, longingly, while Lizzie covers her eyes, presumably to keep out the too seductive sight. Opposite the passage in the poem containing an enumeration of the various fruits, and opening with the lines Apples and quinces Lemons and oranges, we have a full page illustration representing the gather- ing of the fruit. The picture gives effectively the subtle atmosphere of the poem. The conflict with the goblins is excellently rendered, and the flight of Lizzie, in order that Laura might get some of the juice after 234 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. the goblins had squeezed the fruit on her mouth, is well done. Set to music by the competent hands of Mr. Aguilar ' Goblin Market ' has become also a fine cantata. Under the title of ' II Mercato de' FoUeti,' it was translated into Italian by Christina Eossetti's cousin. Signer Teodorico Pietrocola Eossetti, and pub- lished in Florence in 1867. Christina Eossetti's consummate skill in setting forth diverse moods of poetry — moods rarely found in the same poet — is seen strikingly in such a poem as ' When I was dead my spirit turned,' a poem for which her brother Dante Gabriel suggested the not very happy title of ' At Home.' "We feel almost the presence of the disembodied spirit in such verses as : — I listened to their honest chat : Said one : ' To-morrow we shall be Plod, plod along the featureless sands And coasting miles and miles of sea.' Said one : ' Before the turn of tide We will achieve the eyrie-seat.' Said one : ' To-morrow shall be like To-day, but much more sweet. ' I shivered comfortless, but cast No chill across the table-cloth ; I all-forgotten shivered sad To stay and yet to part how loth : I passed from the familiar room, I who from love had passed away, Like the remembrance of a guest That tarrieth but a day. GENERAL POEMS — 'LOVE POETEY.' 235 This is tlie result of the blending of a realism equal to, or even greater, than that of Crabbe with a deep ■though indefinable mysticism. Other poems of the same class, though with a more distinct love interest, are the sonnet 'After Death,' (remarkable for vivid presentment of ordinary objects and the quaint Italian touch of the last line To know he still is warm though I am cold) ; 'The Hour and the Ghost,' revealing, in addition to these qualities, command over dialogue, a difficult form to write in ; and ' Dead before Death.' Love poetry is a conspicuous feature in the volume under consideration. In the original manuscript, dated in Christina's own handwriting ' 12th December 1848,' of ' When I am dead, my dearest ' now in my posses- sion, and appearing in facsimile on p. 163, the stanzas are written without a break, and the fourteenth line runs That doth nor rise nor set instead of That doth not rise nor set in the printed version. There are, besides, six varia- tions in punctuation. Some critics have held that the metre of this song is a glad metre, and the metre is used to imply a certain chastened gladness in the thought of death. But such an opinion savours of super-subtlety. One afternoon, when I was speaking to Mr. William Eossetti about this song, he quoted the lines Haply I may remember, And haply may forget, 236 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. and added : ' You see Christina does not say there will not be recognition after the Eesurrection, for then she was quite certain there would be recognition. She only expresses uncertainty on the point during the interme- diate state after death and before the Eesurrection.' ' Do you think,' I said, ' that your sister, a great poet, always subordinated the wording of her poems to her views as to theological doctrine ? ' ' I do not say,' he answered, ' that Christina never used a merely poetic phrase ; but I do say that in the main she kept strictly to what she considered theologi- cal truth.' Dated August 9, 1854, 'The Convent Threshold' has, presumably, a reference to an Italian blood feud, and has been truly called by Dante Gabriel a ' splendid piece of feminine ascetic passion.' Despite, however, my profound admiration for this really great poem, I cannot help thinking that the phrase 'My lily feet' in the line My lily feet are soiled with mud gives a touch of insincerity to the passage where it occurs. Surely no woman in actual life, leaving her lover in such tragic circumstances, would so describe her feet — the emotion — the passion, would entirely do away with the thought which this language expresses. I make no apology for my word of demur. Admiration has called it forth, for, as Mrs. Meynell has truly said : ' In this poem — it is impossible not to dwell on such a masterpiece — -without imagery ; without beauty except that which is inevitable (and what beauty is more costly 1) ; with- GENERAL POEMS — 'A TRIAD.' 237 out grace, except the invincible grace of impassioned poetry ; without music, except the ultimate music of the communi- cating word, she utters that immortal song of love and that cry of more than earthly fear ; a song of penitence for love that yet praises love more fervently than would a chorus hymeneal.' ' The Convent Threshold ' is not based on any real incident. Among other love poems are the exquisite sonnets called ' Eest ' and ' Eemember ' ; the lyrics entitled ' An End;' ' A Birthday,' written November 18,1857; the unspeakably beautiful lines beginning ' Come to me in the silence of the night ; ' ' Three Seasons,' and ' May.' The brief ballad ' Maude Clare ' renders vividly a strong situation, and shows a keen perception and insight into the love passion. Eeaders of his ' Letters ' will recol- lect that her brother Dante Gabriel did not admire ' No thank you, John,' a lyric depicting a woman's total indifference towards a suitor for her hand, couched (a rare thing with Christina !) in a light vein, but many — myself among the number — will not agree with him. Three notable poems — the sonnet, ' A Triad,' and two remarkable ballads, ' Cousin Kate ' and ' Sister Maude ' — which appeared in this volume, were omitted oy the author from her collected works from con- scientious reasons. She was perhaps unduly sensitive in this matter. Concerning 'A Triad ' Mr. W. M. Eos- setti has written to me: ' I don't remember having heard her make any express statement about her motives for burking Triad; but am clear 238 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. that they proceeded more or less on a notion that the sonnet might be misconstrued, or unfavourably construed, from a moral point of view; the perfectly respectable v?ife, who " bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show," was " a sluggish wife, " and " droned in sweetness, " being evidently regarded with less sympathy than her less decorous colleagues. There was a painter, George Chapman, known to Gabriel and me, and in a minor degree to C[hristina]. He painted a picture of the Triad : and I think it quite possible that something may have been said by him, or in his set, which impressed C[hristina] with this notion of contingent misconstruction. Of course I consider that she was wrong in suppressing the poem; wiredrawn scrupulosity was one of her manifest infirmities, if also of her quasi- virtues.' My correspondent includes 'A Triad,' 'Cousin Kate' and ' Sister Maude ' in ' New Poems.' One of the most striking examples of nature poetry is 'Twilight Calm,' which, though in motive quite original, shows the influence of Wordsworth. Here is a touch of Wordsworthian realism : The cock has ceased to crow, the hen to cluck, Only the fox is out, some heedless duck Or chicken to surprise. The rather weak inversion of some heedless duck Or chicken to surprise mars somewhat the beauty of the passage. Fine examples of Christina's unconventional treatment of conventional themes are seen- in ' Winter Eain,' and ' Another Spring.' GENERAL POEMS — 'THE PRINCE'S PROGRESS.' 239 Mr. Watts-Dunton has pointed out how excellent is ' An Apple Gathering ' in its perfect presentment of a moral conception, and certainly the poem must take rank among Christina Eossetti's masterpieces. It is, however, too well known to require detailed analysis here. She wrote as follows in an annotated copy of the volume as to that powerful poem ' My Dream ' : ' " My Dream " was merely a poetic fancy and was not a dream at all.' This note is all the more interesting from the fact that the poem has every appearance of being a veritable dream. 'Up-hill,' another masterpiece, written June 29, 1858, might have been regarded as one of her 'Devotional Pieces,' had not the poet elected to place it among her secular poems. A brief sixteen-line poem, it reveals quaintly, with one flash qf genius, a whole philosophy of life. In 1896, Messrs. Macmillan published her second volume of verse, 'The Prince's Progress and other Poems.' Eeference has already been made to Mr. Edmund G-osse's article on Christina Eossetti in his ' Critical Kit Kats.' Therein Mr. Gosse very justly expresses surprise that ' The Prince's Progress,' ' where the parable and the teaching are as clear as noonday,' has never been popular. Even in literal fact there is enough truth in this statement to make it needful to say briefly that the poem describes how a prince, lured from his rightful path at first by light pleasures, and afterwards by the pursuit of the elixir of life, fails to 240 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. reach his destined bride until she is dead. The great- ness of this noble poem lies in its subtle poetic atmos- phere — a poetic atmosphere which is beyond the reach of exact definition, but which enshrines it among the great poems of the century. It gains in intensity of passion as it proceeds until we forget its occasional metrical ruggednesses. The title-page of the volume and the design opposite were drawn by Dante Gabriel and engraved by Mr. W. J. Linton. An early version of the closing stanzas of ' The Prince's Progress,' beginning with the line 'Too late for love, too late for joy,' were printed in ' Macmillan's Magazine ' for May, 1863, under the title of ' The Fairy Prince who arrived too late.' In this version there are three noteworthy variants from the final form. The lovely stanza : — Ten years ago, five years ago, One year ago, Even then you had arrived in time, Though somewhat slow; Then you had known her living face Which now you cannot know : The frozen fountain would have leaped, The buds gone on to blow, The warm south wind would have awaked To melt the snow — there ran as follows : Ten years ago, five years ago. One year ago. Even then you had arrived in time, Though somewhat slow. GENERAL POEMS — ' MAIDEN-SONG.' 241 The frozen fountain would have leaped, The buds gone on to blow, The warm south wind would have awaked To melt the snow. And life have been a cordial 'Yes,' Instead of dreary 'No.' This is obviously an inferior form, while the lines — Now these are poppies in her locks — and Lo, we who love weep not to-day begin respectively Now those are poppies in her locks, and So, we who love weep not to-day. The exquisite love poetry contained in the book under consideration must next claim our attention. Chief among the poems of this class is 'Maiden-Song,' the story of Margaret, Meggan and May, a sprightly lyric of not inconsiderable length ■ — full of joy and un- shadowed by grief — so full of joy, indeed, that for this reason alone, it stands out pre-eminently among its author's best work. About it is a touch of fairy lore, that distinguishing touch of fairy lore rare even in good poetry, rare even in Christina Eossetti's poetry, a some- thing present only in poetry of a certain class, and even then only in the highest poetry of that class. Take the first stanza: Long ago and long ago And long ago still, There dwelt three merry maidens Upon a distant hill. 16 242 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. One was tall Meggan, And one was dainty May, But one was fair Margaret, More fair than I can say, Long ago and long ago. Apparently by the simple expedient of the repetition Long ago and long ago a fascinating sense of remoteness is conveyed ; I say apparently, advisedly, for in truth there is art of an ethereal sort in the arrangement of the poem — a per- fect poem, in spite of its seeming negligence, both as to rhymeless lines and as to metre. Particularly notice- able also is the influence which 'birds,' 'beasts' and ' fishes ' exercise in this as in others of Christina's poems. How daring, yet how successful is this simile respecting Margaret, when Meggan and May go on their quest, in search of Strawberry leaves and May-dew. Margaret is described as Fragrant-breathed as milky cow, Or field of blossoming bean. Meantime ' light-foot May ' with her companion rested during the heat of the day, while Creeping things among the grass, Stroked them here and there; Presently the sisters sing, and ' honey-mouthed' is ' the double flow.' GENERAL POEMS — 'MAIDEN-SONG.' 243 Then follows a declaration of love to Meggan by ' a herdsman from the vale ' and to May by ' a shepherd from the height. ' Both accept their lovers. By-and- by, Margaret, awaiting her sisters' return, leant on the garden gate : The slope was lightened by her eyes Like summer lightning fair, Like rising of the haloed moon Lightened her glimmering hair. Later she also sang. ' The King of all that country ' heard her, and claimed her for his bride. So three maids were wooed and won In a brief May-tide, Long ago and long ago. It is interesting to find from the ' Family Letters ' of Dante G-abriel that Mr. -Gladstone once recited this poem, and it is easy to fancy how vivid the poem must have seemed as heard from his lips. Entirely in a different key is ' Songs in a Cornfield,' full of forcible description, though occasionally marred by prosaic lines, such as He '11 not find her at all. Christina Eossetti, in a pubhshed letter, designates ' Songs in a Cornfield ' as one of the most successful pieces in her ' Prince's Progress ' volume. A 'Eing Posy' and 'Beauty is Vain' should be mentioned in this connection. The former treats the love sentiment with a playful humour, which, as has 244 CHBISTINA ROSSETTI. been indicated before, is seldom employed by tbis poet ; the latter perhaps can hardly be properly called a love poem at all. Yet inferentially it deals with the love sentiment in that mournful (some would call it morbid) vein peculiar to its author. Here, as in her previous volume, she deals with the supernatural. 'The Poor Grhost,' and 'The Ghost's Petition,' for instance, bring out vividly the contrast between the living and the dead, and show a power of depicting — almost revealing — the supernatural, which of itself would place Christina Eossetti high among poets. Probably none of her idyls — idyls showing always a real narrative gift — are finer than 'Lady Maggie' and 'Jessie Cameron' or 'A Farm Walk.' ' Twice,* a poem full of devotional feeling, may here be alluded to. Its passion is none the less intense from being expressed so simply. In a brief note, which lies before me, written from 166 Albany Street probably in 1861 or 1862, addressed to Dante G-abriel, Christina says : — 'I am taking your advice and leaving Twice amongst the miscellaneous : thank you so heartily for all kind trouble.' This implies that it was her first intention to place Twice (now among the 'Miscellaneous Pieces') among the 'Devotional Poems' at the close of the volume. The note is a further evidence of the advice which, as mentioned before, was given to her by Dante Gabriel regarding the arrangement of her two first volumes of poems. Sympathy with the poor Christina always had, and. GENERAIi POEMS — -A ROYAL PRINCESS.' 245 were her poems more concemed with social problems, it would be more apparent in them. ' A Eoyal Prin- cess' is, however, the single instance I know where Christina Eossetti frankly avows democratic senti- ments. For although the poem is dramatic, there can be little doubt that a certain degree of personal predilection is exhibited. The poem incisively shows the satiety which arises from ceaseless luxury. The vigorous narrative poem, ' Under the Eose,' composed perhaps at as late a date as July, 1866, is written in the first person. It tells, with much strength of de- lineation, the familiar story of a high-born woman's shame and the suffering entailed on her innocent child. In the volume of Christina's collected 'Poems' pub- lished in 1875, and in all subsequent editions of her collected works, the title was changed to ' The Iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children.' During one of my interviews with her brother subsequent to Christina Eossetti's death, in answer to a question I had put to him respecting this change, he said : ' I think the reason why Christina changed the title of " Under the Eose " was because she felt that that title might expose her to the inference of having treated a seri- ous subject somewhat lightly. Gabriel suggested " Upon the Children," but she thought that somewhat ambigu- ous, and in this I agree with her, although I also agree in thinking " The Iniquity of the Fathers upon the Chil- dren " is too long. But as I told you before, [he had previously aUuded to it] I think the story is probably based on some recollection of " Bleak House." " Bleak House " had appeared before the poem was written. 246 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. Then, turning to her own annotated copy of her poems, on a bookshelf near, he opened it, and read to me the following note about the poem in her own handwriting : ' This was all fancy, but Mrs. Scott [Mrs. William BeU Scott] afterwards told me of a somewhat similar fact.' The lyric to L. E. L., having as motto the line Whose heart was breaking for a little love from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem addressed to the poetess of that name, has good qualities, and is also interesting because it expresses in dramatic form Christina's opinion about L. E. L. In reference to this piece Mr. W. M. Eossetti has written to me : ' I regard L. E. L. as the merest fancy-tii\B — In my opinion the poem is a dejected outpouring of C[hristina]'s own — When the question of publishing it arose, she did not want it to figure as strictly personal, & so called it L. E. L.' Of the many lovely Nature poems in this volume my preference lies with ' Child's Talk in April ' from which I cannot refrain from quoting some stanzas. I wish you were a pleasant wren, And I your small accepted mate ; How we 'd look down on toilsome men 1 We 'd rise and go to bed at eight Or it may be not quite so late. • • • • • Perhaps some day there 'd be an egg When spring had blossomed from the snow ; GENERAL POEMS — 'CHILD'S TALK IN APRIL.' 247 I 'd stand triumphant on one leg ; Like chanticleer I 'd almost crow To let our little neighbours know. Next you should sit and I would sing Through lengthening days of sunny spring ; TiU, if you wearied of the task, I 'd sit ; and you should spread your wing From bough to bough ; I 'd sit and bask. Fancy the breaking of the shell, The chirp, the chickens wet and bare, The untried proud paternal swell; And you with housewife-matron air Enacting choicer bills of fare. Fancy the embryo coats of down. The gradual feathers soft and sleek ; Till clothed and strong from tail to crown, With virgin warblings in their beak. They too go forth to soar and seek. Other notable nature poems are 'Gone for Ever,' ' Spring Quiet,' and ' A Chill.' ' Autumn ' is perhaps one of the most striking examples we possess of Christina's characteristic melancholy. Its pensive cadences, so exquisite in their rhythmical flow, linger in the mind. Doubtless the poem is highly symbol- ical. Listen to these opening stanzas. The remark- able metrical effects that result from the rhyming of the first and seventh lines may possibly have attracted Mr. Swinburne's attention, and caused him to attempt cadences, somewhat similar in measure, though even more difficult. 248 CHRISTINA KOSSETTI. I dwell alone — I dwell alone, alone, Whilst full my river flows down to the sea, Gilded with flashing heats That hring no friend to me : love-songs gurgling from a hundred throats, love-pangs, let me be. Fair fall the freighted boats which gold and stone And spices bear to sea : Slim, gleaming maidens swell their mellow notes, Love promising, entreating — Ah ! sweet, but fleeting — Beneath the shivering, snow-white sails. Hush ! the wind flags and fails — Hush! they will lie becalmed in sight of strand — Sight of my strand, where I do dwell alone; Their songs wake singing echoes in my land — They cannot hear me moan. The curious sympathy she felt with inhabitants of the earth other than mankind is brought out forcibly in the subjoined lines from ' Eve.' Thus she sat weeping. Thus Eve our Mother, Where one lay sleeping Slain by his brother. Greatest and least Each piteous beast To hear her voice Forgot his joys And set aside his feast. The mouse paused in his walk And dropped his wheaten stalk; Grave cattle wagged their heads In rumination; GENEEAL POEMS— 'LIFE AND DEATH.' 249 The eagle gave a cry From his cloud station; Larks on thyme beds Forbore to mount or sing; Bees drooped upon the wing; The raven perched on high Forgot his ration ; The conies in their rock, A feeble nation, Quaked sympathetica!; The mocking-bird left off to mock; Huge camels knelt as if In deprecation; The kind hart's tears were falling; Chattered the wistful stork ; Dove-voices with a dying fall Cooed desolation. Christina Eossetti's mental attitude towards death — an unusual, and somewhat morbid attitude — will be seen strikingly in this first stanza from the strong nature poem, 'Life and Death': Life is not sweet. One day it will be sweet To shut our eyes and die : Nor feel the wild flowers blow, nor birds dart by With flitting butterfly, Nor grass grow long above our heads and feet Nor hear the happy lark that soars sky high, Nor sigh that spring is fleet and summer fleet, Nor mark the waxing wheat, Nor know who sits in our accustomed seat. 'A Pageant and other Poems' was published by Messrs. Macmillan in August, 1881, as has been already 250 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. mentioned. Concerning the title-poem 'The British Quarterly Eeview' said: ' The " Pageant " is full of grace and fancif ulness ; there is a playful freshness in it ; it abounds in delicate pictures, which claim for themselves a place apart in the imagination, ' while ' The Guardian ' remarked respecting its author : ' She breathes habitually the atmosphere of wonder and aspiration. But she is also a student of high literary models, and can express herself on an occasion with the clearness, directness, and precision which are the usual indications of a thoroughly trained mind.' ' The Westminster Eeview ' perceived : 'Very good work in Miss Eossetti's new volume of poems, ' while ' The Daily News ' found that ' A more finished grace, however, is perhaps traceable in some of these pieces than she has hitherto attained. . . Characterized by a grave tenderness.' A sonnet addressed to the author's mother desig- nated rightly by Dante Gabriel as ' lovely in its heart- felt affection/ and a brief lyric called ' The Key Note ' revealing both the poet's sadness and her consolation in the contemplation of nature open the book. The title-poem called ' The Months : A Pageant ' runs to twenty-two pages, and is in the form of a masque, in which the ' personifications ' of January, March, July, August, October, and December are assumed by boys, and February, April, May, June, September, and No- GENERAL POEMS— 'A PAGEANT.' 251 vember, by girls. The stage directions are ample and interesting, and, properly mounted, it should be a very picturesque little play for children. It has been played in America at least once, and probably elsewhere. Each of the months from January to December has suitable attributes, and many of the interspersed lyrics have special beauty. Here and there, however, some of the lines are rugged. ' A Pageant ' holds a unique place among Christina's long poems; it is cheerful throughout, with not a single note reminding the reader of sorrow. Among a group of poems descriptive of nature, 'Preaks of Fashion' — a humorous recital of how the birds met and discussed as to what were the more fashionable garments to wear — is prominent. The beautiful lyric, ' An October Garden,' is pervaded by subtle mournf ulness ; while the last stanza of the lovely and pathetic ' Death Watches,' merits quotation : The cloven East brings forth the sun, The cloven West doth bury him. What time his gorgeous race is run And all the world grows dim ; A funeral moon is lit in heaven's hollow, And pale the star-lights follow. The somewhat longer poem 'An Old- World Thicket,' having Dante's phrase'. . ."Una selva oscura'" as motto, is full of chastened symbolism. Christina had a distinct faculty for writing simple, direct tales in verse, with a touch of half-unconscious regret in them, and it is a pity that she has given us so few of these. '- Johnny,' which appears in this volume 252 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. — an anecdote of the first French Eevolution — is a fine example. Very powerful are the ballads here. ' Brandons Both ' tells the love story of Milly Brandon and her cousin Walter. Though necessarily dramatic in form, it would not, I think, be unwarrantable to conclude that iu — Milly has no mother; and sad beyond another Is she whose blessed mother is vanished out of call : Truly comfort beyond comfort is stored up in a Mother Who bears with all, and hopes through all, and loves us all — there is an allusion to the mother who was never long absent from Christina's thoughts. The first line of each stanza has occasionally an iuternal rhyme, and the metre is the same as in Jean Ingelow's exquisite 'Eequiescat iu Pace.' Is it unreasonable to suppose that the measure was suggested by a poem which first appeared in November, 1863, nearly eighteen years before the publication of 'The Pageant and other Poems ' ? Somewhat similar in motive to ' Sleep at Sea ' is ' A Ballad of Boding,' where the writer has a vision of three ships — ' Love ship,' ' Worm ship,' and a 'third ship,' and what befell them and their crews. The poem ends finely thus: There was sorrow on the sea and sorrow on the land When Love ship went down by the bottomless quicksand To its grave in the bitter wave. There was sorrow on the sea and sorrow on the land When Worm ship went to pieces on the rock-bound strand, And the bitter wave was its grave. GENEEAI, POEMS — 'MONNA INNOMINATA.' 253 But land and sea waxed hoary In ■whiteness of a glory Never told in story Nor seen by mortal eye, When the third ship crossed the bar Where whirls and breakers are, And steered into the splendours of the sky ; That third bark and that least Which had never seemed to feast, Yet kept high festival above sun and moon and star. Two of the chief glories of this volume are the noble sonnet sequences named respectively, 'Monna Inno- minata,' and ' Later Life.' ' Monna Innominata ' sug- gests comparison with Elizabeth Barrett Brovraing's ' Sonnets from the Portuguese.' But such a comparison may be reserved to Chapter X., where a critical survey of Christina Eossetti's work is attempted. ' Monna Innominata ' is a series of fourteen sonnets supposed to be written by one of the ' unnamed ladies, " donne innominate," sung by a school of less conspicu- ous poets ' than Dante and Petrarch. Prefixed to it is a very interesting prose note, the close of which is given below: ' Had such a lady spoken for herself, the portrait left us might have appeared more tender, if less dignified, than any drawn even by a devoted friend. Or had the Great Poetess of our own day and nation only been unhappy instead of happy, her circumstances would have invited her to bequeath to us, in lieu of the Portuguese Sonnets, an inimitable ' ' donna innominata " drawn not from fancy but from feel- ing, and worthy to occupy a niche beside Beatrice and Laura.' 254 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. Each of the fourteen sonnets is introduced by an appro- priate quotation from Dante and Petrarch. It was indeed a happy inspiration to make this ' donna innominata ' speak for herself. When all are so beautiful it is difficult to select special sonnets for mention. The second, and one of the most lovely son- nets of the series, has an almost identical motive to that of Mrs. Meynell's strong poem, ' An Unmarked Festival.' It is merely a literary coincidence however ; for Mrs. Meynell informs me that it was only when writing the essay on Christina Eossetti's poetry, men- tioned elsewhere, that she first read the sonnet in question. Then she was herself impressed by the identity of the fundamental idea. Here are the opening lines of Sonnet 4. 'Poca fa villa gran fiamma seconda.' — Dante. ' Ogni altra cosa, ogni pensier va fore, E sol ivi con vol rimansi amore.' — Pbtraeoa. I loved you first : but afterwards your love Outsoaring mine, sang such, a loftier song As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove. Which owes the other most 1 my love was long, And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong. The concluding lines of No. 5 are the perfect expres- sion of a noble woman's love-passion : So much for you; but what for me, dear friend? To love you without stint and all I can To-day, to-morrow, world without an end; To love you much and yet to love you more, As Jordan at his flood sweeps either shore ; Since woman is the helpmeet made for man. GENERAL POEMS — 'LATER LIFE.' 255 How delicately worded is the thouglit here. I quote again, this time the closing lines of Sonnet 6 : Yet while I love my God the most, I deem That I can never love you overmuch; I love Him more, so let me love you too ; Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such I cannot love you if I love not Him, I cannot love Him if I love not you. But to my thinking the noblest sonnet of the whole is No. 12. It reveals the absorbing love which casts out , selfishness. An excerpt is not made from it merely 1 because it seems to me that the sonnet ought to be read in its entirety. The exquisite love sonnet, 'Touching Never,' which occupies a separate place in the volume deserves mention ; while ' Passing and Glassing' has a somewhat similar central idea to 'Beauty is Vain.' In Chapters II. and X. some attention has been given to the fine sequence of twenty-eight sonnets entitled ' Later Life ' ; therefore a comparatively brief reference must suf&ce here. The fifteenth sonnet sug- gests Christina's views respecting the problem of the sexes. How noble is the conclusion : Did Adam love his Eve from first to last 1 I think so ; as we love who works us ill. And wounds us to the quick, yet loves us still. Love pardons the unpardonable past : Love in a dominant embrace holds fast His frailer self, and saves without her will. 256 CHRISTINA KOSSETTI. ' An " Immurata " Sister,' one of the poems in this volume not in sonnet form, has the following char- acteristic reference to women : Men work and think, but women feel; And so (for I 'm a woman, I) And so I should be glad to die And cease from impotence of zeal. It is worthy of note that the foregoing lines were originally written as part of Christina's 'En Eoute' — a poem which did not appear in full until the publication of her posthumous ' New Poems.' The final sonnet of ' Later Life ' is a worthy climax to the exalted train of thought throughout the sequence. Listen to the music of these lines, lines original and strong, about death : In life our absent friend is far away : But death may bring our friend exceeding near, The dead may be around us, dear and dead ; The unforgotten dearest dead may be Watching us with unslumbering eyes and heart Brimful of words which cannot yet be said. Brimful of knowledge they may not impart, Brimful of love for you and love for me. Though Christina's sonnets are in the Petrarchan form in none of them is there a separation between the octave and the sestet, and in one of the noblest of them, ' After Communion,' there are certain divergences from the customary position of the respective rhymes. It is however unnecessary to dwell here at length on minute GENERAL POEMS— 'AMOR MUNDI.' 257 points of sonnet construction ; let us recall her brother Gabriel's remark that fundamental brain-work in a sonnet far outweighs any irregularity of construction. The arrangement of the contents of Christina Eossetti's first collected edition of general 'Poems' (1875) requires some little elucidatory remark. The book consisted of the poems which had appeared in the ' Goblin Market ' and the ' Prince's Progress ' volumes, the chief poems in point of length and importance being usually placed first, followed by the devotional poems not arranged in a section by themselves as formerly. Christina included here for the first time some notable poems which had previously been published in magazines. The chief of these is, perhaps, her choicest lyrical masterpiece, ' Amor Mundi.' As its title sug- gests, this poem is an allegory of how love of the world leads inevitably to destruction. Printed origi- nally during 1865 in the first volume of ' The Shilling Magazine,' it was there illustrated by Mr. F. A. Sandys. Mr. Sandys's wood-cut illustration, though somewhat hard in some of its details, has many excellent quali- ties. The lovers are seen advancing, the man playing on a lute, the woman gazing into a looking-glass. In front, but as yet unseen by them, are the ' scaled and hooded worm,' creeping among the brushwood, and the 'thin dead body' — the latter effectively though not repulsively delineated. The woman is turning and will soon catch a glimpse of ' seven ' small masses of •grey cloud-flakes' just at the rainy 'skirt.' Besides 17 258 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. some variations in punctuation, not of sufficient moment to be dealt with, the first two lines of the last stanza appear as : Turn again, my sweetest, — turn again, false and fleetest : This way thereof thou weetest I fear is hell's own track. Students of Christina Eossetti will recollect that the corresponding lines in the 1875 edition of her ' Poems,' as well as in the 1884 and 1888 editions and also in the general ' Poems ' of 1890, are : Turn again, my sweetest, — turn again, false and fleetest : This beaten way thou beatest, I fear is hell's own track. Something may be said in favour of ' the way thereof thou weetest' rather than ' the beaten way thou beatest.' Another of the poems included for the first time is the lovely sonnet, ' Venus's Looking Glass,' written in the Elizabethan manner ; and especially noticeable for various reasons are the nature poem, ' Bird Eaptures ' and the sonnets, ' Love Lies Bleeding ' and ' To-day's Burden.' ' To-day for Me ' has been described by her brother Dante Gabriel as ' the greatest of all her poems.' The expression of individual opinion from so competent a critic must of course have weight. Nevertheless it seems to me that neither in intensity of feeling nor in sublimity of subject does the poem reach her highest level. In the first complete edition of her general ' Poems ' (1890) the arrangement of the 1875 edition was pre- served and entitled ' First Series,' while the contents of the volume called ' A Pageant and other Poems ' (1881) GENERAL POEMS — ' BEOTHEE BEUIN.' 259 followed them, and were called 'Second Series.' To the 1890 volume she added a vivid narrative poem ' Brother Bruin,' a story of a dancing bear. This poem is particularly interesting as betokening her versatility, and as showing that she could be as quietly realistic as Cowper. The bear's master is cruel, and the poor dancing bear dies sadly. His master. His idle working days gone past, goes to the workhouse. There he droned on — a grim old sinner Toothless and grumbling for his dinner, Unpitied quite, uncared for much (The ratepayers not favouring such), Hungry and gaunt, with time to spare : Perhaps the hungry gaunt old Bear Danced back, a haunting memory. Indeed 1 hope so : for you see If once the hard old heart relented The hard old man may have repented. This definitive edition also contained for the first time ' To-day's Burden.' The question as to whether a poet ought to give to the world only his best, or whether, his or her rank being assured, it is permissible to print work which, though it reaches a certain standard of metrical crafts- manship, may yet in some cases fall short of perfect excellence, is a question that has been asked often, and will continue to be asked. To this, as to most, if not all, of the questions in higher criticism, no final answer can be returned. The answer in each case ought to 260 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. depend on the position of the poet, and it will also be determined in each case to a large extent by the idio- syncrasy of the critic. Personally I am of opinion that Christina Eossetti's place as a poet warrants the pub- lication of much, if not all, the work included in the posthumous ' New Poems,' already briefly referred to ; and I am grateful to Mr. W. M. Eossetti for having given students of his sister's poetry so many additional lovely examples of it. In these 'New Poems' there are not many failures, but even if these were far more numerous than they are, the failures of a great poet, besides their biographical value, are deeply instructive to students of poetry, and useful as warnings to those who seek to write i},. ' New Poems ; hitherto unpublished or uncollected,' has opposite to the title-page a portrait of Christina from a pencil drawing by Dante Gabriel, probably a preliminary study for ' Ecce Ancilla Domini.' On the title-page itself are the lines I rated to the full amount Must render mine account and the book is dedicated to ALGEENON CHAELES SWINBUENE a genekous eulogist of Chkistina Eossetti who hailed his genius and prized himself the greatest of living bbitish poets mt old and constant feiend i dedicate this book W. M. E. GENERAL POEMS — 'NEW POEMS.' 261 Her brother contributes a characteristic and inter- esting Preface of seven pages. After calling atten- tion to the 'strong outburst of eulogy' of his sister which followed her death, he goes on to state the principles upon which he has arranged the poems he has given to the world. He does not attempt any detailed criticism of the poetic work he lays before the public, but proceeds to give some valuable particulars about his sister's habits as a poet and writer — particu- lars already alluded to. His explanation of the reasons why his sister did not herself print many of the verses may be quoted in his own words : ' It may be asked why did she not publish these verses herself ? As to most of the items I see no special reason, unless it be this — that, in point of subject or sentiment, they often resemble, more or less, some of those examples which she did print; and she may have thought that the public, while willing to have one such specimen, would be quite contented to lack a second.' Aided by his sister's notebooks mentioned before, in which, with the exception of one or two casual omis- sions, all the poems are dated, he has been able to place the date after each poem. And, in the case of these omissions, he has himself supplied probable dates. The volume under consideration is divided into various sections with the respective titles of ' General,' ' Devo- tional,' and ' Italian Poems,' followed by ' Juvenilia.' The first section contains one hundred and eighty, the second seventy-nine, the third thirty-four, and the fourth seventy-one pages. The ' Italian Poems ' com- 262 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. prise verses in that language by Christina; while ' Juvenilia ' comprehends most, but not all, of the poems printed in the 'Verses' of 1847 as well as numerous other youthful efforts. The editor's val- uable notes, already spoken of before, many of them of some length, occupy twenty-one pages and conclude the book. ' General Poems ' opens with a sonnet entitled ' The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint,' the date of which shows that it was written after the author had completed her seventeenth year. It is noticeable on account of its intrinsic merits, and because of its early anticipation of the author's mature style. The poet in the last four lines is depicting those who are experiencing a well-known phase of feeling : For them there is no glory in the sky, If o sweetness in the breezes' murmuring : They say, ' The peace of heaven is placed too high, And this earth changeth and is perishing.' ' Eepining,' contributed by Christina to ' The Germ,' is here reprinted for the first time. In view of her brother's comprehensive note on the subject it will be needless for me to dwell at length on the poem. In the main one must agree with the strictures he passes upon it, though it is redeemed by passages like this ; Death — death — oh let us fly from death! Where'er we go it followeth ; All these are dead; and we alone Kemain to weep for what is gone. GENERAL POEMS — ' REPINING.' 263 What is this thing ? thus hurriedly To pass into eternity ; To leave the earth so full of mirth ; To lose the profit of our birth; To die and be no more ; to cease, Having numbness that is not peace. Let us go hence ; and, even if thus Death everywhere must go with us, Let us not see the change, but see Those who have been or still shall be. ' Lady Montrevor,' relating to the character of that name in Maturin's 'Wild Irish Boy,' mentioned on another occasion, is a good example of her early work. The series of sonnets, twelve in number, composed at seventeen to bouts-rimSs supplied by her brother William, show great metrical skill and command over language in one so young — when we bear in mind the rapidity with which they were composed — Sonnet IX. was written in five minutes. But the editor would have acted more vrisely had he omitted Sonnet VII. Such phrases as ' It 's too wet for that ' and 'Fire not allowable ' are hardly permissible in verse of this kind, even although that verse was written by Christina Eossetti. One of the most beautiful of these sonnets is Xb, charged with quiet imagination. There is vision in the lines : — I fancy the good fairies dressed in white, Glancing like moonbeams through the shadows black. The humorous 'Vanity Fair,' numbered Xc, was much admired by Coventry Patmore at the time it was written. Mr. W. M. Eossetti properly calls 264 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. attention to the power of his sister in utilising the same rhymes in Xa, Xb, and Xc for totally different trains of thought. ' On Keats/ the sonnet which immediately follows the sonnets above named, is not in bouts-rimSs. 'Three Nuns/ a poem in three divisions, is a pas- sionate outburst of ascetic fervour. Presumably the utterance of three dying nuns, it is worthy of the writer who afterwards wrote ' The Convent Threshold.' ' The End of the First Part ' is vivid and striking ; though dated as early as April, 1849, it is remarkable as being a religious poem almost in her later manner. This is especially seen in the closing stanzas, the last of which is as follows : There other garden-beds shall lie around, Full of sweet-briar and incense-bearing thyme : There I will sit, and listen for the sound Of the last lingering chime. The song beginning We buried her among the flowers, 'Annie,' and the 'Song,' the opening lines of which are — It is not for her even brow And shining yellow hair, But it is for her tender eyes I think my love so fair : — are all exquisite love lyrics, and not the least quality of their charm is their utter simplicity. But perhaps the poet reaches her highest note in the perfect stanza which closes the third of the lyrics just named : GENERAL POEMS — 'A PAUSE,' 'COR MIO.' 265 So in my dreams I never hear Her song, although she sings As if a choir of spirits swept From earth with throhbing wings : T only hear the simple voice Whose love makes many hearts rejoice, The long poem, ' To what Purpose is this Waste ? ' is not particularly noteworthy, except as containing the line A silent praise as pain is silent prayer, a line so original that I doubt not it will take its place among familiar quotations; nor will her ad- mirers ever cease to remember the sonnet called ' A Pause,' which, for passionate though subdued beauty, must be placed in the first rank among her master- pieces. ' Cor Mio,' a sonnet, is conspicuously interest- ing, for it shows that sometimes Christina made very considerable alterations in her work — the poem hav- ing already appeared, with a much changed octave, as Sonnet 18 of 'Later Life' in her 'Pageant' volume. ' How one chose ' and ' Seeking Eest ' are tender and touching poems, while the two sonnets entitled ' Two Thoughts of Death ' are very sombre, and the exces- sive, even repulsive, realism of the first, is extenuated,' if not pardoned, when we see that it is intentionally heightened, to give the effect of contrast to the second sonnet. ' Three Moments ' is likewise a strong, almost dramatic, poem. Both ' A Dirge ' and ' Summer is ended ' are admirable. The third stanza of the last-named aptly shows Christina Eossetti's conception of death — 266 CHRISXmA BOSSETTI. Weep not for me when I am gone, Dear tender one, but hope and smile : Or, if you cannot choose but weep, A little while weep on. Only a little while. Throughout the present work Christina Eossetti has been regarded as an English poet, and I do not purpose therefore to give here any detailed commentary on the Italian poems in her posthumous book. These com- positions, however, are not in my judgment unworthy of their author. I may perhaps be allowed to quote respecting them the opinion of a far more competent critic than myself — a critic who, moreover, even in this case, would, I think, be impartial. Concerning them the editor has written: ' I consider that her Italian verses are, from a poetical point of view, every bit as good as her English verses, while the exquisite limpidity of the Italian language adds something to the flow of their music. There are likely to be some inaccuracies and blemishes of diction, but perhaps only a native eye would detect these — mine barely does.' Appended to the Italian poems are fourteen pages of ' Ninna-Nanna,' a name originally given by Chris- tina Eossetti's cousin. Signer Teodorico Pietrocola- Eossetti, to some translations he had made into Ital- ian from her 'Sing-Song.' Her brother has applied the term ' Ninna-Nanna ' here to translations or para- phrases made by herself about 1879 of certain of the poems in ' Sing-Song ' already published. CHAPTEE VII. DEVOTIONAL POEMS. From ' Annus Domini ' — • Called to te Saints ' — ' Time Flies ' — ' The Face of the Deep ' — ' Goblin Market and other Poems' — ' The Prince's Progress and other Poems ' — 'A Pageant and other Poems' — ' Verses ' (1893) — ' New Poems' — List of poems, mainly devotional, included neither in her general ' Poems,' nor in her religious ' Verses' (1893). Many of Christina Eossetti's devotional Poems — some of them are roundels — are very short, and are concerned with religious themes which are almost trite. In nothing is her undoubted power so much shown as in the fact that so few of them are commonplace. Had she not had genius they might have sunk to the level of much religious verse — respectable in purpose, excellent in execution, nothing more. Christina Eossetti often achieves fine effects by a skilful use of internal rhymes, and also by a no less adroit handling of the same phrase turned in a diverse manner. It is difficult for a commentator to choose an order in classification of poems so similar in style and in aim. The method pursued shall be to mention the opening lyrics in her prose volumes ; then the religious verses in 'Goblin Market and other Poems,' 'The Prince's Progress and other Poems,' and ' A Pageant and other 268 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. Poems,' in the order of those three volumes ; and sub- sequently to discuss the religious poems which she included first in the original edition of her collected poems — that published in 1875. Afterwards shall follow an analysis of her ' Verses ' (1893), together with a list of her metrical compositions that appear in her devotional prose works, but not in ' Verses ' (1893), with some remarks on these compositions ; and finally the section of ' New Poems ' shall be dealt with. ' Annus Domini,' her first volume of devotional prose, opens with a devotional lyric which has no title, and of which the first stanza may be given : Alas my Lord, How should I wrestle all the livelong night With thee my God, my Strength and my Delight 1 A copy of the volume now in my possession belonged to Christina herself. It was given to her on her birth- day, December 5, 1880, by her aunt, Miss Eliza Polidori, and remained with her until her death. Between stanzas six and seven in this copy is written the following interpolated stanza in Christina Eossetti's own handwriting: Gulped by the fish. As by the pit, lost Jonah made his moan ; And Thou forgavest, waiting to atone. A facsimile is given at p. 269. Her brother Dante Gabriel much admired this poem. Unlike in motive or in substance to George Herbert'^ ' Affliction,' it is yet somewhat akin to it in pensive thought. DEVOTIONAL POEMS — 'ANNUS DOMINI. 269 * Yet Jacob did So hold Thee by the clenched hand of prayer That he prevailed, and Thou didst Hess him there. Elias prayed, And sealed the founts of Heaven ; he prayed again And lo. Thy Blessing fell in showers of rain. AH Nineveh Fasting and girt in sackcloth raised aery, Which moved Thee ere the day of grace went by. Thy Church prayed on And on for blessed Peter in his strait, Till opened of its own accord the gate. [Facsimile op p. x of a Copy of ' Annus Domini ' showing an INSERTED Stanza in Manusobipt.] Her next devotional work, ' Seek and Find,' contains no verse. ' Called to be Saints,' the ensuing volume, has a lyric without title appended to a brief devotional meditation called ' The Key to my Book.' Here are the first four stanzas : 270 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. This near-at-hand land breeds pain by measure : That far-away land overflows with treasure Of heaped-up good pleasure. Our land that we see is befouled by evil : The land that we see not makes mirth and revel, Far from death and devil. This land hath for music sobbing and sighing : That land hath soft speech and sweet soft replying Of all loves undying. This land hath for pastime errors and follies : That land hath unending, unflagging solace Of full-chanted 'Holies.' Some objection may possibly be felt to the somewhat monotonous metrical effect of a poem in a stanza of three consecutive double rhymes. Conceivably the measure may have been suggested by George Herbert's ' Sepulchre ' beginning blessed bodie ! Whither art thou thrown ? No lodging for thee, but a cold hard stone ! So many hearts on earth, and yet not one Eeceive thee ? ' There, however, the consecutive rhymes are single not double. ' Letter and Spirit,' the next in chronological order of her devotional works, contains no verse, so we pass to ' Time Flies ' where, although there is much verse there is no opening general lyric. ' The Face of the Deep,' her latest and longest, and, as many think, her finest prose work, contains a notable lyric couched DEVOTIONAL POEMS — 'PASSING AWAY.' 271 in a most characteristic manner. The first stanza is subjoined : 0, ye who love to-day, Turn away From Patience with her silvery ray : For Patience shows a twilight face : Like a half-hghted moon When dayhght dies apace. ' Goblin Market and other Poems ' contains at least five religious poems of the highest rank, ' The Three Enemies/ 'Passing Away,' 'Advent,' 'Symbols,' and ' Up-hill ' — for the last named is properly a religious poem though not classed by its author as such. All are masterpieces in somewhat varying ways. Of ' Pass- ing Away,' which appeared in a section entitled ' Old and New Year Ditties,' some lines may be quoted : Passing away, saith my Soul, passing away: With its burden of fear and hope, of labour and play; Hearken what the past doth witness and say : Eust in thy gold, a moth is in thine array, A canker is in thy bud, thy leaf must decay. At midnight, at cockcrow, at morning, one certain day Lo, the Bridegroom shall come and shall not delay : Watch thou and pray. Then I answered : Yea. Passing away, saith my God, passing away : Winter passeth after the long delay : New grapes on the vine, new figs on the tender spray, Turtle calleth turtle in Heaven's May. Though I tarry wait for Me, trust Me, watch and pray. Arise, come away, night is past, and lo, it is day. 272 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. Mr. Swinburne (my authority for the statement is her brother Dante Gabriel) regards ' Advent ' as ' per- haps the noblest of all her poems.' Its metre, the familiar iambic alternate eight and six feet set in stanzas of eight lines, is a metre seldom adopted by its author. In inferior hands this measure grows weari- some, but in the hands of a great poet it is very noble. ' Symbols,' written on January 7, 1849, is inserted in an earlier form in her prose story ' Maude,' where the third line of the second stanza and the second line of the third stanza appear respectively as Wherein three little eggs were laid, and That I had tended with such care; while in ' Goblin Market and other Poems ' the same lines are given as Wherein three speckled eggs were laid, and That I had tended so with care — a considerable improvement. The sonnets 'Dead before Death' and 'The World' require no especial mention. The less known ' Amen ' of which the open- ing stanza is : It is over. What is over ? Nay, how much is over truly ! — Harvest days we toiled to sow for; Now the sheaves are gathered newly, Now the wheat is garnered duly. DEVOTIONAL POEMS — 'THE LOWEST PLACE.' 273 deserves a brief allusion, on account of some of its metrical effects. The measure is regular trochaic in lines of four feet with alternate rhymes, a fifth line of equal length with the others, and rhyming with the second and fourth, being added, presumably, for the sake of variety. Let us now turn to the devotional section of ' The Prince's Progress and other Poems.' Here we may observe that if 'The Lowest Place' has not the gor- geousness of diction nor the brilliance of poetic imagery we find in ' Advent ' and others of her poems of this class, it has qualities which in Christina Eossetti are more unusual than mere poetic attributes. In it there is, besides, a certain homeliness and directness of utterance to which we are unaccustomed. As these characteristics are combined with poetic fire, the piece becomes specially noteworthy. Many of Christina Eossetti's devotional poems, fine as they are as devo- tional verse, could only be used as such in reading. ' The Lowest Place,' on the other hand, has, if I am not mistaken, been placed in not a few hymnals. ' If only' has distinct beauty. In such a phrase as If I might only love my God and die 1 But now He bids me love Him and live on, there is one of those individual touches sometimes mis- takenly considered signs of her morbidity — an error arising from want of apprehension of Christina Eossetti's point of view. There is much noble and inspiring devotional verse 18 274 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. in 'A Pageant, and other Poems,' tlie only one of her separate poetic volumes which contains no section termed ' Devotional Poems.' ' For Thine own Sake, O Lord,' gives a cheering view of human aspirations and of Divine goodness : Wearied of sinning, wearied of repentance, Wearied of self, I turn, my God, to thee; To thee, my Judge, on Whose all-righteous sentence Hangs mine eternity : I turn to Thee, I plead Thyself with Thee, — Be pitiful to me. ..•••■■ I plead Thyself with Thee Who art my Maker, Eegard Thy handiwork that cries to Thee ; I plead Thyself with Thee Who wast partaker Of mine infirmity, Love made Thee what Thou art, the love of me, — I plead Thyself with Thee. The sonnet aptly called 'Why' expresses with succinct heauty an incLuiry made at some time by each devout soul: Lord, if I love Thee and Thou lovest me, Why need I any more these toilsome days : Why should I not run singing up Thy ways Straight into heaven, to rest myself with Thee ? This may be compared with Crashaw's fine lyric (Dr. Grosart's edition of this poet in ' The Fuller Worthies Library ' is quoted from) : DEVOTIONAL POEMS — • PARADISE.' 275 A SONG OF DIVINE LOVE. Lord, When the sense of Thy sweet grace Sends up my soul to seek Thy face, Thy blessed eyes breed such desire, I dy in Loue's delicious fire. Loue ! I am thy Sacrifice ? Ee still triumphant, blessed eyes ! Still shine on me, fair suns! that I Still may behold, though still I dy. And, in Christina Eossetti's poem, no less perfect is the Saviour's answer. ' A Pageant and other Poems ' is fitly closed by the tender lyric ' Love is strong as Death." Certain noteworthy religious poems were added by Christina Eossetti to the first edition of her collected poems issued in 1875. Chief among these is ' Para- dise ' — a masterpiece among the limited class of poems in English literature which are descriptive as well as devotional. Her picture of heaven is as vivid as though of some place actually seen with bodily eyes, and yet not a phrase, not a word, jars because of excessive realism. ' They desire a better country ' has an individual though not an unpleasing mournfulness. ' When my Heart is vexed I will complain,' a dialogue between the soul and its Eedeemer, is remarkable for motive and for metrical qualities ; and the skill with which the dialogue form is handled must not be over- looked. A further poem showing mastery over dialogue, a form not easy to handle satisfactorily in the treatment 276 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. of spiritual subjects, is that originally under the some- what infelicitous title of ' Conference between Christ, the Saints, and the Soul,' but here reprinted as ' I will lift up mine eyes to the Hill.' 'Verses,' consisting entirely of religious poetry, ap- peared, as mentioned before, in 1893. Many of these ' verses ' were the work of her later years. They were reprinted from ' Called to be Saints,' ' Time Flies,' and ' The Face of the Deep ; ' and she divided the pieces into eight sections, called respectively 'Out of the Deep have I called unto Thee, Lord,' ' Christ our All in AH,' 'Some Feasts and Fasts,' 'Gifts and Graces,' 'The World. Self Destruction,' 'Divers Worlds. Time and Eternity,' ' New Jerusalem and its Citizens ' and 'Songs for Strangers and Pilgrims,' the poems being classified according to subject. In analysing this book her own order shall be adhered to. The first section, ' Out of the Deep have I called unto Thee, Lord,' extends to nine pages and contains seventeen sonnets. In placing them in the foreground of her volume she displayed considerable critical dis- cernment as they splendidly show the devout side of her genius. The opening sonnet begins thus : Alone Lord God, in Whom our trust and peace, Our love and our desire, glow bright with hope ; Lift us above this transitory scope Of earth, these pleasures that begin and cease. This moon which wanes, these seasons which decrease : We turn to Thee; as on an eastern slope Wheat feels the dawn beneath night's lingering cope, Bending and stretching sunward ere it sees. DEVOTIONAI, POEMS — 'VEESES.' 277 All these sonnets have an especial beauty, hut per- haps the most beautiful of all is that with the heading Where neither rust nor moth doth corrupt beginning Nerve us with patience, Lord, to toil or rest, or the opening lines of the second of the two sonnets with the inscription ' As the Sparks ily upwards ' : Lord, make us all love all : that, when we meet Even myriads of earth's myriads at Thy Bar, We may be glad as all true lovers are Who having parted count reunion sweet. The magnificent sonnet Weigh all my faults and follies righteously ought also to be named. The succeeding section ' Christ our All in All ' extends to twenty-nine pages and contains a dialogue poem beginning O Lord when Thou didst call me, didst Thou know which is a considerable achievement, for it is exceed- ingly difficult to treat poetically a subject of saintly as- piration, in such a form. The eight lines which close the page with the general title of ' King of Kings and Lord of Lords,' are concise and lovely. The opening line Thy Name, Christ, as incense streaming forth is an instance of her infrequent revision, and is a vast improvement on Thy Name, O Christ, as ointment is poured forth as it stood when it first appeared in ' The Face of the Deep.' 278 CHRISTINA ROSSBTTI. The section 'Some Feasts and Fasts' extends to forty- eight pages, and contains the lyric ' Herself a Eose ' that was inserted originally in ' Called to he Saints.' It is full of the exquisite symbolism which makes Christina Eossetti a great poet. In the same section she has appropriated a fine sonnet to the Vigil of St. Bartholo- mew, a sonnet which occurs originally in ' The Face of the Deep ' in the midst of her commentary on the words 'And he saith unto me, 'Write, Blessed are they wrhich are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me. These are the true sayings of God.' It is additionally interesting because introduced by some remarks on symbolism — remarks very instruc- tive as coming from her. ' Symbolism affords a fascinating study : -wholesome so long as it amounts to aspiration and research ; unwholesome when it degenerates into a pastime. As literal shadows tend to soothe, lull, abate keenness of vision; so perhaps symbols may have a tendency to engross, satisfy, arrest incautious souls unwatchful and unprayerful lest they enter into temptation.' Under the heading of ' All Saints : Martyrs ' we have an otherwise fine sonnet which is remarkable, as con- taining the line All luminous and lovely in their gore. ' Gore ' in serious poetry is now almost inadmissible, and its employment here, even by Christina Eossetti, will not reconcile other poets to its use. The section entitled ' Gifts and Graces ' extends to DEVOTIONAI, POEMS — •GO'TS AND GRACES.' 279 eighteen pages, and possesses a singularly beautiful poem with the heading ' When I was in trouble I called upon the Lord ' .that recalls to some extent, though without any imitation, Donne's ' Hymn to the Father.' Christina Eossetti's poem is beautiful not only for the ideas expressed but for delicacy of rhythm. Quotation may be made of the first and fourth stanzas. A burdened heart that bleeds and bears And hopes and waits in pain, And faints beneath its fears and cares, Yet hopes again : ..... 9 Or if Thou wilt not yet relieve, Be not extreme to sift: Accept a faltering will to give. Itself Thy gift. The section called ' The World. Self Destruction ' extends to six pages, and is succeeded by a section, en- titled ' Divers Worlds. Time and Eternity,' that reaches to nineteen pages. Under the sub-title of ' Awake, thou that sleepest ' it contains a poem beginning : The night is far spent, the day is at band: The closing stanza is as follows : Far, far away lies the beautiful land : Mount on wide wings of exceeding desire, Mount, look not back, mount to life and to light, Mount by the gleam of your lamps all on fire. Up from the dead men and up from the night. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. The lyric originally formed part of its author's ex- position of the text, ' The night is far spent, the day is 280 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. at hand ' in ' The Face of the Deep.' The character- istic ' Time passes away ' is also included in this section. It may be well to point out here that in this, as well as in some others of her poems in French verse- forms, written in her later years, she uses succeeding rhymes (in ' Time passes away ' the rhymes in question are 'pain ' and ' bay ') which are open to the objection of containing similar vowel sounds. The poem beginning Time lengthening, in the lengthening seemeth long : the second of the two poems with the sub-title, ' The earth shall tremble at the look of Him,' is solemn in subject, and has a correspondingly solemn metre whose rhythm gives it majesty and force. How expressive are the lines Time lengthening, in the lengthening seemeth long and Eternity still rolling forth its car, Eternity etui here and still to come. The noble eight-line poem beginning Heaven's chimes are slow, but sure to strike at last is placed as the second poem under the sub-title of 'AH Flesh is Grass,' in this section. In Christina Eossetti's ' New Poems ' appear ten stanzas to which the editor has given the title 'Eestive.' The third stanza, These chimes are slow, but surely strike at last : This sand is slow, but surely droppeth through : And much there is to suffer, much to do, Before the time be past, DEVOTIONAL POEMS — ' RESTIVE.' 281 will be seen to be an early version of Heaven's chimes are slow, but sure to strike at last : Earth's sands are slow, but surely dropping thro' : And much we have to suffer, much to do, Before the time be past. It is probable that she wrote the fine concluding stanza : Chimes that keep time are neither slow nor fast : Not many are the numbered sands nor few : A time to suffer, and a time to do, And then the time is past, when composing ' Time FHes.' This shows that even Christina Eossetti, who is supposed to have revised so little, sometimes acted like the poets of elaboration, a class to whom she cannot be said to belong, and built up a fine poem from some comparatively unimportant lines having originally an altogether different con- nection. The seventh of the sections into which ' Verses * of 1893 is divided, is entitled ' New Jerusalem and its Citizens.' From ' The Face of the Deep,' comes the first of the three poems with the sub-title ' She shall be brought unto the King.' Its opening line, 'The King's daughter is all glorious within,' is noticeable metrically, because the first foot must be made ' The King's dau' to scan — a somewhat daring licence. In the same section a sonnet beginning Dear Angels and dear disembodied Saints Unseen around us, worshipping in rest, May wonder that man's heart so often faints And his steps lag along the heavenly quest, 282 CHRISTINA ROS'SETTI. is inserted in the course of her commentary on the words, ' And after these things I saw four angels stand- ing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.' ('The Face of the Deep,' Chap. VII.). This sonnet has a vivid, almost an autobiographical touch. Not infrequently in many of her devotional poems, and perhaps noticeably in this sonnet, we are reminded of the quaintness and intensity of Quarles, though in Christina Eossetti we rarely perceive the realism bordering on the ludicrous apparent in some of his ' Emblems.' Elsewhere in her writings, (notably in passages of 'Time Flies,' and also in the lyric in this book ' Lord whomsoever Thou shalt send ' under the title of 'Are they not all Ministering Spirits,' and likewise in ' The Face of the Deep,') she expresses her views about guardian angels. In the last section of this book, headed ' Songs for Strangers and Pilgrims,' under the title 'Whither the tribes go up, even the tribes of the Lord,' we have a poem of ten lines. The first stanza begins : Where never tempest heaveth, Nor sorrow grieveth, and the second stanza : Where never shame bewaileth, Nor serpent traileth, the fifth line of the first stanza is ' Sleep * and the fifth line of the second stanza is ' Eeap.' Another poem in DEVOTIONAL POEMS — 'ENDURE HARDNESS.' 283 'Verses/ cast in the antique mould, is one of twelve lines, originally in ' The Face of the Deep,' and begin- ning: Day and night the Accuser makes no pause, in which the same rhyme is continued throughout. In these poems, and others of her religious verses, the iniluence of Donne and Wither would seem to be trace- able, different as were these seventeenth century poets in some aspects of poetic art. Under date of April 13, in 'Time Flies,' there is a sweet little nature lyric of eight lines beginning: A cold wind stirs the blackthorn To burgeon and to blow, Besprinkling half-green hedges With vegetable snow. It is placed in the section with the sub-title of ' Endure Hardness,' the last line of the stanza being : With flakes and sprays of snow, a marked improvement on ^ With vegetable snow, a phrase not altogether happy. In the same section are the fine verses beginning : Our life is long. Not so, wise Angels say which may be compared with Horatius Bonar's lines on the same subject beginning : He liveth long who liveth well All other life is short and vain. ' Home by different ways ' may be alluded to, and the delicately wrought poem, worthy of George Herbert, 284 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI, 'Praying always.' The latter is in three stanzas, of which the first is given below : PRAYING ALWAYS. After midnight, in the dark, The clock strikes one, New day has begun. Look up and hark ! With singing heart forestall the carolling lark. In the poem of considerable length, ' To what purpose is this Waste,' dated January 22, 1853, and first pub- lished in 'New Poems,' occur the lines: And other eyes than ours Were made to look on flowers, Eyes of small birds and insects small : The deep sun-blushing rose Round which the prickles close Opens her bosom to them all. The tiniest living thing That soars on feathered wing, Or crawls among the long grass out of sight, Has just as good a right To its appointed portion of delight As any King. This is the earlier form of the charming stanza so full of sympathy with animals, which appears in ' Time Flies,' and begins : Innocent eyes not ours. Are made to look on flowers, Eyes of small birds and insects small. DEVOTIONAL POEMS — ' VERSES.' 285 It will be readily seen from the above that Christina Eossetti's alterations, comparatively infrequent though they were, were sometimes important, and that she always achieved a higher poetic excellence in her finished poem than in her first draft. The brief lyric Before the beginning Thou hast foreknown the end, which originally appeared in ' The Face of the Deep ' as part of her commentary on the text Eev. xix. 18, 'That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great,' is a striking instance of a certain morbidity she shows again and again in dwelling on the concomitants of death, or perhaps it might be more just to say in a too frequent dwelling on the idea of death. A similar re- mark can be made with regard to the otherwise lovely lyric beginning Young girls wear flowers, though the fancy she there works out, that perchance angels resort to grave-yards, is in itself a beautiful one. Some metrical qualities of the poems included in 'Verses ' (1893) may be indicated at this point. There are, for example, several instances of a very successful use of internal rhymes. Here is one : He speaks with Dove-voice of exceeding love, And she with love-voice of an answering Dove. 286 CHRISTINA ROSSETTL And again : Trembling before Thee we fall down to adore Thee, Shamefaced and trembling we lift our eyes to Thee : First and with the last ! annul our ruined past, Eebuild us to Thy glory, set us free From sin and from sorrow to fall down and worship Thee. And once more in the solemn lyric 'Life that was born to-day,' the first stanza of which may serve for purposes of illustration, the same feature is discernible : Life that was bom to-day Must make no stay. But tend to end As blossom-bloom of May Lord, confirm my root, Train up my shoot. To live and give Harvest of wholesome fruit. The two sonnets under the sub-title of ' Heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morn- ing ' are notable specimens of her work, despite these lines in the first sonnet that border too closely on the ridiculous : Thus I sat mourning like a mournful owl, And like a doleful dragon made ado. The analysis of a noble volume — the greatest con- tribution to religious verse of our century — must not close without mentioning the perfect lyric beginning; We know not a voice of that river, printed previously in ' The Face of the Deep ' after her DEVOTIONAL POEMS — ' VERSES.' 287 commentary on the passage in the twenty-second chapter of Eevelation, ' And he showed me a pure river of ■water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb,' nor must it conclude without mentioning the heartfelt lines beginning As froth on the face of the deep whose beautiful rhythm suggests the metre of Mr. Swinburne's memorable ' Dedication ' to the first series of his ' Poems and Ballads.' Finally, allusion must be made to Christina Eossetti's characteristic conception of the goodness of God, embodied in the opening lines that follow her remarkable sonnet on the passage : ' And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, Who liveth for ever and ever.' Seven vials hold Thy wrath : but what can hold Thy mercy save Thine own Infinitude Boundlessly overflowing with all good, All lovingkindness, all delights untold ? Thy love, of each created love the mould; Thyself, of aU the empty plenitude. The following is a list of the poems which appeared in ' Time Flies ' and in ' The Face of the Deep,' but were not included by Christina Eossetti either in her col- lected 'Poems' of 1890 or in her 'Verses' of 1893. These poems are chiefly devotional. Two of them however which begin respectively ' A handy Mole who 288 CHEISTINA ROSSETTI. plied no shovel' and 'Contemptuous of Ms home beyond/ (descriptive of the death of a frog), show her love for animals, and have flashes of gentle humour. The poems having no titles, the opening line is given in each case. ' TIME FLIES.' ' Love is all happiness, love is all beauty ' — p. 34. ' A handy Mole who plied no shovel ' — p. 40. • A Eose which spied one swaUow ' — p 85. ' Contemptuous of his home beyond ' — p. 129. 'THE FACE OF THE DEEP.' ' What will it be, my soul, what will it be ? ' — p. 35. 'Lord, Thou art fullness; I am emptiness' — p. 36. •0 Lord, I cannot plead my love of Thee' — p. 84. ' Lord, comest Thou to me ! ' — p. 224. ' Love us unto the end, and prepare us ' — p. 248. ' Lord, grant us eyes to see ' — p. 285. ' I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow ' —p. 417. ' Passing away the bliss ' — p. 448. ' As one red rose in a garden when all other roses are white ' — p. 450. • Love builds a nest on earth and waits for rest ' — p. 513. ' Jesus alone : — if thus it were to me ' — p. 549. Though not markedly different in tone or in senti- ment from the devotional poems which Christiaa Eos- setti published in her lifetime, the devotional poems contained in the ' New Poems ' are a worthy comple- ment to them. As an instance of her succinct work, when her poetic inspiration reached its most exalted DEVOTIONAL POEMS — 'A CHRISTMAS CAROL.' 289 point, the lovely eight-line lyric entitled ' A Christmas Carol ' may be mentioned. It hegins : Whoso hears a chiming for Christmas at the nighest Hears a sound like Angels chanting in their glee, Hears a sound like palm-boughs waving in the highest. Hears a sound like ripple of a crystal sea. When a poet chooses a most hackneyed subject, and employs a rhyme-word like ' glee,' to do the work of ' rapture ' or some such word, and then achieves nota- ble success, we may take it as a sure sign of poetic inspiration. Poetic achievement is often the result of attention to small details, often the vanquishing of small difficulties — difficulties, however, which are none the less harassing because they are small. Among other excellent religious verses in these ' New Poems ' are ' Yea I have a goodly Heritage,' and ' I know you not,' of which the last stanza is as follows : But Who is this that shuts the door, And saith — I know you not — to them ! I see the wounded hands and side, The brow thorn-tortured long ago : Yea, This who grieved and bled and died, This same is He who must condemn ; He called, but they refused to know; So now He hears their cry no more. Very pathetically beautiful also is one of her early sonnets, dated December 18, 1853, and beginning: When I am sick and tired it is God's will : Also God's will alone is sure and best : — So in my weariness I find my rest, And so in poverty I take my fill. 19 CHAPTEE VIII. children's books and peose stoeies. ' Sing-Song ' — Speaking Likenesses — ' Commonplace, and other Short Stories ' — ' Maude.' In this chapter I shall deal first with Christina Eos- setti's books for children, subsequently discussing ' Commonplace, and other Short Stories.' And, it may be, that in doing so I shall call attention to certain aspects of her genius in its lighter moods — aspects and moods overlooked too frequently. One of the strongest ties between her and Mr. Swinburne was their love of children. And Mr. Swin- burne's fine child-poem ' Olive,' (on a little niece, nine years old, of his friend Mr. Watts-Dunton) — a child- poem full of beautiful description — was an especial favourite of hers. To one, who, like myself, knew Christina Eossetti in her solitude, a solitude that must sometimes have been loneliness, it is curious and interesting, and from some points of view even a little pathetic, to think of the popularity of her children's books, such, for instance, as ' Sing-Song,' in numberless nurseries throughout the world, while its author saw so little of children. For when I knew Christina Eossetti her lik- CHILDREN'S BOOKS — • SMG-SONG.' 291 ing for children was not seldom made evident by word or by look. Anne Gilchrist has prettily said concerning ' Sing- Song,' in a letter to Mr. W. M. Eossetti, that its brief lyrics are ' as sweet and spontaneous as a robin's song : . . . melody of the right kind indeed for the little ones ; who want it as much as they want air and sun- shine, or laughter and kisses.' And this praise is not ill-bestowed. It is observable that both Christina Eossetti and Jean Ingelow, two of the greatest poetesses of our age, have excelled in writing for children. Jean Ingelow has given us children's stories both in prose and in verse, such as the ' Stories told to a Child ' and the lovely poem 'Echo and the Ferry,' showing subtle knowledge of the heart of a child, and marvellous power of depicting it. In ' Sing-Song,' the volume now to be treated of, Christina Eossetti has given terse and brief lyrical utterance to the feelings and aspirations of children — utterance which is as realistic in the higher sense as the best poems iu Eobert Louis Stevenson's ' Garden of Verses,' while full of a dramatic imagina- tion that lifts them to a higher level of insight and aspiration than is reached even by that delightful writer in those delightful child-poems. But 'Sing- Song' — though, of course, it has an aifinity to the work for children of Jean Ingelow and Eobert Louis Stevenson — has also its points of difference, but this difference is precisely one of those which are more easily felt than exactly defined in words. At first sight 292 CHRISTINA EOSSETTL the lyrics in ' Sing-Song ' seem so simple as to demand neither thought nor artistic workmanship on the part of their author, and yet, spontaneous as they seem, looked at more closely, they reveal considerable thought, and not a little technical workmanship. Many of the brief bird-like songs in this volume are perfectly ex- pressed, and it is by no means easy to attain perfect expression within brief limits. To judge by the num- ber of volumes written for children it would appear not hard to write a children's book, and yet to me at least it has always seemed that to write a book for children, which would not only be loved by them, but would be regarded in the well-nigh unanimous opinion of the best judges among their elders as a classic in its own department, must require both real and especial genius. Such a volume is ' Sing-Song.' Its lessons are not enforced by dull didacticism, and even its teaching is elevated into poetry. ' Sing-Song, a nursery rhyme book, with one hundred and twenty illustrations by Arthur Hughes, engraved by the brothers Dalziel,' was published in 1872, and the dedication page is as follows : Rhymes Dedicated Without permission To The Baby Who Suggested them. This ' baby ' was the son of Professor Arthur Cayley, the celebrated Cambridge mathematician. CHILDREN'S BOOKS — ' SING-SONG.' 293 When illustrating ' Sing-Song ' Mr. Arthur Hughes lived for some time at a cottage on Holmwood Common, Surrey, and he has given me some interesting particu- lars respecting his illustrations and the localities from which they were drawn. Opposite the title-page is a full-page design repre- senting a baby in its peasant mother's lap who, seated at the foot of an old oak tree, is knitting. At their side, though unseen of any, except possibly the child, sits a tiny rabbit with raised forepaws in attitude of mild entreaty. At some little distance off are sheep at rest. In the foreground two lambs gaze upon the mother and child, and so does a donkey's foal, standing on a little bridge spanning a stream, from which its mother drinks. On the banks of the stream are birds. Behind the mother and child, and unseen by them, some cherubs peep. This design, so lovely in its touch- ing simplicity, drawn from Holmwood Common, is perhaps unconsciously a sort of allegory of innocent childhood attracting to itself what is innocent, youth- ful, and harmless in the lower creation. It may be questioned, however, whether the introduction of the cherubs does not detract from the harmony of the pic- ture by recalling the onlooker's mind from this idyllic country scene to something essentially incompatible with it. The landscape here, be it remembered, is real, not a painter's convention. The old well illustrating the lines beginning Kookoorookoo ! kookoorookoo ! Crows the cock before the morn; 294 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. was sketched at Cookham Dene, near Maidenhead ; the pretty old cottage window half thrown open to the frosty air with the kindly little girl throwing out A crumh for robin redbreast On the cold days of the year, from a cottage window at Holmwood Common; the delightful ingle nook descriptive of There 's snow on the fields, And cold in the cottage, from an old farm cottage at Holmwood ; and the dead thrush lying beside the rush basket at head of the lines Dead in the cold, a song-singing thrush. Dead at the foot of a snowberry bush — from a rush basket made by children at the same place. My baby kisses and is kissed, Por he 's the very thing for kisses, is a portrait of the wife and baby son of the artist. The drawing associated with If all were rain and never sun. No bow could span the hill ; represents a rainbow that spans an extensive country, while behind the rainbow is a hill. This is also a picture of Holmwood Common; and the hill behind the rainbow portrays Eedlands Woods. Dante Gabriel much admired this drawing, more especially the ' bent old woman and the child,' in the foreground ' as illustra- CHILDREN'S BOOKS — ' SING-SONG.' 295 ting the effect of sorrows and troubles and their teach- ing during the progress of life.' A sketch of a pigeon cote on a farm off Holmwood Common is linked to one of the most delightful little lyrics in the volume, ending The summer days are short Where southern nights are long ; Yet short the night when nightingales Trill out their song. The picture of a little girl doing a hem ; of the little boy and the toy horse ; of another little girl teaching another little boy arithmetic on a blackboard, and of a little boy looking at a sun-dial, interpreting respectively the lines : A pocket handkerchief to hem — Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! How many stitches it will take Before it 's done, I fear. Seldom ' can't, ' Seldom ' don't ' ; 1 and 1 are two — That 's for me and you. How many seconds in a minute ? Sixty, and no more in it, were drawn from the artist's youngest daughter; his youngest son ; his eldest daughter and youngest son ; and from a sun-dial in an old garden at Maidstone. To accompany the poem that follows is a spirited drawing figuring donkeys, pigs, and geese on Holmwood 296 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. Common, and the next sketch, representing a stile and tree, was also executed in the same locality. The bel- fry at page 94 was sketched by the artist when staying at a house lent to him by a friend, near Caesar's Camp on Wimbledon Common. The drawing at the head of the lines beginning : Who has ever seen the wind ? Neither I nor you : But when the leaves hang trembling, The wind is passing thro', showing a horse and pigs with a background of trees, was sketched at Holmwood. In it the artist represents the pigs as running from the wind. Does he mean to suggest the Yorkshire saying that 'pigs can see t' wind ' 1 The drawing figuring a mole was drawn from a mole seen on Holmwood Common by the artist ; that of an old woman in a chair was sketched from a chair in a cottage in the same neighbourhood; and that showing a sweet cottage window with the moon peep- ing through was delineated from the actual window of the artist's Holmwood lodging. One of the most fascinating of Christina's brief lyrics in this volume is that beginning: Boats sail on the rivers. And ships sail on the seas ; But clouds that sail across the sky Are prettier far than these. The delightful, characteristic landscape which accom- panies it represents the outlook over the Thames on CHILDREN'S BOOKS —' SING-SONG.' 297 the road to Eochester near a village called Stone, just before coming to Greenhithe ; while the drawing that represents a ship's deck illustrative of the song com- mencing : I have a little husband And he is gone to sea, The winds that whistle round his ship My home to me, was appropriately made by the artist at the London docks. The pretty picture of Willie and Margery in the swing represents his youngest son and daughter. Not the least graceful of Christina Eossetti's lyrics says whimsically that the ' bee ' ' brings home honey ' ; ' the father ' ' money ' which ' mother ' expends ; while ' baby ' ' eats the honey.' The sketch at the head of it represents ' baby ' on ' mother's ' lap being fed with a spoon. In the background are the beehives, while 'father' looks on. Mr. Hughes informs me that this sketch ' delighted Dante Gabriel Eossetti very much,' and that ' he spoke of the " silly happy sort of " expres- sion of the man.' Mr. Shields, who has a very high opinion of Mr. Arthur Hughes both as a painter and as a book illus- trator, has pointed out to me in conversation the very fine qualities and admirable symbolism of the design associated with the quasi-humorous lines wherein little Molly although All the hells were ringing And all the birds were singing, 298 CHRISTINA KOSSETTI. sat down to cry just because she had broken her doll. Molly is seated on the ground at the foot of a little tree. Her left hand holds the remains of her doll, its decapitated head being in front of her, the back of her right hand is thrust into her right eye presumably to check the tears ; from the boughs of the trees many birds, with visibly open bills, seem, almost audibly, to sing, while at the top of the picture is a scroll of bells. In the judgment of Mr. Shields this same scroll of bells most successfully intensified the symbolism, and he added ' Such a design as the bells would never have occurred to me, I often quote the lines to people in small troubles.' One does not usually think of Christina Eossetti as humorous, yet a light, playful humour is often present in ' Sing-Song.' What playful fancy could be better conceived and worked out than in the lines : If a pig wore a wig What could he say 1 If his tail chanced to fail Send him to the tailoress To get one new; or than in the quaint enumeration beginning A pin has a head, but has no hairj and concluding And baby crows, without being a cock. CHILDREN'S BOOKS — ' SING-SONG.' 299 Were space available much miglit be said about the comical conceit respecting fishes and lizards, beginning When fishes set umbrellas up, with its inimitable woodcut, and similar conceits concerning mice, crows, and sprats ! Christina Eossetti dedicates to the 'garden-mouse' (whom she designates as ' poor little timid furry man ') a tuneful lyric akin to Burns's fine ode to the same 'Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, timorous beastie.' Both poets were equally fond of animals, and both in the poems just named regard the creature whom they address with a fondness akin to pity. The pretty representa- tion of a field-mouse at the head of Christina Eossetti's lyric was drawn from a field-mouse found by Mr. Hughes on Holmwood Common. A little later on Christina Eossetti's love of nature bursts forth, and she compares the condition of a linnet in a ' gilded cage ' with the hard fate of a linnet at liberty during severe weather, and asks the child to answer which is best. The reply might be doubtful, but she ends by saying : But let the trees burst out in leaf And nests be on the bough, Which linnet is the luckier bird, Oh who could doubt it now t The lines commencing : Hope is like a harebell trembling from its birth, Love is like a rose the joy of all the earth; Faith is like a lily lifted high and white, Love is like a lovely rose the world's delight; 300 CHRISTINA EOSSETO. might possibly be regarded as somewbat beyond a child's comprehension. Christina Eossetti herself evidently liked these lines much, for she wrote respec- tively : Hope is like a harebell trembling from its birth, and (as mentioned before in an allusion to her strong religious convictions) Taith is like a lily lifted high and white, in copies of her general 'Poems ' (1890) and of her 'Verses' (1893) now owned by me. The only objection that can be urged against the otherwise lovely lyrics beginning: and Fly away, fly away over the sea. Sun-loving swallow, for summer is done When a mounting skylark sings In a sunlit summer morn, is that their full significance lies beyond the under- standing of children. In a collected edition of her poetical works these lyrics ought to be included. The beautiful poem about stars and flowers whose final lines are : Winged angels might fly down to us To pluck the stars. But we could only long for flowers Beyond the cloudy bars, has a wistful touch in it. The volume next to be dealt with was originally CHILDREN'S BOOKS — ' SPEAKING LIKENESSES.' 301 called ' Nowhere,' but Dante Gabriel pointed out that a ' free-thinking book ' had been ' called " Erewhon," which is "Nowhere" inverted,' so it became 'Speak- ing Likenesses.' Like 'Sing-Song' the volume is illustrated by Mr. Arthur Hughes. ' Speaking likenesses,' issued in 1874, and presum- ably a series of stories told to some girls by their aunt to wile away the hours of sewing, cannot be ranked high among its author's books. It is not comparable with the best work of the same kind by ' Lewis Carrol ' and Jean Ingelow. Nevertheless it is not without some good qualities. The following extract, which may be called ' Flora's Entrance into the House of her Dreams,' shows vivid fancy, and perhaps it is characteristic of Christina Eossetti that here she introduces, with obvious moral intent, the looking-glasses throughout the room. Floba's Entrance into the House of Hee Dreams. ' The door opened into a large and lofty apartment, very handsomely furnished. All the chairs were stuffed arm- chairs, and moved their arms and shifted their shoulders to accommodate sitters. All the sofas arranged and rearranged their pillows as convenience dictated. Footstools glided about, and rose or sank to meet every length of leg. Tables were no less obliging, but ran on noiseless castors here or there when wanted. Tea-trays ready set out, saucers of strawberries, jugs of cream, and plates of cake, floated in, settled down, and floated out again empty, with considerable tact and good taste : they came and went through a square 302 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. hole high up in one wall, beyond which I presume lay the kitchen. Two harmoniums, an accordion, a pair of kettle- drums and a peal of hells played concerted pieces hehind a screen, but kept silence during conversation. Photographs and pictures made the tour of the apartment, standing still when glanced at and going on when done with. In case of need the furniture flattened itself against the wall, and cleared the floor for a game, or I daresay for a dance. Of these remarkable details some struck Flora in the first few minutes after her arrival, some came to light as time went on. The only uncomfortable point in the room, that is, as to furniture, was that both ceiling and walls were lined throughout with looking-glasses ; but at first these did not strike Flora as any disadvantage ; indeed she thought it quite delightful, and took a long look at her little self full length.' As 'Commonplace, and other Short Stories' has been long out of print, and is therefore the least ac- cessible of all Christina Eossetti's works, and moreover as this book widely differs from those with which her name is usually associated, somewhat fuller attention shall be devoted to it than might otherwise have been thought needful. It is noteworthy not only that one family should have produced two eminent poets — Dante Grabriel and Christina Kossetti — but that these great poets should have left behind them some very noble imaginative prose work, small though the quantity be. It is further remarkable that both Dante Gabriel's ' Hand and Soul ' and Christina's ' Lost Titian ' are stories concerned with Art and artists. Both 'Hand and Soul' and 'The Lost Titian ' will live because of the creative ardour PROSE STORIES — 'COMMONPLACE.' 303 shown in them. If we except the prose tales of Wil- liam Morris (which, fine though they are, are in sub- stance so different that they cannot properly be dis- cussed in this connection), none other of the great poets of the later years of the century — Tennyson, Eobert Browning, Mr. Swinburne and Matthew Arnold — ever wrote, or at any rate ever published, any signed prose stories. The volume under consideration seems to indicate that at one period of her life Christina Eossetti had a tentative purpose of becoming a novelist. I am un- aware that Elizabeth Barrett Browning or Felicia Hemans ever published prose stories. But students of literary history know, of course, that Lsetitia Landon did so, as did also Augusta Webster, an infinitely greater poet; while, among other prominent women poets, the stories of Jean Ingelow are familiar, and full of evidences of her genius. This would seem to suggest that in the feminine mind the art of writing verses and the art of writing stories is somewhat akin. But notable objective poets like Sir Walter Scott have also been notable novelists. In truth viewed in some aspects the art of writing poetry and the art of writing stories do not seem so dissimilar as might at first sight appear. But the question is a wide one and cannot profitably be dealt with at length here. Although 'Commonplace, and other Short Stories' did not appear until 1870 when the authoress reached her fortieth year we are told in the opening words of a brief 'Prefatory Note,' dated April, 1870, that 304 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. ' The earliest of these tales dates back to 1852, the latest was finished in 1870.' Concerning the interesting point of the date of these various stories her brother has written to me as follows : ' " Nick " was an early performance, and seems to me the most likely story to have been written in 1852. " The Lost Titian " was also earlyish, but more (I should say) towards 1855. I incline to think that " Commonplace " may have been, the latest of all, and therefore the one finished in 1870.' Let us take them in the order in which they are printed in the volume. ' Commonplace,' the longest, evinces considerably more ability in construction than any of the others, though in other respects it is not the best. Its fair degree of originality can hardly be questioned, yet I should have been disposed to find in it traces of the influence of Mrs. Gaskell, and even of Mrs. OHphant in her quieter moods, had not Mr. W. M. Eossetti informed me that in all probability his sister never read the last-named of these two great novelists. 'Commonplace' is a tale of three sisters, Catherine, Lucy, and Jane, whose several characters are differentiated carefully and stand out clearly be- fore us, while in Miss Drum, their old school-mistress, Christina Eossetti shows that she could depict suc- cessfully a personage with humorous traits. In my judgment, for clear and natural colouring 'The Lost Titian' is the finest story in the book. Written somewhat' later than Dante Gabriel's ' Hand PROSE STORIES — 'THE LOST TITIAN.' 305 and Soul,' it has, like that story, much atmosphere of its own, and real mediseval colour combined with abso- lute fidelity in its delineation of the scenes depicted. Titian at the height of his artistic power and fame, has completed what he regards as his masterpiece, and summons two of his friends, Gianni and Giannuccione, to look at it on the day before all Venice is to behold it. The two friends vie with each other in its praise, and, before they part, arrange that they shall meet again in the evening, for Titian himself bids them ' " Rehearse to-morrow's festivities, and let your congrat- ulations forestall its triumphs. " ' " Yes, evviva ! " returned the chorus, briskly ; and again " evviva / " 'So, with smiles and embraces, they parted. So they met again at the welcome coming of Argus-eyed night. ' The studio was elegant with clusters of flowers, sump- tuous with crimson, gold-bordered hangings, and luxurious with cushions and perfumes. From the walls peeped pic- tured fruit and fruit-like faces, between the curtains and in the corners gleamed moonlight-tinted statues; whilst on the easel reposed the beauty of the evening, overhung by bud- ding boughs, and illuminated by an alabaster lamp burning scented oil. Strewn about the apartment lay musical instru- ments and packs of cards. On the table were silver dishes, filled with leaves and choice fruits; wonderful vessels of Venetian glass, containing rare wines and iced waters ; and footless goblets, which allowed the guest no choice but to drain his bumper. 'That night the bumpers brimmed. Toast after toast was quaffed to the success of to-morrow, the exaltation of the unveiled beauty, the triumph of its author.' 20 306 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. The evening hours pass swiftly in merriment, despite the fact that Titian feels secret uneasiness which Gianni tries vainly to dispel by his skill in lute play- ing and in singing, for he is an adept in both arts. At length it is proposed that the three should gamble, the stakes being high. 'Gianni the imperturbable' has lost, and continues to lose ; his money, his pictures, his gondola, his jewels, all have gone. Then, laughing, he turns to Titian and says: ' " Amico mio, let us throw the crowning cast. I stake thereon myself ; if you win, you may sell me to the Moor to-morrow, with the remnant of my patrimony; to wit, one house, containing various articles of furniture and apparel ; yea, if aught else remains to me, that also do I stake : against these set you your newborn beauty, and let us throw for the last time ; lest it be said cogged dice are used in Venice, and I be taunted with the true proverb, — Save me from m/y friends, and I will take care of my enemies." ' " So be it, " mused Titian, " even so. If I gain, my friend shall not suffer; if I lose, I can but buy back my treasure with this night's winnings. His whole fortune will stand Gianni in more stead than my picture ; moreover, luck favours me. Besides, it can only be that my friend jests, and would try my confidence." ' So argued Titian, heated by success, by wine and play. But for these, he would freely have restored his adversary's fortune, though it had been multiplied tenfold, and again tenfold, rather than have risked his life's labour on the hazard of the dice. •They threw. ' Luck had turned, and Gianni was successful. ' Titian, nothing doubting, laughed as he looked up from the table into his companion's face; but no shadow of jesting PROSE STOEIES — 'THE LOST TITIAN.' 307 lingered there. Their eyes met, and each read each other's heart at a glance. ' One, discerned the gnawing envy of a life satiated : a thousand mortifications, a thousand inferiorities, compensated in a moment. ' The other, read an indignation that even yet scarcely realised the treachery which kindled it ; a noble indignation, that more upbraided the false friend than the destroyer of a life's hope.' Venice wondered vrhat had become of Titian's great painting. Titian kept silence as to his friend's treachery because ' branding Gianni as a traitor . . . would expose himself as a dupe.' Giannuccione, the third reveller, overcome by 'drunken sleep' had seen 'little; and what he guessed Titian's urgency induced him to sup- press.' Time wore on, everything seemed to prosper with Gianni, but by-and-by his former fondness for play returned, and he lost everything. For that night all his possessions — and among them Titian's master- piece — were his own, on the morrow they would pass inevitably into other hands. That splendid work he had hitherto kept in secret, hoping when Titian was dead to proclaim himself the painter of it, and so win 'world-wide fame.' Gianni was a craftsman of some little skill and much resource. His resolution was taken. Seizing coarse pigments, such as could be re- moved at pleasure, he covered over Titian's work, and then painted on the top a dragon suitable for an inn- sign. The next day, at the meeting of his creditors among whom Titian appeared for the first time, intent on regaining his picture, Gianni said that some of the 308 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. more valuable of his effects had recently been destroyed accidentally by fire, and that the tavern sign (pointing to the dragon) had been painted for an inn-keeper just deceased. This he remarked presumably hoping to be allowed to retain it as valueless. At this point the dragon was claimed, somewhat unexpectedly, by a cred- itor, who was also an inn-keeper. With much show of politeness Gianni endeavoured to dissuade him from his purpose, alleging that the dragon was not yet in a suitable condition to leave his studio. But the inn- keeper was determined and carried it off immediately. Gianni, in his subsequent obscurity, devoted all his energies to ' concocting a dragon superior in all points to its predecessor.' He intended to induce the inn- keeper to take this and to give back the dragon he now possessed. But, when the new dragon was nearly fin- ished, Gianni suddenly died, and knowledge of the lost painting ' died with him.' In her Prefatory Note Christina Eossetti writes respecting all the tales that are included in the volume, but especially as to ' The Lost Titian ' : ' Not one of the stories is founded on fact. • This might not seem worth stating, had I not reason to fear that one or two of my kindest friends have viewed " The Lost Titian " somewhat in the light of an imposture. I therefore take this opportunity of putting on record that I am not conversant with any tradition which points to the existence of a lost picture by that great master with whose name I have made free.' As to these remarks of his sister, Mr. William Eosset^^i points out to me : \ I PROSE STORIES — 'THE LOST TITIAN.' 309 ' The reason why ' ' The Lost Titian " might be viewed as an imposture must be that somebody might suppose the story to be a narrative of real fact : indeed I have a rather clear impression that someone in our circle did so suppose, I think Christina had also, to some extent, in her mind the fate which befell Gabriel's old " Germ "-story named " Hand and Soul " ; for it is a fact that more persons than one really believed what Gabriel says about the picture in the Pitti &c., and actually made enquiry for it on the spot.' 'Mck' and 'Hero,' which follow 'The Lost Titian," are fairy stories. Both are good, but the latter reveals perhaps a higher order of imagination, and was much admired by Dante Gabriel. 'Vanna's Twins,' that succeeds these, is a pretty and touching story of child- life and evinces considerable power in delineating Italian character of the lower middle class. It used to be a great favourite with Mr. Swinburne. 'A Safe Investment ' might be termed an allegory of the rela- tive advantages of, and difference between, heavenly and earthly commerce, if ' commerce ' be a permissible word in such a connection. ' Pros and Cons,' and ' The Waves of this Troublesome World ' (which concludes the volume), are interesting only as illustrative of Christina Eossetti's theological views and position ; indeed she herself tells us that each of these stories was composed with a special object. Evidently in her later years Christina Eossetti looked with disfavour on the book we are now discuss- ing. For, in September, 1891, when sending a list of her books to Mr. Patchett Martin, at his request, in 310 CHKISTINA EOSSETTI. prospect of an article upon her in ' Literary Opinion,' she remarked : 'Commonplace and other Short Stories. [Out of print and not worth reprinting].' It is impossible to concur with her judgment in this instance. I share her younger brother's regret that we do not now possess ' Folio Q,' in his opinion the best prose story his sister ever wrote. Of this he spoke in his 'Memoir' of Dante Gabriel (vol. ii. p. 162): 'It dealt with some supernatural matter — I think, a man whose doom it was not to get reflected in a look- ing glass (a sort of alternative form, so far, of "Peter Schlemihl"),' and on the same subject to myself : 'The story, as written by C[hristina], had not, either in intention or in fact the remotest savour of immorality but it contained some incident (I forget what) which some readers, more knowing than C[hristina] might have sup- posed to mean something or other which it did not in the least mean — Gabriel noticed this and either he or I con- veyed the hint to C[hristina]. She without further ado destroyed the MS.' I have been permitted to examine the original manu- ^ script of ' Maude,' mentioned before, and to make what extracts seem desirable. The manuscript is a quarto size notebook of ruled blue paper, with a stiff paper cover, greyish in colour. The author's corrections, few and unimportant in themselves, are interesting because they are in the firm and bold handwriting of her after PROSE STORIES — 'MAUDE.' 311 years — handwriting so widely different from the neat penmanship, deficient in individuality, in which the body of the tale is written. Thus it is clear from internal evidence that these alterations were made at a considerably later date than that at which the rest of the narrative was composed, and therefore, at least once, she looked through it in mature life.^ The title- page is as follows : MAUDE : Prose and Verse, By Chhistina G. Rossetti, Loirdon 1850. Viewed from the artistic standpoint ' Maude ' is far from being altogether satisfactory, and its didactic tendencies are frequently too obvious for success even in a didactic direction. Nevertheless, bearing in mind the age at which it was produced, its good qualities are not seldom manifest ; and throughout there is a directness of purpose, combined with a simplicity of diction, that sometimes is really touching. Elsewhere are mentioned certain of her early poems which, in their original form, appeared in 'Maude.' Here it will be sufficient to give a brief summary of, and some extracts from, the tale. Maude Foster, ' just fifteen ' when the story opens, is described as having ' features ' which ' Were regular and pleasing, as a child she has been very pretty; and might have continued so but for a fixed paleness, 1 Mr. W. M. Rossetti states that this revision was made probalJly in 1870 or 1875. 312 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. and an expression, not exactly of pain, but languid and pre- occupied to a painful degree. Yet even now if at any time she became thoroughly aroused and interested, her sleepy eyes would light up with wonderful brilliancy, her cheeks glow with warm colour, her manner become animated, and drawing herself up to her full height she would look more beautiful than ever she did as a child. So Mrs. Foster said, and so unhappily Maude knew. She also knew that people thought her clever, and that her little copies of verses were handed about and admired. Touching these same verses, it was the amazement of every one what could make her poetry so broken hearted as was mostly the case. Some pronounced that she -wrote very foolishly about things she could not possibly understand ; some wondered if she really had any secret source of uneasiness ; while some simply set her down as affected. Perhaps there was a degree of truth in all these opinions.' Partly for the benefit of her health, Maude is taken on a short visit to the country house of her aunt vrhere she becomes very intimate with her cousins Agnes and Mary Clifton.^ At a birthday party given in honour of the latter, she excels all competitors in making bouts- rimes sonnets, and becomes acquainted with Magdalen Ellis who eventually enters a Sisterhood. Some time elapses, and Maude, going to be a bridesmaid to Mary Clifton, meets with a serious accident from which she never recovers. During her lingering illness Agnes comes to nurse her. The tale goes on: ' A burning sun seemed baking the very dust in the streets, and sucking the last remnant of moisture from the ^ According to Mr. W. M. Bosaetti these girls were, ' to some extent, limned from two young ladies, Alice and Prisoilla Townsend.' PROSE STORIES — 'MAUDE.' 313 straw spread in front of Mrs. Foster's house, when the sound of a low muffled ring was heard in the siok-room; and Maude, now entirely confined to her bed, raising herself on one arm, looked eagerly towards the door; which opened to admit a ser- vant with the welcome announcement that Agnes had arrived. ' After tea Mrs. Poster, almost worn out with fatigue, went to hed ; leaving her daughter under the care of their guest. The fi.rst greetings between the cousins had passed sadly enough. Agnes perceived at a glance that Maude was, as her last letter hinted, in a most alarming state : while the sick girl, well aware of her condition, received her friend with an emotion which showed she felt it might be for the last time. But soon her spirits rallied. '"I shall enjoy our evening together so much, Agnes;" said she, speaking now quite cheerfully : " you must tell me all the news. Have you heard from Mary since your last despatch to me 1 " ' " Mamma received a letter this morning before I set off; and she sent it hoping to amuse you. Shall I read it aloud?" ' " No, let me have it myself." Her eye travelled rapidly down the well-filled pages, comprehending at a glance all the tale of happiness. Mr. and Mrs. Herbert were at Scar- borough; they would thence proceed to the Lakes; and thence most probably homewards, though a prolonged tour was mentioned as just possible. But both plans seemed alike pleasing to Mary ; for she was full of her husband, and both were equally connected with him. ' Maude smiled as paragraph after paragraph enlarged on the same topic. At last she said : " Agnes if you could not be yourself, but must become one of us three : I don't mean as to goodness, of course, but merely as regards circum- stances, — would you change with sister Magdalen, with Mary, or with me." '"Not with Mary, certainly. Neither should I have 314 CHRISTINA ROSSETTL courage to change with you; I never should bear pain so well : nor yet with sister Magdalen, for I want the fervour of devotion. So at present I fear you must even put np with me as I am. Will that do ? " ' There was a pause. A fresh wind had sprung up and the sun was setting. ' " Agnes [said Maude] it would only pain Mamma to look over everything if I die ; will you examine the verses, and destroy what I evidently never intended to be seen. They might all be thrown away together, only Mamma is so fond of them. — What will she do ? " — and the poor girl hid her face in the pillows. ' " But is there no hope, then ? " '"ITot the slightest, if you mean of recovery; and she does not know it. Don't go away when all 's over, but do what you can to comfort her. I have been her misery from my birth till now ; there is no time to do better. But you must leave me, please ; for I feel completely exhausted. Or stay one moment : I saw Mr. Paulson [the clergyman] again this morning, and he promised to come to-morrow to adminis- ter the Blessed Sacrament to me; so I count on you and mamma receiving with me, for the last time perhaps : will youl" ' " Yes, dear Maude. But you are so young, don't give up hope. And now would you like me to remain here dur- ing the night 1 I can establish myself quite comfortably on your sofa." ' " Thank you, but it could only make me restless. Goodnight, my own dear Agnes." '" Goodnight, dear Maude. I trust to rise early to- morrow, that I may be with you all the sooner." ' So they parted. ' That morrow never dawned for Maude Foster. PROSE STOBIES — 'MAUDE.' 315 • Agnes proceeded to perform the task imposed upon her, with scrupulous anxiety to carry out her friend's wishes. The locked book she never opened: but had it placed in Maude's coffin, with all its records of foUy, sin, vanity; and she humbly trusted, of true penitence also. She next col- lected the scraps of paper found in her cousin's desk and portfolio, or lying loose upon the table; and proceeded to examine them. Many of these were fragments, many half- effaced pencil scrawls, some written on torn backs of letters, and some full of incomprehensible abbreviations. Agnes was astonished at the variety of Maude's compositions. Piece after piece she committed to the flames, fearful lest any should be preserved which were not intended for general perusal : but it cost her a pang to do so ; and to see how small a number remained for Mrs. Foster. Of three only she took copies for herself. The first was dated ten days after Maude's accident. 'The second, though written on the same paper, was evidently composed at a subsequent period: Fade, tender lily, Fade, crimson rose, Fade, every flower. Sweetest flower that blows. Go, chilly Autumn, Come Winter cold ; Let the green stalks die away Into common mould. Birth follows hard on death. Life is withering. Hasten, we shall come the sooner Eack to pleasant Spring. — 316 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. ' Agnes cut one long tress from Maude's head; and on her return home laid it in the same paper with the lock of Magdalen's hair. These she treasured greatly : and gazing on them, would long and pray for the hastening of that eternal morning which shall reunite in God those who in Him, or for His sake, have parted here. ' Amen for us all.' CHAPTEE IX. DEVOTIONAL PKOSE. ' Annua Domini ' — ' Seek and Find ' — ' Called to be Saints ' — ' Letter and Spirit ' — ' Time Flies ' — ' The Face of the Deep.' 'Annus Domini,' which was issued in 1874, through the publishing house of Messrs. James Parker & Co., Oxford and London, is the first in point of date of Christina Eossetti's prose devotional works, and de- serves particular attention as it presents many feat- ures showing the inception of her later devotional prose style. ' Annus Domini ' is called on the sub-title page ' a prayer for each day of the year, founded on a text of Holy Scripture.' Following the title-page is a brief commendatory note by the Eev. William Henry Burrows mentioned before. Next comes a short Pref- atory Note by the author, and then two pages occupied by what she names a ' Calendar ' wherein the numbers are given of certain of the prayers which presumably she considered appropriate to memorable periods of the Christian year such as Advent, Christmas, Epiph-. any, Septuagesima, Lent, Passiontide, Holy Week, Easter, Ascension, Whitsuntide, Holy Trinity, Saints' Days, Feast of the Blessed Virgin, S. Michael and All Angels, Ember Weeks, and Eogation Days. Each prayer is addressed to Christ. These prayers are not 318 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. SO imaginative as Cliristiiia's later devotional work. Perhaps this restraining of the imagination may have arisen on her part from her deep reverence for prayer as prayer, and her feeling, once or twice expressed to me, that no human creature, however skilful, ought wantonly to embroider with his own ability petitions to the Almighty. It may also have arisen partly from the fact that her symbolism became more developed in later Ufe. But even in this book we find her remarka- ble power of evoking spiritual sublimity from Biblical passages which at first sight do not appear to contain it ia a great degree. As an example of her writing here page 354 may be quoted in its entirety: ' Eev. XV. 4. « ' ' Who shall not fear Thee, Lord, and glorify Thy Name ? for Thou only art Holy." ' Lord Jesus Christ, Who only art Holy, forgive, I implore Thee, forgive and purge the unholiness of Thy saints, the unholiness of Thy little ones, the unholiness of Thy penitents, the unholiness of the unconverted, the unholiness of me a sinner. God be merciful to us sinners. Amen.' Occasionally we see the influence of the Book of Common Prayer and it is not too much to say that she has sometimes caught much of its well-ordered grandeur. Perhaps there is almost an excessive realism in these words, part of a petition to Christ : ' By virtue of Thy victory give us also, I entreat Thee, victory. Let Thy pierced Heart win us to love Thee, Thy DEVOTIONAL PROSE— 'SEEK AND FIND." 319 torn Hands incite us to every good work, Thy wounded Feet urge us on errands of mercy, Thy crown of thorns prick us out of sloth. Thy thirst draw us to thirst after the Living Water Thou givest: let Thy life be our pattern while we live, and Thy death our triumph over death when we come to die. Amen,' But how beautiful, how full of the true rhythm of the finest English prose is the following : '0 Lord Jesus Christ, King of Kings, draw, I beseech Thee, all Kings of the earth to come and worship before Thee. Bless them who for our sakes are burdened with responsibility and cares; teach us to reverence, love, and obey them in all things lawful ; and in the next world of Thy goodness give them with us rest. Amen. ' 'Seek and Find' was published in 1879, and on the title-page is termed by its author ' A double series of short studies of the Benedicite.' In a ' Prefatory Note' on the succeeding page, she tells us that in writing her book she consulted the ' Harmony ' by the late Isaac Williams (presumably his work entitled ' A Harmony of the Four Evangelists'). She goes on to say that, as she is unacquainted with either Hebrew or Greek, any 'textual elucidations' were obtained from 'some translation,' and that she discovered ' many valuable alternative readings ' ' in the Margin of an ordinary Eeference Bible.' Following the ' Prefatory Note,' under the general heading of 'The Benedicite,' are five pages of small type setting forth the contents of the volume, each of the five pages being divided into three columns, as seen in the illustrative extract given below : 320 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. THE BENEDICITE. THE PEAISE-GIVEES ARE god's CKBATURES, L JHKIST S SERVANTS. all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise Him, and magnify Him for ever. God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it •was very good. (Gen. i. 31.) The Word was God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made. (St. John l.i. 3.) The 'first series' of 'studies,' called on the suh-title-page 'Creation,' occupy one hundred and fifty-three pages; while the 'second series,' termed ' Eedemption,' fill one hundred and fifty-nine pages. In a letter to Christina, (October 8, 1879), her brother Dante Gabriel says that he finds ' Seek and Find * ' full of eloquent beauties/ and then adds : 'I am sorry to notice that — in my own view — it is most seriously damaged, for almost all if not for all readers, by the confusion of references in the text, which they com- pletely smother. Surely these should all have been mar- ginal, and not nearly so numerous. [Mr. Frederic] Shields, who was of course much interested iu seeing the book, took quite the same view in this.' The volume might certainly have been better arranged. But, this objection stated, little but praise ought to be given to a work that contains so many noble prose sequences. 'It is the Spirit that quickeneth' — Christina Eossetti, without knowing Hebrew and Greek, was, nevertheless, frequently able to flash light on a Scriptural phrase, or series of phrases, owing to a devout use of her poet's intuition, for, generally speak- DEVOTIONAL PROSE — • CALLED TO BE SAINTS.' 321 ing, she approaches even her prose work from the standpoint of a poet. Throughout 'Seek and Find' her characteristic inclination towards symbolism is' everywhere displayed and mainly with happy effect, although once and again, as in her disquisition on the connection between fishes and men, she appears to carry her symbolism a little too far. Perhaps the finest disquisition in the book is that on angels — a disquisition valuable not only for the ideas set forth therein, but because some of these ideas seem to be more fully the outcome of her personal experience than is usual even with Christina Eossetti. The ex- cerpt that follows, sets forth some of these ideas : ' Since we believe that even in this life we dwell among the invisible hosts of angels, — since we hope in the life to come to rejoice and worship without end in their blessed company, let us collect what we already know of these our unseen fellows, that by considering what are their character- istics, we ourselves may be provoked unto love and to good works.' (Heb. x. 24). ' Seek and Find ' is not one of Christina Eossetti's great books, but it is not unworthy of her, and is further noticeable as exhibiting her great knowledge of the Bible. ' Called to be Saints : The Minor Festivals Devotion- ally Studied,' was published in 1881. The saints and , festivals dealt with in the volume are St. Andrew, 'Apostle'; St. Thomas, 'Apostle*; St. Stephen, i ' Deacon ' ; St. John, ' Apostle and Evangelist ' ; The Holy Innocents; St. Paul, 'Apostle'; The Presenta- 21 322 CHRISTINA EOSSETTL tion and Purification ; St. Matthias, ' Apostle ' ; The Annunciation ; St. Mark, ' Evangelist ' ; St. Philip and St. James the Less, ' Apostles ' ; St. Barnahas, ' Apostle ' ; St. John, 'Baptist'; St. Peter, 'Apostle'; St. James the Great, ' Apostle ' ; St. Bartholomew, ' Apostle ' ; St. Matthew, ' Apostle and Evangelist ' ; St. Michael and All Angels; St. Luke, 'Evangelist'; St. Simon and St. Jude, 'Apostles'; and All Saints. Prefixed to the volume is ' The Key to my Book,' a short essay ending with the lyric ' This near-at-hand- land ' to which reference has been made at the begin- ning of Chapter VIL To each of the saints a separate section is given. Each of these sections is again sub- divided into brief dissertations, and in the contents each of these has a separate heading. The first of these headings is always styled ' The Sacred Text ' ; the second, ' Biographical Additions ' ; the third, ' A Prayer,' a composition written wholly by Christina Eossetti, and partly based on the characteristics of the especial saint commemorated. Then comes what is designated as ' A Memorial.' These ' memorials ' are noteworthy in many ways, and are often of consider- able length, the memorial of St. Andrew, for example, extending to ten pages of fairly close type. They show their author's intimate acquaintance with the Bible, and her great power in bringing the passages she cites to bear on the particular subject she has in hand. Each of the pages in these 'memorials' is divided midway into two portions. At the opening of the left-hand column are the first words of some brief BEVOTIONAIi PEOSB — 'CALLED TO BE SAINTS.' 323 commentatory matter, supplied by Christina Eossetti, and printed in block type, and these commentatory words are interspersed in the left-hand column of the 'memorials' throughout the book. For purposes of example this commentatory matter in the first three pages of the memorial to St. Andrew has been given below, and printed consecutively, but, to save space, more closely than in the author's text, asterisks being placed where breaks occur in the original: ' St. Andrew of Bethsaida * * * learns of St. John Baptist, follows Christ and abides with him that day, * * * brings to our Lord his brother, * * * on whom a new name is bestowed, * * * is called from the nets to be fisher of men, * * * is ordained Apostle. ' Following each of these detached phrases, and set in the same type as the rest -of the volume, are Scrip- ture passages relating either to the Saint's history, or mainly interpreting it. In the right-hand column are texts from the Bible also in usual type illustrative of, but not directly referring to, the saint. Further there is a little treati'se, often most delicately phrased, relat- ing to some flower, and to each of the saints she appro- priates some particular flower. To St. Andrew, for instance, she appropriates the daisy.. She adds like- wise, in the case of the Apostles, a short disquisition on each particular precious stone with which she asso- ciates them, the disquisitions in their case being sug- gested by Eev. xxi. 14 : ' And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.' 324 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. She follows the order of the precious stones given in the same chapter of Eevelation, verses 19 and 20, and, adopting the Ecclesiastical Calendar in the assignment of the stones, gives the jasper to St. Andrew and, proceeding in regular order, gives the amethyst, the last of the stones mentioned, to St. Jude — the latest apostle ia the Ecclesiastical Calendar. Scattered throughout the prose text moreover are some of her most exquisite and solemn lyrics, fervid and intense in their piety, ecstatic in their rapture, but these, as they are discussed in Chapter VII., need not be referred to in detail here. Following Eev. iv. 7 : ' And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle, ' and the traditions of many centuries, she appropriates the fourth living creature, the eagle, to St. John, with a few words charged with fitting symbolism ; while in a similar manner she gives the first living creature, a lion, to St. Mark ; the third living creature, an angel, to St. Matthew ; and the second living creature, an ox, to St. Luke. The prose of 'The Key to my Book' is full of that rhythmical beauty noticeable especially in much of her devotional prose, — perhaps, because the mental quali- ties required in order to write such prose with a high degree of excellence, were precisely the qualities she possessed. Her simple yet sensuous mind — a mind DEVOTIONAL PROSE — • CALLED TO BE SAINTS.' 325 stored with poetic imagery — found in such work a stimulus to lofty achievement. Nor, in her case, is this lofty achievement ever gained by elaborate artifice. Her arrangement and choice of words are as unartifi- cial as the wild flowers of England, which she prefers to associate with the saints she loves, rather than the flora of Palestine. Very tender and touching are these opening words : ' How beautiful are the arms 'which have embraced Christ, the hands which have touched Christ, the eyes which have gazed upon Christ, the lips which have spoken with Christ, the feet which have followed Christ. ' How beautiful are the hands which have worked the works of Christ, the feet which treading in his footsteps have gone about doing good, the lips that have spread abroad his name, the lives which have been counted loss for him.' Her description of ' Hepaticas ' which she allocates to Matthias is an excellent example of her admirable power of idealising a merely botanical description. Work such as this is exceedingly difficult. If ordinary language be used, then the effect is commonplace and dull. If overmuch symbolism be employed, then the result seems strained and unreal. In this instance, however, the result is most successful. The passage which follows is especially pretty and fanciful : ' Hepaticas favour a light soil, and love to meet the morn- ing sun rather than to endure a more continuously sunny exposure. They do not well bear moving, or at the least they bear it not always with indifference: an instance is quoted of one changing from blue to white when trans- 326 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. planted, whilst on returning to its former soil the enduring plant resumed its original tint. Humble in height, the hepatica may he termed patient in hahit; for during one whole year the blossom, perfect in all its parts, lurks hidden within the bud. ' This plant belongs to the family of Anemones or Wind- flowers ; and, as a wind-flower, seems all the more congruous with St. Matthias; . . . When, the lot having already fallen on him, "suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, " that wind which ' ' bloweth where it listeth," and on him as on the rest the Fiery Tongue of consecrating power lighted and sat. ' Kindly as the hepatica thrives amongst us, it yet is no native of England, but comes to us from Switzerland. Thus if hepaticas prefer repose, they yet submit to transference, blooming cheerfully in their allotted sphere.' Mention may be made of an exquisite little homily on violets ; of her ' Prayer for Conformity to God's Will ' ; and of her disquisition on ' Arbutus and Grass,' which she designates as ' great and small,' and assigns to All Saints Day. In the discourse last-named there is one of the autobiographical touches which, when they occur in her work, are always interesting. • Often as I have let slip what cannot be regained, two points of my own experience stand out vividly ; once, when little realising how nearly I had despised my last chance, I yet did in bare time do what must shortly have been for ever left undone; and again, when I fulfilled a promise which beyond calculation there remained but scant leisure to fulfil.' As to this passage Mr. William Bossetti has sent me the following communication : DEVOTIONAL PROSE — ' CALLED TO BE SAINTS.' 327 ' [Concerning] those references made by Christina in "Called to be Saints." As to "doing in bare time what would shortly have been un-do-able, " the natural in- ference seems to be that she did something or other in relation to a person who soon afterwards died. As to a promise which was fulfilled, but only just in time, a similar inference again suggests itself. It is just as likely as not that the incidents were in themselves of the very slightest consequence possible ; for C[hristina] often bore such matters in mind, if any sort of principle seemed to be involved in them.' The last quotation tliat shall be made from ' Called to be Saints ' is from her meditation on St. Michael and All Angels, and may be said to be a complement to the passage concerning angels in ' Seek and Find ' lately referred to. The extracts which here follow show how deep was the spirituality of her nature. « Now of all which is, that which is made known unto us is undoubtedly made known for our profit. Let us not fail to love God all the more because He hath given His Angels charge concerning His own to keep them in all their ways; because the armies of heaven pitch their camp around the faithful when need arises; because blessed spirits minister to the heirs of salvation; because they rejoice over one sinner that repenteth : — for all this we know assuredly, whether or not with a multitude of pious souls we solace ourselves by the thought of one Angel guardian assigned to each baptised person. . . . When it seems (as sometimes through revulsion of feeling and urgency of Satan it may seem) that our yoke is uneasy and our burden unbearable, because our life is pared down and subdued and repressed to an intolerable level: and so in one moment every instinct 4j^ Hi o m S 330 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. of our whole self revolts against our lot, and we loathe this day of quietness and of sitting still, and writhe under a sudden sense of all we have irrecoverably foregone, of the right hand, or foot, or eye cast from us, of the haltingness and maimedness of our entrance (if enter we do at last) into life, — then the Seraphim of Isaiah's vision making music in our memory revive hope in our heart.' Probably with the single exception of ' The Face of the Deep,' ' Called to be Saints ' is more thoroughly and beautifully built up through symbolism than any other of Christina Eossetti's devotional books. Lady Mount-Temple ' found joy in ' ' Called to be Saints ' (to use Mr. Shields's happy phrase). He told this to Christina who, in a letter to him now before me, expresses her great satisfaction at hearing it. ' Letter and Spirit : Notes on the Commandments,' published in 1883, is dedicated To My Mother in thankfulness for her dear and honoured example. — a dedication specially interesting in view of some words to Mr. Shields, which may here be inserted. Writing from ' Church Hill, Bircliington-on-Sea,' under date August 23, 1883, Christina says: ' Thank you for welcoming " Letter and Spirit " — my Mother's life is a far more forcible comment on the Com- mandments than are words of mine.' DEVOTIONAL PKOSE — 'LETTER AND SPIRIT.' 331 As its title is doubtless meant to indicate, ' Letter and Spirit ' is a treatise on the inner meaning of the Commandments. Christina places in full on the first page of her book Christ's exposition of the Decalogue as it is given in Mark xii. 28-30, and Matt. xxii. 39-40, and then quotes the entire Decalogue itself, the rest of the work being an exposition of it. The volume ends with a Harmony on 1 Corinthians xiii. and in the right column parallel sayings of Jesus culled from the Gospels. On a first glance at this book one is apt to think that, in form at least, it partakes too much of the character of the ordinary religious commentary. Not till we have looked further into it do we perceive it filled with the same qualities which have made her other devotional prose remarkable — the qualities- I mean of symbolism and a chastened form of imagina- tion. The original manuscript of ' Letter and Spirit ' is now in the possession of Mr. Fairfax Murray, and he has been good enough to allow me to examine it with some care. Like many other of her manuscripts, particularly the manuscripts of her later prose works, it is written on ordinary blue paper, quarto size, and in somewhat large handwriting, with considerable space between the lines, and with comparatively few erasures. 'Letter and Spirit' is the only one of her books, except 'Seek and Find' and 'Speaking Likenesses,' which contains no verse of her own. It is likewise noteworthy from the fact that only two lines of verse 332 CHEISTINA EOSSETTI. of other writers are quoted — the lines of Bishop Seber : — Eicher by far is the heart's adoration, Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor. Seldom in her books did she quote the verses of other poets. Probably this was because, in her case, it was so easy to write verse. But was there another reason ? It is a somewhat interesting field of specula- tion. In none of her books does she approach more nearly to theological disquisition than in the volume at present under discussion. A conspicuous instance of this is to be seen in her remarks about the Trinity. A portion of these remarks may be quoted to show her in a polemical mood — a mood unusual with her : '"Hear, Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. " 'This first, "the Great," Commandment is characterised by unity. Whatever else we find in it, this is one of its essential features, if not its leading feature. And, in fact, within this unity is bound up the entire multitude of our duties; out of this one supreme commandment have to be developed all the details of every one of our unnumbered obligations. ' " Hear, Israel ; the Lord our God is one Lord. " While " the Christian verity " declares to us the mystery of the AU-HoIy Trinity, " the Catholic religion " asserts the inviolable Unity of the Godhead [Athanasian Creed]. And touching these two mysteries, it seems that to grasp, hold DEVOTIONAL PROSE — ' LETTER AND SPIRIT.' 333 fast, adore the Catholic Mystery leads up to man's ohligation to grasp, hold fast, adore the Christian Mystery ; rather than this to the other. "What is Catholic underlies what is Chris- tian : on the Catholic basis alone can the Christian structure be raised; even while to raise that superstructure on that foundation is the bounden duty of every soul within reach of the full Divine Revelation. In God's inscrutable Provi- dence it has pleased Him that millions of the human race should live in unavoidable ignorance of Christian doctrine : to that fundamental doctrine of God's unity, from which the other is developed. He has graciously vouchsafed a freer currency; so that while the Jewish Church knew it by revelation, multitudes of the Gentile world knew or at least surmised it by intellectual or spiritual enlightenment. Let us thank God that this main point of knowledge we hold in common with so vast a number of our dear human brothers and sisters, children along with ourselves of the all-loving Father; let us thank Him through Jesus Christ that we Christians are instructed how thus acceptably to thank Him ; let us beseech Him in that all-prevailing Name to add to each of us, whatsoever we be, every lacking gift and grace. ' Whilst Unity appears the sole existence essential to be conceived, our conceiving it as separate from ourself attests at once our likeness and our unlikeness to it. That which we conceive is on our own showing other than ourselves who conceive it : yet to conceive that which has no existence is (I reverently assume) the exclusive attribute of Almighty God, Who out of nothing created all things. To modify by a boundless licence of imagination the Voice of Revelation, or of tradition, or our own perceptions, concerning the uni- verse, its Ruler, inhabitants, features, origin, destinies, falls within the range of human faculties. And thus may not light be thrown on that mass of bewildering error (whose name is legion) which at every turn meeting us as man's invention, is after all a more or less close travestie of truth ? 334 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. So like in detail, so unlike as a whole, to the truth it simu- lates, that alternately we incline to ask: If so much is known without immediate revelation, wherefore reveal t If truth pervades such errors, if such errors can be grafted upon truth, is truth itself distinguishable or is it worth distinguishing ? ' At first sight and apparently the easiest of all conceptions to realise, I yet suppose that there may in the long run be no conception more difficult for ourselves to clench and re- tain than this of absolute Unity ; this Oneness at all times, in all connexions, for all purposes.' The following passage has importance both because it shows the strength, of her convictions and because it comes from the pen of a great poet with a poetic environment almost unique — from a poet moreover whose intense love of beauty was perhaps as great as that of any poet of our century: ' And if that be not mere fancifulness which seeks to trace a parallel between the Second and Seventh Commandments, it seems to follow by parity of reasoning that as regards whatever leads to sensual temptation a rule of avoidance, rather than of self-conquest or even of self-restraint, is a sound and scriptural rule. For the Jews were bidden not to degrade or defile, but absolutely to do away with all idols, and to obliterate every trace of idolatry ; not one image might they hoard as a curiosity or an antiquity or a work of art; neither were they encouraged, even if under any circum- stances it might be lawful for them, so much as to investigate the subject of heathen rites : " When ye are passed over Jordan into the Land of Canaan ; then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places " (Num . xxxiii. 51, 52) ; DEVOTIONAL PROSE — ' LETTER AND SPIRIT.' 335 "Thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God " (Deut. vii. 6, 6) ; " When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land ; take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee ; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods ? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods " (Deut. xii. 29-31). ' " Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be : but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him ; for we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure " (1 St. John iii. 2, 3) . Blessed indeed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. With such a beatitude in view, with so inestimable a gain or loss at stake, with such a prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus to yearn for, all we forego, or can by any possibility be re- quired to forego, becomes — could we but behold it with purged impartial eyes — becomes as nothing. True, all our lives long we shall be bound to refrain our soul and keep it low : but what then 1 For the books we now forbear to read, we shall one day be endued with wisdom and knowledge. For the music we will not listen to, we shall join in the song of the redeemed. For the pictures from which we turn, we shall gaze unabashed on the Beatific Vision. For the com- panionship we shun, we shall be welcomed into angelic society and the communion of triumphant saints. For the amusements we avoid, we shall keep the supreme Jubilee. For the pleasures we miss, we shall abide, and for evermore 336 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. abide, in the rapture of heaven. It cannot be much of a hardship to dress modestly and at small cost rather than richly and fashionably, if with a vivid conviction we are awaiting the " white robes " of the redeemed. And indeed, this anticipation of pure and simple white robes for eternal wear may fairly shake belief in the genuine beauty of elabo- rate showiness even for such clothes as befit us in " the present distress " ; Solomon in all his glory was outdone by a lily of the field, and all his glory left him a prey to sensual- ity : and this launched him into shameless patronage of idol- worship ; until the glory of his greatness and the lustre of his gifts, combined with heinousness of his defection, have remained bequeathed to all ages as an awful warning beacon.' Nothing is more unreasonable than the opinion so often expressed and apparently truly felt that the poetic mind is deficient in practical attributes. The exact reverse is not seldom the case with the higher types of poetic genius, and certainly nothing could be more practical than the exhortations of Christina Eossetti in this book. She refers to England by name, and is per- suaded ' that our national honour, wealth, credit, already impaired' probably implies, 'unless we repent' the commencement 'of our chastisement.' By and by she remarks that it is 'no light offence to traduce the dead.' If we believe that every man and woman born into the world since its beginning still lives a life unbroken by death — still retains ' one continuity of individual existence from birth to this moment, from this moment to the Day of Judgment' — if we feel assured that, with them, we shall ourselves be judged, DEVOTIONAL PROSE — ' LETTER AND SPIRIT.' 337 then must we realise in full that to cherish 'malice ' towards them is 'simply devilish' — then must we realise what ' a solemn thing it is to write history ' ; and she concludes by this personal reference, striking in its graceful homeliness : ' I feel it a solemn thing to write conjectural sketches of Scripture characters; filling up outlines as I fancy, but cannot be certain, may possibly have been the case; making one figure stand for this virtue and another for that vice, attribut- ing motives and colouring conduct. Yet I hope my mistakes will be forgiven me, while I do most earnestly desire every one of my personages to be in truth superior to my sketch. ' We have likewise some carefully thought out remarks on the arrangement of daily life ; on the relative im- portance of rest and work ; and on what really con- stitutes work, what rest. The beautiful ' Harmony,' alluded to already, opens with a little note, in which she tells her readers that it ' was in part if not wholly suggested to me,' and though the person who made the suggestion is not certainly known, it was most probably her sister Maria. She approaches, as said before, in ' Letter and Spirit ' more nearly than in her other writings to theological disquisition. She was not a professed theologian. She had too distinct a bias to the symbolical — to the poetic — and was too little touched by the merely in- tellectual, to excel in theological disquisition. Occa- sionally, however, particularly in her prose devotional works, we come upon passages in which her natural commonsense and her natural eloquence enable her to 22 338 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. deal with themes more or less theological with much power. ' Time Flies : A Eeading Diary,' with the appropri- ate motto ' A day's march nearer home ' from James Montgomery, was published in 1885. It was dedicated thus: To My Beloved Example, Friend, Mother. ' Her children arise up, and call her blessed.' ' Time Flies ' has the distinction of containing more frequent personal references than any other of her books, unless it be ' The Face of the Deep.' Indeed it may almost be called a kind of spiritual autobiography. For even when there are no obvious personal allusions many of the original thoughts and pregnant sayings that enrich the book must have had their root in her own spiritual experience. Probably having to write something about each day in the year, something that must necessarily be short, and that ought also to be concise and pithy, she fell back, unconsciously, on her own wide experience, wide, not in the outer but in the inner sense. Be this as it may, what has just been said gives an added and peculiar value to ' Time Flies,' altogether apart from the remarkable literary merit of the book. As showing Christina Eossetti's breadth of mind and ample charity, despite her firm and unwavering faith not only in religion but in dogma, it is worthy of note. DEVOTIONAL PROSE — 'TIME FLIES. 339 tliat very often in the course of these books we en- counter passages which none could have written but a woman who had thought for herself, and who had not reached her present standpoint without much deep meditation. Seldom does she allow her passion for symbolism to carry her too far, and thus her symbolism rarely becomes, as we have often seen it become in the hands of lesser writers, something almost ridiculous. This in itself is a great achievement. For, as may easily be imagined, in a volume of brief devotional essays such as this ' reading diary ' is in effect, it is most difi&cult to discuss in a few words, and without a sense of the ridiculous, such questions, for instance, as whether the association of ' tapers and bonfires ' with St. Blaise arose or did not arise out of a quibble on his name. To January 24, she allocates the sonnet beginning : ' Give Me thy heart.' I said : Can I not make Abundant sacrifice to Him Who gave Life, health, possessions, friends, of all I have, AU but my heart once given ? terming the sonnet ' devotional.' She further adds that a ' friend ' gave it to her many years before, and that she now reproduces it from memory. The ' friend ' was James CoUinson. Sometimes Christina Eossetti introduces in a characteristic manner her opinions respecting subjects only indirectly connected with the theme which she is treating at the moment. Thus under date of February 5, and in relation to the Feast of St. Agatha, Virgin 340 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. Martyr (who is supposed to have ' suffered death ' about the year 251) she tells how Catania and Palermo claim to be the birthplace of ' this heroine of piety ' ; how Quintianus, 'Consular of Sicily' loved Agatha; and how, when he found that Agatha remained a Christian and repelled his overtures, his affection towards her became repugnance. She narrates further how he 'exhausted cruelty and torture ' on her in vain, and how subsequently Agatha died in prison. Then she discusses anew, with simplicity and force, the familiar problem of how far a man or a woman may differ on important points and yet love one another. Her conclusion is that much real affection may exist despite important differences of opinion, and she closes her remarks by quoting St. Paul's words at Athens ' I found an altar with this inscription, " To the Unknown God."' ' Time Flies ' contains many sayings of Christina's full of striking commonsense such as this : ' For many are they of whom the world is both " not worthy " and ignorant,' or this under date of February 18, where she adduces some excellent lessons from the ' quaint remark ' of a friend who said, concerning her own — not Chris- tina Eossetti's — feet, that it was a good thing they were so large for thus anyone could wear her boots. Then we have a neat and sensible little homily, with considerable freshness, on the ' square man in a round hole.' Later we have a cheerful little exhortation on the subject of ' dirt ' as the symbol of ' something out of place.' Still later there is a timely disquisition on DEVOTIONAL PROSE — 'TIME FLIES.' 341 the relative duties of hospitality in which she points out that ' In many cases the person who annoys and the person who is annoyed are both in the tight, or (if you please) are both in the wrong ' — illustrating her proposition by the differing standards of courtesy of an Arab chief and his English guest. In response to an enquiry as to whether the poem allocated to February 15 beginning My love whose heart is tender, said to me, and ending And still she keeps my heart and keeps its key, refers to her sister, her younger brother writes to me : ' I certainly regard it as applying to Maria. The 2nd line, " a moon lacks light" &c., is conclusive to me. Maria had a very round face, and Christina was much in the habit of calling her Moon, Moony, &c. I have no doubt that Maria on some occasion made this her cue for saying something very like what appears in the poem. However I never knew her to call C[hristina] her " Sun," or anything of the sort.' At February 8 are some subtle and carefully differ- entiated remarks respecting heaven and music, in the course of which Christina points out that music to be music must not be monotonous, and that therefore ' a heaven of music,' even if that conception of heaven be not somewhat narrow and unreasonable, would be a place of variety, not of monotony. Under date of March 28, and April 16 she shows conclusively that. 342 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. what she aptly calls physical ' grievous besetments,' may not relatively be disadvantageous ; she also at the second date avers how even our most cherished opin- ions almost inevitably are modified by time, drawing therefrom this cheerful moral : ' If even time lasts long enough to reverse a verdict of time, how much more eternity 1 ' Let us take courage, secondary as we may for the pres- ent appear. Of ourselves likewise the comparative aspect will fade away, the positive will remain.' At March 7 we meet with a few words about Vivia Perpetua, the martyr, on the subject of whose pathetic career the author of ' Nearer my God to Thee ' wrote a drama full of force and poetical enthusiasm. Chris- tina Eossetti's special powers of reasoning are admi- rably used in her moralisings on the Feast of St. George, Martyr. The entry under May 8 has peculiar interest, and reveals her love of William Blake : 'There is a design by William Blake symbolic of the Resurrection. In it I behold the descending soul and the arising body rushing together in an indissoluble embrace: and the design, among all I recollect to have seen, stands alone in expressing the rapture of that reunion : ' — an opinion worth quoting when we recollect how great, apparently, was the influence of Blake on her own work, though it is right to add what Mr. William Eossetti tells me : ' It would I think be an error to suppose that C[hristina] at any time read B[lake] much or constantly — certainly she prized the little she did read. ' DEVOTIONAL PBOSE — 'TIME FLIES.' 343 The entry under May 8 closes with a suitable quota- tion from Cayley's translation of Dante's 'Paradise/ Canto XIV. Under date of August 30 tact is discussed shrewdly. Her entry for the following day, (where she dwells on the resemblance, once pointed out to her, between a grey parrot and an elephant) seems at first sight to have a quality akin to humour, were it not for the grim seriousness of the words with which she con- cludes : ' It is startling to reflect that you and I may be walking about unabashed and jaunty, whilst our fellows observe very queer likenesses amongst us. 'Any one may be the observer: and equally any one may be the observed. ' Liable to such casualties, I advise myself to assume a modest and unobtrusive demeanour. ' I do not venture to advise you.' In a right sense she had a fearlessness, almost a con- tempt of current opinion, and, under date of Septem- ber 30, she recalls with approval the saying of Jerome to the lady Asella : ' I know we may arrive at heaven equally with a bad, as a good name.' There is deep spiritual teaching in the following words which occur under date of December 20 : ' St. Thomas doubted. 'Scepticism is a degree of unbelief: equally therefore it is a degree of belief. It may be a degree of faith, 'St. Thomas doubted, but simultaneously he loved. Whence it follows that his case was all along hopeful.' 344 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. ' The Face of the Deep : a Devotional Commentary on the Apocalypse ' has as motto ' Thy judgments are a great deep ' — Psalm xxxvL 6. It was dedicated To Mt Mother for the first time to her beloved, revered, cherished memory, and was published in 1892 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. In the simple and touching account given by Mr. William Eossetti (in his memoir of Dante Gabriel) of the early education of his brother and sisters we are told how their good mother instructed them in the Bible, and in this connection the Apocalypse is espe- cially mentioned. There is therefore fair ground for supposing that Christina Eossetti's knowledge of the Book of the Eevelation, and her fondness for it, had their origin in very early days, probably, in Mr. William Eossetti's opinion, by the age of eight or nine. Should such be the case, and the inference is just, it is striking and beautiful to think that her last, and in some re- spects her greatest literary achievement, was a com- mentary on the Book she had loved as a child. ' The Pace of the Deep ' deals systematically with the entire ' Book of the Eevelation of St. John,' a chap- ter in the commentary being devoted to each Chapter of the Book. One, two, or three verses of the chapter DEVOTIONAL PROSE — 'THE FACE OF THE DEEP.' 345 under consideration are placed in block type, being fol- lowed by a paragraph or paragraphs of comment. Two and a half, or perhaps three years elapsed be- tween the date at which she first commenced to write her treatise and the date on which she handed the completed manuscript to her publishers. The commentary, as indicated by the sub-title, is of course largely devotional. No effort of set purpose is made on the author's part to expound prophecy, nor does she make any fixed attempt at exegesis. Through- out, the reader is impressed by her childlike humility and by her unconsciousness of the fact that she pos- sessed, in addition to her other gifts, no small share of miscellaneous learning. Very frequently when a word or phrase suggests something to awaken her lyrical gift, she breaks forth into snatches of exquisite song. Throughout the commentary we have also many noble prose litanies (to use the apt word by which Mr. Shields spoke of them to me). In these sequences her rich diction and fine ear for the rhythm of prose en- able her to excel. Some of these, indeed most of them, are choice examples of rhythmically-balanced and deli- cate prose. Once and again, indeed, she reaches such a high level of style that her work is comparable with the finest masterpieces of prose composition in the English language — with the work, for example, of the translators of the authorised version of the Enghsh Bible of James the First's time — of the compilers of 'The Book of Common Prayer' — and with great writers like Hooker and Jeremy Taylor. 346 CHRISTINA ROSSBTTI. Her ' Prefatory Note,' with its reference to her sister Maria, has been spoken of in Chapter II. at page 69. It is couched in that characteristic vein of dignified humility (the phrase is used for lack of a better) with which students of her writings are familiar. This, indeed, is the secret of her wide influence. Very orig- inal likewise are the opening words wherein she im- plies that if she cannot ' dive ' and ' bring up pearls ' she may at least ' collect amber.' ' Though,' she adds, ' I fail to identify Paradisiacal " bdellium," I still may hope to search out beauties of the " onyx stone." ' These words are the keynote of the entire commen- tary. Of a commentary of such considerable length as ' The Face of the Deep,' (extending to five hundred and fifty-two pages) it is manifestly undesirable, even if space permitted, to give a full and detailed analysis. The interspersed verse has been discussed in Chapter VII., and it will therefore be sufficient to advert to some of the more important prose passages. She bases her opening sentences on the first two verses of chapter i. of the Eevelation, and writes : '"Things which must shortly come to pass." — At the end of 1800 years we are still repeating this " shortly, " because it is the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ; thus starting in fellowship of patience with that blessed John who owns all Christians as his brethren (see ver. 9),' so emphasising anew what she regards as the central idea of the book. In the course of her remarks on DEVOTIONAL PROSE — 'THE FACE OE THE DEEP.' 347 Eev. L 12-16, we have one of the first outbursts of devotional feeling which, noticeable in all Christina Eossetti's religious works, are especially so in 'The Face of the Deep.' And these outbursts of devotional — of ecstatic feeling grew in intensity as she proceeded in the writing of this treatise — as the sublimity of her theme gradually took a deeper hold of her mind. Nothing shows more clearly her essential sanity, her essential commonsense — qualities in which her mind was akin to the greatest minds of all ages — than that never throughout ' The Face of the Deep ' has she once departed either from sanity or commonsense. And re- membering the temptations which the obscurity, as well as the abounding symbolism of the theme, must have had for her, who was at once so devout, so poetic, and so prone to symbolism, to say this of ' The Face of the Deep ' is to say much, and yet not to laud it unduly. Conspicuous examples of her litanies are to be found on pages 132, 151, 155, 175, 209, 226, 265, 280, 282, 323, 398, 407, 408, 426, 456, 472, and 474. One of the shortest, though not less expressive of these, is that on the page first named : ' Saviour, show compassion! ' Because if Thou reject us, who shall receive us ? ' Saviour, show compassion. ' Because we are half dead, yet not wholly dead, ' Saviour, show compassion, ' Because Thou art the Good Samaritan, the Good Physi- cian; bind up our wounds pouring iu Thine oil and Thy wine, take care of us, provide for us, set us forward on our 348 CHKISTINA EOSSETTI. way, bring us home. And because Thou lovest us, even for Thine own sake, '0 Saviour, show compassion.' Students of style will observe the carefully balanced sound of the modulated cadences. Very different, yet equally beautiful, is that other somewhat longer litany addressed to Christ, from which this is an extract : 'Lord Jesus, lovely and pleasant art Thou in thy high places, Thou Centre of bliss, whence all bliss flows. Lovely also and pleasant wast Thou in Thy lowly tabernacles, Thou sometime Centre wherein humiliations and sorrows met. ' Thou Who wast Centre of a stable, with two saints and harmless cattle and some shepherds for Thy Court, ' Grant us lowliness. ' Thou Who wast Centre of Bethlehem when Wise Men worshipped Thee, ' Grant us wisdom. •Thou Who wast Centre of the Temple, with doves or young pigeons and four saints about Thee, ' Grant us purity. ' Thou Who wast Centre of Egypt, which harboured Thee and thine in exile, ' Be Thou our refuge. ' Thou Who wast Centre of Nazareth where Thou wast brought up, ' Sanctify our homes. ' Thou Who wast Centre of all waters at thy Baptism in the Eiver Jordan, ' StUl sanctify water to the mystical washing away of sin. 'Thou Who wast Centre of all desolate places during forty days and forty nights, ' Comfort the desolate DEVOTIONAL PROSE — 'THE EACE OF THE DEEP.' 349 ' Thou Who wast Centre of a mairiage feast at Cana, ' Bless our rejoicing. ' Thou Who wast Centre of a funeral procession at Nain, ' Bless our mourning. ' Thou Who wast Centre of Samaria as Thou sattest on the well, ' Bring back strayed souls. • Thou Who wast Centre of all heights on the Mount of Beatitudes, ' Grant us to sit with Thee in heavenly places. •Thou Who wast Centre of sufferers by the Pool of Bethesda, ' Heal us. ' Thou Who wast Centre of all harvest ground when Thou wentest through the cornfields with Thy disciples, ' Make us bring forth to Thee thirty, sixty, a hundredfold.' The litany beginning, 'Jesus Who didst touch the leper, Deliver us from antipathies; Who didst dwell among the Nazarenes, Deliver us from incompatibility,' is introduced by what the author terms ' Purlieus and Approaches which tend towards or border upon Hatred of the Eighteous ' part of her commentary on the text, • Saying, Hurt not the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.' She tabulates and numbers eight of these 'purlieus and approaches' aforesaid under various headings. Some of these headings are notably original, as this : 350 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. 6. ' Eeoiprocal angles, yours always in the wrong, ' or this : 7. 'Eeciprocal soreness, I always in the right,' and the paragraph succeeding these headings is quaintly effective : * ' Taking one a day, you will require a week and a day for your self-reform. I, alas! foresee requiring much more than a week and a day for mine.' Equally q^uaint is her diction in the passage concern- ing the ' transcendent riches of poverty,' where the ' holy woman,' unmentioned by name, was her sister Maria, who had given her a piece of their mother's needlework. Somewhat further on, we have this thoughtful obser- vation — giving a glimpse into her own mind : ' Absolute darkness engulfs me when I attempt to realise the origin of evil. Yet even in that darkness which may be felt and which I feel, one point I dare not hesitate to hold fast and assert : evil had its origin in the free choice of a free will. Without free will there can be neither virtue nor vice; without free choice neither offence nor merit.' The litany which follows her exposition of Eev. xviii. 22, 23, and which seems suggested also by Mark viii. 36, 37, is not quite so successful in Hterary quali- ties, for it does not reach the high level of style of some of its predecessors. Students of Christina Eossetti should not, however, fail to read and study noble examples of litanies at pages 456, 472, and 474, in which they will find fine instances of the skilful use of antithesis. DEVOTIONAL PKOSE— 'THE FACE OF THE DEEP.' 351 The remarkable phrase 'There was no more sea' (Eev. xxi. 1) has often caused perplexity not unmingled with a vague feeling of regret. Is the phrase to be taken literally, or is ' the sea ' to be regarded merely as an emblem of sorrow — sorrow that is to be ' done away ' ? St. John wrote the Apocalypse in Patmos — an island — the sea would therefore necessarily seem to him (each time that, with weary heart, he looked upon it) as something that separated him from those he loved best. Thus by a mental process, with which all thinkers are familiar, the cause would appear event- ually to stand for the effect, and the sea itself would become unconsciously an emblem of separation. Nor must we forget that the passion for the sea is a passion of comparatively modern times. It was a passion unfelt by the ancients. Christina Eossetti's observations on this point are so fraught with her own peculiar symbolism, so full of the idiosyncrasies of her own mental attitude in regard to interpretation, that they are well worthy of quota- tion. She says in the course of her commentary on Chapter xxi. ' I. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth : for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away ; and there was no more sea. ' Heaven and earth are to be renewed. Not so the sea : " There was no more sea. " And wherefore not the sea : 'Regarding the first creation as symbolical, one answer (however inadequate, please God, not contradictory of truth) suggests itself. The harvest of earth ripened, was reaped, was garnered : the sea nourished and brought up no harvest. 352 CHEISTINA ROSSETTL It bore no fruits which remain, it wrought no works which follow it. It was moreover originally constituted as a pass- age, not as an abode : across it man toiled in rowing to the haven where he would be, but itself never was and never could become that haven. Thus it presents to us a picture of all which must be left behind. ' Yet how shall we be consoled for our lost sea with its familiar fascination, its delights, its lifelong endearedness ? Lo ! heaven enshrines its own proper sea of glass as it were mingled with fire, and the uplifted voice of the redeemed is as the sound of many waters. There at last is fulness of that joy, whereas the sea never yet was full; there plenteous- ness of pleasures as a river. There music unheard hitherto, nnimaginable, in lieu of the long-drawn wail of our bitter sea. ' Or if after all we cannot during our actual weakness be thoroughly and consciously consoled on this point, let it at least bring home to us that better it is to enter into life, halt, or maimed, or one-eyed, than having two feet, hands, eyes, to be shut out. To suffer loss and be saved is better than to forego nothing and be lost. '"There was no more sea." — As in a far different matter, "For our sakes, no doubt, this is writteil." ' Here is an explanation showing the analytical faculty of the explainer. It occurs in her remarks on ' And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blas- pheme His Name, and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven ' (Chap. xiii. 6). 'Devils are not atheists: we are emphatically certified that they believe and tremble. During our Lord's earthly ministry, devils even proclaimed Him in the audience of men. DEVOTIONAL PROSE— 'THE FACE OE THE DEEP.' 353 'Atheism appears to be a possibility confined to a lower nature. A body seems to be that which is capable of block- ing up spirit into unmitigated materialism. "No man has seen God at any time: " that flesh and blood which cannot in- herit the kingdom of God may, if it will, deny His existence.' The love, the gentleness, which abode with her are never more evident throughout her writings than in ' The Face of the Deep,' yet she was stern and uncom- promising in her views as to sin itself, as is seen by the closing words of a portion of her remarks as to ' So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness,' &c. (Chap. xvii. 3). ' To each such imperilled soul, Angel and Apostle here set a pattern. If we too would gaze unscathed and unde- filed on wickedness, let us not seek for enchantments, but set our face towards the wilderness. Strip sin bare from voluptuousness of music, fascination of gesture, entrance- ment of the stage, rapture of poetry, glamour of eloquence, seduction of imaginative emotion; strip it of every adorn- ment, let it stand out bald as in the Ten stern Command- ments. Study sin, when study it we must, not as a relishing pastime, but as an embittering deterrent. Lavish sympathy on the sinner, never on the sin. Say, if we will and if we mean it. Would God I had died for thee: never- theless let us flee at the cry of such, lest the earth swallow us up also.' The passage immediately ensuing is given here chiefly because of its autobiographical allusion and its characteristic admission of error. How few authors would have been equally candid ! The person referred to was probably her sister Maria : 23 354 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. ' It was once pointed out to me, that in the Bihle the first mention of a lamb occurs in connection with Abraham's virtual sacrifice of Isaac : " Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said. My Father : and he said. Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt ofiering ? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt- ofi'ering." And I think the observation is essentially correct, despite the "seven ewe lambs" of the preceding chapter; inasmuch as these do not belong (so to say) to the same spiritual context. Yet, had I been aware of both texts, I should not (in Seek and FinaC) without a modifying clause have referred to Isaac's words as absolutely first. ' [Which oversight invites me to two wholesome pro- ceedings : to beg my reader's pardon for my errors ; and ever to write modestly under correction.]' Mr. Shields has pointed out to me how naive, yet how charmingly individual, is this sentence which she placed at the close of ' The Face of the Deep ' — her latest and, as I cannot help thinking, in virtue of many fine qualities both of thought and of style, her noblest prose work : — ' If I have been over-bold in attempting such a work as this, I beff pardon,' CHAPTEE X. CRITICAL SURVEY. Remarks respecting various aspects of Christina Kossetti's work, and reasons why it is likely to retain its value. It is not possible to accentuate overmuch the influence on Christina Eossetti of her Italian lineage, her early surroundings, and the fact that, when quite young, her mind was saturated with Italian literature. She was probably influenced first by her father, and, at a little later date, by Metastasio the lyric poet. Her surviving brother tells me that she never 'cared much for Petrarch : ' and ' of Boccaccio,' he remarks, ' she never, I should say, read a dozen lines.' He adds : But she was greatly fascinated by Tasso when she first read that poet about 1848. She also enjoyed parts of Ariosto though she forebore to read him freely ' for fear of coming upon " improper " passages.' She was as deeply influenced by Dante as was any other member of the Eossetti family, but this was not until a subsequent period. In mature life her knowledge of Dante, and even of Petrarch was great, as is shown by the skilfully chosen quotations from both these writers, 356 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. prefixed to each of the sonnets in her noble sonnet- sequence ' Monna Innominata.' Her elder brother told Mr. Arthur Hughes, and several of his other early friends, that he regretted the morbidity of his sister's work. And there can be no doubt that there is some ground for the regret. Many, even of the finer of her earlier poems, have an atmo- sphere, which, in another poet, we should consider unreasonably sad. Greatness, however, is justified of its results, and we are tempted to feel that even Christina Eossetti's most morbid strains (' the skeletons of Chris- tina's various closets,' to quote a droll phrase from a letter by her brother, the poet, to her mother, a letter distinguished because of its rather grim humour) were right and reasonable merely because they were hers. Nor must it be forgotten that many young poets, Tennyson is a familiar example, had a tendency towards morbidity, or at least to melancholy, in their early work. It may be, as Mr. J. S. Cotton, the well-known scholar, once said to me when discussing this subject, that sadness in itself is sometimes a sign of the posses- sion of the higher poetic qualities in imperfect develop- ment. The critic of the far future, of whom we hear so much and think so little, will accord a high place among the great poets of this century to the poet to whom we owe ' Amor Mundi,' ' An Apple Gathering,' 'Maude Clare," The Convent Threshold,' and 'Maiden- Song.' He will single out as amongst the finest love songs in our language such a flawless lyric as ' When I CEITICAL SURVEY — BLAKE. 357 am dead, my dearest ' — a lyric so full of atmosphere, so perfect in its tenderness and in its portrayal of affection. Christina Eossetti was akin to Blake, and her kinship to some of the Elizabethan poets, such as Southwell, was hardly less near. Her own symbolism was alhed to the symbolism of Blake, notably in such a piece as his poem entitled ' The Lamb ; ' and she felt likewise the same kind of sympathy with Nature as he did. She had not, like Blake, those visions of the super- natural which our practical commonsense rejects as hallucinations, but, like him, she abode in London, the ' most earthly of earthly cities,' to quote a phrase of Mr. Alfred H. Miles in his excellent article on Blake in ' The Poets and the Poetry of the Century,' and, like Blake also, she was often ' away in Paradise.' Since the death of Christina Eossetti it has several times been asserted that Elizabeth Barrett Browning was the greater poet of the two, because her poems dealt with themes of more widespread human interest. Possibly Christina Eossetti thought that some of the subjects handled by Elizabeth Barrett Browning were not suitable for treatment in poetry. Certainly what has been said in Chapter III. as to Christina Eossetti's attitude respecting vivisection, minors' protection, and other such measures, shows as keen interest on her part in social and philanthropic projects as that evinced by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, though she did not, like the author of ' The Cry of the Children,' write a great poem on any such theme. No formal adjudication on two poets so eminent as 358 CHEISTINA EOSSETTI. Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Eossetti shall be attempted here. Henceforward lovers of English literature will feel gladness that our language is enriched by the masterpieces of both poets, and will probably feel equally grateful for both. It may not, however, be out of place to state certain points of agreement or of contrast between them. Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Eossetti were alike in their ardent affection for Italy, and both women were equally firm believers in the essential truths of Christianity. No doubt Elizabeth Barrett Browning was the more learned of the two, in the academic sense of the word, for, unlike the author of ' Wine of Cyprus,' Christina Eossetti was unacquainted with Greek or Hebrew, nor had she that intuitive sympathy with the classic attributes, temper, and mood of mind which is sometimes apparent in the work of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Certainly the outlook on life of the two great writers under consideration was not a little different; the last named was naturally disposed to broader views both in social and ethical matters than was Christina Eossetti. Though, as just indicated, both had great fondness for Italy, their views as to liberty in general, and possibly as to liberated Italy, were not the same. The author of ' Casa Guidi Windows ' held strongly the con- ception of liberty almost as a good in itself (which was one of the tenets of a certain group of thinkers among whom she moved in later life) rather than as merely a means to an end. CRITICAL SURVEY — E. B. BROWNING. 359 The finest work of Christina Eossetti in verse reaches a higher point of technical excellence than the finest work of Elizabeth Barrett Browning ; indeed, it might he said that Christina's verse as a whole is of higher technical excellence than that of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In religion the latter had a much wider view than had Christina, for her mind was less concerned with the doctrinal aspects of faith than with problems, such as the problem of the mystery of suffering, which lie just beyond the sphere of devotion — problems such as that which she dealt with in ' Cowper's Grave.' It is well worthy of note that both Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Eossetti were distinguished as writers of sonnets. The latter's elder brother is reported to have said that his sister could not have written the ' Sonnets from the Portuguese.' The j\jstice of the remark may appear doubtful when we recollect the superb and individual series of sonnets, called ' Monna Innominata ' — sonnets charged with the most etherealised love passion in its most spiritual develop- ment. In all coming time it wUl be one of the chief glories of Christiua Eossetti that ' Monna Innominata,' though based on the same general theme as the ' Sonnets from the Portuguese,' should show no indebtedness to them in thought or in metrical resource. Perhaps No. xliii. of the ' Sonnets from the Portu- guese ' beginning — How do I love thee ? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, — 360 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. is most akin to Christina Eossetti's method ; and this, and that yet more nohle sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, entitled ' Perplexed Music/ commencing : Experience, like a pale musician, holds A dulcimer of patience in his hand — a sonnet in theme, conception, and execiition, one of the most perfect in the language — should be examined carefully by the student of poetic form who wishes to see the aspects of similarity and of difference between out two more famous women poets. Such a comparison will show furthermore that it is simple, elemental emotion, adequately expressed, which makes a poem really great, not Art alone, though, of course, Art when properly used, is an invaluable aid. Dante Gabriel passed some severe strictures on certain of his sister's poems owing to what he called the ' falsetto muscular- ity ' of their ' Barrett-Browning style.' ^ Personally I am not of opinion that these strictures were justi- fiable. In my view, hardly any, if any, trace of the influence of Elizabeth Barrett Browning is discernible in Christina Eossetti's work. Had space permitted it would have been well to give a detailed analysis, accompanied by full quotations, of the way in which Christina Eossetti's treatment of the love passion varies from that of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Possibly it may be admitted that the latter writer has, in some respects, a greater human interest I See Dante Oabriel Rossetti: His Family Letters, with a Memoir, vol, ii. p. 323. CRITICAL SURVEY — E. B. BROWNING. 361 in poems like 'The Ehyme of the Duchess May,' 'Bertha in the Lane,' and 'The Lay of the Brown Eosary.' This is because her way of looking^ at life was broader than Christina Eossetti's, and* she had perhaps a deeper insight into ordinary social intercourse. For this reason I do not think Christina Eossetti could have given us poems like ' The Lady's Yes,' 'A Man's Eequirements,' or ' Amy's Cruelty ' — poems which show great knowledge of the nuances which go to make up everyday conduct. ' A Man's Eequirements ' might almost be called a satire on the disposition of the conventional male when contemplating love-making. 'Amy's Cruelty' again, though instinct with equal fidelity and truth, goes deeper, and tells us, as only a woman of genius could tell us, a woman's feelings with regard to love. But, after all, these poems owe their success not to their qualities as poems bttt to their vividness and insight in depicting the conditions they describe. Eeaders of Chapter III. will have observed what were Christina Eossetti's opinions on the much- debated question of the equality of the sexes. Here it may be noted that Elizabeth Barrett Browning dis- agreed with her absolutely, for, as Mr. W. T. Stead says aptly, in his preface to the selection from Elizabeth Bar- rett Browning's poems in his ' Masterpiece Library ' : ' No one more keenly resented than Mrs. Browning the comparative praise, implying positive blame, that eulogises her work merely as woman's work, and not on its merits as work. " Please to recollect, " she wrote once to a friend, "that when I talk of women I do not speak of them as 362 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. many men do . . . according to a separate peculiar and womanly standard, but according to the common standard of human nature." As with life, so with art, and the work which is the product of artistic life. It is good in itself, or had in itself, irrespective of the sex of its author.' Few who had the high privilege of knowing Chris- tina Eossetti personally, or who have even a thorough acquaintance with her work, can doubt either the pro- found influence which Italy exercised over her, or her deep sympathy with the cause of Italian liberation. It is therefore significant of the essential divergences of temperament between the two women that it is to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the Englishwoman by descent and association, not to Christina Eossetti, that we owe stirring poems of the liberation of Italy such as ' Pirst News from Villafranca ' and ' A Tale of Villa- franca,' and especially that vivid poem, full of the pathos of a woman's grief, called ' Parted Lovers.' In Christina Eossetti's ' Italia, io ti saluto ! ' there is pathos also, but it is the personal, not the national note, that we hear in this exquisite last stanza : But when our swallows fly back to the South, To the sweet South, to the sweet South, The tears may come again into my eyes On the old wise, And the sweet name to my mouth. I am tempted irresistibly to make some comparison, however short, between Christina Eossetti's work and that of Jean Ingelow. Both poets have given us re- markable poems which deal with varying aspects of the CRITICAL SURVEY — JEAN INGELOW. 363 supernatural. Thougli Christina Eossetti's ' The Hour and the Ghost,' and Jean Ingelow's 'Eequiescat in Pace ' are dissimilar in much, they are similar in this, that both achieve the difficult task of introducing the supernatural by simple means ; in both poems the fine effects are the result of atmosphere, of intuition, rather than of definite statement. No poem of the super- natural can be really effective unless it reaches its higher effects by suggestion. It is so with Coleridge's ' Christabel,' and it is this quality in the two poems un- der discussion which gives them a rank almost classic. Both poets are firm believers in the verities of the Christian faith, though Jean Ingelow has less sym- bolism, and looks on religion from a somewhat different and perhaps a more English standpoint. The present monograph is a record as well as a study; therefore it may not be unfitting if certain critical remarks by contemporary writers as to Chris- tina Eossetti are introduced here. Mr. Swinburne's admiration is well known, and is expressed in these lines taken from his 'Ballad of Appeal' to her: Blithe verse made all the dim sense clear That smiles of babbling babes conceal : Prayer's perfect heart spake here : and here Rose notes of blameless woe and weal, More soft than this poor song's appeal. Where orchards bask, where cornfields wave, They dropped like rains that cleanse and lave, And scattered all the year along, Like dewfall on an April grave. Sweet water from the well of song. 364 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. When writing to Mr. Hall Caine, her elder brother says: ' [Mr.] 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 sen- sational for her. I think " After Death " one of her no- blest, 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 femi- nine ascetic passion is " The Convent Threshold. " ' In a Preface contributed to Mr. A. C. Pollard's edition of Herrick, Mr. Swinburne writes, (and this further praise is emphatic on account of its connec- tion) : ' It has often been objected that he [Herrick] did mistake himself for a sacred poet : and it cannot be denied that his sacred verse at its worst is as offensive as his secular verse at its worst; nor can it be denied that no severer sentence of condemnation can be passed upon any poet's work. But neither Herbert nor Crashaw could have bettered such a divinely beautiful triplet as this : — We see Him come, and know Him ours, Who with His sunshine and His showers Turns all the patient ground to flowers. ' That is worthy of Miss Eossetti herself : and praise of such work can go no higher.' Mr. W. M. Eossetti never achieved better critical work than when, in his spirited defence of his old CRITICAL SURVEY — CONTEMPOEARY OPINION. 365 friend, Mr. Swinburne,^ he wrote characteristically, and with admirable and subtle perception, about his own sister: ' The reader will find in one place a reference to the ■writings of a member of my own family. I advisedly keep this exactly as it stood, being better pleased that it should be published with my name to it than (as would have been done according to the original scheme) anonymously. I should not have shirked to have the anonymous tribute traced home to me ; and am still less loth to avow that tribute — saying in it, as I have done, nothing beyond what I know or believe to be true. The last man who need love the anonymous system is a self-respecting critic acquainted with many of the persons concerning whom it is his lot to write. 'The last of our present poetic quartett, Christina Eos- setti, is a singer of a dififerent order from all these, reaching true artistic effects with apparently little study and as little of mere chance — rather by an internal sense of fitness) a mental touch as delicate as the finger-tips of the blind. She simply, as it were, pours words into the mould of her idea ; and the resultant effigy comes right, because the idea, and the mind of which it is a phase, are beautiful ones, serious, yet feminine and in part almost playful. There is no poet with a more marked instinct for fusing the thought into the image, and the image into the thought : the fact is always to her emotional, not merely positive, and the emo- tion clothed in a sensible shape, not merely abstract. No treatment can be more artistically womanly in general scope than this, which appears to us the most essential distinction of Miss Eossetti's writings. It might be futile to seek for any points of direct analogy or of memorable divergence ' Sumlbwme's Poems and Ballads, A Criticism. 366 CHEISTINA EOSSETTI. between Mr. Swinburne and Miss Eossetti. The prevalent cadence of the poem. " Eococo," and the lyrical structure of " Madonna Mia, " may, however, suggest that the poet is a not unsympathetic reader of the poetess's compositions; nor is " The Garden of Proserpine " much unlike some of these so far merely as lyrical tone is concerned.' In his striking essay entitled ' Reminiscences of Christina Rossetti,' to which allusion has been made elsewhere, Mr. Watts-Dunton remarks respecting her poetic art : ' Of all contemporary poets, she had seemed to me the most indubitably inspired. I had made a life-long study of poetic art, yet Christina's art-secret had baffled me. Her very uncertainty of touch, as regarded execution, seemed somehow to add to the impression she made upon me of inspiration. She never (as her brother William, who has gratified me by reading these pages, reminds me) " made up her mind that she would write something, and then pro- ceeded to write it. She always wrote just as the impulse and the form of expression came to her, and if these did not come, she wrote not at all." But it was not her inspiration which overawed me at the idea of meeting her. It was the feeling that her inspiration was not that of the artist at all, and not that of such dramatic passion as in other poets I had been accustomed to, but the inspiration of the religious devotee. It answered a chord within me, but a chord that no poet had theretofore touched. ' It seemed to me to come from a power which my soul remembered in some ante-natal existence and had not even yet wholly forgotten.' Mr. Andrew Lang in ' The Cosmopolitan Magazine ' for June, 1895, wrote as follows : CRITICAL SURVEY — CONTEMPORARY OPINION. 367 ' There can be little doubt that we are now deprived of the greatest English poet of the sex which is made to inspire poetry, rather than to create it. Except Mrs. Browning, we have no one to be named with Miss Eossetti in all the roll-call of our literary history. . . . We have had, it is true, in Scotland, lady lyrists whose songs, like Lady Nairne's and Lady Anne Lindsay's, I myself prefer to all the works of Miss Rossetti, Mrs. Browning, Miss Procter, and Mrs. Hemans. But for the quality of conscious art, and for music and colour of words in regular composition, Miss B.ossetti seems to myself to have been unmatched. The faults of Mrs. Browning she did not follow, and curious it is that the more learned lady shows most of the errors which learning is supposed to counteract. Things of Miss Eossetti's will live with things of Carew's and Suckling's.' Dr. Eichard Garnett in ' The Dictionary of National Biography ' said : ' Her " Goblin Market " is original in conception, style, and structure, as imaginative as the " Ancient Mariner, " and comparable only to Shakespeare for the insight shown into unhuman and yet spiritual natures.' In 'The New Eeview' of February, 1895, Mrs. Meynell spoke finely thus : ' To the name of poet her right is so sure that proof of it is to be found everywhere in her '' unconsidered ways, " and always irrefutably. How does this poet or that approach the best beauties of his poem 1 From the side of poetry, or from the side of commonplace ? Christina Eossetti always drew near from the side of poetry : from what to us, who are not altogether poets, is the further side. She came from beyond those hills. She is not often on the heights, but all her access is by poetry. Of few indeed is this so true.' 368 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. Mr. Arthur Christopher Benson, in ' The National Eeview ' of February, 1895, remarked discerningly about her : Some writers have the power of creating a species of aerial landscape in the minds of their readers, often vague and shadowy, not obtruding itself strongly upon the con- sciousness, but forming a quiet background, like the scenery of portraits, in which the action of the lyric or the sonnet seems to lie. I am not now speaking of pictorial writing, which definitely aims at producing, with more or less vivid- ness, a house, a park, a valley, but lyrics and poems of pure thought and feeling, which have none the less a haunting sense of locality in which the mood dreams itself out. Christina Eossetti's mise-en-scene is a place of gardens, orchards, wooded dingles, with a churchyard ia the distance. The scene shifts a little, but the spirit never wanders far afield; and it is certainly singular that one who lived out almost the whole of her life in a city so majestic, sober, and inspiring as London, should never bring the consciousness of streets and thoroughfares and populous murmur into her writings. She, whose heart was so with birds and fruits, cornfields and farmyard sounds, never even revolts against or despairs of the huge desolation, the laborious monotony of a great town. She does not sing of the caged bird, with exotic memories of freedom stirred by the flashing water, the hanging groundsel of her wired prison, but with a wild voice, with visions only limited by the rustic conventionali- ties of toil and tillage. The dewy English woodland, the sharp silences of winter, the gloom of low-hung clouds, and the sigh of weeping rains are her backgrounds. In ' The Poets and the Poetry of the Century ' Mr. Arthur Symons has pointed out certain aspects of her genius with much lucidity and force : CRITICAL SURVEY — CONTEMPORARY OPINION. 369 ' The secret [of her style] — which seems innocently unaware of its own beauty — is, no doubt, its sincerity, lead- ing to the employment of homely words where homely words are wanted, and always of natural and really expressive words ; yet not sincerity only, but sincerity as the servant of a finely touched and exceptionally seeing nature. A power of seeing finely beyond the scope of ordinary vision : that, in a few words, is the note of Miss Eossetti's genius, and it brings with it a subtle and as if instinctive power of expressing subtle and yet as if instinctive conceptions; always clearly, always simply, with a singular and often startling homeliness, yet in a way and about subjects as far removed from the borders of commonplace as possible. This power is shown in every division of her poetry ; in the pecu- liar witchery of the poems dealing with the supernatural, in the exaltations of the devotional poems, in the particular charm of the child-songs, bird-songs, and nature lyrics, in the special variety and the special excellence of the poems of affection and meditation. The union of homely yet always select literalness of treatment with mystical vision- ariness or visionariness which is sometimes mystical, con- stitutes the peculiar quality of her poetry — poetry which has, all the same, several points of approach and distinct varieties of characteristic' Mr. Lionel Johnson, in ' The Academy ' of July 25, 1896, has remarked concerning her with true critical acumen : ' Doubtless her poems, now comprised in three collected volumes, include many a piece of airy fantasy, many a laughing lyric, many a poem born of external circumstance; but her characteristic greatness lies in her most intimate, most severe, most passionate and sacred poems : in the work which sets her in the company of Herbert, Vaughan, the 24 370 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. converted Donne, Crashaw, Father Southwell, the divine Herrick, Cardinal Newman. And by this it is not meant that her obviously and ostensibly sacred poems are alone her greatest: many others, poems of meditation or of passion, with no distinct Christian cry in them, stand side by side with the poems divine and devout. Her fair and stern philosophy of life, which never fails to draw to itself her choicest powers of art, is that which marks out her poetry for distinction and for admiration. Her more external work, with its gaieties and beautiful imaginings, is full of delights.' Christina Eossetti was not always happy in her choice of titles, though occasionally, in titles like ' Amor Mundi,' like ' The Hour and the Ghost,' or like ' The Face of the Deep,' her choice was particularly good. I have reason to suppose that she experienced some difficulty in finding titles which pleased her. But, whether my supposition in this respect he correct or no, it is clear that 'Echo ' is a feeble and unmeaning title for the exquisite lines beginning : Come to me in the silence of the night in ' Goblin Market and other Poems,' and that ' The End of the First Part ' is not a felicitous title for an ecstatic religious lyric. Occasionally throughout her work we have phrases which sound somewhat un- English ; perhaps also in her verse she uses too often contractions like 'I'd.' Not seldom some of her critics have cavilled at her frequent use of unrhymed lines. Such critics must not forget that many of our best poets introduced similar unrhymed lines when using the same metrical forms as she has done. But even if CRITICAL SURVEY — CONTEMPORARY OPINION. 371 we admit tliat sucli objections contaia a certain degree of truth, we must not fail to recollect that ' a special quality of her verse is a curiosa felioitas which makes a metrical blemish tell as a suggestive grace ' (to quote a good phrase in Mr. Watts-Dunton's article on Christina Eossetti in ' The Athenseum ' of January 5, 1895). Eegarding the ruggedness for which some of her later poetical work has been censured, Mr. W. M. Eossetti has written to me: ' The so-called ruggedness depends I fancy to some extent upon the fact that C[hristina] was extremely prone to writing (and this was of course intentional — and very gracefully managed) lines differing in length : a tendency originating possibly in the structure of the Italian " canzone." ' As an argument against the value of Christina Eossetti's work, both in verse and in prose, it may be urged (and I have heard it so urged) that her narrow- ness of range, and her tendency to dwell too much on one set of emotions, make her work monotonous. In such a contention there is a ' residuum of truth.' And, if for this reason alone, her work is the less likely ever to become popular, as a whole, in the strict sense. Nevertheless, we must remember that there is in our literature a group of writers of whom, in recent times, she is perhaps the chief representative, — writers who unburden their full hearts without thought of artifice, or of artistic restraint, and who are content if a portion of their work is read, dwells in the memory, or is 372 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. looked at again in quiet hours. Such writers do not always concern themselves with the general effect of their work considered in its entirety. It has been said that in giving so much time, thought, and labour to religious poems, and to devo- tional and other prose work, she impaired her poetic gift. Our opinion as to the importance of this remark must depend mainly on the view we take as to what constitutes poetry, and as to what is its chief value. Is it to be chiefly valued as an exhibition of metrical high Art or for its message ? Is an author to be judged by the value of his message, and not merely by the form in which he expresses it ? Is he to feel that the responsibility of the life of letters is grave, and that by his influence on others his place will finally be determined ? If we hold the message to be the really important thing — so important, indeed, that if the writer thinks he can best deliver that mes- sage in prose it is his duty to write prose — then we must hold her blameless in any case. If, on the con- trary, we hold the message unimportant, then we must condemn her if it be true, as perhaps it is, that she lost some of her poetic faculty by writing so much devotional matter. But, even if such be our opinion, we cannot fail to admire the noble purposes of her sacred lyrics, or the fine qualities of her sacred prose. Elsewhere in this monograph I have made allusions to, or suggested, the comparison of her work with that of various other poets of religion. But nevertheless it may not be out of place at this point to make some further CRITICAL SURVEY— TEACHING IN POETRY. 373 observations on this topic. She was as conscious of the teaching power in poetry, and believed as strongly in it, as the most unimaginative verse writer. But her natural aptitude for symbolism and her large poetic vocabulary prevented her from ever becoming prosaic — a notable thing to say when we remember that some of our finest English poets have often been prosaic. I do not find in her religious verse the influence of authors like Cowper and Newton, though in some de- gree she was at one with them in having a didactic aim ; but to Keble, to Faber, and particularly to New- man, she had, in my judgment, much poetic kinship, though Mr. W. M. Eossetti informs me that 'she thought nothing of Keble as a poet.' Her father's volume of sacred verse, ' L'Arpa Evan- gelica,' given to the world, it will be recollected, when he was nearing the close of his striking career, had a marked effect upon her. Such poems as ' L'Annunzia- zione ' and ' La Pentecoste ' were certain to touch and unconsciously shape her thoughts. Of both Keats and Shelley she was very fond. And if, unlike most of our sacred poets, she was always poetic, it was in a large measure because she infused into sacred themes the same passionate intensity, the same beauty both of language and of substance, which these poets used in their most lofty secular verse. In virtue of the stately, the dignified prose sequences in ' The Face of the Deep,' which I have ventured to call litanies, I claim for Christina Eossetti a high place among the very few great masters of that rare kind of 374 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. English prose, which, while distinct from poetry, yet seems to stand on its threshold. Without possessing profound erudition she had suf- ficient of the learning of fact for the purposes of those of her books which she consecrated absolutely to re- ligion. Moreover what she lacked in dry-as-dust erudition was far more than made up by an excep- tional, an almost unsurpassed gift of insight into the inner meaning of passages. This was partly, no doubt, the result of her poetic intuition, and this feature makes her work of this kind a new glory of Protestant theology. I should have deemed that her sacred prose gave evidence of her deep study of seventeenth century religious writers, and that her study of volumes like the prose treatise called ' The Mount of Olives,' by the poet best known under the name of Henry Vaughan, the Silurist, had noticeably done much to form her style, had not her younger brother, after reading over my manuscript, written to me: ' " Deep study of 17th century religious writers " — Did she study them at all? Jeremy Taylor was a great favourite with our mother, and I suppose C[hristina] had some knowledge of him — Vaughan's " Mount of Olives " was I fancy absolutely unknown to her — and I question whether she can have read a line of V[[aughanj's poetry earlier than 1875 or so.' That an author's personality is generally to be traced in his or her work has so frequently been remarked that the remark has become a truism. But it is especially CEITICAL SURVEY — 'HER NOBLEST BOOKS.' 375 applicable to Christina Eossetti, and, as has been indicated before, nowhere in her writings are personal touches more evident than in ' Time Flies ' and in 'The Face of the Deep.' Perhaps in ' The Face of the Deep ' this arose from the fact that she regarded it as' her last book, and, indeed, spoke of it as such. As we grow in years we become usually more and more personal in our writings. And properly so, for in this way our experience is placed at the service of others. Like us all, Christina Eossetti had her sorrows, some of them deep and life-long, and yet she was a fortunate woman. She was fortunate in her parents ; she was fortunate in her early surroundings ; she was fortunate, as she advanced in life, in the other members of her family ; and when she came to die she was fortunate in the warm praise of herself and of her work which was unanimously expressed. Mr. Aubrey de Vere, in the last of his valuable ' Essays Chiefly on Poetry,' the essay entitled ' Eecol- lections of Wordsworth ' says of Wordsworth that he < frequently spoke of death as if it were the taking of a new degree in the University of Life. " I should like," he remarked to a young lady, " to visit Italy again before I move to another planet — " ' a striking utterance, which shows the poet's settled conviction as to the certainty of a future life. Some such feeling was perhaps the cause of the placidity apparent in Christina Eossetti's work — a placidity which was one, though not of course the only one of 376 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. the great qualities that characterised it. We must also remember, as ' The Daily News ' of London well re- marked a day or two after her death, ' Her noblest books were those books without words that she lived.' Nor must we forget that Christina Eossetti — whether we look to the quality or to the quantity of her poetry of devotion — was pre-eminent among the illustrious English poets who have enriched the literature of Christian teaching by their genius. As long as Christianity remains the most vital force in the lives of millions of English-speaking people, the memory of that poet of their faith who gave them such a poem as 'Passing away, saith the world, passing away,' or 'Paradise,' with its exquisite last stanza, the very qiiintessence of Christian expecta- tion — who gave them that beautiful hymn, part of which, beginning 'The Porter watches at the gate,' was sung so fittingly at her funeral service — who gave them the perfect lines, beginning ' Thy lovely saints do bring Thee love ' — will be cherished and honoured. BIBLIOGRAPHY. By J. P. Anderson, British Museum. CONTRIBUTIONS TO MAGAZINES, ETC. AlHENaiUM. Poem. 'Death's Chill Between.' Oct. 14, 1848, p. 1,033. Reprinted in Tol. i. of Beautiful Poetry, 1853, p. 248. Poem. ' Heart's Chill Between.' Oct. 21, 1848, p. 1,056. Poem. ' Mirrors of Life and Death.' March 17, 1877. Re- printed in A Pageant and other Poems, 1881, p. 25. Poem. 'An October Garden.' Oct. 27, 1877. Reprinted in A Pageant and other Poems, 1881, p. 103. Sormet. 'Resurgam.' Jan. 28, 1882, p. 124. Reprinted in Poems, 1891, p. 378. Poem. 'Birchington Churchyard.' April 29, 1882, p. 538. Reprinted in Poems, 1891, p. 318. Poem. 'Michael E. M. Rossetti.' Eeb. 17, 1883, p. 214. Reprinted in New Poems, p. 181. Poem. ' Cardinal Newman.' Aug. 16, 1890, p. 225. Reprinted in New Poems, p. 261. The Germ. Poem. 'Dream Land.' By Ellen Alleyn. No. i. Jan. 1850, p. 20. Reprinted in Goblin Market and other Poems, 1862, p. 33. Poem. ' An End.' By Ellen Alleyn. No. i. Jan. 1850, p. 48. Reprinted in Nightingale Valley, edited by William Ailing- ham, 1859, and in Qoblin Market and other Poems, 1862, p. 60. Poem. 'A Pause of Thought' By Ellen Alleyn. No. ii. Eeb. 1850, p. 57. Reprinted in Goblin Market and other Poems, 1862, p. 94. 378 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. Song. By Ellen Alleyn. No. ii. Eeb. 1850, p. 64. Eeprinted in Oobliti Market and other Poems, 1862, p. 65. Poem. 'A Testimony.' By Ellen Alleyn. No. ii. Eeb. 1850, p. 73. Keprinted in Goblin Market and other Poems, 1862, p. 160. Poem. ' Repining.' By Ellen Alleyn. No. iii. March 1850, p. 111. Reprinted in New Poems, p. 4. Poem. 'Sweet Death.' By Ellen Alleyn. No. iii. March 1850, p. 117. Reprinted in Goblin Market and other Poems, 1863, p. 153. The BoiTQirET Ctjllbd from Ma.b,tleboiie Gaedens. Poem. ///■ ' Versi' (Italian). June 1851 to Jan. 1852, p. 175. Re- printed in New Poems, p. 269. Poem. ' L'Incognita ' (Italian). June 1851 to Jan. 1852, p. 216. Reprinted in New Poems, p. 270. ' Corrispondenza Pamigliare.' Jan. to July 1852, pp. 120, 121, 218, 219; July to Dec. 1852, pp. 14, 15, 55-57. / Aiken's Year (probably contributed to). Poem. ' Behold I Stand at the Door and Knock.' 1852-54. Reprinted in New Poems, 1896, p. 198. {See Notes by Mr. W. M. Rossetti at p. 389 of New Poems.) Memoirs op Mallet du Pan. Translated by Mr. W. M. Rossetti ^,-- and Mr. Benjamin H. Paul. Part of the translation was executed by Christina Rossetti 'towards 1855.' Imperial Dictionary op Biography (1857-63). Edited by Dr. Waller. Contains many articles by Christina Rossetti on ItaKan writers and other celebrities. The Crayon (New York). 'The Lost Titian.' (This tale ap- peared in The Crayon about 1856.) Reprinted in Common- place, and other Short Stories, 1870, pp. 145-163. Once a Week. Poem. 'Maude Clare.' Vol. i. Not. 5, 1859, pp. 381, 382. Reprinted in Goblin Market and other Poems, 1862, p. 76. Macmillan's Magazine. Poem. ' Up-hill.' Vol. iii. Eeb. 1861, p. 325. Reprinted in Goblin Market and other Poems, 1862, p. 128. Poem. 'A Birthday.' Vol. iii. April 1861, p. 498. Re- printed in Goblin Market and other Poems, 1862, p. 66. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 379 Poem. 'An Apple-Gathering.' Vol. iv. Ang. 1861, p. 329, Reprinted in Ooblm Market and otlier Poems, 1862, p. 73. Poem. 'Light Love.' Vol. vii. Feb. 1863, p. 387. Re- printed in The Prince's Progress and other Poems, 1866, p. 92. Poem. 'The Bourne.' Vol. vii. March 1863, p. 382. Re- printed in The Prince's Progress and other Poems, 1866, p. 107. Poem. ' The Fairy Prince who Arrived too Late.' Vol. viii. May 1863, p. 36. Poem. 'A Bird's-eye View.' Vol. viii. July 1863, p. 207- Reprinted in The Prince's Progress and other Poems, 1866, p. 86. Poem. ' The Queen of Hearts.' Vol. viii. Oct. 1863, p. 457. Reprinted in The Prince's Progress and other Poems, 1866, p. 82. Poem. 'One Day.' Vol ix. Dec. 1863, p. 159. Reprinted in The Prince's Progress and other Poems, 1866, p. 84. Poem. 'Sit Down in the Lowest Room.' Vol. ix. March 1864, pp. 436-439. Reprinted in Goblin Market, The Princess Progress, and other Poems, 1875, p. 107. Poem. 'My Friend.' Vol. xi. Dec. 1864, p. 155. Reprinted in Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and other Poems, 1875, p. 175. Poem. ' Spring Fancies.' Vol. xi. April 1865, p. 460. Re- printed in The Prince's Progress and other Poems, 1866, p. 52, under the title of ' Spring Quiet.' Poem. 'Last Night.' Vol. xii. May 1865, p. 48. Reprinted in New Poems, 1896. Poem. ' Consider.' Vol. xiii. Jan. 1866, p. 232. Reprinted in Goblin Market, The Princes Progress, and other Poems, 1875, p. 234. Poem. 'Helen Grey.* Vol. xiii. March 1866, p. 375. Re- printed in New Poems, p. 138. Poem. ' By the Waters of Babylon.' Vol. xiv. Oct. 1866. pp. 424-426. Reprinted in Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and other Poems, 1875, p. 238. Poem. ' Seasons.' Vol. xv. Deo. 1866, pp. 168, 169. Re- printed in New Poems, p. 71. 380 CHEISTINA ROSSETTI. Poem. ' Mother Country.' Vol. xvii. Mareli 1868, pp. 403, 404. Reprinted in Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and other Poem, 1876, p. 257- Poem. • A Smile and a Sigh.' Vol. sviii. May 1868, p. 86. Reprinted in Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and other Poems, 1875, p. 184. Poem. 'Dead Hope.' Vol. xviii. May 1868, p. 86. Re- printed in Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and other Poems, 1875, p. 122. Poem. ' Autumn Violets.' Vol. xix. Nov. 1868, p. 84. Re- printed in Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and other Poems, 1875, p. 88. Poem. ' They desire a better Country.' Vol. xix. March 1869, pp. 422, 423. Reprinted in Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and other Poems, 1875, p. 95. Poem. 'A Wintry Sonnet.' Vol. xlvii. April 1883, p. 498. Reprinted in Poems, 1891, p. 370. Poems: An Offering to Lancashire. Edited by Isa Craig, 1863. ^ 1, ^ Poem. ' A Royal Princess,' pp. 2-10. Reprinted in The Prince's Progress, and other Poems, 1866, p. 123. > ,,^ A Welcome : Original contributions in poetry and prose. London, '^ 1863. Poem. ' Dream-Love,' pp. 63-66. Reprinted in The Prince's Progress, and other Poems, 1866, p. 59. Lyra Euoharistica. Edited by Rev. O. Shipley, 1863. Poem. i^^''"^ ' The Offering of the New Law, the One Oblation once Offered,' p. 48. Reprinted in N^ew Poems, p. 247. Poem. ' Conference between Christ, the Saints, and the Soul,' p. 167. Reprinted in Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and other Poems, p. 260, under the title of 'I wiH lift up . mine eyes unto the Hills.' / Ltea EucHAMSTiCA. Seoond edition. EditedbyRev.O. Shipley, 1864. Poem. ' Come unto Me,' p. 5. Reprinted in New Poems, p. 255. Poem. ' Jesus, do I love Thee,' p. 355. Ltka Messianica. Edited by Rev. O. Shipley, 1864. Poem. ' I know you not,' p. 28. Reprinted in New Poems, p. 258. Poem. ' Before the paling of the Stars,' p. 63. Reprinted in New Poems, p. 244. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 381 Poem. 'Good Friday,' p. 236. Reprinted in The Prince's Froffress, and other Poems, 1866, p. 314. Poem. 'Easter Even,' p. 251. Reprinted in JVew Po«»«*, p. 245. Ltra. Messianica, 1865. Poem. ' Within the Veil.' Reprinted '■^ in New Poems, p. 250. Poem. ' Paradise in a Symbol.' Poem. 'Paradise in a Dream.' Lyra Mtstica. Edited by Rev. O. Shipley, 1865. Poem. 'After this the Judgment,' p. 33. Reprinted in The Prince's Pro-- gress, and other Poems, 1866, p. 210. Poem. ' Martyr's Song,' p. 427. Reprinted in The Prince's Progress, and other Poems, 1866, p. 206. The Shilling Magazine. Poem. 'AmorMundi.' With a drawing by P. Sandys. Vol. i. 1865, p. 193. Reprinted in Qoblin, Market, The Prince's Progress, and other Poems, 1875, p. 192. The Aegost. 'Hero: a Metamorphosis.' Vol. i. Jan. 1866, pp. 156-165. Reprinted in Commonplace, and other Short Stories, 1870, pp. 183-211. Poem. 'Who shall deliver Me?' Vol. i. Feb. 1866, p. 288. Reprinted in Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and other Poems, 1875, p. 263. Poem. ' If ' (with an illustration by P. A. Sandys). Vol. i. March 1866, p. 336. Reprinted in New Poems, p. 145. Poem. 'Twilight Night' Vol. v. Jan. 1868, p. 103. Re- printed in Qoblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and other Poems, 1875, p. 180. Two Sonnets. I. ' Venus's Looking Glass.' II. ' Love Lies Bleeding.' Vol. xv. Jan. 1873, p. 31. Reprinted in ffoi/«« Market, The Princes Progress, and other Poems, 1875, p. 156. Poem. 'A Dirge.' Vol. xvii. Jan. 1874, p. 25. Reprinted in Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and other Poems, 1875, p. 89. Poem. ' A Bride Song.' Vol. xix. Jan. 1875, p. 25. Re- printed in Goblin Market, The Princess Progress, and other Poems, 1875, p. 102. Churchman's Shilling Magazine. ' The Waves of this Trouble- some World : a Tale of Hastings Ten Tears Ago.' Vol. i. / 382 CHRISTINA EOSSETTL 1867, pp. 183-193, 391-304. Reprinted in Commonplace, and other Short Stories, 1870, pp. 371-339. Story. ' Some Pros and Cons about Pews.' Vol. i. 1867, pp. 496-500. Reprinted in Commonplace, and other Short Stories, 1870, pp. 357-267. Essay. ' Dante, an English Classic.' Vol. ii. 1867, pp. 200-305. Story. 'A Safe Inyestmeni' Vol. ii. 1867, pp. 387-392. Reprinted in Commonplace, and other Short Stories, 1870, pp. 341-353. Scmbneb's Monthly. (Century.) Poem. ' A Christmas Carol.' Vol. iii. Jan. 1872, p. 278. Reprinted in Goblin. Market, The Princds Progress, and other Poems, 1875, p. 321. Poem. 'Days of Vanity.' Vol. v. Nov. 1873, p. 31. Re- printed in Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and other Poems, 1875, p. 68. Poem. ' A Bird Song.' Vol. v. Jan. 1873, p. 336. Reprinted in Goblin Market, The Princes Progress, and other Poems, 1875, p. 184. The Centttry. Essay. ' Dante. The Poet illustrated out of the Poem.' Peb. 1884, pp. 566-573. Poem ' One Sea-side Grave.' May 1884, p. 134. Reprinted in Poew^s, 1891, p. 339. Picture Posies, poems chiefly by living authors, 1874. Poem. ' An English Drawing-room,' p. 50. Reprinted under the title of ' Enrica,' 1865, in Goblin Market, The Princes Pro- gress, and other Poems, 1875. Poem. ' By the Sea,' p. 59. Reprinted in Goblin Market, The Princes Progress, and other Poems, 1875, p. 59. Dublin University Magazine. Poem. 'Yet a Little While.' Vol. i. N. S., 1878, p. 104. Reprinted in A Pageant, and other Poems, 1881, p. 43. A Masque op Poets. Bost. 1878. Poem. ' Husband and Wife,' pp. 42-44. Reprinted in New Poems, p. 154. New and Old. Edited by Rev. C. Gutch. 'A Harmony on Eirst Corinthians,' xiii. Vol. vii. Eeb. 1879, pp. 34-39. The Children's Hyitn Book. Compiled chiefly by Mrs. Carey Brock (1881). Poem. ' Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail,' p. 260. Reprinted in New Poems, p. 260. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 383 1/ Sonnets op Theeb Centtjeies. Edited by T. Hall Came, 1883. ' Sonnet. ' To-day's Burden,' p. 190. Eepiinted in Poems, 1891, p. 380. Dawn op Day. ' True in the Main.' Two Sketches. May 1, 1882, pp. 57-59, and June 1, 1883, pp. 69-70. Poems. ' Ash Wednesday.' ' Lent.' Keprinted from Verses (1893), Feb. 1894, p. 40. / . Centust Guild Hobby Horse. Poem. ' A Christmas Carol.' !^ ■ Vol. ii. 1887, p- 1. Reprinted in Poems 1891, p. 429, and in NeiB Poems, 1896, p. 261. Poem. ' A Hope Carol.' "Vol. iii. 1888, p. 41. Reprinted in Poems, 1891, p. 427. Poem. ' There is a Budding Morrow in Midnight.' Vol. iv. 1889, p. 81. Reprinted in Poems, 1891, p. 382. AtaIiAnta. Poem. ' Tea I hare a Goodly Heritage.' Oct. 1890, p. 3. Reprinted in New Poem^, p. 262. Magazine op Art. Poem. • An Echo from WiUowwood.' Draw- ing by C. Ricketts. Vol. siii. Sept. 1890, p. 385. Re- printed in New Poems, p. 164. Poem. ' The Way of the World.' With an illustration by W. E. E. Britten. July 1894, p. 804. Reprinted in New Poems, p. 183. Literary Opinion. Poem. ' A Death of a Eirst-bom.' Jan. 14, 1893. Eeb. 1893, p. 327. Repiinted in New Poems, p. 263. Poem. 'Eaint, yet Pursuing.' Vol. ii. 1892, p. 67. Re- printed in New Poems, p. 264. Essay. ' The House of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.' (With a sketch by Miss Margaret Thomas.) Vol. ii. 1893, pp. 137-129. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, his Eamily Letters, 1895. Verse. ' The Chinaman.' Vol. i. p. 79. Sonnet. ' The P. R. B.' Vol. i. p. 138. Poem. ' The Eleventh Hour ' (appeared in some Magazine ; see Mr. W. M. Rossetti's notes to New Poems, p. 389). Re- printed in New Poems, p. 314. Poem. 'A Visitor from the South.' Illustrated by Alfred Boyd Houghton. 384 CHRISTINA EOSSETTL MUSICAL SETTINGS. ' Goblin Market,' as a cantata, by E. Aguilar. 'All Thy works praise Thee, O Lord. A Processional of Crea- tion.' Selected stanzas from. Adapted by the Rev. J. J. Glendinning Nash, and set to music by Mr. Erank T. Lowden. Performed for the first time at Christ Church, Wobum Square, London, Oct. 21st, 1897. ' Songs in a Cornfield,' as a cantata, by Sir G. A. Macfarren. Numerous settings by Mary Grant Carmichael and other composers. WOEKS. To my Mother on the Anniversary of her birth, April 27, 1842. (Privately printed at G. Polidori's, London, 1842) s. sh. 8vo. Christina Rossetti's first verses. Included in the volume of ' Verses,' 1847. Verses by Christina G. Rossetti. Dedicated to her mother. Privately printed at G. Polidori's, No. 15, Park Village East, Regent's Park, London, 1847, 12mo. Printed by her maternal grandfather, G. Polidori. Goblin Market, and other Poems. With two designs by D. G. Rossetti. Macmillan & Co. Cambridge, 1862, 192 pages, 8vo. Bound in dark blue cloth. Goblin Market, and other Poems. Second edition. Macmillan & Co. Cambridge, 1865, 12mo. The Prince's Progress, and other Poems. With two designs by D. 6. Rossetti. Macmillan & Co. London, 1866, Svo. Bound in green cloth. Poems. Roberts Bros. Boston, 1866, l6mo. Poems. New edition enlarged. Roberts Bros. Boston, 1876, 16mo. Outlines for Illuminating. ' Consider.' A Poem. (Designed by A. Donlevy.) A. D. E. Randolph & Co., New York, 1866, obi. 4to. II Meroato de' EoUetti (' Goblin Market ') ; poema tradotto in Italiano da T. P. Rossetti. Eirenze, 1867, 8vo. Commonplace, and other Short Stories. F. S. Ellis, Loudon, 1870, Svo. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 385 Commonplace, and otlier Short Stories. Roberts Bros. Boston, 1870, 8vo. Sing-Song, a nursery rhyme book. With 120 illustrations by Arthur Hughes, engraved by the Brothers Dalziel. George Routledge and Sons, London, 1872, 8vo. Sing-Song. Roberts Bros. Boston, 1872, 8vo. Sing-Song. Another edition. George Routledge ajid Sons, Lon- don, 1878, 16mo. Sing-Song. Another edition. MacmiUan & Co. London, 1893, 8vo. Annus Domini, a prayer for each day of the year, founded on a text of Holy Scripture. (Edited by [the Rev.] H. "W. Bur- rows.) James Parker & Co. London, 1874, 32mo. Annus Domini. Roberts Bros. Boston, n. d. 18mo. Speaking Likenesses. With pictures thereof by Arthur Hughes. Macmillan & Co. London, 1874, 8vo. Speaking Likenesses. Roberts Bros. Boston, 1874, 12mo. Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and other Poems. With four designs by D. G. Rossetti. New edition. Macmillan & Co., London, 1875, 8vo. Reprinted 1879, 1884, 1888. Seek and Find. A double series of short studies of the Benedicite. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1879, 8vo. A Pageant, and other Poems. Macmillan & Co. London, 1881, 8vo. Called to be Saints : the Minor Festivals devotionally studied. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1881, 8vq. Passages from the Bible relating to the Saints, with meditations. Poems. Roberts Bros. Boston, 1882, 8vo. The frontispiece is the portrait of Christina G. Rossetti, from the original drawing by Dante G. Rossetti in the possession of Mr. W. M. Rossetti. Letter and Spirit. Notes on the Commandments. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1883, 8vo. Time Flies : a reading Diary. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1885, 8vo. Time Flies. Roberts Bros. Boston, 1886, 12mo. Poems. (With four designs by D. G. Rossetti.) New and enlarged edition. Macmillan & Co. London, October 1890, 8vo. Re- printed December 1890, February and August 1891, 1892, 1894, 1895, 1896. 25 386 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. The Pace of the Deep : a devotional commentary on the Apoc- alypse. (With the Text.) Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1892, 8vo. The Pace of the Deep. E. and J. B. Young & Co. New York, 1892, 8to. Goblin Marltet. Illustrated by Laurence Housman. Macmillan & Co. London, 1893, 8vo. One hundred and sixty copies of a large paper edition were printed. Verses. Reprinted from ' Called to be Saints,' ' Time PUes,' and 'The Pace of the Deep.' Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1893, 870. New Poems, by Christina Rossetti hitherto unpublished or uncol- lected. Edited by William Michael Kossetti. MacmiUan & Co. London and New York, 1896, 8vo. The Rossetti Birthday Book. Edited by Olivia Rossetti. Mac- millan & Co. London and New York, 1896, 16mo. Maude. With an introduction by W. M. Rossetti. James Bowden. London, 1897, 8vo. ANA. Eyles, P. A. H. Popular Poets of the Period. London, 1889, 8vo. ' Miss Christina G. Rossetti.' By John Walker, pp. 234-240. (Selections from her poems, with a notice.) Forman, H. Buxton. Our Living Poets; an Essay in Criticism. London, 1871, 8vo. ' Christina Gabriela Rossetti,' pp. 231-253. Article in Celebrities of the Century, edited by Lloyd C. San- ders, on Christina Rossetti. Garnett, Richard. Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. XLIX. Article on Christina Rossetti. Gilchrist, H. Harlakenden. Anne Gilchrist, Her Life and Writ- ings. London, 1887, 8vo. Numerous references to Christina Rossetti. Gosse, Edmund. Critical Kit-Kats. London, 1896, 8vo. ' Chris- tina Rossetti,' pp. 133-162. A Sliort History of Modern English Literature. London, 1898, 8vo. ' Christina Rossetti,' pp. 380-382. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 387 Hake, Dr. Gordon. Memories of Eighty Years. Loudon, 1892, 8vo. Contains references to Christina Rossetti. Hm, George Birkbeck. Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti to Wil- liam Allingham, 1854-1870. London, 1897, 8yo., New York, 1898, 8to. (Before their publication in book form a portion of these letters appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, May-August, 1897.) Contains references to Christina Rossetti. Hueffer, Pord M. Ford Madox Brown; a Record of his Life and Work. London, 1896, 8vo. Contains several references to Christina Rossetti. ' M.' ' The Athenaeum,' Aug. 7, 1897. Article entitled ' A Poetic Trio,' containing a letter by Christina Rossetti, pp. 193-194. Mjles, Alfred H. The Poets and the Poetry of the Century, vol. vii., entitled 'Joanna Baillie to Mathilde Blind.' London, 1893, 8vo. Christina G. Rossetti. By Arthur Symons, with selections from her poetical works, pp. 417-448. Nash, Rev. J. J. Glendioniug. A memorial sermon preached at Christ Church, Woburn Square, for the late Christina Georgina Rossetti. London, 1895, 8vo. Noble, James Ashcroft. Impressions and Memories. London, 1895, Svo. ; 'The Burden of Christina Rossetti,' pp. 55-64. Proctor, Ellen A. A Brief Memoir of Christina G. Rossetti. With a preface by W. M. Rossetti. London, 1895, 8vo. Robertson, Eric S. English Poetesses. London, 1883, 8vo. 'Chris- tina Rossetti,' pp. 338-348. Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, his Family Letters. With a memoir by William Michael Rossetti. 2 vols. London, 1895, 8vo. Contains numerous references to Christina Rossetti, with a portrait painted by Dante G. Rossetti, and several letters to her. Rossetti, WilUam M. Dante Gabriel Rossetti as Designer aud Writer. London, 1889, 8vo. Numerous references to Christina Rossetti. — Swinburne's Poems and Ballads. A Criticism. London, 1866, Svo. Contains references to Christina Rossetti. — ' Chambers's Enoyclopsedia.' Article, ' Christina G. Rossetti.' London, 1895, vol. viii., p. 815. Scott, William Bell. Autobiographical Notes of the Life of William 388 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. Bell Scott. Edited by William Minto. London, 1892, 8vo. Contains references to Christina Rossetti. Stedman, Edmund Clarence. Victorian Poets. London, 1887, 8vo. ' Christina Rossetti,' pp. 280, 443. Swinburne, Algernon Charles. A Midsummer Holiday and other Poems. London, 1884, 8vo. ' A BaUad of Appeal to Christina G. Rossetti,' p. 112. 'A Century of Roundels.' London, 1883, 8to. 'Dedication to Christina Rossetti.' Symons, Arthur. 'Studies in Two Literatures.' London, 1897, 8vo. Essay on Christina Rossetti, pp. 135-149. Taylor, Bayard. Critical Essays and Literary Notes. New York, 1880, 8vo. ' Christina Rossetti,' pp. 330-332. Walker, Hugh. The Age of Tennyson. London, 1897. ' Chris- tina Rossetti, pp. 244-246. Wood, Esther. Dante Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite Movement. London, 1894, 8vo. References to Christina Rossetti. REVIEWS, CRITICISMS, MEMORIAL POEMS, ETC Rossetti, Christina G. — The Catholic World, by E. A. Rudd, vol. iv., 1867, pp. 839-846. Tinsley's Magazine, vol. v., 1869, pp. 59-67. The Fortnightly Review, by William Sharp, vol. xxxix. N.S., 1886, pp. 427-429 ; same article, The Eclectic Magazine, vol. cvi., pp. 599, 600, and littell's Living Age, vol. clxix., pp. 169, 170. The London Quarterly Review, by Arthur Symons, July 1887, pp. 338-350. Woman's World (with portrait), by Amy Levy, 1888, pp. 178-180. The Sun, by Elspeth H. Barzia, June 1890, pp. 615-618. Literary Opinion (with portrait), by James Ashcroft Noble, Dec. 1891, pp. 155-157. The Century (with portrait), by Edmund Gosse, vol. xlvi., 1893, pp. 211- 217. The National Review, by A. C. Benson, Eeb. 1895, pp. 753-763. The Athenisum, by Theodore Watts [Dunton], Jan. 5, 1895, pp. 16-18. The Academy, Jan. 5, 1895, p. 12. The Saturday Review, by Arthur Symons, Jan. 5, 1895, pp. 5, 6. The Dial (Chicago), Jan. 16, 1895, pp. 37-39. The New Re- >OT«3_by Alice Meynell, Eeb. 1895, pp. 201-206. The Bookman. (with portrait), by Katherine Tynan (Mrs. Hinkson), Feb. 1895, pp. 141, 142. Cassell's Family Magazine (with portrait), by BIBLIOGRAPHY. 389 Alexander H. Japp, Peb. 1895, p. 227. Great Thoughts (with portrait), by Frances E. Ashwell, Feb. 2, 1895, pp. 288-290. The Leisure Hour (with portrait), by Mrs. Watson, Feb. 1895, pp. 245-248. The Author, by Mackenzie Bell, Marob 1895, pp. 269, 270. The Primitive Methodist (Quarterly Beview, by M. Johnson, vol. xxxvii., 1895, pp. 469-481. Good Words, by Grace Gilchrist, Dec. 1896, pp. 822-826. Rossetti, Christina G. Galled to be Saints. The Academy, by G. A. Simcox, Nov. 5, 1881, p. 341. — Character Sketch of. The Young Woman (illustrated with por- traits, &c.), by Sarah A. Tooley, Nov. 1894, pp. 37-44. By an error the portrait at p. 48 represents Mrs. W. M. Eossetti, not Christina Eossetti. — Child's Recollections of Eossetti, A. The New Review, by Lily Hall Caine (Mrs. Day). Sep. 1894, pp. 246-255. Contains references to Christina Eossetti. — Commonplace, and other Short Stories. The Athenaum, June 4, 1870, pp. 734, 735. — Goblin Market, and other Poems. The Eclectic Review, vol. ii., N.S., 1862, pp. 493-499 ; same article, Litiell's Living Age, vol. Ixxiv., pp. 147-150. Macmillan's Magazine, by Mrs. C. E. Norton, vol. [viii., 1863, pp. 401-404 ; same article, Littell's living Age, vol. Ixxix., pp. 126-129. The Athemsum, April 26, 1862, pp. 557, 558. — In Memoriam (Poem). The Manchester Quarterly, by Eowland Thirlmere, [Mr. John Walker], Jan. 1896, pp. 39-45. — Letter and Spirit. The Academy, by G. A. Simcox, June 9, 1883, pp. 395, 396. — Letters of D. G. Eossetti. The Atlantic Monthly, May-Ang. 1896. Edited by George Birkbeck Hill. — New Poems. 1896. The Athenceum, Feb. 15, 1896, pp. 207- 209. The Saturday Review, Feb. 22, 1896, pp. 194-197. The Spectator, Feb. 29, 1896, pp. 309, 310. Poet-lore, March, 1896, pp. 149, 150. The Guardian, March 18, 1896, p. 432. The Atlantic Monthly, April, 1896, pp. 570, 571. The Academy, by Lionel Johnson, July 25, 1896, pp. 59-60. — New Year's Eve, A. The Nineteenth Century, by Algernon Charles Swinburne, Feb. 1895, pp. 367, 36& 390 CHRISTINA EOSSBTTl Rossetti, Christina G. Pageant and other Poems, A. The Academy, by T. Hall Caine, Aug. 27, 1881, p. 152. The Athenceum, by Theo- dore Watts [Dunton], Sep. 10, 1881, pp. 327, 328 ; same article. The Eclectic Magazine, vol. xxxiy., N.S., pp. 708-712. — Poems of. The Saturday Review, June 23, 1866, pp. 761, 762 ; same article, The Eclectic Magazine, vol. iv., N.S., 1866, pp. 822-325. The Spectator, Sep. 1, 1866, pp. 974, 975. The Catholic World, vol. xxiv., 1877, pp. 122-129. The Nation, by J. B.. Dennett, vol. iii., 1866, pp. 47, 48. The London Quarterly Review, vol. kviii,, 1887, pp. 338-350. The Academy, by Richard Le Gallienne, Peb. 7, 1891, pp. 130, 131. — Poetry of. The Bookman (with portrait), by Katherine Tynan (Mrs. Hinkson), Dec. 1893, pp.78, 79. The Monthly Packet, 'hj C. R. Coleridge, March, 1895, pp. 276-282. The Westminster Review, by Alice Law, April, 1895, pp. 444-453. — Prince's Progress, and other Poems, The. The Atherueum, June 23, 1866, pp. 824, 825. — Reminiscences of. The Nineteenth Century, by Theodore Watts [Dunton], Peb. 1895, pp. 355-366. — The Rossettis. The London Quarterly Review, Oct. 1896, pp. 1-16. — Short Tales of. Tke Spectator, Oct. 29, 1870, pp. 1292, 1293. — Sing- Song. The Athenaum, Jan. 6, 1872, p. 11 ; Tlie Academy, by Sidney Colvin, Jan. 15, 1873, pp. 23, 24. — Some Reminiscences of. The Atlantic Monthly, by William Sharp, June, 1895, pp. 736-749 ; The Bookman, by Katherine Tynan (Mrs. Hinkson), Peb. 1895, pp. 141, 142. — To. (Verse), Oood Words, by Dora GreenweU, vol. xvii., 1876, p. 824. The Literary World, by Mackenzie Bell, Jan. 4, 1895, p. 21. The Academy, by Michael Pield, April 4, 1896, p. 284. — ' Two Christmastides.' The Athenceum, by Theodore Watts-Dun- ton, Jan. 12, 1895, p. 49. — Verses (1893). The Athenteum, Dec. 16, 1893, pp. 842, 843. The Sunday at Home (with portrait), by Lily Watson, May 1894, pp. 425-428. LIST OF PORTRAITS. 391 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS. Verses 1847 Goblin Market and other Poems 1863 The Prince's Progress and other Poems .... 1866 Commonplace, and other Short Stories .... 1870 Sing-Song 1872 Annus Domini 1874 Speaking Likenesses 1874 Seek and Pind 1879 A Pageant and otlier Poems 1881 Called to be Saints 1881 Letter and Spirit 1883 Time Plies 1885 Poems. New and enlarged edition 1890 The Pace of the Deep 1893 Verses 1893 New Poems Hitherto Unpublished or Uncollected 1896 Maude 1897 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OP PORTRAITS, PHOTO- GRAPHS, &c. By Mackenzie Bell. Portrait (watercolour) by PiUppo Pistruoci, 1838. Reproduced in the present volume, p. 9. Etching from the above watercolour by William Bell Scott, circa 1860. Another watercolour by Pilippo Pistrucci (very bad), circa 1840. Pencil-drawing by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1847 — being a frontispiece to a copy of ' Verses,' 1847, now in the possession of Mr. William Michael Rossetti. Portrait (oil) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1848. Processed in ' Dante Gabriel Rossetti : his Pamily Letters.' Head (pencil) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, circa 1848. It now belongs to Mr. Sydney Morse. Reproduced in the present volume, to face p. 17- 392 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. Head (profile), from a tracing of a Arawing by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Reproduced to face p. 259 of 'Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti to WiUiam Allingham, 1854-1870.' It is stated in that volume that ' Mr. Arthur Hughes, in whose possession the tracing is, believes that the drawing is made as a study for the head of the Virgin in Rossetti's first Prseraphaelite picture. The Girlhood of Mary Virgin, painted in 1848-49.' Head of Mary in ' The Girlhood of Mary Virgin,' by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1849. Head by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (perhaps preliminary study for ' Ecce Ancilla Domini '), 1849. Processed in ' New Poems,' 1896. Portrait (oil) by James Collinson, 1849. Reproduced for the first time in the present volume, to face p. 18. Head in ' The Annunciation ' by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1850. Pencil-drawing by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, executed in October, 1853, in the possession of W. M. Rossetti. Reproduced for the first time in the present volume, to face p. 30. ' Pencil-drawing (profile) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in the pos- session of Mr. W. M. Rossetti, circa 1855. Dante Gabriel Rossetti's design of King Arthur and the Weep- ing Queens in illustrated edition of Tennyson's Idylls of the King, published by Edward Moxon, 1856-7. One of the female heads is Christina Rossetti. Photograph (full-length), 1861. Photograph of Christina Rossetti and lier mother, now in the possession of Mr. W. M. Rossetti, taken by ' Lewis Carroll ' (the Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) in the garden of Tudor House, 16 Cheyne Walk, tpwards 1863. Reproduced in the present volume, to face p. 150. Photograph of Christina Rossetti, in a family group consisting of her mother, her sister Maria, her brothers Dante Gabriel and William Michael, and herself, also taken by ' Lewis Carroll,' in the garden of Tudor House, circa 1864 or 1865. Chalk drawing by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (face resting on hands), 1866. Reproduced in the present volume as frontispiece. Portrait (in chalk) of Christina Rossetti and Mrs. Rossetti by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1877, now in National Portrait Gallery. Two heads (in chalk) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1877. LIST OF PORTRAITS. 393 Photograph (Messrs. Elliott and Fry)— TuU-face, 1877. Photograph (Messrs. EDiott and Fry) — Downcast eyes, 1877- Christina Rossetti sat for Lady Jane Beaufort in William Bell Scott's distemper painting at Penkill Castle, representing James I. of Scotland, his first siglit of Lady Jane Beaufort. Note by Mr. W. M. Rossetti after reading foregoing list of portraits : ' I have lately been handling 2 other portraits by G[abriel] wh[ich] seem worth mentioning. 1 is a profile, not later than 1846, or maybe 1845 : it is a goodish piece of work for that early time, but is of course not marked by G.'s finer qualities. A very direct literal rendering, and, from that point of view, highly interesting pencil drawing. 2 is a graceful pencil drawing, towards [18]52 or perhaps earlier : C[hristina] in a large easy chair, full-length : clearly a study of her from the life, but the face is not strongly defined, nor greatly like. ' There are various other sketches of Christina by Dante Gabriel^ — not any, I think, of marked importance. 'A few pages of M.S., consisting of notes upon various passages in Genesis and Exodus, were found among the papers left by Chris- tina at the time of her death. The notes (which may date towards 1865) relate to Old Testament types of the New Testament dispen- sation, and to other matters. They are at present (Oct. 1897) con- signed to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, with a view to publication.' 1 One of these appears as frontispiece to ' Maude.' INDEX. ' Advent,' Christina Rossetti's, 271, 273 ; Mr. Swinburne on, 272, 364. ' After Conununion,' Christina Rossetti's, 2561 257, 364- 'After Death,' Christina Rossetti's, 235, 364- Aguilar, Mr., his cantata 'Goblin Mar- ket,' 234. 'Albina, On,' Christina Rossetti's, 182. Alleyn, Ellen, a pseudonym of Christina Rossetti. See ' Ellen Alleyn.' 'Amen,' Christina Rossetti's, quoted, 272, 273. ' Amore e Dispetto,' Christina Rossetti's, 221, ' Amore e Dovere,' Christina Rossetti's, 221. 'Amor Mundi,' Christma Rossetti's, 257, 258, 356. 370- ' Annie ' and the ' Song,' Christina Ros- setti's, 264, quoted, 264. Annus Domini^ Christina Rossetti's, the devotional verse in, 268, 269 ; publica- tion of, 317; described, analysed, and quoted, 317-319. 'Another Spring,' Christina Rossetti's, 238. 'Anti-Christ,' Christina Rossetti on, 177. 'Apple-gathering, An,' Christina Ros- setti's, 229, 239, 356. 'Autumn,' Christina Rossetti's, quoted, 247. 'Ballad of Boding,' Christina Ros- setti's, quoted, 252, 253. ' Beauty is Vain,' Christina Rossetti's, 243, 244, 255. Benson, Mr. A. C, on Christina Rossetti, 368. Besant, Sir Walter, 176. ' Bird Raptures,' Christina Rossetti's, 258. ' Birthday, A,' Christina Rossetti's, 237. ' Birthday Gathering, A,' Christina Ros- setti's, 229. Blake, William, Christma Rossetti's ad- miration for, 342 ; his and her symbol- ism, 357. Bodichon, Madame, Christina Rossetti on, 75. Bonaparte, Princess Christina, 7. Bonaparte, Prince Louis Napoleon, 7. Bonaparte, Prince Pierre, 7.; Bonar, Rev. Dr. Horatius, his poem quoted, 283. 'Brandons Both,' Christina Rossetti's, quoted, 252. Bronte family, the, 3. 'Brother Bruin,' Christina Rossetti's, quoted, 259. Brown, Ford Madox, has Christina Ros- setti for a pupil in drawing, 18 ; his ' Christ Washing Peter's Feet,' 31, 32; his diary quoted, 36; letter from, quoted, 57. Brown, Mrs. Ford Madox, letter to, from Christina Rossetti, 36, 37; mentioned, 74, 113, 206. Brown, Oliver Madox, reference to, in letters from Christina, 37, 45, 126; letter to, from Christina Rossetti, 74. Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, Christina Rossetti on, 100, loi, 103; proposed life of, TOO, loi ; compared with Chris- tina, 357-362. 396 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. Burne-Jones, Lady, mentioned, 33; her sisters, 33. Burns as a dramatic lyrist, 4. Burrows, Canon, proposed life of, iSi ; his commendatory note to Annus Domini J 317. Caine, Mr. T. Hall, referred to, 90, 91, 94, 104, 179, 364. Called to be Saints^ Christina Rossetti's, verse in, 186, 269, 270, 276; published, 321 ; described, analysed, and quoted, 321-330. Carrington, N. T., Christina Rossetti on his ' Nativity,' 96. ' Carroll, Lewis,' takes a photograph of Mrs. and Christina Rossetti, 150J men- tioned, 301. ' Cat, On the Death of a,' Christina Ros- setti's, quoted, 13, 17, Cayley, Charles Bagot, mentioned, 32, 77, 117; his translation of Dante, 64 ; quo- tation from, 343. Cheerfulness, Christina Rossetti on, i8r. ' Child's Talk in April,' Christina Ros- setti's, quoted, 246. Christ Church, Woburn Square, 1S3, 204. 'Christ Washing Peter's Feet,' Ford Madox Brown's, 31, 32. 'Christmas Carol, A,' Christina Ros- setti's, quoted, 289. Clarence, the Duke of, Christina Ros- setti's poem on the death of, 144. Clayton, John R., on Dante Gabriel Ros- setti's ' Ecce Ancilla Domini,' 19, 20 ; on Christina Rossetti's conversational powers, 24, 25 ; mentioned, 22, 200. Clematis, Christina Rossetti on the, 75, 76. Collinson, James, his portrait of Christina Rossetti, 18; Christina on a poem of his, 96; mentioned, 339. ' Come to me in the silence of the night,' Christina Rossetti's, 237. Commonplace and other Short Stories, 302 ; published, 302 ; described and analysed, 303-310. Como, Christina Rossetti on, 50. 'Conference between Christ, the Saints, and the Soul,' Christina Rossetti's, 276. ' Convent Threshold, The,' by Christina Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti on, 236; Mrs. Meynell on, 236, 237; men- tioned, 256, 264, 364. Copperfield^ David^ a French translation of, 182. ' Cor Mio,' Christina Rossetti's, 265 . Cotton, Mr. J. S., cited, 356. Courtesy, Christina Rossetti on, 178. ' Cousin Kate,' Christina Rossetti's, 237. Craik, Mrs., the novelist, 153. Crashaw's ' Song of Divine Love,' quoted, 275. Cremation, Christina Rossetti on, 172, Dante, Christina Rossetti on, 64; her essays concerning him, 64; his in- fluence over her, 355. Davies, William, etching by, 82, 83. 'Dead before Death,' Christina Ros- setti's, 235, 272, 364. De Vere, Aubrey, on Wordsworth, 375. ' Dead City, The,' by Christina Rossetti, quoted, 216, 217. ' Death of a Firstborn,' Christina Ros- setti's, 141. ' Death Watches,' Christina Rossetti's, 251. ' Death's Chill Between,' Christina Ros- setti's, quoted, 224. Dibdin, Mr. Robert W., Christina Ros- setti's present to the children of, 192. ' Divine and Human Pleading,' by Chris- tina Rossetti, quoted, 219, 220. Dixon, Canon, Christina Rossetti on his 'fine work,' 96. Donne's ' Hymn to the Father,' 279. ' Dream Land,' by Christina Rossetti, 226. Dunn, Mr. H. Treffry, mentioned, 115. Eastbourne, Christina Rossetti on, 61, 62. 'Ecce Ancilla Domini,' Dante Gabriel Rossetti's, 19, 20. Edwards, Amelia Blandford, mentioned, 93. 94- Eliot, George, her ' Middlemarch,' 40. INDEX. 397 ' Ellen AUeyn,' 227. ' En Route,' Christina Rossetti's, 256 ; quoted, 53. ' End, An,' Christina Rossetti's, 228, 237. ' End of the First Part, The,' Christina Rossetti's, 264, 370; quoted, 264, ' Eva,' by Christina Rossetti, 220. ' Eve,' Christina Rossetti's, quoted, 248, 249. 'Eve of the Passover, The,' Dante Gabriel Rossetti's, 106. 'Eyes not ours. And other,' Christina Rossetti's, quoted, 284. Face of the Deep, The, Christina Ros- setti's, 52; quoted, 65-67,69, 70, 127, 12S, 173-175, 177, 181,207-209; verse in, 270, 271, 281, 282, 285-288; publi- cation of, 344 ; described, analysed, and quoted, 344, 354 ; naive closing words, 354- ' Faint yet Pursuing,' Christina Ros- setti's, 146-148 ; facsimile of proof of, 147. Families, literary, 2, 3. Fasting, Christina Rossetti on, 181. Faulkner, Charles Joseph, 228. ' Fior-de-Lisa,' Christina Rossetti's, 171. ' Folio Q,' Christina Rossetti's story, 310. ' For Thine own Sake, Lord,' Chris- tina Rossetti's, quoted, 274. ' Forget-me-Not,' Christina Rossetti's, 182. ' Freaks of Fashion,' Christina Rossetti's. 251. Gamberale, Signer, referred to, 88, 89. Garnett, Dr. Richard, mentioned, 102, 156 ; on Christina Rossetti, 367 ; Gar- nett, Mrs., 170, 200. Germ, The, Christina Rossetti on, 96; described, 225-227; the Rossettis' contributions to, 226, 227. ' Ghost's Petition, The,' Christina Ros- setti's, 244. Gilchrist, Miss Grace, her recollections of Christina Rossetti, 42, 43. Gilchrist, Mrs. Anne, her acquaintance with Christina Rossetti, 40; her de- scription of her, 41 ; letters to, from Christina, 41, 44, 50, 55-57; on Sing- Song, 180, 291. 'Girlhood of the Virgin,' Dante Gabriel Rossetti's, 18, 19. Gladstone, Mr. W. E., recites Christina Rossetti's * Maiden-Song,' 243. Goblin Market and other Poems, Chris- tina Rossetti's, published, 38, 227, 228 ; described, analysed, quoted, 228-234, 367, 370; devotional verse in, 271-273. ' Gone Forever,' Christina Rossetti's, 247. Gosse, Mr. Edmund W., on Christina Rossetti, 42, 43 ; referred to by Chris- tina, 94 ; on The Princess Progress, 239, 240. Greenwell, Dora, her poem on Christina Rossetti, 40; her acquaintance with Christina, 40. Grosart, Dr. A. B., quoted, 36. Gurney, Rev. Alfred, Christina Rossetti's correspondence with, 134-140. Hake, Dr. Gordon, mentioned, 54, 72, 73. 172. ' Hand and Soul,' Dante Gabriel Ros- setti's story, 302, 304, 305. Hannay, James, 30. Hare, Dr. C. J., his notes on the health of Christina Rossetti, 22, 23 ; on Christina's affection for her mother, 23; on her grandfather, 23, 24. ' Heart's Chill Between,' Christina Ros- setti's, quoted, 222, 223. Henley, W. E., his ' Hospital Poems,' 185. Herbert, Geo^ge, his ' Sepulchre,' 270, * Hero,' Christina Rossetti's story, 309. ' Herself a Rose,'Christina Rossetti's,278. Holmer Green, 10-12, 168. ' Home,' Christina Rossetti's, 283. Hone's ' Everyday Book,' 15. Horder, Rev. W. Garrett, Christina Ros- setti's correspondence with, 96-98. ' Hour and the Ghost, The,' Christina Rossetti's, 235, 363, 370. Housmann, Laurance, his illustrations of Goblin Market, 233. 398 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. Hueffer, Dr., death of, 130, 131 ; Mrs. Hueffer, 200. Hueffer, Ford M., quoted, 31. Hughes, Mr. Arthur, quoted, 56; men- tioned, 200; his illustrations of Sing- Songf 292-299. Hunt, Mr. Holman, on his 'Light of the World,' 21 ; mentioned, 32. Hunter's Forestall, 78. ' I KNOW YOU NOT,' Christina Rossetti's, quoted, 289. ' If only,' Christina Rossetti's, 273. Ingelow, Jean, her knowledge of Nature, 27, 28; ChristinaRossettion, 179,180, 301 ; her works for children, 291; her work compared with that of Christina Rossetti, 362, 363. Ingram, Mr. John H., Christina Ros- setti's correspondence with, quoted, 98, 102. ' Is and Was,' Christina Rossetti's, 26. Italian poems, 221-225, 266, 362. Italy and the Italians, Christian Rossetti on, 48-53. JACOTTET, Henri, his articles on Chris- tina Rossetti, 185, 186. Jenner, Sir William, his acquaintance with Christina Rossetti, 31 ; is con- sulted by her professionally, 31, 46, 93 ; cited, 181. 'John Gilpin,' Caldecott's, 15, 80. 'Johnny,' Christina Rossetti's, 251, 252. Johnson, Mr. Lionel, on Christina Ros- setti, 369, 370. Keats, John, Christina Rossetti's first acquaintance with the works of , 15; her lines ' On Keats,' 264. Keble, John, Christina Rossetti on, 373. Kelmscott Manor House, Christina Ros- setti's visit at, 71. ' Key to my Book, The,' Christina Ros- setti's, 332, 334. 'Keynote, The,' Christina Rossetti's, 250, Kipling, Mrs. Lockwood, mentioned, 33. ' Lady Montrevor,' Christina Ros- setti's, 263. ' Lalla, To,' Christina Rossetti's, 24. Landon, L. E., Christina Rossetti's lyric to, 246. Lang, Mr. Andrew, on Christina Ros- setti, 366, 367. 'Later Life,' Christina Rossetti's Son- net-sequence, quoted, 49-51, 255, 256. Lear, Edward, the painter, 172. Letter and Spirit, Christina Rossetti's, 270; published, 330; described, ana- lysed, and quoted, 330-338. ' Life and Death,' Christina Rossetti's, quoted, 249. ' Life Hidden,' Christina Rossetti's, 25. 'Life that was bom to-day,' Christina Rossetti's, quoted, 286. ' Light of the Worid,' Mr. Holman Hunt's, 21. Linton, W. J., engraver, 229, 240. 'Lisetta all' Amante,' Christina Ros- setti's, 38. Littledale, Rev. Dr., Christina Rossetti's acquaintance with, 54 ; described by her, 54, 55 ; mentioned, 96, 107, 126 ; his susceptibility in regard to flowers, 166. ' Looking Forward,' Christina Rossetti's, 21, 22, 23, 25. ' Lost Titian, The,' Christian Rossetti's, 302; analysed and quoted, 304-309, 'Love Attacked ' and 'Love Defended,' by Christina Rossetti, 219, 221, ' Love Lies Bleeding,' Christina Ros- setti's, 258. ' Love Ephemeral,' by Christina Rossetti, 221. ' Love is strong as Death,' Christina Rossetti's, 275. ' Lowest Place, The,' Christina Rossetti's, 273- Macdonald, Dr. George, Christina Rossetti on, 135. Macgregor, Miss Georgiana, godmother of Christina Rossetti, 7. Maenza, Signor, and his wife, 81, 82. INDEX. 399 ' Maiden-Song,' Christina Rossetti's, 241-243. 356- Martin, Mr. and Mrs. Patchett, letters to, from Christina Rossetti, quoted, 55. 59. 103. 144-150. 182, 184, 185, 3°9. 3'°- Masson, Mrs., lines written by Christina Rossetti for, 34. Maturin, C. R., the young Rossettis' ap- preciation of his novels, 16. ' Maud Clare,' Christina Rossetti's, 237, 356- 'Maude,' Christina Rossetti's, 22; the heroine of, 22 ; described, analysed, and quoted, 310-316. ' May,' Christina Rossetti's, 237. 'Memory,' Christina Rossetti's, men- tioned, 45. Metastasio, Christina Rossetti's early ap- preciation of, 15, 355. Meynell, Mrs. Alice, quoted, 236, 237, 254. 367. ' Middlemarch,' George Eliot's, 40. ' Monna Innominata,' Christina Rosset- ti's, 253 ; quoted, 253-255, 356. ' Months, the : a Pageant,' Christina Ros- setti's, 250, 251. Morris, William, mentioned, 228, 303. ' Mother and Child,' by Christina Ros- setti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti on, 219. Mountain Scenery, Christina Rossetti on, 48-53. Mount-Temple, Lady, 135, 295, 330. Murray, Mr. Fairfax, 331. Music, Christina Rossetti's attitude towards, 185, 186. 'My Dream,' Christina Rossetti's, 239. Nash, Rev. Glendinning, on Christina Rossetti's habits of composition, 161; mentioned, 187, 200-204. New Poems, by Christina Rossetti, 17; published, 260; described, analysed, and quoted, 260-266; devotional verse in, 280, 284, 288, 289. • Next of Kin,' Christina Rossetti's, 32. ' Nick,' Christina Rossetti's, 30, 304, 306. ' Ninna-Nanna ' (translations into Italian), 266. 'No, thank you, John,' Christina Ros- setti's, 237. Noble, James Ashcroft, mentioned, 8i ; quoted, 230, 231. Norton, Mrs., on Goblin Market, 229. ' October Garden, An,' Christina Rossetti's, 251. ' Oh roses for the flush of youth,' by Christina Rossetti, 226. ' Old-world Thicket, An,' Christina Ros- setti's, 251. Pageant and other Poems, A, Christina Rossetti's, published, 90, 249; men- tioned in letters, 90, 91 ; described, analysed, and quoted, 249-257; devo- tional verse in, 274, 275. ' Paradise,' Christina Rossetti's, 275, 376. ' Parsifal,' Wagner's, Christina Rossetti on. 137. 138. 'Passing and Glassing,' Christina Ros- setti's, 255. ' Passing Away,' Christina Rossetti's, 271 ; and quoted, 27r ; Mr. Swinburne on, 364. Patmore, Mr. and Mrs. Coventry, 155, 156, 263. 'Pause, A,' Christina Rossetti's 265. Penkill, Ayrshire, Christina visits there, 55 ; her description of it, 56. Petrarch, Christina Rossetti's apprecia- tion of, 355. Pistrucci, Filippo, paints portraits of the Rossetti family, 9 ; his portrait of Christina, 9. Poems, Christina Rossetti's (1875), 257- 259 ; Poems (1890), 258-260, 287, 300. Polidori, Gaetano (maternal grandfather of Christina Rossetti), his cottage at Holmer Green, 10 ; Christina's visits there, 10-12; prints privately Chris- tina's first volume (J/erses), 17; de- scribed by Dr. C. J. Hare, 23 ; Chris- tina's affection for, 23 ; his preface to the Verses (1847), 215. Polidori, Dr. (physician to Lord Byron), 5, 165, 168. 400 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. Polidori, Margaret, Eliza, and Charlotte (aunts of Christina Rossetti), 57, 62, 72-74, 82-84, K ^7, 89, 9°, 92> "5, 131, 132, 133, 142, 159, 178, 182, 183, 268. Polydore, Henrietta, Christina Rossetti's poems on, 24, 32 ; mentioned, 38. Polydore, Henry (uncle of Christina Ros- setti), 24,43, 156. ' Poor Ghost, The,' Christina Rossetti's, 244. ' Portraits,' Christina Rossetti's, 33. ' Praying Always,' Christina Rossetti's, quoted, 284. Prince's Progress and other Poems ^ The, Christina Rossetti's, published, 239 ; described, analysed, and quoted, 239- 249 : devotional verse in, 273. Procter, Adelaide, A., Christina Rossetti on, 99. Proctor, Miss, her memoir of Christina Rossetti, 156; quoted, 166, 175, 176. QuARLES's Emblems, 2S2. Radcliffe, Anne, Christina Rossetti's early acquaintance with her works, 15 ; proposed biography of, 101, 102. ' Remember,' Christina Rossetti's, 237. ' Repining,' Christina Rossetti's, quoted, 262, 263. * Rest,' Christina Rossetti's, 237. ' Restive,' Christina Rossetti's, 280. Righi, the, Christina Rossetti on, 49. ' Ring Posy, A,' Christina Rossetti's, 243, 244. ' Rosseggiar dell' Oriente, II,' Christina Rossetti's, 45. Rossetti, Christina Georgina, her unique charm, i ; her life lacking in incident, but passed amid noteworthy surround- ings, 2 ; her natural endowments devel- oped by training and circumstances, 4 ; Italian spoken in family, 4 ; much of her finest work the veiled expression of her own individuality, 4 ; why her personality was so interesting, 4, 5 ; her birth, 5 ; her father and mother, 5 ; her godmothers, 7; Filippo Pistrucci's portrait of her at seven years of age, 9 ; her early childhood, 10 ; references to it in Time Flies, 10-12; her childish amusements, 12 ; her fondness for an- imals, 13, 157; her home education, 14 ; her quick temper, 14 ; desultory in hab- its of study, 15; her early reading, 15, 16; her first verses, 16; her first volume of verse, 17, 213-225; her drawings therein, 17 ; a pupil of Ford Madox Brown, 18 ; probably her broth- er Dante Gabriel's first model, 18 ; his portrait of her at seventeen, 18 ; her portrait by James Collinson, 18 ; sits for the Virgin in Dante Gabriel's ' Girl- hood of Mary Virgin ' and ' Ecce An- cilla Domini,' 18, 19; at Brighton, 21 ; her personal appearance, 20, 21 ; she sits to Mr. Holman Hunt for ' The Light of the World,' 21 ; her uncertain health at seventeen or eighteen, 21, 22 ; her sense of humour, 22; Dr. C. J. Hare's notes concerning her, 23 ; her deep love for her mother and attach- ment to her grandfather, 23, 24 ; her conversational characteristics, 24, 25 ; her constitutional melancholy, 25 ; her reserved demeanour, 26; assists her mother in keeping day-schools in Lon- don and at Frome, 27 ; her knowledge of Nature, 27, 28; her life at Frome, 28, 29; her brother Dante Gabriel on her ' pictorial eye,' 30 ; is supposed to have suffered (1852) from angina peC' torts, 30, 31 ; attended by Sir William Jenner, 31 ; her expectation of early death, 32 ; her verses for friends, 34 ; ' an unhappy love passage,' 34 ; 45 Up- per Albany Street, 35 ; her miscella- neous literary work, 35, 36 ; on the death of Arthur Madox Brown, 36, 37 : her income from literature, 38; her visits to the seaside, 38 ; her health, 38; m eets Dor a Greenwell, 40; at Shottermill, 4o7~^escribed by Anne Gilchrist, 41 ; Miss Grace Gilchrist's reminiscences of her (1863), 42, 43 ; at Cheltenham and Gloucester, 43 ; her feeling for symbolism, 43, 44, 61, 103, INDEX. 401 278, 324> 3251 330. 331. 337, 35i> 352, 357; on Malvern, 44; a second offer of marriage received and rejected, 44, 45 ; 'a thorough Englishwoman,' 47; her experience of foreign travel (1861 and 1865), 47, 48; its influence on her verse, 48-53 ; her prose comments thereon, 50-53 ; her friendship for Dr. Littledale and the author, 54, 55 ; her favourite portrait of herself, 55 ; her visits to Penkill (Ayrshire), 55, 56; 56 Euston Square, 57 ; she suffers from exophthalmic bronchocele (1871-73), 57 ; her appearance in middle age, 58 ; the photographic portraits of her, 58, 59; her philanthropic labours, 60; at Eastbourne, 61, 62 ; her devotion to her relations, 62 ; her loving appreciation of her sister Maria Frances, 62-70, 79, So; a student, admirer,- and critic of Dante, 63; her strong practical com- mon-sense, 68; a guest at Kelmscott Manor House (i87r-i874), 71; she set- tles with her mother at 30 Torrington Square, London(i876), 72; on the clema- tis, 75 , 76 ; on the phenomena of sunrise, 77, 78; at Hunter's Forestall, 78; on J. Ashcroft Noble, 81; moraUses on 'a parable of nature,' 83, 84; contributes to The Aihenceum, 87 ; comments on sonnets by her brother Dante Gabriel, 87, 88, 89, 91 ; on her brother Dante Gabriel's ' Francesca,' 93 ; her Pageant and other Poems (1881), 90, 91, 94; at Sevenoaks, 92; on her brother Dante Gabriel's health, 93, 130; on Canon Dixon's verse, 96 ; on Carrington's 'Nativity,' 96; on a poem by James CoUinson, 96 ; on Divine foreknowl- edge, 97, 98 ; invited to contribute to ' ' The Eminent Women ' Series, 98 ; on Adelaide Procter, 99; on Elizabeth "Bauetr ' Browning;^ 00, loi, 103; on t Anne Radcliffe, loi, T02 ; a strong anti- I vivisectionist, 105 ; her correspondence concerning the Dante Gabriel window at Birchington, 105-117; letters illus- trative of the practical side of her char- acter, rog-i 1 2, 1 1 8 ; on death, 1 1 7, 1 18 ; on Time Plies (1885), 119, 120; her 26 notes for designs by Mr. Shields, 119; her views on the social position of \ women, 123-125; her mother's illness j and decease, 126, 12S ; her indebtedness ^ to her mother, I48 ; on the death of Dr. Hueffer, 130 ; on Dr. George Mac- donald, 135 ; on two pictures by her brother Dante Gabriel, 135 ; on Wag- ner's ' Parsifal,' 137, 138; specimens of her epistolary humoiu:, 141-144; her poem on the death of the Duke of Clarence, 144 ; her ' Faint, yet Pursu- ing,' 146-148 ; on Tudor House, Chel- sea, 148-150 ; her appearance in 1S93, r5i ; her voice and diction, i5r, 152; her attire, 152; her conversation, 153; proposed removal from Torrington Square, 154, 155 ; ' No. 30 ' described, 157-169; the originality of her work, 160; her methods of work, 161, 162; her handwriting, 162-164; ^ specimen of it in facsimile, 163 ; her love of flow- ers, 166; on Mr. Shields, 169; a keen judge of character, 169-171; on Ed- ward Lear, 172; on cremation, 172; her political sympathies, 173 ; her views ~1 on some social evils, 173-175; her in- | terest in the poor, 175; on Antichrist, -^ 177; on courtesy, 178; her poetic pref- erences, 178; an exquisite reader of poetry, 179 ; on Jean Ingelow, 179, r8o; her personal habits, 180-182; on fast- ing, 181 ; her cheerfulness, 181 ; her health in 1892-94, T83, 184; her regard for the work of Isaac Williams, 184, 185 ; on W. E. Henley's ' Hospital,' 185 ; her attitude towards music, 185 ; suffers again from cancer (1893), 186; her Verses (1893), 186 ; her final ill- ness and death, 187-194 ; the spiritual gloom of her last days, 196, T97 ; praise of her gifts, T98, 199 ; the funeral, 200- 202; Mr. Watts-Dunton's sonnets in description of it, 203, 204 ; the grave, 204, 205; a womanly woman, 207; a Churchwoman, but not bigoted, 207- 209 ; Mr. Watts-Dunton on phases of her character, 209-211; her confident faith in a future existence, 211. -her general poems, 213-266; her devo- 402 CHRISTINA EOSSETTI. tional poems, 267-289; her children's books and prose stories, 290-316 ; her litanies, 345, 347-351; her devotional prose, 317-354; influence of Italian lite- rature on her work, 355 ; morbidity of her work, 356 ; her place among poets, 356, 357 ; her likeness to William Blake, 357; contrasted with Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 357-362; compared with Jean Ingelow, 297, 362, ^B^vpi'Sised by MrZ Swmburne, 363, 364; characterised by W. M. Rossetti, 364-366 ; by Mr. Watts-Dunton, 366; by Mr. Andrew Lang, 366, 367; by Dr. Garnett and, Mrs. Alice Meynell, 367; by Mr. A. C. Benson, 368 ; by Mr. Arthur Symons, 368, 369 ; by Mr. Lionel Johnson, 369, 370; the titles of her poems, 370; pe- culiarities of her versification, 370-372 ; her religious and devotional verse, 372, 373; her sacred prose, 373-375; indi- viduality of her work, 374, 375; its placidity, 375, 376; ' The Daily News ' cited, 376; the Christian tone and tem- per of her work, 376. — letters, or extracts from letters, by, 36, 37, 40, 4i| 44, 45. 46, 50. S5< 5^, 57, 5^, 59, 61, 62, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 10°, 'o', >°2, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, no, III, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 144, 145, 146, 148, 149, 15°, '55, '66, 172, 176, 179, 180, 182, 184, 185, 244, 330. Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, Mr. Frederic Shields on, 2 ; his works as poet and painter, 3 ; his birth, 5 ; has his sister Christina for a model, 18; his first fin- ished painting, 18; his 'Girlhood of Mary Virgin ' and ' Ecce Ancilla Dom- ini,' 18, 19; his ' adoration ' of his sis- ter Christina, 22 ; his ' Found,' 29 ; letters from, 29, 30, 88 ; his drawing of Christina (1852), 30; mentioned, 32, 33, 71; his portrait of Christina (1866), 55, 56; his memorial window to Margaret Polidori, 57; letters to. from Christina, 61, 73, 74, 75, 76, 80- 83, 84-go, 91-94; at Bognor, 72; his sonnets in TAe Athen ural History, Idle Hours under the Punkah. SINNERS AND SAINTS. A Tour across the States and around them, with Three Months among the Mormons. i6mo. $1.50. ROSE AND LAVENDER. A Story by the author of "Miss Toosey's Mission," "Pen," " Tip Cat," " Zoe," etc. i6mo. jSi.oo. " Rose and Lavender " are two poor girls who have started in life under hard conditions, but bit by bit edge their way to something better than their beginnings. It is a simple tale of humble life of the annals of the poor. Read it at Christmas time, when all good deeds and best wishes are ic order and sorrow out of place. ROSSETTI (Christina Q.). THE GOBLIN MARKET AND OTHER POEMS. i6mo. $1.50. It contains some of the purest, sweet- afforded us a rare treat. Her '* Devo- est, and most melodious poetry that has tional Poems" have an exquisite grace been written in our time. — AppletorCs about them, — a sweetness which could Journal. ^ only have been exhsded from a loving This collection of her poems has andsuffering heart.— ^/nw^s/i/j?^/. A PAGEANT, and Other Poems. i6mo. ^1.25. The writer is a poet of sentiment, — its grace and melody, combined with an "emotional poetess " she might be marked originality and force of expres- called ; but the charm of her verse is sion. — Chicago Tribune. TIME FLIES. A Reading Diary for every day in the year, i8mo. $1.00. Roberts Brothers' Catalogue. ROSSETTI (Christina G.), continued. It is a pretty volume, in which the tion, the simple, chaste language, the religious calendar is interwoven with anecdotes pointed with a clear moral, some kindly meant reflections on per- and the tone of cheerful hope, mark sonal conduct, with gentle admonition, this as a collection of the author's best and bits of original verse breathing a spontaneous thoughts and impressions, spirit of duty and faith. The fervent — Cincinnati ContTnercial Advertiser. piety, the serious play of the imagina- POEMS. Including the Goblin Market and Other Poems, A Pageant and Other Poems. With Portrait. In one volume. New Edition. i2mo. Gilt edges. (Half calf, ^3.50.) J|52.oo. ANNUS DOMINI. A Prayer for each Day of the Year, founded on a Text of Holy Scripture. Square i8mo. $1.50. These prayers approach nearer the the Prayer Book and other tried hturgies beauty, conciseness, and true devotional than any we have ever seen m works of spirit which characterize the Collects of this kind. — The Churchman. COMMONPLACE and Other Stories. i6mo. I1.50. Contents: Commonplace; The Lost Titian ; Nick; Hero; Vanna's Twins j A Safe Investment; Pros and Consj The Waves of this Troublesome World. SING SONG. A Nursery-Rhyme Book. With one hun- dred and twenty Illustrations by Arthur Hughes. Engraved by the Brothers Dalziel. Square i2mo. $1.00. The songs are all within the childish enjoyment, and will prove a formidable comprehension, and are calculated to rival to the '* Old Nursery Rhymes." lead the mind forward while giving Newburyport Herald. SPEAKING LIKENESSES. A Christmas Story. Illus- trated by Arthur Hughes. Square izmo. $r.oo. Miss Rossetti's stories generally en- nounced a new theological dogma to a large httle eyes and silence little tongues mixed party of ministers. The influence for a few minutes; then there begins of such stories seems to us very health- a series of questions as numerous and ful. — Christian Union. searching as if the authoress had an- ROSSETTI (Dante Gabriel). POEMS. BLESSED DAMOZEL, etc. i6mo. $1.50. BALLADS AND SONNETS. i6mo. $1.50. They are strange as well as lovely, loveliness, appearing thus to be no more but their strangeness never startles or than the rarer effluence of beauty.— shocks us to a barren surprise; it is The Academy. strangeness subdued into harmony with COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS. Including the original volume of Poems, and Ballads and Sonnets, together with some forty new poems, making a complete edition of Rossetti's Poems. Edited, with Preface and Notes, by William Michael RossETTi. With Portrait. One volume. i2mo. Gilt edges. $2.00. (Half calf, )f3.so.)