Chapter VIII: The Poetry of Dante Rossetti (2)

In one other ballad of kindred structure does Rossetti sustain a similar flow of exquisite imagination, in verbal beauty and subtlety of idiom hard to surpass in modern English verse. “The Bride’s Prelude” is indeed but a lovely fragment, a delicate vignette, a little character-sketch bathed in the warmest and finest of mediæval colouring; a prelude only, as it modestly claims to be; but, like Chopin’s preludes in music, so perfect in its limited range that the ear craves no further melody for a long while after its brief passion has sung itself to rest. It is a bride’s confession to her younger sister on her wedding morn; and, taking the form of a broken monologue interspersed with descriptive passages of the highest poetic order, its movement is more deliberate, its ornament more richly wrought, perhaps, than that of the more dramatic ballads. It might almost be said that nowhere else does Rossetti so oppress the reader with the actual feeling of the atmosphere in which the tale is told. The intense and sultry stillness of the chamber at mid-noon, where the two women sit together probing for the first and only time the one dire secret of the past, weighs upon us like veritable glare and burning silence, save for the bride’s difficult speech, and the shocked sister’s faint answers, and the keen, far-off sounds in the courtyard below, till the last word is said. Every minute detail of sight and sound heightens the effect of warmth and colour in contrast to the bare simplicity and hard tragedy of the narrative.

“The room lay still in dusty glare,
Having no sound through it
Except the chirp of a caged bird
That came and ceased: and if she stirred,
Amelotte’s raiment could be heard.

“Although the lattice had dropped loose,
There was no wind; the heat
Being so at rest that Amelotte
Heard far beneath the plunge and float
Of a hound swimming in the moat.

“Some minutes since, two rooks had toiled
Home to the nests that crowned
Ancestral ash-trees. Through the glare
Beating again, they seemed to tear
With that thick caw the woof o’ the air.”

Such fragments afford the merest glimpses of the background, the pure, delicate, ultra-refined, and yet intensely naturalistic setting of the poem.

And indeed it is this highest refinement of naturalism, this perfect idealization of realities, this raising of the simplest and commonest accessories of life into universal beauty and significance, that remains Rossetti’s inmost, utmost charm. This it is that sends us back, again and again, from all the splendours of his maturity, from the vivid glories of the ballads and the long-drawn passion of the sonnets, to the primal sweetness and utter simplicity of “The Blessed Damozel;” the easiest to love, the hardest to place in a just order, amid all that came from the hand and heart of Rossetti.

Written in his nineteenth year (though re-touched with important improvements afterwards), while the ballads above referred to were the work of his maturity,—and as remote from them in spirit as in date, the poem is unique among unique poetry. “The Blessed Damozel” is no product of precocity. It has not the laboured archaism, the studied originality, which mark most of the travel-poems of 1849 (“Paris and Belgium,” “Antwerp and Bruges,” etc.). Superb as are the sonnets of that early period—such noble utterances as “The Staircase of Notre Dame,” “Place de la Bastille,” and “The Refusal of Aid between Nations” remaining unsurpassed by anything in the “House of Life” series—the irregular lyrics and blank-verse chronicles of those journeys are apt to keep us in mind of those etymological researches at the British Museum by which Rossetti is said to have stored his vocabulary with the purest Saxon, preparatory to ballad-work. “The Blessed Damozel,” on the contrary, is the most spontaneous and convincing of all his shorter poems. It seems to have sprung straight from the heart of the boy-poet in a sort of prophetic rapture, ere he knew the sorrow which he sang, and which his song should ease, as the most perfect art can sometimes ease, in other souls, for generations to come. Its strength lies in the very acme of tenderness; its source in the purest strain of common human feeling—the passionate, insatiable craving of the faithful heart for the continuity of life and love beyond the tomb, and the deep sense of the poverty of celestial compromises to satisfy the mourner on either side of the gulf that Death has set between. Here again is the true romantic note—the insistence on the joy and glory of the physical world, the delight in the earthly manifestations of affection, and the awed, plaintive conflict of impatience with resignation under the mystery of parting and transition to an unknown state. It is the same thought which an American poet has expressed in “Homesick in Heaven,”—the thought that the beloved departed must in some way share the sorrow of separation, and await the last reunion with scarcely less longing than theirs whom they have left behind. “The Blessed Damozel” is one whom Death has thus removed from her lover’s side, and she is pictured leaning out of Heaven, watching with tears and prayers for some sign of his coming. It is the lover himself who sees her thus, as in a dream, and tells us how,—

“She bowed herself, and stooped
Out of the circling charm,
Until her bosom must have made
The bar she leaned on warm,”

and how, on the mystic borderland between earth and heaven,—

“The souls mounting up to God
Went by her like thin flames.”

The glories of the upper air have no charm for her until he shares them. Still gazing downward from “the ramparts of God’s house,” she sees—

“The tides of day and night
With flame and darkness ridge
The void, as low as where this earth
Spins like a fretful midge;”

she knows the angels who “sit circlewise”—

“To fashion the birth-robes for them
Who are just born, being dead!”

Her one prayer is for the old companionship, the old, simple, earthly happiness,—

“Only to live as once on earth
With Love,—only to be,
As then awhile, for ever now,
Together, I and he.”

It was not until many years later that “The Blessed Damozel” afforded the subject of the picture by which Rossetti is most popularly and superficially known to the outer world. It was his habit to inscribe his pictures with some original verse, generally in sonnet form; and some of his best descriptive sonnets, such as “Pandora,” “Fiametta,” “Found,” “Astarte Syriaca,” and “Mary Magdalene,” had such an origin. “The Blessed Damozel” is said to be only instance of a picture executed after instead of before the correlative poem.

Two important works stand yet apart, alike from what we have classed as introspective and personal poetry, and from the splendid ballads in which consists Rossetti’s most immortal contribution to English literature. “Jenny” and “A Last Confession” exemplify his use of the dramatic monologue, and alone among his compositions bear in a marked degree the influence of Browning. Especially is this influence notable in “A Last Confession.” The Italy of this wonderful fragment—placed by critics of authority in the front rank of Rossetti’s work—is, _par excellence_, Browning’s Italy, with all the intense humanness and distinction of character which dominates its furies and its loves, with all the Saxon intellect and reason stamped into and burning through the irresponsible passion of the South. Just as in his ballads and sonnets Rossetti grafted the clean-cut Saxon diction on to the long and languorous habit of the Latin tongue, so in “A Last Confession” does he graft vivid thought and piercing argument upon the deep pathos and terror of the theme. It is a death-bed story told in a priest’s ear; a story of passion and crime, and of a girl’s shallow laugh that drove her lover to kill her in a frenzy of despair. For he remembered how, awhile before,—

... “A brown-shouldered harlot leaned
Half through a tavern window thick with wine.
Some man had come behind her in the room
And caught her by the arms, and she had turned
With that coarse empty laugh on him....
... And three hours afterwards,
When she that I had run all risks to meet
Laughed as I told you, my life burned to death
Within me, for I thought it like the laugh
Heard at the fair....
And all she might have changed to, or might change to,
Seemed in that laugh.”

Somewhat akin in spirit (though less dramatic in treatment), in that it deals with the problem of sexual love in its darkest form, is the rhymed monologue entitled “Jenny;” and put into the mouth of one who has followed, half in pity, half in curiosity, a beautiful courtesan to her home, and sits with her in the luxurious chamber which is the purchase of her shame. The poem is to some extent in obvious relation to Rossetti’s long contemplated but never completed picture, “Found;” but the latter shows the end of poor Jenny in after years,—

“When, wealth and health slipped past, you stare
Along the streets alone, and there,
Round the long park, across the bridge,
The cold lamps at the pavement’s edge,
Wind on together and apart,
A fiery serpent for your heart,”—

whereas her visitor in the poem finds her in all her prime and pride, and asks,—

“What has man done here? How atone
Great God, for this which man has done?
. . . . . .
But if, as blindfold fates are tossed
Through some one man this life be lost,
Shall soul not somehow pay for soul?”

“Jenny,” perhaps, being cast in a more meditative form, lacks the poignancy and fervour of the utterance which comes, in “A Last Confession,” from the lips of the sinner himself instead of from the spectator merely, but it surpasses all contemporary studies of its kind in its bold and masterly handling of a difficult theme. Both, however, are distinct from the lyric poems in that their abruptness of movement and irregularity of structure are the abruptness and irregularity of quick dramatic thought, impatient of metrical elaboration, surcharging the poetic vehicle with subject matter; an effect which must not be confused with the ruggedness of the true ballad-form, whose broken music haunts the ear by its very waywardness and variety of rhythm, and gains its end by a studied artlessness the more exquisite for its apparent unconstraint. Nor is the effect of Rossetti’s universal preference for assonance over rhyme—a special characteristic of romantic poetry— identical in the ballads, sonnets and monologues just quoted. In the sonnets it relieves the rigid tension of the rhyme-system with an overtone of delicate caprice. In “Jenny” and “A Last Confession” it heightens the suggestion of impulse, and even haste of thought and emotion outrunning the metrical order which it chose. In the ballads, it is the result of the finest workmanship, not of accident or pressure of thought upon speech; it is the rich inlaying of the most highly-wrought woof of imaginative language with the brilliance of a perpetual surprise.

Rossetti is too near to us for a final estimate of his place among the century’s poets. Enough has been said to illustrate the range and consistency of his art, as a whole, and the intimate relation of his poetry to his painting. The dominant æsthetic motives are the same in “Dante’s Dream” and “The House of Life,” in “Dis Manibus” and “The King’s Tragedy,” in “Beata Beatrix” and “The Blessed Damozel.” He was the prophet of a natural idealism, based upon the frank acceptance and pursuit of the highest earthly good, subject only and absolutely to moral and spiritual law. He stood apart, as we have seen, from the intellectual struggles of his day. Philosophical controversies seldom troubled him. To theological speculation and historical discovery he was alike indifferent. But his isolation, his specialism even, are but evidences of the intensity of the new life to which he was awakened, and the reality of the visions which he saw. He sets before us in all its significance the problem of the dual possibilities of womanhood, by the simple, irresistible, pictorial statement of the contrast between the shameful actuality of “Found” and the noble ideal of “Sibylla Palmifera” and “Monna Vanna.” His lamentation for the manhood of his age is that,—

... “Man is parcelled out in men
To-day; because, for any wrongful blow,
No man not stricken asks, ‘I would be told
Why thou dost strike’; but his heart whispers then,
‘_He is he, I am I._’”

Such words are but the reiteration of that moral collectivism, that principle that “soul must somehow pay for soul,” which Rossetti maintains unbrokenly as an assumption needing neither emphasis nor reserve. The problem which his work leaves to the next generation lies in the application of that principle to social and national ideals. The task of the twentieth century will be to do for society what Rossetti has done for art,—to restore to it the dignity and glory of a free life, embracing all that nature has to give, under the dominion of associated reason, and conscience, and will. And when Rossetti’s genius shall have fulfilled its share in that unification of all knowledge to which the paths of science and poetry, art and scholarship, tend alike in the progress of time, England and Italy may join in worthier recognition of his life-work, whose face was set towards the final triumph of humanity— the reconciliation of the physical with the spiritual world.

-----

Footnote 15:

F.W.H. Myers, “Essays: Modern.”

THE END.

INDEX.

Academy, The Royal, 33, 74-75, 80-81, 108, 122, 126-128, 161. Academy Schools, 23, 27-31. Academicians of last generation, 33. “Adam and Eve,” 34. “Alastor,” 108. Albert Gallery, Edinburgh, 118. Allingham, William, 136. “Anniversary of the Death of Beatrice,” 118, 255. “Annunciation, The,” 204-205. Anthony, Mark, 87, 128-129. “April Love,” 125. “Art and Poetry,” 72. “Arthur conveyed to Avalon,” 143. Art Union, The, 129. Arundel Club, The, 117. “Astarte Syriaca,” or “Venus Astarte,” 59, 184-185, 189. “Aurelia, or Fazio’s Mistress,” 117, 157. Australia, 108. “Autumn Leaves,” 121, 127, 229. “Awakening Conscience, The,” 149, 224, 236, 239.

“Ballads and Sonnets,” 186, 298. Banks, Mrs., 168. Barbizon School, 134. Baring, Miss, 168. Bateman, E.L., 109. “Beata Beatrix,” 4, 91, 121, 157, 159, 161-162, 224, 252-253. “Beatrice,” 129. Behnes, 108. “Bello Mano, La,” 181. “Beloved, The,” or “The Bride,” 91, 157. “Benedick and Beatrice,” 106. Beryl Songs, 298. “Bethlehem Gate,” 116, 160, 217. Birchington, 190-192. Birmingham Art Gallery, 153, 162. “Black Brunswicker, The,” 127, 148, 243-244. Blake, 2, 137, 267. “Blessed Damozel, The,” 4, 162, 175-176, 180, 185, 217, 257, 263, 287, 290, 301-304. “Blind Girl, The,” 121-122, 228-229. “Blue Bower, The,” 91, 117, 157. “Blue Closet, The,” 117-118. “Boat of Love, The,” 180, 251. “Bocca Baciata,” 104, 117, 157. “Body of Harold, The,” 34. Bognor, 181-182. Botticelli, 48, 50. “Bower Garden, The,” 117. “Bower Maiden, The,” 172, 179. Boyce, W.P., 129. Boyd, Miss Alice, 168, 171. Brett, Mr. John, 118, 129. “Briar Rose, The,” 232. “Bride’s Prelude, The,” 263, 286, 299-301. British Institution, 108. Brotherhood, The Pre-Raphaelite, formed, 62-69; dispersed, 107, 119. Brown, Ford Madox, 32-35, 64, 71, 73, 87, 118, 138, 151-155, 161-162, 175, 178, 193, 219; some characteristics of, 34, 64, 107, 151-155, 219, 226; portrait of, 110. Browning, Robert, 85, 94-96, 104, 165-166, 199; portraits of, 109, 117. “Burd, Helen,” 127. Burlington Club, 204. Burne-Jones, E., 4, 140-143, 214; some characteristics of, 205, 219-221, 224, 232, 246-248. Burne-Jones, Mrs., 168. Burton, W.S., 129, 248. Byron, 268.

Caine, Mr. Hall, 188-189, 190, 192. Campbell, James, 129. “Caractacus,” 35. “Carlisle Tower,” 116. Carlyle, Thomas, 85, 154; portrait of, 108. Carrick, J.M., 129. Cary’s Academy, 23, 30. “Cassandra,” 189. Cassavetti, the Misses, 168. “Chapel before the Lists, The,” 116. “Charity Boy’s Début, The,” 63. Chatham Place, 94, 159, 163. Chatterton, 3, 267, 280. “Chaucer at the Court of Edward III.,” 35, 153. Chelsea, 163, 172, 180, 193. Christchurch, Albany Street, 169. Christianity in English Art, 5, 76-77, 196-221. Christianity in Italian Art, 40-43, 46-48, 50-52. “Christian Priests Escaping,” or, “The Christian Missionary,” 76, 146. “Christ in the House of His Parents,” 75-78, 126, 205-208. “Christ in the Temple,” 4, 150, 218. “Christmas Carol, A,” 118. “Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem,” 129. Cimabue, 39, 47, 57. Classicism, characteristics of, 9-12, 45, 49-50. Classicism of the Eighteenth Century, 9-10. Classicism under the Puritans, 11. “Claudio and Isabella,” 149, 224, 244, 246. Clifton, J.T., 61.

Coleridge, 267. Collins, Charles, 118, 126. Collins, William, 126. Collinson, James, 4, 63, 74, 93, 99, 126. Combe, Mr. Thomas, and Mrs., 146. Constable, 2, 3. “Convent Thoughts,” 126. “Cordelia’s Portion,” 153. Cornelius, 134. Coronio, Mrs., 168. “Cottager’s Return, The,” 125. Cox, David, 131. “Cromwell Dictating,” 155. “Cromwell on his Farm,” 155. “Crucifixion, The,” 116, 215. Cumberland, 188-189. Cuyp, 132. Cyclographic Society, 60-61. “Cymon and Iphigenia,” 62.

Dalrymple, Mrs., 168. “Damozel, The Blessed,” 4, 162, 175-176, 180, 185, 217, 257, 263, 287, 290, 301-304. “Damozel of the Sanct Grael, The,” 116, 181. Danby, 132. “Dante at Verona,” 215, 262, 284-285. Dante, influence of, 22, 98; illustrations of, 99, 104-105, 116-118, 129, 180, 190, 249-258, 269. “Dante’s Dream,” 4, 116, 118, 138, 162, 168, 173, 188, 190, 253-255. “Day and Night Songs,” 136. “Day-dream, The,” 139, 180-181, 186-187. Davis, William, 118, 129. “Death of Boadicea,” 108. “Death of Breuse sans Pitié, The,” 116. “Death of Chatterton, The,” 128. “Death of Lady Macbeth, The,” 236. “Death of Sir Tristram, The,” 154. Dennis, William, 61. Deverell, Walter, 5, 61, 99, 119. “Devout Childhood of St. Elizabeth, The,” 126. “Dis Manibus,” or “The Roman Widow,” 167, 175, 180. “Donna della Finestra, La,” or “Our Lady of Pity,” 181, 224, 256-258. Döpplegänger Legends, The, 106, 225. “Down Stream,” 172. “Dream of Sardanapalus, The,” 154. Dunn, Mr. H.T., 170. Dürer, Albrecht, 51, 82. Dutch School, 39.

“Ecce Ancilla Domini,” 4, 64, 78-79, 92, 203. “Edward Grey,” 139. “Eleanor Sucking the Poison,” 108. “Elijah and the Widow’s Son,” 155. Eliot, George, 196-199. Elnore, 134. “Enemy Sowing Tares, The,” 122, 147. English Art in 1850, 2, 3. “Entombment, The,” 4, 155, 219. “Eros and Euphrosyne,” 108. “Eve of St. Agnes, The,” 4, 121-122, 125, 147, 248-249. Exhibitions, Pre-Raphaelite, 67, 118. Expression in Art, 25-26.

“Fair Rosamund,” 118. “Farmer’s Daughter, The,” 118. “Fazio’s Mistress,” 117, 157. “Feeding the Hungry,” 108. “Ferdinand Lured by Ariel,” 75-78, 91. “Fiametta,” 168. “Fiametta, A Vision of,” 119, 181, 185. Fine Art Society, The, 118. “Fleshly School of Poetry, The,” 176. “Flight of Madeline and Porphyro,” 62, 248. Foreign Schools, 134. Forsyth, Rev. P.F., 199, 216, 241. “Found,” 4, 107, 236-237, 306. Frescoes at Manchester, 155; at Oxford, 142-146; at Westminster Hall, 33-35, 108, 128, 151. Fra Angelico, 5, 48. “Fra Angelico Painting,” 117. Fra Bartolomeo, 113. Fra Lippo Lippi, 48. “Fra Pace,” 117. “Francesca da Rimini,” 215, 234-235.

“Galahad, Sir,” 116, 138, 143, 232. “Gate of Memory, The,” 107, 236-238. “George, St., A Wedding of,” 118. “George, St., and Princess Sabra,” 160, 245. “Germ, The,” 69-74, 95. Ghiberti, 57. “Ghirlandata, La,” 91, 158, 167, 180. Giorgione, 49. “Giorgione Painting,” 117. Giotto, 39, 48, 57, 113. “Giotto Painting,” 251. “Girlhood of Mary Virgin, The,” 1, 4, 55, 66-67, 92, 202, 225. Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts, 118. “Goblin Market,” 139. Goodall, 134. Gosse, Mr. Edmund, 166. Graham, Mr. William, 175. Gray, Miss Euphemia Chalmers, 148. Green, N.E., 61. Guildhall Loan Exhibition, 162.

Hake, Dr. Gordon, 175, 178-179, 181; portrait of, 109. Hake, Mr. George, 175, 178; portrait of, 110. Halliday, M.F., 129. Hancock, John, 61, 129. “Hand and Soul,” 71-72. Hannay, James Lennox, 79. “Hark!” 30. Harris, Dr., 190, 192. Haydon, 90. “Heart of the Night, The,” 160, 231. Heaton, Mrs. Aldham, 167. Heaton, Miss, 168. Heine, 11, 14, 117, 277. Hellenism in Italy, 42-49. Herbert, Miss, 103, 167. “Hesterna Rosa,” 107, 118, 236-238. “Hireling Shepherd, The,” 149. Hogarth Club, 117. “House of Life, The,” 161, 262-282. Howell, Mrs., 168. “How They Met Themselves,” 106, 224-226. “Hugenot, A,” 4, 121, 127, 147, 243, 246. Hughes, Arthur, 4, 118, 125, 136-137, 142-143, 204-205, 249. Hunt, William Holman, 29-31, 35-36, 63-67, 86-87, 92, 95, 100, 101, 109, 118-119, 122, 137, 146, 148-150; characteristics of, 6, 15, 86, 107, 138, 208-213, 215-217, 224, 230, 236, 239, 244, 246, 248; portrait of, 109.

“Il Ramoscello,” 157. Inchbold, 118. “Infant Christ Adored, The,” 116, 156, 218. “Infants’ Repast, The,” 34. “Isabella,” 55, 60, 65, 67, 229. “Isabella and the Pot of Basil,” 150. “Isumbras at the Ford, Sir,” 148, 245-246. Italian Pre-Raphaelites, The, 39-57, 113.

“Jenny,” 304-307. “Jesus Washes Peter’s Feet,” 155. “Joan of Arc,” 191, 245. Johnson, Dr., and the Methodist Ladies, 159. “Joli Cœur,” 119. “Justice,” 34.

“Kate the Queen,” 95. Keats, influence of, 58, 267, 277; subjects from, 60-62, 65, 117, 229, 248-249. Keene, J.B., 61. Kelmscott, 172, 178. Kernahan, Mr. Coulson, 174. “King Arthur Receiving Excalibur,” 143. “King Arthur’s Tomb,” 116, 233. Kingdon, Miss, 168. “King René’s Honeymoon,” 154. Kingsley, Charles, 141. “King’s Tragedy, The,” 8, 186, 263, 286, 289-292. Knewstub, Mr., 170.

“Laboratory, The,” 105, 238. “Lady Lilith,” 157, 214. “Lady of Good Children, Our,” 34, 155. “Lady of Pity, Our,” 181, 224, 256-258. “Lady of Shalott, The,” 138. “La Pia,” 157, 159. “La Ricordanza” (“Mnemosyne, or the Lamp of Memory”), 91, 175, 180. “Last Confession, A,” 304-307. “Last Day in the Old Home, The,” 127. “Last of England, The,” 4, 153. “Launcelot Escaping,” 116. “Launcelot, Sir, before the Shrine,” 143, 233. Lawrence, 2, 122. Lear, Edward, 129. Leathart, Mrs., 168. Leighton, Sir F., 134. Leonardo, 49, 51, 121, 132. Leopardi, 277. Leyland, Mr. F.R., 163, 175, 190; portrait of, 109. Lewes, J.F., 129. “Light of the World, The,” 4, 146, 211-213. Linnell, 132. Liverpool Academy, The, 87-88, 118. Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, 150, 154, 174, 190. Llandaff Cathedral, Triptych for, 104, 116, 156, 218. “Loving Cup, The,” 157. “Lucretia Borgia,” 106, 117-118, 159. “Luke the Painter, St.,” 117. Lushington, Mr. Godfrey, 140. Lushington, Mr. Vernon, 141. Lushington, Mrs., 168. Lyell, Mr. Charles, 109. “Lyra Innocentium,” 126.

“Maids of Elfinmere,” 137. Manchester, Frescoes at, 155. “Mariana,” 137. “Mariana in the South,” 137. “Mariana of the Moated Grange,” 80-82, 124, 231. “Mariana” (Shakespeare’s), 157. Marshall, Dr. John, 162, 190. Marston, Philip Bourke, 166, 192, 269, 277. Martineau, R.B., 127. Martin’s, St., Scarborough, 169. “Mary in the House of John,” 215. “Mary Magdalene at the Door,” 118, 213-215. Masaccio, 57. Massey, Mr. Gerald, 131. “Matilda Gathering Herbs,” 215. Maurice, Frederick Denison, 141, 199; portrait of, 154. “May in the Regent’s Park,” 126. “May Morning on Magdalen Tower,” 150. “Melancholia,” 51. Memmi, Simon, 113. “Merciful Knight, The,” 246. Meredith, Mr. George, 164-166. “Merlin Lured into the Pit,” 143. Michaelangelo, 45, 49, 121, 132, 165, 261, 275. “Michael Scott’s Wooing,” 106, 180, 224-226. Millais, Sir John Everett, 28-31, 61, 63, 65, 74-78, 86-87, 92, 100, 109, 118-120, 136-139, 146-148; change of style, 122-124, 133; some characteristics of, 6, 15, 17, 65, 86, 106, 113, 120, 137, 201, 206-208; on colour, 88-89; portrait of, 109. “Mirror of Venus, The,” 129. “Mnemosyne, or the Lamp of Memory,” 91, 175, 180. Models, 64-67, 79-80, 100-103, 105, 110, 126-127, 145, 154, 167, 186, 214. “Modern Painters,” 36-39, 83. “Monna Pomona,” 160. “Monna Rosa,” 117-163. “Monna Vanna,” 157. Monro, Alexander, 105, 142-143. “Morning Music,” 105. Morris, William, 140-145, 165, 168, 172, 178, 274-275. Morris, Mrs. William, 145, 168, 186. Morris, Miss May, 168. Morten, Thomas, 129. Mount Temple, Lord and Lady, 161, 168, 175, 185. Moxon’s “Tennyson,” 137. Murillo, 132. Museum, South Kensington, 102. Myers, Mr. T.W.H., 7, 273.

National Gallery, The, 79, 159. “Nativity, The,” 205. Nature as a Background, 15-16. “Nature’s Mirror,” 129. “New Day, The,” 179. Nicholson, P.W., 200. “Nimuë Brings Sir Peleus,” 143. “Nineveh,” 140.

“Old Churchyard, The,” 129. “Ophelia,” 4, 121-122, 147, 227, 229. Orchard, John, 73. “Order of Release, The,” 121, 147. “Oriana,” 138. “Orlando and Adam,” 106. “Our Lady of Good Children,” 34, 155. “Our Lady of Pity,” 181, 224, 256-258. Outlines, Rossetti’s, 24. Overbeck, 134. Oxford, 77, 140-141, 145; frescoes at, 142-146. “Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, The,” 140.

Painters of the Last Generation, 33. “Palace of Art, The,” 138. “Palomides’s Jealousy, Sir,” 143. “Pandora,” 59, 118, 157, 162, 241-242. “Paolo and Francesca,” 215, 234-235. “Parable of Love, A,” 105. “Parable of the Vineyard, The,” 169. “Parisina and Manfred,” 154. “Passover in the Holy Family, The,” 116, 192, 205-206. Patmore, Mr. Coventry, 71, 73, 80. Paton, Sir Noel, 129, 174. Payne, John, 166. Penkill, 171. Pessimism in Art, 13-16. Poetry, Rossetti’s, 23, 68, 71-73, 140, 161, 176-177, 179, 259-309. “Poetry, Art and,” 72. Polidori, Gaetano, 20. Polidori, Miss Margaret, 169. Pollen, J. Hungerford, 142-143. Portraits, Pre-Raphaelite, 66, 102, 108-114, 117, 145-146, 148, 154, 161, 168, 186, 214. “Portrait, The,” 263, 283. Pre-Raphaelite Exhibitions, 67, 118. Pre-Raphaelitism, Characteristics of, 5-6, 9, 12-17, 58, 63-64, 69, 80, 84-86, 122, 124, 130, 133-135, 198-201. “Pretty Baa-Lambs,” 152. Prices of Pictures, 67, 150, 190. “Prince’s Progress, The,” 140. Prinsep, Mr. Val, 129, 142-143, 173. “Proscribed Royalist, The,” 126, 147, 247. “Proserpine,” 118-119, 157, 180, 191, 241. “Protestant Lady, The,” 127. “Psyche,” 236, 239-40. “Puck,” 108.

“Queen’s Page, The,” 117. “Question, The,” or “The Sphinx,” 181, 191.

“Rachel and Leah,” 116. “Rainbow, The,” 108. “Rainbow, The Spirit of The,” 181. “Ramoscello, Il,” 157. “Random Shot, The,” or “L’Enfant du Regiment,” 148. Raphael, 6, 49, 52-54, 83, 132. “Reaper and the Flowers, The,” 125. Redgrave, 24. “Regina Cordium,” 160, 167. Renaissance in Italy, The, 40-55, 121. “Renunciation of St. Elizabeth, The,” 93. Replicas, 162. “Rescue, The,” 148, 245. “Retro me, Sathana,” 66. “Return of the Dove, The,” 80. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 89-90. “Rienzi swearing Revenge,” 66-67. Roehampton, 178. “Roman Widow, The” (“Dis Manibus”), 167, 175, 180. Romance, Characteristics of, 12-16, 45-46, 49-50, 183-184. “Romeo and Juliet,” 4, 154, 226. “Rosa Triplex,” 168. “Rose Garden, The,” 160. “Rose Mary,” 179, 263, 286, 290, 296-299. Rossetti, Christina, 22, 71, 139, 275. Rossetti, Gabriel Charles Dante, commonly called Dante Gabriel, Rossetti, 7, 19-28, 30-31, 35, 58-68, 90, 92-107, 109, 115, 136-140, 141-143, 156-196; some characteristics of, 3, 5-8, 15, 24, 28, 58, 86, 96-98, 106-107, 121, 176, 194-195, 201-206, 213-218, 223-226, 230-238, 241-242, 245, 250-258, 259-309; portraits of, 109, 192-193; Rossetti’s Outlines, 24; Colour, 91, 99. Rossetti, Gabriele, 20. Rossetti, William Michael, 63, 71, 73, 109, 120, 164; portrait of, 109. Royal Academy, 33, 74-75, 80-81, 108, 122, 126-128, 161. Royal Scottish Academy, 118. Rubens, 132. Ruskin, John, 4, 36-39, 56-57, 85-87, 99, 113-115, 127, 141, 150, 200, 229; portraits of, 109, 147; letters to the “Times,” 80-84. Russell Place Exhibition, 118.

“Sancta Lilias,” 181. “Saint Agnes of Intercession,” 72. “Saint George, A Wedding of,” 118. “Saint George and Princess Sabra,” 160, 245. “Saint Luke the Painter,” 117. “Salutation of Beatrice, The,” 189-190, 250-251. Sandys, Mr. Frederick, 128-129, 175. Sarrazin, M. Gabrièl, 233. Sass’s Academy, 28. “Scapegoat, The,” 4, 150, 210-211. Scott, Mr. W. Bell, 178. “Sea-Spell, The,” 167, 175, 181. Seddon, Mr. J.P., 118, 129, 190, 193. “Sermon on the Plain, The,” 169. Sevenoaks, 95. “Seward, John,” 73. “Shadow of Death, The,” 150, 205, 208-211. Sharp, Mr. William, 190, 192. Shelley, 267-268, 277. Shields, Mr. Frederick, 129, 175, 187, 190, 192-193. “Sibylla Palmifera,” 157, 167, 214. Siddal, Miss (Mrs. D.G. Rossetti), 99-103, 159-161; portraits of, 102, 117, 159-161. “Sir Galahad,” 116, 138, 143, 232. “Sir Isumbras at the Ford,” 148, 245-246. “Sir Palomides’s Jealousy,” 143. “Sir Patrick Spens,” 101. “Sister Helen,” 263, 286, 290, 293-295. Smith, Bernhard, 108. Sonnets, Rossetti’s, 23, 161, 170, 179, 214, 237, 242, 269-282, 304. South Kensington Museum, 102. Spartali, Miss (Mrs. Stillman), 167. Specialism in Art, 6-8. “Sphinx, The,” or “The Question,” 181, 191. “Spirit of the Rainbow, The,” 181. “Spring,” 118. “Staff and Scrip, The,” 140, 287. Stained Glass, Designs for, 168-169. Stanhope, Mr. Spencer, 129, 142. “Stealthy School of Criticism, The,” 177. Stephens, Mr. F.G., 61, 63, 73, 75, 88, 95, 109, 120; portrait of, 109. Stillman, Mr. W.J., 110. Stillman, Mrs. (Miss Spartali), 167. Stobhall, 162, 178. Stone, 134. “Strayed Sheep, The, or Our English Coasts,” 149. “Stream’s Secret, The,” 263, 283. Strudwick, Mr. J.M., 5, 230. Sumner, Mrs., 175. “Sun may Shine, The,” 105. “Surgeon’s Daughter, The,” 127. Swinburne, A.C., 145, 164, 166, 177, 242, 266, 275; portraits of, 109, 117.

“Taurello’s First Sight of Fortune,” 105. Tebbs, Mrs. Virtue, 168. Technique, Imperfect, 25, 39. Tennyson, 85, 94-95, 104, 165-166, 199; illustrations of, 116, 137-139, 142-143, 154, 160, 230-234; portraits of, 108-109, 117, 137. Thomas, Mr. Cave, 69, 128. Thomson, James, 269, 277. “Tibullus’s Return to Delia,” 118. “Times,” Ruskin’s letters to the, 80-84. Tirebuck, William, 223. “Titania,” 108. Titian, 2, 5, 49. “Too Late,” 127. “Transfiguration, The,” 155. “Tree of Life, The,” 220. “Tristram and Iseult,” 116, 160. “Triumph of the Innocents, The,” 150, 217. “Tune of the Seven Towers, The,” 116. Tupper, Mr. J.L., 71-72. Turner, 2, 16. “Two Mothers,” 119.

“Under the Microscope,” 177.

“Vale of Rest, The,” 16, 129, 148, 228-229. “Valentine and Sylvia,” 79-80, 87-101. Venables, 146. “Venetian Pastoral, A,” 68. Venetian School, 49-50. “Venus Astarte,” or “Astarte Syriaca,” 59, 184-185, 189. “Venus Verticordia,” 157. “Veronica Veronese,” 91, 167, 180. Vinter, Mr. J.A., 23-24, 31, 61. “Viola,” 100-101. “Vision of Fiametta, A,” 119.

“Waiting,” 154. Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, The, 150, 154, 174, 190. Walker, Frederick, 16. Walker, Sir A.B., 88. Wallis, Henry, 4, 128. “Washing Hands,” 118, 160. “Water Willow,” 119. Watkins, F., 61. Watson, J.D., 129. Watts, Mr. G.F., 4, 34, 113, 151, 227, 235-236, 239-240. Watts, Mr. Theodore, 101, 174, 181, 185, 190, 192, 195; portrait of, 109. “Wedding of St. George, A,” 118. Wells, Mrs. W.T., 168. “White Ship, The,” 182, 263, 286, 288-290. “Wicked Husbandmen, The,” 169. “Wiclif Reading,” 34, 152. “Widow’s Mite, The,” 35. Wilding, Miss, 167. Wilkie, 90. Williams, Miss, 168. Windus, W.L., 118, 127, 248. “Woodman’s Daughter, The,” 80, 228-229. Woodward, Mr., 142. Woolner, Thomas, 63, 71, 105, 108-109, 129, 137, 153. Wordsworth, 279, 183. “Work,” 154. Working Men’s College, The, 141. Wyatt, Mr. James, 145.

CHISWICK PRESS:—C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT,
CHANCERY LANE.

Footnotes

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcriber’s Note

Errors in the text have been corrected where they can be reasonably attributed to the printer or editor, or where the same word appears as expected elsewhere. Inconsistencies in punctuation, particularly in the Index, have been resolved.

The details of each correction are noted below.

p. xi “Bethlehem Gate”[—] Added.

p. 4 Ruskin: “I believe [Rosetti’s] _Sic._

p. 22 its poet[r]y, its self-devotion Added.

p. 30 Mill[ia/ai]s’s Transposed.

p. 67 duly signed and [monogramed] _Sic._

p. 71 a poem called “The Seasons,” Mr[.] Added.
Tupper

p. 73 [“]Ruggiero and Angelica” Added.

p. 74 _apologia_ for the Pre-Rapha[e]lite Added.
Brotherhood

p. 74 heaped upon the Pre-R[e/a]phaelites Corrected.

p. 79 seen only in the o[b]scure little Added.
Portland Gallery

p. 84 is to [to] have a principal Removed.

p. 131 ‘You see purple,’ ‘You see red,’ [‘]You Added.
see yellow.’

p. 224 marked degree perhaps tha[t/n] any other Corrected.
drawings

p. 239 ever-significant story of “Psyche” Added.
suggest[s] the same