Chapter XXXVI: Letter V (5)

Sunday, August 22nd.--... That this drama[170] gained him great reputation in many literary circles, though not extensively known by the public. That Wells married some time after a sister of Williams’s wife, and settled in Brittany, where he is become a great hunter and fisher: that, having fallen into some embarrassments, he sent over to Williams, for him to find a publisher, part of a novel named _De Clisson_, and other things in prose and poetry; but that he (Williams) failed generally in his endeavours,--an article entitled _Boar-hunting in Brittany_ having however been inserted in _Fraser_. That Mrs. Wells came over recently to offer the _Stories_[171] and _Joseph_ for republication; but did not succeed. Gabriel hereupon proposed to make etchings for a new edition, if that might seem likely to be of any avail, and engaged for Hunt, Millais, and Woolner, to do the same after Christmas; and Williams says that he has little doubt but what, with that attraction, a publisher might be procured; also that he is certain Wells would commit the care of the edition to Gabriel with complete confidence. Gabriel thinks that, if each were to do five etchings, and he were to write an elaborate preface (assuming as an undisputed point the very high character of the work), and if I, as having more leisure, were to write a full and minute review soon after the publication, this arrangement would do. Wells is a most fervent Catholic, but has not (as rumoured) retired into a convent; which he has compelled two of his daughters however to do, and urges the third, who was till lately residing with Williams, to follow their example, to which she is most strongly opposed. Williams is reader to Smith and Elder, to whom Browning’s Poems had been offered for republication; when he told them that the work, as a work, ought to be published, but that he could not advise it as a pecuniary speculation: he believes that it was published at the expense of Chapman and Hall, not at Browning’s own cost....

Tuesday 24th.--Gabriel was engaged in the morning looking over and finishing up his _Vita Nuova_.

Thursday 26th.--I composed a sonnet[172] a few lines of which had come into my head yesterday, entitled _For the General Oppression of the better by the worse Cause in July 1849_.... Hunt has been making the designs for the _Morning_ and _Evening_ commissioned by Cottingham, which he intends to complete to-morrow morning and present to him. He says it is his intention, after leaving his present lodging (which he will do some three weeks hence), to go for a fortnight into the country, and work on the landscape of his Early Britons picture, and from there to Paris for about three months to paint the commissions.

Wednesday, September 12th.--After writing a letter to Woolner[173] I sat down to think as to a subject for a poem, and without much trouble invented one, but it is as yet very incomplete and meagre. I composed 21 lines of it in blank verse....

Thursday 20th.--I had letters from Woolner and Gabriel. Woolner ... says that he is to receive the money for _Euphrosyne_ from Cottingham to-day; and that Cottingham has actually advised him to execute in marble the figure of St. Luke which Gabriel designed some time back for the picture he contemplated doing of St. Luke preaching, with pictures of Christ and the Virgin[174].... Gabriel writes that a printer named Haynes, a friend of Hancock,[175] has introduced him to Aylott and Jones the publishers, who are quite willing to publish the _Monthly Thoughts_, on condition of a percentage of ten on the sale; and that Deverell is making enquiries as to the equity of this demand....

Sunday 23rd.--A letter arrived from Woolner, informing me that, as difficulties in keeping back the ardour of our new proprietors begin to rise up, he and Gabriel have determined on at once making me Editor, and that the prospectus has been sent off to the printer’s with my name accordingly, and the title altered to _Thoughts towards Nature_ (Gabriel’s idea), to obviate the many objections that have been made to the old title; that he was to dine to-day with Patmore,[176] who had read his poems, and praised them so much that he won’t tell me what he said; that he has just returned unsuccessfully from Cottingham; and that he doubts whether he and Gabriel will join me here, considering the heavy travelling-expenses. I answered him, pointing out several reasons why I think the proposal of publishing my name as Editor should be well reflected on before being carried out....

Tuesday 25th.--I had a letter from Gabriel in answer to my last to Woolner. He says that the words “Conducted by Artists,” recently proposed to be inserted in the title of our magazine, are now to be left out; and that therefore, as he thinks, there is no further ground for arguing the question of my name being published as Editor; that a definite agreement has been made with Aylott and Jones, the publishers, and that the prospectus is now being printed; that the 1st No. will not appear till December; that he wrote the preceding night to W. B. Scott, requesting his co-operation; and that Patmore has seen and appears much pleased with the prospectus, and has given us a little poem named _The Seasons_ for our 1st No., but with the proviso that his name shall not transpire, as he means to keep it back in all instances till the appearance of his new volume. He praised Woolner’s poems immensely, saying however that they were sometimes slightly over-passionate, and generally “sculpturesque” in character.... Gabriel and Hunt are to start shortly for the continent....

Wednesday 26th.--... Another letter from Gabriel, saying that, as further delay in starting would inconvenience Hunt, they are to set off for France and Belgium to-morrow; and that they will, if possible, pass through Brittany, either going or returning, to see Charles Wells[177]....

Tuesday 27th.--I had a letter, with a message from Gabriel in answer to my enquiries, that the table of contents for No. 1 of the _Thoughts_ remains as before settled, with the addition of Patmore’s poem and Stephens’s paper on Early Art ...; also that several are proposing to alter the title of the magazine to _The P.R.B. Journal_, and desiring me to write my opinion on the subject to Stephens. This I did accordingly, representing many objections which appear to me quite decisive, especially connected with the share in the magazine of some who are not P.R.B.’s. I also wrote Gabriel in the same sense, requesting his and Hunt’s views of the matter. In these letters I brought up an old proposal to get “P.R.B.” printed somewhere on the wrapper--a course to which the same objections do not apply. I did 116 lines more of my poem....

Friday 28th.--Gabriel left yesterday morning with Hunt for the continent....

Monday, October 8th.--Collinson, to whom I went in the evening, is getting on with his _Emigrant’s Letter_; he has done a considerable part of the window and its adjuncts, finishing up the trees outside to a pitch of the extremest minuteness; he is advanced with the heads of the boy writing, and the girl. He has made a sketch in colour for the picture, and has introduced another boy looking over the one writing....

Wednesday 10th.--A letter came from Gabriel, who gives me an elaborate criticism of my blank-verse poem, and sends me five sonnets he has written--the first suggested by hearing the bells while ascending to the summit of Notre Dame; the second written leaning against the July Column, and musing on the Place de la Bastille; the third concerning “the rate of locomotion which the style of the Old Masters induces in Hunt and himself at the Louvre”; the fourth on a picture by Giorgione, of two naked women and two men with musical instruments; the fifth excited by the disgust he experienced at witnessing the cancan at Valentino’s. In reference to this last scene, he declares Gavarni to be “a liar and the father of it.” He has been to see the working of the Gobelins tapestries, which has so altered his ideas concerning the matter that he says he shall probably make an entirely new design for Kate the Queen,[178] when he is prepared to paint the subject....

Saturday 13th.--At Stephens’s I saw Hunt’s and Gabriel’s letters. The former says that they are to leave Paris on Saturday for Brussels. The latter sends three sonnets--the first, _Whilst waiting for the train to Versailles_, being imitated from the introduction to Tennyson’s _Godiva_, the second, _On the road to and in the Garden of Versailles_; the last, _On a Dance of Nymphs by Mantegna_....

Sunday 14th.--I read through _Joseph and his Brethren_, which is a glorious work, but, in passages, decidedly too full of images, laboured description, &c. From my old schoolfellow Nussey--to whom I went in the evening, and who is to subscribe to the _Thoughts_, and get as many subscribers at Oxford as he can--I heard some particulars of the poet Clough,[179] who had been Tutor in the College to which he (Nussey) belongs....

Monday 15th.--I called at Millais’s house, and was told that the period of his return is quite undecided. He is now at the house of a Mr. Wyatt,[180] having left Mr. Drury’s some weeks ago--who offered to fit up for him a suite of apartments where he might establish himself and work.--Ford Brown, to whose study I went in the evening, and Cave Thomas whom I met there, will subscribe....

Thursday 18th.--Woolner ... has begun a medallion portrait of Patmore, who has given him three sittings, beginning on Sunday, and who says he thinks he may probably induce Tennyson, when in London, to sit to him likewise.... Being alone together (with Hunt, Millais, and Gabriel, out of hearing), we had some conversation concerning republicanism, universal suffrage, &c....

Thursday, 1st November.--In the morning Gabriel called on Millais, and saw a design he has made of the Holy Family. Christ, having pricked his hand with a nail (in symbol of the nailing to the cross), is being anxiously examined by Joseph, who is pulling his hand backwards, while he, unheeding this, kisses the Virgin with his arm round her neck. Millais thinks of painting this for the Exhibition[181]....

Friday 2nd.--Woolner’s “character” was sent him by Donovan.[182] It embodies generally the observations he made at the time of the consultation, and ascribes to him a large amount of caution, which Woolner considers to be a correct judgment. In some points, however, he appears decidedly mistaken. After discussing this, we went together to Coventry Patmore’s. The first thing we heard was that his doctor had forbidden him to write in the evening for some time. He is now about to read up for two articles on Russia he intends to write for _The North British_ and _The British Quarterly_ respectively. He says he has some doubt whether one of the little poems he has given us for the _Thoughts_--which of them he is not certain--did not appear in some musical magazine. We had an argument as to whether Browning would be _the_ man some twenty years hence, Patmore expressing an adverse opinion. He remarked that Browning appears to him like a chip from a very perfect precious stone; intense, but not broad in range of subject, nor sufficiently finished. He considers _A Soul’s Tragedy_ to be a splendid title spoiled (!). _Sordello_ he has never read. _Paracelsus_ he admires with a reservation. Two of the short pieces he particularly remembers with pleasure are _How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix_, and _Saul_.... He does not place Browning so high as Tennyson. I saw Tennyson’s MS. book of elegies on young Hallam, which are to be published some day....

Tuesday 6th.--Looked over a house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea,[183] with which they, and Stephens who was with them, were greatly taken. It is capable of furnishing four good studios, with a bedroom, and a little room that would do for a library, attached to each. There is also an excellent look-out on the river. The rent, £70. In the evening, we all (except Millais) congregated at Woolner’s, and discussed the matter. Gabriel, Hunt, and myself, think of going at once, and Stephens and Collinson would join after April. We think likewise of getting Deverell. “P.R.B.” might be written on the bell, and stand for “please ring the bell” to the profane. Among other subjects, we spoke of not admitting anything at all referring to politics or religion into our magazine, and decided on cutting out the sonnets _For the Things of these Days_[184] we have hitherto intended to insert in the first number....

Wednesday 7th.--This was the evening fixed for Millais’s and Gabriel’s introduction to Patmore, at Woolner’s study. Gabriel and I went, and Patmore came, but Millais appeared not. We conversed a good deal of Woolner’s poems, which Patmore says are so good that he is surprised they should not be much better. He insists strongly on the necessity of never leaving a poem till the whole of it be brought to a pitch of excellence perfectly satisfactory; in this respect of general equality, and also in regard to metre, he finds much to object to in Woolner’s poem of _My Lady_, and considers that these defects are far less prominent in some passages of _Friendship_[185] that were read to him. Henry Taylor, he says, ought to devote ten more years to _Philip Van Artevelde_, and it would then be qualified to live. He himself spent about a year (from the age of sixteen to seventeen) on _The River_, with which, and _The Woodman’s Daughter_, he is contented in point of finish. _Lilian_ and _Sir Hubert_ were written in a great hurry for the Publisher. He read Gabriel’s sonnets on Ingres’s picture of _Roger and Angelica_, and was much struck with the character they possess of being descriptive of a painting....

Thursday 8th.--Deverell will manage to join us at once in the house at Chelsea; but on reflection the expense begins to look rather formidable. I called on Millais, to ask him to Patmore’s.... I saw his design of Christ in his childhood, to be painted for the next Exhibition, and the calotype made of his last picture.... Patmore, talking of Philip Bailey, remarked that he seems to be “painting on clouds, not having his foot on reality.” Burns he considers more perfect than Tennyson. Gabriel wrote three stanzas of _Bride-Chamber Talk_. At Patmore’s we heard of the reported death of Edgar Poe, concerning which some suspicions of suicide exist.

Friday 9th.--... As the feasibility of taking the Chelsea house looks very questionable now, considering the expense, Gabriel and Hunt spent all the early part of the day looking for lodgings and studios about Chelsea, Brompton, etc.

Saturday 10th.--Gabriel found a studio at No. 72 Newman Street. The rent asked is £30, but he succeeded in bringing it down to £28. He is to see further about it to-morrow. He wrote to Hunt to ask whether he can join him in his tenancy....

Sunday 11th.--I went to Millais in the morning, and find that he has altered the position of the legs of Ferdinand. Last night he wrote some stanzas of his poem, of which he says he has now done certainly upwards of a hundred lines--perhaps much more, as he has never counted. In the afternoon Gabriel came, and read all the poetry he wrote abroad. He had been to Newman Street, and decided on taking the study. We went to Harris’s[186] in the evening, and were told that he had occupied the same study some time at a rent of £40, whereas Gabriel has made the landlord accept £26....

Monday 12th.--... Woolner has been hard at work these two days on his new figure in sculpture, which he has blocked out in clay. Patmore called on him yesterday, and talked of my poem,[187] in which he finds a most objectionable absence of moral dignity, all the characters being puny and destitute of elevation. He means nevertheless to read it through again, that he may be able to judge of it in detail without looking so much to the scope--or want of scope. These are very much the objections that we had all foreseen, and acquiesce in....

Thursday 15th.--Gabriel got the paper stretched for of his study. He and I saw Hunt, who has suited himself somewhere in Bayswater....

Thursday 15th.--Gabriel got the paper stretched for the nude cartoon he intends to make for his picture of the Passover, and began drawing the figure of Christ from a little boy whom Collinson discovered some time ago, and whom he has painted in his _Emigrant’s Letter_. Gabriel wrote to Miss Atwell to come to-morrow, as he wants her for the figure of the Virgin. We went in the evening to Calder Campbell,[188] who offers his services for our Magazine, and will hunt up subscribers....

Sunday 18th.--Gabriel began at his design for _Paolo and Francesca_, but did scarcely anything. We therefore read away at Browning, Tennyson, Lowell, and the _Stories after Nature_.

Monday 19th.--Gabriel was occupied about his design.... To-night was a P.R.B. meeting at Millais’s, at which we were all present with the exception of Woolner.... Millais means to make the spirits in the air[189] half human and half like birds. His brother has begun painting a little from still life etc., and Millais intends to get him to do landscape-pieces. Hunt has gone on with his etching. Stephens is still engaged during the day at the Museum. He offers to draw-in the perspective scale in Gabriel’s picture.... We discussed two or three points concerning the magazine. First, that of advertising; and it was unanimously considered that, as anything of the kind would, to be effective, swallow up some £10 or £15 without doubt, it will be as well to drop it altogether. In the second place, as regards the big “P.R.B.” printed at the head of the prospectus. To this Hunt now most strenuously objects[190].... After our return Gabriel continued making sketches for his design. He intends that the picture should be in three compartments. In the middle, Paolo and Francesca kissing; on the left, Dante and Virgil in the second circle; on the right, the spirits blowing to and fro....

Thursday 22nd.--Patmore, Cross, Millais, Gabriel, and myself, were at Woolner’s; Hunt did not appear. A long argument was maintained concerning poetry--Patmore professing that Burns is a greater poet than Tennyson, in which opinion Tennyson himself fully concurs. Patmore instanced, as a line of unsurpassable beauty, “With joy unfeigned brothers and sisters meet,” from _The Cottar’s Saturday Night_. He says that Tennyson is the greatest _man_ he ever came in contact with, far greater in his life than in his writing--perfectly sincere and frank, never paying uncandid compliments. Browning takes more pains to please, and is altogether much more a man of the world. Patmore thinks that Browning does not value himself at so high a point as he is rated by Gabriel and me. Patmore holds the age of narrative poetry to be passed for ever, and thinks that probably none such will again appear; he considers _Peter Bell_, though most vexatiously imperfect, to be the opening of a new era. He looks on the present race of poets as highly “self-conscious” in comparison with their predecessors, but yet not sufficiently so for the only system now possible--the psychological. The conversation taking a religious turn, he said that the devil is the only being purely reasoning and analytic, and _therefore_ is the devil; and he would have every man hold to the faith he is born in, as, if he attempts to get beyond its bounds, he will be far more likely to be a rebel than a seeker after truth,[191] and should not attempt to pull down without having something to build anew. He thinks Millais’s picture far better than anything Keats ever did,[192] and that he is adapted to usher in a new style which will eventually educate the people into taste, and make his works some day as popular and saleable as Barraud’s _We Praise Thee, O God_.[193] One of the chief curses of the day he considers to be that every one is critical. Of the poets of this and the last generation he says that they are “all nerves and no hearts.” He fraternized with Cross, in whom he sees some resemblance to David Scott, the recently dead brother of W. B.... We had some talk of ghosts, to a belief in which Patmore does not see any obstacles. Millais related a singular story on the subject he heard at Oxford, and Woolner some experiences of his own immediate relations and friends. Millais, as we walked home, unburdened himself of his observations and conclusions, and declared that, if he had seen Patmore’s hand alone cut off, he could have sworn to it as that of a man of genius. His sayings concerning Burns, Keats, Tennyson, etc., are bitter in his belly as wormwood. Gabriel and I sat up to read the _Cottar’s Saturday Night_, and failed to realize to our apprehensions its extraordinary excellence....

Saturday 25th.--Gabriel began making a sketch for _The Annunciation_. The Virgin is to be in bed, but without any bedclothes on, an arrangement which may be justified in consideration of the hot climate; and the angel Gabriel is to be presenting a lily to her. The picture, and its companion of the Virgin’s Death,[194] will be almost entirely white. At Stephens’ two Tuppers only were present. John Tupper read his poem, which is exceedingly clever:[195] it borders nevertheless on the ultra-peculiar.... Hunt, who came late in the evening, is getting on with his etching, of which there remains now not much to be done....

Friday, December 7th.--... Just as Tennyson was leaving, Patmore fixed him, and made him promise to sit to Woolner.... Millais has redesigned the subject of _Christ in Joseph’s Workshop_; the picture of _Ferdinand_ is not very far from finished.

Saturday 8th.--Gabriel had Maitland to sit to him for the angel Gabriel in _The Annunciation_. He has recently written various new stanzas of _Bride-Chamber Talk_. Woolner came in the evening, when Gabriel read _The Princess_ through to him, and both of them pronounced it the finest poem since Shakespeare, superior even to _Sordello_. To this latter opinion I demur....

Monday 10th.--... Collinson, after he shall have finished his paintings for this year, means to set to work on the subject of _St. Elizabeth of Hungary_ taking off her crown before the crucifix. We talked about the magazine, and are quite unanimous in considering that the first number must appear; but all except Stephens and myself are somewhat inclined to drop it after that, whether successful or not. We are also disposed to abide by the title _Thoughts towards Nature_, notwithstanding Cave Thomas’s proposal of _The Seed_. We debated the propriety of having an article explanatory of the principles in Art of the P.R.B.; but, as so many papers in the first number are to treat of Art, and as the point will necessarily be brought forward incidentally, it is not thought needful.

Thursday 13th.--... Patmore was at Woolner’s last night, and read him Poe’s tales to his own great satisfaction. He considers Poe the best writer that America has produced. He is in a state of some indignation at a book that has been lately published in America by Thomas Powell; wherein himself, Tennyson, Browning, and others with whom he is not conscious of Powell’s having ever met, are spoken of. Gabriel showed him _My Sister’s Sleep_, which he approves in respect of sentiment, but says that it contains several lines that will not scan, and that it is too self-conscious in parts, as in the “I believe” of the first stanza, and in “I think that my lips did not stir.” Among the new things Tennyson is putting into _The Princess_ are, I was told, passages to show where one person leaves off and another takes up the story; the alterations will be not in abridgment but in extension. He is to leave London shortly for a little while, and to return about Christmas, close upon which the new edition of _The Princess_ will be published....

Saturday 15th.--... We settled to print the magazine with George Tupper. An objection was raised by Stephens to the publication of his name, and it was arranged that the question should be submitted to the arbitration of the P.R.B.... On making out a list of the materials actually at our disposal, we find that we have enough for the second and half of the third numbers, by making a somewhat different arrangement from that at first contemplated; as there is some fear of Gabriel’s being unable, through press of time as regards his picture, to get the _Bride-Chamber Talk_ finished for number two.... Woolner was prevented from coming to Stephens’ by having a sitting from Tennyson for to-night....

Sunday 16th.--... Gabriel ... drew a little on the design of _Giotto painting Dante’s Portrait_, which he is finishing up for Stephens. Millais dropped in, and says he has been again to the Carpenter’s shop for the picture of Christ in his childhood, and that he will begin at it on Thursday.... In the evening Stephens came to Gabriel’s study to do his perspective....

Monday 17th.--... Gabriel ... resumed writing at his tale, _Hand and Soul_, and did some little in continuation. Woolner ... is to have a sitting again to-night from Tennyson....

Tuesday 18th.--Woolner not having made his appearance, I went again to try my chance of finding him, and at last succeeded. His delay has arisen from the second part of his poem not having yet been copied out or considered for final revision. The former task I performed, and the latter was achieved by our joint exertions. His medallion of Tennyson is well forward, the head requiring but little more: the hair, however, is only begun. It will have to be suspended for a short time, as Tennyson has left town, and will not be back till about Sunday, when he thinks of remaining for a month or so longer. His poem of King Arthur is not yet commenced, though he has been for years past maturing the conception of it; and he intends that it should occupy him some fifteen years. His poem, “Thou might’st have won the poet’s name,” was, he says, written in a fit of intense disgust after reading Medwin’s book about Byron. He has seen the poem I have reviewed in our first number, _The Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich_, and considers it to be execrable English. He likes Woolner’s bas-relief of _Iris_, but says he cannot understand the _Puck_.[196] Gabriel began to paint the head of the Virgin in his picture of _The Annunciation_.

Wednesday 19th.--I delivered to George Tupper Woolner’s poem and Patmore’s _Seasons_, with which he will make a beginning; but he warns me that we must get our materials together with all possible speed, as, next week being Christmas week, it is almost impracticable to get his people to work. In the evening we had a meeting in Gabriel’s study, where, besides the whole P.R.B., the two Tuppers, Deverell, Hancock, and Cave Thomas, as being persons interested in the magazine, were present. The latter brought the commencement of an opening address he is writing for No. 1.... Ford Brown came in at a late hour, and showed us a sonnet which he has composed on _The Love of Beauty_, and which we will find room for in the first number. I gave George Tupper my review, which will (he calculates) occupy at least some eighteen pages; also our sister’s poem of _Dreamland_. It was proposed by Woolner, and carried without opposition except a very strong one by myself, that our names should not be published; and another point in which all present came to the vote was the title to be finally adopted. _The Seed_ was set aside in favour of _The Germ_; and this was near being superseded by _The Scroll_ (also Thomas’s invention),[197] but was finally fixed on by six to four. Gabriel is to do his best to have _Hand and Soul_ completed in time. His morning had been devoted to painting on the Virgin’s head.

Thursday 20th.--Gabriel set hard to work at _Hand and Soul_; or at least the spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak against Maitland in the morning, who was engaged in putting together a screen, and against Clayton, North, and Bliss, in the evening.[198]

Friday 21st.--... I went to Seddon’s, where Cave Thomas had arranged to meet me with his contribution; but, as he did not come, ... I called in at his house. I found him writing the last words of the prefatory address, which I took with me.... Gabriel had been all day at his tale, and sat up at it all night as well, without going to bed. By this means he was enabled to finish the narrative, and nothing remained except the epilogue. I copied out such part as required it to be fit for printing....

Saturday 22nd.--The proof of the first sheet ... comprises Thomas’s address, Woolner’s poem, Brown’s sonnet, and begins Tupper’s contribution. As Woolner’s poem commences at the back of Thomas’s address, and as it is thought desirable that the etching should front what it belongs to, we agreed that it should be inserted opposite the first page of the poem, instead of immediately inside the cover.

Sunday 23rd.--Gabriel ... has again got some idea of painting the subject of Francesca of Rimini, instead of what he is now doing; making an alteration in the action, and relinquishing, for want of time, the two proposed side-pieces, of Dante and Virgil, and the spirits in hell. His reasons for thinking of giving up the Virgin subjects for the present are the fear of being too late to get them finished, and the want of a satisfactory design for the Annunciation, and of any design at all for the Death....

Monday 24th.--... Hunt has been told by Millais that Mr. Wyatt, of Oxford, wants to have some proof-impressions of the etching, for sale; and Hunt thinks of having some fifty or so printed on fine large paper, to be sold at 3s. or 4s. each. A third impression has been made of the etching, which Gabriel has seen, and considers a most striking improvement. Hunt is about to leave his lodgings at Brompton, which he finds inconveniently small for painting, and will look out for others in the same neighbourhood or at Bayswater.

Wednesday 26th.--... Gabriel continued painting on the head of the Virgin, having resolved to go on with that picture.

Thursday 27th.--To-night we had the proof of the last sheet, containing the end of Gabriel’s tale and my review. The latter however is still, after all my reductions, too long, and exceeds the limits of the number by about a page and a half. Under these circumstances it is thought advisable to omit Thomas’s opening address, especially considering certain strong objections urged against it by Hunt and Stephens. This, besides making room for the whole of the review in its present shape, will enable us to insert Tupper’s little poem, _A Sketch from Nature_, and our sister’s _An End_.... Gabriel ... did four stanzas of _Bride-Chamber Talk_.

Friday 28th.--Hunt called here. Having been disappointed of a model this morning, he has been catching sparrows in a trap, and painting from them--afterwards decorating their heads with green, and sending them on their way rejoicing.... He understands from Millais that the printseller at Oxford is likely to want not more than some ten or twelve copies of his etching.... Aleck Tupper brought us the second proof of the last sheet.... Thus then, after many changes and counter-changes, will stand the contents of _The Germ_, No. 1.--Woolner’s _My Lady_, Ford Brown’s _Love of Beauty_, Tupper’s _Subject in Art_, Patmore’s _Seasons_, our sister’s _Dreamland_, Gabriel’s _My Sister’s Sleep_ and _Hand and Soul_, my review of _The Bothie_, and sonnet _Her First Season_, Tupper’s _Sketch from Nature_, and our sister’s _An End_. Gabriel wrote a short poem, _Lines and Music_.

Saturday 29th.--... Millais ... says he has begun his picture from the childhood of Christ, and is going to have a bed in the carpenter’s shop he paints from, so as to be able to set to work early in the morning.... Millais’s brother continues to paint still life and objects in Nature with great success, and is determined to become a professional Artist. John is to bully him into doing nothing all next summer but paint out in the fields. Gabriel had Maitland to sit for his picture, but found him useless, and he thinks of beginning to paint from me to-morrow....

Sunday 30th.--Gabriel drew-in the head of the Angel (from me) in his picture. In the evening we went to Bateman’s with Millais, who has finished the _Ferdinand and Ariel_, all except something more he means to do to the background. He is going to send to the British Institution a small painting he did at Oxford, of Mr. Drury and a grand-daughter of his, for which he asks me to write an illustrative sonnet.[199]

Monday 31st.--To-day before noon fifty copies of _The Germ_ were in the hands of the Publishers; I took home with me twelve.... I wrote to Thomas explaining the circumstances which compelled us to omit his article....

* * * * *

1850.--Tuesday, January 1st.--The fifty India-paper copies of the etching printing off for the magazine having been bound in, I took some of them home: however they are not generally superior to those on common paper. This was the day appointed (in lieu of yesterday, which was found unsuitable) for our first anniversary meeting at Stephens’s--fixed on the last day of 1848 for the last day of each succeeding year. Millais and Woolner were prevented from attending. We settled to what magazines and newspapers to send _The Germ_, and to what private gentlemen and authors--viz.: Sir Robert Peel, Lord John Russell.... [here comes a tear in the MS.]

Saturday 5th.--Gabriel went to see Hunt, who removed this evening from Brompton to Prospect Place, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea....

Monday 7th.--... Deverell called on Gabriel, and told him that the porter at Somerset House, who supplies the School of Design Students with stationery &c., would be very likely to get off some of _The Germ_; and it is arranged to let him have fifty, on the understanding that, if he succeeds with the whole number, he is to have 10s., in which case we might probably try it on with another fifty. Hunt, in coming to Gabriel, sold twelve copies out of nineteen; and I left three with a bookseller on trial. I had a letter from Mr. Clapp,[200] the American we met at Patmore’s, sending me for insertion a short poem of his own, _My Gentle Friend_, which he says has already appeared in an obscure provincial Temperance-paper. If we should not be inclined to put it in, this will be excuse sufficient. I paid for the insertion of a second advertisement in the _Athenæum_.

Tuesday 8th.--George Tupper suggested to me the great propriety of sending about _The Germ_ to the principal Club-houses. I accordingly made out a list of twenty-one, which I gave to the Publisher.... Another letter from Mr. Clapp, who says he has “enlisted on our behalf some of the most enlightened minds he has met with in England,” and that he intends to make _The Germ_ subject of “inter-friendly correspondence” in Scotland and America. Gabriel borrowed a lay figure from Barbe’s, and began on the drapery of the Virgin....

Thursday 10th.--Gabriel had a large meeting at his studio, including--besides the P.R.B.--Thomas, Brown, Tupper, Dickinson, &c. &c. Collinson brought the remainder of _The Child Jesus_.[201] Two or three matters concerning _The Germ_ were resolved on: such as to send out more copies to literary men &c., and to magazines, and to try to introduce it among Artists’ Colourmen. Ford Brown also will write for No. 2 an article on the painting of a historical picture....

Friday 11th.--I copied out and left with Tupper, in conjunction with Collinson’s poem, two little songs of our sister’s, one of which is to be introduced into the 2nd No. Another thing to be put in is a sonnet that Calder Campbell has sent Gabriel.

Friday 11th.--All the P.R.B. was at Ford Brown’s, with several others, to induct him properly into his new rooms in Newman Street.... Millais has been knocked up these two or three days with colds caught at his carpenter’s shop. He has sent off his picture to the British Institution, with my sonnet as title. He has thrown up the commission for his _Ferdinand and Ariel_, as Mr. Wethered, among other things on which they did not come to terms perfectly satisfactory to Millais, expressed some doubts of the greenness of his fairies, and wished to have them more sylph-like.... Stephens says he has by this time disposed of thirty _Germs_....

Tuesday 15th.--W. B. Scott (to whom Gabriel wrote some days ago, sending a copy of _The Germ_, and requesting contributions) answered, enclosing two poems, viz.: a sonnet, _Early Aspirations_, and a blank-verse piece, _Morning Sleep_. The latter, which is gloriously fine, must absolutely come into No. 2....

Wednesday 16th.--... Gabriel ... in the evening began a rough sketch of a design for my _Plain Story_, which (it is likely) may appear in our 4th No., and which he thinks of illustrating. Collinson was at his studio all day, working on the etching[202].... I had a letter from Stephens, giving me a list of the subscribers he has obtained, and suggesting that we need not print so many as 700 copies of No. 2: 300 would, he thinks, suffice. In answering him I concurred in the reasonableness of the suggestion, but consider that 400 will not be too much....

Thursday 17th.--George Tupper ... advises that 500 copies should be published of the 2nd No., to which I agreed....

Friday 18th.--This was to have been a P.R.B. meeting at Collinson’s, but the day turned out so intensely sloshy that only Hunt and I kept the appointment.... We had some argument concerning the limitability of the P.R.B.: Hunt maintaining that it ought inviolably to consist of the present Members, for which Collinson and I do not see any very cogent necessity....

Monday 21st.--By enquiry at the Publisher’s I learn that he has sold 120 or 130 copies, which is at least as good as I looked for. He sent me a letter he has received from a Mr. Bellamy, Secretary to the National Club (to which I sent a copy), advising him to send one to the Proprietor of _The John Bull_.... Yesterday’s _Dispatch_ contains a few words in praise of No. 1....

Tuesday 22nd.--Ford Brown showed Gabriel his article _On the Mechanism of a Historical Picture_. He will finish it and copy it out, and is to let Gabriel have it back to-morrow. After dinner I went for the first time to see Hunt at his new lodgings, 5 Prospect Place, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, where he seems very comfortably settled. He has made a good deal of substantial progress with his picture; of which, since I saw it last, he has done some more figures in the background, the boy listening on the floor, the straw &c. on the roof, with some sparrows in it, and something of the view outside the hut. The figure he is now painting at is that of the foremost man pushing at the door. Whilst I was there he went on working upon a stump of a beech-tree which forms one of the supports of the hut, and on which he means to paint a net hanging.... Stephens came with John Tupper, who read, and left with me, a poem of his written on Penge Wood. This, should there be room for it, will come into No. 2[203].... At half-past ten o’clock Hunt was requested to allow his gas to be turned off, as the family were about to go to bed!! which did not exactly meet his views or intentions....

Wednesday 23rd.--... A letter to “The Editor of _The Germ_” reached me through the Publisher. It is from a Mr. G. Bellamy (a relative, I presume,[204] of the other Mr. Bellamy) addressed from the British Museum, expressing the highest admiration of the poetry of the magazine, and begging the favour of an introduction to the author, as he conceives it to be all by the same person. I answered to thank him, and to say that I would call with Woolner as soon as I could find time....

Friday 25th.--... Gabriel finished up his _Blessed Damozel_, to which he added two stanzas. A letter came from “Shirt-Collar Hall,”[205] acknowledging the receipt of a copy of _The Germ_ which was sent him on Saturday; complimenting those engaged in it, who will, he says, be “the future great artists of the age and country”; and promising that it shall be reviewed in the _Art Journal_ for March, as it came too late for next month’s No.

Saturday 26th.--... A note also came from Heraud[206] acknowledging a _Germ_ which Campbell had left with him, and asking me to tea on Tuesday. Gabriel sent Tupper an additional stanza for _The Blessed Damozel_....

Sunday 27th.--Gabriel went on with the drapery of his picture. Stephens called on him in the evening, when it was determined that the authors’ names shall be published in our future Nos. For our Sister Gabriel invented the name “Ellen Alleyn.” ... I had a letter from Clough, conveying his thanks to me for the copy of _The Germ_ and the criticism.[207]

Monday 28th.--Collinson saw Gabriel, and showed him the new impression (the fourth) of his etching, which is a great advance on all the preceding ones. Gabriel wrote one more stanza of his _Blessed Damozel_....

Tuesday 29th.--At Heraud’s, to whom I went, I met Westland Marston, who asked me to his house for to-morrow. Heraud complimented us a great deal on _The Germ_.... Hervey, the Editor of _The Athenæum_, came in rather late. Soon after we had been introduced, he explained to me that the reason why he had neglected many months ago to answer the letters that I sent him concerning certain poems had offered for _The Athenæum_,[208] was that he wished to call and explain personally why he felt unable to insert them, viz.: on account of their being too Tennysonian; and that his many engagements had prevented him from fulfilling his intention till too late. He asked me to call on him any Saturday or Sunday.... George Patten[209] was there, and Miss Glyn the Actress, who promised to subscribe to _The Germ_.

Wednesday 30th.--I found the invitation to Marston to be to a regular evening party. On leaving I presented him with a copy of _The Germ_, and he asked me to call some day when I might find him alone. Hervey, in talking with me, maintained that _Sordello_ is absolute nonsense, and said he has no patience with men who write in that style. He tells me also that before publishing it Browning asked his friends whether it was intelligible, and that they informed him it was; in consequence of which, the result having proved the contrary, he became somewhat indignant against them. I left with the Publisher a list of twenty-five newspapers, magazines, &c., to which No. 2 is to be sent. He tells me that he has sold some 70 copies of No. 1--not 120 or 130, as I heard some time back....

Thursday 31st.--Appeared No. 2 of _The Germ_--containing Collinson’s _Child Jesus_; _A Pause of Thought_, _A Song_, and the _Testimony_, by our sister; Stephens’s article _The Purpose and Tendency of Early Italian Art_; Scott’s _Morning Sleep_; a sonnet by Calder Campbell; Patmore’s _Stars and Moon_; Brown’s _Mechanism of a Historical Picture_; my _Fancies at Leisure_ (including the _Sheer Waste_, for which room was found at last), and my review of _The Strayed Reveller_; Deverell’s sonnets, _The Sight Beyond_; and Gabriel’s _Blessed Damozel_. Stephens figures as “John Seward,” as he does not wish his own name to appear. Tupper’s articles in the 1st No. also remain by his desire anonymous.... George Tupper gave me his bill for No. 1, amounting, on a scale even below his original estimate, to £19. 1s. 6d., from which he will deduct five per cent. for discount, leaving £18. 2s. 6d. It now becomes a most momentous question whether we shall be in a position to bring out a 3rd No. The chance seems but very doubtful--quite beyond a doubt, unless No. 2 sells much better than its predecessor, and of this we see but little likelihood. Even if it does appear, we shall probably have to postpone the publication of _Bride-Chamber Talk_, which Gabriel cannot write at much, having to paint his picture: in which case, my _Plain Story of Life_ will probably be substituted. I spoke to the Publisher about pushing the sale of No. 2, and he promised to introduce it, on sale or return, among his customers in the trade.

Friday, 1st February.--... By Campbell’s advice I left one of each No. at the house of Mr. Cox, Editor of _The Critic_, to whom Campbell had spoken of it.... Gabriel finished the drapery of the Virgin in his picture; whereupon he immediately deranged the position of the lay figure, so as to preclude himself from the possibility of working at it any more....

Saturday 2nd.--... In the evening we had a full P.R.B. meeting at Gabriel’s.... Millais has had his picture back from the British Institution--on account of its being in reality a portrait, we conclude--and will send it to the Academy.... Millais has had an offer from Oxford to paint a copy of a portrait by Holbein; which, as he does not feel disposed to accept, he offered to Stephens, who will do it after the opening of the Exhibition. We consulted about _The Germ_, and are unanimously of opinion that it will not reach another No. Calculating the number of copies sold among ourselves as ninety-five (not I think more than in fact) and by the publisher as seventy (from which profits we shall have to deduct some few personal expenses, which can scarcely amount to 15s.) it seems that the expense to each of us beyond the receipts will be £1. 15s. 5¼d. This is a kind of experiment that won’t bear repetition more than once or twice.[210] The next meeting is fixed for Monday at Millais’s. On coming home I found a letter from Mr. Cox, of _The Critic_, proposing that, in case _The Germ_ should not continue (as he considers probable), one of the Art-writers in it, or I, should write on the same subject for his paper; in which case he says he would resign the entire management of the articles on Art, the exhibitions &c. He would not be able, however, to offer any remuneration in cash. His proposal is not, I think, disadvantageous for the P.R.B., as it would enable us to review the exhibitions in our own feeling, and might besides lead to some other literary employment. I answered that I would consult the others (Brown, Stephens, and Tupper), and, if they should not undertake it, that I would accept....

Monday 4th.--Gabriel and I went together to the British Institution, of which this is the first day, as I wish to write something in the way of notice in the event of my being retained on _The Critic_....

Tuesday 5th.--I began writing my notice of the British Institution. Gabriel assumed the responsibility of F. S.[211] and a few others....

Wednesday 6th.--John Tupper resigns in my favour; and Stephens wrote me to the same effect, but offering his co-operation in any way he might be wanted....

Thursday 7th.--Woolner and I went to Patmore’s, to whom I gave some _Germs_, and his own poems. He likes the _Testimony_, which is he says in the style which should be adopted in hymns &c., to make them good. Says that there are very fine things in Gabriel’s _Blessed Damozel_, and speaks highly of Stephens’s article.... He says that William Allingham has promised some contributions; but these will probably not be available....

Saturday 9th.--I saw the publisher about the sale of the 2nd _Germ_, and am informed that some forty copies or so have sold, and that the 1st No. also continues to go off every now and then. This is the last knockdown blow. We certainly cannot attempt a 3rd No. Woolner and I went to Stephens. He showed us the design he has made of _The Marquis dining in Griseldis’ Father’s House_, Griseldis attending, which he means to paint; also two other designs from Chaucer--_Griseldis parting from her Child_, and _The Revellers meeting Death_. Gabriel got some stuff for the chasuble in which he means to drape his angel....

Monday 11th.--... This was a P.R.B. night at Millais’s, where all were present except Collinson.... Millais has very high accounts, from Oxford and elsewhere, of the estimation in which Collinson’s poem is held....

Tuesday 12th.--Gabriel ... in the evening ... was engaged with Hannay, Clapp, North, and others; and I with the Museum Mr. Bellamy, who has got us reviewed in _The John Bull_--the critic himself not having looked at the book, but trusting entirely to Bellamy’s report....

Friday 15th.--... I went in the evening, by invitation, to the house of Mr. Bellamy, where I read the _John Bull_ notice of _The Germ_. Mr. Bellamy seemed really to regret the apparently inevitable death of _The Germ_; and took a copy of each No. to send to Justice Talfourd, with whom he is intimate, and who might, he thinks, probably do something for it....

Saturday 16th.--My review of the British Institution Exhibition (first half) appears in _The Critic_ of to-day; also a notice of _The Germ_, quoting four of the poems. George Tupper called on me in the morning, and said that he and his brother,[212] looking with regret at the _Germ_ failure, propose to carry it on at their own risk for a No. or two longer, to give it a fair trial; when it would have a better chance of success, through their being able to send about the subscribers’ copies, to advertise by posters, &c. This I consider a very friendly action on their part. I wrote at his request to convene all the hitherto proprietors, and saw the publisher about the sale of Nos. 1 and 2. It appears from what he says that he must have sold not much less than 100 of the 1st, but the 2nd he states goes off less well. All the P.R.B.’s came to Gabriel’s study at night to talk the matter over.... It seems more than doubtful whether the 3rd No. can come out at the end of this month. Another point raised was about the publisher. There was some talk of Tupper’s publishing himself, but this does not seem very likely to be carried out....

Sunday 17th.--... We thus find ourselves docked of the two poems on which we had to rely for Nos. 3 and 4. However, as there was no help for it, we set to thinking how to manage with this deficiency. The first thing thought of was Gabriel’s _Dante in Exile_, but this he is unwilling to have printed until he shall have been able to give it full consideration as a whole--besides its connexion with his translation of the _Vita Nuova_, separated from which, he thinks some allusions in the poem scarcely intelligible. His _Jane’s Portrait_[213] was then discussed. This however is too much like Woolner’s _My Lady in Death_ as regards subject; nor does Gabriel think it good enough as a specimen of his powers. The last suggestion was that Woolner should look up that part of his old poem of _Hubert_,[214] which describes the lovers’ meeting, and see whether it can be got into shape as complete in itself....

Monday 18th.--In default of any adequate poem, I looked up my sister’s old thing, named _An Argument_,[215] which is at least long enough and in a narrative form. Tupper, to whom I read it, is very much delighted with it; but the fact is, it is not quite up to the mark.

Tuesday 19th.--... Gabriel, coming home from Brown’s, told me he had there met Robert Dickinson, who has undertaken the publication of _The Germ_. This is the best thing that could have happened for it perhaps.

Wednesday 20th.--Patmore sent me his paper on Macbeth; which is devoted to showing that the idea of obtaining the crown was not suggested to Macbeth by the Witches, but had been previously contemplated by him. It is very acute and well written, and will fill some twenty pages. Our difficulties as to illustrations continue. The only plans we have thought of are either to make an etching for our sister’s poem in two compartments--one of the girl spinning, and the other of the battlefield, or (as Tupper thinks preferable) of the avalanche; or else to take some subject from Gabriel’s _Hand and Soul_ in the first No. Tupper decided to call on Gabriel at his study, to talk this over; but it so happened that Gabriel stopped at home, touching-up his _Dante in Exile_.