Complete Poetical Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

  immeasurably better. There seems to me, who am very well up

  in Chatterton, no point whatever made in the article. Why

  does no one ever even allude to the two attributed portraits

  of Chatterton — one belonging to Sir H. Taylor, and the other

  in the Salford Museum? Both seem to be the same person

  clearly, and a good find for Chatterton, but not conceivably

  done from him. Nevertheless, I suspect there may be a

  sidelong genuineness in them. Chatterton was acquainted with

  one Alcock, a miniature painter at Bristol, to whom he

  addressed a poem. Had A. painted C. it would be among the

  many recorded facts; but it would be singular even if, in

  C.’s rapid posthumous fame, A. had never been asked to make

  a reminiscent likeness of him. Prom such likeness by the

  miniature painter these portraits might derive — both being

  life-sized oil heads. There is a savour of Keats in them,

  though a friend, taking up the younger-looking of the two,

  said it reminded him of Jack Sheppard! And not such a bad

  Chatterton-compound either! But I begin to think I have said

  all this before.... Oliver, or “Nolly,” as he was always

  called, was a sort of spread-eagle likeness of his handsome

  father, with a conical head like Walter Scott. I must

  confess to you, that, in this world of books, the only one

  of his I have read, is Gabriel Denver, afterwards

  reprinted in its original and superior form as The Black

  Swan, but published with the former title in his lifetime.

  Rossetti formed no such philosophic estimate of Chatterton’s contribution to the romantic movement in English poetry as has been formulated in the essay in Ward’s Poets. A critic, in the sense of one possessed of a natural gift of analysis, Rossetti assuredly! was not. No man’s instinct for what is good in poetry was ever swifter or surer than that of Rossetti. You might always distrust your judgment if you found it at variance with his where abstract power and beauty were in question. Sooner or later you would inevitably find yourself gravitating to his view. But here Rossetti’s function as a critic ended. His was at best only the criticism of the creator. Of the gift of ultimate classification he had none, and never claimed to have any, although now and again (as where he says that Chatterton was the day-spring of modern romantic poetry), he seems to give sign of a power of critical synthesis.

  Rossetti’s interest in Blake, both as poet and painter, dates back to an early period of his life. I have heard him say that at sixteen or seventeen years of age he was already one of Blake’s warmest admirers, and at the time in question, 1845, the author of the Songs of Innocence had not many readers to uphold him. About four years later, Rossetti made an exceptionally lucky discovery, for he then found in the possession of Mr. Palmer, an attendant at the British Museum, an original manuscript scrap-book of Blake’s, containing a great body of unpublished poetry and many interesting designs, as well as three or four remarkably effective profile sketches of the author himself. The Mr. Palmer who held the little book was a relative of the landscape painter of the same name, who was Blake’s friend, and hence the authenticity of the manuscript was ascertainable on other grounds than the indisputable ones of its internal evidences. The book was offered to Rossetti for ten shillings, but the young enthusiast was at the time a student of art, and not much in the way of getting or spending even so inconsiderable a sum. He told me, however, that at this period his brother William, who was, unlike himself, engaged in some reasonably profitable occupation, was at all times nothing loath to advance small sums for the purchase of such literary or other treasures as he used to hunt up out of obscure corners: by his help the Blake manuscript was bought, and proved for years a source of infinite pleasure and profit, resulting, as it did, in many very important additions to Blake literature when Gilchrist’s Life and Works of that author came to be published. It is an interesting fact, mention of which ought not to be omitted, that at the sale of Rossetti’s library, which took place a little while after his decease, the scrap-book acquired in the way I describe was sold for one hundred and five guineas.

  The sum was a large one, but the little book was undoubtedly the most valuable literary relic of Blake then extant. About the time when a new edition of Gilchrist’s Life was in the press, Rossetti wrote:

  My evenings have been rather trenched upon lately by helping

  Mrs. Gilchrist with a new edition of the Life of Blake....

  I don’t know if you go in much for him. The new edition of

  the Life will include a good number of additional letters

  (from Blake to Hayley), and some addition (though not great)

  to my own share in the work; as well as much important

  carrying-on of my brother’s catalogue of Blake’s works. The

  illustrations will, I trust, receive valuable additions

  also, but publishers are apt to be cautious in such

  expenses. I am writing late at night, to fill up a fag-end

  of bedtime, and shall write again on this head.

  Rossetti’s “own share” in this work consisted of the writing of the supplementary chapter (left by Gilchrist, with one or two unimportant passages merely, at the beginning), and the editing of the poems. When there arose, subsequently, some idea of my reviewing the book, Rossetti wrote me the following letter, full of disinterested solicitude:

  You will be quite delighted with an essay on Blake by Jas.

  Smetham, which occurs in vol ii.; it is a noble thing; and

  at the stupendous design called Plague (vol. i.). I have

  extracted a passage properly belonging to the same essay,

  which is as fine as English can be, and which I am sorry

  to perceive (I think) that Mrs. G. has omitted from the body

  of the essay because quoted in another place. This essay is

  no less than a masterpiece. I wrote the supplementary

  chapter (vol. i.), except a few opening paragraphs by

  Gilchrist, — and in it have now made some mention of Smetham,

  an old and dear friend of mine.

  You will admire Shields’s paper on the wonderful series of

  Young’s Night Thoughts. My brother and I both helped in

  this new edition, but I added little to what I had done

  before. I brought forward a portentous series of passages

  about one “Scofield” in Blake’s Jerusalem, but did not

  otherwise write that chapter, except as regards the

  illustrations. However, don’t mention what I have done (in

  case you write on the subject) except so far as the indices

  show it, and of course I don’t wish to be put forward at

  all. What I do wish is, that you should say everything that

  can be gratifying to Mrs. G. as to her husband’s work. There

  is a plate of Blake’s Cottage by young Gilchrist which is

  truly excellent.

  As I have already said, Rossetti traversed the bypaths of English literature (particularly of English poetry) as few can ever have traversed them. A favourite work with him was Gilfillan’s Less-Read British Poets, a copy of which had been presented by Miss Boyd. He says:

  Did you ever read Christopher Smart’s Song to David, the

  only great accomplished poem of the last century? The

  accomplished ones are Chatterton’s, — of course I mean

  earlier than Blake or Coleridge, and without reckoning so

  exceptional a genius as Burns.... You will find Smart’s poem

  a masterpiece of rich imagery, exhaustive resources, and

  reverberant sound. It is to be met with in Gilfillan’s

  Specimens of the Less-Read British Poets (3 vols. Nichol,

  Edin., 1860
)....

  I remember your mentioning Gilfillan as having encouraged

  your first efforts. He was powerful, though sometimes rather

  “tall” as a writer, generally most just as a critic, and

  lastly, a much better man, intellectually and morally, than

  Aytoun, who tried to “do for” him. His notice of Swift, in

  the volume in question, has very great force and eloquence.

  His whole edition of the British Poets is the best of any

  to read, being such fine type and convenient bulk and weight

  (a great thing for an arm-chair reader). Unfortunately, he

  now and then (in the Less-Read Poets) cuts down the

  extracts almost to nothing, and in some cases excises

  objectionabilities, which is unpardonable. Much better leave

  the whole out. Also, the edition includes the usual array of

  nobodies — Addison, Akenside, and the whole alphabet down to

  Zany and Zero; whereas a great many of the less-read would

  have been much-read by every worthy reader if they had only

  been printed in full. So well printed an edition of Donne

  (for instance) would have been a great boon; but from him

  Gilfillan only gives (among the less-read) the admirable

  Progress of the Soul and some of the pregnant Holy

  Sonnets. Do you know Donne? There is hardly an English poet

  better worth a thorough knowledge, in spite of his provoking

  conceits and occasional jagged jargon.

  The following paragraph on Whitehead is valuable:

  Charles Whitehead’s principal poem is The Solitary, which

  in its day had admirers. It perhaps most recalls Goldsmith.

  He also wrote a supernatural poem called Ippolito. There

  was a volume of his poems published about 1848, or perhaps a

  little later, by Bentley. It is disappointing, on the whole,

  from the decided superiority of its best points to the

  rest.... But the novel of Richard Savage is very

  remarkable, — a real character really worked out.

  To aid me in certain researches I was at the time engaged in making in the back-numbers of almost forgotten periodicals, Rossetti wrote:

  The old Monthly Mag. was the precursor of the New

  Monthly, which started about 1830, or thereabouts I think,

  after which the old one ailed, but went on till fatal old

  Heraud finished it off by editing it, and fairly massacred

  that elderly innocent. You speak, in a former letter

  (touching the continuation of Christabel), of “a certain

  European magazine.” Are you aware that it was as old a thing

  as The Gentleman’s, and went on ad infinitum? Other such

  were the Universal Magazine, the Scots’ Magazine — all

  endless in extent and beginning time out of mind, — to say

  nothing of the Ladies’ Magazine and Wits’ Magazine. Then

  there was the Annual Register. All these are quarters in

  which you might prosecute researches, and might happen to

  find something about Keats. The Monthly Magazine must have

  commenced almost as early, I believe. I cannot help thinking

  there was a similar Imperial Magazine.

  The following letter possesses an interest independent of its subject, which to me, however, is interest enough. Mr. William Watson had sent Rossetti a copy of a volume of poems he had just published, and had received a letter in acknowledgment, wherein our friend, with characteristic appreciativeness, said many cordial words of it:

  Your young friend Watson [he said in a subsequent letter]

  wrote me in a very modest mood for one who can do as he can

  at his age. I think I must have hurriedly mis-expressed

  myself in writing to him, as he seems to think I wished to

  dissuade him from following narrative poetry. Not in the

  least — I only wished him to try his hand at clearer dramatic

  life. The dreamy romantic really hardly needs more than one

  vast Morris in a literature — at any rate in a century. Not

  that I think him derivable from Morris — he goes straight

  back to Keats with a little modification. The narrative,

  whether condensed or developed, is at any rate a far better

  impersonal form to work in than declamatory harangue,

  whether calling on the stars or the Styx. I don’t know in

  the least how Watson is faring with the critics. He must not

  be discouraged, in any case, with his real and high gifts.

  The young poet, in whom Rossetti saw so much to applaud, can scarcely be said to have fared at all at the hands of the critics.

  Here is a pleasant piece of literary portraiture, as valuable from the peep it affords into Rossetti’s own character as from the description it gives of the rustic poet:

  The other evening I had the pleasant experience of meeting

  one to whom I have for about two years looked with interest

  as a poet of the native rustic kind, but often of quite a

  superior order. I don’t know if you noticed, somewhere about

  the date referred to, in The Athenæum, a review of poems

  by Joseph Skipsey. Skip-sey has exquisite — though, as in all

  such cases (except of course Burns’s) not equal — powers in

  several directions, but his pictures of humble life are the

  best. He is a working miner, and describes rustic loves and

  sports, and the perils and pathos of pit-life with great

  charm, having a quiet humour too when needed. His more

  ambitious pieces have solid merit of feeling, but are much

  less artistic. The other night, as I say, he came here, and

  I found him a stalwart son of toil, and every inch a

  gentleman. In cast of face he recalls Tennyson somewhat,

  though more bronzed and brawned. He is as sweet and gentle

  as a woman in manner, and recited some beautiful things of

  his own with a special freshness to which one is quite

  unaccustomed.

  Mr. Skipsey was a miner of North Shields, and in the review referred to much was made, in a delicate way, of his stern environments. His volume of lyrics is marked by the quiet humour. Rossetti speaks of, as well as by a rather exasperating inequality. Perhaps the best piece in it is a poem entitled Thistle and Nettle, treating with peculiar freshness of a country courtship. The coming together of two such entirely opposite natures was certainly curious, and only to be accounted for on the ground of Rossetti’s breadth of poetic sympathy. It would be interesting to hear what the impressions were of such a rude son of toil upon meeting with one whose life must have seemed the incarnation of artistic luxury and indulgence. Later on I received the following:

  Poor Skipsey! He has lost the friend who brought him to

  London only the other day (T. Dixon), and who was his only

  hold on intellectual life in his district. Dixon died

  immediately on his return to the North, of a violent attack

  of asthma to which he was subject. He was a rarely pure and

  simple soul, and is doubtless gone to higher uses, though

  few could have reached, with his small opportunities, to

  such usefulness as he compassed here. He was Ruskin’s

  correspondent in a little book called (I think) Work by

  Tyne and Wear. I got a very touching note from Skipsey on

  the subject.

  From Mr. Skipsey he received a letter only a little while before his death, and to him he addressed one of the last epistles he penned.

  The following letter explains itself, and is introduced as much for the sake of the real humour which it displays, a
s because it affords an excellent idea of Rossetti’s view of the true function of prose:

  I don’t like your Shakspeare article quite as well as the

  first Supernatural one, or rather I should say it does not

  greatly add to it in my (first) view, though both might gain

  by embodiment in one. I think there is some truth in the

  charge of metaphysical involution — the German element as I

  should call it — and surely you are strong enough to be

  English pure and simple. I am sure I could write 100 essays,

  on all possible subjects (I once did project a series under

  the title, Essays written in the intervals of

  Elephantiasis, Hydro-phobia, and Penal Servitude), without

  once experiencing the “aching void” which is filled by such

  words as “mythopoeic,” and “anthropomorphism.” I do not find

  life long enough to know in the least what they mean. They

  are both very long and very ugly indeed — the latter only

  suggesting to me a Vampire or Somnambulant Cannibal. (To

  speak rationally, would not “man-evolved Godhead” be an

  English equivalent?) “Euhemeristic” also found me somewhat

  on my beam-ends, though explanation is here given; yet I

  felt I could do without Euhemerus; and you perhaps without

  the humerous. You can pardon me now; for so bad a pun

  places me at your mercy indeed. But seriously, simple

  English in prose writing and in all narrative poetry

  (however monumental language may become in abstract verse)

  seems to me a treasure not to be foregone in favour of

  German innovations. I know Coleridge went in latterly for as

  much Germanism as his time could master; but his best genius

  had then left him.

  It seems necessary to mention that I lectured in 1880, on the relation of politics to art, and in printing the lecture I asked Rossetti to accept the dedication of it, but this he declined to do in the generous terms I have already referred to. The letter that accompanied his graceful refusal is, however, so full of interesting personal matter that I offer it in this place, with no further explanation than that my essay was designed to show that just as great artists in past ages had participated in political struggles, so now they should not hold themselves aloof from controversies which immediately concern them: