DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.*
WHO would have thought that Rossetti's letters would make a delightful book P Anything more unlike his art or his poetry it would be difficult to fancy; the letters are, on the contrary, almost childishly simple at times, never morbid and never bizarre. But a great deal of the book's attractive- ness is due, it must be said, to the editor, Dr. Birkbeck Hill, to whom a reviewer weary of struggling with ill.digested and unindexed compilations feels his heart overflow in gratitude. There is first a brief introduction, which tells us in the simplest possible way what Allingham's life was and how he came to know Rossetti. Then follow the letters, which are all from Rossetti to Allingham ; the other half of the corre- spondence, unhappily, does not exist. This necessitates ex-
planations, and each letter is followed by notes not unduly long, but completely explaining all references. One or two which seem superfluous—for instance, the statement that Colney Hatch is an asylum near London—remind us that Rossetti is not less interesting in America than at home. The book is agreeable to the eye, convenient in size, and illustrated with excellent reproductions, not the least charm- ing of which is Mrs. Allingham's drawing of Ballyshannon, for so many years the home of her husband, and the theme of his delightful lyric, " Farewell to Ballyshanny, where I was bred and born." We may quote in passing one of the prettiest stories in the book, told by Mr. Arthur Hughes, the artist,—not a Preraphaelite, but a contemporary and sympathiser :—
" D. G. R. and I think W. A. himself told me in the early days of our acquaintance how in remote Ballyshannon, when he was a clerk in the Customs, in evening walks he would hear the Irish girls at their cottage doors singing old ballads, which he would pick up. If they were broken or incomplete he would add to them or finish them ; if they were improper he would refine them. He could not get them sung till he got the Dublin Catnach' of that day to print them on long strips of blue paper like old songs ; and if about the sea, with the rough woodcut of a ship on the top. He either gave them away or they were sold in the neighbourhood. Then in his evening walks he had at last the pleasure of hearing some of his own ballads sung at the cottage doors by the crooning lasses, who were quite unaware that it was the author who was passing by."
Allingham's personality only appears at second hand in these letters, but it must have been an attractive one,—as indeed his songs would lead one to suppose. Almost alone of Rossetti's friends he escaped a quarrel with the queer genius—probably because he lived at a distance—yet even with Allingham the friendship died away After ten yews) • The Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti to William Alliagham: 1854-1870., By George Birkbeek HtU, D.O.L.„ LL.D., Hon. Fellow Pembroke pollee, DaVis London: T. Fisher Unwin. [123.]
But these friendships of Rossetti's while they lasted were ardent and loveable; somewhat incapable of looking after his own interests, he would exert himself to the utmost for another,—for instance, for Woolner, the sculptor. How the generations pass ! Who remembers now that Woolner went off with two friends in the fifties to dig for gold in Australia, that he might come back a millionaire and devote himself to art undisturbed by the need for pot-boilers ? He found little gold, but some commissions, and returned to be congratulated by Carlyle on his failure. How many people could recite accurately the names of the seven members of the P. R. B.? Yet the Preraphaelite movement has pro- foundly modified not merely English but also French art; and the pictures which Francis MacCracken, the Belfast shipping merchant, used to buy for £50—to be paid for in irregular instalments of £10, with a continually offered alter- native of some masterpiece of Opie or Danby in place of cash —now fetch hundreds or thousands. They are delightful people to read about, these young painters, they had so much genius and so much eccentricity. Rossetti, when he was working at " Found "—that tragical picture of a recognition on London streets—wanted to paint a white calf. Madox Brown had just taken a cottage in Finchley for himself, his wife, and baby, containing two rooms only beside the kitchen, and asked him to come and paint it there as a farmyard was handy. But Rossetti, as usual, painted and repainted, pro- longing the operation till the calf had grown much too big for his purpose, and the visit seemed interminable; all the worse, as he sat up all night talking poetry and lay in bed all day, limiting Mrs. Brown and the baby to a single room. There is a funny scene indicated, too, of Millais in the fervour of his youth. He had sent in his picture, " The Rescue," to the Academy, and Rossetti writes : " The most wonderful thing be has done except perhaps the Huguenot.' He had an awful row with the hanging committee, who had put it above the level of the eye ; but J. E. M. yelled for several hours, and threatened to resign till they put it right." Millais, it seems, told them plainly that they were a pack of old incapables, jealous of all rising men, and used to delight himself by going round and rehearsing the scene for the benefit of his friends.
Mr. Ruskin figures in a characteristic role; he bought all Rossetti's work up to a certain period, and then did the same by Mies Siddal, Rossetti's model and rnpil. Of this lady, who was finally his wife, Rossetti wrote to Allingham :- "It seems hard to me when I look at her sometimes working or too ill to work, and think how many without one tithe of her genius or greatness of spirit have granted them abundant health and opportunity to labour through the little they can do or will do, while perhaps her soul is never to bloom nor her bright hair to fade, but after hardly escaping from degrada- tion and corruption, all she might have been must sink out again unprofitably in that dark house where she was born. How truly may she say No man cared for my soul.' I do not mean to make myself an exception, for how long have I known her and not thought of this till so late,—perhaps too late. But it is no use writing more about this subject, and I fear, too, my writing at all about it must prevent your easily believing it to be, as it is, by far the nearest thing to my heart." That was written in July, 1854. He was not married to her till 1860, and she died after only a year of passionate fondness. The unhappy habit of chloral-taking began after her death. Rossetti's drawing of her given in this book is perhaps even more beautiful than the many exquisite pictures in which he and others have enshrined her singular and appealing loveliness.
One might go on indefinitely picking and stealing from this volume. Several letters give a moat attractive and living pre- sentment of Browning, for whose work Rossetti had a passionate cult (it is noticeable that out of Men and Women the first poem he chooses is "Childs Roland," the moat obscure of them all). One passage must really be quoted :— " The Brownings are long gone back now, and with them one of my delights,—an evening resort where I never felt unhappy. How large a part of the real world, I wonder, are those two small people ?-.-taking, meanwhile, so little room in any railway carriage, and hardly needing a double bed at the inn." Of the somewhat later group of artists—Sir. E. Mune- Jones, William Morris, Mr. Swinburne, and the restwith whom Rossetti became associated, Dr. Birkbeck Hill speaks from personal recolleetion, having been a friend in Oxford days ; and a capital story he tells of a day on the river, when money ran out and strawberries and public-houses on the bank tempted Morris to un- availing aspirations. Here, too, is an account of the inception of Morris's decoration at Morris's own rooms in Red Lion Square, where he had, as Rossetti writes, " intensely mediaeval furniture made—tables and chairs like incubi and succubi." There was a sofa with a bar that projected 6 in. at each end for decorative purposes, till it was summarily shortened by an angry artist whose shins had suffered. In short, the book contains a mass of things that will interest anybody who cares a brass farthing for modern art or poetry ; about pictures, the men who painted and the men who bought them; poems, publishers, and poets ; Bohemia and its inmates. An astonishing fact is the largeness of Rossetti's earnings. He was making £3,000 annually for several years before his death ; but, as he remarks, could never put his hand on £50. His expenses, however, were exceptional ; among them are noted a zebu or Brahminy bull, which chivied its purchaser, and had to be sold at once without a character; and a wombat which consumed boxes of Havana cigars at table,—a costly creature to keep. A book of this sort does not call for criticism ; a reviewer's only business is to recommend it, and that may be done with unusual con- fidence.
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