Præraphaelite diaries and letters

Dear Aunt Eliza,

We went to a fancy fair in the Regent’s Park, where I bought a box of paints, Maria an album, and Christina two fishes and a hook. The fair was for the benefit of a Charity School. I have been reading Shakespeare’s Richard the Third for my amusement, and like it exceedingly. I, Maria, and William, know several scenes by heart. I have bought a picture of Richard and Richmond fighting, and I gilded it, after which I cut it out with no white. My Aunt[1] came yesterday, and gave Maria a pretty little basket: it was worked in flowers of green card.

I remain, my dear Aunt, Your affectionate nephew, GABRIEL C. D. ROSSETTI.

This letter appears to have been written in 1843, which was the date of the privately-printed volume by my grandfather (La Magion del Terrore, etc.) containing the lyric, A Clori. The first verse of the lyric is “Quante stelle cancella la luna.” Polidori’s reply is not forthcoming; but there can be little doubt that Dante Rossetti was right in considering that the Italian poem is a free adaptation of the English one.

50 Charlotte Street, London. [? 1843.]

Dear Grandpapa,

On returning home yesterday and looking over your volume of poetry, I was greatly surprised at discovering in your ode, A Clori, at page 136, a most singular resemblance to a little poem contained in Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, it being the same, verse by verse, and sometimes almost word for word.

The poem to which I allude is written by Sir Henry Wotton, who lived in the reign of James 1st, and is intended as an expression of his admiration for Elizabeth, daughter of that monarch.

It runs as follows:

You meaner beauties of the night, That poorlie satisfie our eyes More by your number than your light, You common people of the skies-- What are you when the moon shall rise?

Ye violets that first appeare, By your pure purple mantles known Like the proud virgins of the yeare, As if the Spring were all your own-- What are you when the rose is blown?

Ye curious chanters of the wood, That warble forth Dame Nature’s layes, Thinking your passion understood By your weak accents, what’s your praise When Philomel her voyce shall raise?

So when my mistress shall be seene In sweetness of her looks and mind; By virtue first, then choyce, a queene; Tell me if she was not designed Th’ eclypse and glory of her kind.

The only difference between your composition and the above is, as you perceive, the addition by you of two stanzas--judiciously, I think, inasmuch as they complete the idea.

Now I do not for a moment suppose that you have translated these lines and afterwards intentionally inserted them among your original poems; but I should think it possible that you might have rendered them into Italian some years ago, and that, on looking over your manuscripts in order to compile the volume in question, you might have found them, and, forgetting their origin, placed them with the rest among your Versi Lirici. Should this idea of mine, however, not be founded on fact, it is certainly a most singular literary coincidence.

I remain, dear Grandpapa, Your affectionate Grandson, GABRIEL CHAS. ROSSETTI.

In my Memoir of Dante Rossetti (published in 1895) I have spoken of a very inefficient ballad which he wrote at the age of fifteen, named William and Marie, and of an illustration which he concocted for it. I possess a copy which he made of the ballad, followed by the letter here reproduced. I am not sure what was the magazine to which he forwarded the poem and its illustration, in the vain hope of getting published: should suppose it to be Smallwood’s Magazine, but for the fact that in that serial there were no illustrations. Possibly he sent the letter and its contents to one Editor after another, but I have no recollection of any such fact. From a reference which I saw in a literary review, 1898 or ’99, I infer that the ballad of William and Marie has by this time been printed, in whole or in part, though without any authority from Rossetti’s representatives.

50 Charlotte Street, London. [? 1843.]

Sir,

Should you consider the accompanying ballad not wholly unworthy of a place in your magazine, you would highly oblige me by inserting it. If it meet not with a favourable reception, and should you answer me among your “Correspondents,” would you favour me by doing so under the initials “A. B.” instead of my real name.

I am, sir, Yours etc. etc. GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

P.S.--I have also executed the enclosed sketch, which is intended, if considered sufficiently good, as a headpiece to the ballad.

Mr. Collinson was a painter, chiefly of domestic subjects, and a member of the Præraphaelite Brotherhood. The letter was addressed to him during the tour which was made by Holman Hunt and Rossetti to Paris and Belgium.

My brother was mistaken in referring to certain pictures as “the capture and execution of Cambyses”; they are the works of Gerard David, representing Cambyses punishing an unjust Judge.--_Bride-Chamber Talk_ is the poem published in 1881 under the title of The Bride’s Prelude.

The initials of Mr. Hunt, added to this letter, are written in by Rossetti.

BETWEEN GHENT AND BRUGES.

(Wednesday night, 24 October.)

Ah yes, exactly so; but when a man Has trundled out of England into France And half through Belgium, always in this prance Of steam, and still has stuck to his first plan-- Blank verse or sonnets; and as he began Would end;--why, even the blankest verse may chance To falter in default of circumstance, And even the sonnet lack its mystic span. Trees will be trees, grass grass, pools merely pools, Unto the end of time and Belgium--points Of fact which Poets (very abject fools) Get scent of--once their epithets grown tame And scarce. Even to these foreign rails--my joints Begin to find their jolting much the same.

On the road hither last night I perpetrated only the above atrocious sonnet, in answer to the voice which urged upon me a more worthy exercise of my energies. It is all therefore that I can give you.

I believe we have seen to-day almost everything very remarkable at Bruges; but I assure you we shall want to see much of it again. This is a most stunning place, immeasurably the best we have come to. There is a quantity of first-rate architecture, and very little or no Rubens.

But by far the best of all are the miraculous works of Memling and Van Eyck. The former is here in a strength that quite stunned us--and perhaps proves himself to have been a greater man even than the latter. In fact, he was certainly so intellectually, and quite equal in mechanical power. His greatest production is a large triptych in the Hospital of St. John, representing in its three compartments: firstly, the Decollation of St. John Baptist; secondly, the Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine to the Infant Saviour; and thirdly, the Vision of St. John Evangelist in Patmos. I shall not attempt any description; I assure you that the perfection of character and even drawing, the astounding finish, the glory of colour, and above all the pure religious sentiment and ecstatic poetry of these works, is not to be conceived or described. Even in seeing them, the mind is at first bewildered by such Godlike completeness; and only after some while has elapsed can at all analyse the causes of its awe and admiration; and then finds these feelings so much increased by analysis that the last impression left is mainly one of utter shame at its own inferiority. Van Eyck’s picture at the Gallery may give you some idea of the style adopted by Memling in these great pictures; but the effect of light and colour is much less poetical in Van Eyck’s; partly owing to his being a more sober subject and an interior, but partly also, I believe, to the intrinsic superiority of Memling’s intellect. In the background of the first compartment there is a landscape more perfect in the abstract lofty feeling of nature than anything I have ever seen. The visions of the third compartment are wonderfully mystic and poetical.

The Royal Academy here possesses also some most stupendous works of Memling--among them one of a Virgin and Child, quite astounding. In the same collection is a very wonderful Van Eyck, some of the heads of which, however, are dreadfully vulgar in character; and two pictures by some unknown author, representing the capture and execution of Cambyses--equal to any one for colour and individuality, and most remarkably fine in drawing. They are powerfully dramatic--the second perhaps a trifle too much so, as it represents a man being flayed alive, and is revolting from its extreme truthfulness.

We have seen here a great many other stunning pictures, in which this town is marvellously rich. There are several Memlings besides those named above, and some glorious portraits by one of the Porbus family--perhaps the finest specimens of portraiture we ever saw.

I forgot to mention that Memling’s pictures in the Hospital of St. John were presented to the Institution by that stunner in return for the care bestowed upon him when he was received here, severely wounded and in great want, after the battle of Nancy. The interior of the hospital has undergone since his time but very little alteration. His pictures are not painted with oil--he having preceded Van Eyck--but with some vehicle of which brandy and white of egg are the principal components. They have cracked very slightly indeed; and one cannot conceive the colours to have been more brilliant on the day of their completion.

Another great treat we had to-day was in visiting the Chapelle du Sang de Dieu, a wonderful little place: also the Jerusalem, which is in all respects a facsimile of the Holy Sepulchre at Palestine.

Friday 26.

I have been rash enough to sit down for the purpose of continuing this letter--but begin to suspect, after all, that I have nothing to say. All that we have seen to-day was merely in re-visiting yesterday’s glories. It is stupendous to see again, certainly--even better perhaps than the first time; but I fear that my pen scarcely suffices for a second bill of fare. I must therefore see what is to be done with some older topic.