P. 250.-FOR A Portrait of MRS. WILLIAM MORRIS.-The portrait is the one which hangs in the Tate Gallery at Millbank. Rossetti knew Latin up to a certain point, but I am not wholly sure that he could have indited this couplet. Possibly he obtained the assistance of Mr. Swinburne.

P. 250.-THOMÆ FIDES.-Was intended to come into the dramatic lyric, never executed, of "The Doom of the Sirens."

"

P. 250.-GIOVENTU E SIGNORIA.-This so-called "Italian Streetsong was really Rossetti's own composition-the Italian as well as the English version. In all the instances in which he wrote a piece in the two languages, the Italian was, I think, the first. P. 253. PROSERPINA.—“ Afar away the light," etc. It has sometimes been said that the light represented in the "Proserpine" picture is moonlight. This, I am sure, is wholly inconsistent with the general tone and colour of the work: the phrase in the sonnet about "light" seems also clearly to point to sunlight or daylight.

P. 254.-ET LES LARMES, etc.-I am unable to say whether this jotting of verse, which I find in my brother's handwriting, is his own composition, or copied from some book. I assume the former. The same remark applies to "Il faut" etc., in which possibly a rhyme was intended, but in vain; and to the French prose scraps.

P. 254.-PRO HOSTE HOSTEM, etc.-See the Versicle, "I hate, says over and above," etc. This Latin line is evidently related to a phrase in that small piece: it was written, I suppose, afterwards. It must have been intended for a hexameter, but, as any one can see, it will not scan.

P. 259. SACRed to the Memory of AlgerNON R. G. STANHOPE.— This is a juvenile affair, bearing the date of September 1847; which was however some few months later than the date of the original Blessed Damozel." It is about the only thing which my brother wrote "to order": i.e. he was requested by a family friend, Cavalier Mortara, to write some verses commemorative of a youthful member of the Stanhope family, known to Mortara but not to Rossetti, and he produced these verses as an act of complaisance. The full composition numbers 21 stanzas: I think that ten of them, but not more, may at this distant period be allowed to figure among the Juvenilia of his Collected Works. I am afraid my brother would not have approved even this modicum of publicity.

P. 260.—AN Epitaph for KEATS.—The date of these verses may be much the same as that of the Stanhope composition.

P. 260.-To MARY IN SUMMER.-This also is a juvenile effusion. It is a mere exercise of fancy, for in those early summers there was no real Mary of any denomination. The composition was originally longer, but was reduced by the author to its present dimensions. He did not view it with entire disfavour: when he was compiling his volume of 1870 he seriously debated whether to include it or not, but he decided against it.

P. 261.-THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION OF 1848.-This will readily be understood to relate to the Chartist or pseudo-Chartist meetings which formed a transitory alarm to Londoners in the early months of 1848. Readers whose memories go back to that date will appreciate the references to Moses and Son, puny John (Russell), Cochrane, G. W. M. Reynolds and "Reynolds's Miscellany," etc for other readers they seem hardly worth explaining. It may be as well to say that my brother had no real grounded objection to the principles of "The People's Charter "-I dare say he never knew accurately what they were but he disliked bluster and blusterers, noise-mongers and noise, and he has here indulged himself in a fling at them.

P. 263.-THE SIN OF DETECTION.-This is a sonnet written to bouts-rimés: so are the thirteen sonnets which ensue. The rhymewords were given by me; and my brother then rattled off the sonnet

as fast as he could-sometimes in five or six minutes-more usually from eight to ten. He at the same time gave me rhyme-words, and I acted alike. This practice went on actively in 1848: it may have begun in 1847, and died out in 1849. I think his bouts-rimés sonnets are clever things of their kind: each of them has its own point of view, and suggests some sort of situation with a certain picturesque intensity of notion and diction, and sometimes a degree of subtlety. But one cannot demand from such a mere tour de force more than is permitted by its very nature, which consists of slapdash at a moment's notice.

P. 267.-"TWAS THUS."-This quatrain is intended to be a bombastic absurdity. "Hunt and I," said a letter from my brother on August 20, 1848, "went the other night to Woolner's, where we composed a poem of twenty-four stanzas on the alternate system. I transcribe the last stanza, which was mine, to show you the style of thing."

"

P. 268.-ON BROWNING'S SORDELLO.-This is the beginning of a sonnet. I recollect the octave accurately, but cannot recall the sextett, which was written from a quite contrary point of view-that of a devotee of Browning and "Sordello,' as my brother was in all those years. The reader may remember that "Sordello " begins with the phrase "Who will may hear Sordello's story told," and ends with "Who would has heard Sordello's story told." Hence my brother's opening lines.

P. 268.-THE CANCAN AT VALENTINO'S.-This is one of the sonnets which my brother sent to me from Paris. I have had to omit some lines, not presentable in print. He was profoundly disgusted with the coarse revelling at Valentino's dancing-hall, and recorded the aspect of the danseuses in his sonnet.

P. 269.-AT THE STATION OF THE VERSAILLES RAILWAY.-It will be perceived that the opening lines are imitated from those of Tennyson's poem "Godiva."

P. 269.-L'ENVOI.-The phrase "It's copied out at last" relates to the snatches of blank verse," From Paris to Brussels" and "On the Road to Belgium." "The sonnet at the close" is the one entitled

"Returning to Brussels."

P. 270.-VERSES TO JOHN L. TUPPER.-The nicknames which appear towards the close of this doggerel indicate-The Prince, George Tupper; the Baron, his brother Alexander; Spectro-cadaveral Rex, John (or Jack) Tupper; the Maniac, Holman Hunt. These rather silly nicknames were not Dante Rossetti's invention. The occasion for the doggerel appears to have been that he had received an invitation to join with Hunt, Stephens, and the three Tuppers, in a brief countrytramp.

"

P. 271. ST. WAGNES' EVE.-For this amusing trifle some explanations are needed. Rossetti had taken a first-floor studio in a house in Newman Street in which a dancing-academy was held this he terms the hop-shop." Hancock's accents screechy are not an arbitrary make-rhyme to Beatrice (according to the Italian pronunciation of that name), but a tolerably true definition of Hancock's voice, which was small and high-pitched. He was now doing a statue of Dante's Beatrice. The "engraving of his bas-relief " was an Artunion engraving of a work of his, Christ's Entry into Jerusalem." Bernhard Smith, another sculptor, was a very fine-looking young man. North was William North, a somewhat eccentric young literary man, of very extreme opinions, author of "The Infinite Republic," etc. The names of two painters, Collinson and Deverell, hardly require explanation.

P. 271.-PARODY ON "UNCLE NED."-The object here, as will be seen, is to ridicule Mrs. Stowe's romance "Uncle Tom's Cabin ": a book far from deserving of mere ridicule, and one which possibly my

brother never read. "Uncle Ned" is a nigger song, perhaps still well known, beginning "Dere was an old nigger and him name was Uncle Ned, And him died long long ago." My brother had no very settled ideas about negroes, their rights and wrongs: he knew, and was much tickled by, Carlyle's "Occasional Discourse on the Nigger Question," published in 1849.

P. 271.-DUNS SCOTUS.-By the name Duns Scotus, Rossetti designated the painter William Bell Scott. The notion that he might "die of lotus" applied to his position as settled in Newcastle-on-Tyne, isolated from the more strenuous movements in art and literature. See some other railleries against Scott among the limericks.

P. 272.-MACCRACKEN.-This parody of Tennyson's youthful quasi-sonnet "The Kraken" refers to Mr. Francis MacCracken of Belfast, a business-man who purchased, in the early Præraphaelite days, some of the paintings of Holman Hunt, Rossetti, etc. Rossetti really felt indebted to MacCracken for buying these works cheap, when other people would not buy them at all: but in this parody, following the titular and other wording, or sometimes the mere sound, of Tennyson's piece, he pretends that the Belfast connoisseur preyed insidiously upon his artistic victims. The parody is a very complete thing in its way as the reader would find if he were to compare its lines and terms. with those of Tennyson's "Kraken."

P. 272.-VALENTINE TO LIZZIE SIDDAL.-From 1852 to 1862 Rossetti lived in Chambers in Chatham Place, Blackfriars Bridge. Hence the references in this Valentine to St. Paul's Cathedral and the Thames.

P. 273.—ADDRESS TO THE DALZIEL BROTHERS.-Rossetti, put out by imperfect woodcutting of his designs for Tennyson's poems, scribbled these lines in a letter which he addressed to W. B. Scott. He had probably some tolerable reason for being put out: though we may none the less acknowledge that the Dalziels were very skilful craftsmen. P. 273. THE WOMBAT.-Rossetti purchased a wombat (Australian burrowing animal) which arrived at his house in London when he was away in Scotland. He wrote this stave to express his eagerness to see the beast.

P. 273. LIMERICKS.-A good deal has by this time been written about limericks composed by Rossetti and by some of his acquaintances: I need not repeat the substance of it. In my present compilation Nos. 1 and 2 refer to Valentine C. Prinsep; No. 3 to Henry Tanworth Wells; No. 4 to Arthur Hughes; No. 5 to the architect William Burges; No. 6 to Lady Burne-Jones; Nos. 7 and 8 to Burne-Jones; No. 9 to a painter, George W. Chapman, not now well remembered; No. Io to Whistler; No. 11 to the Bookseller and Publisher F. S. Ellis; No. 12 to Charles Augustus Howell; No. 13 to J. W. Inchbold; No. 14 to Ford Madox Brown; No. 15 to Oliver Madox Brown; No. 16 to T. and W. Agnew; No. 17 to Francis Hueffer; Nos. 18, 19, and 20, to William Bell Scott; No. 21 to Arthur O'Shaughnessy; No. 22 to J. W. Knewstub, a painter who had studied under Rossetti; No. 23 to Rossetti himself; and No. 24 to Robert Buchanan. Every now and then something is alleged in these limericks (or nonsense-verses as we then called them) which has no relation whatever to fact. For instance, in No. 6 there was the name Georgie: a rhyme being wanted, "orgy was stuffed in, and no one minded the absolute lie, because it was known to be a lie. My brother must certainly have composed many other limericks, which either I never knew of, or else they have lapsed out of my memory.

"

"

P. 276.-WILLIAM MORRIS.-This couplet was written one day at Kelmscott when Morris did some fishing with no success. The name "Skald was bestowed upon him because, in a recent excursion in Iceland, he had been set down in the inn-register as William Morris, Skald."

P. 276. THE BROTHERS.-This parody of Tennyson's fine poem "The Sisters" was written soon after Rossetti had learned that the adverse criticism of his poems, published in The Contemporary Review with the signature "Thomas Maitland," was the work of Mr. Robert Buchanan. There are in the parody many ingenious imitations of phrase and sound. A notion of printing it in The Pall Mall Gazette was started, but not carried out.

P. 277.-SMITHEREENS.—I don't know what may have prompted my brother to write these verses, not highly Rossettian: possibly he had heard of some incident of a like kind.

P. 277.-COUPLET ON CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.-Was the beginning of a limerick, left uncompleted.

"

P. 310.-"An awkward intermezzo to the volume." The term "intermezzo' was correct when my brother wrote it; because his introduction, regarding Dante and his friends, appeared in the middle of the original volume entitled " The Early Italian Poets, 1861." On republishing the book in 1874, my brother inverted the order of his translations, and made those taken from Dante and his friends to appear in the opening pages of the volume. The word "intermezzo ought then to have disappeared; it must have been left through inadvertence.

"

P. 313. This sonnet is divided," etc. It may be as well to mention that the expositions (of which this is the first) appended to the various poems of the "Vita Nuova were translated by me, not by my brother. Several foot-notes are also mine. The translation of the "Vita Nuova" had been done by my brother at a very early date, probably 1847-8; when he was more inclined to consult his own preferences in the way of translating than to be at the rigid beck of his original. When he had to prepare the work, 1860, for publication, he felt that he had taken too great a liberty, and asked me to supply what was wanted in relation to these expositions, etc.

P. 359.-OF a Consecrated Image RESEMBLING HIS LADY.-There is not in this Italian sonnet anything to indicate that Cavalcanti considered the Image to resemble "his Lady "-i.e. the woman he was in love with. He speaks of "la Donna mia," which comes to the same thing as 'la Madonna," the Virgin Mary. That the Image did really represent the Virgin Mary is apparent from the reply which Guido Orlandi returned to this sonnet.

"

P. 361.-DANTE TO CAVALCANTI.-This sunny-tempered sonnet was translated also by Shelley.

P. 367. BERNARDO DA BOLOGNA.-No other writing by Bernardo appears to be known, nor any detail of his life. The original sonnet is densely obscure, and a semi-creative effort was needed on Rossetti's part for making what he has here made of it.

P. 410.-" Aguglino would be eaglet," etc. Here again my brother is at fault. Aguglino does indeed mean eaglet: it is the name of a coin stamped (I presume) with the imperial eagle. There can be no real doubt that Aguglino is the correct reading; and that the whole of my brother's surmise about "Avolino" is gratuitous. I pointed this out to him when the book was in course of reprinting. He then admitted the fact; but (with perhaps pardonable weakness for what he had many years before thought out with ingenuity, and argued with plausibility) he ultimately decided not to interfere with the text as printed.

P. 413.-OF HIS LAST SIGHT OF FIAMMETTA.-The reader may notice that this sonnet bears a certain relation to Rossetti's own sonnet, Fiammetta," as more especially to the picture which those verses illustrate. Fiammetta, named in many of Boccaccio's writings, is reputed to have been a member (not legitimate) of the royal family of Naples.

P. 415.-POETS CHIEFLY BEFORE DANTE.-In 1908 was published

a very convenient little book-" Italian Poets chiefly before Dante: the Italian Text, with Translations by D. G. Rossetti" (Shakespeare Head Press, Stratford-on-Avon). I then for the first time compared the translations minutely with the originals; knowing that I should be sure to find some mistakes and some difference of tone-for my brother certainly enhanced, beyond his originals, the qualities of romantic richness and picturesque colouring. I made several notes on particular poems or passages, and I here present a few of them.

P. 425." If by my grief thou couldst be grieved, God send me a grief soon.' Rossetti has mistaken the person here. The true meaning is-" Nay, wert thou in pain, and falling down in anguish." P. 426.-"Oh the rich dress thou worest on that day," etc. The Italian runs “ti vististi lo traiuto." I suspect that the traiuto (or traito, as in the next stanza-words which I cannot find in an Italian dictionary) is quite the reverse of a rich dress, and is the habit of a conventual novice, for there are clear indications in the poem that the lady contemplates becoming a nun. All the expressions in the ensuing stanza as to richness of her costume are not in the original : which says: 'Ah so much didst thou fall in love, down from the traito, as if it had been purple, scarlet, or samite."

"

P. 428.- Going from bough to bough"-in the original "agli albori." This must mean at dawn," but Rossetti took it to mean "in the trees"-which would be " alberi.'

P. 437.-"I would not have ye without counsel ta'en," etc. The rendering is considerably different from the original, which runs thus: "I commend not beginning without deliberation; nor is it to my liking to give praise to one who commits an offence. He who condescends to this falls under great reprehension: and he who is silent is content not to outstep him who can give a good reason, for he acts justly who comes when there is occasion for it. If the man confides in good counsel, he goes upward; and he props himself upon folly, going downward. The fruit approves the flower when the season comes." The " loud-voiced mime is Rossetti's invention. P. 442.And is there nothing else," etc. The literal sense of the original is this: And therefore, if it were to appear to you that there would not be any one else to gain your love, never lose your joy. Would you then have friendship? Sooner would I die."

"

P. 451.-"Yet, if any heart be a city," etc. This is very paraphrastical, or even incorrect. The original must mean: "If there is any one who receives love, he maintains his heart in joy, he always lives in blitheness."

P. 455. But should go back against his proper will." It should be "Nor should go back," etc.

P. 457.-"His ill thought should withhold." The original indicates "Her ill thought."

P. 463.-" Ye blew your bubbles as the falcon flies." Rossetti's word bubbles stands for the Italian "bubbole," but quite erroneously. "Bubbole means "lapwings and the line signifies Ye have turned lapwings into falcons." I think too that the sextett of this sonnet has been rather misapprehended.

P. 467.-" Gules, argent, or." These heraldic terms are substituted for the names of real flowers, "violets, roses, and flowers, to dazzle all men." I have no doubt that the Italian poet referred not to any armorial devices, but to the actual flower-garlands (ghirlande, as in l. II) which the ladies would cast down.

P. 468." On each hand either ridge ye shall perceive." The word rendered as ridge" is "terra" but it is pretty clear that terra bears here a sense which it often assumes in Italian-town, or fortress.

44

P. 469.-" Gifts from man to man." The word "gifts" represents dati," and as such is admissible: but I think the real meaning is