[79] Rossetti here, and in some other parts of the Autobiography, speaks of himself in an exalté tone, as imbued with a spirit of prophecy, an instrument in the divine hand for combating despotism, etc. All this would have seemed forced and presumptuous to a reader of his own day; yet it was not a mere distempered dream. In less than ten years from the date of his writing, the thunderbolt had fallen, and Italian despots and Papal temporal dominion were in the agonies of dissolution.—W.
[80] Rossetti here dilates (at a length which I have much curtailed) on a matter now perhaps well-nigh forgotten, the exile in 1850 of the Archbishops of Turin and Cagliari for obstructing certain laws passed by the Piedmontese Parliament as a check upon the privileges of the Church.—W.
[81] “He unites the advantages of two rivals—Mars in strength, Adonis in beauty.”
[82] Gergo. The word might be translated as “slang” or “jargon”; but each of these words conveys a rather incongruous idea to an English mind, so I say (here and elsewhere) “the sect-language.”
[83] Rossetti’s volume Lo Spirito Antipapale che produsse la Riforma.
[84] “L’illusione è sì grande che scuote.” I understand the meaning to be as here rendered; but the phrase is not entirely clear.
[85] “Not I, if I had a hundred mouths and a hundred tongues, with iron lungs and iron breast.”
[86] This odd-seeming phrase offers no difficulty to the reader of the Vita Nuova. Dante there says that Beatrice had a special analogy with the number nine, and was (in a sense) a nine, or a three times three, whereof the root was the Holy Trinity.
[87] Rossetti’s letter, next before the present one, is dated 13th December 1836. It would seem (looking to dates) that Mr Lyell’s acknowledgment of being convinced cannot have applied to anything contained in that letter, but to something in the proofs, then passing through his hands, of the Mistero dell’Amor Platonico.
[88] i.e. “To remember is a sweet thought, and I rejoice.” My father proceeds here to quote the entire sonnet, underlining some words, and offering brief comments. I question whether the English reader would thank me for reproducing the whole. As regards the other (second) sonnet which follows, I give the whole of the octave, with comments.