A few weeks later Mr. Swinburne’s ‘Tristram of Lyonesse,’ the volume which contains what I regard as his ripest and richest poetry, was thus inscribed:—

TO MY BEST FRIEND
THEODORE WATTS
I DEDICATE IN THIS BOOK
THE BEST I HAVE TO GIVE HIM.

Spring speaks again, and all our woods are stirred,
And all our wide glad wastes aflower around,
That twice have made keen April’s clarion sound
Since here we first together saw and heard
Spring’s light reverberate and reiterate word
Shine forth and speak in season. Life stands crowned
Here with the best one thing it ever found,
As of my soul’s best birthdays dawns the third.

There is a friend that as the wise man saith
Cleaves closer than a brother: nor to me
Hath time not shown, through days like waves at strife
This truth more sure than all things else but death,
This pearl most perfect found in all the sea
That washes toward your feet these waifs of life.

The Pines,
April, 1882.

But the finest of all these words of affection are perhaps those opening the dedicatory epistle prefixed to the magnificent Collected Edition of Mr. Swinburne’s poems issued by Messrs. Chatto and Windus in 1904:—

‘To my best and dearest friend I dedicate the first collected edition of my poems, and to him I address what I have to say on the occasion.’

Once also Mr. Watts-Dunton dedicated verses of his own to Mr. Swinburne, to wit, in 1897, when he published that impassioned lyric in praise of a nobler and larger Imperialism, the ‘Jubilee Greeting at Spithead to the Men of Greater Britain’:—

“TO OUR GREAT CONTEMPORARY WRITER OF
PATRIOTIC POETRY,
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

You and I are old enough to remember the time when, in the world of letters at least, patriotism was not so fashionable as it is now—when, indeed, love of England suggested Philistinism rather than ‘sweetness and light.’ Other people, such as Frenchmen, Italians, Irishmen, Hungarians, Poles, might give voice to a passionate love of the land of their birth, but not Englishmen. It was very curious, as I thought then, and as I think now. And at that period love of the Colonies was, if possible, even more out of fashion than was love of England; and this temper was not confined to the ‘cultured’ class. It pervaded society and had an immense influence upon politics. On one side the Manchester school, religiously hoping that if the Colonies could be insulted so effectually that they must needs (unless they abandoned all self-respect) ‘set up for themselves,’ the same enormous spurt would be given to British trade which occurred after the birth of the United States, bade the Colonies ‘cut the painter.’ On the other hand the old Tories and Whigs, with a few noble exceptions, having never really abandoned the old traditions respecting the unimportance of all matters outside the parochial circle of European diplomacy, scarcely knew where the Colonies were situated on the map.

There was, however, in these islands one person who saw as clearly then as all see now the infinite importance of the expansion of England to the true progress of mankind—the Great Lady whose praises in this regard I have presumed to sing in the opening stanza of these verses.

I may be wrong, but I, who am, as you know, no courtier, believe from the bottom of my heart that without the influence of the Queen this expansion would have been seriously delayed. Directly and indirectly her influence must needs be enormous, and, as regards this matter, it has always been exercised—energetically and even eagerly exercised—in one way. This being my view, I have for years been urging more than one friend clothed with an authority such as I do not possess to bring the subject prominently before the people of England at a time when England’s expansion is a phrase in everybody’s mouth. I have not succeeded. Let this be my apology for undertaking the task myself and for inscribing to you, as well as to the men of Greater Britain, these lines.”

I feel that it is a great privilege to be able to present to my readers beautiful photogravures and photographs of interiors and pictures and works of art at ‘The Pines.’ Many of the pictures and other works of art at ‘The Pines’ are mementoes of a most interesting kind.

Among these is the superb portrait of Madox Brown, at this moment hanging in the Bradford Exhibition. Madox Brown painted it for the owner. An interesting story is connected with it. One day, not long after Mr. Watts-Dunton had become intimate with Madox Brown, the artist told him he specially wanted his boy Nolly to read to him a story that he had been writing, and asked him to meet the boy at dinner.

‘Nolly been writing a story!’ exclaimed Mr. Watts-Dunton.