Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

by Sir Hall Caine

Blake (probably late in life) said—

“Innocence is a winter gown.”
... I have read the Chatterton article in the review
mentioned. If Watts had done it, it would have been
immeasurably better. There seems to me, who am very well up
in Chatterton, no point whatever made in the article. Why
does no one ever even allude to the two attributed portraits
of Chatterton—one belonging to Sir H. Taylor, and the other
in the Salford Museum? Both seem to be the same person
clearly, and a good find for Chatterton, but not conceivably
done from him. Nevertheless, I suspect there may be a
sidelong genuineness in them. Chatterton was acquainted with
one Alcock, a miniature painter at Bristol, to whom he
addressed a poem. Had A. painted C. it would be among the
many recorded facts; but it would be singular even if, in
C.‘s rapid posthumous fame, A. had never been asked to make
a reminiscent likeness of him. Prom such likeness by the
miniature painter these portraits might derive—both being
life-sized oil heads. There is a savour of Keats in them,
though a friend, taking up the younger-looking of the two,
said it reminded him of Jack Sheppard! And not such a bad
Chatterton-compound either! But I begin to think I have said
all this before.... Oliver, or “Nolly,” as he was always
called, was a sort of spread-eagle likeness of his handsome
father, with a conical head like Walter Scott. I must
confess to you, that, in this world of books, the only one
of his I have read, is Gabriel Denver, afterwards
reprinted in its original and superior form as The Black
Swan, but published with the former title in his lifetime.

Rossetti formed no such philosophic estimate of Chatterton’s contribution to the romantic movement in English poetry as has been formulated in the essay in Ward’s Poets. A critic, in the sense of one possessed of a natural gift of analysis, Rossetti assuredly! was not. No man’s instinct for what is good in poetry was ever swifter or surer than that of Rossetti. You might always distrust your judgment if you found it at variance with his where abstract power and beauty were in question. Sooner or later you would inevitably find yourself gravitating to his view. But here Rossetti’s function as a critic ended. His was at best only the criticism of the creator. Of the gift of ultimate classification he had none, and never claimed to have any, although now and again (as where he says that Chatterton was the day-spring of modern romantic poetry), he seems to give sign of a power of critical synthesis.

Rossetti’s interest in Blake, both as poet and painter, dates back to an early period of his life. I have heard him say that at sixteen or seventeen years of age he was already one of Blake’s warmest admirers, and at the time in question, 1845, the author of the Songs of Innocence had not many readers to uphold him. About four years later, Rossetti made an exceptionally lucky discovery, for he then found in the possession of Mr. Palmer, an attendant at the British Museum, an original manuscript scrap-book of Blake’s, containing a great body of unpublished poetry and many interesting designs, as well as three or four remarkably effective profile sketches of the author himself. The Mr. Palmer who held the little book was a relative of the landscape painter of the same name, who was Blake’s friend, and hence the authenticity of the manuscript was ascertainable on other grounds than the indisputable ones of its internal evidences. The book was offered to Rossetti for ten shillings, but the young enthusiast was at the time a student of art, and not much in the way of getting or spending even so inconsiderable a sum. He told me, however, that at this period his brother William, who was, unlike himself, engaged in some reasonably profitable occupation, was at all times nothing loath to advance small sums for the purchase of such literary or other treasures as he used to hunt up out of obscure corners: by his help the Blake manuscript was bought, and proved for years a source of infinite pleasure and profit, resulting, as it did, in many very important additions to Blake literature when Gilchrist’s Life and Works of that author came to be published. It is an interesting fact, mention of which ought not to be omitted, that at the sale of Rossetti’s library, which took place a little while after his decease, the scrap-book acquired in the way I describe was sold for one hundred and five guineas.

The sum was a large one, but the little book was undoubtedly the most valuable literary relic of Blake then extant. About the time when a new edition of Gilchrist’s Life was in the press, Rossetti wrote:

My evenings have been rather trenched upon lately by helping
Mrs. Gilchrist with a new edition of the Life of Blake....
I don’t know if you go in much for him. The new edition of
the Life will include a good number of additional letters
(from Blake to Hayley), and some addition (though not great)
to my own share in the work; as well as much important
carrying-on of my brother’s catalogue of Blake’s works. The
illustrations will, I trust, receive valuable additions
also, but publishers are apt to be cautious in such
expenses. I am writing late at night, to fill up a fag-end
of bedtime, and shall write again on this head.

Rossetti’s “own share” in this work consisted of the writing of the supplementary chapter (left by Gilchrist, with one or two unimportant passages merely, at the beginning), and the editing of the poems. When there arose, subsequently, some idea of my reviewing the book, Rossetti wrote me the following letter, full of disinterested solicitude:

You will be quite delighted with an essay on Blake by Jas.
Smetham, which occurs in vol ii.; it is a noble thing; and
at the stupendous design called Plague (vol. i.). I have
extracted a passage properly belonging to the same essay,
which is as fine as English can be, and which I am sorry
to perceive (I think) that Mrs. G. has omitted from the body
of the essay because quoted in another place. This essay is
no less than a masterpiece. I wrote the supplementary
chapter (vol. i.), except a few opening paragraphs by
Gilchrist,—and in it have now made some mention of Smetham,
an old and dear friend of mine.
You will admire Shields’s paper on the wonderful series of
Young’s Night Thoughts. My brother and I both helped in
this new edition, but I added little to what I had done
before. I brought forward a portentous series of passages
about one “Scofield” in Blake’s Jerusalem, but did not
otherwise write that chapter, except as regards the
illustrations. However, don’t mention what I have done (in
case you write on the subject) except so far as the indices
show it, and of course I don’t wish to be put forward at
all. What I do wish is, that you should say everything that
can be gratifying to Mrs. G. as to her husband’s work. There
is a plate of Blake’s Cottage by young Gilchrist which is
truly excellent.

As I have already said, Rossetti traversed the bypaths of English literature (particularly of English poetry) as few can ever have traversed them. A favourite work with him was Gilfillan’s Less-Read British Poets, a copy of which had been presented by Miss Boyd. He says:

Did you ever read Christopher Smart’s Song to David, the
only great accomplished poem of the last century? The
accomplished ones are Chatterton’s,—of course I mean
earlier than Blake or Coleridge, and without reckoning so
exceptional a genius as Burns.... You will find Smart’s poem
a masterpiece of rich imagery, exhaustive resources, and
reverberant sound. It is to be met with in Gilfillan’s
Specimens of the Less-Read British Poets (3 vols. Nichol,
Edin., 1860)....
I remember your mentioning Gilfillan as having encouraged
your first efforts. He was powerful, though sometimes rather
“tall” as a writer, generally most just as a critic, and
lastly, a much better man, intellectually and morally, than
Aytoun, who tried to “do for” him. His notice of Swift, in
the volume in question, has very great force and eloquence.
His whole edition of the British Poets is the best of any
to read, being such fine type and convenient bulk and weight
(a great thing for an arm-chair reader). Unfortunately, he
now and then (in the Less-Read Poets) cuts down the
extracts almost to nothing, and in some cases excises
objectionabilities, which is unpardonable. Much better leave
the whole out. Also, the edition includes the usual array of
nobodies—Addison, Akenside, and the whole alphabet down to
Zany and Zero; whereas a great many of the less-read would
have been much-read by every worthy reader if they had only
been printed in full. So well printed an edition of Donne
(for instance) would have been a great boon; but from him
Gilfillan only gives (among the less-read) the admirable
Progress of the Soul and some of the pregnant Holy
Sonnets. Do you know Donne? There is hardly an English poet
better worth a thorough knowledge, in spite of his provoking
conceits and occasional jagged jargon.
The following paragraph on Whitehead is valuable:
Charles Whitehead’s principal poem is The Solitary, which
in its day had admirers. It perhaps most recalls Goldsmith.
He also wrote a supernatural poem called Ippolito. There
was a volume of his poems published about 1848, or perhaps a
little later, by Bentley. It is disappointing, on the whole,
from the decided superiority of its best points to the
rest.... But the novel of Richard Savage is very
remarkable,—a real character really worked out.