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handwriting the other day. . . . One of these days I shall be getting what I have not yet had—the sort of illness that makes a frontier line in one's life between youth and good health, and middle-age and invaliding. I shall then sympathize with you more feelingly, but scarcely more genuinely.

"You will or would at a less inopportune time-be pleased to hear that I have lately hunted up some rather curious papers about Shelley at the Record Office-containing an early poem hitherto quite unknown, The Devil's Walk,' a manifesto practically not less unknown, the Declaration of Rights,' and some correspondence thereanent. I think too the papers furnish a suggestion of considerable weight, in explanation of that mysterious attempted assassination at Tanyrallt which has been so much debated by Shelley writers, and often to the casting of a slur upon Shelley himself.

"I shall see about publishing the whole in the Fortnightly, with some remarks of my own.

"France is indeed in a horrible condition, but I think one may and must now say not in a disgraced condition, which is a great consolation to myself and others who love a Republic.

"La République has applied herself patriotically and energetically and daringly to retrieving, if possible, the disasters and shame inherited from the Empire -and not altogether unsuccessfully either; she has made a great fight-an astonishing fight under the circumstances, it seems to me: will apparently be still beaten out and out, but will be entitled to show her horrid wounds and rents with lofty self-respect. And

P

who knows even yet? Great men were living before Agamemnon, and great conquerors have had to turn tail prior to King William of Prussia:—not that I believe this augury. I was sorry to see Carlyle's German pæan : doubtless it has its large share of truth; but I think Prussia is quite lucky enough now without being hurraed, and France quite unfortunate enough to be spared taunt and insult. If it turned out that Carlyle made here as miserable a practical mistake as in the American affair, I confess I should exult."

And replying on the fourteenth of September, 1870, from Colne, Anne Gilchrist says:

"Thanks, dear friend, the letter does give me great pleasure; so did your last long one in answer

to mine.

"I have been laid by with a serious illness since I wrote that; a month on Saturday since I took to my bed, and no prospect of leaving it at present. The doctor says it is exhaustion of the nervous energy falling on the heart and on the digestion. Have looked death very close in the face-and the action of the heart is still so weak that I lie many days by the hour together unable to move or speak-struggling for life as it were. the doctor says I shall pull through with patience and caution, but be good for nothing for some months, and I think so too."

But

Though still very ill, she followed the tragedy of this horrible war :

My dear Mr. Rossetti: You say just what I wanted to hear said for the French. I glanced at Carlyle's letter (I could not, and still cannot read any

thing continuously) and thought it ungenerous and illtimed. That serves you right' style to either a man or a nation in misfortune is intolerable because fundamentally unjust.

"I feel pretty sure that I have a copy of the Devil's Walk' at Shottermill-a queer-looking, badly-printed, badly-bound little book it is, with no author's name on the title-page. If it is the Devil's Walk' in question, and you would care to possess a copy, I will send it to you as soon as I have an opportunity of getting it."

Anne Gilchrist at length rallied from her prostrating illness. In the spring of seventy-one she wrote from London:

"Dear Mr. Rossetti: You will wonder to see my handwriting so soon, but the truth is, yesterday evening my conscience smote me for having spoken depreciatingly of ; and as I really had unusual opportunities for obtaining insight into her character let me atone, and do her and myself (for what is more odious than ungenerous depreciation ?) justice.

"Underneath that soft, languid manner there lurks a clear-headed, acute, energetic, strong-willed character. She devotes herself with the most unwearied zeal (spite of fragile health) to realizing in her husband's home her ideal of what a think her ideal a

home should be. home should be. And though I factitious, miserably delusive one (fanatical believer that I am in a tranquil, sequestered mode of life, with much solitude and no luxury in it), it is impossible not to admire and respect the devotedness with which she pursues her aim. She really goes

through an amount of hard work and nervous strain incredible to any one who has only seen her in society: and I believe that languid, invalid manner is a wise and necessary precaution against the nervous exhaustion that would certainly ensue if she put much briskness and animation into that perpetual 'playing the agreeable' to the streams of guests that flow through their hospitable home from one year's end to another; in addition to her other labours. For she it is who writes almost all letters for him, manages all business matters, saves him everywhere from all fatigue and worry, besides what goes to managing a large establishment and providing for the luxurious entertainment of that tormenting stream of admirers and fashionables.

"But no one can see 's profoundly ennuyé air and utter lack of the power of enjoyment without realizing what a mistake it all is. Mrs. watching him with anxious, affectionate solicitude, endeavours to find a remedy in the very things that cause it-surrounds him ever closer and closer with the sultry, perfumed atmosphere of luxury and homage in which his great soul and indeed any soul would-droops and sickens. But there does not breathe a more devoted or a sweeter tempered wife, I am persuaded. . . .

"

William Michael Rossetti replies :

"My dear Mrs. Gilchrist: Your letter to rectify any impression derogatory to — is an evidence of your tender conscience, and I am on all accounts obliged to you for it. for it. At the same time I do not think you said viva voce anything beyond what still appears to be the fact that she attaches to position and appearances a

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certain value beyond what you do: and I can most cordially say that in this matter I agree with you, and not with her. The phrase "High thinking and plain living" has been rather run to death of late years; but it is a true and high ideal wherein I humbly acquiescein opinion, and, I would fain wish, not in opinion only."