gets up so early too! [An old soldier acting as caretaker at number six.

My kind love to your wife when you see her or write to her I miss her dreadfully.

"I went to see Fechter the other night and found myself between Lewes and Miss Evans!-by Destiny and not by my own Deserving. At least Destiny in the shape of Frederick Chapman who arranged the thing. Poor soul! there never was a more absurd miscalculation than her constituting herself an improper woman. She looks Propriety personified! Oh so slow! Yours very truly,

JANE CARLYLE."

A

CHAPTER IX.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

[1861. AGE 33.]

LEXANDER GILCHRIST met D. G. Rossetti in the spring of 1861; correspondence began over the "Life of William Blake."

The poet-artist took a keen interest in the illustrations for the Life; he writes about them April 20.

"MY DEAR GILCHRIST: I have been thinking that if you are still unprovided with a satisfactory copyist (or a sufficiency of such) for the Blakes,Mrs. Edward [Burne] Jones would be very likely to succeed. This occurred to me shortly after seeing you the other day, but I did not see her till to-day, when I mentioned the matter to her. I hope I did not do wrong, but she is too intimate a friend to make it awkward for me if you and Linton cannot entertain the idea. She says she would be happy to try-is very diffident, but I believe in her capabilities fully, as she really draws heads with feeling, and could give the expression-besides, Jones would be there to give help without trouble to himself.

My great anxiety about my wife lasts still. She has

a doctor in whom I have confidence, and an excellent nurse, and we have also seen Dr. Babington, head of the Lying-in Hospital, so I feel sure all is being done for the best. She has too much courage to be in the least downcast herself; and this is one great point, nor is her strength unusually low. So we can but wait, and trust for a happy termination.

"With kind remembrances to Mrs. Gilchrist . On the second of May, D. G. Rossetti says:"Swinburne and I will be with you on Saturday. "This morning my wife was confined-Our fears were correct in one respect, as the child was still-born-In all other respects she fares as yet, thank God, better than we had ventured to hope. Still of course anxiety cannot be at an end yet.

"I will try and come to the 'Cheese' on Thursday, though perhaps rather later than six, but I dare say I should find you till nearly seven." [The "Cheshire Cheese," a well-known tavern in Wine Office Court, out of Fleet-street.]

"I believe I am going to Macmillan's afterwards and perhaps you will bear me company. I send him the book to-day, and when I see him shall add your salutary stipulation, as to a fortnight's grace for decision. Patmore has written me most encouragingly concerning opinion of the book." [The book in question was "The Early Italian Poets, from Ciullo D'Alcamo to Dante Alighieri."] "I shall lend you a copy, if you have time to look at it. Of course I mean to beg your acceptance of one as soon as it has the etchings and is otherwise completed."

WEIGALL SITS FOR BOSWELL.

My wife goes on well, and gets out daily."

89

In a letter (June 18, 1861), Gabriel Rossetti speaks of being troubled with "an ulcerated sore throat, with fever, to which I am subject. I used a remedy I have used before, and am now better. I wish I were with you to get the benefit of some sun, and should much better even like it for my wife, but we must see; she has been working very hard these few days, and made a beautiful water-colour sketch, but is none the better for it . . ."

"Smith and Elder have made me the offer of taking all expenses, but will not give a halfpenny, furnishing a calculation similar to Macmillan's, proving that the speculation would not in that way be a convenient one at all. I think I shall close with them now (though I deferred my answer), as I should only hear the same from Chapman's, and perhaps unaccompanied by so decent an offer; I see Ruskin has much influenced S. and E. in my favour. They propose, as the only way, to sell the book for 12s. in one vol., and without the etchings, if I do not think them worth making, unpaid; but I almost think I shall make them for the book's sake. What say you? Have you any suggestion?"

"P.S.-Weigall brought me (when he came to sit for my Boswell yesterday!) another plate he is doing for your book, a Job border with the America headpiece in the middle. I have asked him for the future to let me see his first drawing."

In a long letter, describing his late friend Woodward, Rossetti speaks of a visit to Oxford with the architect: -"Going there one day in his company to see the

progress of the Museum, in 1857, at the outset of the long vacation, I was greatly struck with the beauty of the building he showed me, one on which he was then engaged the new debating room of the Union Debating Club. Thinking of it only as his beautiful work, and without taking into consideration the purpose it was intended for, (indeed hardly knowing of the latter) I offered to paint figures of some kind on the blank spaces of one of the gallery window bays; and another friend who was with us, William Morris, offered to do the same for a second bay. Woodward was greatly delighted with the idea, as his principle was that of the mediæval builders, to avail himself in any building of as much decoration as circumstances permitted at the time, and not prefer uniform bareness to partial beauty. He had never before had a decided opportunity of introducing picture work in a building, and grasped at the idea.

"In the course of that long vacation, six other friends of ours-Edward Burne Jones, Arthur Hughes, V. C. Prinsep, John Pollen (the painter of the lovely roof of Merton Chapel), R. S. Stanhope, and Alexander Munro, joined in the project, which was a labour of love on all our parts-the expenses of materials alone being defrayed from the building fund. Each of the five painters took one window-bay, and the sculptor the stone shield above the porch, and the work proceeded merrily in concert for several months.

"The subject taken for illustration throughout was the ancient romance of the Morte d'Arthur, and the pictures were painted on a large scale in distemper. The roof was also covered with a vast pattern-work of grotesque