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I have just finished the water-colour of Johnson, and have nearly finished the large head which I have made into Fair Rosamond,' and have been doing some cartoons for glass, for the shop." [This was the name Rossetti and the other sleeping partners constantly applied to the firm Morris and Company.]

"P.S.-My wife is about the same and has not got into the country again yet, I'm sorry to say, as she's had to sit to me a good deal. I hope you have good news of Mrs. Gilchrist and the little ones. out whether Munro is one of us' yet. I saw him, he told me his intended had and I don't know whether this may have put off the wedding, but hear no further news.

I can't make The last time been very ill,

"Both Wells and Boyce have told me to thank you most warmly for your excellent notice of Mrs. Wells, which also gave me the greatest pleasure."

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Mrs. Wells-wife of the Academician, and sister of G. P. Boyce was a gifted designer, who died in 1861. Talking of the Life of Blake,' Gabtiel Rossetti says:-"I am glad you approve of my rather unceremonious shaking up of Blake's rhymes [the editing of Blake's poems, i.e., the correction of Blake's grammar]. I really believe that is what ought to be done-perhaps with a word of general explanation.

"I would like much to show you my picture finished, as it will not be fit to see till then-great alterations going on to the last.

"On the tenth I send it to the architects, Pritchard and Seddon, 6, Whitehall, and I should think they would have it on view there for a day or two, before

GEORGE MEREDITH.

setting it up at Llandaff.

again here before the tenth."

95

But perhaps I will see you

The following is the last letter that Alexander Gilchrist perused from his friend, and is endorsed by the former 19 November, 1861.

"Tuesday evening.

MY DEAR GILCHRIST: Two or three [friends] are coming here on Friday evening at eight or so-George Meredith I hope for one. Can you look in? I hope so-nothing but oysters, and of course the seediest of clothes.

"I trust your family anxieties are less every day now, and that your poor little Beatrice is more and more herself again.

"I have been reading with great pleasure (and corresponding impatience to go on) the two first sheets of Blake, which I return herewith.

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"I thought " was more meteoric even than usual the other night-a point on which some light was eventually thrown by the geometrical curves which he described from time to time on the pavement as we walked home. With kind remembrances to Mrs. Gilchrist, I am yours sincerely

D. G. ROSSETTI."

CHAPTER X.

LAST YEAR OF LIFE AT GREAT

CHEYNE ROW.

1861. AGE 33.

HE "Life of Blake" was nearing completion,

THE

the Memoir practically finished; though still a good deal to do as to arrangement and editing of poems. "Many were the projects to be realised after the Blake. For a life of Wordsworth Alexander had already begun to make preparation and lighter enterprises were to come in between whiles. Countess D'Aulnois, whose sprightly genius has been a good fairy of the nursery for a couple of hundred years, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Sir Kenelm Digby, old Howell (first and most respectable of book-makers)-of these, and many another, it was my husband's cherished hope to revive the faded and forgotten lineaments: to create a small gallery of portraits in which the lover of literature should linger with as curious an interest as does the antiquary amid the relics of the external life of the past. But it was not to be. Life was opening out fair prospects around; the steepest pitch of the hill was climbed; men of rare genius, among them the poet

H

artist, Dante Gabriel and his brother William Michael Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, and others, were stretching out to him the hand of friendship."

"

:

"In the autumn of 1861 our eldest girl, Beatrice, took scarlet fever of a malignant type. Jane Carlyle writes to her neighbour 25th of October, 1861:"MY DEAR: I am very sorry for your anxietybut, it is the price one has to pay for the joy of such nice children!-Mr. Gilchrist said you were always in Beatrice's room.-If you ever come down stairs, and have time, I should like to see you-I believe I have had the scarlet fever. I don't forget that I owe you the price of the first detachment of brown flour-and will pay it with transport when you tell me what it is-Also I would like to have half a sack of white from the same man-if he would send the quantity. Would he? I got some of the German flour I told you of and it is surpassingly beautiful but Mr. Carlyle can't endure to eat it!—it is so tasteless he says. Perhaps he is right; and the flour like women and Birds and many other things can't be pre-eminently beautiful and pre-eminently anything else at the same time.

"Would you write the address on the envelope and the order on the paper? What a nuisance I am to you.

"Do you want any books? Mr. Carlyle stupidly forgot again about All the Year Round and sent it off the day after it came-but I have scolded him and he will mind next day-J. W. C."

The dark thunder-clouds were gathering around the family, rather than dispersing.

"MY DEAR MRS. GILCHRIST: I am most sincerely

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