CHAPTER VIII.
It was characteristic of Rossetti that he addressed me in the following terms probably before I had left his house: for the letter was, no doubt, written in that interval of sleeplessness which he had spoken of as his nightly visitant:
I forgot to say—Don’t, please, spread details as to story of Rose Mary. I don’t want it to be stale or to get forestalled in the travelling of report from mouth to mouth. I hope it won’t be too long before you visit town again,—I will not for an instant question that you would then visit me also.
Six months or more intervened, however, before I was able to visit Rossetti again. In the meantime we corresponded as fully as before: the subject upon which we most frequently exchanged opinions being now the sonnet.
Milton’s, Keats’s, and Coleridge’s sonnets. The last, it is
true, was always poor as a sonnetteer (I don’t see much in
the Autumnal Moon). My own only exception to this verdict
(much as I adore Coleridge’s genius) would be the ludicrous
sonnet on The House that Jack built, which is a
masterpiece in its way. I should not myself number the one
you mention of Keats’s among his best half-dozen (many of
his are mere drafts, strange to say); and cannot at all
enter into your verdict on those of Milton, which seem to me
to be every one of exceptional excellence, though a few are
even finer than the rest, notably, of course, the one you
name. Pardon an egotistic sentence (in answer to what you
say so generously of Lost Days), if I express an opinion
that Known in Vain and Still-born Love may perhaps be
said to head the series in value, though Lost Days might
be equally a favourite with me if I did not remember in what
but too opportune juncture it was wrung out of me. I have a
good number of sonnets for The House of Life still in MS.,
which I have worked on with my best effort, and, I think,
will fully sustain their place. These and other things I
should like to show you whenever we meet again. The MS. vol.
I proposed to send is merely an old set of (chiefly)
trifles, about which I should like an opinion as to whether
any should be included in the future.
I had spoken of Keats’s sonnet beginning
with its exquisite last lines—
That falls through the clear ether silently,
reminding one of a less spiritual figure—
Down a golden stair.
After his bantering me, as of old he had done, on the use of long and crabbed words, I hinted that he was in honour bound to agree at least with my disparaging judgment upon Tetrachordon, if only because of the use of words that would “have made Quintillian stare.”
I further instanced—
“Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,”
as examples of Milton at his weakest as a sonnet-writer. He replied:
Milton’s sonnets. I think the one on Tetrachordon a very
vigorous affair indeed. The one to Mr. H. Lawes I am half
disposed to give you, but not altogether—its close is
sweet. As to Lawrence, it is curious that my sister was
only the other day expressing to me a special relish for
this sonnet, and I do think it very fresh and wholesomely
relishing myself. It is an awful fact that sun, moon, or
candlelight once looked down on the human portent of Dr.
Johnson and Mrs. Hannah More convened in solemn conclave
above the outspread sonnets of Milton, with a meritorious
and considerate resolve of finding out for him “why they
were so bad.” This is so stupendous a warning, that perhaps
it may even incline one to find some of them better than
they are.
Coming to Coleridge, I must confess at once that I never
meet in any collection with the sonnet on Schiller’s
Robbers without heading it at once with the words
“unconscionably bad.” The habit has been a life-long one.
That you mention beginning—“Sweet mercy,” etc., I have
looked for in the only Coleridge I have by me (my brother’s
cheap edition, for all the faults of which he is not at
all answerable), and do not find it there, nor have I it in
mind.
To pass to Keats. The ed. of 1868 contains no sonnet on the
Elgin Marbles. Is it in a later edition? Of course that on
Chapman’s Homer is supreme. It ought to be preceded {*} in
all editions by the one To Homer,
“Standing aloof in giant ignorance,” etc.
which contains perhaps the greatest single line in Keats:
“There is a budding morrow in midnight.”
* I pointed out that it was written later than the one on
Chapman’s Homer (notwithstanding its first line) and
therefore should follow after it, not go before.
Other special favourites with me are—“Why did I laugh to-
night?”—” As Hermes once,”—“Time’s sea hath been,” and
the one On the Flower and, Leaf.
It is odd that several of these best ones seem to have been
early work, and rejected by Keats in his lifetime, while
some of those he printed are absolutely sorry drafts.
I had admired Coleridge’s sonnet on Schiller’s Robbers for
the perhaps minor excellence of bringing vividly before the
mind the scenes it describes. If the sonnet is
unconscionably bad so perhaps is the play, the beautiful
scene of the setting sun notwithstanding. Eventually,
however, I abandoned my belligerent position as to Milton’s
sonnets: the army of authorities I found ranged against the
modest earth-works within which I had entrenched myself must
of itself have made me quail. My utmost contention had been
that Milton wrote the most impassioned sonnet (Avenge, O
Lord), the two most nobly pathetic sonnets (When I
consider and Methought I saw), and one of the poorest
sonnets (Harry, whose tuneful, etc.) in English poetry.
At this time (September 1880) Mr. J. Ashcroft Noble
published an essay on The Sonnet in England in The
Contemporary Review, and relating thereto Rossetti wrote:
I have just been reading Mr. Noble’s article on the sonnet.
As regards my own share in it, I can only say that it greets
me with a gratifying ray of generous recognition. It is all
the more pleasant to me as finding a place in the very
Review which years ago opened its pages to a pseudonymous
attack on my poems and on myself. I see a passage in the
article which seems meant to indicate the want of such a
work on the sonnet as you are wishing to supply. I only
trust that you may do so, and that Mr. Noble may find a
field for continued poetic criticism. I am very proud to
think that, after my small and solitary book has been a good
many years published and several years out of print, it yet
meets with such ardent upholding by young and sincere men.
With the verdicts given throughout the article, I generally
sympathise, but not with the unqualified homage to
Wordsworth. A reticence almost invariably present is fatal
in my eyes to the highest pretensions on behalf of his
sonnets. Reticence is but a poor sort of muse, nor is
tentativeness (so often to be traced in his work) a good
accompaniment in music. Take the sonnet on Toussaint
L’Ouverture (in my opinion his noblest, and very noble
indeed) and study (from Main’s note) the lame and fumbling
changes made in various editions of the early lines, which
remain lame in the end. Far worse than this, study the
relation of the closing lines of his famous sonnet The
World is too much with us, etc., to a passage in Spenser,
and say whether plagiarism was ever more impudent or
manifest (again I derive from Main’s excellent exposition of
the point), and then consider whether a bard was likely to
do this once and yet not to do it often. Primary vital
impulse was surely not fully developed in his muse.
I will venture to say that I wish my sister’s sonnet work
had met with what I consider the justice due to it. Besides
the unsurpassed quality (in my opinion) of her best sonnets,
my sister has proved her poetic importance by solid and
noble inventive work of many kinds, which I should be proud
indeed to reckon among my life’s claims.
I have a great weakness myself for many of Tennyson-Turner’s
sonnets, though of course what Mr. Noble says of them is in
the main true, and he has certainly quoted the very finest
one, which has a more fervent appeal for me than I could
easily derive from Wordsworth in almost any case.
Will you give my thanks to Mr. Noble for his frank and
outspoken praise?
Let me hear of your doings and intentions.
Ever sincerely yours.
Three names notably omitted in the article are those of Dobell, W. B. Scott, and Swinburne.
The allusion in the foregoing letter to the work on the Sonnet which I was aiming to supply, bears reference to the anthology subsequently published under the title of Sonnets of Three Centuries. My first idea was simply to write a survey of the art and history of the sonnet, printing only such examples as might be embraced by my critical comments. Rossetti’s generous sympathy was warmly engaged in this enterprise.
your editing a sonnet book You would have my best
cooperation as to suggesting examples, but I certainly think
that English sonnets (original and exceptionally translated
ones, the latter only perhaps) should be the sole scheme.
Curiously enough, some one wrote me the other day as to a
projected series of living sonneteers (other collections
being only of those preceding our time). I have half
committed myself to contributing, but not altogether as yet.
The name of the projector, S. Waddington, is new to me, and
I don’t know who is to publish.... Really you ought to do
the sonnet-book you aspire to do. I know but of one London
critic (Theodore Watts) whom I should consider the leading
man for such a purpose, and I have tried to incite him to it
so often that I know now he won’t do it; but I have always
meant a complete series in which the dead poets must, of
course, predominate. As to a series of the living only, I
told you of a Mr. Waddington who seems engaged on such a
supplementary scheme. What his gifts for it may be I know
not, but I suppose he knows it is in requisition. However,
there need not be but one such if you felt your hand in for
it. His view happens to be also (as you suggest) about 160
sonnets. In reply to your query, I certainly think there
must be 20 living writers (male and female—my sister a
leader, I consider) who have written good sonnets such as
would afford an interesting and representative selection,
though assuredly not such as would all take the rank of
classics by any means. The number of sonnets now extant,
written by poets who did not exist as such a dozen years
ago, I believe to be almost infinite, and in sufficiently
numerous instances good, however derivative. One younger
poet among them, Philip Marston, has written many sonnets
which yield to few or none by any poet whatever; but he has
printed such a large number in the aggregate, and so unequal
one with the other, that the great ones are not to be found
by opening at random. “How are they (the poets) to be
approached?—” you innocently ask. Ye heavens! how does the
cat’s-meat-man approach Grimalkin?—and what is that
relation in life when compared to the rapport established
between the living bard and the fellow-creature who is
disposed to cater to his caterwauling appetite for
publicity? However, to be serious, I must at least exonerate
the bard, I am sure, from any desire to appropriate an
“interest in the proceeds.” There are some, I feel certain,
to whom the collector might say with a wink, “What are you
going to stand?”
I do not myself think that a collection of sonnets inserted at intervals in an essay is a good form for the purpose. Such a book is from one chief point a book of instantaneous reference,—it would only, perhaps, be read through once in a lifetime. For this purpose a well-indexed current series is best, with any desirable essay prefixed and notes affixed.... I once conceived of a series, to be entitled,
THE ENGLISH CASTALY: A QUINTESSENCE: BEING A COLLECTION OF ALL THAT IS BEST IN ALL ENGLISH POETS, EXCEPTING WORKS OF GREAT LENGTH.
I still think this a good idea, but, of course, it would be an extensive undertaking.
Later on, he wrote:
this?
A SONNET SEQUENCE FROM ELDER TO MODERN WORK, WITH FIFTY HITHERTO UNPRINTED SONNETS BY LIVING WRITERS.
title A Sonnet Sequence, as otherwise I might use it in
the House of Life.... What do you think of this
alternative title:
THE ENGLISH SONNET MUSE FROM ELIZABETH’S REIGN TO VICTORIA’S.
shouldn’t like the book to be called simply still I have a
great prejudice against very florid titles for such
gatherings. Treasury has been sadly run upon.
I did not like Sonnet Sequence for such a collection, and relinquished the title; moreover, I had had from the first a clearly defined scheme in mind, carrying its own inevitable title, which was in due course adopted. I may here remark that I never resisted any idea of Rossetti’s at the moment of its inception, since resistance only led to a temporary outburst of self-assertion on his part. He was a man of so much impulse,—impulse often as violent as lawless—that to oppose him merely provoked anger to no good purpose, for as often as not the position at first adopted with so much pertinacity was afterwards silently abandoned, and your own aims quietly acquiesced in. On this subject of a title he wrote a further letter, which is interesting from more than one point of view:
Children’s Garland. I think
ENGLISH SONNET’S PRESENT AND PAST, WITH—ETC.,
or of the P. and P., to New and Old for your purpose;
but I own I am partly influenced by the fact that I have
settled to call my own vol. Poems New and Old, and don’t
want it to get staled; but I really do think the other at
least as good for your purpose—perhaps more dignified.
Again, in reply to a proposal of my own, he wrote:
title. I must say a mass of Wordsworth over again, like
Main’s, is a little disheartening,—still the best selection from him is what one wants. There is some book
called A Century of Sonnets, but this, I suppose, would
not matter....
I think sometimes of your sonnet-book, and have formed
certain views. I really would not in your place include old
work at all: it would be but a scanty gathering, and I feel
certain that what is really in requisition is a supplement
to Main, containing living writers (printed and un-printed)
put together under their authors’ names (not separately) and
rare gleanings from those more recently dead.
I fear I did not attach importance to this decision, for I now knew my correspondent too well to rely upon his being entirely in the same mind for long. Hence I was not surprised to receive the following a day or two later:
book, and find his views to be somewhat different from what
I had expressed, and I may add I think now he is right. He
says there should be a very careful selection of the elder
sonnets and of everything up to present century. I think he
is right.
The fact is, that almost from the first I had taken a view similar to Mr. Watts’s as to the design of my book, and had determined to call the anthology by the title it now bears. On one occasion, however, I acted rather without judgment in sending Rossetti a synopsis of certain critical tests formulated by Mr. Watts in a letter of great power and value.
In the letter in question Mr. Watts seemed to be setting himself to confute some extremely ill-considered remarks made in a certain quarter upon the structure of the sonnet, where (following Macaulay) the critic says that there exists no good reason for requiring that even the conventional limit as to length should be observed, and that the only use in art of the legitimate model is to “supply a poet with something to do when his invention fails.” I confess to having felt no little amazement that one so devoid of a perception of the true function of the sonnet should have been considered a proper person to introduce a great sonnet-writer; and Mr. Watts (who, however, made no mention of the writer) clearly demonstrated that the true sonnet has the foundation of its structure in a fixed metrical law, and hence, that as it is impossible (as Keats found out for himself) to improve upon the accepted form, that model—known as the Petrarchian—should, with little or no variation, be worked upon. Rossetti took fire, however, from a mistaken notion that Mr. Watts’s canons, as given in the letter in question, and merely reported by me, were much more inflexible than they really proved.
contained such rigid rules as to rhyme, as are contained in
Watts’s letter. I neither follow them, nor agree with them
as regards the English language. Every sonnet-writer should
show full capability of conforming to them in many
instances, but never to deviate from them in English must
pinion both thought and diction, and, (mastery once proved)
a series gains rather than loses by such varieties as do not
lessen the only absolute aim—that of beauty. The English
sonnet too much tampered with becomes a sort of bastard
madrigal. Too much, invariably restricted, it degenerates
into a Shibboleth.
Dante’s sonnets (in reply to your question—not as part of
the above point) vary in arrangement. I never for a moment
thought of following in my book the rhymes of each
individual sonnet.
If sonnets of mine remain admissible, I should prefer
printing the two On Cassandra to The Monochord and Wine
of Circe.
I would not be too anxious, were I you, about anything in
choice of sonnets except the brains and the music.
Again he wrote:
me as to advisable variation of form in preference to
transmuting valuable thought. It would not be afc all found
that my best sonnets are always in the mere form which I
think the best. The question with me is regulated by what I
have to say. But in truth, if I have a distinction as a
sonnet-writer, it is that I never admit a sonnet which is
not fully on the level of every other.... Again, as to this
blessed question, though no one ever took more pleasure in
continually using the form I prefer when not interfering
with thought, to insist on it would after a certain point be
ruin to common sense.
As to what you say of The One Hope—it is fully equal to
the very best of my sonnets, or I should not have wound up
the series with it. But the fact is, what is peculiar
chiefly in the series is, that scarcely one is worse than
any other. You have much too great a habit of speaking of a
special octave, sestette, or line. Conception, my boy,
fundamental brainwork, that is what makes the difference
in all art. Work your metal as much as you like, but first
take care that it is gold and worth working. A Shakspearean
sonnet is better than the most perfect in form, because
Shakspeare wrote it.
As for Drayton, of course his one incomparable sonnet is the
Love-Parting. That is almost the best in the language, if
not quite. I think I have now answered queries, and it is
late. Good-night!
Rossetti had somewhat mistaken the scope of the letter referred to, and when he came to know exactly what was intended, I found him in warm agreement with the views therein taken. I have said at an earlier stage that Rossetti’s instinct for what was good in poetry was unfailing, whatever the value of his opinions on critical principles, and hence I felt naturally anxious to have the benefit of his views on certain of the elder writers. He said:
Donne’s are remarkable—no doubt you glean some. None of
Shakspeare’s is more indispensable than the wondrous one on
Last (129). Hartley Coleridge’s finest is
“If I have sinned in act, I may repent.”
There is a fine one by Isaac Williams, evidently on the
death of a worldly man, and he wrote other good ones. To
return to the old, I think Stillingfleet’s To Williamson very fine....
I would like to send you a list of my special favourites
among Shakspeare’s sonnets—viz.:—
15, 27, 29, 30, 36, 44, 45, 49, 50, 52, 55, 56, 59, 61, 62,
64, 65, 66, 68, 71, 73, 76, 77, 90, 93, 94, 97, 98, 99, 102,
107, 110, 116, 117, 119, 120, 123, 129, 135, 136, 138, 144,
145.
I made the selection long ago, and of course love them in
varying degrees.
There should be an essential reform in the printing of
Shakspeare’s sonnets. After sonnet 125 should occur the
words End of Part I. The couplet-piece, numbered 126,
should be called Epilogue to Part I.. Then, before 127,
should be printed Part II. After 152, should be put End of
Part II.—and the two last sonnets should be called Epilogue
to Part II. About these two last I have a theory of my own.
Did you ever see the excellent remarks on these sonnets in
my brother’s Lives of Famous Poets? I think a simple point
he mentions (for first time) fixes Pembroke clearly as the
male friend. I am glad you like his own two fine sonnets. I
wish he would write more such. By the bye, you speak with
great scorn of the closing couplet in sonnets. I do not
certainly think that form the finest, but I do think this
and every variety desirable in a series, and have often used
it myself. I like your letters on sonnets; write on all
points in question. The two last of Shakspeare’s sonnets
seem to me to have a very probable (and rather elaborate)
meaning never yet attributed to them. Some day, when I see
you, we will talk it over. Did you ever see a curious book
by one Brown (I don’t mean Armitage Brown) on Shakspeare’s
sonnets? By the bye, he is not the source of my notion as
above, but a matter of fact he names helps in it. I never
saw Massey’s book on the subject, but fancy his views and
Brown’s are somewhat allied. You should look at what my
brother says, which is very concise and valuable. I hope I
am not omitting to answer you in any essential point, but my
writing-table is a chaos into which your last letters have,
for the moment, sunk beyond recovery.
I consider the foregoing, perhaps, the most valuable of
Rossetti’s letters to me. I cannot remember that we ever
afterwards talked over the two last sonnets of Shakspeare;
if we did so, the meaning attached to them by him did not
fix itself very definitely upon my memory.
In explanation of my alleged dislike of the closing couplet,
I may say that a rhymed couplet at the close of a sonnet has
an effect upon my ear similar to that produced by the
couplets at the ends of some of the acts of Shakspeare’s
plays, which were in many instances interpolated by the
actors to enable them to make emphatic exits.
I must now group together a number of short notes on
sonnets:
I think Blanco White’s sonnet difficult to overrate in
thought—probably in this respect unsurpassable, but easy
to overrate as regards its workmanship. Of course there is
the one fatally disenchanting line:
While fly and leaf and insect stood revealed.
The poverty of vision which could not see at a glance that
fly and insect were one and the same, is, as you say, enough
to account for its being the writer’s only sonnet (there is
one more however which I don’t know).
I’ll copy you overpage a sonnet which I consider a very fine
one, but which may be said to be quite unknown. It is by
Charles Whitehead, who wrote the very admirable and
exceptional novel of Richard Savage, published somewhere
about 1840.
Even as yon lamp within my vacant room
With arduous flame disputes the doubtful night,
And can with its involuntary light
But lifeless things that near it stand illume;
Yet all the while it doth itself consume,
And ere the sun hath reached his morning height
With courier beams that greet the shepherd’s sight,
There where its life arose must be its tomb:—
So wastes my life away, perforce confined
To common things, a limit to its sphere,
It gleams on worthless trifles undesign’d,
With fainter ray each hour imprison’d here.
Alas to know that the consuming mind
Must leave its lamp cold ere the sun appear!
I am sure you will agree with me in admiring that. I quote
from memory, and am not sure that I have given line 6 quite
correctly....
I have just had Blanco White’s only other sonnet (On being
called an Old Man at 50) copied out for you. I do certainly
think it ought to go in, though no better than so-so, as you
say. But it is just about as good as the former one, but for
the leading and splendid thought in the latter. Both are but
proseman’s diction.
There is a sonnet of Chas. Wells’s On Chaucer which is not
worthy of its writer, but still you should have it. It
occurs among some prefatory tributes in Chaucer
Modernised, edited by E. H. Home. I don’t know how you are
to get a copy, but the book is in the British Museum Reading
Room. The sonnet is signed C. W. only.
The sonnet by Wells seemed to me in every respect poor, and
as it was no part of my purpose (as an admirer of Wells) to
advertise what the poet could not do, I determined—against
Rossetti’s judgment—not to print the sonnet.
You certainly, in my opinion, ought to print Wells’s sonnet.
Certainly nothing so disjointed ever gave itself the name
before, but it ought to be available for reference, and I do
not agree with you in considering it weak in any sense
except that of structure.
There is a sonnet by Ebenezer Jones, beginning “I never
wholly feel that summer is high,” which, though very jagged,
has decided merit to warrant its insertion.
As for Tennyson, he seems to have given leave for a sonnet
to appear in Main’s book. Why not in yours? But I have long
ceased to know him, nor is any friend of mine in
communication with him.... My brother has written in his
time a few sonnets. Two of them I think very fine—
especially the one called Shelley’s Heart, which he has
lately worked upon again with immense advantage.... You do
not tell me from whom you have received sonnets. The reason
which prevents my coming forward, in such a difficulty, with
a new sonnet of my own, is this:—which indeed you have
probably surmised: I know nothing would gratify malevolence,
after the controversy which ensued on your lecture, more
than to be able to assert, however falsely, that we had been
working in concert all along, that you were known to me from
the first, and that your advocacy had no real
spontaneity.... When you first entered on the subject, and
wrote your lecture, you were a perfect stranger to me, and
that fact greatly enhanced my pleasure in its enthusiastic
tone. I hope sincerely that we may have further and close
opportunities of intercourse, but should like whatever you
may write of me to come from the old source of intellectual
affinity only. That you should think the subject worthy of
further labour is a pleasure to me, but I only trust it may
not be a disadvantage to your book in unfriendly eyes,
particularly if that view happened to be the proposed
publisher’s, in which case I should much prefer that this
section of your work were withdrawn for a more propitious
occasion.... I am very glad Brown is furthering your sonnet-
book—he knows so many bards. Of course if I were you, I
should keep an eye on the mouths even of gift-horses; but
were a creditable stud to be trotted out, of course I should
be willing; as were I one among many, the objection I noted
would not exist. I do not mean for a moment to say that many
very fine sonnets might not be obtained from poets not yet
known or not widely known; but known names would be the
things to parry the difficulty.
Later he wrote:
so without fear of the consequences hinted at in a former
letter as likely to ensue, so I now enclose a sonnet of my
own. If you are out in March 1881, you may be before my new
edition, but I am getting my stock together. Not a word of
this however, as it mustn’t get into gossip paragraphs at
present. The House of Life is now a hundred sonnets—all
lyrics being removed. Besides this series, I have forty-five
sonnets extra. I think, as you are willing, I shall use the
title I sent you—A Sonnet Sequence. I fancy the
alternative title would be briefer and therefore better as
OUR SONNET-MUSE PROM ELIZABETH TO VICTORIA
I could not be much concerned about the unwillingness to give me a new sonnet which Rossetti at first exhibited, for I knew full well that sooner or later the sonnet would come. Not that I recognised in him the faintest scintillation of the affectation so common among authors as to the publication of work. But the fear of any appearance of collusion between himself and his critics was, as he said, a bugbear that constantly haunted him. Owing to this, a stranger often stood a better chance of securing his ready and open co-operation than the most intimate of friends. I frequently yielded to his desire that in anything that I might write his name should not be mentioned—too frequently by far, to my infinite vexation at the time, and now to my deep and ineradicable regret. The sonnet-book out of which arose much of the correspondence printed in this chapter, contains in its preface and notes hardly an allusion to him, and yet he was, in my judgment, out of all reach and sight, the greatest sonnet-writer of his time. The sonnet first sent was Pride of Youth, but as this formed part of The House of Life series, it was withdrawn, and Raleigh’s Cell in the Tower was substituted The following hitherto unpublished sonnet was also contributed but withdrawn at the last moment, because of its being out of harmony with the sonnets selected to accompany it:
O ruff-embastioned vast Elizabeth,
Bush to these bushel-bellied casks of wine,
Home-growth, ‘tis true, but rank as turpentine,—
What would we with such skittle-plays at death %
Say, must we watch these brawlers’ brandished lathe,
Or to their reeking wit our ears incline,
Because all Castaly flowed crystalline
In gentle Shakspeare’s modulated breath!
What! must our drama with the rat-pit vie,
Nor the scene close while one is left to kill!
Shall this be poetry % And thou—thou—man
Of blood, thou cannibalic Caliban,
What shall be said to thee?—a poet?—Fie!
“An honourable murderer, if you will”
I mentioned to you [he says] William Davies, author of
Songs of a Wayfarer (by the bye, another man has since
adopted his title). He has many excellent sonnets, and is a
valued friend of mine. I shall send you, on his behalf, a
copy of the book for selection of what you may please.... It
is very unequal, but the best truly excellent. The sonnets
are numerous, and some good, though the best work in the
book is not among them. There are two poems—The Garden,
and another called, I think, On a dried-up Spring, which
are worthy of the most fastidious collections. Many of the
poems are unnamed, and the whole has too much of a Herrick
air. . . .
It is quite refreshing to find you so pleased with my good
friend Davies’s book, and I wish he were in London, as I
would have shown him what you say, which I know would have
given him pleasure. He is a man who suffers much from moods
of depression, in spite of his philosophic nature. I have
marked fifty pieces of different kinds throughout his book,
and of these twenty-nine are sonnets. Had those fifty been
alone printed, Davies would now be remembered and not
forgotten: but all poets now-a-days are redundant except
Tennyson. ...
I am this evening writing to Davies, who is in Rome, and
could not resist enclosing what you say, with so much
experimental appreciativeness of his book, and of his
intention to fill it with moral sunshine. I am sure he ‘ll
send a new sonnet if he has one, but I fancy his bardic day
is over. I should think he was probably not subject to
melancholy when he wrote the Wayfarer. However, he tells
me that his spirits have improved in Italy. One other little
book of Herrickian verse he has written, called The
Shepherd!s Garden, but there are no sonnets in it. Besides
this, he published a volume containing a record of travel of
a very interesting kind, and called The Pilgrimage of the
Tiber. This is well known. It is illustrated, many of the
drawings being by himself, for he is quite as much painter
as poet. He also wrote in The Quarterly Review an article
on the sonnet (I should think about 1870 or so), and, a
little later, one which raised great wrath, on the English
School of Painting. These I have not seen. He “lacks
advancement,” however; having fertile powers and little
opportunity, and being none the luckier (I think) for a
small independence which keeps off compulsion to work,
though of willingness he has abundance in many directions.
There is an admirable but totally unknown living poet named
Dixon. I will send you two small vols, of his which he gave
me long ago, but please take good care of them, and return
them as soon as done with. I value them highly. I forgot
till to-day that he had written any sonnets, but I see there
are three in one vol. and one in another. I have marked my
two favourites. He should certainly be represented in your
book. If I live, I mean to write something about him in some
quarter when I can. His finest passages are as fine as any
living man can do. He was a canon of Carlisle Cathedral, and
at present has a living somewhere. If you wanted to ask him
for an original sonnet, you might mention my name, and
address him at Carlisle with Please forward. Of course he
is a Rev.
You will be sorry to hear that Davies has abandoned the hope
of producing a new sonnet to his own satisfaction. I have
again, however, urged him to the onslaught, and told him how
deserving you are of his efforts.
Swinburne, who is a vast admirer of my sister’s, thinks the
Advent perhaps the noblest of all her poems, and also
specially loves the Passing Away. I do not know that I
quite agree with your decided preference for the two sonnets
of hers you signalise,—the World is very fine, but the
other, Dead before Death, a little sensational for her. I
think After Death one of her noblest, and the one After
Communion. In my own view, the greatest of all her poems is
that on France after the siege—To-Day for Me. A very
splendid piece of feminine ascetic passion is The Convent
Threshold.
I have run the sonnet you like, St. Luke the Painter, into
a sequence with two more not yet printed, and given the
three a general title of Old and New Art, as well as
special titles to each. I shall annex them to The House of
Life.
Have you ever read Vaughan? He resembles Donne a good deal
as to quaintness, but with a more emotional personality.
I have altered the last line of octave in Lost Days. It
now runs—
“The undying throats of Hell, athirst alway.”
I always had it in my mind to make a change here, as the
in standing in the line in its former reading clashed with
in occurring in the previous line. I have done what I
think is a prime sonnet on the murdered Czar, which I
enclose, but don’t show it to a soul.
Theodore Watts is going to print a very fine sonnet of his
own in The Athenæum. It is the first verse he ever put in
print, though he wrote much (when a very young man). Tell me
how you like it. I think he is destined to shine in that
class of poetry.
I knew you must like Watts’s sonnets. They are splendid
affairs. I am not sure that I agree with you in liking the
first the better of the two: the second (Natura Maligna)
is perhaps the deeper and finer. I have asked Watts to give
you a new sonnet, and I think perhaps he will do so, or at
all events give you permission to use those he has printed.
He has just come into the room, and says he would like to
hear from you on the subject.
From one rather jocular sentence in your note I judge you
may include some sonnets of your own. I see no possible
reason why you should not. You are really now, at your
highest, among our best sonnet-writers, and have written two
or three sonnets that yield to few or none whatever. I am
forced, however, to request that you will not put in the one
referring to myself, from my constant bugbear of any
appearance of collusion. That sonnet is a very fine one—my
brother was showing it me again the other day. It is not my
personal gratification alone, though that is deep, because I
know you are sincere, which leads me to the conclusion that
it is your best, and very fine indeed. I think your
Cumberland sonnet admirable. The sonnet on Byron is
extremely musical in flow and the symbolic scenery of
exceptional excellence. The view taken is the question with
me. Byron’s vehement directness, at its best, is a lasting
lesson: and, dubious monument as Don Juan may be, it
towers over the century. Of course there is truth in what
you say; but ought it to be the case? and is it the case
in any absolute sense? You deal frankly with your sonnets,
and do not shrink from radical change. I think that on
Oliver much better than when I saw it before. The opening
phrases of both octave and sestette are very fine; but the
second quatrain and the second terzina, though with a
quality of beauty, both seem somewhat to lack distinctness.
The word rivers cannot be used with elision—the v is a
hard pebble in the flow, and so are the closing consonants.
You must put up with streams if you keep the line.
You should have Bailey’s dedicatory sonnet in Festus.
I am enclosing a fine sonnet by William Bell Scott, which I
wished him to let me send you for your book. It has not yet
been printed. I think I heard of some little chaffy matter
between him and you, but, doubtless, you have virtually
forgotten all about it. I must say frankly that I think the
day when you made the speech he told me of must have been
rather a wool-gathering one with you.... I suppose you know
that Scott has written a number of fine sonnets contained in
his vol of Poems published about 1875, I think.
I directed the attention of Mr. Waddington (whom, however, I
don’t know personally) to a most noble sonnet by Fanny
Kemble, beginning, “Art thou already weary of the way?” He
has put it in, and several others of hers, but she is very
unequal, and I don’t know if the others should be there, but
you should take the one in question. It sadly wants new
punctuation, being vilely printed just as I first saw it
when a boy in some twopenny edition.
In a memoir of Gilchrist, appended now by his widow to the
Life of Blake, there is a sonnet by G., perhaps
interesting enough, as being exceptional, for you to ask for
it; but I don’t advise you, if you don’t think it worth.
I have received from Mrs. Meynell, a sister of Eliz.
Thompson, the painter, a most genuine little book of poems
containing some sonnets of true spiritual beauty. I must
send it you.
This book had just then been introduced to Rossetti with
much warmth of praise by Mr. Watts, and he took to it
vastly.
This closes Rossetti’s interesting letters on sonnet literature. In reprinting his first volume of Poems he had determined to remove the sonnets of The House of Life to the new volume of Ballads and Sonnets, and fill the space with the fragment of a poem written in youth, and now called The Bride’s Prelude. He sent me a proof. The reader will remember that as a narrative fragment it is less remarkable for striking incident (though never failing of interest and picturesqueness) than for a slow and psychical development which ultimately gained a great hold of the sympathies. The poem leaves behind it a sense as of a sultry day. Judging first of its merits as a song (using the word in its broad and simple sense), the poem flows on the tongue with unbroken sweetness and with a variety of cadence and light and shade of melody which might admit of its pursuing its meanderings through five times its less than 50 pages, and still keeping one’s senses awake to the constantly recurring advent of new and pleasing literary forms. The story is a striking one, with a great wealth of highly effective incident,—notably the episode of the card-playing, and of the father striking down the sword which Raoul turns against the breast of the bride. Almost equally memorable are the scenes in which the lover appears, and the occasional interludes of incident in which, between the pauses of the narrative, the bridegroom’s retinue are heard sporting in the courtyard without.
The whole atmosphere of the poem is saturated in a medievalism of spirit to which no lapse of modernism does violence, and the spell of romance which comes with that atmosphere of the middle ages is never broken, but preserved in the minutest most matter-of-fact details, such as the bowl of water that stood amidst flowers, and in which the sister Amelotte “slid a cup” and offered it to Aloyse to drink. But the one great charm of the poem lies in its subtle and most powerful psychical analysis, seen foreshadowed in the first mention of the bride sitting in the shade, but first felt strongly when she begs her sister to pray, and again when she tells how, at God’s hint, she had whispered something of the whole tale to her sister who slept
The dread introspection pictured after the sin is in the highest degree tragic, and affects one like remorse in its relentlessness, although less remorse than fear of discovery. The sickness of the following condition, with its yearnings, longings, dizziness, is very nobly done, and delicate as is the theme, and demanding a touch of unerring strength, yet lightness, the part of the poem concerned with it contains certain of the most beautiful and stirring things. The madness (for it is not less than such) in which at the sea-side, believing Urscelyn to be lost, the bride tells the whole tale, whilst her curse laughed within her to see the amazement and anger of her brothers and of her father, is doubtless true enough to the frenzied state of her mind; but my sympathies go out less to that part of the poem than to the subsequent part, in which the bride-mother is described as leaning along in thought after her child, till tears, not like a wedded girl’s, fall among her curls. Highly dramatic, too, is the passage in which she fears to curse the evil men whose evil hands have taken her child, lest from evil lips the curse should be a blessing.
The characterisation seemed to be highly powerful, and, so far as it went, finely contrasted. I could almost have wished that the love for which the bride suffers so much had been more dwelt upon, and Urscelyn had been made somehow more worthy of such love and sacrifice. The only point in which the poem struck me, after mature reflection, as less admirable than certain others of the author’s, lay in the circumstance that the narrative moves slowly, but, of course, it should be remembered that the poem is one of emotion, not incident. There are most magical flashes of imagery in the poem, notably in the passage beginning