Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: Small Notebook 4 (British Library)
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1879-1880
Scribe: DGR

The full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.

Image of page [cover] page: [cover]
Note: WMR has written his description of the note book across the front and back covers
Manuscript Addition: ASHLEY MS. / Ashley 1410 (4)
Editorial Description: Library identification number
This is a notebook of Gabriel's belonging to

his last year or two—contains

some notable entries

WMR

1905
B M

Ashley Library
Transcribed Note (page [cover]):
Note: Transcription of a circular stamp from the British Museum.
Image of page [endpaper] page: [endpaper]
Note: blank page
Image of page [title page] page: [title page]
Manuscript Addition: ASHLEY MS. / Ashley 1410. (4.)
Editorial Description: Library identification number
Manuscript Addition: 2 #
Image of page [title page verso] page: [title page verso]
Note: Blank page with foxing from the library identification numbers on the recto.
Image of page [2r] page: [2r]
Note: blank page
Manuscript Addition: 2 #
Editorial Description: Pagination (not by DGR) at upper right.
Image of page [2v] page: [2v]
Passages in

Crabb Robinson

11 Russell Sq

from 10 to 12

Cyanide &

     Potassium

(photography)
Image of page [3r] page: [3r]
Manuscript Addition: 3
Editorial Description: Pagination (not by DGR) at upper right.
Mem: A. Dixon (known

to I. Dixon) might know

a useful art - [??]

Childermas—the day

of the week on which the

Holy Innocents fell The

preceding years Nativity
Image of page [3v] page: [3v]
Gradual graduation

a Letter

to

one who has now

culminated

frontispiece

The Oxford Prophet

from MA's Prophetic Series
Image of page [4r] page: [4r]
Manuscript Addition: 4
Editorial Description: Pagination
Permanganate of Potash

A small quantity will

make gallons of Con[?]'s

fluid

To be got of those who

supply photographic

chemicals

Image of page [4v] page: [4v]
Mrs Asher. Worboys

Hunts

Luca Antonio di Giunta

Venice 1543

Image of page [5r] page: [5r]
Manuscript Addition: 5
Editorial Description: Pagination
I am was one of those whose little

is their own

was

  • Her hood falls back & the moon
  • shines fair,
  • Sister Helen,
  • On the Lady of Ewern's golden hair.
  • Aye let it blanch
  • This moon shall Let the moon blanch it to silver
  • tare
Image of page [5v] page: [5v]
? Ellis—Dict of Proper

Names

virtuous ring & glass

galliard gardens

Image of page [6r] page: [6r]
Manuscript Addition: 6
Editorial Description: Pagination
But in the in what may

be called the Anglo-Hebraic

order of aphoristic truth

Shakspeare Blake & Wells

are nearly akin, nor cd

any fourth poet be named

so absolutely in the same

connexion or link the

Shakspearean element
Image of page [6v] page: [6v]
is so strong in Blake's

fragmentary play of Edward

III that the one as

[?] as in some of

his songs & epigrams that there

is no conjecturing now

how near Shakspere

he might have [?]

on the same road had he

taken it
Image of page [7r] page: [7r]
Manuscript Addition: 7
Editorial Description: Pagination
November

p. 51 (Vala Hyle Skofield)

2 seated — S in chains

26 —Hand as a spectre
Image of page [7v] page: [7v]
Note: A rough sketch perhaps related to the Blake comments on the recto of the page.
Image of page [8r] page: [8r]
Manuscript Addition: 8
Editorial Description: Pagination
  • Such this Republic!—not the Maid
  • He yearned for &c
(for D. at Verona in the

Respublica parenthesis)

  • To whom even as to God may be
  • Obeisance one with Liberty
Image of page [8v] page: [8v]
  • Was it a friend or foe
  • that spread these lies?
  • Nay, who but infants
  • question in such wise?
  • Twas one of my most intimate
  • 'enemies.
Image of page [9r] page: [9r]
Manuscript Addition: 9
Editorial Description: Pagination
  • Wonderful Waving waving trees
  • What do you say to the breeze
  • And what says the breeze
  • to you?

  • This word had Merlin said from
  • of old—
  • That out of the Oak Tree Shade
  • In the day of France's direst dule,
  • God's hand should send a Maid.
Image of page [9v] page: [9v]
  • I Catherine was a Douglas
  • born
  • A name to all Scots hold dear;
  • And Kate Barlass they've
  • called me now
  • For many an honored aging year.
Image of page [10r] page: [10r]
Manuscript Addition: 10
Editorial Description: Pagination
Chemical Company

corner shop W. of

Oxford Quadrant

infuse small quantity

of soda

after break fast

Tarax[?]ium

bottle 3/6

teaspoonful in wine

2 cups of water once a day
Image of page [10v] page: [10v]
  • The tombless fossil
  • of deep-buried days.

sisterly sestet

hand-in-hand

True Woman
Image of page [11r] page: [11r]
Manuscript Addition: 11
Editorial Description: Pagination
If an isolated life has

any sting, it is felt in

the absence of [?] those friends

who made for years unneeded

avowals of obligation &

gratitude. Still this will

come in time to pass &

be forgotten if not
Image of page [11v] page: [11v]
emphasized by momentary

visits once or twice a year.

Life is a coin which we

once shared together, but

which has now quite passed

from my pocket into yours,

doubtless rightly enough:

only I desire no half-fart

half-farthing of its

small change.
Image of page [12r] page: [12r]
Manuscript Addition: 12
Editorial Description: Pagination
There are moments when

Truth must come

not as serene dawn

but as jagged lightning.
Image of page [12v] page: [12v]
There are few indeed whom

the facile enthusiasm for

contemporary models does

not deaden to the truly

balanced claims of successive

effort in art

Conway—take [?]

express
Image of page [unnumbered] page: [unnumbered]
Note: blank page
Image of page [unnumbered] page: [unnumbered]
Note: blank page
Image of page [13r] page: [13r]
Manuscript Addition: 13
Editorial Description: Pagination
Chatterton can only be

underrated if we

expect that he shd

have done by intuition

all that was ac

-complished by gradual

inheritance from him

half a century later.
Image of page [13v] page: [13v]
Red Cap & Red Shirts

Furnish Revds & Garibaldis
P Richards

30 Cromwell Rd

Upper Holloway N
Image of page [14r] page: [14r]
Manuscript Addition: 14
Editorial Description: Pagination
  • For the garlands of
  • heaven were all laid by
  • And the daylight sucked
  • at the breasts heart of a lie.
Image of page [14v] page: [14v]
Note: blank page
Image of page [15r] page: [15r]
Manuscript Addition: 15
Editorial Description: Pagination
Invention absolute is

a thing slow of acceptance

& must be so. This

Coleridge & others have

found. Why make a

place for what is neither

inven adaptation nor

reproduction? Let it

hew its way if it can.
Image of page [15v] page: [15v]
Note: blank page
Image of page [unnumbered] page: [unnumbered]
Note: this page torn from the notebook
Size of Memory

48 x 23 1/2

on light right 3/4

of an inch to go into

rebate—on left

side fillet to be added
Image of page [16r] page: [16r]
Manuscript Addition: 16
Editorial Description: Pagination
To find that

an unknown

man hates you is

but a tempest in

the outer air— but

to find that your

friend has turned against

you—
Image of page [16v] page: [16v]
Dilute aromatic

sulphuric Acid

(for flatulence)

take 15 drops in a

little water

[?] perhaps [?] here

accompany the work of the same

date
Image of page [17v] page: [17v]
Note: The texts on the pages here numbered in sequence 17r and 17v, were actually written by DGR as a unit in the sequence 17v and 17r. The text is reproduced here in DGR's composition order rather than in the pagination order editorially supplied to the document. Note that for page 17r, the bottom half of the page is transcribed before the top half, so as not to break the flow of the prose.
Devoted as my time

has necessarily been to

another art, I have

never hoped to produce

in poetry more than

a small amount of

quintessential work.

Thus the intervals of

poetic exercise
Image of page [17r] page: [17r]
Manuscript Addition: 17
Editorial Description: Pagination
hover[?]/ reached between

poetic effort have after

lasted for years at a

time; & of these the

present is not the

longest.

[?] from Robinson

25 Aug/
Image of page [18r] page: [18r]
Manuscript Addition: 18
Editorial Description: Pagination
Mrs Silvester

Agnes Silvester

25

17 Hotten Street

Edgeware Road

10 Mos

Red[?]
Image of page [18v] page: [18v]
sorrowful solitude
Image of page [unnumbered] page: [unnumbered]
Note: Page blank on recto and verso
Image of page [19r] page: [19r]
Manuscript Addition: 19
Editorial Description: Pagination
  • And 'mid the budding
  • branches' sway
  • Our antlers met in
  • battle-play
  • When our fetlocks
  • felt the Spring
Image of page [19v] page: [19v]
Note: Blank page
Image of page [20r] page: [20r]
Note: Doodles or rough drawing
Manuscript Addition: 20
Editorial Description: Pagination
Image of page [20v] page: [20v]
Note: The names listed here run from page 20v to the facing page, 21r. The significance of the list is not clear.
Frank

W m

JM

Leyland

Watts

Smith

[?]

Miss Boyd

Tebbs

Mrs [?]

Stevens

Miss [?]

Mrs Stillman

F Marsden
Image of page [21r] page: [21r]
Note: See editorial note to the previous page regarding the list of names on the manuscript image.
Manuscript Addition: 21
Editorial Description: Pagination
Knight

Caine

Dixon

Swinburne

Forman
Image of page [21v] page: [21v]
Mrs Arlinghy[?]

14 St. Georges Row

£14 7[?] [?] Bridge

Mary Hockey

24
Image of page [22r] page: [22r]
Manuscript Addition: 22
Editorial Description: Pagination
Del mare il

sussurro sonoro.
Nichols

nearly opposite

Oxford
Image of page [22v] page: [22v]
When printing in 1870

I omitted the piece on

W[ellington]'s funeral as being

referring to so old a date.

but year by year such

themes become more dateless

& rank only with im

mortal things.
Image of page [23r] page: [23r]
Note: The page has DGR's sketches of a cyclamen.
Manuscript Addition: 23
Editorial Description: Pagination
Flower

in [?]

6 inch bulb

Cyclamen
Image of page [23v] page: [23v]
For cleaning off

painting—

sp turp. with one

fourth of [?] of

lemon
Image of page [24r] page: [24r]
Manuscript Addition: 24
Editorial Description: Pagination
Pia—wife of Nello

della Pietra—in

Purg. though repenting

only at last moment
Image of page [24v] page: [24v]
J. C. Guillett frame maker

79 Bedford Gardens

Camden Hill

Thursday

not Wed—not Sat.
Image of page [25r] page: [25r]
Manuscript Addition: 25
Editorial Description: Pagination
  • If I could die like the
  • British Queen
  • Who faced the Roman war,
  • Or hang in a cage for my
  • country's sake
  • Like Black Bess of
  • Dunbar
Image of page [25v] page: [25v]
The add[?] hours are

Still a part only

[?] worth & in

part recovered relived

of youth

If I could die like the
Image of page [26r] page: [26r]
Manuscript Addition: 26
Editorial Description: Pagination
Arthur's Seat &

Salisburg crag seen

from Firth

The critic of the new

school sits down before a

picture, & saturates it

with silence.
Image of page [26v] page: [26v]
Bass Rock

Berwick Law—a low

peak on near which stands

stands T[?] Castle

of the Douglas family
[????]

small rocks
Image of page [27r] page: [27r]
Manuscript Addition: 27
Editorial Description: Pagination
Mr Atkinson

[?]

87 Cleveland St
Image of page [27v] page: [27v]
Mrs Ward

23 Rutland

Street

Pimlico
Image of page [unnumbered] page: [unnumbered]
Note: blank page
Image of page [28r] page: [28r]
Note: Previous page torn out
Manuscript Addition: 28
Editorial Description: Pagination
Mrs Mac[?]

99 Kennington Rd

28 Jessie Kyles

Major Douglas

2 1/2 years

£15
Image of page [28v] page: [28v]
Mrs Salem

42 Formosa St

Maida Hill

6 weeks

Mary Cox   22

32 Elcho St

Battersea

£16
Image of page [29r] page: [29r]
Manuscript Addition: 29
Editorial Description: Pagination
Mrs Sylvester

492 Edward Rd
Note: DGR's note is left unfinished
It has been

written so

many years

that at last

& is so much

less tempting

to take up

than a new

thing that if

I venture to

follow the

perilous precedent

of a Coleridge

& to print it

as it has long stood
Image of page [29v] page: [29v]
new yeast from the

brewery. A dessert

spoonful in water

first thing in morning

(for boils)
Image of page [30r] page: [30r]
Manuscript Addition: 30
Editorial Description: Pagination
  • Like iron I felt my arm
  • as through
  • The groove I made it pass
  • Alack! it was brittle bone—
  • no more.
  • 'Twas Catherine Douglas sprang
  • to the door—
  • And I fell back Kate
  • Barlass.
Image of page [30v] page: [30v]
  • The sunrise blooms &
  • withers on the hill
  • 10 Like any hillflower

  • Remember me who am La Pia. Me
  • From Siena sprung and by it dead.
  • This in his inward heart well knoweth he
  • With whose ring-jewel I was plight
  • & wed.
Image of page [31r] page: [31r]
Manuscript Addition: 31
Editorial Description: Pagination
  • Ah! was it all
  • spring weather,
  • Nay but we were all
  • young together
Image of page [31v] page: [31v]
  • Within those eyes the
  • sedulous yearning throe
  • [??],
  • & all the evil of my heart
  • A thousand times forgotten.

  • Ah! if you had been lost for
  • many years,
  • And from the dead this today
  • were risen again
Image of page [32r] page: [32r]
Manuscript Addition: 32
Editorial Description: Pagination
Note: DGR scripts the fragment of line 1(line 12 of True Woman. I.Herself) at the end of the draft in parentheses and appends his note to it: “to lead up to this”)
  • all things most unseen,—
  • the mystic seal fringe of green
  • Shifting[?] the snowdrop underneath the snow.
Image of page [32v] page: [32v]
  • The clouds stooped low
  • and the surf rose high
  • And where there was
  • a line of the sky
  • The gulls flocked loomed
  • dark between
Image of page [33r] page: [33r]
Manuscript Addition: 33
Editorial Description: Pagination
Middenstead

  • In galliard gardens of
  • sweet strange aventine,
  • Or sway of tidal night.
Image of page [33v] page: [33v]
Manuscript Addition: Alternate ends
Editorial Description: DGR's note at left of line 4.
  • The wounded hart & the
  • dying swan
  • Wend up the stream both
  • Were side by side [?]
  • Where the rushes coil with
  • the turn of the tide—
  • The hart & the swan
  • The swan and the hart
Image of page [34v] page: [34v]
Note: DGR wrote this draft from verso to recto, and it is here transcribed accordingly, following the given pagination system as established by the British Library.
  • With Shakspeare's manhood
  • at this a boy's sick wild heart
  • Through Hamlet's gloom unto Shakspeare
  • near allied,
  • And kin to Milton through
  • his Satan's pride
  • Near At Death's dark door he
  • stooped & craved his dart
  • Image of page [34r] page: [34r]
    Manuscript Addition: 34
    Editorial Description: Pagination
  • And to the dear new bower
  • of England's art
  • Even to the hidden shrine
  • else deified,
  • The kingly heart which soared
  • against his side
Image of page [35r] page: [35r]
Manuscript Addition: 35
Editorial Description: Pagination
Mabel the short of

Aimable —

Rob t de Bilesme
Hervey of Winwick

his son Boyn
Image of page [36r] page: [36r]
Note: The text runs in reverse order from the pagination supplied by the British Library, from [36r] to [35v].
Manuscript Addition: 36
Editorial Description: Pagination
Raleigh's Cell
Note: The text is a prose synopsis of the sonnet.

Here the world's his byway

write by one who had seen

it all but whose world

was then his cell. The

terrestrial globe he

spanned in spirit, &
Image of page [35v] page: [35v]
that spirit was itself

the Celestial Globe, when

the planets played &

while the zodiac guided

till from this cell

his soul issued into

infinity
Image of page [36v] page: [36v]
When we are senseless grown,

to make stones speak

The Shakespearean English

ideal of Blake's poetry

groyne
Image of page [37r] page: [37r]
Manuscript Addition: 37
Editorial Description: Pagination
Who tuned the strong

[?]

(Chatterton)

Pink Tamarisk by

the seashore

(Michael Scott)
Image of page [37v] page: [37v]
  • strange road
  • Miring his outward steps,
  • who inly trode
  • The bright Castalian brink & Latmos'
  • steep:—
  • Even such his life's cross-paths, till
  • deathly deep
  • He sank in sands of Lethe
Image of page [38r] page: [38r]
Manuscript Addition: 38
Editorial Description: Pagination
Deleted Text
  • strange road
  • Miring his outward steps without
  • who inly trode
  • The bright &c
  • And both his Such two fold paths which
    Added TextEven such his twin cross-paths, till deathly deep
  • He [?] through
    Added Textsank in
Image of page [38v] page: [38v]
Deleted Text
  • th[?] din[?]
  • Deepening his care without who
  • trod within
  • The bright &c

Deleted Text
  • a road
  • Miring his toisome steps
  • who inly trode
  • The brook of Castaly &c
  • Such paths he knew
Image of page [39v] page: [39v]
Note: The verso of page 39 was scripted by DGR first and is presented first in this transcription.
  • By thine own tears thy
  • verse must tears impart

The archer Apollo fledges

his arrow for thy soul

& if that be not pierced

he has not no fellow shaft

for another: but if it

reach thy soul it shall

rebound & reach another
Image of page [39r] page: [39r]
Manuscript Addition: 39
Editorial Description: Pagination
  • The Song-god—he the Sun-god
  • is no slave
  • Of thine; he thy Hunter for thy soul
  • Fledges his shaft, [?] It darts [?] goal
  • He hath toward showers no t fellow shaft arrows for
  • thee to wage
Image of page [40r] page: [40r]
Manuscript Addition: 40
Editorial Description: Pagination
  • or, stamped with the
  • snake's coil, it be
  • The imperial image of
  • Eternity.

Note: This is DGR's first effort to write his sonnet on Keats.
  • Could Keats but have
  • a day or two on earth
  • Once in each every year!
Image of page [40v] page: [40v]
Note: This is DGR's first draft attempt to draft his headnote for the 1881 printing of “The House of Life”.
In may [?] superfluous I may say that It may seem needless

to say that

these poems are in no sense

“occasional”. The “Life”

involved recorded is neither my

life nor your life, but

Life purely & simply representative as

coupled with Love & Death.
Image of page [41r] page: [41r]
Manuscript Addition: 41
Editorial Description: Pagination
S. in his prose grinds the

alliterative epithets between

his teeth & trills them

on his tongue with equal

fury. He is a kind of

epileptic epithetometer.
Image of page [41v] page: [41v]
Subject for picture—

M. Angelo unburying the

Laocoon
Ditto—M A. at the

death of Vittoria

Colonna
Image of page [42r] page: [42r]
Manuscript Addition: 42
Editorial Description: Pagination
Coleridge had to

endure through life

the self-preserving

attacks of relentless

mediocrity in high places
56 Marion Parade
24 Lewis Crescent
Image of page [42v] page: [42v]
Watts has

Lautrec

Dobree

Wilkinson

Whistler

Little Masters

Mallett's N n Antiquities

([?] Diaries)

Lane

Poetry of Bible
Image of page [43r] page: [43r]
Manuscript Addition: 43
Editorial Description: Pagination
The English Castaly

A Quintessence

Being a Collection of all

that is best in all English Poetry

excepting works of greater length

London [?]

No 62
S's Blake
Image of page [43v] page: [43v]
Woman's desire awakened

by desire in the object of

her soul's affection—cold

to all others

end of [?] &

[?] of [?]

How strange a thing

her mental side also

influenced by her affection

Ditto — True Woman
Image of page [44r] page: [44r]
Note: The final fragment of text is marked for linking with the draft material on the facing page.
Manuscript Addition: 44
Editorial Description: Pagination
Manuscript Addition: X
Editorial Description: Added near the gutter, following the word “than.”
[?]
Added TextSweet is the grape & tender is the vine

Sonnets—Woman

To be a body desirable like

any wine &c—how strange!

To be a soul purer than

man can reach &c—how strange!
Image of page [44v] page: [44v]
Note: The last line, transcribed below, is written vertically along the outside margin of the page.
Endymion is a magic toy

fit for the childhood of

a divine poet. The man

however already appears in

the interview with Diana

(part II). Nothing but hu

-manity wd do here, & this

it is that the poet employs, art

fully entwining it with

supernatural exclamation,
Image of page [45r] page: [45r]
Manuscript Addition: 45
Editorial Description: Pagination
Note: This is an unincorporated fragment.
  • Such as I was made I am,
  • And such as I could do I did
  • Say: such as I was made I am,
  • And did even such as I could do.

descripsissy[?]
descripsist
Image of page [45v] page: [45v]
Eglantine—the wild rose

Milton at a relative's

in St. Martin's Lane,

when his first wife appeared

& implored his forgiveness.

They mingled their

tears & were reunited.
Image of page [46r] page: [46r]
Manuscript Addition: 46
Editorial Description: Pagination
The sense of the

momentous is strongest

in Coleridge— not the

weird and ominous only,

but the value of

monumental moments.
Image of page [46v] page: [46v]
I assure you that to touch

them is condemnation.

They are written by the

basest creatures &

littered with the vilest

purposes. With your

exceptional discerment[?]

you may perhaps have

learnt this by now.
Image of page [47r] page: [47r]
Deleted Text

Bill to C. Ellis

payable 15 Feb /80

£115.8 d


Bill to F. & D.

payable May 24

£99.18.6


Chemical [?]

60 3/4 x 35

60 1/2 x 34 7/8

Image of page [47v] page: [47v]
Note: The page is blank except for some bleed-through from the writing on [47r].
Image of page [48r] page: [48r]
ASHLEY 1410 (4)

48 FF. July 1949

Ex'd by:

JMR JM
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 22p-1880.blnb4.rad.xml
Copyright: By permission of the British Library