Small Notebook 4 (British Library) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 By permission of the British Library [untitled] Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1879-1880 DGR British Library Ashley 1410 (4) decorated white unlined 5.9 x 2.8 cm The orientation of the texts in the notebook varies, but for the most part DGR wrote across the page and away from the gutter (on the rectos) and toward the gutter (on the versos). The pagination numbers at the upper right of the rectos were a later addition, probably done by Wise or at the British Library by a staff person. Also, at various points in the notebook someone, probably WMR, has marked the text with a series of X's for reasons that are not quite clear. Commentary
Introduction

This is one of four small notebooks—all written in soft pencil— that DGR used between 1871-1880 to jot down memoranda of various kinds, including ideas for his literary and artistic work. The material from this notebook is mostly quite late, dating from 1880. This is especially true for the material that is written into the pages that proceed from the end of the book in terms of conventional pagination. DGR scripted this notebook, as he did with the other small notebooks, from both ends. Consequently when one finds, as here, five different draft texts associated with his sonnet on Keats, the sequence of these texts in compositional terms is from the back forward: in the case of the Keats sonnet, from [40r] to [38r], [38v], and ending at [37r].

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception History

Iconographic

Printing History

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

WMR has written his description of the note book across the front and back covers ASHLEY MS.Ashley 1410 (4) Library identification number

This is a notebook of Gabriel's belonging to his last year or two—containssome notable entries WMR 1905

B M Ashley Library

Transcription of a circular stamp from the British Museum. blank page ASHLEY MS.Ashley 1410. (4.) Library identification number 2 # Blank page with foxing from the library identification numbers on the recto. blank page 2 # Pagination (not by DGR) at upper right.

Passages in Crabb Robinson

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11 Russell Sq from 10 to 12

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Cyanide &      Potassium (photography)

 3 Pagination (not by DGR) at upper right.

Mem: A. Dixon (knownto I. Dixon) might know a useful art - [??]

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Childermas—the dayof the week on which theHoly Innocents fell The preceding years Nativity

Gradual graduationa Lettertoone who has nowculminated

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frontispieceThe Oxford Prophetfrom MA's Prophetic Series

 4 Pagination

Permanganate of PotashA small quantity willmake gallons of Con[?]'sfluid

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To be got of those whosupply photographicchemicals

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Mrs Asher. WorboysHunts

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Luca Antonio di GiuntaVenice 1543

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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

? Ellis—Dict of ProperNames

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virtuous ring & glass

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galliard gardens

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But in the in what may be called the Anglo-Hebraic order of aphoristic truth Shakspeare Blake & Wellsare nearly akin, nor cd any fourth poet be named so absolutely in the same connexion or link the Shakspearean element 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

 7 Pagination

Novemberp. 51 (Vala Hyle Skofield)2 seated — S in chains

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26 —Hand as a spectre

 A rough sketch perhaps related to the Blake comments on the recto of the page. 8 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 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. 9 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. 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. 10 Pagination

Chemical Companycorner shop W. of Oxford Quadrant infuse small quantity of soda after break fast Tarax[?]ium bottle 3/6

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teaspoonful in wine 2 cups of water once a day

 The tombless fossil of deep-buried days. --------------

sisterly sestethand-in-hand True Woman

 11 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 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.

 12 Pagination

There are moments when Truth must come not as serene dawn but as jagged lightning.

There are few indeed whom the facile enthusiasm for contemporary models does not deaden to the truly balanced claims of successive effort in art

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Conway—take [?]express

 blank page blank page 13 Pagination

Chatterton can only be underrated if we expect that he shdhave done by intuition all that was ac-complished by gradual inheritance from him half a century later.

Red Cap & Red Shirts Furnish Revds & Garibaldis

P Richards 30 Cromwell Rd Upper Holloway N

 14 Pagination For the garlands of heaven were all laid by And the daylight sucked at the breasts heart of a lie. blank page 15 Pagination

Invention absolute is a thing slow of acceptance & must be so. ThisColeridge & others have found. Why make a place for what is neither inven adaptation nor reproduction? Let it hew its way if it can.

 blank page 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

 16 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—

Dilute aromaticsulphuric Acid(for flatulence)take 15 drops in alittle water

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[?] perhaps [?] here accompany the work of the same date

 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 17 Pagination hover[?]/ reached between poetic effort have after lasted for years at a time; & of these the present is not the longest.

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[?] from Robinson25 Aug/

 18 Pagination

Mrs Silvester

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Agnes Silvester2517 Hotten StreetEdgeware Road

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10 MosRed[?]

sorrowful solitude

 Page blank on recto and verso 19 Pagination And 'mid the budding branches' sway Our antlers met in battle-play When our fetlocks felt the Spring Blank page Doodles or rough drawing 20 Pagination The names listed here run from page 20v to the facing page, 21r. The significance of the list is not clear.

FrankWm JMLeylandWattsSmith[?]Miss BoydTebbsMrs [?]StevensMiss [?]Mrs StillmanF Marsden

See editorial note to the previous page regarding the list of names on the manuscript image. 21 Pagination

KnightCaineDixonSwinburneForman

Mrs Arlinghy[?]14 St. Georges Row£14 7[?] [?] Bridge

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Mary Hockey24

 22 Pagination

Del mare il sussurro sonoro.

Nicholsnearly oppositeOxford

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 immortal things.

 The page has DGR's sketches of a cyclamen. 23 Pagination

Flowerin [?]6 inch bulbCyclamen

For cleaning offpainting—sp turp. with onefourth of [?] oflemon

 24 Pagination

Pia—wife of Nellodella Pietra—inPurg. though repentingonly at last moment

J. C. Guillett frame maker79 Bedford GardensCamden Hill

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Thursdaynot Wed—not Sat.

 25 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

The add[?] hours areStill a part only[?] worth & inpart recovered relivedof youth

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If I could die like the

26 Pagination

Arthur's Seat & Salisburg crag seenfrom Firth

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The critic of the new school sits down before a picture, & saturates it with silence.

Bass Rock Berwick Law—a low peak on near which stands stands T[?] Castleof the Douglas family

[????] small rocks

 27 Pagination

Mr Atkinson[?]87 Cleveland St

Mrs Ward23 Rutland StreetPimlico

 blank page Previous page torn out 28 Pagination

Mrs Mac[?]99 Kennington Rd

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28 Jessie Kyles

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Major Douglas2 1/2 years£15

Mrs Salem42 Formosa St Maida Hill6 weeks

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Mary Cox   2232 Elcho StBattersea£16

 29 Pagination

Mrs Sylvester492 Edward Rd

 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

new yeast from the brewery. A dessertspoonful in water first thing in morning (for boils)

 30 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. The sunrise blooms & withers on the hill 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. 31 Pagination Ah! was it all spring weather, Nay but we were all young together 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 32 Pagination 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. The clouds stooped low and the surf rose high And where there was a line of the sky The gulls flocked loomed dark between 33 Pagination

Middenstead

-------------------------------------- In galliard gardens of sweet strange aventine, Or sway of tidal night. Alternate ends 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 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 34 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 35 Pagination

Mabel the short ofAimable —

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Robt de Bilesme

Hervey of Winwickhis son Boyn

 The text runs in reverse order from the pagination supplied by the British Library, from [36r] to [35v]. 36 Pagination Raleigh's Cell The text is a prose synopsis of the sonnet. -------------

Here the world's his bywaywrite by one who had seenit all but whose worldwas then his cell. Theterrestrial globe he spanned in spirit, & that spirit was itselfthe Celestial Globe, whenthe planets played & while the zodiac guidedtill from this cellhis soul issued intoinfinity

When we are senseless grown, to make stones speak

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The Shakespearean Englishideal of Blake's poetry

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groyne

 37 Pagination

Who tuned the strong[?](Chatterton)

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Pink Tamarisk bythe seashore(Michael Scott)

 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 38 Pagination strange road Miring his outward steps without who inly trode The bright &c And both his Such two fold paths which Even such his twin cross-paths, till deathly deep He [?] through sank in th[?] din[?] Deepening his care without who trod within The bright &c --------------- a road Miring his toisome steps who inly trode The brook of Castaly &c Such paths he knew 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 fledgeshis arrow for thy soul& if that be not pierced he has not no fellow shaftfor another: but if itreach thy soul it shallrebound & reach another

 39 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 not fellow shaft arrows for thee to wage 40 Pagination or, stamped with the snake's coil, it be The imperial image of Eternity. ----------------- 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! 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 needlessto say thatthese poems are in no sense“occasional”. The “Life” involved recorded is neither mylife nor your life, butLife purely & simply representative ascoupled with Love & Death.

 41 Pagination

S. in his prose grinds thealliterative epithets between his teeth & trills them on his tongue with equal fury. He is a kind of epileptic epithetometer.

Subject for picture— M. Angelo unburying the Laocoon

Ditto—M A. at the death of Vittoria Colonna

 42 Pagination

Coleridge had to endure through life the self-preserving attacks of relentless mediocrity in high places

56 Marion Parade

24 Lewis Crescent

Watts has Lautrec Dobree Wilkinson Whistler Little Masters Mallett's Nn Antiquities ([?] Diaries) Lane Poetry of Bible

 43 Pagination

The English Castaly A Quintessence Being a Collection of all that is best in all English Poetry excepting works of greater length

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London [?]No 62

S's Blake

Woman's desire awakened by desire in the object of her soul's affection—cold to all others

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end of [?] &[?] of [?] How strange a thing

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her mental side also influenced by her affection

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Ditto — True Woman

 The final fragment of text is marked for linking with the draft material on the facing page. 44 Pagination X Added near the gutter, following the word “than.”

[?] Sweet is the grape & tender is the vine

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Sonnets—Woman

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To be a body desirable like any wine &c—how strange!

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To be a soul purer thanman can reach &c—how strange!

 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 inthe interview with Diana(part II). Nothing but hu-manity wd do here, & this it is that the poet employs, artfully entwining it with supernatural exclamation,

 45 Pagination 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

Eglantine—the wild rose

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Milton at a relative's in St. Martin's Lane, when his first wife appeared & implored his forgiveness. They mingled their tears & were reunited.

 46 Pagination

The sense of the momentous is strongest in Coleridge— not theweird and ominous only, but the value of monumental moments.

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.

Bill to C. Ellis payable 15 Feb /80 £115.8d

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Bill to F. & D.payable May 24£99.18.6

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Chemical [?] 60 3/4 x 35 60 1/2 x 34 7/8

 The page is blank except for some bleed-through from the writing on [47r].

ASHLEY 1410 (4) 48 FF. July 1949 Ex'd by: JMR JM