Some weeks ago we briefly mentioned that Mr. Rossetti had nearly finished an important paint-ing. We are now able to describe it at length, and to quote four sonnets which illustrate its subject. The first of these is Boccaccio's; one of the sonnets has reference to Dante. Mr. Rossetti inserted it in his ‘’ 1861, and in that volume, p. 449, he gave a translation which is now, with an alteration, repeated. The fourth of these sonnets is the painter's, and designed to describe his picture, or rather to illustrate the sentiment and purport of that work. Our duty is to describe and analyze the picture, and to thank the author for the oppor-tunity of doing so and for liberty to quote the poems.

Fiammetta, it is surmised, was Boccaccio's name for Maria d' Aquino, repeatedly celebrated for her loveliness of mind and person, and Here, the anonymous author has altered the first line of DGR's translation of “Of his Last Sight of Fiammetta.” The line in the 1861 reads, “Round her red garland and her golden hair.” lamented in the following lines on her early death:—

Such was Boccaccio's prayer, such were the memories recorded by another sonnet ‘’ wherein he describes how, in the spirit, he heard —a song as glad as love, So sweet that never yet the like thereof Was heard in any mortal company. So that to him it appeared as if— “A nymph, a goddess, or an angel sings Unto herself, within this chosen place, Of ancient loves”; so said I at that sound. And there my lady, 'mid the shadowings Of myrtle trees, 'mid flowers and grassy space, Singing I saw, with others who sat round. Another reminiscence was vouchsafed to the lover-poet, and it is this which is specially described in a third of the sonnets written by “Love's own squire,” as Boccaccio was finely called by Mr. Madox Brown, who is better known as a painter than a poet. It is this third sonnet which is most closely connected with the picture, and is entitled

The following is the artist's sonnet, designed to express the purport of his picture. Additional symbolism was required in working out the idea of Boccaccio, and adapting it to a pictorial form of larger range and subtler inspiration than he aimed at:—

Fiammetta, beautiful in her decline, stands as if parting the apple-boughs, and is surrounded by a purplish gloom, or rather twilight, which symbol-izes the period between life and death. There is an aureole about her head, and its light fades as it spreads on her form and the huge grey-green tree-bole which is behind her; it falls on the blossom-laden branch above her hair, on that other lower bough which extends before her, on the flame-coloured tunic of tissue she wears, on her arms, on the brilliant azure butterflies, emblems of the soul, which hover on the foliage, and it adds to the splendour of the scarlet bird, which, tinted like a flash of fire, spreads its wings to flight from the blooming apple-bough above her head, which she grasps while it sheds its red and “separate petals,” and they, reeling in descent, flutter to the earth.

Diffused as its radiance is, the margins of the aureole are marked on the gloom about Fiammetta. They are defined like those of a rainbow, and, like the edges of that ancient emblem, fuse them-selves with the darkness, and become indefinite. In this lustre is the figure of the angel, bending as if to receive the soul of Fiammetta, and pro- tecting her with his arms and wings. Her head is distinct in this Mysterious veil, of lightness made, At once a brightness and a shade, where the welcoming spirit is half lost. The fair brown hair is bound in ample masses about the lady's face, and trails in freedom on her neck, and all her figure, softened in the juncture of light and dark, stands solid in its place. Fiammetta's hair heaped over her forehead, and projecting there, casts an ominous shadow over her eyes and brow, and out of that shadow those eyes, which are clear and pure as the morning, being, it may be, lit with a celestial dawn, look lustrous and piercing, with a happy but grave presage, although all about her are emblems of the parting soul—the soaring bird, the falling blossoms, the waiting angel, the tremulous butter-flies; and even her very action is in keeping with the fluttering of the draperies, which shift and sub-side as she moves. The lady's lips are set with a calm and happy sedateness, not far removed from a smile. Her cheeks and chin are most beautiful, and, although the fulness of their contour has departed, they are as lovely as before and more exalted in character, the carnations have paled but very little, and the larger contours of her figure retain their stately grace and something of their sumptuous amplitude.

Technically speaking, the colour, both local and general, of this picture is intense and soberly splendid, and wonderfully rich in its deep glow, in respect to which the apposition of light and profound shadow has proved of immeasurable advantage to the painter. The wealth of the tone of the work is hardly less admirable. The illumi-nation is, of course, centred on the aureole, and this subserves the chiaroscuro in unison with the colour proper. That colour centres on the bird, the ruddy lustre of which at once intensifies the glowing tints of the red blossoms and the crimson tissue.