The Pall Mall Magazine, Volume 16Routledge (publisher)1Digital images courtesy of University of Virginia Special
Collections.In this electronic edition, we have omitted the pages of all issues that do
not contain material by or related to DGR. Unpaginated front and back matter from
these issues has also been omitted. The structure of this electronic document allows
for the future addition of the omitted material. The Pall Mall MagazineG. Routledge & Sons, Ltd.Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld.London189816Alderman Library, U of Virginiaap4.n12
Commentary
Introduction
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Textual History: Composition
Textual History: Revision
Production History
Reception History
Iconographic
Printing History
Pictorial
Historical
Literary
Translation
Autobiographical
Bibliographic
The first letter of the the first word of the article is a large
capital I. A reproduction of an ornately decorated tapestry heads the
article.SOME SCRAPS OF VERSE AND PROSE BYDANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.
IN 1886 I edited and brought out
The Collected Works of Dante Gabriel
Rossetti, both verse and prose, original and translated. Into those
two volumes I put the works which my brother had published during
his lifetime, and also a moderate number of other writings which he
had not published, but which I esteemed suitable for
appear–ing in
such a form. Some other things of his, remaining in my possession,
were ad–visedly excluded.
As much diversity of opinion exists on questions of this kind, it may
be as well to explain my position in the matter.
My own personal opinion is as follows: If a writer has attained a
certain standard of merit and reputation—and I hold that my brother
hadattained that standard—all that he wrote,
good, bad, and in–different, should sooner or later be published;
omitting only such productions as from their subject or treatment
(apart from the direct question of literary merits or demerits) may
be unsuited for the public eye. The good things should be
Copyright 1898, by W. M. Rossetti.
31 published because they are good; the bad or
indifferent because they are interesting or curious as coming from
an eminent man. They are documents subserving the man's biography,
and may from that point of view be as important to reflect upon as
even his best performances. A sensible editor would of course give
some adequate intimation as to what he considers indifferent or bad,
so as to safeguard from misconstruction both his author and himself.
In the case of Shelley, for instance, it appears to me that, in a
complete or scholarly edition, the public ought to be made aware
that the poet who eventually wrote
Prometheus Unbound and The Witch of Atlas did also at an earlier date indite such unmitigated drivel
as the verses in St.
Irvyne, and was at that date, though no longer a child, incapable of
writing anything better. This latter literary and biographic fact is
only a shade less worthy of note than the former, and from the
former its importance is derived.
In this general view my brother was, I think, not far from agreeing
with myself: in the case of such poets as Coleridge, Shelley, or
Keats, he would—for the purposes of any edition affecting to be
complete—have put in everything he could lay his hands upon,
although he would always have preferred, for his own reading, a
compendium of the masterpieces. But, as regards himself
individually, personal sensitiveness gave him a different bias. He
detested the very idea that some of his boyish crudities (such as
Sir Hugh the Heron, for which ingenuous persons are willing to give some ten
times the price of his Collected Works) should ever be brought forward. I therefore, in compiling
the Collected Works, excluded all such crudities; and to this day I would not
publish, even in a casual and scattered form, those writings of his
which I believe he would have considered essentially poor or bad.
But there are some other things, of minor importance or
completeness—sometimes intentionally jocular—which appear to me
considerably removed from being bad or poor, and which he himself
would probably have thought admissible for eventual printing, though
not for publication during his lifetime, or as a portion of his
solid literary life-work. The pieces which I have here put together
are of this kind. They all belong to the days of his youth—the
latest of them to 1853 or there–abouts, when he completed his
twenty-fifth year. I think that every one of them has its value,
whether on the ground of intrinsic merit, or as illustrating some
phase of his mental development and practice. I have grouped them
together as best I can, and added a few remarks by way of
elucidation.
William M. Rossetti.London
, July 1898.Mater Pulchræ Delectionis.Ave.
At some time in 1847 Dante Rossetti wrote the former of these poems,
being the first form of the composition which, under the title Ave, was published in the volume Poems of 1870. The number of lines in this first form is 63.
Afterwards my brother enlarged the poem to 146 lines, giving it the
title Ave, and the motto “Ego mater pulchræ delectionis et timoris
et agnistionis, et sancti spes.” In this second form I find the poem signed “H.H.H.,” which
is the same signature that he gave to the ballad of Sister Helen when that was first published, towards 1854, in The Dusseldorf Artists'
Annual, edited for England by Mary Howitt. I apprehend that he must
have offered to publish this Ave also in the same annual; the copy of it which I possess is not
in his own
handwriting, but (I think) in that of Miss Barbara Leigh
Smith (Mrs. Bodichon), who was very intimate with the Howitt family.
In the Poems of 1870 the composition is reduced from 146 to 112 lines; and,
what between omissions and alterations, seventy of the lines forming
the Ave which I now present to the reader passed under revision.
Without at all calling in question the wisdom of the course which my
brother pursued in modifying the poem into the form that it bears in
his volume, I think that both the versions which I now print have
their individual attraction and interest, and a fair claim to be
preserved.
There is another early poem by Dante Rossetti which has not been
published, and perhaps never will be; but in this connexion I may as
well mention it—and I could easily name some few more, were there
any occasion for so doing. The heading of the poem in
question—twenty-one stanzas of sextet metre—is
Sacred to the Memory of
Algernon R. G. Stanhope, Natus est 1838, obiit 1847. This was written in September 1847, a date later than that
of The Blessed Damozel. It is perhaps the only poem which my brother ever wrote
“to order.” Our family-friend Cavalier Mortara
knew something of this Stanhope family, to the Rossettis not known
at all; and he solicited my brother to write some verses in
com–memoration of a beautiful and promising boy, lately deceased. The
poem is by no means amiss in its way, but is decidedly inferior to
some other work of the same period; and my brother, when he had to
consider the question of publishing, never deigned a thought to this
particular performance.
In Mater Pulchræ
Delectionis the reader may observe the passage beginning—“Mind'st thou not, when the twilight goneLeft darkness in the house of John,”quotation of D.G.R.'s Ave, lines 64-65and may remember that these lines are closely related to one
of Rossetti's best sacred subjects, a water-colour entitled The House of John. He may also observe the line—“Like to a thought of Raphaël,”quotation of D.G.R.'s Mater Pulchrae
Delectionis, line 43 indicating on the writer's part a great delight and sympathy
in that painter's work. The same thing appears in another poem of a
nearly similar date; and this I quote with a view to showing that
Dante Rossetti, when soon afterwardsOn page 483, line 1 (“So along some grass-bank in
Heaven,”) the comma is so type-damaged that it resembles a
period. he dubbed himself a “Præraphaelite,” was not animated
by mere obtuse indifference to the lofty claims of the founder of
the Roman School. I possess a fragment in an early form of my
brother's poem The Portrait—four stanzas. There is also a complete copy, twelve stanzas,
but differing greatly from the twelve which form the published poem.
It is called On Mary's Portrait, which I painted
six years ago, and its date may be 1847, or at latest 1848. Of course Dante
Rossetti never did paint any such portrait, and could not paint at
all six years prior to 1848, nor was there any Mary to be painted.
In the four-stanza version, one of the stanzas is practically the
same as in the printed form of the poem: the other three are wholly
different. The last of them (gracious in its way, though juvenile)
runs thus:—
So along some grass-bank in Heaven,Mary the Virgin, going by, Seeth her servant RaphaëlLaid in warm silence happily;Being but a little lovelierSince he hath reached the eternal year.She smiles; and he, as tho' she spoke, Feels thanked, and from his lifted toqueHis curls fall as he bends to her.Mater Pulchræ Delectionis.Mother of the fair delight,From the azure standing white And looking golden in the light;—With the shadow of the Heaven-roofUpon thy hands lifted aloof,And a mystic quiet in thine eyesBorn of the hush of Paradise,Seated beside the Ancient Three,Thyself a woman-Trinity—Being the dear daughter of God,Mother of Christ from stall to rood,And wife unto the Holy Ghost;—Oh, when our need is uttermost,And the sorrow we have seemeth to last,—Though the future falls not to the pastIn the race that the Great Cycle runs,Bethink thee of that olden onceWherein to such as death may strikeThou wert a sister, sisterlike.Yea, even thou, who reignest nowWhere the Angels are they that bow,—Thou, hardly to be looked uponBy saints whose steps tread thro' the Sun,—Thou, the most greenly jubilant Of the leaves of the Threefold Plant,—Headstone of this humanity,Groundstone of the great Mystery,Fashioned like us, yet more than we.I think that at the furthest topMy love just sees thee standing up Where the light of the Throne is bright;Unto the left, unto the right,The cherubim, order'd and join'd, Slope inward to a golden point,And from between the seraphimThe glory cometh like a hymn:All is aquiet,—nothing stirs;The peace of nineteen hundred yearsIs within thee and without thee;And the Godshine falls about thee;And thy face looks from thy veilSweetly and solemnly and well,Like to a thought of Raphaël.Oh, if that look can stoop so far,Let it reach down from star to starAnd try to see us where we are;For the griefs we weep came like swift death,But the slow comfort loitereth.Sometimes it even seems to usThat we are overbold when thusWe cry and hope we shall be heard;—Being much less than a short word,—Mere shadow that abideth not,—Dusty nothing, soon forgot.O Lady Mary, be not lothTo listen,—thou whom the stars clothe!Bend thine ear, and pour back thine hair,And let our voice come to thee thereWhere, seeing, thou mayst not be seen;Help us a little, Mary Queen!Into the shadow thrust thy face,Bowing thee from the glory-place,Saint Mary the Virgin, full of grace!Ave.
Ego Mater pulchræ delectionis et
timoris et agnistionis, et sancti spes.
Mother of the Fair Delight,— An handmaid perfect in His sight Who made thy Blessing infinite, For generations of the earth Have called thee Blessed from thenceforth,— Now sitting with the Ancient Three, Thyself a woman-Trinity; Being the daughter of Great God, Mother of Christ from stall to rood, And wife unto the Holy Ghost:— Oh, when our need is uttermost And the long sorrow seems to last, Then, though no future falls to past In the still course thy cycle runs, Bethink thee of that olden once Wherein to such as Death may strike Thou wert a sister, sisterlike: Yea, even thou, who reignest now Where angels veil their eyes and bow,— Thou, scarcely to be looked upon By saints whose footsteps tread the sun,— Headstone of this humanity, Groundstone of the great Mystery, Fashioned like us, yet more than we. Mind'st thou not (when June's heavy breath Warmed the long days in Nazareth) That eve thou wentest forth to give Thy flowers some drink, that they might live One faint night more among the sands? Far off the trees were as dark wands Against the fervid sky, wherefrom It seemed at length the heat must come Bodily down in fire: the sea, Behind, reached on eternally, Like an old music soothing sleep. Then gloried thy deep eyes, and deep Within thine heart the song waxt loud. It was to thee as though the cloud Which shuts the inner shrine from view Were molten, and that God burned through: Until a folding sense like prayer, Which is, as God is, everywhere, Gathered about thee; and a voice Spake to thee without any noise, Being of the Silence: ‘Hail,’ it said, ‘Thou that art highly favoured; The Lord is with thee, here and now, Blessed among all women thou.’ Ah! knew'st thou of the end, when first That Babe was on thy bosom nurst?— Or when He tottered round thy knee Did thy great sorrow dawn on thee?— And through His boyhood, year by year Eating with thee the Passover, Didst thou discern confusedly That holier sacrament when He, The bitter cup about to quaff, Should break the bread and eat thereof? Or came not yet the knowledge, even, Till on some night forecast in Heaven, Over thy threshold through the mirk He passed upon His Father's work? Or still was God's high secret kept? Nay but I think the whisper crept Like growth through childhood, and those
sports 'Mid angels in the Temple-courts Awed thee with meanings unfulfilled; And that in girlhood something stilled Thy senses like the birth of light, When thou hast trimmed thy lamp at night, Or washed thy garments in the stream; For to thy bed had come the dream That He was thine and thou wert His Who feeds among the field-lilies. Oh solemn shadow of the end In that wise spirit long contained! Oh awful end! and those unsaid Long years when It was finished! Mind'st thou not (when the twilight gone Left darkness in the house of John) Between the naked window-bars That spacious vigil of the stars? For thou, a watcher even as they, Wouldst rise from where throughout the day Thou wroughtest raiment for His poor; And, finding the fixt terms endure Of day and night, which never brought Sounds of His coming chariot, Wouldst lift through cloud-waste unexplored Those eyes which said, ‘How long, O Lord?’ Then that disciple whom He loved, Well heeding, haply would be moved To ask thy blessing in His name; And thy thought and his thought, the same Though silent, then would clasp ye round To weep together,—tears long bound, Soft tears of patience, dumb and slow Yet, ‘Surely I come quickly,’—so He said, from life and death gone home. Amen: even so, Lord Jesus, come! But oh what human tongue can speak That day when Michael came to break From the tired spirit, like a veil, Its covenant with Gabriel, Endured at length unto the end? What human thought can apprehend That mystery of motherhood When thy Beloved at length renewed The sweet communion severed,— His left hand underneath thine head And His right hand embracing thee?— For henceforth thine abode must be, Beyond all mortal pains and plaints, The full assembly of the Saints. Is't Faith perchance, or Love, or Hope, Now lets me see thee standing up Where the light of the Throne is bright? Unto the left, unto the right, The cherubim, ordered and joined, Float inward to a golden point, And from between the seraphim The glory cometh like a hymn. All is aquiet, nothing stirs; The peace of nineteen hundred years Is within thee and without thee, And the Godshine falls about thee. Oh if that look can stoop so far, It shall reach down from star to star And try to see us where we are; For this our grief came swift as death, But the slow comfort loitereth. Sometimes it even seems to us That we are overbold when thus We cry and hope we shall be heard; Being surely less than a short word,— Mere shadow that abideth not,— A dusty nothing, soon forgot. Yet, Lady Mary, be not loth To listen, thou whom the stars clothe! Bend thine ear, and pour back thine hair, And let our voice come to thee there Where, seeing, thou mayst not be seen; Help us a little, Mary Queen! Into the shadow lean thy face, Bowing thee from the secret place, Saint Mary Virgin, full of grace!Sacrament Hymn.
This is the early poem (written, I take it, towards 1849) of which
Rossetti spoke thus in a published letter to William Allingham,
November 22nd, 1860:—“I never meant, I believe, to print the
hymn.”
On a fair Sabbath day, when His banquet is spread, It is pleasant to feast with my Lord:His stewards stand robed at the foot and the head Of the soul-filling, life-giving board.All the guests here had burthens; but by the King's
grant We left them behind when we came;The burthen of wealth and the burthen of want, And even the burthen of shame.And oh, when we take them again at the gate, Though still we must bear them awhile,Much smaller they'll seem in the lane that grows
strait, And much lighter to lift at the stile.For that which is in us is life to the heart, Is dew to the soles of the feet, Fresh strength to the loins, giving ease from their
smart, Warmth in frost, and a breeze in the
heat.No feast where the belly alone hath its fill,— He gives me His body and blood; The blood and the body (I'll think of it still) Of my Lord, which is Christ, which is
God.Shakespear and Blake.
I find a scrappy writing by my brother which may be deemed
interesting at any rate from its subject-matter. It is jotted down
on the back of a short poem dated 1849: I therefore assume it to
belong to the same year. It
must certainly be his own composition, as there are some
cancellings and changes in it. One may infer that Rossetti
contemplated at this time erecting, when opportunity might allow,
some slight monumental record of Blake.
Shakespear.
Probably there is no character in which is so much of
Shakespear himself as in Hamlet, except in Falstaff.
Dear friend, if there be any bond Which friendship wins not much beyond—So old and fond, since thought began—It may be that whose subtle span Binds Shakespear to an English man.Blake.
To the memory of William Blake, a Painter and Poet whose
greatness may be named even here since it was equalled by
his goodness, this tablet is now erected, ——years after his
death, at the age of sixty-eight, on August 12th, 1827, in
poverty and neglect, by one who honours his life and
works.
Epitaph.All beauty to pourtray, Therein his duty lay, And still thro' toilsome strifeDuty to him was life—Most thankful still that dutyLay in the paths of beauty.Trip in France and Belgium—Verses.
Here are six sonnets and a snatch of blank verse written by my
brother during his little trip with Holman Hunt in the autumn of
1849; various other things which he wrote during the same trip have
already been published. The following are characteristic, and to a
great extent good. The opprobrious terms applied to Correggio and
Rubens are of course exaggerated to the extent of silliness. They
pertain to my brother's exoteric attitude as a “P.R.B.” That he did
not at that date sympathise with those phases of art which Correggio
and Rubens exemplify, and in a sense disliked their pictures, is a
fact; but he even then knew perfectly well that both these masters
are among the great executants; and only in his inner circle would
he, for purposes of defiance and of burlesque, and inspirited by
certain utterances of Blake, have pretended not to know as much. The
opening of the sonnet At the Station of the Versailles
Railway is of course an undisguised imitation from Tennyson's Godiva.
On a Handful of French Money.These coins that jostle on my hand do ownNo single image: each name here and dateDenoting in man's consciousness and stateNew change. In some, the face is clearly known,—In others marred. The badge of that old throneOf Kings is on the obverse; or this signWhich says, “I France am all—lo, I am mine!”Or else the Eagle that dared soar alone.Even as these coins, so are these lives and yearsMixed and bewildered; yet hath each of themNo less its part in what is come to beFor France. Empire, Republic, Monarchy,—Each clamours or keeps silence in her name,And lives within the pulse that now is hers.At the Station of the Versailles Railway.I waited for the train unto Versailles.I hung with bonnes and gamins on the bridgeWatching the gravelled road where, ridge with ridge,Under black arches gleam the iron railsClear in the darkness, till the darkness failsAnd they press on to light again—againTo reach the dark. I waited for the trainUnto Versailles; I leaned over the bridge,And wondered, cold and drowsy, why the knaveClaude is in worship; and why (sense apart)Rubens preferred a mustard vehicle.The wind veered short. I turned upon my heelSaying, “Correggio was a toad”; then gaveThree dizzy yawns, and knew not of the Art.In the Train, and at Versailles.In a dull swiftness we are carried byWith bodies left at sway and shaking knees.The wind has ceased, or is a feeble breezeWarm in the sun. The leaves are not yet dryFrom yesterday's dense rain. All, low and highA strong green country; but, among its trees,Ruddy and thin with Autumn. After theseThere is the city still before the sky.Versailles is reached. Pass we the galleriesAnd seek the gardens. A great silence here,Thro' the long planted alleys, to the longDistance of water. More than tune or song,Silence shall grow to awe within thine eyes,Till thy thought swim with the blue turning
sphere.Sir Peter Paul Rubens (Antwerp).“Messieurs, le Dieu des peintres”: We felt odd:'Twas Rubens, sculptured. A mean florid churchWas the next thing we saw,—from vane to porchHis drivel. The museum: as we trodIts steps, his bust held us at bay. The clodHas slosh by miles along the wall within.(“I say, I somehow feel my gorge beginTo rise”)—His chair in a glass case, by God! . . . . To the Cathedral. Here too the vile snobHas fouled in every corner. (“Wherefore braveOur fate? Let's go.”) There is a monumentWe pass. “Messieurs, you tread upon the graveOf the great Rubens.” “Well, that's one good job!What time this evening is the train for Ghent?”From Antwerp to Ghent.We are upon the Scheldt. We know we move,Because there is a floating at our eyes,Whatso they seek; and because all the things Which on our outset were distinct and largeAre smaller and much weaker and quite grey,And at last gone from us. No motion else.We are upon the road. The thin swift moonRuns with the running clouds that are the sky, And with the running water runs—at whilesWeak 'neath the film and heavy growth of reeds. The country swims with motion. Time itselfIs consciously beside us, and perceived.Our speed is such, the sparks our engine leavesAre burning after the whole train has passed.The darkness is a tumult. We tear on,The roll behind us and the cry before, Constantly, in a lull of intense speed And thunder. Any other sound is known Merely by sight. The shrubs, the trees your eyeScans for their growth, are far along in haze.The sky has lost its clouds, and lies awayOppressively at calm; the moon has failed;Our speed has set the wind against us. Now Our engine's heat is fiercer and flings up Great glares alongside. Wind and steam and speedAnd clamour and the night. We are in Ghent.On Leaving a City.The city's steeple-towers remove awayEach singly; as each vain infatuate faithLeaves God in heaven and passes. A mere breathEach soon appears, so far. Yet that which layThe first is now scarce further or more greyThan is the last. Now all are wholly gone.The sunless sky has not once had the sunSince the first weak beginning of the day.The air falls back as the wind finishes,And the clouds stagnate; on the water's faceThe current moves along but is not stirr'd.There is no branch that thrills with any bird.Lo, Winter must possess the earth a space,And have his will upon the extreme seas.Ashore at Dover.On landing, the first voice one hears is fromAn English police-constable; a manRespectful, conscious that at need he can Enforce respect. Our custom-house at home Strict too, but quiet. Not the foul-mouthed scum Of passport-mongers who in Paris still Preserve the Reign of Terror; not the tillWhere the King haggles, all through Belgium.The country somehow seems in earnest here,Grave and sufficient:—England, so to
speak;No other word will make the thing as clear.“Ah! habit,” you exclaim, “and prejudice!”If so, so be it. One don't care to shriek,“Sir, this shall be!” But one
believes it is.October 1849.Bouts-rimés Sonnets.
I have had occasion erewhile to say that Dante Rossetti, towards
1848, was much in the habit of writing sonnets to bouts-rimés. He and I would sit together, I giving him the
rhymes for fourteen lines, and he giving me other rhymes for another
fourteen. The practice may have lasted from a late date in 1847 to
an early date in 1849; hardly beyond these limits. I have found nine
of his sonnets written in this way (also nine of my own), neatly
copied out, and a few others as well. The series copied out was at
one time much longer: the latest progressive number applicable to
his set of sonnets thus preserved is 43. The one named Another Love took eight minutes in composing. I present a brace of sonnets
just as specimens—not as literary achievements. A judicious reader
will not expect to find much force of compacted thought in a bouts-rimés sonnet; in those by my brother he will
perhaps discern, along with facility of touch, a certain stress of
romantic impulse or suggestion, which is as much as I care to claim
for them, though I think The World's Doing may be called a good thing.
Another Love.Of her I thought who now is gone so far:And, the thought passing over, to fall thenceWas like a fall from spirit into sense,Or from the heaven of heavens to sun and star.None other than Love's self ordained the bar 'Twixt her and me; so that if, going hence,I met her, it would only seem a dense Film of the brain—just nought, as phantoms are.Now, when I passed your threshold, and came in,And glanced where you were sitting, and did seeYour tresses in these braids, and your hands thus,—I knew that other figure, grieved and thin, That seemed there, yea that was there, could not be—Though like God's wrath it stood dividing us.The World's Doing.One scarce would think that we can be the sameWho used, in those first childish Junes, to creepWith held breath through the underwood, and leapOutside into the sun. Since this mine aimTook me unto itself, the joy which cameInto my eyes at once sits hushed and deep;Nor even the sorrow moans, but falls asleepAnd has ill dreams. For you—your very nameSeems altered in mine ears, and cannot sendHeat through my heart, as in those days afarWherein we lived indeed with the real life.Yet why should we feel shame, my dear sweet friend?Are they most honoured who without a scarPace forth, all trim and fresh, from the splashed
strife?The English Revolution of 1848.
This sarcastic effusion would not have figured well in
The Collected Works of Dante Gabriel
Rossetti. Here, however, I think it may find a suitable place. It
relates of course to the Chartist or pseudo-Chartist meetings which
formed a transitory alarm to Londoners in the early months of 1848.
Readers whose memories go back to that date will understand the
references to Moses and Son, puny John (Russell), Cochrane, G. W. M.
Reynolds and Reynolds's
Miscellany, etc.: for other readers they seem hardly worth explaining. It
may be as well to say that my brother had no real grounded objection
to the principles of “The People's Charter”—I dare say he never knew
accurately what they were: but he disliked bluster and blusterers,
noise-mongers and noise, and he has here indulged himself in a fling
at them.
The English Revolution of 1848. (No connection with over the way.)
“Some unprincipled persons endeavour to impose upon the
public by such phrases as ‘It's all one,’ ‘It's the same
concern,’ etc.”
Moses & Son.Ho ye that nothing have to lose! ho rouse ye, one and
all!Come from the sinks of the New Cut, the purlieus of
Vauxhall!Did ye not hear the mighty sound boom by ye as it went—The Seven Dials strike the hour of man's
enfranchisement?Ho cock your eyes, my gallant pals, and swing your
heavy staves:Remember—Kings and Queens being out, the great cards
will be Knaves.And when the pack is ours—oh then at what a slapping
paceShall the tens be trodden down to five, and the fives
kicked down to ace!It was but yesterday the Times and
Post and TelegraphTold how from France King Louy-Phil. was shaken out
like chaff;To-morrow, boys, the National, the
Siècle, and the Débats, Shall have to tell the self-same tale of “La Reine
Victoria.”What! shall our incomes we've not got be taxed by puny
John?Shall the policeman keep Time back by bidding us move
on?Shall we too follow in the steps of that poor sneak
Cochrane?Shall it be said, ‘They came, they saw,—and bolted
back again’?Not so! albeit great men have been among us, and are
floor'd—(Frost, Williams, Jones, and other ones who now reside abroad)—Among the master-spirits of the age there still are
thoseWho'll pick up fame—even though, when smelt, it makes
men hold the nose.What ho there! clear the way! make room for him, the
“fly” and wise,Who wrote in mystic grammar about London's
“Mysteries,”—For him who takes a proud delight to wallow in our
kennels,—For Mr. A. B. C. D. E. F. G. M. W. Reynolds!Come, hoist him up! his pockets will afford convenient
holdTo grab him by; and, if inside there silver is or
gold,And should it be found sticking to our hands when
they're drawn out,Why, 'twere a chance not fair to say ill-natured
things about.Silence! Hear, hear! He says that we're the sovereign
people, we!And now? And now he states the fact that one and one
make three!Now he makes casual mention of a certain Miscellany!He says that he's the editor! He says it costs a
penny!O thou great Spirit of the World! shall not the lofty
thingsHe saith be borne unto all time for noble lessonings?Shall not our sons tell to their sons what we could do
and dareIn this the great year Forty-eight and in Trafalgar
Square?Swathed in foul wood, yon column stood 'mid London's
thousand marts;And at their wine Committeemen grinned as they drank
“The Arts”;But our good flint-stones have bowled down each
poster-hidden board,And from their hoarded malice our strong hands have
stript the hoard.Yon column is a prouder thing than Cæsar's
triumph-arch!It shall be called “The Column of the Glorious Days of
March!”And stonemasons' apprentices shall grow rich men
therewith,By contract-chiselling the names of Jones and Brown
and Smith.Upon what point of London, say, shall our next
vengeance burst?Shall the Exchange, or Parliament, be immolated first?Which of the Squares shall we burn down?—which of the
Palaces?(The speaker is nailed by a
policeman)Oh please sir, don't! It isn't me. It's him. Oh don't,
sir, please!Parody on “Uncle Ned.”
I find in my sister Maria's handwriting a parody by Dante Rossetti in
ridicule of Mrs. Stowe's (to my thinking) fine story of
Uncle Tom's Cabin. The nigger song of Uncle Ned, which gives occasion to the parody, was also copied out by
Maria: I retain it here for comparison, though I suppose it is still
(as at that remote date) perfectly well known. There is likewise a
pen-and-ink sketch: it is not exactly in the style generally
associated with the name of Dante Rossetti, and I reproduce it. He
professes to have tried to read Uncle Tom, and failed; this may be true, or may be a poetic fiction. I
have no recollection of his having really been familiar with the
story in any degree. Uncle Tom was known throughout the length and breadth of England as
early as 1852, and I suppose the parody was written in 1852, or else
1853. Carlyle's Occasional Discourse on the Nigger
Question (which amused my brother exceedingly, and in some sense
convinced him) had been published in 1849, and was his main
incitement towards any utterance about “niggers.”
“Dere was an old nigger, and him name was Uncle Ned, And him died long long ago—Him hab no hair on de top of him head, In de place whar de wool ought to grow. Den hang up de fiddle and de bow, And lay down de shovel and de hoe: For dere's no more work for poor old Ned— He am gone whar de good darky go.“Him fingers was long as de cane in de brake, And him had no eyes for to see;And him hab no teeth for to eat a corn-cake, So him hab to let a corn-cake be. Den hang up, etc.“It was a cold morning when Uncle Ned died, And de tears down Massa's cheeks fell like
rain;For him know bery well, when him lay him in de ground, Dat him nebber see him like again. Den hang up, etc.”Parody.Dere was an old nigger, and him name was Uncle Tom, And him tale was rather slow;Me try to read de whole, but me only read some, Because me found it no go. Den hang up de author Mrs. Stowe, And kick de volume wid your toe— And dere's no more public for poor Uncle
Tom, He am gone whar de trunk-lining go.Him tale dribbles on and on widout a break, Till you hab no eyes for to see;When I reached Chapter 4 I had got a headache, So I had to let Chapter 4 be. Den hang up, etc.,De demand one fine morning for Uncle Tom died, De tears down Mrs. Stowe's face ran like
rain;For she knew berry well, now dey'd laid him on de
shelf, Dat she'd neber get a publisher again. Den hang up, etc.”Tale, “Deuced Odd.”
It will be perceived that this is a mere fragment, stopping short
before the story gets fairly started. As such, I omitted it when I
was compiling my brother's Collected Works, but I think well to insert it here. The tone of writing,
proper to the supposed author, a “legitimate” actor, seems to be
well sustained. I forget what the gist of the story was to have
been: certainly the devil was to bear some part in it. The date of
the fragment is dubious to me; but I think it was later, rather than
earlier, than St. Agnes of
Intercession, written in 1849-50. I con–sider that my brother's incitement
towards writing a story about an Actor and the Devil arose partly
from his reading some years previously, in
Hood's Magazine, a very effective tale about the Devil acting his own part
in some piece of diableriesuch as Der Freischütz. We never knew who the author of that tale may have been.Deuced Odd; or the Devil's in it.
I am sorely afraid that the extraordinary narration which I am
about to relate will derive no accession of credit from my
stating at the outset that I am a public actor,—one, in fact,
whose very life is passed in the endeavour to identify himself
with fictitious characters and situations, and whose most
consummate triumph would be the bringing his audience to
believe, if only for a single moment, that the events going
forward under their eyes were of spontaneous occurrence. Indeed,
I cannot but look upon this fact of my profession as calculated
to be so seriously detrimental to a belief in circumstances
which I know to have really occurred that I should have
considered myself at liberty to suppress it, had it not been
inextricably wound up with the very warp and woof of my story.
It therefore only remains for me to record on my own behalf that
protest which conscious truth has a right to oppose to all
prejudice, based on any grounds whatsoever. At the same time I
would remind my reader that the very improbability of the
matters I shall narrate ought by rights to be counted as a plea
in my favour; since, being fully alive to the disadvantages
under which I labour, I should, if inclined to deceive, have at
least selected a story more adapted for purposes of deception,
and could scarcely be supposed to rush with my eyes open upon
the humiliating result of acting like a fool and being thought
to act like a knave.
I am proud to say that my practice on the stage has been almost
entirely confined to the legitimate drama, in which I have
enjoyed a large share of public favour, and now, towards the
close of my career, may even consider myself celebrated. I have
no wish to speak harshly of those who have arisen in the course
of my career, and who have endeavoured to introduce new theories
connected with parts on which I had long before formed and
pursued my own opinion, from which I may add that I have not, at
any time in the fluctuations of public taste, seen occasion to
deviate. I fear, indeed, that the days when the embodiment of
tragedy on the stage was undesecrated
by a study of the petty actualities of common life are
passed for ever. I at least have to the last upheld my
principles as an actor, and can afford to treat certain recent
criticisms with silent contempt. The strange passage in my life
which I am about to relate is commonly connected in my mind with
the one occasion on which I was weak enough to step down from
the pinnacles of High Art, and seem to bestow my sanction on the
monstrosities of the modern drama. The mysterious and awful
circumstance (for I can call it by no other name) to which I
allude might, I think, not unjustly be regarded as a judgment
upon me for this single concession to a perverted taste.
Words for Poetry.
A letter from my brother to myself has been printed, September 18th,
1849, saying that he had “been reading up all manner of old
romaunts, to pitch upon stunning words for poetry.” I
have found some lists of words in his handwriting which seem to
belong to this quest; many of them, however, appear hardly to be
such words as would be found in old romaunts. In several instances
he gives definitions, in others not. I recognise in these lists
various words which appear passim in my brother's
poems. Here are a few specimens of those which he noted down:—