DANTE ROSSETTI.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 123, 26 May 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

DANTE ROSSETTI.

PAINTER-POET'S CENTENARY, A REMARKABLE CIRCLE. (By CHARLES WILSON.)

If ever there were an English poet whose name pointed more surely to racial extraction than <1 id. that of Dante Gabriel Rosssett.i, ho would he difficult to discover. Rossetti's father had been custodian of the Botrrbon Museum at Naples, which did not prevent his being so ardent a patriot ae to join others in the movement to obtain a constitution from Ferdinand, King of the two Sicilies, in 1820. When the Bourbons returned, backed by the hated Austrians, Rossetti pere had to get away out of Naples as quickly as he could. This he did, disguised as an English officer, and with, it is said, the connivance and assistance of the English admin I. It was at Malta, where Hookham Frere was Governor, that he learnt English, and he repaired in 1825 to London, where in time he got an appointment as professor of Italian literature at King's College, and married a lady bearing the picturesque name of Frames Maria Lavinia Polidori, whoso father, Gaetano Polidori, was the translator of Milton.

There were four Rossetti children. JUaria Franeesca, tho author of "A Shadow of Dante"; Dante Gabriel, the eldest son; William Michael Rosetti, the second won, who did much fine work in the literature of art and literary criticism; together with the famous daughter, the poet Christina Rossetti. Dante Gabriel was born on May 12, 1828, and we may be sure that the centenary of one whose fame a poet and painter is so securely established will have been marked throughout the Eng-lish-speaking world. The Pre-Raphaelites. The father for a time strove to turn the youth's inclination toward a commercial career, but leaving school he coon entered Gary's Art Academy in Bloomsbury, and joined the life classes at the Koyal Academy. He never liked conventional forms of study and after a short time spent in the studio of Madox Brown he soon joine . Holm an Hunt in sharing a studio the latter had taken in Cleveland Street, where he met and became friendly with Millais. quite a young man Rossetti had given promise of being a poet of fine quality, having translated Dante's "Vita Nuova," and written poems, "The Bride's Prelude," "The Blessed Damozel" and others which later on were to be widely appreciated. The three young men came to the conclusion that it was necessary to abandon the conventional style of the day and ae the result of mutual study of a book of Italian engravings, which was discovered by Millais, the PreEaphaelite Brotherhood was formed in theory, if not at first as an organised association of artists. A Brilliant Circla. In the late 'fifties William Morris and Burne Jones settled in London in rooms at 17, Red Lion Square, where they Boon came under the Rossetti influence, the latter assisting in the designing of furniture for Morris' commercial undertakings, but never becoming an actual partner in his ventures. As time wfent on Rossetti modified not a little many of the stricter views and formulae of becoming yearly more intimate with Morris, assisted very largely in the growth of that aesthetic movement which, ridiculed as it was for a time hy the adherents of a stiff and conventional Victorianism, did so much to promote a love of real art in the 'sixties and 'seventies of the last century. At Red Lion Square he associated, in a »pecies of unorganised artists' club, with Madox Brown, William Morris, Holman Hunt, and others, and there was much good brown ale drunk there, and much riotous laughter at night. Then Rossetti married his beautiful model, Miss Siddal, the most picturesquely charming and romantic figure of all his circle. The death of his wife, who had taken an overdose of morphia to allay the pains of neuralgia, was the tragedy of his life. Rossetti left the city for good, and went to live at a fine house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, where for some time he had George Meredith and Swinburne as his housemates. "The Fleshly School." Rossetti's "Poems" were published in 1870, and at once created a small sensation, but his sudden popularity as an author brought forth a counterblast, which, however honestly conceived, was unquestionably unfair, and, worse still, evidently the outcome of an ill-natured and jealous spirit. This article, signed Thomas Maitland, the pseudonym being known to cover the identity of Mr. Robert Buchanan, himself a poet, was entitled, "The Fleshly School of Poetry," and not only charged Rossetti with technical defects and exaggerations, but imputed to the artist-poet a wilfully evil purpose. As a matter of fact there was but one poem which could in any way be fairly held to err on the side of immoral tendency, and Rossetti himself had always been so free from night like personal sensualism, and was & man of so open and innocent a life that he would have been the last man >n the world to indite aught that could he held to have any deliberately immoral tendency. Buchanan himself lived to apologise publicly for what he wrote, but unfortunately the mischief was done, and the unjust accusation had a bad eireet upon a mind which from one cause or another had grown rather i morbid. 1

Rosetti became more and more a victim to chloral. He actually began to labour under the delusion that he was the victim of a widespread conspiracy, in which the Government was involved, to hound him to artistic ruin. This lamentable obsession was warmly cornhated by his friend, Madox Brown, but it never really died out, and unquestionably affected his mental outlook. He lived with Morris at Kelmscott, and there painted some of his finest pi c " | "res, including the famous "Dante's I'rcam," which now hangs in the Liverpool Gallery. Returning to London in ,5 74 he published his "Ballads and Sonnets," am] this time there was no discordant criticism. His use of chloral, however, steadily increased, and when ' n 1882 he was attacked by illness, he had not the strength to combat it.

As to Posset.ti's personal character his biographer, Ford Madox Hueffer, writes in hi«h appreciation of the man: "Kossetti's personal character in his human relations was line, magnanimous and generous. He had no jealousy and no conception of jealousies. His purse ond his encouragement were open and ready for every comer."