ROSSETTI'S HOUSE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12776, 21 October 1919, Page 9

ROSSETTI'S HOUSE.

Only once had I a long conversation with ‘Rossetti, but it was significant in many ways. I had spent a oartof the 4th of May in the year 1871, with Thomas Carlyle in Cheyne Row, when lie talked much of Rnskin and PreRaphaelites; and I went down afterwards to Olicyno to sco Rossetti, an illustrious member of the group. Yon then entered it from the river side, with many of the antique boats or barges visible. No_ one who over went in through the old iron gateway can possibly forget it. It was “The Queen’s House,” traditionally that of Catherine of Bragnnza . . . whose initials (C.R.) remained m 1862 on the .twisted iron lettering of its seventeenth century back garden rails. The house, with its wainscot rooms, its spiral staircase, its windows and doorwavs, was said to have been the work of our architect, Christopher IVren- •. . In speaking of Rossetti’s house and garden, I should have mentioned his curious fondness for strange or slightly known animals. He brought them to his house, placed them in cages, and gave them at the same time the run of his garden; whence, they often strived into neighbouring ones. He had owls and hedge-pigs. wombats, doom ioo, kangaroos, arma dillos, marmots, squirrels, peacocks, parrots, jackdaws, lizards, a ; zebu 1 To understand Rossetti aright it should he remembered that he was, in a sense, an alien in Eir,gland, not by birth, hut by inheritance. He was English land some of the best elements of the Italian race. . . . lie was surrounded in his London home by genial influences which set him free from many a tradition, and from the trammels of conventionality. Hear how Buskin speaks of him:— “ I believe bis name shou l d_ be nlaced f ;t on the list of men, within mv own range of knowledge, who have raised and changed the soirit of modern art: raised it, in absolute attainment,, changed it. in direction of temper.” . . lYliat he did to familiarise his age with the work of some almost forgotten poets, such as Omar Fhawam of-Per-sia and our own Blake, is too well knowui to reouire mention here. And now T only add that when w© tallied of the poets and tho artists of the past and present, there was—in’ every sentence, he uttered—brightness and a.sympathetic insight, no movoseness or egotism or vanity on his part.— William Knight.