continued to write poems and produce pictures-in the latter relying more and more upon his manipulative skill but exercising less and less his exhaust less faculty of invention.
In 1871 an unsigned article in the Contemporary Review (by Robert Buchanan) on the "Fleshly School of Poetry ” made a fierce attack on Rossetti's poems from what was intended to be a moral point of view, to which he answered by one on the “ Stealthy School of Criticism.” The attack was deeply felt by him, and increased his tendency-previously tempered by natural high spirits-towards gloomy brooding. About 1868 the curse of the artistic and poetic temperament, insomnia, attacked him. One of the most distressing effects of this malady is a nervous shrinking from personal contact with any save a few intimate and constantly seen friends. This peculiar kind of nervousness may be aggravated by the use of narcotics, and in his case was aggravated to a very painful degree; at one time he saw scarcely any one save his own family and immediate family connexions and the present writer. He was frequently away with William Morris at Kelmscot, in Oxfordshire. During the time that his second volume of original poetry, Ballads and Sonnets, was passing through the press (in 1881) his health began to give way, and he left London for Cumberland. A stay of a few weeks in the Vale of St John, however, did nothing to improve his health, and he returned much shattered. He then went to Birchington-on-Sea, but received no benefit from the change, though affectionately tended by friends like Hall Caine and others already mentioned; and, gradually sinking from a complication of disorders, he died on Sunday the 9th of April 1882.
In all matters of taste Rossetti's influence has been immense. The purely decorative arts (see ARTS AND CRAFTS) he may be said to have rejuvenated directly or indirectly. And he left the deepest impression upon the poetic methods of his time. One of the most wonderful of Rossetti's endowments, however, was neither of a literary nor an artistic kind: it was that of a rare and most winning personality which attracted towards itself, as if by an unconscious magnetism, the love of all his friends, the love, indeed, of all who knew him. (T. W.-D.) Auruonrrrss.-See various books by W. M. Rossetti-Dante Gabriel Rossetti as Designer and Writer (1889); Ruskin, Rossetti, Pre-Raphaelitism (1399); and Some Reminiscences (1906); Memoir by W. M. Rossetti prefixed to the Collected Works, published in 1886. Lady Burne-]ones's Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones (1904) is full of interesting sidelights. See also F. G. Stephens, D. G. Rossetti; “ Portfolio” monograph (1894); H. C. Marillier, D. G. Rossetti (1899 and 1901); W. Sharp, Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Record and a Study (1882); T. Hall Caine, Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1882); W. Allingham, Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti to William Allingham, 18 54-70 (1897). An article by Vernon Lushmgton in the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine (1856) is an early contemporary view worth noting.
ROSSI, LUIGI DE, a 17th-century Italian musical composer,
said to have been born at Naples towards the close of the 16th
century. Of his life practically nothing is known. An opera
of his, Il Palazzo Incantato, was given at Rome in 1642; in
1646 he was invited by Cardinal Mazarin to Paris, where he
gave his opera Le M ariage d'Orphée et d'Euridice (1647), the
first Italian opera performed in Paris. A collection of cantatas
published in 1646 describes him as musician to Cardinal Antonio
Berberini, and G. A. Perti in 1688 speaks of him along with
Carissimi and Cesti as “the three greatest lights of our profession.” Rossi is noteworthy principally for his chamber cantatas, which are among the finest that the 17th century
produced. A large quantity are in MS. in the British Museum
and in Christ Church library, Oxford. La Gelosia, printed
by F.A. Gevaert in Les Gloires d'Italie, is an admirable specimen.
ROSSI, PELLEGRINO LUIGI EDOARDO, COUNT (1787-1848),
Italian economist and statesman, was born at Carrara on the
13th of July 1787. He was educated at Pavia and Bologna,
and in 1812 became professor of law at the latter university.
In 1815 he gave his support to joachim Murat, and after his
fall escaped to France, whence he proceeded to Geneva. There
he began a course of jurisprudence applied to Roman law, the
success of which gained him the unusual honour of naturalization as a citizen of Geneva. In 1820 he was elected as a
deputy to the cantonal council, and was a member of the extraordinary
diet of 1832. He was entrusted withvthe task of
drawing up a revised constitution, which was known as the
Pacte Rossi. This was rejected by a majority of the diet, a
result which deeply affected Rossi, and induced him to look
with favour on the suggestions of Guizot and the duc de Broglie
that he should settle in France. He was appointed in 1833 to
the chair of political economy in the College de France, vacated
by the death of J. B. Say. He was naturalized as a French
citizen in 1834, and in the same year became professor of
constitutional law in the faculty of law at Paris. In 1836 he
was elected a member of the Académie des sciences politiques
et morales, was raised to the peerage in 1839 and in 1843 became
doyen of the faculty of law. In 1845 he was sent to Rome by
Guizot to discuss the question of the Jesuits, being finally
appointed ambassador of France at Rome. The revolution
of 1848 severed his connexion with France, and he remained
at Rome and became minister of the interior under Pius IX.
He was unpopular, however, owing to his conservative views,
and was assassinated on the 15th of November, as he was
alighting at the steps of the House of Assembly.
As a statesman, Rossi was a man of signal ability and intrepid
character, but it is as an economist that his name will be best
remembered. His Cours d'économie politique (1838-54) gave in
classic form an exposition of the doctrines of Say, Malthus and
Ricardo. His other works were Traité de droit pénal (1829); Cours
de droit constitutionnel (1866-67)» and Mélanges d'éconornie politique,
d'histoire et de philosophies (2 vols., 1857). His widow left a sum of
100,000 francs to the Institut de France, to found in his memory
scholarships in political economy or law. Carrara erected a statue
to his memory m 1876, and in 1887 the Société d'éconornie politique
celebrated his centenary with a notice of his life and works.
See also le Comte Fleury d'ldeville, Le Comte Pellegrino Rossi,
sa vie, ses wuvres, sa mort (1887).
ROSSINI, GIOACHINO ANTONIO (1792-1868), Italian musical
composer, was born at Pesaro on the 29th of February 1792.
His father was town trumpeter and inspector of slaughterhouses,
his mother a baker's daughter. The elder Rossini's
sympathies for the French became a source of trouble when,
after the occupation of the papal state by the French in 1796,
the Austrians restored the old régime. He was sent to prison,
and his wife took Gioachino to Bologna, earning her living
as a prima donna buja at various theatres of the Romagna,
where she was ultimately rejoined by her husband. Gioachino
remained at Bologna in the care of a pork butcher, while his
father played the horn in the bands of the theatres at which
his mother sang. The boy had three years' instruction in the
harpsichord from Prinetti of Novara, but Prinetti played the
scale with two fingers only, combined his profession of a musician
with the business of selling liquor, and fell asleep while 'he
stood, so that he was a Ht subject for ridicule with his critical
pupil. Gioachino was taken from him and apprenticed to a
smith. In Angelo Tesei he found a congenial master, and
learned to read at sight, to play accompaniments on the pianoforte,
and to sing well enough to take solo parts in the church
when he was ten years of age. At thirteen he appeared at
the theatre of the Commune in Paér's Camilla- his only appearance
as a public singer (1805). He was also able to play the
horn. In 1807 he was admitted to the counterpoint class of
Padre P. S. Mattei, and soon after to that of Cavedagni for
the 'cello at the Conservatorio of Bologna. He learned to
play the 'cello with ease, but the pedantic severity of Mattei's
views on counterpoint only served to accentuate the tendency
of his genius towards a freer school of composition, and his
insight into orchestral resources is to be ascribed rather to
knowledge gained by scoring the quartets and symphonies of
Haydn and Mozart, than to any prescribed rules for the composition
of music. At Bologna he was known as “il Tedeschino
” on account of his devotion to Mozart. Through the
friendly interposition of the Marquis Cavalli, his first opera,
La Cambiale di M atrimonio, was produced at Venice when he
was a youth of eighteen. But two years before this he had
already received the prize at the Conservatorio of Bologna.
