highly, to gain possession of it was not a very easy matter and required much diplomacy.
I now had an opportunity of looking over and admiring a series of Rossetti's first ideas and sketches for many of his pictures, and studies of heads, which were contained in a large, thick book, lying on a little cabinet in a distant corner. It was a great and unexpected treat to see this collection, a most varied one, amongst which were many carefully finished likenesses, some in red chalk, and others in pencil and in pen and ink, including pencil sketches of John Ruskin47 (not bearded then), Robert Browning,48 Algernon Charles Swinburne,49 William Morris,50 and other well-known men.
At last we came to the page at which the drawing Howell had come to secure was affixed. It was a beautiful face, delicately drawn, and shaded in pencil, with a background of pale gold. Howell, with an adroitness which was remarkable, shifted it from the book into his own pocket, and neither I nor Rossetti ever saw it again.
As we turned over the contents of this volume, a small, hasty, but exceedingly realistic pen and ink sketch, that had nearly got passed over, arrested my attention. It was of Tennyson,51 seated and reading out his poem Maud. This reading took place in Browning's London residence, in the presence of Browning, Mrs. Browning, Rossetti, and his brother.52 Whoever possesses the little sketch ought to prize it very highly.53
