— 40 —
in a letter to William Allingham[1]: "Old Blake is quite as loveable by his oddities as by his genius, and the drawings to the ballads abound with both. Nearly faultless are the Eagle and the Hermit's Dog." "As regards engraving these drawings—with the Job,—present the only good medium between etching and formal line that I ever met with."
c) 1859.Rossetti enumerates the "Choicest English Poems" and includes Blake's The Angel. (Letter to W. Allingham, Christmas 1859.)
d) 1860.Alexander Gilchrist asks Rossetti to send him the Ms. Book of Blake, which he wants to use for his work on Blake.
e) 1861-63.After the death of Alexander Gilchrist (Nov. 1861), Rossetti together with Mrs. A. Gilchrist completes Gilchrist's work on Blake. Rossetti writes a finishing chapter of Blake's Life (included now in his works. Literary Papers. William Blake vol. I. p. 443) but his chief concern was the editing of Blake's poems. Out of the confused heap of Blake Mss. he chose and polished and even made small alterations, filled up an occasional gap or substituted an unreadable word and thus gave us the beautiful selection of Blake's poems we find in the second volume of Alexander Gilchrist's work on Blake.
f) 1875.Towards 1875 and 1881 Rossetti writes two notices on the paintings of Samuel Palmer[2] and says in these: "The possessors of his works have what must grow in influence, just as the possessors of Blake's
- ↑ William Allingham, a friend of Rossetti, was a great lover of literature and art and a sound art critic. In 1874 he was appointed editor of Fraser's Magazine, and for many years edited this periodical.
- ↑ Samuel Palmer (1805—1881) was an English landscape painter of the romantic school. Besides his watercolours he is known by his beautiful illustrations of Milton's Allegro and Penseroso.
