By F. G. Stephens (called Laura Savage on the wrapper): Modern Giants.
By Dante G. Rossetti: Pax Vobis. Republished by the author, with some alterations, under the title of World's Worth.
By Dante G. Rossetti: Sonnets for Pictures. No. 1, A Virgin and Child, by Hans Memmeling, was not reprinted by Rossetti, but is included (with a few verbal alterations made by him in MS.) in his Collected Works. No. 2, A Marriage of St. Katherine, by the same. A similar observation. No. 3, A Dance of Nymphs, by Andrea Mantegna, was republished by Rossetti, with some verbal alterations. No. 4, A Venetian Pastoral, by Giorgionethe like. The alterations here are of considerable moment. Rossetti, in a published letter of October 8, 1849, referred to the Giorgione picture as follows: A Pastoralat least, a kind of Pastoralby Giorgione, which is so intensely fine that I condescended to sit down before it and write a sonnet. You must have heard me rave about the engraving before, and, I fancy, have seen it yourself. There is a woman, naked, at one side, who is dipping a glass vessel into a well, and in the centre two men and another naked woman, who seem to have paused for a moment in playing on the musical instruments which they hold. Nos. 5 and 6, Angelica Rescued from the Sea-Monster, by Ingres, were also reprinted by the author, with scarcely any alteration. Patmore, on reading these two sonnets, was much struck with their truthfulness of quality, as being descriptive of paintings. As to some of the other sonnets, Mr. W. M. Hardinge wrote in Temple Bar, several years ago, an article containing various pertinent and acute remarks.
By W. M. Rossetti: Review of Browning's Christmas Eve and Easter Day. The only observation I need make upon this reviewwhich was merely intended as introductory to a fuller estimate of the poem, to appear in an ensuing number of The Germis that it exemplifies that profound cultus of Robert Browning which, commenced by Dante Rossetti, had permeated the whole of the Præraphaelite Brotherhood, and formed, not less than some other ideas, a bond of union among them. It will be readily understood that, in Mr. Stephens's article, Modern Giants, the person spoken of as the greatest perhaps of modern poets is Browning.
By W. M. Rossetti: The Evil under the Sun: Sonnet. This sonnet was composed in August 1849, when the great cause of the Hungarian insurrection against Austrian tyranny was, like revolutionary movements elsewhere, precipitating towards its fall. My original title for the sonnet was, For the General Oppression of the Better by the Worse Cause, Autumn 1849. When the verses had to be published in The Germ, a magazine which did not aim at taking any side in politics, it was thought that this title was inappropriate, and the other was substituted. At a much later date the sonnet was reprinted with yet another and more significant title, Democracy Down-trodden.
Having now disposed of The Germ in general, and singly of most of the articles in it, I have very little to add. The project of reprinting the magazine was conceived by its present publisher, Mr. Stock, many years agoperhaps about 1883. At that time several contributors assented, but others declined, and considerations of copyright made it impracticable to proceed with the project. It is only now that lapse of time has disposed of the copyright question, and Mr. Stock is free to act as he likes. I was from the first one of those (the majority) who assented to the republication, acting herein on behalf of my brother, then lately deceased, as well as of myself. I am quite aware that some of the articles in The Germ are far from good, and some others, though good in essentials, are to a certain extent juvenile; but juvenility is anything but uninteresting when it is that of such men as Coventry Patmore and Dante Rossetti. The Germ contains nothing of which, in spirit and in purport, the writers need be ashamed. If people like to read it without paying fancy prices for the original edition, they were and are, so far as I am concerned, welcome to do so. Before Mr. Stock's long-standing scheme could be legally carried into effect, an American publisher, Mr. Mosher, towards the close of 1898, brought out a handsome reprint of The Germ (not in any wise a facsimile), and a few of the copies were placed on sale in London.3 Mr. Mosher gave as an introduction to his volume an article by the late J. Ashcroft Noble which originally appeared in an English magazine in May 1882. This article is entitled A Pre-Raphaelite Magazine. It is written in a spirit of generous sympathy, and is mostly correct in its facts. I may here mention another article on The Germ, also published, towards 1868, in some magazine. It is by John Burnell Payne (originally a Clergyman of the Church of England), who died young in 1869. He wrote a triplet of articles, named Præraphaelite Poetry and Painting, of which Part I. is on The Germ. He expresses himself sympathetically enough; but his main drift is to show that the Præraphaelite movement, after passing through some immature stages, developed into a quasi-Renaissance result. A perusal of his paper will show that Mr. Payne was one of the persons who supposed Chiaro dell'Erma, the hero of Hand and Soul, to have been a real painter, author of an extant picture.
Mr. Stock's reprint is of the facsimile order, and even faults of print are reproduced. I am not called upon to say with any precision what there are. On page 45 I observe ear, which should be car; on page 62, Angilico, and Rossini (for Rosini). On page 155 the words, I believe that the thought-wrapped philosopher, ought to begin a new sentence. On page 159 Phyrnes ought of course to be Phrynes. The punctuation could frequently be improved.
I will conclude by appending a little list (it makes no pretension to completeness) of writings bearing upon the Præraphaelite Brotherhood and its members. Writings of that kind are by this date rather numerous; but some readers of the present pages may not well know where to find them, and might none the less be inclined to read up the subject a little. I give these works in the order (as far as I know it) of their dates, without any attempt to indicate the degree of their importance. That is a question on which I naturally entertain opinions of my own, but I shall not intrude them upon the reader.
Ruskin: Pre-Raphaelitism, 1854, and other later writings.
F. G. Stephens: William Holman-Hunt and his Works, 1860.
William Sharp: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1882.
Hall Caine: Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1882.
Walter Hamilton: The Æsthetic Movement in England, 1882.
T. Watts-Dunton: The Truth about Rossetti, 1883, and other writings.
W. Holman-Hunt: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 1884 (?).
Earnest Chesneau: La Peinture Anglaise, 1884 (?).
Joseph Knight: Life of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1887.
W. M. Rossetti: Dante Gabriel Rossetti as Designer and Writer, 1889.
Harry Quilter: Preferences in Art, 1892.
W. Bell Scott: Autobiographical Notes, 1892.
Esther Wood: Dante Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite Movement, 1894.
Robert de la Sizeranne: La Peinture Anglaise Contemporaine, 1895.
Dante G. Rossetti: Family Letters, with Memoir by W. M. Rossetti, 1895.
Richard Muther: The History of Modern Painting, vols. ii. and iii., 1896.
Ford H. M. Hueffer: Ford Madox Brown, 1896.
Dante G. Rossetti: Letters to William Allingham, edited by Dr. Birkbeck Hill, 1897.
M. H. Spielmann: Millais and his Works, 1898.