Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/471

 had published in the summer a selection from Byron, with an introduction of extreme eulogy, and in October he answered his critics in 'Notes on Poems and Reviews'; William Michael Rossetti also published a volume in defence.

The winter was spent at Holmwood, near Henley-on-Thames, which his father bought in 1865, and where his family was now settled ; here in November he finished a large book on Blake, which had occupied him for some time, and in February 1867 completed 'A Song of Italy,' which was published in September. His friends now included Simeon Solomon [q. v. Suppl. II], whose genius he extolled in the 'Dark Blue' magazine (July 1871) and elsewhere. In April 1867, on a false report of the death of Charles Baudelaire (who survived until September of that year), Swinburne wrote 'Ave atque Vale.' This was a period of wild extravagance and of the least agreeable episodes of his life ; his excesses told upon his health, which had already suffered, and there were several recurrences of his malady. In June, while staying with Lord Houghton at Fryston, he had a fit which left him seriously ill. In August, to recuperate, he spent some time with Lord Lytton at Knebworth, where he made the acquaintance of John Forster. In November he published the pamphlet of political verse called 'An Appeal to England.' The Reform League invited him to stand for parliament ; Swinburne appealed to Mazzini, to whom he had been introduced, in March 1867, by Karl Blind [q.v. Suppl. II]. Mazzini strongly discouraged the idea, advising him to confine himself to the cause of Italian freedom, and he declined. Swinburne now became intimate with Adah Isaacs Menken [q. v.], who had left her fourth and last husband, James Barclay. It has often been repeated that the poems of this actress, published as 'Infelicia' early in 1868, were partly written by Swinburne, but this is not the case ; and the verses, printed in 1883, as addressed by him to Adah Menken, were not composed by him.' She went to Paris in the summer of 1868 and died there on 10 Aug. ; the shock to Swinburne of the news caused an illness which lasted several days, for he was sincerely attached to her. He was very busily engaged on political poetry during this year. In February 1868 he wrote 'The Hymn of Man,' and in April 'Tiresias'; in June he published, in pamphlet form, 'Siena.' Two prose works belong to this year: 'William Blake' and 'Notes on the Royal Academy,' but most of his energy was concentrated on the transcendental celebration of the Republic in verse. At the height of the scandal about 'Poems and Ballads' there had been a meeting between Jowett and Mazzini at the house of George I Howard (afterwards ninth earl of Carlisle) : [q. v. Suppl. II], to discuss 'what can be done with and for Algernon.' Mazzini had instructed Karl Blind to bring the poet to visit him, and had said 'There must be no more of this love-frenzy; you must dedicate your glorious powers to the service of the Republic' Swinburne's reply had been to sit at Mazzini's feet and to pour forth from memory the whole of 'A Song of Italy.' For the next three years he carried out Mazzini's mission, in the composition of 'Songs before Sunrise.'

His health was still unsatisfactory; he had a fit in the reading-room of the British Museum (10 July), and was ill for a month after it. He was taken down to Holmwood, and when sufficiently recovered started (September) for Étretat, where he and Powell hired a small villa which they named the Chaumière de Dolmancé. Here Offenbach visited them. The sea-bathing was beneficial, but on his return to London Swinburne's illnesses, fostered by his own obstinate imprudence, visibly increased in severity; in April 1869 he complained of 'ill-health hardly intermittent through weeks and months.' From the end of July to September he spent some weeks at Vichy with Richard Burton, Leighton, and Mrs. Sartoris. He went to Holmwood for the winter and composed 'Diræ' in December. In the summer of 1870 he and Powell settled again at Étretat; during this visit Swinburne, who was bathing alone, was carried out to sea on the tide and nearly drowned, but was picked up by a smack, which carried him in to Yport. At this time, too, the youthful Guy de Maupassant paid the friends a visit, of which he has given an entertaining account. When the Germans invaded France, Swinburne and Powell returned to England. In September Swinburne published the 'Ode on the Proclamation of the French Republic' He now reappeared, more or less, in London artistic society, and was much seen at the houses of Westland Marston and Madox Brown. 'Songs before Sun-rise,' with its prolonged glorification of the republican ideal, appeared early in 1871. In July and August of this year Swinburne stayed with Jowett in the little hotel at the foot of Loch Tummel. Here he made the acquaintance of Browning, who was