Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/473

 devoted companion, he pursued with extreme regularity a monotonous course of life, which was rarely diversified by even a visit to London, although it lay so near. Swinburne had, since about 1875, been afflicted with increasing deafness, which now (from 1879 onwards) made general society impossible for him. In 1880 he published three important volumes of poetry, 'Studies in Song,' 'Heptalogia' (an anonymous collection of seven parodies), and 'Songs of the Springtides'; and a volume of prose criticism, 'A Study of Shakespeare.' In April 1881 he finished the long ode entitled ' Athens,' and began 'Tristram of Lyonesse'; 'Mary Stuart' was published in this year. In February 1882 he made the acquaintance of J. R. Lowell, who had bitterly attacked his early poems. Lowell was now 'very pleasant' and the old feud was healed. In April, as he was writing the last canto of 'Tristram,' he was surprised by the news of D. G. Rossetti's death, and he wrote his (still unpublished) ’Record of Friendship.' In August Mr. Watts took him for some weeks to Guernsey and Sark. In September, as he 'wanted something big to do,' Swinburne started a 'Life and Death of Caesar Borgia,' of which the only fragment that remains was published in 1908 as 'The Duke of Gandia.' The friends proceeded to Paris for the dinner to Victor Hugo (22 Nov.) and the resuscitation of 'Le Roi s'amuse' at the Theatre Fran9ais. Swinburne was introduced for the first time to Hugo and to Leconte de Lisle, but he could not hear a fine of the play, and on his return to Putney he refused to go to Cambridge to listen to the 'Ajax,' his infirmity now excluding him finally from public appearances. To 1883 belongs ' A Century of Roundels,' which made Tennyson say 'Swinburne is a reed through which all things blow into music' In June of that year Swinburne visited Jowett at Emerald Bank, Newlands, Keswick. His history now dwindles to a mere enumeration of his publications. 'A Midsummer Holiday' appeared iu 1884, 'Marino Fahero' in 1885, 'A Study of Victor Hugo' and 'Miscellanies ' in 1886, 'Locrine' and a group of pamphlets of verse ('A Word for the Navy,' 'The Question,' 'The Jubilee,' and 'Gathered Songs') in 1887.

In June 1888 his public rupture with an old friend. Whistler, attracted notice; it was the latest ebullition of his fierce temper, which was now becoming wonderfully placid. His daily walk over Putney Heath, in the course of which he would waylay perambulators for the purpose of baby-worship, made him a figure familiar to the suburban public. Swinburne's summer holidays, usually spent at the sea-side with his inseparable friend, were the sources of much lyrical verse. In 1888 he wrote two of the most remarkable of his later poems: 'The Armada' and 'Pan and Thalassius.' In 1889 he published 'A Study of Ben Jonson' and 'Poems and Ballads (Third Series).' His marvellous fecumdity was now at length beginning to slacken; for some years he made but shght appearances. Hia latest publications were: 'The Sisters' (1892); 'Studies in Prose and Poetry' (1894); 'Astrophel' (1894); 'The Tale of Balen' (1896); 'Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards' (1899); 'A Channel Passage' (1904); and 'Love's Cross-Currents' — a reprint of the novel 'A Year's Letters' of 1877 — in 1905. In that year he wrote a little book about 'Shakespeare,' which was published posthumously in 1909. In November 1896 Lady Jane Swinburne died, in her eighty-eighth year, and was mourned by her son in the beautiful double elegy called 'The High Oaks: Barking Hall.'

Swinburne's last years were spent in great placidity, always under the care of his faithful companion. In November 1903 he caught a chill, which developed into double pneumonia, of which he very nearly died. Although, under great care, he wholly recovered, his lungs remained delicate. In April 1909, just before the poet's seventy-second birthday, the entire household of Air. Watts-Dunton was prostrated by influenza. In the case of Swinburne, who suffered most severely, it developed into pneumonia, and in spite of the resistance of his constitution the poet died on the morning of 10 April 1909. He was buried on 15 April at Bonchurch, among the graves of his family. He left only one near relation behind him, his youngest sister, Miss Isabel Swinburne.

The physical characteristics of Algernon Swinburne were so remarkable as to make him almost unique. His large head was out of all proportion with his narrow and sloping shoulders; his slight body, and small, slim extremities, were agitated by a restlessness that was often, but not correctly, taken for an indication of disease. Alternately he danced as if on wires or sat in an absolute immobility. The quick vibrating motion of his hands began in very early youth, and was a sign of excitement; it was accompanied, even when he was a child, by 'a radiant expression of his face, very striking indeed'. His puny frame required