Page:Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1904).djvu/100

 she was changed into a night spectre, especially hostile to newly-born infants. The legend had a peculiar fascination for Rossetti. He introduces the supernatural Lilith into his poem Eden Bower.

18.Walpurgis Night. Scene 31. Faust.And who is that? Mephistopheles.Do thou observe her well. That's Lilith. Faust.Who? Meph.Adam's first damosel. Be on thy guard against her lovely hair, That tire of hers in which she peerless shines! When with its charm a youngster she entwines, She will not soon release him. So beware! Webb's Translation.

19.Mr. William M. Rossetti has already expressed his own opinion that the alteration referred to was detrimental to the work. Fortunately a photograph of the painting in its original state exists. When Rossetti re-painted the face, he employed a different model.

20.This picture has often been called the Dying Beatrice, but not with strict correctness. Its true title is as given. It represents Beatrice in a trance, which is to be understood as symbolically suggesting death, but she is not intended to be really dead, nor yet dying.

21.She had at an earlier date been Mrs. Cowper-Temple. Mr. W. M. Rossetti, in speaking of the extremely cordial relations which subsisted between his brother and the principal purchasers of his pictures, expressly mentions this lady as one of his friends.

22.See Note 12. February, 1862. After a lengthy engagement, Rossetti, in the spring of 1860, married Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, originally a milliner's assistant, and the daughter of a Sheffield cutler. As will be seen, their wedded life was of short duration. She had given birth to a still-born infant. Miss Siddal was gifted with