Page:Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1904).djvu/115

 98.He made a considerable reputation as a painter towards 1845. At one time he was confined in Bedlam, where Mr. W. M. Rossetti once saw him.

99.Mathematician and astrologer, 1527-1608.

100.It is implied here that the name of the poem is Beryl. This is not the case. The title is Rose Mary. The author of these Recollections refers to the Beryl-Songs so entitled, which follow the three divisions of the poem, concerning which Mr. W. M. Rossetti writes: "This poem was written in the early autumn of 1871. The Beryl-Songs are a later addition, say 1879. The very general opinion has been that they were better away, and I cannot but agree with it. I have heard my brother say that he wrote them to show that he was not incapable of the daring rhyming and rhythmical exploits of some other poets. As to this point, readers must judge. It is at any rate true, that in making the word 'Beryl' the pivot of his experiment, a word to which there are the fewest possible rhymes, my brother weighted himself heavily."— to Collected Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

"Rose Mary is regarded by many as the author's highest poetic accomplishment. It is, at least, a magnificent ballad, using, with unrivalled effect a mystical Eastern conception, and charged with the subtlest and the most poetical significance."—Life of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, by Joseph Knight.

101.She is represented in Hades, holding the pomegranate, of which (according to mythological legend) she ate a single seed, and was thereby interdicted from returning to earth. Of this subject, there are two oil-paintings, about equally successful.

102.Rossetti painted two rather large oil pictures from his poem The Blessed Damozel—one for Mr. Graham,