Page:Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1904).djvu/94

 6. The son of an Englishman and a Portuguese mother, who was born in Portugal towards 1849. He was very intimate with Rossetti and his circle from 1864, but got out of favour with the circle from about 1869. He acted as Ruskin's secretary from circa 1865 to 1868, and as Rossetti's selling agent from 1872 to 1876. He possessed a keen artistic perception, and was well versed in all matters pertaining to Art. As these Recollections show, he had also a wit that was as clever as it was inimitable. He died towards 1888.

7. Mr. Seymour Kirkup, an English painter who settled in Florence circa 1824, and was ennobled as a Barone of the Italian kingdom. He was particularly known for having, towards 1840, made the discovery referred to. Throughout the greater part of his life he was a fervent spiritualist, and professed to hold intercourse with the spirit of Dante. In a letter to Rossetti, he informed him that the poet had drawn part of his own portrait and written his name under it to oblige him. He died at a great age, about 1880.

8. In the Bargello.

9. Canto xi.: In painting Cimabue thought that he
 * Should hold the field, now Giotto has the cry,
 * So that the other's fame is growing dim.

So has our Guido from the other taken
 * The glory of our tongue, and he perchance
 * Is born, who from the nest shall chase them both."

Longfellow's Translation.

10. No. 16, a fine old building, with an extensive garden and a frontage commanding the river, to which Rossetti removed, in the Autumn of 1862, from No. 59, Lincoln's Inn Fields. At No. 14, Chatham Place, Blackfriars Bridge (now demolished) he had lived for several years before occupying for a few months the chambers in