Page:The Poetry of Dante Rossetti by Hall Caine.pdf/11

 Well then, be it so: it is too individual. But the classification has been done already, and I think wrongly. The "aesthetic poets" have claimed Mr. Rossetti for their own; but is there not a deeper thing in him than the love of beauty for the sheer passion of pursuit? Lovers of "art for art" may claim kindred with Browning's "Caliban," who worked "for work's sole sake;" but surely a strong sense of conduct is the underlying thing in Mr. Rossetti. True, there is in him an utter Greek love of beauty and passion for art, but has the Italian element in him been duly considered? Is there not something Dantesque about him? What is it calls out his love for Dante at Verona?—Dante's love of Beatrice? No, but his conduct. There is an Italian element in Mr. Rossetti, and it is Italian before the Renaissance, that is, Jewish in essence. The ultimate thing in him is Hebrew. As in Mr. Ruskin, so in Mr. Rossetti, the topmost thing is love of beauty; the deepest thing is love of stern, uncomely right. The fusion of these softens the poet's old mythological Italian Catholicism and ironises his sensuous passion. Can anyone question this who has read and remembered his "Last Confession," "Sister Helen," "Jenny," and chiefly his "Dante at Verona?"

It would be wrong to say that Mr. Rossetti has part or lot with those false artists, or no artists, who assert without fear or shame that the manner of doing a thing should be abrogated or superseded by the moral purpose of its being done. Through and in his poetry, as in his painting, we may see that to him, as an artist, the first thing is to do his work supremely well for its own sake, while the accident is the ethical result which follows. Mr. Rossetti makes no conscious compromise with the puritan principle of doing good, and to demand first of his poetry the lesson or message it has for us, would be wilfully to miss of pleasure while we vainly strove for profit. He is too true an artist to follow art into its byeways of moral significance, and thereby cripple its broader aims. But at the same time all this absorption of the artist in his art lives and works together with the personal instincts of the man. It is everywhere mixed with it and coloured by it, and to do good on other grounds is in Mr. Rossetti's art involved and included in being good on its own.

And those who assert that the manner of doing a work is the essence of the work done, may claim to be the perfect artists by right of their passion of pursuit. They are assuredly imperfect men. Their work may be of supreme value to certain byeways