After 1877 Rossetti kept strictly to his house at 16 Cheyne Walk visited only by a few faithful friends.

He began to write again in 1878. By March 1881 he had enough material for a new volume, “Ballads and Sonnets,” the MS. of which was offered to and accepted by Messrs. Ellis & White on the same terms as his first book, now out of print after running into a sixth edition. The “Ballads and Sonnets” met with quite as great success as the earlier volume, this time without any discordant note of criticism. In this year Rossetti sold his great picture of “Dante’s Dream” to the Corporation of Liverpool.

The two finished works of 1878 are: “A Vision of Fiametta,” and a water-colour called “Bruna Brunelleschi.” To that year must be added the unfinished design called “Desdemona’s Death Song,” various studies for the figure of Desdemona, a design of the entire composition done on a scale about half-life size, as well as a beginning of the picture on canvas, which was not continued. The Faust subject that he intended to paint, “Gretchen, or Risen at Dawn,” was not more advanced. As time went on and his health failed his output diminished.

In 1879 Rossetti painted a replica of the “Blessed Damozel” with its predella, changing the background of lovers and substituting two angels’ heads. “La Donna de la Fenestra” was also completed in that year.

In 1880 and 1881 Rossetti was working on three large pictures, “The Day Dream,” “The Salutation of Beatrice,” and “La Pia,” as well as on “Found,” the early attempt at a modern subject that he was never able to finish. He painted several replicas, the most important being a smaller version of “Dante’s Dream.” The “Daydream” begun in 1868 was also completed at this time and the picture has since been given to the South Kensington Museum by its owner Mr. IonidÈs. “The Salutation of Beatrice” is quite different from the earlier design of the same name and shows those defects of his later work that we have pointed out; it was not quite finished at the time of his death. “La Pia” is the last picture painted and shows the same faults as the last mentioned.

In September 1881 Rossetti went for a trip in the lake district of Cumberland accompanied by Mr. Hall Caine, but after a month his health grew worse and he returned in haste to London. A few days later he became so ill that he required very careful nursing. After a partial recovery from this illness he was once more interrupted in his work by an attack of nervous paralysis, which seized him suddenly. This last attack was due to the chloral he had been in the habit of taking for so long and it was then strictly forbidden. The habit of so many years was not to be broken without much discomfort and suffering, but he gradually got better. As soon as he was well enough he was taken to Birchington-on-Sea in February 1882, there he managed to work a little, but was soon attacked by an old disorder, and in his weakened state of health he could not throw it off. He grew weaker and worse. Death came with the 10th of April 1882, and the painter poet is buried in the little churchyard of Birchington.

In the last days of his life, when he could paint no more, he made an attempt to finish the story of “St. Agnes of Intercession” which was begun for the “Germ,” he also completed the ballad of “Jan Van Hunks,” and wrote a couple of sonnets for his drawing called the “Question.”

Most of the critics who have written on Rossetti deplore the fact that he did not learn to paint, but to artists one of the greatest charms of his pictures (especially the early ones) is the unexpectedness of their composition. We owe that charm in a great measure to the fact that happily he had not been spoiled by the sophisticated teaching of Academic Schools, but had kept the bloom of his poetical inspiration. We must thank the instinct of the young man, which made him avoid a teaching which is bound to be fatal to both realism and romanticism. It may be that he himself deplored the lack of training at certain moments of discouragement in his life, but the kind of training available at the time of his dÉbut would not have added much to his achievement. He managed to say what he had to say, and in many cases to say it well. He saved himself the loss of time necessary to forget certain of the artistic prÉjugÉs then in vogue, they would have been very much in his way, even if he had quite succeeded in getting rid of them. The rather amateurish side to Rossetti’s art is vastly compensated for by the precious qualities he has been able to preserve.

It is unfortunate that, through his refusal to exhibit, the public has been acquainted first with his later work, which shows the decline of his faculties caused by his ill health. Neither the fresh creations of his early work nor the gorgeous pieces of his middle period are as well known as they deserve to be.

As a young man Rossetti possessed an extraordinary influence over the members of the group round him. Later when his work became less sincere his influence declined and what promised to be at the beginning a great renaissance of the English School has ended with him. Such a disaster is certain to befall the school or the artists who do not refresh themselves continually by the “communion” with nature. Ruskin says in his Pre-Raphaelitism: “If they adhere to their principles, and paint nature as it is around them, with the help of modern science, with the earnestness of the men of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, they will, as I said, found a new and noble school in England. If their sympathies with the early artists lead them into mediÆvalism or Romanism, they will of course come to nothing.” These words were prophetic.

The plates are printed by Bemrose & Sons, Ltd., Derby and London
The text at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh