appearance and evidence at the inquest held on her remains.  He dwells upon the anguish of the widower, when next they met, under the roof of the mother with whom he had sought refuge.  He records how Rossetti appealed to his friendship in the name of the dead lady’s regard for him—­a regard such as she had felt for no other of Rossetti’s friends—­to cleave to him in this time of sorrow, to come and keep house with him as soon as a residence could be found.

Can there be a more convincing and a more beautiful testimony as to a friend’s sorrow and its cause?

Over and above the touching testimony of Swinburne, no one will deny that if ever one man knew another too well to be his biographer, as Mr. Benson says, the author of Aylwin was that man with regard to Rossetti.  No one has ever ventured to challenge the assertion in the article on Rossetti in the Encyclopaedia Britannica that there was a time when with the exception of his own family the poet-painter saw scarcely any one save the writer of this book, whom he was never tired of designating his friend of friends.  There is no need to multiply instances of this friendship, which has been enlarged upon by Rossetti’s brother, and by many others.  Elizabeth Luther Gary, in the best of all the books upon Rossetti, published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons two years after the first edition of Aylwin, speaks of D’Arcy as being ‘the mouthpiece of Rossetti.’

It may be added that Rossetti’s Ballads and Sonnets, published in 1882, were dedicated to the author in these words:  ’To the Friend whom my verse won for me, these few more pages are affectionately inscribed.’  When he drew his last breath at Birchington it was in that friend’s arms.  It is necessary to dwell upon such facts as the above to show how fully equipped is the author of Aylwin for understanding and depicting the great poet-painter, to whose memory he addressed the sonnet at the head of this note.

As to the personality of Rossetti, to which Mr. Benson alludes, to say that it was the one that stood out among the lives of the Victorian poets is to state the case very feebly.  It has been the fortune of the delineator of D’Arcy to be thrown intimately across several of the great poets of his time, not one of whom displayed a personality so dominant as Rossetti’s.  Fine as is Rossetti’s poetry and fine as are his paintings, they but inadequately represent the man.  As to his personal fascination, among all the poets of England we have no record of anything equal to it.  It asserted itself not only in relation to the pre-Raphaelite group, but in relation to all other members of society with whom he was brought into contact.  To describe the magnetism of such a man is, of course, impossible.  Much has been written upon what is called the demonic power in certain individuals—­the power of casting one’s own influence over all others.  Napoleon’s case is generally instanced as a typical