beauty and for the magnetic
quality that made the ear alert when the speaker was engaged in
conversation, recitation or reading. I have heard him read, some of
them over and over again, all the poems in the "Ballads and
Sonnets," and especially in such productions as "The Cloud Confines"
was his voice as stirring as a trumpet-note; but where he excelled
was in some of the pathetic portions of "The Vita Nuova" or the
terrible and sonorous passages of "L'Inferno," when the music of the
Italian language found full expression indeed. His conversational
powers I am unable adequately to describe, for during the four or
five years of my intimacy with him he suffered too much to be a
brilliant talker, but again and again I have seen instances of that
marvelous gift that made him at one time a Sydney Smith in wit and a
Coleridge in eloquence.

In appearance he was, if anything, rather above middle height, and,
especially latterly, somewhat stout; his forehead was of splendid
proportions, recalling instantaneously the Stratford bust of
Shakespeare; and his gray-blue eyes were clear and piercing, and
characterized by that rapid, penetrative gaze so noticeable in
Emerson.

He seemed always to me an unmistakable Englishman, yet the Italian
element frequently was recognizable; as far as his own opinion was
concerned, he was wholly English. Possessing a thorough knowledge of
French and Italian, he was the fortunate appreciator of many great
works in their native tongue, and his sympathies in religion, as in
literature, were truly catholic. To meet him even once was to be the
better for it ever after; those who obtained his friendship can not
well say all it meant and means to them; but they know they are not
again in the least likely to meet with such another as Dante Gabriel
Rossetti.

In Walter Hamilton's book, "AEsthetic England," is this bit of most vivid
prose:

Naturally the sale of Rossetti's effects attracted a large number of
persons to the gloomy, old-fashioned residence in Cheyne Walk,
Chelsea, and many of the articles sold went for prices very far in
excess of their intrinsic value, the total sum realized being over
three thousand pounds. But during the sale of the books, on that
fine July afternoon, in the dingy study hung round with the lovely
but melancholy faces of Proserp