fectation of any kind; and it makes no serious pretence
at being either exhaustive or definitive. Yet the best we can say of it
is that it is just the sort of biography Guildenstern might have written
of Hamlet. Nor does its unsatisfactory character come merely from the
ludicrous inadequacy of the materials at Mr. Knight's disposal; it is the
whole scheme and method of the book that is radically wrong. Rossetti's
was a great personality, and personalities such as his do not easily
survive shilling primers. Sooner or later they have inevitably to come
down to the level of their biographers, and in the present instance
nothing could be more absolutely commonplace than the picture Mr. Knight
gives us of the wonderful seer and singer whose life he has so recklessly
essayed to write.

No doubt there are many people who will be deeply interested to know that
Rossetti was once chased round his garden by an infuriated zebu he was
trying to exhibit to Mr. Whistler, or that he had a great affection for a
dog called 'Dizzy,' or that 'sloshy' was one of his favourite words of
contempt, or that Mr. Gosse thought him very like Chaucer in appearance,
or that he had 'an absolute disqualification' for whist-playing, or that
he was very fond of quoting the Bab Ballads, or that he once said that if
he could live by writing poetry he would see painting d---d! For our
part, however, we cannot help expressing our regret that such a shallow
and superficial biography as this should ever have been published. It is
but a sorry task to rip the twisted ravel from the worn garment of life
and to turn the grout in a drained cup. Better, after all, that we knew
a painter only through his vision and a poet through his song, than that
the image of a great man should be marred and made mean for us by the
clumsy geniality of good intentions. A true artist, and such Rossetti
undoubtedly was, reveals himself so perfectly in his work, that unless a
biographer has something more valuable to give us than idle anecdotes and
unmeaning tales, his labour is misspent and his industry misdirected.

Bad, however, as is Mr. Knight's treatment of Rossetti's life, his
treatment of Rossetti's poetry is infinitely worse. Considering the
small size of the volume, and the consequently limited number of
extracts, the amount of misquotation is almost incredible, and puts all
recent achievements in this sphere of modern literature completely into
the shade. The fine