been so frequently alluded to, that it seems necessary to tell the story
of it, as the author himself, in conversation, was accustomed to do. At
about twelve years of age, the young poet wrote a scrap of a poem under
this title, and then cast it aside. His grandfather, Polidori, had seen
the fragment, however, and had conceived a much higher opinion of
its merits than even the natural vanity of the young author himself
permitted him to entertain. It had then become one of the grandfather's
amusements to set up an amateur printing-press in his own house, and
occupy his leisure in publishing little volumes of original verse for
semi-public circulation. He urged his grandson to finish the poem
in question, promising it, in a completed state, the dignity and
distinction of type. Prompted by hope of this hitherto unexpected
reward, Rossetti--then thirteen to fourteen years of age--finished
the juvenile epic, and some bound copies of it got abroad. No more was
thought of the matter, and in due time the little bard had forgotten
that he had ever done it. But when a genuine distinction had been earned
by poetry that was in no way immature, Rossetti discovered, by
the gratuitous revelation of a friend, that a copy of the youthful
production--privately printed and never published--was actually in the
library of the British Museum. Amazed, and indeed appalled as he was by
this disclosure, he was powerless to remedy the evil, which he foresaw
would some day lead to the poem being unearthed to his injury, and
printed as a part of his work. The utmost he could do to avert
the threatened mischief he did, and this was to make an entry in a
commonplace-book which he kept for such uses, explaining the origin and
history of the poem, and expressing a conviction that it seemed to him
to be remarkable only from its entire paucity of even ordinary poetic
promise. But while this was indubitably a just estimate of these boyish
efforts, it is no doubt true, as we shall presently see, that Rossetti's
genius matured itself early in life.

Whilst still a child, his love of literature exhibited itself, and a
story is told of a disaster occurring to him, when rather less than nine
years of age, which affords amusing proof of the ardour of his poetic
nature. Upon going with his brother and sisters to the house of his
grandfather, where as children they occupied themselves with sports
appropriate to their years, he proposed to improvise a part of a sce