year 1872 to induce Rossetti to visit
Italy--a journey which, strangely enough, he had never made--but this
he could not be prevailed upon to do. In the hope of diverting his mind
from the unwholesome matters that too largely engaged it, his brother
and friends, prominent among whom at this time were Mr. Bell Scott, Mr.
Ford Madox Brown, Mr. W. Graham, and Dr. Gordon Hake, as well as his
assistant and friend, Mr. H. T. Dunn, and Mr. George Hake, induced him
to seek a change in Scotland, and there he speedily recovered tone.

Immediately upon the publication of his first volume, and incited
thereto by the early success of it, he had written the poem _Rose Mary_,
as well as two lyrics published at the time in _The Fortnightly Review_;
but he suffered so seriously from the subsequent assaults of criticism,
that he seemed definitely to lay aside all hope of producing further
poetry, and, indeed, to become possessed of the delusion that he had for
ever lost all power of doing so. It is an interesting fact, well known
in his own literary circle, that his taking up poetry afresh was
the result of a fortuitous occurrence. After one of his most serious
illnesses, and in the hope of drawing off his attention from himself,
and from the gloomy forebodings which in an invalid's mind usually
gather about his own too absorbing personality, a friend prevailed upon
him, with infinite solicitation, to try his hand afresh at a sonnet. The
outcome was an effort so feeble as to be all but unrecognisable as the
work of the author of the sonnets of _The House of Life_, but with
more shrewdness and friendliness (on this occasion) than frankness,
the critic lavished measureless praise upon it, and urged the poet to
renewed exertion. One by one, at longer or shorter intervals, sonnets
were written, and this exercise did more towards his recovery than
any other medicine, with the result besides that Rossetti eventually
regained all his old dexterity and mastery of hand. The artifice had
succeeded beyond every expectation formed of it, serving, indeed, the
twofold end of improving the invalid's health by preventing his brooding
over unhealthy matters, and increasing the number of his accomplished
works. Encouraged by such results, the friend went on to induce Rossetti
to write a ballad, and this purpose he finally achieved by challenging
the poet's ability to compose in the simple, direct, and emphatic style,
which is the style of the ballad proper