t winds
about the churchyard, but his strength grew less and less every day
and hour. We were constantly visited by Mr. Watts, whose devotion never
failed, and Rossetti would brighten up at the prospect of one of his
visits, and become sensibly depressed when he had gone. Mr. William
Sharp, too (a young friend of whose gifts as a poet Rossetti had a
genuine appreciation, and by whom he had been visited at intervals
for some time), came out occasionally and cheered up the sufferer in
a noticeable degree. Then his mother and sister came and stayed in the
house during many weeks at the last. How shall I speak of the tenderness
of their solicitude, of their unwearying attentions, in a word of their
ardent and reciprocated love of the illustrious son and brother for whom
they did the thousand gentle offices which they alone could have done!
The end was drawing on, and we all knew the fact. Rossetti had actually
taken to poetical composition afresh, and had written a facetious ballad
(conceived years before) of the length of _The White Ship_, called _Jan
Van Hunks_, embodying an eccentric story of a Dutchman's wager to smoke
against the devil. This was to appear in a miscellany of stories and
poems by himself and Mr. Watts, a project which had been a favourite one
of his for some years, and in which he now, in his last moments, took a
revived interest strange and strong.

About this time he derived great gratification from reading an article
on him and his works in _Le Livre_ by Mr. Joseph Knight, an old friend
to whom he was deeply attached, and for whose gifts he had a genuine
admiration. Perhaps the very last letter Rossetti penned was written to
Mr. Knight upon the subject of this article.

His intellect was as powerful as in his best days, and freer than ever
of hallucinations. But his bodily strength grew less and less. His sight
became feebler, and then he abandoned the many novels that had recently
solaced his idler hours, and Miss Rossetti read aloud to him. Among
other books she read Dickens's _Tale of Two Cities_, and he seemed
deeply touched by Sidney Carton's sacrifice, and remarked that he would
like to paint the last scene of the story.

On Wednesday morning, April 5th, I went into the bedroom to which he had
for some days been confined, and wrote out to his dictation two sonnets
which he had composed on a design of his called _The Sphinx_, and which
he wished to give, together with the drawing and the ballad