ey had all the appearance to the uninitiated
of work imitated from contemporary models, instead of being, as in fact
they were, the primary source of inspiration for writers whose names
were earlier established.

Towards the beginning of his artistic career Rossetti occupied a studio,
with residential chambers, at Black-friars Bridge. The rooms overlooked
the river, and the tide rose almost to the walls of the house, which,
with nearly all its old surroundings, has long disappeared.

A story is told of Rossetti amidst these environments which aptly
illustrates almost every trait of his character: his impetuosity,
and superstition especially. It was his daily habit to ransack
old book-stalls, and carry off to his studio whatever treasures he
unearthed, but when, upon further investigation, he found he had been
deceived as to the value of a book that at first looked promising, he
usually revenged himself by throwing the volume through a window into
the river running below--a habit which he discovered (to his amusement,
and occasionally to his distress), that his friends, Mr. Swinburne
especially, imitated from him and practised at his rooms on his behalf.
On one occasion he discovered in some odd nook a volume long sought
for, and having inscribed it with his name and address, he bore it off
joyfully to his chambers; but finding a few days later that in some
respects it disappointed his expectations, he flung it through the
window, and banished all further thought of it. The tide had been at the
flood when the book disappeared, and when it ebbed, the offending volume
was found by a little mud-lark imbedded in the refuse of the river. The
boy washed it and took it back to the address it contained, expecting to
find it eagerly reclaimed; but, impatient and angry at sight of what he
thought he had destroyed, Rossetti snatched the book out of the muddy
hand that proffered it and flung it again into the Thames, with rather
less than the courtesy which might have been looked for as the reward of
an act that was meant so well. But the haunting volume was not even
yet done with. Next morning, an old man of the riverside labourer class
knocked at the door, bearing in his hands a small parcel rudely made
up in a piece of newspaper that was greasy enough to have previously
contained his morning's breakfast. He had come from where he was working
below London Bridge: he had found something that might have been lost
by Mr. Rossetti. I