nted in later years) acquires a splendid
solemnity and spiritual beauty and significance all but peculiar to
himself. It seems proper to say in such a connexion, that his success
in this direction was always attributed by him to the fact that the most
memorable of his faces were painted from a well-known friend.

Only one of his early designs, the _Dante's Dream_, was ever painted by
Rossetti on a scale commensurate with its importance, and the solemnity
and massive grandeur of that work leave only a feeling of regret that,
whether from personal indisposition on the part of the painter or lack
of adequate recognition on that of the public, the three or four other
finest designs made in youth were never carried out. As the picture in
question stands alone among Rossetti's pictorial works as a completed
conception, it may be well to devote a few pages to a description of it.

It is essential to an appreciation of _Dante's Dream_, that we should
not only fully understand the nature of the particular incident depicted
in the picture, but also possess a general knowledge of the lives and
relations of the two principal personages concerned in it. What we know,
to most purpose, of the early life and love of Dante, we learn from the
autobiography which he entitled _La Vita Nuova_. Boccaccio, however,
writing fifty years after the death of the great Florentine, affords
a more detailed statement than is furnished by Dante himself of the
circumstances of the poets first meeting with the lady he called
Beatrice. He says that it was the custom of citizens in Florence, when
the time of spring came round, to form social gatherings in their own
quarters for purposes of merry-making; that in this way Folco Portinari,
a citizen of mark, had collected his neighbours at his house upon the
first of May, 1274, for pastime and rejoicing: that amongst those who
came to him was Alighiero Alighieri, father of Dante Alighieri, who
lived within fifty yards; that it was common for children to accompany
their parents at such merrymakings, and that Dante, then scarce nine
years old, was in the house on the day in question engaged in sports,
appropriate to his years, with other children, amongst whom was a little
daughter of Folco Portinari, eight years old. The child is described as
being, even at this period, in aspect extremely beautiful, and winning
and graceful in her ways. Not to dwell upon these passages of childhood,
it may be sufficient to sa