Manuscripts Exhibit → Collection Intro → Browse Collection → Document → → Transcript

Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: Small Notebook 3 (British Library)
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1871-1879?
Scribe: DGR

The full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.

Image of page cover page: cover
Note: WMR has written his description of the note book across the front and back covers
Notebook of Gabriel date

towards 1880

WMR

1905    Ashley 1410 (3).
Image of page endpaper page: endpaper
Manuscript Addition: Book 3
Editorial Description: Written vertically along right edge
Image of page title page page: title page
Manuscript Addition: ASHLEY MS. / 1410. (3.)
Editorial Description: Library identification number
Image of page [title page verso, 1v] page: [title page verso, 1v]
Note: blank page
more about Small Notebook 1
Image of page [2r] page: [2r]
Note: blank page
Manuscript Addition: 2*
Editorial Description: Pagination (not by DGR) at upper right.
Image of page [2r - foldout] page: [2r - foldout]
Note: Memorandum on a bill to be paid.
Bill to

Fourth & [?]

99 - 1d - 6

payable (3days

included)

May 24 1880
Image of page [2v] page: [2v]
Note: Memoranda on several bills to be paid.
Deleted TextBill to [?]

& Brown

£75 - 1 / -

payable (3

days included)

21 Oct / 79
Bill to C. Ellis

£ 115 - 8d

payable (included)

pm 15 Feb / 80

[?]
Image of page [3r] page: [3r]
Manuscript Addition: 3
Editorial Description: Pagination (not by DGR) at upper right.
Manuscript Addition: 1481
Editorial Description: Number at upper right of unknown significance.
Miss

[?] Doner[?]

144 Blk friars R C
more about [Prescription for Sore Throat]
(For ulcerated

sore throat)

8 grains of caustic

in a small phial

of water.
Image of page [3v] page: [3v]
Note: The facing leaf is torn away.
more about [Philip Bourke Marston's Birthday]
Phil's Birthday

1st 2nd or 3rd

October
more about [Memo about Graham]
Write

17 April

to Graham

about Glasgow
Image of page [4r] page: [4r]
Manuscript Addition: 4
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about Insomnia
  • And thin, alas! the shred
  • of sleep
  • That wavers with the spirit's
  • wind
  • My soul this hour has drawn
  • your soul
  • A little nearer yet
Image of page [4v] page: [4v]
more about [Literary Reference]
The Death of

Germanicus

(Merivale V

195-6)
D o VI - 149

The story of Arria

& Paetus is told

at length by the

Elder Pliny

Epist III.16

Comp. Martial

E. 14
Image of page [5r] page: [5r]
Manuscript Addition: 5
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [The Art Fellowship]
The Art Fellowship

PFA Painter Fellow of Art

SFA Sculptor D o D o

AFA Architect D o D o

Image of page [5v] page: [5v]
more about [Intimate Enemies]
One of my most

intimate enemie

enemies

Whether they be

scavengers literary

or literally
Image of page [6r-v] page: [6r-v]
Note: leaf torn out
Image of page [7r-v] page: [7r-v]
Note: leaf torn out
Manuscript Addition: 7
Editorial Description: Pagination
Image of page [8r] page: [8r]
Manuscript Addition: 8
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [The Verminiad]
The Verminiad
more about [Alone am I]
If [?] be a

noun of multitude[?]

let me sue in former[?]

paupers[?] for alone

am I.
Image of page [8v] page: [8v]
more about [Knowledge and Belief]
Manuscript Addition: Cor i da
Editorial Description: Word written vertically on left margin
There are certain

passionate phases

of the soul when

to know a thing

true, & to believe

it are found 2

separate things
Image of page [9r] page: [9r]
Manuscript Addition: 9
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [House Furniture]
Little table

with drawers
Chippendale

Washstand
Bookshelves
Chest of drawers
Gardening Picture
Picture rods
Image of page [9v] page: [9v]
more about [Domestic Memoranda]
Drawing Cast
French blue

ware
Cabinet

for photos
Lay figure
3 Dante

drawings found

in hall
Image of page [10r] page: [10r]
Manuscript Addition: 10
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [Domestic Memoranda]
Marble frieze

of [?]
Inkstand
Vol 1 Lent to

Labour
Small round

table with

[?] top
Image of page [10v] page: [10v]
more about [Household Memoranda]
2 ram's-head

arm-chairs
Topsy Tapestry
2 corner

cupboards

with a stand
Image of page [11r] page: [11r]
Manuscript Addition: 11
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [Domestic Memoranda]
For Fanny
I's B d D l

drawing
2 Mrs Smith
Intro Mrs

Stillman
Image of page [11v] page: [11v]
more about [Household Memoranda]
5 May — Claret
more about [Judith and Holofernes]
Subject—Judith

displaying head of

Holofernes. Background

all of crowded faces.
Image of page [12r] page: [12r]
Manuscript Addition: 12
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [Domestic Memoranda]
Moffit

near Ayr

Baths for Exima
Image of page [12v] page: [12v]
Note: The revisions of line 3 are located in the bottom left corner.
more about Soothsay
  • Didn't WW say, “Lo, I forget”?
  • That thought was to remember yet.
  • As in a graveyard humbly see yon grave garth look to see count to see
  • The monuments of memory.
  • Be this thy soul's [?] appointed scope:—
  • Gaze only onward without claim to hope,
  • Nor, look gazing backward, court regret.
Image of page [13r] page: [13r]
Manuscript Addition: 13
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [Note for Watts]
To Watts

And the words

which that for

[???]
Image of page [13v] page: [13v]
Note: blank page
Image of page [14r] page: [14r]
Manuscript Addition: 14
Editorial Description: Pagination
Note: Written upside down
more about Soothsay
  • But windstrown blossom is
  • that good
  • Whose apple is not gratitude
    • Image of page [14v] page: [14v]
    Note: Both texts are separated by a line and written upside down
  • To God at best, to chance
  • at worst
  • Give thanks for good things,
  • last as first
  • Added Textover [?]
  • Even if no prayer uplift
  • thy face
  • Let the sweet right to render
  • grace
  • As thy soul's cherished child
  • be nurs'd
Image of page [15r] page: [15r]
Manuscript Addition: 15
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about Alas, So Long!
  • Ah dear one I was we were
  • young so long,
  • I thought that youth
  • wd never go,
  • Ah! dear one I've been
  • old so long,
  • How long until we meet
  • again?
Image of page [15v] page: [15v]
Note: Written upside down
more about [Pity for the Past]
  • Where is the man whose
  • soul has never waked
  • To sudden pity of the
  • poor torn past?
Image of page [16r] page: [16r]
Manuscript Addition: 16
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [Nouns & Sounds]
Nouns &

Sounds
more about [Travel Directions]
abt 15

miles off

is Linworth

Cove, the

station for

which is Wool
Image of page [16v] page: [16v]
Dorsetshire
Change

Wareham

station

from Waterloo

3 1/2 hours

to Wareham
9 miles left

to Swansea

[?]
Image of page [17r] page: [17r]
Manuscript Addition: 17
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [Mum as a Muffin]
Mum as a

Muffin
more about [F. B. Elliott Esq]
F. B. Elliott Esq

east 2 Edenview[?]

St Acton[?]

NB
Image of page [17v] page: [17v]
Editorial Note (page ornament): The page contains a sketch, possibly of a book opening and page layout.
more about [Quel donna conterà]
  • Quel donna canterà se non
  • cant' io
  • Che son contenta d'ogni mio
  • disio
  • Boc[?]
more about [Steam Cobbles]
Steam Cobbles

coal that keeps alight

all night

Booth

Nottingham
Image of page [18r] page: [18r]
more about [Various Memoranda]
Hiatus

Wilkinson

Fitzball

Conway

Blake

Shepher's Gardens

Eben: pamphlet

& letters
Image of page [18v] page: [18v]
more about Soothsay
Note: This is a prose draft for what would become lines 72-74 of Soothsay.
He who knows how

much too late it

is forebears to look

at his watch
Image of page [19r] page: [19r]
Manuscript Addition: 19
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [Howell Memo]
Howell

St George Drawings

Corder Pictures
more about [Mrs. Eddy]
Mrs Eddy works

(in St. James W. Coventry)
Image of page [19v] page: [19v]
more about [Memo for Graham Picture]
Note: DGR's note on a picture he planned but never executed whose subject would have been the Dante sonnet translated by DGR Of Beatrice de' Portinari, on All Saints' Day
Mem: to offer

Graham (instead

of Dante Boat )

“Di donne io

vidi mia gentile

schiera”
Image of page [20r] page: [20r]
Manuscript Addition: 20
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [Memoranda for 10 June 1879]
Mem:

Today (June 10 /79)

I placed in oak case

locked

138 mounted Drawings

(one also a torn half sheet)

and a few loose sketches

& one photograph
Image of page [20v] page: [20v]
more about [Throat Lozenges]
Rhatany Lozenges
more about [Memo for 8 June 1879]
Note: DGR's note on a study for Found
8 June /79

Looked through folios

Female head for “Found”

gone
Image of page [21r] page: [21r]
Manuscript Addition: 21
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [Il Pastor Fido Quotation]
Appena si può

dire questa fu

rosa.

Pastor Fido
Image of page [21v] page: [21v]
more about [Memorandum for Pictures]
Note: DGR's note on a projected picture from early drawings for his 1851 watercolor of Dante meeting Beatrice and for his later picture Salutation of Beatrice .
Mem: to carry out

slight sketches I

possess of 2 new versions

of the Dante & Beatrice

meeting & make a

new Salutatio Beatrice
Image of page [22r] page: [22r]
Note: Two texts are scripted on this page, one a pencil text overwritten (in ink, and in the opposite direction) by the other, which seems the second. The transcription begins at the end opposite from the pagination.
Manuscript Addition: 22
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [On the Anniversary of Elizabeth Siddal's Death]
  • As much as in a hundred years she's gone dead
  • Yet is today the day on which she died
more about [My Heart]
This [has?] been

my heart in the

world's

litter[?]
Image of page [22v] page: [22v]
Note: This leaf is detached from the next in the notebook.
more about [Afternoon Light]
21st June

1/4 to 7

sun just

behind

midddle

of curtain

bar of window

level with

top of curtains
Image of page [23r] page: [23r]
Manuscript Addition: 23
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [Anonymity]
Anonymity motto

Anon, anon, Sir
more about Sonnet on the Sonnet
  • Fashioned with
  • intricate infinity
Image of page [23v] page: [23v]
more about [Flattery]
A proud man hates

to have flattery

because it makes

him feel that he

loves it
Image of page [24r] page: [24r]
Manuscript Addition: 24
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [The True Artist]
the true artist will

first perceive in

another's work the

beauties & in his

own the defects
Image of page [24v] page: [24v]
more about [Poem Book Title]
Autumn Winter Anemones

(title for Poems)
more about Sonnet on the Sonnet
  • A sonnet is a moment's
  • monument
  • A medal struck to all eter-
  • -nity
  • For one dead deathless hour
Image of page [25r] page: [25r]
Manuscript Addition: 25
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [Beauty's Fate]
Fat is Beauty's Fate
more about [Gelsemene]
Gelsemena

Gelsemel

Gelsemene
Image of page [26v] page: [26v]
Note: The texts on the pages here numbered in sequence 25v, 26r, and 26v were actually written in DGR as a unit in the sequence 26v, 26r, 25v. The text is reproduced here in DGR's composition order rather than in the pagination order editorially supplied to the document.
more about The Philtre
The Love Philtre
A woman intensely ena-

moured of a man who

does not love her

makes use of a philtre

to secure his love.

In this she succeeds

but it also acts gradually upon
Image of page [26r] page: [26r]
Manuscript Addition: 26
Editorial Description: Pagination
his life. She attempts

to avert this by destroying

the whole effect of the

philtre, but finds this

is not permitted her;

and he dies in her

arms, deeply loving her
Image of page [25v] page: [25v]
& deeply loved by her,

while she [?] thinks[?] is conscious of

she is being the cause of his

death. As he yields his

last breath in a kiss, she knows

that his spirit now

hates her.
Image of page [27r] page: [27r]
Manuscript Addition: 27
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [Refinement in Humble Natures]
In refined natures of

humble birth, breeding

seems to have preceded

it in a former exis-

tence, & the peasant

woman looks &

is born a queen.
Image of page [27v] page: [27v]
more about Salvestra on the Two Bridal-Biers
Salvestra

On the 2 Bridal Biers
Note: See Boccaccio, Decameron Day 4 Tale 8.
  • How sweet a solace is
  • the bridal-bed
  • Dawn as prepared,
  • evening as hallowèd.
Image of page [28r] page: [28r]
Manuscript Addition: 28
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [Epigram on Robert Buchanan]
Note: DGR is referencing tales 2, 3 and 8 in Day V of the Decameron.
The vilest scribbler

who ever left his

works to the posteri

posteriors of Posterity

Guido degli Anan

Anastegi

Carapresa

(Bocc.)

Gigliuzzo

Alagna (near

Rome — Bocc.)

Liello
Image of page [28v] page: [28v]
Manuscript Addition: 2 sonnets
Editorial Description: DGR's notation at the top of the page
more about Perlascura. Twelve Coins for One Queen
One Portrait in 12 Autotypes

from the Studies of

DGR
One Portrait in 12 Studies & 12 Sonnets

Autotypes from the drawings

of DGR
Image of page [29r] page: [29r]
Manuscript Addition: 29
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about Mary Magdalene
Note: Apparently DGR's notes for a predella that he never executed.
Predella for

Magdalene

On one side

M [?]

annointing Christ's

feet at table

& on the other

clinging round

his feet while

taking down from

the cross
Image of page [29v] page: [29v]
more about [Tiberius and the Men of Learning]
Note: DGR quotes Suetonius from Charles Merivale, A History of the Romans Under the Empire.
Quae mater Hecubae : quod

Acchili nomen intra

virgines fuisset : quid

Sirenes cantare sint

solitae (Suet : Tib : 70)

With these questions Tiberius

used to puzzle his men of

learning in his latter days.

(Merivale V. 348)
Image of page [30r] page: [30r]
Manuscript Addition: 30
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about La Ricordanza
  • Maggior dolore è ben la
  • Ricordanza,
  • Ovvero in no O nell' amaro inferno amena
  • stanza?
more about Memory
  • Is Memory most of miseries
  • miserable
  • Or the one flower of ease in
  • bitterest hell?
Image of page [30v] page: [30v]
more about [Who shall say]
  • Who shall say what is
  • said in me,
  • With all that I might
  • have been dead in
  • me?
more about [Malombria]
Malombria (real ? )

Caroacaxa
Image of page [31r] page: [31r]
Manuscript Addition: 31
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [David Scott etc.]
Note: The notations are cryptic. The last pair of lines may be a quotation from the Scots painter David Scott, whose work DGR admired. For the “tailor's ninth” see DGR's “Limerick: Nine Tailors”.
Rhinoceros Rhododendrons

some tailor's ninth

miser's

A Civil Strath

    D. Scott
Image of page [31v] page: [31v]
more about [Nature Known through Art I.]
I know the

green earth

only in the

form of Terra

Verte
more about {Addresses]
Eltoft

Carver & Gelden

Bradford
Image of page [32r] page: [32r]
Manuscript Addition: 32
Editorial Description: Pagination
Note: The page is numbered but torn away.
page: [32v]
Note: The page is torn away.
Image of page [33r] page: [33r]
Manuscript Addition: 33
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [Caius Adored by the People]
Note: DGR references Charles Merivale, A History of the Romans Under the Empire.
Merivale VI. 58

The story of

Caius & the

Chapel by the

Lake of Nemius.
D o. VI 62

Caius standing

between the statues

of Castor & Pollux

to be adored by

the people.

(subject for

     picture)
Image of page [33v] page: [33v]
more about [Nature Known through Art II.]
The highest deepest trait of

nature in fiction

will appear as if

nothing but fact could

have given it birth

& will yet show that

consummate art is its

true source.
Image of page [34r] page: [34r]
Manuscript Addition: 34
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [Words]
Uglimugli

a Chinese

Magician
Fina Buzzacasina

( a real name)
more about [Mansell Address]
Mansell

Bookbinder

Little Queen

Street

for good things
Image of page [34v] page: [34v]
more about [Leighton's Art]
Leighton's

impasto is

scented soap

& his surfaces

violet powder
more about [The New Ibis]
The New Ibis

a Satire

by Anon or Ibid
Image of page [36r] page: [36r]
Note: The epigram on the next three notebook pages was written in the order 36r, 35v, 35r; it is here represented in that order
Manuscript Addition: 36
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about Smithereens
  • The elderly Uncertain-aged Miss Thereabouts,
  • Tough fossil of her teens,
  • Has lifted up with saving
  • hand
  • The ruined Smithereens.
Image of page [35v] page: [35v]
  • Down the dark steps of
  • debt, that hand
  • Sped like an angels wing,
  • Deep-dowered with gold
  • & thence brought back for itself
  • A single Brought back a golden ring.
Image of page [35r] page: [35r]
Manuscript Addition: 35
Editorial Description: Pagination
  • Ah lovely Lucy Lovandove,
  • 10 That ring's a snake, & means
  • Woe without end. Therein lies
  • crushed
  • Thy heart—to smithereens.
more about [Jean Dutont]
Jean Dutont[?]
Image of page [36v] page: [36v]
more about [Elizabethan and Augustan Writing]
The Elizabethans created a

style in poetry, & by misapplying

some of its qualities formed

their prose. The Annians

created a style in prose,

and wrenched its charac-

-teristics to form their

poetry.
Image of page [37r] page: [37r]
Manuscript Addition: 37
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [Pliny on the Death of Verres]
Pliny says that

Verres was put

to death by

Antoninus merely

for vaunting the

superiority of his

Corinthian bronzes

(Merivale

v. 3 p. 197

(note))

Image of page [37v] page: [37v]
more about [Poetry and Painting]
Picture & poem bear the

same relation to each

other as beauty does

in man & woman:

the point of meeting,

where the two are

most identical, is

the supreme perfection.
Image of page [38r] page: [38r]
Manuscript Addition: 38
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [Fors Fortuna]
The Temple of

Fors Fortuna
more about [Paludamentum]
The cloak of scarlet

or purple which

the imperator threw

over his corslet

was named the

paludamentum
  • imperial
    Added Textimperatorial car
  • And purple-dyed
  • paludement of war
Image of page [38v] page: [38v]
Manuscript Addition: From / Ma[?]hes / p. 236
Editorial Description: DGR's note; the reference is uncertain
more about On Burns
  • What man so ere In whomsoe'er since sweet Poesy
  • song began
  • Of all men most a Poet we
  • may scan
  • Burns of all poets is the
  • most a Man.
more about Barcarola
  • Oltretomba
  • Qualchecosa
Image of page [39r] page: [39r]
Manuscript Addition: 39
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [La Nature]
C'est la nature

elle même prise

sur le fait.
more about [La Farnesina and La Fornarina]
La Farnesina

& La Fornarina.
While engaged in

painting the Love

of Cupid & Psyche

in the Farnesina

Raphael used to leave

his work to visit La

Fornarina 3 or 4 times

a day.
Image of page [39v] page: [39v]
Note: DGR's prose description of Burns is truncated in mid-sentence and the next page in the notebook is torn away. The whole of the prose note was published by WMR in 1911 and the completion of the text is editorially supplied here in square brackets.
more about On Burns
Whosoever be of all men

the most a Poet,

Robert Burns

is of all poets the

most a man.

His enormous identity—

the lowly labour united to

[?] the plumed & [crested intellect—thus shoots up as in overwhelming vigour, and makes his presence a mountain among the hills of Poesy.]
Image of page [41r] page: [41r]
Manuscript Addition: 41
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [A Rhyme Word]
(rhyme)

congener
more about Veronica Veronese
La Contesta del

Canarino

(new title for

“Veronica”)
more about [Addresses]
Sacrovir

M. [?man] [?]

london

Mervale[?] V 307
Image of page [41v] page: [41v]
Note: There is an "X" and a line connecting the end of this page to the beginning of the next.
more about [Judgment on Painters]
If one painted boors

drinking and even were

refined oneself, they would

pardon & in some degree

revere one; or, if were

one were a drinking boor

oneself & painted refinements,

[?]they wd condone the

latter.
Image of page [42r] page: [42r]
Note: See note to page [41v].
Manuscript Addition: 42
Editorial Description: Pagination
but the refined

painted by the refined

is unpardonable.
more about [Signs of Mourning]
He wore a

hatband &

his nails were

also in mourning.
Image of page [42v] page: [42v]
more about [Love Mercies]
A woman may have

some little mercy for

the man she has ceased

to love; but she

has none for the

memory of what he

has been to her.
Image of page [43r] page: [43r]
Editorial Note (page ornament): There is a stamp for the British Museum, Ashley Library below the text on this page.
Manuscript Addition: 43
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [Household Safe]
9 MS Books

in safe
turn key first

& then handle

to open
key red label
Image of page [43v] page: [43v]
Note: The transcription runs clockwise, beginning at the inside margin.
more about [Addresses]
[?]

Jos Hopkins

57 Tower Building

Liverpool
Note a grocer

24th Jany
R. Hayley

23 Chapel

Street
Image of page [44r] page: [44r]
more about [Dry Dung]
breaking up

like so much

dry dung
more about [Brahee Powder]
Brahee

powder's

(patent)
Image of page [44v] page: [44v]
more about [Or give ten years of life's most bitter wane]
  • Or give ten years of
  • life's most bitter wane
  • To see the loved one as she
  • was again.
more about [And of the cup of human agony]
  • And of the cup of human
  • agony
  • Enough to fill the sea.
Image of page [45r] page: [45r]
Note: Only a stub of this page remains bearing some fragments of text.
Manuscript Addition: 45
Editorial Description: Pagination
more about [Dates]
[?] 18th June
3 days beyond this

in each case
Image of page [45v] page: [45v]
ASHLEY. 1410. (3.).

45. FF. July. 1949.

(f. 40 noted missing, 16

December 1914. DJ)

LMR JM
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 22p-1880.blnb3.rad.xml
Copyright: By permission of the British Library