20 FEBRUARY 1904, Page 24

Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his Circle. By the

late H. D. Dunn. Edited and annotated by Gale Pedrick. (Elkin Mathews. 3s. 6d. net.)—Mr. Dunn was a clerk in a Truro bank when he resolved to take up an artist's life. Coming to London, he chanced to get an introduction to D. G. Rossetti. The introduction led to intimacy, Dunn taking up his residence in Rossetti's house. Thenceforth he played, so to speak, the fidus Achates to the great man's Aeneas, adding much, it is certain, to his friend's happiness, though, perhaps, somewhat dwarfing his own personality. It is a curious story that he tells, curious but with nothing like meanness or baseness about it. Rossetti was liable to strange impulses, as when, in the distraction of his grief, he thrust his poems into his wife's coffin; but he always had an exalted view of life. This simple record, to which Mr. Pedrick, a nephew of Dunn by marriage, has added some corrections and explanations, may be read with pleasure. It contains not a few interesting details—the originals, for instance, of some of the faces in Rossetti's pictures—and some noteworthy narratives of spiritualistic and other experiences. Mr. Dunn had not much of the Boswell gift, but his manuscript was certainly worth pub-