Blake and Rossetti. By Kerrison Preston. (The de la More
Press. as.) THIS is a well-produced book ; it has interesting illustrations, but the text is somewhat uneven. Thus a nonsensical attempt is made to indicate the ." mystical growth" of Blake and Rossetti by means of a diagram, and too much emphasis is laid on the coincidence of Rossetti's birth exactly nine months after Blake's death. Setting aside pre-natal affinities of this kind, there are, of course, links between the two poet-painters. When he was eighteen and student at the Royal Academy, Rossetti bought for ten shillings Blake's notebook crammed with sketches and scribblings. Later he lent this book to Alexander Gilchrist, whose excellent biography of Blake he and his brother completed. Mr. Preston finds a simi- larity between Blake's rather uncomprehending patron, Hayley, and Ruskin in his relations with Rossetti—though perhaps this is not quite fair to Ruskin, whom, however, Rossetti himself con- sidered "only half-informed about art." There is an interesting piece of evidence from Mrs. Belloc Lowndes's mother that Elizabeth Siddal did not commit suicide, also a most attractive self-portrait of Rossetti, and amusing accounts of his games with the Morris children, whose mother, of course, was the model for his famous " Proserpina." The end of the book consists of writings on art by Blake and Rossetti.
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