SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Tinder this heading w notice such Books of the week as have not beet• rossrarsit for review in other forme.]
edition, but we do not remember to have seen the book before. Happily, it does not call for criticism. Mr. W. Rossetti has put together letters from and to his brother Dante G. and himself, and various friends and associates, members, in short, of the Rossetti circle, and extracts from his own diaries. He has used his discretion in choosing, and we have no wish to find fault with the result. Beyond all doubt this is a highly interesting volume; we go on reading, not always knowing why, but still without a thought of leaving off, or even skipping. Some things seem trivial, and yet we feel as if we should have missed them. We come into contact with some strange people,—with Mr. Warrington Taylor, for instance, who shows admirable good sense in business matters re W. Morris and Co., but orders a decorative coffin for himself ; with Mr. W. D. O'Connor, who finds in Walt Whitman "a man primal and abysmal, a living soul boundless and terrible, master and summit of all, and resuming and surpassing the universe"; and, above all, with Mr. Seymour Kirkup. Mr. Kirkup, it should be said, was on intimate terms with Dante. Dante was employed in February, 1868, as Garibaldi's guardian; but he found himself able to be useful to Mr. Kirkup's little girl. First, he brought her a rabbit from Caprera ; the rabbit died; then, "assisted by another," he brought her a lamb, "almost a sheep," with instructions how it was to be fed (communicated through a writing medium). This could not be carried out, and the lamb was removed by the spirits through a window. A little black dog came in its stead, and Dante, with the seven other spiritsiof the company, were, we are told, very merry with it. These specimens are of the comic kind, but there is much in the volume that is serious.
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