this to be about the best of all Christina's poems, and was not (I conceive) far wrong, though there are others equally good. It will be perceived that 29 June 1858 was a red-letter day in Christina's poetic calendar. She produced on that day (or else she simply completed) Uphill, At Home, and the ensuing To-day and To-morrow, which, though left unpublished during her lifetime, appears to me only a trifle less masterly than the other two. She illustrated At Home with two coloured designs, which, inefficiently done as they are, carry a certain imaginative suggestion with them. No. I shows the blanched form of the ghost in a sky lit with cresset flames. On one side the sky is bright blue, the flames golden; on the other side, dark twilight grey, and the flames red. No. 2 is the globe of the earth, rudely lined for latitude and longitude. The equator divides it into a green northern and a grey-purple southern hemisphere. Over the former flare sunbeams in a blue sky; below the latter the firmament is dimly dark, and the pallid moon grey towards extinction.

The Convent Threshold, p. 340.-The authoress seems to have combined in this impassioned poem something of the idea of an Héloïse and Abélard with something of the idea of a Juliet and Romeo. The opening lines, There's blood between us, etc., clearly point to a family feud, as of the Capulets and Montagues; but it is difficult to believe that the passage beginning A spirit with transfigured face' would have been introduced unless the writer had had in her mind some personage, such as Abélard, of exceptionally subtle and searching intellect. It may be observed moreover that (as with the letters of Héloïse to Abélard) this

seems to be intended for a written outpouring, not a spoken one: see the line on p. 342, I cannot write the words I said.'

Yet a Little While, p. 342.—Stanzas 3, 4, 7, and 8 are used, with modifica

tions, in other poems; the first pair in Vanity of Vanities (p. 133), and the second pair in the opening lyric (p. 193) of Divers Worlds, Time and Eternity. Nevertheless I have thought it undesir able to cut them out of the present poem.

Father and Lover, p. 343.-These two songs the first spoken by the Father, and the second by the Lover-come from a prose fairy-tale named Hero, which was printed in the volume entitled Commonplace and Other Stories, 1870-long out of print. I am not sure as to when my sister wrote Hero; it was before 1866, and I think some years before.

By the Sea, p. 343-This lyric of three stanzas was taken out of one of six stanzas, named A Yawn. The longer poem has a much more decided personal note in it. Winter Rain, p. 344.-There is hardly any poem by my sister, other than this, evincing a certain pleasure in the phenomena of winter. She was rather lavish of her coloured illustrations to it, giving no less than four. These are the bower of love for birds,' and the canopy above nest and egg and mother,' and the meadow-grass pied with broad-eyed daisies,' and the lilies on land and water.

L. E. L., p. 344.-This poem was at first entitled Spring, and a note was put to the title, L. E. L. by E. B. B.' The note must refer to Mrs. Browning's poem named L. E. L.'s Last Question; but it is not entirely clear what relation Christina meant to indicate between that poem and her own Spring. Apparently she relied either upon L. E. L.'s phrase, which was, 'Do you think of me as I think of you?'—or else ing's lyric, One thirsty for a little love.' upon a phrase occurring in Mrs. Brown- J

It will be clear to most readers tha Christina's poem Spring relates to her self, and not at all to the poetess L. E. L. (Letitia Elizabeth Landon). I suppose that, when the publishing-stage came on, Christina preferred to retire behind a

cloud, and so renamed the poem L. E. L., as if it were intended to express emotions proper to that now perhaps unduly forgotten poetess. The poem, as it stands in my sister's MS. note-book, has lines 1 and 3 of each stanza unrhymed, and she has pencilled a note thus: 'Gabriel fitted the double rhymes as printed, with a brotherly request that I would use them'; and elsewhere she adds, greatly improving the piece.' In other respects the printed L. E. L. is nearly identical with the MS. Spring.

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Cousin Kate, p. 347.—Like A Triad (see the note on p. 480), this poem was published by my sister in a volume, but withdrawn in subsequent issues. The like was the case with the ensuing poem, Sister Maude, which seems to show a certain reminiscence from Tennyson's composition, The Sisters.

No, thank you, John, p. 349.—In the copy of my sister's combined Poems (1895), in which she made a few jottings, I find this rather amusing entry: The original John was obnoxious, because he never gave scope for "No, thank you. I think I understand who John was; he dated, so far as my sister was affected, at a period some years prior to 1860.

The Lambs of Grasmere, p. 350.-In the above-named copy of the Poems Christina has written of the lambs,

Mrs. Ruxton talked about them.' I Mrs. still remember the occasion well. Ruxton (the 'Mary Minto' mentioned in

a published letter of Mrs. Browning) was married to a retired captain in the army, and for a brief while they lived at Grasmere. She was a lady of very dignified character and aspect, whom my sister both liked and respected in no common degree.

Wife to Husband, p. 351.-I am not application. If any, it might perhaps be aware that this poem has any individual

to my brother's wife, whose constant and severe ill-health permitted no expectation of her living long. Her death took place in February 1862.

Better So, p. 351.-This poem consisted at first of six stanzas. The 3rd, 4th, and 6th, were extracted by my sister, and, with some modification of diction and metre, were published in Time Flies, and in the Verses of 1893. The remaining three stanzas seem to me to be of much the same degree of merit; they are complete enough in themselves, so I publish them here. It seems probable that the whole poem was written upon the death of some cherished friend; I do not remember who it was. The date is not consistent with any death in our own family. The next poem relates of course to the decease of the Prince Consort. It might be possible (not, I think, probable) to suppose that Christina wrote the present lines as an appropriate utterance for 'Our Widowed Queen.' The Prince indeed died on 14 (not 13) December, but on the 13th his death was clearly anticipated.

In Progress, p. 352.-The expressions in this sonnet, if used by some one else, might have been not far from apposite to Christina herself. I do not, however, consider that she wrote the verses with any such reference. Clearly the sonnet describes some particular person; I can think of two ladies not wholly unlike this touching portrait-one more especially whom Christina first knew in Newcastle-on-Tyne. But any such guess may be quite wrong.

Seasons, p. 354.-These lines show

a shrinking from winter-time, apparent in several other compositions. Italian blood may partly account for this; yet, after all, there is plenty of beauty in an ordinary winter, English or other, and the sensations of an invalid (troubled up to early middle age with many symptoms which seemed to point towards consumption) may have had more to do with the feeling.

A Ring Posy, p. 354.-Was published in the Prince's Progress volume, but omitted by the authoress from later reprints. Possibly she thought the poem to be marked by an unchristian shade of self-complacency.

A Year's Windfalls, p. 355.-A note written by my sister says, 'This was written for the Portfolio Society.' I have not any distinct recollection about this Society; possibly Mrs. Bell Scott had something to do with it.

Twilight Night, p. 359. Part 2 of this compound poem was the earlier written. Part I formed at first a chaunt in Songs in a Cornfield: see the note below to that poem.

What would I Give ! p. 363.-In the sequence of dates there is evidence of a period of spiritual depression and selfreproof. The present poem is followed immediately by Come unto Me (which was originally called Faint yet Pursuing) (p. 237), and Who shall Deliver Me and In Patience (p. 238). The lastnamed is dated 19 March; next comes Easter, 9 April. The Come unto Me, though in a different metrical form, may almost be regarded as continuous with What would I Give.

The Ghost's Petition, p. 364.-Used to be called A Return, and had four concluding stanzas following the twenty-five which stand in print. Possibly they are better out; but several readers may have felt a certain abruptness in the present termination. In a copy of Christina's Poems, 1875, I find that she has altered line of stanza 5 thus-Sleep, sister,

and wake again.' This alteration, however, does not appear in print in any later edition; and being uncertain as to the date when it was written, I leave it aside. My own preference is for the original line.

Hoping against Hope, p. 365.-This was published in The Argosy, March 1866, under the title If. It was afterwards reprinted with the title which I give, sanctioned (I presume) by my sister. Mr. Frederick A. Sandys made a very able design to it, engraved on wood; able, but (to my thinking) not in character with the poem.

A Sketch, p. 368.-These humorous verses (I am perfectly convinced, though their authoress never enlightened me on the subject) relate to a matter which was from the first highly serious to her, and became hardly less than tragic. It is clear to me that the person here bantered was Charles Bagot Cayley, a man eminently unpractical in habit of mind, and abstracted and wool-gathering in de

meanour.

It is equally clear that, by the date when the verses were writter, August 1864, Christina, though the least forward of women, had evinced towards him an amount of graciousness which a man of ordinary alertness would not have overlooked. This Sketch might apparently be interpolated, by a reader of Il Rosseggiar dell Oriente, between Nos. 2 and 3 of that series.

Songs in a Cornfield, p. 369. —In this pathetic poem the names of the singers were at first Lettice, Marian, May, and Janet. Afterwards Marian was turned into Rachel, and Janet into Marian. The original Marian (now Rachel) sang the second song; but this was a different lyric-the one which now forms No. I in Twilight Night. Also there were dozen concluding lines to the whowe poem, left out in printing. Songs in a Cornfield was set to music by Sir G. A. Macfarren as a was which To me the

cantata, performed more than once,

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music appeared truly beautiful; but I believe it did not take much with the public, perhaps because of its extremely melancholy tone at the close. I sometimes fancied that, to avoid this objection, a judicious move would have been to place the swallow-song last in the

1

cantata.

Hear an unked strain, etc., p. 372.I suppose this provincial word 'unked' (or unkid) is familiar to several readers : it stands for 'grim, uncanny, dismal.' My sister got hold of it thus. Our uncle Henry Polydore told us (possibly in some such remote year as 1840) that the old country-woman with whom he was lodging used to keep a brief diary; and he had noticed that the entry made in it for one night of unusual storm was, 'Oh what an unkid night!' This may have been in Buckinghamshire, or perhaps in Gloucestershire. The small anecdote amused us all in its way, and the phrase became a sort of catchword among us, and, when the occasion offered, Christina enshrined the word in a poem.

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Amor Mundi, p. 374.-This justly celebrated poem appeared first in The Shilling Magazine, with a fine illustration by Mr. Frederick Sandys. It has also been made the subject of an oil-picture by Mr. Edward Hughes. Mr. Sandys showed a group of two lovers—the man guitar-playing and singing, the woman pleasing herself with a hand-mirror. do not perceive, however, that such was exactly the authoress's intention. I take it that both her personages are female : one of them a woman, the other the World in feminine shape. The first speaker is the woman, who inquires of the World whither she is going: it is the World who is figured with 'lovelocks,' and as 'dear to doat on,' and yho is afterwards pronounced false and Heetest.' The reader can take or reject this opinion as he likes, for I do not remember ever hearing the point settled by Christina. In her arrangement of her poems when collected, she put Up-hill

next after Amor Mundi; a significant juxtaposition, done no doubt with intention. That she thought well of the latter may easily be conjectured; none the less I find in one of her editions the following note on the poem: 'Gabriel remarked very truly, a reminiscence of The Demon Lover.' This remark would refer more directly to stanza 3.

From Sunset to Star Rise, p. 375.This very impressive sonnet was at first entitled Friends. In the note-book containing the MS. of the sonnet I find a pencil note, House of Charity,' written against the title. The House of Charity was, I think, an Institution at Highgate for reclaiming 'fallen women; and it may perhaps be inferred that Christina wrote this sonnet as if it were an utterance of one of these women, not of herself. Yet one hesitates to think so, for the sonnet has a tone which seems deeply personal. Christina' (thus wrote Mrs. William Bell Scott in 1860) 'is now an associate, and wore the dress-which is very simple, elegant even; black with hanging sleeves, a muslin cap with lace edging, quite becoming to her with the

veil.'

En Route, p. 377.-Under this heading I find three pieces in MS. which seem to have little connection one with the other. Presumably they were all written while my sister, along with my mother and myself, was making a flying visit to North Italy (through France and Switzerland). She was never there at any other time. The passionate delight in Italy to which En Route bears witness suggests that she was almost an alien-or, like her father, an exile-in the North. She never perhaps wrote anything better. I can remember the intense relief and pleasure with which she saw lovable Italian faces and heard musical Italian speech at Bellinzona after the somewhat hard and nippcd quality of the German Swiss. I now give only one piece under the name En Route. The first piece and the third were used by my sister in her

poem named An Immurata Sister (see p. 380).

Enrica, 1865, p. 377.-This poem was first published, under the name of An English Drawing-room, in a selection entitled Picture Posies, Poems chiefly by Living Authors, 1874, with an illustration by Houghton. I remember perfectly well the lady to whom the verses referan interesting person, anything but kindly treated by fate. She was Signora Enrica Barile; her husband had taken the fancy of altering his name to Filopanti, so she was called Signora Filopanti. Her

husband (whom I never saw) had some pretensions as an Italian patriot, an adherent of Mazzini and Garibaldi-the latter indeed, in his Memoirs, has spoken of him very highly. He also dabbled in the doctrine of metempsychosis, and would have it that Dante and Beatrice were reincarnated in himself and his wife. The general love of humankind which impelled him to rename himself as Filopanti was, unfortunately, unpropitious to a normal affection for his spouse; so after a while he gave her notice that she had better look out for some separate means of subsistence. She came to London- —a very agreeable bright-natured lady, still perhaps under thirty, personable and comely, and not far from handsome-of course, as the poem shows, eminently Italian in character and manner. It was through Mrs. Bell Scott that our family knew her. Signora Filopanti was the lady who, upon Garibaldi's visit to London in 1864, delivered a brief and extemporized harangue to him in public, as he stood before a vast concourse en route from the railway station to the heart of London. The Signora tried to estab lish a teaching connection in London, with only indifferent success. After a time she left, and I heard little or nothing further about her until 1902; she was then living, and in Italy. Here, as in the preceding piece, En Route, we can discern the strong Italian sympathies and affinities of Christina.

Husband and Wife, p. 378. — Tha was published in a book called A Masqui of Poets; I do not recollect the details. It appears to be the same poem which (as shown in a letter from my brother, Letters) Mr. F. A. Sandys was thinking 5 January 1866, published in his Family of illustrating, and for which my brother proposed the title Grave-clothes and Baby

clothes.

An Immurata Sister, p. 380.-This poem is constructed out of two compositions which my sister wrote in June 1865, and which she at first associated with the one which is termed En Route (see p. 485). The quatrain beginning 'Hearts that die,' and the one beginning 'Sparks fly upward,' were added at some later date; and the one beginning 'The world hath sought' is different from its first form. The title, An Immurata Sister, may be open to some uncertainty. The lines are clearly a personal utterance; and I suppose that my sister meant to indicate that, by essential condition of soul, she was not unlike one of those nuns whose rule keeps them severely immured.

Once for all (Margaret), p. 380.-The name Margaret was added when my sister printed this sonnet. The person

whom she meant by it was the first Mrs. James Hannay as I learn from a note pencilled in one of her editions. Presumably the sonnet was written when Mr. Hannay contracted a second marriage.

Song, p. 382.-This song (which in MS. bears a title, What Comes ?) is the last piece entered in Christina's series of As I note-books, seventeen in number. have said before, precise dates are seldom traceable henceforward.

From Metastasio, p. 382.-These lines form a paraphrastic translation from lyric (Amo te solo) in Metastasios Clemenza di Tito. I found them as a scrap of MS., pencilled by Christina thus: I must have done this for Traventi, who wanted English words to