ROS$ETTI, Dante Gabriel, English poet and painter: b. London, 12 May 1828; d. Berch ington, 10 April 1882. His full name was Ga briel Charles Dante, but for literary purposes he rearranged it in the form by which he is now remembered. He was one of four children, all of whom, especially himself, his sister Christina and his brother William Michael, achieved fame in literature. His father, Gabriele Rossetti, pro fessor of Italian in King's College, was an Italian exile, an enthusiastic patriot, himself a poet and author of several critical works on Dante. He had married Frances Mary Lavina Polidori, of English and Italian blood.
Dante Gabriel was educated at home, in an atmosphere of culture and fine enthusiasms-, from ' his ninth to his 14th year he attended King's College. During that time he received instruction nstruction in drawing, and upon leaving college he gave himself to the study of art, entering the Royal Academy in 1848. At the same time he began his translations from Dante and other Italian poets, showing from the first more genius in poetry than in painting. His great poem, perhaps his most remarkable, (The Blessed Damozei,) was written about 1847. In 1848 he entered the studio of Ford Madox Brown, where be met Wocdner, Holman Hunt and Millais—the group that with himself and Madox Brown constituted the so-called pre Raphaelite brotherhood. In 1850 William Michael Rossetti edited The Germ, a short-lived but fainous magazine devoted to pre-Raphaelite ideals; in its page appeared (The Blessed Daniozel) and other work of Dante Gabriel Ros Just what were the ideals of the pre Raphaelites is hard to define; they stood in gen eral for the devotional sincerity in art of those painters who preceded Raphael, and for free dom from modern academic canons; yet Ros setti himself was not strictly a pre-Raphaelite; his drawing Was quite in his own style, little affected by the manner of the ofd painters.
For some time Rossetti had to face the pro verbial artist's struggle; his pictures were not bought, and, the peculiarities of his drawing were severely criticized. Ruskin's kindly de fense of the pre-Raphaelites, hatiever, encour aged the whole group. Shortly afterward
Ruskin made Rossetti a standing offer to buy, up to a certain sum; all of Rossetti's painting that pleased him. The arrangement lasted for some time, to Rossetti's great benefit. Through Ruskin he met Sir Edward Burne-Jones, who introduced him to Morris and Swinburne. Rus kin also generously assumed the cost of Ros setti's first volume, the 'Early Italian Poets,' a collection of translations which appeared in 1861. Rossetti afterward paid. back the loan, and the book was reprinted in 1874 under the title of 'Dante and His Circle.' In most of Rossetti's early pictures, his Beatrices and ideal ladies were copied after his wife, Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, herself a poet and artist, whom he had married in 1860. Mrs. Rossetti was an invalid; the poet had no delusions as to the sadness shortly in store for him. But when, in 1862, his wife accidentally hastened her fate by an overdose of laudanum, Rossetti gave way impetuously to his grief, and in his impulsive despair buried in his wife's coffin the manuscript of his poems, for the most part inspired by her.
In the course of the next seven years — dur ing which time he continued his painting with success, and also began the use of diloral— his friends persuaded him to recover his manu scripts, which he did in 1869. The following year appeared his Poems,' contain ing the 'House of Life' sonnet sequence in its original complete form. In October 1871, Rob ert Buchanan, under the pen-name of "Thomas Maitland," wrote an essay entitled (The Fleshly School of Poetry,' in the Contemporary Re view. The purpose of this article was to show that Rossetti's poetry, in thought and expres sion, was indecent; and to make his point the writer did not shrink from misquoting Rossetti and perverting his meaning. Rossetti made an adequate re in an article called 'The stealthy School of Criticism,) and in later editions some what withdrew the verses that had most offended Buchanan. But the injustice of the attack preyed upon him until his mind was deranged; at one time only the loving care of his friends prevented him from committing suicide.