It was my pleasure to communicate this verse to our greatest living conversationalist, a point I mention because it may, in consequence, be already known to those who, like myself, enjoy the privileges of his inimitable talk.  I possess the original manuscript of the poem, and can supply copies of the remainder to the curious.

In a magazine managed by the physician of a well-known lunatic asylum I found many inspiring examples.  The patients are permitted to contribute:  they discuss art and literature, subject of course to a stringent editorial discretion.  As you might suppose, poetry occupies a good deal of space.  It was from that source of clouded English I culled the following:—­

   His hair is red and blue and white,
   His face is almost tan,
   His brow is wet with blood and sweat,
   He steals from where he can: 
   And looks the whole world in the face,
   A drunkard and a man.

I think we have here a Henley manque.  In robustious assertion you will not find anything to equal it in the Hospital Rhymes of that author.  I was so much struck by the poem that I obtained permission to correspond with the poet.  I discovered that another Sappho might have adorned our literature; that a mute inglorious Elizabeth Barrett was kept silent in Darien—­for the asylum was in the immediate vicinity of the Peak in Derbyshire.  Of the correspondence which ensued I venture to quote only one sentence: 

   ’I was brought up to love beauty; my home was more than cultured; it
   was refined; we took in the Art Journal regularly.’

Of all modern artists, I suppose that Sir Edward Burne-Jones has inspired more poetry than any other.  A whole school of Oxford poets emerged from his fascinating palette, and he is the subject of perhaps the most exquisite of all the Poems and Ballads—­the ’Dedication’—­which forms the colophon to that revel of rhymes.  I sometimes think that is why his art is out of fashion with modern painters, who may inspire dealers, but would never inspire poets.  For who could write a sonnet on some uncompromising pieces of realism by Mr. Rothenstein, Mr. John, or Mr. Orpen?  Theirs is an art which speaks for itself.  But Sir Edward Burne-Jones seems to have dazzled the undergrowth of Parnassus no less than the higher slopes.  In a long and serious epic called ‘The Pageant of Life,’ dealing with every conceivable subject, I found:—­

   With some the mention of Burne-Jones
   Elicits merely howls and groans;
   But those who know each inch of art
   Believe that he can bear his part.

I don’t remember what he could bear.  Perhaps it referred to his election at the Royal Academy.  Then, again, in a ‘Vision’ of the next world, a poet described how—­

   Byron, Burne-Jones, and Beethoven,
   Charlotte Bronte and Chopin are there.

I wonder if this has escaped the eagle eye of Mr. Clement Shorter.  Though perhaps the most delightful nonsense, for which, I fear, this great painter is partly responsible, may be found in a recent poem addressed to the memory of my old friend, Simeon Solomon:—­