creed; with the adjunct (which hardly came within the scope of Rossetti’s tale, and yet may be partly traced there) that the artist cannot attain to adequate self-expression save through a stern study and realization of natural appearances.  And it may be said that to this core of the Praeraphaelite creed Rossetti always adhered throughout his life, greatly different though his later works are from his earlier ones in the externals of artistic style.  Most of “Hand and Soul” was written on December 21, 1849, day and night, chiefly in some five hours beginning after midnight.  Three currents of thought may be traced in this story:  (1) A certain amount of knowledge regarding the beginnings of Italian art, mingled with some ignorance, voluntary or involuntary, of what was possible to be done in the middle of the thirteenth century; (2) a highly ideal, yet individual, general treatment of the narrative; and (3) a curious aptitude at detailing figments as if they were facts.  All about Chiaro dell’ Erma himself, Dresden and Dr. Aemmster, D’Agincourt, pictures at the Pitti Gallery, the author’s visit to Florence in 1847, etc., are pure inventions or “mystifications”; but so realistically put that they have in various instances been relied upon and cited as truths.  I gave some details as to this in my Memoir of Dante Rossetti.  The style of writing in “Hand and Soul” is of a very exceptional kind.  My brother had at that time a great affection for “Stories after Nature,” written by Charles Wells (author of “Joseph and his Brethren"), and these he kept in view to some extent as a model, though the direct resemblance is faint indeed.  In the conversation of foreign art-students, forming the epilogue, he may have been not wholly oblivious of the scene in Browning’s “Pippa Passes” (a prime favourite of his), where some “foreign students of painting and sculpture” are preparing a disagreeable surprise for the French sculptor Jules.  There is, however, no sort of imitation; and Rossetti’s dialogue is the more markedly natural of the two.  In re-reading “Hand and Soul,” I am struck by two passages which came true of Rossetti himself in after-life:  (1) “Sometimes after nightfall he would walk abroad in the most solitary places he could find—­hardly feeling the ground under him because of the thoughts of the day which held him in fever.” (2) “Often he would remain at work through the whole of a day, not resting once so long as the light lasted.”  When Rossetti, in 1869, was collecting his poems, and getting them privately printed with a view to after-publication, he thought of including “Hand and Soul” in the same volume, but did not eventually do so.  The privately-printed copy forms a small pamphlet, which has sometimes been sold at high prices—­I believe L10 and upwards.  At this time I pointed out to him that the church at Pisa which he named San Rocco could not possibly have borne that name—­San Rocco being a historical character who lived at a later