Part 1

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:

—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.

_This Edition consists of 1000 Copies only, of which this is_ _No._ 97 S & Co

GABRIELE ROSSETTI

GABRIELE ROSSETTI

A VERSIFIED AUTOBIOGRAPHY

TRANSLATED AND SUPPLEMENTED BY

WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI

Così dall’arpa opposti suoni ei desta Pel suol che gli diè culla un suon d’affanno Di gioia un suon per quel che asil gli presta

G R

SANDS & CO 12 BURLEIGH STREET STRAND LONDON 1901

DEDICATED TO

ANTONIO AND OLIVIA AGRESTI

WHOSE MARRIAGE HAS RESTORED TO ITALIAN NATIONALITY A GRAND-DAUGHTER OF GABRIELE ROSSETTI

PREFACE

IN Italy the poems of Gabriele Rossetti have enjoyed a large amount of celebrity, and they are still held in honoured remembrance; his prose works are there known rather by rumour than in perusal. In England the case of the prose works is much the same, while the poems are as good as unknown. His life has never been written on any very complete scale. In Italian there are some Memoirs, more or less detailed and accurate--perhaps the most solid is that written by my cousin Teodorico Pietrocola-Rossetti; in English, the nearest approach to an account of him may be what appears in the course of my _Memoir of Dante Gabriel Rossetti_ (1895). There is also some important information in the book, _John Hookham Frere and his Friends_, mentioned on p. 132 of the present volume.

The name of Gabriele Rossetti has in this country secured some amount of respectful regard, but rather on adventitious than on strictly personal grounds. He is contemplated in his paternal relation--the father of Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti. Dr Garnett, in his _History of Italian Literature_, has expressed the point neatly, and in terms stronger than it would behove me to use: “Rossetti assuredly will not be forgotten by England, for which he has done what no other inhabitant of these isles ever did, in begetting two great poets.”

On me it can be no less than a filial obligation to do what I can for the memory of my patriotic, highly gifted, laborious, and loving father. I therefore offer to the British public the following authentic record of him, and leave it to obtain such readers as it may.

W. M. ROSSETTI.

LONDON, _January 1901_.

CONTENTS

PAGE

GABRIELE ROSSETTI--Autobiography, etc. 1

Life in Italy 6

Life in Exile--Malta and England 60

APPENDIX

1.--FROM SIX LETTERS FROM GABRIELE ROSSETTI TO HIS WIFE

A--Letter of 4 May 1831 117

B ” 15 May 1832 119

C ” 29 May 1832 122

D ” 6 September 1836 126

E ” 21 October 1836 129

F ” 21 August 1848 130

2.--FROM EIGHT LETTERS FROM GABRIELE ROSSETTI TO CHARLES LYELL, KINNORDY

A--Letter of 29 October 1831 133

B ” 1 October 1832 134

C ” 15 May 1833 136

D ” 13 January 1836 137

E ” 14 January 1836 139

F ” 16 December 1836 140

G ” 21 July 1840 141

H ” 1 February 1842 143

3.--FROM THREE LETTERS FROM SEYMOUR (BARONE) KIRKUP TO GABRIELE ROSSETTI

A--Letter of 12 September 1840 144

B ” 14 September 1841 147

C ” 5 February 1843 150

4.--LETTERS (OR EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS) FROM GIUSEPPE MAZZINI--ELEVEN TO ROSSETTI, AND ONE TO ANOTHER CORRESPONDENT

A--Letter of 28 March 1841 157

B ” 1841? 159

C ” November 1844? 160

D ” May 1845? 161

E ” 31 October 1845 162

F ” January 1847? 163

G ” January 1847? 163

H ” 8 February 1847 164

I ” May 1847? 165

J ” February 1848? 167

K ” November 1848? 168

L ” To Corso--1846? 168

5.--SIX POEMS BY GABRIELE ROSSETTI

A--Ad Amore 174

B Versi d’Amore 177

C Aurora del 21 Luglio del 1820 177

D Addio alla Patria 182

E San Paolo in Malta--Canto Improvvisato 186

F Napoleone a Sant’Elena 191

INDEX OF NAMES 193

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. FAC-SIMILE OF AN EARLY DRAWING BY GABRIELE ROSSETTI, pen and sepia, made as a title-page to some of his MS. poems. _Circa_ 1804. See p. 11 _Frontispiece_

2. GABRIELE ROSSETTI--from the oil-portrait by Dante Gabriel Rossetti now belonging to Sir Leonard Lyell, Bart.--1848 _To face p._ 1

3. GAETANO POLIDORI--from a pencil-drawing by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, done in 1853, the same year when Polidori died, aged 89 ” 85

4. CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI--from a pencil-drawing by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. _Circa_ 1846 ” 89

5. FRANCES MARY LAVINIA ROSSETTI, with her daughters Maria Francesca and Christina Georgina--from a photograph. _Circa_ 1855 ” 115

6. GABRIEL CHARLES DANTE (called Dante Gabriel) and WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI--from a water-colour sketch by Filippo Pistrucci. _Circa_ 1838 ” 130

GABRIELE ROSSETTI

AS the career of Gabriele Rossetti was much mixed up with political and dynastic events in the Kingdom of Naples (or of the Two Sicilies), it may be as well at starting to give a very brief _résumé_ of historical facts.

In the year 1734 the Kingdom of Naples, in the resettlement of Europe consequent upon the Treaty of Utrecht, was under the dominion of the Empire, or, as we should now word it, of Austria; but in that year an almost bloodless conquest brought-in a different dynasty. Charles, Duke of Parma, a son of the Bourbon King of Spain, Philip V., by his second wife Elizabeth Farnese, a spirited youth only seventeen years of age, determined to assert his ancestral claims upon the kingdom, and in a trice he was firmly seated upon the Neapolitan throne. His government, though in a sense despotic, was popular and enlightened. In 1759 he became by succession King of Spain; and, under the obligation of existing treaties, he relinquished the Kingdom of Naples to his third son, Ferdinand, aged only eight. In 1768 Ferdinand married Maria Caroline, daughter of the Emperor Francis and of Maria Theresa, and sister of Marie Antoinette.

Ferdinand IV., as he was then termed (afterwards Ferdinand I.) was a man of no great ability, but of vigorous physique, and sufficiently well-disposed as a sovereign; his wife, strong-minded and domineering, was the more active governor of the two, and promoted various innovations, some of which fairly counted as reforms. Things went on well enough for the rulers and the subjects until the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, when Neapolitan opposition to France and all things French became pronounced. Queen Caroline naturally did not relish the decapitation of her sister in 1793, and hostilities against the Republic ensued. In 1798 the king decamped to Sicily, and in the following year his continental dominions became the “Parthenopean Republic.” This was of short duration, January to June 1799. The Southern provinces rose in arms, under the leadership of Cardinal Ruffo; the French army departed, and Ferdinand was re-installed in Naples--Lord Nelson, victorious from the Battle of the Nile, playing a large part, and a much-debated one, in this transaction. Ferdinand now ruled with great rigour, and committed some barbaric acts of repression and retaliation, for which his consort was regarded as gravely responsible. The great Napoleon, Consul, Emperor, and King of Italy, was not likely to tolerate for long the anti-French severities, demonstrations, and intrigues, of “il Rè Nasone,” as Ferdinand was nicknamed in virtue of his portentously long and prominent nose. Early in 1806 Ferdinand and Caroline disappeared once more into Sicily, under British protection, and Joseph Bonaparte was enthroned in Naples. Joseph, in 1808, was transferred to the Spanish kingdom; and Joachim Murat, brother-in-law of Napoleon and of Joseph by his marriage with their sister Caroline, reigned in Naples in his stead. Ferdinand, with the other Caroline, remained meanwhile unattackable in Sicily, and was turned into a constitutional king there by British predominance. In 1815, on the final collapse of the Napoleonic _régime_, and very shortly after the death of his Queen, he returned to Naples.

These particulars, meagre as they are, seem to be sufficient to show what was the historical background to the fortunes of Gabriele Rossetti, with whom alone I am directly concerned. He was born under a recently-established dynasty, in a kingdom of despotic rule and many relics of feudalism; from the age of twenty-three to thirty-two he was the subject of a new and intrusive dynasty, not less despotic, but free from all trammels inherited from the past. Then in 1815 he again came under the old system, but in a state of public feeling and aspiration which rapidly led to a constitutional government, sworn to by the sovereign, and abolished by him at the first opportunity.

I propose to relate my father’s life in his own verse as translated by me, supplemented by a little of my prose. It was towards the year 1850, when his general health and strength had grievously decayed, and he was conscious of the imminent approaches of death, that he composed a versified autobiography, of which the great majority is here embodied. He wrote it in rhymed sextets; but I, for ease and literality, have rendered it into blank verse. His own verse is, as he himself acknowledges, here pitched in a very subdued key, with little endeavour after poetic elevation; though there are some passages in a higher strain. My translation makes still less pretension as poetry; it conveys the sense with strict accuracy, and that is all it affects. My father retained in his old age some of the habits of “poetic diction” which had been customary in the Italy of his youth; and one finds here more than one quite wants of Phœbus, Neptune, Minerva’s fane, and other “rattle-traps of mythology” (to borrow a phrase from William Blake); in all this I follow my original. The versification of the Italian text is often ingenious, and even masterly; abounding in dactylic line-endings, or _rime sdrucciole_, as the Italians call them--a difficult feat, at which Rossetti was uncommonly deft. I have given the great bulk of the production--which, indeed, I had in the first instance translated in full; but eventually I thought some passages here and there, and also some amplifications of phrase, useless for the purposes of the British reader, and have therefore excluded them. The whole of the expressly biographical matter is preserved. Those notes which are not marked by an initial are my father’s own; those to which “W.” is appended are mine--there being several points which seemed to need some explanation.

My material does not call for much division or subdivision. I shall therefore simply separate it into the Life of Gabriele Rossetti (his full Christian names were Gabriele Pasquale Giuseppe) in Italy, and his Life in Exile, Malta and England; and, plunging at once into the versified autobiography, I commence the

LIFE IN ITALY

I know my fame will have but scanty flight, Readers to whom I speak of Italy. Yet, if in any of you there rose a wish To know me who I am, I’ll meet it here. Ovid’s own native soil is mine as well: He spoke about himself, and so will I. In verses Ovid wrote, but I in prose-- Prose of eleven syllables with rhymes; But, be they verses, I shall not contest. And, without more preamble, hear me now.

Along the beach of the Frentani lies On teeming hills, the Adriatic near, A small municipality of Rome-- Histonium once and Vasto now ’tis called. There, with no waft of Fortune, I received A humble cradle from a worthy pair.[1]

The brief statement of my father, in his verses and his note, may be slightly extended. Nicola Rossetti was a blacksmith and locksmith; his wife, Maria Francesca Pietrocola, was the daughter of a shoemaker. Both families seem to have held a creditable, though certainly a by no means distinguished, position in the small Vastese community. The original name of the Rossetti race (as I have heard my father more than once affirm) was not Rossetti but Della Guardia. Some babies in the Della Guardia family were born with red or reddish hair (I presume, four or five generations before my father’s birth); and the Vastese--who, like other Italians, never lose a chance of calling people by nicknames--termed them “the Rossetti”--_i.e._ “The Little Reds,” and this continued to serve as surname for their progeny. Thus the surname Rossetti may be regarded as equivalent to the English surname Reddish, or Rudkins (if Rudkins is an abbreviation of Ruddykins). The family of Della Guardia still exists in Vasto. It appears to have been entitled to bear a crest--which is a sturdy-looking tree, with the motto “Frangas non flectas”; for a seal (still in my possession), showing this crest and motto, was delivered to Gabriele Rossetti, on his quitting Vasto in youth, by his elder brother the Canon Andrea, who told him that it was the family-device. This was often used, I may add, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It appears that in the Rossetti line, or else in the Della Guardia line, there must have been some degree of literary eminence prior to the date of the blacksmith Nicola; as I find, in a letter addressed by Gabriele Rossetti, towards 1807, to his elder brother Domenico, the phrase: “You know that our stock has always abounded in great men of letters.” One cannot suppose that this statement is a mere fib: I have not, however, found any confirmation of it in books about Vasto, nor do I remember that my father ever referred to such a matter by word of mouth.

I believe that Nicola Rossetti came to his end in a distressing way. When the French Republican army invaded the Neapolitan territory in 1798, the troops required Nicola to render some service, such as horseshoeing, provisioning, transport, or what not. He showed no inclination to comply, and was beaten or otherwise ill-treated; and this so preyed on his mind that his health suffered, and death ensued. His decease may, I presume, have occurred towards 1800; his widow survived till 1822 or some such date. Gabriele Rossetti used to speak with much affection of his mother, who (like so many Italian women of the lower middle class in those days) could neither write nor read. He remembered his father as a somewhat harsh man, but upright and worthy of respect. The Rossetti family is now wholly extinct, save in the persons of myself and my four children; the line of my father’s married sisters is also extinct.

The precise date of my father’s birth was 28th February 1783 (not 1st March, as has at times been written and printed). He was born in a lofty brown building, which, in a water-colour with which I was favoured towards the date of the Vastese centenary celebration of his birth, wears a somewhat stately though wholly unadorned aspect. It looks like an edifice which has stood for some centuries, solid but uncared for. It is now, I understand, a dilapidated structure, let out in tenements to a poor class of people. The question of buying it for the city of Vasto, in memory of Gabriele Rossetti, has often been mooted, but not carried into effect. There are prophets who have no honour in their own country; and others who, rather profusely honoured there by word of mouth, are left in the lurch when deeds and subscriptions are in demand.

In the first opening years of joyousness I showed clear sign of studious aptitude; And, following my brothers, three in count, Whose lively parts had been in evidence, I was escorted by this goodly three Into Apollo’s and Minerva’s fane.[2]

Thrilled by the first Phœbean impulses, Rough versicles I traced with facile hand: And yet, to my surprise, those lines of mine Almost took wing into a distant flight. A hope of Pindus did I hear me named: But praise increased my ardour, not my pride. And yet some vanity there came and mixed With the fair issue of my preluding: But, all the more I heard the applause increase, With equal force did study grow in me. Not surely that I tried to load my page With pomp abstruse extraneous to my drift; But counterwise each image and each rhyme, The more spontaneous, so meseemed more fair. In trump of gold and in the oaten pipe Let some seek the sublime, I seek for ease. I shunned those verses which sprawl forth untuned Even from my days of schoolboy tutelage: I know they please some people, but not me: Admiring Dante, Metastasio I laud; and hold--a true Italian ear Must not admit one inharmonious verse. Some lines require a very surgeon’s hand To make them upon crutches stand afoot. So be they! But, to set them musical, They must, by Heaven, be in themselves a song. This seems a truthful, not a jibing, rule-- Music and lyric are a twinborn thing. Yet think not that I deem me satisfied With upblown empty sound without ideas:-- Then will a harmony be beautiful When great emotions and great thoughts it stirs.

To painting with an equal ardency An almost sudden impulse led me on; And with the pen I drew in such a mode That all my work would look as if engraved. To question what I say would nothing serve, For on my hands more than one proof remains.[3] A plaining ditty which describes my state, And wherein I deplore my fate perverse, And whose adorning is two pen-designs, Is still preserved among my earliest scraps: And many more, for him who disbelieves, Can thoroughly attest what I aver.

Not every magnate takes to banqueting, Or lust of Cyprus and Pentapolis. The Marchese di Vasto, a high-placed lord, The King of Naples’ Majordomo in Chief (Whatever face he show in history, By me his memory must be always blest), Being once in company with men of mark Whom he was wont to invite from time to time,-- My verses read by him, and drawings seen-- Felt pleased that I was of his vassalage; He wrote to his agent telling him of this And bidding him to send me on to Naples.[4]

There I was patronized, without parade, By him, who from the first received me well: But little did that firm support endure, For a political whirlwind cut it short. Poor I--how fare in a vast capital? I had to bow before my destinies. For scarcely had a year and month elapsed, In which new studies occupied my mind, When the French army of invasion came In the sixth year of this our century,-- And, seeking Sicily in urgent flight, The Marquis vanished with the perjured King. Then for the kingdom rose an altered time, And all the people vied to give it hail, For they abhorred that Bourbon void of faith, With executions and with treasons smirched,-- And more his wife, a type unparagoned, Megæra, Alecto, and Tisiphone. I will not paint that husband and his wife-- Thank Heaven, the tomb has swallowed them ere now. Their grandson--this suffices--pairs them both, Re-named King Bomba, monster in human form.

On saddened brows a few, and many glad, I read the souls of men enslaved or free: And, mixed myself ’mid such conflicting minds, Judge you if I was joyful or was grieved. The festive thundering of the martial forts Responded to by frequent trumpet-call, Cheers that were uttered by a thousand mouths As the tricoloured banner came in view, And hurly-burly weltering all around, Opposed enormous joy to enormous grief. Yet thoughts, more than enough, ominous and black, Whispered me somewhile ’mid those shouts of joy: “My hapless country, what dost thou acclaim, Now that one despot goes and one arrives? Ah on thy shoulders still I find the yoke: They doff the old one and they don the new.” And from my heart the words leapt to my lips: “To call this liberty were sure a jibe! As Ferdinand in Naples stifled her, So Bonaparte butchered her in France. But tremble, tremble, impious man! Thy crime On all the nations’ hearts stands written deep.”

I was a prophet here. Germany in arms, A nation of great hearts and thought as great, Avenging Freedom foully done to death, Against him let whole populations loose. Behold him fallen on field, captive at sea: By Liberty he rose, by her he fell. France in my youthful fervency I loved, I loved the awful warrior guiding her: But, when I heard, “He’s made an Emperor now, Nor that alone, but despot autocrat,” The hate I felt extinguished all that fire.

For many ’twas a cause of deepest grief To contemplate with golden diadem A brother of that despot on our throne. His praise was--having turned the Bourbon out; Whence, setting every other thought at rest, They all applauded him, and so did I. A chosen band of daring souls and brave Encircled the incoming Frenchman round,[5] And of two evils they acclaimed the less, Awaiting a true good to come one day. Round the new sceptre flocking now I marked A crowd of shining minds, and joyed herein; And, taking up the lyre resolvedly, Inly I said: “A poet I was born, And such I will be in my future course!”[6] The use of reason scarce had I attained When France’s thundercloud I heard that pealed--Which next diffused around and far-afar Terror to Kings, to nations hopefulness. At dawning of my lifetime I resolved To follow in that movement--and alas! From the successive shiftings of the chance, I, loving good, saw evil that ensued. Across the Red Sea, sea of blood and war, Must then the Promised Land be still approached? That fatal whirlwind, with alternate shock, In Naples’ kingdom all-deplorable Full ten times made a change of government, Alternating with serfdom liberty: And, with the flight of that demented court, I saw it for the fourth time altering: And the ninth change and tenth, which now I see, Are the most miserable of them all.