LETTER XXIV.

DANTE ROSSETTI TO MADOX BROWN, HAMPSTEAD.

Mr. Holman Hunt’s “day of departure” was for his journey to Egypt and Palestine.

I believe that Hannay’s proposed Magazine _The Pen_ did actually run through a few numbers, but Rossetti’s _Burden of Nineveh_ did not appear in it.

[Chatham Place, London. 3 January 1854.]

My dear Brown,

I am sorry my letter miscarried, as it prevented your coming and meeting Hunt, whom I asked after writing to you. His day of departure was then fixed for the next day, and now it is to be to-morrow, but one does not know whether it will be so after all. Till he is fairly off I will not fix an evening for coming to Hampstead, as it might possibly interfere with some opportunity of meeting _him_. My water-colour is still, to MacCrac, “vague as the watery moon.” I have no news. Lizzy sits by me at work on her design, which is now coming really admirable. She has also finished the _Lady of Shalott_ sketch, and made quite another thing of it. She has followed your suggestion about her portrait, and done several things which improve it greatly. Hannay is going to start a penny weekly mag., to be called _The Pen_, and wants to have my poem about Nineveh for it. I suppose I shall give it him. I some time back gave _Sister Helen_ to Mrs. Howitt for some English edition of a German something or other, which will be coming out now. No more news.

Good-bye. Your D. G. R.