The Germ: Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art. Various
I was from the first one of those (the majority) who assented to the republication, acting herein on behalf of my brother, then lately deceased, as well as of myself. I am quite aware that some of the articles in “The Germ” are far from good, and some others, though good in essentials, are to a certain extent juvenile; but juvenility is anything but uninteresting when it is that of such men as Coventry Patmore and Dante Rossetti. “The Germ” contains nothing of which, in spirit and in purport, the writers need be ashamed. If people like to read it without paying fancy prices for the original edition, they were and are, so far as I am concerned, welcome to do so. Before Mr. Stock's long-standing scheme could be legally carried into effect, an American publisher, Mr. Mosher, towards the close of 1898, brought out a handsome reprint of “The Germ” (not in any wise a facsimile), and a few of the copies were placed on sale in London.3 Mr. Mosher gave as an introduction to his volume an article by the late J. Ashcroft Noble which originally appeared in an English magazine in May 1882. This article is entitled “A Pre-Raphaelite Magazine.” It is written in a spirit of generous sympathy, and is mostly correct in its facts. I may here mention another article on “The Germ,” also published, towards 1868, in some magazine. It is by John Burnell Payne (originally a Clergyman of the Church of England), who died young in 1869. He wrote a triplet of articles, named “Præraphaelite Poetry and Painting,” of which Part I. is on “The Germ.” He expresses himself sympathetically enough; but his main drift is to show that the Præraphaelite movement, after passing through some immature stages, developed into a quasi-Renaissance result. A perusal of his paper will show that Mr. Payne was one of the persons who supposed Chiaro dell'Erma, the hero of “Hand and Soul,” to have been a real painter, author of an extant picture.
Mr. Stock's reprint is of the facsimile order, and even faults of print are reproduced. I am not called upon to say with any precision what there are. On page 45 I observe “ear,” which should be “car”; on page 62, Angilico, and Rossini (for Rosini). On page 155 the words, “I believe that the thought-wrapped philosopher,” ought to begin a new sentence. On page 159 “Phyrnes” ought of course to be “Phrynes.” The punctuation could frequently be improved.
I will conclude by appending a little list (it makes no pretension to completeness) of writings bearing upon the Præraphaelite Brotherhood and its members. Writings of that kind are by this date rather numerous; but some readers of the present pages may not well know where to find them, and might none the less be inclined to read up the subject a little. I give these works in the order (as far as I know it) of their dates, without any attempt to indicate the degree of their importance. That is a question on which I naturally entertain opinions of my own, but I shall not intrude them upon the reader.
• Ruskin: Pre-Raphaelitism, 1854, and other later writings.
• F. G. Stephens: William Holman-Hunt and his Works, 1860.
• William Sharp: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1882.
• Hall Caine: Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1882.
• Walter Hamilton: The Æsthetic Movement in England, 1882.
• T. Watts-Dunton: The Truth about Rossetti, 1883, and other writings.
• W. Holman-Hunt: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 1884 (?).
• Earnest Chesneau: La Peinture Anglaise, 1884 (?).
• Joseph Knight: Life of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1887.
• W. M. Rossetti: Dante Gabriel Rossetti as Designer and Writer, 1889.
• Harry Quilter: Preferences in Art, 1892.
• W. Bell Scott: Autobiographical Notes, 1892.
• Esther Wood: Dante Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite Movement, 1894.
• Robert de la Sizeranne: La Peinture Anglaise Contemporaine, 1895.
• Dante G. Rossetti: Family Letters, with Memoir by W. M. Rossetti, 1895.
• Richard Muther: The History of Modern Painting, vols. ii. and iii., 1896.
• Ford H. M. Hueffer: Ford Madox Brown, 1896.
• Dante G. Rossetti: Letters to William Allingham, edited by Dr. Birkbeck Hill, 1897.
• M. H. Spielmann: Millais and his Works, 1898.
• Antonio Agresti: Poesie di Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Traduzione con uno Studio su la Pittura Inglese, etc., 1899.
• Fraulein Wilmersdoerffer: Dante Gabriel Rossetti und sein Einflusz, 1899.
• Edited by W. M. Rossetti: Ruskin, Rossetti, Præraphaelitism, 1899.
• J. Guille Millais: Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais, 1899.
• Percy H. Bate: The English Præraphaelite Painters, 1899.
• H. C. Marillier: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1899.
• Edited by W. M. Rossetti: Præraphaelite Diaries and Letters, 1899.
There are also books on Burne-Jones and Willaim Morris with which I am not accurately acquainted. It seems strange that no memoir of Thomas Woolner has yet been published; a fine sculptor and remarkable man known to and appreciated by all sorts of people, and certain to have figured extensively in correspondence. He died in October 1892. Mr. Holman-Hunt is understood to have been engaged for a long while past upon a book on Præraphaelitism which would cast into the shade most of the earlier literature on the subject.
W. M. ROSSETTI
London, July 1899.
N.B.—When the third number of the magazine was about to appear, with a change of title from “The Germ” to “Art and Poetry,” two fly-sheets were drawn up, more, I think, by Messrs. Tupper the printing-firm than by myself. They contain some “Opinions of the Press,” already referred to in this Introduction, and an explanation as to the change of title. The fly-sheets appear in facsimile as follows:
“The Germ”
The Subscribers to this Periodical are respectfully informed that in future it will appear under the title of instead of the original arbitrary one, which occasioned much misapprehension—This alteration will not be productive of any ill consequence, as the title has never occurred in the work itself, and Label will be supplied for placing on the old wrappers, so as to make them conformable to the new—
It should also be noticed that the Numbers will henceforward be published on the last day of the Month for which they are dated—
Town Subscribers will oblige by filling up & returning the accompanying form, which will ensure the Numbers being duly forwarded as directed.—
Country Subscribers may obtain their copies by kindly forwarding their orders to any Booksellers in their respective Neighborhoods.—
Opinions of the press
“… Original Poems, stories to develop thought and principle, essays concerning Art & other subjects, are the materials which are to compose this unique addition to our periodical literature Among the poetry, there are some rare gems of poetic conception; among the prose essays, we notice “the Subject in Art” which treats of Art itself in a noble and lofty tone, with the view which he must take of it who would, in the truest sense of the word, be an Artist, and another paper, not less interesting, on “the Purpose and Tendency of Early Italian Art” A well executed Etching in the medieval style, accompanies each number”
“… There are so many original and beautiful thoughts in these pages—indeed some of the poems & tales are in themselves so beautiful in spirit & form—that we have hopes of the writers, when they shall have got rid of those ghosts of mediæval art which now haunt their every page. The essay ‘On the Mechanism of a Historical Picture’ is a good practical treatise, and indicates the hand of writing which is much wanted among artists”
“We depart from our usual plan of noticing the periodicals under one
I have seen in the “Irish Figaro”, May 6, 1899, a very pleasant notice, signed “J. Reid,” of this reprint.