But all this while the world outside knew nothing of the matter. One by one the younger men stepped forward on the public stage and secured the plaudits of the discerning, and ascended the slow incline of general reputation. But Rossetti remained obstinately recluse, far preferring to be the priest and confessor of genius to acting himself a public part. To this determination several outward things engaged him still further. He married quite early in life; and his wife, who was herself an artist of rare, if somewhat wild and untrained talent, bore him a son who died at birth, and then shortly after died herself. During his brief married months Rossetti had collected the MSS. of his poems, and thought to publish them; but when he lost his wife, in a paroxysm of grief he placed the sheets of his poems in her coffin, and would hear no more a suggestion of publication. In 1861 he presented the world with a very learned and beautiful anthology of early Italian poetry, and proposed as early as that year to print his original poems. It was his scheme to name the little volume "Dante in Verona, and other Poems;" but it came to nothing. About 1867 the scheme of publication again took possession of him. I have been told that a sudden sentiment of middle age, the fact that he found himself in his fortieth year, led him to conquer his scruples, and finally arrange his pieces. But he was singularly fastidious; the arrangement would never please him; the cover must be cut in brass, the paper at the sides must bear a special design. These niceties were rarer twelve years ago than they are now, and the printers fatigued him with their persistent obstinacy. It was not till early in 1870 that the "Poems" in stately form first appeared, and were hailed with a shout of admiration which was practically universal.