Hake’s best work is that, I think, contained in the volume called ‘New Symbols,’ in which there is disclosed an extraordinary variety of poetic power. In execution, too, he is at his best in that volume. Christina Rossetti has often told me that ‘Ecce Homo’ impressed her more profoundly than did any other poem of her own time. Also its daring startled her. It was, however, the previous volume, ‘Madeline, and other Poems,’ which brought him into contact with Rossetti—the great event of his literary life. If the man ever lived who could take as much interest in another man’s work as his own, Dr. Hake in finding Rossetti found that man. Although at that time Tennyson, Browning, Matthew Arnold, William Morris, and Swinburne were running abreast of each other, there was no poet in England who would not have felt honoured by having his work reviewed by Rossetti. But Dr. Hake, whose name was absolutely unknown, had made his way into Rossetti’s affections—as, indeed, he made his way into the affections of all who knew him—and this was quite enough to induce Rossetti to ask Dr. Appleton for leave to review ‘Madeline’ in ’71 in _The Academy_—a request which Appleton, of course, was delighted to grant. And again, when in 1873 ‘Parables and Tales’ appeared, Mr. John Morley, we may be sure, was something more than willing to let Rossetti review the book in _The Fortnightly Review_; and, again, when ‘New Symbols’ appeared, there was some talk about Rossetti’s reviewing it in _The Fortnightly Review_; but this, for certain reasons which Rossetti explained to me—reasons which have been misunderstood, but which were entirely adequate—was abandoned. Down to the period when Dr. Hake went to live in Germany he and his son Mr. Gordon Hake were among the most intimate friends of the great poet-painter. Mr. Gordon Hake, indeed, a man of admirable culture and abilities, lived with Rossetti, who certainly benefited much by contact with his bright and lively companion. The portrait of Dr. Hake prefixed to Mrs. Meynell’s selections from his works is one of Rossetti’s finest crayons. It is, however, too heavy in expression for Hake.