It was at Kelmscott, in the famous tapestried room, that besides painting the ‘Proserpine,’ ‘The Roman Widow,’ &c., he wrote many of his later poems, including ‘Rose Mary.’ Considering how deep is Mr. W. M. Rossetti’s affection for his brother’s memory, and how great is his admiration for his brother’s work, it is remarkable how judicial is his mind when writing about him. This is what he says about the much discussed ‘Venus Astarte’:— “Into the ‘Venus Astarte’ he had put his utmost intensity of thinking, feeling, and method—he had aimed to make it equally strong in abstract sentiment and in physical grandeur—an ideal of the mystery of beauty, offering a sort of combined quintessence of what he had endeavoured in earlier years to embody in the two several types of ‘Sibylla Palmifera’ and ‘Lilith,’ or (as he ultimately named them in the respective sonnets) ‘Soul’s Beauty’ and ‘Body’s Beauty.’ It may be well to remark that, by the time when he completed the ‘Venus Astarte,’ or ‘Astarte Syriaca,’ he had got into a more austere feeling than of old with regard to colour and chiaroscuro; and the charm of the picture has, I am aware, been less, to many critics and spectators of the work, than he would have deemed to be its due, as compared with some of his other performances of more obvious and ostensible attraction.” Though Mr. W. M. Rossetti is right in saying that it was not till the beginning of 1877 that this remarkable picture was brought to a conclusion, the main portions were done during that long sojourn at Bognor in 1876–7, which those who have written about Rossetti have hitherto left unrecorded. Having fallen into ill health after his return to London from Kelmscott, he was advised to go to the seaside, and a large house at Bognor was finally selected. No doubt one reason why the preference was given to Bognor was the fact that Blake’s cottage at Felpham was close by, for businesslike and unbusiness-like qualities were strangely mingled in Rossetti’s temperament, and it was generally some sentiment or unpractical fancy of this kind that brought about Rossetti’s final decision upon anything. Blake’s name was with him still a word to charm with, and he was surprised to find, on the first pilgrimage of himself and his friends to the cottage, that scarcely a person in the neighbourhood knew what Blake it was that “the Londoners” were inquiring about.