As to the article in _The Catholic Magazine_ I thought I perceived from a curious habit of biblical quotation that it must have been written by an Ecclesiastic. A remark in it to the effect that old age is usually more indulgent than middle life to the work of first manhood, and that, consequently, Rossetti would be a less censorious judge of his early efforts at a later period of life, seemed to show that the writer himself was no longer a young man. Further, I seemed to see that the reviewer was not a professional critic, for his work displayed few of the well-recognised trade-marks with which the articles of the literary market are invariably branded. As a small matter one noticed the somewhat slovenly use of the editorial _we_, which at the fag-end of passages sometimes dropped into _I_. [Upon my remarking upon this to Rossetti he remembered incidentally that a similar confounding of the singular and plural number of the pronoun produces marvellously suggestive effects in a very different work, _Macbeth_, where the kingly _we_ is tripped up by the guilty _I_ in many places.] Rossetti wrote: I am glad you liked the _Catholic World_ article, which I certainly view as one of rare literary quality. I have not the least idea who is the writer, but am sorry now I never wrote to him under cover of the editor when I received it. I did send the _Dante and Circle_, but don’t know if it was ever received or reviewed. As you have the vols, of _Fortnightly_, look up a little poem of mine called the _Cloud Confines_, a few months later, I suppose, than the tale. It is one of my favourites, among my own doings.