Rossetti, though English by birth, was more Italian than English by blood, and he was brought up in an atmosphere largely Italian. Both his literary and his artistic talents showed themselves early. The literary organ of the Pre-Raphaelites, _The Germ_, received some of his earliest writings; but he had begun to compose even earlier, the two well-known pieces, _The Blessed Damozel_ and _My Sister's Sleep_, having both been written in his nineteenth year. The greater part of his poetry was composed in early manhood. On the death of his wife, in 1862, Rossetti, in the transport of his grief, buried the MSS. in her coffin. They were exhumed in 1869 and published under the simple title of _Poems_ in 1870. After his wife's death Rossetti for a long time wrote little poetry, though he continued his artistic work. In later years the complete breakdown of his health checked his production. He suffered from insomnia and attempted to cure it by the use of chloral, with the usual result. Nevertheless, some very fine pieces, notably _The King's Tragedy_, are of late composition. The later poems were gathered together in the _Ballads and Sonnets_ of 1881. Rossetti was also a translator, and in 1861 had published, under the title of _The Early Italian Poets_, the collection now known as _Dante and his Circle_. He likewise occasionally wrote prose, his most considerable work being a story, poetical in spirit, entitled _Hand and Soul_. Mr. W. D. Howells (quoted in Sharp's _Dante Gabriel Rossetti_) says it will always be a question whether Rossetti 'had not better have painted his poems and written his pictures; there is so much that is purely sensuous in the former and so much that is intellectual in the latter.' There is certainly an element of truth in this judgment. The sensuousness was the cause of the celebrated attack entitled _The Fleshly School of Poetry_, which was met by Rossetti's effective rejoinder, _The Stealthy School of Criticism_. The poet showed that the attack was in great measure unjust, but he would not have sought to deny that there was sensuousness in his poetry. He would have held, on the contrary, that poetry not only might legitimately be, but ought to be, sensuous. This conception influenced Rossetti's whole style of poetical portraiture. We see its effect in the fine description of a girl in _A Last Confession_, beginning, 'She had a mouth made to bring death to life.' It is all so written that from it the painter could easily put the portrait on canvas.