Towards the close of 1869 Rossetti began to share with his friend William Morris the romantic and picturesque old manor house of Kelmscott, near Lechdale, in Gloucestershire; a district full of interesting landscape, and haunted by the inspiring shade of Shelley, who there wrote his characteristic fragment, “A Summer Evening in Lechdale Churchyard.” The scenery of the surrounding country is brought in vivid glimpses here and there into Rossetti’s poetry, as, for instance, in “Down Stream” (“Between Holmscote and Hurstcote”) and other lyrics of his later life. Here he painted “The Bower Maiden”—a pretty country lass with marigolds. But a great part of his time was still spent at home in Chelsea, where in 1871 he at last completed the finest oil version of “Dante’s Dream.” Save for the incomparable “Beata Beatrix,” it is the summing-up of all his highest interpretations of the Dante spirit; the consummation of his gospel of romantic love. His friend Mr. Val Prinsep quotes Rossetti as writing in a letter about this time:—“I should like of all things to show you my big picture ‘Dante’s Dream’ now, if you are ever in town. Indeed, I should probably have written to you before this of the picture being in a state to see, on the chance of its accelerating your movements townwards, but was deterred from doing so by the fact that every special appointment I have made to show it has been met by the clerk of the weather with such a careful provision of absolute darkness for that day and hour, that I tempt my fate no more in that way, as the picture cannot absolutely be seen except in a fair light, and one’s nerves do not hold out for ever under such onslaughts.... Everyone who has seen the ‘Dante’s Dream’ (not yet quite finished, but close upon), has seemed so thoroughly pleased with it that I think I may hope without vanity some progress has been made, and this I feel sure I shall carry on in my next work. Of course I have only shown the ‘Dante’ to a few, as otherwise I might spend my time in nothing else, the picture blocking up the whole studio when displayed.” Ten years later, in 1881, the “Dante’s Dream” gained for the painter one of the very few popular triumphs of his lifetime. It was exhibited at Liverpool, bought by the Corporation of that city for £1,500, hung in the Walker Art Gallery, where it now remains; and instantly took rank among the greatest masterpieces of modern art. “Fifty years hence,” said Sir Noel Paton, “it will be counted among the half-dozen supreme pictures of the world.”