'The Tennyson designs, which were engraved on wood and published in the _Illustrated Tennyson_, in which Millais, Hunt, Mulready, and others co-operated,' says Mr. William Michael Rossetti, 'have in the long run done not a little to sustain my brother's reputation with the public. At the time they gave him endless trouble and small satisfaction. Not indeed that the invention or the mere designing of these works was troublesome to him. He took great pains with them, but, as what he wrought at was always something which informed and glowed in his mind, he was not more tribulated by these than by other drawings. It must be said, also, that himself only, and not Tennyson, was his guide. He drew just what he chose, taking from his author's text nothing more than a hint and an opportunity. The trouble came in with the engraver and the publisher. With some of the doings of the engraver, Dalziel (not Linton, whom he found much more conformable to his notion), he was grievously disappointed. He probably exasperated Dalziel, and Dalziel certainly exasperated him. Blocks were re-worked upon and proofs sent back with vigour. The publisher, Mr. Moxon, was a still severer affliction. He called and he wrote. Rossetti was not always up to time, though he tried his best to be so. In other instances he was up to time, but his engraver was not up to his mark. I believe that poor Moxon suffered much, and that soon afterwards he died; but I do not lay any real blame on my brother, who worked strenuously and well. As to our great poet Tennyson, who also ought to have counted for something in the whole affair, I gather that he really liked Rossetti's designs when he saw them, and he was not without a perceptible liking and regard for Rossetti himself, so far as he knew him (they had first met at Mr. Patmore's house in December 1849); but the illustration to _St. Cecilia_ puzzled him not a little, and he had to give up the problem of what it had to do with his work.'[9] Later on, in the same volume, we find an extract from a letter dated February 1857, which Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote to W. Bell Scott:-- 'I have designed five blocks for Tennyson, save seven which are still cutting and maiming. It is a thankless task. After a fortnight's work my block goes to the engraver, like Agag delicately, and is hewn in pieces before the Lord Harry. 'ADDRESS TO DALZIEL BROTHERS 'O woodman spare that block, O gash not anyhow! It took ten days by clock, I'd fain protect it now. _Chorus_--Wild laughter from Dalziels' Workshop.'