Wednesday 7th.--This was the evening fixed for Millais’s and Gabriel’s introduction to Patmore, at Woolner’s study. Gabriel and I went, and Patmore came, but Millais appeared not. We conversed a good deal of Woolner’s poems, which Patmore says are so good that he is surprised they should not be much better. He insists strongly on the necessity of never leaving a poem till the whole of it be brought to a pitch of excellence perfectly satisfactory; in this respect of general equality, and also in regard to metre, he finds much to object to in Woolner’s poem of _My Lady_, and considers that these defects are far less prominent in some passages of _Friendship_[185] that were read to him. Henry Taylor, he says, ought to devote ten more years to _Philip Van Artevelde_, and it would then be qualified to live. He himself spent about a year (from the age of sixteen to seventeen) on _The River_, with which, and _The Woodman’s Daughter_, he is contented in point of finish. _Lilian_ and _Sir Hubert_ were written in a great hurry for the Publisher. He read Gabriel’s sonnets on Ingres’s picture of _Roger and Angelica_, and was much struck with the character they possess of being descriptive of a painting.... Thursday 8th.--Deverell will manage to join us at once in the house at Chelsea; but on reflection the expense begins to look rather formidable. I called on Millais, to ask him to Patmore’s.... I saw his design of Christ in his childhood, to be painted for the next Exhibition, and the calotype made of his last picture.... Patmore, talking of Philip Bailey, remarked that he seems to be “painting on clouds, not having his foot on reality.” Burns he considers more perfect than Tennyson. Gabriel wrote three stanzas of _Bride-Chamber Talk_. At Patmore’s we heard of the reported death of Edgar Poe, concerning which some suspicions of suicide exist. Friday 9th.--... As the feasibility of taking the Chelsea house looks very questionable now, considering the expense, Gabriel and Hunt spent all the early part of the day looking for lodgings and studios about Chelsea, Brompton, etc. Saturday 10th.--Gabriel found a studio at No. 72 Newman Street. The rent asked is £30, but he succeeded in bringing it down to £28. He is to see further about it to-morrow. He wrote to Hunt to ask whether he can join him in his tenancy.... Sunday 11th.--I went to Millais in the morning, and find that he has altered the position of the legs of Ferdinand. Last night he wrote some stanzas of his poem, of which he says he has now done certainly upwards of a hundred lines--perhaps much more, as he has never counted. In the afternoon Gabriel came, and read all the poetry he wrote abroad. He had been to Newman Street, and decided on taking the study. We went to Harris’s[186] in the evening, and were told that he had occupied the same study some time at a rent of £40, whereas Gabriel has made the landlord accept £26....