Sunday 17th.--... We thus find ourselves docked of the two poems on which we had to rely for Nos. 3 and 4. However, as there was no help for it, we set to thinking how to manage with this deficiency. The first thing thought of was Gabriel’s _Dante in Exile_, but this he is unwilling to have printed until he shall have been able to give it full consideration as a whole--besides its connexion with his translation of the _Vita Nuova_, separated from which, he thinks some allusions in the poem scarcely intelligible. His _Jane’s Portrait_[213] was then discussed. This however is too much like Woolner’s _My Lady in Death_ as regards subject; nor does Gabriel think it good enough as a specimen of his powers. The last suggestion was that Woolner should look up that part of his old poem of _Hubert_,[214] which describes the lovers’ meeting, and see whether it can be got into shape as complete in itself.... Monday 18th.--In default of any adequate poem, I looked up my sister’s old thing, named _An Argument_,[215] which is at least long enough and in a narrative form. Tupper, to whom I read it, is very much delighted with it; but the fact is, it is not quite up to the mark. Tuesday 19th.--... Gabriel, coming home from Brown’s, told me he had there met Robert Dickinson, who has undertaken the publication of _The Germ_. This is the best thing that could have happened for it perhaps. Wednesday 20th.--Patmore sent me his paper on Macbeth; which is devoted to showing that the idea of obtaining the crown was not suggested to Macbeth by the Witches, but had been previously contemplated by him. It is very acute and well written, and will fill some twenty pages. Our difficulties as to illustrations continue. The only plans we have thought of are either to make an etching for our sister’s poem in two compartments--one of the girl spinning, and the other of the battlefield, or (as Tupper thinks preferable) of the avalanche; or else to take some subject from Gabriel’s _Hand and Soul_ in the first No. Tupper decided to call on Gabriel at his study, to talk this over; but it so happened that Gabriel stopped at home, touching-up his _Dante in Exile_.