Mr. Watts, it seems, with all his admiration of Chatterton, finding that he could not go to Rossetti’s length in comparing him with Shakspeare, did not in the result consider the sonnet on Chatterton referred to in the foregoing letter, and given below, suitable to be embodied in his essay: With Shakspeare’s manhood at a boy’s wild heart,-- Through Hamlet’s doubt to Shakspeare near allied, And kin to Milton through his Satan’s pride,-- At Death’s sole door he stooped, and craved a dart; And to the dear new bower of England’s art,-- Even to that shrine Time else had deified, The unuttered heart that soared against his side,-- Drove the fell point, and smote life’s seals apart. Thy nested home-loves, noble Chatterton, The angel-trodden stair thy soul could trace Up Redcliffe’s spire; and in the world’s armed space Thy gallant sword-play:--these to many an one Are sweet for ever; as thy grave unknown, And love-dream of thine unrecorded face. Some mention was made in this connection of Rossetti’s young connection, Oliver Madox Brown, who wrote _Gabriel Denver_ (otherwise _The Black Swan_) at seventeen years of age. I mentioned the indiscreet remark of a friend who said that Oliver had enough genius to stock a good few Chattertons, and thereupon Rossetti sent me the following outburst: You must take care to be on the right tack about Chatterton. I am very glad to find the gifted Oliver M. B. already an embryo classic, as I always said he would be; but those who compare net results in such cases as his and Chatterton’s cannot know what criticism means. The nett results of advancing epochs, however permanent on accumulated foundation-work, are the poorest of all tests as to relative values. Oliver was the product of the most teeming hot-beds of art and literature, and even of compulsory addiction to the art of painting, in which nevertheless he was rapidly becoming as much a proficient as in literature. What he would have been if, like the ardent and heroic Chatterton, he had had to fight a single-handed battle for art and bread together against merciless mediocrity in high places,--what he would _then_ have become, I cannot in the least calculate; but we know what Chatterton became. Moreover, C. at his death, was two years younger than Oliver--a whole lifetime of advancement at that age frequently--indeed always I believe in leading cases. There are few indeed whom the facile enthusiasm for contemporary models does not deaden to the truly balanced claims of successful efforts in art. However, look at Watts’s remodelled extracts when the vol comes out, and also at what he says in detail as to Chatterton, Coleridge, and Keats.