I did not like _Sonnet Sequence_ for such a collection, and relinquished the title; moreover, I had had from the first a clearly defined scheme in mind, carrying its own inevitable title, which was in due course adopted. I may here remark that I never resisted any idea of Rossetti’s at the moment of its inception, since resistance only led to a temporary outburst of self-assertion on his part. He was a man of so much impulse,--impulse often as violent as lawless--that to oppose him merely provoked anger to no good purpose, for as often as not the position at first adopted with so much pertinacity was afterwards silently abandoned, and your own aims quietly acquiesced in. On this subject of a title he wrote a further letter, which is interesting from more than one point of view: I don’t like _Garland_ at all C. Patmore collected a _Children’s Garland._ I think <center> ENGLISH SONNET’S PRESENT AND PAST, WITH--ETC., </center> would be a good title. I think I prefer _Present and Past_, or _of the P. and P.,_ to _New and Old_ for your purpose; but I own I am partly influenced by the fact that I have settled to call my own vol. _Poems New and Old_, and don’t want it to get staled; but I really do think the other at least as good for your purpose--perhaps more dignified. Again, in reply to a proposal of my own, he wrote: I think _Sonnets of the Century_ an excellent idea and title. I must say a mass of Wordsworth over again, like Main’s, is a little disheartening,--still the _best_ selection from him is what one wants. There is some book called _A Century of Sonnets_, but this, I suppose, would not matter.... I think sometimes of your sonnet-book, and have formed certain views. I really would not in your place include old work at all: it would be but a scanty gathering, and I feel certain that what is really in requisition is a supplement to Main, containing living writers (printed and un-printed) put together under their authors’ names (not separately) and rare gleanings from those more recently dead. I fear I did not attach importance to this decision, for I now knew my correspondent too well to rely upon his being entirely in the same mind for long. Hence I was not surprised to receive the following a day or two later: I lately had a conversation with Watts about your sonnet- book, and find his views to be somewhat different from what I had expressed, and I may add I think now he is right. He says there should be a very careful selection of the elder sonnets and of everything up to present century. I think he is right.