of Jeremiah, quoted by Dante himself:--“How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! How is she become as a widow, she that was great among the nations!” In the ascending and descending staircase on either iand fly doves of the same glowing colour as Love, and these are emblems of his presence in the house. Over all flickers the last beam of a lamp which has burnt through the long night, and which the dawn of a new day sees die away--fit symbol of the life that has now taken flight with the heavenly host, leaving behind it only the burnt-out socket where the live flame lived. Full of symbol as this picture is, it is furthermore permeated by a significance that is not occult. It bears witness to the possible strength of a passion that is so spiritual as to be without taint of sense; and to a confident belief in an immortality wherein the utmost limits of a blessedness not of this world may be compassed. Such are in this picture the simpler, yet deeper, symbols, that all who look may read. Sir Noel Paton has written of this work: I was so dumbfounded by the beauty of that great picture of Rosetti’s, called _Dante’s Dream_, that I was usable to give any expression to the emotions it excited--emotions such as I do not think any other picture, except the _Madonna di San Sisto_ at Dresden, ever stirred within me. The memory of such a picture is like the memory of sublime and perfect music; it makes any one who _fully_ feels it--_silent_. Fifty years hence it will be named among the half-dozen supreme pictures of the world. Rossetti had buried the only complete copy of his poems with his wife at Highgate, and for a time he had been able to put by the thought of them; but as one by one his friends, Mr. Morris, Mr. Swinburne, and others, attained to distinction as poets, he began to hanker after poetic reputation, and to reflect with pain and regret upon the hidden fruits of his best effort. Rossetti--in all love of his memory be it spoken--was after all a frail mortal; of unstable character: of variable purpose: a creature of impulse and whim, and with a plentiful lack of the backbone of volition. With less affection he would not have buried his book; with more strength of will he had not done so; or, having done so, he had never wished to undo what he had done; or having undone it, he would never have tormented himself with the memory of it as of a deed of sacrilege. But Rossetti had both affection enough to do it and weakness enough to have it undone. After an infinity of self-communions he determined to have the grave opened, and the book extracted. Endless were the preparations necessary before such a work could be begun. Mr. Home Secretary Bruce had to be consulted. At length preliminaries were complete, and one night, seven and a half years after the burial, a fire was built by the side of the grave, and then the coffin was raised and opened. The body is described as perfect upon coming to light.