ABSTRACT
At the prose of Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 'Hand and Soul', almost perfected in his first essay, a glance has already been taken. This chapter explains a passage from his criticism of William Blake which it would not greatly surprise one to find in Swinburne's study of the same master: The tinting in the Song of Los is not, throughout, of one order of value. It examines the critical influence of Rossetti, of Swinburne, of Walter Pater, produced eventually a profound change in the way those choicer spirits of the age, the destined lovers of art, approached it. Under the Ruskinian dispensation, for all the genuine fervour and wonderful eloquence with which Ruskin pleaded for art, there were the confusions of an apologetic passion, justified by the moral worth of the beloved, cultivated, one might almost say, because the married are useful members of society than the celibate, and finding excuse for its direction in all manner of irrelevant considerations.
