Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 08.djvu/158

ROSSETTI 124 ROSSINI von der Aue, is preserved), he executed a number of translations from Dante and other Italians, published in 1861 as "The Early Italian Poets," and again in 1874 as "Dante and his Circle." Two of his best-known original poems, "The Portrait" and "The Blessed Damozel," were written in his 19th year, and many others followed. Rossetti had fallen in love toward 1851 with a very beautiful girl, a dressmaker's assistant, named Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal; he married her in 1860, but she died suddenly in February, 1862. In the first impulse of desperation he buried his MSS. in her coffin. In 1869 he thought fit to recover them, and in 1870 he issued his volume named "Poems." This volume was a suc- cess with poetical readers, and was re- viewed with great admiration and even enthusiasm by some leading critics. Late in 1871, however, Mr. Robert Buchanan, writing in the "Contemporary Review" under the pseudonym of "Thomas Mait- land," attacked the book on literary, and more especially on moral grounds. Rossetti was now in a depressed state of health, suffering much from insomnia, from an abuse of chloral as a palliative, and from weakened eyesight. About the middle of 1872 he became morbidly sen- sitive and gloomy, and very recluse in his habits of life. In 1881 he published a second volume of poems named "Bal- lads and Sonnets" (containing some of his finest work, "Rose Mary," "The White Ship," "The King's Tragedy," and the completed sonnet-sequence, "The House of Life"). A touch of paralysis affected him toward the end of 1881, and, retiring in the hope of some im- provement to Birchington-on-Sea, near Margate, he died there April 9, 1882. The poetry of_ Rossetti is intense in feeling, exalted in tone, highly individ- ual in personal gift, picturesque and sometimes pictorial in treatment, and elaborately wrought in literary form. These characteristics are sometimes made consistent with simplicity, but more generally with subtlety, of emo- tion or of thought. As in his paintings, there is a strong mediaeval tendency. William Michael, an English poet and art critic; born in London, England, Sept. 25, 1829; brother of Dante Ga- briel. He entered the excise office in 1845, and was assistant secretary of the Board of Inland Revenue in 1869-1894. He was the author of "Dante's Com- edy — The Hell, Translated into Literal Blank Verse" (1865) ; "Poems and Bal- lads: A Criticism" [of Swinburne] (1866); "A Life of Percy Bysshe Shel- ley" (1869) ; and "Life of John Keats" (1887). He edited the works of many poets. He died in 1919. ROSSINI, GIOACCHINO ANTONIO, one of the most popular, and perhaps the greatest Italian composer of operas; born in Pesaro, Italy, Feb. 29, 1792. His parents belonged to a strolling opera company, and he began his career by playing second horn to his father when he was only 10 years old. Having a fine voice, his father had him taught singing by an eminent professor, and he took the treble parts as a chorister in the Bologna churches, and soon became an excellent singer and accompanist. The breaking of his voice put an end to his GIOACCHINO ANTONIO ROSSINI occupation as a chorister, and at the age of 15 he was admitted into the Lyceum at Bologna, and received lessons in coun- terpoint from Padre Mattei. But his ardent nature turned restive under the strict discipline and dry studies of Mat- tei, and, conscious of the possession of genius, he set to work assiduously to educate himself — studying intently the best models, Italian and German. He produced some light operatic pieces, the only one of which juvenile efforts that has lived is the "Lucky Trick," which came out in 1812. "Tancred," brought out at Venice in 1813, when he was scarcely more than 20 years of age, all at once made his name famous. In 1816 he produced his world-famous "Barber of Seville" at Rome. Those of his other works which still keep the stage are: