, as distinguished from the
elaborate, ornate, and condensed diction which he had hitherto worked
in. Put upon his mettle, the outcome of this second artifice practised
upon him, was that he wrote _The White Ship_, and afterwards _The King's
Tragedy_.

Thus was Rossetti already immersed in this revived occupation of poetic
composition, and had recovered a healthy* tone of body, before he became
conscious of what was being done with him. It is a further amusing fact
that one day he requested to be shown the first sonnet which, in view of
the praise lavished upon it by the friend on whose judgment he reposed,
had encouraged him to renewed effort. The sonnet was bad: the critic
knew it was bad, and had from the first hour of its production kept it
carefully out of sight, and was now more than ever unwilling to show it.
Eventually, however, by reason of ceaseless importunity, he returned it
to its author, who, upon reading it, cried: "You fraud! you said this
sonnet was good, and it's the worst I _ever_ wrote." "The worst ever
written would perhaps be a truer criticism," was the reply, as the
studio resounded with a hearty laugh, and the poem was committed to the
flames. It would appear that to this occurrence we probably owe a large
portion of the contents of the volume of 1881.

As we say, _Rose Mary_ was the first to be written of the leading poems
that found places in his final volume. This ballad (or ballad romance,
for ballad it can hardly be called) is akin to _Sister Helen_ in
_motif_. The superstition involved owes something in this case as in
the other to the invention and poetic bias of the poet. It has, however,
less of what has been called the Catholic element, and is more purely
Pagan. It is, therefore, as entirely undisturbed by animosity against
heresy, and is concerned only with an ultimate demoniacal justice
visiting the wrongdoer. The main point of divergency lies in the
circumstance that Rose Mary, unlike Helen, is the undesigning instrument
of evil powers, and that her blind deed is the means by which her
own and her lover's sin and his treachery become revealed. A further
material point of divergency lies in the fact that unlike Helen, who
loses her soul (as the price of revenge, directed against her betrayer),
Rose Mary loses her life (as the price of vengeance directed against
the evil race), whilst her soul gains rest. The superstition is that
associated with the beryl stone, wherein the pure only