on,
Oliver Madox Brown, who wrote _Gabriel Denver_ (otherwise _The Black
Swan_) at seventeen years of age. I mentioned the indiscreet remark of
a friend who said that Oliver had enough genius to stock a good few
Chattertons, and thereupon Rossetti sent me the following outburst:

You must take care to be on the right tack about Chatterton.
I am very glad to find the gifted Oliver M. B. already an
embryo classic, as I always said he would be; but those who
compare net results in such cases as his and Chatterton's
cannot know what criticism means. The nett results of
advancing epochs, however permanent on accumulated
foundation-work, are the poorest of all tests as to relative
values. Oliver was the product of the most teeming hot-beds
of art and literature, and even of compulsory addiction to
the art of painting, in which nevertheless he was rapidly
becoming as much a proficient as in literature. What he
would have been if, like the ardent and heroic Chatterton,
he had had to fight a single-handed battle for art and bread
together against merciless mediocrity in high places,--what
he would _then_ have become, I cannot in the least
calculate; but we know what Chatterton became. Moreover, C.
at his death, was two years younger than Oliver--a whole
lifetime of advancement at that age frequently--indeed
always I believe in leading cases. There are few indeed whom
the facile enthusiasm for contemporary models does not
deaden to the truly balanced claims of successful efforts in
art. However, look at Watts's remodelled extracts when the
vol comes out, and also at what he says in detail as to
Chatterton, Coleridge, and Keats.

Of course Rossetti was right in what he said of comparative criticism
when brought to bear in such cases as those of Chatterton and Oliver
Madox Brown. Net results are certainly the poorest tests of relative
values where the work done belongs to periods of development. We cannot,
however, see or know any man except through and in his work, and net
results must usually be accepted as the only concrete foundation for
judging of the quality of his genius. Such judgment will always be
influenced, nevertheless, by considerations such as Rossetti mentions.
Touching Chatterton's development, it were hardly rash to say that it
appears incredible that the _African Eclogues_ should have been wr