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REFACE Lastly, the ballad "of no great length" — Dennis Shand —which we have been privileged to read in the cancelled proof-pages, may also be safely relegated to the realm of abortiveverse. Contrariwise two juvenile translations are intentionallyomitted by us: the longest, taken from a poem — Der ArmeHeinrkh — is by Hart man n von Aue the old German minne-singer.s An earlier effort consists of a version of Burger'sLenore completed on or about Rossetti's sixteenth year. 6 Regarding our illustrations the two facsimiles are taken fromMr. William Sharp's volume of very positive value, — DanteGabriel Rossetti: a Record and a Study J while the Rossettiportrait, chosen for frontispiece, is an enlarged copy byBierstadt process of the original photograph of 1862. One would indeed rejoice to know that an authoritativebiography of Rossetti was set down for publication in theimmediate future. For this boon we may have some few yearsmore to wait. Nevertheless it is tolerably certain that the 5 Printed in the Collected Works, (Vol. II, pp. 420-460,) under thetitle of Henry the Leper : A Swabian Miracle- Rhyme, 6 See W. M. Rossetti's preface to Lenore by Gottfried August Burger:Translated from the German by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (quarto), London,1900. An original unpublished ballad in MS., composed at the sameearly age, and consisting of twenty-five four-line stanzas, entitledWilliam and Mary, was quite recently offered for sale by a Chicagobookseller, (April, 1903). 7 The original design for the Introductory Sonnet is in pen-and-inkand was presented to Rossetti's mother on her eightieth birthday,April 27, 1880.
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