All the friends of Rossetti have remarked upon the extraordinary influence exercised upon him by Mr. Watts-Dunton.
Yet I cannot forbear quoting Watts-Dunton's admirable statement of the whole content of the sonnet.
He himself had assuredly been, and the memory of him still was, the master-fact in Watts-Dunton's life.
Watts-Dunton, finding the poor creature moulted and "off its feed," carried it down to Putney, resolved to domesticate it.
Mr. Watts-Dunton refers here to Hake's asperities when speaking of Borrow.
