The following extracts from W.M. Rossetti's Reminiscences have been formatted and linked for this website by Jacqueline Banerjee.
ext to [Thomas] Woolner in point of age must have come Collinson. He was the son of a bookseller (deceased) in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, and had a slightly provincial pronunciation. In person he was small and rather dumpy, with a thick neck; his face intelligent enough, but in no wise handsome. He talked with good sense, but did not come out in conversation; his manner was subdued and somewhat timid, and the same was the case with his art. He was a domestic painter; and would, I assume, never have tried any other line of work but for his association in the P.R.B., whereby he was induced on one occasion to experiment in a historic-religious subject, St. Elizabeth of Hungary. Collinson was brought up in the English Church; and (as it happened) he used, before I knew of him as an artist, to attend at the place of worship frequented by my family, Christ Church, Albany Street, where he was remarked by my female relatives for his heedful and devout bearing. After a while he came under the influence of Cardinal Wiseman, and joined the Roman communion: this was, it seems to me, very shortly before the formation of the Preraphaelite Brotherhood. was not the sort of man to excite ardent emotions of friendship; but a P.R.B. was a P.R.B., and as such he was regarded by me with the utmost goodwill, and something more than that; and this even apart from some family circumstances which brought [65/66] him very near to me. He lived in lodgings in Somers Town, upon a moderate allowance made by his family, in addition to what he might succeed in earning as a painter. He was thus tolerably comfortable, but had to be economical, and indeed showed no propensity to expensive habits. I have seen it stated — I suppose with accuracy — that Dante Rossetti was the promoter of Collinson's admission into the Brotherhood, although Millais and Holman Hunt considered him "not strong enough for the place"; and they were right, as the event proved. [65-66]
There is one matter, partially connected with the [71/72] Praeraphaelite Brotherhood, which I had never mentioned explicitly until I wrote the memoir of my sister Christina, published with her Poetical Works in 1904. James Collinson, about the time of the formation of the P.R.B., was introduced to Christina, then aged seventeen, in our family circle, and he immediately fell in love with her — as well he might, for in breeding and tone of mind, not to speak of actual genius or advantages of person, she was markedly his superior. He explained his feelings to Dante Gabriel, who, with perhaps too headlong a wish to serve the interests of a "Praeraphaelite Brother," represented the matter to Christina and advocated Collinson's cause. Collinson was at this time a Roman Catholic; and Christina, though not indisposed to his suit on general grounds, was unwilling to marry a member of a religious communion other than her own. She therefore declined his offer. I do not rightly know what was Christina's precise point of view in this matter. She had certainly no strong prejudice against Roman Catholics; she considered them to be living branches of the True Vine, authentic members of the Church of Christ, although in error upon some points. I surmise that she was chiefly influenced by the consideration that difficulties, and trying cases of conscience for herself, would be sure to arise if there were offspring of the marriage. Collinson, upon receiving this refusal, set about considering whether he really was so firmly a Catholic as to be unable to revert to his original membership in the Church of England; he thought he could do this, resumed attending an Anglican place of worship, and renewed his suit to Christina, as being no longer a Roman Catholic. Hereupon he was accepted; the date was probably in mid-autumn of 1848. [72/73]
There was no expectation of an early marriage, as Collinson was in a struggling position as regards money, and Christina had no means whatever. I will not suggest that Collinson was unconscientious in these proceedings — indeed, I consider he was not; but it is clear that, swayed by his desires, he misconstrued the true attitude of his mind in matters of faith. After serving this second apprenticeship to Anglicanism, he harked back to Catholicism. I forget what the precise date may have been — perhaps much about the time, May 1850, when The Germ came to a conclusion. As Christina had only accepted Collinson's suit on the understanding of his being an English Churchman, so, when he redeclared himself a Catholic, she revoked her troth. This she did with deep sorrow and reluctance, and only at the bidding of a supposed duty. Icannot say that she was in love with Collinson in any such sense as that she would, before knowing him to be enamoured of her, have wished him to become so; but having received his addresses and accepted them, she had freely and warmly bestowed her affections upon him, and would never have dreamed of withdrawing them, if only the conditions leading up to the engagement had been observed on his part. Being of a highly sensitive nature, and feeling keenly for him as well as for herself, she suffered much in forming and maintaining her resolve. A blight was on her heart and her spirits, and the delicacy of health which had already settled down upon her increased visibly. I remember that one day — it may have been within four or five months after the breaking-off of the engagement — she happened to see Collinson in the neighbourhood of Regent's Park, and she fainted away in the street. [73/74]
The painter's after-career may be briefly summarized as follows. Soon after the termination of the engagement he severed his connexion with the P.R.B., on the ground (as his letter put it) that he thought it inconsistent with his obligations as a Roman Catholic. At the beginning of 1853 he entered a Jesuit College as a "working brother," but he soon left again, resumed his profession as a painter — he never rose to any real eminence in the art — and married a sister-in-law of the painter John Rogers Herbert, himself a Catholic convert. He had, I think, only one child, a son who may be now living. I happened to meet Collinson once many years after all these occurrences, and found from his conversation that his religious zeal had then very greatly abated. Whether this was only a passing mood, or one which abode with him to the last, I am unable to say. He died in 1881. [71-74]
Bibliography
Rossetti, William Michael. Some Reminiscences of William Michael Rossetti Vol. I. New York: Scribner's, 1906. Internet Archive, from a copy in the New York Public Library. Web. 13 March 2024.
Created 13 March 2024