. George Meredith; his life and friends in relation to his work. novelist in man-hood. It was doubtless through Rossetti thatMeredith became acquainted with Swinburne, thentwenty-three years old, just free from his unfortunateperiod at Oxford, and already producing one of hisfirst dramas, Thfi Queen Mother and early as October, 1860, Swinburne mentioned ina letter : I have done some more work to Chastelardand rubbed up one or two other things : my friend,George Meredith, has asked me to send some toOnce a Week, which valuable publication he propsup occasionally with fragments of hi
. George Meredith; his life and friends in relation to his work. novelist in man-hood. It was doubtless through Rossetti thatMeredith became acquainted with Swinburne, thentwenty-three years old, just free from his unfortunateperiod at Oxford, and already producing one of hisfirst dramas, Thfi Queen Mother and early as October, 1860, Swinburne mentioned ina letter : I have done some more work to Chastelardand rubbed up one or two other things : my friend,George Meredith, has asked me to send some toOnce a Week, which valuable publication he propsup occasionally with fragments of his own. Bymeans of Merediths interest Swinburne securedacceptance in Once a Week, 1862, for his prose Love, the only one of a series in the Italianstyle, which he intended to call The Triameron,that has been published. At Esher, Janet Duff Gordon was constantly withMeredith and Arthur (whom she looked after whenhis father was in London), and on one of theirrambles discovered the ideal place for her poet tohave his habitation—Copsham Cottage, in the. George Meredith, auout iS6o Br /. C. Rossitti COPSHAM COTTAGE 111 midst of heaths and commons on the way to , in the autumn of 1859, came the Meredithsto live in this simple and picturesque Uttle dwelling,old and with low-pitched rooms.^ Except for theadjacent Copsen Farm, it stood quite alone and lowby the roadside, immediately adjoining, withoutany restricting railings or hedges, the wild andextensive Common. Gorse and heather and mossymounds ; and all around glorious pine and larchwoods, and in the heart of them, where their bluemisty aisles converged, a romantic little lake, TheBlack Pool, fringed by dark trees—here, indeed,was a fitting abode for the poet-novelist.^ Nowonder that amid such lovely surroundings—withNature and Wild Life at his very door—Meredithwas inspired to produce good work. It was atCopsham Cottage that he wrote Evan Harrington,Modern Love, Sandra Belloni, and those Poems of th
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