20 June 1864 – 26 June 1864

To London. Parker's Hotel — Surrey St. Georgie Jones and Philip — Lyceum, Hamlet.

To Warwick Crescent ; Pen Browning, then enter the great Robert, who greets me warmly and gives me ' Dramatis Personam.' He com- mended Bloomfield with reservation — ' Not so poetical as some of your things — but O so clever.' We talk of Tennyson, etc. Down to Chelsea and find D. G. Rossetti paint- ing a very large young woman, almost a giantess, as ' Venus Verticordia.' I stay for dinner and we talk about the old P. R. Bs. Enter Fanny, who says something of W. B. Scott which amuses us. Scott was a dark hairy man, but after an illness has reappeared quite bald. Fanny exclaimed, ' O my, Mr. Scott is changed ! He ain't got a hye-brow or a hye-lash — not a 'air on his 'ead ! ' Rossetti laughed immoderately at this, so that poor Fanny, good-humoured as she is, pouted at last — ' Well, I know I don't say it right,' and I hushed him up.