The life of Algernon Charles Swinburne Author:Edmund Gosse Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III EARLY LIFE IN LONDON (1859-1865) When he left Oxford,1 Algernon went up to Northumberland, where his grandfather had now entered the ninety-ei... more »ghth year of his life. From Capheaton he made negotiations with his father, who, deeply incensed by his son's failure at the University, continued to inquire what Algernon meant to do. The young man declined to live any longer at home, but preferred his liberty in London, with the power to devote himself to literature. Lady Jane was on his side, and Admiral Swinburne ultimately withdrew his opposition. After a long delay, in the course of 1860, an allowance, small at first, but ultimately(I believe) of £400 a year from his parents having been offered and accepted, Algernon arrived in London, where his only acquaintances seem to have been the painters whom he had met at the Oxford Union three years before. Of these the one he found first was Edward Burne-Jones, but presently William Morris came back from France, the Madox Browns were settled in Fortes Terrace, and Rossetti, fresh from Paris, returned to Chatham Place. These last three men had lately married, and their modest households were open to the young poet. In June 1860 Burne-Jones also married, and from the very first Algernon was made at home in his house. The charming recollections of Lady Burne-Jones form almost the only London record of Swinburne's life at this time. After the summer of this year, he was a frequent and always a welcome visitor to the William Morrises at the Red House, in Essex, where Miss May Morris tells me that she just remembers him, lying on the grass in the orchard, with his red hair spread abroad, while her baby sister and she scattered rose-leaves over his laughing face. 1 Swinburne's name continued to head the list of undergraduates a...« less