Illustrated poem titled 'To Mabel'; six sketches alternating with verse, depicting a young girl, a baby and an adult woman in various attitudes, on two pieces of paper once joined. c.1859

To Mabel./ See little Mabel, once again, your Valentine appear. / Not frost nor snow, nor wind nor rain, / Shall keep me from my dear. / What though we're growing very old - You're five and I'm nineteen - / Our hearts for that need not be cold / Or changed from what they've been./ Since last I saw my May-la-belle / And said "goodbye" and kissed her / I've heard a tale to you I'll tell - / She has a little sister! / They say this sister is so young / She cannot stand or walk, / And though she has a little tongue / Can only cry - not talk! / She's never seen the summer's flowers / That you've seen five times over / Nor Autumn leaves, nor April showers, / nor hay, nor corn, nor clover. / Now comes the good of all you know, / Of every kind and matter. / You'll teach her tiny feet to go, / And tiny tongue to chatter. - / But fling a thought to me sometimes / In all your cares and pleasures; / And don’t despise my little rhymes / Because of greater treasures. / Your Valentine will pine away / If you your love forget. / O, tell me true without delay / You're constant to me yet. / Adieu sweet Mabel - fare you well - / Next year I'll come again / You'll hear me ring the gateway bell / In cloud or storm or rain! /

This illustrated poem was acquired with two letters written by Edward Burne-Jones to his friend Archibald MacLaren. Burne-Jones and William Morris became close to MacLaren during their time at Oxford University in the early 1850s, when he taught them fencing. Neither letter is dated by the artist, but the contents of the first confirm that it was written in the autumn of 1856, when Burne-Jones took up residence with Morris at 17 Red Lion Square, in London. The other is a fragment only, but is likely to have been written at a similar date, probably slightly later. (The letters will be stamped 2012,7089.1a and 1b and will be mounted and kept in the box with the drawing; both are transcribed below)

Both letters refer to Burne-Jones's first commission as an artist, which was the illustration of MacLaren's volume of fairy tales, 'The Fairy Family: a series of ballads & metrical tales illustrating the fairy mythology of Europe' (1857). The drawings were begun in 1854 but the arrangement was terminated in 1856 because the set was incomplete, although the pair remained friends. In the end the volume was published with just three illustrations. A rare copy of 'The Fairy Family', annotated as to its provenance on the inside cover by Sydney Cockerell, is in the collection of Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery; this was on display in the 2007 BMAG exhibition 'Hidden Burne-Jones'. During this period Burne-Jones moved to London to pursue a career as a professional artist. The later drawings for the book were heavily influenced by the work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, with whom he became closely acquainted, and it is likely that he felt ashamed of his earlier efforts. He lost enthusiasm for the project in general, and an underlying reticence can be identified especially in the second letter, both of which are transcribed below.

Mabel, to whom the poem is addressed, was MacLaren's eldest daughter (b.1854) with his second wife Gertrude Isabel Frances Talboys (1833–1896), sister of his deceased first wife. Georgiana MacDonald had been friends with Burne-Jones since 1852 and became formally engaged to him when she was 15. Although they did not marry until 1860, it is likely that she would have accompanied her fiancée on visits to the MacLaren family home in Summertown, Oxford. Her family allowed her a great deal of freedom to associate with Burne-Jones and his friends, and she exhibited artistic talent herself, having enrolled in the Government School of Design in Kensington, in 1853. Fiona MacCarthy notes that Mabel was a particular favourite of Burne-Jones's, 'first of the long line of his fondly wondering attachments to small girls'. ('Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination', London 2011, p.40). The poem makes reference to the author being 19 years old and the subject 5 which, if it was executed by Georgiana, would give a date of approximately 1859.

Transcription of the two letters follows:
2012,7089.1a
'My dear MacLaren // I am sorry to say I did not / send the drawings, because they were / not done: I went to Rossetti's every / day last week, and have been / there most of my time this week, so / I had no time at all, literally, to do anything for you - to-day I / go to Walthamstow and return to / morrow, to make a drawing of the / place before Topsy [William Morris] leaves. When I / come back there will be nothing / to prevent me working steadily for you. // Topsy showed 'R' [John Ruskin?] a bit of / painting I had done by the sly, / you will be glad to hear he / thought highly of it - he said / there were not three men in England / who could paint like it - before / that he had been very kind in / getting me the commission for drawing / 'Burd Helen' for the engraving that / is to be published of it - but now he / says I should not do it for I could / beat Burd Helen. I don't think / this, but it is cheering to know / one has hopes; and I know no / one would be more glad to hear / of it than you: he wants me to have a / picture in the next exhibition, and to go out with him to paint a / background for it this autumn. // You did not get my letter it / seems in which I told you about / Burd Helen - and asked you / to apologise to M.rs MacLaren / because I had not written - / Georgie had written a note and / I was booby enough to lose it, / but I found it to-day, and send / it - your letter came too late / for me to answer by return yesterday / - or rather I was too late home / for answering it - I spent Monday evening at the Brownings / - you may be sure I will draw/ for you at once. // Goodbye, you dear fellow / -oh! Hatch [Edwin Hatch, theologian and friend of Burne-Jones's?] has turned up - he / looks quite starved & ill - he slept / in ditches towards the last and / had to walk 120 miles; Rossetti / says, some such sufferings, only more prolonged, are almost necessary for / a great man, so Hatch may look / up again - Holman Hunt dined / upon a penny a day for many years, / and then found it too expensive and / got on with 3/4.d, eating sprats - for / 2 years he never tasted meat - and / Rossetti I fancy has gone through / the same, though he never talks about himself - // Topsy & I live together next / week, come up and see us there's / a dear fellow - we will get / stunners to meet you. // But love to dear little Mabel - / the Editor says you are a quiz [?], but / sends his love - you know his / state, dont remember it against him. / Goodbye / Your very affectionate / E.B. Jones'. End note: 'Excuse this stupid letter; the Editor is talking so fast all the Time'.

2012,7089.1b
'... But Topsy might have made a better / account of me, if he merely said I / had been altogether idle: if he told you no more about me, how I am / living, and so on. I am on a visit, / we are always having company or going / out, four days in the week a dinner / party is going off at home or somewhere. / We breakfast late - dine late it i[s] true, / but the daylight is gone long before - / - I have been so physick'd for indigestion / and one thing or another, that my / spirits are quite low at times through / bodily weakness - these are not good / excuses, no great man would use / them as such I know - but I must use / them - people sometimes think I over-rate / the effect of a fine day upon me, as compared / with a dull dark one - and indeed to / see how other people can work on dull / November and February days, makes me / think either that all people are stronger / in will than I am, or else that I / only have such a set of nerves that / a gleam of sunshine will sometimes raise / me from the depths of despair to positive / happiness - when once I am settled / as a painter, I will have nothing to do / with London society - it would paralyse / me utterly - / Bell, the publisher, asked me on / Monday last about the Book - whether / you had entered into any arrangements / yet - and said he should like to / communicate with you - he has a / very business like notion about the affair, / thinks the drawings would pay, being "quite / a new thing". he talked also of giving me a commission soon. / I shall begin a frontispiece for you / at once, and see if I cannot do two / or three hours at it every day. / You mistook my meaning about / any drawings doing for children - of course / I did not mean false drawing - I should / deny the name [?] altogether to that - but that / in good drawing, in the assertion of facts / in drawing, what men chiefly want is / particular truth, and what children chiefly want is general truth - I could / theorise about it for an hour - / I know you have forgiven me - so / long as a bit of remorse remains / in me you will hope. only dont / think worse of me than I deserve - / I am sometimes idle, infirm of purpose, incapable of making time / out of minutes, changeable as the / weather - bad enough I confess, / to say nothing of other faults, which / as they do not affect our work I / say nothing - but for all that I / am not yet a pig, as I should be / to come up to your notion of me / this last month. / Goodbye - remember me / very kindly to M.rs MacLaren, and / give my love to little Mabel - is she / old enough for a doll - because / a lady has promised to dress one / completely for her - and I want to get / a big one, like those in Baby-linen windows. / Love to all the set / Yours very sorrowfully / Edward Jones'. End note: 'This is a very rambling letter - never / mind - I got yours on Saturday aft.n, and / should have written yesterday, only / we live under the Mosaic dispensation / here, and I cant write on Sundays'.

(The above entry was written by Elizabeth Heath, the Anne Chrisopherson Intern 2012)