How did Dante Gabriel Rossetti respond to Robert Buchanan’s criticism?

In response to Robert Buchanan’s 1871 pseudonymous attack, titled "The Fleshly School of Poetry," which criticized his work for its perceived lack of morality and excessive sensuality, Dante Gabriel Rossetti published a temperate rebuttal titled "The Stealthy School of Criticism" in the Athenaeum in December 1871.12

While Rossetti defended his work, the controversy—compounded by his personal struggles and substance use—deeply distressed him and contributed to a physical and mental collapse in 1872. Despite the severity of the initial conflict, the dispute eventually concluded before Rossetti’s death in 1882, and Buchanan later dedicated his 1881 novel, God and the Man, to the artist.12